Ukraine 3

[sneakypete]

It was McCain's visit in 2017 that caused Russia to invade Ukraine in 2014.

@Hoodat

Saw WHAT????????

So,all we have to do to get Russia to invade China,for example,is to get some US RINO politician to visit Beijing?

You have lost your freaking mind!

[Hoodat]

@Hoodat

Saw WHAT????????

So,all we have to do to get Russia to invade China,for example,is to get some US RINO politician to visit Beijing?

You have lost your freaking mind!

Did that really need a /sarc tag?  Keep in mind, I'm not the one here blaming the US for eight years of Russian agression.

[Hoodat]

Russia’s Real Aims in Crimea

WOJCIECH KONOŃCZUK  |  MARCH 13, 2014

The Russian military’s move into Crimea, together with the ongoing tensions in several large cities in Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions, demonstrates that the Ukrainian drama is far from over. It is now beyond dispute that the government established in Kyiv after popular protests drove then president Viktor Yanukovych from power in February 2014 has lost effective control over the largely ethnic-Russian-populated region of Crimea. The territory is under Russia’s de facto occupation.

Russia’s unexpected invasion of the Crimean Peninsula is, in many respects, part of a desperate attempt to strengthen its sway over the new government in Kyiv. Moscow’s apparent plan to annex Crimea is not an end in itself. Rather, Russia seems to be acting in a more sophisticated way, and it is essential to read the situation right.

Moscow aims to influence developments in Ukraine by using Crimea and the destabilization it has inspired in the eastern and southern regions to force Kyiv to adopt an entirely new model of governance.  .  .  .

https://carnegieendowment.org/2014/03/13/russia-s-real-aims-in-crimea-pub-54914

The article continues:

RUSSIA’S ACT OF AGGRESSION

Despite what Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a recent press conference, Crimea was not seized by a local paramilitary “self-defense” force but rather by a few thousand well-equipped and heavily armed Russian troops. The forces came mainly from the Southern Military District, which borders Ukraine and the North Caucasus, and they had extensive support from the 15,000 soldiers of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

The aggression began on February 23 in Sevastopol, the largest and most pro-Russian city on the peninsula, which has been called the most sacred of the sacred places of Russian imperialism. A rally of a few thousand people, organized by the Russian Front, a radical Crimean organization, dismissed the city’s mayor and elected a new one, who is reportedly a Russian citizen. The demonstrators demanded that the autonomous republic secede from Ukraine and become part of Russia.

On February 27, unidentified armed men entered the Crimean parliament, demanding a special session to determine the region’s future. Under dubious circumstances and, according to Ukrainian press reports, without a quorum, some of the deputies voted to hold an all-Crimean referendum aimed at “improving the status of autonomy and expanding its powers.” They also dismissed the region’s pro-Kyiv prime minister and voted for a new one, who is a member of a radical, pro-Russian political party, Russian Unity.

When several hundred unidentified armed people took control of Crimea’s airports, main roads, local government buildings, and other strategic sites on subsequent days, it became clear that these moves had not been organized by local pro-Russian self-defense groups.  .  .

[sneakypete]

Did that really need a /sarc tag? 

@Hoodat

Well,it looks like it needed one for me.

Keep in mind, I'm not the one here blaming the US for eight years of Russian agression.

Who is? This is not a hit on you,I honestly don't know who you are referring to.

[Hoodat]

Who is? This is not a hit on you,I honestly don't know who you are referring to.

https://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,478214.msg2767178.html#msg2767178

[sneakypete]

https://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,478214.msg2767178.html#msg2767178

@Hoodat

Thanks,I think.

Kinda made my head hurt to read it,though.

Not having a good "chemo brain night,and don't know for sure if this is me or her that is barking at the moon.

I do know that was in English,but I still didn't understand it.

[Smokin Joe]

It was McCain's visit in 2017 that caused Russia to invade Ukraine in 2014.

Thanks for explaining that. I guess all the Russian experimentation with ESP finally paid off.

[Timber Rattler]

Russia claims retaliatory strike killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers (But they're lying)

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/01/09/russia-claims-retaliatory-strike-killed-600-ukrainian-soldiers-but-theyre-lying-n522654

Russia continues to humiliate itself. After a deadly rocket attack by Ukraine carried out in the first moments of New Year’s Day killed as many as 400 Russian troops, Russia claimed only 63 had been killed. Russia soon updated that tally to 89 killed but also publicly blamed the troops for their own deaths by claiming the Ukrainian strike was the result of the recently mobilized troops using cell phones. Even some pro-Russian military bloggers said Russia was downplaying the number of deaths and also suggested that leadership was to blame for putting a bunch of inexperienced recruits together in one spot near an ammo dump.

Over the weekend, Russia announced a retaliatory strike which it claimed had killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers in a town called Kramatorsk.

It certainly sounds like a serious attack but was it? Photos from the scene actually show that the attacks missed the building — but more to the point, the building was empty. This reporter from Finland was at the scene of the attack the next day and there’s no sign anyone was killed there.

This tweet reads: “Russia claims it killed hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in a missile strike on this school in Kramatorsk. I’m there and it’s a bit strange that the building isn’t even insulated. Locals didn’t see any ambulances here in the morning either.”

EXCERPT

[Cyber Liberty]

But, let me ask you something you've not answered:. What's your proof that the United States has not interfered in Ukrainen affairs for the past ten plus years, poking the Bear across the Ukrainian border for the very thinly disguised proxy war with Russia we are now fighting?

You are asking @Maj. Bill Martin to prove a negative there.

[Hoodat]

Not the first time either.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

@Right_in_Virginia

But, let me ask you something you've not answered:. What's your proof that the United States has not interfered in Ukrainen affairs for the past ten plus years, poking the Bear across the Ukrainian border for the very thinly disguised proxy war with Russia we are now fighting?

Can't prove a negative. But fortunately, I don't have to.  I'd agree we used some degree of economic coercion -- threatened to withhold aid -- if Ukraine didn't take certain actions.  If you want to call that "interference in their affairs", fine.  But our threat to withhold our own financial aid doesn't constitute an act of war against Russia, which goes to your claim that we've been "orchestrating that war" for years.  Especially since Russia was doing even worse in the lead-up to Ukraine's approval of the Agreement with the EU -  cutting off certain exports and imports to Ukraine to pressure pols to reject the EU deal, bribes, etc.. 

Would that "interference" by Russia have given the U.S. the right to invade Ukraine??  Of course not.

The fact is, if the majority of the Ukrainian people rebelled against the idea of ditching the EU in favor of Russia's "Eurasian Economic Union", and tossed out Yanukovych because of his ignoring the February 2013 resolution passed by Parliament, that was their right.  Russia doesn't get the right to invade Ukraine just because there was a coup against the pro-Russian President, any more than any other country has the right to invade Russia because Putin doesn't allow free elections.

What is "poking the bear", anyway?  Doing something that Russia doesn't like?  Tough noogies. They don't get to impose their idiosyncratic view of Russia's right to hegemony over the rest of Eastern Europe just because of their national ego.

[Kamaji]

@Right_in_Virginia

Can't prove a negative. But fortunately, I don't have to.  I'd agree we used some degree of economic coercion -- threatened to withhold aid -- if Ukraine didn't take certain actions.  If you want to call that "interference in their affairs", fine.  But our threat to withhold our own financial aid doesn't constitute an act of war against Russia, which goes to your claim that we've been "orchestrating that war" for years.  Especially since Russia was doing even worse in the lead-up to Ukraine's approval of the Agreement with the EU -  cutting off certain exports and imports to Ukraine to pressure pols to reject the EU deal, bribes, etc.. 

Would that "interference" by Russia have given the U.S. the right to invade Ukraine??  Of course not.

The fact is, if the majority of the Ukrainian people rebelled against the idea of ditching the EU in favor of Russia's "Eurasian Economic Union", and tossed out Yanukovych because of his ignoring the February 2013 resolution passed by Parliament, that was their right.  Russia doesn't get the right to invade Ukraine just because there was a coup against the pro-Russian President, any more than any other country has the right to invade Russia because Putin doesn't allow free elections.

What is "poking the bear", anyway?  Doing something that Russia doesn't like?  Tough noogies. They don't get to impose their idiosyncratic view of Russia's right to hegemony over the rest of Eastern Europe just because of their national ego.

[Timber Rattler]

Russia is letting prisoners soak up withering Ukrainian fire in a 'savage' battle, 'trading' them and others for bullets, US official says

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-is-letting-prisoners-soak-up-withering-ukrainian-fire-in-a-savage-battle-trading-them-and-others-for-bullets-us-official-says/ar-AA16bkWq?cvid=a052d9138af64036ab36b76c5ed39e83

Russia is using prisoners and freshly mobilized troops to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire along the war's front lines in order to clear the way for its better trained forces to take ground, a US official said, calling the move a classic Russian tactic.

Prisoners recruited by the Wagner Group — a notorious paramilitary organization with close ties to the Kremlin — and others have recently been deployed to the forefront of fighting around eastern Ukraine's war-torn city of Bakhmut, which has become the epicenter of hostilities between Moscow and Kyiv. 

These recruits have been forced to "take the brunt" of Ukrainian firepower in the area before they are replaced by "better trained forces" who move in behind them to try and claim territory, a senior US military official told reporters on Monday.

The official added that Moscow's current tactic of "trading individuals for bullets" has been used on the battlefield throughout Russian history. Russia, for example, did this with conscripts who were sent into the Chechnya region during the First Chechen War of the mid-1990s.

EXCERPT

Dead Russians:

[Kamaji]

Russia is letting prisoners soak up withering Ukrainian fire in a 'savage' battle, 'trading' them and others for bullets, US official says

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-is-letting-prisoners-soak-up-withering-ukrainian-fire-in-a-savage-battle-trading-them-and-others-for-bullets-us-official-says/ar-AA16bkWq?cvid=a052d9138af64036ab36b76c5ed39e83

Russia is using prisoners and freshly mobilized troops to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire along the war's front lines in order to clear the way for its better trained forces to take ground, a US official said, calling the move a classic Russian tactic.

Prisoners recruited by the Wagner Group — a notorious paramilitary organization with close ties to the Kremlin — and others have recently been deployed to the forefront of fighting around eastern Ukraine's war-torn city of Bakhmut, which has become the epicenter of hostilities between Moscow and Kyiv. 

These recruits have been forced to "take the brunt" of Ukrainian firepower in the area before they are replaced by "better trained forces" who move in behind them to try and claim territory, a senior US military official told reporters on Monday.

The official added that Moscow's current tactic of "trading individuals for bullets" has been used on the battlefield throughout Russian history. Russia, for example, did this with conscripts who were sent into the Chechnya region during the First Chechen War of the mid-1990s.

EXCERPT

Dead Russians:

One would have thought/hoped that Russians would, eventually, learn from their own history.  Apparently not.  Orc is back on the menu.

[Kamaji]

Putin has a 'squadron of liquidators' who publicly execute deserters and those who fail to advance among 'completely insane' ranks of prisoner conscripts, captured soldiers reveal

By JACK NEWMAN FOR MAILONLINE
11 January 2023

Vladimir Putin has a 'squadron of liquidators' to publicly execute deserters, former convicts who were drafted into the Ukraine war have claimed.

Inmates who were transferred from their prison cells to the war's front lines with the Wagner Group of private mercenaries say they have witnessed disobedient comrades being killed by commanders.

Former convict Yevgeny Novikov said in a report by Polygon Media and the independent Mozhem Obyasnit outlet: 'Those who disobey are eliminated — and it's done publicly.'

He said the 'squadrons of liquidators' deal with troops considered to be problematic.

*  *  *

Source:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11622765/Putin-squadron-liquidators-publicly-execute-deserters-captured-soldiers-reveal.html

[Kamaji]

Has Putin lost control of his power-hungry mercenary chief? Wagner boss brags that his men ALONE have taken strategic town of Soledar… prompting even the Kremlin to deny Russia have control of the area

By JACK NEWMAN and CHRIS JEWERS FOR MAILONLINE
11 January 2023

The boss of the feared Russian Wagner mercenary group has gloated to Ukraine by posing in a salt mine in a key battleground.

Yevgeny Prigozhin stood defiantly alongside Vladimir Putin's private paramilitary fighters in the Soledar pit as he claimed his mercenaries have single-handedly taken control of the eastern Ukraine town, which has been razed by brutal fighting.

However, the claim prompted the Russian army to issue a statement saying fighting for the town is still on-going, thus denying Prigozhin's brazen claim.

*  *  *

Source:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11622303/Putins-chef-mercenary-chief-stands-captured-salt-Russia-claims-Soledar.html

[Timber Rattler]

I hope that old salt mine is worth it for all the lives he threw away for his photo op.

[Hoodat]

Putin has a 'squadron of liquidators' who publicly execute deserters and those who fail to advance among 'completely insane' ranks of prisoner conscripts, captured soldiers reveal

The NKVD is back.

[Smokin Joe]

The NKVD is back.

I don't think they ever quite left.

[Timber Rattler]

Putin replaces commander of Russia’s war in Ukraine after just 3 months

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-names-new-commander-russias-war-ukraine-gerasimov-surovikin-rcna65307

Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed a new commander to lead his forces in Ukraine.

Gen. Valery Gerasimov will take over from Sergei Surovikin, the country’s Defense Ministry said on Telegram Wednesday, a change that comes as the Kremlin's forces appeared close to a breakthrough in bitter fighting on the eastern front lines.

The announcement came just three months after Surovikin became the first person to be handed sole charge of the campaign since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24.

The ministry said he would now serve as one of Gerasimov's three deputies, along with Army Gen. Oleg Salyukov and Col. Gen. Alexey Kim.

[Right_in_Virginia]

@Right_in_Virginia

I'd agree we used some degree of economic coercion -- threatened to withhold aid -- if Ukraine didn't take certain actions.  If you want to call that "interference in their affairs", fine.  But our threat to withhold our own financial aid doesn't constitute an act of war against Russia, which goes to your claim that we've been "orchestrating that war" for years.

@Maj. Bill Martin This is a long and detailed narrative on US involvement in Ukraine.

How the West Sowed the Seeds of War in Ukraine
Putin invaded Ukraine. But an alliance of bad actors, the U.S. foreign policy establishment, and NGOs paved the road that made the present crisis inevitable.
Mar 22, 2022

<Snip>

On Feb. 21, nine months after the TechCamp Kiev 2.0 was held in partnership with Microsoft Ukraine, mass protests to oust Yanukovych began in Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square). Victoria Nuland, Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, was seen handing out cookies to demonstrators after speaking with the soon-to-be deposed Yanukovych.

Due to protestors’ heavy social media usage, the movement has also been called the “Facebook Revolution.” The organizational aspects and tactics that defined it appeared conspicuously similar to Civil Society 2.0’s program. The European Journalism Observatory even remarked the movement had seemingly “sprung from several grass root civic initiatives.”

Amid the protests on Jan. 28, 2014, Nuland called the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. Nuland notified Pyatt that Obama’s State Department had selected Arseniy Yatsenyuk for the post of prime minister of Ukraine. When the two discussed whether or not the EU would mediate, Nuland said, “bleep the EU.”  The State Department dismissed it as “Russian tradecraft” when the call was leaked to the press.

Her role in shaping the country’s future has led to her being dubbed “the architect of American influence in Ukraine.”

On Feb. 18, 2014, the anti-Yanukovych protests burst into what appeared to be a revolution after a lull. In an unconstitutional takeover, Ukraine’s democratically elected president was swept out on Feb. 22 and replaced with a government selected by the Obama administration. Putin moved to annex Crimea around this time as the country plunged into chaos.

Yatsenyuk became prime minister on Feb. 27 and began distancing himself and his government from Russia. John Brennan, then the director of the CIA, visited Kiev that April as Yanukovych accused United States intelligence of being behind the color revolution that saw him out the door.

[...]

The Ukrainian coup she (Nuland) helped orchestrate in 2014 also triggered a civil war in Ukraine’s Donbas region between pro-Russian, anti-government separatists and Ukrainian government forces. The conflict, which has raged for nearly a decade now, had already killed more than 14,000 people by the time Putin invaded this year and flattened Ukraine’s economy, leaving it the poorest country in Europe. Here is “democracy,” as neoconservatives see it.

[...]

But why was Ukraine, a non-NATO country, receiving Uncle Sam’s finest equipment? Because in 2020, it became “one of just six so-called enhanced opportunity partners, a special status given to NATO’s closet allies, such as Australia,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations. “The U.S. military has provided Ukrainian forces with training and equipment, including sniper rifles, grenade launchers, night-vision gear, radars, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and patrol vessels.”

The presence of high-end military matériel in the Donbas and Ukraine’s cocksure intransigence suggested that it felt confident the United States and NATO would have their back in the event of a war. Why did they did make that bet? Because our leaders sold them a lie that they were eager to buy. As Asian Times columnist David P. Goldman wrote, “Putin proposed Minsk II, which kept Ukraine sovereignty. Berlin and Paris backed it, but they couldn’t persuade Washington to get on board.”

In late 2016, after the Minsk agreements had been signed, Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Amy Klobuchar essentially told Ukraine that we were going to use them in a proxy war against Russia. “Your fight is our fight—2017 will be the year of offense,” Graham told a group of soldiers at a military base with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. “All of us will go back to Washington and we will push the case against Russia.” Instead of trying to mediate peace, the establishment wanted war.

Today, the same people who helped topple Ukraine’s government and sparked the long Donbas war are back at it.

Nuland tweeted on Jan. 12: “Russia has created this crisis out of whole cloth and will have to justify to its people why it is stoking a potentially very bloody & costly conflict for Russia, rather than focusing on its own citizens’ health and on Russia’s own significant challenges in building back better.” One wonders if she will pause on beating the war drum to distribute cookies again. Even her old friend, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, chimed in. On whether invading a sovereign country is a war crime, Rice said that it “is certainly against every principle of international law and international order.”

On March 3, Graham called for someone to “step up to the plate” and assassinate Putin.


More----- https://contra.substack.com/p/how-the-west-sowed-the-seeds-of-war

[Hoodat]

Russia’s armed forces under Gerasimov, the man without a doctrine

MICHAEL KOFMAN  |  APRIL 2, 2020



Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff, turns 65 this year and is likely to stay on as long as Sergei Shoigu remains minister of defense. Gerasimov looms large over the current era of Russian military reform and modernization, though both processes were initiated by his predecessor, Nikolai Makarov. During his tenure, the Russian military has also been bloodied in two conflicts, Ukraine and Syria, with the lessons learned subsequently integrated into exercises at home. Gerasimov is more the representative of Russian military officialdom than the author of any of its key doctrinal tenets, but under him the Russian armed forces have undergone noticeable improvements in capability, mobility, readiness, force structure, and combat experience.

Ironically, of the things Gerasimov has done to leave an imprint on the Russian armed forces, he is uniquely famous for something that he never authored, and which does not exist — namely, the “Gerasimov Doctrine.” In 2014 an erroneous belief of almost mythic proportions emerged in the Western press some Russia watchers; it centered on the notion that in February 2013, Gerasimov authored an article laying out the Russian military blueprint for actions in Ukraine and war with the West.

The “Gerasimov Doctrine” was a clever name coined by Mark Galeotti on his blog, though he never meant it to be taken literally that Gerasimov had a doctrine. In 2018 Galeotti published a mea culpa rebuffing any notion that Gerasimov had a doctrine, given the extent to which this term “acquired a destructive life of its own.” Unfortunately like a creature in a horror film it escaped  .  .  .

https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/2020/04/02/russias-armed-forces-under-gerasimov-the-man-without-a-doctrine/

[Hoodat]

Putin's ownership strategy mimics that of former Atlanta Falcons owner Rankin Smith back in the late 80s and 90s.  In 1980, the Falcons miraculously made it to the NFC title game before falling to oblivion for the next two decades.  During that time, every solution enacted by the Smith family involved someone associated with that 1980 team.  Jerry Glanville was the defensive coordinator in 1980?  Try him as head coach.  June Jones was the third string QB?  Make him head coach.

Anyway, Putin is doing the same thing.  Gerasimov won a battle in Donbas in 2014.  So he is Putin's pick to replicate that victory across an entire campaign.

It should also be pointed out that Gerasimov has been Army Chief of Staff for the past ten years, which means that he was responsible for preparing the Russian army that we see in action today.  He was also heavily involved with the initial invasion plan which has been proven to be a dismal failure for the Russian Federation.

[Hoodat]

@Maj. Bill Martin This is a long and detailed narrative on US involvement in Ukraine.

On Feb. 21, nine months after the TechCamp Kiev 2.0 was held in partnership with Microsoft Ukraine, mass protests to oust Yanukovych began in Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square). Victoria Nuland, Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, was seen handing out cookies to demonstrators after speaking with the soon-to-be deposed Yanukovych.  .  .

LMAO !!!  Are you really suggesting that someone handing out cookies in conjunction with a Microsoft tech camp is why the Ukrainian people suddenly decided to depose Russian puppet Viktor Yanukovych?


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[Right_in_Virginia]

@Right_in_Virginia

What is "poking the bear", anyway?  Doing something that Russia doesn't like?  Tough noogies. They don't get to impose their idiosyncratic view of Russia's right to hegemony over the rest of Eastern Europe just because of their national ego.

@Maj. Bill Martin

IMO, the information here https://contra.substack.com/p/how-the-west-sowed-the-seeds-of-war provides ample examples of "poking the Bear".

And since the invasion of Ukraine our government from the top down has repeatedly called for a regime change in Russia, even calling for the assassination of its head of state.

Our government has pledged unlimited support in time, money, more and more advanced military hardware and the opposition leader in the Senate has declared this war to be the most important issue in the United States today. 

We have directly countered, not on behalf of NATO,  Russian threats with our own specific to nuclear weapons.

We refuse to disavow using NATO as a threat on behalf of a non-member ---- turning NATO from a defensive alliance into an offensive one. 

We support the expansion of NATO with the admission of Sweden and Finland  -- further boxing in Russia (poke, poke, poke).

We have "advisors" on the ground in Ukraine and US troops placed around Ukraine's borders ----- ready and, apparently, willing to cross them.

We refuse any attempt at negotiations, choosing instead to give a hero's welcome to a man beating the drums of war in a public forum before the most powerful political body in the world.

Our government is pleased with this war and has made it quite clear we intend to continue it.