Ukraine

[George.]

This was at the top of a google search.

Ukraine Shuts Down Largest Opposition Party, Seizes its Assets (thenewamerican.com)

And this was at the top of a google search for OPPL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposi...80%94_For_Life

The Opposition Platform – For Life (Ukrainian: Опозиційна платформа – За життя; Russian: Оппозиционная платформа – За жизнь, OPZZh) was a pro-Russian^[4] and Eurosceptic political party in Ukraine.

[George.]

and

On 24 February 2022 Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine.^[54] On this day party member Illia Kyva expressed support for the invasion and blamed the war on Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy and urged him to resign.

[Vadim 68]

And this was at the top of a google search for OPPL:

Yes, i am aware of that. My point was that Von Der Leyen is saying Ukraine shares the EU value of democracy, when it demonstrates it does not.

Nigel Farage in the UK, was not jailed or had his assets seized, despite being a nationalist and anti EU. Democracy allows him a voice.

Marinne Le Penn in France, not jailed or had assets seized, despite being a nationalist and anti EU.Democracy allows her a voice.

Two of the more commonly known. Sweden has its own brand of nationalists, but "democracy" gives the people who support those views a voice. They might be on the fringe, or represent 20% of the population. If you do not like that, try living in a oligarch run country, a dictatorship or some other banana republic . How do you rate Brazil these days?

I certainly have nothing good to say regarding Illiya Kyva.

[George.]

Nigel Farage in the UK, was not jailed or had his assets seized, despite being a nationalist and anti EU. Democracy allows him a voice.

Marinne Le Penn in France, not jailed or had assets seized, despite being a nationalist and anti EU.Democracy allows her a voice.

Neither one of them was supporting the invasion of their country by a foreign power. Remember, the British democracy jailed their Nazi sympathizers pretty quickly once the war was on.

How do you rate Brazil these days?

A corrupt and authoritarian banana republic run by oligarchs. And if Russia invades and starts bombing our cities tomorrow we will all be united in doing whatever it takes to throw them out.

[Landrith]

I can sense the US State Department Sixth floor is hatching a plan to replace placeholder Joe Biden with a new President that will take Ukraine from the current similar advisors and American interests security operation level in South Vietnam to President Johnson's wider war:

Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials SayBy Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper Mew York Times June 25, 2022,
"help from the United States and its allies — including a stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training, according to U.S. and European officials.
Much of this work happens outside Ukraine, at bases in Germany, France and Britain, for example. But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the massive amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials.
At the same time, a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine. The United States withdrew its own 150 military instructors before the war began in February, but commandos from these allies either remained or have gone in and out of the country since then, training and advising Ukrainian troops and providing an on-the-ground conduit for weapons and other aid, three U.S. officials said.
Few other details have emerged about what the C.I.A. personnel or the commandos are doing, but their presence in the country — on top of the diplomatic staff who returned after Russia gave up its siege of Kyiv — hints at the scale of the secretive effort to assist Ukraine that is underway,,"

https://archive.ph/X6JQb#selection-639.165-663.80

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Yes, i am aware of that. My point was that Von Der Leyen is saying Ukraine shares the EU value of democracy, when it demonstrates it does not.

Nigel Farage in the UK, was not jailed or had his assets seized, despite being a nationalist and anti EU. Democracy allows him a voice.

Marinne Le Penn in France, not jailed or had assets seized, despite being a nationalist and anti EU.Democracy allows her a voice.

Two of the more commonly known. Sweden has its own brand of nationalists, but "democracy" gives the people who support those views a voice. They might be on the fringe, or represent 20% of the population. If you do not like that, try living in a oligarch run country, a dictatorship or some other banana republic . How do you rate Brazil these days?

I certainly have nothing good to say regarding Illiya Kyva.

You might like to check on where Sir Oswald Moseley spent WW2, along with others who were adherent to the Nazis.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I can sense the US State Department Sixth floor is hatching a plan to replace placeholder Joe Biden with a new President that will take Ukraine from the current similar advisors and American interests security operation level in South Vietnam to President Johnson's wider war:

Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials SayBy Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper Mew York Times June 25, 2022,
"help from the United States and its allies — including a stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training, according to U.S. and European officials.
Much of this work happens outside Ukraine, at bases in Germany, France and Britain, for example. But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the massive amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials.
At the same time, a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine. The United States withdrew its own 150 military instructors before the war began in February, but commandos from these allies either remained or have gone in and out of the country since then, training and advising Ukrainian troops and providing an on-the-ground conduit for weapons and other aid, three U.S. officials said.
Few other details have emerged about what the C.I.A. personnel or the commandos are doing, but their presence in the country — on top of the diplomatic staff who returned after Russia gave up its siege of Kyiv — hints at the scale of the secretive effort to assist Ukraine that is underway,,"

https://archive.ph/X6JQb#selection-639.165-663.80

I think your readers need to understand what you think a « commando » is.

Britain pulled all its military personnel out of Ukraine before the Russian invasion.

[Landrith]

I think your readers need to understand what you think a « commando » is.

Britain pulled all its military personnel out of Ukraine before the Russian invasion.

We have gone away from our famous Vietnam era Green Berets who have several specialty roles derived from and expanded upon your Commandos. In this new era US State and CIA use former special forces and Infantry "contractors" for both diplomatic security and in the battlefield clandestine operations , which may be legitimate when US Congressmen visit Kiev, but almost always at other times are very very inferior versions of your SAS.

My contention is that was at the point in the Vietnam conflict where the MIC had to rearrange the US Office of Commander in Chief to begin their ten years of golden gravy..

[WX]

Turkey supports Finland and Sweden Nato bid

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61971858

[Garret]

Turkey supports Finland and Sweden Nato bid


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61971858

Great news!

[sandtown]

Lest we forget the NeoCon factor . .

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...eocon-disaster

[gypsie]

Lest we forget the NeoCon factor . .

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...eocon-disaster

Jeffrey Sachs is often a reliable opinion. I don't think he makes a strong case for why a hawkish US caused the Russians to invade Ukraine. He's joining dots and calling it causal, when its (though certainly related) a back seat to Russian neocon-ism.
The US and Russia got a Neutral Ukraine. Russia going around brutally invading their direct and close neighbours made everyone in the region nervous. It was hawkish Russians that expanded NATO - and invaded Ukraine.

Maybe Jeff should stick to economics.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Jeffrey Sachs is often a reliable opinion. I don't think he makes a strong case for why a hawkish US caused the Russians to invade Ukraine. He's joining dots and calling it causal, when its (though certainly related) a back seat to Russian neocon-ism.
The US and Russia got a Neutral Ukraine. Russia going around brutally invading their direct and close neighbours made everyone in the region nervous. It was hawkish Russians that expanded NATO - and invaded Ukraine.

Maybe Jeff should stick to economics.

I agree.

[Osborne Russell]

Lest we forget the NeoCon factor . .

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...eocon-disaster

Lest we forget that these dark mutterings are absurd:

"This approach was spelled out first by Paul Wolfowitz in his draft Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) written for the Department of Defense in 2002. The draft called for extending the US-led security network to the Central and Eastern Europe despite the explicit promise by German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in 1990 that German unification would not be followed by NATO's eastward enlargement."

1. German re-unification neither required nor acheived nor contemplated the end of the Warsaw Pact. Gorbachev still believed he could forestall re-unification itself. For practical purposes, it was impossible for NATO to expand.

Did the west get a commitment for dissolution of the WP in return for the commitment not to extend NATO? Of course not. But that would have been the only way NATO could possibly expand beyond Germany. Why would the parties agree to something that could not occur in the current circumtances? Even if they did, why would they come to such a monumental agreement and not record it as a treaty? And if it wasn't, what makes it binding?

2. Whoever supposedly gave this promise would have had no authority to give it, and the Soviets would have had no reason to believe it was binding.

The Soviet empire still existed. They thought they could delay if not prevent German re-unification, and keep a reunited Germany out of NATO.

This "promise" jazz is merely an attempt to gather the broken pieces of the Soviet Union's wishful thinking at the time and re-assemble them into new wishful thinking, a "We were given assurances of permanent security, extending even beyond the existence of the contracting states, and were stabbed in the back" myth. It shows that the Russian Federation and its friends considers itself at least morally the successor of the USSR; Putin himself has made far more extensive claims.

And that is a powerful reason to extend NATO right up to their face.

Some neo-con wrote "a draft". As if.

[johnw]

Lest we forget the NeoCon factor . .

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...eocon-disaster

So, you're back to quoting people who think NATO promised not to expand, even though your first source said there was no formal deal and Gorbachev says there was no such deal.

The Ukraine war may turn out badly. But blaming everyone but Putin for it makes no sense at all. And why would Russia be safer by invading a neighbor? They were not afraid that Ukraine would invade Russia, nor that NATO would. This is old-fashioned imperialism. Putin wants to be remembered as equivalent to Peter the Great. Putin the Great has a ring to it, for him.

[WszystekPoTrochu]

And why would Russia be safer by invading a neighbor?

I'll just notice that:
- the Serbian Campaign of the Great War was a thing; Austria-Hungary felt threatened by Serbia
- the war in Manchuria was a thing; Japan felt threatened by China
- the German invasion of Poland was a thing; Germans felt threatened by Poland
- the Six Day War was a thing; Israel felt threatened by their Arab neighbours
- the Iraq war happened; not direct neighbours, but does it matter in the global village?

As you see, neighbours sometimes threat other neighbours. As history shows, usually a preemptive attack is justified, there are no lies to be spread, the threatened party ultimately wins and the interational community has no objections, nor do they take action. Because sometimes it is justified. And fair. And ok.

[johnw]

I'll just notice that:
- the Serbian Campaign of the Great War was a thing; Austria-Hungary felt threatened by Serbia
- the war in Manchuria was a thing; Japan felt threatened by China
- the German invasion of Poland was a thing; Germans felt threatened by Poland
- the Six Day War was a thing; Israel felt threatened by their Arab neighbours
- the Iraq war happened; not direct neighbours, but does it matter in the global village?

As you see, neighbours sometimes threat other neighbours. As history shows, usually a preemptive attack is justified, there are no lies to be spread, the threatened party ultimately wins and the interational community has no objections, nor do they take action. Because sometimes it is justified. And fair. And ok.

.

[Keith Wilson]

I'll just notice that:
- the Serbian Campaign of the Great War was a thing; Austria-Hungary felt threatened by Serbia
- the war in Manchuria was a thing; Japan felt threatened by China
- the German invasion of Poland was a thing; Germans felt threatened by Poland

And how'd that work out for Austria-Hungary, Japan and Germany?

Blaming everybody but Mr Putin and his desire to reassemble the Soviet Empire is simply absurd.

[WX]

I'll just notice that:
- the Serbian Campaign of the Great War was a thing; Austria-Hungary felt threatened by Serbia
- the war in Manchuria was a thing; Japan felt threatened by China
- the German invasion of Poland was a thing; Germans felt threatened by Poland
- the Six Day War was a thing; Israel felt threatened by their Arab neighbours
- the Iraq war happened; not direct neighbours, but does it matter in the global village?

As you see, neighbours sometimes threat other neighbours. As history shows, usually a preemptive attack is justified, there are no lies to be spread, the threatened party ultimately wins and the interational community has no objections, nor do they take action. Because sometimes it is justified. And fair. And ok.

Austria Hungary lost.
Japan lost.
Germany lost.
Israel...complex, and without US support would probably have had to negotiate a different outcome over the years.
Iraq, as far as I know was more about regime change by a number of gentlemen who had zero understanding of what they were meddling with.

[johnw]

I think someone needed a sarcasm emoji.

[WX]

[Canoez]

Russia has announced as a display of goodwill, that they will withdraw from Snake Island.

The fact that it was hit with long-range munitions about 50 times this week may have had something to do with that fact.

It would seem to be incumbent on the rest of Ukraine’s supporters to send more arms and munitions so that the Russians can exhibit more goodwill elsewhere.

[SMARTINSEN]

Go **** yourself Russian warship.

The Russians have abandoned Snake Island, saying that it would be a suicide mission to remain.

Necessary if not sufficient condition for the resumption of cargo from Odesa.

[CollinR]

Jim's post (above, #3875) reminds me that we've not heard anything about those mysterious fires at Russian recruitment offices, fuel depot explosions and unexplained derailments on Russian railways lately. Perhaps Russian censorship has improved, or Russian internal security has been ramped up. If the latter, because Russia is just so damned big, that must be absorbing a fair proportion of Putin's military capability, which he cannot use for direct action in Ukraine

[sandtown]

So, you're back to quoting people who think NATO promised not to expand,.

Yes I am, and I will also keep quoting those like Kissinger and Kennan and many others who warned about what would happen were NATO to expand.

Not only that, but it sure looks like the US and UK, at least, are opposing negotiations and may well have done so since 2018 when it might have made a difference.

The case for war that is made around here must be pretty weak since its backers have to whitewash history.

This is much more like what really happened . .

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06...-war-foretold/

[Landrith]

This is much more like what really happened . .

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06...-war-foretold/

Now you have done it. Left leaning Bilge shippies don't like it when you quote established Leftist sources. When some used to say no War for Texaco and now find themselves almost shouting "Shell and BP über alles!" or "Kill a Red for NATO!" Its difficult not to touch a nerve in limousine liberals.

If they would just come over to the GOP way of thinking we would dig out some of that old time "Shock and awe" and that very special Cheney brand of collateral damage. Heck we could probably dig up a Colonel Schwarzkoff Jr. to narrate the bomb sight video footage each evening to save all the Left's cable news show ratings. Once the Democrat Congress critters start writing the checks to our Military Industrial Complex again, no part of the world will be safe...

I remember Cronkite. I do not have the stomach for more of the old time GOP war machine. Biden was right to pull out of Afghanistan even if his commanders were dragging their feet. And to walk away from Syria.

[StevenBauer]

Russia has announced as a display of goodwill, that they will withdraw from Snake Island.

The fact that it was hit with long-range munitions about 50 times this week may have had something to do with that fact.

It would seem to be incumbent on the rest of Ukraine’s supporters to send more arms and munitions so that the Russians can exhibit more goodwill elsewhere.

Yes.

[Osborne Russell]

Yes I am, and I will also keep quoting those like Kissinger and Kennan and many others who warned about what would happen were NATO to expand.

Not only that, but it sure looks like the US and UK, at least, are opposing negotiations and may well have done so since 2018 when it might have made a difference.

The case for war that is made around here must be pretty weak since its backers have to whitewash history.

This is much more like what really happened . .

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06...-war-foretold/

He muttered darkly . . .

Russia started it. We'll finish it.

[johnw]

Yes I am, and I will also keep quoting those like Kissinger and Kennan and many others who warned about what would happen were NATO to expand.

Not only that, but it sure looks like the US and UK, at least, are opposing negotiations and may well have done so since 2018 when it might have made a difference.

The case for war that is made around here must be pretty weak since its backers have to whitewash history.

This is much more like what really happened . .

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06...-war-foretold/

So, now you're an admirer of Kissinger's wisdom, and the war is the fault of everyone but Russia.

The fact is, Ukraine is a sovereign nation, and Russia agreed not only to respect its sovereignty but to protect it. You think NATO should respect a promise that was not actually made, but Russia gets to ignore an agreement it formally signed.

The truth is, when imperialism is practiced by anyone other than America, you can't recognize it.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

There is a much simpler principle, which was stated by the Kenyan Ambassador to the United Nations on the 24th of February. It is simply this :

Irredentism as a casus belli is unacceptable.

That deals with Kissinger and Mearsheimer and the rest.

[johnw]

There is a much simpler principle, which was stated by the Kenyan Ambassador to the United Nations on the 24th of February. It is simply this :

Irredentism as a casus belli is unacceptable.

That deals with Kissinger and Mearsheimer and the rest.

For example, Cuba was once a protectorate of the United States. When Cuba chose to align itself with the Soviet Union, should America have announced that it was an unacceptable security threat and, instead of sending a few Cuban refugees to the Bay of Pigs equipped mainly with fantasies about the Cuban people rising up to depose Castro, have invaded with the full force of the U.S. military?

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Stefan Korshak for today:

https://medium.com/@Stefan.Korshak/j...s-ea20bf8cce4d

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

If you use Twitter, this link may be of interest.

https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/st...ahlcaMFFLXhgSA

Ukraine continues to sell military jet engines to China.

A lot of the USSR’s armament production was in the Donbas…

[Canoez]

If you use Twitter, this link may be of interest.

https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/st...ahlcaMFFLXhgSA

Ukraine continues to sell military jet engines to China.

A lot of the USSR’s armament production was in the Donbas…

"was" being the operative word.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

A BBC report on the war as experienced by the Russian 331st Airborne Regiment.

https://youtu.be/9jrS1xpbNFA

This is classical BBC reporting; measured tones, data checked and checked again.