In the massive propaganda blitz over Ukraine, there is one place where you can find, in enormous detail, the truth about what is happening in the civil war conflict zone on a daily basis. That is in the daily reports of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Monitoring Mission.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is a brilliant organisation set up to monitor implementation of agreements on human rights and arms control during the Cold War period. It includes Russia, the UK and the USA among its 57 members as well as all EU states. It has been operating in conflict zones for over half a century.
Over 40 member states have monitors in the Ukraine monitoring mission. The head of the mission is Turkish, and almost all members have a military or diplomatic background. There are 700 monitors, and they have been in Ukraine since 2014. Their job is to patrol both sides of the civil war conflict zone and to record infringements of the ceasefire and de-escalation agreements, bringing these to the attention of the relevant authorities.
Their work is very comprehensive indeed, and their detailed daily reports are public. These provide the most fantastic journalistic resource for what is actually happening on the ground – which is why Western mainstream media never use this resource, because the truth is the opposite of the picture they wish to paint.
For example, three OSCE monitors attended the site of the famous “kindergarten missile” attack, to verify what kind of missile was used, where it came from, and then tally this against the OSCE’s detailed record of weapons on both sides in the area and their daily movements. This is, literally, the basic everyday job of the mission. The team of OSCE expert observers – two of whom were from European Union countries – were denied access by the Ukrainian government to the kindergarten when they arrived to determine what kind of missile it was and where it came from. This is in direct violation of the ceasefire accord.
For those of us who saw the kindergarten attack stunt as propaganda to begin with, this is powerful corroboration.
This is from the OSCE’s daily report of 18 February:
Damage to a working kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska, Luhansk region
On 17 February, the Mission followed up on reports of damage to a working kindergarten in
the north-western part of Stanytsia Luhanska (government-controlled, 16km north-east of
Luhansk), located about 4.5km north-west of the north-western edge of the disengagement area
near Stanytsia Luhanska.
At 22 Depovska Street, about 20m south-west of a two-storey kindergarten building, the SMM
observed a crater in the kindergarten playground, as well as marks assessed as caused by
shrapnel on the inner side of a concrete wall surrounding the building. Also, it observed a hole
(about 1m in diameter), and one shattered window on the north-eastern facade of the same
building, and two shattered windows on the building’s north-west facing wall (on its ground
and first floor).
The SMM assessed the damage as recent but was unable to determine the weapon used or the
direction of fire.
Staff from the Youth Affairs Department of the Stanytsia Luhanska Civil-Military
Administration told the Mission that 20 children had been in the kindergarten at the time of the
incident, but reported no injuries.
The SMM was only able to conduct its assessment from a distance of about 50m from the
north-eastern facade and of about 30m from the south-western facade of the damaged building,
as a law enforcement officer did not allow the Mission to access the site saying that an
investigation was ongoing.
That same report records numerous violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Ukrainian government in moving heavy weaponry in to menace separatist held areas and in keeping weaponry outside agreed storage facilities. It equally reports precisely the same kind of violations by separatist rebels. None of which balance has been recorded by the same western media which loves to give detailed accounts of troop movements within Russia. Here is just one tiny example of hundreds of the OSCE information, from the same report of 18 February as the kindergarten visit:
The SMM continued to monitor the withdrawal of weapons in implementation of the
Memorandum and the Package of Measures and its Addendum.
In violation of withdrawal lines, the Mission observed a surface-to-air-missile system in a
government-controlled area of Donetsk region. It also spotted 21 howitzers, five anti-tank guns
(four of which probable) and one probable multiple launch-rocket system, in two training areas
in non-government-controlled areas of Luhansk region.
Beyond withdrawal lines but outside designated storage sites, the SMM saw ten towed
howitzers and two surface-to-air-missile systems in government-controlled areas of Donetsk
region, in two compounds (of which one near a residential area). It also spotted two surfaceto-air missile systems, 12 mortars and 41 tanks, in two training areas in non-governmentcontrolled areas of Luhansk region. (For further information, see the tables below.)
Indications of military and military-type presence in the security zone
In government-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the Mission saw seven
armoured combat vehicles. In residential areas in non-government controlled areas of Donetsk
and Luhansk regions, it also saw one anti-aircraft gun and two armoured combat vehicles
(including one probable). (For further information, see the table below.)
During the day, the SMM saw a minibus, three minivans, two cars and ten men (age unknown)
wearing military-style clothing and carrying assault rifles in a residential area of Oleksandrivka
(non-government-controlled, 20km south-west of Donetsk).
The Mission also saw a convoy consisting of four trucks (three Ural and one Kamaz type) and
three cars carrying at least seven men in a residential area of Brianka (non-governmentcontrolled, 46km south-west of Luhansk) heading north-west. Later in the day, the SMM saw
the same convoy in Alchevsk (non-government-controlled, 40km west of Luhansk).
Three countries have now withdrawn their staff from the OSCE Monitoring Mission in preparation for a coming war – the UK, the USA and Canada. In my view, that speaks volumes about who is actually planning on starting a war here. Extraordinarily, having withdrawn their staff, the western powers are now briefing the media that the OSCE (which has for decades been a key tool of western security architecture) is a biased organisation.
Yet again the parallel to the Iraq War is striking to those of us who recall the rubbishing by the US/UK of the reports of the UN weapons inspection team, in favour of propaganda and outright lies in order to start a war.
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What you need to know about the war in ukraine is:
Critical moments now:
Live now Russian security meeting on the issue of the situation in Ukraine and especially on Donbas
https://sputniknews.com/20220221/russian-president-putin-holds-extraordinary-meeting-of-russian-security-council-1093226305.html
Hopefully Russia will not recognize Donbas as independent, that would be a huge blow to Russia, huge. Then would Russia prove west/nato/us points through and through.
There are other efforts, diplomatic, sanctions etc to use if Russia want to pressure Kiev to make peace with Donbas.
Update:
“Putin to announce decision on recognizing Donbas later today” (21 Feb 2022) – RT News
https://www.rt.com/russia/550143-putin-announce-decision-donbass/
Wow, I really hope Putin does not recognize, and thus take the bait. There is no win for Russia in declaring these states independent, they would be wholly dependent on Russia anyway, which is a huge cost in itself, not to speak of the sanctions now will be imposed if Russia is to make that recognition.
Such a move will also give huge support and credit to Nato, US and Ukraine. All the claims they made past days, months, years, it was true.
At the meeting all of Ministers agreed on the fact that Kiev is not implementing the Minsk agreements, and also on the fact that Zelensky is not the man who makes decisions.
My hope is Putin will talk to Biden first.
Good News.
Ukraine has unilaterally withdrawn from the Minsk Agreements; these are reinforced by UN Resolution 2202(2015) & have called for the “Donbass’ to be an autonomous area specified in a constitution, which Kiev refuses to do. There are 17 autonomous communities in Europe so it cannot be viewed as an unusual step or unresonable situation.
With regard to the Minsk Agreements – the western MSM propaganda machine has constantly misinformed western opinion regarding their content in that they have constantly published the line that it is Russia who has failed to implement them. If one takes a few minues to actually read the text of the Minsk Accords (about 5 minutes) one will quicly see that Russia is not mentioned once. The onus is entirely upon the Ukrainian Govt to implement them.
The region’s population have been facing open agression for years & have asked for protection on countless occasions. The recent & now constant stream of evacuating women, children & elderly are proof of this.
The U.S. was already calling this ‘Russian occupied territory’.
Can anyone remember how eager Germany – and then a number of western countries – were to recognise the independence of former Yugoslavia’s republics? Can anyone remember NATO bombing Belgrade – a European capital city.
The ‘great game’ continues. Will Germany now commit industrial suicide at the orders of UKUS & cancel Nord Stream II thus cutting their LNG supply by 30%?
Oh, BTW. for the record, Bloomberg tells me that Russia is the No.2 supplier of hydrocarbons to the US Empire currently. Add that to a US economy in a massive trade deficit with China & things don’t look so rosy for the ‘Bright Shining Beacon On The Hill’.
68,000 refugees by 9 am today
At about 6 am near Mityakinskaya, Rostov Region, FSB discovered a sabotage and reconnaissance group. FSB requested help from Russian Armed Forces. From the territory of Ukraine through the state border of the Russian Federation, two infantry fighting vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine entered.
Russian Armed Forces destroyed the both. One man is detained.
At 9:50 am, a shell fired from Ukraine hit a border guard post in the Rostov region about 150 meters from the Russian-Ukrainian border. The building was completely destroyed, no casualties.
Putin holds urgent Security Counsel meeting.
It looks like the Russian Security Council is recommending the recognition of Donbass. If Mr Putin does so, then the Minsk Agreements are null and void. Let’s hope he knows what he’s doing. Been pretty sure-footed so far.
What’s significant is that it was streamed live on RT.com with English translation. I didn’t watch it all, but what was oft being discussed was what the effect of recognising the Donbass Republics as Independent nations would be. That’s pretty incredible that that was being discussed with the whole world able to watch.
Very interesting that Putin was mostly silent through the event, taking evidence from the experts/colleagues he had assembled before him….
Rhys, I was watching live on RIA. Experts! Naryshkin is f*king stupid! Putin asked him to clarify his position and Naryshkin said ‘my word is to join these republics’ 🙂 Putin had to ask once more, commenting politely the question isn’t that of joining, the question is if we recognise them sovereign states.
Indeed. Naryshkin said the quiet part loud, so to speak. It comes in phases; first recognise them as independent states, then send in helpful Russian military, set up Russian military bases, and at some point the newly independent states vote to simply become part of Russia. That’s where it’s going, but Naryshkin had clearly only read the last page of the plan and jumped ahead too early.
Chops
Which would be supreimly evil, or maybe not.
I haven’t had time to read all the posts so foregive me if you have already noted this. Report on CBC website that Biden has agreed in principle to meeting with Putin so long as Putin doesn’t ask Ukraine along. Also heard on CBC last night that there is some doubt that Russia will invade Ukraine because the ground is going to melt soon ie frost comes out and vehicles will get bogged down. Make what you like of that! I did email Trudeau a few weeks ago telling him I do not support Canada’s involvement in the US/NATO/Ukraine shenanigans and we should keep out of it. I remember Madame Chretien saying years ago in reference to the attack on Iraq “we kept out of that one, thank god”. Iraq didn’t get through the UN which gave Canada the out in that instance but it is time for Canada to grow up and formulate its own foreign relations.
IIrc, Trudeau promised to introduce proportional representation for Canada, then got cold feet. Its introduction would’ve made change possible, but the security state linked corporate press fought it.
In the US, UK and Canada, the two-party systems we share aka. winner take all , FPTP lock everything else in place. Having a couple of party leaders makes them easy prey to control for powerful securocrats and the permanent military complex people who have strengthened theirt own ties to the consolidating media giants and big tech. Increasingly our politicians serve these permanent securocrats, not the citizens who elect them. The public have no chance of effecting real change without PR.
It was reported on the BBC’s World at One at lunch time that Putin has not agreed to any such meeting – red faces all around.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014pt0
I’m frankly shocked that Craig finds information warfare “extraordinary”. There are two sides to the conflict – NATO that tries to weaken Russia/CSTO, and Russia/CSTO that strives to weaken NATO. Both consistently use information warfare to their advantage; historically, Russia was much more adept at it than NATO countries, although they are not that far apart today.
Information warfare as as old as the humanity. It was already discussed in ancient handbooks of politics in China, India, Rome, and elsewhere. A human rights activist should not pretend he’s surprised to see it in action.
The whole threat of a Russo-Ukrainian war is part of information warfare. We in the West are sometimes able to see through the NATO lies, and this blog has detailed many of them. Those in Russia are often able to see through the Russian/CSTO lies (like with today’s film about a fake Ukrainian incursion, actually filmed in Russia away from the Ukrainian territory).
If Craig wishes to remain an objective, uninvolved observer and a trusted source of geopolitical analysis, I think he should check whether he’s not secretly sympathetic only to one side of the geopolitical game.
As much as many nations around the world have experienced American/NATO brutality, as many countries closer to Russia have experienced Russian brutality, going even further back in history than the very existence of the United States. To equate Russia with good and NATO with bad, is not only naive but also a slap in the face of the millions killed by Russia in the last century alone. Both are equally bad, or both are simply what empires need to be to survive.
Only somebody wilfully ignorant of world events since WW2, or even just 1989, could see Russia as being equally bad as Nato, let alone the United States. Who do you think you’re kidding, kashmir, other than yourself?
If you define “world events” as the events discussed by the Western media, then yes, the NATO wars are something people here get shocked with. But it takes utmost ignorance to discount the Soviet/Russian crimes.
To put things in perspective, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had resulted in significantly more Afghan victims than the US invasion. But you are perhaps too young to remember the 1980s or care about those people, right? And way too young or too Western-focused to care about the Holodomor?
Of course, Western media systematically suppressing Soviet/Russian crimes while emphasizing U.S. body counts in Korea, Indochina, Indonesia, Middle East, Norrh Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, etc, etc.
You seem to be alleging too that Western media made little of this Holodomor rather than sensationalising it by means of Thomas Walker’s portfolio of fake photos.
https://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/thomas_walker/thomas_walker.htm
An atrocity made to order for his employer, the fanatical anti-communist and black propagandist William Randolph Hearst.
If you are denying that the Holodomor or other Soviet crimes ever happened, then I’m sorry you’re Lenin’s useful idiot at best, if not a part of disinformation campaign.
You saw what I wrote and didn’t attempt to deny any of it.
Russia’s misinformation / disinformation efforts are in my opinion largely the fevered imaginings of security people and the burgeoning military complex-linked think tanks, and various warmongering outfits, who have a financial interest in stoking up West-East tensions. For it is these that are promoting these evidence-free assertions to politicians; that western social media is somehow saturated with Russians or Russian assets pumping out disinformation to ‘divide us’ , as if we aren’t already divided? It’s a cool story, but it isn’t true, Russia’s public image in the west wouldn’t be so bad if they had the sort of presence it’s claimed they have online. I think the west, especially military folks just want to police western dissent , and are using this non-existent threat as their excuse.
As stated, the people promoting the ‘Russians everywhere online’ narrative, provide very little by way of evidence for their wild assertions. The guardian ran a story about some operation running out of Saint Petersburg in 2014, when tensions over Crimea were high, apparently people with the same IP address were posting on its comment forum. And from that tiny acorn, whole empires have been built countering this supposed glut of Russian misinformation / disinformation.
Regular social media users(twitter, FB, various newspaper comment forums) know full well there is hardly anyone siding with Russia, and those that try to understand things from Russia’s or China’s perspective, and be more objective, note. not necessarily sympathetic to Russia, Putin, China and Xi, -those that try simply to be more objective, they get pounced on by the dozens of obvious western propagandists and sockpuppets who just happen to be hanging around all day.
McCarthyite suspicion and paranoia risks destroying the west.
On this theme, a good article by Glenn Greenwald posted today.
“The decade-long repression of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, standing alone, demonstrates how grave neoliberal attacks on dissent have become.”
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-neoliberal-war-on-dissent-in?utm_source=url
That’s more or less the same situation as in Russia. If you try to understand or explain the Western narrative there, you’re almost getting accused of treason by the mob. Because only one narrative is allowed – the official state narrative.
It is naïve to believe that an empire the size of Russia does not carry out disinformation campaigns on a daily basis. The state narrative is part of it in exactly the same way as in the West, however with longer traditions.
Also worth noting that you are much more likely to be silenced for your diverging views in Russia than you are in the West. Freedom of thought was never highly valued in Russia, and we usually see intellectuals trying to migrate from there to the West rather than the other way round.
Re. Assange, as shameful as his story is, this sort of political persecution is a relatively rare occurrence in the West.
It’s a daily bread in Russia (and other countries with a set state ideology).
@Kashmiri
Yep, I’ve heard about Russia’s increased internet censorship and the increasingly centralised state control banning VPNs and certain messaging apps etc, and it sounds pretty grim. Loss of freedom of speech for anyone, anywhere anywhere is a bad thing. As is Chinese censorship. This intolerance for dissent seems to be going global.
Although, it’s worth considering how most of the internet tech giants and servers are US based. Let’s imagine that situation were reversed and Russia had tech giants and servers based in Russia collecting data from the US, would the US allow them to operate freely in the US? Personally, I doubt it , US agencies would say they’re an intolerable security risk.
Yep, however this is an entirely different story. It’s not just IT, it’s most of engineering, high-tech, biotech, pharma, etc. And this has nothing to do with ideology. Rather, if you have a business idea and need, say, $20 million to start it, where will you go? EU? Forget about it. London? Good luck. Russia? You are joking, unless you know the right people. US? Yes, pitch your idea well and angel investors will be lining up to fund it.
US is a country of start-ups and easy access to investors’ money.
By the way, it’s a limited trust, but still I do have some trust in the privacy of Gmail or iMessages. But I have zero trust in the privacy of Mail.ru or Yandex.
@Kashmiri
Comparing the US, Europe to Russia, China as some do, to justify increasingly repressive behaviour and the surveillance culture of western govts, is wholly fatuous imho. China and Russia don’t share our histories and our fights for our rights. Citizens fought and died for our freedoms, freedoms that are slowly being taken from us by unaccountable, unelected officials under the guise of the all-encompassing national security.
It’s as if just saying the magic words ‘national security’ justifies any infringement of our liberty. It doesn’t and it never should’ve been allowed to. It’s largely thanks to a political class that have given up on defending liberty because under the two-party status quo they can’t ever really be removed. The loss of liberty in the west is definitely a political problem that the public need to solve before liberty disappears altogether.
Well, we don’t see many intellectuals migrating to Kashmir either.
“US? Yes, pitch your idea well and angel investors will be lining up to fund it.”
Of course they will, because they know, that very soon, your idea will be their idea and you will have nothing, “unless you know the right people. “
And being in the USSR’s backyard was much better than being in the US’ backyard. Had Hungary been in the latter, we would have had death squads running around, archbishops gunned down at the altar, Jesuit priests assassinated and a death toll running into the tens or hundreds of thousands.
You appear to be wilfully? ignoring that Russia has had a complete change of government since Soviet times, whereas the US is exactly the same government. You might as well insist that Germany stil has the same government as it did in the 1930s.
Well I think it has to be proportional to the propaganda of the day. I do not see Craig as being biased, merely that the overwhelming propaganda these days is anti Russia (and China ). So we have to balance that, it is rarely true that both sides are equally bad in world conflicts, there is always an aggressor who takes things a step too far and turns old rivalries and political rivalry into violence and war. But that aggressor usually also has the upper hand in the propaganda war.
excellent article craig… thank you!
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-medias-odd-double-standard-on
Here’s a good article about the blatent double standard when it comes to reporting claims made by either side. It’s staggering that after being in full agreement that Johnson is an unprincipled liar, suddenly his word is gospel. All the sources that assured us that Iraq had WMD, that the people of Libya were about to be slaughtered unless we did our own slaughtering first, that Afghanistan had incredibly advanced cave networks holding Bin Laden’s forces, that Iran is always on the verge of producing a nuclear bomb… Suddenly we’re all supposed to regard them as valid, objective providers of fact.
After this has all hopefully blown over the they’ll tell us it’s okay to return to thinking Boris is a congenital liar, who can’t be trusted on anything, and forget all about this interlude where they treated him as the embodiment of Western Truth and Integrity.
I don’t think Boris Johnson’s word is gospel, any more than I think that Starmer would be better, in fact I think he would be a lot, lot worse.
People need to realise that the MSM have been congenital liars for about 20 years and should not be seen as trustworthy in any way whatsoever….
If you’re a Tory or rightwing Labour type you probably believe most of it.
Almost like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, isn’t it.
You think what is wrong with these people, why are they such corrupt liars? And what have we done to deserve this lot?
A few, like Jonathan Cook, couldn’t stand it and got out, but there seems to be very few with such qualms about repeating lies.
Johnson has gamblers’ luck. While we laud him as the mouthpiece of (Western) truth and justice, he announces a so-called “plan” (non existent) with regard to “living with covid” which actually boils down to withdrawing all public health measures and government support, leaving those of us without the money to get tested and treatment to die with it. But we will be “free” to do so.
Sigh, there we have it, incredible idiocy by Russia
Putin set to recognize Donbass – Kremlin
https://www.rt.com/russia/550139-russia-recognizes-independence-donbass/
Now Russia will be even more isolated, more sanctions are coming for what? So uncessary.
This will really give US/Nato/Ukraine a huge boost, they have a reason to fear Russia.
I have no words…
Yes; it seems now that Russia has needlessly given up the moral highground it was occupying. It’s of course true that Zelensky was never going to honour the Minsk agreements but now they’re null and void and Putin has exposed himself to even more criticism from the USA, US and other hangers-on. Looks like the US and the UK will get the war they crave. All those Russian and Ukranian lives! Jesus.
Yes they were so close in having the upper hand, especially since more meetings with US, France etc was planned….and Russia do this?!
Yes Zelensky nor US/Nato had no interest in the Minsk agreement and Zelensky even wanted just this to happen
Ukrainian Media Claims Zelenskyy Quietly Hoping Russia Will Recognise Donbass Breakaways
https://sputniknews.com/amp/20220221/ukrainian-media-claims-zelensky-quietly-hoping-russia-will-recognize-donbass-breakaways–1093228631.html
Today Russia stepped right into that trap.
No Ukrainian leader worthy their name can ever agree to federalisation of the country. It needs a good understanding of the social and ethnic composition to understand why. But it’s no coincidence that Russia put it in the Minsk agreements, knowing very well this will never be implemented by Ukraine.
Some people here seem to be very naïve.
It’s true, you for example are very naïve. Federalization with a large degree of autonomy for the constituent parts is the only way for an artificially glued together country like Ukraine to have some semblance of normalcy. Same for Belgium.
The other option is the strongest party holding a gun to the head of the others. This didn’t work either for Yugoslavia or the USSR. Even the Americans recognized this when they accepted that Bosnia-Hercegovina will consist of a Muslim and a Serb Republic. That country is still only held together undemocratically by the violence of the EU and the US. It’s only a matter of time before the inevitable happens and it falls apart.
Another Western genius who knows best how the Ukrainians should rule their country.
A federal structure carries the greatest risk of a breakup, including a civil war, especially in young countries. We’ve seen it in Yugoslavia and USSR, we’re seeing the risk even in such established countries as Belgium, UK or Spain. I dare to say that no young country in new borders can afford a loose “federal” structure.
Also no country will negotiate with a breakaway province as between equals.
The Minsk agreements were a non-starter from the beginning. On purpose.
Kashmiri
People who are much more wiser than you and me agreed on the Minsk agreements as the only diplomatic way to resolve the conflict. Whole governments, with their advisers and experts, from both sides pro- and contra- unitary monoethnic Ukrainian state, even rebels themselves – all of them consider the Minsk as a good way and they all supported it. But you!
Whoever advised Zelensky to say publicly it won’t be implemented – played Putin’s side.
I’m an Eastern European from Hungary. Definitely not Western. But genius, maybe. We have a border and long experience with Ukraine, which you as a Kashmiri don’t have. Ditto for your NATO friends, who try to create yet another war in my neighborhood.
You can’t force people to live together against their will. True for countries and marriages too.
Tatyana, the Minsk Agreements were, at best, stalemate, and the ukrainian govt NEVER intended to implement them. Got it?
kashmiri, ukraine does not need federalisation but breaking up into 3 parts, got it?
kashmiri, you also don’t understand that ukraine is NOT a country, it is a colony or fiefdom of the usa. Why do you think FJB was so much in ukraine when he was vp??? You didn’t know about the $5 BILLION (at least) that the usg spent on ukraine, & its cursed ‘color revolution’? What else don’t you know that is crucial to understanding what happened in ukraine? OH, you didn’t KNOW about any of that? Figures. Your argument is totally destroyed.
The problem is, Kashmiri – Ukraine agreed to it!! But of course the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine and their supporters in the West – USA, Canada and etc. – would never agree to it… we agree about that much! Careful how you throw the naïve word around…
“Now Russia will be even more isolated, more sanctions are coming for what? So uncessary.”
Sanctions are necessary to destabalise Russia so that it can be asset stripped by the west, since this cannot be done by force. It is the weat that will be isolated.
Well, Putin called Herr Scholz and Monsieur Macron, he said he is going to make his decision on recognition of the rebelled republics. What is appalling is that those 2 guarantors of the Minsk agreement ‘expressed their disappointment’
What is this? Do France and Germany confess that they have no power to influence Ukraine to keep to its obligations?
Think we all know it’s the US pulling Zelensky’s strings now.
All Macron and Scholz can do is watch and grimly applaud this grotesque puppet show. And it’ll be Germany footing the bill when the US unloads this Ukrainian horror show on the EU’s doorstep and at NATO’s Brussels HQ.
Tatyana,
Recognising Luhansk and Donetsk as independent states seems like a bold move. Interesting…
Like Poroshenko’s chocolate bars Ukraine keeps getting smaller.
I’m really more scared than ever. I understand the motives and I watched Putin’s address to the nation and I see the arguments.
Still I wish there was a way to settle the conflict via negotiations.
Looks like our ministers give up on diplomacy and state clearly that Minsk agreement is another dead chance, would never be implemented. And, they voice a simple argument that I wholeheartedly agree with – Russia will be sanctioned whatever we choose. So, why bother about it? 8 years of shelling is more than enough for the people of Donbass and Lughansk.
Putin’s speech was impressive. Please ask for translation if you’re uncertain of the sense. I’d be happy to assist.
And, please subscribe and donate to Mr.Murray’s fund – he is going to stand once more for the freedom of speech and justice.
If massive sanctions are imposed I don’t think it bodes well for Europe either.
Reminded of that line from Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
Just what leverage will Europe and NATO have over Russia?
Tatyana, it was the RIGHT thing to do by Putin. I know people there, and was speaking to someone in Donetsk this evening. We both agreed it was good.
Yes, that is quite right: france, germany, ukraine, britain had/have NO power to do ANYTHING other than what the usa DICTATES.
5pm today the BBC says that Ukraine is being attacked, according to BBC information.
Screw you BBC, how about taking your information from OSCE observers on the job in Ukraine and Donbass?
why feed us horse s..t every day? start doing your apparent ‘unbiased reporting’ rather than lick Nazis backside, here and in the US.
Why is the BBC propaganda outfit not showing the rag tag assembly of global fascist supporters, starting with NATO and its wooley aims, always scratching security services backsides.?
Tonight the sh.t show has changed, Russia is recognising Lukhansk and Donetzk as autonomous regions.
Minsk was good as long as it lived, maybe some of it can be salvaged, but not one of the signatories have fulfilled their responsibility or supported it..
Put your noses in the air…can you smell the brown matter hitting the fan.
Btw. nobody us controlling inflation, China has cancalled 70% of fertiliser, paid for, orders in the west, they are delayed due to high demand at home etc. etc.
This measure will.be.more green rhan any of the waffling promisesnever to happen.
I watched all of the Russian Security Council give their assessments of the decision of the Dumas to recognise the two breakaway Republics. It seems to be a last choice, with consequences of even more sanctions, yet the civilians have been shelled, water and power cut off and now evacuation. Minsk was never going to be implemented by Ukraine. Russia tried for years to persuade Ukraine to settle the matter with the Republics to no avail. Nato, US and UK get their war and sanctions. Ukraine and the Republics get no peace. Russia face even more sanctions. What a tragedy the war mongers always cause chaos on distant shores.
Putin makes a statement following the security council meeting on Donbass recognition on RT
US and EU politicians are calling these moves against International law? But are they? All I can find is:
It is well accepted by international lawyers and academics that unilateral secession is a legally neutral act; it is neither expressly accepted nor prohibited by international law
and..
International law bestows on all peoples the right to self-determination, but that the right to external self-determination, exercised through remedial secession, only applies in extreme circumstances, to colonized and severely persecuted peoples.
“It is well accepted by international lawyers and academics that unilateral secession is a legally neutral act; it is neither expressly accepted nor prohibited by international law…”
That’s odd. What about the US Declaration of Independence?
“WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation…
“… when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security”.
The Minsk protocols have been in existence for over 7 years and have accomplished absolutely nothing, because the Ukrainian regime has absolutely refused to implement them. That is long enough. Now it is time to lance the boil.
Yes, because they have been drafted in such a way that Ukraine does not implement them. Do you think that their objective was really to restore peace and return them under Ukrainian control?
Putin has just recognised Luhansk and Donetsk as separate states from Ukraine. Another step to invasion.
Not necessarily.
The US tends not to support unilateral secessionist movements, believing they cause instability, probably worries over the same thing happening in the US in the future, especially given current divisions. But there have been exceptions. U.S. and NATO supported Kosovo Province breaking away from Serbia.
If LNR/DNR were the pro-west bit of Ukraine, we probably wouldn’t hearing western media banging on quite as loudly about territorial integrity.
Russia has been forced to act, even though it will now face even more sanctions. It has to secure the civilians in the Donbass and its borders from NATO. Overtures to the West for decades have been rejected. Even applying to join NATO! It will be a terrible time for all of Europe. Europe is used to imposing war on the Global South, now it faces war on its own lands.
You are not even explaining the Russian position. You are peddling Russian propaganda all over this forum.
Kashmiri
It’s a strange world in which a Kashmiri supports the yehudi in the form of USUKIS imperial colonialism, and a Russian President is the defender of the Syrian Muslims from the headchopping proxies of USUKIS imperial colonialism
God has quite a lot to say about the yehudi in the Qur’an. I hope you backed the winning side.
He might be a Hindu nationalist in Kashmir, who supports the forceful subjugation of the locals, much like Ukraine intended to do. In my experience, knee jerk anti-Muslim sentiments are very common even among educated Indians. They tend to see everything through the lens of the India-Pakistan rivalry.
“You are not even explaining the Russian position.”
It looks exactly like an explanation to me.
On the contrary. Now that Donetsk and Lugansk are independent states, there can be absolutely no need for Russia to invade Ukraine.
On the other hand, should Ukraine invade the republics, Russia will be able to respond to requests for military assistance with the full power of its armed forces.
Tom, Ukraine neutrality is only a part of what Russia was seeking from NATO. The US UK forces and bases and missiles on Russias borders in Poland and Bulgaria and all the rest West of Germany are yet to be addressed. This matter only starts with Ukraine. Europe better get used to the New reality that war is no longer that it imposes on the poor global south.
Hey!
The Chinese authorities have decided to impose sanctions on the American companies Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin, which are associated with the supply of weapons to Taiwan. This was announced by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin at a briefing.
Tatyana. Your President’s statement was a historic one. Made with a heavy heart. The full consequences no one knows. Russia is prepared to defend itself as NATO encirclment is now an open and present threat.
I know, Wiki. It was one historical statement. One can get used to it, when living in Russia nowadays. It’s emotionally devastating.
Most people here take it for granted – we have a good president caring of our national interests. It’s great. But we also bother if our neighbors understand our motives. Presidents come and go, countries last longer. I wish we stay in dialogue with the rest of the world.
Funny comments in the chat under Putin’s speech: the hound of Psaki is howling in the Washington Mire
Tatyana, I fully understand your reasoning.
In reality, the only way that war would be avoided, is if the casualties come from the US, UK, Canada, NATO etc, the forces who push, push and create the situations. War is a capitalist tool that gets their economies out of the doldrums and it’s innocent people, like Iraqis, Libyans, Venezuelans, and now Russians and Ukranians who will do the fighting dying. Johnson, Biden and the rest will sleep safely in their beds at night and their spawn will join the City and the moneyed classes. What a disaster. Shame on us.
Tatyana – I have now read the official Kremlin English translation of Putin’s speech and, whether it is historically accurate or not (and I am far too lacking in expertise in Russian history to make any comment on that), what one can say is that here is a statement of how the Russian Leader sees the history of his own nation and the former Soviet Republics since 1917. It should in my opinion be mandatory reading for every UK politician, every UK journalist allowed to write about Russia or Ukraine and I’d also strongly advise every 17 year old still at school to read it too.
The link for others interested in reading it is: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828
There was also a very interesting speech made by the Kenyan representative at the UN Security Council. I watched it this morning but I can’t find the link at YouTube any more.
Basically, the most telling point was an African saying that all the ‘national boundaries’ that were left once the colonial occupiers had left were arbitrary and bore no relationship to the ancient inter-tribal cultural relationships whatsoever. He made the telling point that, in order to build successful nations, there is a time when you have to forget the past and build within the arbitrary boundaries that you have been bequeathed.
Obviously, that can be taken in many ways: a dig at Putin or in fact a dig at Zelensky supporters who want racial purity at the expense of other groupings within the nation. Or both. Primarily, he was expressing disagreement with Putin for having recognised the newly independent statelets of Donetsk and Lugansk.
But what was impressive was the self-confidence that an African nation displayed when addressing some of the most powerful nations on earth.
Pres Putin has just agreed to deploy Russian Military units into the Donbas in a peacekeeping role.
At last.
https://www.rt.com/russia/550177-putin-decree-military-donbass/
Some interesting footage of the Ru Security Council discussion…
https://youtu.be/7rQTH92UOTE
Pres Putins announcement on the formal recognition of the LDNR as independent states:
https://youtu.be/HSrr6cx5f1U
Thus far, the only response from Messers Blinken & Psaki is that they will Economically Sanction these breakaway regions & anybody who is attacking them. That (in any real & balanced world) should also include the Ukraine then surely?
The EU Council “A blatant violation of International Law” … as if the past 8 years never happened. The same rubbish from the UN Secretary General.
The US lapdogs in the Baltics are all whinging too.
Trudeau – “This is a violation of Russian State Integrity”
Perhaps Pierre “Castro” Trudeau might want to stay in lane as we speak?
13000 dead, 23000 injured & a million innocents displaced.
Now Russia will put a stop to this suffering.
I know they won’t admit it. But you’d think Ukraine’s leadership would be quietly happy to have rid of these problematic regions.
Kyiv was always going to have either compromise and give them some sort of autonomy or have a low-level civil war continuing . Now the problem solves itself.
I agree. At least one problem sorted. It also contributes to defining a nation, something Ukrainians have been struggling with since their nation was created just over a hundred years ago.
Each new nation starts in opposition to another nation.
Kashmiri, you should read the history of Russia. The peoples of Russia and Ukraine are the same. Ukraine was created by the Bolsheviks; Crimea only gifted to them by Krushev. Kiev was the capital of Russia! NATO promised Russia that if it left East Germany and let Germany unite and join NATO, NATO would not move an inch westward. It also agreed that anyone can join a military alliance, but their security should not be at the expense of others. Why after the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia was being raped, did NATO not disband? Why did it bomb Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria? Still trying regime change in every Soviet Republic and in Russia itself. Soon it will expand to Far East and Latin America! FFS!
@Wikikettle
Your manipulation of historical facts is jaw-dropping. The term “Ukraine” has been in use long before the Bolsheviks were invented. The Ukrainian ethnic identity started to form, along with a fight for an independent country, almost at the same time as the Finns’: in the 1910s. Will you now deny national identity to the Finns’, too? Or to the Catalan?
In mid 2nd millennium CE, the term “Rus” applied summarily to all Slavic tribes living to the east of what is now Poland. Kiev was the capital of Red Rus (Red Ruthenia). North of it was White Rus (White Ruthenia). The Moscow region was NOT called Rus, nor its inhabitants, “Russians”. The Moscow region folks were different tribes to the White Rus and the Red Rus not only in language but in having a significant Mongol/Siberian element.
Map of Verania (Eastern Europe), Johann Baptiste Homann (Nuremberg, 1720)
The fact that the term “Rus” came to mean the Moscow region during the 17th-18th century does not mean that the other tribes did not exist. But you don’t seem to care about history: you only blindly attack only the Ukrainian identity, possibly because your handlers have told you so.
I’m not so sure Putin has played into USA UK and Canada’s hands. He has had the courage to make a very very difficult decision. He has put the safety of the Citizens of Luhsank and Donbas over and above western idiocy. It is the right decision absolutely the right one. If he had not done this the heavily NATO armed Ukraine and their Fascist army would most certainly have started massacres in both regions knowing the MSM would blame Russia in any event. Zelensky is going to find out shortly, very shortly that the game he has been playing is going to collapse around him. One thing I’m sure of is that Putin wouldn’t have made this decision without China’s backing. The Western EU leaders have shown themselves to be complete and utter fascist despots and rank idiots at that. Putin has more intelligence and decency in his little finger than all the EU Leaders and USA politicians put together. These unashamed warmongers are the real menace in the world.
And for the record … Russia is virtually immune now from western economic sanctions.
Pres Putin has admitted this himself. Russia would not have taken the steps it is putting into place right now unless it had assured economic security.
This is not the case for the vassal EU or the USA.
Ignore the jingoistic shots of Russian military prowess – the presentation makes some valid points about the rising multi polar world which is the threat to the Unipolar Hegemony that the USA has enjoyed since the end of WWII:
https://youtu.be/4Ftkn0sDnCg
Sanctions are not a one way street. US still buys Russian oil ! Russia will soon be able to sell all its oil and gas to China. Iran knows that Congress (through Israel ) will never approve a renewal of JCPOA. Iran will also remember how India and South Africa, (of all the old colonies ) fell in line with US sanctions against it. It like Russia has had to bear one attack after another without taking the bait. Russia has now had to respond. As they said ” technical and military responses “. The Bullies have now been called out.
“This decision represents a complete rejection of Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements, directly contradicts Russia’s claimed commitment to diplomacy, and is a clear attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,”
— Antony Blinken.
Finally he’s discovered the Minsk agreements!… will wonders never cease.
Trusting government, more, in general trusting people around you is NOT a feature one develops when lived through the 90’s in Russia. I don’t even mention trusting the West.
I’m doing my best to ban my worst nightmares out of my imagination, and to rely on my logics and common sense. What I know for sure is security is first. Then we can work on everything else. My granny survived the WW2 and she was well aware of what security is about.
Were Russia advancing to Kyiv I’d certainly share those escalation concerns. I think any move into truly hostile territory is the point of real danger for Russia and Europe.
Defending these Pro-Russia areas would probably be more demoralising for Ukrainian forces. These are people the Kyiv govt have blockaded and abandoned, they have no reason to be loyal to Kyiv.
Russia would be both unwise and wrong to go beyond those areas where it has solid support.
Tatyana, build community, local people’s assemblies forging consensus decisions through deliberative democracy. Governments can never be trusted, but local people can build trust in each other.
You are not alone in finding trust difficult, Tatyana. I basically did what children do, namely trust their parents and schoolteachers growing up. I learned the hard way from 1983 – 1993 that they were well-meaning ignorant fools who had sold me down the river. Like many Russians in the 1990s, I had to go in on myself, become very self-reliant, however limiting that might be, and build an emotional fortress impermeable to external shock. It wasn’t easy and the job was imperfectly done. But done it was.
My experience was emotional, not existential (although when you are 1 stone underweight at 10st 7lbs, your cheeks have turned white and have collapsed inward through three years of absolute poverty, professional abandonment by superiors and social isolation, it felt quite existential at the time)…………..
I now start from the political viewpoint that every f***ing politician is a f***ing liar until proven otherwise. It means I don’t ever feel betrayed and can’t be disappointed…….
The invasion has begin. Putin has just ordered Russian forces into Luhansk and Donetsk.
M.J. It is NOT an invasion! They were INVITED in by both independent democratic republics. The lack of knowledge & understanding of what has happened in ukraine over the past 8 years is shocking, that is how long you’ve had to get up to speed.
Ralph, you are wasting your breath with these people. Their hubris dictates full spectrum dominance of even language and the meaning of words.
Maybe Craig would care to say where he disagrees with me?
He’s said it, on Twitter:
– “I do not support Russia’s recognition of breakaway republics, contrary to Minsk agreements endorsed by UNSC.
Just as I do not support US recognition of illegal Israeli annexation of Golan Heights, or UK’s illegal occupation of the Chagos Islands and genocide of the islanders.”
Thanks Clark.
So Craig doesn’t believe in the RIGHT of self defence/self-determination? Who is craig to decide the fate of millions of people, who were being genocided by a murderous regime, under the orders of the cursed, satanic, warmongering usg, in yet another ‘color revolution’? Are you also so IGNORANT of the non-compliance of the MAs by kiev? You think it’s ok for kiev to fire shells at blocks of flats? Like one which had been shelled THREE times by ukrainian killers?
Hey Craig, how about if I said I do not support the ‘breakaway’ of ‘rebellious’ Scotland from the UK??? And if they try, send in the British army to crush it?
Ralph, read it again:
– “I do not support Russia’s recognition of breakaway republics, contrary to Minsk agreements endorsed by UNSC.”
Your example is back-to-front:
– “Hey Craig, how about if I said I do not support the ‘breakaway’ of ‘rebellious’ Scotland from the UK???”
No, it’s as if Scotland were a recently independent nation, and the English majority in Dumfries and Galloway declared themselves a breakaway republic and called upon England to send in the English military.
Craig has stated many times that a people have the right to self-determination, but it is up to a majority at the UN to recognise them, not a more powerful neighbouring state with its own ambitions, acting unilaterally.
Yes, the Minsk Agreements are being violated, but the US and Russia are each backing their own favourites, and thus escalating tensions. Instead, they should be cooperating within the UN to stop the violations.
Clark
If the UN has failed to enforce its own Minsk Agreement and allowed genocide to continue and allow ‘ fuck the EU ‘ Nuland to get away with US political control of Ukraine, then the Blair option has a long precedent, humanitarian intervention by a group of powerful nations.
Sir Blair, if you please. Sir Blair if you don’t please, one time special envoy to mark his own homework on his own illegal destruction of the Middle East by lies and bombing.
Giyane, it’s always good to hear from you, but often I don’t know what to say in reply.
The UN has hardly any power of its own. It has only that power which the member states contribute to it. But some of those states, notably the US, China and Russia, each have more military and economic might than a majority of the other member states put together. This is a problem. It’s a systemic imbalance.
As for Blair, there were any number of other naïve, ignorant fools that the system could have promoted, installed and exploited. While never forgetting, we have to forgive, or we obscure our own view forward. Blair has already paid; he has forfeited his sanity, ie. his soul. The madness is clear to see in his face and mannerisms. He could still save himself, but I doubt he’ll ever achieve the necessary humility; he has too much money now.
Clark, don’t be so pedantic. The 2 independent republics had the RIGHT to self-determination, regardless of what the un said/says. It is a higher law than any political one. ESPECIALLY after they were targetted for genocide.
And this is also BS: “a more powerful neighbouring state with its own ambitions, acting unilaterally.” Russia was INVITED in by Pushilin & Pasechnik, they have both stated the ultimate aim is to be fully integrated with Russia.
The usg is using the ukrainian military as a proxy ATTACKING force against the 2 republics & Russia, the latter which is doing the DEFENDING, so to declare that Russia is ‘escalating tensions’ is more BS.
Now tell me about the cursed, warmongering usg & that utter shit FJB and HIS role as vp in the ukraine LOSING its sovereignity, through yet another yank ‘color revolution’ to become something akin to bidet’s fiefdom, and how it factors in with the original neocon wolfowitz doctrine & PNAC.
It’s a ‘peace keeping’ force…
Albeit… one packing a mighty big punch. 😉
These Europeans and European Americans can bomb dozens of countries to what they say is the stone age. Lets see what they can do to the defenders of Stalingrad.
Very easy to appear militarily superior when your MIC Subscription is $800billion per annum and your opponents are technologically and militarily illiterate with relatively microscopic budgets. The US and its lapdogs will now have to confront a nation that can match it and best it. See how they run, see how they backpedal.
@ Stevie Boy: Beyond that, military ‘budgets’ can present a false picture when balancing countries military might against each other: Consider each countries ‘military procurement’ system. Russia and China have a more efficient, streamlined system, often involving state-owned factories who operate efficiently and at discount. US has “corporate bidding”. Recent developmental disasters such as the F-35 ‘stealth’ fighter (that’s pretty much obsolete as it comes into service – due to Russian counter-developments in stealth detection) and the less-publicized ‘Rail-Gun’ technology that amounted to nothing (and gross expenditure). Capitalism eats itself. Who would have thought it.
Well-trained Kamikaze SPARROWS can foil the US F-35 ‘stealth’ fighter. Mr Putin doesn’t need to deploy S-400/S-500 defense systems. He just needs some pigeon coops.
It has to be said, any wars that do not involve those who argue to start it, but instead inside other countries, should realise that any escalation, especially with unpredictable factions involved, will also hit their country.
I can’t see many Ralphs cheering on the worldwide right of neonazis and their murderous past to carry on bombing civilians, when one’s own country gets bombed or irradiated.
I cant see the crumbling UK crying Heil Boris and aping the nazi salute of the Asov brigade just to please totally unsustainble goals of an American Leviathan that wants to control the world, space and everything from a position of internal weakness, just to please one side of its polarised society.
nevermind, what did you mean by this?:”I can’t see many Ralphs cheering on the worldwide right of neonazis and their murderous past to carry on bombing civilians”???
Mmm…remember the UK Army in Northern Ireland? That was there to ‘keep the peace’ too…..there were a few outrages on both sides, most notably Bloody Sunday 50 years ago….
Just like Afghanistan invited in the Soviet Army in 1979? Yeah, right. This invasion of a democracy is an important test for all democracies.
As for the supporters of Russian imperialism that this site has plenty of – I hope their efforts result in drawing as many enemies of democracy out of the woodwork as possible. Then some good, at least, may come of the nonsense they write.
Ukraine is even less of a democracy than the neoliberal one-party state of Ukanua — a state which props up the majority of the world’s most repressive regimes.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-03-11-britain-backs-most-of-the-worlds-repressive-regimes-new-analysis-shows/
Sorry to break the news but the world isn’t as it seems in the words of British politicians and their media surrogates. Hopefully you are young enough for this not to make you reflect on a lifetime of being brainwashed and duped.
Afghanistan certainly didn’t invite NATO in in 2001/2 either. The Taliban were prepared to cooperate with US authorities if UBL had indeed masterminded 9/11 (which everyone knew he hadn’t), but the USA wanted its wars and get them it did….
M.J. Your “invasion of a democracy” is utter BS. Can’t you recognise the usg’s regime change when it stares you in the face?
A ‘democracy’ that bans every single minority language, physically harasses its minorities, has the main opposition leader under house arrest, shuts down opposition media, runs car bomb assassinations, has neonazis in the armed forces, the list is long. Who exactly are you trying to fool?
Ukraine is a patch of oligarchic fiefdoms. Poroshenko, Timoshenko, Kolomoisky, whose patsy is the current el prezidente. The current clown tried to arrest the previous one, Poro, when he returned home a couple of weeks ago. Some democracy indeed. But go and enlist if you want to fight the Red Army for these freaks.
Per Terram. Their propaganda is designed to justify their blood lust to their own population – which actually doesn’t give a toss any more. But when war comes to Europe then we will see how the elites crap themselves.
Re. today’s developments in eastern Ukraine, my two cents:
Nope. China and Russia are NOT united. China has different strategic objectives vis-a-vis the United States. Also, Russia and China have their serious disagreements, for instance regarding certain Siberian territories. But foremostly, in their relations, Russia is a client state to China.
As for Matlock’s claims, the faith in all-powerful secret services who are able to manufacture everything and anything just to help the current head of state, is fairly naïve. Nope. Secret services don’t give a shit about Build Back Better legislation or Biden approval ratings. Wars are not made for ratings; they are made either because certain powerful lobbies need them, or because people/nations go out and start killing each other on the streets. Politicians only follow.
Kashmiri, what do you understand what was announced in:
“ Beijing on 4 February 2022, when Chinese and Russian leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin issued an unprecedented 6,000-word joint statement which challenged all the premises upon which the current US-led rules-based world order was founded. ‘
???
Mods
“ We’d like the ‘Dungroanin’ take on these affairs, if you’d be so kind. “
???
I understand and will try my best to do. Not tonight it’s late and the beer is talking! Thank you and goodnight.
The last part reads a bit like the film, Wag the Dog (1997) plot.
Facing a scandal and flagging opinion ratings the President’s spin doctor Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro) decides to construct a fictional war in Albania, hoping the media will concentrate on this instead.
Brean rcontacts Hollywood producer Stanley Motss to create the war, complete with a theme song and fake film footage of a sympathy-arousing orphan. The hoax is initially successful, with the president quickly gaining ground in the polls.
Nation states are often evil, and the bigger and more powerful they are, the more evilly they behave. If any of our neighbours behaved as nation states often do, the rest of us would shun them at the very least, and if we had the wherewithal, we would assemble and organise to protect ourselves and our livelihoods, subduing them as needs be.
One day we in the Collective West will be sanctioned! Apoplexy!!!
I’m not sure that Russia is going to be able to peacekeep peacefully in these two regions. Looking at the OSCE map of Donetsk/Luhansk, there is an estimated line of contact which seems to separate the region into two – one side on Ukraine’s and the other nearer to Russia. I assume the Ukrainian guns and whatever are on the Ukrainian side lobbing missiles into the other side.
Does anyone really know what is going on, even the OSCE seems to find it unclear? I hope Putin knows what he’s doing and thinks he can really resolve it. I think it will just become a very nasty civil war stoked by the Americans, and Putin would have been better off staying out of it. Keep safe Tatyana and keep us informed.
Rosemary MacKenzie. Scott Ritter, a US Army weapons inspector and critic, has his own ideas of what Russia will do in Ukraine. He said that they would be welcome by local populations even West of the two Republics! Russia has a tall order to push back NATO to 1997. NATO expansion after it should have disbanded is the problem. Keeping US domination of Europe (Germany) down, and Russia out, has always been its aim.
Rosemary, the ukrainians are at fault, they have been doing the ATTACKING, while the 2 independent republics have been doing the DEFENDING. Their capitals were attacked, NOT kiev. The osce’s smm are full of shits, & western spies. FJB is the CAUSE of the ukrainian crisis, read my comments on this article.
I fear there will be a lot of killing and I don’t see the advantage to Russia or Donbas. It seems that at least half of Donbas is occupied by the Ukrainians and I doubt that they will leave quietly just because Russia is coming to “keep the peace” even at the invitation of the Donbasians. Looks like a mess to me.
Rosemary MacKenzie
The West is accustomed to regard Russia as an inferior power and it’s pathetic response to defeat in Syria was the Skripal novichok comedy, about Russian incompetence. Nobody believed in novichok except Politicians and the MSM.
When Western Neo Nazi proxies are prevented from committing Western genocide we’ll have another novichok drama claiming that Russia is using chemical weapons.
Western banking and Western manufacturing empowered China and China has in turn empowered Russia. The West is under impression that it can destroy Russia and China by the same means as they empowered them.
If you are a parent you will understand that your offspring don’t always agree with your own core beliefs. What is happening in Ukraine is the new shoots of life giving the old, dead wood a good , winter prune.
Rosemary, you don’t see the advantage of Russian military power for the 2 Donbass republics???
Most of the ukrainian military did NOT want to fight, even more so now. And you don’t know how much crime the ukrainian military was involved in on the occupied Donbass territory?
There won’t be much shooting now, methinks. The Ukies won’t pick a fight with the Russian army. There will be lots of hysteria in the Western MSM, pontificating about the sanctity of this and that, while completely omitting NATO’s own serial violations of international law.
And there will be lots of new sanctions. But they will produce diminishing returns, since there are already so many of them. The West has outsanctioned itself. Because the sanctions were coming anyways, regardless of Russia’s actions, Russia didn’t lose anything, IMO.
Akos Horvath. Exactly. Let them do their worst. NATO will break up hopefully. Like Iran, Russia will sell its energy elsewhere and EU will become a moribund bureaucracy.
That’s the narrative being promoted from 55 Savushkina St.
Brilliant ‘argument’. Yawn.
Clark at 2:04am above suggested what if Scotland were independent but Dumfries and Galloway broke away and were then recognised and received military support from the U.K. (if it were then still called that) as an illustration of what’s wrong with Russian behaviour. It’s an interesting scenario.
If an independent Scotland fell out with the U.K. Government and sought to enter into a military alliance with a force opposed or perceived to be opposed to the U.K. so that areas such as Dumfries and Galloway or say the area formerly known as the Kingdom of Dumbartonshire or maybe the Shetlands declared independence of Scotland then would we not expect the U.K. to recognise and defend (re-occupy) those areas?
Scottish nationalists who support Russian actions in the Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 need to reflect on this. I assume Craig has because he opposes such Russian actions and no doubt would also criticise U.K. action in support of breakaway Scottish regions from an independent Scotland. I don’t see how one can both support Russian action and Scottish independence without conceding that the U.K. might then end up supporting breakaway regions of Scotland.
The collapse of an empire and emergence of states create unexpected complexities.
Interesting scenarios but the reality is that every situation is different and no one solution can fit every situation. In the UK we have NI as the perfect exemplar.
Maybe, we need to look at the causes rather than the symptoms. Would the Donbass want independence if Ukraine was a lovely, respectful, democratic country ? Would Scotland if England was truly a green and pleasant land ?
Thanks for response. The existence of NI may indicate that British state had more foresight upon Ireland becoming independent than Russian state had when Ukraine became independent.
Yesterday’s events devastated me emotionally, it’s mostly personal, I get scared every time at seeing a possibility of a military conflict. I even had to ask my man for a glass of wine, not to celebrate as one might think, but to help me to sleep for some hours.
Prior to every other argument pro- or contra- recognition of the republics, I aknowlege the need for security of people living there. Latest meeting on Minsk agreement ended with no result. Germany and France couldn’t influence Kiev either. Kiev publicly says they are not going to implement it, arguing it would benefit Russia. So, Kiev’s position is not respecting people living there, but only interest to hold the territory inside Ukraine.
Really, in the times like this it’s hard to find a trusted source. I again turn to those who must be responsible for their words.
OSCE mission. I understand the concerns expressed here on their impartiality. I see the heads of the mission are citizens of the countries supporting Kiev. The mission itself resides in Kiev. I’ve seen reports back in 2015 on OSCE inspectors visiting Donetsk and Lughansk and after that delivering information on militia’s forces to Ukrainian army. I also understand that the mission might interpret some facts in a biased way.
Nonetheless, I believe that the mission is due to register the facts, because their records anytime may be checked and compared to the records ‘from the other side’. Thus, omissions or blindness would be exposed immediately.
OSCE published the report on February 20, ceasefire violations listed on 17 pages, mostly explosions
https://www.osce.org/files/b/c/table_ceasefire–2022-02-20.pdf?itok=82567
The next day Russia said ‘enough’.
Of course, many good-hearted people will say that there was still some chance for diplomacy. But these people do not live under these explosions. Lavrov and Kozak gave their opinions on Security Counsel yesterday, and these are clever men and also experts on the situation.
May I please also ask those who condemn such a decision by Russia. Please let’s keep the discussion in a constructive way.
I mean, when you say it’s wrong, please also say along what alternative you see in this situation.
And I sincerely ask you that when you offer alternative ways to resolve this conflict, please consider the lives of these people. The very thought that the lives of Russians may not matter to you is very painful.
For what it’s worth, you and Russia have my complete support. I have followed your reports with great interest and offer my sincere thanks.
If it is any reassurance, there is no doubt in my mind that Putin has followed the correct course, has done everything possible to seek a just solution, and has made the only possible decision in the face of uncompromising confrontation and aggression.
In the world as it is today, it is necessary to choose a side. I am unrepentantly with Russia and China.
an update on OSCE mission to Ukraine. They published full report
https://www.osce.org/files/2022-02-20-21%20Daily%20Report_ENG.pdf?itok=82567
The report confirms earlier statements from DPR and LPR that Kiev used prohibited weapons.
OSCE recorded damage to civilian property and factory building in Mykolaevka as caused by 122 mm artillery. They also recorded ten self-propelled howitzers (2S19 Msta-S, 152mm) in government-controlled area were not withdrown since Feb.14 and also they mention tanks.
Tatyana,
Our western news is utterly atrocious. There are no reports (I’ve seen) that explain how the people in DPR/LPR had effectively been stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship and rights therein, years ago by Kyiv, and how they have lived in desperate conditions since 2014.
So what would Ukrainian troops be fighting for, in trying to reintegrate them in to Ukraine, by attempting to bring them back under Kyiv’s control. Their land? Land over people?
Every ignorant European politician and policy-maker should consider this question? Where were these ‘but the Minsk agreement?” people for the last seven years?
We also have a known so-called left-wing journalist who is heavily critical of Russia. Paul Mason, he wrote a book ‘how to stop Fascism’, although he seems to have no problem denying Ukraine has a far-right problem. The govt in Kyiv aren’t an admirable lot.
“Our western news is utterly atrocious”.
I wouldn’t know. Living in England, I have neither watched nor read the MSM for years. I would as soon drink Glyphosate.
I try as far as possible too, but it’s hard to avoid.
The BBC I find sometimes almost intolerable, Sky is possibly even worse. I tend to watch al-jazeera or RT.
I read today RT could be banned from terrestrial broadcasting, in what would be imo a vindictive move.
Tatyana
The BBC was massaging Boris Johnson’s ego yesterday with “Boris Johnson has now come into the psrliament building followed by loud cheers from Tory MPs”. Of all the people in the world who don’t need their egos being massaged it is him.
I wish we had politicians like the humble and wise Lavrov and Putin in our country. Nothing has changed yet on the ground in the new independent parts of Ukraine, The sickening lies often West about the atrocities it supports there mean that the British people are being fed jingoistic tripe by donkeys like Sajid Javed, riding on the bandwagon of war when his job is Health Secretary.
When the Nazi terrorists are attacked and these over excited schoolboys are discovered to have been supporting Nazis against civilians, the mood will change.
With Lavrov, Putin and Xi in charge, they world is in very safe hands imho.
Kenya has just made a fine speech at the UN condemning the Russian action:
https://youtu.be/jwDWxyLVBxk
It may be truly called internationalist and enlightened.
No doubt they will receive their reward.
M.J.
” oh, for a muse of fire, that would inspire the brightest heaven of invention, prince’s to act , and monarchs to behold the swelling scene. Think , when we talk of horses …printing their proud hooves i’ the earth…etc “
Kenya knows the reality of war and is right to protest against it. The whole world protests against war, except the AngloSaxons USUKIS who are constantly trying to ignite it. Last night I listened to a talk by a black Muslim scholar who was praising the warmongering skills and criminality of the Vikings!
This war in Ukraine has been instigated by USUKIS in order to distract Russia from Syria, where the jihadists’ rape and pillage,, gonaded on by USUKIS, has been curtailed by Russian intervention. After using their proxies to secure Iraqi and Syrian oil, USUKIS disposed of them. And they will do the same to their Nazi proxies in Ukraine.
RT “News” regular stooge Craig Murray , the RUSSIANS HAVE INVADED
They have been invited to enter as peacekeepers by the de facto authorities as I understand it.
If they were invading, would the Donbass inhabitants not be fleeing Westward, away from them? In fact they are heading East, in great numbers, seeking protection.
I think that tells us all we need to know.
How low an ebb of awareness and self-respect must you be at to side with the worst people in 2 countries against Craig Murray?
Germany just suspended the North Stream 2 pipeline, I wonder what other sanctions the west might impose. There were talks about cutting Russia off the SWIFT bank system earlier but I belive they backtracked on that measure.
NS2 was what it was all about.
Germany will now pay four times the price for US LPG.
Russia will shrug and sell cheap gas to China.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-russia-china-agree-30-year-gas-deal-using-new-pipeline-source-2022-02-04/
Russia, China agree 30-year gas deal via new pipeline, to settle in euros
And forget SWIFT.
Who are the masters now?
You can see why the US has suddenly gone soft on rejoining the JCPOA. Disruption from the Gulf of Qatari LNG and Europe is screwed. Especially if Russia reduces gas flows through Ukraine to a trickle.
I think we can see that Putin and Xi are three moves ahead of Biden.
Perhaps they should teach chess more in the USA.
Chess in Russia and Go in China seem to be good strategic planning teaching tools.
Chess was popular in the USA for a while after Robert J. Fischer became world champion. But then he declined to defend his title, and eventually the US government began to persecute him. They cancelled his passport while he was in Japan – a friendly trick – and he would have been in real difficulties if Iceland had not welcomed him. He spent the rest of his life there in relative peace and comfort.
“A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country”.
Americans are generally in far too much of a hurry to play chess well.
You know, I admire President Putin at last an intelligent Head of State has had the balls to stand up to the USA! It seems to me as though NATO, the EUs and USA have been taken by surprise by this bold and right decision. They seem to be properly on the back foot here and are thrashing around a bit wildly if u ask me. They have been plaguing Russia since Putin became President and bullying and building up NATO countries that surround Russia. Putin has a right to defend his Country and his citizens. Enough truly is enough and the USA and NATO have taken one step too far. It will be to their cost ultimately. Sholz, well what can I say, he is certainly nobody to be reckoned with is he? He should do as Putin has done put the needs of the German people before USA and any personal interests. He’s a complete moron and that’s too polite.
Jack, what you need to know about the NS2 🙂 On russian side it is Gazprom, and 50% of the project is paid by Royal Dutch Shell, OMV, Engie, Uniper и Wintershall. Plus, to distribute gas further to Europe, Germany has built Eugal to Austria and Capacity4Gas to Czech.
The talks about suspending the project don’t hit Russia only. Moreover, there’re talks in Russia about an excellent deal to exchange 4 millions of Russians together with their territories for some lousy $$$ and also leaving Europe with no cheap gas 🙂
And Germany maybe still has to pay Ukraine billions in transit fees under the deal Merkel struck?
For Germany, enforcing US global hegemony is becoming very expensive. Ukraine is the orphan the EU doesn’t want to adopt. Left at the EU’s convent door by the US. Ukraine has a serious problem with the far-right too. Something brushed over by the lying western media.
Matvienko asked directly in yesterday’s meeting – why are we trading with Ukraine? Why do we supply them with fuels?
I think Germany and the rest of EU might find themselves in a weird situation if they cancel Nord Stream, and Russia refuses to deal via Ukrainian pipeline. Though, I heard you develop windmills there. Good luck 🙂
Tatyana.
Fracking will be on the agenda here in the UK again, no doubt.
Hugely controversial with the public because of earth tremors. Russia is 17.13 million km² , the UK is 0.23 million km². I read rural Oxfordshire has good shale gas prospects. The arguments ahead should be fun.
When you get to the point where you’re fracturing the subsurface to extract fuel, you know you must scraping the bottom of the barrel. Fracking is barely economically viable; the wells deplete very quickly. There’s just not that much fuel down there. Fracking is dying:
https://richardheinberg.com/museletter-346-the-end-of-growth-ten-years-after
– “tight oil and shale gas are drilling-intensive, given the high production decline rates of new wells. In order to recover the abundance of these fuels that the EIA claims will be there for the taking, between now and 2050 the industry will need to drill something on the order of 700,000 new wells at a total cost of over $5 trillion. […] On average, each of those wells would be several thousand feet vertically and over a mile horizontally in length, would use up to 20 million gallons of water and 20 million pounds of proppant
– Let’s sample some of Hughes’s latest findings in a bit more detail. With regard to tight oil, six of the seven main plays have peaked in production and, without a significant increase in drilling rates, are in permanent decline. Five of these were producing at 15.7% to 40.6% below peak levels as of July 2021. This is partly the result of a reduction in drilling rates due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in some of the plays (such as the Bakken in North Dakota) it is mostly due to depletion, with future production unlikely ever to exceed the already-achieved peak.”
Look at the graphic of drilling traces in the Bakken core area. Guestimating from the scale, that looks like about 3000 square miles to me. The filigree grid of white lines are the wells, superimposed onto the satellite photo. Guestimate their number if you can be bothered.
Tatyana, Russia will have to develop other energy sources too. The existing Russian supergiant gas fields opened in the Soviet era are depleted, and can now produce at around only a third of their former rate. Russia has other supergiant fields which are being developed, but they are in more challenging places such as Siberia, requiring massive investment in infrastructure – which is why the Gazprom consortium hold out for long-term contracts from Europe. And of course these newly developing fields will deplete in a fraction of the time because gas is burned so much faster now, there is so much more demand.
https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Russian-gas-amid-market-tightness.pdf
Goose – the other talk was of shale gas in the North of England – would be good to do it in a way that creates them a Regional Wealth Fund, but I can’t see the City sharks allowing that.
But it’s incredibly unpopular with the public. Look at what happened in Lancashire. I put the relative land areas in to illustrate why these debates are different in the US and Russia, and I believe fracking is even controversial in parts of the US.
Russia can certainly exacerbate this looming European energy crisis if they make clever retaliatory decisions, and work with other sanctioned entities eg. Iran. The EU and UK officials are backslapping each other over their ‘tough response’ too soon.
Goose, the officials are right to slap each other on the back. They have no interests in common with the rest of us – the pond life. They will have done themselves a lot of good in the eyes of Uncle Sam.
The remaining Lancashire shale gas wells are getting plugged and abandoned. Decide for yourself whether abandoning this domestic resource, likely in favour of far more expensive and environmentally damaging US shale gas is a wise policy.
Deep geothermal boreholes have also been associated with seismicity. There’s a lot of excitement about the scheme in Cornwall as it may also offer Lithium extraction. Time will tell if it results in earthquakes, as happened near Basel.
Also I think that those ‘sanctionists’ don’t consider the option of Putin’s counter-sanctions?
Our prime minister is one man I respect. His yesterday’s word was convincing.
Would you elaborate?
I read recently that USA imports oil from Russia!
Just did a search and found this:
“Russian crude exports to US highlight risks to Ukraine talks for Biden ”
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/012122-russian-crude-exports-to-us-highlight-risks-to-ukraine-talks-for-biden
“US importing more oil from Russia than key ally Saudi Arabia”.
“Shipments of Russian crude to the US in 2021 averaged 202,000 b/d, the highest in 11 years, according to data from S&P Global Platts trade-flow analytics tool cFlow. Overall Russian crude and product shipments accounted for 11% of total US imports between January and October 2021, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. Imports of Russian crude and products averaged 704,300 b/d in this period, EIA data showed. The US is now importing higher volumes from Russia than it is from key ally Saudi Arabia.”
Check?
Our prime minister came from the tax agency. What he did in our relations between the state and business I highly appreciate. He said yesterday that there was no sign for Minsk implementation for several month, along with all signs of Kiev was getting ready to solve the crisis by force. Russia realised the risks and worked on all possible sanctions scenarios in case we interfere. I trust his words.
Our ex prime minister was the man who recognised Ossetia and Abkhasia when Georgia attacked them. He also had a word yesterday, saying ‘we have seen all of that many times already. we know what to expect. we are ready’. This man I do not trust, but he has now all chances to improve in my eyes 🙂
They’re not called the United States of Hypocrisy for nothing. They have raised hypocrisy to the status of a fine art.
I don’t even know what ‘values’ the west is defending anymore.
Free speech and the right to dissent?
With Mass surveillance and the army policing dissent?
Democracy?
You need a billion dollars to run for President, that puts campaign financiers in charge; basically US democracy has been reduced to a few rich people deciding who they’ll tolerate in the White House, before finally, the public get a chance to accept or reject their choice.
Would anyone contest that analysis?
Goose – obviously the only way to over-ride that scenario is to raise $10 – 100 from 10 to 100 million people. Have a maximum donation limit of $1000 so that no individual can have the right to determine policy.
In the internet age that is possible, but you still need a pretty viral campaign marketing strategy that creates awareness of who you are, unless you are some rarity that the whole country already knows, like some media anchor, a filmstar, a sports icon etc.
Basically, if people don’t want the old system, they are going to have to take responsibility to spend more time being personally involved in ground-up politics.
NS2 has already paid for itself. Cost Gazprom 5 billion to build, but its mere existence tripled/quadrupled gas prices and generated upwards of 20 billion extra profit in 2021 compared to 2020. A conclusion several European countries will draw is that if you need a secure and stable energy supply, you have to avoid Ukraine, Poland, AND Germany as well. Thankfully, Hungary has a 15-year contract with Russia and gas will be delivered avoiding all of the above countries, who are the ones using energy as a weapon.
If Germany is using energy as a weapon it’s one pointed at themselves!
Yes, but also at other countries. Germany wanted to be the main gas distribution hub of the EU. That’s why under Merkel they sabotaged SouthStream. Now they have NS2, but won’t use it to supply those countries that were involved in SouthStream. It’s not just Germany’s gas.
I assure you that lots of people in Romania, Bulgaria, etc. already have difficulty paying their energy bills, thanks to the completely self-inflicted EU wound of sky high spot gas prices. Habeck and Baerbock are rather nasty people.
I live in Hamburg and thus will be affected by an increase in gas/energy prices. It was already incredibly expensive.
What escapes most commentators is that Germany is not a sovereign country it receives orders from its transatlantic masters, otherwise they will not act to harm their own population.
Germany is completely under American control, like Japan. Scholz is an incredibly weak leader, while Baerbock and Habeck are just racist militants.
But I wonder how they will advance their stated global green agenda by waging war against Russia and China simultaneously. The cooperation of these two countries are absolutely necessary, if one believes in a climate emergency (which I don’t). But I think the German greens are complete frauds.
Jack
A pipeline like NS2 would take months to commission (technical gas is to check for leaks etc. ) anyway, so things may nor be as they seem.
Russia coming off SWIFT might be more a threat to America than Russia.
Well done providing this information
see the oil price is shooting up.
Wonder if the SNP have noticed?
This may not be the ‘cunning plan’ London assumed it to be?
Yeah, well done! Now, Frau Baerbock may want to repeat her personal achievement with bonuses from Gasprom 🙂 More sanctions!
I think darling Baerbock’s bonuses come from uncle Klaus of the WEF, Tatyana.
‘You Germans will have no industry left and you will be happy!’
Someone in comments on RIA suggests that since Germany doesn’t want our gas, so we should pump out what is now inside the pipeline and also start conservation of the project. I think we should do so, and also we should ask Germany if they still need the Nord Stream 1.
Looks like Germany prefers LPG. I don’t mind, we can liquify it prior to selling 🙂 We can also freight foreign ships for delivery, if Germany needs it delivered under another flag. No problem, it’s business, anything you wish for your money, Germany 🙂
Tatyana,
What are Russians making of Putin lining up his top intel / military chiefs and officials and making them pronounce on camera their support for LPR and DPR recognition? The Foreign intelligence chief looked fairly uncomfortable.
Some in the west are suggesting it’s a sign Putin becoming paranoid. It could be a clever move though, as it prevents people going behind his back and claiming they never supported recognition should things get messy.
Germany has merely ‘suspended’ certification of NS 2.
Absurd, that the country has allowed the US + controlled western media to force them into this position. Scholz looks like a complete idiot, because during in the election campaign he batted away questions on this, by insisting that the project shouldn’t be politicised because it was purely business deal, as oppose to an intergovernmental project.
From Twitter..
Huge day for US shale extraction industry & LNG shipping magnates. Yay [German] Greens!
—-
Sums it up nicely. Who are these hawkish imposters in Germany posing as Greens? Aren’t Green politicians usually associated with Dovishness and kinder environmental policies?
Goose,
Nobody is surprised by the format, we are happy it was open for everyone to see.
Pikabu link for you. Hope you have lots of lols
https://pikabu.ru/story/drama_dlya_otdelno_vzyatogo_chinovnika_8857957#comments
Russia does not export and never exported or produced LPG.
They export LNG.
Thanks for the correction, kashmiri
I’m not a big expert in this. On graduation I tried to get a job in a gas company. Blue Stream was under construction. I failed to and got into commerce instead.
What I know for sure, the goal is to lower expense and increase profit. So, if Germany decides to buy LNG from the US, for the american business it would be much more profitable deal to buy LNG in Novoross or Ust-Luga, rather than ship it across the Atlantic.
L – Logistics.
Like, you know, Ukrainian ex-president Poroshenko. With one hand he wages war on Donbass, with his other hand he buys coal from them.
Like Germany themselves getting russian gas at $400 and selling it to Poland at $900, and Poles resell it to Ukraine at $1200.
P – Profit *not Politics, not Patriotism*.
All this talk of Russian ‘aggression’ today in our MSM – they’ve recognised two republics! Two republics that voted for independence in desperation, after being treated like shit by their own govt since 2014. And after Minsk being ignored for seven years.
The US military can go anywhere it pleases in the world, infringe anyone’s sovereignty – set up an illegal base in Syria, stay in Iraq after the Iraqi parliament voted for that they must leave – and sanctions are out of the question. It really is a world of pure hypocrisy.
I don’t even know what ‘values’ the west is defending anymore.
Free speech and the right to dissent?
With Mass surveillance and the army policing dissent?
Democracy?
You need a billion dollars to run for President, that puts campaign financiers in charge; basically US democracy has been reduced to a few rich people deciding who they’ll tolerate in the White House, before finally, the public get a chance to accept or reject their choice.
Would anyone contest that analysis?
Freedom! To starve to death if you can’t earn enough by working and freeze to death if you can’t afford to heat your home. Oh, and die by virus if those around can’t afford to test themselves and self isolate. This is what happens when liberals elevate “freedom” above equality and solidarity (fraternity).
They are always talking about “our values” and “Western values”, but they never specify what they are. For the reasons you mention, Goose. Mind you, most of them have been redefined beyond recognition by language engineering. “Liberalism” used to mean much the same as “libertarianism”; basically that the individual human being is the most important thing, with institutions and even governments existing for the sake of the individual – not vice versa. But today “liberalism” seems to have been bent into meaning the freedom of corporations to make vast profits by trampling on the rights and even the lives of individuals.
As Michael Hudson points out, “free markets” originally meant markets that are free from monopoly and rent extraction. Instead, today many “experts” tell us that free markets are those in which governments do not interfere. But you cannot have a market of any kind without regulation and enforcement – otherwise the strong just come and take whatever they want without payment. Today, in the West, governments continually intervene and rig markets – but only on behalf of the big corporations. It’s “socialism for the rich” and “capitalism for the poor”.
Confucius wasn’t wrong when he wrote about the rectification of names. One accessible translation is:
“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything”.
Good summary, Goose (February 22, 2022 at 14:11). Even those who know next to nothing about what REALLY happened & is going on in the Donbass, yet chose to comment, should be – hopefully – able to understand what you said.
We need European politicians in our various parliaments saying it.
I’m angry because as you’ll know the MSM and political class are presenting this as a recent territorial dispute in which poor old plucky Ukraine is fighting off big bad Russia. The last 8 years have been hell for these people in Donbas, the jubilation and relief at progress and recognition, is real. Their lives have been on hold since 2014 and the US-supported Maidan coup when whatever you thought of him, a democratically elected President was removed by an US capitol style mob.
The west isn’t on the side of righteousness here.
Where is the concern among these people for what, y’know, the actual people who live in these newly independent republics want?
Take a deep breath folks and please look at the citations to the full articles I cite.
February 22 2022. Today IS the beginning of the new era – the old one started exactly 50 years ago yesterday.
Bear with me. I’ll try and keep it short.
1) Geo-Politics
Exactly 50 years ago yesterday Nixon landed in China. The world changed.
The USSR collapsed, USA became a hegemony and China became a industrial giant. Today China and Russia have been thrown together and developed the Shanghai Cooperative Organisation and with the Belt and Road Initiative are not only resisting the never satisfied lust of the ‘West’ to the resources of EurAsia and indeed the Rest of the World.
‘US hegemony over
The historical diplomatic breakthrough opened up by Nixon’s visit has now been symbolically closed – and was actually reversed in Beijing on 4 February 2022, when Chinese and Russian leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin issued an unprecedented 6,000-word joint statement which challenged all the premises upon which the current US-led rules-based world order was founded. ‘
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/us-taiwan-ukraine-biden-forgotten-nixon-lesson-china
By Marco Carnelos
Published date: 21 February 2022
2) Political Economy
(There is a great chart here showing GDP/capita change from the linked article below.)
Source: WP/21/100 Assessing the Macroeconomic Impact of Structural Reforms in Ukraine by Anil Ari and Gabor Pula, April 2021.
Ukraine has gone from being the Bread Basket to being a simple Basket Case.
It’s industrial might from Steel , shipbuilding , aviation etc has been stripped since its independence.
It has always been a mainly agrarian land with rich soils that can still feed a very large part of the world. Yet it has got the poorest people in Europe and lowest gdp growth in the world.
There had been a concerted effort by the World Bank and likes to get Ownership of that land open to foreigners. The Ukrainian Parliament has RESISTED that even as Zalensky has tried to acquiesce to the West’s demands.
Read all about it at
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-81-permanent-crisis-or?utm_source=url
3) Nato/Russia
I don’t think it was the end of the Olympics that brought the move in Russia yesterday (unless Nato had promised XI they would hold back) it was the escalation of the attacks in these areas as logged by the OSCE observers on the ground and the need to stop the mercenaries and neo-nazis blitzkrieg into these Russian speaking Regions.
The Russian leadership went to enormous length to broadcast and document with clear English translation in real time to show that this is an existential move for them.
Putins grasp and statement of history is epic in his speech yesterday – I don’t know enough to know if has made it up. It needs to be read in full. (Thanks to Karlof at MoA)
https://m.vk.com/@580896205-putins-speech-prior-to-recognizing-donbass-republics
The Empire is dead and today it knows it.
Thanks for the link, DunGroanin.
I can offer the official English version of Putin’s speech
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828
It was truly impressive! Especially on what un-communisation of Ukraine might really look like.
Dear Tatyana
it is great day for many!
You and your glass of wine, when stressed we should worry. I am sure someone will sell wine to Russia ?
Question is
– Can we live without Russian gas and oil etc.?
– Can Russians live without BMW, Wine, Cheese etc.?
British sanctions, we are saying “Thank You Mr. Johnson” for listening to the prayers of ordinary Russians! Sanctioning 3 extra-wealthy men and 5 banks was good decision by you! Some questions, e.g. why are you sanctioning those who were already sanctioned 7 years ago and by now have hidden all of their assets? And, who the f*ck are these 5 banks, never heard of them, maybe only 1 name, but this one only works inside of Russia.
Nonetheless, we guess there must be some reasons for your decision of which we are not aware. As one of our parliamentary said ‘Russia got new package of sanctions and placed it into our package for packages’.
Are you saying that Russians will not feel sorry for those people?
Sorry for Rotenberg brothers who have no opportunity to spend their money in London, but instead have to invest it inside Russia? Are you kidding me?
Pigeon English, it was excellent Carmenere from Chile actually I finished the whole bottle, please keep it secret, I don’t want to look like alcoholic 😉
Hopefully Chile won’t sanction us. But if they do, then I’ll switch to local Schiraz-Mourvedre from Gai Codzor, more expensive but after all, what’s the cost of patriotism? 🙂
? I underestimated you and your knowledge of wine. I am beer person but I will google Schiraz-Mourvedre from Gai Codzor! Viva Chile! I like Chilean Chardonnay if beer is not available or having a “romantic” fish dinner with wife.
They are small vineyard near Anapa, I doubt they export wine.
What I worry about is if Auchan or Ikea or Castorama or Leroy Merlin will drive their business away from Russia? I got used to buy from them. Look, some nice guy Tommy shares his visit to a supermarket in Russia
https://youtu.be/eqRrrJxmn1A
I think he is from the UK
Tatyana
Thanks for the link. Putin always has an eye in history and the historical perspective, Unlike western leaders who always start where it suits them. Best if during the Soviet Era Ukraine should have kept its name as Malo Roosia.
DunGroanin. Indeed, thanks for the links. Historic day yesterday. Russia stands up. Let the West do its worst. Even the Ukrainian population know they have been used and abused.
Western NGSs and Think Tanks are the proxy shock troops of US UK EU. They are a cancer to the countries they are parachuted into. Their latest result Ukraine, a total basket case. They are in India now !
Kenya made a strong speech against Russia in the UN. No doubt their ruling family has all the wealth of Kenya in the City of London. As do many leaders of colonial Empire.
It’s unfortunate that present US foreign policy is driven by Hillary Clinton’s hurt feelings in losing the 2016 election.