Millions of us might be **** if we ignore the Russian-Ukraine war

[TheGreenGoblin]

Though sometimes derided for doing so, Vladimir Putin enjoys posing topless for photographers in some suitably rugged and romantic forest or river setting, his ripped torso a symbol of personal and national muscle. Right now he seems to be acting out his metaphor through some fairly bare-knuckle diplomacy. He is knocking back western leader after western leader, leaving them lying bruised.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz, a man hardly looking for a fight, is the latest to get hurt. Mr Putin and Scholz both know that Russia could strangle the German economy in a week because of its dependence on the Nordstrom gas pipeline. It is only a few days since French president Emmanuel Macron had his dreams of a heroic return to Paris shattered during a stilted conversation across an absurdly large table. Joe Biden chatted away on the phone to Moscow for 62 minutes, but he too gets no concessions.

Putin is adept at playing power games with his counterparts, like some medieval potentate: arriving late, violating protocol, and forcing them to go home empty-handed. This is something Angela Merkel discovered long ago. The former German chancellor, who has a well-known fear of dogs, was once confronted with some Kremlin mutts, the better to intimidate her. Now Putin can use his natural gas reserves to frighten a new and inexperienced German leader.

For a while now, Mr Putin’s methods have wrongfooted the west, leaving its leaders looking foolish. But the west seems still unable to get into the Russian leader’s head to see where he’s going. It’s fair to say that the struggle to protect Ukraine was lost eight years ago, when former US president Barack Obama (and vice president Biden), failed to stop the annexation of Crimea. Alongside this, the cyberattacks on Estonia, the troops propping up cronies in Belarus and Kazakhstan, interference in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia and Syria and with incidents such as the Salisbury poisonings, Putin’s agents have been testing the west’s resolve for many years and finds it weak.

Calculating, opportunistic and masterful at the art of deception as Putin may be, the west has allowed itself to be outmanoeuvred because it is hopelessly divided. No two of the major powers within Nato, or the EU for that matter, seem to be able to agree on a single message delivered by one leader, ideally Mr Biden. The US president has gaffed, and the British, French and Germans have jostled to see who can be the “Putin-whisperer”. Diplomacy is turning into a competition for which leader should become the west’s spokesperson.

Shrewdly, Mr Putin has also exploited western tensions with China to secure the backing of Beijing, which will be useful diplomatically and economically when the time for sanctions come. Put crudely, the west can fight a Cold War with China or Russia, but a Cold War with both superpowers is too much. The only source of solace is that Donald Trump isn’t still around talking about disbanding Nato.

The “whiff of Munich” apparently detected by defence secretary Ben Wallace has been much discussed and spun. One difference is that the appeasement of 1938 was at least conscious and organised. The appeasement efforts of 2022 do not even live up to that standard. Like Czechoslovakia after the UK and France failed to save it, Ukraine seems destined to be bullied, divided, occupied and dismembered, leaving a rump state for Russia. Mr Wallace was being diplomatic; the whiff of Munich is more of a stench.

https://www.independent.co.uk/independe ... 14753.html

[Bob]

TGG, though in some ways understandable seeing you get sucked in by this modern day McCarthyism saddens me

[Boac]

An excellent piece by Craig Murray in #260 which I would otherwise have missed.

In case anyone else missed it, I will repeat it https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... gs-of-war/

It is, however, to be recalled which country moved its forces to the border in the first place and ask why.

[Undried Plum]

Ryanair flight to/from Kiev appear to be flying as normal. Mebbe they know something that the propaganda people are not telling us?

No surveillance flights squawking on FR24 today. Doesn't mean that they're not there, of course.

An RAF C17 evacuated personnel/kit from Kiev to Lvov last night.

[TheGreenGoblin]

TGG, though in some ways understandable seeing you get sucked in by this modern day McCarthyism saddens me

No intention to sadden anyone Bob but I am as sceptical of Putin's Russia as I am of the McCarthyites in the USA...

I would be delighted to be wrong!

[Boac]

Most airlines are continuing to avoid Ukranian airspace as they have since MH17.

I'd be surprised if a mil drone would normally show on FR24. There is a lot of C17 activity to the west and N West but no sign of anything mil over Ukraine at present.

[AtomKraft]

I confess to being baffled by continual bleating about 'Russian aggression'- looks to me like they are just holding a big exercise, perhaps to indicate that they feel threatened/ frightened- by NATO's continuing push Eastwards and wish to draw a line in the sand, and to show a little muscle.

NATO aggression, on the other hand, seems much more tangible: Do NATO really expect to march right up to Russias border- again, without a murmer from Moscow?

Did the US keep quiet when the USSR posted a few missiles in Cuba?

Imagine if they'd posted them in Mexico....

I'm calling this;
1. No invasion.
2.Afterwards, no admission to NATO for Ukraine
3. Nothing happens for a while- although I admit, other stuff could kick off in, or involving former WP countries now in NATO.

[Boac]

Do NATO really expect to march right up to Russias border

They already have.

I agree (hopefully) with your analysis.

[AtomKraft]

That's why I added the word 'again', right after the bit you quoted.

[Boac]

Yes, my apologies. Glasses steamed up.

[Boac]

From Reuters - the next move on the chess board:

"MOSCOW, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament voted on Tuesday to appeal to President Vladimir Putin to recognise two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent, the speaker of the house said.

Recognition of the two regions could kill off the existing Minsk peace process for east Ukraine to which Russia has said it is committed"

[TheGreenGoblin]

To those here who seem to imagine that poor "encircled" Russia is a benign actor here, I would ask, who annexed Crimea back in 2014. Who has been waging war with the Ukrainians and destabilising parts of the Ukrainian state, with the resulting loss of over 14,000 lives to date? Who is currently menacing the Ukrainian state? Who persists in claiming that the Ukraine and Russia, are "one" nation?

[Bob]

Most airlines are continuing to avoid Ukranian airspace as they have since MH17.

I'd be surprised if a mil drone would normally show on FR24. There is a lot of C17 activity to the west and N West but no sign of anything mil over Ukraine at present.

The Global Hawks were of course showing up for a reason, the show must go on

[Bob]

I would ask, who annexed Crimea back in 2014

Id like an answer to that as well, I remember something about a referendum but this annexing thing?

[TheGreenGoblin]

I would ask, who annexed Crimea back in 2014

Id like an answer to that as well, I remember something about a referendum but this annexing thing?

Our friends, the little Green Men, members of the Wagner Group, plus Russian troops in mufti... Russians under the direct control of Putin!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_gr ... inian_War)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexatio ... Federation

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/02/the ... -are-they/

[Undried Plum]

Crimea has been Russian since long before the Crimean War.

For administrative convenience and simplicity Stalin amalgamated Crimea into the Ukrainian Oblast's bureaucracy, but it was never a surrender by Russia of Crimea or of any other part of Russia to a foreign power.

As for Russian recognition of the Russianness of the Russian regions of Eastern Ukraine, gimme a break! The Minsk Agreement(s) very clearly showed recognition of those regions as being Russian. That was the whole point of the Agreement ferfuxake!

[TheGreenGoblin]

Crimea has been Russian since long before the Crimean War.

For administrative convenience and simplicity Stalin amalgamated Crimea into the Ukrainian Oblast's bureaucracy, but it was never a surrender by Russia of Crimea or of any other part of Russia to a foreign power.

As for Russian recognition of the Russianness of the Russian regions of Eastern Ukraine, gimme a break! The Minsk Agreement(s) very clearly showed recognition of those regions as being Russian. That was the whole point of the Agreement ferfuxake!

Not according to what was signed under the following accords

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belovezh_Accords

UP, using your logic, you would have us recognise the USSR as being intact including its hegemony over Lithuania, Latvia etc. as well no doubt...

Please comrade, don't make me laugh...the referendum held in 2014 was a farce, held under the threat of Russian arms, held by said Green Men, and sundry Russian gangsters, all who served Putin, directly or indirectly...

[Undried Plum]

Nope.

Lithuania and Latvia were never in the Soviet Union. Neither was Germany, nor Poland.

Crimea and Ukraine were both in the Soviet Union. In the case of Crimea, it was Russian. In the case of Ukraine it was, err, Ukrainian.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Nope.

Lithuania and Latvia were never in the Soviet Union. Neither was Germany, nor Poland.

Crimea and Ukraine were both in the Soviet Union. In the case of Crimea, it was Russian. In the case of Ukraine it was, err, Ukrainian.

Yes, I know that, but Putin doesn't see it that way, and moreover he has has paid no heed to the agreements signed that gave Ukraine its own right to statehood. The Ukrainians are also not all ethnic Russians as you well know. What occurred in 2014 is widely considered an illegal annexation of a sovereign country in flagrant violation of signed accords and agreements, yet you, like some others here, seem to think we should trust Putin.

The West also should remember the case of the Baltic states. For five decades, the United States and other European countries refused to recognize their incorporation into the Soviet Union. For most of that time, the Baltics regaining independence seemed implausible…until it happened.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fr ... nnexation/

Moscow maintains a historical claim to Crimea. The Russians colonized Crimea during the reign of Catherine the Great, and they founded Sevastopol — the peninsula’s main port and largest city — to be the homeport for the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Following the establishment of the Soviet Union, Crimea was a part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic until 1954, when it was transferred administratively to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

It is also true that Crimea in 2014 had an ethnic Russian majority of about 60 percent — the only part of Ukraine where ethnic Russians constituted the majority. But it is equally true that, when the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, the resulting independent states recognized one another in their then-existing borders. Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine violated, among other agreements, the UN Charter, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances for Ukraine and the 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and Russia.

[Undried Plum]

What occurred in 2014 is widely considered ...
/quote]

...to have been a US-sponsored coup by neonazi nutjobs who overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine.

Crimea is Russian, and has been for hundreds of years. Live with it.

Donbass is probeematical. Problems which were partly solved by the Minsk Agreement which was signed by all interested parties. It's Russian in the same way that Hawaii is American and in the same way that the Falklands and Gibraltar are British.