Please note that Jake above is wanking when he says:

"Things we did not do in 2014 we are prepared to do now," referring to Western responses to Russia's annexation of Crimea.

 

Crimea's history is RUSSIAN. you mongrels. It was also part of the Ottoman Empire once. Overall, Crimea is MOSLTY populated by RUSSIANS. There was an overwheming vote in Crimea to re-join the Russian Federation, which it was part of until the 1960s... If this displeases you, Mr Sullivan, go and play in a kiddy-sand-box... or join that great guy Hitler... in his invasion of Russia.

America is led by a bunch of warmongering idiots...

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW XXXXXXXXXX!!!

Below are the headlines on the New York Times

 

Biden Warns Putin of Economic Consequences if Aggression Continues

In a tense, two-hour virtual summit, President Biden also warned that an invasion of Ukraine would result in a repositioning of NATO troops in Europe.

But it is too early to tell if the call will ease tensions. President Vladimir Putin gave no indication of his ultimate intent, officials said.

Here are five takeaways from the videoconference.

 

-------------

 

1) there has not been any aggression so far from Russia. So why is the NYT mentioning "if Aggression Continues"?

2) the Ukrainian government (under instructions from Washington) are disregarding the Minsk Agreement re the situation in Donbass (80 per cent Russian people live there)

3) Putin has to be taken to his words that he has no intention to invade Ukraine

4) NATO/USA have been provocative to the Russians, in and around Ukraine (supply of weapons, cash, NATO troops coming close to the Russian borders)...

 

The text inside The New York Times is a bit different and the heading is less "aggressive"...and there is no mention of continuing Russian Aggression. If you consider the Crimea situation as aggression, please read above comment (crimea IS RUSSIAN...) and take a cold shower... and realise that Sevastopol was and is part of Russia... The text of the NYT continues:

 

‘Greetings, Mr. President’: Biden and Putin Hold 2-Hour Virtual Summit

 

President Biden said a Russian invasion of Ukraine would result in heavy economic penalties for Mr. Putin, in a tense meeting.

 

WASHINGTON — President Biden warned President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Tuesday that an invasion of Ukraine would result in heavy economic penalties for him and lead NATO to reposition its troops in Europe, measures that he said would go well beyond the West’s response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea seven years ago.

In a two-hour, secure video conference that American and Russian officials both described as tense but occasionally pierced by humor, Mr. Biden also said an invasion could end Russia’s hopes of completing the Nord Stream II gas pipeline to Europe, which would be a major new source of energy revenue.

It is too early to tell whether the much-anticipated conversation, whose details were hard to elicit as both the White House and the Kremlin put their spin on it, will alleviate the immediate crisis in Ukraine, where roughly 70,000 Russian troops have massed, with more equipment and personnel arriving every day.

Mr. Putin gave no indication of his ultimate intent, American officials said, leaving the world guessing whether he was actually planning an invasion early next year, or trying to get the West to pay attention to his demands by manufacturing a crisis.

 

In a brief video of the opening moments of the call released by Russian state television, Mr. Putin said, “Greetings, Mr. President!”

 

Read more crap at the NYT: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/us/politics/biden-putin-ukraine-summit.html

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW........

 

The Russian troops are just there in case Ukraine invades the Donbass enclave which the Ukrainians might do following a false flag event "organised" by the US... Any Tom and Jerry would know this.

 

Apart from strategic repercussions, hosting a NATO radar may damage the archipelago's crucial trade relations with Moscow. In the words of Faroese MP Bjárni Kárason Petersen, the Faroe Islands risks losing a large part of its exports to Russia, which could crush the islands' economy.

 

This week, Danish Minister of Defence Trine Bramsen is due to visit the Faroe Islands in the hope of pushing through a decision on a new radar base.

 

The small, but strategically important archipelago has become the focal point of the security situation in the North Atlantic. NATO member Denmark wants to build a new radar base on the self-governing Faroe Islands, part of the Danish Realm, in order to get a good command of all planes flying over the region and boost its claim to the Arctic.

 

However, some Faroe politicians are apprehensive. The island nation of 53,000 is heavily dependent on its fish exports, and one its largest customers is Russia. Hosting a NATO radar may damage key trade relations amid tensions between Moscow and the North Atlantic alliance.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/20211208/well-be-a-bomb-target-danish-nato-radar-flusters-faroe-islands-1091339599.html

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW BBBBBBBıııı!!!

 

Meanwhile as the Biden teleprompter threatens to prevent the Nord Sea 2 gas pipeline, the only losers would be the Europeans...

 

 

Biden has successfully solved the Ukraine crisis he manufactured

 

By Scott Ritter

— former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION KING: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

 

Joe Biden needed an agreement with Vladimir Putin that would help reduce tensions in Europe over Ukraine and NATO expansion. So he manufactured a crisis as an excuse for putting a US position on the table.

The news coming out of Ukraine was dire – Russia had mobilized between 95-125,000 troops along its border with Ukraine, and US intelligence agencies were predicting that an invasion was imminent. NATO was panicking, and Vladimir Putin was insisting that Ukraine must never be allowed to join the transatlantic alliance.

Biden, to clear the air with Putin, agreed to a video conference with the Russian President, where he “looked him in the eye” and warned of serious consequences, including unprecedented economic sanctions and the threat of deploying additional US forces to Europe, should Russia invade Ukraine.

While much of the public reaction to the Biden-Putin video conference has centered on the sanctions threat, it is the threat to deploy military forces to Europe which provides the greatest insight into the thinking of the Biden administration when it comes to Russia today.

First and foremost, the US threat to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank is empty, and everyone knows it. The US Army is already stretched to the breaking point by maintaining the existing rotation of a single heavy armored brigade, some 5,000 troops, in Europe. By 2022 the US is scheduled to complete the construction of an Army Prepositioned Stock (APS) facility in Poland designed to store a brigade’s worth of equipment (about 85 battle tanks, 190 armored combat vehicles, 35 artillery, and four armored vehicle launched bridges along with hundreds of supporting equipment sets and pieces). That will reduce the deployment time for the assigned brigade from the US to Poland from the 45 to 60 days associated with shipping the equipment into a European port to the four to seven days needed to fly in the troops and issue the equipment for operational employment.

 

But even with 10,000 troops backed by 170 tanks, 380 armored combat vehicles, and 70 artillery pieces, the US Army would be in no shape to take on a potential Russian opponent.

Back in the 1980s, the US military understood the true nature of Soviet military capabilities. We studied their doctrine. At the National Training Center (NTC), in Fort Irwin, California, the US Army created an opposition force (OPFOR) organized and equipped to replicate two Soviet Motorized Rifle Regiments. “OPFOR soldiers,” a 1986 article about training at the NTC noted, “are thoroughly trained in Soviet battle tactics for the purpose of fighting stateside combat elements as though it were an actual war,” adding that the OPFOR soldiers “dress in Soviet uniforms and use replicas of Russian armored vehicles to make their ‘kills.’ Every move and action of the OPFOR adheres to Soviet principles of armored warfare.”

We had an average of 311,870 troops stationed in Europe per year between 1986 and 1990. We had another 250,000 prepared to deploy to Europe within 10 days. The singular focus of all these men and women was to defeat the Soviet Army in combat.

We had a robust military attaché program in place at our Moscow Embassy that aggressively collected and reported on Soviet military capabilities. Attached to the Soviet Group of Forces, Germany were 14 US military officers, assigned to the US Military Liaison Mission, whose sole job was to monitor the Soviet military presence in East Germany. The Defense Intelligence Agency published an annual report, Soviet Military Power, which was required reading for all US military personnel.

The CIA maintained the Office of Soviet Analysis (SOVA), where the best and the brightest resided, publishing intelligence-based assessments of Soviet military capabilities. They were backed up by the Directorate for Operations’ Soviet/East European Division, which oversaw the CIA’s Moscow Station, where the most elite case officers were sent to ply their trade.

In short, we knew and understood Soviet military capabilities, and the threat they posed.

Today, when it comes to the Russian Federation, the United States is flying blind. At the NTC, the Soviet OPFOR has been replaced with a scaled-down version whose job is to replicate insurgencies and near-peer opponents – i.e., nothing at all what the US military would be facing if it were to be called upon to confront Russian troops in a European ground war. Russian military doctrine no longer serves as the foundation of our own counter-doctrine; Russia may very well be training to fight US and NATO forces, but we no longer anchor our doctrinal philosophy on the singular principle of closing with a destroying the Russian threat.

For the past 20 years, military careers have been defined by the Global War on Terror and, more importantly, waging low-intensity conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq. Every aspect of the military establishment, from recruiting, training, clothing, equipping, organizing, deploying, and fighting, was re-worked to deal with this new mode of fighting. Combined arms warfare – the art of war centered on creating lethal synergism between infantry, armor, artillery, airpower, and intelligence – was no longer practiced, and the muscle memory that had accrued from over three decades of training atrophied.

Our intelligence services support that which has been given priority, and since the end of the Cold War, Russia has not been a priority. Once a reservoir of unmatched talent, the departments and offices that once monitored Soviet military power have all been disbanded, replaced by “Eurasian” analysts who treat Russia as but one part of a larger intelligence puzzle. SOVA has been dissolved, taking decades of institutional knowledge about all things Russia along with it.

Our military is no longer trained, equipped, or doctrinally prepared to fight a Russian foe. In a non-nuclear matchup, the result is all-too predictable. The military, of course, is aware of this, and is gradually working toward rebuilding this lost capability. But this will take time and resources, not simply happen overnight.

Joe Biden knows this as well, which is why he has taken pains, in the aftermath of his video conference with Putin, to emphasize that the US obligation to defend its NATO allies does not extend to Ukraine. “The idea that the US is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not on the cards right now,” Biden told the press after his conversation with Putin.

 

This, of course, begs the question as to what Biden hoped to accomplish by threatening to deploy more American forces to Poland and the Baltics in the first place, especially if the US is not planning on any military confrontation with Russia in the case of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The answer lies in Biden’s political need to shape perception, both at home and abroad. The expectations on the part of his Democrat allies is that he would be tougher on Russia than former president Trump. This public pronouncement has boxed him in considerably, especially when common sense policy options must be put to the side in favor of posturing. Biden was caught off guard last April when Russia mobilized 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine, especially when his military leadership informed him that there was little the US could do about it.

The key problem facing the Biden national security team on the need to engage Russia was the fact that any engagement which considered Russian concerns would be seen as a concession. Biden needed to be seen as operating from a position of strength. As such, when Russia conducted its fall military maneuvers, the US purposefully exaggerated what was little more than internal troop movements in response to similar NATO exercises in Poland and the Baltics, and Ukrainian muscle flexing along the Donbass front, turning it into an imminent threat that triggered the current crisis.

Biden’s threat to deploy additional US forces now makes sense. First and foremost – he’s not going to do it. Second, Russia is not preparing to invade Ukraine, and Biden knows it. The current crisis is being driven by Ukraine’s ongoing refusal to implement the Minsk accords when it comes to recognizing the autonomy of the Donbass region, and its continued military posturing as a mechanism of gaining NATO support for its ambition to reconquer the Donbass and Crimea.

Russia has been insisting that the US put pressure on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to adhere to the Minsk agreement, and that the US provide assurances that NATO would stop its eastward expansion. Any move by the US, void of an additional predicate, would be seen by both the American domestic audience, and America’s NATO allies, as a sign of weakness. However, by building up a non-existent threat (i.e., a Russian invasion of Ukraine), and then threatening to dispatch non-existent troops to eastern Europe if Russia were to invade, Biden can now take credit for being strong in the face of Russian aggression. Moreover, when Russia doesn’t invade (and it won’t, unless responding to any large-scale military provocation by Ukraine), Biden can take credit for making Putin back down.

In this context, Jake Sullivan’s announcement that the Biden administration is open to broad talks with Russia about the future of European security, coupled with Biden’s announcement that the US would not come to the aid of Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion, and a similar announcement by Biden that the US would not support Ukrainian membership in NATO for at least 10 years, can be spun as responsible actions taken from a position of strength, instead of the logical response to realpolitik.

 

 

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT, but represent 99.99 per cent the views of Gus Leonisky.

 

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/542727-biden-russia-ukraine-nato/

 

read from top.

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW BBBBBBBıııı!!!

 

Meanwhile as the Biden teleprompter threatens to prevent the Nord Sea 2 gas pipeline, the only losers would be the Europeans...

 

 

See also: 

preparing for war... while we're asleep...

White House spokespserson Jen Psaki said on Thursday that the internal movement of Russian troops into the country's south was "aggression" against Ukraine and the origin of the present crisis.“The aggression here is on the Russian side, the military buildup is on the Russian side," Psaki told reporters at the White House on Thursday. She was asked about comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier in the day that the situation in Ukraine's eastern Donbass region, where Kiev has fought a seven-year war against several autonomous Russian-speaking cities, resembled a genocide. 

“The Russians are known for their rhetorical escalations, as they are also known for their ways of providing misinformation around the world and within eastern flank countries,” Psaki also said.

 The presser came just moments after US President Joe Biden finished a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a followup to Biden's Monday phone call with Putin that focused on the deployment of Russian forces in southern Russia. A White House readout of the call released later on Thursday said Biden "made clear that the US and our Allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of a further military intervention" and "reaffirmed the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity." "President Biden made clear that the United States and its allies and partners are committed to the principle of 'no decisions or discussions about Ukraine without Ukraine,'" the statement continued. "The leaders called on Russia to de-escalate tensions and agreed that diplomacy is the best way to make meaningful progress on conflict resolution." Read more:https://sputniknews.com/20211209/white-house-brands-russia-troop-movement-inside-own-country-as-aggression-against-ukraine--1091398221.html  AS LONG AS UKRAINE RESPECTS THE MINSK AGREEMENT... (REMEMBER THAT UKRAINE HAD/has A NEO-NAZI GOVERNMENT — and during WW2 many Ukrainian soldiers joined forces with Germany, to invade Russia... 

read from top.

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW BBBBBBBıııı!!!

 

Meanwhile as the Biden teleprompter threatens to prevent the Nord Sea 2 gas pipeline, the only losers would be the Europeans...

 

The Ukrainian Navy's command ship Donbass later turned back, but did not respond to requests, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said.

The FSB said that the vessel did not respond to demands to change course as it was moving towards the Kerch Strait in the Sea of Azov. 

 

"Information about the movement of the control ship Donbass (A-500) of the Ukrainian Navy in the Azov Sea towards the Kerch Strait. The command ship Donbass lay on the opposite course from the Kerch Strait, does not respond to requests," the FSB said.

 

The command ship Donbass of the Ukrainian Navy left the roadstead of the port of Mariupol at 09:12 [06:12 GMT] and headed toward the strait. It was noted that at 13:45, an FSB accompanying coast guard ship warned the Ukrainian vessel of the need to comply with Russian legislation (in terms of filing the necessary applications for passage through the Kerch Strait).

 

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/20211209/ukrainian-navy-ship-heading-toward-kerch-ignores-demands-to-change-course---fsb-1091397072.html

 

 

Read from top.

 

METHINKS  that this provocation is being performed under UA supervision...

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!

 

What Putin Really Told Biden BY PEPE ESCOBAR

 

So Russian President Vladimir Putin, by himself, and United States President Joe Biden, surrounded by aides, finally had their secret video link conference for two hours and two minutes – with translators placed in different rooms.

That was their first serious exchange since they met in person in Geneva last June – the first Russia-US summit since 2018. For global public opinion, led to believe a “war” in Ukraine was all but imminent, what’s left is essentially a torrent of spin.

So let’s start with a simple exercise focusing on the key issue of the video link – Ukraine – contrasting the White House and Kremlin versions of what transpired.

The White House: Biden made it “clear” to Putin that the US and allies will respond with “decisive economic and other measures” to a military escalation in Ukraine. At the same time, Biden called on Putin to de-escalate around Ukraine and “return to diplomacy.”

Kremlin: Putin offered Biden to nullify all restrictions on the functioning of diplomatic missions. He remarked that cooperation between Russia and the US is still in an “unsatisfactory” state.

He urged the US not to shift “responsibility on the shoulders of Russia” for the escalation of the situation around Ukraine.

The White House: The US will expand military aid to Ukraine if Russia takes steps against it.

Kremlin: Putin told Biden that Russia is interested in obtaining legally fixed guarantees excluding NATO’s eastward expansion and the deployment of offensive strike systems in Russia’s neighboring countries.

The White House: Biden did not give Putin any commitments that Ukraine will remain outside NATO.

Minsk or bust

Now for what really matters: the red line.

What Putin diplomatically told Team Biden, sitting at their table, is that Russia’s red line – no Ukraine in NATO – is unmovable. The same applies to Ukraine turned into a hub of the Pentagon’s empire of bases and hosting NATO weaponry.

Washington may deny it ad infinitum, but Ukraine is part of Russia’s sphere of influence. If nothing is done to force Kiev to abide by the Minsk Agreement, Russia will “neutralize” the threat on its own terms.

The root cause of all this drama, absent from any NATO narrative, is straightforward: Kiev simply refuses to respect the February 2015 Minsk Agreement.

According to the deal, Kiev should grant autonomy to Donbass via a constitutional amendment, referred to as “special status”; issue a general amnesty; and start a dialogue with the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Over the years, Kiev fulfilled less than zero of these commitments – while the NATO media machine kept spinning that Russia was violating Minsk. Russia is not even mentioned (italics mine) in the agreement.

Moscow always respected the Minsk Agreement, which establishes Donbass as an integral, autonomous part of Ukraine. Russia has made it very clear, over and over again, it has no interest whatsoever in promoting regime change in Kiev.

Before the video link, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked: “Putin will listen to Biden’s proposals on Ukraine ‘with great interest.’” Even the White House did not propose for Kiev to obey the Minsk Agreement. So regardless of what Biden may have said, Putin, pragmatically, will adopt a “wait and see” approach, and then act accordingly.

In the run-up to the video link, maximum hype revolved on Washington seeking to stop Nord Stream 2 if Russia “invades” Ukraine.

What never transpires out of the “invasion” narrative, repeated ad nauseam across NATO, is that hawks overseeing an immensely polarized US, corroded from the inside, desperately need a war in what military analyst Andrei Martyanov calls “country 404,” a play on the error message when an online page or link doesn’t exist.

The crux of the matter is that European vassals must not have access to Russian energy: only American LNG.

And that’s what led the most extreme Russophobes in Washington to start threatening sanctions on Putin’s inner circle, Russian energy producers and even disconnecting Russia from SWIFT. All that was supposed to prevent Russia from “invading” Country 404.

US Secretary of State Tony Blinken – present at the video link – said a few days ago in Riga, Latvia, that “if Russia invades Ukraine,” NATO will respond “with a range of high impact economic measures.” As for NATO, it’s far from aggressive: just a “defensive” organization.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in early December at the OCSE Ministerial Council meeting in Stockholm, was already warning that “strategic stability” in Europe was “rapidly eroding.”

Lavrov said: “NATO refuses to consider our proposals on de-escalation of tensions and prevention of dangerous incidents … On the contrary, the alliance’s military infrastructure is moving closer to Russia’s borders … The nightmarish scenario of military confrontation is returning.”

So no wonder the heart of the matter for Moscow is NATO encroachment. The “invasion” narrative is crass fake news sold as fact. Even the CIA’s William Burns admitted that US intel had no intel to “conclude” that Russia will dutifully answer the War Inc prayers and finally “invade” Ukraine.

Still, that did not prevent a German sensationalist rag from presenting the full contours of the Russian blitzkrieg, when the actual story is the US and NATO attempting to push “country 404” to commit suicide by attacking the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

That legally binding guarantee

It’s idle to expect the video link to produce practical results. As NATO remains mired in concentric crises, the current level of high tension between NATO and Russia is a gift from heaven in terms of maintaining the convenient narrative of an external Slavic evil. It’s also an extra bonus for the military-industrial-intelligence-media think tank complex.

 

The tension will continue to simmer without becoming incandescent only if NATO does not expand in any shape or form inside Ukraine. Diplomats in Brussels routinely comment that Kiev will never be accepted as a NATO member. But if things can get worse, they will: Kiev will become one of those NATO special partners, a desperately poor, hungry for territory, rogue actor.

Putin demanding from the US – which runs NATO – a written, legally binding guarantee that the alliance will not advance further eastward towards Russian borders is the game-changer here.

Team Biden cannot possibly deliver: they would be eaten alive by the War Inc establishment. Putin studied his history and knows that Daddy Bush’s “promise” to Gorbachev on NATO expansion was just a lie. He knows those who run NATO will never commit themselves in writing.

So that allows Putin a full range of options to defend Russian national security. “Invasion” is a joke; Ukraine, rotting from the inside, consumed by fear, loathing and poverty, will remain in limbo, while Donetsk and Lugansk will be progressively interconnected with the Russian Federation.

There will be no NATO war on Russia – as Martyanov himself has extensively demonstrated NATO wouldn’t last five minutes against Russian hypersonic weapons. And Moscow will be focused on what really matters geoeconomically and geopolitically: solidifying the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the Greater Eurasia Partnership.

 

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/what-putin-really-told-biden/

 

GusNote: Joe Biden's teleprompter eventually died in shame for telling so many lies...

 

Read from top.

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

«THE ART OF WAR»

The Ukrainian powder keg and the fuse

 

by Manlio Dinucci

 

 

According to the Washington narrative, Russia is massing its troops on the Ukrainian border and is preparing to invade in January. NATO would be ready to defend Ukraine from the Russian bear. In reality, it is Ukraine that is at fault: it has still not respected its signature and implemented the Minsk agreements, while Russia does not mass any troops on its border, but it has always had large bases in Crimea and now uses the bases of Yelnya and Boyevo, which are very far from Ukraine (750 and 830 km). No matter, Washington is beating the drum.

 

 

Roger Wicker, a member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview with Fox News (December 8, 2021) that he would not rule out direct US military intervention against Russia to "defend Ukraine" and, without being asked by the interviewer, added: "You know we don’t rule out nuclear action as a first use", i.e. to use nuclear weapons first. This is a cross-cutting message to Moscow about the determination of the United States to support a possible attack by Kiev on the Russians in Donbass. It would certainly be presented as retaliation for an attack by the Russians in Donbass. In the minds of those who have been carrying out the strategy of tension against Russia since 2014, such an attack would in any case be a winning act.

Moscow would have two alternatives: not to intervene militarily in defence of the Russians in Donbass, allowing them to be overwhelmed by the NATO-backed Ukrainian attack and forced to abandon the region to take refuge in Russia, a decision that would be traumatic for Moscow above all internally; or to intervene militarily to stop the Ukrainian attack, exposing itself to international condemnation for aggression and invasion of a sovereign state.

Ukrainian generals have warned that they will not be able to "repel Russian troops without a massive infusion of military aid from the West". The infusion has already begun: the US, which has already given Kiev $2.5 billion in military aid, provided it in November with another 88 tonnes of ammunition as part of a $60 million "package", including Javelin missiles already deployed against the Russians in the Donbass. At the same time, the US has sent more than 150 military advisers to Ukraine, who, together with those of a dozen NATO allies, are in fact directing operations.

The situation is even more explosive because Ukraine - today a partner but, in fact, already a member of the Atlantic Alliance - could be officially admitted as the 31st member of NATO: and as a result, on the basis of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the other 30 NATO members would have to intervene militarily on the Donbass front to support Ukraine against Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry called on NATO not to admit Ukraine, so as not to further increase military and political tension in Europe, recalling that since the end of the Cold War, Russia has received repeated assurances that the Alliance’s jurisdiction and military forces would not be moved an inch eastwards, but that these promises have not been kept. The Russian Foreign Ministry then proposed to NATO to open negotiations for long-term agreements preventing further expansion of the Alliance to the East and the deployment of weapons systems in the immediate vicinity of Russian territory. The proposal was curtly rebuffed on December 10, by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: "NATO’s relationship with Ukraine will be decided by the 30 members of the Alliance and by Ukraine, and by no one else".

Immediately afterwards, yesterday December 13, the G7 foreign ministers (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan) and the EU High Representative, who met in Liverpool, said they were "united in condemning Russia’s military build-up and aggressive rhetoric towards Ukraine" and that "Russia should be in no doubt that further military aggression against Ukraine would have massive consequences and serious costs".

Meanwhile, Finland, an EU member and active NATO partner against Russia, has announced the purchase of 64 Lockheed Martin F-35A fighter jets for a price of 8.4 billion euros, which, with their infrastructure, amounts to 10 billion euros, to which the government will add another 10 billion euros for their maintenance and modernisation. The 64 F-35A nuclear attack aircraft will be deployed on Russia’s borders, just 200 km from St Petersburg, under the command of the US, which, as Senator Wicker reminds us, does not rule out the possibility of using nuclear weapons first.

 

Manlio Dinucci

 

Translation 

Roger Lagassé

 

Source

Il Manifesto (Italy)

 

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article215078.html

 

 

Read from top.

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!