THE ARTICLE THAT FOLLOWS IS MOSTLY BULLSHIT. IT IS THE AMERICAN EMPIRE THAT WANTS EUROPE AND THE REST OF THE WORLD....

 

Would Putin stop if he wins in Ukraine? Let’s not find out.
The cost of hoping for the best from the Russian leader could cost the West dearly

 

BY MARC CHAMPION
BLOOMBERG

 

Addressing his nation on Thursday, a buoyant Russian President Vladimir Putin ridiculed the very notion that he might attack Europe.

Not only was that idea nonsense, he said, but it’s the West that was picking targets to attack in Russia, at the risk of nuclear Armageddon. It’s tempting to roll your eyes and move on. Yet the question of what the Kremlin does next if it wins in Ukraine is too important to ignore.

 

 

A debate is underway, particularly in Washington, on whether to pressure Ukraine into a negotiated settlement with Russia or help its continued defense. If Putin has no further ambitions beyond what he has seized in Ukraine already, then the interests of Europe and the U.S. might indeed be best served by forcing Kyiv to settle by starving it of the means to fight — as brutal a betrayal as that would be.

If Putin really is just fighting a limited defensive war, you could go further to ask why the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its core Article V collective defense clause are needed at all. The same would go for the sudden and expensive drive to rearm in Europe.

Yet getting that calculation wrong would be catastrophic, and according to the eastern Europeans who — unlike U.S. House Republicans — have spent centuries living and fighting with Russia, it is wrong. If Putin’s goal in Ukraine is instead to restore the sway that Moscow lost with the USSR’s collapse in 1991, which he has famously described as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century, then he may pause his invasion to regroup, but he won’t stop until Kyiv is fully under Russian control.

This is the future that beckons if Putin isn’t forced to give up his dreams of joining the pantheon of the Russian Empire’s greatest leaders, regathering lands that he sees as rightfully Russian, alongside his idols Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.

After that, there would be every reason to expect a triumphant and vengeful Putin to try to recover more of the control that Russia used to wield, from the Balkans to the Baltic States. What he’s looking for, Putin said during his speech, is nothing less than a new security architecture and international order for Eurasia.

His denials of aggressive intent aren’t much help in deciding who is right. For one thing, Putin as president has repeatedly proved the skills in disinformation he learned during his KGB tenure. To name just one instance, he’d ridiculed the idea that he would invade Ukraine, right up until he ordered close to 200,000 troops over the border.

But just because Putin is a serial liar doesn’t prove he is being untruthful now. Nor does it reveal how much Russian TV propagandists routinely talk about retaking Poland or nuking London. So, what actual evidence of ​​​​​Putin's intent do we have?

One piece comes from the rest of Putin’s address, which — like many of his orations — was filled with pledges to keep expanding the military, protect Russian "compatriots,” continue the so-called special military operation in Ukraine, create a new security order and increase birth rates to boost the population. He made clear that he considers himself to be at war with the West, which he accused of wanting to turn Russia into a "dying space.” This, I think, he sincerely believes.

His comments, like the invasion of Ukraine itself, were a call for Russia’s growth as a great power, a centurieslong project that always had rolling geographical limits. The further Moscow's control extended, the bigger Russia was and the bigger the buffer zone it needed to feel secure.

A second piece of evidence comes from the Kremlin’s continued efforts to destabilize Moldova, a mainly Romanian-speaking ex-Soviet republic that’s now bidding to join the European Union. An opportunity to unseat President Maia Sandu, a former World Bank economist, is coming up in December, when she faces re-election.

Russia has been working hard at this for a long time. It tried turning off the country’s heat and energy, until Moldova switched to buying gas and power from Europe. It tried insurrection, organized and funded by a fugitive, Kremlin-friendly oligarch. And, according to the Moldovan government, it attempted a coup. All of those efforts have taken place since the start of the war in Ukraine and Moscow still has cards to play.

These include the separatist Moldovan territory of Transnistria, a mainly Russian-speaking region where virtually the entire population has been handed Russian passports. On Wednesday, an extraordinary session of the self-styled republic’s legislature appealed for Moscow to 'implement measures for defending Transnistria' and its 220,000 Russian citizens.

The echoes of separatist appeals for Russian intervention in Ukraine were as unmistakable as the response from Moscow was predictable: This was NATO’s fault. The alliance 'is literally trying to mold the republic into a second Ukraine,” said Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, stoking the greatest fear of ordinary Moldovans — that they could get drawn into the war next door. Moldova gets to the heart of Putin’s ambiguity over what Russia is and where Europe starts.

On Thursday, he described his invasion of Ukraine as a defense of the motherland and of his "compatriots” in the Donbas region, as well as in Novorossiya, an area he has defined as stretching from Kharkiv in the north of Ukraine, to Odesa in the south. Odesa, a "Russian city” Putin reiterated as recently as December, is just 40 miles from Transnistria.

"The entire Black Sea coast went to Russia as a result of the Russo-Turkish wars,” he said during his end-of-year press conference, adding rhetorically, "What does Ukraine have to do with this?” If not Odesa, then you might think that Moldova, a Romanian-speaking country where about half the population has EU passports, would qualify as Europe for Putin and would therefore be off his hit list. But no. The former Russian empire wrested Moldova from the ailing Ottoman Empire, in 1812.

If NATO does become involved in Moldova, ​​then as with Ukraine it will be because Russia attacks it. That's something it can do only from the air for now, unless Putin attains his goals in Novorossiya (New Russia) and his army reaches Odesa. New options would at that point open — to dominate the Black Sea and project power and influence toward Romania and the Balkans.

"Putin aims to secure victory in Ukraine to demonstrate geopolitical superiority over the West and reshape the European security landscape,” including a NATO retreat to its size in the 1990s, before its eastward enlargement, Estonia’s intelligence services said in their 2024 annual report. Without NATO in the way, Moscow would be free to reassert its sphere of influence in eastern Europe, by the whole array of economic, cyber and in, the last resort, military means he has used already.

The Estonians may be wrong, but I doubt it. This is what Putin demanded in writing before invading Ukraine two years ago. It’s also what Soviet leaders and Russian czars did or sought over centuries. The best time and place to break this pattern — allowing Russia to adjust to a new status as a normal, if vast and powerful, nation-state within internationally recognized borders — is now and in Ukraine.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2024/03/03/world/stopping-putin/

 

SEE ALSO: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/43171

 

 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

 

 

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA WILL BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

 

Scott Ritter: Ukraine 'Owned' by US, While With Israel It’s the Other Way Around

 

Senior Ukrainian officials couldn’t help but feel sidelined by the outpouring of US attention and support for Israel as Tel Aviv sought to fend off an unprecedented Iranian missile and drone attack over the weekend. There’s a good reason for that, says former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter.
President Zelensky took to X on Sunday to plead with US lawmakers not to forget about Ukraine, saying “it is critical that the United States Congress make the necessary decisions to strengthen America’s allies in this critical time” by delivering on the aid package promised by President Biden six months ago.
Zelensky’s comments were echoed by Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who told reporters on Monday that Ukraine also needs help from its Western partners, even if it’s not in the form of direct military help – like Israel got. “All we ask our partners is, even if you cannot act the way you act in Israel, give us what is needed, and we will do the rest ourselves,” Kuleba urged.
“Let me make this very clear to the Ukrainian crowd. You see, the difference between Israel and Ukraine is that, whether you like it or not, Israel has bought and paid for the United States' support,” while Ukraine hasn’t, Scott Ritter told Sputnik.
‘We don’t care about you’: Scott Ritter slams Ukraine’s delusional entitlement mentality

Following Iran’s retaliatory strike on Israel, Ukrainian politicians once again issued demands for the West to send them more air defense systems. Keep dreaming, says Scott Ritter.… pic.twitter.com/gS5FxvKebp

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) April 15, 2024
“Israel, through its political action committee, AIPAC, in the United States, has pretty much bought the United States Congress. They've bought the United States presidency. They control American media. And as a result, America comes to the defense of Israel because we've been paid to do so,” Ritter said.
With Ukraine, it’s the other way around, the observer said.
“America, on the other hand, has bought and paid for Ukraine.You're not a friend. You're not an ally. You're a tool being used by the United States for its larger foreign policy and national security objectives vis-à-vis Russia. We provide you weapons only so far as it facilitates our objective of creating a problem for Russia. We don't want you to win. We don't care about you. We give you just enough to keep you going. And then we stand by and watch you bury your dead. Because we don't care,” Ritter said, channeling the sentiments of the American establishment.

“You’ve done your ‘duty’. You created a problem for the Russians. But now you’ve become inconvenient. And we're going to stand by and let the Russians finish the job without spending any more money or providing you with much more assistance. You don't matter to us. You're not Israel. You don't own us. We're not going to fight and die for you. I hope I made that clear,” Ritter summed up.
Israel received unprecedented military support from the US, the UK, France and Jordan on Saturday night, with the countries scrambling fighter jets and deploying ground and sea-based air and missile defense systems to shoot down a barrage of Iranian drones and missiles fired in response to Israel’s April 1 attack on the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus, Syria. Despite foreign assistance and its own sophisticated air and missile defense network, some of the Iranian projectiles nevertheless managed to make it through, striking two vital Israeli airbases.

“You got a win. Take the win,” President Biden reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that the US wouldn’t support any Israeli aggression against Iran.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240415/scott-ritter-ukraine-owned-by-us-while-with-israel-its-the-other-way-around-1117944704.html

 

 

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Ukrainian link to Moscow terror attack ‘confirmed’ – Russia’s security chief

Russian investigators have confirmed that there is a link between the perpetrators of last month’s terrorist attack in Moscow and Ukrainian nationalists, the secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolay Patrushev has said.

He reiterated Moscow’s suspicions about Ukraine’s role in the Crocus City Hall atrocity, in which over 140 people were killed.

“During the investigation, the link between the perpetrator of this terrorist attack and Ukrainian nationalists has been confirmed,” Patrushev said during a meeting of the body.

Four suspected gunmen were arrested in a Russian region bordering Ukraine hours after the mass murder they are accused of committing. Russian officials previously described them as radical Islamists and claimed that a money trail connected them to Ukrainian nationalists. The group was instructed by their handler to flee across the border, investigators have claimed.

https://www.rt.com/russia/596039-link-between-moscow-terror-attack-and-ukraine-confirmed/

 

 

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