https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emD1cN2xEz4

The most important video on Ukraine | Prof. John Mearsheimer

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvFn7KUCTvE

How the war in Ukraine will end | John Mearsheimer and Lex Fridman

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJV9DHHSsuM

Larry Johnson : NATO Grasping at Straws

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZm_ZNQ_2LQ

SCOTT RITTER | Putin's BOMBSHELL On Ukraine | GAZA WAR Updates | US ELECTIONS 2024 BIDEN

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3piqCBjsPo

Russia Destroys Kiev's HIMARS + Responds to Claims of 'Children's Hospital Attack' w/ Mark Sleboda

 

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A deadly missile incident at a prominent children’s hospital in Kiev will be used by Western nations to justify sending more weapons to Ukraine, Russian Ambassador to the US Antatoly Antonov has claimed.

The Okhmatdet (short for “protection of motherhood and childhood”) medical facility in the Ukrainian capital was seriously damaged by a powerful missile explosion that landed near it amid a Russian long-range barrage on multiple targets in Ukraine. Kiev and Moscow have accused each other of firing the projectile.

Antonov accused American media of hiding some relevant facts from their audience, including the assessment of the Russian Defense Ministry that the missile came from a Ukrainian air defense system stationed inside Kiev. Instead, the press and the US government are “whipping up hysterics,” the diplomat claimed on Monday.

”The reality is that the incident with the destroyed hospital, which happened on the eve of a NATO summit in Washington, was apparently taken by Kiev’s backers as a ‘perfect gift’ to justify further escalation of the conflict and continuation of hostilities to the last Ukrainian,” the ambassador lamented.

Senior Ukrainian officials have suggested that the Russian military deliberately targeted Okhmatdet. Vladimir Zelensky has declared that the missile hit and Moscow’s attribution of it to Ukrainian air defenses demonstrate “the cynicism of ugly bastards in the Kremlin.”

Pro-Kiev media outlets have said that the weapon that struck the hospital was a Russian air-launched Kh-101 cruise missile. Critics of that claim allege that the projectile, which can apparently be seen in a video filmed from a distance by a witness, was probably an AIM120 fired by a NASAM missile system or an interceptor fired by the MIM-104 Patriot missile system. Western donors have provided those US-developed weapons to Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian officials, two adults, including a doctor, were killed at Okhmatdet, while ten others were injured. Two storeys of the facility’s main building were reported destroyed.

A three-day NATO leaders summit is scheduled to start on Tuesday. Ukraine will reportedly be offered a “bridge to membership” at the event, and a Germany-based permanent mission to aid the delivery of western weapons.

https://www.rt.com/russia/600690-kiev-childrens-hospital-ambassador/

 

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MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The idea of Russia’s defeat is impossible for the country to imagine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.

“[Look at Russia’s] Soldiers, equipment, technology, which you use in a war, so to defeat Russia is an idea which in Russia it is even difficult to imagine. The possibility that Russia will be beaten is totally out of any calculation,” Orban told Bild.

Following his recent discussions with Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, Orban stated that “the next two to three months will be much more brutal than we think.”

Last Friday, Orban and his delegation arrived in Moscow and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He described the Moscow visit as the next phase of his peace mission, the first phase of which was a trip to Kiev on July 2. The Hungarian Prime Minister announced his intention to soon hold several more “similarly unexpected” meetings. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto advised European politicians to “buckle up” for Orban’s next steps in the “peace mission.”

At the same time, Hungary does not have a peace plan for Ukraine.

“We do not have a specific peace plan, we are sure that it can be worked out only together with the parties [to the conflict], but we are also sure that a ceasefire is necessary for dialogue, because it is unrealistic to hold effective negotiations before that,” Gergely Gulyas, the Hungarian prime minister’s chief of staff, told a briefing, broadcast by M1.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240708/orban-reveals-three-reasons-why-russia-cannot-be-defeated-1119288527.html

 

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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Putin Shooting Straight From the Hip On Defenseless Europe

 

BY Phil Butler

 

Why must the Western elites “blink first” in the hyperbolic war being carried out against Russia? It’s not just because Russia’s Vladimir Putin recently said so at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. The so-called “West” is feigning and barking about escalations in Ukraine, but the reality is that Europe is on the ropes.

The Call for Pragmatism

The BBC reported the other day and quoted Mr. Putin saying Europe is defenceless in the case of a nuclear exchange with Russia. The Russians have also indicated the right to sell/deploy massive strike weapons to nations threatened by America and the Western allies. This, in response to Washington giving the go-ahead for Ukraine’s Zelensky to hit targets inside Russia, is only logic. Joe Biden and his contemporaries in Europe should be thrilled Russia is led by a calm pragmatist instead of a foaming hothead like my country always seems to elect a president.

The foremost question at this juncture is, “Is Vladimir Putin right?” One sure way to know is the instant Washington think tanks call for cooler heads. A case in point is a report by James M. Acton from the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center for President Biden to stop escalating the situation. Acton is the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He’s convinced that Ukraine’s recent attacks meant to degrade Russia’s strategic early warning system capability could cause a devastating response. Ukraine’s seemingly meaningless attacks on Russian radar facilities recently stink of Pentagon strategy for the keen observer.

Those still possessing their faculties in the West, even at think tanks funded by the elites, understand certain lines can never be crossed. Attacking, even by proxy, part of Russia’s nuclear warning/deterrent system is as dangerous as it gets. By the way, the BBC did not report on this. Acton and others are cautioning Joe Biden not to widen U.S. weapons use by Zelensky further. Let’s hope whoever tells Sleepy Joe what to do is paying attention. This quote from Acton’s report should suffice:

“If Moscow believes that Washington could conduct a successful preemptive attack on its nuclear forces, its trigger finger could get very itchy, raising the risk that Russia might launch a large-scale nuclear attack based on a false or misinterpreted warning. Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears fixated on the concern that the United States might launch a first strike on Russia’s nuclear forces and leadership.”

Europe’s Strategic Shortcomings

Another striking angle that points to Putin’s attitude and correctness on this situation is brought to light in the European Council on Foreign Relations ideas. Without any real emergency plan to protect EU citizens, the geniuses leading the bloc think the best policy forward is to create more first-strike capability. Yes, “Striking absence: Europe’s missile gap and how to close it” is an advertisement for the EU’s deep strike capabilities into Russia. The report also reveals what NATO and the EU are good at – studying and discussing. The following from that lame-brained report is telling:

“NATO has been studying options for how to counter the threat from Russian missiles, many of which can also deliver nuclear warheads. While missile defence needs to be part of the solution, extending an effective missile shield over the entirety of NATO’s European territory would be both technically infeasible and prohibitively expensive. Even Ukraine, which has the most missile defences in Europe, is only able to selectively protect critical infrastructure and population centres.”

In Mr. Putin’s words, Europe is defenceless unless the EU commission feels like spending several trillion euros on its own Iron Dome. Their rocket scientist (pun intended) solution seems to be forcing Vladimir Putin to launch first. Oh, brother, it’s difficult for many to understand why he has not already. Maybe he’s not worried about NATO, since the military alliance is still “planning” ways to defend Europe. Once again, Vladimir Putin was honest and correct in suggesting Europeans are sitting ducks if things get more dicey. As for European people, only about 10% of polled believe Ukraine can win over Russia in this military action.

The Liberal Order in charge of Europe right now is dead set on creating (See Early Warnings for All from the UN)  an early warning system (EWS) in case of a climate-associated disaster, but finally pushing the Russians into the corner does not merit such vehemence. For a coherent understanding of Russia, Putin, and the situation our Western leaders have put us in, please read this report from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on the Europe going nuclear case. Even the most left-leaning nuclear experts in the world say, “Euro deterrent is a bad idea,” which further amplifies Russia’s growing apprehension about the warfare being waged by the West these days. Even the Atlantic Council suggests Europe is over if the Russians decide to go all in. “Russian victory in Ukraine would leave Europe at Putin’s mercy,” while meant to sell more weapons to Zelensky, comes right out and admits exactly what Putin told attendees in St. Petersburg the other day.

In addition, when Politico chastises both France and the UK over nuclear deterrent capabilities, V.V. Putin is again supported by the would-be enemy. The intro of the piece in question tells part of the story by blogger Professor Derrick Wyatt:

“Break it gently to the French president, but it will take more than the French and U.K. nuclear deterrents to defend the Continent without the U.S.”

Public Sentiment and Economic Impact

From the standpoint of the Europeans I talk to, this proxy war on Russia is costing people their livelihoods and more. What was supposed to be a record tourism season here on Crete, in Greece, is looking like a bust so far. Retailers tell me, “Retail is dead,” while once successful taverna owners rub their thumbs and forefinger together to explain why all the restaurants here are empty in June. “No money,” the owner of a famous fish tavern in Heraklion’s city center told me when I asked, “Where are all the tourists?” Perhaps the draining power of the elites in the West can only be rescued by a world conflict. It’s happened before. One thing is sure, however, is that Mr. Putin seems to be shooting straight from the hip again.

 

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. 

 

https://journal-neo.su/2024/07/08/putin-shooting-straight-from-the-hip-on-defenseless-europe/

 

 

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Save Ukraine from American meddling     By Jeffrey D. Sachs

 

Ukraine can only be saved at the negotiating table, not on the battlefield. Sadly, this point is not understood by Ukrainian politicians such as Oleg Dunda, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, who recently wrote an oped  against my repeated call for negotiations.

Dunda believes that the U.S. will save Ukraine from Russia. The opposite is true. Ukraine actually needs to be saved from the U.S.

Ukraine epitomises Henry Kissinger’s famous aphorism, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

Thirty years ago, Ukraine was embraced by America’s neoconservatives, who believed that it was the perfect instrument for weakening Russia. The neocons are the ideological believers in American hegemony, that is, the right and responsibility of the U.S. to be the world’s sole superpower and global policeman (as described, for example, in the Project for a New American Century’s 2000 report, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”).

The neocons chose three methods to push U.S. power and influence into Ukraine: first, meddle in Ukraine’s internal politics; second, expand NATO to Ukraine, despite Russia’s red line; and third, arm Ukraine and apply economic sanctions to defeat Russia.

The neocons whispered a sweet fantasy into Ukraine’s ear back in the 1990s: Come with us into the glorious paradise of NATO-land and you’ll be safe ever after. Pro-European Ukrainian politicians, especially in Western Ukraine, loved the story. They believed that Ukraine would join NATO just as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic had in 1999.

The idea of expanding NATO to Ukraine was fatuous and dangerous. From Russia’s perspective, the NATO expansion into Central Europe in 1999 was deeply objectionable and a stark violation of the solemn U.S. promise that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward,” but it was not deadly to Russia’s interests. Those countries do not border the Russian mainland. NATO enlargement to Ukraine, however, would mean the loss of Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet at Sevastopol and the prospect of U.S. missiles minutes from the Russian mainland.

There was, in fact, no prospect that Russia would ever accept NATO enlargement to Ukraine. The current CIA Director, William Burns, said as much in a memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when he was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 2008. The memo was famously entitled “Nyet means Nyet.”

Burns wrote, “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

The neoconservatives never described this Russian redline to the American or global public, then or now. Senior diplomats and scholars in the U.S. had reached the same conclusion about NATO enlargement more generally in the 1990s, as has been recently documented in detail.

Ukrainians and their supporters insist that Ukraine has the “right” to join NATO. The U.S. also says so repeatedly. NATO’s policy says that NATO enlargement is an issue between NATO and the candidate country, and that it is no business of Russia or any other non-NATO country.

This is preposterous. I’ll start to believe that claim when Adm. John Kirby declares from the White House podium that Mexico has the “right” to invite China and Russia to put military bases along the Rio Grande, based on the same “open door policy” as NATO. The Monroe Doctrine has said just the opposite for two centuries.

So Ukraine was set up for disaster by the neocons. Actually, the Ukrainian public sensed the truth, and overwhelmingly opposed NATO membership until the 2014 uprising that overthrew Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Let’s retrace the chronology of this shockingly misguided American policy. In the early 2000s, the U.S. began to meddle intensively in Ukraine’s politics. The U.S. spent billions of dollars, according to Victoria Nuland, to build Ukraine’s “democracy,” meaning to turn Ukraine to the U.S. and away from Russia. Even so, the Ukrainian public remained strongly against NATO membership, and elected Viktor Yanukovych, who championed Ukrainian neutrality, in 2010.

In February 2014, the Obama team actively sided with neo-Nazi paramilitaries, which stormed government buildings on February 21 and overthrew Yanukovych the next day, cloaked as a “Revolution of Dignity.” The U.S. immediately recognised the new government. The astounding intercepted call between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, where they talk about who should be in the new Ukrainian government several weeks before the rebellion, demonstrates the level of American involvement.

The post-uprising government in Ukraine was filled with Russia-haters, and was backed by extremist right-wing paramilitaries like the Azov Brigade. When the ethnically Russian Donbas region broke away from the uprising, the central government aimed to retake the region by force. A peace agreement was reached between Kyiv and the Donbas in 2015, known as Minsk II, that would end the fighting by extending autonomy to the ethnically Russian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Alas, Ukraine and the U.S. undermined the treaty even while publicly endorsing it. The treaty was a mere temporising measure (according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel) to give Ukraine time to build its army. The U.S. shipped armaments to Ukraine to build up its military, make it interoperable with NATO and support the retaking of the Donbas by force.

The next diplomatic opportunity to save Ukraine came in December 2021, when Vladimir Putin proposed a U.S.-Russia Treaty on Security Guarantees, calling for an end to NATO enlargement, among other issues (including the urgent question of U.S. missile placements near Russia). Instead of negotiating, Biden again flatly said no to Putin on the question of ending NATO enlargement.

Yet another diplomatic opportunity to save Ukraine arose in March 2022, just days after the start of Russia’s “special military operation,” launched on February 24. Russia said that it would stop the war if Ukraine would agree to neutrality. Zelensky agreed, documents were exchanged and a peace deal was nearly reached. Yet, according to former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the U.S. and other NATO allies, notably the U.K., stepped in to block the agreement, telling Ukraine to fight on. Recently, Boris Johnson said that Ukraine should keep fighting to preserve “Western hegemony.”

Ukraine can still be saved through neutrality, even as hundreds of thousands of lives have been squandered by the failure to negotiate. The rest of the issues, including boundaries, can also be resolved through diplomacy. The killing can end now, before more disasters befall Ukraine and the world. As for the United States, 30 years of neoconservative misrule is long enough.

Republished from The Hill on June 27, 2024.

https://johnmenadue.com/save-ukraine-from-american-meddling/

 

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THE PURPOSE OF AMERICA ARMING THE KIEV REGIME WAS NEVER TO SAVE UKRAINE, BUT TO WEAKEN RUSSIA THROUGH NATO... IT HAS NOT WORKED BUT THE EMPIRE IS STUBBORN AND THE AMERICAN MILITARY COMPLEX MAKES MONEY FROM CONTINUING THE WAR.... WHILE MORE THAN 1500 UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS ARE ELIMINATED DAILY....

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

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) - An air defense missile that hit a children's hospital in Kiev was likely fired from a Norway-supplied NASAMS system, and Russia is waiting for a reaction from Oslo in this regard, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that it has been confirmed, including by numerous witnesses, that a NASAMS missile landed in a building on the territory of the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kiev.

"We are also waiting for a reaction from the Norwegian authorities who apparently supplied the Zelenskyy clique with this NASAMS system. Did they authorize it to be used to strike a children’s hospital, and also to be placed in residential areas?" Nebenzia told a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that claims about a deliberate Russian strike on civilian targets in Kiev are not true. The destruction was caused by the fall of a Ukrainian air defense missile, and this is not the first time that Kiev has engaged in such provocations, it said.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240709/norway-supplied-air-defense-system-fired-missile-that-hit-hospital-in-kiev---russias-un-envoy-1119317444.html

 

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Declassified docs: US knew Russia felt 'snookered' by NATO    Clinton officials understood Moscow's objection to eastward expansion

 

BY BLAISE MALLEY

 

This week at the NATO summit in Washington, alliance leaders are expected to sign a joint communique that declares that Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to joining the alliance. 

This decision is likely to be celebrated as a big step forward and a reflection of Western unity behind Ukraine, but a series of newly declassified documents show that the U.S. has known all along that NATO expansion over the last 30 years has posed a threat to Russia, and may have been a critical plank in Moscow's aggressive policies over that time, culminating in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“The documents show that the Clinton administration’s policy in the 1990s emphasizing two tracks of both NATO enlargement and Russian engagement often collided, leaving lasting scars on [then Russian President Boris] Yeltsin, who constantly sought what he called partnership with the U.S,” according to the National Security Archive, which wrote about the newly declassified documents this week. “But as early as fall 1994, according to the documents, the Partnership for Peace alternative security structure for Europe, which included both Russia and Ukraine, was de-emphasized by U.S. policymakers, who only delayed NATO enlargement until both Clinton and Yeltsin could get through their re-elections in 1996.”

In 1995, then-national security adviser Anthony Lake warned President Bill Clinton that Russian leadership would not accept the expansion of the alliance to the East.

“Russian opposition to NATO enlargement is unlikely to yield in the near or medium term to some kind of grudging endorsement; Russia’s opposition is deep and profound,” Lake wrote. “For the period ahead, the Russian leadership will do its level best to derail our policy, given its conviction that any eastward expansion of NATO is at root antithetical to Russia’s long-term interests.” 

Two years later, as Washington and Moscow were entering negotiations on the future of NATO-Russia cooperation, State Department official Dennis Ross wrote what the Archive calls an “astute and empathetic analysis” of the Russian position on NATO expansion. 

“To begin with, the Russians for all the reasons you know see NATO expansion through a political, psychological, and historical lens,” Ross wrote in a memo to Strobe Talbott, then the Deputy Secretary of State. 

“First they feel they were snookered at the time of German unification. As you noted with me, [former Secretary of State James] Baker's promises on not extending NATO military presence into what was East Germany were part of a perceived commitment not to expand the Alliance eastward,” the memo continues.”In addition, the 1991 promise to begin to transform NATO from a military alliance into a political alliance was part of the Soviet explanation for accepting a unified Germany in NATO.”

Because these perceived promises were never made concretely, Ross says, the Russians were “taking the lessons of 1991 and are trying to apply them now in the negotiations on NATO expansion.”

Despite these roadblocks, Clinton and his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin nonetheless reached an agreement on a series of issues at a summit in Helsinkione month later. During a private conversation with Clinton at that summit — which was part of the set of declassified documents — Yeltsin would say that he reached an agreement with NATO not because he wanted to “‘but because it is a forced step.”

In his exchange with the American president, Yeltsin made one thing apparent. “[NATO] enlargement should also not embrace the former Soviet republics,” he said. “I cannot sign any agreement without such language. Especially Ukraine. If you get them involved, it will create difficulties in our talks with Ukraine on a number of issues.” Clinton did not agree to a “gentlemen’s agreement” to that effect, and the two men eventually moved on. 

The consequences of choosing to ignore Russian concerns decades ago continue to have an impact on relations between the West and Moscow today, experts say. 

“These declassified documents underscore that U.S. officials clearly have long understood the depth of Moscow's objections to NATO's eastward expansion, going back to the Gorbachev era and Yeltsin's presidency. Yet Washington proceeded with this expansion anyway, judging that Russia would remain powerless to prevent it,” George Beebe, director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute, told Responsible Statecraft. “Today, Russia is both embittered by this history and much more powerful than it was then, and it is resolved to block NATO's incorporation of Ukraine and Georgia by whatever means necessary.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-russia-nato/

 

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SEE ALSO: https://sputnikglobe.com/20240711/nato-declaration-is-stark-neoconservative-recommitment-to-us-hegemony---sachs-1119335102.html