Posted on 07/10/2023 6:48:25 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Update from Ukraine | Kadyrov's Ahmat Battalion has been ambushed near to Bakhmut | Ukraine Wins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmQuZ9AR4jE
The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to
https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-502-summary/
*** Great interactive map with viewer controlled Map magnification tool to use for each Front!
https://militaryland.net/maps/
DAILY KOS
Gorbachev Confirms: NATO Never Promised to Not Expand East
Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 1:00:05p EST
Despite what Putin, Donzo, and extremists on the Right...as well as some on the Left...will tell you, NATO never promised not to expand east. NOR did they add members to threaten Russia. NATO initially rejected members from Eastern Europe. But, these countries insisted on meeting membership requirements and joining because they felt it was the only way to remain free and democratic. Turns out, they were entirely right.
At the heart of the brewing conflict between (Putin’s) Russia and Ukraine is the claim that NATO promised during the reunification of Germany never to expand to the east. Former Soviet leader Gorbachev confirms that this claim is flatly FALSE, as you shall see below. Yet, the claim still garners undue currency from both America’s conservatives (who secretly worship Putin’s authoritarianism, militarism, racism, and sexism) and some of the America’s Left (who often start from a point of criticism of American policy and wrongly believe here that bashing NATO and the US will somehow “keep us out of war”). For what it’s worth, the concerns of war between Russia and the U.S are completely off base since we already know there is zero chance America will send soldiers to fight against Russia, even if Putin does start the largest bloodbath since World War II by invading and killing his own kinsmen in Ukraine.
So, why, do people still buy this outright and quite frankly audacious lie that NATO broke its “promise” not to expand east? Well, Putin gets a lot of credit for starting the lie through his propaganda operatives, who regularly seem to help him concoct revisionist, pseudohistorical lies by mining out-of-context quotes from old documents and then applying them to very different contexts than where were originally intended.
ARTICLE
Did NATO promise not to enlarge? Gorbachev says “no“
Steven Pifer
November 6, 2014
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/
It is abundantly evident that Russian president Vladimir Putin is no fan of NATO. Indeed, he displays a pronounced, almost obsessive, antipathy toward the alliance. He claims that NATO took advantage of Russian weakness after the collapse of the Soviet union to enlarge to its east, in violation of promises, allegedly made to Moscow by western leaders. But no such promises were made, a point now confirmed by someone who is DEFINATELY in a position to know: Mikhail Gorbachev, then president of Soviet union.
President Putin‘s NATO narrative
The West’s supposed violation of a pledge not to enlarge NATO, has long figured as a key element in Putin‘s narrative about, and against, the alliance. In his bombastic February 27 speech to the Munich security conference, he said:
And we have the right to ask: against whom is this NATO expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? I would like to quote the speech of NATO general secretary, Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at that time that: “the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory, gives the Soviet union a firm, security guarantee. “Where are these guarantees?
The Russian president returned to the subject in his March 18, 2014 Kremlin speech justifying Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea: “they, western leaders, have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed before us an accomplished fact. This happened with NATO’s expansion to the east, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders.“ although it has been clear for several years that the alliance has no appetite for putting Ukraine on a membership track, Putin went on to express horror at the prospect of NATO forces in Crimea: Russian, inaction, “would have meant that NATO‘s navy would be right there in the city of Russia’s military glory, Sevastopol, and this would create not an illusory, but a perfectly real threat to the whole of southern Russia.“
Western leaders, NEVER PLEDGED, NOT TO ENLARGE NATO, a point that several analysts have demonstrated. Mark Kramer explored the question in detail in a 2009 article in the Washington quarterly. He drew on declassified American German and Soviet records to make his case and noted that, in discussions on German reunification in the 2+4 format, the two Germany’s, plus the United States, Soviet union, Britain, and France, the SOVIETS NEVER raised the question of NATO enlargement, other than how it might apply in the former German democratic republic, GDR.
[Excerpted]
ARTICLE
NATO summit adopts decision concerning Ukraine: package of three elements
EUROPEAN PRAVDA
TUESDAY, 11 JULY 2023, 18:20
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/07/11/7410859/
The NATO Summit in Vilnius that kicked off on 11 July has adopted a package of decisions consisting of three elements concerning Ukraine, mainly its way to NATO membership.
SOURCE: Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, at the press conference following the first day of the summit, as reported by a correspondent of European Pravda
QUOTE: “Today the allies adopted a package consisting of three elements, which will bring Ukraine closer to NATO. The first element is a new durable support program for Ukraine, which will make the transition from the Soviet to NATO standards in training and doctrines possible.”
DETAILS: The second element is creating the new Ukraine-NATO council, which will be a forum for consulting and making decisions, where Ukraine and NATO members will “meet as equals”, Stoltenberg explained.
QUOTE: “The third element – we have confirmed that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, and agreed to waive the Membership Action Plan. This will make Ukraine’s accession a one-step process instead of a two-step one. We have also made it that we will announce about the invitation of Ukraine to NATO, when the allies agree, and the conditions are fulfilled.”
Stoltenberg assured that this is a strong package for Ukraine and a direct way to its NATO membership.
BACKGROUND: On 10 July, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, harshly criticized the discussions about Ukraine’s potential path towards NATO, having written: “Uncertainty is weakness.”
Still, Baker said it. It is nice seeing people post Daily KOS here again. Suits the place well.
Read in context:
Baker referencing reunification of GERMANY!!!
I actually dislike the KOS. But, I have to say I appreciated this statement:
“Yet, the claim still garners undue currency from both America’s conservatives (who secretly worship Putin’s authoritarianism, militarism, racism, and sexism) and some of the America’s Left (who often start from a point of criticism of American policy and wrongly believe here that bashing NATO and the US will somehow “keep us out of war”).
Sounds like many voices I have heard on Free Republic lately: deifying putin and trashing our country.
Despite the flinging of labels & namecalling, I am actually not in EITHER camp that worships putin.
>“Yet, the claim still garners undue currency from both America’s conservatives (who secretly worship Putin’s authoritarianism, militarism, racism, and sexism) and some of the America’s Left (who often start from a point of criticism of American policy and wrongly believe here that bashing NATO and the US will somehow “keep us out of war”).
Yeah, ad hominem bullsh*t like this does get the blood pumping. No one here is fans of Putin. If anything, we’re trying to stop the war because THOUSANDS of innocent conscripted Ukrainian men are being blown to pieces (along with Russian troops), and many of them have families and children.
Do the military contractors care? No. Do the State Dept. neocons care? No. Does the EU care? No. But these men deserve to live unmolested and instead they’re dying as cannon fodder for a pointless war that could have been solved in 2022 when only soldiers on both sides were dying.
“pointless war that could have been solved”
Actually, this pointless invasion was solved when Ukraine The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine on 24 August 1991.
The declaration was affirmed by a majority of Ukrainians in all regions of Ukraine by an independence referendum on 1 December, followed by international recognition starting on the following day.
BTW, you may not realize but there have been comments by supposed Freepers that idolize putin & continue to trash the USA. Makes me sick.
ukraine supports homosexuality, trans, and prostitution rampantly. It is secular, non-Christian... supports abundant and free abortion and sexual touriism... mixed religion, cultural race groups and creeds of all kinds.
Russia is more or less white, generally homogenous catholic/orthodox... and more pro life & anti the homo/trans perversions.
Putin is not pro west nor does he have the pro west paradigm. Russia is anti radical feminism and destruction of the nuclear Russian family.
Right now... maybe we need to back off and let the clay footed idol crumble.
if peaceful and free Europe actually means France burning with rampant Muslim invaders mixed with queers, trannies and sex traffickers of childre or any aspect of those rainbow features, perhaps we should let Europe crumble. Abortion upon whim in Europe and homo/sex trafficking at large is not something we should be paying for, in either blood or treasure.
Ukraine is drug money laundering and the hub of Democrat and GOPe support.
we have NO business inserting ourselves in anti constitutional foreign entanglements.
>Actually, this pointless invasion was solved when Ukraine The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine on 24 August 1991.
Yeah, well guess what? NATO went up against Russia and lost. We’re out of M795s. The whole war is being fought by artillery. And we have Neocons telling us we’re going to fight China in a couple of years?
People better get their heads out of their as*es because this war is going to end one of three ways.
1) It goes on for years and Ukraine loses all of its male population.
2) It escalates into full on war with probably nuclear exchange.
3) It ends with some kind of peace treaty in which Russia takes everything it wanted ALREADY. And NATO walks away with trillions in materiel decimated and unable to produce more because all the steel comes from China.
There are a lot of people that don’t realize our ‘betters’ have pushed this war and it seems almost an intentional ploy to destroy our own military strength.
I disagree with most of your statements. The Russian Federation is NOT Holy NOR is Putin a saint.
1. RUSSIAN ORTHODOX
My good buddy Russian Orthodox priest admitted the church struggles to get congregations to attend churc, “only attend weddings and funerals.”
Top 10 Countries with the Highest Abortion Rates (annually per 1000 women) - United Nations
Russia - 53.7 (2004)
Vietnam - 35.2 (2000)
Kazakhstan - 35.0 (2004)
Estonia - 33.3 (2005)
Belarus - 31.7 (2004)
Romania - 27.8 (2004)
Ukraine - 27.5 (2004)
Latvia - 27.3 (2004)
Cuba - 24.8 (2004)
China - 24.0 (1998)
1. United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking Annual Report 2021
Report
Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
December 14, 2021
https://www.state.gov/united-states-advisory-council-on-human-trafficking-annual-report-2021/
2. Russia is one of the largest hubs of human trafficking and has some of the weakest laws fighting against it. In fact, the Global Slavery Index states that, in 2016, “794,000 people lived in conditions of modern slavery in Russia
3. U.S. State Department says Belarus, Iran, RUSSIA, and Turkmenistan remain among the WORST OFFENDER of human trafficking and forced labor.
ARTICLES
1- Horrible, horrible record of Human Trafficking in RUSSIA
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-criticizes-russia-annual-human-trafficking-report-2023-06-15/
2- ‘Worst Human Traffickers’ Include RUSSIA, Belarus, Iran, Turkmenistan
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-belarus-iran-turkmenistan-human-traffickers-report/29326302.html
3- US Places RUSSIA on Human Trafficking, Child Soldier Lists
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-places-russia-on-human-trafficking-child-soldier-lists/6665537.html
1. US DEPT OF JUSTICE
NCJ Number
195892
Journal
Journal of Drug Issues Volume: 31 Issue: 4 Dated: Fall 2001 Pages: 1007-1038
Author(s)
Letizia Paoli
Editor(s)
Bruce Bullington
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/drug-trafficking-russia-forum-organized-crime
ANNOTATION
This article reports that today in Russia drug users can buy the same illicit psychoactive drugs that can be found in any Western European or North American city and addresses the question of whether drug trafficking in Russia is the domain of organized crime or merely an organized crime activity carried out by a plurality of independent actors.
ABSTRACT
This article reports that today, and over the past 10 years in Russia, drug users can buy the same illicit psychoactive drugs that can be found in any Western European or North American city and addresses the question of whether drug trafficking in Russia is the domain of organized crime or merely an organized crime activity carried out by a plurality of independent actors.
Ninety in-depth interviews with different types of experts and 15 drug users and dealers were carried out in 9 cities, plus a sample of newly obtained drug-related criminal cases and intelligence documents were analyzed.
It was found that the idea that drug trafficking was dominated in Russia by large, structured criminal groups, was scarcely supported in law enforcement statistical data but rather was characterized by a low level of sophistication and organization.
In terms of avoiding law enforcement consequences, it appears that incorporating drug transactions into kinship and friendship networks (groups defined by ethnic characteristics, by age, and as “ordinary people,”) and reducing the number of customers and employees were the most frequent strategies employed by drug dealers.
It is concluded that due to the constraints of product illegality in Russia, there is no imminent likelihood of the creation of large scale modern bureaucracies, such as a Russian drug mafia, as has been thought. Tables, references”
** More research upon request per Freepmail.
True. And sending billions of American tax dollars to a known money-laundering hub with no real audits of where these funds are going and how they’re being used is adding insult to injury.
“Russia hasn’t been breaking the promise that NATO won’t move eastward.”
You don’t know what you are talking about. There was NEVER a promise that NATO would not expand eastward. NATO was/is meant to expand.
Dictator Yelensky. So sorry you couldn’t place his name.
Yelensky is destroying the Ukraine. Corrupter Yelensky has killed more Ukrainians than Russia has.
I hope you feel better now.
The more butt you kick the faster you use up your weapons and ammunition. That is Warfare 1/201. Most kids learm it the first time they have a snow ball fight.
If that is the kind of question the pro Russia folks are asking no wonder they are supporting a lost cause. It demonstrates total ignorance of reality.
Maybe Speedy has seen the light of the summer sun and is spending time with kids now that school is out. Perhaps Speedy sees no more need to work for Ukraine’s success now that Turkey has returned the Azov commanders and agreed to having Sweden join NATO. Perhaps unlike you and the other Pooty Pals who cannot see reality when Wagner socks you in the face, Speedy sees it is all over, except for the trip home to mother Russia.
If Putin were smart he would start redeploying his troops further East, but perhaps he is so caught up in the Prigozhin drama, he cannot see reality clearly, and his famous chess skills are causing moves like crazed knights. Meanwhile Xi smiles and does nothing for the moment and waits!
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