Posted on 03/26/2025 6:24:42 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
The withdrawal of all Russian forces from Ukraine would be one of the main conditions to lift or amend EU sanctions, a European Commission spokesperson said on Wednesday.
European Union countries renewed the bloc’s two sanctions frameworks on Russia for another six months at the end of January and earlier this month. Any changes to sanctions require unanimity among its 27 member states.
“The end of the Russian unprovoked and unjustified aggression in Ukraine and unconditional withdrawal of all Russian military forces from the entire territory of Ukraine would be one of the main preconditions to amend or lift sanctions,” the spokesperson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsau.com ...
Sorry, mixed up the currency
You posted an article from Feb 20, talking about the YTD performance.
The rubble fell in 2024, so it clawed its way up in the starting months of this year.
It was 0.011 USD to 1 rubble on 25 March 2024
It is 0.012 USD to 1 rubble on 25 March 2025
You misread the time frame.
Both the article and I are talking about a period of 3+ months.
On Jan 1st 2025, the ruble was trading at 113 to a dollar.
Today it is 84 to a dollar.
The currency value changed by 35% in 3 months.
Good for them.
Sorry to butt in but this is exactly the problem we have with Russia. They present maximalist demands, appear to be watering their position down slightly in order to sign an agreement, then unilaterally modify the terms of the agreement to reinstate the maximalist demands.
2021: Putin wanted the article 5 protection of four NATO members removed, leave them literally undefended against Russian aggression, and even had the nerve to say NATO can’t even train its own people on its own soil without Kremlin approval. Putin threatened to invade Ukraine if the USA said no. The USA can’t say yes to impossible , undeliverable demands. So it had to say no, and Putin invaded Ukraine.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky knew that would happen three months before it happened; he even told the Duma to expect the invasion to start before dawn on the 22nd February 2022.
March 2022: Moscow saw the deal that was about to be signed had only succeeded because it dropped the retarded NATO ultimatums, and insisted on its negotiators adding them back in. Of course, Ukraine can’t tell NATO to do any of it, and the USA knew it couldn’t deliver on these asks. The deal was killed by Putin before Boris Johnson intervened. That’s why the Russian negotiators quit.
We’re now three years on from there and Russia is STILL moving the goalposts either at the point of signing, or moving them hours after signing.
We literally cannot trust Russia’s signature on anything. They want all compromises to be in their favor and at Ukraine’s and NATO’s expense. That is unrealistic.
Most of Russia is bordering on derelict, notwithstanding it has maybe five cities in total that look like they’ve seen any redevelopment since the 1990s. Half of Russia looks more delapidated than abandoned Pripyat.
There is no rational basis for acting as if Russia is a great power. It’s got lots of nukes and lots of vatniks, but beyond that it’s got nothing going for it. “A gas station with nukes” is being too generous. It’s a dysfunctional gas station run by a bitter old space cadet, who fantasises about an empire that died out in the 1800s to the point of boring people to death over it, who then wants you to give him your car before he’ll let you fill up its gas tank.
And the EU wants a kitten, and a puppy, and a pony and a new bicycle, too!!!
Wars that they themselves will never fight. They’ll fight to the last Ukrainian.
EU as in the UK, France, Germany, Poland or other parties to the Russian Hoax/Russia Gate Obama Spy Scandal?????????
Yea, keep it up EUrotrash. Trump has something for you, or rather Trump is going to withhold from you who oppose US diplomatic initiatives the necessary economic grease to fix your economies. Enjoy your economic meltdown this summer.
UK get ready for Trump sanctions against you. Starmer is going to have a heart attack if he actually has to govern, rather than constantly attacking Trump and the US.
No NordStream for you; only expensive unrealiable US NG for you at record breaking prices.
That neighbor is NATO who has lied since 1991... according to Trump and their westward nation creep is responsible for the conflict. But I digress Mr. Zeeper.
Brics. Two-thirds of the world’s population. The EU is self-isolating themselves, and given many of them playing active roles in the Obama Spy Scandal formerly know as the Russian Hoax... they are going to find themselves at odds with the US as well at the during the very spring and summer of their 1929 financial depression in 2025.
India only pays lip service to BRICS - China is an existential foe of India as China claims Indian territory and also props up Pakistan
Btw, NATO never made any deal or anything in 1991 or earlier or later about not letting more countries request to join
To say that Baker assured Gorbachev NATO would not “go one inch further east” after East Germany
That's false
Gorbachev and the documents show ZERO promise not to enlarge
What the Germans, Americans, British and French did agree to in 1990 was that there would be no deployment of non-German NATO forces on the territory of the former GDR. I was a deputy director on the State Department’s Soviet desk at the time, and that was certainly the point of Secretary James Baker’s discussions with Gorbachev and his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze. In 1990, few gave the possibility of a broader NATO enlargement to the east any serious thought.=======================================The agreement on not deploying foreign troops on the territory of the former GDR was incorporated in Article 5 of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, which was signed on September 12, 1990 by the foreign ministers of the two Germanys, the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France. Article 5 had three provisions:
- Until Soviet forces had completed their withdrawal from the former GDR, only German territorial defense units not integrated into NATO would be deployed in that territory.
- There would be no increase in the numbers of troops or equipment of U.S., British and French forces stationed in Berlin.
- Once Soviet forces had withdrawn, German forces assigned to NATO could be deployed in the former GDR, but foreign forces and nuclear weapons systems would not be deployed there.
When one reads the full text of the Woerner speech cited by Putin, it is clear that the secretary general’s comments referred to NATO forces in eastern Germany, not a broader commitment not to enlarge the Alliance.
Former Soviet President Gorbachev’s View
We now have a very authoritative voice from Moscow confirming this understanding. Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.
Several years after German reunification, in 1997, NATO said that in the “current and foreseeable security environment” there would be no permanent stationing of substantial combat forces on the territory of new NATO members. Up until the Russian military occupation of Crimea in March, there was virtually no stationing of any NATO combat forces on the territory of new members. Since March, NATO has increased the presence of its military forces in the Baltic region and Central Europe.
Putin is not stupid, and his aides surely have access to the former Soviet records from the time and understand the history of the commitments made by Western leaders and NATO. But the West’s alleged promise not to enlarge the Alliance will undoubtedly remain a standard element of his anti-NATO spin. That is because it fits so well with the picture that the Russian leader seeks to paint of an aggrieved Russia, taken advantage of by others and increasingly isolated—not due to its own actions, but because of the machinations of a deceitful West.
Here is the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
to summarize , it means that Soviet forces would withdraw from East Germany, and that no foreign forces would be stationed there afterwards. In other words, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, only the German military would be allowed to be stationed in the former East Germany.
NOTE -- not in the former East Germany.
Absolutely NOTHING about going to Poland, the Baltics etc.
So stop repeating the lie about "promised to not go one inch further east"
So, as long as NATO would agree not to put nuclear weapons in Ukraine, that would be the same situation we tolerated for decades with Cuba. Military forces okay, nuclear forces not.
Of course, given that Russian ballistic missile submarines already can legally get closer to New York, Washington, L.A., etc. than Ukraine is to Moscow, I'm not sure they'd have grounds for complaining anyway.
The term NATO expansion isn’t quite correct, more like NATO accepting new members.
WEASEL WORDS: NATO never made any deal or anything in 1991 or earlier or later about not letting more countries request to join.
TRUTH: Bush I and Clinton both pledged that they would not expand east of Germany.
You can wath the EU collaspe under the weight of their Russiafobia and their failed war in Ukraine where they signed on with Obama/Biden to defeat Russia and divide the spoils. The EU gambled and lost - now they are screwed, blued and Nazi-tatooed.
You are so locked in your 90’s worldview that you fail to see the glue that binds these countries. The Swift model has pushed Brics into rapid membership expansion. No one trusts the EU who still has not given up on stealing Russian’s 300B. The entire world has seen EU INTENT and they have banded together against the EUro and USD.
Zelinski’s line is that everything the US did for Ukraine did not incure an obligation from Ukraine.
Trump heard the little SOB loud and clear. Trump has shut down US troop/civilian operations in Poland for the transfer of weapons to Ukraine and in the Balkins where it was previously sent to Odessa.
Zelinski is going to see no another dime in loans or obligations from the US. Trump is going to let Zelinski and the Brits (banks ready to default by August) and France (banks ready to default by October) to wage their own private war.
Germany can find the energy to fuel their economic engine on their own or not.
The US is out. NEOCONS lost the war and the lost the election.
The Russians are smart enough to prosecute the war just slow enough to kill Ukraines, but preserve Russian lives because they know the West is headed into a RECESSION. The Russians have a 3-4% GDP. Even with a drop in oil prices which appeared temporary this week, 3% is way north of a Recession.
Russia rather than fighting a fast war with huge losses is playing their winning hand. The West is spent. The US under Trump is acknowledging the war is lost. Russia will simply finish off Ukraine as the EU is coming to realize in the past two weeks that they cannot replace the US intel or military contribution to keep Ukraine in the War.
Zelinski has ensured Kiev will be de-Nazified by his very essence.
I am sure many in Germany are saddened by the prospect of Ukraine losing their Nazis.
The US is reducing forces in Europe, and the US is going to end up sanctioning the EU.
The divorce with the the Socialists in Europe with the loss of the Obama/Biden coalation is the price of Screwing Trump since 2016.
Nope, it’s not a 90s view. If it was a 90s view with Yeltsin in power the former Eastern bloc countries saw hope that the Russian federation would end its imperialist mindset. But that ended with Putin.
Eastern bloc countries have no glue either Muscowy.
No one trusts Moscow.
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