Posted on 09/26/2025 3:10:49 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
“Dare to Ukraine” is The Kyiv Independent’s wartime travel series that shows the country beyond the war headlines.
In Episode 4 of “Dare to Ukraine: Village,” Masha’s quiet rural routine is interrupted by a new mission: uncover the local history and debunk Russian propaganda myths about Ukraine. What starts as a simple day in the countryside turns into a journey through Ukraine’s past and present — proving that even the smallest villages and communities carry stories of independence that shatter Russian lies."
You always bring the receipts. Always!
If it’s not Denys Davydov, it is Jack Broe Ukie Propaganda.
ALL Ukie Propaganda sites, none the less.
You and George Soros are on the same page.
Give your buddy George Soros a big wet one for me.
What part of the below do you disagree with?
Discussions began in the 1990s with Ukraine AND the Russian federation joining NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in 1994, followed by an Intensified Dialogue in 2005.
The key “teasing” often cited is the 2008 Bucharest Summit, where NATO declared that Ukraine (and Georgia) “will become members” someday, though without a timeline or Membership Action Plan (MAP).
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were vocal about rejecting Georgia and Ukraine’s request for fear of provoking Putin and merkel emphasized that NATO expansion could cross Russia’s “red lines,
What was the result if giving in to Russia? Was Russian happy?
No, The summit’s outcome is widely seen as emboldening Russia. Just four months later, in August 2008, Russia invaded Georgia following escalating tensions in South Ossetia, occupying about 20% of its territory and recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent.
Wo that means that you agree that this wasn’t a formal commitment?
.Gorbachev Himself Confirmed This Was Not a Promise
In a 2014 interview with the foreign policy journal *Russia Beyond the Headlines* (now *Russia Beyond*), Gorbachev explicitly debunked the “broken promise” myth:
“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.”
He reiterated that the GDR-specific agreement was honored for decades, and while he later criticized NATO’s 1990s enlargement as a “mistake” in spirit, he never claimed a formal pledge was violated—because there wasn’t one.
Gorbachev’s candor here undercuts revisionist narratives; he even noted in 2009 that he might have sought a written non-expansion clause if he’d foreseen the USSR’s collapse, but hindsight doesn’t retroactively create a promise.
On this thread, there are exchanges about whether or not there were promises about expansion, NATO or Russia, whether or not these "content creators" working for their income through Google/YouTube AdSense and all. As if everything is just about "differences of opinion."
There are realities, as nations seek their interests, not just opinions.
This war between non-NATO Ukraine and non-NATO is not about some difference of opinion. With NATO nations supplying Ukraine, it is a proxy war as Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated openly. That makes it a complex phenomenon with only complex potential solutions. Opinions on a Free Republic thread serve only to enliven the threads, but are of likely zero effect on the whole. So propaganda efforts on any side come down to topics for FR debate and even argument.
Ditto, in the sense of non-NATO Israel and non-NATO Arab nations, which is also not about some difference of opinion. It too is some sort of proxy war, and complex. With someone like Petraeus meeting with a Syrian who only a year ago was officially a "terrorist," one sees interests at sake.
One observes a comment in the thread" "PLEASE NOTE: No arguments. No name-calling. No insults. No contention. Just the expression on thread of differing opinions."
Partly an echo of something the Robinsons have expressed and partly a distortion of what the Robinsons and their moderators have expressed. One can look back to what has been said, and it's not a matter of "differing opinions" and certainly is quite the opposite of "no contention." Hotlinks....
Sidebar Moderator to UMCRevMom@aol.comReceipts? Well, at least some background information which can be verified. So many YouTube channels are "content" creations made by those who do not identify their names. That's not news. It's like some news article "reporting" anonymous sources and the like. But all domains and graphics and more give up some information which cannot be "anonymous." After all, "sources say."
KNOCK OFF THE SPAMMING!Sidebar Moderator to UMCRevMom@aol.com 2/29/2024
As I said, less propaganda would be appreciated.
Jim Robinson to UMCRevMom@aol.com 12/2/2023
Calling it a “proxy war” is falling for Putin’s propaganda.
Ukraine would never have wanted to join NATO if Putin in the early 2000s had started talking about the USSR collapse as a bad thing and started promoting Muscowite imperialist past as a thing to be emulated.
Poland and the Baltica knew that Moscows imperialist mindset hadn’t changed despite the views of Yeltsin, so they joined earlier.
This war if for Ukraine not to be assimilated into Muscowy
What an amusing comment. The Trump administration's Secretary of State Marco Rubio apparently -- using your assertion -- is "falling for Putin's propaganda."
As this is your express concern, here for you is contact information for him, that you may correct him,,,,
Secretary of State Marco Rubio
This case is s parallel to the 1950s Suez canal war when The UK and France, well more the UK realized it was no longer an imperial power.
A good book is Alex von Tunzelmann’s Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary and the crisis that shook the world.
Or like Berlin when they lost WWI but German troops were outside German borders and people didn’t have the war cone to them. So the “stab in the back” myth.
Muscowy lost its empire in 1991 peacefully. No one in the Eastern Bloc believed that possible but it happened. However the drawback of a peaceful collapse is that the zombie empire doesn’t realise it is a zombie
Yes, anyone who believes that is falling for Putin’s propaganda
Please direct your comment to Secretary of State Rubio.
One notes you did not comment on your Prime Minister Tusk's statement, available to you via a hotlink. I'll include it again, for your ease.
“500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians. [...] Europe today lacks the belief that we are truly a global force.”Polish PM Donald Tusk, speaking before his flight to London for the European Ukraine summit: X, 2 March 2025
Yes, anyone who believes that is falling for Putin’s propaganda.
In Marco Rubio’s case, he isn’t “falling for Putin’s propaganda” because he’s not some unwitting dupe; he’s a sharp operator who’s been hawkish on Russia for years. As a senator, he pushed sanctions on Moscow, called out election interference, and backed arming Ukraine—hardly Putin’s fan club.
Even now he’s framing the conflict as a proxy war in the sense that Western aid lets Ukraine punch above its weight without NATO boots on the ground. That’s a tactical observation, not a full endorsement of the Kremlin’s spin. The propaganda trap isn’t in acknowledging the aid dynamic—it’s in pretending that’s the whole story, ignoring Ukraine’s sovereignty and Russia’s revanchist playbook.
Russia’s leadership frequently calls the war a proxy conflict with NATO to portray Russia as defending itself against Western aggression, deflecting from its own role as the invader.
This is echoing Moscow’s framing that Ukraine lacks agency and is merely a Western pawn—a view that aligns with Russian propaganda efforts to delegitimize Ukraine’s independence.
Putin’s rhetoric, especially since 2014, has framed Ukraine as an inseparable part of Russia’s “historical space,” with his 2021 essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” denying Ukrainian statehood’s legitimacy. This mirrors historical Muscovite/Russian imperial claims over Ukrainian lands, from the Tsarist era to Soviet times.
NATO is helping Ukraine because if Ukraine was absorbed militarily by Muscowy, that would only feed Muscowy’s ambitions. If Putin had done this assimilation peacefully like he was proceeding with Białoruś (the formation of the Union state as a prelude to Muscowy swallowing up Belarus), no one would have done anything.
But Putin had hubris and saw a weak American president (well 2 weak Amerykański Presidents: Obama and Biden) and overplayed his hand.
My point stands: Reducing this to “NATO vs. Russia via Ukraine” buys into the narrative that Ukraine’s just a battlefield for great-power games, not a nation fighting tooth and nail to avoid being carved up like a 19th-century colony. If you want to chat about why Putin’s imperial nostalgia (from that 2005 USSR lament to the 2021 “historical unity” essay) lit the fuse on Ukraine’s NATO dreams, I’m all ears. But yeah, the war’s core is Kyiv’s refusal to be Moscow’s next assimilation 2.0—not some scripted proxy script.
Your move—what’s Rubio’s take on the “Muscovy assimilation” angle?
Fair point—I did skip over that Tusk quote in the heat of the exchange, and thanks for the nudge (and the relink). As someone living in Poland, I see it pop up in the feeds all the time, especially since it dropped back in March ahead of that London summit. It’s a punchy line, no doubt: Tusk hammering home the “paradox” of Europe’s massive population and military edge (he cited stats like our 2.6 million soldiers vs. Russia’s 1.1 million, twice the fighter jets, etc.) begging Uncle Sam for backup against a numerically smaller Russia.
And yeah, he framed it as a willpower issue—”Europe lacks the belief that we are truly a global force”—pushing for more self-reliance and that “coalition of the willing” idea to back Ukraine without over-relying on the U.S.
Look, I’ll give credit where it’s due: On the raw numbers and the need to wake up Europe’s defense game, Tusk’s spot-on. Russia’s bogged down in Ukraine after three-plus years, proving they’re no invincible juggernaut, and it’s embarrassing that a continent with our resources still leans so hard on American muscle.
Living here, I feel that frustration daily—especially with the half-measures from Brussels that leave us exposed. It’s why Poland’s been out front on ramping up spending and training reserves; Tusk even floated mandatory training for every able-bodied guy by year’s end, which, hey, at least it’s action over talk.
But here’s where I push back, as someone who’s generally at odds with Tusk’s whole vibe: This isn’t just a feel-good pep talk—it’s selective tough talk that dodges the real culprits in Europe’s weakness. Tusk’s crew has been in power long enough to know that Germany’s still dragging its feet on tanks and ammo, France is grandstanding without delivering, and the EU’s bureaucracy is a black hole for actual readiness.
If he really wanted “belief in our strength,” why not lead harder on ditching Russian gas imports faster or pushing real EU-wide procurement instead of photo-op summits? It smells like classic Tusk: Soundbites for the headlines, but the follow-through? Meh, that’s for the next coalition.
Tying it back to our chat—this quote actually undercuts the pure “proxy war” spin a bit. Tusk’s admitting Europe’s got the tools to stand up to Russia *itself*, which means Ukraine’s fight isn’t just some American-orchestrated sideshow; it’s a wake-up call for all of us on this side of the pond to get our act together and back Kyiv without excuses
Russia is the aggressor, full stop, and pretending otherwise plays into their hands. If anything, Tusk’s line is a reminder that we in Poland (and the rest of Europe) have no business sitting this out—agency starts at home.
I love it when Ukraine disables all or part of Russian oil refineries. The cracking towers are the prime targets, hitting diesel and gasoline storage tanks come second. They make spectacular explosions that spread the flames and panic. I would hate being a firefighter there, it is super dangerous.
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Distillation columns
Understanding Cracking Towers: The Heart of Oil Refining
Cracking towers, also known as distillation columns, are essential components in the oil refining industry. They play a pivotal role in the conversion of crude oil into valuable products by separating various hydrocarbon fractions based on their differing boiling points.
The primary function of a cracking tower is to enhance the yield of light hydrocarbons, such as gasoline and diesel, from heavier fractions found in crude oil. The distillation process starts with heating the crude oil, causing it to vaporize. This vapor then rises up through the column, where it encounters a cooler environment.
As the temperature decreases, components with higher boiling points condense and are collected at various points along the column, while lighter fractions continue to ascend. This separation results in the production of various outputs including naphtha, kerosene, and gas oils, each of which can undergo further refining.
The significance of cracking towers is accentuated by the efficiency they bring to refineries, allowing more effective separation and enhancing overall productivity while minimizing energy consumption. Their design and operational parameters must be meticulously optimized to maximize throughput and ensure that the final products meet quality standards.
Wikipedia
I confess that I used a couple of search engines to look for the phrase, as you'd placed it in quotation marks. Not much to which to link, for discussion. Found stuff going back four and more centuries, and well before the Bolsheviks made such a fine mess of things. I suppose nations have memories, with these United States only going back perhaps three.
So after searching for lots of results, most contradictory between them in various ways, I thought to look at Poland's borders. Especially as discussion on other threads spoke to "sacrosanct borders."
I come to see that through Europe, east and west alike, borders have been unstable. In one source about Poland's, I read:
"A synthesis of relevant literature on borders shows how the specific functions of borderlands can be categorised into at least four overarching types, including by reference to barriers, peripherality and isolation, line of differentiation, and axis of integration. This then gains verification through empirical analysis of processes actually taking place along the borders of Poland. It proves possible to identify and take account of periods of isolation, transformation and European integration. However, the analysis also takes account of the most recent phenomena characterising the last few years (2020–2024), during which the Polish borders have moved back in a 'rebordering' direction. "What I take from looking at many varying sources is that of the stances 1) borders are forever, and 2) borders change for many different reasons, it seem the second is most accurate. In the war between Ukraine -- its etymology seems to be "borderland" -- and Russia, which has also change its borders over centuries, there is no real solution excepting "someone will win, and someone will lose out."The contemporary Polish borders in a state of change by Marek Więckowski, GeoJournal, 11 December 2024
This pattern seems to be playing out, as it has for centuries. Looking to old maps of Poland and Russia, and with a thought to the war in Gaza which surely seems to be in part about "barriers, peripherality and isolation, line of differentiation" in the Więckowski sense as above, things are playing out by powers far larger than are you in Poland or me here on our eastern seaboard.
One hopes you stay safe there, and we will do our best here.
Every bit of land in Europe has been “part of “ some nation or the other.
Alsace Lorraine, Germany and France had to learn to live alongside each other
The same with Sud Tirol.or Vilnius or Wrocław.
Putin in 2013 was winning. The idea of a Ukrainian identity was weak at best. It was going to be absorbed into the Rossiski Mir as it was being overwhelmed by Russian culture.
But he pushed too hard and ended up creating a fire of Ukrainian sense of identity.
Think of it - The English created a sense of a nation among the Americans, the Indians etc while Germany was created in many ways by Napoleon. Putin has done the same for Ukraine.
Freedom of thought?
That is a laugh. You mindlessly spread Uke propaganda that now one gives a damn about but those of you being paid to post it.
Please Note:
Charlie Kirk shared that disagreement is not division.
“Our nation will survive and thrive not by silencing each other, but by continuing to listen, challenge, and—most importantly—talking with our fellow Americans in meaningful conversation. So for the love of God — let’s keep talking.”
On Free Republic, Mr. Robinson created this forum to use as an opportunity to: connect, understand, and preserve FREEDOM of civil speech and expression.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4342883/posts?page=25#25
“mindlessly spread Uke propaganda”
As I have said, many, many times before, you are entitled to your opinion.
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