Posted on 02/23/2022 6:37:16 AM PST by Kaslin
Russian tanks and mechanized infantry have invaded Ukraine's Donbas and occupied the so-called secessionist enclaves of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Russian President Vladimir Putin calls his armored forces "peacekeepers," sent to protect ethnic Russians threatened by Ukrainian genocide.
No one sane believes it. Putin leverages the bloody script Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia used in the 1990s to justify invading Bosnia and Croatia, waging a war in Europe that left some 250,000 dead.
In 2008 Putin used his version of the script. He sent special forces and infantry into Georgia, igniting the Russo-Georgian War. He claimed breakaway enclaves South Ossetia and Abkhaz faced ethnic cleansing.
The Bush administration airlifted a Georgian infantry brigade from Iraq to Tbilisi. The American reaction curbed the Kremlin's aggression and led to a ceasefire. Putin, however, kept soldiers in the enclaves.
In 2014 Putin's script included new lines. Early 2014: Russian agitators orchestrated incidents to "prove" the propaganda that violent "Ukrainian fascists" threatened Russians living in Crimea. February 2014: Putin launched a quick invasion of Crimea, using Russian special operations forces in unmarked green uniforms. Russia was recovering lost territory and protecting Russian ethnics!
March 2014: Putin annexed Crimea. For the first time since WWII, military aggression in Europe by a major European power led to annexation and territorial expansion. Moreover, Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, a multilateral diplomatic agreement guaranteeing Ukraine's territorial integrity.
In April 2014 the murderous drama began again. Ethnic Russian agitators in eastern Ukraine demanded political unification with Mother Russia. A suspicious group in Donetsk begged the Kremlin to send "temporary" peacekeeping troops.
And ever since, eastern Ukraine has suffered a slow war of creeping Russian aggression.
This week the war escalated, drastically. On Feb. 21 Putin announced that the two Ukrainian enclaves are independent countries. My bet on his next move: they become Russian territory.
At the strategic level Putin made the war a direct challenge to the NATO alliance. No, Ukraine isn't a NATO nation, but Poland is, and Poland is worried. So are the Baltic states. Putin sees divisions in NATO, and he is exploiting them.
Huge spikes in energy prices -- petro-rubles swelling Putin's military budget -- fueled this week's aggression. High oil prices give the Kremlin money to spend on war.
The single largest error in judgment contributing to the price surge? President Joe Biden's decision to stifle U.S. oil fracking and kill the Keystone pipeline. Biden's "green policies" also undermine U.S. energy independence, and Americans are paying an economic price. We've a bitter example of an incompetent and ignorant White House inflicting major damage to U.S. foreign policy and our own domestic economy.
Now Biden and NATO dither on how to penalize Russia. Germany's Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia is on hold. Putin expected that. Attacking Russian finances will hurt, but Russian troops in Ukraine are now a hard fact on the ground. They have advantageous positions with relatively little bloodshed. Adolf Hitler did the same when his forces re-militarized the Rhineland on March 7, 1936.
What's Putin's strategic goal? We've known for quite some time. Putin is assembling the RUBK -- "Rubik" as in the puzzle Rubik's Cube.
I'll quote from a column I wrote in November 2004. At some point a Russian leader would emerge who would try "to return to super-power status..." and restore key elements of the Soviet Union's empire. This leader would attempt "to link the core empire strength: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan (RUBK)...
"Russia, plus Ukraine, plus Belarus, plus Kazakhstan is a geo-strategic formula for a global power re-born."
One last quote: "In 2004, the Kremlin of President Vladimir Putin still sees the economic benefits of a RUBK federation. He also sees it as a way to bring ethnic Russians back inside the borders of Mother Russia."
Putin denies he seeks to recreate the Soviet Union. He lies.
“that’s different!”
Same, and I’m getting to the point that if this does kick off in a bad way, ANYONE who supported it or pushed for it becomes my enemy.
Truth bomb on the Biden shit show
Interesting. I never knew about the RUBK thing.
It makes sense about Kazakhstan. That happens to be where the Baikonur Launch Complex for the entire Russian space program is. As it stands, the Russians have to launch their rockets and cosmonauts from a foreign country.
“...”Russia, plus Ukraine, plus Belarus, plus Kazakhstan is a geo-strategic formula for a global power re-born.”..”
And that’s been more less the goal since the USSR collapsed. Nail back together 400 years of past Russian imperial effort.
Comparing Crimea and Estonia is absurd.
Crimea has always been Russia, as far back as the 12th century, albeit with Mongol/Golden Horde interruptions. Stalin only put it in control of Ukraine to increase the Russian population within Ukraine. They agreed to stay with Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union only because they were given a unique status as an autonomous country within Ukraine, and when Ukraine nullified its election results and moved to erase Crimea from the map, they joined Russia.
Estonia only became part of the Soviet Union during World War Two. Apart from occupations, such as Finland was also subject to, they’ve never been Russian. They’re not even Slavs; they’re Finns. Estonia (the Teutonic State) never even succumbed to the Mongol empire that subsumed Russia. Yes, after Stalin conquered Estonia, he moved Russians in to occupy, but as of the 1930s, there were only about 92,000 Russians. By 1989, there were 470,000, but a quarter of THOSE returned to Russia.
The Ukraine has historically been split between Russia/The Golden Horde and Lithuania/Poland. The scary thing is that Crimea was very easy to snap off of Ukraine; Luhansk and Donestk are very Russian, but also had been very integrated into Ukraine; About HALF of the rest of Ukraine is culturally Russian, but much more “Ukrainized” (if I can coin a term).
There are 31 countries that belong to NATO, You are correct Ukraine is not one of them.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm
Slight correction: Estonia briefly succumbed to the Mongol invaders, but Pope Innocent II rallied a crusade to liberate them. This is why it was then known as the Teutonic State.
Great point.
Our retaliation should be swift and decisive... we should immediately start shipping the more than 30 million invaders illegally occupying our country to Ukraine and Russia.
ClownHall, an extension of the democrap party that keeps beating the war drums to invade Russia to distract from their failed domestic policies.
This guy hasn’t got a clue of what is happening in the region. He’s just another cabal mind farmed dupe. First historically borders come and borders go. Second the Ukraine is a hot bed of corruption and has been used by the EU/NWO and the US/NWO to threaten Russia/non NWO for years. Those two separatist states don’t want to be with the Ukraine. They identify Russian.
Russia may be more of an oligarchy than a democracy but its not communist anymore. Putin is not the enemy. He’s not Baba Yaga. He’s not a threat to the US. Hes a threat to the belligerent cabal force that’s currently occupying our nation’s capital but my guess is that Putin is working with Trump to bring down the NWO.
Notice Trump’s remarks of humorous praise over the move to recognize the two breakaway regions. What’s really interesting is the lack of blowback. I fully expected to hear the hysterical screeching today that see Trump is colluding with Russia. But its not really happening. Fascinating!
Oh I've heard a few pundits basically calling Trump a "traitor" because of those comments.
But what seems to be missing from our government is a clear and rational explanation of why this should matter to the people of the United States, and why we should be willing to pay several dollars more for a gallon of gas that is already higher than it needs to be. They wrecked out economy for COVID when we didn't have to, and now they are trying to wreck it again for the people of Ukraine. This is madness.
In late 1938 he advanced into the Sudetenland, which was the German speaking region of the new country of Czechoslovakia, which had been created after the First World War.
In 1939, Hitler would attack Poland to protect the Germans in the free city of Danzig.
Earlier in the 1930s, Hitler had seized a German speaking province between France and Germany, and he also occupied Austria, which had voted to merge with Germany in a plebiscite.
Very few though compared to what I expected. I’m surprised they aren’t threatening treason charges. 😆
Anyone who read Mein Kampf, would have known that Hitler never thought Czechoslovakia should have been a country in the first place, it was the "bastard child" of the Versailles Treaty, only there for Britain and France to keep Germany in check. That's pretty much how he felt about all of the countries that were spawned by the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the war. Much like how Putin goes on about the breakup of the Soviet Union. Now perhaps Hitler had some valid points there, as does Putin, so the question is, what rights does a nation have to rectify the past? At the time, many did think Hitler had some justification for the Sudenten Germans, but they didn't understand what Hitler's true intentions were, although he pretty much laid them out in Mein Kampf, years before. So what of Putin? Does he really want to rebuild the Russian Empire? Or is truly Ukraine the only hill he's willing to die on?
Both Russia and Ukraine need to pull back from this fight:
1. Russia needs to quit while it is ahead. It’s allies are few and are not in a position to help.
2. The Ukraine will go down the toilet if it allies with socialist and LGBT westerners.
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