Posted on 03/21/2024 7:27:29 AM PDT by delta7
If you thought that NATO troop activities in Ukraine is something that developed in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup, think again. NATO has been mucking around in Ukraine since 1991. That 33 years for the math challenged out there.
Before I dig into this topic, I participated in a Zoom Webinar put on by the European Association for the Defense of Minorities, which was held in Athens, Greece. The topic — Ukraine: The Search of a Peaceful Solution of the Military Conflict.
I recorded a video that replicates my remarks to that group. I don’t know if they intend to post the video of the conference, so I recorded my own version:
I realized that I do not have a full grasp of NATO’s history with Ukraine. So I started digging. As I noted in the intro paragraph NATO started putting its nose under the Ukrainian tent in 1991 as the Soviet Union came apart at the seams. Don’t take my word for it. Here is an extended quote from the 2005 NATO Handbook:
History of NATO and Ukraine (NATO Handbook 2005) — Formal relations between NATO and Ukraine began in 1991, when Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (later replaced by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council) immediately upon achieving independence following the break-up of the Soviet Union. In 1994, Ukraine became the first member state of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to join the Partnership for Peace (PfP). During the 1990s, the country also demonstrated its commitment to contributing to Euro-Atlantic security through its support for NATO-led peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. In Madrid on 9 July 1997, the Ukrainian president and NATO heads of state and government signed a Charter for a Distinctive Partnership between NATO and Ukraine. It provides the formal basis for NATO-Ukraine relations and was an opportunity for NATO member countries to reaffirm their support for Ukrainian sovereignty and independence, territorial integrity, democratic development, economic prosperity and status as a non-nuclear weapons state, as well as for the principle of inviolability of frontiers.
The Alliance regards these as key factors of stability and security in Central and Eastern Europe and on the continent as a whole. The Charter also established the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC), which is the decision-making body responsible for developing the relationship between NATO and Ukraine and for directing cooperative activities. It provides a forum for consultation on security issues of common concern and is tasked with ensuring the proper implementation of the Charter’s provisions, assessing the overall development of the NATO-Ukraine relationship, surveying planning for future activities and suggesting ways of improving or further developing cooperation. It is also responsible for reviewing cooperative activities organised within different frameworks such as the Partnership for Peace, as well as activities in the military-to-military sphere, developed in the context of Annual Work Plans undertaken under the auspices of the Military Committee with Ukraine. . . .
Ukraine was one of the first countries to open a diplomatic mission to NATO in 1997, and a Military Liaison Mission was opened in 1998. Ukrainian military personnel also serve at the Partnership Coordination Cell located at NATO’s military operational headquarters in Mons, Belgium. In May 1997 NATO opened an Information and Documentation Centre (NIDC) in Kyiv. The role of the Centre is to provide a focal point for information activities designed to promote the mutual benefits of Ukraine’s partnership with NATO and explain Alliance policies to the Ukrainian public. The Centre seeks to disseminate information and stimulate debate on Euro-Atlantic integration and security issues through publications, seminars, conferences and information academies for young students and civil servants. Moreover, the Centre has recently opened a series of information points in several regions of the country outside Kyiv. A civilian-led NATO Liaison Office (NLO) was established in Kyiv in April 1999 to work directly with Ukrainian officials to encourage them to make full use of opportunities for cooperation under the NATO-Ukraine Charter and the PfP programme. It is active in supporting Ukraine’s efforts to reform its defence and security sector, in strengthening cooperation under the Action Plan, and in facilitating contacts between NATO and Ukrainian authorities at all levels. The Office also has a military liaison element that works closely with Ukraine’s armed forces to facilitate participation in joint training, exercises, and NATO-led peacekeeping operations. In August 2004, a NATO-Ukraine Defence Documentation Office was also opened to improve access to documentation for units and staffs of the armed forces involved in PfP activities. Take a look at the 1997 — Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Ukraine.
Ukraine made a formal request in 2002 to start the process for joining NATO. This coincided with Vladimir Putin’s initiative to strip Russian oligarch keen on meddling in domestic politics of their wealth. This also angered Western oligarchs who were licking their chops to get control of Russia’s vast store of natural resources.
Military exercises with Ukraine kicked off in 2005 in the wake of the Orange Revolution. There are at least two types of military exercises — Rapid Trident (an annual joint exercise with NATO forces) and a U.S. only mission — JMTG-U, which is the acronym for Joint Military Training Group – Ukraine. The JMTG-U initiative was based at Yavoriv in Western Ukraine.
Remember Yavoriv? Russia hit it with a hypersonic missile on March 13, 2022. Wikipedia plays dumb and pretends that Yavoriv was just some normal base:
The facility houses an International Center for Peacekeeping and Security within the framework of the Ukraine–NATO Partnership for Peace program and the National Military Academy Hetman Petro Sahaidatschnyj. But as you will read and see in the following quotes and videos, Yavoriv was NATO Central in Ukraine and it was the primary base of operations for U.S. soldiers deployed temporarily to Ukraine over the years for training Ukrainian forces. When Russia hit it in March 2022 it scared the hell out of the NATO commanders. They realized their troops were no longer safe at a base that had hosted NATO and US troops for at least 16 years.
Here is a video of the first Rapid Trident military exercise.
I have not had time to do a thorough search of all NATO and US exercises in Ukraine — if any of you have some spare time, please dig in; I would like to pull together a complete list of every NATO and US military exercise carried out in Ukraine since 2005. I suspect it is more than 40, but that’s just a guess at this point. Here is just a sampling of what I found.
July 2006 — In May Kiev will host an international conference with representatives of NATO’S 26 members; Ukraine will take part in the conference. Two months later Ukraine will, under NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, host its “Rapid Trident-2006” exercise at the National Defense Academy.
29 October 2014 — Capt. John Billington, a paratrooper with U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, briefs Gen. Mark A. Milley, chief of staff of the Army, Oct. 29 about a platoon live-fire exercise during his visit to the International Peacekeeping and Security Center near Yavoriv, Ukraine. Soldiers with the Ukrainian national guard practiced how to conduct movement-under-fire using live ammunition. Paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade are in Ukraine to train Ukraine’s newly-formed national guard as part of Fearless Guardian, which is schedule to last through November. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Adriana Diaz-Brown, 10th Press Camp Headquarters)
9 January 2015 — U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, visited paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade as they trained soldiers with the Ukrainian national guard here during a trip to observe Fearless Guardian Sept. 1, 2015.
Fearless Guardian is the name for the Congress-approved, Departments of State and Defense initiative to train the newly-formed Ukraine national guard under the Global Security Contingency Fund-Ukraine. The U.S. military and the training provided are at the request of the Ukrainian government.
In September 2015 NATO and Ukraine held the field exercise “Ukraine 2015”, their third joint exercise in emergency response, hosted by Ukraine. The exercise hosted teams from 28 NATO and partner nations.
September 2017 — Former U.S. Central Command commander and advisor to the Ukrainian government, retired U.S. Army Gen. John Abizaid, and Ukrainian army Lt. Gen. Pavlo Tkachuk, the chief of the Ukrainian National Military Academy, meet with Yavoriv Combat Training Center officers during Exercise Rapid Trident 2017 at the Yavoriv CTC on the International Peacekeeping and Security Center in Western Ukraine, on Sept. 19. Rapid Trident is an annual, multinational exercise involving approximately two thousand personnel from 14 nations. The exercise is composed of a multinational, brigade-level, computer-assisted
October 2021 — Rapid Trident 21 continued more than 25 years of partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine. Through efforts such as Rapid Trident 21 and Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine, the U.S. Army supports ongoing training efforts and enhanced defensive capabilities of Ukraine. Rapid Trident 21 was the final training phase, or culminating event, of an intense and realistic annual training exercise to prepare Ukrainian Land Force units for the challenges of real-world situations and deployments.
Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine is the name given to the mission of training the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 7th Army Training Command oversees the JMTG-U mission, currently manned by Task Force Thunder, 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team, Mississippi Army National Guard.
With this information in hand it makes it clear that Russia’s stated objective of “demilitarization” of Ukraine also means terminating the activity of NATO and US forces inside Ukraine. If Macron is stupid enough to send thousands of French soldiers to Ukraine, they will discover what Napoleon did in 1812. When the Russian bear bites he takes off your ass.
The US and collective West are definitely not the good guys. Time to pay the price for the deception and war mongering- it will be heavy. The best we can hope for is the US pulling out of NATO, the demilitarization of Ukraine, and a Ukie Congressional decree of neutrality….( exactly what Vlad stated two years ago)…..it is the only way to insure future Peace.
Now that President Putin has secured another six years, I am sure his stated objectives will be met….as we are slowly witnessing.
Larry Johnson & Sonar 21 = Russian propaganda & lies
(yet another sign of Russia’s desperation, if they have to promote liars like this!)
Flashback:
Is Ex-CIA Agent Larry C. Johnson Threatening A Freeper?
And does this "wall-of-text" blog nonsense really belong in "News/Activism?"
LOL. Canuck is in early with his automatic “Putin Puffer” retorts.
Let the record show, everyone he disagrees with is literally Hitler.
Poor Putin! It must have been the West that caused him to push all that syrupy Soviet nostalgia on Russian social media, bemoan the loss of the Soviet Union, plot the rebirth of the Soviet Union, invade the Republic of Georgia, invade Ukraine, destroy entire cities, and murder political opponents like Boris Nemtsov and Alexander Navalny. Gee the West and NATO are sure manipulative!
Nice tagline!
If Russia put half the effort into their battlefield actions that they put into their desperate disinformation & propaganda campaigns, they would have won this already
But Russia continues to be inept ... that’s why this War enters its 26th Month in 3 days ...
Ukraine made a formal request in 2002 to start the process for joining NATO. This coincided with Vladimir Putin’s initiative to strip Russian oligarch keen on meddling in domestic politics of their wealth. This also angered Western oligarchs who were licking their chops to get control of Russia’s vast store of natural resources.
What I see wrong is that NATO has NEVER had Ukraine join, and it has NEVER even designated Ukraine as an Official NATO Aspirant.
That some elements of NATO may have had exercises, quiet agreements or otherwise with/about Ukraine makes no difference.
NATO has just been jerking Ukraine around for years.
Look, Frenchy, most of us have long since grown weary of your Hillary tactic of declaring anything and anyone who is not “Let’s support Ukraine” as Putinistas.
We’re weary of your shouts of RUSSIA!, RUSSIA!, RUSSIA!.
I support America, Americans and Free Republic. Do you?
Of course
Read my posts ... I’m not one of those that puts America down
But I also despise dictators and their lies, and will always support the underdog ... guess that’s just me
Both arguments can't be correct because they diametrically oppose each other.
So, which argument do you stand with actually?
Apparently you think that a quick conclusion is the only conclusion that shows might. Why end a war quickly leaving the opposition strong enough to regenerate, when you can slowly destroy them to the point that they can never rise up again as a threat? In the meantime you also severely degrade the threats coming from other sources at the same time.
Israel did just that, quickly defeated the aggressors, and has had to deal with Muslims repeatedly over the many decades. This time they seem determined to defeat the problem once & for all. No more playing nice is their current position.
Like the rest of the Zeepers, none of you have the ability to see beyond your own biases or fantasies that you harbor. I say this not in defense of Russia or Putin, but rather to state the obvious. The US & the western civilizations no longer have the upper hand that they once did. Mainly because we sat on our laurels, but also because we have purposely dumbed down our societies, including your Canadian leader Justin Trudeau. These are not the actions of societies on the ascent, these are the actions of societies on the decline. It pains me greatly that this is the reality & that I have to say this, but people had better wake up. If not, we will lose. This is why I speak out against you Zeepers. Not because I want to promote Putin or Russia as you people so quickly jump to claim is our reason & intent. In fact, it's an absolutely stupid & ignorant claim.
Our real enemy currently is coming from within, and they come from the people who occupy leadership positions within all of the western societies, and it's seems to be an impossibility to wake you people up to that reality. These are the people who are trying hard to maintain their power, and defeating those who threaten it are under threat & attack.
That includes you , me & everyone else that you know. You are helping these people, not the Ukrainians. These people are using your money to destroy your nation of the western societies, while they destroy you too in the process of solidifying their power.
You all keep proving that you are nothing but imbeciles of the nth degree. Shocking, but not surprising, sadly enough.
Russia has proven, many times and in many places over the years, that it remains an ongoing threat to all of us
If you can’t understand that simple truth, then YOU are the imbecile, Robert
I read this piece on the author’s website and realized he is either an antisemite or just plain ignorant, and thereby can’t take him seriously.
His ignorance shows when he suggests Israel is against a “two state solution” which is factually and historically incorrect. Israel has always been willing to have Arab neighbor states on its borders, as long as they are accepting of Israel and not after the destruction/dismantling of Israel. Jordan and Egypt made such treaties with Israel. The Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza have never offered that.
NATO has just been jerking Ukraine around for years.
————-
Why? Facts: Building up Ukrainian military decades ago clandestinely, when they lose, they pull a Bidenlike Afghanistan debacle. If they succeed in toppling Russia, mission accomplished Win- Win.
Fact is the EU has denied the admission of Ukraine to the EU since 1991 because they are the poorest, most corrupt nation in the EU- a financial, moral basket case….who would admit a poor, welfare nation that had nothing to contribute to strength?….just look at what happened when West Germany “ reunited” with East Germany- it took truckloads of money and welfare to integrate the poor eastern Germans, set them back decades….the EU is currently BROKE.
NATO question? Same same. The West can not afford to admit basket cases, $$$ Billions would be spent to build bases, train, make weapons….in short, Ukraine has nothing to offer, except for bordering Russia…..as we know, the US is also broke.
Everyone knows Ukraine is a corrupt basket case, but will simply not acknowledge it…..as we flush $$$ Billions down the Ukie toilet, the people are finally realizing the folly of this proxy war.
Russia has proven, many times and in many places over the years, that it remains an ongoing threat to all of us
———
I guess I will start looking for an Ivan hiding under my bed, I was told years ago to look for Jews hiding under my bed and in the bushes….I haven’t seen one yet in sixty plus years.
Carry on war cheerleader!
I take threats that directly affect me personally more to heart, especially when they are made because I exercise my right to dispute an election or even refuse an experimental vaccine that is unproven. But we certainly haven't been the prefect example of a nation that spreads love around either, and in many ways we have fomented Russia's recent attacks.
Again, just stating the truth, not offering up excuses for either Putin or Russia. There is more than ample evidence to support this, but the Zeepers refuse to accept it because they claim it is propaganda. Even after our western society governments have shown its propensity to look their citizens in the eye and lie to them without hesitation or fear of being caught in that lie, because they know the propaganda machine will back them up. Nothing registers with you people, because you all harbor biases & fantasies that the way things used to be, but no longer really are, do still exist.
Sadly canuck, it's you Zeepers who are the imbeciles for ignoring the threats against you personally by the leaders of our own nations, because all of you fail to see that you are are aiding & abetting these very people who are sowing chaos around the globe. Every last one of you are such addled brained people who believe that our leaders want to save Ukraine. Each of you are shy millions of brain cells each, for all of you are capable of ignoring the obvious and buying into the propaganda as being the truth. Even though the contrasting policies of our leaders belie the notion of caring, as they put the concerns of others ahead of the concerns for their own fellow countrymen. It would be laughable, but it's frightening that you call yourselves conservatives, for you really remind me of Republicans who also assist the Democrats in their quest for dominating the political scene. We see this happening in all the western western nations as tyranny takes control in all of them. From all the European nations to Australia, Canada, & the US. Democratic civilizations are despised by these leaders in now in control, but none of you see this realities. The word that accurately describes you Zeepers, doesn't actually exist to describe you people, but useful idiots come close.
None so blind as those who have the capability to see, but still do not see nonetheless even when others try to help you do so. That is the definition of imbecilic useful idiots who lack critical thinking skills.
All of you have earned that moniker, because its your reality, sadly enough.
As it is there is a widespread pattern among Zeepers of just dismissing any evidence or reports they don't like as "propaganda." That is cheap and lazy, and every day brings more evidence that it is another case of projection.
Putin began planning the invasion of Georgia, in 1999.
Putin began planning the invasion of Ukraine, in 2003. See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2AwAXcScds
ON THE EFFECTIVE USE OF PROXY WARFARE - by Andrew Lewis Peek, May 2021, Dissertation for PhD
CHAPTER THREE: RUSSIA AND UKRAINE, 2013-2016 [pg 118 of 446 in the PDF file] "This chapter will examine Russia’s use of proxy forces in Ukraine from the beginning of demonstrations in Kiev’s Maidan Square on November 21, 2013 to the dissipation of the conflict in 2016. Though it covers all the high-intensity periods of the war, this chapter is focused on the fighting in Donbas and not Russia’s takeover of Crimea."
“I haven’t been threatened by MS-13, the Ebola virus, or nuclear waste ...
Therefore, they must be harmless too”
#ChildishLogic
(LOL)
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