Posted on 01/10/2023 12:30:56 PM PST by delta7
Russia and Ukraine have publicly agreed on a fundamental and important issue.
The question is who Russia is fighting in Ukraine.
During an interview with a Ukrainian TV station the Oleksii Reznikov, the defense minister of Ukraine, answered that the Ukraine has "already become a de facto member of the NATO alliance."
The interview, given four days ago, is available on Youtube. English language subtitles can be generated by autotranslate. The sentence pictured above comes at about 1:25 minutes in.
Sputnik, which seems to be the only international outlet that has picked up on this, has more (from ~11:05 min):
“At the NATO Summit in Madrid” in June 2022, “it was clearly delineated that over the coming decade, the main threat to the alliance would be the Russian Federation. Today Ukraine is eliminating this threat. We are carrying out NATO’s mission today. They aren’t shedding their blood. We’re shedding ours. That’s why they’re required to supply us with weapons,” Reznikov said ... The official said Kiev was being constantly reminded by its “Western partners” that it, “like a real shield, is defending the entire civilized world, the entire West,” from the Russians, and said that he personally has recently received holiday greeting cards and text messages from Western defense ministers to that effect.
Reznikov expressed “absolute” certainty in Ukraine’s eventual entry into NATO, saying he was “convinced that this is an absolutely realistic possibility... Of course they won’t accept this political decision via consensus before our victory. This is clear. But after the victory, after all this ends and some kind of peace arrives, NATO countries, first and foremost, will be interested in the construction of this security architecture. They have seen their own weak spots, they have seen who is strong and powerful. Today they are teaching us but tomorrow our officers, sergeants and even privates will be teaching them how to fight the Russians. Russia remains one of the threats to NATO, and for Europe as a whole.”
Reuters reports today that the Russian government agrees with the core of Reznikov's view:
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev is seen by diplomats as one of the major hardline influences on Putin, who has promised victory in Ukraine despite a series of battlefield setbacks. "The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv - this is a military confrontation between Russia and NATO, and above all the United States and Britain," Patrushev told the Argumenti i Fakti newspaper in an interview.
"The Westerners' plans are to continue to pull Russia apart, and eventually just erase it from the political map of the world," Patrushev said. ... Asked about Patrushev's remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said NATO and the United States were part of the Ukraine conflict.
"De facto they have already become an indirect party to this conflict, pumping Ukraine with weapons, technologies, intelligence information and so on," Peskov told a regular news briefing.
As both sides now seem to agree on the real participants of the conflict we can assume that they will later also come to an agreement about its outcome. That however will still take a while.
The heavily fortified Ukrainian strongholds in Bahkmut (Artyomovsk) and Soledar are about to fall. The long fight over these cities has come at a high price particularly for their defenders. All the reserves the Ukrainian command has thrown into them have been ground up by massive Russian artillery applications.
Other reserves the Ukrainian army is still training up are waiting for new supplies of 'western' weapons. But what has been newly promised, mostly infantry fighting vehicles (aluminum cans), will only become available in late spring. The most likely plan the Ukrainian command will want to pursue is a move south towards Mariupol (bottom right) to severe the Russian land connection to Crimea.
There is however only a small chance that such a move during spring could be successful. Until then Russia has the time to make its own moves.
Can’t argue with the Ukie Defense Minister’s own words.
The whole concept of NATO is — “If Russia attacks a NATO member, then all NATO members are authorized to attack Russia.”
Ukraine is not part of NATO.
Why is NATO fighting Russia?
I understand that Russia made the first move by invading Ukraine. But this situation that we are in right now? I say we started it.
We must have perpetual warfare for peace!
A thought experiment - When all the “bad” countries are conquered, where will the relentless eye of war turn itself?
We are in a war against Russia that was started by the DNC as a Get Rich Quick scheme.
Someone who thinks Russia is the aggressor with an insatiable apetite to seize ever more land and power in all of this should take a look at a map of NATO in 1992 compared to today. That shows who the real imperialists are. If NATO did not exist there would be no war in Ukraine and there's no reason to imagine the average Ukrainian would be any worse off within a sphere of Russian influence than they would be under Western exploitation.
Maybe the "usual suspects" can clear this up....
As a side note, I've noticed at least three of the accounts have "dropped off".
Ask the several hundred detained without due process for two years in the US.
Absolutely none of this had to happen.
If Russia were REALLY fighting NATO now, all of their airforce would have destroyed along with their navy and missiles would be landing in Moscow instead of just Kiev.
And Biden and his idiot handlers are feeding NATO weapons, one system at a time, and just slowly enough into Ukraine - so they will be totally ineffective, but Russia still gets to see how they are deployed, how they are used, and maybe capture a few too.
Well done Pedo Peter!
You have it backwards. The Ukrainians are just defending themselves from a Russian attack. The alternative is surrender. Russia, not NATO, started this war and they can end it by just going home.
“If NATO did not exist there would be no war in Ukraine and there’s no reason to imagine the average Ukrainian would be any worse off within a sphere of Russian influence than they would be under Western exploitation.”
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-r7z0lM5_k (7 minutes long)
While not the end-all-be-all in terms of information and geopolitical understanding, Peter Zaihan has a pretty good grasp of history, current events, and where things are/could be heading. Was NATO the outright cause of the invasion? It was part of it, but a very small part. And while some of your statements can be true, saying that Russia is not the aggressor in this situation is factually incorrect. Russia is driven by their own security and their desire to return to Soviet-era borders for their own protection.
How do you protect a country with 11 time zones and a small number of ethnic Russians? In the mind of a Russian you put as much distance between Moscow and the rest of the world as possible. If you read Russian history you will understand how important these boundaries were prior to WW2, and even as late as the fall of the USSR. Putin, being a top cold war KGB officer, believes in this border strategy wholeheartedly, and will destroy his country to make it happen. So while Ukraine is a hot mess of corruption unlike 99% of other European countries, Russia pulled the same stunt again, like they did with Georgia, and they will continue “not being the aggressor” if they are not spanked right now. I distrust any Russian or Ukrainian, but I’d say it’s better that Russia fall flat on their face here instead of picking off countries one at a time every few years.
“Instead of disbanding and cultivating good relations between Russia and the rest of Europe it continued to demonize Russia to rationalize its own imperial ambitions and expansion.”
In actuality, the West tried to cultivate good relations with Russia and Russia declined. That’s why we didn’t just preemptively disband NATO hoping that Russia would behave itself, since that would be idiotic.
something we all apparently agree with -
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/01/ukraine-and-russia-agree-russia-is-fighting-nato.html#more
Ya, that’s not what is going on. The kid room is out your main door to the left. The adults are talking now.
“If Russia were REALLY fighting NATO now, all of their airforce would have destroyed along with their navy and missiles would be landing in Moscow instead of just Kiev.”
And when our missiles are hitting in Moscow, any idea what happens next?
Back in the late 80s, my buddy who developed guidance systems at Martin Marietta told me "we can hit any manhole cover in Red Square, just tell us which one to aim for".
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