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How Many Chicken Hawks Are in Ukraine?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 24, 2022

How many American chicken hawks are in Ukraine? I could be wrong but my hunch is zero. That’s right: Not one single American chicken hawk is over there helping the Ukrainians to defend their country against Russia’s attack. They are all sitting here at home, safely ensconced in their living rooms or offices.

How many American chicken hawks are there? That’s, of course, impossible to say. But you can find lots of them in Congress and in the executive branch. You can also find them on the commentary pages of America’s mainstream newspapers.

Oh, yes, they are exclaiming against the horrors of the invasion. They are expressing their deepest sympathies with the people of Ukraine. They are calling on President Biden to impose maximum sanctions on Russia. But they are all still here at home rather than over there helping the Ukrainian people in their hour of need.

It would not have been difficult during the past month to catch a flight to Europe and make one’s way to Ukraine. Chicken hawks could have gone over as a gigantic group and offered their services to the Ukrainian military or just to the government. But no, the chicken hawks have chosen to remain here at home.

The New York Times reports, “Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, called on all Ukrainian civilians to join the fight and enlist with territorial defense units.”

Such being the case, I will guarantee you that Reznikov and the Ukranian people would welcome the personal assistance and support of American chicken hawks. Alas, they choose to remain here at home.

Why won’t America’s chicken hawks travel to Ukraine and offer a helping hand to the Ukranian people?

Three possible reasons come to mind.

One is that they’re simply scared. Going into battle against the Russian army is no doubt a frightening prospect for many American chicken hawks.

Another possible reason is that the chicken hawks simply place a higher value on their comfortable lives here at home than they place on risking their lives in a very uncomfortable situation in Ukraine.

A third possibility — the one I think is the most likely — is that deep down they know that it’s the Pentagon that has manipulated and designed this crisis by placing Russia in a position of having to make a difficult choice: (1) Let NATO absorb Ukraine, which would enable the Pentagon to establish military bases, missiles, troops, tanks, and weaponry on Russia’s border or (2) Invade Ukraine and take over the reins of power, which would thereby prevent the Pentagon from establishing its bases, missiles, troops, tanks, and weaponry on Russia’s border. (See my article “The Evil and Malevolence of the Pentagon’s Brilliant Strategy in Ukraine.”)

Given that it was the Pentagon that designed and precipitated this crisis, it would stand to reason that American chickenhawks might be reluctant to risk their lives by traveling to Ukraine and helping people resist the Russian invasion.

Interestingly, the New York Times reports that at least one Ukrainian understands fully the role that the Pentagon and NATO have played in designing and precipitating this crisis. A woman named Lyubov Vasilyevna, 75, stated, “It’s our scoundrels in Ukraine who listen to NATO and the Pentagon, which are pushing them into war.”

My hunch is that there are lots of other Ukrainians who understand this truth. My hunch also is that even though they would never say it publicly, as Lyubov Vasilyevna has, lots of American chicken hawks know this truth as well.

It is important that we keep in mind that none of this had to be. When the Soviet Union unilaterally dismantled itself and ended the Cold War, it was clear that Russia wanted nothing more than establishing peaceful and friendly relations with the West.

But the U.S. national-security establishment would have nothing to do with that plan. Rather than dismantling NATO, the Pentagon decided to keep that Cold War dinosaur in existence. Even worse, the Pentagon had NATO begin moving eastward toward Russia by absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact.

Anyone could see where this scheme was headed. Once NATO signaled that it intended to absorb Ukraine, Russia drew the line. It was not about to permit an aggressive regime like the U.S. government (e.g., the Pentagon’s brutal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan) to establish military bases, offensive missiles, tanks, troops, and weaponry on Russia’s border, any more than the Pentagon would permit Russia (or China or North Korea) to do the same thing in Cuba.

And so now the Pentagon has succeeded in converting Russia into a new (and old) official enemy. With its evil machinations and scheming, it has also now cost the lives of countless Ukrainians.

No wonder not one single American chicken hawk is in Ukraine helping the Ukrainian people.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Russia ready to negotiate with Ukraine – Kremlin

RT | February 24, 2022

Moscow is willing to negotiate terms of surrender with Kiev regarding the ongoing Russian military offensive currently taking place in Ukraine, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

According to Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his preparedness to engage in discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart, with a focus on obtaining a guarantee of neutral status and the promise of no weapons on its territory.

These are terms that, according to Peskov, would enable the achievement of the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, and eliminate what Russia currently views as a threat to the security of its state and people.

“The president formulated his vision of what we would expect from Ukraine in order for the so-called ‘red-line’ problems to be resolved. This is neutral status, and this is a refusal to deploy weapons,” Peskov clarified.

The press secretary added that Putin would determine the timing of the negotiations, but gave assurances that Russia would only engage “if the leadership of Ukraine is ready to talk about it.”

“The operation has its goals – they must be achieved. The president said that all decisions have been made, and the goals will be achieved,” Peskov continued, suggesting that, if Kiev were to agree to meet the demands, the current military attack on Ukraine could be called off.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Putin instigated a “special operation” in Ukraine, with the supposed aim of “securing the peace” in the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the Donbass region.

The leaders of the republics have made claims in recent days of attacks on their territory by the Ukrainian army.

Throughout the course of Thursday, the operation has become a full-scale assault, with Ukrainian airports, military bases, and cities, including the capital Kiev, all being damaged in air strikes in an attempt by Russia to cripple any Ukrainian military response.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

China points finger over Ukraine offensive

RT | February 24, 2022

China has blamed the US for creating the tensions which led to Thursday’s Russian attack on Ukraine. Beijing further called on the international community to avoid “stoking panic” over the situation.

During a press briefing, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the key question was the role played by the Americans, whom she branded “the [main] culprit of current tensions.”

“If someone keeps pouring oil on the flames while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral,” Hua said. China objects to “any action that hypes up war,” she added.

Chunying accused the US of hypocrisy, asking whether Washington had respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Afghanistan, where she said it had “wantonly killed innocent people.” She called on the US to “take these questions seriously and abandon double standards.”

Describing the unfolding events as “complex,” the spokeswoman confirmed that Beijing was not providing military support to Russia, and said China was not “jumping to any conclusions” over the situation.

She called on all sides to “work for peace instead of increasing tensions” or “stoking panic.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a military attack on Ukraine on Thursday, which he said was aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” the country. He accused the West of flooding Ukraine with advanced weaponry and ramping up the NATO presence in the country, arguing that the Russian “special operation” was necessary to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which Moscow has recognized as sovereign states.

Russia’s military action has prompted an international outcry and threats of new, large-scale sanctions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Thursday that Kiev had cut diplomatic ties with Moscow.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russian Air Strikes Destroy 74 Ukrainian Military Infrastructure Targets, Ministry of Defence Says

Sputnik – 24.02.2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the start of a special operation by the Russian armed forces in Donbass with the goal of protecting the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR). He explained that the operation was needed to stop atrocities committed by Ukrainian forces in Donbass.

Air strikes by the Russian military destroyed 74 military infrastructure targets of the Ukrainian armed forces, the Russian Defence Ministry has stated. Among them are 11 airfields, three command centres, a Ukrainian Navy post, 18 S-300 radars (NATO reporting name SA-10 Grumble), and Buk (NATO reporting name Gadfly) air defence systems of the Ukrainian military, the Russian Defence Ministry elaborated.

In addition, Russian forces shot down a Ukrainian attack helicopter and four Turkish-made Bayraktar strike drones in the Donbass region, the Defence Ministry reported.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

PUTIN STATEMENT FOLLOWING SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING ON DONBASS RECOGNITION

RT | February 21, 2022

Putin makes a statement following the Security Council meeting on Donbass recognition

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February 24, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Putin crosses the Rubicon. What next?

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | FEBRUARY 23, 2022

Russia’s recognition of the ‘people’s republics’ of Luhansk and Donetsk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass on Monday is a watershed event. In a manner of speaking, by this decision President Vladimir Putin crossed the Rubicon. But a tumultuous period lies ahead.

Moscow followed up by putting the legal underpinnings in place “to deploy troops to these regions,” concluding agreements on friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance between Russia and the two Donbass republics, and, obtaining the authorisation by Russia’s Federation Council, or upper parliament house, for the use of armed forces outside Russia (as required under the constitution.) 

The resolution by Federation Council, which was unanimously supported by all the 153 senators at an extraordinary session on Tuesday and coming into immediate effect, says: 

“The Federation Council rules to give its consent to the Russian president for the use of armed forces outside Russia on the basis of generally recognised principles and norms of international law. The strength of army units, areas of deployment, tasks and the duration of their stay outside Russia are determined by the Russian president in compliance with the Russian constitution.”

Notably, this authorisation is not Donbass-specific, nor is there any timeline set here. It is also not conditional. Simply put, discretion lies with Putin entirely to make decisions. 

Putin’s national address to the Russian people on Monday, which has been amplified further by him in comments to the Russian media on Tuesday, throws light on the “potential future steps.” What emerges from the national address are three things.

First, Moscow views the post-2014 political developments in Ukraine as having been engineered to create an anti-Russian regime in Kiev with hostile intentions, nurtured by the West. This regime is hopelessly compromised to the West and Ukraine has been turned into an American colony. 

Second, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) has made deep inroads into Ukraine’s political and defence system. “The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads.”

Third, NATO is about to grant membership to Ukraine. That will increase the level of military threats to Russia dramatically, considering that American strategic planning documents allow preemptive strike at enemy missile systems. Putin said, “ballistic missiles from Kharkov will take seven to eight minutes; and hypersonic assault weapons, four to five minutes. It is like a knife to the throat.”   

Much of this has been said before by Russian leaders but never in such details. Besides, Putin was directly addressing the Russian public and expecting their backing for his decision on Lugansk and Donetsk (which will undoubtedly be a very popular move) and thereby seeking legitimacy for his future course of action. Clearly, the western assessment that Russian public disapproves of any intervention in Ukraine is proven wrong.

For the international audience, Putin’s interaction with the media on Tuesday may be of greater interest. Putin has dropped an important hint that Moscow no longer considers the Minsk Agreements to be pertinent, as the Ukrainian leadership had publicly declared that they were not going to abide by these agreements. 

A second point is about the borders of Lugansk and Donetsk. This is a complex issue and the germane seeds of future course of events, perhaps, lie here. This needs some explaining.

The borders of the breakaway regions underwent significant changes when war erupted between the government forces and the separatist forces. in particular, in  May 2014, the government forces captured the strategic port of Mariupol (on the Sea of Azov) which used to be part of Donetsk from the separatists. 

Putin said on Tuesday that Russian constitution stipulates the borders of Donetsk and Lugansk regions “at the time when they were part of Ukraine.” This is a carefully worded formulation. At issue is Donetsk’s claim to Mariupol, which is a major port for the industrialised rust belt region of Donbass for export of coal, iron ore, etc.

Indeed, retaking Mariupol and the coastal region could give a direct land route from mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula, which is otherwise accessible only via  a 19-km long rail-road sea bridge built in 2018.

Also, if Donetsk regains the lost territory, Ukraine will have no access to the Sea of Azov, which would strengthen Russia’s primacy in the Black Sea and enhance the security of its Black Sea Fleet. By the way, Crimea would also get assured supply of fresh water, since Kiev had shut off water from the so-called North Crimean Canal in 2014.

Putin said Russia’s expectation is that all disputes will be resolved during talks between the current Kiev authorities and the leaders of these republics, but he also acknowledged that “at this point in time, we realise that it is impossible to do so, since hostilities are still ongoing and, moreover, they are showing signs of escalating.” 

From the remarks, it seems highly likely that conflict will erupt over Mariupol, as Donetsk forces, emboldened by Russian support, are sure to make a determined pitch to retake the port city and the adjacent coastal region, which have a big Russian population too. Of course, Russia is obliged to assist the Donetsk forces militarily if need arises. 

Putin floated an idea that the vexed question of Ukraine’s membership can be addressed in such a way that the West does not “lose face”. He suggested that Kiev could instead “refuse to join NATO. In effect, in so doing, they would translate the idea of neutrality into life.” 

This is a tantalising thought that has been aired previously also. But Putin linked this to “the demilitarisation, to a certain extent, of today’s Ukraine” — that is to say, the West should not “pump the current Kiev authorities full of modern types of weapons.” 

Lastly, Putin drew a red line on any attempt by Ukraine to develop nuclear weapons. He said: “Ever since Soviet times, Ukraine has had fairly broad nuclear competencies… They only lack one thing – uranium enrichment systems. But this is a matter of technology, it is not unsolvable for Ukraine, it can be remedied quite easily.

“As to delivery vehicles,.. they have old Soviet-made Tochka-U missiles with a range of 100 plus kilometres, 110 kilometres. This is also not a problem in view of the competencies, say, at Yuzhmash, which used to manufacture intercontinental ballistic missiles for the Soviet Union.” 

Putin seemed disinterested to have any direct interaction with the authorities in Kiev. In fact, Russian diplomats in the embassy in Kiev and the consulates in Lvov, Kharkiv and Odessa are being evacuated.

Putin is looking beyond the current regime in Kiev. Of course, if the Western military assistance to Kiev continues in any form, Washington knows that Russia will regard it as a hostile act and there will be severe consequences. Putin has made it clear that he is prepared to use force to counter any further western encroachments into Ukraine to challenge Russia’s security.  

In these circumstances, the question of the return of military detachments of NATO to Ukraine in the garb of ‘advisors’ or ‘trainers’ also does not arise. That being so, the big question is: How long could Zelensky and his government hold out in Kiev? The countdown may have begun. 

Putin remarked derisively that Zelensky may simply choose to leave Kiev for the US, Paris or Berlin. In a TV interview yesterday, Foreign Minister Lavrov called Zelensky “an unstable, dependent man, directly dependent on his American curators.” But what can the curators do to prop up Zelensky at such a critical stage? The elites in Kiev are known to have big bank accounts in the West.  

Putin spoke with a lot of bitterness. At one point, he directly threatened the extreme nationalists who seized power in the 2014 coup and let loose a wave of violence and systematic persecution against ethnic Russians.

Putin said, “The criminals who committed that atrocity have never been punished, and no one is even looking for them. But we know their names and we will do everything to punish them, find them and bring them to justice.” Putin seems to anticipate a new regime in Kiev. 

February 23, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Putin responds to imperialism accusations

By Ailis Halligan | RT | February 23, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the accusation that he is plotting to restore his country to the borders of the Russian Empire, insisting that Moscow recognizes the independence of post-Soviet states.

In an exchange held with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday, Putin assured that, while he had anticipated Western backlash over his decision to formally recognize the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, the return of the Russian Empire was not on the cards.

“I want to say right away: we see and foresaw speculation on this topic that Russia is going to restore the empire within the same imperial borders. This is absolutely not true,” the Russian president explained to Aliyev.

Putin stressed that, rather than seeking to recolonize countries previously under Moscow’s control, his government has, in fact, “recognized all the new geopolitical realities” in a quest for cooperation with independent states which have emerged since the fall of the USSR.

“Even in very acute situations … we have always acted very carefully,” he said, referring to Russia’s treatment of issues of state sovereignty, “… proceeding from the interests of all the states involved … and have always tried to achieve mutually acceptable solutions.”

The West has accused Russia of being imperialistically motivated after Putin opted to formally recognize the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics on Monday, putting an end to their limbo status inside Ukraine. According to the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Putin wants to “travel back in time … to a time when empires ruled the world,” something she stressed would have “dire” consequences both for Ukraine and across the globe.

February 23, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Putin comments on borders of Donbass republics

RT | February 22, 2022

Moscow has recognized the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk with the borders they’ve had as regions of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters at a press conference at the Kremlin on Tuesday.

“We have recognized them, which means that we recognize their basic documents, including their constitutions. Those constitutions set the boundaries as those of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions from the time they were a part of Ukraine,” Putin told reporters.

Earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko had said that Moscow would respect the borders of the two republics according to where local leaders exercised authority and jurisdiction. About half of the territory that had been part of both regions before the split effectively remains under the control of Ukrainian government troops.

The Russian president spoke after a meeting with his counterpart from Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Meanwhile, the upper house of the Russian parliament has authorized the deployment of Russian troops abroad “in accordance with the principles and norms of international law.”

The resolution did not impose any specific limits on the use of the military, with the number of troops, as well as “the areas of their activity, their goals, and length of stay outside Russia” to be decided by the president “in accordance with the Constitution.”

Putin recognized the two breakaway republics on Monday, and asked the Russian Ministry of Defense to deploy peacekeepers into both Donetsk and Lugansk in order to provide for their security. No troops have been sent so far, however. Putin told reporters not to assume the military will move in today.

February 22, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

As a former MEP, I know how much the EU has destabilised Ukraine

By Paul A. Nuttall | RT | February 22, 2022

Eight years ago, a democratically elected president was removed from office by protesters waving European Union flags. Viktor Yanukovych had been elected as president of Ukraine in 2010 to serve a five-year term. His time in office was, however, brought to an abrupt end when he was removed for his refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU.

The first decade of the 21st century was a golden period for the EU. The euro currency had been launched, the bloc was expanding, and Eurosceptic movements in its existing member states had barely got off the ground. The federalist ideologues in Brussels confidently believed that this was to be the EU’s century, and nothing could prevent it from accruing more powers and expanding further eastwards.

After the accession of central European countries and the Baltic states, Ukraine was the next logical step –highlighted by a vote in the European Parliament in 2005, which floated the possibility of Ukraine eventually joining the bloc.

As a consequence, EU cash was poured into Ukraine as a precursor to eventual accession. The first step towards this eventuality was a deepening of economic ties, and to this end an association agreement was initiated in 2012. However, after more than a year of protracted negotiations, Yanukovych refused to sign the agreement in November 2013, which set off a chain of events that eventually led to his downfall.

Protests erupted because of the president’s refusal to sign. Kiev became the center of the uprising and the city’s Independence Square was occupied by demonstrators waving EU flags, leading to the protests becoming known as ‘EuroMaidan’. By early 2014, however, the protests were turning into violent clashes with the authorities, and law and order was clearly breaking down. As a result, many people sadly lost their lives.

On February 21, a compromise was reached between Yanukovych and opposition politicians, and it was agreed that early elections would be held. This was to prove insufficient, and the following day the police gave up attempting to guard the presidential palace and the parliament buildings. The protesters therefore freely made their way in unmolested. In what became known as the Revolution of Dignity, Yanukovych was removed as president by the Ukrainian parliament and forced to flee.

This was all reported as some great upswell of the people – a democratic uprising against an oppression. Yet when something similar happened in the US on Capitol Hill in January 2021, the same liberal media went berserk and denounced President Trump’s supporters as dangerous fascists. Can anyone else spot the double standards here?

Now Yanukovych may have been a bad president, but that is not really the point. He was elected to serve a five-year term, and if the electors wanted rid of him, and it seems a sizeable number did, then they could have waited another year and voted him out of office. That is, after all, how democracy works. Nevertheless, with Yanukovych out of the way, the Ukrainian government signed the association agreement with the EU in March 2014.

The EU proudly holds itself up as a defender of democracy – although anyone who understands how it really works knows what a contradiction this is – so you would assume that Brussels would have roundly denounced these ugly scenes in Kiev. But no, EU chiefs instead acted as enthusiastic cheerleaders.

Jerzy Buzek, the then-head of the powerful European People’s Party in the European Parliament, travelled to Ukraine “to express the support of the EPP family for the Ukrainian people and their European aspirations in light of the Euromaidan protests.” Similarly, Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and uber-EU federalist MEP, turned up in Kiev and praised the protesters as “brave and courageous” for supporting “European values, European principles and democracy.” Moreover, a week after the toppling of Yanukovych, the European Parliament passed a resolution which “pays tribute to those fighting and dying for European values” and “commends the people of Ukraine on the orderly change in power and on their civic resilience in the past few months.”

I was an MEP at the time and in Brussels we were given a binary choice: you either supported the EU’s eastward expansion and the eventual accession of Ukraine, or you were denounced as a Russian sympathiser or even worse. The easy thing to do would have been to stay quiet and not speak out, but a few of us could see that the move eastward was provocative and foolish, and we said so.

My old party leader, Nigel Farage, made this point in a televised debate with the then British Deputy PM Nick Clegg. He said that in his opinion the EU had “blood on its hands” for “destabilising” Ukraine. Statements like this, which certainly had their roots in a most inconvenient truth, were met with howls of derision. We were also accused of letting our dislike for the EU cloud our judgement. Nothing, however, could have been further from the truth. We could see that the EU’s ambition to incorporate Ukraine was only serving to fan the flames and create a fissure from east to west in an already divided country.

Additionally, we knew that although the politicians wanted the EU to expand further eastwards, the people did not. We had witnessed first-hand the huge influx of central Europeans into our countries and thought that adding another 45 million Ukrainians to the bloc would only exacerbate the problem.

Proof that we were correct on this point was provided in the Netherlands in April 2016, when the Dutch people rejected the EU’s association agreement with Ukraine in an ‘advisory referendum’. Indeed, over 60% voted against the agreement, which had already been signed. The result, however, was largely ignored and the Ukraine-EU association agreement came into force in September 2017.

The EU therefore cannot escape shouldering its portion of responsibility for what is happening today in Ukraine. The bloc’s desire to drive further eastwards was always going to cause friction, and it was obvious that Ukraine was going to end up being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

In 2014, the EU turned a blind eye to the mob because it suited its objectives, and in doing so it helped lay the foundations for the horrible situation we find ourselves in today. It is not as if some of us didn’t raise warnings at the time – but unfortunately it seems no one was listening.

Paul A. Nuttall is a historian, author and a former politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2019 and was a prominent campaigner for Brexit.

February 22, 2022 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Putin orders Russian military to Donbass Republics as peacekeepers

The president has signed a decree pledging cooperation between Russia and the two breakaway regions

RT | February 21, 2022

President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to “secure the peace” in the newly recognized Donetsk and Lugansk republics, which were formerly considered to be part of Ukraine.

Moscow officially recognized the independence of the two breakaway regions on Monday.

Putin has instructed the Defense Ministry to send peacekeepers into the Donbass, while telling the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to establish diplomatic relations with the states.

The Kremlin’s official move comes shortly after Putin’s lengthy address to the nation on Monday evening. In it, he explained the step as a long overdue response to what he described as the “brotherly” Ukrainian nation becoming a “colony” of the West and falling under the rule of a “russophobic” government both hostile to Moscow and denying ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers basic human rights.

Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence from Kiev in 2014, after US-backed nationalists overthrew the democratically elected government in the Maidan coup. However, Moscow has refused to recognize them until now, saying the problem is an internal affair of Ukraine and needs to be resolved according to the Minsk agreements, which established an uneasy armistice in 2015.

Earlier on Monday, however, the Donetsk leader Denis Pushilin and Lugansk leader Leonid Pasechnik formally requested recognition from Moscow once again, as both Donbass regions and Ukraine claimed intensive artillery exchanges along the armistice line.

In his speech, Putin said that the Minsk process had failed and that Ukraine is “not interested in peaceful solutions – they want to start a Blitzkrieg.”

February 21, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Russian-led military bloc could send peacekeepers to Ukraine – top general

By Layla Guest | RT | February 19, 2022

With fears of an all-out military conflict in Ukraine’s war-torn Donbass region, troops from a major Moscow-led military faction could be sent on a mission to stabilize the tense situation if Kiev and the international community agree on the plan, the bloc’s secretary general has said.

Speaking as part of an exclusive interview to Reuters, published on Saturday, Stanislav Zas weighed in on which measures the Collective Security Treaty Organization could take if given the go-ahead.

“We have colossal potential in our hands. We all understand that we need to be very careful with this sharp instrument,” he said.

According to the lieutenant-general, the CSTO has the capacity for a large-scale deployment. “Believe me, we can send as many as needed.”

“If we need 3,000, we’ll send them. If we need 17,000 we’ll send them. If we need more there’ll be more. As many as are needed,” he continued.

However, he added the caveat that such a move would need to be given the greenlight from multiple sides, including Kiev, which is not a member of the bloc.

“Hypothetically you can imagine it … if there were goodwill from Ukraine – it is after all their territory – if there was a U.N. Security Council mandate, and if it was needed and such a decision was supported by all our governments,” he explained.

The interview, which was conducted before the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics began mass evacuations of civilians to Russia, comes amid clashes erupting in the Donbass in the past few days. Ukrainian soldiers and those loyal to the two self-declared separatist regions have accused one another of aggression along contact lines, with claims of heavy shelling coming from both sides.

In January, units from the multinational CSTO were sent to Kazakhstan after street protests decrying the government’s removal of price controls on liquified petroleum gas, a fuel that many use to power their cars, turned violent.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested that Moscow could have ulterior motives with the troop deployment, stating “I think one lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave.” However, the forces left just days after their arrival having completed their mission.

February 19, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

US names condition for meeting with Russia

Blinken won’t travel to speak with Lavrov if Moscow invades Ukraine, Washington reveals

By Ailis Halligan | RT | February 18, 2022

Russia’s chance for a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rests on the promise that Moscow will not launch an invasion of Ukraine, Washington has revealed.

Speaking to TASS on Friday, State Department Press Secretary Ned Price revealed that Blinken had accepted the date proposed by Moscow and was prepared to meet with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov at the end of next week.

On Wednesday, it was reported that Blinken had sent a letter of invitation to Lavrov proposing that the two meet in Europe to discuss options for diffusing the tensions surrounding Ukraine. Moscow responded by offering dates in the coming week.

However, Price made the caveat that Blinken’s attendance rests on the condition that Russia does not begin an offensive on its neighbor Ukraine. The US has accused Moscow of planning an invasion since November, and on Thursday, US President Joe Biden declared that it could take place “in the next several days.”

“The Russians have responded with proposed dates for late next week, which we are accepting, provided there is no further Russian invasion of Ukraine,” he said, according to TASS.

Price highlighted the secretary of state’s motivations to agree to an exchange centered around a US pursuit of “diplomacy and dialogue” – key aspects, in his opinion, of a “responsible” solution to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

Speaking to the UN Security Council on Thursday, Blinken announced that an invasion would prove Moscow’s disregard for maintaining diplomatic relations going forward.

“If they invade in the coming days, they will make it clear that they have never been serious about diplomacy,” the state secretary declared, while promising that US negotiators would “continue to coordinate with allies and partners and seek further engagement with Russia.”

The meeting between the White House and Kremlin officials next week will be set against the backdrop of heightened tensions on the Ukraine-Russia border. Washington has accused Moscow of amassing over 100,000 troops along the frontier, allegedly with intent to launch an invasion.

February 18, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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