I didn't know this is offensive word. We have here in Moscow City a luxury restaurant named "Ruski" (https://www.ruski354.ru/) but looks like no one here is actually insult by it.
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I didn't know this is offensive word. We have here in Moscow City a luxury restaurant named "Ruski" (https://www.ruski354.ru/) but looks like no one here is actually insult by it.
Nobody cares: they are soldiers of Fortune, and knew what to expect. No Russian regular army are fighting on the side or separatists till now.
I still think what Russian army will not cross border until it will be totally necessary: for to support separatists by fire they can fire roсkets directly from places of permanent locations in Russia: distance is short, so short that Russia may fire tactical rockets to Ukrainian capital from own territory - it is less than 500 km.
When’s Nordstream 2 due to come online? Surely that’s Putin’s trump card, just turn it off and disrupt Europe’s energy markets
But if Putin has turned off the tap what is there to pay for? Western Europe won’t be getting anything so will pay nothing for it . Putin must turn off Nordstream 2 in order to disrupt Europe’s energy markets. That way we’ll all know he’s serious
As I recall the pipeline runs through Ukraine. Even if Putin doesn’t turn it off, some strategically placed sabotage by the naughty Ukraine army will have the same effect
Perhaps Matt you could expand on this theme. Maybe you could explore the life and work of Peter Thiel in this context as he is, arguably, the second most important same-sex attracted Silicon Valley executive apart from Apple’s Tim Cook who is, like so many of our members, a Rice Queen. Doesn’t he also have an interest in Bitcoin?
stevie....nordstream is not operational at the moment and it does NOT run through Ukraine.....and asking to see body bags is really not on.....if i was king of the world i would makje sure that any country at war would have to have the chuildren of itsb leaders and elite in the frontline too....very easy to send the hoi poloi to its slaughter...
Are you perhaps confusing Nordstream with Nordstream 2?Considering the absolute bullshit you have showered members in the Forum over the years (that you subsequently admitted was a complete fabrication) about how to treat money boys, I regard your sensitivity on this matter somewhere on the "Sentimental Fool to Outright Hypocrite" range
...two wrongs dont make a right!!
...bioth nordstreams run together most of the way...and as the name suggests "north stream"..not sure what the one via Ukraine is called...and yes i do think life is valuable and not to be squandered...btw...has anyone asked the Russians why they even want Ukraine...why would they want a basket case country with a hunungus national debt...
As a lifelong sceptic there isn’t much to beat observable facts - no body bags, no war - is one such. Unfortunately modern propaganda techniques vitiate that principle , but footage of grieving Russian families would be additional confirmation, don’t you agree?If you’re one of those confuses scepticism with cynicism you maybe fail to perceive the cynical motivation I have in hoping for such a thing
North Stream and North Stream-2 are gas pipelines what are laying in Baltic sea (directly from Russia to Germany, no other countries are involved), each has 2 parallel pipes. No one is going via Ukraine. NS is working is full speed. NS-2 is waiting for certification.
Also Russia has 3 more gas pipelines to EU - Yamal (is going to EU via Poland), Ukraina (is going to EU via Ukraine), Turkish stream (2 pipelines, going to EU via Black sea and Turkey).
Since 1991 - fail of USSR - Russia never stopped any gas deliveries by political reason. That are commercial services and has no relations with politic.
Meanwhile Spiegel just published document (found in UK archive) what confirms words of Putin about NATO: during negotiations of joining 2 Germanies - Soviet Union removed Soviet Army and nuclear warheads from East Germany and let to Germanies to join in exchange of obligations not to extend NATO to the East https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nato-...6-2cd6d3285295
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Oh...well that's a horse of a different color. Why didn't Putin just show this piece of paper to everyone at the beginning of this. I'm sure that Ukraine and the rest of Europe would have agreed with the content in this document if they knew it existed and none of this mess would have been necessary.
I hope Biden and the U.S. State Department are reading what you posted as well. Hell, they just may take sides with Russia after reading this.
Now I completely understand Putin's concerns. If there's a multi-national alliance which unites countries together in the event he ever decided to invade them - his job just gets 10 times harder. Oh, so that's what this is all about.
Ok, Matt, I found time to check that "news" about kindergarten. And here is video in Washington post https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...rten-shelling/
And I have questions about that setup (yes, it is totally false scene):
Announced what it was explosion from artillery's shell. This shell made hole in 4-bricks-thick wall almost 1 meter in diameter. So it must be very strong explosion, right?
Why then all glasses in room including thin glass door are in own places?
Can you imagine what explosion that broke half meter thick wall will not broke glass door?
Window frame just in 1 meter from hole is not damaged also, there are no glass on the floor.
Glass door to next room just in opposite wall of the room with hole is untouched also.
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Commentaries in Washington Post under that article:
Quote:
The claim is that a 120mm mortar shell caused the damage from an impact site 30-50 meters from the wall. but even if it were closer the hole is about 5 feet up a wall and has blown a hole directly thru a four or five layer thick brick wall. The damage does not look like a falling shell but more like a projectile weapon impacted the wall, punching thru the wall like a bullet. Like a bazooka or another flat trajectory weapon would cause. Even like a shaped charge stuck to the wall. A nearby falling shell like a mortar would cause a more oval shaped pattern of damage both inside and outside due to gravity and the pattern of the blast. However this hole and damage is circular.... and even the soccer balls look staged. I mean did the blast cause them to shoot across the room rebound and land on the rubble. But even if the blast were close to the building why are so few windows blown out, they have puncture damage, that seems appropriate for shrapnel. But to blow thru a 5 deep brick wall
Quote:
Regarding the picture showing the hole in the wall:
1. Why is there no evidence of any charred or burnt items in the room? There is no damage to walls in room except for the hole. An explosive charge would have done much more damage.
2. Why does it appear like the bricks just fell out of the wall in whole pieces below the hole?
3. Notice there is no debris on top of the items on the floor as if the items were placed there after.
The evidence in the picture doesn't support the story. It appears poorly staged.
I would not agree that your example is a great comparison, as the Treaty of Tilsit was a formal treaty made between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander the First (I think it was). However there was never any Treaty signed where NATO agreed to not admit former Eastern Bloc countries. This story Moses has publicised is just mid to higher level foreign affairs officials talking about the fact that they believe they had promised the USSR that NATO wouldn’t expand. It is not a formal Treaty.
Anyway, it’s not exactly a scoop. Foreign policy documents released by USA over a decade ago have demonstrated that although no Treaty was ever signed saying the NATO would never expand East, the Russians definitely given plenty of verbal assurances along those lines between 1989 and 1991. Here’s a link to a story in the Washington Monthly which is basically blaming America for the whole problem, on that basis.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2022/0...-new-cold-war/
Here is probably the most damning section from it:
“The U.S. non-expansion promise was made several times during discussions in Moscow on February 9, 1990, according to a State Department “memcon” or memorandum of conversation. Secretary of State Baker told Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze that German reunification would be accompanied by “iron-clad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction of forces would not move eastward.”
Meeting Gorbachev later that day, Baker reiterated the pledge. “We understand that not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction,” Baker said. “Germany’s unification will not lead to NATO’s military organization spreading to the east.”
However, as the journalist in the piece is using it to make an argument that America is at fault, I think he under-emphasises a few facts. Such as the fact that if there was never any written agreement about expansion - this was just the policy and promises of the US government of the day. The “iron-clad guarantees” that Baker spoke of never actually materialised, presumably as Baker and George Bush Snr. realised that any formal Treaty saying any such thing would never be approved in Congress.
So when Bill Clinton and his Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in 1993, they were free to decide to change that foreign policy, which they did by deciding that NATO membership would be needed for geopolitical stability in Eastern Europe, (such was the fear of countries such as Estonia and Poland about post-Soviet Russia).
The only major agreement about the security situation in Eastern Europe that was put in writing at the time was the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. This obligated Russia, the UK, and the U.S. “to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”, and was negotiated in exchange for Ukraine’s relinquishing Soviet nuclear weapons stationed on its territory. Needless to say, Putin has demonstrated since 2014 that this agreement is not worth the paper it was written on, so it is a bit rich for him to be getting so shirty about purely verbal assurances from 1990 not being worth the paper they were NOT written on!
That is not to say that the Russians do not have some reasons to be enbittered about how things worked out regarding the expansion of NATO, but to try and claim that as justification to seize Ukrainian territories in 2022, two decades after the happenings they are complaining of, is a bit of a stretch.
Also, I must say that Moses’s use of the Der Spiegel article is interesting.
Seemingly it is to be understood that verbal commitments made to the USSR in 1990-1991 apply to Russia of today, despite the fact these were conversations with the government of the USSR, represented at that time by Foreign Minister Edward Shevardnadze, a non Russian politician from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR.
But when we look at the decision to transfer Crimea from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Ukraine in the 1950’s, it was all the doings of Soviet politicians from non-Russian Republics, and “no Russian was consulted” - therefore Putin should not feel bound in the slightest by the decision.
Bit of an inconsistency there as to whether Moses regards the Russian Federation as the successor state of the USSR or not.
If you believe that was the point I was making I suppose your comment has some validity. If you can't work out the point I was making in the context of Moses' statement to which I was replying maybe you should think again. Maybe you should consider the image of Neville Chamberlain on returning from a meeting with Hitler "I have in my hand". How useful was that piece of paper?
I understood that it was not quite the point you were making, but using that example misleadingly gave the impression that what happened in the 1990's that Putin is so sour about involved a "Treaty" - it did not.
Gorbachev, Shevardnadze or Yeltsin never got any piece of paper in the first place.
There seems to be an element of "shit or get off the pot" going on now. A group of Russian gangsters issued a demand for able-bodied men who could handle a gun issued a call-up almost 24 hours in Ukraine, but since then, nothing
UK could try, why not? China is quite bigger than UK, results may be unpredictable and not that bright for UK.
But UK still keeps 2 territories within Cyprus "because it is important for intelligence and geo-politic", and pays zero attention to Cyprus's demands to return own territories. 21st century and colonialism still works.
By the way: UK and China had bilateral agreement, there were obligations. USSR transferred Crimea by order of CP USSR. Do you see difference?
Yeah, and logic is: if there were no written words, then taken obligation aren't obligations. Right?
Ah. Then Putin does exactly that with Budapest memorandum: obligation aren't obligations. Why you complain? Memorandum isn't agreement, it is political promises.
By the way: Budapest memorandum still isn't ratified by US Senate, UK and RF parliaments, so it is still promises of Yeltsin, Clinton and Major in written form.
Why promises not to extend NATO to the east are broken? Because of new administration in White House, right? Why promises of warranties to Ukraine are broken? Because of new administration in Kremlin. So?
Unless a country is being invaded and has to protect itself, launching a military invasion with lethal intent is a crime against humanity...any way you carve the turkey. We've all watched this happening our entire lives, and I doubt it will ever end until everybody loses.
Moses, you're rooting for the wrong side. You should be rooting for "The World".
Right. Let me remind to you words: Iraq, Syria, Libya, Vietnam, Korea.
Who was punished for these crimes?
Oh, nobody?
Why?
Why US had withdraw from Rome statute right before intervention to Iraq?
Why US declared sanctions against International Criminal Court members?
Once British minister of foreign affairs David Miliband started to talk with Lavrov on high tones. There was one only phrase what Lavrov told him before to switch phone off: "Who the fuck are you to lecture me?"
PS At next month will be 102 years since fail of British intervention to Russia (including Crimea)
As a memory from that time, there still exists monument in Arkhangelsk: British Mark V
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...angelsk_RU.JPG
I understand the point you’re making Moses,I just dont think it is a very good one
The Budapest agreement was a written agreement signed in public by the heads of government.
You cannot compare this to verbal agreements whispered in secret by people at foreign secretary level and lower.
Maybe it is bad that both of them ended up with with one side going back on promises, but surely you will at least admit that the Budapest Memorandum example is objectively worse than the NATO discussions example?
It’s a bit of a silly argument, as Steve said these things change over the decades, but the only reason I bring it up is because many people taking the side of Russia in treads and comment sections underneath newspaper articles are very prone to using the argument that "Its all the West's fault as Russia was betrayed.”
There is an aspect of "two bald man fighting over a comb" to having a debate on this point, but to use another cliched analogy, I think anybody who uses this argument in Russia's favour just looks makes Russia look a bit like the guy who murdered his parents, and then asked for clemency from the Court on the basis that he was now an orphan.
The answer that one is very easy Moses. The truth is absolutely nobody outside of the West seems to give a dam about respecting national sovereignty and the legalities of invading other countries.
So there won’t be a fuss, unless perhaps from within the western countries themselves.
But I will go through the list you have given and make some comments
Iraq - Probably the blackest mark against the West on your list. I was very opposed to that invasion at the time, as were many in Western countries. This war is probably most frequently referenced in the participating countries nowadays for the massive protests that were generated across the world. I wonder, if there is much opposition is in Russia to any military action in Ukraine, is there any chance that the Russians who oppose it would be allowed to hold massive protests in the capital city, like happened in 2004 when the western countries went to war in Iraq?
Libya - Another rather foolish Western intervention. I think there was at least a defensible argument for deciding to topple Gaddaffi by aiding the rebels in that uprising, given what a vicious dictator he was, but I would like to think that the various Foreign ministries concerned it could have advised Brown and Obama et al that they would leave a mess afterwards that would be very difficult to clear up. I think the western governments just got carried away with the idealism of the Arab Spring.
Syria. At least the West concentrated on merely trying to destroy ISIS in this quagmire. As far as I can see, nowadays they have mainly left Turkey and Russia to fight it out in a proxy war. The ongoing agony of this country is a good example that disasters aren’t necessarily avoided just cause the West limits its involvement.
Afghaistan - Not on your list, but it is a good example of how US military adventurism can cause so much needless suffering in reality, despite any good intentions. One wonders why it did not learn the lesson of Russia in the 1980’s, with their disastrous intervention in that unfortunate country?
Vietnam - The USA decided to intervene in a civil war, and ended up getting it getting its arse handed to it. The disaster meant that Lyndon Johnson realised it was pointless to run for another Presidential term in 1968, thus giving the Yanks Nixon. If Russia had a fully functioning democracy, one could perhaps speculate on how, if Ukraine turns out to be a disastrous intervention for a Putin, how might it impact on his chances for re-election?
Korea - A bit before my time. As far as I know about it, it is just another example that the West (Like Russia in Afghanistan and and Angola in the 80’s) has not had a really successful military intervention in an impoverished foreign country since 1945 ( Although in fairness, the USA got a draw in Korea).