The Brink of War?

[Moses]

only in the reptilian dinosaur brain of an old fool.
in the words of your diplomat

"warmongering, lies and hatred. It serves interests of few, the very few people thus contributing to further isolation and degradation of my country. Russia no longer has allies, and there is no one to blame but its reckless and ill-conceived policy."

yeah, always exists possibility of existence of one renegade in big mass of people... one "diplomat" did that, so what?

by the way: should we now to talk about Snowden or Assange?

[alvnv]

It’s IRONY - not trolling, and Russia is at the receiving end (much like in this war - pun intended) as other meanings of the word spirit are:
* Ghost - as “real” Moscow died in Black Sea and its ghost is delivering non-Russian oil as a penance to absolve Russia’s sins
* Ethanol - reference to Russia’s alcoholism
* Essence - “Russia is a gas-station masquerading as a country” (RIP John McCain)
I could keep going…

[Dragonman]

Yeah. You will not type "Hiroshima and Nagasaki" - "It was so far ago". Well, type " Mosul 2003".

Russia now does less than UK or US did at past years in XXI century. Counter in Ukraine is still more than 30 times lower than fatalities counter in Iraq. So shut up dear, you haven't moral rights to say "murders". You hands are in blood what is 30 times thicker.

.

You mention above and elsewhere the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The justification of it at the time was to save lives, as the alternative was a US invasion. It is a matter of historical record that "Military advisers to President Harry S. Truman warned that such a ground war would result in the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands of young men in the US Armed Forces, as well as the deaths of many Japanese military personnel and civilians. After receiving no reply to his threat that "prompt and utter destruction" would follow if the Japanese did not surrender unconditionally, Truman authorized the use of the bomb on Japan" (https://www.khanacademy.org/humaniti...he-atomic-bomb).

It was a choice between two evils. It has been estimated by more recent scholars, however, that this bombing, terrible as it was, saved the lives of 30 million people, according to the 2020 book "Atomic Salvation," written by Dr. Tom Lewis, an Australian intelligence analyst.

You note in another posting: "Russia now does less than UK or US did at past years in XXI century. Counter in Ukraine is still more than 30 times lower than fatalities counter in Iraq. So shoot up dear, you haven't moral rights to say "murders". You hands are in blood what is 30 times thicker."

Russian Federation hands are not clean, either. The Russian Federation, as the legal successor to the USSR and inheritor of its UN Security Council seat, inherits to its history of atrocities.

Consider that in the USSR's brutal nine-year conflict in Afghanistan from 1979, "an estimated one million civilians were killed, as well as 90,000 Mujahideen fighters, 18,000 Afghan troops, and 14,500 Soviet soldiers" (https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/20...9-1989/100786/). Compare the number of Soviet soldiers killed with the number so far in Ukraine: "From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 22 May 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 8,462 civilian casualties in the country: 3,930 killed and 4,532 injured." (https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2022/0...te-23-may-2022). And that is only in 90 days.

The death toll among Russian military forces hasn't been reported by Russian authorities since the beginning of the "special military operation," but estimates already put it at "Up To 15,000 Russians Have Died In Ukraine: U.K. Defense Ministry" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax...h=7c724905b113). If this is correct, then it already exceeds the Afghan war death toll by 500 men.

It has been said that the quantity of coffins returning from Afghanistan was one of the tipping points that led to the downfall of the USSR. Perhaps that is why Putin will not reveal the true number of deaths among Russian military force - including dead generals.

If you persist in dragging historical events with high death tolls from the 20th century into these pages, let's go really far back and consider the death tolls of the expansion of the Grand Duchy of Moscow (a small and insignificant European principality) across all the previous indigenous inhabitants of North, Central and East Asia, even into Alaska, in its transformation in the Russian Empire. And let's take just one -18th-19th century instance - the Circassian or Tsitsekun genocide. This was the Russian Empire's systematic mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and expulsion of 80–97% of the Circassian population, around 800,000–1,500,000 people, during and after the Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864) (See, e.g., "150 Years Ago, Sochi Was the Site of a Horrific Ethnic Cleansing" (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/150-years-ago-Sochi-was-the-site-horrific-ethnic-cleansing-180949675/"). The Circassians are not Slavs, however. I believe the latest Russian census figure for the number of Circassians in Russia was 718,729. In contrast, the death toll from Hiroshima and Nagasaki was estimated in the 1970s at 210,000 total dead.

Look to Russian history and see how bloodstained it really is.

[dab69]

yeah, always exists possibility of existence of one renegade in big mass of people... one "diplomat" did that, so what?

by the way: should we now to talk about Snowden or Assange?

**yawn**

[Dragonman]

The South China Morning Post (or SCMP) is a daily newspaper published in Hong Kong under that territory's current press laws and national security laws. It recently fell to 148th place in Reporters Without Borders' 2022 annual index on press freedom, a drop of nearly 70 places in a single year. Hong Kong ranked 18th place in 2002, the year the index began, but now ranks just below the Philippines and Sri Lanka, and slightly above Turkey and India in those ratings, and seven places above Russia. Even so, the SCMP publishes quite revealing articles on Russia's "special military operation" that pass the current press and national security laws.

Today's opinion article by Chayanika Saxena is entitled "How Russia’s Ukraine invasion echoes Soviet Union’s Afghanistan misadventure" (https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion...gtype=homepage). The lead-in states: "The crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan have been transformed into geopolitically disconnected concerns even as there is much that connects them. Russian aggression in Ukraine serves as a critical reminder of the dangers associated both with the misuse of history and its wilful abandonment."

Further down, Saxena writes: " The war in Afghanistan, which lasted a decade, transformed what was expected to be a limited Soviet intervention into a full-fledged crisis. The Soviet invasion cost it men, material and morale while accelerating its eventual disintegration.
The Soviet intention to flex its capabilities, fresh on the heels of the US failure in Vietnam, might have partly fuelled its decision to march into Afghanistan. But in doing so, it underestimated the strength of its adversaries, particularly their will to fight, giving the Soviets their own Vietnam.
Yet despite the lessons it offered, Russia seems to have learned little from the errors of its political predecessor. Having underestimated its Ukrainian counterparts just like it did the Afghan mujahideen, the Russian army has begun resorting to ill-conceived tactics such as indiscriminate bombing. Waging a conflict that it refuses to label as war, Russia’s current “special military operation” has destroyed Ukrainian cities while sending more than 6 million people into refuge.
It is significant to recall here that at the height of its involvement in Afghanistan, which also involved an obscene use of Soviet air power against Afghan cities, more than 1 million Afghans lost their lives while 6 million left to seek refuge in different parts of the world. Hence, expecting different outcomes when the larger Russian military templates have proven to be similar across the two conflicts amounts to wishful thinking."

The last sentence is particularly interesting.

An article on 21 May 2022 by Jun Mai (based in Beijing) was titled "Russia’s war on Ukraine based on flawed logic, Chinese military scholar wrote in article scrubbed from the web" (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...pgtype=article). That article's lead-in read: "Russia has chosen a path ‘long forsaken by human civilisation’, military scholar and Sino-Vietnam war veteran Gong Fangbin says. Gong is among a small but growing number of Chinese intellectuals voicing scepticism about Moscow’s rationale behind invading Ukraine."

Gong Fangbin is a retired professor of the People’s Liberation Army National Defence University, the PRC's top military academy. The article reports him as writing: "“I still don’t see how any country would have dared to invade the world’s No 2 military power. Russia has shown the world time and again that no one dares touch an inch of its land.” The article by Jun Mai's view of Gong's words was that they were "countering Moscow’s argument that it was cornered by the West and NATO into invading Ukraine."

I wonder what the CPC and the Chinese government really think about what is happening in Ukraine and Russia?

[Moses]

From $97 to $113 per barrel, the price of Brent oil on international markets rose from late February to May 20.

This time, the rise is largely due not to objective market reasons, but to the reaction of the markets to the loud disputes of European politicians around the sixth package of anti-Russian sanctions, which implies an embargo on the purchase of Russian oil. The purpose of the sanctions is not hidden - to deprive Russia of oil and gas revenues.

So far, everything is happening exactly the opposite. If the first package of sanctions, adopted even before the start of the special operation in Ukraine, "rallied" dozens of countries at once - right up to French Polynesia, then the sixth - quarreled Europe. Hungary vetoed the oil embargo, Poland promised to push through the package in a reduced form.

Meanwhile, this spring, the Reserve Fund of the Russian government replenished by 791.6 billion rubles. through additional oil and gas revenues. And according to Bloomberg forecasts, by the end of 2022, Russia can earn about $321 billion from oil and gas exports, which is a third more than in 2021.

[Moses]

Kissinger says Ukraine should cede territory to Russia to end war

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...rritory-davos/

Former U.S. secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger said Monday that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia to help end the invasion, suggesting a position that a vast majority of Ukrainians are against as the war enters its fourth month.

Speaking at a conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Kissinger urged the United States and the West to not seek an embarrassing defeat for Russia in Ukraine, warning it could worsen Europe’s long-term stability.

In his comments Monday, Kissinger, a longtime advocate of a realpolitik approach that has nations putting their practical aims in front of morals and principles, urged European leaders to not lose sight of Russia’s place in Europe and risk the country forming a permanent alliance with China.

[Moses]

DPA: NATO countries agreed not to supply a number of weapons to Ukraine

There are informal agreements between NATO countries to refuse to supply certain weapons systems to Ukraine, the German agency DPA reported, citing sources. The alliance believes that it is necessary to minimize the risk of a direct military confrontation with Russia.

According to the DPA, NATO fears that Russia may regard the supply of tanks and military aircraft "as entry into the war" and then take "retaliatory military measures." The ruling Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) told the agency that Germany knows about the agreement of the NATO member countries.

The NATO spokesman said that all decisions on the supply of weapons are a private matter of the countries belonging to the alliance. The unnamed European diplomats said they stuck to the informal arrangements out of fear they might otherwise not have the "full support" of their NATO partners in the event of an attack. For this reason, Poland did not supply Soviet-made MiG-29 fighters to Kyiv, DPA claims.

https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-05/25/...and-verhindern

[Moses]

Israel refused the US request for the supply of Spike anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, according to the Axios portal. The missiles are produced in Germany using Israeli technology. Under an Israeli license, he must approve the transfer of missiles to a third party.

Spike missiles are developed by Rafael. They have several modifications, equipped with an infrared homing system. The range is from 0.4 to 8 km, the flight speed reaches 130–180 m/s. Their cost is estimated at about $ 200 thousand.

Two weeks ago, Israeli Defense Ministry Director General Amir Eshel met in Washington with US Deputy Defense Secretary Colin Kahl. He asked Mr. Eshel if Israel would agree to supply Spike missiles to Ukraine. The Israeli Defense Ministry Director General refused.

He explained that Israel is ready to send Ukraine only non-lethal military equipment. As an unnamed senior Israeli official told Axios, Israel is concerned that if the Russian military is killed by Israeli weapons, Russia will retaliate "damaging Israel's security interests in Syria."

https://www.axios.com/2022/05/25/isr...germany-russia

[Dragonman]

Kissinger says Ukraine should cede territory to Russia to end war

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...rritory-davos/

Former U.S. secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger said Monday that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia to help end the invasion, suggesting a position that a vast majority of Ukrainians are against as the war enters its fourth month.

Speaking at a conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Kissinger urged the United States and the West to not seek an embarrassing defeat for Russia in Ukraine, warning it could worsen Europe’s long-term stability.

In his comments Monday, Kissinger, a longtime advocate of a realpolitik approach that has nations putting their practical aims in front of morals and principles, urged European leaders to not lose sight of Russia’s place in Europe and risk the country forming a permanent alliance with China.

Kissinger is one of those dinosaurs that Moses earlier dismissed - but now seems to give credence to. He has not held political office since January 20, 1977, or more than 45 years ago.

The Ukrainians' answer to Kissinger: "‘Davos Panicker,’ Ukraine slams Henry Kissinger for saying country must cede land to Russia."

"Kissinger’s “solution” to the war is contrary to what Ukrainians want. An overwhelming majority of the population is against any territorial concession to Russia.
A poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology between 13 and 18 May found that 82 per cent of all respondents said they did not want to cede land to Russia. “Only 10% believe that some territories can be abandoned in order to achieve peace and preserve independence,” the survey said.
The survey added: “Even in the East, which is currently experiencing intense fighting, 68% are against concessions (only 19% are ready to make concessions), and 83% are opposed to concessions in the South (only 9% are ready to make concessions).
“It is also important to see that among the respondents currently living in the occupied territories, 77% are against any territorial concessions (18% are ready to make concessions). At the same time, 82% of those who left the occupied territories after February 24, 2022 oppose any concessions (only 5% support concessions).” (https://theprint.in/world/davos-pani...russia/969994/).

Taiwan knows what Kissinger's solutions to geopolitics means for the people in the countries involved, e.g., "Taiwan Expendable? Nixon and Kissinger Go to China," by Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, The Journal of American History, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Jun., 2005), pp. 109-135.
"Op-Ed: How Nixon’s fabled trip to China, 50 years ago this week, led to today’s Taiwan crisis," https://www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...an-vietnam-war

William Stanton, a 34-year veteran U.S. diplomat whose final posting was as director of the American Institute in Taiwan (2009-2012), served as the U.S. embassy political counselor in Beijing from 1995 to 1998. He attended a presentation at which Kissinger enthusiastically described his respect and affection for China, commenting at one point that while many regard him as a purely “realpolitik” practitioner, this was not the case, and he had to admit that when it came to China in particular, there is a “warm spot” in his heart. Stanton later commented: " I was rather astonished by Dr. Kissinger’s expressed warmth toward China. When he was done speaking, I turned to the Chinese analyst sitting next to me and observed, “He really doesn’t know anything about China, does he?” The analyst responded simply: “We know that, but he’s useful to us” (https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4170721).

Stanton's comment could now read "He really doesn’t know anything about Russia, does he?” A Russian analyst's reply of “We know that, but he’s useful to us” would be equally true.