Department Press Briefing – February 3, 2022
state.gov
state.gov
Years and years later I understood the depravity of his speech and the actions of the "the west" in starting that war. I think it is the only time in my life that I felt truly betrayed, and the realization happened while I was thinking about the topic in a grocery store aisle. My hands felt clammy.
Even more years later my job at a large software company had me extremely close to Powell. Like in the same room with him for long stretches of time and having 1-on-1 conversations. Every fibre in me wanted to say to him, calmly: You told a lie and it killed a lot of innocent people. Their lives matter too.
I didn't say it. I did my job and kept it at that. I don't know to this day if I had a moral obligation to say something, but ultimately I didn't because I knew he didn't care.
So yes, false flags. They only happen when something is inevitable. War is here.
George Bush was going to invade Iraq either way, and he did. Of course, Powell’s speech did not help the credibility of the US.
That is revisionist, and 100% incorrect. Bush did not have much credibility on the world stage or even at home. Powell did. When he co-signed what Bush and the other warmongers were saying, the public became willing to accept the necessity of the war.
I vividly remember the speech and the absolute difference it made in most people's minds about the pending invasion, not just globally but among the US general public as well. He was one of the few people with credibility on both sides of the aisle and on the world stage.
Powell knew it was going to fail, because he knew the contrary information available from UN inspectors that was going to be presented at the same meeting and which was already broadly available to decision-makers. The target of the UN speech wasn't the UN, it was domestic public opinion. And many who were not ideologically aligned with the President or previously committed to the war were, if not actually sold on the war, at least made afraid of Iraq’s potential by that speech (I had a lot of people say report their personal response along those lines to me at the time.)
It was an important, key part of the domestic propaganda campaign, despite the venue.
Which is why I wince at the fact that I ever supported this crime. It had nothing to do with the American interests, but that didn’t stop the bloodshed.
Now they’re determined to do it all over again, saying the same malarkey they said back then about protecting freedom or something.
Objectively good world leader, he was not.
If Team America World Police imperial global colonization authority with military bases all over the world like the friggin Roman Empire must right every regime, then it needs to invade Russia, North Korea, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Myanmar too.
America lied (either intentionally or unintentionally) about the reasons for invading Iraq post-9/11.
But that isn't to say that removing Saddam Hussein from power wasn't a global or regional good.
It's trendy and low-hanging fruit to bash the American military for international involvements, or its many failures.
But it's equally important to note that the times America has turned inward and taken a more isolationist stance have resulted in the greatest turns away from international diplomacy and transgressions of international human rights.
The alternative to "Team America World Police imperial global colonization authority with military bases all over the world like the friggin Roman Empire" is not "life as we know it, minus America."
It's every country is one dictator or military coup away from becoming an undemocratic state. So I'd weigh how happy a citizen of Myanmar or Venezuela are with their life vs the ugliness of American military power.
Having lived next to Russia I’d love to see it wiped off the map. Easily the worst nation in the world. Basically a terrorist state. Disgusting.
How do we know for sure the real title shouldn't be: "US to stage false flag information campaign claiming 'russia is about to use crisis actors to stage false flag operation and start war in days', followed by false flag operations in Ukraine, in order to justify upcoming unilateral action against Russia?"
Like, I've seen soo many unprovoked articles in the last few days about how the US is "actively" gearing for war over something Russia "may" do, it's all a bit reminiscent of the "War on Iraq/Terror/WMD" stuff to me, and we all know how that ended up.
Furthermore, what I'm more worried when hearing press releases like that is that it's exactly the kind of talk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean, it's chicken and egg situation, isn't it? If got whiff that someone was planning an armed raid to my house on the pretext of finding guns, first thing I'd do would be to arm myself to fend off the raiders. If I heard that someone was accusing me of "planning to throw eggs at the school windows", my first thought would be that someone is planning to do this on my behalf already in order to frame me, and maybe I should go near the school with some eggs and wait for the offenders.
At what point do we take such speculative projections justifying real military actions at face value without questioning the intelligence and motives involved?
Come on, unilateral military action against Russia? You can't be serious.
Ukraine was already invaded and is at war with Russia over Donbas since 2014.
Russia does not deny their current military buildup on Ukraine border with Belarus and Russia.
But as I said, they don't even deny buildup.
They just say that they do not want to invade and that it is their right to gather army all around Ukraine. None of our business.
Instead they make demands with regard to security of countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and of course Ukraine.
This is also why Ukraine will not join NATO until they resolve their business with Russia.
It was not obvious recently to German navy chief, it is not obvious to Ukrainian government and to plenty of other experts. All the evidence about "imminent attack" is fed to media by US government without sufficient proofs. Whatever are your sources, try to find more information.
Ukrainian government is not denying Russia buildup on their borders. They just say that Russia does not have enough troops for a full scale invasion. So, Russia is preparing, but is not yet ready for a full-scale invasion.
But USA is indeed going too far in rhetoric if Ukraine is toning them down.
Personally, I think there is 55% chance Russia is bluffing and intimidates Ukraine to dissuade them from thinking about taking back Donbas and Crimea. 45% chance that by end of March there will be land corridor from Russia to Crimea.
Indeed he did not. However he said that such invasion to annex more of Ukrainian territory does not make sense. In order to run a very expensive and widely unpopular military operation you do need a good motive, and this means that whatever is the purpose of the military buildup, invasion is not the goal.
Russian military did not invade undisputed territories since War in Afghanistan and they now prefer hybrid wars or limited peacekeeping operations, rather than full scale invasions. They may provide some support to Donbas, but there is actually no point even investing in that. Minsk agreements are quite favorable to Russia, so it brings more value to persuade Germany and France that Ukraine needs more pressure to implement them. No, the real target of this buildup is NATO, playing Biden into signing new security treaties.
We will see.
Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO due to disputed territories anyway.
As a Pole, after full blown invasion on Ukraine, I would support increase in military spending beyond current goal of 2.5%.
I also think that Sweden and Finland would join NATO relatively soon after invasion. After 2014 annexation of Crimea support for NATO grew there some 20-30%. Sweden is rattled enough to deploy symbolic military presence to Gotland. Joining NATO is part of political discussion in Finland, but they are on the edge.
Russia would only lose on war with Ukraine.
As for the expansion of NATO, any change in the military configuration of it is an unnecessary and significant escalation. Russia is not threatening neither Finland, nor Sweden, not even close, but we will get at least an arms race in Baltic region if they join. Russian military strategy is that of active defense, they build up the power to protect their own territory. They do not have capabilities to attack and occupy Poland or Finland for a long time, mainly for logistical reasons (their army will run out of fuel quickly and won’t be able to resupply fast enough). The worst part of the expansion is not that there’s a hypothetical risk of a conflict but that it strengthens Putin. He has built his rule on the idea of Fortress Russia surrounded by enemies. Any hostile moves by the West help him to build this case and to prove that pro-Western opposition is wrong. But if instead we could bind Russia in the series of multilateral deals with its neighbors, including defense cooperation, we could on one side defeat the Russian hawks and on the other side create too big pie to lose for Russian elites. America has Monroe doctrine: we should try to remove the need for Russia to have one. Situation in Ukraine made this really hard to achieve, but not impossible.
I don't feel like one can participate in this discussion in good faith because any "evidence" of "imminent attack" can be brushed off... 100k troops and a ton of military gear on the border? Just chilling out and sightseeing, my friend, nothing to see here!
However, I do contest the claim that all "evidence" is fed by the US government. There are other sources if you care to dig in.
How about Ministry of Defence of Ukraine? They've been predicting action for January-February since months ago, and there's certainly evidence from Ukraine that Russia is up to something.
> On 21 November, the head of the HUR MOU, Kyrylo Budanov, reported that Russia had concentrated more than 92,000 troops and deployed several Iskander short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) systems near the Russo-Ukrainian border. Budanov accused Russia of conspiring protests against vaccination against COVID-19 in Kyiv and other protest rallies in Ukraine to destabilize the country in preparations for a large-scale military invasion. According to Budanov, active Russian military actions should be expected between late-January and early-February 2022.
> On 3 December, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksii Reznikov, spoke of the possibility of a "large-scale escalation" by Russia during the end of January 2022, during a session at the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's national parliament).
> Russia began a slow evacuation of its embassy staff at Kyiv beginning from January 2022. The motives of the evacuation remain unknown and were subjected to multiple speculations. By mid-January, an intelligence assessment produced by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence estimated that Russia were in its final stages of completing a military buildup at the Russo-Ukrainian border, amassing 127,000 troops at the region.
I'm not going to post the links because anyone who is not dishonest and not intellectually lazy can find them in two minutes of searching.
Umm, this is exactly what I meant when I said it's impossible to discuss this in good faith. Any evidence can be immediately brushed off. "Ha, Ministry of Defence of Ukraine failed to predict the exact date when something would happen, therefore everything they said is false!" Completely disregarding everything that has been happening near Ukrainian border.
Sorry, I'm not going to continue this discussion with you.
The thing though is it does make Putin look weak if he has to move 100k troops to threaten Biden to the negotiation table.
PS: "Proof" is both singular and plural. "Proofs" isn't a word.
They are on their own against Putin's Russia.
"We didn't plan to do this, we stated this so many times in all media, but what we said they are going to do is so bad, that we had to take actions... Totally not our fault, everyone can see that..."
Scenario 1) US disseminates bad intelligence and invades a sovereign country. Iraq War.
Scenario 2) US disseminates bad intelligence and arms / militarily supports a sovereign country which is being invaded. Ukraine.
Nobody is remotely considering a scenario where the US is saying "Russia might invade Ukraine, so we're going to invade Russia."
A defensive war is by definition the fault of the aggressor. Because they are literally on land that is yours.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1110912 The UN reports that Russian troop buildup is happening at the border
The area has already had Russian agression via Crimea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_Crimea
Are people suggesting that no one should respond militarily to an allies plea for help to respond to military aggression?
First you say "this is going to happen" and then courageously prevent it by something you needed to do but had no excuse before.
Having just finishing the war in the middle east, I'm sure the military complex would have a vested interest in joining / starting another conflict.
What about using a conflict to deflect attention away from a market breakdown?
What about using a conflict to drive a post-COVID recovery?
I'm not saying it definitely has to be one of these reasons, but I can think of many off the top of my head. Why are you so certain that USA or NATO nations would have no reason to start a conflict?
Ukraine is not member of NATO and not an ally of NATO states, just a rather unreliable partner in security cooperation, a corrupt democracy with stagnating reforms that does not want to commit to the diplomatic agreements negotiated with the help of the West. There is no reason for NATO to participate in any military conflict there.
> after eight years of facing down one another across about 200 meters of no-man’s land at the line of demarcation, the situation between Ukrainian armed forces and Donbas forces is very tense and volatile, so that it would be very easy for a provocation staged by British or American special forces, who are known to be in the area, to touch off a major conflagration.
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/02/04/look-at-the-map-where...
No one wants to deal with Russia, have anything to do with Russia, or hear of it at all. No one. They're a nation of misery and nothingness. Would you leave your apartment, right now, go to the slums and start shit with the people over there? The thought that the US is looking for excuses to mess with Russia is insane.
And spending any time on Russia is a wasted time and resources which could have been spent towards more productive things. But if you let Russia run around and conquering this and that will force your hand eventually, at which point the time and resources you have to spent to deal with them would have grown massively.
Describes South Los Angeles or San Francisco SoMa perfectly.
It would be very easy for the Chinese authorities to allow critical media in every province just like it would be easy for Russia to have OSCE (or equivalent) inspection of “excercises” near the Ukrainian border.
Questioning sources and rumors is a good thing - but in cases when the sources are scarce because they are denied, one should assume the worst from the party refusing oversight. This is a plausible rumor.
USA will proxy war with Russia all over the world, but always falls short of direct conflict. It's too likely to turn nasty, and trigger MAD.
I think it's an important distinction that the US isn't gearing up for war with Russia (US-Russia), but rather readying themselves for a Ukraine-Russia escalation, and whatever ways in which that might spill over. Arguably they are already at war. The concern is not just another territory grab, but outright attack on Ukrainian sovereignty.
I don't know enough about world politics to have a say in to what degree the US is willing to come to Ukraine's defense. I do know that US doctrine since the Cold War is to not directly square off with the bear, not discounting giving the bear death stares from across the bar.
You should read not only what the state department tries to claim, but also what the russian official figures are saying (google translate?). Objectively, you are advancing troops to Russian border, and not Russia advancing its troops to yours. And you have the history of invading other nations, not Russia (though you would claim Russia invaded Ukraine, remember that Ukraine was part of Russia long before the american state came into being, that no one ever considered Lugansk and Donetsk "ukrainian cities", and that the current ukranian neonazi government, supported by US in its role of a battering ram against Russia, tries to ban the Russian language in Ukraine, and glorifies WWII collaborationists).
So Russia didn't invade Afghanistan, USSR did. Okay I guess.
>remember that Ukraine was part of Russia
So now Russia is the same as USSR? But didn't invade other countries?
What? Doublespeak much?
>the current ukranian neonazi government
Okay I now regret reading your comment. It's just swallowing and regurgitating Russian state propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings#Rus...
> QUESTION: Well, where is it? Where is the declassified information?
> MR PRICE: I just delivered it.
Epic exchange.
So they are sharing the information vs sharing the evidence. Which isn't very satisfying, but it is at least coherent.
tl;dr: disclosing data could tell the adversary how we found out, leading to changes by the adversary or deaths of spies crucial to how we learned what we learned.
I can only imagine how hard it must be to protect sources, but the end state must eventually be to provide evidence or there is no way to tell the difference between an intelligence service and a method for manufacturing unsubstantiated claims at the convenience of whoever operates the agency. Maybe I’m being naive.
No. By revealing a likely course of action, it can prevent them from taking that course of action.
For example, if I plan to cheat at a card game by keeping extra cards in my shirt sleeve and another player at the table says: "He cheats. I hear he keeps cards in his sleeves." Then it will much harder, perhaps impossible for me to cheat that way because everyone will be watching my sleeves and my movements carefully.
At some point presumably you have to provide evidence. If you never can, that’s when you sound like Alex Jones.
I don’t mean noop in the sense that nothing can happen as a result, so it was probably a bad choice of a word, but that it just doesn’t provide any info. Maybe you’re telling the truth, maybe you’re lying for your own reasons, I have no way to know and so what can I do with the info?
I see the point you’re making too, though, and it makes sense.
What would you do if you were the US government? They're trying to stop a war.
There does not have to be any specific evidence of the plot itself. It would be enough to show the necessary military buildup, but apparently the current Russian deployments near Ukraine are not enough and not in the configuration for attack. US government has a track record of lying about international affairs. It’s time to stop listening them.
But yes, I would probably want some form of intelligence briefing being declassified in paper form before pointing the finger at a nuclear adversary. That ol' extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence thing.
Or do you think that some spy in Russia, telephoned a guy in the pentagon, that telephoned a guy in the whitehouse, that setup a press conference and then telephoned a guy to brief him about something he should say, that may or may not help to provoke a war?
Seems a bit far fetched.
>Russia is planning to stage fabricated attacks by Ukrainian military or intelligence forces as a pretext for a further invasion of Ukraine.
As far as really important stuff (perhaps this isn't a good example?), they could actually just reveal everything, after all having an informed public seems pretty important in a democratic society. Does that ever happen? Get all the secret agents out and just blow the lid? It would have to be going-to-war level stuff though.
On the other hand Ukraine itself is saying it’s not a crisis…
"Sure, here is a high resolution video allowing everyone to figure out the locations of your spy cameras, and btw we got the hint from Ivan Snitchovsky, a double agent aged 35, he lives here and this is a picture of him. Oops, he's probably dead by now and a valuable source of intelligence is gone!"
I mean goddam it the gov of Ukraine is saying hold up, we don’t see the same alarm you do.
That was two decades ago and totally different people and political party. Be skeptical, but don't just be blindly anti.
> I mean goddam it the gov of Ukraine is saying hold up, we don’t see the same alarm you do.
Odds are pretty good that they see it the same way, they just don't want their economy to crater while waiting.
So in the end they'd still be saying "believe us." And those who don't can call it unverifiable fake evidence.
It's, we have proof of this thing, so we're announcing it because that's possibly a good in and of itself.
And the concrete actions we're taking are deploying some troops to NATO countries that want to host them and sending weapons to Ukraine. Neither of these seem like unreasonable actions, considering the numerical disparity between local Russian units and NATO ones.
This is such a dishonest take.
The Ukrainian government is downplaying the Russian threat because it doesn't want its tax paying population to flee to Western Europe.
Our devs in Ukraine are expecting war soon and are looking into relocating with their families.
There's reason to be skeptic but it's also extremely naive to think evidence of that nature can just be handed as proofs without blowing multiple sources
"No supporting evidence" oh I'm sure there's plenty of circumstantial evidence (like the satellite photos). Putin knows how to play the game of plausible deniability together with plausible aggressiveness.
"Oh but Iraq", we should definitely remember about it. It doesn't help that Saddam played himself. No kidding, he's like a person acting like he's shoplifting something but in the end isn't. Except you just don't get told off at the store door, you get invaded and overthrown.
The strategy of appeasement is known to fail because it emboldens dictators like Hitler or Putin to always want and take more.
Putin already has taken a large chunk of Ukraine and Georgia with invasions that launched during a prior olympic event.
He needs to be stopped so that Ukraine doesn't end up getting another Russian imposed genocide and the world doesnt't end up in WW3.
At least in case of Georgia, this is incorrect. The "invasion" was initiated by Georgian advance on Tskhinvali, and as a final result of this "invasion", no territorial changes have occurred, and the Russian troops haven't moved anywhere they haven't been for centuries already (including all the way up to 2008). If the goal was to invade Georgia, how come when it was all done nobody moved even a mile closer to Tbilisi, and even that clown fool Saakashvili was allowed to continue to embarrass himself in the same role?
What, exactly, was the goal, and the result of this "invasion"?
"Sure, here is a high resolution video allowing everyone to figure out the locations of your spy cameras, and btw we got the hint from Ivan Snitchovsky, a double agent aged 35, he lives here and this is a picture of him."
Unfortunately for them, their previous lies have caught up to them so we will need more believable sources than “because we said so”.
The sad thing is that they dont need anything. The USA is going to go pick up a fight with Russia, exercise their war muscle to both reactivate that side of the economy and the sense of nationalism that the government needs from its citizens and which has been slowly eroding in the last 20 years or so.
Wag the dog indeed.
My hunch is Ukraine is preparing to launch an offensive against the rebels (low intensity fights have been since the separation) and Russia will step in whatsoever. I don't expect Russian to launch a full scale offensive because it just doesn't make sense.
> MR PRICE: Matt, there’s a second point. This is derived from intelligence, intelligence in which we have confidence —
> QUESTION: Well —
> MR PRICE: — in which we have confidence, otherwise —
> QUESTION: The same confidence you had in WMD in Iraq? I mean, what —
> MR PRICE: Otherwise – otherwise – otherwise we would not be making it public in the way we are. But here’s the other point: Intelligence and evidence, these are two separate things. It is no —
What does he mean, “Intelligence and evidence are two separate things”? Is he saying that claims and evidence are different things?
If some other nation had done a similar air strike which killed innocent civilians, there would be sanctions one after another. E.g., Sanctions were imposed on Belarus just for landing the plane with a fake hijacking plot. The same was done by American gov on President of Bolivia Eva Morales due to the possibility that Snowden was on the flight.
Belarus.
You mean just like Russia recently did in Africa?
>On 16 and 17 January 2022 at least 65 civilians were killed by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group supported by armed forces in Aïgbado and Yanga villages near Bria in the Central African Republic during operation against rebels from Coalition of Patriots for Change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%AFgbado_massacre
These "mercenaries" have just been relocated by Russia to the Ukrainian border.
Has the world already forgot the daily Russian bombings in Syria a few years ago that killed thousands of civilians? Russia and Russian-armed Syrian groups were responsible for the vast majority of casualties in Syria.
Context matters.
Not to mention, the "Russian bounty hunters" story that was completely fake.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/journalists-learning-they-s...
So why would the US lie about this? I’m very open to ideas - I’m not one to trust the government - but I just don’t see any motive here. It seems like an honest warning that Russia is going to lie and try to make it seem like Ukraine attacked them.
And I agree these sort of lies have been done before, and they’re still being done. They’re used to justify a lot of US military actions which are unjustifiable (e.g. drone strikes). But the motive here is just not that clear to me because we already have enough of an excuse to do whatever we want to Russia over Ukraine.
Other people know there was a color revolution in Kiev that ousted a democratically elected president who was, just as Ukraine historically has been, aligned to Russia and put in place someone else who was completely against an alignment with Russia and went straight to alignment to the west. Then Russia invaded. To forget all this you need some serious cognitive dissonance since it's essentially the Cuba crisis of the 60s except with inverted roles.
So no, the US has nothing to justify what it has been doing since the crisis began in 2013. That is why it needs to keep making up excuses, they're meant for US people and its allies' people to believe and support action against Russia, by driving the narrative that poor ukrainians are being oppressed. No, the ones oppressed are the ones who voted Yanukovych and had their democratically elected representative forcefully removed from power.
1) US, presumably through the CIA, supports a color revolution in Ukraine to oust a democratically elected leader.
2) The newly installed leader, presumably with CIA influence, is markedly more favorable to the west.
3) Russia invades and occupies Crimea. Russia sends troops into eastern Ukraine.
4) (Potential future) Russia sends troops into other areas of Ukraine.
Did I get that right?
If so, what are the justifications for (3) & (4)? That Russia is upholding the rightful choice of Ukrainian democracy?
The Russian made up story where troops from Ukraine killed children came days earlier.
Did they try to hide this information?
At last since the Iraq war the intelligence services really lost any independent credibility they had during the Cold War.
It’s the boy who cried wolf once too many times. Maybe they’re right, but just as likely they are making it up for realpolitik or worse domestic politics.
Are you talking about US or Russian intelligence services here?
As it could easily apply to both.
Or - hypothetically - if the US intelligence is only 80% reliable - isn't it still worth signalling to their Russian counterparts that "we see you, don't try it" ? That might be the real intended audience.
Isn't this also a fairly plausible accusation about Russia, given previous operations, e.g. "little green men" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukrain... and apartment bombings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings
They've got phones and meetings for that. it's 2023, everyone is fully aware what, where and how things are happening. What they do is bargain on who gets what, all things considered.
Yeah, I take your point. The idea behind putting the possibility of Russian fake news into the public view is more likely ... well, putting it into the _public_ view. Because such fake news is an attempt to change public opinion.
They totally are. They were downright shocked that AP's Matt Lee didn't just go along with it.
The question is not whether Russia would ever do such a thing. The question is if the USG actually has evidence that they plan to do such a thing.
One particularly ugly thing Russia did in Syria, was send out warnings that "the rebels are planning a false flag attack" to give Syria cover for actual attacks they were making.
That illustrates that Russia is untrustworthy, sure, but we already knew that. However, it also illustrates how worthless unsubstantiated claims of forthcoming false flag attacks are.
1. Have not presented evidence, merely asserted something and demand to be trusted
2. Have a long history of lying, and clearly feel they are entitled to lie to you when they feel it's useful.
There are plenty of times you should not give the Russian government the benefit of doubt, but it's the other side which is making a positive assertion here.
Given the situation, I dont see much reason for a pretext on Russias part. They will either pull the trigger on this thing or not. At this point vlad would probably feel weak if he backed down, so things are kind of stuck.
I think it's unlikely Putin will humiliate China by attacking while The Winter Games are on.
The interesting thing is that the CIA actually disagreed with the Iraq WMD "evidence".
Put bluntly, Ukraine is a strategic buffer between Russia and the West, keeping their nukes and armed forces at arm's length. Ukraine didn't like this role, it wanted out, but it underestimated how much this would tip the balance. They moved too fast and against a now-pissed former and powerful ally. Hence the result.
That is, there is a pretty good reason for Russia to do all this even if their methods are painfully crude.
That's what Russians say, but if you stop thinking it, it makes no sense.
The analogy to an abuser claiming ownership of a battered spouse is becoming incredibly apt.
If you're not a citizen of Ukraine, it's none of your business. Maybe if you didn't keep beating her bloody you'd have a better relationship?
Put bluntly, nukes don't matter, and armed forces are only used to suppress societal discontent. Ukraine sees the regressive authoritarianism Putin creates and didn't like how the pie is cut. Putin is throwing a temper tantrum because he's a dinosaur. He can only look back, and on his deathbed he will look back on a Russia that could and should have been much more.
There is a reason for his party to do all this, but its fear of facing their own failure birthed in greed and paranoia, and not any military strategy in the face of satellites, drones, and hyper-sonic nukes.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/newly-declassifie...
Agreements regarding matters of such strategic gravity are always written down and signed by the involved parties. The expansion of NATO clearly was and remains as strategic a concern (to all parties) whether then or now. Note, for example, Russia's current demand for a "written legally binding response".
So we are either to assume Soviet team (Gorbachev et al.) were either incompetent or assets of the West, or, USSR capitulated and was not in a position to make legal binding demands regarding NATO and had to be satisfied with warm non-binding backroom reassurances.
I think it is the latter, and now, post Soviet Russia (caught between a pincer of Europe and China) believes it has a stronger hand and wants to re-negotiate.
“not ready to deploy” in 1990, "could not foresee circumstances” in 1991. These aren't open-ended commitments, but exactly the opposite.
Every country can make their own decisions regarding their international treaties and alliances. The NATO expansion is also not something that’s happening against the will of the people in eastern countries. After the Crimea annexation, most countries in that sphere of influence turned anti-russia and more pro-nato. The majority of Ukrainians is currently also pro joining the NATO.
> Since June 2014, polls showed that about 50% of those asked supported Ukrainian NATO membership. Some 69% of Ukrainians want to join NATO, according to a June 2017 poll by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, compared to 28% support in 2012 when Yanukovych was in power
The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-...
That’s literally his job.
For Iraq, the US war hawks made it clear they had an objective of going to war in the Middle East. Their plans were obvious.
This seems like a completely different setup. We’re supposed to disbelieve this statement because it’s part of the US government’s evil plan to… prevent a war happening?
And I say this as someone who thinks Russia does actually have legitimate beef with the prospect of NATO expansion, despite their thuggish approach to negotiation.
It means that you can't trust governments when it comes to major political conflicts. Lies for the "greater good" have always been a standard thing in such situations
To enrich some oligarchs associated with the Kremlin and play geopolitics about energy? Yeah it wouldn't be surprising in the slightest.
This is a serious issue, millions of lives hang in the balance here, and all the commenters here want to play armchair general. I'm in disbelief.
It's a fraction of Russian forces already close by, then there's another 2 million reserves just waiting around at home. Supply/movement costs are barely a rounding error and it's bizarre to hear otherwise as though they care about taxpayer waste? Spending the most on nothing is basically a political sport there.
Then there's this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/world/europe/putin-sancti...
Putin is in an excellent position to weather any western sanctions from stirring the pot, and we all know it. Germany, the de facto leader of the EU just threw away it's nuclear powerplants becoming ever more reliant on Russia for its vital energy needs for the next few decades. They know how strong a position they have and are going to cause trouble over the Ukraine NATO thing without fear, that's pretty much the extent of it.
It's the usual 5 eyes nonsense where our media hypes it up for months and then nothing. You should try talking to some South Koreans or Taiwanese about this phenomenon, it will be their turn again next year. It's far too late in winter to be invading anyone.
Not as a ruse, but as a show of force to bolster his negotiation position. Putin would have to be insane to actually invade. It would be the end of his regime.
US intelligence agencies have a history of making things up, yes.
As for "what is going on in the comments", I have to ask the same question. The credulity, paranoia, and lack of perspective is somewhat astonishing to me. There are people who literally think that eastern Ukraine is absolutely vital to American interests.
Whenever we're writing code that helps a military, we may be writing it to kill the family of a colleague, which is clearly immoral.
So from your point of view that makes Ukraine a very moral country. We'll soon see what that means for the Ukrainian people.
1. US/nato didnt send military so close to Russian border at this scale before
If a country that I had a cold war with amassed military near my border I'd be rightfully paranoid (I am not from us or russia btw)
2. Deescalation needs at least one side not amassing military there else its a never ending spiral into war.. and due to #1 us/nato should take that step, not act like russia, rather be better
3. Like others said, the same sources that lied about Iraq, Afghanistan etc.. yeah, it's come to it that many comments that said that are (or looks like) from us citizens
#1) Any actual things/events will be automtically doubted even if true. Given the restriction on live casting to YT this leaves citizen journalism effectively muzzled.
#2) Pot meet kettle. Google Yellow Uranium Hoax and the "Sexed Up Dossier".
Personal Opinion Only - I find it sad seeing the Internet being weaponised
It's a win/win.
"US State Department spokesperson Ned Price has rejected Moscow’s assertion that Washington is escalating tensions by sending additional troops to Europe, accusing Russia of attempting to turn “reality upside down”.
“These are not permanent moves; they are precisely in response to the current security environment in light of this increasingly threatening behaviour by the Russian Federation,” Price told reporters."
Oh, so there are troops on both sides. Who could've thought
The journalist is from the AP, for additional context.
But to imply that Russia isn't willing, able, or actively running disinformation ops, and in fact it's the US State Dept that's lying and running the false flag...like, what!?
Russia:
- we have no intentions of putting missiles in Cuba
- we're not rolling tanks into Afghanistan
- dunno how that polonium got into that spy's tea
- idk, that spy just happened to die from a nerve toxin that's only produced in one russian chemical weapons facility.
I'm hardly read up on world politics but anyone paying attention to basic history knows that this is what Russia does. They constantly gaslight the rest of the world with a thin veil of plausible deniability, while leaving obvious "calling cards" as a message of deterrence to anyone that can read between the lines.
> But to imply that Russia isn't willing, able, or actively running disinformation ops
Literally no one (of significance) is saying this. This is a straw man.
> and in fact it's the US State Dept that's lying and running the false flag
Not sure where you are reading this, but the U.S actually has a long history of conspiring and attempting false flag operations and unlike most others, hundreds of thousands people end up displaced and dead after U.S involvement.
They roll tanks, USA flies drones. How’s that war with Yemen you’re not in going?
They kill spies, people get suicided in prison. Epstein not killing himself isn’t such a funny meme now.
Anyone paying attention knows that you only get one side of the argument when you live inside that countries sphere of influence.
USA is literally the only one that wants war here. Russia doesn’t, Ukraine doesn’t, Europe doesn’t, Germany doesn’t.
So ask yourself, why would America want to make a country look like an unstable and aggressive force when countries have started to trust them enough to replace their nuclear power generation with cheap Russian gas instead of American imported LNG???
No freaken idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DTSSvtg19I
the fun part start at 2 minutes
At the same time I think the decision is to attack is not made and probability of large scale attack is maybe 10-30%. President of Ukraine and their defense minister think similarly.
If Russia botches the attack, or resistance and partisan warfare is worse than anticipated, and Russian military is humiliated. The easiest way for authoritarian leader to be toppled is if they screw up war and humiliated military leadership is not sitting idly taking blame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings#Rus...
A second difference is that that was 20 years, and 3 administrations ago.
If anyone has a reason the government would want to lie about this I’m very open to it - but it just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t see the motive.
I worry that the West "calling this bluff" will force Putin into doing something he doesn't really want to do, though. Maybe there will be a "minor incursion" then some kind of "agreement" so everyone can save face?
Then they should probably stop invading and occupying Ukraine.
Or do you mean that they have succeeded in convincing you that they don't really want to invade more of Ukraine?
Maybe, I mean, they might well not want to do that right now if they can instead use the threat of doing so as leverage to get a firm commitment from NATO not to protect Ukraine in the future and to withdraw from other places in Eastern Europe, effectively committing to recognize Russia’s Greater East Europe Co-Prosperity Sphere. That would be the bigger win than anything they could get by an immediate further invasion.
So the threat hasn’t exactly paid off yet, and what’s worse, they might have painted themselves into a corner where open conflict is the least bad option, at least if Putin wants to save his strong man face (not that the Russian public wants the war despite endless propaganda in every news outlet).
Perhaps Putin can accept the de facto re-incorporation of Belarus into Russia that took place last week in plain sight as a win and be happy with that.