Tag: nato

America Must Reject Any Deal That Puts Ukraine In NATO

American taxpayers will have to foot the bill for Ukraine’s potential entry to the biggest military alliance in history. President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists on Friday that the Americans, for the first time, raised the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO in exchange for leaving Donbas, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported. Zelensky relayed the question just as it was reportedly put to him: “What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?” He said this was the first time the question had been raised, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

But whatever that formula is, it is not peace. Ukraine’s membership in NATO would not be the end of the war; rather, it would formally chain the United States to a conflict with the largest nuclear power in the world. The American guarantee to defend a country in the midst of a brutal war would not bring an end to hostilities. Instead, it would Americanize the war, without the American people having ever been consulted in a democratic election.

A second serious defect in this formulation, which is not to be fixed by favorable White House marketing, is that the Ukrainians have already rejected this key concession that it is supposed to purchase. Asked about the occupied territories, President Zelensky said Ukraine would not give up its territory, that no concrete proposal had been made, and that any formal offer would go to public discussion, according to Interfax-Ukraine. He reiterated that he would not recognize Russian sovereignty over the occupied territories of Ukraine.

The same Interfax-Ukraine account of Friday’s briefing added that the US is also talking about bilateral security guarantees similar to Articles 4 and 5 of the NATO treaty, while Zelensky said he was told there would be no American troops in Ukraine. In a Tuesday interview with the Danish outlet DR, Zelensky said that the Americans had asked about trading Donbas for so-called “security guarantees” that were “not NATO, but something like NATO.” Something like NATO is still something that the US would have to fight. Article 5 of the NATO treaty is the only sentence in it that matters to the average American voter. It is a commitment to use American power and treasure to protect other members of the alliance, and, if necessary, to send young Americans to their deaths in defense of members.

It would be a catastrophe for the United States to go to war over Ukraine. The United States would be obligating itself to possibly fight a nuclear war with Russia over a piece of territory that poses no strategic interest to the United States. What American campaign ever promised to take the American people to the Donbas?

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Deploy British and French Armies to Ukraine, Warships to Black Sea, to End Ukraine War Says Former NATO Boss

The only way to end the Ukraine war is for Europe’s largest militaries to immediately deploy their troops there and “push for peace”, the former Secretary General of NATO has said.

U.S. President Donald Trump is “siding with Putin” and European states must use force to bring the Ukraine war to an end and ensure they have a seat at the negotiating table at the end of it, former NATO Secretary General between 2009-2014 Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said in a series of statements. Rasmussen, who was Prime Minister of Denmark before his tenure at the top of the Western security alliance, spoke as trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States took place but where European delegates were kept out of the room, a matter of evident anguish for the defence leader and Ukraine advisor.

Speaking to Euronews earlier this week, Rasmussen said: “Europe is begging for a place at the table, but you cannot beg your way to a seat at the table, you have to make yourself indispensable by bringing assets to the table”. He subsequently added: “Europe will not talk its way to the negotiating table. We must force our way there, with action.”

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How the US Brought War to Ukraine

If there is still someone out there who has persisted until now in the idea that Ukrainian history began in 2022, and that wiser members of the U.S. establishment didn’t warn against, and more conniving members strategize for, each U.S. step toward war from the NATO enlargement of the 1990s through the U.S.-backed coup of 2014, the U.S.-backed war that began in 2014, Obama’s military training and base building, Trump’s weapons shipments, Biden’s hostility toward diplomacy, the fantastic horror fables of Russiagate, the reduction of Germany and France to mindless puppets treating the Minsk agreements as a trick, and the U.S. blocking of negotiation or peace just before and just after the Russian invasion — and if such a someone has reached a point of open-mindedness to information, there’s a new book that might really help.

And it sure is badly needed in this moment of Democratic candidates rising on public opposition to wars, even while promising to escalate the war in Ukraine the moment they’re able to.

But the value of this new book to me lies in how it takes the story of the Ukraine War back, not just to the 1990s but to the 1940s. In Boiling Point: How America Brought War to Ukraine, Stephen Kinzer gives us deeper understanding of roots and motivations, establishing beyond any possible dispute that the U.S. government began a project of using Ukraine to weaken Russia and pursued it across generations, through changes in individual actors, through failure after failure, and through U.S. presidents who themselves may have lacked a decent understanding of the project they were continuing — so that, as open hostility toward the Soviet Union became supposed friendliness toward Russia, the public face of obliviousness regarding Russia’s inscrutable opposition to the unchanging project of bringing Ukraine into NATO may in fact have involved some actual obliviousness.

Kinzer opens his book claiming to be presenting just the facts, ma’am, and to in no sense be denying the role that Ukrainians have played in their own history. He takes no position on Russia’s criminal and murderous actions, but simply includes them as part of the story. Nonetheless, it is a story of a major project aimed at influencing Ukraine and Russia from Washington, Langley, and Manhattan — sometimes secretly, for example by parachuting would-be revolutionaries into Ukraine to meet their deaths, and sometimes openly, for example celebrating U.S. efforts to interfere in a Russian election to ensure that a drunken buffoon remain in charge of Russia. Even the interference in Ukraine during the eight years leading up to 2022 was generally a point of pride to be openly bragged about right up until it wasn’t. Not just U.S. officials like Victoria Nuland but private foundations such as George Soros’ couldn’t help crowing about how much they’d spent and how responsible they were for overthrowing and manipulating the government of Ukraine. Even now, Nuland goes on camera and openly admits to the U.S. blocking of a peace agreement just weeks after the Russian invasion, and NATO’s top officials can’t stop themselves from pointing out that the insistence on NATO membership was the cause of the war. But the rest of us aren’t supposed to repeat these things.

In Ukraine we have polls now showing large majority support for compromising and ending the war, whereas for a couple of years we we badgered with our supposed responsibility to risk nuclear apocalypse because Ukrainians wanted it. The story of U.S. government behavior from the 1940s on, during which the desires of Ukrainians mattered to U.S. policy makers exactly never, makes clear what an odd and fleeting pretense it was to claim that keeping Ukraine at war was a sacred duty to the people of Ukraine who were insisting upon it.

When World War II ended and the U.S. government was able to jump right back to treating the Soviet Union as its primary enemy, some in the incipient U.S. spy-sabotage-assassination complex that would become the CIA saw Ukraine as the most powerful tool available to threaten Russia, just as Russia saw Ukraine as the pathway for a threatening invasion. Frank Wisner was an early driving force. He would witness a murderous Soviet takeover in Romania. Other key individuals over the decades would themselves or their families have histories of resentment toward Russia. Stalin had starved millions. Soviets had abused and humiliated on a large scale. People like Frank Wisner, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, “Masha” Yovanovitch, Evelyn Farkas, Alexander Vindman, Victoria Nuland, Antony Blinken, and many more seem to have taken their Russophobia very personally, while others like Dwight Eisenhower, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden had more general policies of preferring brute force to words.

The U.S. erased the Nazi history of hundreds of Ukrainians in order to illegally bring them — including the usual quota of Soviet spies — to the United States. Hundreds more were put to work in Germany. Mass murderers of Jews and Poles were protected from both Nuremberg and Soviet justice in order to engage in the Cold War game of spying and counter-spying, propagandizing, infiltrating, and fantasizing about overthrows. For years, Ukrainians were sacrificed to the dream by being sent into Ukraine to the waiting arms of the well-informed Soviets. Fighting for Ukraine to the last Ukrainian is not a new idea.

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Governments around the world are preparing citizens for global crisis

The entire EU, along with nine other countries, have advised their citizens to have enough food, water and emergency supplies to last several days, while others, including Canada, have long-standing emergency preparedness advisories that remain in effect.

The appeals for citizens to be prepared for crisis and war come after NATO reportedly deemed Russia’s military capacity to be “growing” and has assessed Russia’s military threat to “serious” levels, despite efforts to wear Russia’s military down in Ukraine for over four years.

The calls for citizens to be prepared for the worst have caused a wave of speculation and concern online after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia is ready for war.

Since August, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, the United States, Japan, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, and France have all started or renewed emergency preparedness campaigns.

The European Union has also issued repeated calls to its citizens and member states to have emergency supplies and enough food and water to last at least 72 hours in the event of a crisis.

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Poland Says It Out Loud: The Goal Is To Defeat Russia, And Europe Is Headed For A Wider War

The Foreign Minister of Poland, a country which borders on Russia and Belarus, said in an interview to CNN that Russia must not be allowed to come out on top, and Europe is preparing for a long war.

Foreign Minister of Poland Radoslaw Sikorski explained to CNN the point of view of Polish government regarding the war in Ukraine. Sikorski believes that the US has adopted a strategy of ending the war on whatever terms are necessary so that it can return to economic cooperation. “But you can end any war by surrendering,” Sikorski noted. “So the terms matter.”

He then accused US negotiators of another mistake: treating the conflict in Ukraine as a war about territory. In his telling, American negotiators think that if Ukraine surrendered the last two cities it holds in Donbas, Putin could save face and the war would come to an end. “There might be some kind of pause,” he continued. “But the Soviet Union minus Ukraine is Russia without great-power status. To be a global superpower, Russia needs Ukraine.”

He went on to recount a few historical battles and wars where Russia was defeated. He called it a myth, successfully planted in the West, that Russia always wins. “They lost the Crimean War. They lost the war against Japan. They emerged from World War I with their tails between their legs,” he said. “They lost their invasion of Poland. They lost Afghanistan. And they lost the Cold War.”

Read that again. A sitting NATO foreign minister is describing a war aimed at stripping Russia of great-power status, and he is describing it as winnable.

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The EU-NATO Establishment Is Waging A Hybrid War Against Europe

The (fake) elite which currently leads in many European countries as well as the European Union in Brussels is determined to wage a war against Russia.

Unfortunately for them the people they rule over have no interest in that. The leaders are waging a massive propaganda campaign to change their minds.

They are following a line set by Hillary Clinton who, after losing the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, blamed Russia for interfering with it.

Accusations against Russia of interfering with elections elsewhere have since been repeated many times. The claim of ‘Russian bots’ waging ‘Russian influence’ is trotted out whenever populist outsiders manage to win.

Another allegation is that Russia is waging a ‘hybrid’ war against Europe. The meme goes back to the false claim by journalist Mark Galeotti who, in 2014, had claimed that there existed a ‘Gerasimov doctrine’, named after Russia’s highest general, which was leading Russia to wage ‘non-linear’ or ‘hybrid’ wars.

It took Galeotti four years, during which his thesis had gained some massive following, to recant his claims:

[T]o my immense chagrin, I created this term, which has since acquired a destructive life of its own, lumbering clumsily into the world to spread fear and loathing in its wake.
…
Gerasimov was actually talking about how the Kremlin understands what happened in the “Arab Spring” uprisings, the “color revolutions” against pro-Moscow regimes in Russia’s neighborhood, and in due course Ukraine’s “Maidan” revolt. The Russians honestly — however wrongly — believe that these were not genuine protests against brutal and corrupt governments, but regime changes orchestrated in Washington, or rather, Langley.

There never was and is no Russian ‘hybrid’ war.

There is however a strong western campaign to blame Russia for each and every thing:

Lately, not a day goes by in Europe without some drone scare, fire or blackout being blamed on Russia. We are told that these incidents are all part of a relentless “hybrid war” that Russia is waging against Europe — one that involves drone incursions, airspace violations, sabotage, arson, cyberattacks and more. We are told this “includes plots to place incendiary devices aboard DHL cargo planes, blow up railroad tracks in Poland, and burn down warehouses and shopping centers all over Europe”, as well as “acts of sabotage against defense companies and the defense industry in Europe”, and “attacks on European critical infrastructure” — but also, apparently, sending secret agents to defecate in the lavatories of Finnish MPs. We are also told that “[s]uch attacks began occurring shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022”, and have escalated in recent months and weeks. According to Kaja Kallas, “Europe faces a fast-proliferation of sabotage attacks and airspace violations”.

There is however no evidence, none, that any of the alleged incidents had anything Russian to them.

There is though a ‘hybrid war’. But it is one waged by the western ‘elite’ against its own people:

Ultimately, serious scrutiny of the “Russian hybrid warfare” narrative can only lead to one disquieting conclusion. A “hybrid war” is indeed being waged against Europe — but it is being waged by the EU-NATO establishment itself, against its own population. Europeans are being subjected to a sustained campaign of cognitive or psychological warfare aimed at conditioning them to believe that Europe is under attack from Russia, and that these hybrid attacks are a prelude to conventional hostilities — a claim for which, by and large, there is little or no proof. What the record points to, in fact, is a deliberate campaign of threat inflation in which governments, media outlets and defence-funded “think tanks” have colluded to instill a permanent sense of fear in the population, through relentless coverage of “incidents”, “attacks”, “sabotages” and “campaigns” that, in most cases, simply do not exist.

Yesterday Andy Burnham, the unelected Prime Minister of Britain, blamed Russia for the outcome of Britain’s Brexit vote:

Prime Minister Andy Burnham sparked fury in Britain on Monday with his assertion that Russia had sought to interfere in the 2016 Brexit vote that took the country out of the European Union, breaking with previous premiers who said there was no evidence Moscow had meddled.

There had been an extensive parliament investigation about imagined Russian influence on the Brexit referendum which had found none. Burnham is now, without any evidence, claiming such influence because he wants to roll back Britain’s exit from the EU:

Just a few weeks ago, in his first conference speech as Labour leader, Burnham became the first prime minister to open the door to rejoining the European Union. Shortly thereafter, he suggested his party’s manifesto at the next election might include a referendum on just that question.

Burnham’s unspoken argument: If Russia has influenced the Brexit referendum the result is illegitimate and must be undone.

The argument is as fake as Burnham’s allegations about Iran being behind some fuel smugglers arrested near a military airport in Britain and let off on bail.

The propaganda about the non-existing ‘hybrid’ war Russia is allegedly waging against Europe climbed to a new apex yesterday.

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NATO state preparing to strike St. Petersburg

Estonia is preparing to deploy weapons capable of striking the Russian city of St. Petersburg, the Financial Times has reported.

Amid unprecedented mis- and dis-information from NATO’s European members, Tallinn has presented the proposed buildup as a form of deterrence, should Moscow “test” NATO. However, Russia’s leadership has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention of attacking the US-led military bloc. Moscow has also warned that any direct conflict with NATO would likely escalate into nuclear war.

The British newspaper reported on Monday that Estonia is deploying additional troops along the Russian border and acquiring tactical missile systems capable of reaching St. Petersburg. They include US-made HIMARS and South Korean Chunmoo launchers, both of which can fire longer-range projectiles.

Estonia also trained with the UK during this year’s Spring Storm exercise using Nyan kamikaze jet drones, which can likewise reach Russia’s second-largest city from Estonian territory, according to the report.

The Baltic state has a standing army of just 4,200 troops, but plans to reinforce it with tens of thousands of reservists if tensions with Russia escalate.

Last month, Defense Minister Martin Herem said during a public lecture that Tallinn could not afford to keep mobilized troops in the field for long.

“I have jokingly said that if we get to the orange zone there and carry out mobilization, but Russia does not attack, then it would be economically more correct to attack ourselves,” he said. “Then at least we will know when it will start, and we will not waste food and air in vain”

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the remark with an idiom: “The circus has left, but the clowns remain.” He added that Moscow has no plans to attack Estonia or any other NATO member.

Commenting on the FT report, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova echoed the president, saying it belongs in the funny pages.

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NATO chief says ‘almost sure’ is enough to blame Russia

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has urged member states to blame any incident they find suspicious on Russia even if they lack irrefutable evidence. He also hailed a recent accusation made by Estonia against its eastern neighbor and called on other nations to follow suit.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius this week, Rutte encouraged a public blame game over what he called “malign grey zone activities” routinely attributed to Russia by NATO members.

“You have heard the Supreme Allied Commander yesterday saying, ‘Hey, when able, when you are sure it is the Russians, or almost sure it is the Russians, attribute it to the Russians’ – exactly like Estonia did today. I applaud it,” Rutte said.

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Russia Guts Ukraine’s Drone Industry Overnight — And NATO Scrambles – What They Won’t Tell You

Russian precision strikes on Ukrainian drone manufacturing facilities were carried out in a massive overnight operation to destroy a significant part of Ukraine’s drone production capacity, while NATO fighter jets were scrambled in Poland and Romania.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that its armed forces delivered a massive strike using ground and air precision weapons against Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, telecommunications centers, logistics hubs in Kyiv and the Odessa region, and naval vessels supporting Ukrainian forces.

Among the confirmed targets: an industrial facility manufacturing long- and medium-range UAV components and ground robotic systems; the Pegasus Arms LLC workshop, which stored and produced fixed-wing drones; and the Element UA LLC facility producing Hornet strike drone components. A Kyiv transport and logistics center for distributing long-range UAVs was also struck, as were the Kievstar and Parkovy telecommunications centers providing communications and computing support to Ukrainian forces.

In Odessa, two military logistics centers and two Ukrainian naval vessels were hit.

Ukraine reported Russia launched 161 strikes overnight — 82 jet-powered drones and an unknown number of Banderol cruise missiles. Air defenses intercepted 119 drones and three cruise missiles, with impacts recorded across 18 locations.

Poland scrambled fighter jets after Russian strike drones operating in western Ukraine approached its airspace. The alert lasted approximately an hour; no violations were recorded. Romania scrambled two F-16s to respond to an aerial target maneuvering near its Ukrainian border — also with no incursions confirmed.

The NATO scrambles have become nearly a nightly occurrence. Russian drones have previously crossed into NATO member airspace and crashed on NATO territory.

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NATO member moves closer to lifting nuclear weapons ban

Lithuania’s parliament has backed a constitutional amendment that would lift a ban on nuclear weapons, thus bringing the NATO member a step closer to hosting them on its territory. Russia has warned the Baltic country, which borders its Kaliningrad Region, that such a move would have significant security implications.

The proposal was backed by 99 lawmakers on Tuesday, with 13 voting against and five abstaining. Two more votes are required, scheduled for October 6 and January 12, 2027. At least 94 of Lithuania’s 141 MPs must support the amendment in each vote.

The measure would remove Article 137 of the Lithuanian constitution, which prohibits weapons of mass destruction and foreign military bases on the country’s territory. Supporters argue that the provision no longer reflects Lithuania’s security needs, while opponents have raised concerns over sovereignty and called for the issue to be put to a referendum.

President Gitanas Nauseda has backed removing the restriction, while Lithuanian officials have argued that allowing nuclear weapons would strengthen deterrence against Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly rejected claims that it intends to attack NATO countries.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova last week called the proposed change “absolutely irresponsible,” accusing NATO members of pursuing provocative policies and treating Lithuania as a potential staging ground against Russia.

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