@Pluto's Republic

Should Ukraine Join NATO? Don't Kid Yourself: It Already Has

As NATO members gather in Lithuania this week with traditional Eastern European fanfare, the chief focus of their deliberations is whether to extend formal membership to Ukraine amid the ongoing war. But the question of whether Ukraine officially joins NATO may have turned into something of a red herring. The truth is Ukraine has already been unofficially incorporated into NATO. As University of Chicago international relations professor Paul Poast, a passionate advocate for NATO's swift admittance of Ukraine, aptly put it, "NATO has already expanded into the war zone. The allies should just acknowledge that reality."

A year and a half into the war, it can hardly be denied that NATO forces have gained substantially more than the mere "foothold" in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have launched his invasion of Ukraine to preempt. With the U.S. effectively assuming financial, material, political, strategic, and operational dominion over Ukrainian state warfare, the "foothold" has turned into a heavily-fortified bridgehead. Rockets lobbed at Russian troop positions are ultimately the product of U.S. commanders "controlling every shot," as Ukrainian officials have occasionally acknowledged. A great deal of American engineering ingenuity is currently being harnessed to pulverize Russians.

But as Putin is keenly aware, much of this U.S. and NATO "infrastructure" had been well-established long before any invasion was launched. For example, exactly two years earlier to the day of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, 2020, the nascent government of Volodmyr Zelensky decreed what was hailed as being Ukraine's first "comprehensive and systematic" framework to achieve "the full Euro-Atlantic integration of the state" with particular emphasis on "deepening cooperation with NATO." Almost exactly one year before that, in February 2019, an amendment to the Ukrainian Constitution was passed proclaiming that it was a non-negotiable national priority for Ukraine to pursue "full-fledged" NATO membership at the earliest possible opportunity.

By June of 2019, Ukraine received an unusual prize: certification for one of its more seasoned Special Forces units to join the "NATO Response Force," a specialized "rapid deployment" alliance formation which had been nurtured to life in 2002 by the famously foresighted Donald Rumsfeld. The summer before the invasion started, U.S. and Ukraine special forces convened their largest-ever joint "multinational maritime exercise" in the Black Sea.
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The Biden Administration's latest move to supply Ukraine with primitively indiscriminate cluster munitions is just one especially crude manifestation of this logic.

Which gets to one last proposition the Summit-goers might deliberate: How many more thousands of corpses need to pile up for proponents of this war-expanding logic to consider a course-correction?

It’s estimated that 200,000 to 350,000 Ukrainians have been killed since February 2022 and that Ukraine has lost more than $12 trillion in valuable resources that are now controlled by Russia. And anything left will be taken by blackrock and their cronies while absolutely crushing austerity measures will be implemented against the remaining population.

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That’s exactly right. NATO has lost this war. Biden has lost this war. The lunatic Democrats have lost this war. The uni-party warmongers have lost this war. The EU has lost this war. Ukraine and Zelensky have lost this war. Russia wins and rightfully so because everything that happened in Ukraine was a fraud against the Ukrainian people perpetrated by a failing US empire in its final stand against a rising multipolar world. Zelenskyy was never a leader who did what’s best for his people. He will be remembered as a US puppet and actor for foreign interests. 350,000 Ukrainians dead because of him and his puppet masters in the US. He lost $12.7 trillion worth of land and resources to Russia because he did not sign the reasonable peace agreement that Russia had proposed to him.

The Ukraine people didn’t want a war with Russia and they elected Zelensky because he said that he would make peace and we all know what happened when he tried to do it. They shouldn’t feel bad that they believed the lies since many Americans believed the things Obama ran on. We don’t want eternal war, but no matter who we elect we still get it. And we can thank Obama and the shitlibs for killing anything left of the anti war movement. Every time I tried getting people to wake the fck up I got shot down because they said Obama’s got this! Still can’t get over when I protested the use of drones and was told that they saved soldier’s lives.

Here's an excerpt from the NATO Declarations posted at Vilnius:

Allies will continue to support and review Ukraine’s progress on interoperability as well as additional democratic and security sector reforms that are required. NATO Foreign Ministers will regularly assess progress through the adapted Annual National Programme. The Alliance will support Ukraine in making these reforms on its path towards future membership. We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.

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Ahead of the start of the NATO Summit in Vilnius:
A Pre-Summit press conference was held.

Note the following question from the Ukraine News Agency:

Question for Jens Stoltenberg
from Iryna Somer, Interfax Ukraine News Agency:

"I have follow up question on Mindaugas, regarding the declaration. ....Can you tell us how far or how close Allies are regarding wording in the declaration regarding a possible membership for Ukraine, which also will be satisfactory for Kyiv? Thank you."

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Answer: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:
[...]

"We will provide support to Ukraine for as long as it takes. Because unless Ukraine wins this war, there's no membership issue to be discussed at all."

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Coverage and comment is from b. at MOA:

Ukraine's victory in the war, which is unachievable, is now a main condition for its admittance to NATO.

It wasn't what the Ukrainian government had wanted to hear.

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Later, a release from Via Strana.news (machine translation):

"Unprecedented and absurd." Zelensky criticized the allies for the lack of an invitation to NATO

13:59, Today — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commented on Western leaders' plans not to include any specifics on Ukraine's NATO membership in a forthcoming statement.

“Now, on the way to Vilnius, we received signals that language without Ukraine is being discussed. And I want to emphasize that this wording is only by invitation, and not by Ukraine’s membership. It is unprecedented and absurd when there is no time frame for the invitation (! ), and for the membership of Ukraine; and when some strange wording about "conditions" is added even for inviting Ukraine ...

It seems that there is no readiness either to invite Ukraine to NATO or to make it a member of the Alliance. Consequently, there remains the possibility of bargaining Ukraine's membership in NATO - in negotiations with Russia. And for Russia, this means motivation to continue its terror. Uncertainty is weakness. And I will frankly discuss this at the summit," Zelensky wrote.

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More from MOA:

Well. The little comedian seems disappointed. As if the whole play had not been obvious from the very beginning. Since 2008 the Ukraine was to be used as a tool to nag Russia. It is otherwise of little value. It will end up as a discarded rag while NATO will, in the end, again recognize the Russian Federation as the super power that that it is. NATO will have to relearn to listen to and negotiate with it.

Now lets wait and see what NATO's climb down will do to the morale and motivations of the Ukrainian army and people.

@humphrey

https://www.rt.com/africa/579597-iran-president-visits-africa/

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Nairobi on Wednesday to a red-carpet welcome from his Kenyan counterpart William Ruto, as he began a three-nation tour of East Africa.

The visit is intended to foster “closer interaction with African countries,” to “diversify Iran’s export destinations,” and to “create more grounds for political and commercial cooperation,” according to the Iranian foreign ministry.

Raisi’s mission to Africa comes more than a decade after former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Benin, Niger, and Ghana in 2013.

The president will also visit Uganda and Zimbabwe, on a trip that Tehran has described as a “new beginning” in relations with the continent, which it referred to as a “land of opportunities” and “fortune.”

A mere coincidence. HAH!

https://www.rt.com/africa/579611-kenyan-protesters-killed/

Violent clashes between Kenyan police and anti-government protesters have resulted in the killing of six people in the East African country, Associated Press reported on Wednesday, citing a law-enforcement official.

Earlier, the Nairobi-based outlet K24 said a man died as a result of a police gunshot in the town of Emali during a second round of rallies called by opposition leader Raila Odinga in response to a slew of tax hikes. That incident prompted angry residents to set a police van on fire and destroy other properties, it stated.

Three protesters were killed in Mlolongo city, two in Kitengela town near Nairobi, and one in Emali, on a highway to the port city of Mombasa, according to an unnamed police officer who spoke to AP. More than ten others are said to have been hospitalized.

Hundreds of protesters reportedly barricaded a key highway connecting the capital Nairobi to Mombasa, disrupting vehicular movement on Wednesday.

The CIA and the NCOs have been quite busy world wide.