@ban nock
ever since Putin brought back Russia from the brink of destruction when he was elected in 2000. He has managed to prevent the US from continuing to pillage Russia and rebuilt their military and economy and made the country into an independent force that could no longer be abused.

Putin worked tirelessly to work with the west for a decade to no avail. The US/UK wanted Russia to be dismantled and subservient. They manipulated NATO to suit this agenda. They finally got their wish last February.

The U.S. and NATO Helped Trigger the Ukraine War. It's Not 'Siding With Putin' to Admit It

Vladimir Putin's decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a monstrous act of aggression that has plunged the world into a perilous situation. By any reasonable standard, his move was an over-the-top response to any Ukrainian or NATO provocations. However, that conclusion is different from saying that there were no provocations, as far too many policymakers and pundits in the West are doing now.

It has become especially fashionable in such circles to insist that NATO's expansion to Russia's border was in no way responsible for the current Ukraine crisis. Many dismiss all arguments to the contrary as "echoing Putin's talking points," "siding with Putin," or circulating Russian propaganda and "disinformation." Leaving aside the ugly miasma of McCarthyism enveloping such allegations, the underlying argument is factually wrong.

Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly—ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst. Obviously, they were not "echoing" Putin or anyone else. George Kennan, the intellectual architect of America's containment policy during the Cold War, perceptively warned in a May 2, 1998 New York Times interview what NATO's move eastward would set in motion. "I think it is the beginning of a new cold war," he stated. "I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake."
...
Yet U.S. and European officials blew through one red light after another. George W. Bush began to treat Georgia and Ukraine as valued U.S. political and military allies, and in 2008, he pressed NATO to admit Ukraine and Georgia as members. French and German wariness delayed that endeavor, but the NATO summit communique affirmed that both countries would eventually achieve that status.
...
The Kremlin's decisive action should have alerted even slow-learning U.S. leaders that the days of Russian officials merely issuing verbal protests about the West's steady encroachment into Russia's security sphere were over. Amazingly, though, the Obama administration still sought to turn Ukraine into a NATO political and military asset. In late 2013 and early 2014, the United States and several European governments meddled shamelessly to support the efforts of demonstrators to unseat Ukraine's generally pro-Russia president, Victor Yanukovych, some two years before the expiration of his term.
...
The Ukraine episode proved to be an intolerable provocation to neighboring Russia. Putin responded by annexing the strategic Crimea peninsula and the United States and its NATO partners then imposed economic sanctions on Russia. The new cold war was on in earnest.

Yet Washington still refused to back off. Instead, the Trump and Biden administrations poured weapons into Ukraine, approved joint military exercises between U.S. and Ukrainian forces, and even prodded the allies to include Ukraine in NATO war games.

In late 2021, it became clear that the Kremlin's restraint had run dry. Moscow issued demands for security guarantees, including a draw-down of military forces already deployed in NATO's eastern members. With respect to Ukraine, the demand was very clear and uncompromising: Not only would Kyiv never receive a membership invitation, but NATO weapons and troops would never be deployed on Ukrainian soil. When the West failed to provide those guarantees, Putin launched his devastating, full-scale war.
...
One can readily imagine how Americans would react if Russia, China, India, or another peer competitor admitted countries from Central America and the Caribbean to a security alliance that it led—and then sought to add Canada as an official or de facto military ally. It is highly probable that the United States would have responded by going to war years ago. Yet even though Ukraine has an importance to Russia comparable to Canada's importance to the United States, our leaders expected Moscow to respond passively to the growing encroachment.

They have been proven disastrously wrong, and thanks to their ineptitude, the world is now a far more dangerous place.

NATO had pushed Russia to the limit in the latter part of 2021:

https://www.stalkerzone.org/the-us-and-uk-have-started-building-nato-nav...
5 months ago
After meeting with the head of British intelligence MI6, Richard Moore, Zelensky said that he was creating “a Ukrainian army capable of protecting Ukraine on land, on water, in the air and in cyberspace”. According to the information we have received, this plan began with the construction of naval bases – under the guidance and strict control of the American and British military.

Zelensky talked a lot about the “newest samples of weapons”, including the “Obolon-A” artillery battalion control system, “Bars” mortar system, “Olkha-M” missile system, “Tayfun” jet-propelled projectile, as well as the “Neptun” anti-ship missiles and “Kentavr” landing boats.
...
But the main point of Zelensky’s speech was not to emphasise the real and imaginary successes of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex. The purpose of the message was to disguise the real processes taking place behind the scenes of the Ukrainian military machine. From all his speech, only two points are worthy of attention.

The first is a phrase about the beginning of construction of two state-owned Ukrainian naval bases to protect the Black Sea region. This refers to the bases in the port of Ochakov in the Nikolaev region and in the port of Yuzhny, 30 kilometers east of Odessa.

A week after Zelensky’s speech in parliament, British divers arrived in Ochakov, and American divers arrived in Yuzhny. 11 officials of the US Department of War worked at this port. Both in Ochakov and Yuzhny, the divers of the “partner countries” carefully examined the water area of the port and hydraulic structures.
...
Indeed, Ukraine in the NATO scenario is not only a convenient training ground and a reconnaissance and sabotage military base against Russia, but also an important, if not the most important, element of the information war. There is no other state that is as close mentally and with the same language of communication.

Already in 2014, since the success of the coup in Ukraine, western specialists in information warfare have been working massively in this country. All centres of information and psychological special operations perform tasks set specifically by the American and British military. The British and the Balts are on the same page. Just a few days ago, the work of a group of military instructors of the Lithuanian Armed Forces at the Zhytomyr military institute concerning the organisation and conduct of psychological operations was completed. But these are particulars.
...
In other words, the so-called military cooperation between Ukraine and NATO countries is moving to a new level right before our eyes. Of course, the former Soviet republic of Ukraine does not and will never become a member of the North Atlantic Alliance. It just becomes a base for it. And the level of presence of the NATO military is moving from providing instructors for joint exercises, from consulting and directing special operations to the direct and permanent presence of significant contingents of NATO countries at their own bases on the borders with Russia. Officially under the guise of Ukrainian.

And the country’s President, Vladimir Zelensky, clearly follows the commands of MI6. Himself remaining only a screen. A funny dummy on TV that Ukrainian voters watch.
...

Mapping the Conflict in the Ukraine
March 10, 2022

Dear Readers,

the following post has been published on the 3rd of March 2014. Due to the recent historical events we are reposting it, conscient of the prescience of the meanwhile passed author, Pater Tenebrarum.
...

...

...
Conclusion:

The Western insistence that the Ukraine must remain as it is glosses over the fact that it is a deeply divided country. Clearly citizens of Western Ukraine sympathize with Europe, while Eastern Ukrainians sympathize with Russia. Even the occasional Ukrainian warship is unwilling to obey its new masters in Kiev. The division between the two halves of the Ukraine has long-standing historical roots. There is undoubtedly genuine frustration in the population over the antics of the country’s political elite, but whether the new rulers will turn out to be any better than the old ones remains to be seen (experience to date suggests otherwise, as political corruption has seemingly become deeply entrenched).

Experience also suggests that the two opposed groups are simply unable to find a modus vivendi. In other words, forcing them to remain in a single nation state will only lead to even more conflict. When borders drawn by dictators of the past become an unending source of conflict, it is probably best to rearrange them.

I real good way to tell good guys from bad guys is who invades who. Like if nato tanks are circling Moscow nato is the aggressor, but that didn't happen, instead soviet tanks encircled Kieve.

I always wonder what makes tankies go psycho. Is it self hate when their own country does a good thing or love of bloodthirsty dictators abroad.

@ban nock

Russian apartment bombings - Criticism

Officials

In 2000, Russia's President Vladimir Putin dismissed the allegations of FSB involvement in the bombings as "delirious nonsense." "There are no people in the Russian secret services who would be capable of such crime against their own people. The very allegation is immoral," he said.[147] An FSB spokesman said that "Litvinenko's evidence cannot be taken seriously by those who are investigating the bombings".[148]

Sergei Markov, an advisor to the Russian government, criticized the film Assassination of Russia which supported the FSB involvement theory. Markov said that the film was "a well-made professional example of the propagandist and psychological war that Boris Berezovsky is notoriously good at." Markov found parallels between the film and the conspiracy theory that the United States and/or Israel organized the 9/11 attacks to justify military actions.[149]

Scholars

According to researcher Gordon Bennett, the conspiracy theory that the FSB was behind the bombings is kept alive by the Russian oligarch and Kremlin-critic Boris Berezovsky. Bennett points out that neither Berezovsky nor his team (which includes Alexander Litvinenko) have provided any evidence to support their claims. In the BBC World Hard Talk interview on 8 May 2002, Berezovsky was also unable to present any evidence for his claims, and he did not suggest he was in possession of such evidence which he would be ready to present in a court.[22] Bennett also points out that Putin's critics often forget that the decision to send troops to Chechnya was taken by Boris Yeltsin — not Vladimir Putin — with the wholehearted support of all power structures.[22]

Professor Richard Sakwa has commented on the claims of Berezovsky and Litvinenko, saying that the evidence they presented was at best circumstantial.[21]

Dr. Mike Bowker, from the University of East Anglia, has said that the inference that the bombings were carried out by the Russian authorities is uncorroborated by evidence. According to Bowker, the theory also ignores the history of Chechen terrorism and public threats by various Chechen rebels following their defeat in Dagestan – which included Khattab telling a Czech and a German newspaper, a few days before the bombings in Moscow, that "Russian women and children will pay for the crimes of Russian generals." and that "this will not happen tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow"[150][151]

Dr. Vlad Sobell has pointed out that the proponents of the theory that the second invasion of Chechnya was a plot by Putin to get elected regularly ignore the key fact that Putin's attack on Chechnya in 1999 was preceded by a Chechen insurrection in Dagestan, whose objective was to turn it into another unstable Chechnya.[152]

According to Associate Professor Henry E. Hale of Harvard University, one thing that remains unclear about the "FSB did it" theory: If the motive was to get an FSB-friendly man installed as president, why would the FSB have preferred Putin, a little-known "upstart" who had leapt to the post of FSB director through outside political channels, to Primakov, who was certainly senior in stature and pedigree and who was also widely reputed to have a KGB past?[153]

According to Dr. Robert Bruce Ware of Southern Illinois University, "The assertions that Russian security services are responsible for the bombings is at least partially incorrect, and appears to have given rise to an obscurantist mythology of Russian culpability. At the very least, it is clear that these assertions are incomplete in so far as they have not taken full account of the evidence suggesting the responsibility of Wahhabis under the leadership of Khattab, who may have been seeking retribution for the federal assault upon Dagestan's Islamic Djamaat."[23]

Dr. Kirill Pankratov, in a 2003 letter to the Johnson's Russia List, spoke against Satter's and Putley's theory. He noted that 1) there was no need for "another pretext for military operation in Chechnya at the time of the Ryazan incident", but there were already a "plenty of reasons for decisive military response", 2) the FSB of other security service[clarification needed] was institutionally incapable of such a conspiracy after years of decline in the 1990s, 3) the conspirators were not actually trying to blow a building up in Ryazan; however, their sloppy actions are "consistent with the training exercise version of events", 4) the FSB did not have to declare the incident a "training exercise", but "it was much easier to show great relief... and continue trying to find the perpetrators of the bombing attempt."[154]

Security and policy analysts Simon Saradzhyan and Nabi Abdullaev noted that Litvinenko and Felshtinsky did not provide any direct evidence to back up their claims about FSB involvement in the bombings.[155]

Analysts

Andrey Soldatov is skeptical about Mikhail Trepashkin's awareness of the details of the Russian apartment bombings. According to Soldatov, the Russian government's suppression of the discussion of the FSB involvement theory reflects paranoia rather than guilt on its part. He points out that, ironically, the paranoia produced the conspiracy theories that the government was keen to stamp out.[156]

In 2009, Russian journalist and radio host Yulia Latynina, commenting on Scott Anderson's article "Vladimir Putin's Dark Rise to Power" noted that deaths of Sergey Yushenkov and Yury Schekochihin "in any case, had no relation to bombings in Moscow". Latynina opined, that the version that FSB did the bombings was not only absurd, but purposefully invented by Berezovsky after he was deprived of the power. Her major argument was, that since Berezovsky was one of the key figures to push Putin into the power, he knew for certain the theory was wrong. If Berezovsky felt that "there are some people else beyond Putin, some fearsome siloviks who can explode houses, they [the Family] would throw Putin away, as a hot potato".[157]

aggressor, it began way back in KGB school, but especially took off when working as an agent in Berlin he saw the wall come down. He decided he better start blowing up apartments full of Russians and blame it on Chechens so he could kill a whole bunch of them, and he did, slaughtered left and right, but you like that right? Lotta fun killing little kids, babies, women, men, heck Putin the baby killer doesn't discriminate, Russians, Chechens, then Georgians, and now Ukrainians. He'll probably take volunteers.

Of course there are Putin's own words. He doesn't soft pedal them or speak from notes, he speaks from the black heart at the bottom of his empty soul. He wants empire again, considers Ukraine and Poland and the Baltics part of Russia.

I'll never understand tankies.

@ban nock

I’m guessing you didn’t bother reading any of the links CB and I posted. Not surprising for people who have already made up their minds and don’t want facts getting in the way of their beliefs. S

So does that mean that you would be fine if Russia and/or China did what I wrote earlier? Good to know.

aggressor, it began way back in KGB school, but especially took off when working as an agent in Berlin he saw the wall come down. He decided he better start blowing up apartments full of Russians and blame it on Chechens so he could kill a whole bunch of them, and he did, slaughtered left and right, but you like that right? Lotta fun killing little kids, babies, women, men, heck Putin the baby killer doesn't discriminate, Russians, Chechens, then Georgians, and now Ukrainians. He'll probably take volunteers.

Of course there are Putin's own words. He doesn't soft pedal them or speak from notes, he speaks from the black heart at the bottom of his empty soul. He wants empire again, considers Ukraine and Poland and the Baltics part of Russia.

I'll never understand tankies.

@ban nock JFK was ready to start a nuclear war over Russian weapons in Cuba. Cuba is 110 miles from FL. Again, nuclear war over weapons 110 miles away. Of course, but then again FL....

How do you think America would react if Russia overthrew the presidents of Mexico and Canada and trained both countries military and loaded them with lethal weapons that could reach American cities in minutes? And for 8 years killed Americans living in those countries? Or is that more of American exceptionalism and Russia should have just had to accept NATO troops on their borders?

If America invaded Mexico and tried to surround Mexico City while wiping every city we came across off the map I could understand actually. Strawman made out of things that never happened don't work for me. Support a butcher, see if I care. Maybe Kim in N Korea too eh? Don't you think those Urghers need more concentration camps? Any depravity you won't support?

@Fishtroller 02

To my great regret, I get no help from Russia at all – not money, not information (I would *love* to be a paid “Putin agent” but VVP has not made any offers yet). All my info is 100% “open source”. My past experience with classified data tells me that it is either highly technical or time-critical but not otherwise better than open source information: 80% of all the good info is out there, in the open, it is just a matter of putting it together correctly. I get a regular trickle of donations from the blog, but nothing major, and only 2 private donors (thanks guys!!) provide most of it anyway. If making money was my big goal, then I assure you that I had plenty of much better opportunities. My main objective in the immediate future is to (finally) write my thesis for the graduate degree in patristic theology I am working on now, and to set some money aside to visit Russia again (which I have not done since 1996!). Oh, and if you still wonder, no, I am not a Muslim nor am I on any Muslim (or other) payroll." [1]

I have noticed your complete failure to view links provided when responding shows that you are not interested in reasoned debate so I will cut and paste my response here:

Sourcewatch: 'The Saker'

'The Saker' is a pseudonym of Andrei Raevsky, an ex-patriot Russian domiciled in Florida. Prior to emigrating to the USA he had lived in Switzerland where he was granted Swiss citizenship. He worked for the International Red Cross and was later employed as a military analyst by the Geneva-based UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR)[1]. His blog, the Vineyard of the Saker, reportedly got 50,000 page views per day from August - September 2014.[2]

An example of the type of quality documentation that can be found at the Saker:

Document:The geopolitics of the Ukrainian conflict - 2014/02/20

Back to Basics

Looking at the amazing footage coming out of Kiev and many other cities in the Ukraine, one can easily get the impression that what is taking place is absolute total chaos and that nobody controls it. It is a mistaken impression and I think that this is a good time to look at who the actors in this conflict are and what they really want. Only then will we be able to make sense of what is going on, who is pulling the strings behind the curtain, and what could happen next. So let us look at the various actors one by one.

The dissatisfied Ukrainian people

There can be absolutely no doubt that a large segment of the Ukrainian population is deeply unhappy with the regime in power, Yanukovich himself, and what has been going on in the Ukraine for many years. As I have written many times before, the Ukraine is essentially in the hands of various oligarchs, just like Russia in the 1990s, only worse. The vast majority Ukrainian politicians are for sale to the highest bidder; this is true for the members of Parliament, the Presidential Administration, the regional governors, the government and, of course, of Yanukovich himself. Collectively, these oligarchs also own the media, the courts, the police, banks and everything else. As a direct result of that, the Ukrainian economy has been going down the tubes for years and currently is pretty much in ruins....

Having rapidly looked at the locals, let us now turn to the folks that do matter

The Ukrainian oligarchs

Most of them believe that as long as the Ukraine maintains an anti-Russian stance the EU will let them do whatever the hell they want inside the Ukraine. They are correct. For them, signing an otherwise meaningless agreement with the EU is basically accepting the following deal: they become the faithful servants of their EU overlords in exchange for which, the EU overlords will let them continue to pillage the Ukraine in pretty much any way they want....

The EU

The EU is in a deep, systemic, economic, social and political crisis and it is absolutely desperate for new opportunities to rescue itself from its slow-motion collapse. For the EU, the Ukraine is first and foremost a market to sells is goods and services....

The USA

The goals of the USA in the Ukraine are completely different from the goals of the EU, hence the very real tensions between their diplomats so well expressed by the "fuck the EU!" of Madam Nuland. Furthermore, and unlike the bankrupt EU, the US has spent over 5,000,000,000 dollars to achieve its goals in the Ukraine. But so what are these goals really?...

Russia

Here we have to completely switch our point of view and realize the following, no matter how counter-intuitive this might seem to be, regardless of the extreme closeness between Russian and Ukrainian languages and cultures, regardless of a long common history, regardless of the fact that both Russians and Ukrainians jointly defeated Nazi Germany, regardless of the fact that the Ukraine is a big neighbor of Russia and regardless of the fact that the two countries have close economic ties, Russia does not need the Ukraine. Hillary and Zbig are simply plain wrong. Furthermore, Russia has absolutely no intention of re-creating the Soviet Union or, even less so becoming an Empire. This is all absolute nonsense, stupid propaganda to feed to the western masses, Cold War cliches which are absolutely inapplicable to the current realities....

Even in Crimea all Russia really needs is a status quo: peace, prosperity, a good tourism infrastructure to host Russian tourists, and stable basing right for the Black Sea Fleet. For that Russia does not need to occupy or annex Crimea. However, should the Crimean Peninsula be attacked by the Ukrainian neo-Nazis there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the Black Sea Fleet will intervene to protect the local population with which it has many family ties. It is important to remember that the Black Sea Fleet is infinitely better trained and equipped that the Ukrainian military and that it includes a very powerful Naval Infantry force (one Brigade and one Battalion, the latter specialized in counter-terrorism operations). It is one thing to beat up and burn riot cops and quite another to deal with battle hardened (Chechnia, Georgia) and highly trained elite forces armed to the teeth with the latest and best military equipment....

So what is likely to happen next?

I think that the EU is most unlikely to achieve its objectives in the Ukraine for a very simple reason: the Ukrainian nationalists and the so-called "opposition" (i.e. the armed insurgency) are all bought and paid for by the US. The EU bureaucrats can continue visiting the Ukraine and make loud statements, they really don't matter. So its really the US vs Russia and here I have to say that US goals are far easier to achieve that the Russian: all the USA needs is chaos, something easy to achieve and relatively cheap to finance, while Russia needs stability and prosperity; that, at the very least, means providing cardiac resuscitation to the basically ruined Ukrainian economy and jump-starting much needed reforms....

Well, if rescuing the Ukraine is not an option, then protecting Russia from the inevitable chaos and mayhem is the only option left. That, and making darn sure that Crimea is safe. Russia could, for instance, provide direct assistance to the eastern Ukraine, especially to region like Kharkov which are governed by competent and determined people. Beyond that, the only option left for Russia is to hunker down and wait for either a viable force to take power in Kiev or for the Ukraine to break-up in pieces.

So what about the Ukrainian people?

I think that where I stand on this issue is clear from the above. The EU needs them as slaves, the US needs them as pawns, and the only party which needs them prosperous is Russia. That is simply a fact of geo-strategy....

if you keep going to pro-Putin websites...

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/The_Saker

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/the-saker-blind-loyalty-disguised-as-defiance/

A Network of the Kremlin’s Obedient Followers
"The Saker of the Vineyard is a blog by a retired Swiss Red Cross officer, residing in Florida and defending Russia against an enigmatic Empire. The Saker has become a franchise for an international network of pro-Kremlin outlets, with branches in German, Italy, Latin America, and Russia. A Saker is a sort of falcon, falco cherrug, endemic to the steppes of Eurasia. The name of the blog is an anagram of the blogger’s name.

The Saker connects Russian nationalist groups and outlets with North American anti-Semite groups; Russian communists with French and Italian right-wing activist. Devote Christians with aggressive thugs. It’s a successful franchise in disinformation."

Where DO you all find these sites??

I noticed that now ban nock has incurred the wrath of those here who love to gish gallop people to death rather than admit that all they are doing is the work of right wing sites. Copy/paste, copy/paste and then tell anyone who casts a raised eyebrow at the offering that they are just plain completely and utterly wrong when they disagree.
Let's just come out and say it. Most people here think that Putin is a poor put-upon victim of the West who never has played dirty and is totally justified in his little genocidal invasion of a sovereign country. In my book he is making all the US sins look just a little smaller, which annoys me, but sure takes the pressure off of our CIA at a time when we could be addressing its sins.

@fire with fire

The meme on here quite often is not that both sides use propaganda. It's that only the sites offered by certain commenters on here are legit. All others are just WRONG!

.

if you keep going to pro-Putin websites...

.

What makes a website pro-Putin? Saying things favorable to Putin! What a handy way to look at the universe:

Definition of tautology

1a: needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word

Rhetorical repetition, tautology ('always and for ever'), banal metaphor, and short paragraphs are part of the jargon.
— Philip Howard

b: an instance of such repetition

The phrase "a beginner who has just started" is a tautology.

2logic : a statement that is true by virtue of its logical form alone
A logical combination of sentences that is always true, regardless of the truth or falsity of the constituent sentences, is known as a "tautology."

— Rudy Rucker

… now the objection was raised that the entire theory of natural selection rested on a tautology: "Who survives? The fittest. Who are the fittest? Those that survive."

— Ernst Mayr

.

Conversely of course, anti-American Bellicosity sites are going to say things against American Bellicosity.

So at least we have this cleared up.

@ban nock

what is fact and what is fiction. Until then none of us can know the true reality of the conflicting information we receive. All sides use propaganda to feed their agenda. Remember Edward Bernays? It comes down to what one’s intentions are.

Nore UFO abduction leaks, Malone links, basically anything that could be categorized as totally 100% nutter I give it a pass.