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Trump War Room
@TrumpWarRoom
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President Trump UNLEASHED:
"I'm talking now. DOES THAT SOUND FAMILIAR?"
🔥🔥🔥
9:47 PM · Sep 10, 2024
People enjoyed that one, especially when, with Trump going there, if she was planning it, she no longer could use it.
anon-klg1 Leontine
18 minutes ago
Trump said Harris went to negotiate with Russia and 3 days later they invaded Ukraine-
Harris said that wasn’t true - but that doesn’t mean it isn’t.
ABC asked Harris if she’d ever met Putin AND SHE DIDN’T ANSWER THE QUESTION. Starts talking about meeting Zelensky 5 times and then goes into some meaningless word salad.
And they just let her not answer. Didn’t pin her down at all as to whether this happened.
If - as Trump said- Harris was sent to negotiate with Russia and right after that they decide to invade Ukraine—- that’s important for people to know.
To see them not even clarify that point when they’d asked, iirc, repeated follow ups about January 6th, and whether Trump thought the election was stolen, was literally jaw dropping for me….and I didn’t think I had any illusions left about the MSM-
That‘s beyond just bias —- it’s covering for extreme incompetence —- it’s failing to even examine a candidate —
Anyway, the point I’m getting at is that I think the bias has gone so far-( to the point of outright irresponsiblity) that it will be off putting to more than just Republicans and will likely backfire on the Dems.
GEN Jack Keene was in Fox this AM....stated that Ukraine is now occupying as much/more of Russia than Russia does Ukraine.
He then brought up "bargaining chip". //
The Russian reaction so far seems to have been a reluctance to react. There was probably a feeling that this incursion was just like the small-scale penetrations into Belgorod Oblast, particularly because the Russians hadn't received any backchannel warning from Jake Sullivan's National Security Council. When the scope became more apparent, some reaction was necessary, but the Russians were unwilling to commit the troops it would have taken to stop the Ukrainians because that would mean an end to their offensive in Donetsk. Finally, the political pressure to do something has kicked in, and we see 30,000 troops heading there. //
Learning fast streiff
2 days ago
“GEN Jack Keene was in Fox this AM....stated that Ukraine is now occupying as much/more of Russia than Russia does Ukraine.”
Gen Keene after …Ukraine….at 4:05 qualified his statement with “….in the last several months.”
The omitted qualification gives a completely different meaning to the statement.
I'm still seeing this as a very opaque operation where, as was the popular saying on night convoy operations in the Army, "I don't know where we are but we're making good time." //
Seveer of the 95th rifles @Seveerity
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The russians released helicopter guncam footage of them taking out a convoy with guided missiles.
Their own convoy.
Embedded video
1:17 PM · Aug 14, 2024
Joe Swyers
2 hours ago edited
"the cost to Germans for being forced to rely on alternative energy sources is estimated to be $1 million per day."
Germans need to build over a hundred nuclear power plants to replace that 110,000,000,000 cubic meters per year of natural gas all four Nordstream pipelines could transport.
35,300 BTU per cubic meter
110,000,000,000 cubic meters per year
3,883,000,000,000,000 BTU per year
3,412 BTU per KWH
1,137,995,510,149 KWH
8,760 hours per year
129,908,163 KW
130 GW
1 GW average per nuclear power plant
130 Nuclear Power Plants needed by Germany.
France has 18 power plants with 56 operable reactors.
Germany will need ten times that number by the time they actually get them built and bring them online.
Better get cracking -- atoms, that is.
mopani Joe Swyers
3 minutes ago edited
If Germany had spent $580 billion on nuclear power instead of Energiewiend green energy they would have the cheapest, most reliable, lowest carbon footprint energy in the world.
With Nuclear Instead of Renewables, California and Germany Would Already Have 100 percent Clean Electricity
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2018/9/11/california-and-germany-decarbonization-with-alternative-energy-investments
How Did It Happen?
You don't give the Tsar unpleasant information. The invasion of Ukraine unfolded the way it did because the FSB directorate responsible for intelligence in Ukraine gave optimistic reports about the desire of Ukraine for an Anschluss and said the Ukrainian Army would not fight. According to Bloomberg, something similar happened this time.
Gerasimov and top officials "seemingly dismissed intelligence warnings that Ukrainian soldiers were gathering near the border with Russia’s western Kursk region as much as two weeks before they began the assault," Bloomberg said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was also not briefed on the troop buildup, the unnamed source reportedly told Bloomberg.
True or not true? It's hard to tell. //
Ukraine's challenge is to convert a tactical and operational victory into something that has strategic impact.
Russia has been knocked back on its heels, and Putin has been made to look rather ridiculous. He's not going to take that lying down because if the Tsar is not omnipotent, well, he's not the Tsar. It is hard to see how Gerasimov and most of the Russian General Staff survive this fiasco.
The episode has also demonstrated a degree of operational brilliance that no one expected. So far, the Ukrainians have seemed as mired in Soviet-era tactics as the Russians.
The CEO of Germany's leading defense industry corporation escaped assassination by Russian operatives earlier this year thanks to the timely cooperation and information sharing between the United States and Germany. Armin Papperger, the head of the massive Rheinmetall conglomerate, was targeted for death by Russia because of his company's central role in arming and supplying Ukraine.
According to reports, US intelligence uncovered the plot and enabled German counterintelligence and security forces to put Papperger under close protection. The missing part of this story is the German GSG9 hauling the Russian assets off to prison. The assassination operatives and planners are still at large.
This episode is not a one-off. It is part of a campaign of hybrid warfare that is being actively waged against the West by Russia as part of its campaign to eradicate Ukraine.
Hybrid warfare involves blending kinetic and non-kinetic actions to exploit an enemy's weaknesses without crossing the line between peace and war. //
In the current case, Russia wants to keep NATO off balance and damage critical assets, but it doesn't want to tickle that fine line between painful annoyance and an Article 5 consultation.
There are two main characteristics of hybrid warfare. First, the level of violence must fall below the threshold the adversary would consider an attack requiring military response. Second, the source of the attack must remain ambiguous and difficult to definitively attribute to a foreign actor. These two factors make it difficult for a state to develop a coherent response to various lines of attack.
For the past months, the Russian OPTEMPO of hybrid operations in Germany has accelerated: //
Natasha Bertrand @NatashaBertrand
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A senior NATO official said today that Russia's sabotage campaign across Europe is a "more concerted, more aggressive effort, than what we’ve seen certainly since the Cold War...we’re seeing sabotage, assassination plots, arson — real things that have cost human lives.”
1:46 PM · Jul 9, 2024. //
Per-Erik Schulze @PerErikSchulze
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Nothing to see here. Just perfectly normal russian bottom trawling back and forth repeatedly just on top of the main fiber optic internet cable between Svalbard and the Norwegian mainland. From NRK.
4:29 PM · May 26, 2024. //
All of these are examples of hostile action from Russia becoming gradually normalised because nobody is willing or able to deal with it. In this way, Russia pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable, or at least accepted, by doing something that should be outrageous, and then doing it more when there is no response from the West. //
Russia is engaged in a very aggressive hybrid war against Europe that includes propaganda, economic attacks, cyberwarfare, and kinetic operations on the ground. That war's objectives are to increase internal divisions in European countries, damage their economies, and weaken their resolve to resist Russian demands.
In the case of Estonia, Russia is amplifying a border dispute so that it can become a plausible potential casus belli. As I've pointed out before, Estonia is a particularly tempting target for Putin because it is about 24 percent ethnic Russian. If Putin can successfully encroach on Estonia without consequences, NATO will become very unstable. See How Putin Dismembers NATO Without Firing A Shot: A Scenario From the Cold War for more details.
Europe is treating these attacks as individual data points and not as a coherent Russian destabilization campaign. As long as that goes on, Russia is winning this hybrid war, and it has no reason to stop.
Henrik Kindstedt
@HenrikKindstedt
·
Follow
Replying to @sumlenny
Short list of the results of negotiations with Russia that it never respected:
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The Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Russia agreed to “respect independence, sovereignty, and the existing borders of Ukraine” as well as “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. Breached by Russia invading Crimea in 2014.
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The Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty of 1997. Russia agreed to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and “reaffirmed the inviolability of the borders” between the two countries. Russia breached it in 2014.
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The OSCE Istanbul Summit in 1999. Russia committed to withdrawing its troops from Moldova’s Transdniestrian region and Georgia until the end of 2002. That never happened.
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The 2008 Georgia ceasefire agreement following Russian aggression against the country. Russia agreed that “Russian military forces must withdraw to the lines prior to the start of hostilities”. That never happened.
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The Ilovaysk “Green Corridor” in August 2014 and other “humanitarian” death corridors. Russia pledged to let Ukrainian forces leave the encircled town of Ilovaysk in the east of Ukraine, but instead opened fire and killed 366 Ukrainian troops. In the following years, Russia attacked numerous humanitarian corridors in Syria.
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The “Minsk” agreements of 2014 and 2015. Russia agreed to cease the fire in the east of Ukraine. There had been 200 rounds of talks and 20 attempts to enforce a ceasefire, all of which the Russian side promptly violated. On February 24th, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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The 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative. Russia pledged to “provide maximum assurances regarding a safe and secure environment for all vessels engaged in this initiative." It then hindered the initiative's operation for months before withdrawing unilaterally a year later.
Above is only focused on deals made with Russia to address specific issues and conflicts. Not mentioning almost 400 international treaties that Russia has breached since 2014.
There are no conclusions to be drawn here, except that no one can seriously use the words "Russia" and "negotiations" in the same phrase. Putin is a habitual liar who promised international leaders that he would not attack Ukraine days before his invasion in February 2022.
Russia's tactic has remained consistent in its many wars over the last three decades: kill, grab, lie, and deny.
Why would anyone genuinely believe that Russia in 2024 is any different from Russia in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2008, 2014, 2015, and 2022?
7:51 AM · Jun 14, 2024. //
Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani
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The thing about the USSR/Russia is not that it is "not democratic". It is that is not contractual. Any contracts dishonour the Tsar. Why?
If Tsar made an agreement with X, it means:
1) X forced him to limit his own power
2) to secure X's interests
That's a huge dishonour
Kirienko's statement that "Russian state is not based upon agreements" should be read in this context.
Contractual = Limited = Dishonourable
Contractual = You faced the interest of the second party and had to back off, giving them concessions. What kind of Tsar you are? //
Putin's current demands may be serious to him, but no one else should consider them as such. No matter what a ceasefire or even a peace deal looks like, keep in mind that Putin's goal is the eradication of Ukraine as an independent state and that any agreement is a tactical ruse to lay the groundwork for that objective. Peace in Ukraine that is not enforced by Western arms and security guarantees is simply not possible so long as Putin is in power or possibly as long as the Russian Federation exists.
Henrik Kindstedt
@HenrikKindstedt
·
Follow
Replying to @sumlenny
Short list of the results of negotiations with Russia that it never respected:
-
The Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Russia agreed to “respect independence, sovereignty, and the existing borders of Ukraine” as well as “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. Breached by Russia invading Crimea in 2014.
-
The Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty of 1997. Russia agreed to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and “reaffirmed the inviolability of the borders” between the two countries. Russia breached it in 2014.
-
The OSCE Istanbul Summit in 1999. Russia committed to withdrawing its troops from Moldova’s Transdniestrian region and Georgia until the end of 2002. That never happened.
-
The 2008 Georgia ceasefire agreement following Russian aggression against the country. Russia agreed that “Russian military forces must withdraw to the lines prior to the start of hostilities”. That never happened.
-
The Ilovaysk “Green Corridor” in August 2014 and other “humanitarian” death corridors. Russia pledged to let Ukrainian forces leave the encircled town of Ilovaysk in the east of Ukraine, but instead opened fire and killed 366 Ukrainian troops. In the following years, Russia attacked numerous humanitarian corridors in Syria.
-
The “Minsk” agreements of 2014 and 2015. Russia agreed to cease the fire in the east of Ukraine. There had been 200 rounds of talks and 20 attempts to enforce a ceasefire, all of which the Russian side promptly violated. On February 24th, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
-
The 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative. Russia pledged to “provide maximum assurances regarding a safe and secure environment for all vessels engaged in this initiative." It then hindered the initiative's operation for months before withdrawing unilaterally a year later.
Above is only focused on deals made with Russia to address specific issues and conflicts. Not mentioning almost 400 international treaties that Russia has breached since 2014.
There are no conclusions to be drawn here, except that no one can seriously use the words "Russia" and "negotiations" in the same phrase. Putin is a habitual liar who promised international leaders that he would not attack Ukraine days before his invasion in February 2022.
Russia's tactic has remained consistent in its many wars over the last three decades: kill, grab, lie, and deny.
Why would anyone genuinely believe that Russia in 2024 is any different from Russia in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2008, 2014, 2015, and 2022? //
My theory is that it was released today because the Ukraine Peace Summit is kicking off tomorrow in Switzerland. Around 90 countries will be represented, but Moscow has declined to take part. I think Putin's speech was to underscore to the gathering that nothing they have to say matters, as Russia has its own agenda, making the outcome irrelevant.
The takeaway for the West should be that peace isn't possible without handing Putin a crushing defeat on the battlefield and devastating Russia's economy.
7:51 AM · Jun 14, 2024
Negotiations don't start from a position of maximalist demands unless you are able to enforce them. Even the alleged Putin confidants who talked to Reuters for the report admit that Putin is tired of the war and wants to move on.
Let me stop here for a moment and say that anyone who thinks five members of Putin's entourage talked to Reuters about Putin's personal position on peace talks without acting under orders from Putin to do so. Those people are a danger to themselves and to others. The fact that no one in the Kremlin has acknowledged this alleged cease-fire offer on the record tells you all you need to know about its seriousness.
This means that Russia is not only demanding to keep the territory it has overrun, but it is actually requiring Ukraine to relinquish more territory as a condition of negotiations. //
If we look at this offer as anything other than a propaganda ploy aimed at bolstering the spirits and imaginations of Putin's fan club in the West, we are probably idiots who deserve whatever comes next. //
The Russians are simply advancing a narrative ahead of the international peace conference Switzerland is hosting on June 15-16.
Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice. All the Russian proposal does, to the extent it is even a serious proposal, is reward Russia for criminal behavior, return control of Russian overseas assets to Moscow, remove war-related economic sanctions, and set the stage for another Russian invasion. Nothing in the Russian scheme is even vaguely just, and no sane government would consider it. Russia knows that and they don't want it considered, they want big social media accounts and some Republican Members of Congress and Senators to have talking points to advace Putin's agenda.
The bigger problem is the Biden Crime Family's close ties to the Chinese government, and because of those ties, Joe Biden is afraid of pushing the Chinese too hard. Calling them out for providing lethal aid to Russia could very well be a red line in Beijing's relationship with Joe, Jim, and Hunter. //
anon-aqgv Ed in North Texas
6 hours ago
Russia population: 144 million
Ukraine: 38 million
Which side do you think will run out of manpower first?
DaveM anon-aqgv
5 hours ago
1960:
US Population 173 Million
Vietnam Population 30 Million.
Which side do you think will run out of manpower first?
JSobieski anon-aqgv
5 hours ago edited
Population of American colonies in 1776: 2.5M
Population of Great Britain in 1776: 8M
Which side did YOU think ran out of manpower first?
JSobieski anon-aqgv
5 hours ago edited
Population of USSR in 1989: 286.72M
Poulation of Afganistan in 1989: 10.67M
Which side did YOU think ran out of manpower first?
JSobieski anon-aqgv
7 hours ago
Non-symmetrical demands for manpower, which shouldn't be too hard to understand.
Russia cannot apply 100% of its manpower to Ukraine, while Ukraine can and does apply 100% of its manpower to fighting Russia.
Russia has extended supply lines, while Ukraine does not.
Ukraine is fighting in its home territory, Russia is the invader.
These concepts are difficult to understand, but I get that some people just refuse to understand.
A great example of non-symmetrical warfare was 9/11. Fewer than 20 people with boxcutters shut down US airspace.
Dieter Schultz JSobieski
7 hours ago edited
These concepts are difficult to understand, but I get that some people just refuse to understand.
I keep recalling one of the most insightful comments I ever encountered on the web, namely: "And now we get to the crux of the matter, I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you."
If any of this sounds familiar, you need to think back to the Vietnam War and our policy of allowing the North Vietnamese Army to have "sanctuaries" in Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. For most (maybe all) of that conflict, North Vietnamese Air Force fighters could not be attacked on the ground; they only became legal targets when airborne.
Though Ukraine is clearly able to use domestic weapons against targets in Russia, drones have their limitations. Because of US policy, Ukraine had to sit on its hands and wait for the Russians to cross the border rather than destroy units and equipment before they entered combat. I'm sure plausible arguments can be made that the White House and Pentagon are merely making recommendations, but there is no doubt that the Ukrainians are treating these recommendations as firm guidance, and the Russians are reacting accordingly. //
Since the one time Ukraine used US anti-aircraft missiles over Russian territory disjointed many noses in Washington, Ukraine has allowed Russia to launch glide bombs at Kharkiv and Ukrainian Army positions for the last five months with impunity. //
If the policy of the US is to bring this war to a conclusion, then the policy is an extremely stupid one. It allows Russia to strike Ukrainian population centers with impunity so long as the attack comes from Russian territory as recognized by the civilized world. Russia can mass troops and weapons on Ukraine's border at any point, and Ukraine is forbidden to attack them preemptively. They must let Russia strike first. If Biden's purpose is to drag the war out ad infinitum to maximize damage, slaughter, and political instability, then it makes sense. I'm not posing that alternative facetiously; as we saw during COVID, Biden and his appointees were willing to kill as many Americans as it took to impose policy preferences. There is no reason to think they hold Russian or Ukrainian lives in higher regard.
More disturbing is that we're seeing the return of Robert S. McNamara's Whiz Kids to policy making, only this time, we are using unqualified midwits and lackwits from the bowels of the Democratic foreign policy intelligentsia instead of legitimately smart people. They are trying to play cute "non-escalation" games that might be amusing in the faculty lounge after a few hits of some good Lebanese hash but which kill and cripple men, women, and children in Ukraine. Retreating to the establishment of sanctuaries where the Russians can train and stage operations is bizarre because we know that policy doesn't encourage negotiations; it encourages recalcitrance.
If we are serious about ending this war on terms acceptable to Ukraine and to our NATO allies, and that should be our only concern, then Russian forces and equipment must be put at risk inside Russian territory, and if it requires the use of American munitions to do that, then that's what we need to do.
Russia arrested Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov Tuesday on suspicion of large-scale bribery. Ivanov is one of 12 deputies reporting to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Ivanov, who was responsible for overseeing construction, property management, housing, and medical support for the military, was accused of running a "criminal conspiracy" in awarding military construction contracts that enriched him personally. //
According to Osechkin's sources, in 2021 Shoigu made Military Intelligence under the command of the General Staff fabricate countless reports for Putin which painted an apocalyptic picture: in the coming months NATO ground forces would enter Ukraine to de-occupy Donbas.
The false reports to Putin about NATO to instigate a crisis and a war to halt the investigation into their corruption worked, facilitating the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Shoigu and his mafia urgently needed this war.
Shoigu knows Putin well, and he was convinced Putin would not change horses midstream if they started a war against Ukraine. Not only did Shoigu manage to get rid of the 2021 corruption investigation against them by manipulating Putin, his MoD budget skyrocketed with the war.
Carey J Texas Vol Fan
12 hours ago
It will take Russia YEARS to rebuild what it has already lost, in Ukraine. Ukraine is wrecking the Russian Army for us, with our third-rate hand-me-down crap, and giving us an excuse to modernize our stuff. It's the best deal since the Dutch bought Manhattan Island for twenty-odd dollars worth of glass beads. //
Min Headroom llme Carey J
7 hours ago
Best deal: it certainly is, although Seward’s Folly was a pretty good deal too.
An unstated, but possibly beneficial side affect is that this spectacle might give Chairman Xi a little pause as well, although self deception might cause him to miss the lesson. //
Ready2Squeeze Min Headroom llme
an hour ago
Louisiana purchase should rate in there as well! //
Bryon Grosz
5 hours ago
Not for them, for us.
Opposing Russian aggression is in our interest just as opposing Chinese aggression or Iranian aggression. In a world full of evil, there are no good options, but you should still choose the least bad option.
Why us? Who else? It's us or no one. Some will follow our lead, but there is no one else capable and willing to lead in this regard.
The most likely system used here was the S-200, which first appeared in 1967 and was steadily upgraded over the years. Ukraine retired its S-200 batteries in 2013 but reactivated them in 2022. The system was designed to engage SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft and was nuclear-capable. //
streiff Walter Sobchak‘s doppelgänger
7 hours ago
one of the advances this war has brought about is that older SAMs are networked to state-of-the-art radar. The Patriot's radar can control S-300 and S-400 in addition to Patriot.
The veracity of their statements is of little import, mainly because their commentary is entirely detached from reality. What is clear is that the vote on the Ukraine aid package shook Kremlin insiders. That is what we should pay attention to for two reasons. First, the aid package is large enough that they are panicked, and second, they obviously thought the fix was in. The second item is something we should ponder. Are they getting their political intelligence from alt-right US social media accounts, or do they own someone who is telling them that?
Douglas Proudfoot
5 hours ago
Part of any Russian decision to use nuclear weapons has to be an evaluation of how likely it is that the weapons will actually work as designed, and how Russian soldiers will react.
The reliability of Russian military equipment and ammunition in Ukraine has been spotty at best. At least 10% of conventional Russian missiles misfire or fall short. Firing the nuclear versions of these weapons is not an attractive option. They could detonate in Russia or on Russian held Ukrainian territory.
The dud rate is also a problem. If Putin uses a nuke, and it fails to detonate, Putin gets huge embarrassment. The corruption rampant in the Russian military makes this outcome possible, even probable. Nuclear weapons require careful component storage and maintenance. They’re fragile. The overall Russian record on Russian military storage and maintenance is really poor. The weapons have to be assembled and readied by technical people who know what they’re doing.
If the Ukrainians pick up a Russian dud nuke, nothing will stop them from rebuilding it and using it on Belgorod, Russia. Ukraine most certainly has the knowledge to do it.
Few of the Russian troops in Ukraine have been issued any protection equipment for nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons. Some barely have complete uniforms and are using bolt action rifles designed for World War I. Hardly any have been trained for NBC. They are in no condition to suvive the use of NBC on the battlefield. They would most likely flee in panic from any use of NBC.
My guess is that beyond the usual risk considerations of nuclear retaliation, Putin has to worry, a lot, about the reliability of his nuclear weapons and soldiers. Combining all these risks, in my opinion, increases the uncertainty to the point that no rational Russian Commander in Chief would order a nuclear attack on Ukraine. Even if Putin isn’t completely rational, his subordinates definitely are. They could react to an order to use nukes by overthrowing Putin. //
And, very importantly, the gloves would come off; no more restrictions by US/NATO on what Ukraine can target and the West would supply more and better.
And don't forget the China angle. There is NO way China permits Putin to do this. A tac nuke strike by Putin would leave him out to dry b/c China's not stupid; China would almost certainly decouple from Russia. No way China allows its Long Game to be affected by Putin's stupidity.
That Biden would prop up Russia and throw Israel under the bus is just about as shocking as George H. W. Bush trying to keep the Soviet Union from imploding. These decisions are made by small men with inflated egos who are desperately afraid to do what is right because the new security paradigm will render their experience useless.
What isn't important here is that any of what Putin says is plausible, but, rather, that he says it. In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
“We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.” //
A Ukrainian attack on a soft target like a concert, while not on the scale of the Russian attack on a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 16, 2022, that killed up to 600 civilians, could possibly create the national outrage needed to support increased mobilization.
Given the laser-like focus of the Russian government on blaming Ukraine, you can't help but recall the apartment block bombings in 1999 in Russia that killed over 300 and injured nearly 1,000. Those attacks were immediately blamed on Chechen guerillas, but it became clear that the FSB had carried out the bombings to create casus belli for the Second Chechen War.
To the extent this propaganda campaign is intended for the West, it will be used to justify increased attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine.
Macron was asked about the prospect of sending Western troops to Ukraine, which he publicly raised last month in comments that prompted pushback from other European leaders. "We're not in that situation today," he said, but added that "all these options are possible."
Macron said that responsibility for prompting such a move would lie with Moscow – "It wouldn't be us – and said France would not lead an offensive into Ukraine. But he also said, "Today, to have peace in Ukraine, we must not be weak."
He said that the continent's security was "at stake" in the conflict which he said "is existential for our Europe and for France." He added that "if the situation should deteriorate, we would be ready to make sure that Russia never wins that war."
He said there had been "too many limits in our vocabulary" since the Russian invasion in February 2022. "Two years ago we said we would never send tanks. We did. Two years ago, we said we would never send medium-range missiles. We did," he said. "Those who say 'let's not support Ukraine' do not make the choice of peace, they make the choice of defeat," he added. //
Inadvertently, Putin admitted what I and others have said all along. The only way to bring Putin to the negotiating table is to dangle the specter of a military defeat in front of him. This bullsh** of worrying about "off ramps" and "escalation" when Putin is clearly not interested in the first and unable to credibly do the second has increased the length of this war and its destruction. While Putin bears all the responsibility for the start of this war, Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have much to answer for in how it has been conducted.
We constantly hear from pro-Russian voices on social media (like David Sacks) and in Congress (looking at you, JD Vance) that all that is needed to stop this war is for negotiations to begin on how much of Ukraine has to be surrendered to make Putin feel good about himself. We have the answer. There is no limit on the amount of territory that Russia declares to be its own.
In this speech by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian Security Council, he flat out says that Ukraine does not exist. //
As Lithuania's minister of foreign affairs noted:
Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹 @GLandsbergis
·
Some people say NATO is no longer necessary while the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia stands in front of a huge map of the planned imperial conquest of Eastern Europe 🤷🏼♂️
1:03 PM · Mar 4, 2024 //
Again, a war that was conceived to dismember Ukraine and reduce the rump state to a Muscovite satrapy has expanded NATO and anchored Ukraine more firmly to the West than anything possible without the war.