I am thinking that the Ukraines should make a hard push into the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. The longer the war goes, the weaker the Russian army becomes. Taking back the so-called independent provinces becomes a matter of when, not if. Putin, if smart, would consolidate his "wins" now and save as much face as possible. Putin might be able to walk away with a neutral Ukraine, possession of Crimea and some sort of arrangement for the Donbas region. I just don't see this happening.
russia never treated blacks bad going back to the 1920’s. Ukraine on the other hand is a racist **** hole. So yes I side with Putin zelensky and hunter Biden are two sides of the same coin. Both coke heads and both backed by the same evil governing body
So... based on that logic, the US treated blacks badly for decades. During that time, would you have been receptive to the USA being invaded? Also...Putin's requirements for ending the war didn't mention anything about blacks being treated badly, so how do you reconcile that? Also, Russia has around 145,000,000 people and about 70,000 are black.
Seems highly speculative. More likely the CIA director was there because he's well respected in the intelligence world globally and they were trying to reach Putin at a level he understood. This visit was most likely diplomatic in nature and we were looking out for our interests. I know it gets people all worked up on CONSPIRACY because it's an intelligence official, but on a diplomatic sense, Putin is a KGB field officer by nature, and I think it's a worthy cause to engage at the CIA level, and not show our relationship (CIA & FSB) as adversaries. ..... Also - -The US was offering to get Zelensky out because they thought he'd be killed if he stayed, and it would lead to chaos and the governing infrastructure in Ukraine opting to follow orders from a Russian puppet. If he's alive and well in Lviv or Eastern Poland, at least there is a recognized president giving representation in a safe area even if the capital is technically over run with Russian forces. The US wasn't trying to oust Zelensky from power to give the Russians a free pass to take over Ukraine. That's nonsense, and this NATO officer at this conference is just throwing out theories against the wall with little thought. -The US is giving Russia weapons.... ALOT of them. If the goal was to give Russia a free pass at taking over Ukraine, why would they be contributing to the UA being able to obliterate Russia's tank, and low flying air forces? -However would the US "tolerate" a land bridge in Eastern Ukraine annexed by Russia in exchange for an Iran nuclear deal that took away the nuclear threat long term??.... Possibly... but ultimately that's a decision for the Ukrainians and Zelensky. Even Biden cannot force Zelensky to not fight for their territory in the East. The US doesn't need to make a deal like this for the Russians to have interest in Iran not being a nuclear power. Russia has interests in Syria, and they don't want Iran to have the kind of power they have in Russia to be able to invade a sovereign country like Syria, and because they have nukes nobody can really do anything about it to defend with full military force. The Russians don't need to make a deal in order to have interests in keeping nukes from Iran that's pretty obvious.
You are really on one. So now its **** all of Ukraine and any refugees are racist pieces of ****? Do you forget to breathe sometimes?
You have the patience of a saint the way you can calmly converse with some of the most ridiculous posters in this section.
There's likely a measure of truth for curtailing/crippling Russian ambitions. They ****ed with Georgia and Crimea. They ****ed with our elections. Only a sucker would trust Putin and blindly think China/Russia's partnership is no bfd. With Russia's vast resources and global warming shifting to their favor, it's not hard to see Russia's re-emergence as a multi-faceted superpower in the next 30-50 years...assuming all their serfs don't die off without children. I wholly agree with you on Ukraine's agency. Pundits want to believe that Ukraine is unified just like how they're all pure and white looking. Putin's ideal to federate Ukraine plays heavily on regional differences and their East/West divide. There is no true will of Ukraine because their borders were cooked up and Russians have an MO for pillaging and resettling fresh or "disputed" territories.
Where do you get this stuff from? I will say it is definitely different, about as logical as what Fox is doing, but it is different.
Knowing people from Ukraine like I do, there was previously a difference in how the country was aligned politically in terms of more pro-Russia (conservative ethno etc.) in the East vs people in the West who were much more pro modern European democracy folks. Much like there are differences here in Alabama vs. Oregon. The irony though is that Putin actually has likely brought those Eastern politically aligned folks closer to the ideals of the West by attacking and killing them. So this whole notion that Putin is a genius is ridiculous on it's face. He only got lucky here in the US by dividing us because he lucked into a country that already had FoxNews, and Facebook was the abandoned apartment complex that allowed drug dealers and hookers to operate out of. I don't think sewing divisions here in the US is hard at all. Bringing us all together though.... can be achieved at least in the short term prior to FoxNews' heyday (see 9/11), and therefore is shows that Putin's goal of "denazification" AKA mass murder is counterintuitive to his goals. All this is a long winded way of saying that I don't think anything that is happening in Ukraine is some massive conspiracy, or 3D chess on the global stage. Putin doesn't deserve that credit, and the US is getting too much credit/blame for what it's doing or not doing given which day of the week it is (Biden should do MORE/Biden cooked all this up!). I take Putin at his word still that this is about his grievances that are similar to Hitler's grievances about Germany losing the first World War, and getting screwed, Putin is simply attacking and trying to take Ukraine because of his grievances about Russia losing the Cold War, and him being a pariah with little respect on the world stage (see Hillary Clinton as SOS giving a speech about how Putin rigged the election, and that fueling his grievances as a sad little man like Trump who can't handle losing or not being loved by all.) This all is much more simple than we make it out to be. It's simply that Putin is an A$$hole, and we shouldn't elect our own domestic a$$hole again in 2024.
Russia also conspired with the Saudis to tank our domestic oil markets so they can control prices better. Not to say we put a gun to his head to invade Ukraine, but the reasons why neither side is friendly to the point of antagonism is there. Even if Putin is as what we (you, American people, intelligence establishment) thnks he is, the US should take measures to destabilize or cripple his country's ascent until we get a more favorable partner to the EU or at least a benign one. The Devil is, ofc, the degree of the measures as no one wants to cross that nuclear threshhold, but them occupying Crimea and pestering Ukraine is a good and unambiguous reason to do at least half of what Rand Corp was proposing. *Also note the irony that some of these escalations were also happening under the Trump admin. I suppose that's considered a contradiction to how he was portrayed in the media?(!) Who knows what he was doing on the back channels even if we were all face palming what he did in front of the camera.
Calling up the Saudi's and the Emirates and manipulating gas prices in order to make Joe Biden seem like a weak president prior to an invasion is again kind of low hanging fruit and not some great master plan evidence. To bring it back to the simplicity of Putin is that he needs Democracy to be weak and unpopular globally to he can stay in power in Russia, and not be killed or put in prison. He attacks the US liberal leadership because of that, and again on a personal level because he's just mad at Hillary for saying something that hurt his ego. What Rand was proposing was essentially for the US to give Putin a pass, and let him take a good chunk of Ukraine just because we aren't innocent in the past, and have had a hand in what happened in post Cold War Soviet Union and Russia that led to Vladamir Putin coming into power because of neo-liberalism propping up an oligarchy he could take advantage under. Rand and @glynch certainly have a point indirectly about the US here because we are trending more and more towards a Russia style neo-liberal oligarchy ourselves, but despite that we still have alot we can do right too and have done alot of good at times on the world stage. The US has a role to play in Ukraine whether you want the US to be Anti-Interventionalist or not. Doing nothing in this case (what Rand is suggesting) actually isn't doing nothing at all. Whether what we've done in the past is right or wrong doesn't matter, and should dictate us siding with Putin and the continued rise to violent dictatorships around the globe just because we want to wear this badge of honor for being "Anti-Interventionalist." No that doesn't mean a direct war with Russia. But also we shouldn't just sign off publicly on Ukraine being overthrown either and can at least take the side of freedom and democracy from a political messaging standpoint, and using economics, and military guidance & weapon sharing to help them defend it if they want to defend it. I would much rather give weapons and intelligence to a Ukrainian people that overwhelmingly want our help vs the people of Afghanistan who have few mechanisms for fighting a full scale war vs the conveyer belt of tyrannical warlords that'll keep on vying for power there.
haitians wanted to flee their ravaged home land and find a new life in america and jim corw joe sent out men on horses with whips to send them back. Meanwhile illegal immigrants are flooding our borders this very second. so biden will allow racist afghanis and racist ukrainians to come to america, but its damn the black folk that want the same thing
I'm not concerned with that. It was simple that Russia did was they did to corner a critical market and leverage their resource dominance across Europe. The downward effects can follow however anyone puts it. I might've read the article hastily, but Rand Corp is not a person. Their recommendations are: Prior to 2018, the US only provided "defensive" military weaponry to Ukraine. The Rand report assesses that providing lethal (offensive) military aid to Ukraine will have a high risk but also a high benefit. Accordingly, US lethal weaponry skyrocketed from near zero to $250M in 2019, to $303M in 2020, to $350M in 2021. Total military aid is much higher. A few weeks ago, "The Hill" reported, "The US has contributed more than $1 billion to help Ukraine’s military over the past year". The Rand report lists many techniques and "measures" to provoke and threaten Russia. Some of the steps include: Repositioning bombers within easy striking range of key Russian strategic targets Deploying additional tactical nuclear weapons to locations in Europe and Asia Increasing US and allied naval force posture and presence in Russia’s operating areas (Black Sea) Holding NATO war exercises on Russia’s borders Withdrawing from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty These and many other provocations suggested by Rand have, in fact, been implemented. For example, NATO conducted massive war exercises dubbed "Defender 2021" right up Russia’s border. NATO has started "patrolling" the Black Sea and engaging in provocative intrusions into Crimean waters. The US has withdrawn from the INF Treaty. I'm saying some of those recommendations are relatively reasonable given what Russia has done to their neighbors and to us (degree is debatable). The writer, Nick Sterling, and maybe glynch are promoting the opposite.
