Satanic globalist scum WANT WAR W. RUSSIA, suckers--UK's PM, Johnson, urges Ukraine NOT TO NEGOTIATE w. Russkies

[Apollonian]

UK’s Boris Johnson Urges Ukraine Not to Negotiate With Russia​

Link: https://news.antiwar.com/2022/05/09/uks-boris-johnson-urges-ukraine-not-to-negotiate-with-russia/

Johnson reportedly told Zelensky even if Ukraine wants to sign a deal with Putin the West is not ready

by Dave DeCamp Posted onMay 9, 2022

On Friday, British Prime Minister Borish Johnson spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and said that he urged Ukraine against negotiating with Russia.

According to a readout of the call from Johnson’s office, the British leader updated Macron on his April 9 visit to Kyiv. “The Prime Minister updated on his visit to Kyiv last month and shared his conviction that Ukraine would win, supported with the right level of defensive military assistance,” the readout said.

The readout said Johnson “urged against any negotiations with Russia on terms that gave credence to the Kremlin’s false narrative for the invasion but stressed that this was a decision for the Ukrainian government.”

According to a report from Ukrainska Pravda citing sources close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Johnson told the Ukrainian leader during his Kyiv visit that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be pressured, not negotiated with.

The report said that Johnson told Zelensky that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin,” Kyiv’s Western backers are not ready. The report said Johnson’s position is that of the “collective West,” which now feels Putin is not as strong as they initially thought and see the war as an opportunity to “press him.”

Johnson’s position lines up with the rhetoric that has been coming out of the Biden administration. At the end of April, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said one of Washington’s goals in Ukraine is to see a “weakened” Russia.

The Biden administration has abandoned diplomacy with Russia and does not appear to be interested in a diplomatic solution to end the war. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hasn’t spoken with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov since February 15, and President Biden has no known plans to hold talks with Putin.

Macron is one of the few Western leaders that has held talks with Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine and favors negotiations as a way to end the war. On Monday, he said peace would be achieved through negotiations. “We will have a peace to build tomorrow, let us never forget that … We will have to do this with Ukraine and Russia around the table. The end of the discussion and the negotiation will be set by Ukraine and Russia.”

 

[Apollonian]

Ukraine Alone Makes Biden The Worst US President In A Long Time​

Link: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/ukraine-alone-makes-biden-the-worst?s=r

Caitlin Johnstone May 7

147 216

Listen to a reading of this article:

❖
Antiwar libertarian hero Scott Horton has a viral tweet going around which reads simply, "Biden's refusal to attempt to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine is the greatest scandal in American political history."
Kind of smacks you in the face, doesn't it? I've never seen anyone put it quite like that before, but if you think about it, how could it not be true?
It's just a simple fact that the Biden administration is actually hindering diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to this war, and that it has refused to provide Ukraine with any kind of diplomatic negotiating power regarding the possible rollback of sanctions and other US measures to help secure peace. Washington's top diplomats have consistently been conspicuously absent from any kind of dialogue with their counterparts in Moscow.
Statements from the administration in fact indicate that they expect this war to drag on for a long time, making it abundantly clear that a swift end to minimize the death and destruction is not just uninteresting but undesirable for the US empire. Ukrainian media report that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Zelensky on behalf of NATO powers that "even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not."
Scott Horton @scotthortonshow
Biden's refusal to attempt to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine is the greatest scandal in American political history.
May 5th 2022
1,766 Retweets8,558 Likes
And this isn't just another war. This is a proxy war being waged by one of the world's two top nuclear forces against the world's other top nuclear force. This is more serious than Iraq. It is more serious than Vietnam. It is more serious than any US war that has happened in the lifetime of anyone likely to be reading these words, because Russia has increasingly valid reasons to believe its very existence as a nation is being threatened. This is therefore a war that could very easily result in the death of everyone on earth.
The US Secretary of "Defense" has openly said that America's goal is to "weaken" Russia in this war. Biden himself has made statements which can only be interpreted as calls for regime change in Moscow. US officials have been leaking to the press claims that US intelligence has directly facilitated the killing of Russian generals and the sinking of a Russian war ship.

The imperial political/media class are not even denying that this is a US proxy war anymore. In an alarmingly rapid pivot from the mass media's earlier position that calling this a proxy war is merely an "accusation" promoted solely by Russia, we're now seeing the use of that term becoming more and more common in authorized news outlets. The New Yorker came right out and declared that the US is in "a full proxy war with Russia" the other day, and US congressman Seth Moulton recently told Fox News that the US is at war with Russia through a proxy.
"At the end of the day, we've got to realize we're at war, and we're not just at war to support the Ukrainians," Moulton said. "We're fundamentally at war, although it's somewhat through proxy, with Russia. And it's important that we win."
Eli Stein @Fight_Back_NYC
Wait what? We are officially in a proxy war with Russia? Did anyone sign up for this?
May 2nd 2022
328 Retweets925 Likes
How fast did that happen? How fast were we paced from "It's Russian propaganda to call this a proxy war" to "Obviously this is a proxy war and we need to make sure we win"? Fast enough to make your head spin, that's for sure.
And it's not just a proxy war, it's a proxy war the US knowingly provoked. We know now that the US intelligence cartel had clear vision into Russia's plans to launch this invasion, which means they also knew how to prevent it. A few low-cost maneuvers like promising not to add Ukraine to NATO as well as promising Zelensky that the US would protect him and his government from the violent fascist factions who were threatening to kill him if he honored the Minsk agreements and made peace with Russia as Ukrainians elected him to do. That's all it would have taken.

Many, many western experts warned for many years that the actions of the US and NATO would lead to the confrontation we're now being menaced with. There was every opportunity to turn away from this war, and instead the US-centralized empire hit the accelerator and drove right into it. Knowingly.
The whole thing was premeditated. All with the goal of weakening Russia and effecting regime change in Moscow in order to secure US unipolar hegemony.

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Most fascinating thing about the Ukraine war is the sheer number of top strategic thinkers who warned for years that it was coming if we continued down the same path. No-one listened to them and here we are. Small compilation ? of these warnings, from Kissinger to Mearsheimer.
March 1st 2022
20,543 Retweets45,492 Likes
The Biden administration was the last in a long line of decision makers to choose this world-threatening confrontation over peace. There was an opportunity to avert this horror, and that opportunity wasn't taken.
Allowing the world to come this close to nuclear war already makes Biden the worst US president since Bush. At least. History may well show his to be the single most depraved presidency of all time.
Preventing nuclear war is a US president's single most important job. It's so important you shouldn't even really have to talk about it, because it's so self-evidently the number one priority. And this administration is just rolling the dice on nuclear conflict with increasing frequency every day.
Even if humanity survives this standoff (and the one with China that's next in line), Biden will still have been an unforgivably depraved president for allowing it to get this close. There's no excuse whatsoever for just casually rolling the dice on all terrestrial life like this.
Just seriously meditating on what nuclear war is and what it means should be enough to show anyone that any flirtation with the remotest possibility of inflicting it on our world is unforgivable. It's the worst crime anyone could possibly commit short of actual nuclear war.
Now all we can do is hope some small spark of sanity ignites deep within our species before we snuff ourselves out for good.

 

[Apollonian]

Americans Don’t Want War With Russia​

by Doug Bandow Posted onMay 11, 2022

Link: https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2022/05/10/americans-dont-want-war-with-russia/

Even New York Times columnist Tom Friedman is getting worried about America sliding into war with Russia. The problem is not the ends, which he shares with the Biden administration. Rather, it is the means.
Despite President Biden’s assurance that Washington would not send troops to Ukraine, US involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian war has steadily expanded. Officials from the president on down have been telling the world and, more importantly, Moscow that America is essentially using Ukraine as a weapon to fight the Russian Federation.
Observed an obviously disturbed Friedman: "Loose lips sink ships – and they also lay the groundwork for overreach in warfare, mission creep, a disconnect between ends and means and huge unintended consequences." Such as war with Russia, perhaps with nuclear weapons.
Friedman is not alone in his fears. My church home group met shortly after Biden announced that his administration was going all into the war with $33 billion in aid to Ukraine. Most of that will be lethal. The attendees, largely politically conservative and strongly patriotic, some with military backgrounds, generally opposed the president’s plan. Why are we getting so deeply involved, they wondered? They understood that the more Washington did and Washington officials said, the greater the tensions with Russia. They believed Biden’s actions contradicted his promises of military noninvolvement.
Then I watched a webinar on Biden’s fitness and the potential of removing him from office. The host and participants were all right-leaning, a couple extremely so, and none were friends of Moscow. However, they generally agreed that one of the most important reasons to force Biden from office was his administration’s increasingly irresponsible stance toward Russia.
For instance, they noted, saying that Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power and should be put on trial for war crimes was playing with fire. Shifting the administration’s objective from defending Ukraine to defeating Russia made full-scale war increasingly possible.
Coming through these views is a basic common sense lacking in Washington’s War Party. The American people, in contrast to those who make US foreign policy, understand that the worst outcome of the Russo-Ukraine war is not a loss by Kyiv, but entry by Washington, with horrors that could only be imagined.
How to think about the ongoing conflict?

• Ukraine deserves America’s sympathy, not America’s defense. There is no vital interest at stake that warrants the US going to war. Nor does Moscow’s botched campaign indicate that such a battle would be easy. Russians would fight better for their nation if attacked by Washington than when attacking Ukraine. Moreover, as the weaker power Russia likely would turn to tactical nuclear weapons as an equalizer. Having escaped the Cold War without triggering another catastrophic global conflict, Washington should step extra carefully now.
• Europe should take the lead in providing aid to Ukraine. US peace activists across the spectrum disagree on the appropriateness of military assistance. However, all agree that Washington’s involvement has become increasingly risky. Surely any role should be carefully limited and calibrated, while emphasizing the goal of ending the conflict. Ostentatiously shipping weapons of war, celebrating involvement in sinking Russian ships and killing Russian generals, and proclaiming plans to weaken Moscow are reckless acts, inviting retaliation and war. Congress was demanding blood over the fake news story of Russian payments to the Taliban for killing US personnel. Imagine the reaction of Russians, people as well as officials, to the real news of American participation in killing Russian personnel.
• Washington should be working to end the war. Moscow’s brutal invasion was murderous, unjustified aggression. It should fail. However, the imperative is to end the conflict. Ukraine, the battleground, is suffering grievously, with thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, multiple cities wrecked, and an economy in collapse. It is up to Kyiv to decide its future, but the allies should indicate their support for a negotiated settlement. The longer the conflict continues, the greater the chance that the fighting will spread, with catastrophic consequences. Any war is dangerous. One in which some combatants and potential entrants have nuclear weapons is far worse.
• Europe requires a new security order. It should begin with the Europeans taking over their own defense. They appear vulnerable to Russian threats only because they have spent nearly eight decades cheap riding on the US. It is difficult to blame them, since Washington allowed them to get away with their irresponsible behavior. However, there no longer is any reason for America to risk a nuclear confrontation with Moscow because the Europeans prefer to fund generous welfare states than robust military establishments. In fact, Vladimir Putin has never indicated much interest in invading Europe and the performance of his military in Ukraine suggests that continental conquest is beyond his means. It is time for burden-shifting, not burden-sharing, in Europe.
• The US and its allies should seek a long-term outcome that avoids a new Cold War. Treating Russia like a very large and much better armed North Korea would make for a more dangerous world. A policy of permanent hostility and isolation would fuel continuing conflict. And new global divisions would not be as simple as the West might desire. Even today Moscow is isolated from America and Europe, not the world. The most populous nations – including China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, and Bangladesh – and most of the Global South have remained aloof from the allied campaign against Russia. They are even less likely to back a permanent cordon sanitaire.
• The American people should insist that the War Party become the Peace Party. The Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine. However, Western policy was dishonest, foolish, and reckless, ignoring Moscow’s security concerns and daring Vladimir Putin to respond. Indeed, Washington policymakers would never have tolerated similar conduct by the Russians in the Western hemisphere. Yet as was said of the Bourbons who once ruled France, America’s neoconservatives and other hawks have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Without a sharp break in policy, Americans will find themselves again at war for nothing, other than a vain desire to dominate the earth.

US policymakers may be glorying in Russia’s distress in Ukraine. For having started a war of conquest, Moscow should lose. However, Washington’s conduct risks broadening and intensifying the conduct, which would put Europe and America at risk.
Instead of talking about victory, the Biden administration should promote peace. Ukraine is being ravaged. Europe would be the immediate target if the conflict spreads. And America’s homeland would be the final target if a US-Russian military confrontation spiraled out of control. Nothing involved in today’s conflict is worth taking these kinds of risks.

 

[Apollonian]

Americans Don’t Want War With Russia But Republicans And Democrats Are Forcing It Anyway​

BY: JORDAN BOYD
MAY 11, 2022
3 MIN READ

Link: https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/1...ublicans-and-democrats-are-forcing-it-anyway/

IMAGE CREDITADAM SCHULTZ/WHITE HOUSE/FLICKR
A majority of Americans do not want the U.S. to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, but Congress is pushing us there.

JORDAN BOYD
VISIT ON TWITTER@JORDANBOYDTX

Since the conflict in Ukraine and Russia began, high-profile elites have demanded that the United States back Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky with finances, food, weaponry, and even the threat of war against Vladimir Putin, but this is out of step with the will of the people.
What started as a call to fund and defend a nation against an invasion from a dangerous dictator, however, quickly morphed into a quest to undermine the Russian regime by whatever means necessary including ordering NATO warplanes to shoot down Russian aircraft and issuing full-blown declarations of war.

A majority of Americans do not want the U.S. to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. Recent polling from The Washington Post and ABC News suggests that 72 percent of U.S. adults “oppose the United States taking direct military action against Russian forces.” Even in the early days of the overseas conflict, only 17 percent of Americans were willing to “risk a direct war between the U.S. and Russia” to “do whatever it can to help Ukraine.”
Congress has yet to vote to officially authorize acts of war against Russia, but that hasn’t stopped some of the most high-ranking officials in the U.S., from President Joe Biden and sitting members of Congress to intelligence agencies and even institutions such as the corporate media, from promoting a clash in Eastern Europe.
Just this week, sitting Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., admitted that the United States is in a proxy war with Russia.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to realize we’re at war. And we’re not just at war to support the Ukrainians. We’re fundamentally at war, although, it’s somewhat through proxy with Russia and it’s important that we win,” Moulton said.

Similarly, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., claimed this week that “we can win this war on behalf of Ukraine.”
“There is no off-ramp in this war. Somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose, and I hope and pray and do everything in my power to make sure Ukraine wins,” Graham said.

Graham’s march toward war has significantly increased in the last few months. In March, he called for the assassination of Putin by Russians to end the conflict.
“The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out,” Graham tweeted.

Now he says it’s up to the U.S. to fight for Ukraine and other nations such as Taiwan, which faces a threat of invasion from China.
Even though some legislators haven’t engaged in the same kind of reckless rhetoric to promote war with Putin, they have fed into the escalation narrative by voting to forward the nation’s role in the conflict. On Tuesday, just weeks after authorizing $13.6 billion of aid money to Ukraine, the House of Representatives voted to send nearly $40 billion more to the Eastern European country.
Only 57 House Republicans and no Democrats voted against the spending package, which lacked regulation and specification.

So far, neither Biden nor the Republicans or Democrats in Congress have laid out a peace plan or spending limits for Ukraine. Instead, they’ve used reckless rhetoric to escalate U.S. involvement and explicitly signaled their intent to take down a nuclear power against voters’ desires.

 

[Apollonian]

Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks Not Happening in ‘Any Form’ as Ukraine Toughens Stance​

Link: https://news.antiwar.com/2022/05/17...ening-in-any-form-as-ukraine-toughens-stance/

Russia says Ukraine hasn't responded to a draft peace deal it put forward on April 15by Dave DeCamp Posted onMay 17, 2022CategoriesNewsTagsRussia, Ukraine

Almost three months into Russia’s war in Ukraine, there appears to be no hope that a negotiated solution will be reached anytime soon. On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said that the warring sides are not currently holding peace talks “in any form.”

“No, negotiations are not going on. Ukraine has practically withdrawn from the negotiation process,” Rudenko said, according to Interfax.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Vladimir Medinsky, who headed the Russian delegation in earlier negotiations with Ukraine, said Kyiv hasn’t responded to a draft peace deal Russia put forward on April 15. A Ukrainian negotiator responded to Medkinsky’s comments by saying Russia was operating with “fakes and lies.”

The Times report says that the impasse stems from Russia’s desire to control “vast swathes” of Ukrainian territory, although the contents of the April 15 peace proposal are not clear. Russia had earlier asked for Ukraine to drop its claim to Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014, and recognize the independence of the breakaway Donbas republics.

While Ukraine has been slowly losing territory to Russia in the east, Kyiv has hardened its stance at the negotiating table thanks to massive military support from the US and other Western nations. “Now that we feel more confident in the fight, our position in the negotiations is also getting tougher,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said last week.

On Sunday, NATO pledged to give Ukraine military support for as long as it needed, and the US is preparing a massive $40 billion aid package for Ukraine. Once it is signed into law by President Biden, the new aid package would bring total US aid for Ukraine in 2022 alone to over $53 billion.

Leaders of NATO countries have been actively discouraging Ukraine from holding peace talks with Russia. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that he “urged” Ukraine not to negotiate with the Russians. He reportedly told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an April 9 visit to Kyiv that even if Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Russia, the West was not.

The US and many of its NATO allies have also made clear that one of their main goals in Ukraine is to hurt Russia. According to the Times, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has said the West needs to push for a military defeat of Russia rather than “a peace that allows aggression to pay off.”

In recent weeks, the leaders of France, Germany, and Italy have all come out in favor of a negotiated solution to end the war, but Washington does not appear to be on board with the idea. When asked about the US’s position on negotiations, Biden administration officials have said they feel the best way they could help Ukraine is by supporting them militarily.

Medinsky said that Ukrainian negotiators had agreed to much of the draft deal Russia proposed but said other factions of the Ukrainian government were likely against the agreement. “But they probably represent that part of the Ukrainian elite that is most interested in reaching a peace agreement,” he said. “There is probably another part of the elite that doesn’t want peace, and that draws direct financial and political benefit from a continuation of the war.”

While a peace deal seems unlikely in the near future, Russian and Ukrainian officials have been holding talks at a lower level, but they have focused on issues like prisoner exchanges. Medinsky insists that Russia still wants to reach a deal with Ukraine and is seeking an “Austria” model, a country that is not part of NATO but is a member of the EU.

 

[Apollonian]

Former Japan PM: If Zelensky Refused to Join NATO, Gave Donbass Autonomy, There Would Be No Hostilities​

by Sputnik
May 29th 2022, 9:46 am

Link: https://www.infowars.com/posts/form...nbass-autonomy-there-would-be-no-hostilities/

"I understand this would be hard to do—perhaps an American leader could have done it. But of course [Zelensky] would refuse," says Shinzo Abe.

Russia started the special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February, following a request for assistance from the Donbass republics. The latter had been suffering from Ukrainian bombardment over the past eight years as Kiev delayed the implementation of the 2015 Minsk agreements.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has suggested in an interview with The Economist that the Russian special military operation in Ukraine might have been avoided if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had done some of the things that Moscow have been insisting on for years.


Shinzo Abe specified that Zelensky should have made a promise that Ukraine won’t join NATO and should have granted the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) a high degree of autonomy. The latter was specified in the Minsk agreements, which were signed in 2015 and essentially designed as a roadmap for the reintegration of the DPR and LPR back into Ukraine.

At the same time, the former Japanese prime minister admitted that Zelensky was unlikely to do any of those things.

“I understand this would be hard to do—perhaps an American leader could have done it. But of course [Zelensky] would refuse”.

The ex-prime minister stressed that the only thing that remains now, in his opinion, is to support Ukraine and oppose the Russian special operation there. He further suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin “believes in power and is a realist at the same time” and will not be making sacrifices for ideals and ideas only.

Putin ordered the launch of the special operation in Ukraine on 24 February following a request for assistance from the DPR and LPR. The latter had been suffering due to Ukrainian military attacks over the past eight years, despite Kiev signing the Minsk agreements seven years ago; these were to serve as a roadmap for ending the conflict and reintegrating the Donbass territories.

Under these agreements both parties were to withdraw troops from the line of fire and engage in talks on conducting fair elections in Donbass to elect local authorities. Kiev was also to pass laws solidifying the Donbass’ special status in Ukraine with wide autonomy that would protect the interests of the local population, specifically the right to use the Russian language, which the majority speaks.

However, the DPR and LPR repeatedly accused Ukraine of stalling the process and failing to pass the necessary laws through the parliament. Kiev, in turn, repeatedly hinted that the Minsk agreements should be scrapped. Despite the Kremlin’s repeated protests, none of the Western countries publicly opposed Kiev’s comments regarding the Minsk agreements.

 

[Apollonian]

WaPo: Biden Will Accept “A Global Recession and Mounting Hunger” to Stop Russia

Andrew Anglin • June 19, 2022

Link: https://www.unz.com/aanglin/wapo-bi...recession-and-mounting-hunger-to-stop-russia/

Are you seeing a lot of energy in support of the Ukraine in your personal life at this point?

At first, the media just did the whole “bad thing is bad, good ones say bad thing is bad” bit, and people went along with it, saying they support the Ukraine, putting flags in their bios and so on. People are social creatures, and in the age of electronic media, manipulating social cues to drive behavior is a fully developed science and technology.

It’s not just you that’s “not Ukrainian,” dear faggot. No one is “Ukrainian,” because the Ukraine is not a country or identity. What you are calling “Ukrainian” is either: Russian people or angry Russian peasants who speak a bastardized version of the language with Polish words and nonsense grammar. The term “Ukrainian” was not really ever used before the fall of the USSR.

However, as it was presented, the Ukraine war wouldn’t cost anything. Now, they’re claiming it is going to cost a lot – economic collapse and global food shortages.

Will pro-war sentiment remain strong?

RT:

The US is ready to back Ukraine in the conflict with Russia for the long term, the Washington Post reported, citing administration officials who say the plans have been in the works for some time.
A senior State Department staffer told the Post on Friday that President Joe Biden would like to see an “eventual negotiated conclusion [to the fighting],” voicing hopes that waves of Western arms shipments to Kiev and the harsh sanctions campaign against Moscow would weaken the European power’s ability to fight.
“While it’s certainly challenging – we’re not certainly sugarcoating that – in terms of how to navigate these stormy waters, our guiding light is that the outcome of Russia being able to achieve its maximalist demands is really bad for the United States, really bad for our partners and allies, and really bad for the global community,” the unnamed official said.
They added that the Biden team had “discussed the possibility of a protracted conflict with global spillover effects” even before February, during a time when American officials repeatedly predicted an imminent attack by Russia.
Though support for the Ukrainian government has been costly for Washington – which has devoted more than \$50 billion in various forms of aid since March – the Post noted that Biden is willing to risk “a global recession and mounting hunger” in order to prevent Russia from achieving its objectives.

Notice that the narrative is in the process of shifting away from “defense of the Ukraine” to “offensive attack on Russia.” Everyone who knew anything already understood that reality, but they’re rolling it out more aggressively now.

This suggests that they want to shift this away from “we’re doing this as charity for some country you know nothing about” to “this is about American interests somehow.”

As I’ve said from the beginning, none of this really makes any sense, because there is no way to win the conflict. They are now talking about a protracted, years-long conflict, but no one can really understand what that would look like, and the whole concept appears to be the result of stupid people making dumb predictions about things they don’t understand.

Russia is going to complete what they are doing, and draw a border.

Currently, Russia is not especially close to meeting what are its presumed territorial goals.

Here’s a recent map:

Here’s what they most likely want the map to look like:

However, there are two things:

• Much of that area in the center is not heavily populated, and
• When the Ukraine military is destroyed, it will be possible to just roll through much of that

The Ukraine military is already mostly destroyed, but they do take up positions in population centers and launch rockets from residential areas, which is a very effective tactic. Human shields are obviously illegal under any kind of international law, but there is no one enforcing that.
But the Donbass battle is wrapping up, and much more of the Ukraine military is going to be wiped out in the finale. It’s also possible that Russia will change its border claims (which have never been officially stated anyway and therefore can’t actually be officially changed), and forget about Odessa after finishing Kharkov.

Either way – it’s not going to take “years” to draw a border, and then enforce the border. So then you’ll have a situation where the West is militarizing the West of the Ukraine and… and what? Launching terrorist-style attacks?

The basic thinking of the Pentagon seems to be that they can turn the Ukraine into Afghanistan. The US armed Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahadeen to fight Russia after they invaded Afghanistan, and this Russian boondoggle is considered one of the things that led to the collapse of the USSR. However, there is no reason to believe that Ukrainians will behave like Afghans, especially when Russia has already partitioned the country, and the conflict no longer has any direct effect on their lives.

Then, of course, you have the question of American support. The claim that Americans are willing to tolerate economic collapse and food shortages may or may not be true. It’s possible Americans will tolerate anything. You also have the problem that Americans don’t have the option of voting for anti-war candidates, because both parties are so aggressively supportive of this war.

The deeper America digs, the better it is in the long run, because they’ve chosen a hill to die on that they are going to die on.
Once America loses their status as global empire, the American government will no longer have the resources to force all of these horrors on us, the American people. That will be better.

 

[Apollonian]

Peaceful resolution of Ukraine conflict would cause global instability: Boris Johnson​

Link: https://alethonews.com/2022/06/26/p...would-cause-global-instability-boris-johnson/

Samizdat | June 26, 2022​

The West needs to keep arming Ukraine instead of seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Kiev and Moscow, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told French President Emmanuel Macron, according to Downing Street. Any attempt to resolve the conflict peacefully will lead to global instability, he said at a meeting on the sidelines of the G7 Summit on Sunday.

The military action in Ukraine is at a “critical moment,” the two leaders agreed, but there is still “an opportunity to turn the tide.” According to the statement, Johnson and Macron have agreed to continue supporting Kiev militarily to “strengthen their hand in both the war and any future negotiations.”

The prime minister also cautioned the French leader against seeking alternatives to resolving the conflict.

The Prime Minister stressed any attempt to settle the conflict now will only cause enduring instability and give Putin licence to manipulate both sovereign countries and international markets in perpetuity.

Johnson took a similar stance at a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday. “Ukraine is on a knife-edge and we need to tip the balance of the war in their favor. That means providing Ukraine with the defensive capabilities, training and intelligence they need to repel the Russian advance,” a statement from Downing Street read.

On Sunday, Johnson tweeted that Ukraine’s “security is our security, and their freedom is our freedom.”

Ahead of the summit, London pledged an additional £429 million ($525 million) in guarantees for World Bank loans in 2022 as a form of financial assistance to Kiev. According to Downing Street, the UK’s total financial support for Ukraine, including loan guarantees, amounted to £1.3 billion ($1.5 billion) and the combined UK economic and humanitarian support for Ukraine amounted to £1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) this year.

Johnson has been one of Kiev’s most ardent supporters after Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began in late February. He has visited Kiev twice since then and repeatedly called on Western nations to provide more weapons. The UK is one of Kiev’s major arms suppliers, including heavy weaponry.

In June, Johnson warned that the West must brace for a long war between Kiev and Moscow. On Saturday, he said he would consider resigning if he has to abandon Ukraine at some point.

 

[Apollonian]

Majority Of Europeans Unwilling To ‘Pay The Price’ To Defend ‘Democracy’ In Ukraine​

by Zero Hedge
July 11th 2022, 10:18 am

Link: https://www.infowars.com/posts/majo...pay-the-price-to-defend-democracy-in-ukraine/

Most EU citizens not ready to accept rising energy and food prices as consequences of sanctions against Russia

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, it didn’t take long for the international community to condemn the attack and react accordingly.

Within a few days, Western powers imposed strict sanctions on Russia, hoping to cripple the country’s ailing economy and force Putin to retreat. More than four months and tens of thousands of casualties later, hopes of a quick resolution of the conflict have vanished, as a drawn-out war of attrition looks increasingly likely.


However, as Statista’s Felix Richter details below, while the sanctions against Russia have thus far failed to deplete Putin’s war chest, their impact is being felt around the world. The embargo of Russian fossil fuels has resulted in sky-high energy prices, while food prices have also surged as a result of the sanctions and Russia’s blockage of Ukrainian grain exports. As both Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s biggest exporters of wheat and other grains, the conflict is threatening food security across the globe, especially in poorer regions that rely on imports from both countries.

Meanwhile the impact of the energy embargo is being felt in the European Union, which relied heavily on imports of Russian oil and gas prior to the war. Germany’s Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck recently announced new plans to reduce gas consumption after repeatedly urging his compatriots to save energy wherever possible. Aside from politicians’ pleas to make sacrifices, EU citizens are feeling the immediate impact of the war in the form of rising prices.

Against this backdrop, a recent Eurobarometer survey commissioned by the European Parliament focuses on the war’s economic impact on Europeans and their willingness to accept a certain price for the defense of the EU’s core values, i.e. freedom and democracy. And while the survey finds broad support for prioritizing the defense of common values over things like price stability, EU-wide support dwindles when asked about rising food and energy prices in particular.

The survey finds that 58 and 59 percent of EU citizens aren’t ready to accept rising energy and food prices as a consequence of sanctions against Russia, but it needs to be noted that the results vary heavily across countries and socioeconomic groups.

While respondents in high-income countries such as Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands overwhelmingly support action against Russia regardless of rising prices, respondents from lower-income EU member states such as Greece and Bulgaria are less willing to pay a personal price.

Across the EU, those respondents who often or at times encounter difficulties paying bills are less likely to say they are ready to face food and energy price increases, which is not surprising.

The revolution will not be televised.

 

[Apollonian]

UK’s Johnson Warns Against Talks With Russia in Last Trip to Ukraine as PM​

Link: https://news.antiwar.com/2022/08/24...ks-with-russia-in-last-trip-to-ukraine-as-pm/

Johnson has been urging Ukraine not to negotiate with Moscow
by Dave DeCamp Posted onAugust 24, 2022CategoriesNewsTagsBritain, Ukraine

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Wednesday, where he warned against negotiations with Russia.
“This is not the time to advance some flimsy plan for negotiation,” Johnson said at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Johnson, who is due to step down as prime minister next month, has now visited Kyiv three times since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. He has been one of the most hawkish NATO leaders in his rhetoric against Russia, frequently discouraging the idea of peace talks.
During one visit to Kyiv in April, Johnson said he “urged” against negotiations with Russia. According to a report from Ukrainska Pravda, Johnson told Zelensky in April that even if Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Russia, Kyiv’s Western backers were not.
During Wednesday’s visit, Johnson pledged a new weapons package for Ukraine worth about $64 million. All of the details of the package aren’t clear, but it includes 850 Black Hornet micro-drones, which are about the size of a human thumb and can be targeted for target-spotting.
Britain has been one of NATO’s biggest supporters of Ukraine, although its total military aid is dwarfed by what the US has pledged. So far, London has announced about $2.7 billion in military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine while the US has pledged about $13.6 billion in weapons packages alone.
Britain’s support for Ukraine is not expected to wane as the two leading candidates to replace Johnson — UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak — have pledged they will continue backing Kyiv in its war.