The NATO-American Paradox in Europe > The shocking, if not astonishing actions of the USA to provoke the war in Ukraine

 

The day after the Minsk2 peace treaty was signed, America teamed with far-right Ukraine and performed a coup on the elected government of Ukraine. The UN and several European governments, were completely ignored and overruled by the NATO-American conglomerate of war industry oligarchs. 

The NATO-American paradox is that both parties are in Europe to keep it safe from Russia. In reality, they have caused at least 15,000 Ukrainian deaths, hundreds of thousands of refugees, and is driving the Ukrainian economy back toward the Dark Ages.

Morgan's question here reveals the phenomenon of the acceptible narrative in 21st century journalism - if you don't accept the acceptible narrative, you must be a Putin lover. 

Why Won't the US Help Negotiate a Peaceful End to the War in Ukraine?

 

Why Won't the US Help Negotiate a Peaceful End

to the War in Ukraine?

For goodness' sake, negotiate!

JEFFREY D. SACHS

Jun 19, 2024

Common Dreams

For the fifth time since 2008, Russia has proposed to negotiate with the U.S. over security arrangements, this time in proposals made by President Vladimir Putin on June 14, 2024. Four previous times, the U.S. rejected the offer of negotiations in favor of a neocon strategy to weaken or dismember Russia through war and covert operations. The U.S. neocon tactics have failed disastrously, devastating Ukraine in the process, and endangering the whole world. After all the warmongering, it’s time for Biden to open negotiations for peace with Russia.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. grand strategy has been to weaken Russia. 

As early as 1992, then Defense Secretary Richard Cheney opined that following the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union, Russia too should be dismembered. 

Zbigniew Brzezinski opined in 1997 that Russia should be divided into three loosely confederated entities in Russian Europe, Siberia, and the far east. 

In 1999, the U.S.-led NATO alliance bombed Russia’s ally, Serbia, for 78 days in order to break Serbia apart and install a massive NATO military base in breakaway Kosovo. 

Leaders of the U.S. military-industrial complex vociferously supported the Chechen war against Russia in the early 2000s.

To secure these U.S. advances against Russia, Washington aggressively pushed NATO enlargement, despite promises to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin that NATO would not move one inch eastward from Germany. 

Most tendentiously, the U.S. pushed NATO enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia, with the idea of surrounding Russia’s naval fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea with NATO states: Ukraine, Romania (NATO member 2004), Bulgaria (NATO member 2004), Turkey (NATO member 1952), and Georgia, an idea straight from the playbook of the British Empire in the Crimean War (1853-6).

Brzezinski spelled out a chronology of NATO enlargement in 1997, including NATO membership of Ukraine during 2005-2010. The U.S. in fact proposed NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia at the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit. 

By 2020, NATO had in fact enlarged by 14 countries in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union (Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004; Albania and Croatia, 2009; Montenegro, 2017; and Northern Macedonia, 2020), while promising future membership to Ukraine and Georgia.

The White House is dead wrong to evade negotiations just because of disagreements with Russia’s proposals. It should put up its own proposals and get down to the business of negotiating an end to the war.

In short, the 30-year U.S. project, hatched originally by Cheney and the neocons, and carried forward consistently since then, has been to weaken or even dismember Russia, surround Russia with NATO forces, and depict Russia as the belligerent power.

It is against this grim backdrop that Russian leaders have repeatedly proposed to negotiate security arrangements with Europe and the U.S. that would provide security for all countries concerned, not just the NATO bloc. Guided by the neocon game plan, the U.S. has refused to negotiate on every occasion, while trying to pin the blame on Russia for the lack of negotiations.

In June 2008, as the U.S. prepared to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed a European Security Treaty, calling for collective security and an end to NATO’s unilateralism. Suffice it to say, the U.S. showed no interest whatsoever in Russia’s proposals, and instead proceeded with its long-held plans for NATO enlargement.

The second Russian proposal for negotiations came from Putin following the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, with the active complicity if not outright leadership of the U.S. government. I happened to see the U.S. complicity up close, as the post-coup government invited me for urgent economic discussions. When I arrived in Kiev, I was taken to the Maidan, where I was told directly about U.S. funding of the Maidan protest.

The evidence of U.S. complicity in the coup is overwhelming. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was caught on a phone line in January 2014 plotting the change of government in Ukraine. 

Meanwhile, U.S. Senators went personally to Kiev to stir up the protests (akin to Chinese or Russian political leaders coming to DC on January 6, 2021 to rile up the crowds). 

On February 21, 2014, the Europeans, U.S., and Russia brokered a deal with Yanukovych in which Yanukovich agreed to early elections. Yet the coup leaders reneged on the deal the same day, took over government buildings, threatened more violence, and deposed Yanukovych the next day. The U.S. supported the coup and immediately extended recognition to the new government.

In my view, this was a standard CIA-led covert regime change operation, of which there have been several dozen around the world, including sixty-four episodes between 1947 and 1989 meticulously documented by Professor Lindsey O’Rourke. 

Covert regime-change operations are of course not really hidden from view, but the U.S. government vociferously denies its role, keeps all documents highly confidential, and systematically gaslights the world: “Do not believe what you see plainly with your own eyes! The U.S. had nothing to do with this.” Details of the operations eventually emerge, however, through eyewitnesses, whistleblowers, the forced release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act, declassification of papers after years or decades, and memoirs, but all far too late for real accountability.

In any event, the violent coup induced the ethnic-Russia Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine to break from the coup leaders, many of whom were extreme Russophobic nationalists, and some in violent groups with a history of Nazi SS links in the past. Almost immediately, the coup leaders took steps to repress the use of the Russian language even in the Russian-speaking Donbas. In the following months and years, the government in Kiev launched a military campaign to retake the breakaway regions, deploying neo-Nazi paramilitary units and U.S. arms.

In the course of 2014, Putin called repeatedly for a negotiated peace, and this led to the Minsk II Agreement in February 2015 based on autonomy of the Donbas and an end to violence by both sides. Russia did not claim the Donbas as Russian territory, but instead called for autonomy and the protection of ethnic Russians within Ukraine. 

The UN Security Council endorsed the Minsk II agreement, but the U.S. neocons privately subverted it. Years later, Chancellor Angela Merkel blurted out the truth. The Western side treated the agreement not as a solemn treaty but as a delaying tactic to “give Ukraine time” to build its military strength. In the meantime, around 14,000 people died in the fighting in Donbas between 2014 and 2021.

There is much more on this story in Jeffrey Sachs website. Please continue reading at:

Following the definitive collapse of the Minsk II agreement,

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European Politics, War, Coal, and Climate Change; Germany sets pace; Ukraine - Victim of Russia and the West; NATO planned Ukraine conflict since 2014

..

Germany will turn to coal-based power to make up for Russian gas shortage

By Darryl Coote

   

Last week, Russian gas company Gazprom said that it reduced supplies to Germany via its Nord Stream 1 pipeline

to 67 million cubic meters a day, which is a substantial decline. File Photo by Igor Golovniov/Shutterstock

June 20 (UPI) -- Germany has announced a slew of measures aimed at reducing its gas consumption, including turning to coal-fired power plants for energy, as Russia continues to throttle supplies to Europe amid its war in Ukraine.

Robert Habeck, Berlin's economy and climate minister, revealed the measures Sunday in a statement, saying to reduce the use of gas in producing electricity, they will have to resort to coal-fired power plants -- a decision he called "bitter" but "necessary" to ensure storage tanks are full this winter.

"Security of supply is currently guaranteed, but the situation is serious," he said. "We are therefore further strengthening precautions and taking additional measures to reduce gas consumption."

He said the coal-fired plants will be used for a "transitional period." Other measures include a gas auction model to be launched this summer to encourage industrial consumers to reduced their use of gas as well as strengthening the storage of gas through offering loans secured by a federal guarantee to Germany's gas market operator.

The announcement comes as Russia continues to limit gas to Europe where nations have repeatedly sought to punish Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

On Friday, Italy and Slovakia said Gazprom, Russia's state-owned energy company, had halved their gas deliveries.

On Thursday, Gazprom said in a statement on its official Telegram account that it reduced gas supplies to Germany via its Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 67 million cubic meters a day, which is a substantial decline.

Gazprom said it stopped the Siemens gas turbine engine for repairs.

Habeck, however, called the move by Russia in a statement as an obvious "strategy to unsettle and drive up prices."

"The quantities can be procured on the market, albeit at high prices," he said late last week. "Security of supply is guaranteed. But we are monitoring things very closely and are in close contact with the relevant actors about the crisis structures."

He said that the current situation shows the need to conserve energy and that they will take other mitigating measures.

Does it really show the need to conserve energy, or does it show the need to end the Ukraine war and restore sanity with Russia? How far will this set the climate change strategy of reducing CO2 in the atmosphere back? With Germany as an example, much of the rest of Europe will also resort to coal-fired energy plants. 

This has everything to do with the madness of NATO, the USA, and Europe's lack of real leaders. NATO and Washington are happy to smother Europe with coal dust and smog in order to keep the war in Ukraine going. Think of all that war inventory that keeps moving.

Western leaders warn war in Ukraine could last years

By Daniel Uria

   

Smoke from shelling rises near a mine waste bank in the Luhansk area of north-east of Severodonetsk. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Sunday urged Western allies to maintain support for Ukraine, warning its war with Russian invaders could span years. Photo by Oleksandr Ratushniak/EPA-EFE

June 19 (UPI) -- Russia's war in Ukraine could extend for several years, a pair of Western leaders warned on Sunday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged the international community to maintain its support for Ukraine as it fights to fend off Moscow's invasion, warning it is nearly impossible to tell when the conflict will come to an end.

Johnson wrote in the Sunday Times of London that Ukraine's allies must work to ensure that it "has the strategic endurance to survive and eventually prevail" over Russian forces" in a prolonged conflict.

"I am afraid that we need to steel ourselves for a long war as [Russian President Vladimir Putin] resorts to a campaign of attrition, trying to grind down Ukraine by sheer brutality," he said.

Johnson said that allies must also increase efforts to make sure Ukrainian forces are properly trained to operate advanced equipment, adding that Britain hoped to train "up to "10,000 soldiers every 120 days."

It was estimated that Russia now controls 80%-90% of the Donbas region going into Sunday and at least 4,509 civilians have been killed and 5,585 civilians have been injured, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights since the war began on Feb. 24.

However, the Ukrainian military said that a Russian regiment was forced to withdraw from the eastern front "to restore combat capability" after sustaining heavy losses, while Ukrainian forces had destroyed "30 units of various equipment and weapons of the enemy" in a 24-hour period beginning Friday morning.

Stoltenberg told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that Western nations "must not let up in supporting Ukraine" noting that Ukrainian forces were fighting bravely and could push Russian troops out of the Donbas region.

He said the support must persist "even if the costs are high, not only for military support but also because of rising energy and food prices" noting that those costs could not compare "to the price that the Ukrainians have to pay every day with many lives."

What insanity! NATO, and countries that have no risk of losing personnel or civilians are prepared to drag this war out for years, killing thousands more civilians and soldiers, and destroying more infrastructure and economies, so they can sell more weapons. 

NATO will meet in Madrid for two days beginning June 29 to address security concerns and the strategic direction of the alliance over the next decade, Stoltenberg added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a message to fathers who "protect and defend" during the war in a Father's Day message posted Sunday.

"Being a father is a great responsibility and a great happiness," said Zelensky, a father of two. "It is strength, wisdom, motivation to go forward and not to give up. And no matter how difficult it is -- to protect and defend the most precious. Thank you, our heroes."

On Saturday, the U.S. State Department said it had reviewed photos and videos appearing to show two Americans who had been captured after traveling to Ukraine to voluntarily join the war effort.

The agency had previously described the two men, Alex Dreuke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Hyunh, 27, as "reportedly captured by Russia's military forces in Ukraine, after they were reported missing by their families last week but declined to comment on the authenticity of the images or the men's conditions.

American officials, however, remained in contact with the men's families, Ukrainian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross, a State Department spokesperson said.

NATO admits it’s been preparing for conflict with Russia since 2014

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that increases in deployments and military spending

were carried out with Moscow in mind

FILE PHOTO: French troops inspect military vehicles at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, near the city of Constanta, Romania, June 14, 2022 © AP / Yoan Valat

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Wednesday that increases in military spending and rising numbers of troop deployments in Eastern Europe since 2014 were carried out in anticipation of a conflict with Russia.

Speaking after a meeting of NATO members and partner states in Madrid, Stoltenberg accused Moscow of “using force in the eastern Donbass since 2014,” despite the fact that Kiev’s forces have been shelling cities in the region ever since the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics declared independence from Ukraine that year.

Nevertheless, Stoltenberg said that the US-led military bloc decided in 2014 to start beefing up its forces in Eastern Europe. 

“The reality is also that we have been preparing for this since 2014,” he stated. “That is the reason that we have increased our presence in the eastern part of the alliance, why NATO allies have started to invest more in defense, and why we have increased [our] readiness.”

According to NATO figures, the bloc’s European members and Canada have increased their military expenditure by between 1.2% and 5.9% every year since 2014. However, only 10 out of 30 NATO states currently meet the bloc’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defense. 

The increase in expenditure has been most noticeable in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, with Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania all meeting the target for the first time in 2022.

And where does this astonishing amount of money go? To the Military Establishment Complex. It comes from taxes on the common people and goes to the uber-wealthy war-mongers. It's a wealth transfer system that will leave the filthy rich even filthier and richer, and will leave the common families poorer.

Earlier on Wednesday, NATO members agreed to adopt a new Strategic Concept. This policy blueprint sets out the alliance’s stance toward partners, non-members, and adversaries, with the 2022 iteration naming Russia as the “most significant and direct threat” to the bloc.

On the other hand, Moscow has labeled NATO’s expansion into former Soviet states since the end of the Cold War – which Western leaders explicitly promised in the early 1990s would not happen – as a threat against its own security. NATO’s official position on Ukraine, set out in the 2008 Bucharest Declaration, is that it and Georgia “will become members of NATO” at an unspecified future date. Russia has cited Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership as a key factor behind the current conflict.

Despite the alliance’s post-Cold War march into the former Eastern Bloc, Stoltenberg claimed on Wednesday that “NATO has strived for a better relationship with Russia for decades.”

Yes, and I have a tropical island on the coast of Labrador for sale cheap!

Ukrainian Channel Attacked with Grenade Launcher Ahead of Broadcasting Oliver Stone’s Documentary

FILE PHOTO. A crate with RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades. ©Sputnik / Igor Zarembo

The office of a Ukrainian TV (News) channel, which has been complaining about threats coming from nationalists over its editorial policy, was attacked overnight with a grenade launcher.

The building of 112 Ukraine was damaged on Friday night by a grenade apparently fired from a single-shot launcher. Two people reportedly drove by the premises, fired the explosive at the big logo of the channel on the building wall and fled the scene, leaving the used launcher tube behind.

Nobody was hurt in the incident, although the blast was strong enough to cause some damage inside, according to the channel. 

Kiev police said they were investigating the attack as a terrorist act, but are yet to make any arrests in the case or identify the motive behind it. The channel called on Ukrainian authorities to act and stop criminals attacking it and announced it will ramp up security at the office.

The outlet earlier asked for protection by international press freedom organizations, the European Union and Ukraine’s law enforcement, saying it received numerous threats from radical nationalists. The reported surge may have been triggered by the decision to air the documentary ‘Revealing Ukraine’ by Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone.

The film details the political crisis and armed conflict in Ukraine and features, among other things, exclusive interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian politician Victor Medvedchuk, who has close ties with the owner of 112 Ukraine.

It fails to follow the narrative about the conflict preferred by the current government in Kiev, so the decision was harshly criticized in the country. Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko even threatened the channel with prosecution.

“I declare this: any attempts … to demonstrate the Russian propagandist film, which Medvedchuk’s channel is advertising, will result in punishment,” the top official said in a video address.

The actual owner of the channel, Taras Kozak, called the night grenade attack “the latest threat to independent media” and accused the Ukrainian authorities of dereliction of duty to protect journalists.

The documentary is scheduled to be aired next Tuesday.

Yatsenyuk Asks Parliament to Allow Foreign Military in Ukraine

AP Photo/ Michael Sohn

The Ukrainian government asked the parliament to let foreign troops in if they "support peace and security" under UN or EU resolutions.

Polish and US soldiers look at a missile defense battery during joint exercises.
© AP PHOTO/ CZAREK SOKOLOWSKI

Nuclear Paranoia: Kiev May Deploy Missile Defense Systems Over 'Threats'

KIEV (Sputnik) – The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers has requested the country’s parliament to allow foreign military personnel into the country if they are providing security under resolutions set out by the United Nations or the European Union, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Wednesday.

“We are addressing the parliament to amend legislation on the order of allowing for and under which conditions units of armed forces from other governments may exist in Ukraine. The government proposes to the parliament to allow foreign units into Ukraine if they are fulfilling operations of supporting peace and security under resolutions from the UN or the European Union,” Yatsenyuk said.

This has been a long time coming, if it comes. In another recent piece I suggested that the Crimea might still belong to Ukraine if foreign soldiers suddenly appeared in Crimea to counter the 'little green men'. 

Foreign soldiers would make it less likely that Russia would enter Ukraine with an all-out invasion, and may even make them re-think the policy of 'allowing' Red Army soldiers on vacation from relaxing in the foxholes of eastern Ukraine.

Now, that makes this a very dangerous time for Ukraine since any planned further aggression by Russia will need to be moved up to occur before foreign troops arrive.

Ukraine Crisis: 'Russian Special Forces' Captured

Ukraine says rebel forces (pictured) are being helped by regular Russian troops

From BBC Europe

Ukraine's military says its forces have captured two Russian soldiers fighting with rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The troops were seized in the town of Shchastya, near the line of separation.

A video emerged apparently showing one of the soldiers - which it said were members of Russia's elite special forces - saying during questioning that he was a sergeant from the central Russian city of Togliatti.

Russia denies claims that it is sending its forces to help the rebels.

However, it admits that a number of Russian nationals are fighting with the separatists in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

More than 6,000 people have been killed in fighting which began in April 2014 when the rebels seized large parts of the two regions.

This happened a month after Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula.

'Special forces brigade'

On Sunday, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that the two Russian soldiers were captured by the volunteer Aydar battalion in Shchastya, Luhansk region.

He said this happened close to the front line, without giving further details.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian MP Anton Gerashchenko posted a video purportedly showing the questioning of one of the seized soldiers, who was injured during the fighting.

The soldier identifies himself as Aleksandr Aleksandrov - a sergeant in the third special forces brigade.

He says he was part of a 14-member group, naming the commander and his deputies.

The video has not been independently verified. Russia has not publicly commented on the latest developments.

Ukraine and the West have repeatedly stated than thousands of Russia's regular troops are deployed in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Last year, the Kiev authorities posted a video apparently showing Russian paratroopers seized in the region.

Earlier this week, Russian opposition activists published a report, originally compiled by murdered Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, alleging that 220 Russian soldiers had died in two key battles in eastern Ukraine.

The lull in the conflict in eastern Ukraine since February's ceasefire has been punctuated by frequent violations.

Truth
Truth has been the first casualty in this war, without question. Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of this war has been President Putin's extraordinary ability to look the world in the eye and lie blatantly, knowing all the while that no-one in the world believes a word he says.

This is classic bullying. Incredibly immature, but it works in the short term. The schoolyard bully claims the little guy's lunch is his and just takes it daring the little guy to do something about it. Most often, the little guy does nothing because there is nothing he can do by himself. His friends and classmates watching, choose not to get involved and turn away.

It's a pity that none of Ukraine's friends, if it has any real friends, were willing to send 'little brown men' in to the Crimea last year to counter the 'little green men', known to be Russian soldiers. You don't appease a bully and expect him to stop. He will only stop when he is confronted by someone(s) willing to stand up to him. 

The west hasn't completely failed Ukraine, but it's close. The sanctions applied to Russia are affecting its economy, but the drop in oil prices are doing as much, if not more, than the sanctions. 

Yet, Putin's genius for knowing his people has kept him as popular as ever. Sanctions won't work until there is pressure on Putin by his own people. The bully's own friends have to turn on him. Fear of an uprising is the only thing that will affect him. It doesn't look like that will occur any time soon.

The situation in eastern Ukraine

Fewer clashes but still occurring daily, with intense fighting around port city of Mariupol

Ukrainian government says it has lost full or partial control of 28 towns and villages since February

Both sides accuse each other of building up weaponry for a new offensive