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The Usual Suspects Are Trying to Foment a Crisis With Russia
[ANTIWAR.com] Once again, the United States and some of its security clients in Eastern Europe are doing their utmost to create a crisis atmosphere with respect to Russia. A key player in that effort is the government of Ukraine. As Ukrainian officials did in April 2021, they are again highlighting allegedly suspicious Russian troop movements near the border between the two countries in late October and early November. Ukrainian leaders contend that such maneuvers might well be the prelude to a military offensive.Kiev’s propaganda offensive escalated dramatically on November 20 when Brig. General Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s director of defense intelligence, asserted in interview with Military Times that Moscow already had plans in place to launch an invasion by the end of January 2022. He was not talking about a modest border incursion in support of pro-Russia separatists who control portions of Ukraine’s Donbas region either. The attack he was predicting, Budanov insisted, would likely involve airstrikes, artillery and armor attacks followed by airborne assaults in the east, amphibious assaults in Odessa and Mariupul and even an incursion of Ukraine through neighboring Belarus in the north. Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky soon made Budanov’s prediction look mild by comparison. He warned that Moscow not only intended to seize large swaths of Ukraine’s territory, but that the Kremlin had plans in place to stage a coup to overthrow his government. Zelensky was quite specific about the timetable; the coup was to occur during the week of November 28-December 4. It would be bad enough if such efforts to generate a crisis were simply a unilateral campaign by a government determined to whip-up nationalist emotions to revive its flagging fortunes. But as it did in April, Joe Biden’s administration seems ready to give full credence and backing to the stance of its Ukrainian client toward Russia. In an April 2 telephone call to Zelensky, Biden "affirmed the United States’ unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbas and Crimea." Posted by: Besoeker 2021-12-02 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=618935 |