Archived material Access restricted Article
Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Wed 02/09/2022 View Tue 02/08/2022 View Mon 02/07/2022 View Sun 02/06/2022 View Sat 02/05/2022 View Fri 02/04/2022 View Thu 02/03/2022
1
2022-02-09 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russia has no reason to attack Ukraine says Ukrainian MP
Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.
Posted by badanov 2022-02-09 00:00|| || Front Page|| [12 views ]  Top

#1 The Ukrainians don't expect a war. The Russians don't want a war. War benefits no one over there.

Who's stoking this 'crisis,' exactly?
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-09 00:19||   2022-02-09 00:19|| Front Page Top

#2 Who's stoking this 'crisis,' exactly?

The ones who moved 120,000 soldiers to the border of Ukraine. Duh.
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 01:36||   2022-02-09 01:36|| Front Page Top

#3 NATO and the idiot Ukrainians brought this on themselves -- with us egging on the latter.

Remember: GHW Bush, the most intelligent and least damaging of our 6 post-Cold War presidents, was mocked for telling the Ukrainian Rada not to provoke the Russians.

James Baker famously encouraged Gorbachev to support German reunification -- Thatcher and Mitterrand were both opposed, as were many of the Russians -- with his promise that NATO would "not expand one inch eastward." That was a fvcking lie. We humiliated the Russians and they're determined to pay us back for it.

Ukrainian fascists tortured and burned alive dozens of Russian-speaking fellow citizens in Odessa. Ukraine shut off Crimea's H2O supply etc etc
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-09 06:49||   2022-02-09 06:49|| Front Page Top

#4 EU problem. Please stay out of it.
Posted by Besoeker 2022-02-09 07:41||   2022-02-09 07:41|| Front Page Top

#5 I still say this is all deflection for Biden/DC.

To get the cameras off of them as thereal C-19 facts and other illegal things come to light.
Posted by NN2N1 2022-02-09 08:14||   2022-02-09 08:14|| Front Page Top

#6 "The head of the Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, said that the Republic did not ask Moscow to supply weapons to the DPR."

Somehow they got there anyway. Moscow was misinformed.
Posted by European Conservative 2022-02-09 09:33||   2022-02-09 09:33|| Front Page Top

#7 Definitely some dog wagging is being done by an administration that is in deep doggy doo at home.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2022-02-09 12:31||   2022-02-09 12:31|| Front Page Top

#8 "The head of the Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, said that the Republic did not ask Moscow to supply weapons to the DPR."

Somehow they got there anyway. Moscow was misinformed.

The article meant in the current context.

In 2014, weapons such as tanks and BMP-2s did filter in to Lugansk and Donetsk from Russia, albeit not the latest iterations. At that time the separatists said that they had taken over a factory to rebuild damaged combat vehicles left in the field by the Ukrainians, seemingly a propaganda coup, save for the fact that someone had to tow those vehicles in, and someone had to apply for and receive spares, follow Russian schematics, etc....

And to be fair the separatists did dust off some actual museum pieces, such as the PDRD anti-tank rifle reconfigured with a rifle scope as an anti materiel rifle ( used at the Donetsk airport.)
Posted by badanov 2022-02-09 12:52||   2022-02-09 12:52|| Front Page Top

#9 NATO and the idiot Ukrainians brought this on themselves -- with us egging on the latter.

Bullshit. The excuse of a wife beater.

James Baker famously encouraged Gorbachev to support German reunification -- Thatcher and Mitterrand were both opposed, as were many of the Russians -- with his promise that NATO would "not expand one inch eastward." That was a fvcking lie. We humiliated the Russians and they're determined to pay us back for it.

You and I already had this conversation. Gorbachev himself admitted there was no "no expansion" clause. The promise was not to station foreign troops in the former East Germany. It was the east Europeans who insisted on NATO membership because they understood the Russians.

Ukrainian fascists tortured and burned alive dozens of Russian-speaking fellow citizens in Odessa. Ukraine shut off Crimea's H2O supply etc etc

They took by force Odessa trade union building with the intention of handing the city to Russia. But unlike Donetsk and Lugansk w/o the numerous Little Green Men to support them. Odessa citizens fought back and Mototov cocktailed the the building. That's a real insurrection and real consequences.

Now, do you want to talk about massacres, mass deportations and extrajudicial killings committed in Russian occupied Ukraine where Russian power is asserted by Russian mercenaries who murder Russian ethnic natives (even the leaders of the putsch) who dare say a contrary word?

Poor Crimea. Russians invade and take it over and Ukrainians won't provide the Russians with goodies. How barbaric!
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 13:22||   2022-02-09 13:22|| Front Page Top

#10 The Donetsk rebels didn't capture many Ukrainian army heavy weapons. That was revealed when the Ukrainians fought back and the rebels collapsed and Donetsk almost retaken before the Russian Army invaded. After that, for deniability, Russians tried to supply Donetsk with weapons the Ukrainians had, but often not in the Ukrainian model/configuration. (For example the T-72B3 tanks and SA-6 that shot down the Dutch airliner.) Later new weapons like the Tornado and TOS-1 MLRS and T-90 tanks manned by Russian "mercenaries".
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 13:45||   2022-02-09 13:45|| Front Page Top

#11 "Poroshenko and Putin constantly raised their voices with each other. The Russian president was so worked up, that he started threatening to decisively crush his counterpart's forces," an excerpt from Hollande's 2018 book, "The Lessons of Power," says, according to a translation by UAWire.org, which writes about Russia and Ukraine.

"This showed that there are Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. Putin suddenly realized, and got a grip on himself,” Hollande wrote, according to UAWire.org."

https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-blundered-shoutingat-ukraines-poroshenko-france-hollande-book-2018-9
Posted by European Conservative 2022-02-09 14:19||   2022-02-09 14:19|| Front Page Top

#12 How (if at all) does America have a vital interest in Ukraine?

What is that vital interest, exactly-- one that's worth shedding our troops' blood and cratering the world's economy?

Anyone? Brandon?
Bueller?

Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-09 14:45||   2022-02-09 14:45|| Front Page Top

#13 What's your excuse for being Putin's sock puppet?

The American and European vital interest is not seeing Ukraine absorbed into Russia. That increases Kremin controlled population, industry, food production (hard power) by at least 30% and increases the threat to Europe and to NATO members in the Baltics in particular.

What's your interest in seeing Ukraine taken over by Russia?

No name calling please.

Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 14:56||   2022-02-09 14:56|| Front Page Top

#14 Calm down, junior.

If you think that shithole is worth spilling American blood and killing off any hope of getting our economy back on track, then go grab a blanket and ship off to Odessa yourself.

We Americans have had enough of pointless overseas wars that have achieved little more than killing and maiming and otherwise tearing apart the lives of our young men.

ENOUGH. Go raise your own brigade and fight your own idiotic wars.
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-09 15:07||   2022-02-09 15:07|| Front Page Top

#15 It's actually about avoiding a war.
Posted by European Conservative 2022-02-09 15:10||   2022-02-09 15:10|| Front Page Top

#16 Nobody here is advocating sending the US army to attack the Russians. You are making a straw man and burning it.

Why your hardon for see Ukraine taken over by Russia? What benefit is that to America? Why the lies about NATO expansion?
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 15:14||   2022-02-09 15:14|| Front Page Top

#17 Ukraine is not worth shedding American blood. Especially if the Europeans aren't in the front line. However,the US should make is as nasty as they can for the Russians to invade. A lot can be done without US troops.
I personally believe this is a media driven event to make Biden look strong.
Posted by Vespasian Ebboting9735 2022-02-09 15:19||   2022-02-09 15:19|| Front Page Top

#18 As long as it's a free-for-all on the US's southern border, it's somewhere between difficult and impossible for a legitimate US citizen here in America to take the current regime's concerns about other countries' borders halfway around the world seriously, regardless of the nuanced geopolitical mental gymnastics anyone wants to throw at it.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-02-09 15:24||   2022-02-09 15:24|| Front Page Top

#19 Oh? With 3,000 troops you're going to deter a force that's already more than 30x larger and that's orders of magnitude more lethal?

The Cold War deterrent was tactical nukes (plus the French force de frappe). McNamara, Kissinger, Brzezinski all made clear we'd use them if the Soviets invaded W. Germany. THAT was a credible deterrent.

Now we're threatening to unleash ... blankets? Helmets?

And more bullshit about big bad sanctions sanctions sanctions. Right: that foolish and useless policy that has never deterred anyone and that invariably succeeds only in punishing ordinary people and rallying their support for the regime.

And which Russia has already insulated itself against by
1) piling up the world's 4th-largest hard currency reserves --$630 BILLION, and
2) driving deals prices not in dollars but in euros with China: $117 BILLION in Russian oil and gas purchases.

Brilliant.

Aside from a brief moment of realist lucidity thanks to the previous administration, the last 29 years of globalist liberal interventionism is the most incompetent foreign policy we've ever seen.
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-09 15:27||   2022-02-09 15:27|| Front Page Top

#20 What is your interest in seeing Ukraine taken over by Russia?
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 15:31||   2022-02-09 15:31|| Front Page Top

#21 You've already succeeded in pushing Russia and China together. Now you're about to crush any hope of avoiding stagflation in the next several years. For what?

What, realistically, do you expect to achieve? There is ZERO chance of succeeding in pushing Russia out of Sevastopol. (THAT'S a true vital interest btw -- one which that nation will do anything, pay any price, bear any burden, to secure).

You won't bring this conflict of "two weasels fighting in a hole" to any kind of conclusion through military intervention. In fact, you're ensuring it will drag on for another decade at least.

For what? For shithole UKRAINE?

"Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Wales!"

Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-09 15:48||   2022-02-09 15:48|| Front Page Top

#22 "This is my last territorial demand in Europe" (Hitler, September 26, 1938 at Berlin, referring to his demands for the Sudeten territories of Czechoslovakia)
Posted by European Conservative 2022-02-09 15:51||   2022-02-09 15:51|| Front Page Top

#23 I personally believe this is a media driven event to make Biden look strong.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised. But for all that, the Biden administration is not sending over enough troops and matériel to accomplish anything. Nor is all the tough talk helping his poll numbers, given all the other things they’re getting wrong.

Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393, there is a huge gap between wanting Russia to take over the Ukraine and being willing to go to war for to protect the Biden family’s dirty money flow. Ukraine has been royally screwed by Russia since the Communist Revolution a century ago, but they misunderstood the payoff for playing Joe Biden’s game, and how unwilling that would make us to support them, even if they did impressively confound all the stereotypes by electing a Jewish comedian as their chief executive instead of any of the usual corrupt crowd.

So please stop being unpleasantly simplistic and up your game to useful analysis.
Posted by trailing wife 2022-02-09 16:06||   2022-02-09 16:06|| Front Page Top

#24 I have no more "interest in seeing Ukraine taken over by Russia" than Eisenhower had in seeing Hungary crushed by the USSR. Or Johnson had in seeing the Lrague Spring extinguished twelve years later.

We did nothing in both cases because we had NO VITAL INTEREST in either Hungary or Czechoslovakia. We have no interest now in intervening in a filthy and brutal quarrel that is even closer to Russia -- that is clearly viewed by their leaders and their people as existential for Russia -- than those distant west European nations' rebellions were in 1956 and 1968.

And we are far weaker today, socially and politically, than we we were at the height of the Cold War.

Our democratic republic's institutions are collapsing. Over half the public now thinks our government is borderline illegitimate.

And we now face a truly menacing global rival, China, which our corrupt and incompetent leaders have made us dependent on and vulnerable to, in ways and to a degree unimaginable during the rivalry with the USSR.

And your panties are in a bunch about... fvcking Ukraine. Are you mad?

Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-09 16:09||   2022-02-09 16:09|| Front Page Top

#25 Did Hupavish claim that?
Posted by European Conservative 2022-02-09 16:10||   2022-02-09 16:10|| Front Page Top

#26 Oh look, Commies and Fascists in bed together. That has never happened before. Must be America's fault. Will be interesting when China comes for their lost (real and imagined) territories.

Stagflation? Blame that on the Obama-Biden regimes. Russia has nothing to do with it except be a beneficiary of US Marxist economic practice of scarcity.

We're not talking about Sevastopol? I think even most Ukrainians have written it off. We are talking about Russia trying to absorb Ukraine proper.

You won't bring this conflict of "two weasels fighting in a hole" to any kind of conclusion through military intervention. In fact, you're ensuring it will drag on for another decade at least.

The only party that can bring "any kind of conclusion" is Russia. The 135,000 troop buildup also drains Russian coffers. Too bad we don't have Trump oil at 30-40/bbl to drain Russian coffers faster.

Better to fight a cold war for 10 or 45 years than surrender to the loving arms of Mother Russia. Very bad things happened the last time Ukraine lost their independence.
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 16:19||   2022-02-09 16:19|| Front Page Top

#27 Jawohl.

#20 What is your interest in seeing Ukraine taken over by Russia?
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393
Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-09 16:20||   2022-02-09 16:20|| Front Page Top

#28 I was referring to tw comment

"Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393, there is a huge gap between wanting Russia to take over the Ukraine and being willing to go to war for to protect the Biden family’s dirty money flow."
Posted by European Conservative 2022-02-09 16:25||   2022-02-09 16:25|| Front Page Top

#29 I have no more "interest in seeing Ukraine taken over by Russia" than Eisenhower had in seeing Hungary crushed by the USSR. Or Johnson had in seeing the Lrague Spring extinguished twelve years later.

Then say what Russia is doing is evil. Your defense of their actions makes one believe you are on their side.
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 16:26||   2022-02-09 16:26|| Front Page Top

#30 The Biden family’s dirty money flow came from the Russian puppet Yanukovitch faction. The principles are either hiding in Russia (Yanukovitch and underlings) or Europe (Zlochevsky).
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 16:31||   2022-02-09 16:31|| Front Page Top

#31 EC, I don't believe the US should go to war over Ukraine. I do believe in arming the Ukrainians to bleed the invaders white, whether the Russian try to take over all or part of Ukraine. The Russians don't have the manpower to pacify a nation of 40 million if there is outside support. But I believe it is better to deter an invasion in the first place.
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 16:37||   2022-02-09 16:37|| Front Page Top

#32 Hupavish
I think a full blown invasion is unlikely. Certainly not with 130.000 troops.
And occupying Ukraine is extremely risky for Putin.
Posted by European Conservative 2022-02-09 16:44||   2022-02-09 16:44|| Front Page Top

#33 I don't believe a full invasion will succeed at current troop levels. But it is more than enough the take away the Donbas and probably Kharkov and Mariupol (land bridge to Crimea). Keeping it is another matter.
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 16:54||   2022-02-09 16:54|| Front Page Top

#34 Flag Officers: we need to be serious about Russia!

Also:
Posted by swksvolFF 2022-02-09 17:12||   2022-02-09 17:12|| Front Page Top

#35 Then say what Russia is doing is evil
No.

Men =/= saints or demons.

Whether they're from Scranton or St Petersburg, Pyongyang or Punxsutawney, ambitious men who seek enormous power and wealth are no better than they ought to be.

The only thing that should matter here is our national interest, defined in terms of power. Ukraine's fate has next to no bearing on American freedom or prosperity -- no more so than Mali's or Myanmar's fate affects us.

Posted by Merrick Ferret 2022-02-09 17:29||   2022-02-09 17:29|| Front Page Top

#36 EC, I'm a little confused about the position you are taking. Are you for US intervention in Ukraine with Russia? NATO intervention? The west supplying Ukraine to defend itself? Or this is much ado about nothing?
Not critical, just wondering.
Posted by The Walking Unvaxed 2022-02-09 18:06||   2022-02-09 18:06|| Front Page Top

#37 Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393, there is a huge gap between wanting Russia to take over the Ukraine and being willing to go to war for to protect the Biden family’s dirty money flow.

And as I keep trying to point out, that dirty money flow actually came via intermediaties from Vladimir Putin. The only people who think that Biden isn't compromised by Putin are the pretend-paleoconservatives here and Mary Cloggenstein from Brattleboro Vt.

And the Shanghai Pact is about 21 years old already, with de facto cooperation that's older than that.

I'm tired of all this Brand New Day noise where history keeps rebooting and all of y'all don't remember the last twenty five years.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2022-02-09 18:30||   2022-02-09 18:30|| Front Page Top

#38 All this stuff is just controlled opposition bullshit where the ignorant or lying pretend to be fighting Brandon by advocating giving his foreign sponsors what they want.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2022-02-09 18:41||   2022-02-09 18:41|| Front Page Top

#39 Last para at #38, the gospel truth if ever spoken.
Posted by Besoeker 2022-02-09 19:19||   2022-02-09 19:19|| Front Page Top

#40 #37.....MY BAD.
Posted by Besoeker 2022-02-09 19:22||   2022-02-09 19:22|| Front Page Top

#41 Whether they're from Scranton or St Petersburg, Pyongyang or Punxsutawney, ambitious men who seek enormous power and wealth are no better than they ought to be.

The only thing that should matter here is our national interest, defined in terms of power. Ukraine's fate has next to no bearing on American freedom or prosperity -- no more so than Mali's or Myanmar's fate affects us.

Wow, you just argued to invalidate nearly 80 years of US foreign policy. Genius! Why rehabilitate and make friends of Germany and Japan when we had the power to turn them into subsistence agriculture territories (as advocated by Treasury Sec Morganthau). After all, it's about power and one can't have more power than over poor farmers. Ask the NKVD how. Or saving that shitty little country of South Korea when we could have had on unified, starving and weak Korea. No economic competition there.

Or those shitty little, ungrateful NATO nations where America spend so much wealth and some blood. Yes, the new members are grateful now, but that will change one day. Too risky to take a chance.

Or why isn't Mexico the 51-55th states? The US had the power. Or Canada, the 56-65th states? And South America could be sending us all the bananas and maids we could stomach for free. What a wonderful world of ruthless men beaming with absolute power.

And alas, poor Russia. Would have gotten nuked to oblivion in 1946.
Posted by Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393 2022-02-09 20:53||   2022-02-09 20:53|| Front Page Top

23:41 Chealing Chomotle4158
23:27 Chealing Chomotle4158
23:06 Merrick Ferret
23:02 Merrick Ferret
21:51 Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393
21:40 Jolurong Angiter3263
21:23 Sgt.D.T.
21:13 ed in texas
21:12 Bangkok Billy
20:53 Hupavish Speaking for Boskone8393
20:53 Sneang Speaking for Boskone4299
20:52 Sneang Speaking for Boskone4299
19:22 Besoeker
19:19 Besoeker
19:11 NN2N1
19:01 Rex Mundi
18:41 Thing From Snowy Mountain
18:30 Thing From Snowy Mountain
18:12 swksvolFF
18:09 The Walking Unvaxed
18:06 The Walking Unvaxed
17:49 NN2N1
17:29 Merrick Ferret
17:26 Chris









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com