This goes back to the importance of the city Kyiv to Russian history as well as the concept that Russia and Ukraine should always remain (if not friends) on the same side of any world order. As suggested by many, our own personal interest in Ukraine or any interest in Ukraine joining NATO remains a fraction of the interest Russia has in keeping them out.
Politically, Ukraine has gone back and forth between pro-Russian leaders and leaders like Zelenskyy who are anything but. The underlying idea might be that one leader (that could be replaced in an upcoming election by someone more pro-Russia) should not be allowed to turn their backs on their long standing shakey alliance with Russia.
So if the intention was for Russia to not lose a "part" of their historical relevance to the west and to not allow their ties to Ukraine to be undermined by a NATO alliance, then there seems to be two options. The first would be to literally take control of at least a portion of Ukraine (that would include Kyiv) to keep the historically important city out of a western alliance. The second would be to get some sort of commitment from both sides, that Ukraine would not join NATO.
For us, as Americans, none of this is going to make much sense. We believe in the concept of freedom that comes with being an autonomous country. If Ukraine wants to join NATO and such and alliance works in western interests, then we see no reason why Russia or anyone else should have any say in that. Not saying that our historical foreign policy choice has always been as consistent as we expect others to be, but hypocrisy seems besides the point.
At this point, I don't see Putin backing down until he has achieved likely portions of both goals. He has already pulled in a couple of separatist areas into his own sphere of control and there seems to be some other logical areas between that area and Crimea to also pull into that control. Depending on how much area he pulls in, he might feel okay providing an opportunity for a potential East Ukraine to join NATO if there is a buffer and he still has control over Kyiv (which would turn back into Kiev). The other outcome for Putin would be that he takes areas not including Kyiv, but gets some sort of guarantee that Ukraine and NATO do not become aligned.
Obviously there is a third outcome. That would be that the Russian forces eventually fail and the ultimate result would probably be Putin's demise as leader of Russia. Lord know what havoc Putin would wreak to avoid this scenario.
14 comments:
I actually agree with your basic comments about NATO and Ukraine
Even though the article doesn't mention the outcome but no other nation could negotiate a deal acceptable to both sides Scott.
TEL AVIV—Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held talks with President Vladimir Putin Saturday in the Kremlin over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and then spoke with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, an attempt to mediate a conflict that has caused growing civilian casualties and refugees.
Before Mr. Bennett’s visit, diplomacy by President Biden and European leaders failed to stop Mr. Putin from invading Ukraine or rolling back his tanks. In the face of massive Western sanctions, Mr. Putin has found himself increasingly cut off from the world, with few avenues for diplomacy and with his country’s economy unplugged from much of global commerce.
Mr. Bennett’s meeting with Mr. Putin took place “with the blessing of the U.S. administration,” said Mr. Bennett’s office, which also noted that it coordinated with Germany and France. After seeing Mr. Putin, Mr. Bennett left Moscow for Berlin, where he will meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the prime minister’s office said. Mr. Bennett was joined by Housing Minister Zeev Elkin, who was born in the now Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and assisted with the translation.
The nearly three-hour conversation with Mr. Putin touched on the safety of Ukraine’s Jewish population and international talks over Iran’s nuclear program, Mr. Bennett’s office said. On Saturday, new demands from Russia—a party to the nuclear talks—threatened to derail efforts to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, a pact that Israel opposes.
The last sentence might matter
Israel has worked to maintain good relations with the Kremlin and has been keen not to anger Moscow during the conflict. Russia’s launch of a military intervention in Syria in 2015 turned it into an important player in the Middle East. Israel sees Russia’s presence there as a moderating influence among Islamist militant organizations such as Hezbollah and Iran’s increasingly aggressive stance.
Mr. Putin’s stated aim of his invasion and decapitation of the Ukrainian government is denazification of the country, despite Mr. Zelensky’s Jewish origins. Since Russia struck a television tower earlier this week in Kyiv’s Babyn Yar area, the site of one of the worst massacres during the Holocaust, international Jewish condemnation of Russia’s invasion has grown.
Mr. Bennett’s efforts follow a series of negotiations and letters exchanged between Washington, Moscow and European capitals since mid-December, when Russia demanded written guarantees that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward and that NATO withdraw troops and missiles from countries that joined the alliance after 1997.
More bad news for Putin
Near Ukraine border, Western arms arrive quickly and discreetly
Agence France-Presse
March 05, 2022
On a runway near the Ukrainian border, 14 wide-body aircraft arrive on average each day -- a carefully calibrated operation mounted at top speed to deliver tons of Western military assistance to Kyiv.
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, inspected the site on Friday -- its location is being kept secret for security reasons -- where the Pentagon is coordinating the activities of 22 donor countries.
A handful of journalists accompanying Milley were allowed to observe as personnel prepared about 100 Javelin anti-tank missiles for delivery to the border. Pictures were forbidden.
Men in civilian clothes used forklifts to move the missiles, which were stacked on pallets and only covered in plastic.
On the runway, the cargo hold of a US Air Force C-17 transport plane has just been shut -- the delivery was complete. At the same moment, another C-17 was landing.
The missiles did not stay in one place for long: they were quickly taken by land to their final destination, military officials said.
As many as 18 deliveries have taken place in a single day at the site. Only about four or five a day are American.
The operation is coordinated by a mix of soldiers and civilians, mainly from NATO member countries, who have come to support Ukraine in its battle against a Russian invading force that is bigger and better equipped.
Beyond assistance from Washington, which has unblocked more than $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine over the past year, several European nations are providing Kyiv with an array of materiel -- anti-tank missile launchers, Stinger surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles, fuel, munitions, assault rifles and even rations for their troops.
The United States has already delivered two-thirds of the arms it promised in late February to Ukraine, which says it has been able to effectively slow the Russian advance, a Pentagon official said Friday.
And with NATO's eastern European members deeply worried about Russia's intentions, Washington has sent thousands of extra troops to reassure them.
But
Obviously there is a third outcome. That would be that the Russian forces eventually fail and the ultimate result would probably be Putin's demise as leader of Russia. Lord know what havok Putin would wreak to avoid this scenario.
Havoc
The shock of Russia’s invasion led Germany to discard six decades of military-averse policy rooted in its own wartime experience. Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the Germans would ship Ukraine 1,000 shoulder-launched antitank rockets, 500 surface-to-air Stinger missiles and 2,700 Soviet-era shoulder-fired missiles — as well as embark on a mammoth, $110 billion rearming program at home.
It led the once-divided European Union to unite behind choking sanctions that will ban Russia’s central bank, which holds Mr. Putin’s war chest, from selling any assets to European banks. Brussels, long derided as an economic giant but a foreign-policy dwarf, pledged to spend $500 million on defensive weapons for Ukraine.
It led Mr. Biden to recast a presidency that had been focused on rebuilding America after the coronavirus pandemic and confronting China to one that is waging a twilight struggle against a Cold War rival on the plains of Eastern Europe.
I still think we will prevail without a European war and despite the Havoc by the mental disabled Putin.
And Ukraine will not be broken up into two or three countries.
Visa and Mastercard Suspend Russian Operations
9:07 pm EST
Visa and Mastercard are suspending their Russian operations, the Wall Street Journal reports,
“The card networks said earlier this week that they would no longer handle card operations pertaining to sanctioned Russian banks. They are now extending that to all card issuers and merchant processors in Russia.”
Biden Administration theme song
I went home with the waitress, the way I always do
How was I to know, she was with the Russians, too?
… I was gambling in Havana, I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns and money, dad, get me out of this, ha
… I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck between the rock and a hard place
And I'm down on my luck, yes I'm down on my luck
Well, I'm down on my luck
… And I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns, and money
The shit has hit the fan
… Alright, send lawyers, guns, and money
Huh, yeah
Send lawyers, guns, and money
Uh
Send lawyers, guns, and money
Hey
Send lawyers, guns, and money
Oo, yeah
Yeah
Yeah
Bidenomics
Larry Summers stated that “we’re now facing real risks of a 1970s-type scenario…the same kind of broad phenomenon of stagflation.” And that this is partially “a response to the excessive stimulation of the economy during 2021.”
More bad news for Vladimir Putin.
The U.S. is exploring a deal in which Poland would send Soviet-era aircraft to Ukraine in return for American F-16 jet fighters, U.S. officials said Saturday, in the latest bid to help Ukraine respond to Russia’s invasion.
The deal would require White House approval and congressional action, U.S. officials said.
The disclosure of a possible deal followed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s impassioned plea to Capitol Hill for assistance in obtaining more lethal military aid, especially Russian-made jet fighters that Ukrainian pilots can fly. Mr. Zelensky also supported a proposal to ban U.S. imports of Russian oil, in a video call Saturday morning with members of Congress.
There were more than 200 House and Senate members on the call, said people who participated. Mr. Zelensky spoke for about 25 minutes before taking questions.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) asked Mr. Zelensky what one thing he needed most, according to two people on the call. The Ukrainian president replied with the need for jet fighters. He also brought up instituting a no-fly zone over Ukraine, but said, through a translator, “if you can’t do that, at least get me planes,” according to a person on the call.
Ukrainian service members unpacking Javelin antitank missiles last month.
Eastern European allies are in possession of Russian military jets that potentially could be transferred to Ukraine. Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said that the U.S. should help make possible the transfer of the aircraft. “We must eliminate every obstacle to providing every measure of support to Ukraine to include finding a way for the United States to compensate our Eastern European partners who wish to donate their Soviet-style aircraft to Ukraine,” he said in a statement.
Another lawmaker said in an interview that Congress could direct funds in a pending spending bill to replenish the stockpiles of European allies.
Mr. Zelensky said that the jets were more important than the Stinger antiaircraft missiles that the U.S. has greenlighted.
A U.S. defense official said other allied nations are seeking to provide Ukraine with Russian aircraft. The U.S. military would backfill with American aircraft.
Shut up kputz
Pjmedia LMAO LMAO
Ed Kilgore of the New Yorker has been predicting a Biden comeback since September of last year. Other left-wing pundits have been pushing the “Biden Comeback” meme for the last several months.
Now, finally, it’s arrived, and it’s time to cheer and make merry, right?
First, it’s doubtful that anything relating to the pandemic is responsible for a Biden surge. That’s ludicrous. Biden has spent most of his presidency berating Republicans for doing what Democrats are supporting today. And since under Biden’s watch more people have died of the coronavirus under Biden than expired during the Trump administration — masks or no masks — what the heck does he have to brag about?
The jobs market still has a long way to go to recover all of the more than 7 million jobs lost at the beginning of the pandemic. It’s estimated that at least a million workers who lost their jobs in 2019 have yet to go back to work.
As for the rest of the economy, wage gains have been wiped out and families are beginning to suffer because of the highest inflation in 40 years.
This is a “comeback”?
The American people know who’s to blame for the economy and for the belated adoption of common-sense rules on the pandemic. Joe Biden’s party will have a lot of explaining to do when an angry electorate goes to the polls in November.
LMAO
Petty conservatives desperately want to rid themselves of Trump. Without Trump at the helm, they believe they can steer the discourse back to safe terrain. They can fervently tweet out about how Biden is the real racist because of his patronizing comments to blacks or he’s the real homophobe because he once opposed gay marriage. That discourse energizes partisan brains, but it only reaffirms the GAE’s ideology. It keeps the discussion completely safe and full of meaningless quips.
The bad news for them is that Trump isn’t going away anytime soon. He essentially announced he’s running for president again at CPAC and every poll shows him well ahead of the pack. But that doesn’t stop petty conservatives from dreaming of a time where they could attack liberals without the taint of Trumpism.
Frivolity is really what makes Con Inc tick. It isn’t representing the legitimate interests of Middle America or trying to push back at civilizational decline, it’s retweeting an old clip of Biden saying “you ain’t black” for the 89th time. It’s standing athwart history, snarking, “I’m with you on Russia. But will you apologize for Obama telling Mitt Romney the 80s wants his policy back?”
Scott M. Greer is the host of the popular “Highly Respected” podcast.
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