“Russia must respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, as Russia freely signed up to do in the 1994 Budapest memorandum,” said UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss who had an embarrassing visit to Moscow, being unable to distinguish between the Russian areas of Ukraine – Donetsk and Luhansk – and areas inside Russia. The naive and dangerously ignorant remark by Truss “We will supply our Baltic allies across the Black Sea” was an incredible statement! Military threats without basic geography are of course a recipe for disaster.
And of course NATO and the EU never respected Ukraine’s sovereignty nor their election results, nor any neutrality. The US financed and organised the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the US and EU funded and supported the Maidan revolution of 2014 showing utter contempt for Ukraine’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”
Indeed even today the US and UK arming of Ukraine, the presence of US special forces in Ukraine (see below) and the tub thumping war rhetoric (which even the President of Ukraine itself has warned Biden against) show that it is the West which has broken the Budapest Agreement. We even had an American news agency announcing a Russian invasion of Ukraine had taken place: https://nypost.com/2022/02/04/bloomberg-accidentally-reports-that-russia-invaded-ukraine/
We have a new doctrine – the Truss Bloomberg – guaranteed to start a world war!
POST BERLIN WALL COMMITMENTS BROKEN
In 2014, the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mikhail Gorbachev said that he thought that NATO enlargement was a “big mistake” and “a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made” in 1990.
The only formal agreement signed between Nato countries and the USSR, before its breakup in December 1991, was the Treaty of Final Settlement with Respect to Germany when it was agreed that there would be no deployment of non-German Nato forces into eastern Germany (the former communist “German Democratic Republic”) and no deployment of nuclear weapons.
In order to get Russian agreement to German re-unification, James Baker, the US Secretary of State, said at a meeting in Moscow, at which Jack Matlock the US Ambassador took notes, that NATO would not “leap-frog an inch eastward” if Russia would allow the wall to come down. In other words having given the commitment as regards East Germany that territory would not be “leap frogged” by NATO into, for example Ukraine. But that commitment was broken in 2014 when Ukraine (in the Bucharest Summit Declaration) was invited to join NATO hence justifying Russian security fears.
In a joint press conference on February 2,1990 after a meeting between James Baker and German Foreign Minister Genscher, the latter stated:
“…Perhaps I might add we were in full agreement that there is no intention to extend the NATO area of defence and security to the East. This holds true not only for the GDR, which we have no intention of simply incorporating, but that holds true for all other Eastern countries.”
On February 2nd 2014, Henry Kissinger said, in an interview with CNN, “I don’t know of any Russian, whether they are dissidents or pro-government, who does not consider Ukraine at least as an essential part of Russian history. So the Russians cannot be indifferent to the future of Ukraine.” Roger Gartland The Sunday Telegraph February 2015.
WEST’S MILITARY AGGRESSION CONTINUES
Needless to say the western reporting of the build up of Russian troops is not matched by reports of the build up of some 125,000 Ukrainian troops on their borders, including of course the border between Ukraine and the break away Donetsk and Luhansk republics. The more the West pours in weapons the more Kiev is emboldened to attack (although it would certainly be a suicidal mission). But to tempt Kiev to do so by training and arming them when the UK, the USA and NATO have no intention of coming to defend Ukraine is a pretty disgraceful policy! https://sputniknews.com/20220124/kremlin-says-huge-ukraine-military-buildup-on-donbass-line-of-contact-shows-preparation-for-attack-1092481474.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist
There are reports in the western media that Russia is preparing false flag attacks in Eastern Ukraine in order to have an excuse for moving against Ukraine but it is quite clear that there have been for a long time “real flag” attacks on Donetsk and Luhansk by Ukrainian troops, killing thousands of Russian Ukrainians.
The suburbs of Donetsk, Olenevka and Yasinovatoye, have recently been shelled and a man was shot by a Ukrainian sniper in Alexandrovka – not reported in western mainstream media of course. Such attacks have been commonplace for years. Putin hardly needs a “false flag attack” to act.
US MERCENARIES IN THE DONBAS
There is an American private sector military logistics organisation called Blackwater founded by Erik Prince. It is alleged that Kiev has invited those mercenaries into the Donbas to conduct sabotage and special operations against the two republics Donetsk and Luhansk. As Time magazine wrote not long ago
“Erik Prince’s most reliable lines of business has been wartime logistics: moving people and supplies into areas of conflict. Starting in 2006, the aviation arm of Blackwater air-dropped food and weapons for U.S. troops on the front lines in Afghanistan.”
USA MOVES INTO SLOVAKIA
Daily NATO shows through its behaviour why Russia is deeply concerned by the continued “push to the East” by US forces. Although the vote was close, Slovakia’s parliament has approved a defence treaty under which the US will use the country’s Malacky-Kuchyna and Sliac air bases for 10 years and pay Bratislava $100 million to modernise them.
79 members of the 150-seat Slovakian legislature backed the agreement, while 60 voted against it. The deal was signed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Slovakian Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad on February 3.
AND RUSSIA AND CHINA MOVES IN SOUTH AMERICA
If the Ukraine crisis were not so serious it might almost be seen as a diversionary tactic. For as the Western media concentrate on Ukraine, Russia is consolidating its position in Cuba and Venezuela and China is moving close to Argentina.
The Russian Ambassador to Caracas, Sergei Melik-Bagdasarov said that in the course of negotiations with the country’s authorities, Venezuela confirmed its readiness to provide Russia with comprehensive military-technical support in the event of an escalation of relations between Russia and the United States. Deployment of Russian missiles in Venezuela? – back to the early 1960s Cuban missile crisis.
In response to the Ukraine incursions by the West, Russia has indeed re-kindled cooperation with Cuba, having declined to do so for many years in the hope of rapprochement with the West.
THE FALKLANDS
The UK must also be aware, as it arms and trains an extreme nationalist Ukraine (see previous post on Freenations) that China has declared that Argentina has a right to the Falkland Isles!
Argentine President Alberto Fernández met Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Feb. 6 2022, and Chinese state media reported that
“Argentina reaffirms its adherence to the one-China principle, whereas China reaffirms its support for Argentina’s demand for the full exercise of sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands.”
Argentina has been discussing the purchase of the latest third generation, or Block 3 version of the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation JF-17 multirole fighter.
But UK forces are in Eastern Europe!
PEACEFUL SOLUTIONS TO THE UKRAINE CRISIS?
It is not in the interests of the Ukrainians, the Russians nor NATO, and certainly not Germany which would lose massively in terms of business exports and gas imports, if war were to break out over Ukraine. Nor is such a war necessary. The steps to de-escalation and peaceful resolution are reasonably clear. First there must be an acknowledgement of Russian fears of invasion from the West as Germans, French, Swedes, Lithuanians and Poles have all come within an ace of controlling Russia in the past. Then these 6 steps to peace should be pursued:
- The two Minsk Agreements (supported by Germany, France and the UK and frustrated by Ukraine) must be implemented
- Ukraine should declare its neutrality – the Finland model being the most appropriate
- The two Republics in Eastern Ukraine should become devolved regions in the Ukraine Constitution. The Russian DUMA has been understandably provoked into providing for Russian recognition of the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin must be offered an alternative – devolution.
- Russia and NATO should both agree a withdrawal of troops and missile bases from the Russian front line.
- Russia and the West could agree to cooperate in combatting Ukrainian corruption. Both Russia and Ukraine are concerned for instance with money and criminals using London as a means to hide their ill gotten gains.
- In return for a neutral Ukraine and withdrawal of NATO forces Russia should withdraw its offensive agreements with Venezuela and Cuba
All sides have much to lose if these peaceful solutions are not grasped. The longer the confrontation with Russia lasts the closer Russia gets to China and the more both of them do damage to western interests in other parts of the world.
