#Russian-Ukraine peace negotiations

[russianreader]

Simon Pirani: No Path to Peace in Ukraine Through This Fantasy World

The Russian army’s meagre successes in Ukraine – such as taking the ruined town of Avdiivka, at horrendous human cost – have produced a new round of western politicians’ statements and commentators’ articles about possible peace negotiations. Hopes are not high, because the Kremlin shows no appetite for such talks. Its actions, such as nightly bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure,…

[head-post]

Nuland Revealed Details of Russia-Ukraine 2022 Talks Collapse, Johnson’s Role Confirmed

In a recent interview, former spokesperson for the US Department of State, Victoria Nuland, spoke out about negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, shedding light on the details of the military conflict.

Nuland said that during the talks, Kyiv and its allies discussed whether a deal with Russia would be favourable. The main condition at the time, she said, was a limit on the specific types of weapons systems Ukraine could have after the deal.

She also confirmed that the story of former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia was true. Ukrainian authorities asked for advice regarding the direction of the negotiation process and how the war would develop.

In 2022, Moscow offered Kyiv to end hostilities on condition that Ukraine would not join NATO. However, the country refused neutrality partly due to the advice of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. According to Arakhamia, Johnson allegedly advised Ukraine to abandon the negotiation process.

In my opinion, they [Russia] really believed to the last that they could push us to take neutrality. This was the main point for them: they were ready to end the war if we would accept neutrality like Finland once did. And give a pledge that we would not join NATO. (…) Moreover, when we came back from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we would not sign anything with them [Russia] at all. And [said] ‘let’s just go to war’.

Johnson travelled to Kyiv in April 2022 and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He promised Kyiv military assistance in the form of 120 armoured vehicles and anti-ship systems, as well as additional loan guarantees worth $500m. The former prime minister also visited the country several times after his resignation.

Consequences of failed talks

As a result of the failure in 2022 to produce the desired outcome, the conflict continues into its third year. Ukraine has already lost large territories, including four regions that Russia incorporated into the Constitution. Moreover, Ukrainian media continue to report the threat of losing defensive positions in the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian economist Oleksiy Kushch said that Ukraine’s population could shrink to ten million people due to migration and a decline in women’s fertility. He specified that only 187,000 children were born in Ukraine in 2023, while 230,000 children were born a year earlier.

Literally in three iterations of three generations in 75 years, Ukraine’s population could shrink to 10 million people. (…) War is a national tragedy. And a demographic crisis is a national catastrophe.

Kushch also noted that the pandemic and border closures worked against Ukraine, as people did not return during a period of relative calm.

Forcibly returning them will not work, because Europe is open and free. As long as there is a war, no one will forcibly return refugees. This is a fundamental principle of humanitarian law: if you ask for asylum from war, Europe gives it. They can extradite only in individual criminal cases, there will be no mass extradition.

The National Bank of Ukraine reported that since the beginning of 2024, 400,000 citizens had already left the country despite the reduction of benefits in European states. Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic received the most Ukrainian refugees. According to the bank, about 6.7 million Ukrainians have left the country since the outbreak of the war.

Meanwhile, Russian troops continue their offensive in Donbas (common name for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions). The Ukrainian army is suffering heavy casualties in an attempt to halt the advance, according to The Economist.

Soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are reportedly unable to counterattack due to a lack of manpower. This forces the soldiers to retreat from their positions.

Moreover, the Polish Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reported that the Ukrainian Legion had not found volunteers from among EU residents.  During a July visit to Warsaw, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the creation of the legion, which was supposed to gather volunteers from among Ukrainians permanently residing in Poland and other European countries. However, two months later, Kyiv has not launched official recruitment yet.

THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.

Bill Galston for Head-Post.com

[anastasiareyreed]

russians once again prove that they are terrorists and criminals

«I wanted to give the camera to the owners, but couldn't find them. hope you can help» — journalists received this message from a Ukrainian soldier who found a stolen camera abandoned by russians running away from Ukrainian forces.

in addition to old photos of the Ukrainian family who owned this camera and several photos of the russians themselves, the journalists found a terrible video showing the russians capturing civilians, blindfolding them, tying them all together and chaining them up. adults, children and animals.

important clarification: this video was not shot on the camera mentioned in the message. that camera stolen by the russians just belongs to the residents of the village in the video!

full video with investigation ‼️

the russians kept the hostages in the basements for about a month without food and water, tortured them. this is what Ukraine will look like if our partners stop helping us.

we have already seen similar footage in which the russians led captured Ukrainians and then shot them.

it is scary to imagine what other russian crimes we are not aware of. please do not let russian propaganda push Ukrainians out of the information field. all these horrors can be stopped only by defeating russia. there can be no talk of any "negotiations" and peace agreements with russia. all that russia wants is to destroy Ukrainians as a nation. stand with us in this fight. stand with Ukraine!

[zvaigzdelasas]

A painful reality check shows the 600-mile-long Ukrainian-Russian front in a figurative and literal freeze, draining Ukrainian resources and lives without much prospect for change in the foreseeable future. The much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive of the past six months exacted a huge cost in casualties and matériel, but barely nudged the front lines. Ukraine’s top military commander has said the fight is at a “stalemate” — a notion deemed taboo not long ago — and only an unlikely technological breakthrough by one side or the other could break it. [...]

The way things are going, “Ukraine will for the foreseeable future harbor Europe’s most dangerous geopolitical fault line,” [...] an endless conflict that deepens Russia’s alienation from the West, enshrines Putinism and delays Ukraine’s integration into Europe. That, at least, is the bleak prognosis if victory in the war continues to be defined in territorial terms, specifically the goal of driving Russia out of all the Ukrainian lands it occupied in 2014 and over the past 22 months, including Crimea and a thick wedge of southeastern Ukraine, altogether about a fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. But regaining territory is the wrong way to imagine the best outcome. True victory for Ukraine is to rise from the hell of the war as a strong, independent, prosperous and secure state, firmly planted in the West.[...]

the only way to find out if Mr. Putin is serious about a cease-fire, and whether one can be worked out, is to give it a try. Halting Russia well short of its goals and turning to the reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine would be lasting tributes to the Ukrainians who have made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the existence of their nation. And no temporary armistice would forever preclude Ukraine from recovering all of its land.

With U.S. and European aid to Ukraine now in serious jeopardy, the Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine’s goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in an eventual negotiation to end the war, according to a Biden administration official and a European diplomat based in Washington. Such a negotiation would likely mean giving up parts of Ukraine to Russia. The White House and Pentagon publicly insist there is no official change in administration policy — that they still support Ukraine’s aim of forcing Russia’s military completely out of the country. [...]

The administration official told POLITICO Magazine this week that much of this strategic shift to defense is aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s position in any future negotiation. “That’s been our theory of the case throughout — the only way this war ends ultimately is through negotiation,” said the official, a White House spokesperson who was given anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record.[...]

“Those discussions [about peace talks] are starting, but [the administration] can’t back down publicly because of the political risk” to Biden, said a congressional official who is familiar with the administration’s thinking and who was granted anonymity to speak freely.[...]

The European diplomat based in Washington said that the European Union is also raising the threat of expediting Ukraine’s membership in NATO to “put the Ukrainians in the best situation possible to negotiate” with Moscow. That is a flashpoint for Putin, who is believed to be mainly interested in a strategic deal with Washington under which Ukraine will not enter NATO. [...]

For most of the conflict GOP critics have accused Biden of moving too slowly to arm the Ukrainians with the most sophisticated weaponry, such as M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, long-range precision artillery and F-16 fighter jets. In an interview in July Zelenskyy himself said the delays “provided Russia with time to mine all our lands and build several lines of defense.” [...]

The Ukrainians themselves are engaged in what is becoming a very public debate about how long they can hold out against Putin. With Ukraine running low on troops as well as weapons, Zelenskyy’s refusal to consider any fresh negotiations with Moscow is looking more and more politically untenable at home. The Ukrainian president, seeking to draft another half million troops, is facing rising domestic opposition from his military commander in chief, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko.

So what was all that for then [27 Dec 23]

[mariacallous]

While Russia has made a slew of outlandish assertions about Ukraine, including that the country is led by a Nazi regime, few Russian narratives have entrenched themselves more thoroughly in the Western far right and far left than that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was illegitimately removed from office in a Western-backed coup in February 2014. This claim has been a key element of Russian propaganda, echoed in the United States by such public figures as independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., filmmaker Oliver Stone, and Cato Institute defense expert Ted Galen Carpenter.

The idea that Yanukovych’s removal was illegitimate is easily refuted: After Yanukovych abandoned his office by fleeing from Ukraine to Russia, he was stripped of the presidency by a constitutional majority in parliament. Even Russia joined the rest of the world in recognizing the new Ukrainian government a few months later.

But the truth underlying the events of February 2014 is far more interesting: The preponderance of evidence suggests that it was Moscow itself that triggered Yanukovych’s departure in order to launch a pre-arranged Plan B—the invasion of Crimea and an engineered “uprising” in eastern Ukraine—after Moscow’s Plan A—a new treaty with a pliant government in Kyiv that placed it under Russia’s de facto control—was about to fail. Indeed, the timeline shows that preparations for Plan B were well underway before Yanukovych’s removal from office. All this, in turn, demonstrates that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans for Ukraine were far more predatory all along than merely preventing the country’s drift toward NATO, as many of Russia’s Western apologists contend.

The Maidan mass protests—which lasted from November 2013 to February 2014 in Kyiv and many other cities across Ukraine—erupted when Yanukovych pivoted from a wide-ranging association agreement with the European Union to a similar one with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. Ukraine’s move toward closer relations with the EU was the trigger for Putin’s Plan A: the transfer of Ukraine to the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. To stop Yanukovych’s deal with Europe, Moscow pressured Kyiv with trade sanctions, including an embargo of key Ukrainian exports to Russia. In return for joining Russia’s economic bloc, Moscow offered Kyiv an emergency $3 billion loan to shore up a budget drained of resources by Yanukovych’s corruption. At the same time, Russia pressured him to violently crush the Maidan, suppress the pro-Western opposition, and thereby alienate him from the West. Toward this end, officials from the Russian security services and Putin aide Vladislav Surkov were frequent visitors in Kyiv.

Yanukovych, who had never established an absolute autocracy on the Russian model, resisted an all-out crackdown against the hundreds of thousands of largely peaceful protesters throughout western and central Ukraine. As his final actions as president would show, he also retained the hope of being able to balance Russian influence with continued relations with the West. It was to prevent that outcome that Moscow triggered his departure.

In all, more than 100 civilians and 13 police and security service operatives would die during the Maidan. Yet while the security services brutally attacked protesters all throughout the Maidan, the main deadly violence only occurred between Feb. 18 and Feb. 20, 2014—precisely the time when negotiations between the government and opposition over a political compromise were gaining traction. Brokered by the foreign ministers of Poland, France, and Germany—Radoslaw Sikorski, Laurent Fabius, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, respectively—with Putin envoy Vladimir Lukin present as well, negotiations had begun to gain momentum on Feb. 17. Over the next three days, 78 protesters and 11 police were killed.

This level of violence shocked and angered Ukrainian society. In response to mounting public fury and the threat of extensive Western sanctions, Yanukovych intensified negotiations on a compromise and moved to release detained and imprisoned protesters. For Putin, however, any path of negotiated compromise was a clear setback to his Plan A, which would have locked Yanukovych and his government into complete dependency on Moscow.

As deadly violence engulfed the streets of Kyiv, Yanukovych signaled his agreement to a broad government of national unity. After the opposition turned down the top post of prime minister, Yanukovych indicated that he would nominate Serhiy Tihipko, the billionaire former head of Ukraine’s central bank. For the Russians, Tihipko was a red flag: He had denounced politicians who were willing to “sacrifice Ukraine’s territorial integrity for electoral votes,” was a proponent of Ukraine’s integration with the EU, and opposed making Russian the second state language.

Coupled with the potential transfer of key ministries into the hands of the opposition and new elections by year’s end, Yanukovych’s willingness to compromise set off alarm bells in the Kremlin, whose representative, Lukin, withheld his signature from the agreement. Once before, during the 2004 Orange Revolution, Yanukovych had disappointed Putin by refusing to use brute force to stay in power after falsified presidential elections. When Yanukovych eventually returned to power by legal means in 2010, he further angered Russia with negotiations toward a free trade agreement with the EU, which he only aborted after extensive Russian economic sanctions and embargoes on Ukrainian exports. To Putin, Yanukovych was again vacillating and refusing to show an iron hand.

On the morning of Feb. 20, after two days of violence had failed to crush the Maidan and with Yanukovych on the verge of signing a compromise agreement with the opposition, the Kremlin pivoted. A delegation of Russian Federal Security Service officials, including Sergei Beseda, head of the Fifth Service in charge of international operations, arrived in Kyiv—the third such visit since the Maidan began. Officially there to “protect Russian diplomatic facilities,” Beseda’s real mission was to advise hardliners inside Yanukovych’s leadership team, block a compromise, and, failing that, set in motion a Plan B—Russia’s ambitious plot to splinter Ukraine.

As the EU envoys met with Yanukovych and opposition leaders to finalize the deal—and as Yanukovych did not agree to a request by Beseda to meet—the hardliners in the government escalated, presumably under Moscow’s instructions. Then-Ukrainian Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko and Security Service chief Oleksandr Yakimenko unleashed a brutal attack on the protesters in an apparent attempt to unravel the deal that that was in the process of being struck.

Indeed, Feb. 20 proved to be the bloodiest day, with police snipers shooting 48 protesters.

Zakharchenko’s role in the mayhem is well established, as are his close relations with Russia’s security services, who advised him tactics and had equipped his ministry with grenades, tear gas, and other crowd control munitions purchased for $100,000. His role as a trusted Russian asset was confirmed after his escape to Moscow, when he became senior advisor to Rostec, Russia’s state company in charge of sensitive advanced technologies, including for the military. He also ran a Russian fund that rewarded traitors from Ukraine’s security forces. Yakimenko, who had spent a decade as an officer in Russia’s armed forces and whose murky past suggested links to Russian security services, deployed snipers from the Ukrainian Security Service’s Alpha special forces unit. Ukrainian prosecutors would later allege that Yakimenko subsequently supplied pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine with weapons as part of Putin’s effort to dismember Ukraine.

In the aftermath of the mass killings, Yanukovych signed the Agreement on the Stabilization of the Political Crisis in Ukraine on Feb. 21. But the bloodshed had changed the political calculus. Denounced by the opposition and abandoned by many of his allies in parliament, calls for Yanukovych to step down gained momentum. Yet even for the most radical elements in Ukraine’s opposition, there was no way to force him out, especially with the continued presence of thousands of militia and security forces that remained under the command of officials closely aligned with Russia. Hundreds of armed pro-Yanukovych vigilantes had also arrived from the Donbas.

Yet surprisingly, as the compromise was being ratified, this massive security infrastructure suddenly vanished. The Berkut riot police and the Alpha group exited the government quarter, where most of the protests were taking place, along with hundreds of other police. Sikorski described the sudden and systematic withdrawal as “astonishing,” noting it was not part of the agreement. This dramatic U-turn could not have happened in such rapid and orderly fashion had it occurred through internal divisions in the security services—the usual last and necessary step in the collapse of a regime. Nor were there any prior signs of security service defections to the opposition in Kyiv. The sudden stand-down can only be explained as a top-down decision by Russia’s fifth column in the security services leadership. The justification for abandoning Yanukovych overnight was soon afterward intimated by Putin: On March 4, 2014, he said that by compromising with the opposition, “Yanukovych had in fact surrendered all his power.”

Absent the Kremlin’s support, amid the disappearance of Yanukovych’s security services in the government quarter, and with a majority for a new coalition emerging in parliament, the isolated Yanukovych sought desperately to maintain his leverage and relevance. Hoping, perhaps, to maintain some semblance of power, he switched to Russia’s Plan B—the splintering of Ukraine. He traveled to Kharkiv later that day to lead a conference of regional government leaders from southern and eastern Ukraine, but was rebuffed by leaders from his own Party of Regions. Rather than attending an ineffectual rump conference, Yanukovych escaped on the night of Feb. 21 to Crimea, where Russia’s takeover of the peninsula was already underway.

It was in only in the aftermath of Yanukovych’s flight from Kyiv and disappearance from Kharkiv that Ukraine’s Rada met on Feb. 22, and by a constitutional majority stripped him of office. On Feb. 28, Yanukovych finally resurfaced in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, where he gave a press conference denouncing his removal from office. It was to be his last major public event. He then disappeared from the media and Russian propaganda, which soon switched to trumpeting the “Russian Spring”—the supposed uprising in Ukraine’s south and east, largely orchestrated by Russian assets. Plan B was now in full effect.

In the end, Russia’s efforts failed in Odesa, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Mykolaiv. But it succeeded in much of the Donbas and led to Russia’s rapid annexation of Crimea. On March 26, 2014, the Russian Defense Ministry celebrated the annexation of Crimea by minting a medal. The medal, which initially appeared on a Defense Ministry website but was later removed, bears the date of the start of the “return of Crimea”: Feb. 20, 2014. It is highly unlikely that this dating of the launch of Russia’s operation to dismember Ukraine—two full days before the supposed “coup” that removed Yanukovych—is a mistake.

The Maidan mass protests and civic action were a landmark event in Ukraine’s history. The Maidan, without question, blocked Putin’s Plan A—Ukraine’s march, as a whole, into Russia’s orbit. The Maidan also forced Yanukovych to agree to new elections, compelled him to appoint a caretaker coalition government, and helped Ukraine’s democratic institutions endure. But it is no less true that it was precisely for this reason that, as an agreement was about to be struck in the final days of the Maidan, Russia rapidly shifted to its prepared Plan B, withdrew support from Yanukovych, and launched its operation to partition Ukraine.

A clear understanding of Putin’s actions and motives during this critical period in Ukraine’s history is not just a matter of setting the record straight. It is crucial in understanding Putin’s longstanding aims, which went far beyond blocking Ukraine’s accession to NATO or the EU. By early 2014, his ultimate aim was already the dismemberment of Ukraine and the eventual incorporation of many of its territories into Russia. Putin never abandoned his grandiose revisionist aims, which resurfaced in the large-scale invasion Russia launched on Feb. 22, 2022, eight years to the day that Yanukovych was removed from office.

[morlock-holmes]

Okay, so as the typical ignorant American, I have four thoughts about Russia's war against Ukraine that I think are pretty plausible:

Vladamir Putin is a dictator, and having him bring a previously democratic country under his rule through war would be an unequivocal loss for any kind of left-wing or, for that matter, morally permissible politics at all;

If we wish to prevent that outcome, arms shipments to Ukraine are obviously and directly connected to that goal, i.e. the more military strength Ukraine has, the better they will be at fighting off Russian military aggression and ending the war on terms favorable to them;

Both the Ukrainian government and individual Ukrainians have strong reasons to be skeptical of the Russian government and any overtures from Russia. Given the nature of this current assault, people will ask, "If Russia gains something from any peace agreement, what stops them from spending a few years nursing their wounds, improving their position, and then invading again, eventually killing Ukraine with the death of 1,000 cuts?" Avoiding such a situation seems like a sensible and in fact crucial goal for Ukraine.

Notwithstanding the above, I don't really see how you have any end to this war that isn't some kind of negotiated peace, because what on earth is the alternative? Ukraine conquering or extracting an unconditional surrender from Russia seems basically impossible to me.

I'm a very ignorant, simple man, perhaps one of these points is wrongheaded somehow.

But I will say that they strike me as a fairly reasonable set of statements that a sensible person might at least start with as their assumptions.

So it's very strange and frankly disconcerting to me how much English language rhetoric I've run across which treats one or more of those points as not only wrong, but as so insanely, obviously, crazily wrong that the person practically rends their garments in despair at the thought that anybody could possibly believe such obvious hogwash.

I've seen people treat each of those four points as so obviously wrong that they aren't even worth rebutting, which I really can't wrap my head around.

I mean one or more might be wrong but surely none of them are totally insane?

[txttletale]

i'm genuinely curious about your stance on the russia/ukraine conflict in its entirety, if you'd be willing to talk about it? your viewpoint sounds interesting based on the posts you just made but idk how to really ask about the complexities of it in particular

the russia/ukraine war is an interimperialist war between russia & the NATO bloc using ukraine as a proxy (hence why i compared it to the similarly inter-imperialist world war i). obviously first and foremost it is a horrendous tragedy for all the working-class people involved who have been killed, tortured, & displaced. on this blog i am more critical of the horrific neoliberal economic reforms, open state embrace (sometimes literally!) of neonazi paramilitary groups, intensification of ukrainian state repression, and blatant bloodthirsty militarism of ukraine's imperial sponsors than i am of russia's imperialism & war crimes because i am blogging on a majority-western website to a majority-western audience who are already being exposed to relentless media coverage about the russian atrocity de jour to manufacture consent for the constant escalation of military conflict (i talked about this a while ago).

ultimately it is best understood (like any war, or any foreign policy event in the history of humanity) as states on all sides amorally pursuing their own interests--in this case, as all states involved are bourgeois states, the interests of their national bourgeoise--which only rarely and tangentially align with the elementary well-being, let alone the interests, of any of the human lives at stake. a ceasefire and peace negotiations should be arrived at as soon as possible, and anti-imperialists and communists in both russia & the NATO bloc should be doing everything in their power to bring that moment closer by eroding consent and support for the war and obstructing the industries and insitutions that are allowing it to continue

[tomorrowusa]

Quit fixating on Putin's nukes FFS.

Donald Trump and his MAGA minions are trying to imply that aid for Ukraine will lead to nuclear war. This is bullshit which is meant to bolster Putin's illegal war of aggression against a peaceful neighbor.

We hear MAGA Russophiles repeat this whenever new aid or new weapons systems are sent to Ukraine. The last time I checked, Putin hasn't nuked San Diego or Memphis. And we have crossed more of Putin's "red lines" than Trump has red neckties.

Even a delusional imperialist like Vladimir Putin understands that the ultimate outcome of any nuclear war would leave him as a shirtless congealed blob of radioactive fat. ⚛

With nuclear option unlikely, Putin struggles to defend his red lines

“There has been an overflow of nuclear threats,” said a Russian official speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “There is already immunity to such statements, and they don’t frighten anyone.” A Russian academic with close ties to senior Russian diplomats agreed, calling the nuclear option “the least possible” of scenarios, “because it really would lead to dissatisfaction among Russia’s partners in the Global South and also because clearly, from a military point of view, it is not very effective.”

The United States and its NATO allies have no intention of giving nukes to Ukraine.

What we don't hear from scare-mongering MAGA zombies or Putin-friendly tankies is that the war in Ukraine would end immediately if the Russian invaders simply left Ukraine. Anybody who truly wants peace should be telling Russia to get the fuck back to their own country.

This week, Trump and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in an op-ed for the Hill that a decision to grant Ukraine permission to use Western long-range missiles “would put the world at greater risk of nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis” and called for direct negotiations with Moscow instead.

The only thing to "negotiate" with Moscow is a short ceasefire while Russia withdraws all its invading troops. The bottom line is that Russia has no business in Ukraine. The invasion is in violation of numerous international laws, treaties, and memoranda.

As for technology, Russia's means of using ICBMs in nuclear war just ain't what it used to be.

Latest Russian ICBM Test May Have Failed, Satellite Images Suggest

Russia is a third-rate power which happens to have nukes and a lot of empty territory that looks deceptively impressive on a map. Its ability to handle any atomic technology competently is questionable. Even during the glory days of the Soviet Union it gave the world its worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.

Chernobyl is in northern Ukraine which became independent in 1991. Ukrainians had done a good job of cleaning up much of the radioactive mess left by Moscow.

But Russia then temporarily occupied the area around Chernobyl in the early part of the invasion. Russian occupiers there did incredibly stupid things like dig military trenches in radioactive soil and loot radioactive materials to take home as souvenirs.

Russia has few serious competitors for the Darwin Awards this year. 🎖  ⚛️

What we should worry more about is another nuclear accident inside Russia caused by recklessness or incompetence. The sooner Ukraine is victorious, the more likely Russia will be able to tend to its own problems at home.

^^^ красные линии = red lines

[colonna-durruti]

Carlo Rovelli

In 1999, NATO bombed Belgrade for 78 days with the goal of breaking Serbia apart and giving rise to an independent Kosovo, now home to a major NATO base in the Balkans.

In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, leading to 200,000 people killed, a country devastated and no political result whatsoever.

In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over Russia’s strenuous objections, dramatically increasing the nuclear risk.

In 2003, the US and NATO allies repudiated the UN Security Council by going to war in Iraq on false pretenses. Iraq is now devastated, no real political pacification has been achieved and the elected parliament has a pro-Iran majority.

In 2004, betraying engagements, the US continued with NATO enlargement, this time to the Baltic States and countries in the Black Sea region (Bulgaria and Romania) and the Balkans.

In 2008, over Russia’s urgent and strenuous objections, the US pledged to expand NATO to Georgia and Ukraine. �

In 2011, the US tasked the CIA to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Russia. Syria is devastated by war. No political gain achieved for the US.

In 2011, NATO bombed Libya in order to overthrow Moammar Qaddafi. The country, that was prosperous, peaceful, and stable, is now devastated, in civil war, in ruin.

In 2014, the US conspired with Ukrainian nationalist forces to overthrow Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych. The country is now in a bitter war.

In 2015, the US began to place Aegis anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe (Romania), a short distance from Russia.

In 2016-2020, the US supported Ukraine in undermining the Minsk II agreement, despite its unanimous backing by the UN Security Council. The country is now in a bitter war.

In 2021, the new Biden Administration refused to negotiate with Russia over the question of NATO enlargement to Ukraine, prompting the invasion.

In April 2022, the US called on Ukraine to withdraw from peace negotiations with Russia. The result is the useless prolongation of war, with more territory gained by Russia.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US sought and until today is seeking, without succeeding, and constantly failing, a unipolar world led by a hegemonic US, in which Russia, China, Iran and other great nations have to be subservient.

In this US-led world order (this is the phrase commonly used in the US), the US and the US alone has determine the utilization of the dollar-based banking system, the placement of overseas US military bases, the extent of NATO membership, and the deployment of US missile systems, without any veto or say by other countries.

This arrogant foreign policy has led to constant war, countries devastated, millions killed, a widening rupture of relations between the US-led bloc of nations -a small minority in the planet and now not even anymore economically dominating- and the rest of the world, a global skyrocketing of military expenses, and is slowly leading us towards WWIII.

The wise, decade-long, European effort to engage Russia and China into a strategical economical and political collaboration, enthusiastically supported by the Russian and Chinese leadership, has been shattered by the ferocious US opposition, worried that this could have undermined the US dominance.

Is this the world we want?

[aristotels]

The fact that Hillary Clinton is still with us, writing think pieces and touring TV studios doing genocidal propaganda to keep mass killing civilians in Gaza is so incredibly repugnant, which she justifies by repeating debunked atrocity propaganda about Hamas masss raping women. The same Hillary Clinton who said to women and girls saying Biden’s physical behavior made them uncomfortable to “get over it”, the same Hillary Clinton who refuse to believe the women who accuse her husband of rape and sexual assault (just like the vast majority of Dems voters and liberal “feminists”) and rejects Bill Clinton-Brett Kavanaugh comparisons, the same Hillary Clinton who was slammed by child rape victim, Kathy Shelton, saying that she cannot forgive her for defending her rapist in court and how Clinton has yet to express sympathy for the plight she went through as a victim.

hillary is one of my absolutely most hated politicians lmfao. and people still have gal to say "its non-voters fault she didnt win!!!" like good that she didnt, the girl was willing to enter a new war w russia in 2016, i legit couldnt handle seeing all those memes and discourse back then. why should i prioritize yankee comfort over my own safety and safety of my fellow slavs. and unlike w ukraine, she was willing to start an actual USA-rus war, not "just" a proxy one.

she is a cunt, she is a vile and horrible person, and the fact anyone on this site could support her is wild to me.

p.s. btw biden was the same and this wouldve been easy for anyone to see if they pulled their heads out of their ass. i was going insane when the conflict was stewing and both ukrainian and russian officials were trying to negotiate peace while biden was coming out every day with "i have information russia will start war tomorrow at 00:00" and such bullshit (and it didnt fucking happen, not a single time, until it did, not without his help). in hindsight it was easy to see hes a genocidal maniac but it was also easy to see it from the first moment

[silverfox66]

Fuck russia.

Ukraine is winning on the battlefield, so russia responds, once again, by throwing missiles at civilians. And yet, russian bootlickers still say that Ukraine "should try diplomacy and negotiate". russia doesn't want to negotiate, they don't want peace.

russia wants destruction.

russia wants genocide.

You can't negotiate with terrorists.

[warsofasoiaf]

I'm interested to hear what you think of the New York Times article that says Putin is open to a ceasefire. The article indicates most of the West doesn't buy it, or if they do buy it they aren't open to it. And the US, thankfully, has made it clear that they will not negotiate for the Ukrainians, as they respect the Ukrainian right to self determination.

I think Putin is doing this in part to influence the Republicans in Congress. Most of the House Republicans, including the House Speaker, are Russian shills (Johnson received over $36 thousand from Russian oligarchs), and I think they might use Russia's "openness" to a ceasefire to hold up aid even if a deal is struck regarding boarder security.

Oh, it's very much BS, and it is a political tactic meant to enrich skeptics toward Ukrainian aid by trying to portray Russia as a reasonable party hoping to seek peace while the Ukrainians are unreasonable warmongers. This is a tactic that is solely geared toward Western audiences, not just the pro-Russia MAGAites in Congress, but parties in the EU looking for ways to circumvent Orban's obstructionism.

If Russia was actually serious about a peace deal, they'd convene a peace summit with Ukrainian negotiators, probably trying to pick China as a mediator (which Ukraine would be wise to reject given China's overtly pro-Russian position). This appears to be a "controlled" leak toward select sources. After all, it's not like this is the first time the New York Times has either directly published or been manipulated to publish pro-Russian news articles. Pravda on the Hudson indeed.

As we've just seen with the destruction of the Novocherkassk or the downing of the Russian Su-34's, there is very much a case that Ukraine aid continues to produce measurable results on the battlefield. While I absolutely agree that Ukraine is the only party that should be involved in a Ukrainian peace, I also believe it's worth noting that a peace treaty that favors Ukraine is in Western interests, and an unconditional withdrawal from all Ukrainian territory which parlays into US and European basing rights in Ukraine, a rebuilding package that gets Ukraine back on its feet, and induction into NATO to secure deterrence against Russian aggression even more so.

Thanks for the question, Bruin.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[originalleftist]

"Trump has promised to end Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine within 24 hours if elected but has declined to publicly elaborate on how he plans to do so. Two top Trump advisers also recently proposed a plan that would cease military aid to Ukraine unless it agrees to hold peace negotiations with Russia.

One of the sources told Politico that Trump "would be open to something foreclosing NATO expansion and not going back to the 1991 border for Ukraine."

This treasonous motherfucker.

I wonder if this was a topic of discussion while his plane was parked next to the Russian embassy jet for two fucking days at the airport.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[TIME is Private US Media]

[By Anatol Lieven]

The long-awaited counteroffensive last year failed. Russia has recaptured Avdiivka, its biggest war gain in nine months. President Volodymyr Zelensky has been forced to quietly acknowledge the new military reality. The Biden Administration’s strategy is now to sustain Ukrainian defense until after the U.S. presidential elections, in the hope of wearing down Russian forces in a long war of attrition.

This strategy seems sensible enough, but contains one crucially important implication and one potentially disastrous flaw, which are not yet being seriously addressed in public debates in the West or Ukraine. The implication of Ukraine standing indefinitely on the defensive—even if it does so successfully—is that the territories currently occupied by Russia are lost. Russia will never agree at the negotiating table to surrender land that it has managed to hold on the battlefield.

This does not mean that Ukraine should be asked to formally surrender these lands, for that would be impossible for any Ukrainian government. But it does mean that—as Zelensky proposed early in the war with regard to Crimea and the eastern Donbas—the territorial issue will have to be shelved for future talks.

As we know from Cyprus, which has been divided between the internationally recognized Greek Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus since 1974, such negotiations can continue for decades without a solution or renewed conflict. A situation in which Ukraine retains its independence, its freedom to develop as a Western democracy, and 82% of its legal territory (including all its core historic lands) would have been regarded by previous generations of Ukrainians as a real victory, though not a complete one.

As I found in Ukraine last year, many Ukrainians in private were prepared to accept the loss of some territories as the price of peace if Ukraine failed to win them back on the battlefield and if the alternative was years of bloody war with little prospect of success. The Biden Administration needs to get America on board too.[...]

Ukrainians have scored some notable successes against the Russian Black Sea Fleet, but to take back Crimea they would need to be able to launch a massive amphibious landing, an exceptionally difficult operation far beyond their capabilities in terms of ships and men. Attacks on Russian infrastructure are pinpricks given Russia’s size and resources.

More realistic is the suggestion that by standing on the defensive this year, Ukrainians can inflict such losses on the Russians that—if supplied with more Western weaponry—they can counterattack successfully in 2025. However, this depends on the Russians playing the game the way Kyiv and Washington want to play it.

The Russian strategy at present appears to be different. They have drawn Ukrainians into prolonged battles for small amounts of territory like Avdiivka, where they have relied on Russian superiority in artillery and munitions to wear them down through constant bombardment. They are firing three shells to every one Ukrainian; and thanks in part to help from Iran, Russia has now been able to deploy very large numbers of drones.

For Ukrainians to stand a chance, military history suggests that they would need a 3-to-2 advantage in manpower and considerably more firepower. Ukraine enjoyed these advantages in the first year of the war, but they now lie with Russia, and it is very difficult to see how Ukraine can recover them.[...]

A successful peace process would undoubtedly involve some painful concessions by Ukraine and the West. Yet the pain would be more emotional than practical, and a peace settlement would have to involve Putin giving up the plan with which he began the war, to turn the whole of Ukraine into a Russian vassal state, and recognizing the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its de facto present borders.

For the lost Ukrainian territories are lost, and NATO membership is pointless if the alliance is not prepared to send its own troops to fight for Ukraine against Russia. Above all, however painful a peace agreement would be today, it will be infinitely more so if the war continues and Ukraine is defeated.

24 Feb 24

[mariacallous]

Today, Aug. 31, Estonians and Latvians celebrate 30 years since the departure of Russian troops from their territories, which ended half a century of occupation. The ongoing war in Ukraine is a daily reminder for Russia’s neighbors that their freedom must not be taken for granted. History suggests that Russians only withdraw from occupied territories for one of two reasons: Either they are driven out by force or their own cost-benefit calculus compels them to leave. In the latter case, the only major territorial withdrawals in Russian history have happened when regime collapse has radically changed this cost-benefit calculus. If Washington fails to recognize this long-established pattern and continues to severely constrain Kyiv’s defense in hopes for some future reset in relations with Moscow, the next wave of Russian aggression is all but ensured.

The Russian empire—whether the tsarist or Soviet variant—collapsed twice in the 20th century: in 1917, when a communist coup dethroned the tsar, and in 1991, when another, unsuccessful coup was the final death knell for the Soviet Union. Both events created a window of opportunity for many smaller nations to break free. Moscow withdrew from many of its non-Russian territories not because it no longer wanted to have an empire, but because it no longer had the means to keep these territories under its control.

Russia is currently occupying more than 42,000 square miles—about the size of South Korea—or approximately 18 percent of Ukraine’s territory. Ukrainians aim at regaining all of it and see full restoration of their territorial integrity as an essential component of a just peace. Yet their hopes to reconquer much of their land have withered, not least due to strict limitations imposed, mainly by the United States, on the Ukrainians’ use of Western weapons. Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region and quick capture of about 500 square miles of Russian soil has changed the outlook: Now, an exchange of territories may become an element of eventual negotiations. Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s calculus is still in favor of continuing the war, but the Ukrainians are finding new ways to increase the cost to Moscow and upend the narrative that Russia is marching towards an inevitable victory.

The historical experience of Russia’s neighbors provides some clues to Ukraine’s chances to regain occupied territories or achieve peace through territorial concessions.

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, decided to let the Soviet satellite states in Central and Southeast Europe go and allowed an unprecedented degree of openness within the Soviet Union. But even the great reformer Gorbachev was unwilling to give up any of the Soviet republics, including the three Baltic states. A leader of the Estonian national movement at the time, Marju Lauristin, recalled a personal conversation with Gorbachev, in which she explained Estonia’s aspirations for independence and received a straight reply. He could not give away what the Russian nation had gained, she recalled him saying.

The Baltic states grasped the chaos and aftermath of the 1991 Soviet coup to restore their independence, but that was followed by a tense three-year struggle to achieve the withdrawal of Russian troops. Diplomatic efforts took place in parallel with the departure of Moscow’s forces from the former satellite states, including more than 330,000 soldiers leaving East Germany by 1994. As we know, Russia’s withdrawal from Germany was a most humiliating experience for the young Putin, who was traumatized by the East Germans’ peaceful uprising against their communist regime while he was stationed there as a KGB agent.

Estonia was the last European country to secure the departure of Russian troops through a July 1994 agreement between the two countries’ presidents at the time, Boris Yeltsin and Lennart Meri. Both leaders took considerable risks by agreeing to a deal that was unpopular in their respective countries. Many in the Russian opposition, diplomatic establishment, and security services were highly critical of Yeltsin’s decision. On the Estonian side, the deal involved painful concessions, notably allowing retired Soviet military personnel and their families, altogether more than 10,000 people, to stay in Estonia and enjoy social benefits. Similar unpopular conditions were also accepted by Latvia. Although the departure of occupying troops was a dream come true for Estonians, Meri faced criticism at home for the concessions. It took great diplomatic skills and political courage to achieve the final stage of de-occupation, which paved the way for Estonia’s accession to NATO and the European Union.

The motive for Yeltsin was most probably his wish to maintain good relations with the West—especially the economic and financial support on which Russia depended at the time—while the United States and Germany put friendly pressure on him to withdraw his forces from the Baltic states. Any such motive is utterly irrelevant for the current Russian leadership; there is no chance that Western countries could persuade the Putin regime to deliberately leave Ukraine in hopes of improved relations or economic benefits such as sanctions relief.

For some of Russia’s neighbors, giving up territory was the price to pay for independence. However, territorial concessions without being prepared to resist further Russian demands has not been a recipe for stability. In 1939, then-independent Estonia gave in to Soviet demands to establish military bases on its territory in the vain hope of avoiding war. The concessions did not help, and the Baltics were soon occupied and annexed. Finland refused similar demands for the stationing of Soviet troops and was attacked by the Red Army. Yet eventually, Finland sustained its independence after fiercely fighting for it. The Baltics learned a bitter lesson. Today they are prepared to fight back from the first moment of aggression.

Finland gave up one-tenth of its territory as a result of its two wars with the Soviet Union, but it would be wrong to present this as an example of trading land for peace. The Soviet Union did not stop fighting because it was content with the concessions; it stopped because it was unable to defeat the Finns and conquer more land. The Red Army became too exhausted to carry on, not least because it was also fighting on other fronts of World War II.

As part of the armistice agreement that ended the Soviet-Finnish fighting in September 1944, Finland leased to the Soviet Union the strategically valuable Porkkala peninsula, located just 20 miles from Helsinki. Although the lease was set for 50 years, the Soviets returned Porkkala in 1956, which looks like a rare example of a voluntary Russian withdrawal. The decision was part of the thaw under Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who succeeded Joseph Stalin in 1953. The case shows that a new leader who is critical of his predecessor may sometimes be favorable to new openings.

However, in subsequent years the Kremlin continued attempts to subsume Finland under tighter Soviet control, successfully interfering in its domestic politics and forcing it to align much of its foreign policy with Russia’s but failing to push the country closer to defense cooperation. Finland achieved Soviet recognition of its neutral status only as part of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe held in Helsinki in 1975.

Another Russian neighbor, Japan, has also learned that Moscow does not give up territories under its control as a gesture of goodwill. Under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan made extensive efforts in the 2000s and 2010s to foster friendly and mutually beneficial relations with Putin’s regime. Abe aimed to finally settle the two countries’ territorial dispute over the four southernmost Kuril Islands, annexed by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. In the hope of splitting the difference and regaining two of the islands, Japan went to great lengths in courting Putin and avoiding any criticism of Russia, including after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in eastern Ukraine. In March 2022, Russia announced that it did not intend to continue the talks and practically ruled out giving up any of its territories, with Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev stating that “negotiations about the Kurils always had a ritualistic character”.

So far, the West has been surprised by Russia’s ability to bear the heavy cost for its invasion of Ukraine. In Western societies, human life is priceless; in Russia, it is cheap. The Russian regime has been able to rely on seemingly endless waves of expendable soldiers and a harsh redirection of its economy to defense production in ways that would be far too costly for any democratic leader. What can be fatal for a Russian leader, however, is any perceived weakness and the failure to uphold Russia’s greatness. Most Russians want to live in a great country that dominates others, and they are ready to accept sacrifices for this cause, as documented in detail in books by Svetlana Alexievich, Jade McGlynn, and others.

Western leaders have talked a lot about the need to raise the cost of Russian aggression. But they have failed to effectively implement economic sanctions and have still not allowed Ukraine to use Western long-range weapons to attack military targets on Russian territory. By bringing the war to Russia nonetheless, Ukraine has proven that there is space to be bolder and more innovative in making the Russians pay a painful price for their desired greatness—a greatness that is built on invading and occupying other nations.

Russia is not going to withdraw from Ukraine unless it is forced to go—or to pay an unbearable price to stay. There is absolutely nothing in Russian history or recent behavior that suggests Moscow could be expected to negotiate in good faith to reach a compromise. Some territorial concessions from Ukraine may eventually be the price worth paying for peace and freedom—but this remains moot until Russia first gets to the point where it believes that further aggression can bring no gains.

Full restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity will likely require another collapse of the Russian empire. It may be years ahead, but Russia’s historical trajectory suggests that it will happen at some point, as the country has shown itself to be incapable of correcting course through evolution rather than revolution. A Western “reset” with the current regime will not be possible without sacrificing Ukraine’s independence and the core principles of the European security order, including the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Whether losing Ukraine will be the final death toll for the Russian empire, only time will tell. And even then, Russia’s neighbors will always have to be prepared for its violent imperialism to rebound.

[snovyda]

Sorry in advance if it's a stupid question! What did noam chomsky do? Honestly barely ever heard the name so if you could link me to an article or something, thank you!

He has consistently denied atrocities and genocides (including defending the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and denying the Bosnian genocide in Srebrenica, among other things).

Also of course, his apologia for russia in its invasion of Ukraine (despite criticizing the full scale invasion in broad terms):

In an interview with New Statesman published in April 2023, Chomsky is quoted in saying that Russia was fighting more "humanely" in Ukraine than the U.S. did in Iraq, and that Russia was "acting with restraint and moderation" as Ukraine had not suffered "large-scale destruction of infrastructure" compared to Iraq. (Link)

(May I point out that by that time entire cities in Ukraine had been COMPLETELY WIPED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH, with mass graves in various locations only growing in size).

And how can he go without some good old russian propaganda on the matter:

Chomsky also asserted that Ukraine was not a free actor, that it was the U.S. and then United Kingdom which refused peace negotiations to further their own national interests, and that U.S. military aid to Ukraine is aimed at degrading Russian military forces. (Link)

And of course he blames the mythical "NATO expansion" for the war anyway.

So yeah, the piece of shit is a fascist genocide enjoyer calling himself progressive for some reason.