A quorom is , of course, essential for legitimacy. Otherwise any old drunk can give away whatever he wants, can't he.
Over the last 20 years, how many times has the US invaded Russia and how many times has Russia invaded another country?
, but I also think we can agree that a lot of grief might have been avoided if Kruschev hadn't handed Crimea to Ukraine.
"In fact, as early as February 16 [2022], Joe Biden knows that the Ukrainians began to shell the civilian populations of Donbass, putting Vladimir Putin in front of a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily and create an international problem or to sit idle and watch Russian speakers from the Donbass being run over."In the same way as getting Russia to remove its nukes from Cuba. From what I've read, the final straw was when Ukraine renewed its assault on the Donbass region of Ukraine. Former Swiss Intelligence Officer Jacques Baud summed things up pretty well on that count:
**
In fact, as early as February 16 [2022], Joe Biden knows that the Ukrainians began to shell the civilian populations of Donbass, putting Vladimir Putin in front of a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily and create an international problem or to sit idle and watch Russian speakers from the Donbass being run over.
If he decides to intervene, Vladimir Putin can invoke the international obligation of “ Responsibility To Protect ” (R2P). But he knows that whatever its nature or scale, the intervention will trigger a shower of sanctions. Therefore, whether its intervention is limited to the Donbass or whether it goes further to put pressure on the West for the status of Ukraine, the price to be paid will be the same. This is what he explains in his speech on February 21.
That day, he acceded to the request of the Duma and recognized the independence of the two Republics of Donbass and, in the process, he signed treaties of friendship and assistance with them.
The Ukrainian artillery bombardments on the populations of Donbass continued and, on February 23, the two Republics requested military aid from Russia. On the 24th, Vladimir Putin invokes Article 51 of the United Nations Charter which provides for mutual military assistance within the framework of a defensive alliance.
In order to make the Russian intervention totally illegal in the eyes of the public we deliberately obscure the fact that the war actually started on February 16th. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the Donbass as early as 2021, as certain Russian and European intelligence services were well aware… The lawyers will judge.
**
Full article:
Former NATO Military Analyst Blows the Whistle on West’s Ukraine Invasion Narrative
Jacques Baud, a NATO expert, denounces western coverage of the Ukraine invasion.scheerpost.com
scheerpost.com
"Prior to Russia's military operation that started on February 24, 2022, ...."Prior to Russia's military operation that started on February 24, 2022, it wasn't in Russia's control at all. It was in control of the Donbass rebels. Jacques Baud gets into how that happened as well, in the same article I quoted and referenced earlier. Quoting the most relevant part below:
**
Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who for the past eight years have been talking to us about “separatists” or “independence” from the Donbass. It’s wrong. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in May 2014 were not ” independence ” (независимость) referendums , as some unscrupulous journalists claimed , but ” self-determination ” or ” autonomy (самостоятельность). The term “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.
In fact, these republics did not seek to separate from Ukraine, but to have a statute of autonomy guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. Because the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 which made Russian an official language. A bit as if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages in Switzerland.
This decision causes a storm in the Russian-speaking population. This resulted in fierce repression against the Russian-speaking regions (Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk) which began in February 2014 and led to a militarization of the situation and a few massacres (in Odessa and Mariupol, for the most important). At the end of summer 2014, only the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk remained.
At this stage, too rigid and stuck in a doctrinaire approach to the operational art, the Ukrainian staffs suffered the enemy without succeeding in imposing themselves. Examination of the course of the fighting in 2014-2016 in the Donbass shows that the Ukrainian general staff systematically and mechanically applied the same operational plans. However, the war waged by the autonomists was then very close to what we observed in the Sahel: very mobile operations carried out with light means. With a more flexible and less doctrinaire approach, the rebels were able to exploit the inertia of the Ukrainian forces to “trap” them repeatedly.
In 2014, I am at NATO, responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we are trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels in order to see if Moscow is involved. The information that we receive then comes practically all from the Polish intelligence services and does not “match” with the information from the OSCE: in spite of rather crude allegations, we do not observe any delivery of arms and materials Russian military.
The rebels are armed thanks to the defections of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units which cross over to the rebel side. As the Ukrainian failures progressed, the entire tank, artillery or anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what drives the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Accords.
But, just after signing the Minsk 1 Accords, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a vast anti-terrorist operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against Donbass. Bis repetita placent : poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat at Debaltsevo which forced them to commit to the Minsk 2 Agreements…
It is essential to recall here that the Minsk 1 (September 2014) and Minsk 2 (February 2015) Agreements provided for neither the separation nor the independence of the Republics, but their autonomy within the framework of Ukraine. Those who have read the Accords (they are very, very, very few) will find that it is written in full that the status of the republics was to be negotiated between Kiev and the representatives of the republics, for an internal solution in Ukraine .
This is why since 2014, Russia has systematically demanded their application while refusing to be a party to the negotiations, because it was an internal matter for Ukraine. On the other side, the Westerners – led by France – systematically tried to replace the Minsk Accords with the “Normandy format”, which brought Russians and Ukrainians face to face. However, let us remember, there were never any Russian troops in the Donbass before February 23-24, 2022. Moreover, OSCE observers have never observed the slightest trace of Russian units operating in the Donbass. Thus, the US intelligence map published by the Washington Post on December 3, 2021 does not show Russian troops in Donbass.
**
Full article:
Former NATO Military Analyst Blows the Whistle on West’s Ukraine Invasion Narrative
Jacques Baud, a NATO expert, denounces western coverage of the Ukraine invasion.
"Prior to Russia's military operation that started on February 24, 2022, ...."Prior to Russia's military operation that started on February 24, 2022, it wasn't in Russia's control at all. It was in control of the Donbass rebels. Jacques Baud gets into how that happened as well, in the same article I quoted and referenced earlier. Quoting the most relevant part below:
**
Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who for the past eight years have been talking to us about “separatists” or “independence” from the Donbass. It’s wrong. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in May 2014 were not ” independence ” (независимость) referendums , as some unscrupulous journalists claimed , but ” self-determination ” or ” autonomy (самостоятельность). The term “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.
In fact, these republics did not seek to separate from Ukraine, but to have a statute of autonomy guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. Because the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 which made Russian an official language. A bit as if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages in Switzerland.
This decision causes a storm in the Russian-speaking population. This resulted in fierce repression against the Russian-speaking regions (Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk) which began in February 2014 and led to a militarization of the situation and a few massacres (in Odessa and Mariupol, for the most important). At the end of summer 2014, only the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk remained.
At this stage, too rigid and stuck in a doctrinaire approach to the operational art, the Ukrainian staffs suffered the enemy without succeeding in imposing themselves. Examination of the course of the fighting in 2014-2016 in the Donbass shows that the Ukrainian general staff systematically and mechanically applied the same operational plans. However, the war waged by the autonomists was then very close to what we observed in the Sahel: very mobile operations carried out with light means. With a more flexible and less doctrinaire approach, the rebels were able to exploit the inertia of the Ukrainian forces to “trap” them repeatedly.
In 2014, I am at NATO, responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we are trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels in order to see if Moscow is involved. The information that we receive then comes practically all from the Polish intelligence services and does not “match” with the information from the OSCE: in spite of rather crude allegations, we do not observe any delivery of arms and materials Russian military.
The rebels are armed thanks to the defections of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units which cross over to the rebel side. As the Ukrainian failures progressed, the entire tank, artillery or anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what drives the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Accords.
But, just after signing the Minsk 1 Accords, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a vast anti-terrorist operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against Donbass. Bis repetita placent : poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat at Debaltsevo which forced them to commit to the Minsk 2 Agreements…
It is essential to recall here that the Minsk 1 (September 2014) and Minsk 2 (February 2015) Agreements provided for neither the separation nor the independence of the Republics, but their autonomy within the framework of Ukraine. Those who have read the Accords (they are very, very, very few) will find that it is written in full that the status of the republics was to be negotiated between Kiev and the representatives of the republics, for an internal solution in Ukraine .
This is why since 2014, Russia has systematically demanded their application while refusing to be a party to the negotiations, because it was an internal matter for Ukraine. On the other side, the Westerners – led by France – systematically tried to replace the Minsk Accords with the “Normandy format”, which brought Russians and Ukrainians face to face. However, let us remember, there were never any Russian troops in the Donbass before February 23-24, 2022. Moreover, OSCE observers have never observed the slightest trace of Russian units operating in the Donbass. Thus, the US intelligence map published by the Washington Post on December 3, 2021 does not show Russian troops in Donbass.
**
Full article:
Former NATO Military Analyst Blows the Whistle on West’s Ukraine Invasion Narrative
Jacques Baud, a NATO expert, denounces western coverage of the Ukraine invasion.
Russia first moved in to the Donbas region in 2014. There has been ongoing fighting between Ukraine and Russia, over that area, since then.
www.mintpressnews.com
off-guardian.org