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Over the past several months, the United States and the mainstream media have been reporting that Russia has some 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine and is planning an invasion. And now, that “invasion” narrative has become the daily news.
However, not a peep from the Presstitutes about the Kremlin’s claim that tension in the Ukraine has been increasing because Kyiv deployed some 125,000 troops and heavy artillery in the war-torn-disputed Donbass region.
NATO Next Door
Moscow has been complaining of the expansion of NATO into its backyard as a major threat to its security, while the European alliance says it will not let Moscow dictate who becomes a member or where it expands.
Russia says its demands are concrete.
Let the talks begin.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Geneva to discuss Ukraine and NATO and both men admitted that there were no diplomatic breakthroughs on either topic.
Blinken agreed to provide the Kremlin with written answers to its security demands after first bristling at the request. Lavrov said Russia was waiting for “concrete answers” about concerns it has with the expansion of NATO countries. Moscow wants NATO to return to its membership levels from the 1990s, and promise not to take on new members—including Ukraine, Finland, and Sweden.
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal pointed out in 2016 that “forward positions in Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic States are hundreds of miles further east than the Oder-Neisse border between Germany and Poland, where US President George Herbert Walker Bush solemnly promised Soviet and Russian leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin that NATO would halt its expansion more than a quarter-century ago. The trend, clearly, is pushing toward mounting Russia/NATO tensions.”
Russia also wants NATO to agree to remove all its forces that are located in Romania and Bulgaria. (See “WASHINGTON GIVES COLD SHOULDER TO RUSSIA’S SECURITY CONCERNS,” “BIDEN HITS RUSSIA WITH SANCTIONS,” “NATO: WE ARE THE WORLD” and “KREMLIN BLAMES UKRAINE FOR STOKING TENSIONS AT BORDER.”)
Russia has insisted that it has no intention of invading Ukraine, despite amassing over 100,000 troops at the country’s eastern border. President Joe Biden seems unconvinced, and for good reason.
Russian troops, missile systems, and fighter jets are being shipped into Belarus, which becomes a new threat for Kyiv. Biden told reporters at a press conference Wednesday that he believes Putin is intent on testing the West.
“Yes, I think he will (invade Ukraine),” Biden said. “But I think he will pay a serious and dear price for it that he doesn’t think now will cost him what it’s going to cost him. And I think he will regret having done it.”
Biden said it would make sense for Putin to move his forces in after amassing so many at the border. “He has to do something. I suspect it matters which side of the bed he gets up on in the morning as to exactly what he’s going to do,” the President commented in an apparent attempt to diminish Putin’s strategy and thoughtfulness.
The New York Times reported that Biden’s comments were a departure from “current intelligence assessments” that indicated that Putin is undecided on an invasion. (See “RUSSIA’S PUTIN WON’T BEND TO U.S. TENSIONS. WHAT’S NEXT?”)
Last month, Russian President Putin raised concerns about weapons systems being placed near Russia’s borders and called the move “red lines.”
Putin sees the possibility of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO as a security threat for Russia. NATO says it will not let Moscow dictate who gets to join and who does not.
“The threat on our western border is, indeed, rising, as we have said multiple times. In our dialogue with the United States and its allies, we will insist on developing concrete agreements prohibiting any further eastward expansion of NATO and the placement of weapons systems in the immediate vicinity of Russian territory,” Putin said.
The U.S. expressed agitation over Moscow’s overtures to Minsk and joint military exercises planned between Russian and Belarusian forces.
Reuters, citing the Interfax news agency, reported that Russia sent two battalions to Belarus accompanied by S-400 surface-to-air missile systems. Russia also plans on deploying 12 Sukhoi Su-35 fighters to the country for the drills.
The Guardian reported that some military analysts say Russia could be sending some forces to Belarus to conduct a broader invasion of Ukraine “effectively stretching out Ukraine’s defenses by taking advantage of the two countries’ nearly 700-mile border.”
Brett Bruen, the former director of global engagement in the Obama White House, said Putin won a major victory this past week without having to move a single soldier or weapon. He said President Joe Biden made “several considerable concessions” during his speech at the White House last week.
“The president recklessly remarked that the price for Russia invading Ukraine ‘depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not to do,’” Bruen wrote on NBCNews.com.
Bruen called Biden’s language a cringe-worthy attempt to try and distinguish between minor and major invasions.
He said Russia is winning the chess match by using Ukraine to distract Washington from its emerging relationships with Kazakhstan, Venezuela, and Belarus.
Europe relies on the U.S. as its security guarantor and—in the event of an invasion—the U.S. would likely have to move forces into the Baltic “in order to deter further Russian expansionism,” CNN reported.
The report pointed out that the U.S. getting tangled with Russia in a conflict could make Washington lose sight of its top challenger: China. (See “CHINA WON’T STOP AT TAIWAN, SO WHERE SHOULD AMERICA DRAW THE LINE?” “TOP TRENDS 2021: THE RISE OF CHINA” and “CHINA CHALLENGING U.S. HI-TECH DOMINANCE.”) The CNN report pointed out that China and Taiwan would, no doubt, be watching how the U.S. response to a Russian invasion.
Putin is planning to attend the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Beijing and has a meeting scheduled with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, where the two are expected to discuss high-profile political and economic deals, according to Nikkei Asia.
One of the agenda items is a final contract for the Power of Siberia-2 natural gas pipeline. Voice of America News reported that Moscow hopes to build a new pipeline to China, which “could give Russia the power to sell gas to the highest bidder, pitting Chinese and European consumers against one another.”
TREND FORECAST: We maintain our forecast that the more the U.S. and NATO increase tensions with Russia, which could bring new sanctions against Moscow, the greater Kremlin’s bond with Beijing will tighten.
And, with the United States and its allies incapable of defeating third world nations such as Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq etc., they are no match to defeat Russia and China…individually or if they teamed up.
TREND FORECAST: The U.S. will not go to war with Russia over Ukraine. The military in Ukraine is no match against the Russians, and its only hope for security in the future is to become a member of NATO, which Blinken did not indicate is any closer today than it was before Russians amassed at the border.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, has been vague on what kind of response the alliance would have in the event of a Russian invasion and has on one occasion clarified that Ukraine is a NATO partner and not a member, which translates to mean: Kyiv’s on its own.
Even Germany has been vague on what kind of response it would take if Russia invades. The White house—embarrassingly—had to deny several reports that said Olaf Scholz, the new chancellor, turned down a last-minute meeting with Biden next month.
“This report is false,” Adrienne Watson, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said in a statement obtained by Politico.
We couldn’t blame him for not wanting to meet with the president. He would face immense pressure to stop the flow of gas in the recently completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which has been a source of contention between the U.S., Kyiv, and Berlin.
“Germany is between a rock and a hard place,” Marcel Dirsus, a non-resident fellow at the institute for security policy at Germany’s Kiel University, told Reuters. “The Scholz government wants to keep the Americans happy because they are Germany’s most important allies outside of Europe. But they don’t want to annoy the Russians either. That’s tough to do.”
TREND FORECAST: Gerald Celente, the publisher, has noted, “When all else fails, they take you to war.”
Making the case to redirect the people’s mind, as Ron Paul’s Liberty Report states regarding the U.S. building up tension in the area, “Biden may be calculating that he needs a nice little war to boost back his numbers and rally Americans to his support.
Like most everything else in this first year of the Biden Administration, it would be a terrible mistake.