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Last Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke publicly about Ukraine for the first time since December and blamed the Biden administration for essentially trying to drag Russia into a war because Washington refused to negotiate on key security demands the Kremlin has regarding NATO’s expansion east.
Putin hoped that NATO would guarantee that it would not accept Ukraine into its alliance. He also wanted the Alliance to remove troops and missile systems in bordering countries. (See “BLINKEN MEETS WITH LAVROV: WAR HAWKS SCREAMING.”)
NATO’s so-called “open-door”—allowing any country to join—was called a nonstarter and rejected.
“Let’s imagine Ukraine [becomes] a NATO member and starts these military operations. Are we supposed to go to war with the NATO bloc? Has anyone given that any thought? Apparently not,” Putin said.
NATO has attempted to act as a united front in the face of what it called Russian aggression. Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s prime minister, promised Kyiv that Warsaw would send military equipment.
The U.S. and U.K. have both provided Kyiv with artillery. It is reported that Ukraine is developing its own missile systems, including one that can travel up to 600 miles and potentially reach Moscow.
“In the future, a [potential] Ukrainian missile attack on Moscow is quite real,” Russian Lt. Gen. Valery Zaparenko, former senior member of Russia’s General Staff, told a media outlet in Russia. “Ukraine has the scientific, technical and production potential.”
The Trends Journal has reported extensively on the tension playing out on Ukraine’s eastern border. Putin has moved tanks and more than 100,000 troops to the border.
The U.S. sees the placement as a clear indication that war may be imminent. But the Kremlin denied the allegations, without providing any other reason as to why the troops have been positioned there.
TRENDPOST: (See “U.S. CONTINUES TO RAMP UP COLD WAR RHETORIC,” “KREMLIN BLAMES UKRAINE FOR STOKING TENSIONS AT BORDER,” “U.S. VOWS UKRAINE SUPPORT” and “BLINKEN BELLOWS: U.S. COMMITMENT TO UKRAINE’S SOVEREIGNTY IS ‘IRONCLAD.”)
“Their [U.S.] most important task is to contain Russia’s development,” Putin said. “Ukraine is just an instrument of achieving this goal.”
“This can be done in different ways, by drawing us into some kind of armed conflict and, with the help of other allies in Europe, forcing the introduction against us of those harsh sanctions they were talking about now in the U.S.,” Putin added.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, likened Putin’s comment to a fox screaming from “the top of the henhouse that he’s scared of the chickens.”
Ned Price, the spokesman from the State Department, also seemed to make light of Putin’s remark and said, “I will leave it to the Kremlinologists out there—budding, professional, amateur or otherwise—to read the tea leaves and try to interpret the significance of those remarks.”
Biden formally approved the deployment of 3,000 troops to Poland, Germany, and Romania in what is ostensibly a move to assure European allies in the face of Russian aggression. This is after the U.S. placed 8,500 troops on heightened alert.
“These forces are not going to fight in Ukraine,” John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said, according to CNN.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, accused the U.S. of continuing its effort to “pump up tension in Europe.” He said the troop deployment is “the best proof that we, as Russia, have an obvious reason to be worried.”
Latvia, which became a full NATO member in 2004, told the U.S. that it is “ready and willing” to host more troops from the U.S.
A diplomat from the country, which borders Russia and Belarus, told the network that discussions with the Pentagon have been ongoing.
TREND FORECAST: Remember George W. Bush’s “Operation Enduring Freedom,” the Afghan War he launched in 2001 that endured for some 20 years and endured no Freedom that 88 percent of Americans supported?
Remember the President telling the world last August that “…the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is unlikely”?
Yet, despite these overt murderous failures, the media sells the propaganda and the general public swallows the lies.
Gerald Celente has said that the U.S.—despite having the largest and most expensive military in history—has not won a war since World War II and cannot even win against third-world nations, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc.
The U.S.’s disastrous withdrawal from Kabul has further negated America’s military’s reputation. By their deeds you shall know them, and considering the U.S. unbroken line of military defeats, Beijing and Moscow see the U.S. as a fading power.
However, despite these deadly and costly failures, once again both political parties in Washington awarded the military industrial complex a record breaking defense budget. As a Christmas gift, on 27 December President Biden signed a nearly $770 billion defense bill.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Rumor (history?) has it that the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia, which began in 1947, ended in 1991. But rather than seeking Peace on Earth and keeping relationships respectful, most of America’s politicians and all of the military-industrial complex—and their western counterparts (i.e., “allies”)—have not stopped waging the Cold War.
As we have been reporting since the end of the Cold War—from America’s Gulf War, Kosovo War, Afghan War, Iraq War… to its military interventions in Somalia, Libya, etc., plus its 800 military bases in 70 countries—Russia is a minor war-mongering nation compared to the U.S. track record of killing millions and stealing trillions from its taxpayers to wage these wars.
And, as we have reported in detail since the so-called “Russiagate” was launched by the Democratic Party and its media Presstitutes immediately following Trump’s win of the 2016 election, there has not been one shred of hard evidence proving Russia interfered with the election.
Yet, the drama continues, and most people buy it, just as most have swallowed other lies sold to them by their governments over the centuries. “Remember the Main”?
As the founder of Occupy Peace & Freedom, as I see it, to keep pedaling hatred between the two nations, rather than creating movements toward peace, is morally, spiritually, and economically destructive.
Indeed, America was an ally of Russia in World War II and would not have achieved victory when it did without them.
Yet, following World War II, Russia became its enemy, while Japan and Germany—for which over 400,000 Americans died fighting—became U.S. allies and business partners.
TRENDPOST: Long forgotten was the U.S. and NATO’S pledge not to expand into Eastern Europe following the deal made during the 1990 negotiations between the West and the Soviet Union over German unification.
Therefore, in the view of Russia, it is taking self-defense actions to protect itself from NATO’s eastward march.
As detailed in The Los Angeles Times back in May of 2016, while the U.S. and NATO deny that no such agreement was struck, “…hundreds of memos, meeting minutes and transcripts from U.S. archives indicate otherwise.”
The article states:
“According to transcripts of meetings in Moscow on Feb. 9, then-Secretary of State James Baker suggested that in exchange for cooperation with Germany, the U.S. could make ‘iron-clad guarantees’ that NATO would not expand ‘one inch eastward.’ Less than a week later, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to begin reunification talks. No formal deal was struck, but from all the evidence, the quid pro quo was clear: Gorbachev acceded to Germany’s western alignment and the U.S. would limit NATO’s expansion.”
TRENDPOST: As we have reported, completely absent in the American media reports of the current U.S. stand with Ukraine is the role Washington and Victoria Nuland played in the overthrow of its government in 2014.
A report from 2014 in the Trends Journal laid out the political maneuvers at the time in Ukraine: “Washington’s coup in Ukraine brought not only a threat to the Russian population in Ukraine but also a direct strategic threat to Russia itself.”
Nuland, who speaks Russian and French, boasted that Washington had invested $5 billion in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Ukraine. Allegedly, the purpose of NGOs is to “teach democracy.”
Ukraine, however, already had a democracy. In reality, the NGO organizations are U.S. fifth columns that can be used to organize protests and to provide support for Washington’s candidates for the Ukraine government.
Indeed, in early February 2014, a recording was leaked of Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland, telling Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, that the UN was on board to “help glue” the plan to replace Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych with Arxeniy Yatsenyuk.
“Yats is the guy,” Nuland informed Pyatt, who was urging a quick move because “the Russians will be working behind the scenes to torpedo” the deal. “F#&* the EU!” Nuland told Pyatt.
“Exactly,” he responded. Shortly thereafter, Yanukovych was overthrown and “Yats” became president.