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The First Months of U.S. Relations with the New Russia, 1992
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2023-01-30/first-months-us-relations-new-russia-1992
2 Feb, 2023 10:57
Declassified docs reveal why the US snubbed Russia
Unresolved issues prevented Washington from considering Moscow an 'ally', according to minutes from a meeting in 1992
The US rejected Russian suggestions to describe the pair as “allies” during a meeting of the then-presidents of the two nations in 1992, newly declassified transcripts have revealed. George H.W. Bush explained to his counterpart Boris Yeltsin why he was reluctant to use the word, asserting that not all issues between the countries had been ironed out.
On Monday, the US National Security Archive published a trove of declassified minutes of several meetings between the two presidents just over three decades ago. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in late December of 1991, there were high hopes among the new Russian leadership that the former arch rivals could become allies.
One such conversation took place on February 1, 1992, at the US presidential retreat at Camp David in Maryland, during Yeltsin’s first state visit to the country.
Toward the end of the meeting, the Russian president asked Bush: “Are we still adversaries or not?”
“No, we are not,” the US leader replied, adding that a statement had been prepared that moved “us away from the old era.” He then suggested that the Russian head of state take a look at the message.
Upon doing so, Yeltsin remarked: “You have nothing here which says that we are no longer adversaries and are moving to be allies.”
“It says friendship,” Secretary of State James A. Baker interjected.
However, the Russian president insisted that the document should state that the US and Russia “are moving from a stage of adversaries to allies.” Such wording, according to Yeltsin, would add a “new quality” to the message.
President Bush, in turn, clarified that his administration was “using this transitional language because we don’t want to act like all our problems are solved.”
In addition to the episode, Yeltsin told his American counterpart that while the Russian government was committed to democracy and market reform, the country was going through “hard times.” He argued that Washington “must provide aid” to the former Soviet republics, including Russia, unless it wanted to see a return of “conservative forces [and] hawks” to power in Moscow. Yeltsin warned that would lead to Russia becoming a “police state,” with “repression” and an “arms race” recommencing.
The Russian leader also made a number of bold nuclear arms reduction proposals which Bush did not accept, with the US president refusing to scrap submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which formed the core of America’s strategic triad.
Yeltsin’s idea of creating a joint global missile defense system was likewise not received enthusiastically by the Americans.
Despite the differences of opinion, both leaders described the meeting as extremely positive at the time.
https://www.rt.com/news/570845-declassified-transcript-us-russia-allies/
2 Feb, 2023 14:51
Putin threatens tough response to Western tank supplies for Kiev
The Russian president has promised a reaction that goes beyond armored vehicles
Russian President Vladimir Putin has hit out at the looming deliveries of Western-made tanks to Ukraine, warning that Moscow’s response to the threat will span far beyond armored vehicles. The Russian leader made the comments during a ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of victory at the Battle of Stalingrad.
“Unbelievable, but true – we are once again threatened with German Leopard tanks, with crosses on their hull. And once again seeking to battle Russia in Ukraine with the help of Hitler’s followers, the Banderites,” Putin said.
“Those seeking to defeat Russia on the battlefield apparently do not realize that a modern war with Russia would be entirely different for them.We’re not sending our tanks to their borders. Yet we have something to respond with, and it would not be limited to armor use only, everyone must realize that,”he added.
Last week, Berlin changed its stance on supplying modern armor to Kiev, pledging to deliver 14 Leopard 2 tanks as well as allowing European countries to re-export German-made vehicles from their own inventories. The number of Leopards expected to be funneled to Ukraine amounts to some 112 vehicles. Separately, Washington pledged to send 31 Abrams tanks, but doesn’t expect to deliver them until late 2023 at the earliest.
Moscow has repeatedly urged the collective West to stop “pumping” Ukraine with modern weaponry, warning that the ongoing military aid would merely prolong the hostilities and inflict more suffering on everyday Ukrainians, rather than change the ultimate outcome of the conflict.
(Bannon predicted this because of “The Bloodlands” war in 1939-40)
https://www.rt.com/russia/570872-putin-response-to-threats/
Bannon said the symbolism of sending on the Leopard Tanks with the Iron Cross brings up the entire memories of suffering of killing of millions of Russians andGermany is making a big mistake sending these tanks to Ukraines today
More Russians were killed in that war, then Jews in the Holocaust, its evil that No One mentions this!
The Most Horrific War of All Time: Russia vs. Germany
The war between Germany and the Soviet Union officially began in late June 1941, although the threat of conflict had loomed since the early 1930s. Germany and the USSR launched a joint war against Poland in September of 1939, which the Soviets followed up with invasions of Finland, Romania, and the Baltic states across the following year.
After Germany crushed France, and determined that it could not easily drive Great Britain from the war, the Wehrmacht turned its attention back to the East. Following the conquests of Greece and Yugolavia in the spring of 1941, Berlin prepared its most ambitious campaign; the destruction of Soviet Russia. The ensuing war would result in a staggering loss of human life, and in the final destruction of the Nazi regime…
The Fight Against Civilians
The Holocaust is perhaps the most remembered legacy of the War in the East. The invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union brought the bulk of Eastern Europe’s Jewish population under Nazi control, facilitating a German policy of extermination. For non-Jews, German occupation policies were nearly as brutal, although populations sympathetic to the anti-Soviet crusade were sometimes spared.
Towards the end of the war, the Soviets did their best to return the favor. Soviet depredations against the German civilian population of East and Central Europe do not generally received the same degree of attention as German actions, in no small part because of an enduring (if problematic) sense that the German deserved what they got. Other Eastern European populations were caught in the crossfire, suffering starvation and other depredations from both sides. Nevertheless, there is no question that the Soviets (and the peoples of Eastern Europe) suffered far more deeply from the war than the Germans.
The Costs
The raw statistics of the war are nothing short of stunning. On the Soviet side, some seven million soldiers died in action, with another 3.6 million dying in German POW camps. The Germans lost four million soldiers in action, and another 370000 to the Soviet camp system. Some 600000 soldiers from other participants (mostly Eastern European) died as well. These numbers do not include soldiers lost on either side of the German-Polish War, or the Russo-Finnish War.
The civilian population of the territory in conflict suffered terribly from the war, in part because of the horrific occupation policies of the German (and the Soviets), and in part because of a lack of food and other necessities of life.Around 15 million Soviet civilians are thought to have been killed. __Some three million ethnic Poles died (some before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but many after) along with around three million Jews of Polish and another two million of Soviet citizenship (included in the Soviet statistics). Somewhere between 500000 and 2 million German civilians___ died in the expulsions that followed the war.
Statistics of this magnitude are inevitably imprecise, and scholars on all sides of the war continue to debate the size of military and civilian losses. There is little question, however, that the War in the East was the most brutal conflict ever endured by humankind. There is also little question that the Red Army provided the most decisive blows against Nazi Germany, causing the vast majority of German casualties during World War II as a whole….
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-most-horrific-war-all-time-russia-vs-germany-14026
The article continued..Stalingrad
The Fight on Land
On June 22, 1941, the German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe struck Soviet forces across a wide front along the German-Soviet frontier. Romanian forces attacked into Soviet-occupied Bessarabia on the same day. The Finnish armed forces joined the fight later that week, with Hungarian troops and aircraft entering combat at the beginning of July. By that time, a significant contribution of Italian troops was on its way to the Eastern Front. A Spanish volunteer division would eventually join the fight, along with large formations recruited from Soviet prisoners of war and from the local civilian population of occupied Soviet territories.
The course of the war is far too complicated to detail in this article. Suffice to say that the German enjoyed overwhelming success for the first five months of the war, before weather and stiffening Red Army resistance led to a Soviet victory in the Battle of Moscow. Germany resumed the offensive in 1942, only to suffer a major defeat at Stalingrad. The Battle of Kursk, in 1943, ended the Wehrmacht’s offensive ambitions. 1943, 1944, and 1945 saw the pace of Soviet conquest gradually accelerate, with the monumental offensives of late 1944 shattering the German armed forces. The war turned the Wehrmacht and the Red Army into finely honed fighting machines, while also draining both of equipment and manpower. The Soviets enjoyed the support of Western industry, while the Germans relied on the resources of occupied Europe.
The Fight in the Air
Mercifully, the nature of the war did not offer many opportunities for strategic bombing. Russia launched a few sorties against German cities in the first days of the war, usually suffering catastrophic casualties. For their part, the German Luftwaffe concentrated on tactical support of the Wehrmacht. Germany did launch a few large air raids against Russian cities, but did not maintain anything approaching a strategic campaign.
Notwithstanding the improvement of the Soviet Air Force across the war, and the effectiveness in particular of attack aircraft, in general the Luftwaffe mauled its Soviet foe. This remained the case even as the Soviet aviation industry far outstripped the German, and as the Combined Bomber Offensive drew the attention of the Luftwaffe to the west.
Postwar
The end of the War in the East left the Soviet Union in control of a vast portion of the Eurasian continent. Red Army forces occupied Germany, Poland, Czechosolvakia, parts of the Balkans, the Baltic states, and parts of Finland. The Western allies remained in control of Greece and much of western Germany, while Joseph Tito established an independent communist regime in Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union redrew the map of Eastern Europe, annexing large chunks of Poland, Germany, and the Baltics, and ceding much of Germany to Polish control. Russian domination over the region would last into the early 1990s, when the layers of the Soviet Empire began to peel away.
The scars of the war remain, not least in the absence of the populations exterminated during the conflict. The states occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of the war (including Poland, the Baltics, and Ukraine) remain deeply suspicious of Russian intentions. For its part, memory of the war in Russia continues to condition Russian foreign policy, and Russia’s broader response to Europe.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-most-horrific-war-all-time-russia-vs-germany-14026
2 Feb, 2023 14:01
Russian foreign minister warns about 'next Ukraine'
Sergey Lavrov says the West is pushing the ex-Soviet republic of Moldova to align with NATO
Moldova could follow in Ukraine’s footsteps and become a new “anti-Russia,” Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has suggested in an interview with the Russian media. The diplomat claimed that the West had installed a president in Chisinau who is hell-bent on bringing the former Soviet republic into the US-led fold.
On Thursday, Russia’s RIA Novosti and Rossiya 24 media outlets published an interview with Lavrov. He was asked which country, in his opinion, could go down the same path as Ukraine and become an “anti-Russia.”
The foreign minister responded by claiming the West was “currently considering Moldova for this role.” He said the country had been chosen primarily because the Westsucceeded in installing “through some very peculiar methods, far from free and democratic [ones],”a pliant president at the helm there.
Maia Sandu is “rushing into NATO” and “has Romanian citizenship,” Lavrov noted.
The diplomat concluded that the Moldovan head of state is ready to merge her country with neighboring Romania and to “do practically anything.”
Lavrov said the West and Moldova’s leadership have effectively put on hold the normalization process regarding the breakaway region of Transnistria in the 5+2 format. This involves the US and Russia, along with the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, as well as Moldova and Transnistria. He claimed that the new Moldovan government is no longer interested in the process and is considering retaking the region by force and booting Russian peacekeepers out of Transnistria.
Late last month, President Sandu told Politico “there [was] a serious discussion” underway in Chisinau “about our capacity to defend ourselves, whether we can do it ourselves, or whether we should be part of a larger alliance.”
While she did not identify NATO directly, Sandu has consistently been pursuing pro-Western policies since coming to office back in 2020.
Moldova was granted EU candidate status last year. It has also been actively cooperating with NATO in recent years, sending its troops to participate in the military bloc’s force in Kosovo.
The Moldovan president held a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in New York in September 2021, and the country’s foreign minister attended a meeting of the organization in Romania last December.
However, the outstanding issue of Transnistria precludes Moldova from becoming a member state of the US-led organization, as NATO requires all aspiring entrants to resolve all territorial and ethnic disputes first.
(So our SOS department and Bidan Admin did another Coup Leader in Moldova)
https://www.rt.com/russia/570859-lavrov-names-new-ukraine/
2 Feb, 2023 11:54
Pentagon assess Ukrainian chances of retaking Crimea – Politico
Defense Department officials reportedly believe that success cannot be guaranteed
Ukraine’s plans to seize Crimea from Russia are unlikely to succeed in the near future, lawmakers in the US House Armed Services Committee were told at a classified meeting with the Defense Department, according to Politico.
The outlet reports that it spoke to four people who disclosed details from the meeting but wished to remain anonymous. Although the sources did not explain what had led defense officials to their assessment, they stated that the main assertion was thatUkraine does not have the capability to drive Russian forces out of the peninsula. Nor do they expect that situation to change anytime soon. If Kiev attempts such an operation, its success cannot be guaranteed, one of the sources noted.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh declined to comment on the classified briefing or discuss “hypotheticals or speculate on potential future operations.” However, Singh claimed that Ukraine’s “ability to fight and take back sovereign territory… speaks for itself.”
The report from Politico comes several weeks after a similar assessment was voiced by the chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. “I still maintain that for this year, it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from every inch of Russian-occupied Ukraine,” Milley said, referring to the four former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia last year, as well as Crimea, which rejoined Russia in 2014 following a referendum.
Milley noted, however, that he does not believe that the regions cannot ultimately be captured by Ukraine, but stressed that it would be “very, very difficult.”
Ukrainian officials, including president Vladimir Zelensky, have repeatedly insisted that retaking all of Kiev’s former territories was the government’s top priority, with Crimea among them. They have argued that any negotiations with Moscow about ending hostilities would only take place after Russian troops have completely withdrawn from those lands.
To that end, Kiev has stepped up its demands for more advanced and long-range weaponry from the West. That includes rocket artillery and guided munitions fired by fighter planes and drones, in order to strike Russian targets far behind the front lines.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, has warned that any threats to Russian territories, including Crimea and the four newly incorporated regions,will result in the use of “more powerful weapons”by Russia’s armed forces.
Russian State Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has cautioned of a possible “global tragedy” if Western nations continue to provide weapons that Kiev could use to strike civilian targets and attempt to seize Russian territories.
(I hope they shot down Lindsay Graham and his stupid ideas…he needs to be arrested and sent to Gitmo, the Homo cells)
https://www.rt.com/news/570858-pentagon-ukraine-crimea-success/
2 Feb, 2023
Top EU diplomat speaks out on fighter jets for Ukraine – media
The delivery of warplanes to Kiev is a “highly controversial” issue for the bloc, Josep Borrell has explained
The idea of sending fighter jets to Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia is causing divisions among EU states and isn’t on the agenda at the moment, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has announced, according to media reports.
The delivery of warplanes to Kiev is a “highly controversial” issue for the 27-member union, Borrell said during his conversation with the media in Brussels on Wednesday, as cited by El Pais Spanish daily.
According to the diplomat, combat aircraft are“a different matter” compared to the main battle tanks that Germany, Poland and some other EU nations agreed to provide to Ukraine in late January, despite ruling out such possibility for months.
Borrell advised the bloc’s members to focus on fulfilling their promise of delivering these tanks to Kiev instead. He also regretted that countries had agreed to supply armor “one by one,” saying “it would’ve been better to make a European decision,” EFE news agency cited.
The diplomat also declined to reveal his own stance on the issue of fighter jets. “My job is to try to maintain consensus and one of the best ways is not to take positions that could put it at risk,” he explained.
After securing pledges from EU countries, the US and UK to provide dozens of Leopard 2, M1 Abrams and Challenger 2 tanks, respectively, Kiev has intensified calls for NATO to also supply it with fighter jets, in particular, US-made F-16 aircraft.
While France and the Netherlands said they were open to sending warplanes to Ukraine, some other countries, including Germany, have ruled out such a possibility.
Much like Borrell, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck pointed out earlier this week that “there is a difference between battle tanks and fighter jets.” Giving Kiev planes would“probably” mean crossing a line and risking Berlin being drawn into direct conflict with Moscow, he said.
Outside of the EU, the US and UK have also said the supply of tanks to Vladimir Zelensky’s government won’t be followed by warplanes. US President Joe Biden said “No” when asked if Kiev would be getting F-16s, while the British government pointed out that the planes were “not practical” for Kiev.
Moscow has long decried deliveries of Western weapons to Ukraine, arguing that they won’t change the course of the conflict, but only prolong it and increase the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.
https://www.rt.com/news/570857-ukraine-jets-eu-borrell/
2 Feb, 2023 08:37
Russian spy chief weighs in on ‘fighting to the last Ukrainian’
Moscow understands that most people in Ukraine are normal and just want a peaceful life, Sergey Naryshkin says
Russia has no desire for the conflict with Kiev to continue until the last Ukrainian, the head of Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said. Sergey Naryshkin went on to accuse the West of keeping up arms supplies to Vladimir Zelensky’s government in order to prolong the hostilities.
Since the fighting broke out in February last year, Russia’s top officials including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have suggested that Kiev’sWestern backers wanted the conflict continue “to the last Ukrainian.” The comment implied that the US and its allies were ready to sacrifice Ukrainian lives for their declared goal of weakening Russia.
Naryshkin told the RIA Novosti news agency on Thursday that Moscow does not want to see this scenario occur.
“If we talk about Russia, then, of course, we wouldn’t want to wage war to the last Ukrainian,” he insisted.
The spy chief reiterated Moscow’s stance that the people of Ukraine are not the enemy. “We understand that most of the population of Ukraine are normal people, who want to live a peaceful life, but those people became both hostages and victims of the totalitarian Kiev regime, and victims of the aggressive policies of the NATO bloc,” he said.
According to Naryshkin, the US-led military alliance “poses the main threat to stability and security in Europe and beyond.”
Making sure that Ukraine officially declares itself a neutral country that will never join NATO – a development that would gravely undermine Russia’s security – has been mentioned by Moscow among the reasons for launching the military operation almost a year ago.
Russia has long insisted that the fighting in Ukraine is actually a “proxy war” waged against Moscow by Washington and its allies. Last month, the chief of the Russian General Staff, Army General Valery Gerasimov, said the country’s armed forces were “opposed by almost the entire collective West” in the conflict.
Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Lavrov said Russia was always ready to consider any“serious proposal” on resolving the crisis in Ukraine through diplomatic means, but the Americans have so far been unable to formulate one. The latest message from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was “stop”and “leave” Ukraine, and “then everything will be fine,” the Russian diplomat said, calling the idea unacceptable to Mosсow.
https://www.rt.com/russia/570843-ukraine-nato-west-naryshkin/
2 Feb, 2023 08:51
Lavrov identifies root of US-Russia tensions
The notion of American exceptionalism drives antagonism with Russia, Moscow’s top diplomat has said
The root cause of the conflict in Ukraine is linked to Washington’s belief that the US is exceptional and the contention that this supposedly justifies its dominance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
Speaking during an interview with Russian television on Thursday, the top diplomat urged people to “dig deeper” in their analysis of the confrontation. American officials believe the US is “an exceptional nation, unlike any other in the world,” and that it has a duty to lead, because otherwise “there will be chaos.”
Lavrov cited an opinion piece by Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to President Joe Biden, which was published in The Atlantic magazine in 2019.
“No vision of American exceptionalism can succeed if the United States does not defeat the emerging vision that emphasizes ethnic and cultural identity,” he wrote at the time. The phrase referred to US domestic politics and how it affects the “core purpose of American foreign policy.”
Lavrov called the remark “terrible” because it denies other peoples “the right to remember their history.” The US government applies this principle globally, he suggested.
“Just like they melted in a pot everyone who arrived in America, they now want to melt everyone else, so they essentially become Americans,” the minister said.
“This exceptionalism, this absolute conviction of their infallibility and superiority –I am certain that it is the main reasonwhy we are now confronting the nations that wage a proxy war against us through the Kiev regime.”
Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February last year, citing NATO’s creeping expansion into its neighbor and Kiev’s failure to implement an EU-mediated roadmap to peace.
The US claimed that the move was an act of “unprovoked aggression” and pledged to support Kiev with arms, money and other forms of assistance “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia strategically. Lavrov called the conflict a proxy war waged against it by Washington and its allies to preserve Western dominance.
(Sullivan is completing the HRC retaliation against Russia and the 16 year plan)
https://www.rt.com/russia/570846-american-exceptionalism-ukraine-lavrov/
2 Feb, 2023 14:14
EU member kicks out Russian diplomats
Moscow has vowed a proportionate response to the move
Vienna has revoked the diplomatic status of four Russian representatives and ordered them to leave Austria within one week, the country’s foreign ministry announced in a statement on Thursday.
Two of the diplomats being expelled are members of Moscow’s permanent mission to the UN in Vienna, while the other two are employees of the Russian embassy. According to the Austrian MFA, the embassy staff were found guilty of committing actions “inconsistent with their diplomatic status” and declared persona non grata. Members of the mission allegedly violated the “headquarters agreement,” it claimed.
Russia’s ambassador in Vienna, Dmitry Lyubinskiy, has stated that the Austrian authorities have yet to explain what exactly the diplomats did to earn the expulsion and have not presented any specific charges other than “vague references to the opinion of special services.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has told the media that it intends to have an “appropriate response,” which likely means it plans to expel an equal number of diplomats from Vienna’s embassy in Moscow.
Back in April, Austria made a similar move and expelled four Russian diplomats, again accusing them of committing actions “incompatible with their diplomatic status.” In response, Russia also declared four employees of the Austrian embassy in Moscow persona non grata.
Lyubinskiy says that last year’s exchange happened just 24 hours after he met with Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, who assured him that Vienna would not unreasonably expel Russian diplomats.
The latest expulsion of Russian diplomats from an EU state comes just one day after Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis suggested thatall European countries should kick out their Russian ambassadors as there is “little point left in keeping” them. He claimed that Russian embassies were no longer diplomatic institutions, but “institutions of propaganda”that “promote genocide.” Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have already expelled their Russian ambassadors and lowered the level of diplomatic relations with Moscow.
The West and Russia have been in a sort of “diplomatic war” and have mutually expelled a number of diplomats since February last year, when Moscow launched a military operation in Ukraine.
(None of this will be forgotten by Russia when this proxy war is over!)
https://www.rt.com/russia/570862-austria-expels-russian-diplomats/
“an undercover anon” that doesn’t come on the board sent this to me! Enjoy
I thought adding; “Joe Biden kissing his mom” would be funny too. But it’s perfect in its simplicity
Woohoo! Ding dong the witch is dead