Background of the Russia-Ukraine war | ||
---|---|---|
Overview | ||
Date | April 2014 - ongoing | |
Location | Ukraine and Donbas region | |
Combatants | ||
Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU); NATO insurgent partisan groups; foreign mercenaries |
Donetsk Peoples Republic Luhansk Peoples Republic Russian Federation | |
Commanders | ||
Joseph Robinette Biden Boris Johnson Jens Stoltenberg Volodymyr Zelensky Valerii Zaluzhnyi Andriy Parubiy Dmytro Yarosh Andriy Biletsky |
Vladimir Putin Sergei Shoigu Aleksandr Dvornikov Ramzan Kadyrov | |
Strength | ||
350,000[1] | 140,000[2] | |
Casualties | ||
Possibly 200,000 casualties and deserters[3] including 46,000+ KIA;[4] 51,000-54,000 MIA; 6,500 POWs in Russian custody; 2,500 POWs in DPR & LPR custody |
20,000+ injured; possibly 5,000-7,000 KIA; 300 POWs |
The Russia-Ukraine War was a proxy war started by the United States in 2014 with the violent overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine[5] with the aid of neo-Nazi forces.[6]
There are multiple issues that led to the Russian incursion into Ukraine in February 2022:[7]
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, 25 million ethnic Russians woke up the next day finding themselves citizens of countries outside Russia proper. Working and retired ethnic Russians in their new countries of citizenship lost the social security pension benefits that the former Soviet regime had promised them. None of these citizens and workers had any democratic voice in their fate. Many if not most of these ethnic Russians themselves were the descendants of victims of the Soviet communist regime whose parents or grandparents had been deported to Soviet Republics outside of the Russian Federation by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's security services, the NKVD for being uncooperative in the Soviet system. Putin called the loss of Russian citizenship and citizenship rights as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union a "genuine tragedy". As of 2014 when the U.S.-backed Maidan coup occurred in Ukraine, 10 million Russians lived as a minority in multicultural Ukraine. Immediately after the new unelected regime was installed by the West, discriminatory laws and ethnic violence targeted the Russian minority. The Donbas war claimed nearly 14,000 lives between 2014 and 2022, mostly civilians including children and elderly, as the West and the rest of the "civilized" world ignored the crisis.
In the run up to the wider war, both the United States and NATO rejected, without consideration, two formal diplomatic proposals by the Russian Federation for peace treaties between the Russian Federation, United States and NATO to avoid war.[14][15][16] The treaty proposals would require NATO to pledge not granting Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia NATO membership; U.S. missiles in Poland and Romania to be removed; and NATO deployments to Eastern Europe reversed. The U.S. and NATO rejected the proposals out of hand in December 2021, and instead acted aggressively by sending more NATO forces to Eastern Europe and continued to heavily arm Ukraine.[17]
NATO-backed neo-Nazi proxy forces attacked the Donbas again on February 14, 2022.[18][19][20][21] Military forces of the Russian Federation (RF) entered Ukraine on February 24, 2022, to put an end to the ethnic violence and de-nazify the areas where the children and grandchildren of World War II Nazi collaborators had been carrying an ethnic hatred of Russians since the Holodomor of the 1930s and earlier. A wave of patriotism swept over Russian society, viewing the operation as a second Great Patriotic War.[22] Soldiers felt they were sent to finish the job of de-nazifying Ukraine that their grandfathers left unfinished after World War II.[23] The use of civilian human shields by the U.S-trained Armed Forces of Ukraine led to civilian casualties and was a primary strategy of the NATO proxies. Ukrainian security forces committed reprisal actions and atrocities against ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in areas which Russian forces vacated. Numerous attacks by Ukrainian forces on its own citizens, which had been ongoing in the Donbas region for the eight previous years, spread outside the Donbas to create false flag images of attacks by Russians. Efforts to rehabilitate the image and reputation of Nazis and Nazism by Western and Ukrainian media and psyops were non-stop since the beginning of the Russian incursion, with permanent and debilitating damage to the West's educational system and image throughout the civilized world. By early April 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine had been so degraded and decimated, or were out of fuel and unable to retreat, the Maidan regime doubled down on soft power, psychological operations and propaganda to garner sympathy from the West for continued support.
In 2014, the United States, under the Obama administration, orchestrated the violent overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine. This violated the "rules based order" that the United States claims to advocate. Obama Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, who assembled the cabinet for the new illegal regime, selected Nazis to fill positions in the Ministry of the Interior (secret police) and Ministry of Defense due to their violently anti-Russian stance. Almost immediately, those ministries received U.S. funding and began coordinating with NATO.
Key neoconservatives, such as Victoria Nuland and Sen. John McCain, began pushing for the violent coup that in February 2014 ousted Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych and touched off the new Cold War with Russia. Senior U.S. government officials reportedly told the leaders of the Svoboda party that the deaths of a few protestors would not be enough to change Western support, but the Yanukovych government would only change if the number of victims was greater than one hundred.[24]
On February 20, 2014, a sniper firing from a building controlled by the Pravy Sektor shot and killed both police and protesters. The organized mass killing of both protesters and the police had the goal of delegitimizing the Yanukovych government and its forces and seizing power in Ukraine. Oligarchic and Ukrainian nationalist elements were involved in this massacre. The official investigation by the coup regime was fabricated and stonewalled.[25]
The official forensic investigations which were made public at the Maidan massacre trial revealed that on February 20, 2014, the absolute majority of the protesters were shot from side and back directions and from top to bottom directions, while videos and photos of the massacre showed them facing the Berkut special police force on the same ground level. In January 2015, a forensic ballistic examination conducted upon the request of prosecution concluded that bullets extracted from killed protesters did not match the bullet samples from any Kalashnikov assault rifle which members of the Berkut special police force were then armed. The findings of this computer-based ballistic examination and results of the other 40 ballistic examinations were reversed in a couple of ballistic examinations conducted manually in the very end of the investigation. Such unexplained reversals which contradicted other evidence, such as testimonies of wounded protesters and results of forensic medical examinations, suggested that the findings of the new examinations of bullets were unreliable and likely falsified. The forensic ballistic examinations also found that many protesters were killed on February 18–20 by hunting pellets and expanding hunting bullets, in particular, with caliber that did not match calibers of weapons used by the special police company, whose members were charged with killings these protesters.[26]
A female Maidan medic during the massacre was pointing to the top of a building and shouting about snipers. But her words were translated in a BBC report as referring to six protesters killed by the snipers in that area. A Maidan protester and another Maidan medic, who were wounded near the same spot where two protesters were killed, both testified at the Maidan massacre trial that they were shot from this building. Government ballistic experts confirmed this during on-site investigative experiments.
These revelations were not reported by any Western media. This includes The New York Time, which on April 5, 2014, profiled this wounded protester against the backdrop of an unquestioned report by the acting Kiev regime that blaming “former President Viktor F. Yanukovych, his riot police and their suspected Russian assistants for the violence that killed more than 100 people in Kiev in February.” It also includes CNN, which filmed the shooting of this medic and attributed it to the government forces.
The Maidan regime investigation simply denies that there were any snipers there and in other Maidan-controlled buildings, and refuses to investigate them. This is done despite videos of such snipers and testimonies of the absolute majority of wounded protesters at the trial and investigation and more than 150 other witnesses about snipers in these locations.
The official investigation in Ukraine simply denies that there were any such snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings, even though the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine previously stated that snipers massacred many protesters from the Hotel Ukraina and other buildings. [27]
Testimonies by five Georgian ex-military members in Italian, Israeli, Macedonian and Russian media and their published depositions to defense lawyers of police from the former regime in the Maidan massacre trial have also been ignored. They stated that their groups received weapons, payments, and orders to massacre both police and protesters from specific Maidan and Georgian politicians. They also said that they received instructions from an ex-U.S. Army sniper and then saw Georgian, Baltic States, and Praqvy Sektor-linked snipers shooting from specific Maidan-controlled buildings.
Western media silence also ignored a statement by Anatolii Hrytsenko, who was a Maidan politician and minister of defense, that the investigation of the massacre was stonewalled because of the involvement of someone from the current leadership of Ukraine in the mass killing.[28]
On May 2, 2014, Ukrainian nationalists murdered at least 42 Russians, most burnt alive in the Odessa Trades Union Building.[29]
According to eyewitnesses the Maidan fascists outnumbered the anti-Kyiv protesters 10 to 1. First the Maidan activists burnt down the tents of anti-Kiev regime protesters outside the building. The anti-Kiev protesters retreated into the building and tried to blockade the door. A group of Maidan girls filled up Molotov cocktails.[30] The Maidan protesters began throwing Molotov cocktails. Soon the building was engulfed in flames. The Maidan fascist crowd began cheering as they set the building ablaze and beat those who tried to escape. A Maidan activist was shooting at people trying to escape from the windows.[31] A fire station less than a kilometer away couldn't respond. The Maidan activists blocked the lone fire truck and wouldn't let the firefighters operate.
Some eyewitnesses claim the real number is over a hundred. The bodies were removed and buried in secret. Survivors of the fire inside the building were executed with bullets to the head. Some were beaten to death with clubs when they jumped from windows of the burning building. A pregnant woman was strangled.[32] The Western-backed Kyiv regime covered up the atrocities, most victims being ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine.
Vladimir Suchan reported on Facebook:[33]
"After massive 1 May antifascist demonstration, the Right Sector and the Ukrainian National Socialist Organization and not just "soccer fans" converged on the city. There are numerous videos showing the Odessa junta police and the fascist paramilitaries consulting with each other and the authorities in Kiev their joint actions.
On several videos, the police and the fascist mob can be seen as working closely together--militants shooting from behind the police, the police letting them pass, etc. In the morning hours, the fascist "pro-unity" marches congregated in several central streets of Odessa, thus drawing there antifascist protesters. It is evident that this early phase was well planned as a diversionary tactic for the main target was the Kulikovo field with the Labor Union building which was the center of nearly all antifascist manifestations in Odessa. It is also there where antifascist patriots set up their makeshift tent city. The junta felt that this needed to be cleared and that, at the same time, the protesters must be taught a harsh lesson which would break the spirit of this "hero city," a title Odessa gained with several other select cities in the Great Patriotic War. The diversion worked, and many of the young antifascist activists remained in downtown. In well synchronized and organized columns, the fascist paramilitaries then quickly regrouped and moved against their principal target--the antifascist tent city on the Kulikovo field accompanied by units of the Odessa police. Because of the successful diversion, most of the people on the Kulikovo field were middle-age and older people with many women among them. As soon as they arrived there, the militants not only started burning and destroying the tents, but they also started killing the people. They did in such a way that, for most people, the only exit left was into the Labor Union building. That was a trap. Once they got the people inside, the fascists started throwing Molotov cocktails and shooting. However, as can be seen on the photos and videos, the fire was mainly at the main entrance and in few several rooms elsewhere. Only a smaller number of victims showed signs of being completely burned. Many of the victims died of suffocation or strangling or their upper bodies or faces were burned. Many of the victims were shot into the heads. Many were beaten to death. This means that most of the victims were hunted and killed one by one inside the building. This killing spree given the size of the building apparently lasted over several hours and as going on even when the much delayed and very feeble response of the fire department was detected. All this time, the Odessa police stood by and some of the police with ties to the Right Sector reportedly assisted the fascists by shooting into the people who were climbing on the windows. After several hours, the police then acted and detained ... guess who ... some 60-80 antifascist survivors who then, without food or water, were kept for many hours in the police department, and charged with multiple crimes, including murder. The one main thing, which the police was interested most, was trying to find at least one "Russian" in the group. Alas, this did not succeed. All the victims and now detainees were Odessites (unlike may of the fascist militants). An angry crowd later that day forced their release .... which profoundly upset the Right Sector murderers. An Odessite grandmother was memorably recorded "beating" with lilacs (who used to symbolize Victory Day--lilacs blossom in May) Odessa policemen who were blocking on Saturday the Labor Union building with the corpses (most likely well over 100) still there. Only when it was dark, the Right Sector crawled back and came back to the scene of their crime singing and shouting "glory" to themselves. Evidently, the corpses were removed soon after--during the night for today, as various videos show, people started to roam the devastated building still shocked, distraught, and upset. As expected and true to its character, the junta first blamed the victims. They allegedly caused the fire themselves and burned themselves by throwing Molotov cocktails on the peaceful pro-junta protesters. A later modified line, repeated by Western media, was that what happened was a "tragedy," but one without a perpetrator. The one problem identified was some sort of further unspecified failing on the part of the local police. The head of the police was replaced .... with an even more over Right Sector hand. Following a cue from Catherine Ashton, Yatsenyuk, the junta's PM, then issued a call (to an unspecified addressee) for an "independent investigation." The same assembly of fascist murderous thugs was planning to hit in a similar way Kharkov. The massive outrage and mobilization appears to have stopped this or at least delayed for now.[34] |
The Kiev regime took over the investigation and reported 46 dead in the building. However, Voice of Russia reported, "The interim Ukrainian authorities are hiding from the public the true death toll in Friday's tragedy in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, which actually claimed 116 lives, a member of the Odessa regional council told RIA Novosti Monday. "According to our data, there were 116 people killed in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa. Killed, not just "dead". "We don't use the word "burned" or "suffocated", because autopsies are not being performed, since the people have bullet wounds to the head," Vadim Savenko said.[35]
Luc Michel cites Oleg Tsarev: "We believe that in the House of Unions there are more than 100 corpses. The police let nobody in so that the corpses are not counted. We know exactly there are there minor children. We are sure that those in power will do everything possible to conceal the traces of this horrible crime. We want to conduct an investigation and prosecute those responsible for this crime, he told RIA Novosti."[36]
On July 31, 2014, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall called for CIA Director Brennan's resignation.[37]
On September 18, 2015, the United Nation's Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights condemned the cover-up of the mass murder of 48 Ukrainians at the Odessa Trade Unions Building.[38]
The Maidan regime adopted a policy of ethnic cleansing of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people in the Donbas region shortly after the Obama administration installed it in power in 2014.
During the U.S.-backed Maidan coup many inhabitants of the Donbas wanted to join Russia. In April 2014 the government building of Donetsk was occupied by separatist resistance fighters.[41] On April 7, 2014, the resistance declared the independent "Republic of Donetsk".[42] It was only recognized by South Ossetia.[43] Since 2014 the Ukrainian government tried to regain the city. The Ukrainian government's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion fired artillery shells from Mariupol on Donetsk's civilian and residential areas. They artillery shelling from Mariupol, 30 kilometers from the border, continued for 8years killing many innocentsd, including children. The Azov Battalion received training, weapons, supplies and satellite intelligence information from NATO.[44][45] Hromadske TV media is one of the most-watched networks in Ukraine. Hromadske is funded by the Dutch and US Embassies in Kyiv, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the European Endowment for Democracy, and Free Press Unlimited. Silicon Valley oligarch Pierre Omidary was also involved in creating the outlet.[46] Hromadske hosted Ukrainian Nazi journalist Bogdan Boutkevitch[47] during the Maidan coup, demanding genocide of ethnic Russians. Boutkevitch said that Donbas,
"is severely overpopulated with people nobody has any use for. Trust me I know what I am saying. If we take, for example, just Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of them are superfluous. We don't need to "understand" Donbass, we need to understand Ukrainian national interests. Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. I don't claim to have a quick solution recipe, but the most important thing that must be done - no matter how cruel it may sound, there is a certain category of people that MUST BE EXTERMINATED."[48] |
In early December 2021 it was reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine deployed 125,000 troops, half of its forces, against the predominantly Russian speaking Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine.[50] Previously, on October 19, 2022, The Jerusalem Post reported that Canada, the US, France, the UK and other Western countries helped train neo-Nazi extremists in Ukraine.[51] Military analyst Boris Rozhin predicted an escalation of the conflict by the Kyiv regime and their NATO consultants with a full-scale provocation in Donbas. Using the 1995 model employed in Serbia called Operation Storm,[52] 230,000-250,000 Serbs fled the territory of Serbian Krajina, and Croatian soldiers committed numerous war crimes against convoys of refugees and the remaining civilians, including the Dvor and Grubori massacres. The Ukrainian authorities intend to repeat the “Serbian scenario” in the territory of Donbas in order to expel citizens of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics from their homeland at gunpoint and take control of the region.[53] More than 600,000 Russian citizens reside in Donbas.[54]
In Donetsk region, between the evenings of February 18 and 20, 2022, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine recorded 2,158 ceasefire violations, including 1,100 explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 591 ceasefire violations in the region. In Luhansk region, between the evenings of 18 and 20 February, the Mission recorded 1,073 ceasefire violations, including 926 explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 975 ceasefire violations in the region.[55] The OSCE was later found to have faked reports over years of the duration of the conflict by hiding Ukrainian attacks on civilians as well as actually smuggling mortar shells to neo-Nazi forces.
As tensions escalated in mid-February 2022, some 700,000 women, children, and elderly were being evacuated to Rostov in neighboring Russia.[56][57] Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the Russian government to house and feed people fleeing the Ukrainian military advance once they arrived in southern Russia. Each refugee arriving from Donbass is to be given a payment of 10,000 roubles ($129). RT reported Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk Peoples Republic warned, "Kiev can start a full-scale assault on Donbass at any moment, the situation is critical”[58] A full-scale mobilization was ordered, and men 18 to 55 were conscripted to remain and defend against the Ukrainian military attack.[59][60]
In March 2022 the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, a governmental entity, published in both Russian and English a series of arguments claiming Ukrainians are pureblood Slavs, while the Russian nation was formed through mixing with Asiatic tribes, "the Ugro-Finnish tribes: Muroma, Mernia, Wes, Meshchera, Moksha, Perm, Narova, and others,” it stated. The difference apparently is “visible to the naked eye”. Despite the common language, alphabet, history, society, culture, and literary traditions, the Institute denies that Ukrainians and Russians are "fraternal brothers," and states that Ukrainians are European, unlike "russian nomads" (spelled with a lower case "r". Several cabinet ministers in the Zelensky regime make a habit of always spelling "Russia" with a lower case "r".)
In an interview with the Kyiv-based Interfax news agency in late May 2022, Oleksandra Koval, director of the Ukrainian Book Institute (UBI) which is part of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, estimated that more than 100 million copies of Russian language books would be removed from Ukrainian public libraries, fully half of all libraries’ holdings.[62] The city council of Nikolaev banned the teaching of the Russian language in schools.[63] The Ukrainian parliament passed a bill to ban Russian-language music.[64][65]
In October 2022 it was reported that Ukrainian nationalists tore down statues of Hungarian historic figures. Ukraine sperm banks advertised specimens from "pure blood' Ukrainians.
According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Ukraine, which never existed prior to 1918, first applied to join the European Union in 988 A.D. (Anno Domini).[66] The European Union, which was founded as a coal and steel consortium in 1957, did not adopt the name "European Union" until 1992 A.D. after going through a series of other name changes.
The Minsk Accords were negotiated between the two Donbas Republics and the Kyiv regime in 22014 and 2015 in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The Agreements were negotiated with the help of France and Germany. Moscow backed the Minsk Agreements which Kyiv also agreed to, and the United Nations Security Council endorsed the agreements as well.
A meeting between representatives of the four countries, France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine was held in Paris on January 26, 2022, in the context of the Russia Ukraine conflict 2022.[67][68] The representatives of the four governments confirmed their support for Minsk II and committed themselves to resolving existing disagreements. They supported an unconditional ceasefire.[69]
In June 2022 former Kyiv regime strongman Petro Poroshenko, in an interview with Radio Liberty, admitted that he had signed the Minsk agreements, but had no intention to fulfill them. He noted that he wanted to buy time in order to get more weapons from the West.[70]
In an interview with Zeit magazine in December 2022, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed the Western alliance's duplicity in using the Minsk Accords to buy time for the NATOization of Ukraine to use as a battering ram for destruction of the Russian Federation.
Merkel described the September 2014 Minsk agreement which France and Germany had brokered a ceasefire after the failure of Ukraine's attempt to subdue the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk by force. “[Ukraine] used this time to get stronger, as you can see today. The Ukraine of 2014/15 is not the Ukraine of today. As you saw in the battle for Debaltsevo in early 2015, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin could easily have overrun them at the time. And I very much doubt that the NATO countries could have done as much then as they do now to help Ukraine.” The Kyiv regime's defeat at Debaltsevo resulted in the Minsk II protocol signed in February 2015. Merkel said that it was “clear to all of us that the conflict was frozen, that the problem had not been solved, but that gave Ukraine valuable time.”[71]
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responding to Merkel's comments stated, "The things that Merkel said in her interview - this is a testimony of a person, who stated it directly that everything that was done in 2014 and 2015 had only one goal: to divert the global community’s attention from the real problems, to buy some time, to pump the Kiev regime with weapons and to lead the situation to a large-scale conflict”.[72]
Former French president Francois Hollande, an accomplice in the duplicity, corroborated Merkel's account. Under UN Security Council Resolution 2202 endorsing the Minsk Accords, Vladimir Putin has the right to intervene in Ukraine as a guarantor under his "responsibility to protect".[73]
In violation of an agreement between Mikhail Gorbachev and the George H.W. Bush administration, NATO advanced eastward beyond the Oder-Neisse line after 1991.
Unprovoked, NATO began arming and training Ukrainian military and para-military neo-Nazi forces after the 2014 Obama administration-backed Maidan coup which overthrew the democratically elected administration of President Viktor Yanukovych.[74] When the U.S. Congress barred funding for the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in 2018,[75] NATO proceeded to train Azov Battalion Nazis in Canada as part of the West's supposed "rules based order."[76] The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which was incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard after the Maidan coup, had been conducting an unrelenting war against Russian civilians in the Donbas region since 2014.[77] Azov's International Department trained white supremacist protesters in the 2017 Charlottesville march.[78] The Donbas war is recognized by the Orthodox Christian Church as a struggle between the Western globalists' gay agenda and traditional family, moral, and religious values.[79] For this reason, the international media has ignored what otherwise would be considered a policy of ethnic cleansing of Russians from the Donbas by the NATO-backed fascist Kyiv regime.[80]
President Putin remarked in 2021, "As for NATO’s enlargement and the advancement of NATO infrastructure towards Russia’s borders, this is a matter of paramount significance as far as the security of Russians and Russia goes...I do not want to use harsh words, but they simply spat upon our interests."[81] French Premier Emmanuel Macron said at the height of the crisis, "The geopolitical objective of Russia today is clearly not Ukraine but to clarify the rules of cohabitation with NATO and the EU."[82]
In March 2022 NATO warlord Jens Stoltenberg said that any support from China would help Russia to continue to wage war and that China has an obligation as a member of the UN Security Council to uphold international law. The spokesperson of the Chinese Mission to the EU responded:
"we will never forget who had bombed our embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. We need no lecture on justice from the abuser of international law. As a Cold War remnant and the world’s largest military alliance, NATO continues to expand its geographical scope and range of operations. What kind of role it has played in world peace and stability? NATO needs to have good reflection.[83] |
Between 2005 and early 2022, the US poured more than $224 million into biological research in Ukraine, according to Russia's Investigative Committee.
Ukraine has no control over the military bio-laboratories on its own territory. According to the 2005 Agreement between the US Department of Defense (DoD) and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. The Ukrainian government is prohibited from public disclosure of sensitive information about the US program and Ukraine is obliged to transfer to the US DoD dangerous pathogens for biological research.[84] The Pentagon has been granted access to certain state secrets of Ukraine in connection with the projects under their agreement. The DoD Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has funded 11 bio-laboratories in Ukraine.
Among the set of bilateral agreements between the US and Ukraine is the establishment of the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU) – an international organization funded mainly by the US government which has been accorded diplomatic status. The US personnel in Ukraine work under diplomatic cover. The STCU officially supports projects of scientists previously involved in the Soviet biological weapons program. Over the past 20 years the STCU has invested over $285 million in funding and managing some 1,850 projects of scientists who previously worked on the development of weapons of mass destruction.[85]
One such biological lab contractor is Metabiota, a company financed by Hunter Biden's Rosemont Seneca partnership with the state owned Bank of China. Metabiota was awarded a $18.4 million federal contract under the so-called "Defense Threat Reduction Program" in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and Ukraine.[86] Metabiota receives the lion's share of funding as a U.S. defense contractor for bio labs in Ukraine.
Captured documents published by Russia claimed the labs were working on biological weapons such as anthrax and plague and that the Pentagon instructed the labs to destroy them in violation of Article 1 of the UN Biological Weapons Convention.[87] Russia released captured U.S. documents indicating that among the work of the U.S.-funded biolabs was the testing of 400 and 4000 Ukrainian soldiers, respectively, for antibodies to Crimea-Congo fever and regional hantaviruses, and a search for anthrax spores in soil at livestock graves.
On March 7, 2022, the Russian military claimed to have identified 30 sites where pathogenic research under the direction of the U.S. Defense Department had been occurring on the territory of Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Defense stated, "The Ukrainian biological laboratories in Lvov were conducting work with infectious agents of plague, anthrax, and brucellosis, while the labs in Kharkov and Poltava were working with infectious agents of diphtheria, salmonellosis, and dysentery…The government in Kiev had sent to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in the United States thousands of patients’ serum samples, primarily from patients of “Slavic ethnicity”, under the pretext of testing COVID-19 treatment methods”.[88]
The term "biological weapons" includes biological formulations that contain pathogenic micro-organisms and toxins, as well as the means of delivery and use of said formulations. While the priority for Ukrainian healthcare is socially significant diseases such as HIV, poliomyelitis, measles and hepatitis, US customers are interested in a completely different nomenclature: cholera, tularemia, plague and hantaviruses.
As a result of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine, facts of work with the specified pathogens, which are potential agents of biological weapons, have been revealed. At the same time, it was noted that Ukraine had sent a request to the manufacturing company regarding the possibility of equipping the Bayraktar drones with aerosol equipment. In addition on March 9, 2022, three unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with 30-litre containers and equipment for spraying formulations were detected by Russian reconnaissance units in Kherson region. At the end of April 2022, ten more were found near Kakhovka.[89]
Only three laboratories in Ukraine had the required safety criteria to undertake the type of research they were doing, according to the Russian military. Captured Ukrainian government documents point to a series of problems at one of those sites in Odessa.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Radioactive, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces, accused the Kyiv regime of carrying out “inhumane experiments” on Ukrainian patients and of launching a biological attack against the Lugansk Peoples Republic in early May 2022. Other evidence suggests that when Russia moved soldiers into Ukraine in February 2022, attempts were made to weaponize drones to spread pathogens and to destroy compromising materials. In response to the revelations by Russia's Investigative Committee, the Pentagon fessed up in June 2022 to funding 46 biological research facilities in Ukraine over the last 20 years.[90]
In 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a provision blocking any training of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion by American forces. The House previously passed amendments banning support of Azov between 2014 and 2017, but due to pressure from the Pentagon, the amendments were quietly lifted. This was protested by the Simon Wiesenthal Center which stated that lifting the ban highlighted the danger of Holocaust distortion in Ukraine.[91] NATO by-passed Congressional action by training Azov fighters in Canada under Operation Unifer with an $890 million budget.[92] Congress later rescinded the prohibition in 2019. Yahoo News reported on January 13, 2022, six weeks before the Russian incursion:
"The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.
The program has involved ‘very specific training on skills that would enhance’ the Ukrainians’ ‘ability to push back against the Russians,’ said the former senior intelligence official. The training, which has included ‘tactical stuff,’ is ‘going to start looking pretty offensive if Russians invade Ukraine,’ said the former official. One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. ‘The United States is training an insurgency,’ said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how ‘to kill Russians.’”[93] |
The New York Times reported on June 25, 2022:
"C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces...a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine....commandos are not on the front lines with Ukrainian troops and instead advise from headquarters in other parts of the country or remotely by encrypted communications...the signs of their stealthy logistics, training and intelligence support are tangible on the battlefield....Ukrainian commanders recently expressed appreciation to the United States for intelligence gleaned from satellite imagery, which they can call up on tablet computers provided by the allies. The tablets run a battlefield mapping app that the Ukrainians use to target and attack Russian troops."[94] |
Every year since 2012 the Russian Federation has proposed a Resolution before the UN General Assembly entitled, "Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."[95] Only two countries have voted to oppose it, Ukraine and the United States.[96]
In 2015, Pipeline Technology Journal reported that the Swedish military discovered a remote operated vehicle (drone) rigged with explosives near the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.[97][98]
On January 27, 2022 neocon provocateur Victoria Nuland stated at a U.S. State Department press briefing "one way or another Nord Stream II will not move forward."[99] Ten day later ABC News reported that Joe Biden threatened to sabotage the Nord Stream II pipeline in a public press conference from the White House.[100] In June 2022 it was announced that that the Baltic Sea had become "a NATO lake."[101][102][103] On September 7, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Nord Stream II pipeline could be reopened "tomorrow" to alleviate Europe's impending winter heating fuel crisis.[104][105] On September 26, 2022, the USS Kearsarge, was sailing in the Baltic Sea at the time and in the vicinity of the sabotage.[106] A NATO P8 Poseidon subhunter was also present over the sight where the sabotage occurred for 2 and 1/2 hours.[107] The incident is an act of war by the United States against the people of a NATO ally.
An alternative theory to destruction of the pipeline by the USS Kearsarge is a HAAWC (High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon Capability) system, an all-weather add-on glide kit that enables the Mk54 torpedo to be launched near or below the cruising altitude of the P8 Poseidon.[108][109]
Biden advisor Antony Blinken called destruction of the pipeline a "tremendous opportunity" for the United States.[110] President Putin said while speaking at Russia Energy Week in Moscow, “Those who benefit the most from the damage caused to the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea are the ones responsible for it...Everybody understands who is behind this and who is the beneficiary...One can now force the liquefied natural gas from the United States on to European countries on a much larger scale”; as to the future Putin added: “The lost volume of transit through the Nord Streams, along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, we could also move to the Black Sea region and thus make the main routes for the supply of our fuel, our natural gas to Europe through Turkey, creating in Turkey the largest gas hub for Europe, if, of course, our partners are interested in this”.[111] Politico reported that French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told the French National Assembly, "We must not allow the conflict in Ukraine to result in American economic domination and a weakening of Europe...We cannot accept that our American partner sells its LNG at four times the price at which it sells it to its own companies."[112]
On October 13, 2022, several sabotuers were arrested in Russia for attempting to blow up the TurkStream natural gas pipeline.[114]
The Grayzone obtained an April 2022 documents entitled, AUDACIOUS: Support for Ukraine Maritime Raiding Operations,[115] drawn up for senior British intelligence officers hashing out an elaborate scheme to blow up Crimea's Kerch Bridge with the involvement of specially trained Ukrainian soldiers.[116]
In August 2022 Zelensky aid Mykhailo Podolyak told the Guardian there could be more attacks in the “next two or three months” similar to strikes on a railway junction and an airbase in Crimea, as well as a hit on Russian warplanes at Crimea's Saky aerodrome. Podolyak told the Guardian that the Kerch Strait bridge linking Crimea with the Russian mainland was a target. “It’s an illegal construction and the main gateway to supply the Russian army in Crimea. Such objects should be destroyed,” he said.[117]
Podolyak took credit for the terrorist attack and destruction of civilian infrastructure: "Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled."[118] The Washington Post reported that the Security Service of Ukrainian (SBU) were behind the terrorist attack.[119][120] The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) determined that Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukrainian military intelligence, was the chief organizer on the Ukrainian end.[121] Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba confirmed that the Kyiv regime was behind the terrorist attack.[122][123] The Ukrainian Post Office issued a commemorative stamp to honor the terrorist attack.[124] The attack was an act of state-sponsored terrorism by the government of Ukraine with U.S. taxpayer money.
On July 12, 2022, the AFU targeted the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) located in the town of Energodar. Russian forces have been in control of the plant, with Ukrainian technicians still operating it, since February 2022. The nuclear plant is the largest in Europe with six reactors and provided 20% of all electricity for the former territory of Ukraine. The nuclear plant is the largest in Europe with six reactors and provided 20% of all electricity for the former territory of Ukraine. The attack was complex, involving drone and artillery fire. The Ukrainian Army used six kamikaze drones conducting reconnaissance mission over the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and the city heating and water supply plant in Energodar. The UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) dropped two mines near the power plant, which reportedly did not cause any significant damage. Another drone was heading in the direction of residential buildings in Energodar, its course may have been corrected. The UAV attack was thwarted, none of the six drones reached their targets, and the air defense of the Zaporozhye region successfully prevented the attack. The Ukrainians earlier launched a false flag attack against the plant in March 2022.
On July 18, 2022, Ukraine again attacked the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, this time with three kamikaze drones.[127][128]
Beginning on August 5, 2022, the 44th brigade of the AFU stationed in Nikopol, 18 kilometers across the Dnieper River, increased shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear plant with US M777 Howitzers. Kiev forces used a British-made Brimstone missile in one of the attacks. The situation was compounded by HIMAR attacks on the hydroelectric plant at the Nova Kakhovka dam, which provides electricity for the nuclear plant's vital cooling system. The political motive for shelling a nuclear power is reported to be motivated by upcoming referendums in September 2022 for the former Ukrainian oblasts of Zaporozhye and Kherson to join the Russian Federation. The Kyiv regime is attempting to intimidate the local population. Russia asked the Atomic Energy Commission to look into the matter. Sources on the scene familiar with the matter claimed Zelensky's shelling of the nuclear power plant was an effort to blackmail the Western powers for more military aid and financial support.[129]
By August 19, 2022, the town of Ugledar (pop. 15,000) came under Russian operational tactical encirclement, opening the door for operations behind the entire AFU Zaporozhye line.
On August 26, 2022, on the ground reports appeared of Zelensky ordering 1,000 Ukrainian troops with radiological protective gear to the Dnieper River across from the Zaporozhye nuclear plant.[130]
On August 29, 2022, Ukrainian artillery fire began targeting a storage facility for nuclear waste.
At about 6 AM Moscow time on September 1, 2022, Ukrainian troops freshly trained in the United Kingdom landed on the coast of the reservoir three kilometers northeast of the Zororozhye nuclear power plant in two sabotage groups of 64 people in seven boats and attempted to seize the power plant, according to the Russian defense ministry. The provocation was aimed at disrupting the arrival of the IAEA working group at the Zororozhye nuclear power plant. Four Ukrainian shells exploded during the shelling at a distance of 400 meters from the first power unit of the Zororozhye power plant.
Russian intelligence was fully aware of the plans and had monitored the commandos from the time they left their training in the UK and crossed from Poland into Ukraine.
On September 2, 2022, a US-made Switchblade loitering drone crashed near the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
On September 25, 2022, the Kiev regime again attacked the Zaporozhye NPP. Eight U.S. kamikaze UAVs targeted the station, but all were shot down by Russian forces. About 60 shells were also fired at the city of Energodar.
On October 16, 2022, NATO/Ukrainian forces attempted their fourth amphibious landing assault across the Dnieper river to attack the Zaporozhye nuclear plant. The Russian army destroyed the Ukrainian landing force, which was trying to carry out the attack on barges and speedboats.[131]
According to a Spetsnaz source, Russian forces recovered a nuclear dirty bomb that was brought into Ukraine from the West at Gostomel outside of Kiev in March 2022. So-called "armour piercing shells," as they are commonly referred to in the United States, in its media, and in Congressional committees, is actually a battlefield nuclear weapon that uses depleted uranium.
After the NATO-led assault on the Kharkov and Izium front in September 2022,[133] numerous assassinations, sabotage, nuclear blackmail, terrorism plots and continued shelling of the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics killing dozens of civilians - including children with U.S.-built HIMAR missile launcher systems,[134] the Russian State Duma began debating an upgrade of the Special Military Operation to a counterterrorism operation.[135] Between the Kharkov and Kherson counteroffensives, 12,000 Ukrainian and NATO forces were killed. Russian casualties were fewer than 400. Ukraine threw all its strategic reserves into the fight. Due to the magnitude of losses and the approaching seasonal change, Gen. Valerei Zalushni was reported to have advised Zelensky to cease the counteroffensvie and revert to a defensive posture.
On September 26, 2022, the United States attacked the civilian infrastructure oof Europe by sabotaging Nordstream pipelines in Danish water off Barnholm island,[137] guaranteeing that the German people and others throughout the continent would lack natural gas for heating as winter approached. The detachment of US Navy ships led by the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge announced the completion of work in the area of the alleged sabotage on gas pipelines. US ships completed their tasks in the Baltic Sea and were spotted heading to the Baltic Straits into the North Sea. President Putin had proposed three weeks earlier to reopen the pipeline to alleviate Europeans home heating crisis[138] while Biden had vowed to end the pipeline.[139]
With the approval of the four treaties of accession to the Russian Federation by the Russian State Duma, the Special Military Operation came to an end and the four new territories came under the protective defense of the Russian nuclear umbrella. With the incorporation four new Republics into the Federation, Russia found itself under conditions that Russian Military Doctrine describes as the "massive use by the enemy of modern and advanced combat weapons" flooded into Ukraine by the Western powers NATO bloc.[140]
Vladimir Putin set forth a claim under the doctrine of 'anticipatory collective self-defense', devised originally by the Clinton administration and NATO in regard to the 1998 Kosovo conflict,[141] as it applies to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.[142] The unilateral declarations of independence by the Donbas republics are completely legal and precedented by the West's successful demands for Kosovo to be recognized as independent from Serbia, and adjudicated as such by the International Courts.[143]
The Organization of World Peace reported in 2021, “according to Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Decree no. 117/2021, Ukraine has committed to putting all options on the table to taking back control over the Russian annexed Crimea region. Signed on March 24th, President Zelensky has committed the country to pursue strategies that . . . ‘will prepare and implement measures to ensure the de-occupation and reintegration of the peninsula.’”[144] Given that the residents of Crimea, most of whom are ethnic Russians, are quite happy with the current state of affairs under Russian governance – this, according to a 2020 Washington Post report – Zelensky’s threat in this regard was not only a threat against Russia itself but was also a threat of potentially massive bloodshed against a people who do not want to go back to Ukraine.[145] The Donbas war represents a much more compelling case for justifying Russian intervention under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine which has been advocated by such Western ‘humanitarians’ as Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, and Susan Rice, and which was relied upon to justify the NATO interventions in countries like the former Yugoslavia and Libya.
On February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin addressed the nation and made clear the objective of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine was not regime change:
"The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation. It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force."[146] |
Referendums were conducted in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson republics from September 23–27, 2022 for accession to the Russian Federation. 1,000 international observers were present for the referendums.
During the night of February 25–26, 2022 Volodymyr Zelensky sent a ceasefire proposal to Russia via the Chinese embassy in Kyiv. The Kremlin immediately responded by setting out its conditions:[147]
Bloomberg News, reported: “The US-led drive to isolate Russia through sanctions has not succeeded, as half the countries in the Group of Twenty leading global economies refused to sign on...Senior officials from leading Western nations are surprised by the lack of support within the wider G20, despite their efforts to make the case for restrictions against Russia...Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey have not joined the sanctions that were adopted by the US, UK, EU, and their allies Australia, Canada, Japan, and South Korea...Some nations, like China and South Africa, have openly criticized the restrictions…The G20 nations account for around 85% of global economic output”.[148]
Ukrainska Pravda reported in May 2022 on Boris Johnson's unannounced surprise visit to Kyiv shortly after Russia and Ukraine had reached a peace settlement in their talks in Istanbul. The Russians had agreed to withdraw to the pre-February 2022 borders and Zelensky would implement the Minsk Accords. Ukrainska Pravda reported in essence what Johnson told Zelensky according to sources close to the Ukrainian dictator:
"if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they [the UK and US] are not. Johnson’s position was that the collective West, which back in February had suggested Zelenskyy should surrender and flee, now felt that Putin was not really as powerful as they had previously imagined, and that here was a chance to "press him."[149] |
While fighting alleged "separatists" in Donbas, Zelensky called for war against China to protect separatists in Taiwan when he addressed the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on June 11, 2022.[150]
On August 3, 2022, Sen. Lindsey Graham announced that he was pleased with Ukrainian's willingness to "fight to the last person" as U.S. proxies.[151]
On August 4, 2022, Director General Fu Cong of the Chinese Foreign Ministry proposed, “The United States should withdraw all its nuclear weapons from Europe and refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in any other region."
In August 2022 reports surfaced of a meeting between Lithuanian and Polish officials to discuss creating a Belarussian government-in-exile after the disputed 2020 presidential election.
On August 19, 2022 Zerohedge reported:
"The western world is about to stop waging some bizarro war against Vladimir Putin that has sparked loathed energy hyperinflation across most of Europe, and is about to embrace the Russian leader, behind closed doors of course, even if it means a terribly vexxed Zelenskyy and US deep state.
Why? Because "pariah" Vladimir Putin is about to re-emerge on the G20 scene again, this time courtesy of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who today said that both Putin and China's president Xi both plan to attend the G20 summit in the resort island of Bali later this year. “Xi Jinping will come. President Putin has also told me he will come,” Jokowi, as the president is known, said in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait on Thursday. It was the first time the leader of the world’s fourth-most populous nation confirmed both of them were planning to show up at the November summit, according to Bloomberg. Needless to say, the presence of Xi and Putin at the meeting will set up a showdown with the deep state handlers who control Joe Biden's teleprompter and other, less senile "western" leaders, all of whom are set to meet in person for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The attack has left the G-20 divided over whether to place sanctions on Russia, because while a handful of G-20 countries are relatively self reliant, most are desperate for Russia's commodity exports, whose lack has sent European energy prices to... well, just look for yourselves. Putin and Jokowi discussed preparations for the G-20 summit in Bali in a phone call Thursday, the Kremlin said in a statement that didn’t mention whether the Russian leader will attend. Putin’s attendance will also likely bring him face to face with Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time since Russia’s invasion because for some odd reason the Ukrainian president - who also doubles as a Vogue model - is also slated to be in Bali."[152] |
Why Ukraine would be invited to attend a G20 Summit is a mystery to many people; Ukraine is nowhere near in size to a G20 economy. Prior to Ukraine's economy shrinking by an estimated 50% as a result of the war, it ranked No. 125 in size of 195.
On August 23, 2022, Zelensky told Donetsk President Denis Pushilin that if denazification trials of Azov Battalion war criminals went forward, there would be no ceasefire negotiations.
In addition to the Zelensky's regimes sheeling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and nuclear blackmail, the murder of Russian journalist and political scientist Darya Dugina in a Moscow car bombing was discussed during an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on August 24, 2022. Russian investigators established the killing as an act of terrorism by the Security Service of Ukraine. Ukrainian Ambassador Petro Vrublevskyi told an interviewer on August 21, 2022, immediately after the bombing, "We are trying to kill as many of them [Russians] as possible. The more Russians we kill now, the fewer our children will have to kill," according to Yahoo News.[153]
On August 24, 2022, a U.S. sponsored UN General Assembly vote condemning Russia garnered only 58, less than 33%, of 195 member votes.
In Kyiv on September 10, 2022 Antony Blinken conveyed a message from Joe Biden to begin negotiations with Russia, according to Ukrainska Pravda.[154]
On September 15, 2022, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned, "Should Washington decide to supply longer-range missiles to Kiev, by doing so it will cross a red line and become a direct party to the conflict. Under such a scenario, we will be forced to respond appropriately."[155]
On October 7, 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron blasted Joe Biden for escalating the nuclear war rhetoric,[156] comments which were echoed by Vladimir Zelensky the following day with a call for a nuclear first strike by NATO on Russia. White House national security spokesman and Ukrainian troll bot John Kirby waked back Biden's comments, saying they were not based on any specific new information. Kirby said Biden's "comments were not based on new or fresh intelligence or new indications that Mr. Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons."[157]
After visiting with NATO boss Stoltenberg, Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov wrote on Twitter that the long-standing cooperation between Ukraine and NATO makes it possible to say that the country has de facto become a member of the North Atlantic alliance.[158][159]
After French President Emmanuel Macron, a NATO ally, pledged not to use nuclear weapons in a confrontation with Russia, UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace, a NATO ally, publicly scolded Macron for revealing his hand.[160]
On October 13, 2022, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference:
"We sat at the negotiating table with the Ukrainian delegation until the end of March [2022], when an approach to a settlement on the principles suggested by the Ukrainians at the time had been harmonised in Istanbul. These principles suited us for that moment but the talks were stopped by direct order from Washington and London.
This conflict is overrun with Anglo-Saxons that fully control the Vladimir Zelensky regime. The Poles and people from the Baltics are trying to fit in on their team. Since then the Ukrainian President has said many times that he is not going to hold talks with the Russian Federation under President Vladimir Putin. Recently, he codified this ban in law. We have never sought negotiations. The Istanbul round completed the process started at Ukraine’s request. Russia positively reacted to the proposal to enter a dialogue, but its initiators cut it off with a shout from overseas or London. We are hearing statements by White House representative John Kirby, my colleague Antony Blinken and other members of the US administration. They are saying that they are completely open to talks with the Russian Federation, that they favor a political settlement of the current situation in Ukraine but Russia (the “troublemaker”) is rejecting proposals to establish contact. I can say straight away that this is a lie. We have not received any serious proposals to establish any such contact. There were some attempts that were not very serious, but we didn’t reject them, either. Instead, we suggested that they formulate specific proposals. Some people made them to us by proxy but in this case, we didn’t receive any clear explanations from anyone, either. No need to lie. We were taught in a kindergarten then lying is bad. Apparently, American kindergartens are not so advanced as they were in the Soviet Union and are now in Russia." |
In a move to further escalate the conflict, EU foreign ministers assented to start a military training program for 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers at a meeting in Luxembourg on October 14, 2022. In addition to training, it was also promised to create a fund valued at 500 million euros to finance European aid to Ukraine.[161]
In a morning television address to the nation on September 21, 2022, address, Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of military reserves:
"In this situation, I consider it necessary to take the following decisions, they are fully adequate to the threats we face. Namely: to protect our Motherland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to ensure the security of our people and people in the liberated territories, I consider it necessary to support the proposal of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff on conducting partial mobilization in the Russian Federation....Only citizens who are currently in the reserve and, above all, those who served in the ranks of the Armed Forces, have certain military specialties and relevant experience will be subject to conscription for military service. Those called up for military service before being sent to the units will necessarily undergo additional military training taking into account the experience of a special military operation. |
Additionally all military service contracts currently in force (usually 3 to 12 months) are extended indefinitely. Putin said that the current conflict was instigated by the West, noting that the Western countries seek the destruction and disintegration of Russia. He said that the West had been supporting international terrorists, promoted the infrastructure of the NATO offensive close to Russia's borders and fostered Russophobia.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said:
"In reality, we are fighting the collective West plus NATO. When we speak about it, we mean not only the weapons being supplied [to Kiev] in huge batches, but also about systems of communication and information processing systems. |
The Western states as well as NATO, Shoigu said, are supplying Kiev with "huge" amounts of weapons. Shoigu said that 300,000 reservist will be mobilized. People who served in the past 10 years, or with combat experience in the Syrian war, Africa, Georgia or Chechen wars will be given preference.[162] Conscripts and people currently in post-secondary education will not be sent to Ukraine. He also said that, so far, 5,937 Russian soldiers have died during the war in Ukraine. (This number does not include the militia of the DPR and LPR, or the Wagner group, who have done most of the frontline work and thus have had higher losses.) Shoigu puts Ukrainian losses at some 62,000 killed and some 50,000 wounded.[163] Russia's total military reserve, people who have previously gone through military training, is 25 million.[164] It also has the equipment to arm those forces. Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev was put in full command of the special operation and his predecessor General Dmitry Bulgakov was moved to chief of staff of Logistics in charge of the supply of Russian troops stationed in Syria.
Chechnen head of the Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, claimed that the mobilization in the region already “exceeded by 254%”, even before the announcement of partial mobilization." Kadyrov added, there is a reserve of thousands of volunteers in Chechnya, “who, if necessary, will be able to join the ranks of defenders of Russia.”
Belarus also announced that it is in the process of getting ready for war. Belarus could, as it had threatened before, cut of the supply lines from Poland, NATO, and the West into the western part of Ukraine.
Ukrainian dictator Volodymyr Zelensky told CBS News on Face the Nation, "I don't think Putin is bluffing."[165]
U.S. analyst Scott Ritter observed:
"The U.S. and its allies in the “collective West” now have to decide if the continued pursuit of a decades-long policy of isolating and destroying Russia is a matter of existential importance to them, and if the continued support of a Ukrainian government that is little more than the modern-day manifestation of the hateful ideology of Stepan Bandera is worth the lives of their respective citizenry, and that of the rest of the world."[166] |
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