How many people actually know the real history of Ukraine and Zelensky?

[spacex]

 

[Jingthing]

Russian propaganda everywhere you turn these days.

[KhunLA]

Going by their postings, apparently very few.  Does explain a lot, as their knowledge seems to be from MSM 

[oxo1947]

5 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Russian propaganda everywhere you turn these days.

 

These papers that were declassified in 1991 do not come from Russia  propaganda Jingthing but from the American Goverment.

Not An Inch to the East--was all the headlines when not only the the wall came down, but Russia  under Gorbachev withdraw  all troops from every Eastern Euro country.

Under a promise that they would not join NATO

 

 

Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

 

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, 

Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

 

[save the frogs]

yeah, that must be it then. zelensky bad, putin good. not the other way around.

you can tell from the photo that he's a money grubber. and that photo was not AI generated.

 

nobody knows what's really going on. the news is smoke and mirrors. 

 

there's always 3 sides to every story.

 

and the 3rd side is probably the real story that you will never hear. 

 

 

[KhunLA]

2 minutes ago, oxo1947 said:

 

These papers that were declassified in 1991 do not come from Russia  propaganda Jingthing but from the American Goverment.

Not An Inch to the East--was all the headlines when not only the the wall came down, but Russia  under Gorbachev withdraw  all troops from every Eastern Euro country.

Under a promise that they would not join NATO

 

 

Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

 

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, 

Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

 

Excellent post ... here's a reality check for those that think RU was, is the aggressor in Europe.   As every year, eastward movement and more nukes placed on RU's border.

 

 

[oxo1947]

7 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

yeah, that must be it then. zelensky bad, putin good. not the other way around.

you can tell from the photo that he's a money grubber. and that photo was not AI generated.

 

nobody knows what's really going on. the news is smoke and mirrors. 

 

there's always 3 sides to every story.

 

and the 3rd side is probably the real story that you will never hear. 

 

I didn't comment on Zelensky---I really dont know any truths about him----but your right its usually  never 100% one side

[jaywalker2]

7 hours ago, spacex said:

Zelensky was set up. Trump and Vance were playing good cop, bad cop. I couldn't believe how childish it was. "Have you thanked President Trump? Have you shown your gratitude? Bad boy, bad boy."

 

[Lacessit]

22 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

Excellent post ... here's a reality check for those that think RU was, is the aggressor in Europe.   As every year, eastward movement and more nukes placed on RU's border.

 

 

Simple people don't understand after 1990, every former Soviet bloc country wanted to join NATO out of fear of being absorbed into the Russian Federation. They had had enough of the living standards of a command economy.

 

Reality check - Ukraine did not join NATO, and it gave up its nukes in exchange for guarantees of territorial sovereignty under the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Putin.

 

Trying to make Russia a victim of big bad NATO won't fly. Russia was making a motza off oil and gas before the second invasion.

 

Everyone wants to revise history nowadays.

[Harrisfan]

7 hours ago, spacex said:

 

He even looks like a crook.

[Harrisfan]

Just now, Lacessit said:

Simple people don't understand after 1990, every former Soviet bloc country wanted to join NATO out of fear of being absorbed into the Russian Federation. They had had enough of the living standards of a command economy.

 

Reality check - Ukraine did not join NATO, and it gave up its nukes in exchange for guarantees of territorial sovereignty under the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Putin.

 

Everyone wants to revise history nowadays.

Nobody uses nukes

[rough diamond]

50 minutes ago, Harrisfan said:

Nobody uses nukes

The USA has!

[Harrisfan]

Just now, rough diamond said:

The USA has!

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, Harrisfan said:

Nobody uses nukes

Putin has changed Russian law to enable first strike capability. Formerly it was only in response to attack by nukes.

 

Please keep up.

[Harrisfan]

3 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Putin has changed Russian law to enable first strike capability. Formerly it was only in response to attack by nukes.

 

Please keep up.

When did Putin use them?

[Purdey]

Number of Russians lying online about Zelensky had increased. 

 

[pegman]

That part of the world pretty much everyone is corrupt. 

[impulse]

Here's a giveaway.  If they believe and insist that the kerfuffle started in 2022 (or even in 2014), they can't be reasoned with.

 

[impulse]

9 hours ago, Purdey said:

Number of Russians lying online about Zelensky had increased. 

 

 

Wow.  His Florida place is worth almost 2x what the judge claimed that Mar-a-Lago is worth.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

I don't claim to know Zelensky's life story, but he looks to me like an actor playing a war time leader in that silly cosplay uniform, oh wait.............

[spacex]

Here's a little more info about Victoria Nuland and her adventures.  BTW, has everyone heard the phone call in question?  It's on youtube.  

 

 

 

[1FinickyOne]

19 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Please keep up.

atta boy - keep everyone in line

[bangadang]

Surely there cannot be many people left who don't know that this is a USA proxy war?  USA has over 800 military bases it's obvious it will, and does, interfere everywhere.

[VBer]

On 3/2/2025 at 8:43 PM, Lacessit said:

Reality check - Ukraine did not join NATO, and it gave up its nukes in exchange for guarantees of territorial sovereignty under the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Putin.

 

Reality check: that's a lie. Vladimir Putin did not sign the Budapest Memorandum. In 1994, he was not a prominent political figure. A crucial detail is that the Budapest Memorandum was signed in 1994, when Ukraine was a neutral state, as enshrined in its constitution. However, subsequent coups and constitutional changes, aiming for NATO membership, have altered Ukraine's status. Therefore, the Ukraine that signed the memorandum is not the same entity today.

[NoDisplayName]

12 minutes ago, VBer said:

Reality check: that's a lie. Vladimir Putin did not sign the Budapest Memorandum. In 1994, he was not a prominent political figure. A crucial detail is that the Budapest Memorandum was signed in 1994, when Ukraine was a neutral state, as enshrined in its constitution. However, subsequent coups and constitutional changes, aiming for NATO membership, have altered Ukraine's status. Therefore, the Ukraine that signed the memorandum is not the same entity today.

 

Quote-mining the Budapest Memorandum is like a creationist citing the Second Law of Thermodynamics to disprove science.  They always leave out the bit about closed systems.

 

Similar to those who cite the NATO charter and Article 5 believing a "boots on the ground and planes in the air" military response is guaranteed, ignoring that it merely "calls on" member nations to aid others "in the manner they deem suitable."

 

The Budapest Memorandum doesn't simply provide security guarantees.  It also incorporates the Helsinki Final Act and the UN charter.  It certainly gets complicated when you throw regime-change and ethnic cleansing into the mix.

 

https://policymemos.hks.harvard.edu/files/policymemos/files/2-23-22_ukraine-the_budapest_memo.pdf?m=1645824948

[pegman]

On 3/2/2025 at 1:59 AM, Jingthing said:

Russian propaganda everywhere you turn these days.

No more than from the forever war neocon Yank media. If anyone is interested in what I think is honest academic commentary on what has been going on please go to YouTube and search professor Jeff Sachs of Columbia University and professor John Mearsheimer of University of Chicago. 

[still kicking]

On 3/3/2025 at 12:28 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

I don't claim to know Zelensky's life story, but he looks to me like an actor playing a war time leader in that silly cosplay uniform, oh wait.............

Go back and count your sheep

[frank83628]

On 3/2/2025 at 8:43 PM, Lacessit said:

Simple people don't understand after 1990, every former Soviet bloc country wanted to join NATO out of fear of being absorbed into the Russian Federation. They had had enough of the living standards of a command economy.

 

Reality check - Ukraine did not join NATO, and it gave up its nukes in exchange for guarantees of territorial sovereignty under the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Putin.

 

Trying to make Russia a victim of big bad NATO won't fly. Russia was making a motza off oil and gas before the second invasion.

 

Everyone wants to revise history nowadays.

Like you just tried to then! 

[tai4de2]

On 3/4/2025 at 1:05 PM, bangadang said:

Surely there cannot be many people left who don't know that this is a USA proxy war?  USA has over 800 military bases it's obvious it will, and does, interfere everywhere.

 

There are plenty of us who agree, actually, and want that to stop.

 

It's the leftists who want to use war as an excuse to continue their tyrannical conspiracy against freedom.

[Hakuna Matata]

Trump’s supposedly one-sided support for Russia over Ukraine

In the past two days, major media have highlighted what they call Donald Trump’s blatant favoritism towards Russia by his withdrawal of U.S. materiel and intel assistance to Kiev. The morning news brings accounts of the damage caused to Ukrainian energy infrastructure, hotels and residential housing by the latest massive Russian attacks, which were facilitated, they say, by the lack of relevant intel warnings to Kiev of impending attacks.

Granted that these measures cutting Kiev off from vital supplies are seen as pressure to bring Kiev to the negotiating table, they still allow the anti-Trump mainstream broadcasters to renew old accusations against Trump from the 2016 electoral campaign and then from his first term as being a friend of Putin, if not a dupe of Putin. After all, no such massive pressure is being directed at Russia, even if sanctions are threatened. Indeed, when asked by a reporter yesterday whether Putin was not taking unfair advantage of the U.S. cut-off of intel support, Trump said that Putin was just doing what anyone would do under the circumstances, fighting his fight with the greatest energy to end the war as soon as possible.

The BBC and CNN are presenting on air so-called experts, including the impossibly partisan, anti-Trump former security adviser John Bolton, to inform us of the assumed personal dimension to state-to-state relations in which President Trump is acting arbitrarily.

And what are alternative media saying about the favoritism being shown by Washington to Moscow over Kiev in the softening-up process ahead of peace talks?  Frankly speaking, nothing.  There are alternative media experts who have always been cheerleaders for Russia and they accept the present American policy reversal as normal, if belated recognition that the entire proxy war led by Joe Biden was imposed by the Deep State, which is finally getting its comeuppance as Trump and Musk wield a wrecking ball on traditional policies and institutions to solidify their own hold on power.
There are also more sophisticated experts in the alternative media who are pleased to see the positive policy threads in what the Trump administration is doing, including the massive pressure now being applied to Kiev, but do not see past the verbal contradictions and bluster of Trump’s daily appearances before the public and do not credit him with having a prioritized scenario for ending the war justifying the term ‘brilliant.’

As readers of these pages know, I do see what Trump is doing to be ‘brilliant’ because the confusion he is creating is intended to disarm his opponents, of whom there are many on Capitol Hill, as well as many in foreign capitals who are surely acting in collusion with Trump’s domestic foes.

However, in this brief essay, I put aside these issues and ask what is the objective rather than just subjective explanation of Trump’s latest moves against Kiev and mere tap on the wrist to Moscow while it blasts away generally on the battlefield and now enters into a big offensive in Kursk to encircle a large contingent of Ukrainian elite forces and to destroy others in the shrinking territory that they still control.

Trump, of course, is doing more than just shutting down the supply of weapons and war materiel to Kiev, cutting Ukraine’s access to U.S. satellite and other intelligence essential for targeting offensive missiles and drones into Russia and for its air defense. It is likely that in the coming days, Kiev will lose its access to Musk’s Starlink network of satellites that presently assure field communications. That will be devastating for the Ukrainian war effort and is not really replaceable by anything that the Europeans possesss.

There are two key explanations of what this is about.

The first is to remove the United States from its position as de-facto co-belligerent with Ukraine in the war. Though the Russians never chose to press this point, de jure they had every right to declare war on the United States over its indirect but critical participation in the war. Moreover, Trump’s claim to be an honest broker in ending the war makes sense only if the United States is not a participant aiding one side in the way it has been until now.

The second reason is to smash the false narrative of Ukraine’s ability to carry on by itself which Zelensky used in his dispute with Trump in the Oval Office.  Let us recall:  Donald Trump had told Zelensky that from the very start of the war, the Ukrainians could not have held their own against the Russians for more than a few days or a maximum of two weeks had they not received American military support.  Zelensky vehemently denied that and said that he had heard the same from Putin.

By withholding U.S. support today and letting the Russians proceed with their offensives as they wish, Donald Trump is holding Zelensky’s feet to the fire in the expectation that they will be more realistic, humbler in the peace talks which are to come. Otherwise, the Ukrainians would persist in presenting their demands for a peace that deprives Russia of what it won on the battlefield, thereby sabotaging the peace process.

In the meantime, the Europeans are doing their very best to sabotage the talks by offering material and financial aid to Kiev to continue the war indefinitely. Their problem is that they do not really have the goods to deliver on these promises.

In his own way, Trump is also messaging to the Europeans to come to their senses and acknowledge their impotence without U.S. participation. Yesterday, Washington announced that it will not participate in planning any joint military exercises with the NATO countries for the coming year.  And Defense Secretary Hegseth indicated that more than 30,000 troops will be withdrawn from Germany and reassigned to Hungary, another clear indication that those European countries which remain defiant will be punished by the Americans without delay and without hesitation. Further European defiance can only lead to the total loss of the U.S. security umbrella.

Do these measures seem to be arbitrary and issued at the personal whim of a narcistic President? Not if you are serious about your vocation as a geopolitical analyst.