Boris, Zelensky and the myth of the thwarted peace deal - "According to sections of the ‘anti-war’ left and assorted right-wing politicos, this conflict would have long been over by now, if it weren’t for Boris’s war-mongering intervention. So where does this myth come from? It is true that negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials to bring the conflict to an end began in Belarus on 28 February – that is, just days after the Russian invasion on 24 February. These talks continued intermittently over the following weeks. On 29 March, Ukrainian and Russian officials met for what was seen as a pivotal meeting in Istanbul. There, they discussed the framework for a compromise agreement, in which Russia would retreat to its pre-invasion positions. In return, Ukraine would abandon its territorial claim over the Donbas and Crimea, and would commit to not joining NATO. Putin has consistently claimed that an agreement had effectively been reached in Istanbul. Ukrainian officials, including foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, have always vehemently denied this. Either way, by April, the negotiations had collapsed. The deal was off. For a motley alliance of left- and right-wing opponents of Ukraine’s resistance, there is one simple reason for this failure to bring the conflict to an end. It’s that the US and its allies didn’t want peace. They wanted to continue using Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Putin. So they dispatched Johnson to Kyiv for an ‘unannounced’ visit on 9 April. Here he is said to have forced Ukraine to abandon the peace talks and carry on fighting Russia on the West’s behalf... to believe that this intervention was responsible for derailing a potential peace is a feat of magical thinking. It overestimates the persuasive powers of Britain’s blustering ex-PM, not to mention the geopolitical influence of the UK. More importantly, it completely erases the agency of Zelensky’s government and the Ukrainians themselves... This effacement of Ukrainian agency has been pointed out by countless Ukrainian politicians and journalists ever since the claim first emerged – including by Roman Romaniuk, who wrote the original Ukrainska Pravda piece that inadvertently gave rise to this myth. As he and others have since pointed out, by the end of March, Zelensky’s team were already minded to reject the agreement that was taking shape in Istanbul. There were three interlinking factors at play. Firstly, at this point, Ukrainian forces were enjoying dramatic success on the battlefield, pushing Russian forces back from around Kyiv. Finding themselves very much on the front foot, they were hardly in the mood to make concessions to a panicking Kremlin. Secondly, Zelensky had been made aware, as early as mid-March, that Russian forces had likely committed atrocities in several settlements in the north. Indeed, as his negotiating team sat down to talk with their Russian counterparts in Istanbul on 29 March, Ukrainian troops were already entering the northern town of Bucha. What they found there shocked them to their core. Dozens of decomposing bodies, some half-eaten by stray dogs, littered the streets. As they ventured further into the town, they discovered yet more corpses – lying in ditches, on pavements and half disposed of in makeshift graves. In total, nearly 500 people had been slaughtered in the most gruesome, sadistic fashion imaginable. Reeling from the discovery of Russian atrocities in their villages and towns, Ukrainians would have found the idea of making peace with Putin totally unpalatable. This brings us to the third and most important reason why Zelensky stopped the peace talks. The Ukrainian people themselves did not want to strike a deal with the Russian aggressors. As Romaniuk himself has since explained, Zelensky and his negotiators were always most concerned with the fact that ‘Ukrainian society might not accept such a deal’. And they were right to be. Polling at the time showed that over 80 per cent of Ukrainians did not want to ‘give up on any of [Ukraine’s] territory even if it leads to the continuation of the war and threatens its independence’. Little has changed since then. Despite the privations and suffering that Ukrainians have experienced, their resolve endures. Polling shows that an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians still want to continue the resistance. The Ukrainians pulled out of those peace talks nearly two years ago for precisely the same reason they are still resisting Russian aggression today. Not because they are doing the bidding of the West, but because they are fighting for their national survival. That was always their principal motivation – to defend their way of life against an invasive, oppressive force. Of course Ukrainians want peace. Why wouldn’t they? But as one Ukrainian socialist has pointed out on Novara Media, ‘it isn’t just any peace Ukrainians want – and they certainly don’t want that which comes with occupation’... From the moment Russia invaded, Western powers were clearly nervous backers of Ukraine. They’ve pledged their rhetorical allegiance to Ukraine while consistently holding back on practical military support. Right now, the US Congress is dragging its feet over President Biden’s $60 billion aid package to Ukraine. And in January, the EU publicly admitted that it would fall far short of its target of sending one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March this year, saying that only about half of that amount would be delivered instead. If this is supposed to be a proxy war fought on behalf of Western interests, it’s a very half-hearted one. The assumption that it is the West shaping and directing the war has led too many, from Tucker Carlson to inveterate anti-war leftists, to a truly grotesque conclusion. That the West can easily stop the war. That it can force Ukraine to surrender and accept a peace deal, as Boris Johnson supposedly should have done in April 2022. And just like that, swathes of Ukraine will fall under the dominion of another nation. Whole communities, whole ways of life, would be sacrificed with the swipe of a Western diplomat’s pen."
Presumably the assumption is that they're so naive and easily manipulated that Western propaganda is the reason why they are sacrificing themselves. But then again Putin is supposed to be so gullible that NATO forced him to invade Ukraine by pulling a fast one
Regardless, even if BJ wasn't singlehandedly or even primarily responsible for sinking the peace deal, it doesn't change the fact that BJ tried to persuade them to reject it. I find it curious the article doesn't engage with this fact at all
Exclusive-Putin's suggestion of Ukraine ceasefire rejected by United States, sources say - "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he will never accept Russia's control over Ukrainian land. He has outlawed any contacts with Russia."
Presumably he is being manipulated by the evil US into rejecting any compromise
How do you negotiate if you can't make contact?
Ukraine is not all about you - "Social media of course makes everything all about us to the nth degree, and it wasn’t long before one bright spark was whining that ‘Russia’s attack on Ukraine means there’s a stressful news cycle ahead of us’. There’s been a big lie for a long time that modern life is uniquely stressful and that we should approach ourselves as delicate flowers in ceaseless need of ‘pampering’ and ‘self-soothing’ rather than as the tough, mobile pleasure-units we are born with the capability to be. And sure enough, whereas the prospect of war would once have made us more combative, now even another country’s conflict is a cue for a collective fainting fit... The Huffington Post is even offering creepy tips on what to do ‘If you’re feeling anxious, scared or overwhelmed by war in Ukraine’... One thinks back to the old days when stars actually enlisted for war (James Stewart, Clark Gable, David Niven) or went to war zones to entertain troops (Marlene Dietrich called her breathtaking level of war work ‘The only worthwhile thing I have done’). Compare them to the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, who claimed that reading nasty things about herself and her friends online was ‘almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanising thing’. We live in a time when celebrities co-opt a violent foreign conflict into their own ’emotional lived experience’ as something that must be processed over the homemade ciabatta... It’s ironic that those BBC talking heads now incredulous that the Ukrainians are making Molotov cocktails rather than weeping are people usually so keen on ‘diversity and inclusivity’ – yet they seem to find it hard to grasp that Eastern Europeans, having grown up with material deprivation and existential bullying, might be different from Western Europeans. Eastern Europeans are much more like we were in the 1940s, in fact. And we in the West know that we’re wimps nowadays and want to make everyone like us so we don’t feel so weirdly weak-minded."
WARMINGTON: Putin makes Canada's embarrassing 'Nazi in parliament' story worldwide news - "Putin used the incident in Parliament with the 98-year-old former Waffen SS soldier – invited by Speaker of the House Anthony Rota to attend the address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – as one of his justifications for continued prosecution of bloody war in Ukraine... When independent journalist Carlson challenged Putin by saying, “Hitler has been dead for 80 years,” the long-serving Russian leader called Carlson’s question “pesky and subtle” while seizing the moment to add his version of history to an already lengthy 30-minute history lesson on Russia."
You can prolong a war for any reason nowadays
Senate Republican argues Ukraine funding could lead to Trump impeachment - "The Ohio Republican, a staunch ally of the former president, argued if Trump were to withdraw or pause financial support for Ukraine’s war “in order to bring the conflict to a peaceful conclusion,” lawmakers could argue he violated budget law, as they did with the prior impeachment. Trump has repeatedly claimed he could end Ukraine’s war with Russia in 24 hours and has called for a pause in aid to the war-torn country in the past as the conflict approaches its two-year mark. The former president lambasted the Senate’s foreign aid bill over the weekend. “They want to give like almost $100 billion to a few countries, $100 billion,” Trump said at a rally in South Carolina. “I said, ‘Why do we do this? If you do, you give them, not $100 billion, you give it to ‘em as a loan.'”"
The controversy over Chrystia Freeland and the red Ukrainian scarf, explained - "Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland... stands behind a red-and-black scarf featuring the words Slava Ukraini (Glory to Ukraine) written in Ukrainian. On Monday morning, the tweet had been deleted. A new tweet shared the same message with a similar photo from the rally, but this time without the red and black scarf. The scarf’s colours are polarizing: while black-and-red banners have a storied place in Ukrainian culture, the colours were also found on the flag flown by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA — a paramilitary organization accused of committing atrocities against Jews and Polish civilians in the Second World War, and associated with the resurgent far right in Ukraine today... a spokesperson for Freeland called the controversy “a classic KGB disinformation smear … accusing Ukrainians and Ukrainian-Canadians of being far right extremists or fascists or Nazis.”... Experts say that the red-and-black scarf has the same colour scheme as the flag of the UPA, a paramilitary wing of the far-right ultranationalist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Established in 1929, the OUN was explicitly xenophobic and antisemitic, according to Eduard Dolinsky, who leads the Ukrainian Jewish Committee. Although historians debate the UPA’s precise role in the Second World War — it fought at different times against the Soviets and the Germans — they have long accused the organization of collaborating with the Nazis during the Holocaust, and massacring tens of thousands of ethnic Poles."
Associating yourself with anything (Neo-)Nazi is only bad if you're not on the left. Of course, a Nazi flag being seen at the Freedom Convoy protests meant the whole protest supported Nazis
Putin's Secret Weapon Is Disrupting NATO Countries' Airline, Maritime GPS Signals - "Estonian military commander Gen. Martin Harem says the technology already is affecting air and sea travel in countries which border Russia, including his country and Finland. Nearby nations such as Lithuania and Poland also have reported disruptions."
Russian Engineer ‘Kills Himself After Rocket He Designed Kills His Grandmother in Kharkiv’ - "An engineer employed at a Russian defense plant has reportedly taken his own life after a missile which he was involved in creating struck an apartment building in Kharkiv and killed his grandmother. Gorobets Anton Igorevich was reportedly employed by the Almaz-Antey defense plant which is engaged in the development and production of anti-aircraft missiles, radar equipment, and components for air defense and missile defense systems."
UK Intelligence reveals reasons why Russian forces bomb their own cities - "Russia’s continued propensity for munition accidents is likely exacerbated by inadequate training and crew fatigue, leading to poor execution of tactics during missions."
Visegrád 24 on X - "Russian police forces conduct a raid in St Petersburg against illegal migrant workers, mainly from Central Asia. They are being told that their only chance to stay in Russia and receive Russian citizenship is by enlisting and going to fight in Ukraine."
Glenn Greenwald on X - "Amazing, pathetic, and a sign of where we are: The Toronto Sun published a completely banal and common political cartoon showing Zelensky picking the pockets of Biden - because he's, you know, demanding billions more for Ukraine's war - so they unpublished it and apologized"
Lauren Witzke on X - "BREAKING: Zelensky reportedly buys $20 Million Dollar Mansion in Vero Beach, Florida."
Trish on X - "According to the St. Johns County Property Appraiser Zelensky is NOT the owner. The home is for sale however it doesn't have any pending offers and is still active on the MLS. The owner of the property along with the home details is public information made readily available to anyone. I chose to cover the owner's information however anyone can look this information up. https://sjcpa.gov"
The naturalisation certificate is fake too
Document forgery and fake journalist: How Russia created fake about Zelensky's flight to Florida - "Kremlin pool media, z-Telegram channels, as well as dubious American and Greek news websites are circulating a photo of a Naturalization Certificate (a document issued to U.S. citizens born in another country) allegedly granted to President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky... This is a fake. Graphic editors were used to alter the Certificate of Naturalization. Its template can be easily found on the official websites of the U.S. Immigration Service. There are also dozens of similar documents shared on the Internet by U.S. citizens themselves. The forged document has a number of inconsistencies. First, genuine documents have a space between every three digits in the registration number, while the fake one does not. Secondly, the original documents have a seal with an eagle next to the photo and a signature of a person to the left of the photo. The forged document does not have this, nor does the draft that can be downloaded from the websites of U.S. government agencies. Thirdly, the photo of Volodymyr Zelensky, which the propagandists used for the fake, can be found on any news website in the world, including ours... The same fake photo with a forged Naturalization Certificate of Volodymyr Zelensky was first posted not on the John Doe YouTube channel, but on the English-language website DC Weekly. A "journalist" named Jessica Devlin is allegedly the author of the material. Her profile on the website says that she was previously a correspondent in Iraq and Moscow. However, such a journalist does not exist. Her profile photo on the website belongs to Judy Batalion, an American of Jewish origin. Her photo is easy to find on the Internet. It was first published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2013."
Pro-Russia Ukrainian MP Illia Kyva shot dead in Moscow suburb - "Illia Kyva was a pro-Russian member of Ukraine’s parliament before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but fled to Russia a month before the start of the war and frequently criticised Ukrainian authorities online and on Russian state TV talkshows... A Ukrainian source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the Ukrainian SBU security service was responsible for the killing. Several Ukrainian media outlets also cited their sources as saying the SBU had assassinated the 46-year-old former politician... The killing suggests that Kyiv continues to have undercover assets deep inside Russia. Moscow has previously blamed Ukrainian secret services for the assassination of Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue, and the death of Vladlen Tatarsky, a prominent Russian military blogger who was killed after a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg... Oleg Popov, who served as a deputy in the pro-Moscow Luhan regional parliament, was killed after the “detonation of an unidentified device in a car”, Russia’s investigative committee said, without providing detail. Ukraine did not immediately comment on Popov’s reported death. Several Russian-controlled officials in eastern Ukraine have been killed since the start of the war."
Obama's Russia Doctrine Prepared the Ground for Putin's War - "his attack on Ukraine in 2014, his growing imperial ambitions, and his subsequent decision to obliterate the Ukrainian state have their roots in the policies and actions of the United States and its allies during the Obama years. For most of Putin’s years in power, the United States and the West responded inadequately to Russia’s increasingly aggressive acts, from a series of assassinations in Western countries to the occupation of other countries’ sovereign territories. It began with then U.S.-President George W. Bush’s weak reaction to Putin’s 2008 invasion of Georgia. When Obama came into office, he compounded Bush’s mistake. Instead of pivoting to punish Russia for its aggression, he tasked his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, with launching a “reset” in relations, wiping the slate clean of Russia’s misdeeds in Georgia. More significantly, Obama scrapped the Bush administration’s plans for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, a decision Putin personally cheered. Nor did Obama adequately grasp the scale of the looming Russian threat. During the 2012 presidential election campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney declared that Russia “is, without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe. They fight every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that [Obama] has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed.” In response, Obama mocked his rival: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.” In 2014, after Russia had already annexed Crimea, shot down MH17, and sent Russian troops and security services into combat in Ukraine’s Donbas, Obama staunchly opposed sending arms to Ukraine. He responded to the Russian invasion of Crimea with only minor sanctions targeting Russian individuals, state banks, and a handful of companies. He rejected a leading U.S. role in diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war, delegating responsibility to France and Germany. While it makes logical sense to expect European countries to take charge of security on their continent, these countries lack the United States’ geopolitical heft, and Putin has never accepted them as peers of or negotiating partners for Russia. What’s more, these two European countries were heavily dependent on trade with Russia and showed little interest in the security of Eastern European countries. Most damaging was Obama’s clear statement that Ukraine was not a U.S. strategic priority. Speaking with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in the Donbas, Obama emphasized the limits of his commitment to Ukraine. As Goldberg wrote: “Obama’s theory here is simple: Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one, so Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there.” Goldberg then cited Obama as saying, “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.” In other words, a U.S. president all but acknowledged Ukraine as a Russian client state, telegraphing to the leader of an aggressive, revisionist power that the United States would stand down if Russia were to widen its war. Moreover, the doctrine of Russian escalation dominance—that the Kremlin would always be willing to exercise superior power to get its way in Ukraine, whereas the United States would not—became the governing principle of U.S. policy. This principle echoes to this day, holding back U.S. support for Ukraine... Criticism of Obama’s stance on Ukraine—or, for that matter, the stances of then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel or then-French President Francois Hollande—is not a matter of hindsight. Distinguished voices in the foreign-policy community and the U.S. Congress, including late Republican presidential candidate John McCain, called for broader sanctions and urged Obama to arm Ukraine from the outset of Russia’s 2014 aggression. Yet despite congressional resolutions calling for such aid, Obama opposed sending Ukraine weapons and invoked the doctrine of Russian escalation dominance... Biden advocated arming Ukraine with defensive weapons when he was vice president under Obama. But when he became president himself, Biden brought many of the architects of Obama’s timid approach to Russia back into the government. As a result of their influence, from the moment in the fall of 2021 when the U.S. government knew Putin was planning to invade to the start of the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the United States lost a crucial window in which to provide Ukraine significant new weapons and the training to use them... Even when the Biden administration became convinced Russia would wage war around October 2021, it still restricted aid to a meager $60 million worth of small arms and ammunition. Only in December 2021 did Biden finally approve a $200 million shipment of shoulder-fired missiles and other lethal and non-lethal aid. The package included 300 Javelin anti-tank missiles that arrived in January, mere weeks before Russian forces began their multifront assault. And still, there were no heavy weapons in sight."
Weird. The US-haters claim that the US forced Putin to invade due to its aggression
BBC: 650,000 conscription-aged men have left Ukraine for Europe - "Approximately 650,000 Ukrainian men aged 18-60 have left Ukraine for Europe since the start of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022... As Ukraine faces the challenge of maintaining adequate military personnel, recent reports indicate that nearly 20,000 Ukrainian men have managed to evade conscription, finding various routes to leave the country. Earlier this year law enforcement officials discovered a large-scale draft evasion scheme involving falsified medical certificates. Those involved reportedly charged substantial amounts, ranging from $7,000 to $10,000, to provide fake certificates declaring individuals unfit for military service due to fabricated health conditions. The UN has estimated that some 6.2 million refugees left the country since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Ukraine had a population of 41 million in 2021. It currently hovers around 35 million and experts warn and could drop to below 29 million in the next 30 years, the EU’s Joint Coordination Center has warned."
Hillary Clinton: Ukraine conflict shows climate change primarily affects women - ""Women and children are the primary victims of conflict and of climate change and there is no place that unfortunately, tragically, shows us that more dramatically than Ukraine today," Clinton told the crowd at the Forbes 30/50 Summit in Abu Dhabi."
Her bad takes never stop (see: 1984 shows that we need to listen to our leaders, the press and experts)
Meme - "We Stand with UKRAINE"
"NO STANDING"
European ammunition maker says plant expansion hit by energy-guzzling TikTok site - "Nammo, which is co-owned by the Norwegian government and a Finnish state-controlled defence company, has been told there is no surplus energy for its Raufoss plant in central Norway as a data centre that counts the social media platform as its main customer is using up the electricity in the region. “We are concerned because we see our future growth is challenged by the storage of cat videos,” Morten Brandtzæg, Nammo chief executive, told the Financial Times... Asked whether it was coincidence that a Chinese-owned company was stopping a defence company’s expansion, Brandtzæg replied: “I will not rule out that it’s not by pure coincidence that this activity is close to a defence company. I can’t rule it out.”... Experts say fights over which companies and which type of industry get priority access to electricity grids are likely to increase across Europe. Data centres have flourished in the Nordic countries because of once-plentiful and cheap electricity, as well as a colder climate that keeps cooling costs down."
How Putin’s war destroyed a golden age of Russian culture - "Dozens of its leading figures would be demonised by pro-war politicians, denounced by colleagues and purged from their jobs. Many would flee the country. Censorship would smother creative life and Russia’s freethinking theatre scene — considered one of the greatest in the world just months earlier — would be devastated. Those who chose to stay in the country would struggle to keep working and stay true to their antiwar beliefs. It was a battle of impossible choices, one that many, including Oleg, would eventually lose.
Meme - ">be from ukraine
>unironically use reddit
>war is shit and stuff
>make a picture of my morning view with ukrainian breakfast, some positivity
>post it
>it gets removed for being offtopic
>the entire subreddit is just about the war
>99% of the people are westerners just talking about russia all day
>they give each other awards for saying "Fuck Putin"
>these people dont give a shit about ukrainne"
Glenn Greenwald on X - "Former GOP Congressman @TGowdySC, speaking on Fox, express shock and outrage that anyone might possibly question Biden's war policy in Ukraine. Fox reporter @JenGriffinFNC explains: those criticizing Biden's policy are victims of Russian disinformation:"
Thread by @StephanAJensen on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "One of the most tragic aspects of the West's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is how "well-meaning" Western progressives thought our disengagement would be the solution to all of Afghanistan's problems. Instead, it handed Afghanistan to the Taliban. By peddling narcissistic arguments that all of Afghanistan's problems had to do with Western involvement, the "anti-war" lobby gave credence to the most ethically and strategically irresponsible policy possible: Legitimizing the Taliban and betraying our allies. Now, the very same "anti-war" narcissists are making the very same arguments about Ukraine: "If only we stop supporting the people defending their country and legitimate the claims of the terrorist aggressors everything will be fine." It's as mad as it sounds. The crazy reality is that the Western "anti-war" folks are the most loyal allies terrorists like the Taliban and tyrants like Putin could ask for. Whatever our enemies' demands are, their chorus is: "Give in!" Because Western "anti-war" progressives are so narcissistic they can't imagine anyone other than the West as the cause of anything, they end up supporting tyrants, authoritarians, and terrorists everywhere world - just because they aren't "us". But here's the kicker: The result of giving in to "anti-war" appeasers is not less war - but more. Betraying our allies and handing Afghanistan to the Taliban emboldened Putin and made him confident it was the right time to invade Ukraine just like handing Hiter Czechoslovakia in 1938 emboldened him to invade Poland in 1939. Why would he stop, when no one seemed willing to make him?"
