Scott75

What a joke. What a sad, pathetic, lying joke. Ukraine has said they are ready to negotiate, it is Russia that continues to press the war on. Not a joke, though I now think I should have been more specific. Ukraine refuses to accept Russia's current terms for a peaceful settlement, just as they refused to accept much better terms close to the start of the war. American Professor and Statesman Jeffrey Sachs gets into some of the details in a speech he gave to the European Parliament a few months ago. Quoting from it: ** When Zelensky said a few days after Russia’s invasion that Ukraine was ready for neutrality, a peace agreement was in reach. I know the details of this because I talked to key negotiators and mediators in detail and have learned much from public pronouncements of others. Shortly after the start of negotiations in March 2022, a document was exchanged between the parties that President Putin had approved, and that Lavrov had presented. This was being managed by the Turkish mediators. I flew to Ankara in the spring of 2022 to hear first-hand and in detail what happened in the mediation. The bottom-line is this: Ukraine walked away, unilaterally, from a near agreement. End of the Ukraine War Why did Ukraine walk away from the negotiations? Because the United States told them to and because the U.K. added icing to the cake by having BoJo [Boris Johnson, the former U.K. prime minister] go to Kyiv in early April to Ukraine to make the same point. [U.K Prime Minister] Keir Starmer turns out to be even worse, even more of a warmonger. It’s unimaginable, but it is true. Boris Johnson explained, and you can find it on the web, that what’s at stake here is nothing less than Western hegemony! Not Ukraine but Western hegemony. Michael von der Schulenberg and I met at the Vatican with a group of experts in Spring 2022, and we wrote a document explaining that nothing good can come out of continued war. (The meeting at the Vatican was the Fraternal Economy Session on Jubilee 2025: “Hope in the Signs of the Times.”) Our group argued strenuously, but to no avail, that Ukraine should negotiate immediately, because delays will mean massive deaths, risk of nuclear escalation, and possibly an outright loss of the war. I wouldn’t want to change one word from what we wrote then. Nothing was wrong in that document. Since the U.S. talked Ukraine out of the negotiations, perhaps one million Ukrainians have died or been severely wounded. And American senators who are as nasty and cynical as imaginable say this is a wonderful expenditure of U.S. money because no Americans are dying. It’s the pure proxy war. One of our senators nearby New York State, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, said this out loud. Mitt Romney said this out loud. It’s the best money America can spend. No Americans are dying. It’s unreal. Now, just to bring us up to yesterday, the U.S. Ukraine Project has failed. The core idea of the project all along was that Russia would fold its hand. The core idea all along was Russia can’t resist, just as Zbigniew Brzezinski argued in 1997. The Americans thought the U.S. surely has the upper hand. The U.S. will win because we’re going to bluff them. The Russians are not really going to fight. The Russians are really going to mobilize. We’ll deploy the economic “nuclear option” of cutting Russia out of SWIFT. That will destroy the economy. Our sanctions will bring Russia to their knees. The HIMARS will do them in. The ATACMS, the F-16s, will do them in. Honestly, I’ve listened to this kind of talk for more than 50 years. Our national security leaders have spoken nonsense for decades. I begged the Ukrainians: stay neutral. Don’t listen to the Americans. I repeated to them the famous adage of Henry Kissinger, that to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. Let me repeat that for Europe: To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. ** Full article: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/jeffrey-sachs-the-geopolitics-of-peace/ It'll only get worse the longer Ukraine refuses to accept Russia's terms.

I -can- see Russia taking the whole country, at least temporarily, but only if Ukraine continues to refuse to negotiate. I remember an anecdote about a Russian reporter asking the Russian side after negotiations if it was true that the next time Russia engaged in negotiations with Ukraine, they'd be demanding 5 regions instead of 4. The Russian negotiators apparently replied, "no, we'll be demanding 8". I honestly think it's possible that Russia might still settle for the 4 regions it already mostly controls and even give back some territory in other regions it has bits of, but the longer this war drags on, the more Ukrainian territory Russia takes. I believe I remember another Russian official saying something to the effect that territory Russia takes at this point, it keeps. Again, I think it's not set in stone, but I can certainly understand the logic that territory Russia has had to lose men to take is not something they will easily give up.

No, Ptolemy is a custom ChatGPT. From the article I linked to previously: ** Today’s writing is a dialogue between me and my particular instance of ChatGPT, who I have named Ptolemy. ** Source: https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/ptolemy-a-socratic-dialogue

I didn't read the whole article, but what I did read sounded quite good. Quoting the concluding remarks below: ** Getting it wrong It’s OK to be wrong sometimes. In medicine, sometimes we get ahead of ourselves. New treatments that seem so promising at first end up not panning out. The widespread prescription of oxycodone as a panacea for chronic pain in the 2000s is a good example of this. The doctors who prescribed it wanted to help their patients. We just didn’t realize oxycodone’s harms until they became common enough to see. I’d like to believe that we are people of science; that we realize when it is time to course correct. On gender medicine, the time to course correct is now. It is time for experts in our professional organizations who do not have a vested interest in perpetuating the current treatment paradigm in youth gender medicine to step up – to make truly evidence-based recommendations for standards of care. It is time to seriously ask ourselves what the safest, least harmful interventions are in youth gender medicine, and hold these interventions to rigorous, data-driven standards. It may be reasonable at this juncture to halt new starts of medical and surgical treatments for minors (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mastectomies and other surgeries) outside of well designed, longitudinal clinical trials. It is time to provide resources within the institutions of mainstream medicine for people who seek detransition care. It is time to question whether “gender dysphoria” as an indication in and of itself for hysterectomy, without abnormal bleeding, pain, or any other diagnosis, should continue to bypass all of the checks and balances inherent in our healthcare system for major surgery. My fellow gynecologists, we are people of science. We know right from wrong. We care about our patients. We can find the courage to do this. Dr. Karla Solheim, MD, FACOG ** Full article: https://karlasolheim.substack.com/p/its-time-for-liberal-physicians-to

I guess I should end this with something I've said a fair amount: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

This part: She is a known fraud and if this is the best source you have to claim the elections were fair and square, that is a joke. That's not something I said, that's something -you- said. I also note you didn't even respond to the rest of my post- typical -.-

LOL, yes, she lives in Russia. ROFL Not sure what you find so funny. In any case, did you read past my first sentence? You know, this part: ** Eva Bartlett is only -one- of the journalists I read on a fairly regular basis. In her case, I imagine at least part of her reason for deciding to live in Russia stems from the fact that it's hard for western journalists who don't agree with western mainstream narratives to earn a living, not to mention heavy handed tactics employed on some of them. A good example is that of former U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter who had his passport confiscated by U.S. government officials with no explanation: https://vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/06/us-state-department-forced-ex-marine-scott-ritter-off-plane-to-russia-confiscated-his-passport/ In any case, I suspect I know why you refuse to read from sources such as Eva Bartlett, as the information she provides would contradict many beliefs that you hold. There are articles on this phenomenon, such as this one: https://today.uconn.edu/2022/08/cognitive-biases-and-brain-biology-help-explain-why-facts-dont-change-minds-2/ ** Absolute balderdash. She's certainly been the subject of a smear campaign against her though.

"journalists" who lives in Russia In the case of Canadian American journalist Eva Bartlett, yes, she lives in Russia. Eva Bartlett is only -one- of the journalists I read on a fairly regular basis. In her case, I imagine at least part of her reason for deciding to live in Russia stems from the fact that it's hard for western journalists who don't agree with western mainstream narratives to earn a living, not to mention heavy handed tactics employed on some of them. A good example is that of former U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter who had his passport confiscated by U.S. government officials with no explanation: https://vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/06/us-state-department-forced-ex-marine-scott-ritter-off-plane-to-russia-confiscated-his-passport/ In any case, I suspect I know why you refuse to read from sources such as Eva Bartlett, as the information she provides would contradict many beliefs that you hold. There are articles on this phenomenon, such as this one: https://today.uconn.edu/2022/08/cognitive-biases-and-brain-biology-help-explain-why-facts-dont-change-minds-2/

Sure they could have, though as I mentioned, that's not what they actually did. They -did- vote to join Russia recently though, and they've now done this. Who is this "they" that voted? The citizens of the Donbass Republics. In case you're unaware, Russia's referendum in the Donbass Republics is actually the -second- referendum held in the Donbass Republics. The first one was way back in 2014, shortly after the Euromaidan crisis. Former Swiss Intelligence Officer Jacques Baud gets into the details in an article he wrote shortly after Russia's military operation began: ** Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who for the past eight years have been talking to us about “separatists” or “independence” from the Donbass. It’s wrong. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in May 2014 were not ” independence ” (независимость) referendums , as some unscrupulous journalists claimed , but ” self-determination ” or ” autonomy (самостоятельность). The term “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin. In fact, these republics did not seek to separate from Ukraine, but to have a statute of autonomy guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. Because the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 which made Russian an official language. A bit as if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages in Switzerland. This decision causes a storm in the Russian-speaking population. This resulted in fierce repression against the Russian-speaking regions (Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk) which began in February 2014 and led to a militarization of the situation and a few massacres (in Odessa and Mariupol, for the most important). At the end of summer 2014, only the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk remained. ** Full article: https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/09/former-nato-military-analyst-blows-the-whistle-on-wests-ukraine-invasion-narrative/ Jacques Baud is going over a lot of what happened in very little time, but the bottom line is that what started as just wanting more independence from Ukraine ended up in the Donbass Republics deciding to go their own way. There's a good article from Russian historian Evgeny Norin on one of the fierce repressions that Mr. Baud mentions that many believe played a pivotal role in the Donbass Republics' decision to become truly independent from Ukraine. It can be seen here: https://www.rt.com/russia/554860-burned-alive-2014-odessa/

Absolute balderdash- from what I've read, those in the Donbass republics were eager to join Russia. Canadian American journalist Eva Bartlett observed the referendum in Donetsk and wrote the following article on the matter after the fact: https://thealtworld.com/eva_bartlett/my-interview-from-donetsk-on-the-peoples-eagerness-to-vote-to-join-russia You are reading Russian propagandists. No, I'm reading from journalists who were actually on the ground during the referendum in Donetsk as to whether or not to join Russia. I imagine you never even clicked on the link above, so I'll quote a bit of it for you and anyone interested in knowing what actually happened in Donetsk during the referendum: ** Interview I did on RT yesterday, after observing the DPR referendum (from September 23-27) on whether to join Russia. During that time, I visited areas where voting was occurring in homes/apartments to lessen the opportunity for Ukraine to shell large crowds. Wherever I went–central Donetsk, hard-hit northern & western Donetsk, hard-hit Gorlovka, Mariupol, I saw relaxed people keen to vote (as opposed to Western BS narrative about guns to their heads). [snip] First scenes of voting in the referendum yesterday, in the Donetsk People’s Republic. “Yes! Of course, yes!” **Twitter thread with numerous clips of voting over the five day period ** Full article: https://thealtworld.com/eva_bartlett/my-interview-from-donetsk-on-the-peoples-eagerness-to-vote-to-join-russia

Absolute balderdash- from what I've read, those in the Donbass republics were eager to join Russia. Canadian American journalist Eva Bartlett observed the referendum in Donetsk and wrote the following article on the matter after the fact: https://thealtworld.com/eva_bartlett/my-interview-from-donetsk-on-the-peoples-eagerness-to-vote-to-join-russia

Sure they could have, though as I mentioned, that's not what they actually did. They -did- vote to join Russia recently though, and they've now done this.

More spam... No, it's relevant information that you keep on ignoring. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink -.- Originally, they actually just wanted more autonomy, which is something you'd know if you'd actually bothered to read the material I'd quoted from Swiss Intelligence Officer Jacques Baud. For anyone who's interested in learning the details, the article can be seen here: https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/09/former-nato-military-analyst-blows-the-whistle-on-wests-ukraine-invasion-narrative/ Anyway, the far right Ukrainian government that replaced Viktor Yanukovych's government had no intention of trying to accomodate them. What's more, some people in this group participated in things such as the Odessa massacre which -really- got eastern Ukrainians inflamed. In case you're unaware of this event, Russian historian Evgeny Norin wrote a good article on the subject, which can be seen here: https://www.rt.com/russia/554860-burned-alive-2014-odessa/

It's disinformation for anyone to believe those forces were not Russian-backed, if not outright Russian troops themselves. To date, I've seen no hard evidence that Russia backed the Donbass rebels with any weapons at all. Former Swiss Intelligence Officer Jacques Baud, who was in Ukraine during this period of time, makes this quite clear: ** In 2014, I am at NATO, responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we are trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels in order to see if Moscow is involved. The information that we receive then comes practically all from the Polish intelligence services and does not “match” with the information from the OSCE: in spite of rather crude allegations, we do not observe any delivery of arms and materials Russian military. The rebels are armed thanks to the defections of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units which cross over to the rebel side. As the Ukrainian failures progressed, the entire tank, artillery or anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what drives the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Accords. But, just after signing the Minsk 1 Accords, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a vast anti-terrorist operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against Donbass. Bis repetita placent : poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat at Debaltsevo which forced them to commit to the Minsk 2 Agreements… ** Full article: https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/09/former-nato-military-analyst-blows-the-whistle-on-wests-ukraine-invasion-narrative/

Once again... it was a Russian-backed movement for Eastern Ukraine to be taken by separatists to begin with. You're mistaken- the Donbass Republics actually held a referendum on gaining more independence from Ukraine against Putin's advice, as documented by former Swiss Intelligence Officer Jacques Baud: ** Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who for the past eight years have been talking to us about “separatists” or “independence” from the Donbass. It’s wrong. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in May 2014 were not ” independence ” (независимость) referendums , as some unscrupulous journalists claimed , but ” self-determination ” or ” autonomy (самостоятельность). The term “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin. In fact, these republics did not seek to separate from Ukraine, but to have a statute of autonomy guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. Because the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 which made Russian an official language. A bit as if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages in Switzerland. This decision causes a storm in the Russian-speaking population. This resulted in fierce repression against the Russian-speaking regions (Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk) which began in February 2014 and led to a militarization of the situation and a few massacres (in Odessa and Mariupol, for the most important). At the end of summer 2014, only the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk remained. ** It was only at this stage that Eastern Ukrainins realized that the only way they could preserve their Russian language was to fight for it. Continuing from Mr. Baud's article: ** At this stage, too rigid and stuck in a doctrinaire approach to the operational art, the Ukrainian staffs suffered the enemy without succeeding in imposing themselves. Examination of the course of the fighting in 2014-2016 in the Donbass shows that the Ukrainian general staff systematically and mechanically applied the same operational plans. However, the war waged by the autonomists was then very close to what we observed in the Sahel: very mobile operations carried out with light means. With a more flexible and less doctrinaire approach, the rebels were able to exploit the inertia of the Ukrainian forces to “trap” them repeatedly. In 2014, I am at NATO, responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we are trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels in order to see if Moscow is involved. The information that we receive then comes practically all from the Polish intelligence services and does not “match” with the information from the OSCE: in spite of rather crude allegations, we do not observe any delivery of arms and materials Russian military. The rebels are armed thanks to the defections of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units which cross over to the rebel side. As the Ukrainian failures progressed, the entire tank, artillery or anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what drives the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Accords. But, just after signing the Minsk 1 Accords, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a vast anti-terrorist operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against Donbass. Bis repetita placent : poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat at Debaltsevo which forced them to commit to the Minsk 2 Agreements… It is essential to recall here that the Minsk 1 (September 2014) and Minsk 2 (February 2015) Agreements provided for neither the separation nor the independence of the Republics, but their autonomy within the framework of Ukraine. Those who have read the Accords (they are very, very, very few) will find that it is written in full that the status of the republics was to be negotiated between Kiev and the representatives of the republics, for an internal solution in Ukraine . This is why since 2014, Russia has systematically demanded their application while refusing to be a party to the negotiations, because it was an internal matter for Ukraine. On the other side, the Westerners – led by France – systematically tried to replace the Minsk Accords with the “Normandy format”, which brought Russians and Ukrainians face to face. However, let us remember, there were never any Russian troops in the Donbass before February 23-24, 2022. Moreover, OSCE observers have never observed the slightest trace of Russian units operating in the Donbass. Thus, the US intelligence map published by the Washington Post on December 3, 2021 does not show Russian troops in Donbass. In October 2015, Vasyl Hrytsak, director of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), confessed that only 56 Russian fighters had been observed in the Donbass. It was an even comparable to that of the Swiss going to fight in Bosnia during the weekends, in the 1990s, or the French who are going to fight in Ukraine today. The Ukrainian army was then in a deplorable state. In October 2018, after four years of war, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor Anatoly Matios said that Ukraine had lost 2,700 men in the Donbass: 891 from disease, 318 from traffic accidents, 177 from other accidents, 175 from poisoning (alcohol, drugs), 172 from careless handling of weapons, 101 from breaches of safety rules, 228 from murder and 615 from suicide. In fact, the army is undermined by the corruption of its cadres and no longer enjoys the support of the population. According to a UK Home Office report , when reservists were called up in March-April 2014, 70% did not show up for the first session, 80% for the second, 90% for the third and 95% for the fourth. In October/November 2017, 70% of callers did not show up during the “ Autumn 2017 ” callback campaign. This does not include suicides and desertions(often for the benefit of the autonomists) which reach up to 30% of the workforce in the ATO zone. Young Ukrainians refuse to go and fight in the Donbass and prefer emigration, which also explains, at least partially, the country’s demographic deficit. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense then turned to NATO to help it make its armed forces more “attractive”. Having already worked on similar projects within the framework of the United Nations, I was asked by NATO to participate in a program intended to restore the image of the Ukrainian armed forces. But it’s a long process and the Ukrainians want to go quickly. Thus, to compensate for the lack of soldiers, the Ukrainian government resorted to paramilitary militias. They are essentially made up of foreign mercenaries, often far-right activists. As of 2020, they constitute around 40% of Ukraine’s forces and number around 102,000 men according to Reuters . They are armed, financed and trained by the United States, Great Britain, Canada and France. There are more than 19 nationalities – including Swiss. Western countries have therefore clearly created and supported Ukrainian far-right militias . In October 2021, the Jerusalem Post sounded the alarm by denouncing the Centuria project . These militias have been operating in the Donbass since 2014, with Western support. Even if we can discuss the term “Nazi”, the fact remains that these militias are violent, convey a nauseating ideology and are virulently anti-Semitic. Their anti-Semitism is more cultural than political, which is why the adjective “Nazi” is not really appropriate. Their hatred of the Jew comes from the great famines of the years 1920-1930 in Ukraine, resulting from the confiscation of crops by Stalin in order to finance the modernization of the Red Army. However, this genocide – known in Ukraine under the name of Holodomor – was perpetrated by the NKVD (ancestor of the KGB) whose upper echelons of leadership were mainly composed of Jews. That is why, today, Ukrainian extremists are asking Israel to apologize for the crimes of communism , as the Jerusalem Post reports . We are therefore a long way from a “ rewriting of history ” by Vladimir Putin. These militias, stemming from the far-right groups that led the Euromaidan revolution in 2014, are made up of fanatical and brutal individuals. The best known of these is the Azov regiment, whose emblem is reminiscent of that of the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division , which is the object of real veneration in Ukraine, for having liberated Kharkov from the Soviets in 1943, before to perpetrate the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944, in France. ** Full article: https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/09/former-nato-military-analyst-blows-the-whistle-on-wests-ukraine-invasion-narrative/

Ahh appeasement has worked so well throughout history. I think we can agree that it has not. Putin himself now says that he should have started his military operation in Ukraine sooner, instead of allowing the western Ukrainian army to kill eastern Ukrainian Russian speakers for 8 years first: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cpw2yw0nr7qt It stands to reason, considering what the German Chancellor at the time of the Minsk Agreements had to say as to her motivation to support them: https://www.donbass-insider.com/2022/12/10/angela-merkel-admits-that-the-minsk-agreements-were-only-signed-to-give-ukraine-time/

Just more lies. No, it's the truth, you've just been conditioned to think otherwise, probably by western mainstream media sources. There's a great documentary that gets into the terrible things that the western Ukrainian army did to eastern Ukrainians for 8 years that can be seen here:

So it has: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-attack-key-bridge-russia-crimea-kerch/33432943.html When will Ukraine and its western allies learn that such provocations are only making the Ukraine war worse :-/.

Cept Pearl Harbour was an unprovoked attack. No, it wasn't: https://mises.org/mises-daily/how-us-economic-warfare-provoked-japans-attack-pearl-harbor That being said, in Japan's case, I think they -should- have avoided attacking Pearl Harbor. I think even the Japanese would agree at this point that it wasn't in their interests to do so. I don't think that most Russians will ever think that defending Russian speakers in Ukraine's Donbass from getting killed was a bad idea. No, they haven't. Newsweek even pointed this out early in the war: https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukraine-hes-holding-back-heres-why-1690494 Now, I think that things have gotten a lot more heated since those early days, when Russia actually said they'd leave all the territory they gathered since the start of the Special Military Operation if Ukraine would agree to some quite reasonable terms, but from everything I've seen, Russia is -not- targetting civilians. The same can't be said for the Ukrainian military: https://www.rt.com/russia/618432-ukraine-terrorist-enclave-train-sabotage/ https://www.donbass-insider.com/2023/04/17/ukrainian-army-bombs-donetsk-centre-during-easter-mass/ https://www.donbass-insider.com/2023/04/30/nato-ukraine-army-bombs-donetsk-centre-killing-nine-civilians-including-a-child/

LOL, another joke. There is little reasonable about what Russia demands or their use of a full-scale invasion to force it. Russia didn't -start- with a full scale war. That came later. American Professor and Statesman Jeffrey Sachs gets into how Ukraine had a chance to actually get Russia to withdraw from all the territory it took since the start of its military operation and squandered it. Quoting from an article on the matter: ** When Zelensky said a few days after Russia’s invasion that Ukraine was ready for neutrality, a peace agreement was in reach. I know the details of this because I talked to key negotiators and mediators in detail and have learned much from public pronouncements of others. Shortly after the start of negotiations in March 2022, a document was exchanged between the parties that President Putin had approved, and that Lavrov had presented. This was being managed by the Turkish mediators. I flew to Ankara in the spring of 2022 to hear first-hand and in detail what happened in the mediation. The bottom-line is this: Ukraine walked away, unilaterally, from a near agreement. End of the Ukraine War Why did Ukraine walk away from the negotiations? Because the United States told them to and because the U.K. added icing to the cake by having BoJo [Boris Johnson, the former U.K. prime minister] go to Kyiv in early April to Ukraine to make the same point. [U.K Prime Minister] Keir Starmer turns out to be even worse, even more of a warmonger. It’s unimaginable, but it is true. Boris Johnson explained, and you can find it on the web, that what’s at stake here is nothing less than Western hegemony! Not Ukraine but Western hegemony. Michael von der Schulenberg and I met at the Vatican with a group of experts in Spring 2022, and we wrote a document explaining that nothing good can come out of continued war. (The meeting at the Vatican was the Fraternal Economy Session on Jubilee 2025: “Hope in the Signs of the Times.”) Our group argued strenuously, but to no avail, that Ukraine should negotiate immediately, because delays will mean massive deaths, risk of nuclear escalation, and possibly an outright loss of the war. I wouldn’t want to change one word from what we wrote then. Nothing was wrong in that document. Since the U.S. talked Ukraine out of the negotiations, perhaps one million Ukrainians have died or been severely wounded. And American senators who are as nasty and cynical as imaginable say this is a wonderful expenditure of U.S. money because no Americans are dying. It’s the pure proxy war. One of our senators nearby New York State, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, said this out loud. Mitt Romney said this out loud. It’s the best money America can spend. No Americans are dying. It’s unreal. Now, just to bring us up to yesterday, the U.S. Ukraine Project has failed. The core idea of the project all along was that Russia would fold its hand. The core idea all along was Russia can’t resist, just as Zbigniew Brzezinski argued in 1997. The Americans thought the U.S. surely has the upper hand. The U.S. will win because we’re going to bluff them. The Russians are not really going to fight. The Russians are really going to mobilize. We’ll deploy the economic “nuclear option” of cutting Russia out of SWIFT. That will destroy the economy. Our sanctions will bring Russia to their knees. The HIMARS will do them in. The ATACMS, the F-16s, will do them in. Honestly, I’ve listened to this kind of talk for more than 50 years. Our national security leaders have spoken nonsense for decades. I begged the Ukrainians: stay neutral. Don’t listen to the Americans. I repeated to them the famous adage of Henry Kissinger, that to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. Let me repeat that for Europe: To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. ** Full article: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/jeffrey-sachs-the-geopolitics-of-peace/

This is the game Putin plays and just more propaganda. No, it's a fact. Quoting from the PBS article I linked to: ** ISTANBUL (AP) — Delegations from Russia and Ukraine met Monday in Turkey for their second round of direct peace talks in just over two weeks, but the discussion lasted only slightly more than an hour and produced no major progress toward ending the 3-year-old war, officials said. The talks unfolded a day after a string of stunning long-range attacks by both sides, with Ukraine launching a devastating drone assault on Russian air bases and Russia hurling its largest drone attack of the war against Ukraine. At the negotiating table, Russia presented a memo setting out the Kremlin’s terms for ending hostilities, the Ukrainian delegation said. Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation, told reporters Kyiv officials would need a week to review the document and decide on a response. Ukraine proposed further talks on a date between June 20 and June 30, he said. The memo was not made public. ** Full article: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/ukraine-and-russia-quickly-end-their-latest-round-of-direct-peace-talks-in-istanbul

This is subjective nonsense. "Provoked" can be a kid flipped off someone across the border, and you would be here saying Ukraine provoked a full-scale invasion. No, I would not, but it's good to know that after 3 years and change of Russia's war with Ukraine that you at least realize that Russia was provoked. It certainly wasn't just some kid flipping someone the bird either. As Putin pointed out in the speech he made on the day he began his military operation in Ukraine, Russia had -tried- to find a peaceful solution to curtail the killing of thousands of Russian speakers in Ukraine. He came to believe that such efforts were in vain. I've quoted it before, but once more: ** This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement. For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means. Everything was in vain. As I said in my previous address, you cannot look without compassion at what is happening there. It became impossible to tolerate it. We had to stop that atrocity, that genocide of the millions of people who live there and who pinned their hopes on Russia, on all of us. It is their aspirations, the feelings and pain of these people that were the main motivating force behind our decision to recognise the independence of the Donbass people’s republics. ** Full speech: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/statements/67843

Once again... Russia is waging a full-scale war against Ukraine right now. No, it's waging a war where it is clearly exercising significant restraint. It seems I keep on having to remind you that Russia has nukes. It could end the war -very- quickly if it wanted to. But forget about nukes, it is even restraining itself when it comes to hitting Ukrainian targets. The more Ukraine pulls stunts like the one it just did, the more the gloves come off. Even some fairly mainstream media outlets are aware that this can happen: https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/international-relations/ukraine-s-pearl-harbor-drone-strike-on-russia-s-bombers-might-backfire/ar-AA1FWD6a Ukraine began a renewed assault on the Donbass republics shortly before Russia decided to start its military operation in Ukraine. While I have not seen Putin outright say that this was the main reason that he decided to start his military operation when he did, I haven't seen any other that makes sense. Former Swiss Intelligence Officer Jacques Baud put it quite well in an article I've linked to before. Quoting: ** In fact, as early as February 16 [2022], Joe Biden knows that the Ukrainians began to shell the civilian populations of Donbass, putting Vladimir Putin in front of a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily and create an international problem or to sit idle and watch Russian speakers. from the Donbass being run over. If he decides to intervene, Vladimir Putin can invoke the international obligation of “ Responsibility To Protect ” (R2P). But he knows that whatever its nature or scale, the intervention will trigger a shower of sanctions. Therefore, whether its intervention is limited to the Donbass or whether it goes further to put pressure on the West for the status of Ukraine, the price to be paid will be the same. This is what he explains in his speech on February 21. That day, he acceded to the request of the Duma and recognized the independence of the two Republics of Donbass and, in the process, he signed treaties of friendship and assistance with them. The Ukrainian artillery bombardments on the populations of Donbass continued and, on February 23, the two Republics requested military aid from Russia. On the 24th, Vladimir Putin invokes Article 51 of the United Nations Charter which provides for mutual military assistance within the framework of a defensive alliance. In order to make the Russian intervention totally illegal in the eyes of the public we deliberately obscure the fact that the war actually started on February 16th. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the Donbass as early as 2021, as certain Russian and European intelligence services were well aware… The lawyers will judge. ** Full article: https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/09/former-nato-military-analyst-blows-the-whistle-on-wests-ukraine-invasion-narrative/ Here's something Putin -did- say on the day he started his military operation: ** This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement. For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means. Everything was in vain. As I said in my previous address, you cannot look without compassion at what is happening there. It became impossible to tolerate it. We had to stop that atrocity, that genocide of the millions of people who live there and who pinned their hopes on Russia, on all of us. It is their aspirations, the feelings and pain of these people that were the main motivating force behind our decision to recognise the independence of the Donbass people’s republics. ** Full speech: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/statements/67843

If the position is that Russia has nukes... so then every nation on Earth must simply let Russia invade and/or become their puppet state? That's not what I said. I'm just pointing out that 2 things- one which -should- be obvious- the nukes, and the other less so, which is Russia's determination to complete its objectives in Ukraine. Unlike the United States, which tends to overthrow governments at the drop of a hat, Russia is much more careful when it comes to who it goes to war with. Russia has said for a -very- long time that it wouldn't tolerate Ukraine becoming a part of NATO, which is why American Professor John Mearsheimer predicted 10 years ago that Ukraine would get wrecked if it continued to be led down the primrose path by the U.S. Business Today even wrote an article about this back in March: https://www.businesstoday.in/world/us/story/ukraine-going-to-be-wrecked-after-zelenskyy-trump-spat-john-mearsheimers-2015-prediction-goes-viral-466448-2025-03-03

I imagine you think it was "unprovoked" as well. The truth: https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/09/former-nato-military-analyst-blows-the-whistle-on-wests-ukraine-invasion-narrative/ I don't know what narrative Ukraine is trying to sell, but I -do- know that Ukraine's strike happened while Russia had started more negotiations with Ukraine. That ofcourse ended shortly after the strike happened: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/ukraine-and-russia-quickly-end-their-latest-round-of-direct-peace-talks-in-istanbul Time and again, Russia has shown that it was willing to negotiate a reasonable deal, and time and time again, Ukraine and its western backers have found a way to derail them.