Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has become a war on the world’s poor and starving.
As his army retreats, Putin weaponizes food. Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Congo — Putin’s war will kill in these hard corners.
On the battlefield Ukraine is steadily defeating Putin’s corrupt Kremlin war machine.
In his bid to create Great Russia, Putin tried to smash Ukraine’s will to resist. But Kremlin missile attacks have failed to crush the Ukrainian people’s will.
Footnote: Adolf Hitler’s bombing blitz of London hardened the Britons’ will to defeat the National Socialist Fuhrer.
As for Putin’s threats to strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons?
They boomeranged. Cold War vets saw the nuke threats as a desperation.
My speculation: at the diplomatic-strategic level, the Kremlin received vicious warnings from Europe and North America of massive conventional retaliation if it used a nuke.
As for the Kremlin’s mass conscription and reservist ploy? Putin was threatening Ukraine with human wave attrition, which translates as “we Russians will die you to death.”
The ploy incited mass resistance in Mother Russia. Even the oligarchs noticed.
So, what does a dictator on the edge of ignominious defeat do?
In Putin’s case he enlists an old mercenary specializing in mass slaughter: Famine, The Rider on the Black Horse, the third horseman of the Book of Revelations’ Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Let theologians debate John’s visions. The historical evil of weaponized famine is occurring in our time on Earth.
Our time background: this year the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) explored the effects of the Ukraine war on world food supply. The FAO used simulations to “wargame” scenarios estimating Ukraine War diminished food supplies and likely human malnutrition, starvation and what aid professionals call “food insecurity.”
In its June “Information Note,” FAO said “simulations suggest” that in a scenario “involving a prolonged reduction of food exports by Ukraine and Russia the number of undernourished people globally could increase by between 8 and 13 million in 2022/23.” The Asia-Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa would suffer the worst but “…the impacts will last well beyond 2022/23.”
“Moreover, other projections for 2022 indicate that up to 181 million people in 41 countries could face food crisis or exacerbated levels of acute food insecurity.”
More: “The war will increase humanitarian needs in Ukraine” with millions of people displaced by the war “that has lasted more than eight years.”
Ukraine’s 2022 suffering echoes an evil StrategyPage.com noted earlier this year: “Stalin starved Ukraine in the early 1930s and felt justified because of its continued resistance to communist rule. This Holodomor (Great Hunger) killed over three million Ukrainians as too much Ukrainian grain was exported for hard currency.”
On July 22 Turkey brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which allowed Ukraine to restart food exports stalled by Russia’s invasion. The U.N. and NATO backed it. The deal ensured safe passage for grain ships in and out of Ukraine. It amounted to a “de facto ceasefire” potentially leading to a real ceasefire.
On Oct. 29 Russia declared it was pulling out of the deal. Why? Suspected Ukrainian drones attacked Russian ships near Sevastopol.
Russia insinuated the drones were launched from freighters carrying food from Ukrainian ports. However, on Oct. 31 the U.N. said no ships were in the maritime humanitarian grain export sea corridor the night of Oct. 29.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Russia’s decision as “weaponizing food in the war it started, directly impacting low- and middle-income countries and global food prices and exacerbating already dire humanitarian crises and food insecurity.”
Putin thinks the action gives him diplomatic leverage.
Stay tuned.
Somehow a country being invaded can’t strike enemy warships ported in occupied cities?
As far as the deal is concerned, it couldn’t IF it violated either – and I quote –
“C. All activities in Ukrainian territorial waters will be under authority and responsibility of Ukraine.
The Parties will not undertake any attacks against merchant vessels and other civilian vessels and port facilities engaged in this Initiative. ”
or
“E. To prevent any provocations and incidents, the movement of vessels transiting the maritime
humanitarian corridor will be monitored by the Parties remotely. No military ships, aircraft,
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) may approach the maritime humanitarian corridor closer than a
distance agreed by the JCC, without the authorization of the JCC, and after consultation with all
Parties.”
C isn’t relevant here because Sevastopol was not involved in the agreement.
The Russians are basically claiming Ukraine violated E by launching the drone attack from the corridor.
Part 1
“You said:
“As for Putin’s threats to strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons?”
He has never done that, he has repeated the OFFICIAL Russian policy(it is on the internet),that has been there for all to read for YEARS,”
Ok, technically he didn’t threaten to “strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons.”
Let’s discuss what he actually said.
Among other things…
“”Whoever tries to hinder us, and even more so, to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate. And it will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history,””
So in other words, he was being intentionally vague, threatening dire but unspecified consequences that might not be nuclear attacks… but could be read as such. And were undeniably intended to be read with nuclear strikes and other WMD as being one of several possibilities.
“that if Russia is FIRST attacked by nuclear weapons,it will have to use nuclear weapons. ”
And those of us who have remembered Soviet Cold War doctrine are well aware that the Soviets were far more serious about nuclear first strike than any other power, including the Eisenhower Era US (which was quite nuke happy in its own right). This is what strategic ambiguity is, and Putin intentionally cultivated it.
Part 2
“Also the policy says if the existence of Russia is threatened by conventional weapons ,then it can use nuclear weapons as a last resort.”
Which as we’ve already established, not many people will be reassured by considering how Putin would define such terms. And which he intentionally cultivated through ambiguity, and even now that he has further downplayed the possibility of nuclear deployment it has generally been in the context that there will be no “need” for them.
Part 2
Part 2
“Also the policy says if the existence of Russia is threatened by conventional weapons ,then it can use nuclear weapons as a last resort.”
Which as we’ve already established, not many people will be reassured by considering how Putin would define such terms. And which he intentionally cultivated through ambiguity, and even now that he has further downplayed the possibility of nuclear deployment it has generally been in the context that there will be no “need” for them.
Part 3
“NEITHER of those scenarios exist regarding Ukraine nor ANY other nation,including the US. Russia can easily DEFEAT the US using CONVENTIONAL weapons.”
Seriously bruh? Seriously?
It took years for Russian forces to help the Assadists in Syria grind down the likes of ISIS and the FSA, who while dogged fighters were not exactly the best and brightest. It took months for the Russian military and its separatist allies to finally crush the encircled defenders of Luhansk Airport in 2014, in spite of having overwhelming numerical and fire superiority as well as the advantages of initiative and surprise. It then failed to deliver a fatal blow to the pre-war Ukrainian military at Debaltseve and indeed could not close the pocket.
And this is before I talk about the rather dismal showing of supposedly top of the line Russian units like the Guards Armies and VDV in Ukraine, where they have utterly failed to defeat Ukraine in nearly a year of full scale war and nearly a decade of hybrid war, “easily” or not.
Part 4
I am not some fool clapping like a trained seal whenever the Ukrainian Government releases its latest set of largely-unverified kill tallies, and I will not say the US will win, especially under current leadership, but there are no “easy” conventional victories over the US military, let alone the US and its allies. Certainly not from Putin’s Russia.
This is especially true if you remember that in any such conflict, the Alliance’s main goal would be to repulse Russia from its occupied territories in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, not march on Moscow like Napoleon (but with a far closer start point than Napoleon had).
@Chcuo Part 1
“Also the DRONE attack on Russian ships was a VIOLATION of the grain treaty,”
No, NO IT WASN’T.
Let’s actually go over what it says, shall we?
https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/black_sea_grain_initiative_full_text.pdf
There are two possible grounds for claiming the drone attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s HQ was a breach of the grain treaty. Part C and Part E.
C is easy enough to crush because Sevastopol was not involved in the initiative. Which leaves E, which talks about military craft (including drones) approaching the humanitarian corridor. Which is what the Russian government has claimed.
Which brings us to the issue of what proof they have, considering they have shown very little of it (and how the most likely sources for the drone attack/s was from to the Northeast of the corridor).
” now if Russia had done it instead of Ukraine, then Western Conservatives would be saying that would be reason for Ukraine to break and forget the grain treaty.”
Unlikely, considering the grain treaty was not primarily for Ukraine’s benefit.
Part 2
“As for FOOD not reaching the poor countries, figures tells us 50% to 80% of the food inside the 450 SHIPS that have left ODESSA” went to EUROPEAN countries,very little to the ones which need it the most. It was NOT Russia that did it.”
Logistics, Chcuo.
Firstly: It’s not surprising that a lot of the food supplies that are destined to end up in places like Egypt or Tunisia or Somalia are going to Europe first. Ukraine’s in Europe and the Southern European transport facilities are generally a lot more advanced. Add that to how you do not actually want to keep cereals on the water for too long. So you generally “export” the goods to an intermediary country, have it transfer the foodstuffs to other transport (be it a ship or a plane) and then send it on.
Part 3
Secondly: there’s also the knock on effect and opportunity cost. Of providing food supplies to an area close by for consumption so that they can free up foodstuffs of their own to send on. Shipping grain from Ukraine to Italy so Italy can then send some of its grains and rye to Tunisia without disrupting the economy.
This is a hard lesson international food aid learned over and over again in the 19th and 20th century, and why Churchill gets (falsely) blamed for the Bengal Famine because he had to keep food shipments from Bengal coming even while he tried to redirect more shipments from further afield to Bengal to offset it.
Which is why the latest estimates indicate only 30% of the exports so far actually had Europe be their final destination, and a decent chunk of that was almost certainly to free up European stocks to then be sent on.
Secondly: there’s also the knock on effect and opportunity cost. Of providing food supplies to an area close by for consumption so that they can free up foodstuffs of their own to send on. Shipping grain from Ukraine to Italy so Italy can then send some of its grains and rye to Tunisia without disrupting the economy.
This is a hard lesson international food aid learned over and over again in the 19th and 20th century, and why Churchill gets (falsely) blamed for the Bengal Famine because he had to keep food shipments from Bengal coming even while he tried to redirect more shipments from further afield to Bengal to offset it.
Which is why the latest estimates indicate only 30% of the exports so far actually had Europe be their final destination, and a decent chunk of that was almost certainly to free up European stocks to then be sent on.
Part 4
“The lying,yes lying, US and Europe said most of it would be sent to countries like Egypt,Somalia,the Middle East. Where food is most needed.”
And it has been, which is one reason why Putin has been very very quiet about the actual methodology for food deliveries and what their end distance was. He wants you to believe that a ship docking with food in Amalfi is tantamount to that food being eaten up there without any benefit to Tunisia. In practice that’s not actually what happens, even on the off chance the grain actually is being offloaded and eaten in Amalfi or somewhere else in Western Europe because of the aforementioned food substitution thing. And most of the stuff being offloaded actually is going to the “poor countries” Putin and to a lesser extent Erdogan grandstanded about.
Moreover, unless for reasons beyond my comprehension the UN and assorted nations (including Turkey) broke with long established convoy agreements, Putin was almost certainly informed of where the ships were going to dock when he entered the agreement. Especially if he was half the negotiator he claims to be. So this is ultimately Putin blowing smoke and counting on the ignorance and/or trust of people who take him seriously but do not understand that while you might be able to do a nonstop shipping run from Odessa to Mombassa that isn’t always the best.
https://www.un.org/en/black-sea-grain-initiative/vessel-movements
“Ignonimous defeat”
How is someone using 2nd hand troops taking over 41% of the territory of their enemy on the “verge of ignominious defeat”?
Frontpage, what are you doing?
Read the comments section, we all see through this BS. Stop it.
Take a stand and tell whoever it is that is ordering you to publish this nonsense to go shove it.
The US had an obviously stolen election. The current government simply has no legitimacy whatsoever to engage in any such foreign adventures especially with the criminal lunatic Biden at the helm, a man with deep vested financial interests in yet another compromised government.
You are in the wrong here and you are burning through whatever legitimacy you have earned over the years
@ron
Part 1
“How is someone using 2nd hand troops taking over 41% of the territory of their enemy on the “verge of ignominious defeat”?”
Firstly: 41% HOW?!?! What’s your sources for that? Because the Russians have never come anywhere close to taking over 41% of the territory of Ukraine and that’s while factoring in relatively easy conquests of Crimea and the Eastern Donbas amounting to close to 10% of Ukrainian territory.
Secondly: the Third Guards Tank Army and the VDV are not “second hand troops.” Unless you want to seriously claim that the entire standing Russian military is Second Hand Troops, which would be pretty laughable. Putin deployed a lion’s share of the best and brightest his military had to offer, not only consisting of prestige units like the Third Guards and Black Sea Naval Infantry but also the standing Contract Soldiers that made up the skeleton of most Russian units. Indeed we can now confirm that the Kremlin’s been sending regular troops as far afield as the Arctic Circle to Ukraine. And they’ve gotten shot up and have heavily underperformed while failing to achieve the performances anybody – Western Intel, Russian Intel, Ukrainian Intel -expected they would.
That’s humiliating.
@ron Part 2
Thirdly and most importantly: The Russians have shown themselves unable to secure the areas they have conquered. The liberation of Kherson just underlines that, but in the opening days of the war the Russians conquered much of Northern Ukraine on a march to Kyiv, but were never able to consolidate occupation and ultimately decided to abandon it rather than risk standing and fighting on ground they might be cut off on. Which is probably the more mature strategic decision, but also was humiliating since it saw the vaunted Russian bear take serious casualties and then abandon the area it fought for in the face of its enemy.
Which is why this narrative that the Russian Military is doing oh so well and that they managed to conquer over a third of Ukraine is more popular among foreign language Kremlin shills like Scott Ritter than it is among actual Russians – including hawkish Russian milbloggers and analysts – because they KNOW that units like the Third Guards Tank Army and the assorted Spetznaz units -as well as the line army units- have underperformed. Sometimes quite disastrously. All while taking more casualties in less than a year of pitched war than the Soviet Empire took in all the years it spent fighting in Afghanistan, which would have to be added to the Russian and Separatist losses of the 8 years or so of Undeclared War from 2014 onwards.
This has not been a good war (or “Special Military Operation”) for Russia.
@ron Part 3
“Frontpage, what are you doing?”
Pointing out that Putin is not doing so well, and that by his regime’s own admission he has decided to compensate with things like strikes to water treatment facilities.
“Read the comments section, we all see through this BS. Stop it.”
Obviously you don’t see through “this BS” if you’re trying to claim that the standing units of the Russian Military – up to and including Guards units- are “2nd hand troops.”
But for the sake of the argument: Identify Russian military units that AREN’T “2nd hand units.” And then let’s see how and where they’ve been deployed lately.
“Take a stand and tell whoever it is that is ordering you to publish this nonsense to go shove it.”
And why the hell would they? So they could try and join the shills claiming that the Third Guards Tank Army – one of the pedigree units usually stationed around Moscow and meant to be the cutting edge of any Russian or Soviet attack – is “2nd hand”? So that we could all try and pretend Putin is some kind of traditionalist, conservative hero of the West while he pals around with Kadyrov and the Iranian Mullahs?
@ron Part 4
“The US had an obviously stolen election. The current government simply has no legitimacy whatsoever to engage in any such foreign adventures especially with the criminal lunatic Biden at the helm, a man with deep vested financial interests in yet another compromised government. ”
The problem with this logic – or rather illogic- is that the US has committed itself to defending Ukrainian territorial integrity since 1994, and this is something that every government – legitimate or not- since has agreed to, including Trump, who started the process of supplying Ukraine with lethal aid (and thus making a mockery of the Leftist big lie that he was Putin’s puppet). Support for Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity is one of the handful of policies in the Brandon Regime that is actually legitimate or in accordance with US interests.
The idea that we’re supposed to ignore all this just because Brandon Wants It, So It Must Be Bad is toxic and counterproductive.
“You are in the wrong here and you are burning through whatever legitimacy you have earned over the years”
No, you are in the wrong for claiming that Russia took 41% of Ukraine with “2nd hand troops.” Please do more research.
Mao did the same thing in China its always under Communists there is Famine while Bill Gates wants to poison us with Goop
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Wow the UN produced a report, Putin will be sh1tting himself.
Agenda 2030 authors (dictators) will be pleased with this war, they are openly promoting depopulation.
Great more deep state, globalist propaganda, gee it’s hard to find a, Putin is the devil point of view. Good job FrontPage.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has become a war on the world’s poor and starving.” — Is that what you think? You sound like a CNN Liberal.
CNN Liberals also claimed that ISIS was a terrorist organization that committed inhuman atrocities. They aren’t always wrong.
Though they usually are, as they spent the minutes after that claiming ISIS had nothing to do with Islamic theology or culture, but that’s why you don’t trust any set of sources.
Of course I’m not surprised this site supports Ukraine. And it would be futile to explain that “Putin’s war” is actually the George Soros/US State Department/NATO war on Russia.
Russia never bothered Ukraine until the United States overthrew the government in 2014. Since 2008, when Bush was still in office, Putin said Russia viewed NATO on its border as an existential threat. And logically, that is exactly right. It’s why we were up in arms during the Cuban Missile crisis.
WHen the right is on the same side as the WEF and George Soros over Ukraine, you know something isn’t right.
Like it or not, the US started this war. Like it or not, Putin is going to defend Russia from an alliance, NATO, that was designed to defeat it and has been provoking Russia for 30 years.
This is all about globalism. And I find it rich that you support the same globalism that is truly making people starve to death all over the world via its Great Reset policies.
@Mike Yerian
“Of course I’m not surprised this site supports Ukraine. And it would be futile to explain that “Putin’s war” is actually the George Soros/US State Department/NATO war on Russia.”
It would be futile because it is obviously not true. And because some of us are old enough to remember things like the 2008 War in Georgia – when Putin invaded a friendly nation, taking advantage of the fact that its best military units were in Iraq with us in order to have his proxies start a suitable “provocation” to invade – and the previous Ukrainian voter fraud cases in 2003-5, when Putin tried to install Yanukovych as President and Yuschenko (no saint himself) nearly was assassinated while leading the opposition.
And we can research further back to things such as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the wars in Moldova and Georgia that ravaged the 1990s, and so forth.
Trying to blame all of this on Soros, NATO, or the US State Department is missing the fundamental plot that all politics is local, that even the globalists like Soros and Foggy Bottom rely on local events to take advantage of, and generations of Russian bureaucrats and arm breakers view this neighborhood as their “local” area.
@Mike Yerian
Part 2
But even if I ignored all that and granted the case… So What? Soros, the Globalist infested US State Department, and the globalists in NATO oppose Putin and his war. But they also opposed ISIS. I’m not going to support ISIS just because that tangentially puts me on the same side as Soros, and I’m not going to ignore the fact that Putin is networking with the PRC, Islamist Iran, and freaking Kadyrov’s Chechen Jihadis in this war..
Moreover, the idea that the US State Department is oh so consistent in its “war against Russia” is laughable when you realize that this is happening at the same exact time Brandon, Kamala, Obama, and the State Department are talking with Russia in an attempt to arrange another Iran Deal Sellout. The New Neo and others have pointed this out in great detail.
@Mike Yerian
Part 3
“Russia never bothered Ukraine until the United States overthrew the government in 2014.”
Pardon my French, but this is absolute bullshit. Every single aspect of this sentence is provably,, objectively false.
Firstly: the idea that “Russia never bothered Ukraine until…2014” is laughable. As far back as the middle of the 1600s groups like the Khmelnitsky Hetmanate were disturbed by the amount of autonomy and independence they were expected to cede to the Tsars of Moscow, as well as the brutish and high handed conduct of said Tsar’s representatives. But they felt they had no choice and so signed the Union of Pereyaslav, formally uniting the “Wild Fields” of what was called “the Ukraine” with what we’d now recognize as Russia. And would promptly regret it as the Russian government spent more than 200 years afterwards systematically crushing any smidgeon of autonomy and indeed trying to forcibly russify the Ukrainian language and culture.
Which among other things led to both White and Red Russians invading Ukraine in the aftermath of WWI, when the fall of the Tsarist Empire led to lots of independent states trying to break away, including Ukraine, which failed. And then to the Holodomor..
@Mike Yerian
Part 4
But if we’re talking about the post-Soviet Russian government under Putin specifically, you’re still SOL, because some of us recall the events around the Orange Revolution, when the Russian Government supported Yanukovych’s attempt at massive voter fraud to seize power and helped the guy accused of poisoning the leader of the opposition (and later President) Yuschenko when said accused assassin took refuge in Russia.
And that’s before we talk about the more mundane bread and butter issues, like trade wars, which Russia has been unable to solve even with *Freaking Lukashenko’s Belarus* – the most pro-Russian of regimes on Earth – and which have poisoned Russian relations with its neighbors for longer than I’ve been alive, particularly in Ukraine.
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds499_e.htm
So any claim that “Russia never bothered Ukraine” is not only objectively stupid and false, it’s outright evil gaslighting of a really obvious kind.
@Mike Yerian Part 5
Secondly: “Until the United States overthrew the government in 2014.” One little problem there (well, multiple but I’ll get into it): The government wasn’t overthrown in 2014. The democratically elected Ukrainian Legislature removed the Ukrainian Executive (in the form of its President and Cabinet) from power after the latter two refused to answer questions about probably-illegal and outright unconstitutional conduct towards protestors, accentuated by a leak from the Ukrainian Army that President Yanukovych had tried to order them to massacre anybody on the streets, regardless of if they were lawfully protesting or illegally rioting.
With Yanukovych fleeing in to exile in Russia and obviously unable and unwilling to fulfill his constitutional duties, the legislature removed him from power on grounds of incapacity and formed a caretaker government.
AND THE KICKER TO ALL THIS IS THAT THE LEGISLATURE AT THE TIME WAS DOMINATED BY *THE VERY SAME COALITION ELETED TO OFFICE ALONGSIDE THE AFOREMENTIONED PRESIDENT YANUKOVYCH, WITH ITS LARGEST MEMBER BEING YANUKOVYCH’S OWN PARTY.* And yet even THEY got tired of his corruption, abuses of power, and other nonsense. Which is why the votes were so onesided in spite of the legislature being split down the middle almost exactly between “Blues” and “Oranges.”
@Mike Yerian Part 6
Of course, pointing out how this was a case of the democratically elected legislature throwing out the democratically elected president for the atrocities and violations of the constitution the latter committed doesn’t fit well with Kremlin propaganda of a State Department Coup. It doesn’t fit the agenda that Yanukovych dindu nothing wrong and represents the entirety of the lawfully elected government. And even the domestic left isn’t too fond of mentioning this since it points to the prospects that an active legislature could rein in tyranny by the executive and bureaucracy. But it is what happened.
“Since 2008, when Bush was still in office, Putin said Russia viewed NATO on its border as an existential threat. ”
Ah yes, the NATO Red Herring.
Let’s get a few things out of the way. Firstly: origins of this war in 2014 had nothing to do with NATO because NATO membership for Ukraine was not on the table, nor was it seriously considered by Ukrainian leadership even after the deposal of Yanukovych until it became clear the Russian military was invading.
The spark for this conflict was a dispute over association membership with the EU, hence “Euromaidan” rather than “NATOmaidan.” But pointing that out and underlining how Putin started the largest war in Europe in decades with the intention of illegally dismembering a country over Trade Disputes is a lot less sympathetic than trying to tie such to the threat of the NATO Boogeyman.
@Mike Yarien Part 7
So going back to the:
“Since 2008, when Bush was still in office, Putin said Russia viewed NATO on its border as an existential threat.”
Putin’s said a lot of intentionally vague, contradictory things, and this is no different. MOREOVER, his chest thumping on the issue has absolutely zero legal merit or force, EVEN WITHIN RUSSIA.
So let’s talk about something else his government said during this time, with actual legal force.
@Mike Yerian Part 8
Had to cut the former comment shorter because this one is such a bear.
https://www.ieee.es/en/Galerias/fichero/OtrasPublicaciones/Internacional/AstanaConmemorativeDeclaration2010.pdf
Please pay particular attention to Part 3
“3. The security of each participating State is inseparably linked to that of all others. Each
participating State has an equal right to security. We reaffirm the inherent right of each and
every participating State to be free to choose or change its security arrangements, including
treaties of alliance, as they evolve. Each State also has the right to neutrality. Each
participating State will respect the rights of all others in these regards. They will not
strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States. Within the OSCE no
State, group of States or organization can have any pre-eminent responsibility for maintaining
peace and stability in the OSCE area or can consider any part of the OSCE area as its sphere
of influence.”
So in short, Putin’s government recognized every nation in the OSCE area had the right to join NATO. Period. Full Stop. Does this sound like the kind of agreement that would be inked by someone who legitimately viewed NATO on his borders as an existential threat? So why did Putin agree to sign it, as his government clearly did? In any case, it points to a fundamentally dishonest man who was never serious about the NATO threat to Russia’s existence.
@Mike Yerian Part 9
“And logically, that is exactly right. It’s why we were up in arms during the Cuban Missile crisis.”
Logically, that’s Bullshit and laughable on its face. And the comparisons to the Cuban Missile Crisis are as intellectually lazy as they are wrongheaded.
We weren’t “up in arms” over Cuba pursuing a pro-Soviet policy (though we should have been) or even having Soviet personnel based there. We were up in arms specifically because of Fidel Castro putting Strategic Nuclear Weapons on Cuban soil and the clear threat that he seemed eager to use them, with or without Soviet aid.
The Cuban Missile Crisis ended not when Fidel was overthrown (unfortunately) and all Soviet personnel either killed, captured, or sent home. It ended with the negotiated withdrawal of the aforementioned strategic nuclear weapons.
Note the specific: STRATEGIC.
Because for years afterwards, Fidel still had access to TACTICAL nuclear weapons for defense in Cuba itself.
https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/CMC50/SavaranskayaColdWarIntlHistBulletin2003TacticalNuclearWeaponsinCubaNewEvidence.pdf
@Mike Yerian Part 10 And to this day Cuba’s dictatorship continues to support anti-Western, pro-Kremlin, pro-PRC, pro-Jihadi polities and hosts Russian and Chinese troops.
https://thediplomat.com/2021/08/how-china-helps-the-cuban-regime-stay-afloat-and-shut-down-protests/
So the Cuban Missile Crisis Canard is REALLY NOT a comparison Putin wants to bring up, because it underlines how he wants “Rules for Thee but not for Me”, justifying the invasion of Ukraine for pursuing a pro-Western foreign policy while expecting the US to continue sucking up the existence of the Castro dictatorship just off Florida.
Doubtless Putin would start singing a very different tune if we pointed this out and starting talking about deploying “volunteers” armed with Abramses and HIMARs to support anti-Castro rebels.
I wonder why?
So drop the Cuban Missile Crisis comparison, it is manifestly false and does not help the Kremlin’s case or your arguments at all.
Moreover, NATO has been on Russia’s borders since before Bush, as the existence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and Poland attest. Now Finland intends to join, and Putin’s protests have been muted and certainly not involved violent military deployment. Why is that?
@Mike Yerian Part 11
“WHen the right is on the same side as the WEF and George Soros over Ukraine, you know something isn’t right.”
Ah yes, this utterly bullshit, lazy argument. Disingenious to the extreme and easy to rebutt.
You wanna know something else “the right” was “on the same side as the WEF and George Soros” on?
ISIS.
Indeed, I note Putin, Assad, the PRC, and co were ALSO on the same side as the WEF and Soros. Namely, all recognized that ISIS were very bad people and threats to their interests.
Does that mean that ISIS were secretly the good guys fighting against a corrupt, authoritarian globalist world order and tyrannical loons? Well no. Because while they were fighting a corrupt, authoritarian globalist world order and assorted tyrannical loons, they were fighting in order to establish THEIR OWN Corrupt, totalitarian, theocratic, inhumane global world order. Which is why logically everybody who was not them opposed them, especially after most of their front groups got revealed.
What’s more is that this argument can very easily be turned against you. Why are you shilling for the side that the CCP, Iran’s Mullahcracy, the Taliban, and Kadyrov’s Islamist Mini-Emirate in Chechnya are on? Do you view yourself as a useful idiot for Xi or a simp for the Twelver Apocalyptics in Tehran?
This is why guilt by association is a poor substitute to actually examining the merits of the case and conflict in question.
@Mike Yerian Part 12
“Like it or not, the US started this war. ”
Like it or not, this is provably bullshit.
And moreover, it is recognized as bullshit on some level even by the Russian Government, which opened investigations into the deaths around the 2014 Simferopol “Incident” that happened when false-flagged Russian Federation Spetznaz stormed a Ukrainian Loyalist military post, shedding the first blood of the conflict as aggressors.
If you actually did research, you can find things like then-Prosecutor General Poklonskaya discussing the case.
But if you actually did research, you wouldn’t have written half the things you have.
“Like it or not, Putin is going to defend Russia from an alliance, NATO, that was designed to defeat it and has been provoking Russia for 30 years.:”
Like it or not, this is bogus nonsense.
You don’t “defend Russia from an alliance” by attacking a nation that is not part of that alliance, and which was not going to be part of that alliance for years. Even attacking less-than-neutral actors like Vichy France was controversial back in the day, and this was moreso.
Also: NATO was designed to defeat Stalin’s messianic, totalitarian, world-conquest-seeking Soviet Empire. Which is why it is an obvious overmatch for Russia now.
And “provoking it for 30 years”? Ok, how so? Because you REALLY don’t want me to start comparing it to Kremlin provocations.
@Mike Yerian Part Finis:
“This is all about globalism.”
No, it’s not. This is about a different kind of authoritarian collectivism that well predates globalism. Pan-Russian hegemony. Which is why assorted dictators in the Kremlin – whether medieval, Romanov Imperial, Communist, or Post-Communist – have pursued strikingly similar policies towards Ukraine.
The rise of globalism influenced the situations and how this played out, but it did not fundamentally cause this. But don’t believe me, believe Putin and his rantings about the “historical” oneness of Russians and Ukrainians as a united people.
” And I find it rich that you support the same globalism that is truly making people starve to death all over the world via its Great Reset policies.”
And I find it rich that you’re supporting the same Xi Jinping, the Chi Com tyrant who plagued this world with the Wuhan Cough (and helped erode our constitutional republic and freedom worldwide by giving the Globalists a useful cudgel against us), the Iranian Mullahs who have expressly hoped for our atomic destruction and want us dead, and the barbarous Taliban who supported Osama when he scoured Ground Zero.
See? Two can play that game.
And it is a game you will lose on, handily.
I have scant love for the globalists, but I also don’t want to make it any easier for them ,as Putin’s atrocities do.
I’ve seen some inverted logic in my time but this load of bullshit takes all the prizes.
By all means, please describe how.
And keep in mind: I was born in California and was unfortunate enough to be conscious during the Obama Years, and now the Brandon Junta. So if this is the best example of inverted logic you’ve seen “in your time” you were either born yesterday or not very situationally aware.
As an avid reader, and follower, of Front Page I am quite surprised of the terrible article about Putin and Ukraine. I cam understand the logic if it was the Soviet Union you were talking about but Russia? It is the only country fighting the globalist West, It is fighting a corrupt regime that did not respect the Minsk accord – on our command and that has been shelling civilians in Dombas since 2014. I am not particularly fond of Putin but he has been quite constrained to what he is doing to Ukraine relative to the US in Iraq or Kosovo. I don’t know but perhaps your hate for Putin is making it difficult for you to see reality. A shame because Front Page has never dissapointed me before as in this very biased article.
@Baeticus Part 1
“As an avid reader, and follower, of Front Page”
I’ll take your word for it, though I am also an avid reader and follower of FPM and haven’t seen you comment.
“I am quite surprised of the terrible article about Putin and Ukraine.”
Well, you shouldn’t be if you research it.
“I cam understand the logic if it was the Soviet Union you were talking about but Russia? ”
You need to realize that Putin’s Russia claims to be the successor to the Soviet Union and spends more time than any other defending its legacy. Which is why you will get put in prison if you point out the objectively true facts about things like the Soviet Union helping to support Nazi Germany in starting WWII.
https://khpg.org/en/1467327913
Among others.
Which is one reason why anti-Yanukovych protestors began taking down Soviet propaganda iconography throughout Ukraine, and why during the Russian advances the Kremlin has had them put them back up.
Putin is ultimately an offshoot of Homo Sovieticus and acts like it. Which is one reason why the mainline Russian Communist Party is supporting his war and why anti-Soviet dissidents like Bukhovsky are opposed to him.
@Baeticus Part 2
“It is the only country fighting the globalist West,”
Not really, especially if you’ve studied Bibi in Israel or the new Italian government, as well as Japan.
But even if it WERE True it would not be a point in his favor, any more than ISIS being at odds with George Soros makes it a good idea to side with ISIS.
Moreover, Putin is far more of a progressive and a globalist than either the mainstream prog left or those right wingers taken in by him want to believe, as well as at least as large an apologist for Islam as most of the Western leadership.
“It is fighting a corrupt regime that did not respect the Minsk accord –”
Putin’s Russian Government has absolutely zero justification to blame anyone else for being a “corrupt regime” or not “respect(ing) the Minsk Accord.” Which is why there were two of them and both failed.
Putin’s government refused to respect Minsk II, Minsk I, the Astana Declaration of 2010, Budapest 1994, and plenty more.
@Baeticus
Part 3
“”on our command and that has been shelling civilians in Dombas since 2014. ”
This just in: War in urban areas is hell, Film at Eleven.
Please, please examine downtown Luhansk, particularly the areas around the Airport.
That shelling damage was overwhelmingly done by the Russian military and its separatist “allies”, who spent months pounding the encircled loyalists out of the airport they defended. It irritates me to no end how people try to blame the Ukrainian loyalists for this as if they were the only ones with artillery or even the ones with artillery superiority without saying a Single Iota about how important artillery has been to Russian victories.
Oh also as for “Shooting civilians” let’s talk about Bucha and MAS17.
@Baeticus Part 4
“I am not particularly fond of Putin but he has been quite constrained to what he is doing to Ukraine relative to the US in Iraq or Kosovo.”
Abject bullshit, and this particular line makes me doubt you ever were an avid FPM reader.
There’s a reason why the gulf between US and Allied Smart Munitions use and Russian Smart Munitions use in this war has been so vast, as is the number of civilian casualties that can be attributed to the Allies versus those attributable to the Russians. Even if you assume overcounting by the Ukrainian government and those slanted towards it ( a fair assumption) the fact of the matter is that absolutely zero sane people should look at downtown Grozny, Hama, or Luhansk and think that this was “quite constrained” in relation to surgical drone and air strikes.
Because leveling entire city blocks is the opposite of “constrained” and the US hasn’t been in that business since the 1950s.
“I don’t know but perhaps your hate for Putin is making it difficult for you to see reality.”
I’d say the opposite, and that your (“relative”) fondness for Putin or at least his news sources is impairing your critical research.
@Baeticus Part Finish
” A shame because Front Page has never dissapointed me before as in this very biased article.”
Bias does not mean falsehood. Any objective analysis of Obama’s career would be quite biased against him. Likewise here with Putin.
But by all means, take a look at what happened to downtown Luhansk and talk about how “constrained” or “respectful” Putin was in comparison to the Globalists in the West. In spite of how the Globalists have been perpetually imposing stricter and stricter ROE on the US and its allies.