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Ukraine calls for path into NATO after Russia masses troops

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By Pavel Polityuk and Vladimir Soldatkin

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Biden is being tested by both Russia and China.

So which of Trump's successful foreign policy approaches should Biden take with these countries? Should he pay their leaders respect, meet with them in private, and put his industry in their countries? Or do you have alternative Trump actions they should follow as a model?

4 ( +9 / -5 )

“Russia is getting back those lost lands of former Soviet Union, what has Putin done wrong?”

But that’s like saying India should be retuned to the British empire, isn’t it?

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Germany and France have been talking a lot with Ukraine recently. During the Obama era both countries dealt directly with Ukraine, cutting the US out of the process as they did not (and still do not) trust the US.

The recent conflict is the result of Kiev violating the Minsk Agreements which required keeping the Kiev forces away from the cease fire line. Note the recent Zelensky order. The US calls this "Russian aggression". France and Germany, however, view this as an internal Ukrainian matter and want Kiev to de-escalate.

GermanForeignOffice

https://twitter.com/GermanyDiplo/status/1378464124208812038?ref_src=twsrc

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-france-condemn-ukraine-escalation-call-for-restraint/a-57095476

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/02/readout-of-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-call-with-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy-of-ukraine/

https://youtu.be/30Lzq-K-cO4

Paris-Berlin Oppose Ukrainian Offensive, Call on Kiev to De-Escalate

14,574 views•Apr 5, 2021

3 ( +6 / -3 )

the warmongering against Russia and in the Middle East is on again.

NATO was created not to be Trump-submissive to USSR/Russia after all

While the Middle East has been quiet lately - if anything, a deal with Iran would lead to de-escalations

3 ( +3 / -0 )

"Mr. Gorbachevtear down this wall"

This was a speech by Ronald Reagan in West Berlin in 1987.

A year before RR had met Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik where the US had assured Gorby that NATO wouldn't move an inch beyond FRG (FRG-Federal Republic of Germany- today's Germany) and that there will be No foreign forces in the then GDR ( German Democratic Republic) - East Germany, which was then still behind the Iron Curtain ( Communist country )

But we now know that after open invitation to Eastern block countries to join the European Union, NATO is all over the former Iron Curtain countries near or bordering Russia- like Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia etc. The worst came when Ukraine, a country which was like a kid brother to Russia had the Orange Revolution and then the "Maidan" ( square in Kyiv) where the Moscow leaning President - Yanukovych had to flee to Russia. Russia blames the West for that uprising.

Russia feels betrayed and threatened by all these events and it's trying to ensure that NATO doesn't come any closer to its borders, thus, Eastern Ukraine, mostly Russian speaking and leaning majority, with support from Russia, want to form their own independent states - and, to Russia, this is a good buffer zone.

NATO's eastwards expansion is the cause of turmoil in Ukraine. Some pundits claim that Putin is mistaken, that , the promise given in the meeting between then US sec of state James Baker and USSR's Eduard Sherveznade in 1987 (?) only concerned Foreign troops/ NATO not being in the GDR but not further afield.

This is for each of us to decide who's lying.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

@ Cogito Ergo Sum

It's " Malorossiya ".....Little Russia.

To tweak your "correction" "Malorossiya" is the modern nomenclature whereas "Malaya Rus'" (Mалая Pусь) was the original term from the 14th century onwards. The ancient name of "Pусь" was a term "cancelled" by the communists and omitted from Soviet editions of Russian language dictionaries, but now has been "rehabilitated" and is referred to with affection by right-wing Russian nationalists who long to resurrect the glory days of Imperial Russia which means the creation of " Bеликая Русь" aka "Greater Russia".

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Never mind the fact that according to opinion polls, the vast majority of the population are opposed to joining NATO.

0 ( +9 / -9 )

Never mind the fact that according to opinion polls, the vast majority of the population are opposed to joining NATO.

Are you sure that this isn't just the line Putin is putting out, to try to muddy the waters?

You may have got caught up in Putin propaganda there brother.

0 ( +9 / -9 )

Ukraine calls for path into NATO after Russia masses troops

Here we go. The warmongers are at it again. While submissive to China (so profitable for big tech), the warmongering against Russia and in the Middle East is on again.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

@ us _reamer

It's " Malorossiya ".....Little Russia.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@PTownsend

Russian troops massing at the border with Ukraine, a build-up of Russian military in the Arctic, Russian troops (and mercenary forces) fighting in Syria and Libya

NATO forces massing at the border with Russia, USAF strategic bombers land in Norway, US / NATO / mercenary forces fighting in Syria, Libya and in several other countries, NATO combined military budget is at least ten times bigger then the Russian military budget. Hmm, I wonder where the threat to the peace comes from?

The Ukrainian neonazi regime, established as the result of the NATO-orchestrated coup d'etat in 2014, itching to punish those in the Donbass region who oppose its neonazi agenda. That's the reason for war number 1.

Reason number 2: the Ukrainian regime wants a war to deflect attention of the populace from the desperate economic situation in the country, result of its extremely incompetent economic policy.

Reason number 3: this summer the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline will be complete, as the result Ukraine will lose its status as a transit country and lose a lot of money. Ukrainian nazi are desperate to prevent it.

Here they have a full support from Washington, who wants to prevent Europeans from buying cheap Russian pipeline gas and force them to buy much more expensive American LNG. As Americans like to say, "nothing personal, it's business".

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

Would that be the same “vast majority” that spilled into the streets and faced down imported Russian snipers to overthrow the previous stooge?

wow, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

But that’s like saying India should be retuned to the British empire, isn’t it?

Not at all. Perhaps you could read up on the history of the region.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

The funny thing is that vlad’s worst nightmare, NATO on Russia’s Eastern and Southern borders has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. NATO had no interest in adding Ukraine and maybe Georgia to the alliance until Russia decided to invade and occupy portions of both nations and make a poor attempt at a coup in Moldivia.

Vlad has created a host of states eager to join the West in order to live free from his sadistic aggression.

-2 ( +7 / -9 )

Russian troops massing at the border with Ukraine, a build-up of Russian military in the Arctic, Russian troops (and mercenary forces) fighting in Syria and Libya. It's getting increasingly difficult to describe Putin's state as little old agrarian Russia, especially when it has the world's largest, maybe second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

The USSR's Eduard Shevardnadze

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Like Pavlov's dog the Russian bear will always salivate dreamily over the bees' nests of "Malaya Rus" (Little Russia aka the Ukraine), "Novorossiya" (Southern Ukraine and the Crimea) and "Belorus" (White Russia), the honey-pots that Russian nationalists believe belong by right of history to "Holy Mother Russia" as integral parts of "Greater Russia's" "Union Indivisible", which is why the West will have to pry these territories from the scheming cold, dead hands of the Kremlin imperialists. Only the peoples of these outlying lands can determine their future and whether they wish to be embraced by their "big brother" Slavs or be free of Moscow's suffocating "bear hugs".

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

Russia is getting back those lost land of former soviet Union, what Putin has done wrong? The collapse of USSR was a grave wrong incident that shouldn't happen! It is great that Mr.Putin is fixing that mistake although it comes late 30 years!

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

@ us_reamer.

Thank you for your observation and you're quite right.

At one time I answered a similar question on Quora, then someone rebutted it and a second guy came on to offer his in-depth knowledge ( rebutting my rebutted) in the matter, basically you and this guy are in tandem. I reduce his name to just initials.

MZ.

March 25, 2018

That’s patently false. The name Rossiya wasn’t loaned into Russian from Greek until the 1400s and Malorossiya wasn’t coined until the 1500s or 1600s. You are referring to Greek and Latin, not Russian or Ukrainian, and Yurii II called himself dux totius Russae Minoris, “ruler of all Rus Minor,” in his formal titles. He didn’t use the any condescending version “Little Russians” for his people, because the rulers of Muscovy hadn’t yet formed the idea of Russia.

The Byzantine church used Greek Mikra Rossia from at least the 1200s to refer to the core territory of the Kyivan metropolitanate of Rus, and Megale Rossia for its greater sphere of influence, including borderlands and colonies like the Moscow region. These terms did not refer to people.

That was a far cry from the way the Russian elites turned it into the belittling epithet Malorossy for the people of the Ukrainian Cossack state that they colonized between 1654 and 1782. The term was only used in the empire, where institutional fear of Ukrainian identity led to banning the Ukrainian language in performance and print, and not in other places Ukrainians lived, and it was archaic by the time the empire self-destructed in 1917. A neutral contemporary ethnonym was Ruthenians (rusychi or rusnaky).

Please try to understand the facts behind the history you cite, or you might risk getting caught promoting obsolete language that smacks of racism. Why do you think this terminology was used in the Kremlin’s abortive attempt to annex eastern Ukraine and the associated Russian Federation propaganda?

There are a lot of archaic names for peoples that we don’t use any more, out of normal respectfulness.

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-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Strangerland

So which of Trump's successful foreign policy approaches should Biden take with these countries? Should he pay their leaders respect, meet with them in private, and put his industry in their countries?

World upside down? Trump imposed tarrifs, banned CCP companies from sensitive projects, and promoted de-coupling from CCP China. With Biden, you are seeing all that reversed.

As for Russia, Trump increased sanctions, sent lethal aid to the Ukraine, and worked against NordStream2, all of which I think is a mistake, but it is certainly the opposite of the claim that Trump was pro Russia.

Is your political bias distorting what you see in the world?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Never mind the fact that according to opinion polls, the vast majority of the population are opposed to joining NATO.

Would that be the same “vast majority” that spilled into the streets and faced down imported Russian snipers to overthrow the previous stooge?

Or perhaps the “overwhelming majority” that voted against his stooge in Belarus only to have the results dismissed?

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

The Putin regime is really going for it, innit.

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

Biden is being tested by both Russia and China. Like China, the Ukrainians gave his son a lot of money. In this case for being the son of the Obama administrations special “corruption” adviser to the country. Will Biden reward his patrons by defending those who helped his son with unearned cash for use on drugs and women? Or will he knuckle under knowing that Democrats will not support the US military if the going gets tough? My guess is that he will stand by just like he did as VP when Crimea was invaded by the Russians. He doesn’t need the Ukrainians anymore- Hunter’s got his money.

-11 ( +5 / -16 )

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