Come on guys…..
I have over 100,000 troops I have to support sitting just over the border of the Ukraine…
I can’t have them sitting there much longer….
You guys made your move….
No US or NATO reinforcements …
But?
I don’t need you guys to cut the balls out of my economy back home in “Mother Russia’….
So?
Why don’t agree to my terms so I can wage a guerrilla war and seek to politically take over the old Soviet Union countries that left me hanging….
Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the West on Thursday to move quickly to meet Russia’s demand for security guarantees precluding NATO’s expansion to Ukraine and the deployment of the military alliance’s weapons there.
Speaking during a marathon annual news conference, the Russian leader welcomed talks with the U.S. that are set to start in Geneva next month, but warned the discussion focused on Moscow’s demand needs to produce quick results.
“We want to ensure our security,” Putin said. “We put it straight: there must be no further expansion of NATO eastward.”
Last week, Moscow submitted draft security documents demanding that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back the alliance’s military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.
A key principle of the NATO alliance is that membership is open to any qualifying country. The U.S. and its allies have said they won’t give Russia the kind of guarantee on Ukraine that Putin wants. American officials are conferring with European allies in advance of the Geneva talks.
Moscow presented its demand amid soaring tensions over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine that has stoked fears of a possible invasion. U.S. President Joe Biden warned Putin in a conference call earlier this month that Russia will face “severe consequences” if it attacks Ukraine.
During his annual news conference, Putin accused the West of trying to make Ukraine “anti-Russia, constantly beefed up with modern weapons and brainwashing the population.”
He said Russia can’t keep living in constant anticipation of looming security threats posed by possible deployment of Western weapons in Ukraine….
The Russian military says it’s witdrawning 10,000 troops from the border of the Ukraine….
We don’t know?
If this is real or bull shit….
We do know that Biden is talking to Putin and other talking is going on….
….
MOSCOW, Dec 25 (Reuters) – More than 10,000 Russian troops have been returning to their permanent bases after month-long drills near Ukraine, Interfax news agency reported on Saturday, citing the Russian military.
Interfax said the drills were held in several regions near Ukraine, including in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, as well as in the southern Russian regions of Rostov and Kuban….
More….
It’s been three decades since the Berlin Wall, the East German régime and the U.S.S.R. fell, but I’ve never thought that the eastward expansion of NATO and the EU was that great an idea, given Russia’s well-founded fear of encirclement, as happened in 1919 and 1941.
One can understand, given their own history, why the post-Communist nations outside Russia would want the security of EU and NATO institutions and installations (and collective-security guarantees) against Russian threats and meddling; but maybe a more-cautious version of “Finlandization” (the neutrality which settled the status of Finland and Austria after the Axis fell) might have been wiser .
Touche’ DSD….
Your second paragraph start off IS reasonable….
After the Crimea grab?
The Finland thing won’t ‘get it’…..
For once, 30 years ago, Christmas really did herald an era of peace.
“The Soviet Union finally dissolved when its last leader Mikhail Gorbachev resigned on December 25, 1991. Its demise capped the Cold War between Communism and the West, in which hundreds of millions had lived within a wailing four-minute warning of nuclear annihilation.
“But this festive season, exactly three decades on, brings the gravest showdown between NATO and Russia since the red hammer and sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin. President Vladimir Putin, for whom the Soviet collapse was a historic shaming, has Europe on edge, methodically building Russian forces on Ukraine’s border as fears of invasion mount.
While the West and Russia have had their awkward moments since 1991 — over Serbia, Libya and Georgia — the current confrontation is the most serious yet because Putin is consciously challenging the post-Cold War European order. After failing to crush pro-Western impulses in the former Soviet socialist republic of Ukraine, politically and diplomatically, he is threatening to do so by force with an incursion that would dwarf the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“The Biden administration would much prefer to tackle rising China than age-old conflicts in Europe. But Putin is a master in testing the resolve of adversaries who are distracted and divided as questions linger over Western staying power after the debacle in Afghanistan. He’s demanded security guarantees, including an assurance Ukraine will never join NATO and the withdrawal of alliance troops from former Warsaw Pact members who joined the alliance. These speak to a Russian sense of being threatened following NATO expansion but are seen by the West as an attempt to recreate a Soviet-style sphere of influence in Eastern Europe it could never accept.
“The US and Europe are offering to talk, apparently hoping to forestall an invasion while giving no sense of concessions that would fundamentally reshape the continent’s security. …
— Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 10:02 AM ET, Sat December 25, 2021
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/25/world/meanwhile-in-america-december-22-intl/index.html
The Atlantic
@TheAtlantic
“Democratic societies are slow to align but durable once committed, and the U.S. and its allies have had time to organize.” Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is backfiring, writes
@KoriSchake
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