A US official rejects Putin’s claim that NATO sabotaged a "peaceful settlement" with Ukraine early in the war. Whatever happened then, it is not too late for diplomacy in this perilous moment.
There is absolutely zero real doubt that the US has sabotaged all diplomacy--for God's sake, they've been doing it for decades, ever since they embarked on this path of deliberate and engineered confrontation with Russia, bent not just on encircling it with Nato--a purely defensive alliance they say!!--but ejecting it from Europe altogether and wrecking it as a nation. They sabotaged the Minsk and Minsk II agreements, which laid out the framework for a peaceable solution in which Ukrainian sovereignty would be preserved without Crimea, which was never Ukrainian in any real sense. They deliberately helped a coup drive out a validly elected president, and they deliberately armed extremist and even Nazi regiments to attack Ukrainian ethnic Russians, killing tens of thousands since 2014. And America's British catamite Boris Johnson most recently sabotaged talks back in April or so. If you believe anything our imperial DC regime says, you're a damn fool. After all the deceit and prevarication since Iraq 2 and earlier, there is no reason to believe ANYTHING they say on ANY topic. They wanted this war and they engineered this war. They have given the Russians all the casi belli they need.
A valiant effort on your part, Aaron, to illustrate the options but I think you already know it won't work. Those who would negotiate for the US and NATO countries are getting exactly what they want. I've been surprised to see little attention given to the UK's PM, Liz Truss, expressing her willingness to press the nuke button, to rousing applause. It was like she was signaling that she could 'man up' despite the emotional toll of doing so. What Putin said in return was a relatively gentle reminder of 'hey, you know we have missiles too. Some of them better than yours. It's called mutually assured destruction for a reason.' Now that's being seen as an aggressive threat where meek little librarian Liz, in a country no one's threatened, is just doing her job. I included the yahoo link to this to maximize it with the juxtaposition to furniture ads: https://news.yahoo.com/audience-liz-truss-ready-press-nuclear-button-unleash-global-annihilation-103552126.html
Excellent job by Aaron recounting the facts about the folly of Washington's proxy war against Russia that Ukraine has been duped into fighting -- and the rest of the West has been coerced into supporting.
As I cover in below article that I wrote for Antiwar.com in May '22, Henry Kissinger has remarked on the stupidly and historical blunder this dangerous proxy war represents for US strategic interests -- not to mention the real possibility of triggering nuclear annihilation of the planet.
I also cover commentary of Col. Jacques Baud (Swiss official who was a NATO liaison in the Donbass before the war). He corroborates from personal knowledge and contacts the OECD's account of Ukraine's' pre-war shelling and amassing troops for invading the Donbass in early Feb '22. Col. Baud also call attention to below March '21 campaign video made by Oleksiy Arestovych (who was Zelensky's campaign manager and currently is an advisor and press liaison for Zelensky on war). Baud says this YouTube video is authentic.
Arestovych boasts in this video that, if Zelensky is elected president, Ukrainewill start a war with Russia in the 2020-21 timeframe to take back Crimea and the Donbass. After defeating Russia, Arestovych says in the video, NATO will offer Ukraine membership implying that a deal has been made. Arestovych then outlines amazingly accurate Ukraine and Russian battle plans for this forth coming war.
This video suggests there was foreign election manipulation in 2019 to get a compliant Ukrainian president in office so the US/NATO could start a proxy war with Russia. If so, this would not be the first time the State Dept./CIA interfered in Ukrainian elections to advance the Washington neocons' objective to initiate a proxy war with Russia -- as Aaron alludes to his article.
Boy, I’ be lost if it weren’t for Aaron Mate’s thoughtfully laid-out articles. I shared this piece with a few others. Most of the people I know, educated but ignorant, have no clue what had been happening in Ukraine following the 2014 armed coup backed by the US. It has been clearly stated from far back as 2004 Russia warned not to invite Georgia or Ukraine to join NATO. George W. was told Nyet still means nyet. And, we continue to antagonize Russia. The violence committed by western Ukrainians since 2014 on eastern Ukrainian was savage and eight years later incited this war. So few people seem to tie this together. Corporate media, weapons industry have all sold their souls. I trust the referendum in the Donbas will pass easily. My concern, will the people be protected as they go out to vote? If it goes well, it was a brilliant move by Russia. Hopefully before Christmas Russians will return home following the annexation of the Donbas and the Biden administration finds the wisdom not to run in 2024.
Hello Aaron, I’m a long time fan and supporter who is extremely thankful for all your work on issues like Russiagate, Syria etc.
Great article! But there is one point of criticism I would like to make coming from my perspective as an American living in Russia.
You write:
"...as Anatol Lieven outlines, these annexation referendums offer a possible off-ramp. While separatist Ukrainian regions are voting to join Russia, that does not guarantee that Russia will immediately annex them. Instead, Lieven proposes, Russia could use these votes as a bargaining chip to pressure Ukraine and its Western patrons to revive the peace talks that Putin claims were undermined."
Of course, we can see now that Russia will indeed quickly annex the breakaway territories.
But that fact was completely predictable for anyone living in Russia. The Russian public is so strongly in favor of annexation that if for any reason Putin tried to delay it, there would be a massive popular revolt against that move.
From the Russian view (state and vast majority of the population), the people in the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have chosen to “come home” and they are going to be “welcomed home.”
For five days the Russian public has watched the referendum voting—they’ve watched it with incredible joy and relief, with tears, with the feeling that the eight year nightmare of Ukrainian attacks, murderous shelling of civilians, and the imminent threat of ethnic cleansing and genocide is finally going to come to an end. I cannot describe to you how intense these feelings are. Russians want these people protected, once and for all. The idea of cynically using these people as “bargaining chips” is inconceivable.
To be clear, I’m just describing the prevailing Russian view as I see it. Please feel free to contact me via email if you would like to discuss further.
Aaron - as usual, a carefully researched and written article exposing Washington's duplicity in its negotiations with Russia, this time over Ukraine over a long period of time. For that alone, the article is a gem. Very useful and I will use it. Also even at this moment - when negotiations seem far away - to suggest a path for a negotiated settlement is noteworthy, a positive initiative on your part and provides a lever for different elements of the peace movement to come together around a common program. Certainly this it - to call for negotiations and to suggest that they are possible.
Of course, there is a caveat.
While I am not saying that negotiations are impossible, I simply do not see them; a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine war, or as the Russians call it, their special military operation is nowhere in sight. Moscow's distrust of Washington's motives is profound, Biden’s dumb vilification of Putin complicating negotiations that much more. Washington's hatred for Russia seems to exceed existing boundaries even daily; having been lied to played the fool on this NATO military build up against Russia for too long, it is not likely that the Russians will cave to Washington pressure and less likely that Washington will end fueling the conflict.
But then you know that ... and at this difficult moment, you simply look for an exit ramp that can put a break on the escalation. Me too.
Where are the "confidence building measures" that traditionally precede difficult negotiations? There are none; the mudslinging is in full bloom and couldn’t be shriller. I do expect that however ardently this administration says publicly that it opposes negotiation, it is precisely at such times that they are negotiating through back channels. But negotiations never appeared to be more distant, almost non-existent, even as every day they are needed more urgently. No, from all appearances, this battle – and that is what it is – will be settled “on the ground”, old fashioned Clausian military confrontation with its political ramifications always.
Now here is a very long read on what has been going on between the Ukraine and Russia, and if you're very astute you should be able to figure out tomorrows news today.
There's a long historic analysis from the perspective of the Ukrainian workingclass written by a Ukrainian dissident that supports the narrative that Aaron and others have tried their best to present in the US. The tragedy of the Ukrainian working class
I would love to see Antony Blinken hold the same sort of one hour press conference at the UN just like Sergey Lavrov did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjysSk7Z8_E
Thank you Aaron, for being a fearless in presenting the truth.
There is absolutely zero real doubt that the US has sabotaged all diplomacy--for God's sake, they've been doing it for decades, ever since they embarked on this path of deliberate and engineered confrontation with Russia, bent not just on encircling it with Nato--a purely defensive alliance they say!!--but ejecting it from Europe altogether and wrecking it as a nation. They sabotaged the Minsk and Minsk II agreements, which laid out the framework for a peaceable solution in which Ukrainian sovereignty would be preserved without Crimea, which was never Ukrainian in any real sense. They deliberately helped a coup drive out a validly elected president, and they deliberately armed extremist and even Nazi regiments to attack Ukrainian ethnic Russians, killing tens of thousands since 2014. And America's British catamite Boris Johnson most recently sabotaged talks back in April or so. If you believe anything our imperial DC regime says, you're a damn fool. After all the deceit and prevarication since Iraq 2 and earlier, there is no reason to believe ANYTHING they say on ANY topic. They wanted this war and they engineered this war. They have given the Russians all the casi belli they need.
A valiant effort on your part, Aaron, to illustrate the options but I think you already know it won't work. Those who would negotiate for the US and NATO countries are getting exactly what they want. I've been surprised to see little attention given to the UK's PM, Liz Truss, expressing her willingness to press the nuke button, to rousing applause. It was like she was signaling that she could 'man up' despite the emotional toll of doing so. What Putin said in return was a relatively gentle reminder of 'hey, you know we have missiles too. Some of them better than yours. It's called mutually assured destruction for a reason.' Now that's being seen as an aggressive threat where meek little librarian Liz, in a country no one's threatened, is just doing her job. I included the yahoo link to this to maximize it with the juxtaposition to furniture ads: https://news.yahoo.com/audience-liz-truss-ready-press-nuclear-button-unleash-global-annihilation-103552126.html
Excellent job by Aaron recounting the facts about the folly of Washington's proxy war against Russia that Ukraine has been duped into fighting -- and the rest of the West has been coerced into supporting.
As I cover in below article that I wrote for Antiwar.com in May '22, Henry Kissinger has remarked on the stupidly and historical blunder this dangerous proxy war represents for US strategic interests -- not to mention the real possibility of triggering nuclear annihilation of the planet.
I also cover commentary of Col. Jacques Baud (Swiss official who was a NATO liaison in the Donbass before the war). He corroborates from personal knowledge and contacts the OECD's account of Ukraine's' pre-war shelling and amassing troops for invading the Donbass in early Feb '22. Col. Baud also call attention to below March '21 campaign video made by Oleksiy Arestovych (who was Zelensky's campaign manager and currently is an advisor and press liaison for Zelensky on war). Baud says this YouTube video is authentic.
Arestovych boasts in this video that, if Zelensky is elected president, Ukrainewill start a war with Russia in the 2020-21 timeframe to take back Crimea and the Donbass. After defeating Russia, Arestovych says in the video, NATO will offer Ukraine membership implying that a deal has been made. Arestovych then outlines amazingly accurate Ukraine and Russian battle plans for this forth coming war.
This video suggests there was foreign election manipulation in 2019 to get a compliant Ukrainian president in office so the US/NATO could start a proxy war with Russia. If so, this would not be the first time the State Dept./CIA interfered in Ukrainian elections to advance the Washington neocons' objective to initiate a proxy war with Russia -- as Aaron alludes to his article.
My article: https://original.antiwar.com/ronald_enzweiler/2022/05/18/who-misread-whom-in-ukraine-war-debacle/.
Arestovych vidoe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwcwGSFPqIo
How come everytime I see a photo of V.Nuland, my brain screams War Pig?
Boy, I’ be lost if it weren’t for Aaron Mate’s thoughtfully laid-out articles. I shared this piece with a few others. Most of the people I know, educated but ignorant, have no clue what had been happening in Ukraine following the 2014 armed coup backed by the US. It has been clearly stated from far back as 2004 Russia warned not to invite Georgia or Ukraine to join NATO. George W. was told Nyet still means nyet. And, we continue to antagonize Russia. The violence committed by western Ukrainians since 2014 on eastern Ukrainian was savage and eight years later incited this war. So few people seem to tie this together. Corporate media, weapons industry have all sold their souls. I trust the referendum in the Donbas will pass easily. My concern, will the people be protected as they go out to vote? If it goes well, it was a brilliant move by Russia. Hopefully before Christmas Russians will return home following the annexation of the Donbas and the Biden administration finds the wisdom not to run in 2024.
perfect journalism, brilliant work.
Hello Aaron, I’m a long time fan and supporter who is extremely thankful for all your work on issues like Russiagate, Syria etc.
Great article! But there is one point of criticism I would like to make coming from my perspective as an American living in Russia.
You write:
"...as Anatol Lieven outlines, these annexation referendums offer a possible off-ramp. While separatist Ukrainian regions are voting to join Russia, that does not guarantee that Russia will immediately annex them. Instead, Lieven proposes, Russia could use these votes as a bargaining chip to pressure Ukraine and its Western patrons to revive the peace talks that Putin claims were undermined."
Of course, we can see now that Russia will indeed quickly annex the breakaway territories.
But that fact was completely predictable for anyone living in Russia. The Russian public is so strongly in favor of annexation that if for any reason Putin tried to delay it, there would be a massive popular revolt against that move.
From the Russian view (state and vast majority of the population), the people in the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have chosen to “come home” and they are going to be “welcomed home.”
For five days the Russian public has watched the referendum voting—they’ve watched it with incredible joy and relief, with tears, with the feeling that the eight year nightmare of Ukrainian attacks, murderous shelling of civilians, and the imminent threat of ethnic cleansing and genocide is finally going to come to an end. I cannot describe to you how intense these feelings are. Russians want these people protected, once and for all. The idea of cynically using these people as “bargaining chips” is inconceivable.
To be clear, I’m just describing the prevailing Russian view as I see it. Please feel free to contact me via email if you would like to discuss further.
Thanks as always... you are appreciated!
Excellent journalism ! Please write a book after the war ends.
Outstanding piece --- thank you. Helps me understand the lead-up to this conflict much better.
Aaron - as usual, a carefully researched and written article exposing Washington's duplicity in its negotiations with Russia, this time over Ukraine over a long period of time. For that alone, the article is a gem. Very useful and I will use it. Also even at this moment - when negotiations seem far away - to suggest a path for a negotiated settlement is noteworthy, a positive initiative on your part and provides a lever for different elements of the peace movement to come together around a common program. Certainly this it - to call for negotiations and to suggest that they are possible.
Of course, there is a caveat.
While I am not saying that negotiations are impossible, I simply do not see them; a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine war, or as the Russians call it, their special military operation is nowhere in sight. Moscow's distrust of Washington's motives is profound, Biden’s dumb vilification of Putin complicating negotiations that much more. Washington's hatred for Russia seems to exceed existing boundaries even daily; having been lied to played the fool on this NATO military build up against Russia for too long, it is not likely that the Russians will cave to Washington pressure and less likely that Washington will end fueling the conflict.
But then you know that ... and at this difficult moment, you simply look for an exit ramp that can put a break on the escalation. Me too.
Where are the "confidence building measures" that traditionally precede difficult negotiations? There are none; the mudslinging is in full bloom and couldn’t be shriller. I do expect that however ardently this administration says publicly that it opposes negotiation, it is precisely at such times that they are negotiating through back channels. But negotiations never appeared to be more distant, almost non-existent, even as every day they are needed more urgently. No, from all appearances, this battle – and that is what it is – will be settled “on the ground”, old fashioned Clausian military confrontation with its political ramifications always.
Wish I could be more optimistic, but I am not.
Now here is a very long read on what has been going on between the Ukraine and Russia, and if you're very astute you should be able to figure out tomorrows news today.
https://www.markmallett.com/blog/the-chastisement-comes-part-ii/
There's a long historic analysis from the perspective of the Ukrainian workingclass written by a Ukrainian dissident that supports the narrative that Aaron and others have tried their best to present in the US. The tragedy of the Ukrainian working class
https://karmina.red/posts/tragedy-of-ukrainian-working-class/