Biden's declaration that Putin "cannot remain in power" was not an error, but a clear expression of entrenched US policy: using Ukraine for a proxy war against Russia.
“By choosing to invade Ukraine rather than exhaust all diplomatic options to resolve its grievances over the Donbas war and NATO expansion, Russia is legally and morally responsible for the carnage that it has caused.” - Aaron Mate
From the Minsk Accords to Russia’s draft treaty proposals in late 2021, all diplomatic proposals and treaties were blocked, ignored, or rejected by the West. No UNSC action was possible due to its permanent members’ veto power. So exactly which diplomatic options were not exhausted? What were Russia’s non-military choices in the face of Ukraine’s years-long shelling and military operations against the Donbass?
Aaron, your coverage of the USA's proxy wars from Syria to Ukraine has been indispensable for US citizens seeking to understand the truth of USA foreign policy.
Greetings from Montréal and thank you as always for the real journalism.
Given your coverage of the chemical weapons debacle in Syria, it seems like you’d be the guy to do a deep dive on the US biowarfare programs and Ukraine. More information is coming out everyday. But the efforts to confuse the narrative are great. People aren’t sure what to believe, and in that confusion, they become more susceptible to believing false convenient narratives or just settling for a “limited hangout.”
I think the West is in a situation where the saying “we’re only as sick as our secrets” is highly relevant. The more people see how twisted and disgusting these deep state machinations in Ukraine are, the better. For, the sooner we can get ALL this stuff on the table and out into the open, the sooner we can actually start the healing of our broader civilizational, cultural, and epistemological wounds.
A timeline was put out by the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Zavlanova. If we’re being very frank, I trust what they’re putting out in this chemical weapons and biological warfare programs WAY more than anything the West would say about these programs.
What we do know about the US biological weapons involvement in Ukraine. And this is just a thumbnail sketch…
1991 – the US launches the Nunn-Lugar programme for the former Soviet countries to control/eliminate Soviet weapons of mass destruction including bioweapons. The Pentagon's Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) was named as the programme’s main executor.
1993 – the Ukraine-US Agreement on the Prevention of Proliferation of WMD is signed.
2005 – an additional protocol is signed to the agreement between the Ukrainian Health Ministry and the DTRA on the prevention of the proliferation of technologies, pathogens and know-how that can be used to develop bioweapons. This is the start of the transfer of the Ukrainian military biological potential into US specialists' hands.
2000s – large US military-industrial companies are engaged in military biological activity in Ukraine.
2005-2014 – Black & Veatch Special Projects, a DTRA contractor, builds and upgrades 8 biolabs in Ukraine instead of eliminating military biological infrastructure, as was originally claimed. One of the facilities, a biolab in Odessa, has been financed since 2011 for the study of “pathogens that can be used in bioterrorism attacks.”
2007 – US DoD employee Nathan Wolfe founded Global Viral Forecasting Institute (subsequently - Global Viral), a biomedical company. The mission stated in the charter is non-commercial study of transborder infections, including in China.
2009 – Rosemont Seneca Partners is established by former US Secretary of State John Kerry’ stepson Christopher Heinz and incumbent US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
2014 – anti-constitutional coup d’etat in Ukraine.
2014 – Hunter Biden joins the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company.
2014 – Metabiota, a private commercial organisation specialising in the study of pandemic risks is detached from Global Viral. Neil Callahan and John DeLoche, employees of Hunter Biden’s company Rosemont Seneca Partners are appointed to the board of Metabiota. Global Viral and Metabiota begin to get funding from the US Department of Defence.
2014 - Metabiota shows interest in Ukraine and invites Hunter Biden to "assert Ukraine's cultural & economic independence from Russia".
2014 - Metabiota and Burisma Holdings begin cooperation on an unnamed "science project in Ukraine".
2014 - Metabiota, Global Viral and Black & Veatch Special Projects begin full-fledged cooperation within the US DoD programmes.
2014-2016 - Implementation of Metabiota and US DoD contracts, including a $300,000 project in Ukraine.
2016 – US citizen Ulana Nadia Suprun, a descendant of Ukrainian Nazis, is appointed Acting Health Minister of Ukraine. The US DoD and Ukraine’s Health Ministry cooperation programme is greatly expanded.
2016 – an outbreak of swine flu among Ukrainian Defence Ministry personnel guarding a biolab in Kharkov, Ukraine; 20 dead. The incident is hushed up.
2016 – former US Assistant Secretary for Defence Andrew Weber is appointed head of Metabiota’s global partnerships department.
2016 – EcoHealth Alliance, a Global Viral founder Nathan Wolfe’s structure, is engaged in the study of bat-transmitted coronaviruses at the research centre in a Wuhan laboratory, China.
2016 – the DTRA and Ukraine’s Health Ministry extend the contract after getting approval from the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.
2019 – the COVID-19 mutated bat coronavirus pandemic begins with an outbreak in Wuhan.
February 24, 2022 – launch of the Russian Army’s special operation in Ukraine.
February 24-25, 2022 – rapid elimination of strains in biolabs in Ukraine.
March 8, 2022 – US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland openly acknowledges the existence of cooperation between the US and Ukraine in pathogens.
I this is a huge story that’s only starting to unfold. For example, from “The Project for a New American Century and the Age of Bioweapons: 20 Years of Psychological Terror”:
“The earlier October 2000 RAD document emphasized the importance which the neocon cabal placed on bioweapons (and other next generation war tech) stating: “Combat will likely take place in new dimensions: In space, cyber-space and perhaps the world of microbes… advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool”.
I think many in the West have actually allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the whole Western Freedom Democracy talking points to the point that they just have no idea how much Koolaid they really drank, or just the extent of the evil being run by the Anglo-American establishment.
How can one say he’s living in a free country when paying for a government that is preparing for mass scale biological warfare using bio weapons that target specific genotypes?
It makes sense that the neocons would spearhead this, since outright nuclear weapons use has become untenable, biological warfare becomes the natural next most powerful, and much more subversive and covert means of effecting the destruction of other people. We’re definitely at a critical juncture where now there a chance to get everything on the table, from the need for a new global financial system to the acceptance of new multipolar order. Of course, if the West is to have any positive role in this, or not try to simply seal off the West from Eurasia and try to go for their technotronic fascism, then we in the West must make a fundamental leap in the level of discourse. People must become more active, organized, and unified around the major strategic elements, with the other lesser stuff put to the side.
Why bother saying that "Russia is legally and morally responsible for the carnage that it has caused"? Legally and morally responsible to who?
Did international law prevent NATO from bombing Yugoslavia and invading Libya? Did international law stop the United States and the U.K. from invading Iraq? Did international law stop the United States from interfering in Ukraine's internal affairs and fomenting a coup against it's government in 2014? Has international law ever stopped the CIA from arming foreign mercenaries, staging 'color revolutions', and trying to overthrow any foreign government they dislike? Does international law stop the President of the United States from ordering a drone strike assassinating anyone anywhere in the world that he unilaterally decides is a "terrorist"?
The Ukrainian government is hostile towards Russia and the Russian people in general. That's why one of the first things they did after the 2014 coup was ban the Russian language. NATO is a lawless and belligerent military alliance that is openly hostile towards Russia. The government of Ukraine publicly made its intention to join NATO known before the Russian invasion.
Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government are facing an enemy that has proven over and over again that it has no regard whatever for international law. The United States and NATO have been making a mockery out of international law for years. Why should Vladimir Putin let international law constrain his actions when NATO is setting up shop on his border with a view to destabilizing, and potentially attacking, Russia?
Exemplary work as ever, Aaron. You remain a brightly shining light at a very, very dark time indeed.
The war in Donbas is so little-understood and discussed and deserves much, much more attention. I suppose to do so now is to run the risk of legitimising or at least palliating the invasion to some degree. Even those sympathetic to Russia often miss the crux of what happened, which is only very, very rarely acknowledged by the mainstream media - and even then invariably very quietly and in the most mealy-mouth manner imaginable.
In essence; Donbas was entirely local in nature at the start; Russian involvement reluctantly came later, inspired by a desire to have some influence on a process over which it initially had little clout, and remained limited thereafter; Moscow’s preference was always for the region to remain part of Ukraine, albeit as an autonomous region; the relationship between the Kremlin and the separatists is complex, and has frequently been anything other than cordial.
These interconnected points, particularly their relationships with the last, have enormous relevance for what's happening now. The few dozen Russian freelancers and volunteers who entered Ukraine to fight alongside the locals were led by Strelkov, a passionate proponent of 'Novorossiya'. The Kremlin seems to have been relaxed about tacitly endorsing this concept initially, although quickly determined it was a far too effective recruitment tool, with considerably more Russians than expected signing up to join the fight.
All governments consider citizens returning from warzones to be inherently problematic - reintegrating scores of battle-hardened, weapons-trained, PTSD-scarred individuals into society, and 'normal' life, is always difficult. In this specific context though, one must also factor in that these people would inevitably be bitter and disappointed in the extreme - after all, Moscow was determined that the dream for which they fought and died never became a reality.
As early as April 2014, Moscow began trying to rein in the rebels' aspirations and activities, warning them to stop trying to seize control of towns and cities outright, and instead focus on protecting civilians. These entreaties were ignored by Strelkov and the Donestk/Lugansk leadership, prompting the Kremlin to coax them from their positions in return for increased financial and military aid to the breakaway regions, and parachute in hand-picked replacements. Which in many cases didn't prove popular with the separatists, be they local or Russian.
Russia considered the Minsk Agreements to be a huge achievement, the Donbas 'problem' solved in every way. However, on top of Ukraine's refusal to implement the measures, the rebels were unwilling to give up their arms in the face of ongoing economic blockade, assaults on Russian culture and language, and blatant hostility from authorities, and Moscow wasn't prepared to allow them sanctuary either. So the fighting continued, the civilian population bearing the brunt of Ukranian military aggression, almost entirely unseen by the outside world. By contrast, Washington, via the National Endowment for Democracy, spent millions on citizen journalism and NGO efforts locally in order to meticulously document alleged Russian war crimes.
Moscow was certainly correct that returning fighters would feel acutely betrayed, and cause political problems as a result. From mid-2016 onwards, there were regular protests in major Russian cities condemning the government's tepid support for the separatists. Rarely receiving any Western interest - not least surely because the Communist party was frequently the demonstrations' biggest sponsor and constituency - these efforts united nationalists and leftists, and were perceived by Putin as a major threat to his rule. Far greater than a trifling figure like Navalny could ever be.
With atrocities ramping up in Donbas, a full Ukrainian offensive impending, the Pentagon and CIA out of control, and Western world acting as if a Russian invasion was already underway, presumably Putin decided there was little to lose by launching a full-blown military offensive. The objective since the start has been to cripple Ukranian logistics, tie up forces and resources around Kiev, and secure total control over Donbas. Most of this has been achieved. Whatever comes of the invasion though, I doubt integration of eastern Ukraine into Russia is on the cards.
Excellent article. I posted one on Substack that quoted you, Escape from Azkaban: Victoria Nuland & Ukraine. And then Ukraine Peace & US Petropocalypse. I'm looking forward to using this article in my next one, Putin's Peace & the End of the Petrodollar Party.
The RAND gambit is WEAK. In context, that entire quote is "Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages."
Additionally, RAND concludes with the following recommendation:
"The most-promising options to “extend Russia” are those that directly address its vulnerabilities, anxieties, and strengths, exploiting areas of weakness while undermining Russia’s current advantages. In that regard, Russia’s greatest vulnerability, in any competition with the United States, is its economy, which is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports. Russian leadership’s greatest anxiety stems from the stability and durability of the regime, and Russia’s greatest strengths are in the military and info-war realms. The table below draws from the earlier tables to identify the most-promising options.
Most of the options discussed, including those listed here, are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counterescalation. Thus, besides the specific risks associated with each option, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. This means that every option must be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia will bear the cost of this increased competition less easily than the United States will, both sides will have to divert national resources from other purposes. Extending Russia for its own sake is not a sufficient basis in most cases to consider the options discussed here. Rather, the options must be considered in the broader context of national policy based on defense, deterrence, and—where U.S. and Russian interests align—cooperation."
RAND recommended that the US INCREASE ENERGY PRODUCTION, which in 2019, when the report came out, was EXACTLY WHAT TRUMP WAS DOING.
I don’t speculate on efforts to make it happen but regime change in Russia would be a huge benefit to Russians and the world. The best we can realistically hope for is that they don't expand. Who wouldn't rather live in Western Europe or the rest of the West?
Aaaron, have you watched the Stone documentary "Revealing Ukraine"? You need to watch at 1 hour 11 minutes into the doc. Your buddy Michael Isikoff gets exposed in an letter from Ali Chalupa in how he too was working in essence with the Clinton campaign. I know you interviewed Isikoff before (I remember him being dismissive and rude to you) and you should get him on again and dump this info on him and see how he reacts. Maybe you are aware of it already. If not, watch for a few minutes after 1 hour 11 minutes,
Just saw the reports of nerve gas being used of several of the peace talk negotiators 2 weeks ago. If this is true what are the chances of it being used on the Ukrainian population? If this happens will Aaron comment on the fact that the Russian government are soulless pieces of shit?
Urging regime change in Russia, Biden exposes US aims in Ukraine
“By choosing to invade Ukraine rather than exhaust all diplomatic options to resolve its grievances over the Donbas war and NATO expansion, Russia is legally and morally responsible for the carnage that it has caused.” - Aaron Mate
From the Minsk Accords to Russia’s draft treaty proposals in late 2021, all diplomatic proposals and treaties were blocked, ignored, or rejected by the West. No UNSC action was possible due to its permanent members’ veto power. So exactly which diplomatic options were not exhausted? What were Russia’s non-military choices in the face of Ukraine’s years-long shelling and military operations against the Donbass?
Aaron, your coverage of the USA's proxy wars from Syria to Ukraine has been indispensable for US citizens seeking to understand the truth of USA foreign policy.
thank you!
Dear Aaron,
Greetings from Montréal and thank you as always for the real journalism.
Given your coverage of the chemical weapons debacle in Syria, it seems like you’d be the guy to do a deep dive on the US biowarfare programs and Ukraine. More information is coming out everyday. But the efforts to confuse the narrative are great. People aren’t sure what to believe, and in that confusion, they become more susceptible to believing false convenient narratives or just settling for a “limited hangout.”
I think the West is in a situation where the saying “we’re only as sick as our secrets” is highly relevant. The more people see how twisted and disgusting these deep state machinations in Ukraine are, the better. For, the sooner we can get ALL this stuff on the table and out into the open, the sooner we can actually start the healing of our broader civilizational, cultural, and epistemological wounds.
A timeline was put out by the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Zavlanova. If we’re being very frank, I trust what they’re putting out in this chemical weapons and biological warfare programs WAY more than anything the West would say about these programs.
What we do know about the US biological weapons involvement in Ukraine. And this is just a thumbnail sketch…
1991 – the US launches the Nunn-Lugar programme for the former Soviet countries to control/eliminate Soviet weapons of mass destruction including bioweapons. The Pentagon's Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) was named as the programme’s main executor.
1993 – the Ukraine-US Agreement on the Prevention of Proliferation of WMD is signed.
2005 – an additional protocol is signed to the agreement between the Ukrainian Health Ministry and the DTRA on the prevention of the proliferation of technologies, pathogens and know-how that can be used to develop bioweapons. This is the start of the transfer of the Ukrainian military biological potential into US specialists' hands.
2000s – large US military-industrial companies are engaged in military biological activity in Ukraine.
2005-2014 – Black & Veatch Special Projects, a DTRA contractor, builds and upgrades 8 biolabs in Ukraine instead of eliminating military biological infrastructure, as was originally claimed. One of the facilities, a biolab in Odessa, has been financed since 2011 for the study of “pathogens that can be used in bioterrorism attacks.”
2007 – US DoD employee Nathan Wolfe founded Global Viral Forecasting Institute (subsequently - Global Viral), a biomedical company. The mission stated in the charter is non-commercial study of transborder infections, including in China.
2009 – Rosemont Seneca Partners is established by former US Secretary of State John Kerry’ stepson Christopher Heinz and incumbent US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
2014 – anti-constitutional coup d’etat in Ukraine.
2014 – Hunter Biden joins the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company.
2014 – Metabiota, a private commercial organisation specialising in the study of pandemic risks is detached from Global Viral. Neil Callahan and John DeLoche, employees of Hunter Biden’s company Rosemont Seneca Partners are appointed to the board of Metabiota. Global Viral and Metabiota begin to get funding from the US Department of Defence.
2014 - Metabiota shows interest in Ukraine and invites Hunter Biden to "assert Ukraine's cultural & economic independence from Russia".
2014 - Metabiota and Burisma Holdings begin cooperation on an unnamed "science project in Ukraine".
2014 - Metabiota, Global Viral and Black & Veatch Special Projects begin full-fledged cooperation within the US DoD programmes.
2014-2016 - Implementation of Metabiota and US DoD contracts, including a $300,000 project in Ukraine.
2016 – US citizen Ulana Nadia Suprun, a descendant of Ukrainian Nazis, is appointed Acting Health Minister of Ukraine. The US DoD and Ukraine’s Health Ministry cooperation programme is greatly expanded.
2016 – an outbreak of swine flu among Ukrainian Defence Ministry personnel guarding a biolab in Kharkov, Ukraine; 20 dead. The incident is hushed up.
2016 – former US Assistant Secretary for Defence Andrew Weber is appointed head of Metabiota’s global partnerships department.
2016 – EcoHealth Alliance, a Global Viral founder Nathan Wolfe’s structure, is engaged in the study of bat-transmitted coronaviruses at the research centre in a Wuhan laboratory, China.
2016 – the DTRA and Ukraine’s Health Ministry extend the contract after getting approval from the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.
2019 – the COVID-19 mutated bat coronavirus pandemic begins with an outbreak in Wuhan.
February 24, 2022 – launch of the Russian Army’s special operation in Ukraine.
February 24-25, 2022 – rapid elimination of strains in biolabs in Ukraine.
March 8, 2022 – US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland openly acknowledges the existence of cooperation between the US and Ukraine in pathogens.
I this is a huge story that’s only starting to unfold. For example, from “The Project for a New American Century and the Age of Bioweapons: 20 Years of Psychological Terror”:
“The earlier October 2000 RAD document emphasized the importance which the neocon cabal placed on bioweapons (and other next generation war tech) stating: “Combat will likely take place in new dimensions: In space, cyber-space and perhaps the world of microbes… advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool”.
https://canadianpatriot.org/2020/04/11/the-project-for-a-new-american-century-and-the-age-of-bioweapons-20-years-of-psychological-terror/
I think many in the West have actually allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the whole Western Freedom Democracy talking points to the point that they just have no idea how much Koolaid they really drank, or just the extent of the evil being run by the Anglo-American establishment.
How can one say he’s living in a free country when paying for a government that is preparing for mass scale biological warfare using bio weapons that target specific genotypes?
It makes sense that the neocons would spearhead this, since outright nuclear weapons use has become untenable, biological warfare becomes the natural next most powerful, and much more subversive and covert means of effecting the destruction of other people. We’re definitely at a critical juncture where now there a chance to get everything on the table, from the need for a new global financial system to the acceptance of new multipolar order. Of course, if the West is to have any positive role in this, or not try to simply seal off the West from Eurasia and try to go for their technotronic fascism, then we in the West must make a fundamental leap in the level of discourse. People must become more active, organized, and unified around the major strategic elements, with the other lesser stuff put to the side.
Why bother saying that "Russia is legally and morally responsible for the carnage that it has caused"? Legally and morally responsible to who?
Did international law prevent NATO from bombing Yugoslavia and invading Libya? Did international law stop the United States and the U.K. from invading Iraq? Did international law stop the United States from interfering in Ukraine's internal affairs and fomenting a coup against it's government in 2014? Has international law ever stopped the CIA from arming foreign mercenaries, staging 'color revolutions', and trying to overthrow any foreign government they dislike? Does international law stop the President of the United States from ordering a drone strike assassinating anyone anywhere in the world that he unilaterally decides is a "terrorist"?
The Ukrainian government is hostile towards Russia and the Russian people in general. That's why one of the first things they did after the 2014 coup was ban the Russian language. NATO is a lawless and belligerent military alliance that is openly hostile towards Russia. The government of Ukraine publicly made its intention to join NATO known before the Russian invasion.
Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government are facing an enemy that has proven over and over again that it has no regard whatever for international law. The United States and NATO have been making a mockery out of international law for years. Why should Vladimir Putin let international law constrain his actions when NATO is setting up shop on his border with a view to destabilizing, and potentially attacking, Russia?
Exemplary work as ever, Aaron. You remain a brightly shining light at a very, very dark time indeed.
The war in Donbas is so little-understood and discussed and deserves much, much more attention. I suppose to do so now is to run the risk of legitimising or at least palliating the invasion to some degree. Even those sympathetic to Russia often miss the crux of what happened, which is only very, very rarely acknowledged by the mainstream media - and even then invariably very quietly and in the most mealy-mouth manner imaginable.
This 2019 report from International Crisis Group cuts to the core of things - https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/eastern-europe/ukraine/254-rebels-without-cause-russias-proxies-eastern-ukraine. Unsurprisingly, it received absolutely no media attention whatsoever at the time and has gathered dust and mothballs unmolested ever since.
In essence; Donbas was entirely local in nature at the start; Russian involvement reluctantly came later, inspired by a desire to have some influence on a process over which it initially had little clout, and remained limited thereafter; Moscow’s preference was always for the region to remain part of Ukraine, albeit as an autonomous region; the relationship between the Kremlin and the separatists is complex, and has frequently been anything other than cordial.
These interconnected points, particularly their relationships with the last, have enormous relevance for what's happening now. The few dozen Russian freelancers and volunteers who entered Ukraine to fight alongside the locals were led by Strelkov, a passionate proponent of 'Novorossiya'. The Kremlin seems to have been relaxed about tacitly endorsing this concept initially, although quickly determined it was a far too effective recruitment tool, with considerably more Russians than expected signing up to join the fight.
All governments consider citizens returning from warzones to be inherently problematic - reintegrating scores of battle-hardened, weapons-trained, PTSD-scarred individuals into society, and 'normal' life, is always difficult. In this specific context though, one must also factor in that these people would inevitably be bitter and disappointed in the extreme - after all, Moscow was determined that the dream for which they fought and died never became a reality.
As early as April 2014, Moscow began trying to rein in the rebels' aspirations and activities, warning them to stop trying to seize control of towns and cities outright, and instead focus on protecting civilians. These entreaties were ignored by Strelkov and the Donestk/Lugansk leadership, prompting the Kremlin to coax them from their positions in return for increased financial and military aid to the breakaway regions, and parachute in hand-picked replacements. Which in many cases didn't prove popular with the separatists, be they local or Russian.
Russia considered the Minsk Agreements to be a huge achievement, the Donbas 'problem' solved in every way. However, on top of Ukraine's refusal to implement the measures, the rebels were unwilling to give up their arms in the face of ongoing economic blockade, assaults on Russian culture and language, and blatant hostility from authorities, and Moscow wasn't prepared to allow them sanctuary either. So the fighting continued, the civilian population bearing the brunt of Ukranian military aggression, almost entirely unseen by the outside world. By contrast, Washington, via the National Endowment for Democracy, spent millions on citizen journalism and NGO efforts locally in order to meticulously document alleged Russian war crimes.
Moscow was certainly correct that returning fighters would feel acutely betrayed, and cause political problems as a result. From mid-2016 onwards, there were regular protests in major Russian cities condemning the government's tepid support for the separatists. Rarely receiving any Western interest - not least surely because the Communist party was frequently the demonstrations' biggest sponsor and constituency - these efforts united nationalists and leftists, and were perceived by Putin as a major threat to his rule. Far greater than a trifling figure like Navalny could ever be.
With atrocities ramping up in Donbas, a full Ukrainian offensive impending, the Pentagon and CIA out of control, and Western world acting as if a Russian invasion was already underway, presumably Putin decided there was little to lose by launching a full-blown military offensive. The objective since the start has been to cripple Ukranian logistics, tie up forces and resources around Kiev, and secure total control over Donbas. Most of this has been achieved. Whatever comes of the invasion though, I doubt integration of eastern Ukraine into Russia is on the cards.
Excellent article. I posted one on Substack that quoted you, Escape from Azkaban: Victoria Nuland & Ukraine. And then Ukraine Peace & US Petropocalypse. I'm looking forward to using this article in my next one, Putin's Peace & the End of the Petrodollar Party.
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/victoria-nuland-is-dolores-umbridge
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/ukranian-peace-and-us-petropocalypse
Regime in Russia seems to explain what's going on... I'm wondering why Putin? Why is the carnage worth ousting the man and who will take his place?🤔
The RAND gambit is WEAK. In context, that entire quote is "Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages."
Additionally, RAND concludes with the following recommendation:
"The most-promising options to “extend Russia” are those that directly address its vulnerabilities, anxieties, and strengths, exploiting areas of weakness while undermining Russia’s current advantages. In that regard, Russia’s greatest vulnerability, in any competition with the United States, is its economy, which is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports. Russian leadership’s greatest anxiety stems from the stability and durability of the regime, and Russia’s greatest strengths are in the military and info-war realms. The table below draws from the earlier tables to identify the most-promising options.
Most of the options discussed, including those listed here, are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counterescalation. Thus, besides the specific risks associated with each option, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. This means that every option must be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia will bear the cost of this increased competition less easily than the United States will, both sides will have to divert national resources from other purposes. Extending Russia for its own sake is not a sufficient basis in most cases to consider the options discussed here. Rather, the options must be considered in the broader context of national policy based on defense, deterrence, and—where U.S. and Russian interests align—cooperation."
RAND recommended that the US INCREASE ENERGY PRODUCTION, which in 2019, when the report came out, was EXACTLY WHAT TRUMP WAS DOING.
I don’t speculate on efforts to make it happen but regime change in Russia would be a huge benefit to Russians and the world. The best we can realistically hope for is that they don't expand. Who wouldn't rather live in Western Europe or the rest of the West?
Aaaron, have you watched the Stone documentary "Revealing Ukraine"? You need to watch at 1 hour 11 minutes into the doc. Your buddy Michael Isikoff gets exposed in an letter from Ali Chalupa in how he too was working in essence with the Clinton campaign. I know you interviewed Isikoff before (I remember him being dismissive and rude to you) and you should get him on again and dump this info on him and see how he reacts. Maybe you are aware of it already. If not, watch for a few minutes after 1 hour 11 minutes,
Just saw the reports of nerve gas being used of several of the peace talk negotiators 2 weeks ago. If this is true what are the chances of it being used on the Ukrainian population? If this happens will Aaron comment on the fact that the Russian government are soulless pieces of shit?