Stupid Shit in Kyiv

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2936634]In at least one case, a hospital in Vuhledar, the Ukrainians probably accidentally launched the missile that caused the deaths and blamed it on Russia.[/QUOTE]Not true, show the evidence. It was the Russians.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2936634]So what about Bucha? That was a travesty. But certainly it's not unique. The USA has ... blah blah USA blah blah blah USA[/QUOTE]Classic Russian misdirection. This is about the war crimes Russia is doing. Want to talk about USA, go to the USA forums.

The Russian war crimes are horrific, and says everything about the mentality of the people. This is why Ukraine will win, since living under those monsters is not an option.

[QUOTE=VinDici;2936843]Not true, show the evidence. It was the Russians.[/QUOTE]It's in the link. I'll quote here. Please note the writer, William M. Arkin, is pro-Ukrainian. He's penned pieces like "Moscow's Bloody March to Defeat," "As Ukraine Gets Closer to Victory, Nuclear War Gets Closer Too," "For Vladimir Putin, This is the Beginning of the End", "How Putin Botched the Ukraine War and Put Russia's Military Might at Risk," and "Yes, Ukraine Will Win the War. ".

He wrote those and a number of other similar articles in 2022 and early 2023, before it became obvious that this was turning into a bloody stalemate that Ukraine wasn't going to win.

Here's the excerpt:

[B]A hospital in Vuhledar[/B]

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, human rights monitors have been scrupulous in documenting Russian conduct. On the first day of attacks, for example, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Russia of damaging a hospital in Vuhledar (aka Ugledar), a coal mining town 50 miles north of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine.

At about 10:30 in the morning on February 24, a short-range Tochka missile (NATO SS-21 Scarab) landed in front of the Central City Hospital, killing four and injuring 10 civilians. [b]Human Rights Watch focused on the missile's cluster bomb warhead with 50 submunitions, pointing out the international convention banning the use of such weapons.[/b]

Establishing the facts in this and other cases is a meticulous process: taking witness testimony, documenting who was involved, establishing the weapons used, the damage, and deaths and injuries to civilians. In this case, Human Rights Watch interviewed workers at the hospital and collected photographic evidence. A photo of the nose cone of the missile, widely posted on social media, was the basis for determining the type of weapon used.

Amnesty International said the Russian ballistic missile strike on the hospital was "verified" by its Evidence Lab. "The Russian military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas," said Agns Callamard, the organization's Secretary General. "Some of these attacks may be war crimes. ".

[B]But there is a major problem with that narrative. Tochka is owned by both Russia and Ukraine, and though observers seem content to assume that Russia attacked Vuhledar, U.S. intelligence says that Russia probably did not fire a Tochka missile until March 6 about a week into the war.

Ukraine, on the other hand, is known to have fired Tochka missiles on the first day against a target in Kirovske in occupied Donetsk. Over the next 72 hours, Ukraine fired more Tochkas at Russian forces and against two airbases located in Russia itself, one at Millerovo and the other at Taganrog. On March 1, Ukraine also hit a Russian naval ship docked in Berdiansk harbor with a Tochka missile.

That photo of the nose cone, the one that identified the weapon that landed in Vuhledar on February 24? There is no photographic evidence that places it in Vuhledar, nor is there anything that proves that it is Russian.[/B]

The town of Vuhledar, in context, also proves to be an unlikely target. The Ukraine General Staff did not report the town or its surroundings attacked until March 13, raising the question whether it was an intended Russian target on February 24, when all of Russia's long-range attacks were highly choreographed.

On March 11, the independent investigative collective Bellingcat stated that Vuhledar was the only "confirmed example of this particular cluster munition type being used" in Ukraine, further raising questions regarding who fired the missile that landed there. [B]In other words, it was most likely a Ukrainian Tochka missile fired somewhere to the east, which failed in flight and landed in Vuhledar, causing the damage and deaths.[/B].

[url]https://www.newsweek.com/2022/08/12/putin-targeting-civilians-ukraine-what-evidence-shows-1729463.html[/url]

[QUOTE=VinDici;2936843]Classic Russian misdirection. This is about the war crimes Russia is doing. Want to talk about USA, go to the USA forums.

The Russian war crimes are horrific, and says everything about the mentality of the people. This is why Ukraine will win, since living under those monsters is not an option.[/QUOTE]You asked me to show the evidence. And I did. Well then, instead of trying to shut down the debate, please explain why Putin should be tried for war crimes in Ukraine, while American presidents Lyndon B Johnson and George W. Bush should not have been, in Vietnam and the Middle East, respectively. Feel free to reply in the American Politics thread if you wish, like I did for Paulie, although I don't understand why you gentlemen have a problem with analogies to other countries in this thread.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2936889]

You asked me to show the evidence. And I did. Well then, instead of trying to shut down the debate, please explain why Putin should be tried for war crimes in Ukraine, while American presidents Lyndon B Johnson and George W. Bush should not have been, in Vietnam and the Middle East, respectively. Feel free to reply in the American Politics thread if you wish, like I did for Paulie, although I don't understand why you gentlemen have a problem with analogies to other countries in this thread.[/QUOTE]I already explained in American Politics that the Vietnam and Iraq wars were nothing like the Ukraine war. They weren't criminal, unprovoked wars.

The Ukraine war is.

But anyway, why don't we take your brilliant reasoning even further?

In the 1863 Bear River massacre, the US Army murdered between 300-400 Native Americans, with 100 women and children among them. Yet, Abraham Lincoln was never indicted and prosecuted for this crime. Thus, I propose a posthumous exoneration of all so-called Nazi war criminals convicted after 1945 for crimes against humanity. Because, following your logic, if Lincoln avoided justice for mass murder that occurred on his watch, then [B]war crimes and crimes against humanity simply don't exist.[/B].

Or am I getting it all wrong and you only aim to protect war criminals you like?

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2936906]I already explained in American Politics that the Vietnam and Iraq wars were nothing like the Ukraine war. They weren't criminal, unprovoked wars.

The Ukraine war is.
[/QUOTE]You are one of the dumbest people I have come across on the internet. A million people died in the Iraq war. The country was destroyed. It was all done under the pretext of Iraq supposedly having WMD, which was proven to be a complete lie. The Iraq war was one of the biggest crimes of the last quarter of a century. The Ukraine war started in 2014. If you really want to go back in history as to when it really started, it was in 2008 when the chimp G. W Bush invited Ukraine to join NATO in 2008. Ukraine / Georgia joining NATO were Russian read lines and that's what NATO did, it provoked a needless war. Read William Burns' famous memo titled no means no. I feel bad for wasting my time and typing this post to a dumbshit like you. But others will read it so that's why I made the effort.

[QUOTE=BloodRed;2937013] If you really want to go back in history as to when it really started, it was in 2008 when the chimp G. W Bush invited Ukraine to join NATO in 2008. Ukraine / Georgia joining NATO were Russian read lines and that's what NATO did, it provoked a needless war. [/QUOTE]Good joke. Germany and France strictly opposed this Amercan idea. And, probably you do not know, it needs all member states of NATO to agree to a new member.

[QUOTE=BloodRed;2937013]You are one of the dumbest people I have come across on the internet. A million people died in the Iraq war. The country was destroyed. It was all done under the pretext of Iraq supposedly having WMD, which was proven to be a complete lie. The Iraq war was one of the biggest crimes of the last quarter of a century. The Ukraine war started in 2014. If you really want to go back in history as to when it really started, it was in 2008 when the chimp G. W Bush invited Ukraine to join NATO in 2008. Ukraine / Georgia joining NATO were Russian read lines and that's what NATO did, it provoked a needless war. Read William Burns' famous memo titled no means no. I feel bad for wasting my time and typing this post to a dumbshit like you. But others will read it so that's why I made the effort.[/QUOTE]Excellent short summary of the history of the Russian grievances Blood Red. I agree with you about Iraq, although I don't know whether to classify it as one of the biggest crimes or one of the biggest fuckups of the last quarter century.

I disagree with you on two points. Xpartan may be gullible and naive, but he's not dumb. Secondly, I believe you can trace the origins of the conflict back farther, to assurances by James Baker, Helmut Kohl, George H. W. Bush, Robert Gates, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Francois Mitterand and others. See what Gorbachev had to say:

"Kohl, US Secretary of State James Baker and others assured me that NATO would not move an inch east. The Americans didn't stick to that, and the Germans didn't care. Maybe they even rubbed their hands at how well the Russians were ripped off. What did it bring? It's just that the Russians no longer trust Western promises."

[URL]https://www.bild.de/politik/2009/bild-medienpreis/die-deutschen-waren-nicht-aufzuhalten-7864098.bild.html[/URL] (You need to run this through Google Translate).

"The Americans promised that Nato wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted "

[URL]https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-Cold-War.html[/URL]

Here's a more detailed discussion:

[URL]https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early[/URL]

Since I'm as verbose as you are succinct, I'll provide excerpts here from a good article about William Burns, the current CIA director, that expands on what you wrote.

"It is hard to find Burns's finger-prints on Biden's Russia policy or on the conduct of NATO's war in Ukraine, where USA Policy has run headlong into precisely the dangers Burns warned his government about, in cables from Moscow spanning more than a decade. We cannot know what Burns tells the president behind closed doors. But he has not publicly called for peace talks, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley has done, although to do so would be highly unusual for a CIA director.

In the current environment of rigid pro-war, anti-Russian orthodoxy, if Bill Burns publicly voiced some of the concerns he expressed earlier in his career, he might be ostracized, or even fired, as a Putin apologist. But his dire warnings about the consequences of inviting Ukraine to join NATO have been quietly tucked in his back pocket, as he condemns Russia as the sole author of the catastrophic war in Ukraine, without mentioning the vital context that he has so vividly explained over the past 30 years.

[b]In his memoir The Back Channel, published in 2019, Burns confirmed that, in 1990, Secretary of State James Baker had indeed assured Mikhail Gorbachev that there would be no expansion of the NATO alliance or forces "one inch to the east" of the borders of a reunified Germany. Burns wrote that, even though the pledge was never formalized and was made before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russians took Baker at his word and felt betrayed by NATO enlargement in the years that followed.[/b]

In the current environment of rigid pro-war, anti-Russian orthodoxy, if Bill Burns publicly voiced some of the concerns he expressed earlier in his career, he might be ostracized, or even fired, as a Putin apologist.

[b]When he was political officer at the USA Embassy in Moscow in 1995, Burns reported that "hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here. " When in the late 1990's President Bill Clinton's administration moved to bring Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO, Burns called the decision premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst. "As Russians stewed in their grievance and sense of disadvantage, a gathering storm of 'stab in the back' theories slowly swirled, leaving a mark on Russia's relations with the West that would linger for decades," he wrote.[/b]

After serving various posts in the Middle East, including ambassador to Jordan, in 2005 Burns finally got the job he had been eyeing for years: USA Ambassador to Russia. From thorny trade issues to the conflict in Kosovo and missile defense disputes, he had his hands full. But the issue of NATO expansion was a source of constant friction.

[b]It came to a head in 2008, when officials in the Bush administration were pushing to extend a NATO invitation to Ukraine and Georgia at the Bucharest NATO Summit. Burns tried to head it off. Two months before the summit, he penned a no-holds-barred email to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, parts of which he quoted in his book.

"Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests," Burns wrote. "At this stage, a MAP (Membership Action Plan) offer would be seen not as a technical step along a long road toward membership, but as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Russia will respond. Russian-Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze. It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.".[/b]

In addition to this personal email, he wrote a meticulous 12-point official cable to Secretary Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, which only came to light thanks to a WikiLeaks diplomatic cable dump in 2010.

Dated February 1, 2008, the memo's subject line, all caps, could not have been more clear:[b] NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA'S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES.[/b]

[b]In no uncertain terms, Burns conveyed the intense opposition from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other senior officials, stressing that Russia would view further NATO eastward expansion as a potential military threat. He said that NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, was "an emotional and neuralgic" issue but also a strategic policy issue.[/b]

"Not only does Russia perceive encirclement and efforts to undermine Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene a decision Russia does not want to have to face. ".

Six years later, the USA -supported Maidan uprising provided the final trigger for the civil war that Russian experts had predicted.

Burns quoted Lavrov as saying that, while countries were free to make their own decisions about their security and which political-military structures to join, they needed to keep in mind the impact on their neighbors, and that Russia and Ukraine were bound by bilateral obligations set forth in the 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, in which both parties undertook to "refrain from participation in or support of any actions capable of prejudicing the security of the other side. ".

Burns said a Ukrainian move toward the Western sphere would hurt defense industry cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, including a number of factories where Russian weapons were made, and would have a negative impact on the thousands of Ukrainians living and working in Russia and vice versa. Burns quoted Aleksandr Konovalov, Director of the Institute for Strategic Assessment, predicting that this would become "a boiling cauldron of anger and resentment among the local population. ".

Russian officials told Burns that NATO expansion would have repercussions throughout the region and into Central and Western Europe, and could even cause Russia to revisit its arms control agreements with the West.

[b]In a rare personal meeting Burns had with Putin just before leaving his post as ambassador in 2008, Putin warned him that "no Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia. We would do all in our power to prevent it. "[/b]

[b]Despite all these warnings, the Bush administration plowed ahead at the 2008 Summit in Bucharest. Given objections from several key European countries, no date for membership was set, but NATO issued a provocative statement, saying "we agreed today that Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO. ".

Burns was not happy. "In many ways, Bucharest left us with the worst of both worldsindulging the Ukrainians and Georgians in hopes of NATO membership on which we were unlikely to deliver, while reinforcing Putin's sense that we were determined to pursue a course he saw as an existential threat," he wrote.[/b]

While Ukraine still has hopes to formally enter NATO, Ukraine's former defense minister Oleksii Reznikov says that[b] Ukraine has already become a de facto member of the NATO alliance that receives NATO weapons, NATO training and all-round military and intelligence cooperation.[/b] The intelligence sharing is directed by the CIA chief himself, who has been shuttling back and forth to meet with his counterpart in Ukraine.

[b]A much better use of Burns's expertise would be to shuttle back and forth to Moscow to help negotiate an end to this brutal and unwinnable war. Would that make him a Putin apologist, or a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize? What do you think?[/b]

[URL]https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/cia-ukraine-war[/URL]

Well, I'll answer the question. That would make him a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2936906]I already explained in American Politics that the Vietnam and Iraq wars were nothing like the Ukraine war. They weren't criminal, unprovoked wars.

The Ukraine war is.

But anyway, why don't we take your brilliant reasoning even further?

In the 1863 Bear River massacre, the US Army murdered between 300-400 Native Americans, with 100 women and children among them. Yet, Abraham Lincoln was never indicted and prosecuted for this crime. Thus, I propose a posthumous exoneration of all so-called Nazi war criminals convicted after 1945 for crimes against humanity. Because, following your logic, if Lincoln avoided justice for mass murder that occurred on his watch, then [B]war crimes and crimes against humanity simply don't exist.[/B].

Or am I getting it all wrong and you only aim to protect war criminals you like?[/QUOTE]By your logic, yes, Lincoln should have been prosecuted for war crimes. The Bear River Massacre sounds a lot like Bucha. Maybe members of the American and Russian military deserved prosecution for both, but I doubt leadership had jack to do with planning either. Undoubtedly Sherman was responsible for many civilian deaths while he was razing Georgia and other southern states. You could argue that Russian commanders who didn't do enough to enable civilians to leave Mariupol were responsible for deaths too. But does all that reflect back to Lincoln and Putin? I don't think so.

Your other point is about the justness of wars. As you put it, criminal, unprovoked wars. Well, as Blood Red correctly says, Iraq qualifies on those scores better than Ukraine. Russia believed it did have justification -- see my post just below too.

As to your proposal to exonerate Nazi war criminals, I don't see how you could have done that back in the 1960s or whenever, since the ones involved in the death camps were executed. Painting Russians as subhuman Nazi murderers is not conducive to ending this war. That's not to criticize you, but rather the politicians and other neoconservative members of western governments who say that and who want to see this bloodshed go on and on.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2937077]By your logic, yes, Lincoln should have been prosecuted for war crimes. The Bear River Massacre sounds a lot like Bucha. Maybe members of the American and Russian military deserved prosecution for both, but I doubt leadership had jack to do with planning either. Undoubtedly Sherman was responsible for many civilian deaths while he was razing Georgia and other southern states. You could argue that Russian commanders who didn't do enough to enable civilians to leave Mariupol were responsible for deaths too. But does all that reflect back to Lincoln and Putin? I don't think so.

Your other point is about the justness of wars. As you put it, criminal, unprovoked wars. Well, as Blood Red correctly says, Iraq qualifies on those scores better than Ukraine. Russia believed it did have justification -- see my post just below too.

As to your proposal to exonerate Nazi war criminals, I don't see how you could have done that back in the 1960s or whenever, since the ones involved in the death camps were executed. Painting Russians as subhuman Nazi murderers is not conducive to ending this war. That's not to criticize you, but rather the politicians and other neoconservative members of western governments who say that and who want to see this bloodshed go on and on.[/QUOTE]What a bunch of hogwash!

1. After the horrors of Bucha were discovered, Putin gave the brigade responsible the honorary title of "Guards". The US jurisprudence would most likely classify it as an accessory after the fact.

2. Russian commanders not only "didn't do enough" -- they would bomb and shell civilians trying to flee Mariupol.

3. Just stop! My "offer to exonerate Nazi war criminals" was sarcastic, because [B]if a clear-cut war criminal like Putin shouldn't be prosecuted then war crimes don't exist anymore[/B].

4. I already proved using reliable sources that neither Vietnam nor Iraq war was criminal. They might've had disastrous consequences, but they were legal. Find my post here or in American Politics by making a simple search. I'm not playing a merry-go-round with you.

Putin's war is 100% criminal, no matter how your Russophile self is trying to paint it.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2937070]Excellent short summary of the history of the Russian grievances Blood Red. [/QUOTE]That's beautiful. Now go ahead and kiss him.

Look, I don't give a fuck whether there are 10,100 or 1,000 fake grievances the Kremlin butcher might use to justify this land grab. No one has ever given Russia any guarantees, oral or in writing, that Nato wouldn't move east.

And not just guarantees. There were no promises, no high-fives, no gentlemen agreements, no "understanding" that Nato wouldn't move east.

It has never fucking happened. I don't give a shit what Burns says. It's a lie, a myth, a nothing-sandwich.

And you know what -- I don't believe that you're a moron or gullible. Unfortunately, it can only mean that you're dishonest.

If you found THAT Gorby interview, then you've found the other two, in which he clearly states that no guarantees have been ever made. The links to those are also provided in that Wikipedia page you used for your research. Gorby was a political animal. He said a lot of things contradicting each other.

[QUOTE][b]Gorbachev sees no breach of promise in NATOs eastward expansion
Was NATO's eastward expansion ruled out in the Two Plus Four talks? No, says former Soviet leader Gorbachev. This is a myth. November 9, 2014[/b]

Former Soviet head of state and party leader Mikhail Gorbachev has contradicted the claim that he was promised that NATO would not expand eastwards during talks on German unification. This was not an issue during the negotiations in 1990, Gorbachev told the heute-journal on ZDF . He added: "The Warsaw Pact still existed. The question did not even arise at the time."

[b]The Two Plus Four Treaty of 1990 was about the territory of the GDR[/b], said Gorbachev. When asked whether it was a myth that he had been deceived by the West, Gorbachev replied: "Yes, that is indeed a myth. The press had a hand in it."[/QUOTE]Indeed, The Warsaw Pact (Soviet answer to Nato) still existed in 1989. It would've made zero sense to even discuss Nato expansion at the time.

If you were trying to discover the truth rather than prove the point, you'd mention it at least.

[QUOTE=BloodRed;2937013]You are one of the dumbest people I have come across on the internet. [/QUOTE]Hey Igor, what's up? You've been awfully quiet lately. Still waiting for a metodichka, huh?

[URL]https://ceres.georgetown.edu/research/student-projects/russias-information-war-at-home-what-are-these-metodichki[/URL]

Let me help.

Kyiv now controls 74 settlements and over 1,000 sq. Kilometers in Kursk region while Putin's meat grinder is spinning nonstop.

Category Change 7 the 14 the 30 the Total.

Personnel +1240 1147.1 1162.9 1137.0 658.3.

[URL]https://www.reddit.com/r/RussianLosses/comments/1ersxh9/estimated_russian_losses_from_24022022_to/[/URL]

[QUOTE=ReinerOtto;2937046]Good joke. Germany and France strictly opposed this Amercan idea. And, probably you do not know, it needs all member states of NATO to agree to a new member.[/QUOTE]I do know that and yes you are right about Germany and France being opposed to the idea. You have to understand that America controls NATO. They are the ones that call the shots. The rest of the Euros just fall in line like puppets. I said G. W Bush invited Ukraine to join NATO in 2008. That's what started this whole mess. Then the USA was behind the coup in Ukraine in 2014 that removed the democratically elected President. That was the last straw and Putin acted. He didn't want NATO in Crimea and control the black sea, hence he seized Crimea with no bloodshed as all the people there were Russian speakers anyways and it had always been historically Russian. Then the war in the Donbas started and that is when the USA aka NATO started arming and training AFU. Putin laid out his conditions for peace and to avoid war in 2022 just before the SMO started. It would have prevented this savage, needless war. But this is a war USA and NATO wanted, to make Russia bleed. The people of Ukraine were cannon fodder. The west does not give a shit about Ukraine. You will see how they abandon it, just like they abandoned Afghanistan.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2937070]Excellent short summary of the history of the Russian grievances Blood Red. I agree with you about Iraq, although I don't know whether to classify it as one of the biggest crimes or one of the biggest fuckups of the last quarter century.

I disagree with you on two points. Xpartan may be gullible and naive, but he's not dumb. Secondly, I believe you can trace the origins of the conflict back farther, to assurances by James Baker, Helmut Kohl, George H. W. Bush, Robert Gates, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Francois Mitterand and others. See what Gorbachev had to say:

"Kohl, US Secretary of State James Baker and others assured me that NATO would not move an inch east. The Americans didn't stick to that, and the Germans didn't care. Maybe they even rubbed their hands at how well the Russians were ripped off. What did it bring? It's just that the Russians no longer trust Western promises."

[URL]https://www.bild.de/politik/2009/bild-medienpreis/die-deutschen-waren-nicht-aufzuhalten-7864098.bild.html[/URL] (You need to run this through Google Translate).

"The Americans promised that Nato wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted "
[/QUOTE]We will have to agree to disagree on Xpartan having an IQ of greater than 22 I guess LOL.

But yes, like you have pointed out, this war was provoked deliberately by NATO, despite the warnings by Russia and despite the promises made way back when the USSR was disintegrating. If you really want to know who started the whole NATO expansion, it was Bill Clinton in the 1990's, despite a lot of opposition from many Americans and Europeans.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2937070]
While Ukraine still has hopes to formally enter NATO, Ukraine's former defense minister Oleksii Reznikov says that[b] Ukraine has already become a de facto member of the NATO alliance that receives NATO weapons, NATO training and all-round military and intelligence cooperation.[/b] The intelligence sharing is directed by the CIA chief himself, who has been shuttling back and forth to meet with his counterpart in Ukraine.

[b]A much better use of Burns's expertise would be to shuttle back and forth to Moscow to help negotiate an end to this brutal and unwinnable war. Would that make him a Putin apologist, or a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize? What do you think?[/b]

[URL]https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/cia-ukraine-war[/URL]

Well, I'll answer the question. That would make him a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.[/QUOTE]Ukraine will NEVER join NATO. Write this down. The collective west doesn't want Ukraine in NATO and they will never agree to Ukraine joining NATO. So what was the point of this needless savage war? To make Russia bleed. Who cares that Ukraine is destroyed, their country facing a demographic death, as long as the MIC thrives, Russia gets weakened (in their mind) and as long as it is Ukrainians dying and not Americans and Euros? I swear, these people are pure evil.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2937186]What a bunch of hogwash!

1. After the horrors of Bucha were discovered, Putin gave the brigade responsible the honorary title of "Guards". The US jurisprudence would most likely classify it as an accessory after the fact.

2. Russian commanders not only "didn't do enough" -- they would bomb and shell civilians trying to flee Mariupol.[/QUOTE]I didn't know that. If true, and I believe "1" is, it shows poor judgement on the part of Putin and some Russian commanders. It isn't an excuse however to keep fighting while many more die. All sides should be working to stop the madness.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2937186]3. Just stop! My "offer to exonerate Nazi war criminals" was sarcastic, because [B]if a clear-cut war criminal like Putin shouldn't be prosecuted then war crimes don't exist anymore[/B].[/QUOTE]How do you think that's going to happen? Putin's approval rating in Russia is off the charts high. Russia's resources and manpower to pursue this war far exceed Ukraine's. At the risk of being repetitive, Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Your belief that Putin's going to come to the same end as Ceausecu or will be prosecuted for war crimes is a pipe dream. If that's the purpose of this war, to bring Putin to justice, the western politicians have lost their minds.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2937186]4. I already proved using reliable sources that neither Vietnam nor Iraq war was criminal. [/QUOTE]Sure you have.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2937186]Look, I don't give a fuck whether there are 10,100 or 1,000 fake grievances the Kremlin butcher might use to justify this land grab. No one has ever given Russia any guarantees, oral or in writing, that Nato wouldn't move east.

And not just guarantees. There were no promises, no high-fives, no gentlemen agreements, no "understanding" that Nato wouldn't move east.

It has never fucking happened. I don't give a shit what Burns says. It's a lie, a myth, a nothing-sandwich.

And you know what -- I don't believe that you're a moron or gullible. Unfortunately, it can only mean that you're dishonest.

If you found THAT Gorby interview, then you've found the other two, in which he clearly states that no guarantees have been ever made. The links to those are also provided in that Wikipedia page you used for your research. Gorby was a political animal. He said a lot of things contradicting each other.

Indeed, The Warsaw Pact (Soviet answer to Nato) still existed in 1989. It would've made zero sense to even discuss Nato expansion at the time.

If you were trying to discover the truth rather than prove the point, you'd mention it at least.[/QUOTE]I'll take the word of the current director of the CIA over yours, especially considering he was also ambassador to Russia and has worked on Russian-related matters at the State Department for the better part of his career. You conveniently ignore the National Security Archive/George Washington University link, documenting contemporaneous communications of western leaders that show that "Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion" were well founded.

[QUOTE=BloodRed;2937256] You have to understand that America controls NATO. They are the ones that call the shots. The rest of the Euros just fall in line like puppets. [/QUOTE]One more joke.

I do not remember, F or the to participate in Americas "Coalition of the Willing". Although being invited.

Then the USA was behind the coup in Ukraine in 2014 . < Obviously, you consider it a fact, that the CIA payed for the (tens of) thousands of Ukrainians on the Maidan.

And Putin acted. He didn't want NATO in Crimea and control the black sea, hence he seized Crimea < That was the beginning of his official aggression, correct.

And it had always been historically Russian. < To be specific, Crimea was Russian for about 250 years, since the first Russian annexion. And the forced exodus of the Tartars under Stalin.

Of course, you also say the USA is historically anglo American.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2937294]I didn't know that. If true[/QUOTE]I don't mean to be rude, but until or unless you say something new and back it up with verifiable facts, I have to cut our little interactions. Life's too short to waste even 10 minute a day trying to reason with a believer.

Why does Professor Blood Red always demand we write down his lunacies?

[QUOTE=BloodRed;2875229]I told everyone on this forum that Russia would win and to write that down. .[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=BloodRed;2915933]Write this down: Ukraine will NEVER join NATO.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=BloodRed;2937257]Ukraine will NEVER join NATO. Write this down. [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=BloodRed;2936344]a Russian victory. Write that down. Have a nice day.[/QUOTE]