Prelude to War in Ukraine
This is an abbreviated timeline from my much longer 30 year timeline posted in March , this one focusing on the perceived threat that Ukraine would join NATO or was not already a defacto NATO state with plans of aggression toward Russia and Russian speaking Ukrainians in the Donbass
2008-
NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations. We welcome the democratic reforms in Ukraine and Georgia and look forward to free and fair parliamentary elections in Georgia in May. MAP is the next step for Ukraine and Georgia on their direct way to membership. Today we make clear that we support these countries’ applications for MAP.
Therefore we will now begin a period of intensive engagement with both at a high political level to address the questions still outstanding pertaining to their MAP applications. We have asked Foreign Ministers to make a first assessment of progress at their December 2008 meeting. Foreign Ministers have the authority to decide on the MAP applications of Ukraine and Georgia.
2017-The Trump administration approved a plan to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine, a long-awaited move that deepens America's involvement in the military conflict and may further strain relations with Russia. Moscow responded angrily .
The new arms include American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles, U.S. officials said late Friday. Ukraine has long sought to boost its defenses against Russian-backed separatists armed with tanks that have rolled through eastern Ukraine during violence that has killed more than 10,000 since 2014.
Previously, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with support equipment and training, and has let private companies sell some small arms like rifles.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-trump-weapons-ukraine-20171222-story.html
2018-The first sale, which was completed in March 2018, included 210 Javelin missiles and 37 launch units and was intended to "help Ukraine build its long-term defense capacity to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity in order to meet its national defense requirements," according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
2018-Ukraine detained a fishing vessel from Crimea in March. In November, Ukraine sent two gunboats and a tug from the Black Sea port of Odessa to Mariupol in the Sea of Azov. Russia accused Ukraine of illegally entering its territorial waters. Russia said the Ukrainian ships were in its waters illegally because Moscow had temporarily closed an area of water for shipping.
Kiev called Russia's actions a flagrant violation of international law, because the Black Sea is free for shipping, and Crimea belongs to Ukraine.
Ukraine also cited a 2003 Russia-Ukraine treaty on unimpeded access to the Kerch Strait and Sea of Azov.
The Ukrainian vessels approached a bridge over the Kerch Strait - the only access to the Sea of Azov. Ukraine said its vessels had been fired on and seized by the Russians. Six Ukrainian crew members were injured. Russia confirmed it had used weapons to force the Ukrainian vessels to stop, saying three Ukrainians were injured
US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, condemned Russian behaviour, after which the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, followed suit. Trump voiced concern but did not blame Moscow
The White House blocked the US state department from issuing a statement condemning Russia for seizing Ukrainian military vessels, according to a state department official
2018- FBI affidavit asserted that Azov “is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States–based white supremacy organizations,” including members of the white supremacist Rise Above Movement, prosecuted for planned assaults on counterprotesters at far-right events, including the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally that Joe Biden later co-opted as a rationale for his presidential campaign.
While it seems the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre didn’t travel to Ukraine as he claimed, he clearly took inspiration from the far-right movement there, and worea symbol used by Azov members while carrying out the attack.
2018- Congress passed legislation ”forbidding military aid to Azov on the grounds of its white supremacist ideology, but the Trump administration’s authorization of $200 million in offensive weaponry and aid to the Ukrainian military makes it likely new stores of weapons will wind up the extremist regiment’s hands.
When queried by reporters about evidence of American military training of Azov personnel, multiple U.S. army spokespersons admitted there was no mechanism in place to prevent that from happening.
2018-January Azov rolled out its street patrol unit called National Druzhyna to “restore” order in the capital, Kyiv.
Instead, the unit carried out pogroms against the Roma community and attacked members of the LGBTQ community.
While the group officially denies any neo-Nazi connections, Azov’s nature has been confirmed by multiple Western outlets: The New York Timescalled the battalion“openly neo-Nazi,” while USA Today, The Daily Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretz documented group members’ proclivity for swastikas, salutes, and other Nazi symbols, and individual fighters have also acknowledged being neo-Nazis.
2018-Azov Battalion has become incorporated into Ukraine’s Interior Ministry as a component of the country’s National Guard.
In addition, the group’s founder Andrey Bilitsky, is currently a member of Ukraine’s parliament. Bilitsky once said that “The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival.”
Despite the merging of Azov Battalion with the Ukrainian government, the U.S has long continued to support Ukraine’s military with hundreds of millions of dollars in “security, programmatic, and technical assistance,” largely in the name of combatting “Russian aggression.”
When news of the close cooperation caused an outcry in the U.S., the Obama administration shot down congressional efforts to limit arms, training and other assistance to the Azov Battalion. U.S. assistance to the Azov Battalion was only banned earlier this year.
However, Azov Battalion continues to receive arms from U.S. allies such as Israel. As journalist Max Blumenthal has noted in the past, Israel has a “history of working as a kind of proxy for the U.S. to arm forces that are committing human rights abuses, or that are fascistic.”
https://www.mintpressnews.com/fbi-neo-nazi-militia-trained-by-us-military-in-ukraine-now-training-us-white-supremacists/251687/
2019- RAND brief “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia”
“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.”
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
2019- War Game simulating a Russia Invasion of Ukraine with NATO getting sucked in. 1 billion dead.
https://www.eutimes.net/2022/03/nato-nuclear-war-simulation-says-1-billion-would-die-total-irradiation-of-the-planet-forever/
2019-The day after the signature of NATO’s membership protocol with North Macedonia as its 30th member, Ukraine did something without precedent: it included in its Constitution the engagement to enter officially into NATO and the European Union
On 7 February, on a proposition by President Petro Poroshenko – the oligarch who made himself rich by plundering public properties, and who is once again a candidate for the presidency – the Kiev parliament, approved these amendments to the Constitution.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-nato-constitution/5668435
2019-Ukrainians were sending some of the best Special Forces troops for training at the elite Israeli Military Industries Academy for Advanced Security and Anti-Terror Training
https://sofrep.com/specialoperations/ukrainian-special-forces-getting-western-help-training/
2020 June 12-the North Atlantic Council recognised Ukraine as an Enhanced Opportunities Partner. This status is part of NATO’s Partnership Interoperability Initiative, which aims to maintain and deepen cooperation between Allies and partners that have made significant contributions to NATO-led operations and missions
As a NATO partner, Ukraine has provided troops to Allied operations, including in Afghanistan and Kosovo, as well as to the NATO Response Force and NATO exercises. Allies highly value these significant contributions, which demonstrate Ukraine’s commitment to Euro-Atlantic security.
As an Enhanced Opportunities Partner, Ukraine will benefit from tailor-made opportunities to help sustain such contributions. This includes enhanced access to interoperability programmes and exercises, and more sharing of information, including lessons learned.
“This decision recognises Ukraine’s strong contributions to NATO missions, and demonstrates the Alliance’s continued commitment to its partnerships despite the COVID-19 pandemic,” said NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu.
Ukraine is now one of six Enhanced Opportunities Partners, alongside Australia, Finland, Georgia, Jordan and Sweden. Each of the partners has a tailor-made relationship with NATO, based on areas of mutual interest.
https://archive.ph/aPv1w
2021 June,-Ukraine, the United States and other allies held a naval exercise, Sea Breeze, in the Black Sea and southern Ukraine, despite Russian calls for the drills to be cancelled.
Israels IDF military took part in the Sea Breeze-2021 exercises
July, 2021-Ukraine, the United States, Poland and Lithuania held another drill involving more than 1,200 troops
July 2021-An undisclosed number of US forces are present in Ukraine as part of a training mission and routine special operations forces exercises, Defense Department spokesperson Anton Semelroth said on Tuesday.
“The Florida National Guard’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, known as Task Force Gator, took over the [Ukraine training] mission when it rotated with the Washington National Guard’s 81st Stryker Brigade Combat Team,” Semelroth said on Tuesday.
“In addition, Special Operations Command Europe plays a large role in the development of Ukrainian Special Operations Forces… Due to operational security concerns, we cannot disclose the specific number of personnel.”
The training mission, known as the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine (JMTG-U), supports the long-term US policy of supporting the professional development and defensive capacity of Ukrainian forces, Semelroth said.
https://sputniknews.com/20211207/pentagon-confirms-presence-of-us-forces-in-ukraine-declines-to-disclose-number-1091333875.html
September, 2021 joint Ukrainian/NATO military exercises
The U.S. military said in a statement the drill involved a brigade combat team of the Washington National Guard, deployed in Ukraine since April as part of a multi-national training force. Troops from 12 countries in total would be involved, "to enhance interoperability among allied and partner nations" and demonstrate readiness.
The exercise comes on the heels of huge war games staged by Moscow near NATO and EU borders of Russia and Belarus in recent weeks, which Russia says involved 200,000 troops. Kyiv and NATO also accuse Russia of having deployed extra troops this year near Ukraine's frontiers.
20 Russian warships began large-scale live fire exercises in the Black Sea.
2021 -BRUSSELS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - NATO defence ministers agreed to a new master plan on Thursday to defend against any potential Russian attack on multiple fronts, reaffirming the alliance's core goal of deterring Moscow despite a growing focus on China.
The confidential strategy aims to prepare for any simultaneous attack in the Baltic and Black Sea regions that could include nuclear weapons, hacking of computer networks and assaults from space.
"We continue to strengthen our alliance with better and modernised plans," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said after the meeting, which also agreed a $1 billion fund to provide seed financing to develop new digital technologies.
....diplomats say the "Concept for Deterrence and Defence in the Euro-Atlantic Area" - and its strategic implementation plan - is needed as Russia develops advanced weapon systems and deploys troops and equipment closer to the allies' borders.
In May, Russia amassed some 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine, the highest number since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, Western officials say.
In September, Russia used new combat robots in large military drills with its ex-Soviet ally Belarus that have alarmed Baltic allies.
Russia is upgrading or replacing Soviet military space systems to potentially attack satellites in orbit, developing artificial intelligence-based technologies to disrupt allied command systems, and also developing "super weapons".
Unveiled in 2018, they include nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missiles that could evade early-warning systems.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-agree-master-plan-deter-growing-russian-threat-diplomats-say-2021-10-21/
2021-Nov. 10, - the U.S. and Ukraine signed a Charter on Strategic Partnership, which asserted America’s support for Kyiv’s right to pursue membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization."
https://www.state.gov/u-s-ukraine-charter-on-strategic-partnership/
December 17,2021
Russia on Friday published draft security pacts demanding NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet countries and to roll back its military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe— bold demands that the United States and its allies already have rejected.
The documents, which were submitted to the U.S and its allies , also call for a ban on sending U.S. and Russian warships and aircraft to areas from where they can strike each other’s territory and demand a rollback on alliance drills near Russia.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-ukraine-putin-nato-invasion-demands-
2021-The naval bases in Ochakov and Berdyansk are planned as modern infrastructure facilities capable of receiving ships of all types, equipped according to NATO standards and built with the money of the alliance countries,’ the Ukrainian press openly reported about them a year ago.
‘In three years we will be able to strike at Russian ships in the Black Sea with our mosquito fleet. And if we combine with Georgia and Turkey, the Russian Federation will be blocked,’ Ukrainian military experts have boasted.
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO9Mar2022.php
January , 2022-
The CIA’s Ground Branch paramilitaries also began traveling to the front line in the east of the country to advise troops there from 2015, a handful of ex-officials said. One source familiar with the training scheme accused the US of “training an insurgency,” and that it has taught Ukrainian fighters how “to kill Russians.”
In the context of recent claims that Moscow could order an incursion of its neighbor, the former senior intelligence official hinted that the Ukrainians who participated in the course could play a key role. “We’ve been training these guys now for eight years. They’re really good fighters. That’s where the agency’s program could have a serious impact.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades/ar-AASKKvF
2022-January-FEARS of a US invasion of Ukraine’s breakaway Donbass region have been raised amid allegations that the controversial Blackwater private security company — since renamed Academi — is training mercenaries for the task.
Deputy chief-of-staff of the Donetsk People’s Republic militia Eduard Basurin said US instructors had been spotted in a far-right training camp in the Sumy region of north-eastern Ukraine over the weekend.
“The Sumy branch of the National Corps radical organisation has embarked on training its mercenaries under the supervision of nationalists who have combat experience in the 2014 Donbass punitive operation.
“We also have information on US instructors of private military companies taking part in the training process, such as Forward Observations Group and Academi,” he said.
The National Corps party was formerly known as the Patriots of Ukraine. Its core base of support comes from the neonazi Azov battalion, which has since been integrated into the Ukrainian army.
Kiev has also mobilised a number of brigades to the contact line separating Ukraine from Donetsk — the eastern region declared independence in 2014 following the US and EU-backed fascist-led Maidan coup — including the 80th Airborne Assault Brigade and the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade, according to Mr Basurin.
“The 80th brigade finalised refresher training at the Starichi training centre of the Lvov region, which functions under the guise of an international peacekeeping and security centre.
“British instructors of Operation Orbital [Britain’s deployment in Ukraine] were responsible for training this brigade,” he said.
The military leader said there is a high possibility these units would be used as part of assault teams targeting major cities in the Donbass region as tensions continue to escalate.
Mr Basurin said preparations are under way for an invasion under US supervision, with a date for the offensive yet to be approved.
Blackwater was rebranded Academi in 2011 after it was acquired by a group of private investors. In 2014 it merged with rival security company Triple Canopy to form Constellis Group.
Constellis was bought for $1 billion (about £750 million) by investment company Apollo Group in 2016.
In September 2020 Apollo Group entered a $5.5 billion real-estate investment partnership with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), one of the world’s largest oil companies and a major exporter of liquefied natural gas.
In December 2021 Adnoc was invited to enter a joint venture to create an oil and gas terminal in the Ukrainian port of Odessa for transportation to western countries.
The announcement came a month after chief executive of the Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz Yuriy Vitrenko told an Abu Dhabi energy conference that he hoped the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Europe, which bypasses Ukraine, would not be approved.
He said that Ukraine stood to lose $2 billion per year — about 1.5 per cent of its GDP — if the Russian pipeline was operational, claiming that Nord Stream 2 “is actually putting the whole continent and global security at risk.”
February 16, 2022
In spring 2021 Zelensky announced that the Ukraine would retake Crimea by force. Russia then held large military maneuvers and Zelensky backed down.
By November 2021 the Ukraine again made noise and said it would be retaking Donbas by force. Russia again held military maneuvers as a show of force but this time the situation deteriorated further.
Starting February 16 the OSCE observers around Donbas noted in their daily reports a strong increase in ceasefire violation and explosions.
Most of the violations came from the Ukrainian site and the explosions of the fired shells and missile happened on Donbas held grounds
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/03/zelensky-and-the-fascists-he-will-hang-on-some-tree-on-khreshchatyk.html#more
Feb 19,2022--Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to suggest late last week that his country could pursue nuclear weapons as a way to defend itself from Russian aggression
When the Cold War ended, Ukraine took possession of approximately 5,000 nuclear weapons from the collapsed Soviet Union
Zelensky said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday:
“I want to believe that the North Atlantic Treaty and Article 5 will be more effective than the Budapest Memorandum.
Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world’s third nuclear capability. We don’t have that weapon. We also have no security. We also do not have part of the territory of our state that is larger in area than Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium. And most importantly – we don’t have millions of our citizens. We don’t have all this.
Therefore, we have something. The right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to ensuring security and peace guarantees.
Since 2014, Ukraine has tried three times to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum. Three times without success. Today Ukraine will do it for the fourth time. I, as President, will do this for the first time. But both Ukraine and I are doing this for the last time.
I am initiating consultations in the framework of the Budapest Memorandum. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was commissioned to convene them. If they do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt.
Putin responded to the suggestion that Ukraine could pursue nuclear weapons by saying that “this is not just bragging.”
“Ukraine has the nuclear technologies created back in the Soviet times and delivery vehicles for such weapons, including aircraft, as well as the Soviet-designed Tochka-U precision tactical missiles with a range of over 100 kilometers. But they can do more; it is only a matter of time. They have had the groundwork for this since the Soviet era,” Putin said. “In other words, acquiring tactical nuclear weapons will be much easier for Ukraine than for some other states I am not going to mention here, which are conducting such research, especially if Kiev receives foreign technological support. We cannot rule this out either.”
“If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will drastically change, especially for us, for Russia,” Putin continued.
“We cannot but react to this real danger, all the more so since, let me repeat, Ukraine’s Western patrons may help it acquire these weapons to create yet another threat to our country”
https://clarion.causeaction.com/2022/02/23/president-zelensky-suggests-ukraine-may-pursue-nuclear-weapons-to-counter-russia-putin-responds/
https://kyivindependent.com/national/zelenskys-full-speech-at-munich-security-conference/
February 19, 2022, US Vice President Kamala Harris accused Russia of spreading lies and disinformation before threatening "unprecedented sanctions" if they "further" invade Ukraine, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz berated Putin and the Russiansfor their aggressive actions and dismissed claims of genocide against the Russian-speaking people of the Donbas as "ridiculous, to put it bluntly"
President Joe Biden reiterated that the U.S. will not be sending its forces into Ukraine to fight Russia, choosing instead to take aim at Moscow's messaging, and provide the Ukrainian people with military and diplomatic support.
Feb 21, 2022-Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that Moscow will recognize the two self-declared breakaway Donbass republics in Ukraine’s east as sovereign nations, as a military standoff across the contact line continues to escalate.
Speaking as part of a televised address to the nation on Monday evening, Putin signed the decree, saying that “I deem it necessary to make a decision that should have been made a long time ago to immediately recognize the Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) People’s Republics.” Lawmakers will now be asked to consider statements of friendship and support with the two regions.
He explicitly referenced Zelenskyy’s Munich nuclear weapons pledge: “This is not empty bravado,” Putin stressed in his speech.