The Road to War in Ukraine
With many eyes on the Russia-Ukraine conflict it helps to look back on the history to understand whats happening and how it happened
Despite promises made to Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War, NATO has incorporated almost all of former Soviet allies establishing its military facilities along Russia’s border. NATO forces have encircled the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, home to Russia’s only ice-free port on the Baltic Sea. In addititon, the West has instigated “color revolutions” in the former Soviet republics targeting Russia-friendly regimes.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/02/27/why-russia-wanted-security-guarantees-from-west/
Russians forms the largest single Russian diaspora in the world. In the 2001 Ukrainian census, 8,334,100 identified as ethnic Russians(17.3% of the population of Ukraine); this is the combined figure for persons originating from outside of Ukraine and the Ukrainian-born population declaring Russian ethnicity.
HISTORY
Russia was first born in Kiev. The first historic Russian empire was Kievan-Rus, which was founded by the Vikings and the King Rurik, who sailed from the Baltic Sea through the rivers Daugava and Dnepr down to the Black Sea and Constantinople. In 882 CE they made Kyiv the capital of the first Russian kingdom. The Mongols put a final end to Kievan-Rus in the 13th century, but the Rurik dynasty then ruled from further north, in what was in the 15th century still just a small principality around another river city called Moscow.
Only in 1598 did the ruling Ruriks die out in Moscow where they were succeeded by the Romanovs.
At the beginning of the 16th century, Christian believing European governors considered the Cossacks to be crucial allies in their war against the Ottoman Empire. In 1621, Lithuanian-Polish troops battled the Ottoman Empire at Khotyn. There, Cossack troops, headed by Hetman Petro Sahaidachny, joined Polish-Lithuanian forces and they stopped the Turkish army at its borders.
After that, the Zaporozhian Cossacks began to impose increasingly big social requirements on the Commonwealth.
The reaction of the Poles did not satisfy the Cossacks, so they raised a rebellion under the leadership of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky. It ended with the creation of Cossack autonomy.
Ukrainian Cossacks gained their independence in 1649. That year, as a result of the Zboriv agreements between the leaders of the Rzeczpospolita and Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, it was formed as part of the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Bratslav regions (called "voivodeships", areas administered by a voivode orgovernor) to the east of the Sluch River.
It was the Cossacks who spread and popularized the term "Ukraine", which had not been used in the pre-Cossack era, as the name of their territories.
Historians consider Zaporozhian Cossacks to be the first purely Ukrainian society.
The Khmelnytsky Uprising, also known as the Cossack-Polish War, the Chmielnicki Uprising, the Khmelnytsky massacre or the Khmelnytsky insurrection, was a Cossack rebellion that took place between 1648 and 1657 in the eastern territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in Ukraine.
Under the command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, allied with the Crimean Tatars and local Ukrainian peasantry, fought against Polish domination and against the Commonwealth forces.
The insurgency was accompanied by mass atrocities committed by Cossacks against the civilian population, especially against the Roman Catholic clergy and the Jews.
At the time of Bohdan Khmelnytsky's death, the Cossack state had a territory of about 250,000 square miles (650,000 km2) and a population of around 1.2 to 1.5 million.
Society consisted of the remaining non-Catholic nobles, the starshina or richer Cossack officers, the mass of the Cossacks and those peasants who did not bear arms.
The Orthodox Church held 17% of the land; local nobles held 33%. The remaining 50% had been confiscated from the Poles and was up for grabs. Ukrainians comprised a frontier society with no natural borders, no tradition of statehood and a population committed to Cossack liberty or anarchy.
The confiscated lands could easily change hands in any conflict. There was an unresolved conflict between the mass of poorer cossacks and the wealthier group who aspired to semi-noble status. The state was weak and needed a protector, but of the regional powers, the Poles wanted to take the Ukrainian lands back, Muscovite-Russian autocracy fitted ill with Cossack ideals of liberty, the Crimean Khanate concentrated on Slavic slave-raiding and the Turks of the Ottoman Empire showed little concern for the Ukrainian frontier.
The Swedish Empire's territory remained still too far away during this period, and the Don Cossacks and the Kalmucks stayed out of the conflict.
The history of Ukraine in this period became very complex. Basic themes included:
the failure to find a single leader of Ukraine who could pursue a consistent policy
the constant switching of alliances with outside powers who had their own interests
conflict between richer and poorer Cossacks
the influence of the Orthodox Church, which tended to favour coreligionist Moscow
The history of right- and left-bank Ukraine is closely associated with the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648–57. The territory was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth under the House of Vasa until the Russo-Polish War triggered by Khmelnytsky's Treaty of Pereyaslav, 1654, with the Muscovy alliance.
After the 13-year conflict, the victorious Tsardom of Russia incorporated the left-bank Ukraine along with the city of Kiev in 1667 following the Truce of Andrusovo.
Meanwhile, the right-bank Ukraine remained in the Commonwealth until the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century.
As part of the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crownit was divided into two voivodeships: Kiev and Bracław. In 1669 Hetman Petro Doroshenko allowed right-bank Ukraine to be part of the Ottoman Empire.
The southernmost Podolia in the right-bank Ukraine was invaded by Ottomans in 1672. Following the 1683 victory of the Christian powers in the Battle of Vienna, in 1699 the Treaty of Karlowitz returned those lands to the Commonwealth.
During the 18th century, two Cossack uprisings took place. In 1793 right-bank Ukraine was annexed by the Russian Empire in the Second Partition of Poland,becoming part of the guberniya('governorate') of Little Russia.
In the 19th century, the population of right-bank Ukraine was mostly Ukrainian, but most of the land was owned by the Polish or Polonized Ukrainian nobility.
Many of the towns and cities belonged to the Pale of Settlement and had a substantial Jewish population, while the Polish-speaking nobility was mostly Roman Catholic. Most of the peasantry became Greek Catholic only in the 18th century, and after the Partitions of Poland, largely converted to Orthodoxy long before the disestablishment of the Unia in 1839.
The right-bank Ukraine was subsequently divided into four provinces (guberniyas), each with its own administration: Kiev, Volhynia, Kherson and Podolia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-bank_Ukraine
Galicia as a geopolitical entity was created in 1772 with the establishment of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, the Austrian Empire’s most eastern crownland. The capital of the province was Lemberg (today Lviv) which is today part of Western Ukraine. A century and a half later, Galicia was wiped from the world’s maps, with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and much of the territory became part of Poland. Though relatively short-lived as an administrative unit, Galicia as a historical region with a distinct cultural, linguistic, and architectural heritage lives on.
While located on Ukrainian ethnolinguistic territory, for centuries Galicia was inhabited, in addition to Ukrainians, by Poles, Germans (including Austrians), and Jews. Generally Poles and Jews made up the majority of the population of the region’s cities and towns, while Ukrainians predominantly lived in the countryside. The region’s complex history, the proximity of different ethnic groups and religions, and the changing rulers shaped this corner of Europe into a distinct and culturally rich region.
In the major cities of Galicia, especially in Lviv, the traces of these different ethnic groups as well as of different administrations and periods are still visible today, in both the urban landscape as well as in the cultural heritage.
https://forgottengalicia.com/about/what-is-galicia/
Novorossiya was the name of a territory of the Russian Empire formed from the Crimean Khanate and Zaporizhian Sich which was under a mutual condominium of the Russian Empireand the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The territory had been annexed several years after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca concluded the Russo-Turkish War in 1774.
Novorossiya initially included today's Southern Ukraine as well as some parts of today's Russia such as Kuban. The modern Russian Black Sea coast that was occupied by indigenous Circassians under military protection of the Ottoman Empire was not conquered until 1829 and was ceded to Russia under the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople.
The region was soon colonized by Ukrainian, Romanian, Russian, German, Greek, Bulgarian, Jewish and other settlers. The major cities were Odessa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Novorossiysk.
In 1802 the province of Novorossiya was split into three Governorates.
Most of 18th century Novorossiya was incorporated in 1917 into the newly proclaimed Ukrainian People's Republic. After the defeat of pro-independence Ukrainians in the Ukrainian–Soviet War, the Soviet government confirmed that Southern Ukraine was part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya_(confederation)
MODERN HISTORY
So Ukraine did not exist as a country for hundreds of years and was only created after the Russian Revolution in 1922, just 100 years ago when it was absorbed by the newly formed Soviet Union after a civil war between Ukrainian Nationalists and anti-Bolshevik forces and Russian Bolsheviks following the 1917 Revolution
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/02/08/ukraine-and-russia-history-matters/
1945-Even as Germany was losing the World War II, the Ukrainian SS Nazis kept fighting loyally for Hitler, even on retreat all the way back to Berlin. Only a few weeks before Hitler shot himself in May 1945, did the Ukrainian SS-Nazi soldiers (on paper with SS symbols!) suddenly declare that they were now anti-Communist “freedom fighters” for Ukraine. Soon after World War II, thousands of these SS Ukrainians were discretely sent to Canada, where they formed a community and whitewashed their Nazi past.
Looking back on WWII , think about how the War to save Poland worked out for Poland. Hopefully we dont repeat that mistake with Ukraine.
1954-Crimea was part of Russia from 1783, when the Tsarist Empire annexed it a decade after defeating Ottoman forces in the Battle of Kozludzha, until 1954, when the Soviet government transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics (RSFSR) to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR)
POST-SOVIET HISTORY
1990, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker promised Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would expand "not one inch eastward" after the reunification of Germany and German diplomat Jürgen Chrobog assured the Russians"that we would not expand NATO beyond the Elbe.
1994-United States and Russia reached an agreement in 1994, known as the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, by which Ukraine would turn over its nukes in exchange for those security assurances,”
The Washington Post reported. “The agreement is not an official treaty. It is neither legally binding nor does it carry an enforcement mechanism. And while it provides security assurances, they do not include specific promises with regard to a potential invasion.”
2004 color revolution replaced Yanukovych with Viktor Yushchenko, who favored admitting Ukraine to NATO and adopted an International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment program that benefitted U.S. investors while cutting social programs.
2007- at the Munich Security Conference Putin said ‘We will not allow the expansion of NATO to a point where NATO is touching our border, specifically, Ukraine and Georgia. We see these as Trojan Horses for NATO’s military power and US influence...”
2013, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland admitted that the US had spent $5 billion on "democracy promotion" activities in Ukraine.
Her husband (and arch-neocon) Robert Kagan had co-founded the Project for the New American Century in 1998 around a demand for “regime change” in Iraq, a project that was accomplished in 2003 with President George W. Bush’s invasion.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/26/robert-parry-the-mess-that-nuland-made/
2013-Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona met with a well-known right-wing nationalist party in Ukraine in 2013.
The senator took a trip to Kiev, Ukraine, where he spoke to thousands of protesters gathered in the city’s main square to protest former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to cut trade relations with Europe and instead engage with Russia.
His visit was reportedly to show U.S. support for the protesters, but his trip to Ukraine was notable for another reason. McCain was repeatedly photographed standing next to and meeting with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the right-wing nationalist Svoboda Party, Business Insider reported.
The Svoboda Party has gained some traction and notoriety in Ukraine, garnering 10 percent of the national vote in the nation’s 2010 parliamentary election. Svoboda has a history of anti-Semitism.
When it was founded in 1995, the party had a logo eerily similar to the Nazi swastika. The party underwent a schism in later years, but still remains true to promoting Ukrainian ethnic identity.
2014-Nazis and far-right-wing groups supported by the US and then-Vice President Biden and Victoria Nuland were active as violent stormtroopers during the Maidan coup in Kiev which in 2014 toppled Ukraine’s democratically elected president Yanukovych. In subsequent “free” elections the political parties which represented eastern Ukraine’s mainly Russian speaking population were banned or criminalized.
Immediately after this, Russian-speaking Ukrainians were targeted by the new government in Kyiv, and Russian-speaking insurgents rose in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region. Russia reacted by taking-over Crimea with a subsequent referendum. Ukrainian far-right movements and neo-Nazis organized private oligarch-financed armies to fight the Russian-speaking insurgents in Donbass, and Russia responded by militarily supporting the Russian-speaking insurgents.
Over the next 8 years shelling of the Donbass by Ukraine killed about 14,000 civilians (estimates vary)
2014-Andriy Parubiy, the new secretary of Ukraine's security council, was a co-founder of the Neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), otherwise known as Svoboda. And his deputy, Dmytro Yarosh, is the leader of a party called the Right Sector which, according to historian Timothy Stanley, "flies the old flag of the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators at its rallies."
The highest-ranking right-wing extremist is Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych, also a member of Svoboda, who believes that women should "lead the kind of lifestyle to avoid the risk of rape, including refraining from drinking alcohol and being in controversial company." This is the philosophy underlying one of his "legal initiatives," according to the Kyiv Post, "to ban all abortions, even for pregnancies that occurred during rape."
The Svoboda party has tapped into Nazi symbolism including the "wolf's angel" rune, which resembles a swastika and was worn by members of the Waffen-SS, a panzer division that was declared a criminal organization at Nuremberg. A reportfrom Tel-Aviv University describes the Svoboda party as "an extremist, right-wing, nationalist organization which emphasizes its identification with the ideology of German National Socialism."
According to this BBC news cliptwo Svoboda parliamentarians in recent weeks posed for photos while "brandishing well-known far right numerology," including the numbers 88 -- the eighth letter of the alphabet -- signifying "HH," as in "Heil Hitler." This all makes Hillary Clinton's recent comments comparing Putin to Hitler appear patently absurd, as Stanley adeptly points out: "After all, in the eyes of many ethnic Russians, it is the Ukrainian nationalists -- not Putin -- who are the Nazis."
Per Anders Rudling from Lund University in Sweden, an expert on Ukrainian extremists, told Britain's Channel 4 News: "A neo-fascist party like Svoboda getting the deputy prime minister position is news in its own right." Well, except in the U.S.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-neo-nazi-question-in_b_4938747
“2014-On May 2nd the streets of Odessa saw pitched battles between the anti-Maidan and pro-Maidan activists and militias. The violence was escalating and the security forces were, at best, unable to cope but some also appeared to collaborate with the Right Sector. Overwhelmed, many of the anti-Maidan protesters, sought refuge in the Trade Unions Building.
Video footage analysis unequivocally shows that the the massacre that ensued was again led by Parubiy’s Right Sector. At least an estimated 40 people were either burned alive, died of smoke inhalation or jumped to their deaths from the Building. The Right Sector torched the building(go to 01:15:46) knowing anti-Maidan activists were trapped inside.
https://in-this-together.com/ukraine-war-part-1/
Witness testimony records other murders committed in and around the building. The disgusting beatings to death of those who briefly survived the plunge from the inferno were accompanied with Right Sector cries of “Colorado Beetle,” used to suggest the victims were subhuman and should be crushed underfoot.
Another, practically identical slaughter was carried out in Mariupol just a few days later. The news of which was met with gloating jubilation in Kyiv. TV studio audiences in Kyiv also applauded the news of the Odessa massacre. Though they probably did not fully appreciate what actually happened.
Parubiy visited Odessa, meeting with local militia checkpoints and handing out equipment. This included a filmed meeting with Nikolai Volkov from the Right Sector.
Parubiy was known to have distributed bullet proof vests. Volkov was later filmed shooting at the Trade Unions Building while wearing one. He was clearly among the leaders of the attack. His role has been confirmed through both video footage and witness testimony.
Andriy Parubiy is a common link between the Maidan, Odessa and Mariupol massacres. Parubiy’s Maidan Self-Defence companies were quickly incorporated into the Asov Battalion (regiments) of the Ukrainian National Guard and other “specialist” Ukrainian military units. They would go on to play a major role in the 8 year-long war in the Donbas.
The Right Sector, and the paramilitary arm of Svoboda, are not merely conservatives or people the western, liberal intelligentsia disagree with. They are full-blown neo-Nazis and their beliefs are driven by hate and an unshakeable supremacist ideology. They have received and continue to receive the unwavering support of NATO aligned governments and, in turn, these governments serve a globalist network of public-private partnerships.”
2014 May 22, Novorossiya was declared ,and one month later spokespeople of both republics declared their merger into a confederal "Union of People's Republics".Within a year, the project was suspended: on 1 January 2015, founding leadership announced the project has been put on hold, and on 20 May the constituent members announced the freezing of the political project.
At present, the two constituent republics of the proposed confederation have only Russian diplomatic recognition, and Ukraine has classified them as terrorist organizations and refers to their territory as the Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone
Dark Green = claimed territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's RepublicsLight Green = the extent of Novorossiyan historical claims.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya_(confederation)
2015-Minsk 2 agreement
Nine of the agreement’s 13 points cover conflict management: a ceasefire and the pullback of heavy weaponry from the contact line (articles 1 to 3); an amnesty for those involved in the fighting (article 5); an exchange of hostages and unlawfully detained persons (article 6); humanitarian assistance (article 7); the resumption of socio-economic links between Ukraine and occupied Donbas (article 8); the withdrawal of ‘all foreign armed formations, military equipment and also mercenaries’ from Ukraine, and the disarmament of ‘all illegal groups’ (article 10); and the activities of the TCG (article 13).
Four other sections address political matters:
Article 4: elections in Donbas. The day after the pullback of heavy weaponry from the contact line, a dialogue on local elections will start in accordance with Ukrainian law and the temporary law on special status adopted in September 2014. No later than 30 days after the signing of the Minsk-2 agreement (i.e. by 14 March), Ukraine’s parliament will adopt a resolution defining the area in which the temporary law on special status will apply (to be based on the delineation line in the memorandum of 19 September 2014).
Article 9: the process of re-establishing ‘full control’ over the Ukraine/Russia border by the Ukrainian authorities. There is now no reference to Poroshenko’s buffer zone or an OSCE-monitored security zone. Instead, the process of returning the border to Ukraine’s control begins the day after local elections have been held and concludes ‘after’ the ‘comprehensive political settlement’ (i.e. local elections plus constitutional reform providing for decentralization) due by the end of 2015 – but ‘on condition’ that article 11 (next bullet) has been implemented ‘in consultation with and upon agreement by’ the DNR/LNR.52
Article 11: constitutional reform. A new Ukrainian constitution will enter into force by the end of 2015. Its ‘key element’ will be ‘decentralization’, which will take account of the ‘peculiarities’ of occupied Donbas, as agreed with the DNR/LNR representatives. Ukraine will also adopt ‘permanent legislation’ on special status before the end of 2015. This law will include: an amnesty; ‘the right of linguistic self-determination’; the involvement of the local authorities in the appointment of prosecutors and courts; agreements between Ukraine’s central authorities and the local authorities covering ‘economic, social and cultural development’; state support for the socio-economic development of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts; assistance from the central authorities to support ‘transnational cooperation’ between the occupied regions and regions of the Russian Federation; rights for local parliaments to create ‘people’s militia units’; and no early termination of the powers of local parliaments and elected officials.
Article 12: elections in Donbas. Election-related questions will be dealt with on the basis of the temporary law on special status adopted in September 2014 and agreed with the DNR/LNR. Elections will be held in accordance with the relevant standards of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
All the 13 pointers mentioned in the agreement are looked at differently by Ukraine and Russia. Despite the draft of the Minsk agreement, ceasefire violations remained common in the separatist regions of Ukraine.
For more than seven years now, the Minsk agreement remained unimplemented.
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-Originally a paramilitary group of right-wing Ukrainian nationalists linked to the country’s Social-National Party, Azov Battalion has since become incorporated into Ukraine’s Interior Ministry as a component of the country’s National Guard. It is known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and use of Nazi symbolism.
In addition, the group’s founder Andrey Bilitsky, is currently a member of Ukraine’s parliament. Bilitskyonce 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.”
This military aid has repeatedly found its way to the Azov Battalion. Indeed, the cooperation between the U.S. military and Azov Battalion has been reported on several occasions since 2015 such as when an Azov Battalion member told the Daily Beast in 2015 about “his battalion’s experience with U.S. trainers and U.S. volunteers quite fondly, even mentioning U.S. volunteers engineers and medics that are still currently assisting them.”
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- After Event 201 in late 2019 they did a War Game simulating a Russia Invasion of Ukraine with NATO getting sucked in. 1 billion dead.
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/
2021 April , Newsweek Reported on “Vladimir Putin’s Adviser Says U.S. Is Developing Biological Weapons Near Russia”
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-china-nikolai-patrushev-vladimir-putin-biological-weapons-1581896
The U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program collaborates with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks (deliberate, accidental, or natural) of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases. The program accomplishes its bio-threat reduction mission through development of a bio-risk management culture; international research partnerships; and partner capacity for enhanced bio-security, bio-safety, and bio-surveillance measures.
The Biological Threat Reduction Program’s priorities in Ukraine are to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.”
Interestingly, the Biological Threat Reduction Program’s (BTRP)has a direct connection the EcoHealth Alliance. That’s the same EcoHealth Alliance connected to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
https://www.israelunwired.com/faucis-friends-bioweapons-ukraine/
Other connections?
June, 2021-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
June 2021-A military ship and fighter jet fired warning shots at a British Royal Navy destroyer after it entered Russian waters in the Black Sea, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
The HMS Defender was “warned in advance that weapons would be used” if it crossed Russia’s border, the statement said. “It disregarded the warning,” it added.
A border patrol ship “fired warning shots,” shortly after midday local time (7 a.m. ET), the statement said, adding that an Su-24M fighter jet “performed a warning bombing,” on the British ship’s course, dropping four high explosive fragmentation bombs.
The incident took place in the northwestern Black Sea.
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.
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 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.
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-Dilyana Gaytandzhieva obtained documents detailing “US Pentagon biological experiments with a potentially lethal outcome on 4,400 soldiers in Ukraine and 1,000 soldiers in Georgia. According to the leaked documents, all volunteer deaths should be reported within 24 h (in Ukraine) and 48 h (in Georgia).” She details the human experiments, which include testing for antibodies against some 14 pathogens including Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Borrelia species (Lyme disease) and others. According to the documents the labs in Ukraine and Georgia are part of a Pentagon “$2.5 billion Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Biological engagement program which includes research on bio agents, deadly viruses and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO9Mar2022.php
January, 2022 unprecedented airlift of hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons and ammunition began arriving in Ukraine
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.”
January 26 article in the Moscow-based journal New Eastern Outlook, for example, asks whether the United States is going to start a biological war in Europe. It cites a former Ukranian official who is very worried about US biolabs in Ukraine.
February 4, After Putin met with Xi in Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics on February 4, Russia and China released a joint statement saying, “The sides emphasize that domestic and foreign bioweapons activities by the United States and its allies raise serious concerns and questions for the international community regarding their compliance with [the international ban on biological weapons].”
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO9Mar2022.php
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
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 as Russian President
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://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.
March 6 Moscow state news agency, RAI Novosti, quoted a senior Russian SVR foreign intelligence source with details on a secret Ukraine project, reportedly with vital covert Western support, to build a Ukrainian nuclear missile capability and a Ukrainian atom bomb in brazen violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. According to the report, Ukrainian nuclear scientists were disguising the developments by locating them near the high-radiation levels of Chernobyl nuclear reactor site, an explanation for the swift Russian moves to secure Chernobyl. “It was there, judging by the available information, that work was underway both on the manufacture of a “dirty” bomb and on the separation of plutonium,” RIA Novosti quotes the source. The primary bomb research facility was located at the National Scientific Center, “Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology.” As of this writing reports of fierce fighting underway between Russian forces and neo-nazi Ukrainian Azov fighters who reportedly are planning to blow up the research reactor site and blame iton Russia. The battle for control of the large Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is also apparently part of the attempt to conceal the illegal Ukraine bomb project.
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO9Mar2022.php
March 2022-the US Pentagon had no less than eight, perhaps as many as 30 top-secret bioweapons research labs across Ukraine testing DNA of some 4,000 military volunteers. Once Russian soldiers moved to secure the evidence, the US Embassy in Kiev deleted previous mention of the sites from its website, and Ukrainians reportedly moved to destroy the lab evidence. Ukrainian labs in Kharkiv and elsewhere were operating in cooperation with the United States. Stocks of such weapons were being secretly stored in direct violation of international conventions.
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO9Mar2022.php
March 6, in a statement to the official RAI Novosti in Moscow, Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, stated they had received documents, “from employees of Ukrainian biological laboratories confirming that components of biological weapons were being developed in Ukraine, in close proximity to Russian territory.” He noted, “In the course of a special military operation, the facts of an emergency cleansing by the Kiev regime of traces of a military biological program being implemented in Ukraine, funded by the US Department of Defense, were uncovered.”
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO9Mar2022.php
Conclusion: I am not a fan of Putin. He is an authoritarian KGB thug who participated in the looting of his own country before becoming President , thanks to the suspicious apartment bombings in 1999 that some believe were False Flags, and he has adopted the Wests harmful neoliberal economics and the WEF agenda, as can be seen by Russias handling of COVID.
That said, his response was logical. As any street fighter knows, if a fight is inevitable its best to strike first. For whatever reason, the West engineered this and Putin responded accordingly.
To what purpose? I am just speculating here but I believe the goal is to facilitate the WEF Globalist Agenda. This means lowered living standards in the West caused by inflation and supply side disruptions , food shortages which may cost many lives in parts of the world (depopulation) , more control over the people (wars do this) , dedollarisation of Global Trade and move to CBDC , all which will facilitated and accelerated by the Wests response against Russia. Klaus is a happy man.
I predict Ukraine will become divided into East and West Ukraine. West Ukraine will join NATO and Putin will accept this as East Ukraine will be his buffer. Russia will be left to deal with chronic insurgencies in East Ukraine while suffering economic hardships due to trade disruption caused by sanctions.