Ukraine Soldiers Praised For Telling Russian Warship to “Go F*** Yourself” Actually Surrendered
It was one of the defining moments of the start of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. Thirteen Ukrainian border guards on Snake Island were told by a Russian warship to surrender and they responded by telling the Russians to “go f*** yourself” before they were all brutally killed. The recording was confirmed as authentic by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry and reported around the world. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded each border guard the posthumous title of ‘Hero of Ukraine’, saying: “On our Zmiinyi Island, defending it to the last, all the border guards died heroically.”
Here’s the original clip on YouTube – it’s clocked up over 3.7 million views since Thursday.
There’s just one problem. It isn’t true. In fact, as the Russians said at the time, all the border guards surrendered. This morning the Ukrainian navy announced the border guards were in fact alive and being held prisoner by the Russians.
It’s good that the Ukrainian navy has admitted the truth on this, and it’s also good to hear the soldiers are alive, albeit in enemy hands. It’s a reminder, though, that in a war, even more so than in normal times, you can’t always trust what you watch and read. That’s not to say that Putin isn’t an unhinged psychopath, or that Russia’s invasion is actually going to plan. But it’s worth having your antenna primed for propaganda and fakes and not assuming everything you read or see is 100% accurate.
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After the past two years, not trusting what the media is telling me has become my default position.
Wise in peacetime, wiser in war.
Samuel Johnson 1758: “Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.”
An awful lot of falsehoods dictated by self-interest have been circulating in the last two years .,..
“All warfare is based on deception.”
Sun Tzu, 6th century BCE.
” In war truth is always the First Casualty”
So too apparently is peace these days.
Everything is a pack of lies. It is getting out of hand now.
My sympathies…I find it hard to keep going surrounded by all the lies too.
We are in “Reverso Land” – if you want the truth, just assume it is the diametrical opposite of what you are told by politicians ‘experts’ and the Media.
It works every time!
Very sensible!
It’s the right position! That or completely inverting it, which I’ve taken to doing..
I would go further – the truth is probably the exact opposite of what we are being told.
There’s only one section in UK mainstream newspapers that has any plausibility these days.
The horoscopes.
I think the true story is that they were approached by the local BBC propaganda unit and told them to go f*** themselves
Oh to have been there!
Fair enough, the lead question was probably what their pronouns are…
Lol. Unlike our boys of course who are models of supreme sanity.
That’s not to say that Putin isn’t an unhinged psychopath
Why do normally sensible feature writers feel the need to make this type of ridiculous statement. Likely we wouldn’t be here now if Putin actually was a psycho and the Lord only knows the West has been tilting its lance at Russia since the fall of the USSR. It has taken an awful lot of provocation to force Russia to finally act decisively and the world is changing massively because of it.
Russia is though, taking control of Ukraine using what is by western military standards kid glove treatment. No bombing of water supplies, sewage facilities, power supplies, food stores or civilian enclaves a la Serbia or Iraq etc etc. Things might only change, if NATO continues to be foolish enough to give Ukraine’s “leaders” the futile hope that they can resist the irresistible.
Yes Rowan,
Not a mention of the cia deposing the real President of Ukraine. Oh wait a minute – is that the same secret service mob who deposed the real US president? Silly of me.
Talking of “unhinged psychopaths”Victoria Nuland the Maiden Coup “Free Buns” Queen is now Biden’s Undersecretary of State and back directing her favourite “Russia Hate” policy, so look out for the incineration of Ukraine ( fill it with weapons, stand back and watch the fun!) to destabilise Russia and force “Regime Change” (like the ones that worked so well in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria)
The have to make this “virtue statement” – it goes along with their knee-bending support for BLM and the required championing of LBGT Mixed Gender toilets, showers and “self-identifying” girls dormitories.
Yet, oddly:
“On December 16, 2021, only the US and Ukraine voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the “glorification of Nazism,” while the United Kingdom, EU, Australia, NZ and Canada abstained.”
Anybody would think western powers had an agenda at play and were all in lockstep…but that would be delusional of course.
Absolutely.
This is the new “I’m not anti-vax but..”
My unhinged psychopath list:
-jacinda ardern
-bill gates
-justin trudeau
-emanuel macron
“That’s not to say that Putin isn’t an unhinged psychopath”.
Is 100% inaccurate.
Thanks for reminding us not to believe everything we read Will Jones.
I would be very surprised if either Toby Young or Will Jones knew such intimate details of Putin’s sanity or otherwise.
Isn’t it unfortunate that these two have veered away from fairly solid ground on covid to suddenly believing the MSM narrative that they were happy to ridicule such a short time ago. Why do they not stick to what they know rather than what they do not have the faintest idea about.
I’m going to see what Paul Craig Roberts writes on this as he has actually been following the story for years. I may disagree in part, but at least he will know what he is talking about.
Fairly tired of all the people who suddenly think they are experts having read two days’ worth of propaganda and never having listened to a Valdai speech in their lives, nor considered what a Russian president should and should not do for his country. Of course the Russian president is going to be concerned about the security of his country. It’s his job. Reagan, Gorbachev, and Thatcher managed to bring understanding and diplomacy to the table. Western leaders these days are comparatively hopeless nincompoops more concerned with ‘front’ than diplomatic progress. In fact they have wasted and failed to build upon the progress of former politicians. How disgraceful is that!
And speaking Russian and Ukrainian in three word gobbets with the stressed words and speech rhythms out of kilter doesn’t bridge the very necessary gaps.
Paul Craig Roberts and Ron Paul have been right on the money regarding Ukraine and most other things.
Ron Paul’s prediction rate is better than all politicians combined. That’s why he is called a “kook” and is summarily dismissed, ignored and vilified.
But we can all surely agree that Biden is demonstrably senile and incapable of running the US (after a stolen election) .
The question is, who is in charge? Is it Barry?
So Will and Toby don’t think that Putin just panicked and cocked up over Ukraine?
I wonder what the MSM headlines in countries like Russia, China most of the middle eastern countries were like when we the West illegally invaded Iraq?
I stopped believing and trusting politicians and the MSM many years ago.
Don’t forget Yugoslavia bombing with no UN agreement. “we just consulted NATO”!
The official Parliamentary Inquiry conclusion was that it was illegal, but justified.
Which pretty much tells you the worth of the “rules based order” we are supposed to be defending in the Ukraine.
Yes ..the RAF bombed the Belgrade TV station where international journos were present!
I believe there were deaths too!
Mostly make up girls and electricians. They needed to die, to save democracy.
Doubtless their bigly-brained sceptics in the mould of Will Jones were calling Blair and Bush “unhinged psychopaths”.
With somewhat more justification than Putin’s reaction to a real threat on his own border.
What, the media can lie!
No sh** Sherlock.
“That’s not to say that Putin isn’t an unhinged psychopath”
Is this refrain the new “actually, I’ve had all my other vaccines so I’m not an antivaxer but…”
Yes it is the same echo chamber which says President Trump has/had my support but he was a vulgarian or I am not a racist – I once knew a really nice Black/Irish/Pakistan/Martian.
But, but…I read it on the internet. How can it not be true..?
You’re always being lied to!
Remember ‘Safe and Effective’?
World media rigorously doing its job of checking if information is accurate.
I mean, if the Ukranian Interior Ministry confirms it is authentic, then of course, no more checking needed.
🙂 Don’t believe anything – especially in war, and especially from either of the sides actually fighting the war.
Russia is not saying much.
Russian side: secrecy. Ukrainian side: churned out psyops.
“Psyops” – now the principal stock-in-trade of the Fearless ‘truth seeking’ Free World, Defending “democracy”!
How would you know when Europe has banned RT and Johnson is ‘thinking about it” ( if he can find an excuse)?
Or those looking for a way to enter in that war too.
So sorry Will, you seem to be getting slaughtered on here. Perhaps you should do some homework.
Yes, and everything the executed William Joyce said was true too!
The Ark Royal was sunk in the Med (even if partly through incompetence)!
https://www.bitchute.com/video/1mbgjjEnbKc/
For a less cartoonish interpretation of geopolitical events, I find the Duran’s commentary on Russia helpful.
Putin is no deranged psychopath – shame on you.
The Russians have a team of diplomats who are highly experienced and responsible as they have needed to manage their national foreign policy themselves…unlike the Europeans, who have handed all such decisions to the EU, NATO and the US, and are left with a rump of ridiculous inexperienced and helpless foreign office staff.
I was recently at a talk given by Lord Howell, who took up a foreign office post. When he enquired what our foreign policy was, he was told “we dont have a foreign policy, we just follow the US” and was handed a document on woke policy ie, how to address people in their preferred gender.
This is true, this is what he said.
There is always Strategic Culture for more info.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/
Gotta admire David Howell’s honesty in this case. If the US had eyes and ears in the room, they must have beamed with pride, thinking “Good dog!”
Kate
The head of our premier spying agency Meyefive, (Mr Moore?)stated last week that the main difference between those evil Russians and ” us” was that “we” were all in for queer and deranged sexually confused souls, and the nasty Ruskies were not.
Furthermore it was made known that there is a department in Whitehall set aside for these poor demented people who cannot tell the difference between a penis and a vagina.
Then finally he said we must recruit more overseas agents to fulfil our diversity quotient
the govt has done well in its task of using the useful idiots in the media to demonise anything to do with Russia, it is quite hard to know what advantage could be gained for Britain by demonising Russia, I suspect they are so used to demonising some countries (the shitlist) they just cannot help themselves anymore.Who is on the shit list at present? Has Zimbabwe been removed from the shitlist, or Cuba? north Korea is definitely on the shitlist with Russia, Syria, who else are they lying about these days? Vietnam is no longer on the shitlist, is Argentina on the shitlist? or Lebanon? Is the EU on the shitlist, if not, why not? For some reason Iran has a permanent seat on the shit list.
Have they demonised Prince Michael of Kent for his Russia links yet? Have they f***!
O come on! Its bad enough that our Sovereign is in bed with Corvid 19, but then when we learn that Andrew is in bed with Chloe14, that is more than the poor woman can tolerate.
Most of us on here are on the government’s shitlist.
Demonising Russia is the next stage of the Great Reset Economy/ Financial Sector take down and important when they need someone to blame for all the crap they are planning to hit us with.
I had a mate txt me and said he would be ready to defend his life if Russia invaded. I asked him what are you defending since this government has carried out a psychological was on the British public.
A lot of fake videos and pictures. Worth watching The Hill. Kim Iversen Debunks FAKE Russia-Ukraine War Videos Spread Widely On Social Media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98cXig0hOVw
Only one percent of the UK ‘s “dumbarse” population will ever see this!
Long one by GG about this. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/war-propaganda-about-ukraine-becoming?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyMTU4NjM2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjo0OTQwMjYyOCwiXyI6IkdEOGJlIiwiaWF0IjoxNjQ2MDU2MjA1LCJleHAiOjE2NDYwNTk4MDUsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xMjg2NjIiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.V4qUAUUgmBzhGDrpDKsThHzEZ-dfteIX2u0EIufViiE&utm_source=url
‘The first casualty of war is the truth.’
‘Don’t believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see.’ HL Mencken
‘War doesn’t determine who is right, only who is left.’ Bertrand Russell
The Ukraine fighter pilot who supposedly shot down six Russian planes in one day – lie.
Wort a reminder that the Government claimed to have shot down more German Aircraft in the Battle of Britain than the Germans had deployed!
Judas Priest…World of smoke & mirrors!
The truth is the first casualty of war.
Having taken part in police actions, peacekeeping ops and an actual shooting war; I always though the first casualty of war was a decent haircut.
Or indeed bodily hygiene.
That’s why I keep mine Grade 1
This was on the alternative media sites a couple of days ago. At the time I reserved judgement.
Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest if it turns out to have been a propaganda lie. You can pretty well presume that absolutely every fact that you’ve seen in the US sphere mainstream media since the attack was launched has been a lie or a distortion.
All sides lie in war. But as I noted on the other thread, the realist (pro-Russian, in practice) side in this case has the underlying truth on its side. It’s the anti-Russian side that is based on a dishonest covering up of the truth, and resorts to emotional manipulation and attempts to silence dissent.
Keep in mind Peter Hitchens’ apt observation at the weekend:
“The BBC, which insisted on strict neutrality between Britain and Argentina in its coverage of the Falklands War, flings itself into an ignorant and one-sided coverage of the Ukraine crisis.”
https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2022/02/peter-hitchens-the-west-acts-tough-with-russia-because-were-just-too-feeble-to-stand-up-to-our-real-.html
Peter Hitchens is mis-remembering the events of 1982. The BBC was far from neutral in the Falklands War. To get a more balanced account, I listened to Radio Sweden until well after the war ended.
Unlike the Falklands I’ve written this conflict off as hopeless propaganda. Unless it turns into WW III I’ve got more important things to read / watch/ listen to.
I think the DS would be much better occupied looking into the proposed destruction of, sorry ‘revisions to’, the Human Rights Act. Deadline 8th. March. Plus the threatened WHO dictatorship which will be a way to make jabs mandatory across the entire planet.
“I think the DS would be much better occupied looking into the proposed destruction of, sorry ‘revisions to’, the Human Rights Act. Deadline 8th. March. Plus the threatened WHO dictatorship which will be a way to make jabs mandatory across the entire planet.”
I don’t disagree that those are vital long term issues, but I also regard the warmongering and interventionism that we are regularly dragged into by the US and our intel services and other US neocon Quislings in this country as crucially important. Along with the survival of Russia as a point of resistance to the woke US sphere globalists
And it seems to me anyway that the kind of descent into jingoistic, manipulated group-think that we have seen over the Ukraine is exactly the kind of thing a Daily Sceptic should exist to address.
Yes, the Ukraine drama is now perfect cover for Johnson’s plan to takeaway our human rights – especially te sacrosanct right to ‘Bodily Autonomy’ to undermine the Nuremberg Code ” for the greater good in the public interest” which should allow him to force vaccinate Health Service Staff – then there is his signing over of our Healh /Vaccination Policy to Crazy Bill Gates and Chinese Tedros at the WHO in support of Gates’ World Health Power Grab.
” Golly gosh! Oh look Russia has “invaded” Ukraine!”
Happy days… that’s not me….
Someone once said that “In War, Truth is the first casualty”. It was ever so, and will always be.
And here we are…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/02/26/the-first-casualty-of-war-is-the-truth-the-current-western-propaganda-for-ukraine-is-epic-in-scale/
Will might want to check out those other two jingoism promoting stories mentioned there that were all over our media as well:
“The stories of the 13 guards on an island telling the Russian naval ship to fuck off… yeah, it was a lie (turns out they surrendered). The “Ghost of Kyiv” pilot, the lady with the sunflower seeds etc., now all recognized as lies and propaganda. And do not expect it to stop, because it won’t. Thus, the nature of warfare for your mind.“
I had several links listed (your stories included) but decided one was enough. There is a massive disinformation campaign going on by the west, as proven by the EU so eagerly trying to silence Russian media. I read somewhere that Churchill didn’t outlaw listening to Lord Haw Haw…. What have the west to fear now by listening to the ‘aggressors’ side of the story? Do our leaders… snigger snort… fear that their ‘subjects’ might hear the truth?
They fear “the truth” more than Russia’s nuclear weapons!
How it exposes their weakness and evil intent?
The tape itself was probably fake.
I thought it was Russian rather than Ukrainian propaganda. It turns out that it probably wasn’t. It’s still possible, though. Don’t believe anything.
Great to hear those lads are still alive, and I hope they are being looked after well. I am sure they are brave men. There is no shame in surrendering to an overwhelmingly superior force.
You know there is a rumour that some US forces (government or mercenaries) were involved in the Snake Island conflict? Perhaps the Russians are waiting for a US denial and then they will produce them at a press conference, à la Gary Powers in 1960? (That’s a joke, because it’s not like losing an aircraft over the Ural mountains.)
Gotcha.
Wait. So you believe that?
And these are the people telling it like it is…?
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=62916
It’s all about the night time glow off the trees in the Exclusion Zone.
Putin is not an unhinged psychopath. Sad to see DS parroting the national (Goebbels) line.
How does that one gratuitously insulting phrase enhance an otherwise good article?
It’s a bit of virtue signalling positioning, to reassure that the writer is on the correct side.
It’s an attempt to be on the popular side, which very often isn’t the correct one.
The Somali team just got kicked out of the Olympics…..They thought the sailing & shooting were part of the same event!
HaHa – Good one!
‘That’s not to say that Putin isn’t an unhinged psychopath’ Shame on you Will. This is straight from the 10 Downing Street approved official guidelines, along with the rest of the DS editorial policy. I think the term ‘unhinged psychopath’ is a protected title anyway, to earn the accolade one needs to be a government minister and to have approved untested EGT on kids, while knowing that at least 1 in 24,000 (up to 1 in 2,400) will die as a result (not to count the debilitating long term and now emerging inter-generational side effects). In this case Putin is defending his country from an existential NATO/EU threat while protecting Russian speakers in both Donbass breakaway republics from rampant post 2014 US-sponsored Ukrainian genocidal fascism and state sponsored violence. The actions of the post-coup Ukraine ‘government’ has led to thousands of deaths and injuries among civilians (the Ukrainian Azov Battalion being only one of the fascist brigades committing such attrocities, including the current scorched earth policy when retreating from the Donbass) while the West turned a blind eye. Other deserving recipients of this protected title include Ursula Von der Leyen (the new EU Empress) and Liz Truss for her recent… Read more »
And a late entry for the unhinged psychopath award from Ukraine is Volodymyr Zelenskyy who dished out arms (including Kalashnikov AK47s) in Kyiv to anyone turning up (trained or not, criminal or not) with a Ukrainian passport. Carloads were being carted away by organised criminals, and soon after murders (children in one case) were reported. This on top of him authorising the placement of heavy military weaponry in residential areas, thus using citizens as human shields. And let’s not forget his blanket release of all prisoners to join up with the fascist paramilitaries, or not as the case might be. I mean, what could go wrong?
PS: Sir Ed Davey thinks he’s an all round good egg, so that’s that then
“And a late entry for the unhinged psychopath award from Ukraine is Volodymyr Zelenskyy who dished out arms (including Kalashnikov AK47s) in Kyiv to anyone turning up (trained or not, criminal or not) with a Ukrainian passport.”
Someone pointed out that this could probably be viewed as an economic stimulus measure, with these weapons worth a fair bit on the black markets and probably excellent routes in place to ship the sold weapons out of the Ukraine to various hotspots around the world…
Same applies to the German and other NATO Stingers and AT weapons, when they eventually turn up.
It was a CIA boot sale….
If so, it would arguably be even more absurd. If VZ wished to stimulate the Ukrainian black economy via such unorthodox ‘quantitative easing’, as the government already has direct links to organised crime and fascist battalions (ask Joe Biden about his son’s dealings in this respect) to do the deals directly under the table – as he certainly has the foreign suppliers lining up in droves. And if this is genuinely a form of targeted QE (furlough style) to car boot savvy citizens, why the ad-hoc, sporadic and uneven distribution of the weaponry; surely this is a very inefficient way to introduce genuine economic stimulus? Perhaps it is simply a way of dumping dodgy, dangerous or malfunctioning weapons onto untrained civilians, thus making them into Russian military targets for propaganda purposes? Whichever way one views it, and I’m sure there are many possibilities, it is irresponsible bordering on utter madness, as several military analysts have opined. But what can one expect from a puppet president who happily continues to sanction the ongoing shelling of civilians in the Donbass by freelance Ukrainian fascist paramilitaries, which (btw) has been going on from 2014? Or maybe VZ never had a hinge in the… Read more »
Oh come BF,
You cannot mean that wonderful Edward Davey (Honest Copper, my wife was driving) do you?
The one who was responsible for the global warming bollox?
The very same. He’s presently selling solar powered gas boilers on Gumtree that work at night too. Apparently these mini miracles use special mirrors to change moonlight into sunlight and several small magnifying glasses to illuminate a whole house by starlight alone. There’s no pics yet, but he promised to post them later on this week, after I paid the deposit. Monthly payments and easy credit terms too. Can’t wait….!
BTW, your moniker suggests yours is a location that could also yield still more green energy. I’ll pass on your details to Sir Ed and that way I get a crisp tenner via his ‘refer a friend’ scheme. Win-win, eh?
I think Daily Sceptic needs to recover some sense of big picture scepticism. Putin is not a nice woke person but he is doing what governments have done for ever: he is using war as an alternative means of diplomacy. That does not necessarily make him unhinged. Describing him as such is not helpful for understanding what is going on. Churchill (for example) pursued military intervention when it suited him – eg in Russia. But I do not believe Will would describe him as unhinged. This does not mean I support the war but there are more shades of grey here than corporate media and our disgusting political class choose to accept. There are opinions out there (for example) that state that Putin was provoked finally into war last week by Ukrainian government bombardments into the Donbas, which is a genuine civil war situation. This motivation may or not be true (I have no pony in the race) but corporate media is not trying to find out. There is a good David Starkey video on the broader context and an excellent lecture by Professor Mearsheimer for Kings Politics on the recent culpability of the US and its “allies” for this… Read more »
Some thought provoking stuff from Starkey
https://youtu.be/he25Rl0fE1c
A sad decline for Starkey, imo. He talks a good fight at the beginning about trying to understand the other side, but it’s clear he is incapable of controlling his emotional reaction to war, and his personal hatred of Putin. He recognises Putin’s qualities and superior grasp of the older history, but descends into absurdity by insisting Putin must be judged as similar to Hitler. Contrary to Starkey’s emotive nonsense, anyone who’s actually looked into Putin’s background and original views would know that Putin was never a Russian imperial expansionist, but rather a quite pro-western managerialist, very willing to do deals with the west and primarily aimed at Russian recovery in its own territory. His attitudes changed profoundly during the 20 years he spent trying to deal with a US that simply refused to treat Russia honestly or reasonably, with any respect whatsoever. Famously he turned strongly against the US after the 2008 Bucharest statement of intent to bring the Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, and reached such a pitch of contempt for them over Syria that he viewed the Americans (rightly imo) as “not agreement capable” [My suspicion is that Starkey hates Putin for personal cultural war reasons, the… Read more »
Interesting point about Starkey’s personal tastes influencing him.
Speculation, obviously, but you can see the emotion in his face when he talks about Putin.
And I think, based on watching these things back to Milosevic and the illegal attack on Yugoslavia, that we dramatically underestimate just how much these policies are pushed by such culture war issues (on top, obviously, of the more substantial power and profit issues). Like slaughtering Afghans to make the country safe for feminism.
Great post! and yes, Putin has no time for woke politics. Starkey has a personal stake in some elements of wokery.
Indeed!
Dan Wootton clearly hates Putin too and has now blown his “No spin no Bias tag”. very foolish and sad for GBNews.
Apparently “The first casualty of war is truth”…
Ron Paul knows a thing or two…
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/february/28/it-all-comes-back-to-nato/
Putin and Russia have been warning the West for years about NATO moving nearer to their borders. They have been forced to act to defend themselves.
Here is Putins speech from 2016 at the St Petersburg international Economic Forum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8lIdIMRo&ab_channel=InessaS
See if this sounds like someone who is “deranged.” Listen to the whole thing and they you will understand how the US has threatened Russia by unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and tearing up international defence treaties.
There’s no reason why Putin would have to defend himself from countries who aren’t doing anything to him save not obeying his orders.
you have not listened to the speech, have you?
Why would I? Whatever Putin might have said is completely besides the point I was making.
I thought not. Russia has been warning about the disruption of the geostrategic balance by NATO moving its missile “defences” nearer and nearer to the Russian borders. These missiles can be changed for nuclear warheads without the host countries even knowing this.
The US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty.
It is NATO and the US that are the threat and this process is being repeated in the Ukrainian territories.
Zelensky said last month that he wanted the Ukraine to have nuclear weapons, and he was not stopped by any EU or US diplomat.
This is far too threatening for Russia and the US knows this. I believe the US primed Zelensky to say such a ridiculous thing to set up this entire crisis.
Someone having to defend himself implies that that someone must have been attacked first. And that’s not the case.
How does Iraq in 2003 fit into that? or Libya in 2011?
I guess the wars in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan all passed the test. The west has created this crisis.
If Mexico suddenly decided to go nuclear then I do wonder how the US would react.
In 1962 Kennedy was very close to initiating WW3 over Cuba.
Ukraine is even closer to home for Russia. Professor Mearsheimer describes it as Real Politik 101. I think he is right.
When I was 14 I beat up the lower school bully when I realised that if our confrontation – I was apparently in his way in the corridor – continued he would hit me.
So I hit him in the face with the heel of my hand as hard as I could. And then hit him twice more. I still think I behaved rationally. I’m slightly ashamed at my pleasure at seeing all that blood.
‘Zelensky said last month that he wanted the Ukraine to have nuclear weapons, and he was not stopped by any EU or US diplomat.
This is far too threatening for Russia and the US knows this.’
Completely agree. Deliberate provocation.
Yes. Ukraine is a buffer state, any talk of EU membership or Natoization is contrary to geopolitical reality.
Well said Kate! “Not on the BBC”!
I follow Alex Mercouris on the Duran for this analysis. Recommended.
https://rumble.com/c/theduran
There is a civil war in Donbas. Lots of accusations and counter accusations.
Some comments that the final provocation was the Ukrainian government bombarding the separatists last week. Might be true. Might not. But corporate media not seeking the truth. Just like with COVID.
Not saying Putin is in the right either but there are different interpretations to the US inspired narrative that has taken hold.
The final provocation was Zelensky saying that Ukraine wanted nuclear weapons, at the Munich security conference in February, and no politician in the EU or US speaking against this.
That may well be true too. Thank you. As I say, finding the truth amidst the lies in our corporate media is really tricky.
There has been civil war in these two regions ever since 2014. This is also besides the point.
Why? I am not saying I like Putin by the way. Nor do I like war. But the corporate media’s commentary is 100% one sided.
The West has gone to war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and it bombed Belgrade in the past 25 years.
But we are the good guys?
A plague on all their houses.
It is because the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovic was overthrown in 2014 in a western-sponsored Colour Revolution.
Yep, I am aware of that too. And the infamous Bucharest NATO Summit of 2008.
One tragedy here (among many) is that Russia is far less of a challenge to US hegemony than China.
This distracts the US and the west from the real geo political conflict of this period.
Our political class are incompetent. My sense is that this is being driven by dysfunctional behaviour in the west (eg NATO seeking to survive as an institution) rather than rational calculation of true national interests.
Now (a bit like COVID) it is politically impossible to unwind the damage.
There is a global financial collapse going on.
Coronavirus was brought in to cover for this, and tensions and sanctions against Russia will also act as a camouflage for the massive financial shifts necessary to stabilise the US dollar and economy.
The EU sphere looks as if it will be sacrificed via sanctions to higher energy and food costs.
Russia will be OK as it is self sufficient in food and energy.
These sanctions only act against us.
Increased spending on NATO will also help the US.
Bingo. Couldn’t agree more.
On the money yet again Kate!
Yes. Courtesty of Victoria Nuland, Deep State activist Russia Hater and currently again in charge of US “Russian Enemy” policy as Biden’s Under Secretary of State.
Classic whataboutery. And still besides the point. I’m not asserting that anybody here would be the bad guy or the good guy. These essentially Christian moral categories have no place in international politics (including warfare). That’s about the stronger guy versus the weaker guy. The morale of war is such that the winner is always the good guy and the loser always the bad guy.
Putin believed there was an opportunity, hence he tried to take it. For reasons I won’t elaborate on here, my sympathies rest generally with the Ukrainian side. But in the end, that’s just a power struggle between two countries and I’m not condemning the Russians for trying to do that they are trying to do.
Si vis pacem para bellum.
On the contrary it is the whole point that you completely choose to miss!
The “Civil War” largely involved Ukrainian Nationalist Militias, (some wearing arm badges with old SS insignia), shelling civilian targets on the Russian separatist side of the line since 2014 and killing as many thousands of ethnic Russian people over that period.
It seems to me that Putin has been very restrained.
Zelensky is a western puppet, put in place by the west to hasten the NATO and EU push east. After the fall and break-up of the USSR, the new Russia was promised by the west that NATO would not push east, and yet, here we are: NATO wants Ukraine under its control and nuclear weapons on its soil. As for Putin – the people of the Donbas are Russian; Putin protects his own… there are quite a few Greeks there too, apparently. The crescendo of violence in Kiev and the war in DonbasThe violent and bloody incidents that took place in Maidan Square in Kiev in 2014, with the emphasis on Ukraine’s connection to the European Union – went down in history as the “Euromaidan movement.” The fall of then-President Viktor Yanukovych, brought a new regime to Kiev which tried to ban the Russian language as a second local language.After the failed attempt to ban the Russian language came the episodes in Odessa. On May 2, 2014, civilians protesting peacefully were attacked by members of neo-Nazi organisations, which the new Kiev regime took to the city with orders to attack those gathered.Kiev then banned the parades on May 9 to… Read more »
I’m not generally going to participate in this propaganda effort and especially not in this position.
LOL! You lose!
I’m not playing, dear Mr Soandso.
LOL! Have a good night.
22 NATO wargames planned for Ukrainian soil this year. And Cuba didn’t do anything to the US in 1962 – but most agree the American response to Soviet missiles in Cuba was justified.
funny you should talk about people not obeying orders – almost every western government jumps to DC’s orders. Particularly pathetic was the Germans going along with Nordstream 2 being mothballed. No effect on Russia or on America, since China and India can buy all the gas they can supply.
Funnily enough, national leaders don’t seem to agree with you on how these things work (see Monroe Doctrine).
National leaders of so-called Christian nations usually go through all kinds of interesting verbal contortion when all they mean to say is We will probably attack you if you do X (provided we have the means to do so openly, the USA didn’t directly interfere with Napoleon III’s war in Mexico).
Based on the Monroe doctrince, I hereby demand that the USA immediatley sets forth to restore Europe to the political organization of 1917 as they had no business ever interfering with it :-). And while they’re at it, they can maybe drop a hint to the current crop of historical scribes in England that the United Kingdom did not decisively win WWI. They’re starting to become a little tiresome.
🙂
Off the top of my head, I don’t recall the Soviet Union doing anything to openly attack the US militarily (I might have forgotten some minor incidents).
Yet I’m sure you’ll agree that the US felt very threatened by the Soviets and undertook some very violent actions to defend themselves against that threat in countries they saw as Soviet proxies, or potential proxies.
That’s just how reality works. Why are you trying to hold Russia to a unrealistic purity standard?
I’ll sure not agree to that. For hysterical raisins, namely, the Atlantic Charter, whenever a country wants to attack another country it has to jump through some verbal hoops to tie that somehow to defense of something. But the USA was certainly not defending itself with its semi-successful and entirely unsuccessful wars in Korea and Vietnam (or the invasion of Grenada, for that matter). It was making war on independent countries in order to stop them from becoming communist, ie, members of the other global alliance. Likewise, this being the motivation behind my original comment in this thread, Putin/ Russia is not defending itself in Ukraine as Russia wasn’t attacked but attacked (in order to accomplish some political end). As I wrote in an earlier comment, I’m very much in favour of dropping terms like purity standard (or the good guy) in this context. The so-called international order is nothing but a perfectly abitrary set of policies the allied powers of WWII forced onto the world because they wanted and could, ie, because they commanded the military power to do so at that time. It wasn’t created by some kind of deity dividing mankind in goodies and baddies qua its… Read more »
This began with kate saying: “Putin and Russia …. have been forced to act to defend themselves”, and your response was: “There’s no reason why Putin would have to defend himself from countries who aren’t doing anything to him save not obeying his orders.”
But the fact is that defending yourself does not require an actual attack. The circumstances here are more than sufficient to establish a pattern of hostility, hatred and aggression by the US and by the Ukrainian nationalists towards Russia, and a genuine existential threat from a superpower with an established track record of military aggression.
“Russia is not defending itself in Ukraine as Russia wasn’t attacked but attacked (in order to accomplish some political end“
The “political end” is national security. Defence, in other words.
To be clear, this is not “necessary defence against ongoing armed attack”. It is as illegal (and no more so) under international law as the US’s various wars of choice. but it has much more justification on grounds of genuine national security necessity and response to unreasonable refusal to compromise.
But the fact is that defending yourself does not require an actual attack.
It does. Otherwise, it’s (at best) a so-called preemptive war – and – importantly, a situation where the attacker could have done something other than attack, although maybe to his own long- or medium-term detriment. Defence is always something which is forced onto a defender who doesn’t want to capitulate.
As I also wrote in the earlier comment: There is no such thing as international law as souvereign states aren’t subjects of anyone. It’s against the rules of some set of treaties some sufficiently powerful entities forced onto the world, primarily in order to guarantee the permanence of their middle-eastern style (that is, by drawing arbitrary boundaries on a map and employing ethnic cleansing in order to create peoples with the intended kind of self-determination drive) redesigned Europe.
“Otherwise, it’s (at best) a so-called preemptive war“ A preemptive war is by definition defensive. that’s what makes it preemptive and not a straightforward war of aggression. (Though this war was not preemptive, by the legal definition, but we aren’t discussing the legal terms here.) “and – importantly, a situation where the attacker could have done something other than attack, although maybe to his own long- or medium-term detriment. Defence is always something which is forced onto a defender who doesn’t want to capitulate.“ No, you are being unduly restrictive here, with the result that we are in danger of descending to purely sematic dispute. I have no doubt myself that Putin believed he had no choice but to fight, because the costs and risks he has incurred by going to war make it realistically inconceivable that he would have chosen that course of action otherwise. Russia had tried everything possible short of war to persuade the US and the Ukrainian ultras to compromise on their maximalist goals, and been completely rebuffed. If he had backed down, the arms would have kept flowing into the Ukraine and it would have gotten ever harder to grasp the nettle that he chose to grasp… Read more »
Everyone has also overlooked that Putin’s Russia prevented Syria from being overrun by US backed mercenaries and religious lunatics, providing a much needed bulwark against the very worst kind of US imperialism. I remember not being popular for saying this at the time.
The Russians had complete electronic warfare cover over the skies of Syria. This protected the Syrians from attack.
I am pretty sure they have got this over Ukraine too. I believe a lot of this rhetoric about providing Ukraine with EU weapons is nonsense.
Let us hope so , or the US/EU will be deliberately “creating chaos” in CIA fashion and causing s bloodbath to undermine and blame Russia – they have form in Libya, Syria, Iraq.
Russia has a much lower GDP than the US or China, and they have needed to target their military spending accordingly. They cannot afford to waste money, but this has led them to think carefully about strategy and planning and to eradicate wasteful procurements.
But they have had recent practice in Syria, have spent on essential military hardware, and appear to be efficient in their tactical planning and weapons development.
And as you say they will be aware of the danger of false flag actions by the CIA, as happened in Syria.
Indeed. Will – I think you need to have a quiet word with Toby
Ah well, toss it on the scrap heap with the “Ghost of Kyiv” and Ukrainian school kids saluting Ukrainian tanks.