At the end of March, Biden caused a minor incident when he declared that Putin “cannot remain in power”. Now he’s asking the U.S. Congress for another $33 billion to support Ukraine, including $20 billion in military aid. That’s on top of $3 billion in military aid the U.S. has already sent since February.
To put the $23 billion number in perspective, it’s bigger than the annual military budget of Spain, Brazil or Turkey. In fact, only 15 countries in the entire world spend more than $23 billion a year on defence. Famously defence-minded Israel spends a ‘mere’ $24 billion.
As I noted in a previous post, there’s lots of evidence the U.S. actually wanted a war with Russia – notwithstanding the tendency of some commentators to dismiss this claim as ‘Russian propaganda’.
Indeed, Congressman Adam Schiff couldn’t have been much clearer when he stated on the floor of the U.S. Senate, “The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.” (That was in January of 2020 during Trump’s impeachment trial.)
However, Philip Breedlove – the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO – has now gone one better, leaving even less room for ambiguity. During a recent podcast interview with the New York Times, he said, “I think we are in a proxy war with Russia. We are using the Ukrainians as our proxy forces.” Here’s a screenshot of the transcript:
As the journalist Wyatt Reed noted, Breedlove “said the quiet part out loud”. His statement lends support to those cynical observers (such as veteran U.S. diplomat Chas Freeman) who’ve suggested the U.S. will fight for Ukraine “to the last Ukrainian”.
Reed, who spotted Breedlove’s gaffe on Wednesday, also noted that not a single news outlet had reported on it. A quick Google search reveals this is still the case: no Western news outlets have deigned to mention that the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO referred to Ukrainians as “our proxy forces”.
This is noteworthy, given that in yesterday’s press conference, Biden rejected the claim NATO was engaged in a proxy war against Russia as “not true”. Who should we believe – the guy who led NATO operations in Europe for three years, or the guy who didn’t?
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The curious use of the English language and overlong, aggressive, pro Putin bluster of many comments on here are now explained.
Russian internet trolls based in an old arms factory in St Petersburg are targeting world leaders online and spreading support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Online operatives were found to be ordering followers to target western media outlets and politicians, according to research funded by the UK government, which plans to share it with major online platforms and other governments.
Many of these followers, ‘fellow travellers’, belong to fringe political organisations in Europe and elsewhere in receipt of funding from Putin’s Russian political agencies.
The headquarters of the ‘internet research agency’ is allegedly located in rented space in St Petersburg’s Arsenal Machine-building Factory, a company that manufactures military equipment and technology.
The ‘internet research agency’ belongs to Yevgheny Prigozhin
Prigozhin’s activities on behalf of the state have made him notorious……Prigozhin, senior employees and his company are all under US indictment.
Rumbled
Traces of the operation have been detected across eight social media platforms including Telegram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.
Key tactical innovations of the operational methodology include the use of commenting behaviours, use of VPNs and deliberate amplification of ‘organic’ content supporting the Kremlin’s position. All of these methods help to avoid detection and interception by social media platforms.
Hallmarks:
Calling on subscribers to target the social media profiles of opponents and Kremlin critics, including prominent politicians and world leaders, and spam them with pro-Kremlin comments.
Asking them to turn on VPNs and spam the comments sections of specific links to Instagram, YouTube, and Telegram.
Focusing activity on posting comments, rather than authoring original content – a tactic likely to decrease the risks of being detected by social media platforms for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour and/or harmful content.
Searching for ‘organic content’ posted by genuine users coherent with the lines they want to push, and then working to amplify these messages, in order that such views are distorted as the norm. This means that, provided the content they post is not too offensive, they are unlikely to be subject to de-platforming interventions.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a predictable response to the expansion of NATO eastwards, which understandably is seen as a serious threat by Putin’s government.
It’s also a betrayal: the United States and other Western nations went out of their way in early 1990 to assure Russia that they were not planning any major moves. Secretary of State James Baker, for instance, told leader Mikhail Gorbachev: “not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction”.
The American empire will always lie when they think it’s in their interests. It’s a mystery why anyone believes them any more.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a predictable response to the expansion of NATO eastwards, which understandably is seen as a serious threat by Putin’s government.
Yes, the essentially peace-loving Putin regime showed how fearful it was about the prospect of the defensive alliance known as NATO attacking their country (the largest in the world with over 6000 nuclear weapons) by invading the strongly western-aligned and NATO friendly Ukraine which is surrounded by NATO members.
Then going on to threaten the hundreds of millions living in Ukraine supportive countries (including NATO members) with nuclear destruction if they dared to directly intervene.
Knowing that any such first use of strategic weapons would almost certainly lead to the near annihilation of Russia’s own population (MAD), indeed of most of humanity.
Clearly all acts of desperation borne out of an existential terror…
“the defensive alliance known as NATO”.
You are pathetically naive sunbeam.
You are pathetically naive sunbeam.
And apparently also devoid of the capacity to have my naivety sympathetically alleviated by any actual fact or content…
I’ve given you all the facts you need. I can only assume that you’re young and blissfully unaware of American imperialism over the last 100+ years. Grow up.
I’ve given you all the facts you need.
I’m a bit confused now*, because you seem to be both vehemently challenging the extent of my knowledge (saying that I am unaware and naive about certain things);
But at the same stating here that I actually have full awareness of the same subject, because all the extra facts I (again according to you) require add up to the zero that you have given me in your two responses
Even if I was to take your claim of fact gifting to refer to your original post, I have scoured it for any evidence that NATO is not a defensive alliance (the only part of my own quite extensive post you felt willing to query, for obvious reasons) – and found nothing, only mentions of its expansion into Eastern Europe.
Expansion caused, of course, by those now liberal democratic nations which had broken free from the ruthlessly oppressive and tyrannical USSR seeking some sort of protection from the similarly totalitarian Putin regime – which has openly been attempting to re-instate the Soviet Union area of control (or even earlier Tsarist empire) through military conquest.
The same Russian regime which has, indeed, just invaded… Read more »
Where is the diplomacy and calm voices that are required? To my mind, this open aggression by NATO and the western governments – and yes it is by NATO because they didn’t honour the Minsk Agreement or even try to broker peace – has but one objective: the overthrow of Putin and annihilation of Russia as a world superpower (and yes I know they’re not so powerful as they once were but they still have a lot of nukes!). It is extremely dangerous and we have nowhere near the statesmen/women that in earlier times and in less dangerous situations would have somehow calmed the waters and at least talked. Now, we have a bunch of would-be Churchills, Eisenhowers etc who want to prove themselves. And the western media fans the flames of war, regardless of the quite unimaginable consequences We are so close to a nuclear confrontation.
Yesterday, I watched Mike Yeadon talk to James Delingpole and MY mentioned the Deagle population forecast for 2025. Deagle was a highly connected part of the US administration. This forecast is incredibly depressing and you have to ask yourself how exactly would the US and UK’s, not to mention a number of other… Read more »
Where did you see the Delingpole/ Yeadon chat please ?
It’s on James Delingpole’s podcast interview with Mike Yeadon on Odysee. Not sure if they allow links on here. If you google James Delingpole with Mike Yeadon on Odysee that should do it though. Mike doesn’t mention the Deagle thing until right at the end of the interview though.
“Yesterday, I watched Mike Yeadon talk to James Delingpole and MY mentioned the Deagle population forecast for 2025. Deagle was a highly connected part of the US administration.This forecast is incredibly depressing and you have to ask yourself how exactly would the US and UK’s, not to mention a number of other countries’, lost up to 70% of their populations”
Am very surprised that anyone would take these ludicrous Deagel ‘forecasts’ as anything other than a source of comedy (but with nasty propagandist underpinnings)
A social media post claims that a “major military industrial corporation” projected Western populations would be cut in half by 2025 “inexplicably”, with the post linking the dire prediction to “future biological warfare” following the COVID-19 pandemic.The source of the post’s projected population figures is not a “major military industrial corporation” as claimed but an obscure website, which itself admits made the predictions based on pure speculation.
Deagel.com has described itself as a “non-profit, built on spare time” that is “not linked to any government”. Nevertheless, it has previously been falsely identified as a secret US intelligence agency and a United Nations-linked group in posts and articles sharing misinformation based on the site’s groundless projections.
As… Read more »
It just keeps on getting worse for Putin.
Germany will move, is moving, towards a complete embargo of Russian gas.
‘Even record high non-Russian imports would not be enough to sufficiently refill storage ahead of next winter. Europe would need to reduce demand by at minimum 400 TWh (or 10%-15% of annual demand). This is possible. A portfolio of exceptional options could abate at least 800 TWh.’
Bruegel 05 Apr 22
‘Assuming very low short-run substitution elasticities, an 8% energy adjustment to oil, gas, and coal consumption leads to a 1.4% of GDP loss, or costs of €500- 700. In a last scenario where we model a more extreme 30% adjustment in gas usage, the economic losses rise to 2.2% of GDP (2.3% of GNE), equivalent to up to €1,000 per year per German citizen’
ECONtribute Policy Brief 028 Mar 22
What an outstanding article, thank you. Who has the power to STOP the USA before anymore harm is done? I guess we can rule out NATO. The EU and Britain the USA’s lapdogs, won’t stand up and do the right thing. That leaves China. Well they are doing their bit by buying “stuff” from China and paying in yuan. Will it be enough to keep Russia on its feet? I hope so. when will the American people have a enough? Soon I think, when their food shelves are totally empty.
The staggering lack of logic and factual basis (never mind moral compass) in these pro-Russia / anti-West spin pieces should come as no surprise, as that would be the only way to desperately attempt to justify the most flagrant act of extreme military aggression in human history.
I say that because not only has the regime of the largest country in the world sent its forces to engage in a frenzy of destruction and mass murder in a much smaller neighbour, but is now on a daily basis threatening to annihilate the entre population of the planet if any third parties directly stand in their way (through initiating nuclear armageddon).
In that sense this fascistic project has already far exceeded the evil of the Hitler government and its threats to kill all of Europe’s Jews if war broke out (a threat it came close to carrying out).
To look at some of the specific content in this article,
As I noted in a previous post, there’s lots of evidence the U.S. actually wanted a war with Russia…Indeed, Congressman Adam Schiff couldn’t have been much clearer when he stated on the floor of the U.S. Senate, “The United States aids Ukraine… Read more »
Mearsheimer, now Breedlove: Noah the West-hater desperately sifting the utterances of us 8 billion humans for any comments to back up his prejudices, whilst taking care to avoid the anti-Semitism that many of his fellow travellers often reveal. Meanwhile, the evidence against the war criminal Putin is measured not with quotes, but with body bags and mass graves…
Noah Carl is in some sort of alternative universe where the USA has launched an unprovoked invasion of Russia in a region called Ukraine.
To try to get back to the real world: Russia has invaded Ukraine. The last thing on Earth the Ukrainians want is to live under Russian tyranny and they are fighting literally to the death in their determination to try to prevent this happening.
How do you know what the real world is? You certainly won’t get it through MSM. Russia is certainly no saint but the fact that NATO ignored the Minsk agreement and set up a puppet government on Russia’s long western flank, a puppet government that persecuted the largely ethnic Russian population in the Donbass region for the past 8 years should surely ring some alarm bells, no?
“…there’s lots of evidence the U.S. actually wanted a war with Russia “
No, there’s not any evidence and offering up a comment from the most discredited Congressman in America, Adam Schiff as “evidence” is flat out stupid.
Carl appears to have jumped the shark with his childish faculty room anti-Americanism.
Strange because the US has been moving the NATO front line closer and closer to Russia’s borders every since the end of the cold war. The US are the most aggressive nation on earth. They have no concept of other nation’s sovereignty – just look at what they have done since the end of WW2.
The facts here are straightforward.
Russia, USA, UK guaranteed Ukrainian territorial integrity in return for it giving up nuclear weapons in 1994.
in 2000, Putin took over as President.
Since then Russia has invaded Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine (twice).
Putin has also circumvented rules limiting the Presidency to two terms.
‘“I had a sense in the early 2000s that Putin was a cold realist and knew precisely that what he was saying was propaganda……..Some 20 years later, he’s surrounded by yes men—power will do that to a person—and he has now come to believe these lies.”
Greg Carleton. Associate Professor of Russian Literature/Culture, Tufts University
Putin is seriously ill, on medication, which has affected his judgement.
A totalitarian state led by a mentally ill dictator invades a neighbour, yet again.
It’s just as simple as that.
All the rest is politicised, agenda driven, propagandised, hot air, and far too much of it.
Slowly and surely, the comments are descending to absurd levels.
There is a strong trend towards hurling abuse at key figures (excepting the russian aggressors) and anyone who has an opposing opinion.
I suspect that even the craziest of the “sceptics” don’t really believe the garbage they are peddling.
Let’s see how they progress, when the next pro-russian-invasion article is published.
Then why don’t you stop commenting, twigs? You’ve reached a point where you’re inflicting pain on yourself. Just stop, sausage.
Why should we stop drawing attention to the views of crackpot conspiracy theorists and appeasers, Immoderate Imbecile?
You’re paranoid.
Biden won’t know if it’s day or night.
But he can smell it if he’s crapped himself.
What debating skills….
It’s comment, not debate, that the utterly corrupt paedo wretch is now so clearly senile.
You’re addressing a mirror.
The key point to remember is that the American arms industry is worth $9.3 trillion.
Surely having a Global Thermonuclear War is a small price to pay to keep those manufacturers from falling on hard times?
Second largest arms supplier is…Russia. And a much bigger percentage of their economy.
Second largest – but much smaller. However, they are doing their bit to keep the World’s arms manufacturers in business.
Using logic (look it up), Could you explain your thinking on how arms companies would benefit from having had this nuclear war?
Your comment is hard to rationalise, so please explain.
Given that the GDP for the USA was $23 trillion in 2021, your figure looks quite unlikely.
Perhaps you could justify it?
What an arrogant and disgusting comment – so the tragic Ukraine war was provoked in order to start a ‘proxy’ conflict with Russia while not actually fighting Russia …who could have guessed?
From Afghan wedding parties to Iraqi shepherds, from Hiroshima civilians to Syrian market stall owners, from Yazidi girls,to Vietnamese villagers,Libyan carpet sellers and Kurdish female Freedom Fighters…the US has always been so “heroic” with other people’s lives.
Yeah, like ridding the world of Hitler and Imperial Japan…
Grow up.
It’s not a proxy war, it’s a direct war between Russia and the west. That was the case from the first day.
Noah Carl’s view that recognising Russian sovereignty over Crimea/the Donbass would be enough to satisfy Putin is naive in the extreme. Dos anyone seriously believe this? He hasn’t even finished with Ukraine yet, and he’s already set his sights on Moldova.
idiot
Twat.
Fantastic quality of debate.
Deluded.
A slight improvement.
Owned
And shameful. Coming here to encourage hatred and urge on the dogs of war.
That’s what the vast majority of posters on here do, with their blaming of the west and excusing / supporting of Russian’s invasion of Ukraine.
twats are useful chum. You’re a prick.
You still haven’t expressed a point of view.
Neither have you. You just parrot establishment propaganda.
Do you have a point to make?
Bloody hell, no sooner is Fingy off the plane from their hols that they are right back in the saddle.
That’s dedication.
Yo Fingy, is it time an’ arf on ‘ere, bruv?
Must have taken over when that cunt Tree finished his shift
It was seamless, bruv.
If he thinks he knows Putin’s final objectives, he is mistaken.
I think he is really writing this stuff to provoke worse comments from the “sceptical”.commenters.
Some sort of experiment to see how extreme their views can become.
You have a great mind, twigs. Stand aside, Augustine, be seated, Aquinas, close your mouth, Calvin, there’s a new kid in town.
The BBC has been referring to Britain’s “war aims” too. That may soon become a standard term.
US retired general Philip Breedlove sounds as though he’s cut from the same cloth as the guy who was once his deputy in NATO, British retired general Richard Shirreff.
Soon after leaving his post as deputy “supreme allied commander” in NATO (“DSACEUR”), Shirreff penned a book entitled “2017: War with Russia”. Appallingly badly written, it’s basically public relations for weapons companies, saying that what’s really really needed is lots more “kit”, and once all the “kit” has been bought, then Britain’s finest, allied with rightwing types in places like Estonia, will easily be able to show those Russkies what’s what. It comes across as infantile. Needless to say, Shirreff’s pater was in the army before him, and it won’t surprise many to know that he went to private boarding school. He’s probably encountered few particles of the stuff called “reality” in the whole of his life, the silly s*d.
If what he writes in that book reflects actual military thinking in the west, then given the strategic lack of understanding of Russia that is so evident in it the rulers of Russia have… Read more »
What kind of cloth is Putin cut from, then? KGB straight-jacket canvas?
The whole world knows the war is just an excuse for stupid Americans to have a go at Russia. That why 8 out of 10 earthlings(i.e. the rest, not the west) Support Russia’s action to frustrate NATO (America’s foreign legion) You know I think it’s working, NATO nations are getting sick of food shortages, price rises and basic hardship. After 2 years of covid19, we barely had a pot to piss in anyway. And now BJ thinks it’s OK to have a war with Russia, as if we have not already heaped enough debt on our kids’ shoulders!!Boris is a tool, how can we dump the fat blond freak?
People who don’t care about reality don’t care about debt either.
perhaps if Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine…….
Perhaps if the Ukrainian army hadn’t regularly attacked the Russian-speaking populations in the east of Ukraine over a period of six years.
Lord Stupid assumes that populations agree with their leaders!!! Especially in China.
As a little aside, one not directly related to the subject of this article, but worth bringing to peoples attention nonetheless are sanctions. These are supposed to be hitting Russia financially as hard as the weapons that NATO and the west are flooding into Ukraine are intended to hit Russia militarily. How’s that working out? Well, we all know that cooking oil is now being rationed in supermarkets and prices of just about everything are shooting through the roof, fueled in part at least by the war. So, the sanctions are clearly hurting us, but what about the Russian economy: is the Ruble collapsing? You don’t need to know anything about the financial markets or technical analysis to ‘read’ the weekly chart attached. The story it tells is plain for all to see . . .
Another backfire; Except we know that We, and not Russia, are the real enemies of the Globalists.
I don’t agree with that.
Russia understands precisely where the globalists are heading, a global USSR.
Russia is a young country, only emerged from communism in 1988. The Russian people are enjoying their new found freedom, even if they don’t quite know how to handle it.
Think of it this way. Aircraft carriers are the means to export war. The USA has twenty carriers, the Russians have one.
Who is the threat to who here?
You misunderstood me – or perhaps I wasn’t clear. I agree wholeheartedly that the USA is the greatest threat to the world and have been saying it tirelessly for the last 25 years; I just meant that the effects of the sanctions (like covid) seem to target us and our way of life, rather than Russia.
That’s my thinking too, cs – and is the primary point of my post. I think we’re all on the same page! 🙂
Carriers are now defunct due to Kinzhal
The Russians are free to vote for Putin. Only approved opponents are allowed to stand against him.
Unapproved ones are murdered or jailed.
The inability to see one’s own shadow is a fundamental shortcoming. Maybe a look in the mirror from time to time might be useful?
Just like the west then…..
Shitwit.
The value of the currency is not the only measure of economic strength. For that matter, the dollar is soaring.
Russian GDP is forecast to tank by over 10%.
That’s riot-provoking level.
I know, Fingy, but what ya gunna do?
Funny question.
Watch, I guess.
No answers, then.
Bless.
You’re correct Fingal, USD$ is soaring, fuelled by unprecedented quantitative easing, aka money printing. It’s a bubble that will surely burst, just like the 17th century Dutch Tulip bubble, the 90s Dotcom bubble or the noughties housing bubble. If I had to bet on which currency will crash first (they’ll both crash eventually), I’d bet my house on the dollar over the ruble.
As for Russian GDP, ours could easily be in just as bad shape and the consequences equally severe. I blame the sheer folly and ineptitude of our own leaders rather than Putin the bogeyman and Russia the scapegoat – which is the spin our feckless government and totally useless MSM will try – and are trying – to put on it.
Russia holds considerable reserves in precious metals and has been steadily building up those reserves over the past few decades. Contrast that to the UK, where their stores of precious metals were pawned off at bargain basement prices.
Yep – a reality check. Look at the Ruble.
Let’s be brutal: NATO is at war with Russia, using Ukraine as its ‘theatre of operations’.
As a result, every NATO member supplying weapons to Ukraine is a legitimate military target and any diplomat, politician or military f***wit who says otherwise has mental health issues so severe that they cannot continue in their duties.
The UK is at war with Ukraine and if Russia wished to, they could legitimately bomb UK strategic sites. The UK has committed a litany of illegal terrorist actions the world over for centuries and could have zero complaint if they finally got some comeback.
I am not a Russian, I am not a Putin apologist, I just hold my own criminal and execrable showers of politicians to the standards any sane person should hold them to.
Right on. The stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming.
NATO = Biden/Obama.
What NATO is doing is placing a child in a cage with a bear and poking the bear from a safe distance. And when the bear is attacking the child, they scream and shout to encourage each other to go after the bear. Is that the ultimate aim? To put
thebearRussia down?I was in a taxi today, and the driver was like: “we need to get our hands dirty with the Russians”… The trick has worked. And no, he was not concerned about nukes, or thought of any alternatives. Good guy, full of heart for Ukraine. I felt embarrassed, and sad. If the crowd is led in that direction, there is no hope for poor Ukraine, and little hope for our little island too!
I am sure that the only way to stop this madness is to start proper negotiation with the aim to settle this conflict. This will disarm the Russians. But who is to make such decision? Biden????
No… Russia is at war with Ukraine. Some NATO countries are providing to Ukraine, who are the victims of the russian aggression.
That certainly seems to be Scott Ritter’s take on it, not only that NATO is at war with Russia using Ukraine as a proxy, but that it is arming its proxy with outdated weapons pretty much guaranteed to increase the Ukrainian body count.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTskt_VjDq0
Well said.
And we were told Trump would cause wars.
Never felt as safe in all my life when he was running the show.
Sick left wing. All they know is conflict, at every level.
Yes, in todays twisted, depraved and highly confused West, not going to war is a form of aggression. Up is down, black is white, war is peace, freedom is slavery etc etc etc etc!
‘Wokism’ is trying to tear society down but they have hidden it behind social agendas. The people pushing it are usually weed smoking mongs who dont know what day of the week it is or ‘degree educated’ nobheads who think they are above everyone but earn as much as your Tesco shelfstacker yet spend their whole life pretending the world is a land of unicorns and rainbows.
There was one on a phone-in the other week “Why is the country run by businessmen and not normal people?”. That’s a point I hear cried a lot from Labour followers.
I don’t know. Why would you want your country run by successful people who know the ins and outs of finance and not a bloke called Andy who has worked at a chipshop in Morecambe for 30 years?
I remember being very struck by the peace signs being held up at Trump’s rallies in 2016.
At first I wondered if they were simply underlining Hillary Clinton’s reputation as a hawk; but came to the view that as someone outside the main game of the military-industrial complex, Trump was not into war.
Fingal must be on leave.
He’s painting his cave.
Happy to see that no one’s tempted to get into pointless exchanges with his colleague though.
Let me at him……..😡
Steady on there!
OK, let me at IT……😡
Yes, twiggy’s certainly taken up the slack left by Fingy, though Fingy is far more rational. That is not to say they are very rational; it’s just that twiggy is particularly irrational/dense.
And where’s Aunty Jen? 😂
It’s just two shades of stupid. Nothing rational about either of them.
Agreed. That’s my point, you just said it better.
Any sign of the Jacques Baud article in the Postil magazine appearing in the Daily Sceptic, Noah? Third time of asking. Similar topic, except with masses of detail.
https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine/
https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine-an-update/
https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/09/former-nato-military-analyst-blows-the-whistle-on-wests-ukraine-invasion-narrative/
Every conflict has the USA or UK at the heart of it. Their warmongering will eventually lead to nuclear war if we allow these maniacs to continue like this. I don’t blame Russia for protecting its borders or its people in the Dombass. They would not have had to go that route had NATO and the UN completely ignored what the Ukrainian army was doing in the East.
There is only one maniac threating nuclear weapons use. Guess who that is?
It’s Putin.
Bizarrely, the one who speaks the loudest about propaganda is the most brainwashed her/himself… Every country possessing nuclear weapons is threatening usage of this weapon, because that is the key and only reason of possessing it. Also, perhaps you have missed the North Korea’s recent threats, or unaware of China’s doings. Check it out. Moreover, Ukraine itself, albeit not possessing the nukes any more, threatens to use so-called “dirty nuclear bomb” made from radioactive waste materials from the nuclear power plants it has in abundance. BBC has forgotten to mention this, but if you are sharing your opinion so forsefully here, you should educate yourself a bit better. But let is leave all the “threats” [made by everyone possessing this type of weapon] alone, and try to recall who has made the very first nuke and who has actually used it without any warning??? You know, barking dogs rarely bite, but the ones that bite do so with little warning.
I hope leaders of our little planet are wise enough not to use this thing ever again.
Yea, all those Russian military bases bristling with nuclear weapons surrounding the USA. Disgusting.
Blow it out your ass troll. You have no idea what you’re talking about, as usual.
Ever heard of ICBMs?
Proximity is not the issue.
N. Korean “ICBMs”[sic] can’t reach much further than Japan you utter cretin.
Spolier alert!
if only….
Well 14/17 sceptical idiots.. who else has made such threats?
Were people not sceptical of the prevailing consensus we would still be amputating limbs without anaesthetic you utter imbecile.
True. It is so bizzare to witness how biased the press is here in the West, completely ignoring one of the bloodest conflicts that go for years, but making a soap opera out of another. Amount of offe me that Kyiv’s regime made towards poor Donbass region is heartbreaking. Yet, noone knows about it here, as it never made it to the BBC news!
Protecting its borders from who?
With every article Noah carl writes, the pack of “sceptical” followers becomes more and more supportive of the Russian invasion.
The author must have noticed this. I wonder if this is some type of experiment to see how far the following can be guided in a disgraceful direction. The “sceptics” reinforce each others’ opinions in a type of positive feedback, and the collective view becomes worse and worse.
Does the author support the views that he is encouraging?
I don’t see Noah or anyone else ‘supporting’ the Russian Invasion. To criticise Nato/USA/Ukraine is not to ‘support’ the Russian invasion, it is to be aware of the antecedents to the conflict and not just believe the propaganda that we are being fed by the MSM, which is that Putin is a madman who has suddenly decided, with no provocation, to invade Europe. That is what being a ‘sceptic’ is to me; it is to be someone who applies critical reasoning to problems and questions narratives and maniplulated ‘news’.
The assumption that there are only two conflicting viewpoints here, namely, the Russian propaganda and the American propaganda and that everybody must either agree wholeheartedly with one or the other is wrong. Critical reasoning would recognize that RT is as mainstream as the New York Times, just under different political control.
As for antecedents to this conflict: Much of present-day Ukraine is territory Russia forcibly took from the so-called Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth during the three Polish partitions. The Poles actually managed to reconquer a part of it in 1918/19. At the end of the second world war, Russia annexed it again and drove out the Poles who were supposed to settle in the former eastern provinces of Prussia instead. I don’t quite have an idea how to fit this in any of the currently popular narratives but it’s certainly related to the situation as well.
Who did the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth take that land from in the first place? Thieves themselves!
.
Who has a divine right to any piece of land on the planet?
The concept of a ‘Sovereign nation’ exists only in the minds of bureaucrats who adore making rules and drawing boundaries.
You don’t say that when some refugees want to come to the UK, do you.
No..you say something much nastier.
I have never expressed anything negative about refugees. In fact, unlike you, I have had first hand experience of refugees. I was in Hong Kong and witness the refugee crisis after Mao’s ‘great leap forward’.
Take your nasty little mind and shove up your arse.
Kindly explain what Russia wants with a broke, corrupt, tin pot country when Russia itself is the biggest country in the world.
There is nothing in Ukraine Russia wants or needs other than, perhaps, security for gas pipelines.
In other words, what is the motivation for Russia invading Ukraine if not to ensure NATO doesn’t continue the slow march across Europe Trump was happy to stop, but which Biden want’s to resurrect.
The problem isn’t Putin, the problem is the western left wing who know nothing other than conflict. Children who don’t understand the consequences of their reckless actions functioning under the pretext of being ‘kind’.
Irony upon irony, Trump painted as a cruel, heartless oaf by the left, and the world was never a safer place when he was POTUS.
The watchword Trump used to great effect was No!
That single word is the source of all ills because the left simply cannot bring themselves to be ‘cruel’ enough to use it.
Look at the world around us, our children are now raised with ‘understanding’ despite every child’s desire to be directed until they are mature enough to take responsibility for themselves. ‘No’ is an alien concept to them… Read more »
My guess would be that the Russian government would prefer Ukraine to be a satellite state like Belarus, if only because its black sea naval base is on nominally Ukrainian territory. But that’s just a guess and not based on inside knowledge of anything.
The Crimea isn’t nominally, historically or demographically Ukrainian.
And they’ve already restored it to Russia.
Crimea was historically Mongolic state (Crimean Khanate). The Russians annexed it in violation of existing treaties in 1738 and Stalin later deported the native population. It became part of the Ukrainian soviet republic in the middle of the last century and was part of Ukraine until the Russians again annexed it in 2014.
There’s no use arguing with any historic rights here: The Russian empire is a collection of lands and peoples the tsars subdued with military force and since Russia never fought a war against the USA so far, it wasn’t dismantled using the Self-determination of the peoples! pretext another guy ruling a multi-ethnic empire carved out of a continent with the help of a campaign of genocidal warfare against its native inhabitants invented out of thin air.
Now, what was the point of this attempt at redefining gravity as the force which makes things fly upward?
The thing is Putin did invade Europe, without provocation. Certainly anything that justifies what he is doing.
If you believe otherwise, then you are a victim of propaganda.
If you think there is no support for the Russian invasion on this site, go and look for an article that criticises the invasion, or some comments that do so.
‘without provocation’
That’s a good one.
Russia is part of the European continent you utter imbecile.
What propaganda are we in the UK subject to? None, other than our own.
Most of us on this site have the ability to question and criticise both sides of the conflict, unlike you.
As with everything else, you simply swallow the narrative, propagandised or otherwise, of the consensus.
You haven’t a critical thought in your tiny mind, which makes me wonder how you manage to get through daily life.
Hmmm. So you balance all the information do you? Both sides, but you believe only the russian stuff. The stuff out out by the country that has shut down all independent media and jails people for mild protesting against its war.
Same goes for all your other views where you feel compelled to oppose the establishment.
It’s because they are the “establishment” that I question them, not oppose them.
The distinction is lost on your tiny little mind though.
Apparently, 15/18 sceptics believe Putin didn’t invade Ukraine. Their little thumbs tell us this.
Moron.
Who should we believe – the guy who makes the decisions or the guy who is retired?
If Covid is anything to go by, the retired guy.
“Who should we believe – the guy who makes the decisions...?”
This guy?
https://twitter.com/DrLuetke/status/1519761716111978497
LOL! I don’t think so.
Another splendid discussion piece. Thank you.
General Breedlove was remarking that the USA was in a proxy war with Russia, not NATO.
Are they? I have no idea and neither does anyone else on this thread.
Maybe that was what President Biden meant when he said NATO was not engaged in a proxy war with Russia. Maybe he meant that the USA was…who knows…maybe who will ever know?
Really this blame/name calling is just a whole bunch of silliness.
A totalitarian state has invaded its neighbour. It has conducted many wars.
That’s it.
What we should be doing in this country is taking a long hard look in the mirror
If you wish for peace, then prepare for war.
And we didn’t; our elected governments neglected their first duty to the nation, over 30 years.
That really is all our faults; our true responsibility for this catastrophe…and yes, we may very well have to pay a savage price for that dereliction.
Why does it matter to us where the border between Russia and Ukraine lies?
When Ukraine has been annexed in totality and another country is in it sights, would you care then.
Are you aware of the minerals in the Donbas, that Russia wishes to control?
Why does it matter to the people of the UK? It’s not our land or minerals being fought over or our lives at risk, providing , of course,we keep out of the conflict.
We should have kept out of it but being America’s poodle, we jump when they say jump. Not forgetting that Johnson was born in New York and had dual citizenship until around 2016.
Why does it matter to Finland and Sweden, for that matter? Clearly they feel threatened. NATO members on the Baltic feel threatened. If they are invaded, we are obliged to intervene. Objectively, far better to make some kind of a stand now.
What do you mean by “make some kind of a stand now”?
You can work it out.
I can’t be certain, which is why I asked and gave you the opportunity to show you’re not a nutter prepared to risk nuclear war.
There is only one nutter threatening nuclear war.
But not, I think, first use……yet.
Bon voyage!
I note your repeated refusal to answer straightforward questions.
Oh no, Near, you had the ‘Bon voyage’ from the cretin. You must’ve been getting a bit too close for comfort.
Feel honoured.
Did they feel threatened before Biden was elected?
Not as far as I can gather.
LOL – Russia is the largest country in the world! It is already rich in minerals. Dombass on the other hand is predominantly Russian speaking and they have been persecuted for the past 8 years by the Ukrainian nazis!
More than persecution, it’s been ethnic cleansing. But those in the Donbas speak Russian so the west ignore it.
Why did the British Prime Minister sign the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity while simultaneously implementing massive cuts in defence spending? I have no idea. That seems to me to have been a very stupid thing to do. The Prime Minister at the time? That would be John Major.
You haven’t answered my question.
That’s all the answer you’re going to get.
I accept your surrender.
My previous remark refers.
foreign are we?
verb at the end of the sentence…..
“Why did the British Prime Minister sign the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity “
You’ve tried this one before here, and had the actual wording pointed out to you.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf
There is no “guarantee” of territorial integrity by the UK regime, only a promise not to attack it ourselves.
Were you aware and chose to lie, or do you just have a poor memory?
‘….commitment to seek immediate U.N. Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine……if Ukraine should become a victim of aggression…..’
It is not, of course, a binding agreement. I have never maintained that it is.
But it is a commitment or, as we say in English, a guarantee…..
Bon voyage!
“‘….commitment to seek immediate U.N. Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine……if Ukraine should become a victim of aggression…..’
It is not, of course, a binding agreement. I have never maintained that it is.”
That would be an extract from section 4:
4 The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and The United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.
[bold added]
Funny how selectively you quoted it.
So, not a “guarantee” of “Ukraine’s territorial integrity”, as you tried to make out. Not even a commitment to go to the Security Council in the event of a conventional attack.
But I’m sure you’ll be back trying to portray it as such again in a few days.
Semantics.
In a spirit of helpfulness, let me try and make the English here a bit simpler for you. It can be tricky for those for whom it is not their first language. The treaty is also in other languages. Maybe one of those would be easier for you?
provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression (no punctuation)
or an object of a threat of aggression (no punctuation) in which nuclear weapons are used.
You see now? Two separate commitments, guarantees.
If it meant one guarantee, the text would have included commas.
Hope that helps.
Don’t you have anything better? Noah
NATO ex officer express his opinion : “I think we are in a proxy war with Russia. We are using the Ukrainians as our proxy forces”… and Noah gives it as proof of his ideas.
If American commanders thought the same way they would have to attack Russia with nuclear weapons immediately after Russia published a propaganda video showing a nuclear attack on the United States as on countless other occasions when a Russian officer threatened a nuclear waras on countless other occasions when a Russian officer threatened a nuclear war.
As as usual, many conspiracy ideas and few facts from Noah
Indeed … time for the website to be renamed again.
How about “Putin’s Daily”
Time for you to rename yourself, tree. How about Biden’s Lapdog? Gate’s Little Helper? Johnson’s Johnson?
That is freedom of speech.. I don’t know how is it in the UK but such wiews as can be read here are often censored in the EU. Some of them can be even considered as a crime here in Czechia.
Even though Putin’s useful idiot and Russian trolls upset me I respect The Daily Sceptic for providing them space and not censoring them
Some more balanced pieces would be welcome anyway
Have you considered the possibility that, rather than being Putin’s useful idiots or Russian trolls, we’re primarily concerned with the interests of the British people and know that our politicians are corrupt, lying, traitorous globalist scum?
It looks to me as if all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have saddled up, and left the stables. We have Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death; all apparently at the behest of madmen, especially US lunatics and senile cretins. These persons are aided and abetted by a Churchill impersonator and a remarkably stupid woman in the UK, neither of whom are competent enough to handle the situations they are helping to create; let alone put out the flames they are fanning. The language, especially from Truss, is extraordinarily rash and ill-considered.
Whilst it’s difficult to believe that all the posturing and drum-beating from the UK government (such as it is) is mere camouflage or diversion to draw attention away from Johnson’s petty woes, the appalling state the country is in and will be further plunged into, nothing would surprise. Using war as a tool of domestic politicking is beyond criminal.
I’m a bit stuck to think of any “proxy” wars, fought since 1945, that have worked out well, either for the instigators or their proxies.
Well we know this will work out very badly for Ukraine, which could well disappear. De-dollarisation of much of world trade may also work out badly for the main instigator, who it would seem hasn’t thought things through properly. No real surprise there then.
It’s probably pertinent to remember at this point that the Great War, what we now call World War One, was started because nobody would back down.
They all thought it would be a jolly jape and home by Christmas, then they realised it was the first fully industrial war – right about the time they cavalry charged into an operational machine gun position.
The current situation sounds eerily similar. Including the same lack of concern for the level of carnage modern weapons can unleash.
As I’ve said before, the people in charge should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Threads on repeat until they get it.
We have a population that is scared of a bit of a cold, not scared of nuclear annihilation. I don’t get it.
“As I’ve said before, the people in charge should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Threads on repeat until they get it.”
I think they should be strapped to the front of the lead tank in any invasion!
Do you mean Putin?
No. I mean the belligerent Western leaders who are responsible for so much misery in the world – and who have provoked Russia for years.
tree and RW have voted you down. You must be over the target.
Poor stuff tree, no bonus if you don’t do better.
It’s probably pertinent to remember at this point that the Great War, what we now call World War One, was started because nobody would back down.
It’s a bit more complicated than that: By that time, all continental great powers had their armies organized in a way the Prussians had invented in the 19th century, with a fairly small standing army as training force for conscripts who’d be moved to the army reserve after a few years of service. In order to get ready for a war, such an army has to be mobilized: Reservists needed to be called back to their units and fitted out. This was a transport-intensive weeks long task which required detailed advance planning to work. As the army wouldn’t be ready for war until mobilization was complete, everybody had to mobilize once anybody started, to avoid getting overrun before his own army became operational.
After the Sarajevo assassination, influential people in Austria-Hungary wanted war with Serbia. Because of this, they first sent an ultimatum the Serbs were guaranteed to reject and started a partial mobilization directed at Serbia. To this, the Russians responded with mobilizing their armed forces. This drew the Germans in who first… Read more »
“and in response to that, Great Britain declared war as well.”
That worked out well.
I was born in 1961 and remember lots of “Aunties” I was ordered by my Mum to let hug and kiss me.
It was only when I was a bit older that I understood that the men they would have married and had children with died in WW1.
Not too relevant to today, but thanks all the same. .
I think you’ve drawn a parallel to the current time more than a contrast.
Basically you are describing how all the nations semi-unwittingly manoeuvred into a point of no return. In that case it was by troop mobilisation.
As I see it, they are doing the same today except in a different way, largely through economic warfare that is hard to back down from. My worry and that of many others isn’t that Putin is a madman, but rather that leaders in both sides never back down and don’t leave room to negotiate because they personally have everything to lose and nothing to gain, and everyone else be damned. Like in WWI.
Pretty good summary.
“We have a population that is scared of a bit of a cold, not scared of nuclear annihilation. I don’t get it.“
The propaganda machine has been directed to scare people about covid while whipping people up into a froth of hysterical hatred of Russians and jingoist war fever.
Not really complicated, unless you had delusions that people are resistant to such propaganda. And I think we’ve all been disabused of that one over the past couple of years.
“right about the time they cavalry charged into an operational machine gun position.“
As an interesting (for me) aside, the first German death inflicted by the British Army in WW1 was done from horseback with a sword, the pattern 1908 cavalry sword (I have a couple in my collection):
“The Pattern 1908 sword was such a departure from previous models that a new accompanying sword exercise was needed, and was incorporated in the new Cavalry Training manual of 1912. The single purpose of the new sword was fully reflected in this new sword drill, where it was simply stressed that ‘each man should ride at his opponent at full speed with the fixed determination or running him through… Read more »
Radiation is the only thing that will really rid us of The Covid Virus.
Radiation, coming soon to a place near you.
Conspiracy theorists were right yet again when warning nuclear war with Russia and China will happen as part of the great reset.
Considering America, via the Rochefeller Foundation, were big donors to the Red Revolution, and Schwab confirmed Putin is in the WEF club, I think it’s fair to assume the war is entirely manufactured.
Well, it hasn’t happened yet. So they haven’t been proven right just yet.
The war is happening and the nuclear threat has been made. I have a feeling neither of us will be able to dispute this if the nuke threat is fulfilled.
You could be right about it all going nuclear. Russia’s mission is to exist, while the US has the destruction of Russia as its main goal. Those two things do not fit together well.
Putin was in the WEF club but obviously no longer.
Want expand on this very assured claim?
Can you prove he is still a WEF member?
Can you prove he’s not? At this point his current status is a darling of the WEF Young Leaders club, confirmed by Schwab. Until we hear otherwise, we can assume he’s doing what he’s supposed to do.
And when – not if – communist China joins their communist partners in this war, will you still be whoring for Putin?
I don’t think on balance that Russia (as opposed to Putin) is acting in concert with the West. The economic moves being made by Russia at this point are anathema to the debt based Ponzi scheme that passes for Western capitalism.
Yes it is manufactured, but only by one side. Hint : that side isn’t Russia.