Russia recruiting U.S.-trained Afghan commandos, vets say
By BERNARD CONDON
1 hour ago
Afghan special forces soldiers who fought alongside American troops and then fled to Iran after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal last year are now being recruited by the Russian military to fight in Ukraine, three former Afghan generals told The Associated Press.
They said the Russians want to attract thousands of the former elite Afghan commandos into a “foreign legion” with offers of steady, $1,500-a-month payments and promises of safe havens for themselves and their families so they can avoid deportation home to what many assume would be death at the hands of the Taliban.
“They don’t want to go fight — but they have no choice,” said one of the generals, Abdul Raof Arghandiwal, adding that the dozen or so commandos in Iran with whom he has texted fear deportation most. “They ask me, ‘Give me a solution. What should we do? If we go back to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill us.’”
Arghandiwal said the recruiting is led by the Russian mercenary force Wagner Group. Another general, Hibatullah Alizai, the last Afghan army chief before the Taliban took over, said the effort is also being helped by a former Afghan special forces commander who lived in Russia and speaks the language.
The Russian recruitment follows months of warnings from U.S. soldiers who fought with Afghan special forces that the Taliban was intent on killing them and that they might join with U.S. enemies to stay alive or out of anger with their former ally.
A GOP congressional report in August specifically warned of the danger that the Afghan commandos — trained by U.S. Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets — could end up giving up information about U.S. tactics to the Islamic State group, Iran or Russia — or fight for them.
“We didn’t get these individuals out as we promised, and now it’s coming home to roost,” said Michael Mulroy, a retired CIA officer who served in Afghanistan, adding that the Afghan commandos are highly skilled, fierce fighters. “I don’t want to see them in any battlefield, frankly, but certainly not fighting the Ukrainians.”
Mulroy was skeptical, however, that Russians would be able to persuade many Afghan commandos to join because most he knew were driven by the desire to make democracy work in their country rather than being guns for hire.
AP was investigating the Afghan recruiting when details of the effort were first reported by Foreign Policy magazine last week based on unnamed Afghan military and security sources. The recruitment comes as Russian forces reel from Ukrainian military advances and Russian President Vladimir Putin pursues a sputtering mobilization effort, which has prompted nearly 200,000 Russian men to flee the country to escape service.
Russia's Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Yevgeny Prigozhin, who recently acknowledged being the founder of the Wagner Group, dismissed the idea of an ongoing effort to recruit former Afghan soldiers as “crazy nonsense.”
The U.S. Defense Department also didn’t reply to a request for comment, but a senior official suggested the recruiting is not surprising given that Wagner has been trying to sign up soldiers in several other countries.
It’s unclear how many Afghan special forces members who fled to Iran have been courted by the Russians, but one told the AP he is communicating through the WhatsApp chat service with about 400 other commandos who are considering offers.
He said many like him fear deportation and are angry at the U.S. for abandoning them.
“We thought they might create a special program for us, but no one even thought about us,” said the former commando, who requested anonymity because he fears for himself and his family. “They just left us all in the hands of the Taliban.”
The commando said his offer included Russian visas for himself as well as his three children and wife who are still in Afghanistan. Others have been offered extensions of their visas in Iran. He said he is waiting to see what others in the WhatsApp groups decide but thinks many will take the deal.
U.S. veterans who fought with Afghan special forces have described to the AP nearly a dozen cases, none confirmed independently, of the Taliban going house to house looking for commandos still in the country, torturing or killing them, or doing the same to family members if they are nowhere to be found.
Human Rights Watch has said more than 100 former Afghan soldiers, intelligence officers and police were killed or forcibly “disappeared” just three months after the Taliban took over despite promises of amnesty. The United Nations in a report in mid-October documented 160 extrajudicial killings and 178 arrests of former government and military officials.
The brother of an Afghan commando in Iran who has accepted the Russian offer said Taliban threats make it difficult to refuse. He said his brother had to hide for three months after the fall of Kabul, shuttling between relatives’ houses while the Taliban searched his home.
“My brother had no other choice other than accepting the offer,” said the commando’s brother, Murad, who would only give his first name because of fear the Taliban might track him down. “This was not an easy decision for him.”
Former Afghan army chief Alizai said much of the Russian recruiting effort is focused on Tehran and Mashhad, a city near the Afghan border where many have fled. None of the generals who spoke to the AP, including a third, Abdul Jabar Wafa, said their contacts in Iran know how many have taken up the offer.
“You get military training in Russia for two months, and then you go to the battle lines,” read one text message a former Afghan soldier in Iran sent to Arghandiwal. “A number of personnel have gone, but they have lost contact with their families and friends altogether. The exact statistics are unclear.”
An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Afghan special forces fought with the Americans during the two-decade war, and only a few hundred senior officers were airlifted out when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan. Since many of the Afghan commandos did not work directly for the U.S. military, they were not eligible for special U.S. visas.
“They were the ones who fought to the really last minute. And they never, never, never talked to the Taliban. They never negotiated,” Alizai said. “Leaving them behind is the biggest mistake.”
___
Condon reported from New York. AP writers Rahim Faiez in Islamabad and Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.
So our missteps in the Middle East may continue to haunt us, it is almost like all war is connected and no one ever wins. I feel like I was recently called out for daring to compare any of our militarism to the situation in Ukraine and a few days later here we are with reports that betrayed Afghan special forces troops that were trained by the US may go fight with the Russians.
This is a good friend of mine. I'm very proud of him, and he is a bad ass. His stories from his time over there are hardcore, but he's luckily got the training to deal with it. He will be going back to the front lines in the new year with more equipment. Right now he is busy gathering an actual hospital's worth of medical equipment and supplies to ship over, and they're working to get the father of the refugee family living with him out of hiding in Ukraine and into Canada.
This is a good friend of mine. I'm very proud of him, and he is a bad ass. His stories from his time over there are hardcore, but he's luckily got the training to deal with it. He will be going back to the front lines in the new year with more equipment. Right now he is busy gathering an actual hospital's worth of medical equipment and supplies to ship over, and they're working to get the father of the refugee family living with him out of hiding in Ukraine and into Canada.
This is a good friend of mine. I'm very proud of him, and he is a bad ass. His stories from his time over there are hardcore, but he's luckily got the training to deal with it. He will be going back to the front lines in the new year with more equipment. Right now he is busy gathering an actual hospital's worth of medical equipment and supplies to ship over, and they're working to get the father of the refugee family living with him out of hiding in Ukraine and into Canada.
Russians try to subdue Ukrainian towns by seizing mayors
By YURAS KARMANAU
1 hour ago
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Not long after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, soldiers broke down the office door of Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov. They put a bag over his head, bundled him into a car and drove him around the southern city for hours, threatening to kill him.
Fedorov, 34, is one of over 50 local leaders who have been held in Russian captivity since the war began on Feb. 24 in an attempt to subdue cities and towns coming under Moscow's control. Like many others, he said he was pressured to collaborate with the invaders.
“The bullying and threats did not stop for a minute. They tried to force me to continue leading the city under the Russian flag, but I refused,” Fedorov told The Associated Press by phone last month in Kyiv. “They didn’t beat me, but day and night, wild screams from the next cell would tell me what was waiting for me.”
As Russians seized parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, civilian administrators and others, including nuclear power plant workers, say they have been abducted, threatened or beaten to force their cooperation — something that legal and human rights experts say may constitute a war crime.
Ukrainian and Western historians say the tactic is used when invading forces are unable to subjugate the population.
This year, as Russian forces sought to tighten their hold on Melitopol, hundreds of residents took to the streets to demand Fedorov's release. After six days in detention and an intervention from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he was exchanged for nine Russian prisoners of war and expelled from the occupied city. A pro-Kremlin figure was installed.
“The Russians cannot govern the captured cities. They have neither the personnel nor the experience,” Fedorov said. They want to force public officials to work for them because they realize that someone has to “clean the streets and fix up the destroyed houses.”
The Association of Ukrainian Cities (AUC), a group of local leaders from across Ukraine, said that of the more than 50 abducted officials, including 34 mayors, at least 10 remain captive.
Russian officials haven't commented on the allegations. Moscow-backed authorities in eastern Ukraine even launched a criminal investigation into Fedorov on charges of involvement in terrorist activities.
“Kidnapping the heads of villages, towns and cities, especially in wartime, endangers all residents of a community, because all critical management, provision of basic amenities and important decisions on which the fate of thousands of residents depends are entrusted to the community’s head,” said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, head of the AUC.
In the southern city of Kherson, one of the first seized by Russia and a key target of an unfolding counteroffensive, Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev tried to stand his ground. He said in April that he would refuse to cooperate with its new, Kremlin-backed overseer.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed regional administration, repeatedly denounced Kolykhaiev as a "Nazi,” echoing the false Kremlin narrative that its attack on Ukraine was an attempt to “de-Nazify” the country.
Kolykhaiev continued to supervise Kherson's public utilities until his arrest on June 28. His whereabouts remain unknown.
According to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, 407 forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests of civilians were recorded in areas seized by Russia in the first six months of the war. Most were civil servants, local councilors, civil society activists and journalists.
Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the abuse “violates international law and may constitute a war crime," adding that Russian forces' actions appeared to be aimed at “obtaining information and instilling fear.”
The U.N. human rights office has warned repeatedly that arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances are among possible war crimes committed in Ukraine.
Several mayors have been killed, shocking Ukrainian society. Following the discovery of mass burials in areas recaptured by Kyiv, Ukrainian and foreign investigators continue to uncover details of extrajudicial killings of mayors.
The body of Olga Sukhenko, who headed the village of Motyzhyn, near Kyiv, was found in a mass grave next to those of her husband and son after Russian forces retreated. The village, with a prewar population of about 1,000, is a short drive from Bucha, which saw hundreds of civilians killed under Russian occupation.
Residents said Sukhenko had refused to cooperate with the Russians. When her body was unearthed on the outskirts of Motyzhyn, her hands were found tied behind her back.
Mayor Yurii Prylypko of nearby Hostomel was gunned down in March while handing out food and medicine. The prosecutor general’s office later said his body was found rigged with explosives.
Ukraine's government has tried to swap captive officials for Russian POWs, but officials complain that Moscow sometimes demands Kyiv release hundreds for each Ukrainian in a position of authority, prolonging negotiations.
“It’s such a difficult job that any superfluous word can get in the way of our exchange,” said Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner. “We know the places where prisoners are kept, as well as the appalling conditions in which they are kept.”
There has been no news about the fate of Ivan Samoydyuk, the deputy mayor of Enerhodar, site of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Samoydyuk, abducted in March, has repeatedly been considered for a prisoner swap, but his name was struck off the list each time, Mayor Dmytro Orlov told the AP.
The 58-year-old deputy mayor was seriously ill when seized, Orlov said, and “we don’t even know if he’s alive.” At best, Samoydyuk is sitting in a basement somewhere "and his life depends on the whim of people with guns,” he added.
More than 1,000 Enerhodar residents, including dozens of workers at Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear plant, were detained by the Russians at one time or another.
“The vast majority of those who came out of the Russian cellars speak of brutal beatings and electric shocks,” he said.
Gorbunova, the HRW senior researcher, said torture "is prohibited under all circumstances under international law, and, when connected to an armed conflict, constitutes a war crime and may also constitute a crime against humanity.”
Each week brings reports of abductions of officials, engineers, doctors and teachers who won't cooperate with the Russians.
Viktor Marunyak, head of the village of Stara Zburivka in the southern Kherson region, is famous for appearing in Roman Bondarchuk’s 2015 documentary “Ukrainian Sheriffs,” an Academy Award contender. The film explores the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014. While the film didn’t win an Oscar, it cemented Marunyak’s salt-of-the-earth reputation.
After Russian troops seized Stara Zburivka in spring, Marunyak held pro-Ukrainian rallies and hid some activists in his home. He was eventually taken prisoner.
“At first, they put (electrical) wires on my thumbs. Then it seemed not enough for them, and they put them on my big toes. And they poured water on my head so it would flow down my back,” he told the AP. “Honestly, I was so beaten up that I didn’t have any impressions from the electric current.”
After 23 days, Marunyak was “released to die,” he said. Hospitalized for 10 days with pneumonia and nine broken ribs, he finally left for territory controlled by Kyiv.
History professor Hubertus Jahn of Cambridge University said that from the time of Peter the Great onward, the tactic by imperialist Russia of co-opting locals targeted elites and nobility, with resistance often bringing Siberian exile.
During World War II, he said, “German SS units operated in a similar way,” by targeting local administrators in order to pressure residents into submission. Jahn called it an obvious strategy “if you don't have the strength to subordinate a region outright.”
Historian Ivan Patryliuk of Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko National University said municipal authorities in Soviet Ukraine often fled before Nazi occupation forces arrived, which “helped avoid mass executions of officials.”
“The kind of torture and humiliation (of) city leaders that the Russians are now perpetrating ... is one of the darkest and most shameful pages of the current war,” Patryliuk said.
___
Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Joanna Kozlowska in London, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva, contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
By ERIKA KINETZ, OLEKSANDR STASHEVSKYI and VASILISA STEPANENKO
Today
BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — The first man arrived at 7:27 a.m. Russian soldiers covered his head and marched him up the driveway toward a nondescript office building.
Two minutes later, a pleading, gagged voice pierced the morning stillness. Then the merciless reply: “Talk! Talk, f--ing mother-f--er!”
The women and children came later, gripping hastily packed bags, their pet dogs in tow.
It was a cold, gray morning, March 4 in Bucha, Ukraine. Crows cawed. By nightfall, at least nine men would walk to their deaths at 144 Yablunska street, a building complex that Russians turned into a headquarters and the nerve center of violence that would shock the world.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Probably some time for talks, right? Enough people die yet to quench the thirst?
How do you negotiate and hand over part of your land and people to the country that has been murdering them. And was responsible for murdering several million during Holodomor?
Probably some time for talks, right? Enough people die yet to quench the thirst?
How do you negotiate and hand over part of your land and people to the country that has been murdering them. And was responsible for murdering several million during Holodomor?
I understand the apprehension for negotiation, but do you think we risk the perfect being the enemy of the good here? Serious question. I don't see the likelihood of A.) Russia being beaten back to pre-2014 borders or B.) Putin pulling out of Ukraine and agreeing to fund to repair all of the destruction he caused. Is the current funding of arms actually meant to accomplish A or is it just a means of ticking out the clock until Putin dies or is overthrown so that negotiations can be done with someone other than Putin, with the real possibility that this could just become another Defense Department money sink?
Also Putin is an asshole but Russia under Putin is not the USSR of Stalin in the 30's. If we use metrics like that I doubt we could ever have negotiations or discussions with anyone ever again. After all Democrats are the party of slavery and segregation based on that measuring stick.
Probably some time for talks, right? Enough people die yet to quench the thirst?
How do you negotiate and hand over part of your land and people to the country that has been murdering them. And was responsible for murdering several million during Holodomor?
I understand the apprehension for negotiation, but do you think we risk the perfect being the enemy of the good here? Serious question. I don't see the likelihood of A.) Russia being beaten back to pre-2014 borders or B.) Putin pulling out of Ukraine and agreeing to fund to repair all of the destruction he caused. Is the current funding of arms actually meant to accomplish A or is it just a means of ticking out the clock until Putin dies or is overthrown so that negotiations can be done with someone other than Putin, with the real possibility that this could just become another Defense Department money sink?
Also Putin is an asshole but Russia under Putin is not the USSR of Stalin in the 30's. If we use metrics like that I doubt we could ever have negotiations or discussions with anyone ever again. After all Democrats are the party of slavery and segregation based on that measuring stick.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Probably some time for talks, right? Enough people die yet to quench the thirst?
How do you negotiate and hand over part of your land and people to the country that has been murdering them. And was responsible for murdering several million during Holodomor?
I understand the apprehension for negotiation, but do you think we risk the perfect being the enemy of the good here? Serious question. I don't see the likelihood of A.) Russia being beaten back to pre-2014 borders or B.) Putin pulling out of Ukraine and agreeing to fund to repair all of the destruction he caused. Is the current funding of arms actually meant to accomplish A or is it just a means of ticking out the clock until Putin dies or is overthrown so that negotiations can be done with someone other than Putin, with the real possibility that this could just become another Defense Department money sink?
Also Putin is an asshole but Russia under Putin is not the USSR of Stalin in the 30's. If we use metrics like that I doubt we could ever have negotiations or discussions with anyone ever again. After all Democrats are the party of slavery and segregation based on that measuring stick.
do "WE" risk.....?
whos we?
Western Society, Nato Countries, The entire Human Race, the general we. I could edit it to say or do you think that there is a risk of the perfect being the enemy of the good here, but I think anyone with a higher than sixth grade grasp of English can understand the concept unless they want to argue semantics rather than thinking or talking about the topic.
Probably some time for talks, right? Enough people die yet to quench the thirst?
How do you negotiate and hand over part of your land and people to the country that has been murdering them. And was responsible for murdering several million during Holodomor?
I understand the apprehension for negotiation, but do you think we risk the perfect being the enemy of the good here? Serious question. I don't see the likelihood of A.) Russia being beaten back to pre-2014 borders or B.) Putin pulling out of Ukraine and agreeing to fund to repair all of the destruction he caused. Is the current funding of arms actually meant to accomplish A or is it just a means of ticking out the clock until Putin dies or is overthrown so that negotiations can be done with someone other than Putin, with the real possibility that this could just become another Defense Department money sink?
Also Putin is an asshole but Russia under Putin is not the USSR of Stalin in the 30's. If we use metrics like that I doubt we could ever have negotiations or discussions with anyone ever again. After all Democrats are the party of slavery and segregation based on that measuring stick.
do "WE" risk.....?
whos we?
Western Society, Nato Countries, The entire Human Race, the general we. I could edit it to say or do you think that there is a risk of the perfect being the enemy of the good here, but I think anyone with a higher than sixth grade grasp of English can understand the concept unless they want to argue semantics rather than thinking or talking about the topic.
so what are WE risking?
seems to me the Ukrainians are the ones choosing this risk. Their supporters would seem to believe in some measure of self-determination.
Should not the Ukrainians drive whatever outcome THEY seek? With support where needed?
WE should have no say in what THEY choose for their country. THEY choose to fight, support that. THEY choose to give up part of their country, thats their business.
Imagine , all the lead up to the invasion, WE, made statements. Correctly interpreting Russian moves. YET did not offer material support then. How many do you think died until we did?
I wonder where the colonials would have been had France not stepped up.
Check your condescension at the door.
Then again, I forgot. Its the internet, YOU'RE never seious here.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia By Missy Ryan, John Hudson and Paul Sonne November 05, 2022 at 18:29 ET The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions. The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come. The discussions illustrate how complex the Biden administration’s position on Ukraine has become, as U.S. officials publicly vow to support Kyiv with massive sums of aid “for as long as it takes” while hoping for a resolution to the conflict that over the past eight months has taken a punishing toll on the world economy and triggered fears of nuclear war. While U.S. officials share their Ukrainian counterparts’ assessment that Putin, for now, isn’t serious about negotiations, they acknowledge that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ban on talks with him has generated concern in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America, where the war’s disruptive effects on the availability and cost of food and fuel are felt most sharply. “Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners,” said one U.S. official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations between Washington and Kyiv.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Probably some time for talks, right? Enough people die yet to quench the thirst?
How do you negotiate and hand over part of your land and people to the country that has been murdering them. And was responsible for murdering several million during Holodomor?
I understand the apprehension for negotiation, but do you think we risk the perfect being the enemy of the good here? Serious question. I don't see the likelihood of A.) Russia being beaten back to pre-2014 borders or B.) Putin pulling out of Ukraine and agreeing to fund to repair all of the destruction he caused. Is the current funding of arms actually meant to accomplish A or is it just a means of ticking out the clock until Putin dies or is overthrown so that negotiations can be done with someone other than Putin, with the real possibility that this could just become another Defense Department money sink?
Also Putin is an asshole but Russia under Putin is not the USSR of Stalin in the 30's. If we use metrics like that I doubt we could ever have negotiations or discussions with anyone ever again. After all Democrats are the party of slavery and segregation based on that measuring stick.
do "WE" risk.....?
whos we?
Western Society, Nato Countries, The entire Human Race, the general we. I could edit it to say or do you think that there is a risk of the perfect being the enemy of the good here, but I think anyone with a higher than sixth grade grasp of English can understand the concept unless they want to argue semantics rather than thinking or talking about the topic.
so what are WE risking?
seems to me the Ukrainians are the ones choosing this risk. Their supporters would seem to believe in some measure of self-determination.
Should not the Ukrainians drive whatever outcome THEY seek? With support where needed?
WE should have no say in what THEY choose for their country. THEY choose to fight, support that. THEY choose to give up part of their country, thats their business.
Imagine , all the lead up to the invasion, WE, made statements. Correctly interpreting Russian moves. YET did not offer material support then. How many do you think died until we did?
I wonder where the colonials would have been had France not stepped up.
Check your condescension at the door.
Then again, I forgot. Its the internet, YOU'RE never seious here.
As far as the condescension, I apologize. I made an assumption based on past posts of yours that the all caps WE was going to be a setup for your own condescension based on some notion of good and evil and patriotism etc as if I don't have a brain, so I just wanted to beat you to the snark. If I was wrong I'm sorry. Though I am not serious on the internet the question I posed was. I don't care what the people's responses are, I would just like to see them put into cogent thoughts.
To your points. Yes the Ukranians are making the ultimate sacrifice. Unfortunately this is a geopolitical mess with far reaching effects that may be bankrolled to the tune of 100+bn by the end of the first 12 months of the conflict if reports are to be believed about another 50+bn going towards the war effort courtesy of Uncle Sam. Because of these facts I think people are allowed to discuss the intricacies of this conflict in means that are outside of the confines of Russia is bad and Ukraine + the West is good and no further thought is necessary.
Do we want to go so far with our support that this becomes an open war and paves the way to WW3? I don't. That doesn't mean that we should revoke all support for Ukraine or even slow down on the military aid. It could mean that we create dialogues with Russia, especially dialogues outside of Putin's sphere. I'm sure some oligarchs and business people would be open to a palace coup.
If we don't cross any lines that would lead to WW3 and continue on the same track are we(the US and West in general) okay with the potential that this becomes another 20 year sink of lives and money with the only winners being defense contractors? I am not. What is the plan? To provide support as long as it takes or until we, Russia or Ukraine has a regime change? That doesn't seem smart. I'm all for support if there is a real foreseeable path to victory.
Putin is a king shit. If the real reason we (the west) can't have a dialogue with Russia is the Putin is literally Hitler and want's to remake the USSR and that any capitulation or negotiation leads to taking Poland and the Baltics next, this leads me back to why not a targeted strike at the leader of the Russian aggressions.
Since it isn't realistic to think that Putin is going to end the war out of the niceness of his heart and give back all of Ukraine in the image of pre 2014 lines and repay for all the destruction caused, it seems like some other alternatives can be discussed that don't lead to further escalation and aggression.
Is the only path forward to continue to fund Ukraine with more and more weapons as long as it takes and put them in debt to the US government and the IMF?
If Putin is Hitler and can't be reasoned with and the Russian army is defecting and Putin has no approval within Russia, taking out the literal second coming of Hitler seems like something the entire international community would be behind.
I also have a general distrust that our military really has the best interests of Ukraine at heart after our dismal track record of aggression and lies and wasted lives and dollars during my lifetime and that leads me to come from an angle of being a bit skeptical of anything that comes from the mouthpiece of our war machine.
Colonials and France vs England has been so mythologized and rehashed it is impossible to know what would have happened without the French support. I'm sure the French weren't supporting the colonialists out of the good of their hearts though. Wild speculation could be that the upstarts failed and African chattel slavery and the whole system of the south in general would have never came to be. Maybe the sun would have never set on the English empire and the rise of hitler would have never happened. Massive targeted killing of buffalo and native American populations under the direct authority of the US govt would have never happened. We might have a parliamentary form of government. Impossible to know and not worth speculating. I also don't see a parallel between the colonies and England and Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine is an established independent country that was illegally invaded, the colonies were the property of the British crown and some holders of corporate charters that got in disputes with some of the colonizers and decided to have a big war that led to the establishment of a new nation. Clearly Russia invading Ukraine is a worse grievance than "taxation without representation" especially considering that one of the main grievances against the king was “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”
Anyway I only wanted to know what Mrussels real thoughts were on the subject of not having dialogues with Russia and if the increase of hostilities leads to a risk of another endless war. But thanks for interjecting.
Mickeyrat is dead right. You can't ask the Ukrainians to forget their history and the deaths of their relatives only a few generations ago.
I agree that I doubt Ukraine can get Crimea back in any circumstances, but they cannot be asked to give up the new oblasts that Russia invaded.
Thanks for your reply. I completely understand that. It is a shit situation and I hope the US really does have the best interests of the future of Ukraine behind everything they do and the support they give, but I am very skeptical.
Mickeyrat is dead right. You can't ask the Ukrainians to forget their history and the deaths of their relatives only a few generations ago.
I agree that I doubt Ukraine can get Crimea back in any circumstances, but they cannot be asked to give up the new oblasts that Russia invaded.
But where is Ukraine after Speaker Mccarthy turns off the money spigot?
As much as WE love to dream we can negotiate away the putin problem, negotiating with him is pointless, as he is not trustworthy
And putin knows that American voters are about to hand him a huge assist.
This is another good point that is to be considered. What happens if the republicans stop funding Ukraine? If they don't have further arms and can't negotiate where does that leave them?
Again if Putin can't be trusted and negotiated with why not a targeted strike. We (NATO) did it in Libya against Qaddafi in the name of freedom and as bad as I thought that was, if doing such a thing would avoid escalation and open war with the major powers of the world, it is hard to be against something like that in this case.
U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia By Missy Ryan, John Hudson and Paul Sonne November 05, 2022 at 18:29 ET The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions. The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come. The discussions illustrate how complex the Biden administration’s position on Ukraine has become, as U.S. officials publicly vow to support Kyiv with massive sums of aid “for as long as it takes” while hoping for a resolution to the conflict that over the past eight months has taken a punishing toll on the world economy and triggered fears of nuclear war. While U.S. officials share their Ukrainian counterparts’ assessment that Putin, for now, isn’t serious about negotiations, they acknowledge that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ban on talks with him has generated concern in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America, where the war’s disruptive effects on the availability and cost of food and fuel are felt most sharply. “Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners,” said one U.S. official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations between Washington and Kyiv.
continues......
Thanks for the article. Interesting to read about South Africa's views as well as those of the new President of Brazil and Modi from India. I would like to see more stories about what other nations and world leaders think of this to help expand what this conflict means to the globe. It is pretty easy for me to get stuck in what this means for the west and USA in general, but we are only a minority of the global population and our influence can be outsized at times.
U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia By Missy Ryan, John Hudson and Paul Sonne November 05, 2022 at 18:29 ET The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions. The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come. The discussions illustrate how complex the Biden administration’s position on Ukraine has become, as U.S. officials publicly vow to support Kyiv with massive sums of aid “for as long as it takes” while hoping for a resolution to the conflict that over the past eight months has taken a punishing toll on the world economy and triggered fears of nuclear war. While U.S. officials share their Ukrainian counterparts’ assessment that Putin, for now, isn’t serious about negotiations, they acknowledge that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ban on talks with him has generated concern in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America, where the war’s disruptive effects on the availability and cost of food and fuel are felt most sharply. “Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners,” said one U.S. official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations between Washington and Kyiv.
continues......
Thanks for the article. Interesting to read about South Africa's views as well as those of the new President of Brazil and Modi from India. I would like to see more stories about what other nations and world leaders think of this to help expand what this conflict means to the globe. It is pretty easy for me to get stuck in what this means for the west and USA in general, but we are only a minority of the global population and our influence can be outsized at times.
would suggest BBC for that coverage. would give a more objective view on that and other things of U.S. involvement. Less rah rah etc....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia By Missy Ryan, John Hudson and Paul Sonne November 05, 2022 at 18:29 ET The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions. The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come. The discussions illustrate how complex the Biden administration’s position on Ukraine has become, as U.S. officials publicly vow to support Kyiv with massive sums of aid “for as long as it takes” while hoping for a resolution to the conflict that over the past eight months has taken a punishing toll on the world economy and triggered fears of nuclear war. While U.S. officials share their Ukrainian counterparts’ assessment that Putin, for now, isn’t serious about negotiations, they acknowledge that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ban on talks with him has generated concern in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America, where the war’s disruptive effects on the availability and cost of food and fuel are felt most sharply. “Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners,” said one U.S. official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations between Washington and Kyiv.
continues......
Thanks for the article. Interesting to read about South Africa's views as well as those of the new President of Brazil and Modi from India. I would like to see more stories about what other nations and world leaders think of this to help expand what this conflict means to the globe. It is pretty easy for me to get stuck in what this means for the west and USA in general, but we are only a minority of the global population and our influence can be outsized at times.
would suggest BBC for that coverage. would give a more objective view on that and other things of U.S. involvement. Less rah rah etc....
Yeah I definitely need less bias in my news. The more biased towards me the more worked up I get and the more biased towards the empire the more worked up I get.
Mickeyrat is dead right. You can't ask the Ukrainians to forget their history and the deaths of their relatives only a few generations ago.
I agree that I doubt Ukraine can get Crimea back in any circumstances, but they cannot be asked to give up the new oblasts that Russia invaded.
But where is Ukraine after Speaker Mccarthy turns off the money spigot?
As much as WE love to dream we can negotiate away the putin problem, negotiating with him is pointless, as he is not trustworthy
And putin knows that American voters are about to hand him a huge assist.
This is another good point that is to be considered. What happens if the republicans stop funding Ukraine? If they don't have further arms and can't negotiate where does that leave them?
Again if Putin can't be trusted and negotiated with why not a targeted strike. We (NATO) did it in Libya against Qaddafi in the name of freedom and as bad as I thought that was, if doing such a thing would avoid escalation and open war with the major powers of the world, it is hard to be against something like that in this case.
Targeted strike against Russia? If so, That will probably not work, as Putin has shown he is an eye for an eye dude. So unless we want missies aimed at us, no escalation.
The problem with negotiations is we’d be telling an ally to give away land to its ruthless neighbor. And wouldn’t this just give Putin incentive to target the Baltics?
By splitting republicans from historical American norms with their anticipated Ukraine funding cuts, Putins work in supporting the gop the past six years is paying dividends. Yes there was collusion and yes it’s worked. Just ask Reagan’s legacy. It’d be incredible if one of the occasional ATM right wing temporary visitors were aware of this. TJ? KP? Role?
Mickeyrat is dead right. You can't ask the Ukrainians to forget their history and the deaths of their relatives only a few generations ago.
I agree that I doubt Ukraine can get Crimea back in any circumstances, but they cannot be asked to give up the new oblasts that Russia invaded.
But where is Ukraine after Speaker Mccarthy turns off the money spigot?
As much as WE love to dream we can negotiate away the putin problem, negotiating with him is pointless, as he is not trustworthy
And putin knows that American voters are about to hand him a huge assist.
This is another good point that is to be considered. What happens if the republicans stop funding Ukraine? If they don't have further arms and can't negotiate where does that leave them?
Again if Putin can't be trusted and negotiated with why not a targeted strike. We (NATO) did it in Libya against Qaddafi in the name of freedom and as bad as I thought that was, if doing such a thing would avoid escalation and open war with the major powers of the world, it is hard to be against something like that in this case.
Targeted strike against Russia? If so, That will probably not work, as Putin has shown he is an eye for an eye dude. So unless we want missies aimed at us, no escalation.
The problem with negotiations is we’d be telling an ally to give away land to its ruthless neighbor. And wouldn’t this just give Putin incentive to target the Baltics?
By splitting republicans from historical American norms with their anticipated Ukraine funding cuts, Putins work in supporting the gop the past six years is paying dividends. Yes there was collusion and yes it’s worked. Just ask Reagan’s legacy. It’d be incredible if one of the occasional ATM right wing temporary visitors were aware of this. TJ? KP? Role?
Speaking of collusion. And delusion.
Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to admit to US election interference
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Kremlin-linked oligarch known as “Vladimir Putin’s chef,” appeared to admit to Russian interference in US elections in a Telegram post on Monday.
Prigozhin said that Russia has interfered, is interfering and will continue to interfere in the US democratic process, in response to a journalist’s question about Russia potentially meddling in US congressional elections on Tuesday.
“I will answer you very subtly, and delicately and I apologize, I will allow a certain ambiguity. Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere,” Prigozhin said.
“Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once,” he added.
Prigozhin has no post in the Russian government, but his statement appeared to be the first admission of a high-level Russian campaign to interfere in US elections from someone close to the Kremlin.
Prigozhin is reportedly one of Putin’s trusted confidants – so close that the Russian press dubbed him the “chef” to the Russian President after he began catering events for the Kremlin. Prigozhin subsequently won lucrative catering contracts for schools and Russia’s armed forces, and by 2010 he was a Kremlin insider with a growing commercial empire.
Comments
This is just a tragedy all around.
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
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That's one of the best stories I've read about the Ukraine in some time. Your friend truly is a hero. Thanks for sharing this with us!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Not long after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, soldiers broke down the office door of Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov. They put a bag over his head, bundled him into a car and drove him around the southern city for hours, threatening to kill him.
Fedorov, 34, is one of over 50 local leaders who have been held in Russian captivity since the war began on Feb. 24 in an attempt to subdue cities and towns coming under Moscow's control. Like many others, he said he was pressured to collaborate with the invaders.
“The bullying and threats did not stop for a minute. They tried to force me to continue leading the city under the Russian flag, but I refused,” Fedorov told The Associated Press by phone last month in Kyiv. “They didn’t beat me, but day and night, wild screams from the next cell would tell me what was waiting for me.”
As Russians seized parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, civilian administrators and others, including nuclear power plant workers, say they have been abducted, threatened or beaten to force their cooperation — something that legal and human rights experts say may constitute a war crime.
Ukrainian and Western historians say the tactic is used when invading forces are unable to subjugate the population.
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This year, as Russian forces sought to tighten their hold on Melitopol, hundreds of residents took to the streets to demand Fedorov's release. After six days in detention and an intervention from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he was exchanged for nine Russian prisoners of war and expelled from the occupied city. A pro-Kremlin figure was installed.
“The Russians cannot govern the captured cities. They have neither the personnel nor the experience,” Fedorov said. They want to force public officials to work for them because they realize that someone has to “clean the streets and fix up the destroyed houses.”
The Association of Ukrainian Cities (AUC), a group of local leaders from across Ukraine, said that of the more than 50 abducted officials, including 34 mayors, at least 10 remain captive.
Russian officials haven't commented on the allegations. Moscow-backed authorities in eastern Ukraine even launched a criminal investigation into Fedorov on charges of involvement in terrorist activities.
“Kidnapping the heads of villages, towns and cities, especially in wartime, endangers all residents of a community, because all critical management, provision of basic amenities and important decisions on which the fate of thousands of residents depends are entrusted to the community’s head,” said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, head of the AUC.
In the southern city of Kherson, one of the first seized by Russia and a key target of an unfolding counteroffensive, Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev tried to stand his ground. He said in April that he would refuse to cooperate with its new, Kremlin-backed overseer.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed regional administration, repeatedly denounced Kolykhaiev as a "Nazi,” echoing the false Kremlin narrative that its attack on Ukraine was an attempt to “de-Nazify” the country.
Kolykhaiev continued to supervise Kherson's public utilities until his arrest on June 28. His whereabouts remain unknown.
According to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, 407 forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests of civilians were recorded in areas seized by Russia in the first six months of the war. Most were civil servants, local councilors, civil society activists and journalists.
Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the abuse “violates international law and may constitute a war crime," adding that Russian forces' actions appeared to be aimed at “obtaining information and instilling fear.”
The U.N. human rights office has warned repeatedly that arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances are among possible war crimes committed in Ukraine.
Several mayors have been killed, shocking Ukrainian society. Following the discovery of mass burials in areas recaptured by Kyiv, Ukrainian and foreign investigators continue to uncover details of extrajudicial killings of mayors.
The body of Olga Sukhenko, who headed the village of Motyzhyn, near Kyiv, was found in a mass grave next to those of her husband and son after Russian forces retreated. The village, with a prewar population of about 1,000, is a short drive from Bucha, which saw hundreds of civilians killed under Russian occupation.
Residents said Sukhenko had refused to cooperate with the Russians. When her body was unearthed on the outskirts of Motyzhyn, her hands were found tied behind her back.
Mayor Yurii Prylypko of nearby Hostomel was gunned down in March while handing out food and medicine. The prosecutor general’s office later said his body was found rigged with explosives.
Ukraine's government has tried to swap captive officials for Russian POWs, but officials complain that Moscow sometimes demands Kyiv release hundreds for each Ukrainian in a position of authority, prolonging negotiations.
“It’s such a difficult job that any superfluous word can get in the way of our exchange,” said Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner. “We know the places where prisoners are kept, as well as the appalling conditions in which they are kept.”
There has been no news about the fate of Ivan Samoydyuk, the deputy mayor of Enerhodar, site of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Samoydyuk, abducted in March, has repeatedly been considered for a prisoner swap, but his name was struck off the list each time, Mayor Dmytro Orlov told the AP.
The 58-year-old deputy mayor was seriously ill when seized, Orlov said, and “we don’t even know if he’s alive.” At best, Samoydyuk is sitting in a basement somewhere "and his life depends on the whim of people with guns,” he added.
More than 1,000 Enerhodar residents, including dozens of workers at Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear plant, were detained by the Russians at one time or another.
“The vast majority of those who came out of the Russian cellars speak of brutal beatings and electric shocks,” he said.
Gorbunova, the HRW senior researcher, said torture "is prohibited under all circumstances under international law, and, when connected to an armed conflict, constitutes a war crime and may also constitute a crime against humanity.”
Each week brings reports of abductions of officials, engineers, doctors and teachers who won't cooperate with the Russians.
Viktor Marunyak, head of the village of Stara Zburivka in the southern Kherson region, is famous for appearing in Roman Bondarchuk’s 2015 documentary “Ukrainian Sheriffs,” an Academy Award contender. The film explores the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014. While the film didn’t win an Oscar, it cemented Marunyak’s salt-of-the-earth reputation.
After Russian troops seized Stara Zburivka in spring, Marunyak held pro-Ukrainian rallies and hid some activists in his home. He was eventually taken prisoner.
“At first, they put (electrical) wires on my thumbs. Then it seemed not enough for them, and they put them on my big toes. And they poured water on my head so it would flow down my back,” he told the AP. “Honestly, I was so beaten up that I didn’t have any impressions from the electric current.”
After 23 days, Marunyak was “released to die,” he said. Hospitalized for 10 days with pneumonia and nine broken ribs, he finally left for territory controlled by Kyiv.
History professor Hubertus Jahn of Cambridge University said that from the time of Peter the Great onward, the tactic by imperialist Russia of co-opting locals targeted elites and nobility, with resistance often bringing Siberian exile.
During World War II, he said, “German SS units operated in a similar way,” by targeting local administrators in order to pressure residents into submission. Jahn called it an obvious strategy “if you don't have the strength to subordinate a region outright.”
Historian Ivan Patryliuk of Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko National University said municipal authorities in Soviet Ukraine often fled before Nazi occupation forces arrived, which “helped avoid mass executions of officials.”
“The kind of torture and humiliation (of) city leaders that the Russians are now perpetrating ... is one of the darkest and most shameful pages of the current war,” Patryliuk said.
___
Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Joanna Kozlowska in London, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva, contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — The first man arrived at 7:27 a.m. Russian soldiers covered his head and marched him up the driveway toward a nondescript office building.
Two minutes later, a pleading, gagged voice pierced the morning stillness. Then the merciless reply: “Talk! Talk, f--ing mother-f--er!”
The women and children came later, gripping hastily packed bags, their pet dogs in tow.
It was a cold, gray morning, March 4 in Bucha, Ukraine. Crows cawed. By nightfall, at least nine men would walk to their deaths at 144 Yablunska street, a building complex that Russians turned into a headquarters and the nerve center of violence that would shock the world.
continues....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
astoria 06
albany 06
hartford 06
reading 06
barcelona 06
paris 06
wembley 07
dusseldorf 07
nijmegen 07
this song is meant to be called i got shit,itshould be called i got shit tickets-hartford 06 -
Also Putin is an asshole but Russia under Putin is not the USSR of Stalin in the 30's. If we use metrics like that I doubt we could ever have negotiations or discussions with anyone ever again. After all Democrats are the party of slavery and segregation based on that measuring stick.
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I agree that I doubt Ukraine can get Crimea back in any circumstances, but they cannot be asked to give up the new oblasts that Russia invaded.
As much as WE love to dream we can negotiate away the putin problem, negotiating with him is pointless, as he is not trustworthy
And putin knows that American voters are about to hand him a huge assist.
By Missy Ryan, John Hudson and Paul Sonne
November 05, 2022 at 18:29 ET
The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come.
The discussions illustrate how complex the Biden administration’s position on Ukraine has become, as U.S. officials publicly vow to support Kyiv with massive sums of aid “for as long as it takes” while hoping for a resolution to the conflict that over the past eight months has taken a punishing toll on the world economy and triggered fears of nuclear war.
While U.S. officials share their Ukrainian counterparts’ assessment that Putin, for now, isn’t serious about negotiations, they acknowledge that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ban on talks with him has generated concern in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America, where the war’s disruptive effects on the availability and cost of food and fuel are felt most sharply.
“Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners,” said one U.S. official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations between Washington and Kyiv.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
To your points. Yes the Ukranians are making the ultimate sacrifice. Unfortunately this is a geopolitical mess with far reaching effects that may be bankrolled to the tune of 100+bn by the end of the first 12 months of the conflict if reports are to be believed about another 50+bn going towards the war effort courtesy of Uncle Sam. Because of these facts I think people are allowed to discuss the intricacies of this conflict in means that are outside of the confines of Russia is bad and Ukraine + the West is good and no further thought is necessary.
Do we want to go so far with our support that this becomes an open war and paves the way to WW3? I don't. That doesn't mean that we should revoke all support for Ukraine or even slow down on the military aid. It could mean that we create dialogues with Russia, especially dialogues outside of Putin's sphere. I'm sure some oligarchs and business people would be open to a palace coup.
If we don't cross any lines that would lead to WW3 and continue on the same track are we(the US and West in general) okay with the potential that this becomes another 20 year sink of lives and money with the only winners being defense contractors? I am not.
What is the plan? To provide support as long as it takes or until we, Russia or Ukraine has a regime change? That doesn't seem smart. I'm all for support if there is a real foreseeable path to victory.
Putin is a king shit. If the real reason we (the west) can't have a dialogue with Russia is the Putin is literally Hitler and want's to remake the USSR and that any capitulation or negotiation leads to taking Poland and the Baltics next, this leads me back to why not a targeted strike at the leader of the Russian aggressions.
Since it isn't realistic to think that Putin is going to end the war out of the niceness of his heart and give back all of Ukraine in the image of pre 2014 lines and repay for all the destruction caused, it seems like some other alternatives can be discussed that don't lead to further escalation and aggression.
Is the only path forward to continue to fund Ukraine with more and more weapons as long as it takes and put them in debt to the US government and the IMF?
If Putin is Hitler and can't be reasoned with and the Russian army is defecting and Putin has no approval within Russia, taking out the literal second coming of Hitler seems like something the entire international community would be behind.
I also have a general distrust that our military really has the best interests of Ukraine at heart after our dismal track record of aggression and lies and wasted lives and dollars during my lifetime and that leads me to come from an angle of being a bit skeptical of anything that comes from the mouthpiece of our war machine.
Colonials and France vs England has been so mythologized and rehashed it is impossible to know what would have happened without the French support. I'm sure the French weren't supporting the colonialists out of the good of their hearts though. Wild speculation could be that the upstarts failed and African chattel slavery and the whole system of the south in general would have never came to be. Maybe the sun would have never set on the English empire and the rise of hitler would have never happened. Massive targeted killing of buffalo and native American populations under the direct authority of the US govt would have never happened. We might have a parliamentary form of government. Impossible to know and not worth speculating. I also don't see a parallel between the colonies and England and Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine is an established independent country that was illegally invaded, the colonies were the property of the British crown and some holders of corporate charters that got in disputes with some of the colonizers and decided to have a big war that led to the establishment of a new nation. Clearly Russia invading Ukraine is a worse grievance than "taxation without representation" especially considering that one of the main grievances against the king was “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”
Anyway I only wanted to know what Mrussels real thoughts were on the subject of not having dialogues with Russia and if the increase of hostilities leads to a risk of another endless war. But thanks for interjecting.
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
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There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Again if Putin can't be trusted and negotiated with why not a targeted strike. We (NATO) did it in Libya against Qaddafi in the name of freedom and as bad as I thought that was, if doing such a thing would avoid escalation and open war with the major powers of the world, it is hard to be against something like that in this case.
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
would suggest BBC for that coverage. would give a more objective view on that and other things of U.S. involvement. Less rah rah etc....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
The problem with negotiations is we’d be telling an ally to give away land to its ruthless neighbor. And wouldn’t this just give Putin incentive to target the Baltics?
Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to admit to US election interference
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Kremlin-linked oligarch known as “Vladimir Putin’s chef,” appeared to admit to Russian interference in US elections in a Telegram post on Monday.
Prigozhin said that Russia has interfered, is interfering and will continue to interfere in the US democratic process, in response to a journalist’s question about Russia potentially meddling in US congressional elections on Tuesday.
“I will answer you very subtly, and delicately and I apologize, I will allow a certain ambiguity. Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere,” Prigozhin said.
“Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once,” he added.
Prigozhin has no post in the Russian government, but his statement appeared to be the first admission of a high-level Russian campaign to interfere in US elections from someone close to the Kremlin.
Prigozhin is reportedly one of Putin’s trusted confidants – so close that the Russian press dubbed him the “chef” to the Russian President after he began catering events for the Kremlin. Prigozhin subsequently won lucrative catering contracts for schools and Russia’s armed forces, and by 2010 he was a Kremlin insider with a growing commercial empire.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/europe/yevgeny-prigozhin-russia-us-election-meddling-intl/index.html
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