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Think you KNOW why Russia invaded the Ukraine?


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2022 Feb 26, 5:07pm   9,237 views  219 comments

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Please tell us.

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153   Patrick   2022 Mar 3, 8:02pm  

https://tomluongo.me/2022/03/02/opening-salvos-tossed-putin-next-moves-ukraine/?source=patrick.net


Davos has refused to let President Zelensky surrender because if he does then legally there is no more war to sanction Russia with. It’s not Putin’s War at that point, it is a settled conflict and terms negotiated. ...

As Fmr. Col. Douglas Macgregor pointed out on Fox News recently, everything east of the Dnieper River will become part of a new Novorussia, if not part of the Russian Federation.

Clearly this is Putin’s initial goal, the partitioning of Ukraine. He’s moved militarily, the EU and the rest of the West have responded financially. Their hope is to turn Ukraine into a quagmire, a la Afghanistan (per Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks), which they hope Russia will not be able to sustain after being choked off from the global economy.

The financial sanctions regime put in place so far are brutal but also full of holes wide enough for Putin to maneuver within and around because of the well understood facts of Russia’s dominance as a global supplier of life-sustaining commodities for the entire world.

This is an asymmetric war.

There isn’t much farther the West can go financially. They’ve seized Bank of Russia foreign assets, for pity’s sake. What other weapons do they really have in their arsenal which can threaten Russia with?

They have, in effect, executed their nuclear first strike against Russia. Once you’ve gone nuclear, where do you go next? Real nukes? Yes, that’s a possibility, sadly, given the people we’re talking about.

On the other hand, Russia has so far only committed the necessary troops to neutralize Ukraine. So, in this respect, big advantage Russia.

Facts on the ground are facts. Russia has taken territory it can maintain. By not targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure, Russia has put itself in a very good position to not face an insane insurgency which the West can finance in the way that it has in past conflicts.

Much of NATO’s in-country assets have been neutralized. And you know this because the propaganda and rhetoric have been so thoroughly crude, cartoonish and strident. Again, ask why the financial and informational war has been so intense?

Is it because the West thinks it’s winning or because it’s trying desperately to pivot domestic populations to solidarity after losing massive credibility during the last year with COVID-19 related lockdowns, vax passes, and the unpersoning of whole swaths of Western society?

Now let’s ask the next question that keeps coming up.

Why has Putin not shut off the gas to a Europe that is rapidly running out of it?

Because to do so would target civilian populations. If he’s not targeting civilians in Ukraine to minimize their anger at being invaded, then why would he use that weapon now against civilians in Germany who hold the key to getting overthrowing the insane politicians and oligarchs who provoked this war in the first place?

It doesn’t make any strategic sense. It also speaks to a kind of confidence in Russia’s military position in Ukraine, thereby lending credence to the reports that Russia is achieving her strategic goals on the ground in Ukraine.

Okay, that’s the lay of the land.

So, what are Putin’s real goals? Like I said at the outset, nothing less than breaking the back of Davos and their agents in the US/UK who have tormented Russia for more than a century.





What does this mean? It means simply that Russia has now, in effect, begun the remonetization of gold for domestic purposes. By removing the VAT on gold purchases Russian citizens can now offset their currency risk with gold and stabilize the domestic monetary situation.

The first step in offsetting financial warfare from the West is allowing the domestic population to be immune to collapses in their currency from foreign actors pulling capital out of the country. Companies doing international business now have an alternative to hold time deposits which are far less volatile than the ruble without penalty. Gold becomes the coin of Russia’s international business. ...

Moreover, Russia has kept the gas flows going to ensure that money keeps flowing into the country to finance further expansion of its gold reserves.

The current shock will abate. Russia is not Iran. It can insure its own tanker fleet. It can deliver the oil. If Iran could survive what Trump did to them, Russia can thrive under this new regime, changing the entire flow of capital around the world. ...

NATO isn’t getting involved in Ukraine even if Ukraine becomes an EU member. They can have the landlocked rump of what’s left over. If Putin is smart, which he is, he will offer the Poles Lviv and Hungary Transcarpathia. The EU gets the dregs.


It’s clear from the wailing and gnashing of the Neocon/Neolibs that they want Putin Milosevic’d for daring to put them in this position. They still dream of overthrowing him. It’s also clear that there are a lot of people who are not down with the willful destruction of the current global economy within the upper reaches of US policy makers and European corporate boards.

This is the real fight for the future and if Davos thinks extreme demand destruction will be tolerated for any length of time over a regional conflict like Ukraine because it’s their ox being gored, then this war, while still raging is, in effect, already over.
154   Eman   2022 Mar 3, 8:03pm  

Patrick says
Kyiv and Kharkiv are being bombed. The largest invasion on our planet since WW2. Republicans are rooting for the Russians. God be with Ukraine and democracy.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 24, 2022


Eric Swalwell is a spy. He’s a traitor. Kill this fucker.
155   FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden   2022 Mar 3, 8:59pm  

Eman says
Patrick says
Kyiv and Kharkiv are being bombed. The largest invasion on our planet since WW2. Republicans are rooting for the Russians. God be with Ukraine and democracy.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 24, 2022


Eric Swalwell is a spy. He’s a traitor. Kill this fucker.


He is a piece of shit. Sold the country out for a little Chinese pussy. Fucking loser
156   AmericanKulak   2022 Mar 3, 9:14pm  

This Propaganda Map looks, unsurprisingly, less optimistic for Ukraine


Reports there was minimal fighting in 300,000 person Kherson that was invested today after probing attacks revealed little to no resistance (we did the same in some Iraqi cities, run a strong armored force down a broad main street and see how far it got).

If Kherson was fought for, the SorosMaidan would make sure you knew about every brave stand at every house.
158   Reality   2022 Mar 4, 8:32am  

mostly reader says
I remember vaguely that the "Bush legs" program costed around 50Bil (I could be off on that, don't mind being double-checked). That same program later, at better times, was mocked amongst the Russians and used as an example of "humiliating pay-off".


The chicken legs program was either $5mil or $50mil; i.e. 1/1000 to 1/10,000 the number that you threw up. The tiny amount was the reason why the Russians felt gipped years later for trading away their superpower status. It's a little like: during the 2008 financial crisis, you could get a girl to put out in some European countries (e.g. Greece) for a lunch sandwich. Don't be surprised to see the girl feeling ripped off years later when she is in better circumstances. The purpose of egging on Putin to invade Ukraine (and possibly Romania and Poland later, if not all the way to the English Channel, accomplishing the plan laid out in the book "1984," which the globohomo use as a manual instead of warning) is to impoverish Europeans (and impoverishing Oceania/Five-Eye nations), so they will put out for the globalhomo for the price of a sandwich again.
159   Patrick   2022 Mar 4, 8:55am  

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/ukraine-invasion-nothing-compared-iraq-afghanistan/?source=patrick.net


The frequently heard charge that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine violates ostensibly sacred international “norms” holds no water. No such norms exist — at least none that a great power will recognize as inhibiting its own freedom of action. For proof, we need look no further than the recent behavior of the United States which has routinely demonstrated a willingness to write its own norms while employing violence on a scale far exceeding anything that Russia has done or is likely to do. ...

Russian actions in Ukraine deserve universal condemnation. But as crimes go, Putin’s aggression pales in comparison with the human toll exacted by Saddam Hussein’s US-supported war of choice against Iran. As for the calamitous results of the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the impact of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine rates as trivial by comparison.


America has no right to condemn the invasion in Ukraine until it condemns its own far more violent and completely unjustified invasion of Iraq.
160   mostly reader   2022 Mar 4, 9:03am  

Reality says
The chicken legs program was either $5mil or $50mil; i.e. 1/1000 to 1/10,000 the number that you threw up.
I put that number out there because I remember seeing it in one of the reports. I may have mixed up the columns in the report, and it was a while ago (which I disclosed). I tried to find a source and couldn't. What's your source regarding your number?
161   Patrick   2022 Mar 4, 9:18am  

https://www.lesoir.be/428052/article/2022-03-04/vladimir-poutine-qualifie-de-fabrication-les-accusations-de-bombardements?source=patrick.net


"The information about the alleged bombing of Kiev and other major cities are just gross propaganda fabrications," Putin assured during a telephone conversion with the German chancellor.


Don't the Germans have decent satellite images which can tell this kind of thing? So you'd think they'd prove Putin right or wrong on this.
162   Patrick   2022 Mar 4, 9:19am  

https://t.me/greatreject/31650?source=patrick.net


War correspondent Anne-Laure Bonnell, who is in Ukraine, shocked followers "I am not a party and I am not defending Putin, but the truth is that I am close to the citizens, what I am saying is that the Ukrainian army is bombing its own people in the region of Donbass.


That would make sense, because Donbass is a majority Russian area.
163   AmericanKulak   2022 Mar 4, 10:22am  

Patrick says


That would make sense, because Donbass is a majority Russian area.


There's a lesson to be learned here.
164   richwicks   2022 Mar 4, 11:02am  

mostly reader says
I speak with people from that part of the world daily. Directly. Without having to go through media outlets. Those invaders are murderous cocksuckers.


Do they have any cell phone footage?
165   mostly reader   2022 Mar 4, 11:07am  

Yes. With authentic voices of people getting bombed. Speaking Russian. Before you ask: I'm not going to post it here. Because GPS tags.
168   richwicks   2022 Mar 4, 1:26pm  

mostly reader says
Before you ask: I'm not going to post it here. Because GPS tags


I can help you remove those with ffmpeg, or I can remove them myself with ffmpeg.

If you run Linux, I can walk you through the process.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/339119/how-to-strip-gps-location-data-from-an-mp4-video-file

ffmpeg works under Windows as well, but fuck if I'm competent with that OS. Probably works nearly the same, but goddamned, I hate that fucking operating system.

mostly reader says
Yes. With authentic voices of people getting bombed. Speaking Russian.


If you want, I can provide a private place to upload them. I have a server.

Or you can upload them to a website,

OR if you send them to me, I will upload them to a website like Bitchute and archive them.

You have them after all, what's the point of having them if you're not going to share them? That's the whole point of recording government bullshit.
169   richwicks   2022 Mar 4, 1:35pm  

Patrick says
https://www.lesoir.be/428052/article/2022-03-04/vladimir-poutine-qualifie-de-fabrication-les-accusations-de-bombardements?source=patrick.net


"The information about the alleged bombing of Kiev and other major cities are just gross propaganda fabrications," Putin assured during a telephone conversion with the German chancellor.


Don't the Germans have decent satellite images which can tell this kind of thing? So you'd think they'd prove Putin right or wrong on this.


Haha, in this world we live, for all we know, Ukraine is bombing Kiev themselves. Do you really put it past them? I don't.

Governments will do anything. They're all run by complete sociopaths.
171   HeadSet   2022 Mar 4, 3:08pm  

richwicks says
mostly reader says
Before you ask: I'm not going to post it here. Because GPS tags


I can help you remove those with ffmpeg, or I can remove them myself with ffmpeg.

Can't one just take a screenshot (or snip) of the image while dispalyed on the computer, and send a copy of that? It seems using a screenshot would not have any GPS tags.
172   mell   2022 Mar 4, 3:39pm  

HeadSet says
richwicks says
mostly reader says
Before you ask: I'm not going to post it here. Because GPS tags


I can help you remove those with ffmpeg, or I can remove them myself with ffmpeg.

Can't one just take a screenshot (or snip) of the image while dispalyed on the computer, and send a copy of that? It seems using a screenshot would not have any GPS tags.


Usually the phone software asks if the GPS tag should be removed
174   mostly reader   2022 Mar 4, 4:44pm  

richwicks says
I can help you remove those with ffmpeg, or I can remove them myself with ffmpeg.
I'm not publishing anything that can be linked to the person/people who made the video. Even "approximately". Or putting it on a server which I don't own. May be after the war.
175   richwicks   2022 Mar 4, 5:09pm  

HeadSet says
richwicks says
mostly reader says
Before you ask: I'm not going to post it here. Because GPS tags


I can help you remove those with ffmpeg, or I can remove them myself with ffmpeg.

Can't one just take a screenshot (or snip) of the image while dispalyed on the computer, and send a copy of that? It seems using a screenshot would not have any GPS tags.


Sure, you can open a window to copy the video being played, but this often reduces quality quite a bit - but it should remove all metadata. Really, video is so goddamned incredible today, it hardly makes a difference, so yes, this would work - provided he has a program do this.

I don't use programs like this though, but I know they are around.

Interestingly - do you know how BluRay was FIRST cracked? Some smartass setup their player to advance one frame at a time, and did a screenshot of each frame, then they (somehow) pulled the audio from it, and took all the screen shots, spliced them together, and reproduced the film. The designers never thought of it.

In under 24 hours all the work into making the DRM for BluRay was for nothing.

DRM is kind of stupid in my opinion. We live in a day and age where you can video tape a 4K television playing a movie and get a very respectable reproduction. You can't prevent copies of any physical media, even with non-physical media it's probably impossible.
176   richwicks   2022 Mar 4, 5:26pm  

mostly reader says
richwicks says
I can help you remove those with ffmpeg, or I can remove them myself with ffmpeg.
I'm not publishing anything that can be linked to the person/people who made the video. Even "approximately". Or putting it on a server which I don't own. May be after the war.


I can help you setup a server and allow you to do it yourself.

I can make a virtual machine, or explain how to set one up.

I use VirtualBox:

https://www.virtualbox.org/?source=patrick.net

You can install a linux distribution, like this one:

https://neon.kde.org/?source=patrick.net

which COMES with ffmpeg.

Virtual machines are only SLIGHTLY slower than the real physical machine today. Modern chips (even consumer grade ones) are built with virtualization as part of them. Have been since around 2010.

Or like HeadSet suggested, just do a screen capture during playback. That would eliminate ALL metadata.

That is, if you're being honest and actually have these videos. The whole point of recording government malfeasance is to expose it in order to stop it. I'll work with you and help you set this up. Fuck, I can even (and will) make a VM, but honestly, I'm technically competent enough to put in a backdoor to any VM I setup, and it's correct to be paranoid and not trust me. If you don't know your way around Linux, certainly you shouldn't trust me, because then you wouldn't be able to detect any bullshit somebody would pull.

Not that I would pull any bullshit, but anybody pulling bullshit would say that.

I have intimated I don't trust what you say. I'm just calling you out. I don't expect you to produce anything.

But if I'm wrong, I'll walk you through even Windows setup of ffmpeg. What OS are you using? I'll find screen capture programs for you, they record live video.

It's a freakish world we live in. I mean, honestly it is. This shit was all science fiction when I was a young engineer, we have gone FAR further than I thought possible in my lifetime. At RCA we had a 10 million dollar machine that could convert NTSC video in REAL TIME to mp2. Now, I can literally do that crap on a $50 smart phone, no shit. Consumers only see the end result, digital data transfer reduced bandwidth transmission to 2% of what it used to be. It's fucking amazing. A film that was stored on a VCR tape, fits on a $2 dongle I bought at a liquor store, with room to spare for 100 more of them, and I can copy it in under 30 seconds - not 2 hours.

Ever see the dumb film Johnny Mnemonic? The character was a courier for information and had his childhood erased to carry data in his brain. You know what his brain stored? 1.5 GB. I have more storage than that on my chip cache. A chip with that storage capacity is now the size of a grain of sand. Even the engineers didn't see this shit coming.
177   mostly reader   2022 Mar 4, 5:34pm  

richwicks says
I can help you setup a server and allow you to do it yourself.
Thanks. I'm somewhat hi-tech savvy. Learn to take "no" for an answer.

Are you seriously, SERIOUSLY telling me that you haven't seen such streams? Not from MSM, from common folks. I'm looking at my (admittedly not typical) feed and thinking that everyone around must be swamped with those. If you don't believe them, why would you believe me, someone who you publicly labeled "Habera"?
178   HeadSet   2022 Mar 4, 5:50pm  

richwicks says
Sure, you can open a window to copy the video being played, but this often reduces quality quite a bit - but it should remove all metadata. Really, video is so goddamned incredible today, it hardly makes a difference, so yes, this would work - provided he has a program do this.

PowerPoint can do a good screen capture of any video playing on a PC monitor. Maybe LibreOffice Impress can also, but I have not tried that.
179   AmericanKulak   2022 Mar 4, 5:52pm  

mostly reader says
Not from MSM, from common folks.


How do you know they're common folks?

A bunch of guys who look 40-50 on an old Ural took a pic/video? So what, doesn't mean they're not intel/media guys in Vatnik or Track Clothes.
181   mostly reader   2022 Mar 4, 5:54pm  

AmericanKulak says
How do you know they're common folks?
Because I personally know them? I thought I made it abundantly clear that I know folks in that part of the world.

P.S. I think I answered a wrong question. To your question: because it's consistent with shoots that I saw from the folks that I personally know.
182   richwicks   2022 Mar 4, 5:59pm  

mostly reader says
richwicks says
I can help you setup a server and allow you to do it yourself.
Thanks. I'm somewhat hi-tech savvy. Learn to take "no" for an answer.


We all have our abilities.

If you're comfy around Linux, you can use ffmpeg to strip metadata for GPS, or really, it's an excellent idea to do what HeadSet suggested, and do a live screen capture to remove all metadata.

Again, what is the point of recording government fuckery, if you keep it to yourself? Fuck the government. When those assholes commit crimes, it's our DUTY to expose them. Go ahead and strip the metadata, and HeadSet has a very good idea of doing a life screen capture. You can upload it to my server, and I will post it to, mmm, bitchute through tor.

Tor is available under the Brave web browser. You can use that to upload to my server, a global adversary (i.e. government) could detect you accessed my machine, but I can't.

mostly reader says
Are you seriously, SERIOUSLY telling me that you haven't seen such streams? Not from MSM, from common folks.


I'm seriously aware of how fucking sewer level our government will go to lie to us. Mother fuckers did this:


original link


What a bunch of cunts. That fucking piece of shit lying psychopathic whore helped start a war. She was coached by Hill and Knowlton, and was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador. There had to be at least ONE person in our congress that knew who she was, and our fucking traitorous scum intelligence agencies CERTAINLY knew who she was.

I know what I'm up against. I'm fully aware.

April Glaspie, the US ambassador to Iraq ENCOURAGED that war. She initially denied this, Hussein produced audio tape and transcripts which our media INVARIABLY claimed were forgeries, she resigned in the end, never to be heard from again. Back when lying scumbags had shame. I miss those days. I remember recordings during the MH17 incident when INCOMPETENT assholes produced an audio recording which was OBVIOUSLY fraudulent - they actually went from stereo recording to mono. They didn't even bother to fix the splicing to make it believable, you could see the splice visually in audacity. So fucking stupid, they'll get better I imagine.

mostly reader says
I'm looking at my (admittedly not typical) feed and thinking that everyone around must be swamped with those.


Share your feed then. Let us all see.

mostly reader says
If you don't believe them,


I don't see them. Show me. I have eyes, and I want to see.

mowhy would you believe me, someone who you publicly labeled "Habera"?stly reader says
why would you believe me, someone who you publicly labeled "Habera"?


I don't automatically believe anybody. The purpose of public posting is to ask for many people to review. I am fully aware I can be tricked, and I have been tricked, and I will be tricked and fooled in the future. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time. I am not so stupid as to think I can catch every lie or trick - I know I can't, but I know a 1000 people usually can, and 10,000 people almost always can, and 1,000,000 certainly will.

Why do you think this communication device was built? For Netflix? For porn?

This is the greatest Fuck YOU!!! to the establishment ever made and the censorship and amount of propagandists that are suddenly here, is showing just how effective it is - not how strong they are. They are weak, and we will defeat them. They will rise from the ashes of course but we will as well. There's a real war between good and evil apparently. Wasn't aware of it 20 years ago, sure am now.
183   mostly reader   2022 Mar 4, 6:07pm  

richwicks says

mostly reader says
why would you believe me, someone who you publicly labeled "Habera"?


I don't automatically believe anybody.
I don't give flying fk of your general auto-believe system. Me, specifically me, you labeled Habera. Actually, make it "fucking Habera" IIRC. With implication that I'm on a propaganda mission. Did you suddenly have a change of heart? Are you suddenly ready to take my word without a doubt?
184   richwicks   2022 Mar 4, 6:19pm  

mostly reader says
I don't give flying fk of your general auto-believe system. Me, specifically me, you labeled Habera.


You are going back to a typo.

I didn't claim you were Hasbera - I said if you're a propagandist, you need to do a lot of work before you even reach the level of Hasbera. I've had to deal with them, and they are a fucking nightmare. You're not.

mostly reader says
Did you suddenly have a change of heart? Are you suddenly ready to take my word without a doubt?


I doubt you. That's why I'm asking for the evidence you claim to have, but are now scrambling for excuses not to produce. I am removing those excuses and when you have no more excuses, I expect you still won't produce them.

So no, no change of heart.

But I could always be wrong. I have misjudged people before. Who hasn't? I'm fallible, I'm MOSTLY human, but I suppose I fall short in many ways.
185   latitude38   2022 Mar 4, 6:27pm  

Patrick says
Kyiv and Kharkiv are being bombed. The largest invasion on our planet since WW2. Republicans are rooting for the Russians. God be with Ukraine and democracy.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 24, 2022
Finding himself noticed and getting a platform Ca .Dublin Rep .Eric Swalwell has proposed kicking out every Russian student from universities /colleges and sending them back home .It was this type of hysteria that put US Japanese citizens In interment camps during WW2 https://www.kron4.com/russia-ukraine-crisis/rep-eric-swalwell-suggests-kicking-every-russian-student-out-of-u-s-universities/?source=patrick.net
186   mostly reader   2022 Mar 4, 6:29pm  

richwicks says
I doubt you. That's why I'm asking for the evidence you claim to have, but are now scrambling for excuses not to produce. I am removing those excuses and when you have no more excuses, I expect you still won't produce them.
Oh fuck. That's exactly, EXACTLY what I meant. Once I produce it, what will be your next step? "Prove that it's Ukraine! Prove that those are Russians! Prove that these are not actors! Prove that it's not Deep Fake!"

Your pattern is predictable, so don't pretend to be interested.

It's good to know that you can figure out server setup though. It means that you can find an honest job.
187   Ceffer   2022 Mar 4, 6:36pm  

Kiev at present being bombed. No air raid sirens.
188   latitude38   2022 Mar 4, 6:42pm  

Beginning from the post Cold War ,John Hopkins Professor examine the problems between east and west and brings us to today’s stalemate “ not one inch “ Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate https://www.amazon.com/dp/030025993X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_CJB842E8ZNKFV5PGEARN?source=patrick.net
It more or less comes down to two sets of pledges. The first was in early 1990, when the West was still trying to get the USSR to agree to German reunification. It was West German foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who gave a number of speeches assuring the Soviets that there will be no NATO troops on East Germany should reunification be allowed. AS he put it in one address, “An extension of NATO’s territory to the east, that is, nearer to the borders of the Soviet Union, will not happen.” The problem was that his boss, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, completely disagreed with this policy and believed that the West should lock in as many gains as it could before the political climate shifted.

By Feb 1990, James Baker was making similar pledges. It was Baker’s pledge that formed the basis for Russian complaints about broken promises to this day. As Baker told Gorbachev during a trip to Moscow, “Would you prefer to see a unified Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces, or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position?” As was the case with Genschler and Kohl, Baker’s boss, George H. W. Bush, didn’t actually agree with this policy. But that statement by Baker was reportedly treated by Soviet leaders as essentially a US pledge not to expand NATO as long as German reunification was allowed. As Sarotte write, “leaders in Moscow would point to this exchange as an agreement barring NATO from expanding beyond its eastern Cold War border. Baker and his aides and supporters, in contrast, would point to the hypothetical phrasing and lack of any written agreement afterward as a sign that the secretary had only been test-driving one potential option of many.”

The second major area of the Russian complaints are centered around the actual 1997 agreement signed by Boris Yeltsin that more or less gives Russia’s blessing on the expansion of NATO. The episode starts off with a night in Warsaw, when Polish President Lech Walesa managed to persuade Yeltsin to issue a joint statement that the prospect of Poland joining NATO was “not contrary to the interest of any state, also including Russia.” It’s the kind of story that’s the perfect example of how pliable Yeltsin truly was at this point in his presidency. Yeltsin faced immediate domestic backlash on the statement and tried to backtrack by referring back to the 1990 Agreement on German Reunification, arguing that the language in that agreement precluded the expansion of NATO eastward. Therefore, under this interpretation of the agreement, Yeltsin couldn’t endorse the idea of a NATO expansion because the West already agreed that could never happen.

Of course, as we’ll see, the Clinton administration had already explored the legal implications of that 1990 German reunification agreement and concluded that there were no such restrictions. The Germany government agreed with this assessment, although the German Foreign Ministry did acknowledge that Russian claims contained a “political and psychological substance we had to take seriously.” In the end, the US pursued the approach of just trying to bribe Russia with money. Yeltsin ended up signing an agreement that condoned NATO’s expansion later that year. Clinton reportedly couldn’t believe how one-sided the deal was in the end.

The overall picture that emerges is one where, technically speaking, the expansion of NATO may have been legal based on the agreements made. But from an ethical standpoint, these were agreements made in bad faith at a time when Russia was effectively forced to negotiate under a state of national duress:
189   richwicks   2022 Mar 4, 6:45pm  

mostly reader says
richwicks says
I doubt you. That's why I'm asking for the evidence you claim to have, but are now scrambling for excuses not to produce. I am removing those excuses and when you have no more excuses, I expect you still won't produce them.
Oh fuck. That's exactly, EXACTLY what I meant. Once I produce it, what will be your next step? "Prove that it's Ukraine! Prove that those are Russians! Prove that these are not actors! Prove that it's not Deep Fake!"


I will simply post it.

Remove the meta-data for the GPS and you can post it.

Since this favors the Ukrainian side, the "US side", you can safely post it to youtube. I'd be interested in the comments it receives. Could take some time before it's picked up though.

What is the point of collecting data, if you don't share it?
190   mostly reader   2022 Mar 4, 6:54pm  

richwicks says
I will simply post it.
I am not your entertainment bitch, so I will not post anything "just because you ask me" It won't prove anything to the likes of you, and I don't feel like answering idiotic questions such as "Can you prove that this is not deep fake" or "Why should I believe that it's Ukraine".

However, since you are vocal to the point of annoyance, I have a deal for you. I'll post something for which I'll get permission, and you won't be demanding unrealistic proofs. And you'll shut up. Topics on war in Ukraine don't exist on patrick.net as far as you are concerned. You will not post here, or in any other topic, current or future, which is related to Russian invasion in Ukraine. You'll avoid them like the plague. What do you say?
191   richwicks   2022 Mar 4, 7:02pm  

mostly reader says
richwicks says
I will simply post it.
I am not your entertainment bitch,


Why do you collect atrocities of the Russian war machine and keep them to yourself?

There is nothing at all entertaining about war either.

mostly reader says
However, since you vocal to the point of annoyance, I have a deal for you. I'll post something for which I'll get permission, and you won't be demanding unrealistic proofs.


I'm asking you to do your duty as a human being. If there are humanitarian atrocities being done by a government, it's your duty to expose them.

Julian Assange naively ruined his life expecting people to do something about mafia bullshit though. Be careful, although I doubt the Russians have much of a reach. Be certain to remove the metadata. If they are in a particular apartment or home, be aware of that too. Can't be too careful with the FUCKING SCUM that runs our governments or infests our intelligence agencies.
192   mostly reader   2022 Mar 4, 7:08pm  

The way I'm reading you, concept of "duty as a human being" is quite far away from where you stand.

Do we have a deal or not? Yes or no?

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