Talk about self delusion. Read the following for a master class :)

Esp. the "commentary" by master strategist, Brian Ahern.

lol

On Fri, 23 Apr 2021 14:25:19 +0100, slider <slider@anashram.com>
wrote:

>As Russia’s soldiers begin to pull back from the Ukrainian border, they
>leave not just tank tracks and footprints in the mud — but a message to
>Ukraine and its western supporters that Moscow remains a threat to
>Europe’s south-eastern flank.
>
>Russia’s announcement on Thursday that it would wind down its military
>build-up eased fears that the Kremlin was planning for a full-scale
>confrontation with Kyiv.
>
>https://www.ft.com/content/65e2bdb6-6c1d-4033-b677-a07bb34716ae
>
>The two nations have been mired in conflict since 2014, when Moscow-backed
>separatists started a war in Ukraine’s Donbas region and Russia annexed
>Crimea. Meanwhile, a peace accord signed in Minsk in 2015 has stalled over
>Kyiv’s reluctance to give the separatist-controlled areas autonomy in its
>constitution and Moscow’s refusal to give Ukraine back control over its
>border before a handover of power in the Donbas.
>
>But with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, pleading this month for
>Nato membership and this week inviting Vladimir Putin to meet him in the
>conflict zone, the signal from the Russian leader was clear: Moscow still
>calls the shots in the Donbas.
>
>Zelensky’s offer to meet Putin was a tacit acknowledgment that Ukraine
>cannot renege on the Minsk deal, said Michael Kofman, a senior research
>scientist at CNA, a US policy studies non-profit.
>
>“They very much wanted to convince Zelensky that Kyiv needs to change
>policy course,” he said. “They really wanted to make Kyiv sweat
>and . . . to show Ukrainians exactly what they can do to them eventually —
>that Ukraine will ultimately be largely on its own and that this is a
>reality his administration needs to face.”
>
>Putin’s build-up also showed the west “that from unfriendly rhetoric and
>escalation there is a price. And the price is a risk of real conflict,
>which nobody wants. The Kremlin’s words were heard,” said Alexander
>Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
>
>The build-up may have convinced US president Joe Biden to de-escalate
>tensions with Russia after Washington introduced new sanctions against
>Moscow and warned of “consequences” if opposition leader Alexei Navalny,
>who has been on hunger strike in a Russian jail, died in prison, Baunov
>said.
>
>As the build-up began, Biden outraged Moscow by calling Putin a “killer”.
>Weeks later, the US president invited Putin to a bilateral summit —
>indicating that, for all the new western sanctions against it, Moscow is
>still welcome at the top table.
>
>Reducing the pressure a day after Putin warned the west against crossing
>Russia’s red lines showed that the Kremlin “understood that the level of
>escalation reached was suitable, but that they need to pull back a little
>to meet Biden’s proposal”, Baunov said. “Putin wants to meet Biden and to
>try to charm him.”
>
>Russia’s military drills went far beyond any operation Moscow had
>previously conducted on the Ukrainian border since the signing of the
>Minsk deal. In recent weeks, Moscow moved 100,000 troops to the border
>with Ukraine from the east and the south, as well as tanks, aircraft,
>naval forces, field hospitals and electronic warfare equipment.
>
>Ceasefire breaches on the front line also rapidly increased, adding to the
>more than 14,000 people already killed in the war.
>
>The deployment gave Moscow enough military power to potentially conduct a
>fairly substantial military operation in Ukraine while keeping its
>intentions sufficiently vague to scare Zelensky, who called on Putin to
>agree to restore the ceasefire.
>
>“The Russian problem was that the Ukrainians need to change course. And
>part of the reason they’re on this course is because they’re being backed
>by Europeans and Americans into believing that they can just maintain this
>position,” Kofman said.
>
>Even as Russia’s troops withdraw, Moscow still has the option of
>ratcheting up the pressure on Ukraine in the future. Defence minister
>Sergei Shoigu said Russia’s 41st combined arms army would leave its
>equipment and weapons at a base near the Ukrainian border ahead of joint
>military drills with Belarus this summer.
>
>In recent months, Kyiv has sought to build up an alternative negotiating
>framework known as the Crimea platform, which will hold a summit in August
>to discuss reversing Russia’s annexation of the peninsula. More than 10
>mostly western countries as well as Turkey are believed to have expressed
>a willingness to take part.
>
>Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak,
>said the border build-up had been a “strategic bluff” aimed at putting
>pressure on Ukraine to make concessions. “Russia does not have the
>physical capability to wage war against Ukraine,” Arestovych said.
>
>He suggested the drills were aimed at distracting domestic attention from
>Russia’s slumping economy and boosting patriotic sentiment ahead of
>parliamentary elections in September.
>
>But western powers’ reluctance to match Putin’s show of force on Ukraine’s
>eastern border may make Zelensky’s search for an alternative resolution to
>the conflict less tenable, Alyona Getmanchuk, director of Kyiv-based
>think-tank New Europe Center, said.
>
>“[The troop withdrawal] strengthens an argument that Putin didn’t have an
>intention to invade but was using his trademark sabre-rattling tactics in
>order to reach some diplomatic gains,” Getmanchuk said.
>
>But if Ukraine’s western allies avoided the Crimea platform summit
>following the Russian manoeuvring or failed to back its Nato aspirations,
>she added, “Putin will find his military tactics successful and will
>repeat it again and again in the future.”
>
>### - and there ya have it folks heh, situation resolved because ukraine
>isn't prepared to call russia out on their own coz they know they'll get
>clobbered and prolly lose even more territory if they have a go at them...
>
>ukraine ever joining nato now a forgotten/lost cause because the russians
>can just sit there forever if needs be, and because no one wants ww3 over
>a tin-pot nation like ukraine...
>
>so then, not so much grandstanding on russia's part but that of
>saber-rattling, their red lines clearly marked (and now remarked) for
>anyone to see!
>
>that although they've pulled their forces back it's not really the
>russians in this instance who're 'backing-down', but the west whose
>perhaps thought better of their plan to expand nato ever further via
>ukraine...
>
>but then those ruskies always 'were' masterful chess players huh...
>
>anyway, looks like our gambit just didn't pay off and it's all back to
>square one again, and wingeing/whining ukraine can just fuck off hah! :))))
>
>cool :)

On Mon, 03 May 2021 11:28:52 +0100, o'Mahoney <libertidad@south.south.com>
wrote:

> Talk about self delusion. Read the following for a master class :)
>
> Esp. the "commentary" by master strategist, Brian Ahern.
>
> lol

### - are you sure you even read that article correctly? (i didn't write
that article, i merely commented on it)

> On Fri, 23 Apr 2021 14:25:19 +0100, slider <slider@anashram.com>
> wrote:
>
>> As Russia’s soldiers begin to pull back from the Ukrainian border, they
>> leave not just tank tracks and footprints in the mud — but a message to
>> Ukraine and its western supporters that Moscow remains a threat to
>> Europe’s south-eastern flank.
>>
>> Russia’s announcement on Thursday that it would wind down its military
>> build-up eased fears that the Kremlin was planning for a full-scale
>> confrontation with Kyiv.
>>
>> https://www.ft.com/content/65e2bdb6-6c1d-4033-b677-a07bb34716ae
>>
>> The two nations have been mired in conflict since 2014, when
>> Moscow-backed
>> separatists started a war in Ukraine’s Donbas region and Russia annexed
>> Crimea. Meanwhile, a peace accord signed in Minsk in 2015 has stalled
>> over
>> Kyiv’s reluctance to give the separatist-controlled areas autonomy in
>> its
>> constitution and Moscow’s refusal to give Ukraine back control over its
>> border before a handover of power in the Donbas.
>>
>> But with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, pleading this month
>> for
>> Nato membership and this week inviting Vladimir Putin to meet him in the
>> conflict zone, the signal from the Russian leader was clear: Moscow
>> still
>> calls the shots in the Donbas.
>>
>> Zelensky’s offer to meet Putin was a tacit acknowledgment that Ukraine
>> cannot renege on the Minsk deal, said Michael Kofman, a senior research
>> scientist at CNA, a US policy studies non-profit.
>>
>> “They very much wanted to convince Zelensky that Kyiv needs to change
>> policy course,” he said. “They really wanted to make Kyiv sweat
>> and . . . to show Ukrainians exactly what they can do to them
>> eventually —
>> that Ukraine will ultimately be largely on its own and that this is a
>> reality his administration needs to face.”
>>
>> Putin’s build-up also showed the west “that from unfriendly rhetoric and
>> escalation there is a price. And the price is a risk of real conflict,
>> which nobody wants. The Kremlin’s words were heard,” said Alexander
>> Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
>>
>> The build-up may have convinced US president Joe Biden to de-escalate
>> tensions with Russia after Washington introduced new sanctions against
>> Moscow and warned of “consequences” if opposition leader Alexei Navalny,
>> who has been on hunger strike in a Russian jail, died in prison, Baunov
>> said.
>>
>> As the build-up began, Biden outraged Moscow by calling Putin a
>> “killer”.
>> Weeks later, the US president invited Putin to a bilateral summit —
>> indicating that, for all the new western sanctions against it, Moscow is
>> still welcome at the top table.
>>
>> Reducing the pressure a day after Putin warned the west against crossing
>> Russia’s red lines showed that the Kremlin “understood that the level of
>> escalation reached was suitable, but that they need to pull back a
>> little
>> to meet Biden’s proposal”, Baunov said. “Putin wants to meet Biden and
>> to
>> try to charm him.”
>>
>> Russia’s military drills went far beyond any operation Moscow had
>> previously conducted on the Ukrainian border since the signing of the
>> Minsk deal. In recent weeks, Moscow moved 100,000 troops to the border
>> with Ukraine from the east and the south, as well as tanks, aircraft,
>> naval forces, field hospitals and electronic warfare equipment.
>>
>> Ceasefire breaches on the front line also rapidly increased, adding to
>> the
>> more than 14,000 people already killed in the war.
>>
>> The deployment gave Moscow enough military power to potentially conduct
>> a
>> fairly substantial military operation in Ukraine while keeping its
>> intentions sufficiently vague to scare Zelensky, who called on Putin to
>> agree to restore the ceasefire.
>>
>> “The Russian problem was that the Ukrainians need to change course. And
>> part of the reason they’re on this course is because they’re being
>> backed
>> by Europeans and Americans into believing that they can just maintain
>> this
>> position,” Kofman said.
>>
>> Even as Russia’s troops withdraw, Moscow still has the option of
>> ratcheting up the pressure on Ukraine in the future. Defence minister
>> Sergei Shoigu said Russia’s 41st combined arms army would leave its
>> equipment and weapons at a base near the Ukrainian border ahead of joint
>> military drills with Belarus this summer.
>>
>> In recent months, Kyiv has sought to build up an alternative negotiating
>> framework known as the Crimea platform, which will hold a summit in
>> August
>> to discuss reversing Russia’s annexation of the peninsula. More than 10
>> mostly western countries as well as Turkey are believed to have
>> expressed
>> a willingness to take part.
>>
>> Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy
>> Yermak,
>> said the border build-up had been a “strategic bluff” aimed at putting
>> pressure on Ukraine to make concessions. “Russia does not have the
>> physical capability to wage war against Ukraine,” Arestovych said.
>>
>> He suggested the drills were aimed at distracting domestic attention
>> from
>> Russia’s slumping economy and boosting patriotic sentiment ahead of
>> parliamentary elections in September.
>>
>> But western powers’ reluctance to match Putin’s show of force on
>> Ukraine’s
>> eastern border may make Zelensky’s search for an alternative resolution
>> to
>> the conflict less tenable, Alyona Getmanchuk, director of Kyiv-based
>> think-tank New Europe Center, said.
>>
>> “[The troop withdrawal] strengthens an argument that Putin didn’t have
>> an
>> intention to invade but was using his trademark sabre-rattling tactics
>> in
>> order to reach some diplomatic gains,” Getmanchuk said.
>>
>> But if Ukraine’s western allies avoided the Crimea platform summit
>> following the Russian manoeuvring or failed to back its Nato
>> aspirations,
>> she added, “Putin will find his military tactics successful and will
>> repeat it again and again in the future.”
>>
>> ### - and there ya have it folks heh, situation resolved because ukraine
>> isn't prepared to call russia out on their own coz they know they'll get
>> clobbered and prolly lose even more territory if they have a go at
>> them...
>>
>> ukraine ever joining nato now a forgotten/lost cause because the
>> russians
>> can just sit there forever if needs be, and because no one wants ww3
>> over
>> a tin-pot nation like ukraine...
>>
>> so then, not so much grandstanding on russia's part but that of
>> saber-rattling, their red lines clearly marked (and now remarked) for
>> anyone to see!
>>
>> that although they've pulled their forces back it's not really the
>> russians in this instance who're 'backing-down', but the west whose
>> perhaps thought better of their plan to expand nato ever further via
>> ukraine...
>>
>> but then those ruskies always 'were' masterful chess players huh...
>>
>> anyway, looks like our gambit just didn't pay off and it's all back to
>> square one again, and wingeing/whining ukraine can just fuck off hah!
>> :))))
>>
>> cool :)

--
Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

On Mon, 03 May 2021 12:45:07 +0100, slider <slider@anashram.com>
wrote:

>On Mon, 03 May 2021 11:28:52 +0100, o'Mahoney <libertidad@south.south.com>
>wrote:
>
>> Talk about self delusion. Read the following for a master class :)
>>
>> Esp. the "commentary" by master strategist, Brian Ahern.
>>
>> lol
>
>### - are you sure you even read that article correctly? (i didn't write
>that article, i merely commented on it)
>

I took exception to your commentary, mainly this:

"but then those ruskies always 'were' masterful chess players huh...

anyway, looks like our gambit just didn't pay off and it's all back
to square one again, and wingeing/whining ukraine can just fuck off
hah!"

*Our gambit*? Really?

What exactly is your stake in this, to use such an inclusive term?

>
>
>
>
>> On Fri, 23 Apr 2021 14:25:19 +0100, slider <slider@anashram.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> As Russia’s soldiers begin to pull back from the Ukrainian border, they
>>> leave not just tank tracks and footprints in the mud — but a message to
>>> Ukraine and its western supporters that Moscow remains a threat to
>>> Europe’s south-eastern flank.
>>>
>>> Russia’s announcement on Thursday that it would wind down its military
>>> build-up eased fears that the Kremlin was planning for a full-scale
>>> confrontation with Kyiv.
>>>
>>> https://www.ft.com/content/65e2bdb6-6c1d-4033-b677-a07bb34716ae
>>>
>>> The two nations have been mired in conflict since 2014, when
>>> Moscow-backed
>>> separatists started a war in Ukraine’s Donbas region and Russia annexed
>>> Crimea. Meanwhile, a peace accord signed in Minsk in 2015 has stalled
>>> over
>>> Kyiv’s reluctance to give the separatist-controlled areas autonomy in
>>> its
>>> constitution and Moscow’s refusal to give Ukraine back control over its
>>> border before a handover of power in the Donbas.
>>>
>>> But with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, pleading this month
>>> for
>>> Nato membership and this week inviting Vladimir Putin to meet him in the
>>> conflict zone, the signal from the Russian leader was clear: Moscow
>>> still
>>> calls the shots in the Donbas.
>>>
>>> Zelensky’s offer to meet Putin was a tacit acknowledgment that Ukraine
>>> cannot renege on the Minsk deal, said Michael Kofman, a senior research
>>> scientist at CNA, a US policy studies non-profit.
>>>
>>> “They very much wanted to convince Zelensky that Kyiv needs to change
>>> policy course,” he said. “They really wanted to make Kyiv sweat
>>> and . . . to show Ukrainians exactly what they can do to them
>>> eventually —
>>> that Ukraine will ultimately be largely on its own and that this is a
>>> reality his administration needs to face.”
>>>
>>> Putin’s build-up also showed the west “that from unfriendly rhetoric and
>>> escalation there is a price. And the price is a risk of real conflict,
>>> which nobody wants. The Kremlin’s words were heard,” said Alexander
>>> Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
>>>
>>> The build-up may have convinced US president Joe Biden to de-escalate
>>> tensions with Russia after Washington introduced new sanctions against
>>> Moscow and warned of “consequences” if opposition leader Alexei Navalny,
>>> who has been on hunger strike in a Russian jail, died in prison, Baunov
>>> said.
>>>
>>> As the build-up began, Biden outraged Moscow by calling Putin a
>>> “killer”.
>>> Weeks later, the US president invited Putin to a bilateral summit —
>>> indicating that, for all the new western sanctions against it, Moscow is
>>> still welcome at the top table.
>>>
>>> Reducing the pressure a day after Putin warned the west against crossing
>>> Russia’s red lines showed that the Kremlin “understood that the level of
>>> escalation reached was suitable, but that they need to pull back a
>>> little
>>> to meet Biden’s proposal”, Baunov said. “Putin wants to meet Biden and
>>> to
>>> try to charm him.”
>>>
>>> Russia’s military drills went far beyond any operation Moscow had
>>> previously conducted on the Ukrainian border since the signing of the
>>> Minsk deal. In recent weeks, Moscow moved 100,000 troops to the border
>>> with Ukraine from the east and the south, as well as tanks, aircraft,
>>> naval forces, field hospitals and electronic warfare equipment.
>>>
>>> Ceasefire breaches on the front line also rapidly increased, adding to
>>> the
>>> more than 14,000 people already killed in the war.
>>>
>>> The deployment gave Moscow enough military power to potentially conduct
>>> a
>>> fairly substantial military operation in Ukraine while keeping its
>>> intentions sufficiently vague to scare Zelensky, who called on Putin to
>>> agree to restore the ceasefire.
>>>
>>> “The Russian problem was that the Ukrainians need to change course. And
>>> part of the reason they’re on this course is because they’re being
>>> backed
>>> by Europeans and Americans into believing that they can just maintain
>>> this
>>> position,” Kofman said.
>>>
>>> Even as Russia’s troops withdraw, Moscow still has the option of
>>> ratcheting up the pressure on Ukraine in the future. Defence minister
>>> Sergei Shoigu said Russia’s 41st combined arms army would leave its
>>> equipment and weapons at a base near the Ukrainian border ahead of joint
>>> military drills with Belarus this summer.
>>>
>>> In recent months, Kyiv has sought to build up an alternative negotiating
>>> framework known as the Crimea platform, which will hold a summit in
>>> August
>>> to discuss reversing Russia’s annexation of the peninsula. More than 10
>>> mostly western countries as well as Turkey are believed to have
>>> expressed
>>> a willingness to take part.
>>>
>>> Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy
>>> Yermak,
>>> said the border build-up had been a “strategic bluff” aimed at putting
>>> pressure on Ukraine to make concessions. “Russia does not have the
>>> physical capability to wage war against Ukraine,” Arestovych said.
>>>
>>> He suggested the drills were aimed at distracting domestic attention
>>> from
>>> Russia’s slumping economy and boosting patriotic sentiment ahead of
>>> parliamentary elections in September.
>>>
>>> But western powers’ reluctance to match Putin’s show of force on
>>> Ukraine’s
>>> eastern border may make Zelensky’s search for an alternative resolution
>>> to
>>> the conflict less tenable, Alyona Getmanchuk, director of Kyiv-based
>>> think-tank New Europe Center, said.
>>>
>>> “[The troop withdrawal] strengthens an argument that Putin didn’t have
>>> an
>>> intention to invade but was using his trademark sabre-rattling tactics
>>> in
>>> order to reach some diplomatic gains,” Getmanchuk said.
>>>
>>> But if Ukraine’s western allies avoided the Crimea platform summit
>>> following the Russian manoeuvring or failed to back its Nato
>>> aspirations,
>>> she added, “Putin will find his military tactics successful and will
>>> repeat it again and again in the future.”
>>>
>>> ### - and there ya have it folks heh, situation resolved because ukraine
>>> isn't prepared to call russia out on their own coz they know they'll get
>>> clobbered and prolly lose even more territory if they have a go at
>>> them...
>>>
>>> ukraine ever joining nato now a forgotten/lost cause because the
>>> russians
>>> can just sit there forever if needs be, and because no one wants ww3
>>> over
>>> a tin-pot nation like ukraine...
>>>
>>> so then, not so much grandstanding on russia's part but that of
>>> saber-rattling, their red lines clearly marked (and now remarked) for
>>> anyone to see!
>>>
>>> that although they've pulled their forces back it's not really the
>>> russians in this instance who're 'backing-down', but the west whose
>>> perhaps thought better of their plan to expand nato ever further via
>>> ukraine...
>>>
>>> but then those ruskies always 'were' masterful chess players huh...
>>>
>>> anyway, looks like our gambit just didn't pay off and it's all back to
>>> square one again, and wingeing/whining ukraine can just fuck off hah!
>>> :))))
>>>
>>> cool :)

On Fri, 07 May 2021 06:18:44 +0100, o'Mahoney <libertidad@south.south.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, 03 May 2021 12:45:07 +0100, slider <slider@anashram.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 03 May 2021 11:28:52 +0100, o'Mahoney
>> <libertidad@south.south.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Talk about self delusion. Read the following for a master class :)
>>>
>>> Esp. the "commentary" by master strategist, Brian Ahern.
>>>
>>> lol
>>
>> ### - are you sure you even read that article correctly? (i didn't write
>> that article, i merely commented on it)
>>
>
> I took exception to your commentary, mainly this:
>
> "but then those ruskies always 'were' masterful chess players huh...
>
> anyway, looks like our gambit just didn't pay off and it's all back
> to square one again, and wingeing/whining ukraine can just fuck off
> hah!"
>
> *Our gambit*? Really?
>
> What exactly is your stake in this, to use such an inclusive term?

### - "our gambit" = 'the west' as opposed to the russians...

the russian having quite a good rep for chess no?

>>> On Fri, 23 Apr 2021 14:25:19 +0100, slider <slider@anashram.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> As Russia’s soldiers begin to pull back from the Ukrainian border,
>>>> they
>>>> leave not just tank tracks and footprints in the mud — but a message
>>>> to
>>>> Ukraine and its western supporters that Moscow remains a threat to
>>>> Europe’s south-eastern flank.
>>>>
>>>> Russia’s announcement on Thursday that it would wind down its military
>>>> build-up eased fears that the Kremlin was planning for a full-scale
>>>> confrontation with Kyiv.
>>>>
>>>> https://www.ft.com/content/65e2bdb6-6c1d-4033-b677-a07bb34716ae
>>>>
>>>> The two nations have been mired in conflict since 2014, when
>>>> Moscow-backed
>>>> separatists started a war in Ukraine’s Donbas region and Russia
>>>> annexed
>>>> Crimea. Meanwhile, a peace accord signed in Minsk in 2015 has stalled
>>>> over
>>>> Kyiv’s reluctance to give the separatist-controlled areas autonomy in
>>>> its
>>>> constitution and Moscow’s refusal to give Ukraine back control over
>>>> its
>>>> border before a handover of power in the Donbas.
>>>>
>>>> But with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, pleading this month
>>>> for
>>>> Nato membership and this week inviting Vladimir Putin to meet him in
>>>> the
>>>> conflict zone, the signal from the Russian leader was clear: Moscow
>>>> still
>>>> calls the shots in the Donbas.
>>>>
>>>> Zelensky’s offer to meet Putin was a tacit acknowledgment that Ukraine
>>>> cannot renege on the Minsk deal, said Michael Kofman, a senior
>>>> research
>>>> scientist at CNA, a US policy studies non-profit.
>>>>
>>>> “They very much wanted to convince Zelensky that Kyiv needs to change
>>>> policy course,” he said. “They really wanted to make Kyiv sweat
>>>> and . . . to show Ukrainians exactly what they can do to them
>>>> eventually —
>>>> that Ukraine will ultimately be largely on its own and that this is a
>>>> reality his administration needs to face.”
>>>>
>>>> Putin’s build-up also showed the west “that from unfriendly rhetoric
>>>> and
>>>> escalation there is a price. And the price is a risk of real conflict,
>>>> which nobody wants. The Kremlin’s words were heard,” said Alexander
>>>> Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
>>>>
>>>> The build-up may have convinced US president Joe Biden to de-escalate
>>>> tensions with Russia after Washington introduced new sanctions against
>>>> Moscow and warned of “consequences” if opposition leader Alexei
>>>> Navalny,
>>>> who has been on hunger strike in a Russian jail, died in prison,
>>>> Baunov
>>>> said.
>>>>
>>>> As the build-up began, Biden outraged Moscow by calling Putin a
>>>> “killer”.
>>>> Weeks later, the US president invited Putin to a bilateral summit —
>>>> indicating that, for all the new western sanctions against it, Moscow
>>>> is
>>>> still welcome at the top table.
>>>>
>>>> Reducing the pressure a day after Putin warned the west against
>>>> crossing
>>>> Russia’s red lines showed that the Kremlin “understood that the level
>>>> of
>>>> escalation reached was suitable, but that they need to pull back a
>>>> little
>>>> to meet Biden’s proposal”, Baunov said. “Putin wants to meet Biden and
>>>> to
>>>> try to charm him.”
>>>>
>>>> Russia’s military drills went far beyond any operation Moscow had
>>>> previously conducted on the Ukrainian border since the signing of the
>>>> Minsk deal. In recent weeks, Moscow moved 100,000 troops to the border
>>>> with Ukraine from the east and the south, as well as tanks, aircraft,
>>>> naval forces, field hospitals and electronic warfare equipment.
>>>>
>>>> Ceasefire breaches on the front line also rapidly increased, adding to
>>>> the
>>>> more than 14,000 people already killed in the war.
>>>>
>>>> The deployment gave Moscow enough military power to potentially
>>>> conduct
>>>> a
>>>> fairly substantial military operation in Ukraine while keeping its
>>>> intentions sufficiently vague to scare Zelensky, who called on Putin
>>>> to
>>>> agree to restore the ceasefire.
>>>>
>>>> “The Russian problem was that the Ukrainians need to change course.
>>>> And
>>>> part of the reason they’re on this course is because they’re being
>>>> backed
>>>> by Europeans and Americans into believing that they can just maintain
>>>> this
>>>> position,” Kofman said.
>>>>
>>>> Even as Russia’s troops withdraw, Moscow still has the option of
>>>> ratcheting up the pressure on Ukraine in the future. Defence minister
>>>> Sergei Shoigu said Russia’s 41st combined arms army would leave its
>>>> equipment and weapons at a base near the Ukrainian border ahead of
>>>> joint
>>>> military drills with Belarus this summer.
>>>>
>>>> In recent months, Kyiv has sought to build up an alternative
>>>> negotiating
>>>> framework known as the Crimea platform, which will hold a summit in
>>>> August
>>>> to discuss reversing Russia’s annexation of the peninsula. More than
>>>> 10
>>>> mostly western countries as well as Turkey are believed to have
>>>> expressed
>>>> a willingness to take part.
>>>>
>>>> Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy
>>>> Yermak,
>>>> said the border build-up had been a “strategic bluff” aimed at putting
>>>> pressure on Ukraine to make concessions. “Russia does not have the
>>>> physical capability to wage war against Ukraine,” Arestovych said.
>>>>
>>>> He suggested the drills were aimed at distracting domestic attention
>>>> from
>>>> Russia’s slumping economy and boosting patriotic sentiment ahead of
>>>> parliamentary elections in September.
>>>>
>>>> But western powers’ reluctance to match Putin’s show of force on
>>>> Ukraine’s
>>>> eastern border may make Zelensky’s search for an alternative
>>>> resolution
>>>> to
>>>> the conflict less tenable, Alyona Getmanchuk, director of Kyiv-based
>>>> think-tank New Europe Center, said.
>>>>
>>>> “[The troop withdrawal] strengthens an argument that Putin didn’t have
>>>> an
>>>> intention to invade but was using his trademark sabre-rattling tactics
>>>> in
>>>> order to reach some diplomatic gains,” Getmanchuk said.
>>>>
>>>> But if Ukraine’s western allies avoided the Crimea platform summit
>>>> following the Russian manoeuvring or failed to back its Nato
>>>> aspirations,
>>>> she added, “Putin will find his military tactics successful and will
>>>> repeat it again and again in the future.”
>>>>
>>>> ### - and there ya have it folks heh, situation resolved because
>>>> ukraine
>>>> isn't prepared to call russia out on their own coz they know they'll
>>>> get
>>>> clobbered and prolly lose even more territory if they have a go at
>>>> them...
>>>>
>>>> ukraine ever joining nato now a forgotten/lost cause because the
>>>> russians
>>>> can just sit there forever if needs be, and because no one wants ww3
>>>> over
>>>> a tin-pot nation like ukraine...
>>>>
>>>> so then, not so much grandstanding on russia's part but that of
>>>> saber-rattling, their red lines clearly marked (and now remarked) for
>>>> anyone to see!
>>>>
>>>> that although they've pulled their forces back it's not really the
>>>> russians in this instance who're 'backing-down', but the west whose
>>>> perhaps thought better of their plan to expand nato ever further via
>>>> ukraine...
>>>>
>>>> but then those ruskies always 'were' masterful chess players huh...
>>>>
>>>> anyway, looks like our gambit just didn't pay off and it's all back to
>>>> square one again, and wingeing/whining ukraine can just fuck off hah!
>>>> :))))
>>>>
>>>> cool :)