Munich. Fifteen years ago.

It's ALL here.

"We have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security." [_link]

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) February 11, 2022

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Anton Drobovitch, National Museum of Ukraine was part of the program. Two elderly women were interviewed, Soviet era detention cells with human rights abuse were visited,  and the terror of the famine Holodomor. I found it shocking for the timing of this short documentary at a crucial moment in the crisis. Pure war rhetoric and propaganda.

What mechanisms do you use to restore the lost pages of history?

We Ukrainians have lived through various complex periods. There was the Bolshevik Red Terror, the Russian Civil War, and the man-made Holodomor famine of 1932-3, as well as the Holocaust, when the USSR ignored the Nazi extermination of almost 34,000 Jews because they feared that revealing information about the Holocaust might consolidate the Jewish community. It was the same story with the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

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Furthermore, interview with James Heappey MP added more war talk pushing blame on Russia. Could not find a clip on BBC Breakfast of today. Britain has trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian military and with advanced arms are well placed to defend their country. The UK and NATO will not have boots on the ground in case of conflict with Russia.

NATO is a defensive alliance where members are free to choose to join ...

Defence Secretary @BWallaceMP met his counterpart in Moscow for frank and constructive dialogue to pursue a path of diplomacy

A military invasion of Ukraine would be a strategic mistake with severe consequences. De-escalation and diplomacy is the only path out of this situation pic.twitter.com/EkI9i5gmOo

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) February 11, 2022

US Ups Tension with Russia

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Elements of 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis repeating not only in Eurasia but in South Asia as well | Anadolu Agency |

The diplomatic predicament and a warlike buildup between the US-led West and Russia over Ukraine have almost all the elements taken out straight from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, with the roles reversed. The history is not only being repeated in the Eurasian region, but identical events are happening far away in South Asia as well, taking cover of the preoccupation of the West.

Sixty years ago, the US and the erstwhile superpower Soviet Union now represented by Russia came to the brink of war, when an expert photo interpreter in a meeting called by US President John F. Kennedy at his White House office identified a black and white picture taken from a U-2 aircraft on a spy mission over Cuba as a Soviet R-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile, designed to carry a nuclear warhead.

For a moment a pin drop silence descended at the high-level meeting. But as the details revealed later, soon the room was full of astonishing curses, and fingers were pointed towards CIA Director John McCone. Everybody wanted to know how the Soviets transported such a huge cache of missiles from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and then crossed the Atlantic Ocean in such super secrecy?

The Cuban Missile Crisis: Trading the Jupiters in Turkey? | By Barton J. Bernstein - 1980 |

For many years the quid pro quo was kept secret and under wraps by US media.

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Discussed the peace process and the security situation with the current @OSCE Head, 🇵🇱 Minister of Foreign Affairs @RauZbigniew today in Kharkiv. Look forward to intensifying the TCG work and full unhindered implementation of the @OSCE_SMM mandate to guarantee peace in Donbas. pic.twitter.com/78Ew98LOcz

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 11, 2022

OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) Daily Report 31/2022 issued on 10 February 2022

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Strengthening Russia's Influence in International Affairs

Defining Russia's Sphere of Influence: An Historical Review | NTI - July 13, 2021 |

As I explained in previous essays, Russia--whether Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, or post-Soviet Russia--views the security of its frontiers as essential for the security of the homeland. In Moscow's view, security can be ensured only if Russia maintains a reliable sphere of influence over bordering countries. Although Russia's western frontier has been the most important bulwark against foreign aggression--real or perceived --the south and the east have also played an important role in assuring the security of the Russian state.

Over the centuries, Russia's sphere of influence has ebbed and flowed as geopolitical confrontation and diplomacy have either favoured or disadvantaged Russia. Those countries that have been victims, finding themselves pawns in great power politics, have often sought the protection of Russia's adversaries. Few have willingly and readily accepted Russian domination for they realized that security for Russia often meant insecurity for them.

A study of the map of Eastern Europe during the centuries reveals a hodgepodge of states, ethnic groupings, and rising and falling empires that cover a wide expanse of territory with few natural frontiers. Power determined the landscape and the fate of millions. Imperial Russia was one of four empires--along with Prussia, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire--that vied for control over this valuable real estate during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Borders shifted, countries emerged and disappeared, and allegiances shifted from empire to empire, which eventually led to the emergence of independent countries, but many of those states remained within the sphere of influence of the most dominant neighboring power.

The Cold War policy of containment and encirclement of the Soviet Union - CENTO and Pact of Baghdad.

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Documentary I watched on the BBC, however some crucial parts are missing is this story written in article. I will try to find the rest or an equivalent. A part was filmed in an Ukrainian Orthodox church ...

... the faces of dead soldiers stare out in serried ranks from the walls inside St Michael's Cathedral in a memorial that stretches for almost 100m.

A third part was filmed in rural Kharkiv region close to the Russian border. There the elderly population emphasized that we are all one people: Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians.

Ukrainians wait as Russia faces off with the West | BBC News - Jan. 12, 2022 |

Orthodox Christmas was celebrated here last Friday, and if you stroll through Kyiv's busy Christmas markets you're not exactly assailed by a sense of heightened alert and anxiety.

"People are used to heavy times," says Petro Burkovsky from one of Kyiv's oldest independent think tanks, the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation. "In the 20th Century, we had many occasions when people lived in daily horror. It's part of their historical memory."

Ukraine's current horror has been going on for almost eight years, since masked Russian troops first appeared on the streets of Crimea.

Fighting broke out in the eastern Donbas region in April 2014. Since then, 14,000 soldiers and civilians have been killed in what the government in Kyiv calls the "Russian-Ukrainian War". Russia insists to this day that it is not a party to the conflict.

Each morning, at a short, sombre ceremony outside the defence ministry in Kyiv, Ukrainian soldiers killed on that particular calendar day since independence in 1991 are commemorated. The vast majority have died since 2014.

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"Nobody Wants Us": The Alienated Civilians of Eastern Ukraine | Crisi Group - Oct. 1, 2018 |

With living conditions worsening, and crossfire still claiming casualties, people residing in eastern Ukraine's conflict zone feel increasingly abandoned by the central government. Reintegrating the area requires Russian withdrawal, but in the meantime Kyiv can and should better protect civilians and meet humanitarian needs.

Yet Ukraine also needs to comprehensively overhaul its approach to conflict-affected citizens. Since 2014, Kyiv, in its rhetoric and actions - including restriction of freedom of movement and access to state subsidies and services, inconsistent regard for civilian protection and lack of credible arrangements for amnesty - has too often treated the security and prosperity of its citizens from Donbas as mutually exclusive with the interests of Ukraine as a whole.

Some of Kyiv's moves, such as establishing burdensome obstacles to obtaining pensions, have also contradicted Ukrainian law. As a result, many in Donbas, including those who describe themselves as Ukrainian patriots, feel abandoned by Kyiv. "Nobody wants us" has become a common refrain. Yet few high-level officials are willing to take responsibility for or respond to this chorus of despair, dismissing it as the product of hostile propaganda or pro-Russian views.

The past months have brought some tentative progress: in September, Ukraine's Supreme Court declared the government's 2016 limits on pension access for residents of the conflict zone illegal, obliging Kyiv to restore payments to thousands of citizens. Many officials say Kyiv is unlikely to make bold shifts, especially any carrying clear short-term costs, with 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections looming. But whatever the short-term costs of ensuring the rights of all Ukrainians, the longer-term costs of failing to do so, both financial and in terms of national cohesion, are likely to be greater.

Ukraine's Western backers have soft-pedalled their criticism of Kyiv's approach to the region, for fear of bolstering Kremlin and separatist claims that Kyiv is determined to trample the rights of eastern Ukraine's heavily Russian-speaking population.

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Good to touch base with @trussliz before we both travel to #Ukraine. Important to coordinate our efforts with the UK as close #NATO ally and partner.
🇳🇱 and 🇬🇧 are united in our call for dialogue with Russia, but also in our willingness to act decisively if necessary. pic.twitter.com/fesEa5RdfA

— Wopke Hoekstra (@WBHoekstra) January 31, 2022

What is the purpose of your visit to Kyiv? Study geography to prevent bloopers? New on the job less the one month. 🇳🇱 🌍

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"The security situation was already worrying, and has deteriorated further and further in recent days," the foreign minister said. "I am now taking this step and calling on all Dutch people to leave Ukraine." [_link] pic.twitter.com/4MDuKaFBPj

— NL Times (@NL_Times) February 12, 2022

Minister of Foreign Affairs Wopke Hoekstra is calling on all Dutch nationals to leave Ukraine. 'The security situation, which was already troubling, has deteriorated further over the past few days. In consultation with various allies, I am now taking the step of calling on all Dutch nationals to leave Ukraine.'

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KLM to stop flights to Ukraine [_link]

— NL Times (@NL_Times) February 12, 2022

Having learned the bitter lesson of July 2014, safe flight routes over conflict zones ...

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Is not helpful ... we are nearest to border and have better intelligence on Russian troops movements.

Continued dialogue with @EmmanuelMacron. Thanked for his visit to 🇺🇦. Talked about the security situation & ways to intensify the peace process within #N4, the TCG activities. Discussed latest international talks. Appreciate Macron's personal involvement in de-escalation process.

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 12, 2022

Learning the hard way difference between allies and friends ... once the ball started rolling, Zelensky 🇺🇦 just became a pawn offer on the chess board of super powers.

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Arseniy Yatsenuk Foundation Open Ukraine -- partner to George Soros Open Society

Arseniy Yatsenuk heads the Open Ukraine Foundation, an international foundation based in Ukraine. It was established in July 2007 for the "strengthening and development of Ukraine's reputation in the world." Open Ukraine works with the young generation of artists, scholars and community leaders who seek to implement social changes in the different regions.

Open Ukraine is partnered with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United States Department of State and Chatham House, among other organizations.

Ways to Overcome the Economic Crisis in Ukraine were Discussed at the 5th Davos Ukrainian Lunch | 09.02.2009 |

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation and the international investment advisory group EastOne conducted the 5th Davos Ukrainian Lunch. This event organized since 2005 during the World Economic Forum gathers representatives from the world's business and political circles to discuss Ukraine's current issues and prospects of the country's development.

The overarching topic of the conference was finding the ways out from the present economic and political crisis in Ukraine. The participants of the discussion included Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine on European and International Integration Hryhory Nemyrya; Member of Parliament of Ukraine, Ex-speaker of Parliament of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk; financier, investor and philanthropist George Soros; famous columnist of The New York Times newspaper, author of The World is Flat Thomas Friedman and the former European Commissioner for External Relations, Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Co-chairman of the International Crisis Group Chris Pattern will moderate the discussion.

"Ukraine is in a critical situation today -, stated in his opening speech the conference organizer, public figure and businessman Victor Pinchuk. - Following their assessment, all economists agree that Ukraine suffered the most. We are going through the economic and political crisis. There might be serious social consequences."

At the same time, even in the given situation, as Victor Pinchuk highlighted, Ukraine still has some advantages and reasons to be optimistic as to its future prospects. "Ukraine has already been through the difficult times, it's not happening for the first time. The country had similar experience before. The priority questions for today are - when and how to go out of the crisis."

....
Discussing energy safety issues of Ukraine and Europe, Arseniy Yatsenyuk stated that should be involved in building a European system of power safety as an equal partner. Ukraine has to diversify its sources of power supply, by increasing electricity production including nuclear-power engineering, and rise exports of oil in view of today's prices on the world oil market.

Commenting on the outcome of the recent gas conflict in January 2009, George Soros pointed out the necessity of establishing a single policy on energy security of Europe. "If Ruhrgas or Gas de France was holding gas negotiations defending interests of the whole Europe and not only their native countries - we wouldn't have problems", he highlighted. The key element of the power security system, Soros explained, would have to be a supranational regulatory body with wide powers.
Furthermore, Ukraine would have to become a part of an all-European energy policy, George Soros mentioned. He called to stop accusing Ukraine in the "gas crisis". "This problem is not Ukraine's problem. Ukraine itself is dependent on the suppliers and cannot be the cause of the crisis", he stated.

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❗️ We regard this as #collusion between the Western governments and media aimed at fanning tensions over Ukraine by means of a massive and coordinated #fakenews campaign designed to serve their geopolitical interests.

👉 [_link] pic.twitter.com/IutLpQaQLB

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) February 12, 2022

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Essential conversation with my friend @JustinTrudeau on diplomatic efforts of our allies on de-escalation. Welcome 🇨🇦 's decision to strengthen 🇺🇦 with substantial financial package. Another powerful signal of  🇺🇦 & 🇨🇦 standing together!

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 12, 2022

All rightwing East and West Unite! #WeRAllTrump #USA

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Discussed with @CharlesMichel sanctions & counteraction to security challenges. Touched upon recent international talks & intensification of the peace process within #N4. Committed to the diplomatic settlement of the conflict. Grateful to the 🇪🇺 for macro-financial support to 🇺🇦.

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 13, 2022

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Ex-NATO commander: Air 'policing' no longer enough

Speaking at the Atlantic Council think tank, retired General Philip Breedlove, the former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe,  praised this decision. He encouraged the alliance to look at other "options that would tell [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that he's going to get the opposite of what he asked for."

One of those options, Breedlove said, is something he would have already liked to see when he was NATO's top military commander from 2013 to 2016, during which time Russia invaded Ukraine. Noting that the US and other nations are now sending additional fighter jets for the air policing missions that cover the Baltic states and much of NATO's other territory, Breedlove argued that the time had come to upgrade that function and give it some teeth.

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The Florida national guard trainers are STILL in Ukraine- they are still there providing support and training. No decision has been made to bring them back.

— Kellie Meyer (@KellieMeyerNews) February 2, 2022

TOA today @JMTG_Ukraine between @cascaderifles and the 53rd IBCT from @FLGuard! Very proud of both of these formations. The mission continues in #Ukraine. Building readiness for our allies and partners every day throughout Europe! @7thATC @USArmyEURAF @USEmbassyKyiv pic.twitter.com/85VjYubzqc

— Joe Hilbert (@joe_hilbertjr) November 30, 2021

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Back to normal - cooperation in agriculture.

President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro highlighted the priority areas of cooperation with Russia planned to be discussed during the forthcoming visit to Moscow next week:[_link] pic.twitter.com/KD5Kvam4So

— TASS (@tassagency_en) February 13, 2022

Brazil's president names priority areas of cooperation with Russia

Bolsonaro's visit to Moscow is planned for February 15-17. Talks of the Brazilian leader with Russian President Vladimir Putin are planned for February 16, O Globo newspaper reported earlier. According to the newspaper, Bolsonaro also plans to meet speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin and take part in the event with attending representatives of business communities of the two countries.

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The Finnish Defense Forces released an intelligence review for 2021, including this infographic with the military forces in the Baltic and Nordic regions. They estimate that Russia has 900k active servicemen and a ~20 brigade strength in Western Russia. [_link] pic.twitter.com/EmN6TBw1bb

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) May 6, 2021

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Say hello to Le Petit Roi Pinochet.

Paris currently presides the EU Council.

Ergo, that's official implementation of NATOstan policy. pic.twitter.com/fEftsd5ieC

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) February 13, 2022

La liberté en marche

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Good morning! (Saint Petersburg, Russia) pic.twitter.com/z0Bs5FMVI4

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) February 13, 2022

St Petersburg in winter: 'Like stepping into a Russian novel'

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This NYT article has so many hilarious lines that I may have to update the article I published earlier today on US media subservience to Biden admin's Russia war-mongering: [_link] [_link]

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) February 12, 2022

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