by Oui
Mon Apr 25th, 2022 at 08:34:50 AM EST
KYIV, Ukraine: Antony Blinken and Pentagon General Austin announce a new phase in war of non-negotiations as goal.
Spokesperson to Zelensky ...
America offers a win over Russia as the Ukrainians deserve to be free.
Blinken: Russia is failing in war aims, Ukraine 'succeeding' | AP News |
American Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday after a secrecy-shrouded visit to Kyiv that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is committed to winning his country's fight against Russia and that the United States will help him achieve that goal.
"He has the mindset that they want to win, and we have the mindset that we want to help them win," Austin told reporters in Poland, the day after the three-hour face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy in Ukraine.
Austin said that the nature of the fight in Ukraine had changed now that Russia has pulled away from the wooded northern regions to focus on the eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas. Because the nature of the fight has evolved, so have Ukraine's military needs, and Zelenskyy is now focused on more tanks, artillery and other munitions.
Support to the very bitter end ...
Will a media, metal and aviation tycoon be the big winner of the Ukrainian election?
The comedian and the oligarch | Politico – Apr 17, 2019 |
“While Donbas burns, our city is as quiet as a graveyard. And that’s thanks to our Governor Kolomoisky” — Dnipro restaurateur
Zelensky is crippled as his main
benefactor is put under US Treasury sanctions early March ... a free sovereign state under full control of the empire. Earlier Poroshenko was ordered by Biden to be released as he was being prosecuted for treason, the same charge as
Medvedchuk, opposition leader in
Verkhovna Rada.
To Support Zelensky, the United States Needs to Negotiate With Putin | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – Mar 10, 2022 |
“It’s not that I want to talk to Putin,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week about Russia’s president. “I need to talk to Putin. The world needs to talk to Putin. There is no other way to stop this war.”
The United States should heed this plea. Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion has been both heroic and effective, but its situation is precarious. For all their flaws, Russia’s armed forces may yet prevail in a prolonged conflict, and there is still a real danger that much of Ukraine will become a Russian vassal state under a puppet government. Moreover, even if Ukraine can hold off Russian forces indefinitely, the prospect of forcibly evicting them from its territory—particularly in the south—is daunting. All the while, Russia is slaughtering Ukraine’s citizens ever more indiscriminately.
Ukraine suspends 11 political parties with links to Russia | The Guardian - March 11, 2022 |
Offering long range missiles to bring the conflict to the enemy.
Russia: Explosions at Oil Depots in Bryansk
Bryansk, Russia: 2 Russian military base/depot attacked - massive fire/explosion reported
The awful truth is dawning: Putin may win in Ukraine. The result would be catastrophe | The Guardian Opinion |
The contrast was startling. In New York, António Guterres, the UN secretary general, launched a belated, desperately needed initiative to halt the war in Ukraine. "At this time of great peril and consequence, he [Guterres] would like to discuss urgent steps to bring about peace," his spokesman said. The UN chief, he revealed, was proposing immediate, in-person talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv.
At roughly the same time as this hopeful development unfolded, the UK's Boris Johnson, riding a "Partygate" getaway plane to India, was colourfully rubbishing peace efforts. Putin, he claimed, was an untrustworthy reptile. "I really don't see how the Ukrainians can easily sit down and come to some kind of accommodation. How can you negotiate with a crocodile when it's got your leg in its jaws?" Johnson asked.
This gaping disconnect is doubly disturbing. It suggests lack of coordination between the UN chief and a permanent member of the UN security council on how best to proceed. It also highlights a wider problem: diverging, sometimes opposing, occasionally self-serving, approaches to the crisis by western leaders who have hitherto trumpeted their unity of purpose.
The outrage in western countries sparked by Putin's 24 February invasion is starting to fade. Likewise the burst of optimism that followed Ukraine's success in repelling the Russian advance around Kyiv. Now, as Moscow begins a huge, slow-motion offensive in the east, concern grows that this conflict has no end-point and that the enormous economic and human damage that results may be permanent - and global.
The new western sponsors of Zelensky will refuse to negotiate a compromise as a long, extended war will deteriorate Russian assets and global influence. Where Napoleon failed and Nazi Germany destroyed Stalingrad, but was defeated, the US, Britain and NATO are determined to teach Russia a lesson.
EU Borrell on oil embargo
EU Urges Solidarity Fossil Fuel Embargo
OPEC Will Not Be Part of US Sanctions
EU turns into NATO economic arm, Russian diplomat bashes Borrell's statement | TASS |
During his visit to Kiev, Josep Borrell said for the first time in the history of the European Union that the conflict "will be won on the battlefield," but not through diplomatic efforts.
EU leaders never made any statements about the priority of the military victory over the political solution during the wars in Yugoslavia, or in Libya, or in Afghanistan, where most of the EU nations were involved as NATO members. Nor were any such statements voiced during the US-led invasion of Iraq, which the leading EU countries condemned as based on disinformation and lies about Baghdad's possession of weapons of mass destruction.
EU's Top Diplomat ... Worst Choice Possible
Quite fortunately one leader of the EU-27 stays in power ... a tough road ahead as the bordering states in the East have Biden's ear.
