#нарушение россией будапештского меморандума

[tomorrowusa]

« If Putin succeeds in this aim the consequences for Europe will be horrendous. At the moment, the Russian forces facing the Baltic States are negligible. The units studied by Nato before 2022 are decimated, their equipment wrecked and crews slaughtered in Ukraine. The minute the war there ends, Putin will start to reconstitute and reinforce them. Unless Nato immediately restores credible deterrence, the three Baltic states would soon become uninhabitable. Moreover, the subjugation of Ukraine will lead to a fresh wave of millions of refugees westward, aggravating the already very fragile domestic politics of many polities here. The money we refused to spend on Ukraine will then have to be raised twice over to deal with the aggravated threat. »

— Brendan Simms, Director, Centre for Geopolitics & Professor in the History of European International Relations, University of Cambridge. Writing at The New Statesman.

Prof. Simms makes a case for the recently elected Labour government in the UK making protection of Ukraine one of its priorities. Fortunately, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already voiced his support for Ukraine and visited President Zelenskyy in Kyiv after Russia's illegal invasion.

Appeasers and tankies are too addled to understand how kowtowing to Putin and his totalitarian Kremlin lickspittles would lead to disasters which would play out for decades. Pacifism and appeasement did not prevent World War II but only fueled its onset. Bullies never respect those who cave to them.

Respect for international boundaries is a foundation stone of peace and stability. Putin's invasion of Ukraine shows that peace and stability don't interest him. Putin's nostalgia for the decrepit Soviet Union and his ambition to be known as the Peter the Great of the 21st century are all that matter to him.

[tomorrowusa]

It's a no-brainer that tankies and MAGA zombies just don't get.

Russia invaded Ukraine in violation of international treaties and agreements including the United Nations Charter, the 1975 Helsinki Accords, and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

The invasion is not a matter for compromise or negotiations. If somebody is hitting you with a baseball bat, you don't negotiate with the assailant.

Kowtowing to Putin only encourages him. His land grab in neighboring Georgia during a five-day war in 2008 resulted in almost no international punitive action. So he got into the habit of increasingly trying to undermine Russia's neighbors.

Somebody who scoffs at international law like Putin will not honor a new agreement regarding Ukraine.

So Russia, if you're listening, here's what you need to do – in plain Russian...

And for the record, here are President Zelenskyy's comments in the original Ukrainian. 🇺🇦

[tomorrowusa]

It's was 800 days ago that Putin began his 3-day "special operation" in Ukraine. In addition to the war crimes and attempted genocide in Ukraine, Russia has managed to inflict quite a bit of harm upon itself.

We may not know for sure until after the war how many Russians died or were seriously wounded in Putin's sociopathic illegal war of aggression, but France has an estimate which surpasses those of other NATO sources.

French Foreign Minister Stéphane Sèjourné stated that France estimates Russia has suffered 500,000 military casualties – both killed and wounded – since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. [ ... ] On the possibility of NATO troop deployments, the minister echoed French President Macron’s stance, stating Europe must overtly warn Russia that when continental peace and European security are threatened, no option is off the table. However, Sèjourné stressed France’s relations with Russia remain “based on mutual respect between our peoples,” even as he condemned the “reckless” Russian authorities disregarding international laws and human lives.

Putin is ramping up aggressive acts against the West.

Russia blamed for GPS interference affecting flights in Europe

German foreign minister says Russia will face consequences for monthslong cyber espionage

To Putin, who still mourns the collapse of the totalitarian Soviet Union, the Cold War never ended.

Putin's invasion shows that he will violate treaties and international agreements to achieve his revanchist goals. There's no reason to expect him to honor any new agreements regarding Ukraine.

[tomorrowusa]

Two years ago on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Ukrainians that he and other high ranking officials would remain in Kyiv and defend the country against Putin's illegal invasion.

The video above, made less than 48 hours after the start of the invasion, was intentionally filmed outside recognizable buildings in Kyiv. At the time, Russian assassination squads were out looking for Zelenskyy. Invading Russian troops committing war crimes got within 22 km of the government district.

This video was one of the most audacious uses of the internet to date. If top government officials were willing to stand and fight, Ukrainians felt more confident they could do the same. 730 days after the start of Putin's planned three-day "special operation", Ukraine still stands.

Here's the Ukrainian text of that vid:

Zelenskyy: «Всім добрий вечір. Лідер фракції тут, голова Офісу президента тут, прем’єр-міністр Шмигаль тут, Подоляк тут, президент тут. Всі ми тут. Наші військові тут. Громадяни, суспільство тут. Всі ми тут. Захищаємо нашу незалежність, нашу державу. І так буде й далі. Слава нашим захисникам! Слава нашим захисницям! Слава Україні» Others: «Героям слава!»

[tomorrowusa]

Elon Musk understands Eastern Europe about as much as he understands how to run a social media company.

Elon's clueless actions may have prolonged the war in Ukraine.

Elon Musk ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off near the Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships, according to a new biography. CNN quoted an excerpt from the biography Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, which described how armed submarine drones were approaching their targets when they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly”. The biography, due out on Tuesday, alleges Musk ordered Starlink engineers to turn off service in the area of the attack because of his concern that Vladimir Putin would respond with nuclear weapons to a Ukrainian attack on Russian-occupied Crimea. He is reported to have said that Ukraine was “going too far” in threatening to inflict a “strategic defeat” on the Kremlin. Musk’s threats to withdraw Starlink communications at various stages of the conflict have been previously reported, but this is the first time it has been alleged he cut off Ukrainian forces in the middle of a specific operation.

The 2020s are not even half over but Musk is already a top contender for Putz of the Decade.

At the time of the submarine drone attack, according to the extract reported by CNN, Mykhailo Fedorov, one of Ukraine’s deputy prime ministers, pleaded with Musk to restore Starlink communications. “I just want you – the person who is changing the world through technology – to know this,” Fedorov reportedly told Musk. According to Isaacson’s account, Musk refused, saying Ukraine was “now going too far and inviting strategic defeat”. Musk has in the past echoed Russian talking points on Twitter, suggesting that some parts of eastern Ukraine be handed to Russia to reflect “the will of the people”.

Musk is more worried about future business deals with Russia than he is about Putin committing genocide in Ukraine.

The only way to end the war is for Russia to be defeated. The shit-for-brains tankies, Putin marionettes, and foreign policy illiterates push "negotiations" the way Neville Chamberlain pushed negotiations with Hitler over Czechoslovakia in 1938. Hitler kept his part of the Munich agreement for less than six months; and then Hitler invaded Poland less than a year after Munich.

"Peace in our time" should not be dependent on the whims of Putin who has already openly violated international agreements, signed by Russia, regarding Ukraine's security. Bothsiderism is a safe space for idiots.

Playing footsie with imperialistic dictators by caving to them only makes them more voracious.

Dilettante meddlers like Musk, who grew up as a privileged and insulated white boy in apartheid South Africa, should keep their lame asses out of Eastern European affairs. People in the West are usually underinformed about Eastern European history and culture and Elon Musk is worse than most.

[tomorrowusa]

«Suppose Russia – a nuclear power – is not punished for unleashing the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945. In that case, we will witness disastrous consequences for global security and the political-economic order for decades to come. The lessons China will learn from this conflict will encourage it to pursue its own revanchist ambitions. Global nuclear proliferation is likely to occur as the foundations of international law will be severely damaged for a long time.»

— Dr. Maria Domańska, senior fellow at the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), writing at the journal New Eastern Europe.

That paragraph in an extended essay on Russia's stability indirectly reminds us of a consequence of Russia getting its way in Ukraine.

In 1994 under terms of the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security commitments by Russia, the US, and the UK.

Obviously Putin violated the Budapest Memorandum in addition to other treaties and agreements regarding Ukraine's security. That raises the question: Would Russia have invaded if Ukraine still had those nuclear weapons? Almost certainly not.

Other countries with the potential to go nuclear may be thinking that the only sure way to preserve their independence is to develop nuclear weapons. However, if the Russian invaders are driven out of Ukraine then these countries would take notice of how a nuclear power was pushed back by using only non-nuclear weapons.

So a Ukrainian victory is crucial to prevent future proliferation of nuclear weapons.