I can't imagine he would be so stupid as to seize Kiev and most of Ukraine
It would achieve everything he most wants to avoid.
But an intervention in Donbass or Lugansk is possible.
Or the mercenaries of the Wagner Group could do something deniable.
Or this stand-off could continue for years.
It serves some purposes for Putin.
Der Spiegel reported yesterday that US political scientist Joshua Shifrinson found a note in the British archives, revealed under the 30 year rule, supports the Russian claim that the West violated promises made in 1990 to limit NATO's eastward expansion. "We have made it clear that we will not expand NATO beyond the Elbe," wrote German diplomat Jürgen Chrobog of a March 1991 meeting of the United States, Britain, France and Germany. This document confirms Russia's view of eastward enlargement. A promise was made to the Russians which wasn't kept. Another promise not kept is that made by Russia to guarantee Ukraine when she foolishly gave up her thousands of atom bombs in 1992.
Whatever happens the European Union and the Nato alliance have been shown to be very disunited.
Whatever happens the European Union and the Nato alliance have been shown to be very disunited.
An EU army after this?
Remarks by the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss that China could engage in military aggression in the Pacific, encouraged by Russia’s contingent moves against Ukraine, are nothing short of demented.
ReplyDeleteNot simply irrational, demented.
The underlying story is the government’s desperate promotion of Britain as a strategic partner of Australia in a policy of containment of China.
The reality is Britain does not add up to a row of beans when it comes to East Asia. Britain took its main battle fleet out of East Asia in 1904 and finally packed it in with its ‘East of Suez’ policy in the 1970s. And it has never been back.
Britain suffers delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation.
Paul Keating, the prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996.
https://johnmenadue.com/herald-indulges-uk-foreign-secretarys-demented-remarks-on-china/