The two quintessential lies

22. Juni 2024

So the argument goes as follows:

- Russia was going into Ukraine to conquer it entirely and then more

Additional information: 190.000 to 220.000 troops arent enough to conquer OR hold any major city in the Ukraine - much less the entirety of Ukraine. See Mearsheimer/Kathie Halper video below. In which the first references the following paragraph from a Wall Street Journal article, published on the 2nd of June 2024:

“Of course, Putin still wants Kharkiv,” Oleh Synehubov, the head of the military administration for the region—which is also called Kharkiv—said of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Synehubov noted that Russia has deployed only a fraction of the troops needed to storm the city, which he estimated could require up to half a million soldiers.

src: click (Archiv)

(Kharkiv, back before the russian invasion had about half the population of Kiev.)

So then the argument extends:

- This isnt about “territory” (“conquering all of it and more”) this is about keeping Ukraine a sovereign state - see Paula Dobriansky, Former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs; Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Vice Chair, Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy & Security -- in the following Open to Debate (former Intelligence Squared) debate:

starting at 30:28 in

- The in depth argument here goes as follows. When Putin invaded Ukraine - we saw leaflets being dropped in regions east of Kiev that were telling Ukrainian troops to stand down, because the government in Kiew (military) would not exist anymore - so any resistance to the invasion “would be entirely futile, because it already “was over””, furthermore, the intent of the russian “attack on Kiev” would have been the same as with the takeover of Crimea 2014, namely to disrupt public life, make the standing ukrainian government flee, or be killed (allegedly the US did take out several russian assassination units in Kiev within the first three days) - and then let the government be taken over, or revolted against by essentially Ukrainian Kremlin puppets.

Which leads to

- Russia wasnt about to “conquer Ukraine” it was about to attempt a military coup and takeover - using a shock and awe strategy, much like the one they used in Crimea before. That either would have cemented a russia friendly leadership in Kiev, or wider advances in the east amongst the resulting chaos. (220.000 troops (and only half of those in the Kiev area) still being not nearly enough to occupy a Kiev (population of 3 million) that was resisting its occupiers.)

Which then conflicts with “thats imperial russia wanting to conquer several countries, so Putin gets his russian empire back -- because there positively was no conquering attempt (in the classical sense) going on -- because russia had far to few troops for that in its army at the time, and in the field -- see:

- The “additional countries russia wanted to take over” were Georgia and Moldowa (land bridge to transnistria). Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania, were loosing their sh*t because of Kaliningrad, but they all were Nato countries you wouldnt invade with an army of 190.000 people, which had about half of its troops busy in the east of Ukraine at that point.

That then let to the “things werent going remotely to plan” scenario --

where two tracks of peace conferences were put into place - where russia could be “pressed back down” to the following demands:

- Neutral Ukraine
- Crimea thats not talked about for many years
- security guaranties by the west/troop size limits that would allow Ukraine to defend itself in the future

Where the point of contention where all of that broke were the security guaranties. Or as western Propaganda likes to put it “Putin demanded such a low troop count on the ukrainian military, that on a subsequent attack he would have been able to conquer it anyhow” - so “because of that Ukraine had to ghost russia, and then drop the negotiations”. In actuallity by then Ukraine was in the middle of their own offensive so.…..

As Davyd Arakhamiia put it “the Ukraine was using the negotiations as a Smokescreen to buy time to get more Weapons into Ukraine” or, as Davyd Arakhamiia did frame it in the same interview - Russia tried to negotiate a peace, where upon a second attack Ukraine would not exist anymore.

Those two points he brought up in the interview with the ukrainian broadcaster were never refuted by Davyd Arakhamiia. He only tried to put “Let’s fight” - so his recalling of a Boris Johnson statement into a slightly different context afterwards (Johnson would have said this to him in a meeting about “how to best get the russians out of Ukraine”).

So, so far - we have two quintesential lies on part of western propaganda --

1. That Putin was out there to conquer back his very own great russia. (Which is a lie, because the attack was designed as a Shock and awe quick toppling of the Ukrainian government - so was the takeover in Georgia (influence operation) leaving only Moldova for a military takeover - IF Putin dindt want to challenge Nato with an army of 190.000 people which then also would have had to hold Ukraine against its will - a job that would require roughly 400.000+ men, if you were an occupying force.

2. The Ukraine needs its “national sovereignty” to survive. So this is the Ukraine cant become a neutral country argument - because the Ukraine has to be able to decide the strength of its military on its own - to be able to survive a second russian attack in the Future. That is a lie, because this could also be solved with security guaranties -- which the Ukraine has very bad experiences with. (The Ukraine essentially gave up its nuclear weapons, as a prerequisite for becoming an independent state, and got “security guaranties” by the US, the UK and a few other countries, in return - that were designed not be worth all that much, because of how they were phrased.) A neutral Ukraine would be possible - if we solved the security guaranties issue.

With the second remaining issue in that case being russian political influence that in a neutral Ukraine would still remain active.

Around those two lies, all of the western framing is build around. The “ukraine has to decide on its own” framing, the “nato has an open door policy, and every country must be able to decide on its own, if it wants to enter nato” framing, the Putin wants to get back a greater russia framing, because he thinks like a tsar (thats also framing), the Putin is crazy framing (the Ukrainians are Nazis Narrative was active in Crimea, shortly before the takeover, because it shocked populations into complacency - that was the main aim of the russia Propaganda push through its media outlets in Crimea -- so as it was active back in 2014 - of course that narrative was used for the fullscale attack on Ukraine as well -- again, as about half of russias initial forces were active in the east. (So populations would have asked why - and the “Nazis” narrative was already in place since 2014 (and proved very useful back then).))

While internally in the deciding bodies the argument is actually as follows:

At 35min in:

Alina Polyakova (President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA): I think that signals to me that there is growing agreement that the only way that we can manage Russia is by going back to the Cold War era strategy of containment, that begins first, defeating Russia in Ukraine and second, reestablishing deterance by denial in Europe that means hardening the Eastern flank first and foremost. Third hardening the soft targets of Russian influence across the globe - uh influence operations in the information space, cyber operations that the Russians have become very sophisticated at, pushing back against Russia’s use of PMC’s [private military contractors] to prop up authoritarian governments across the globe and undermine democratic leadership - and fourth, undermining Russian dominance in its former empire, because as long as we have so-called grey zone States a horrible term but, non-allied states that are not part of NATO that are not part of the EU in the European continent this is what provides fodder for Russian aggression so Moldova is very much under threat as we speak, certainly Bellarus has already become a vassel state of Russia and then we have of course Georgia and the other countries of the Caucasus as well.

[…]

And Russia will come back for NATO.

Hanno Pevkur, Minister of Defence of the Republic of Estonia (30.05.2023):

“What Russia wants to achieve, the political goals, let’s be honest - and they, these political goals of Russia have never changed, they want to have a grey-zone between Russia and NATO, they want to have a control over this grey-zone and this is what they want to achieve. And they want to have some “security guarantees” for themselves, sorry this is not the Free World and this is what Ukraine is fighting for at the moment, that they are fighting for - the Free World and rule-based world and this is why we support Ukraine so this is obvious and then this is why we can never accept this approach of Russia, looking at international law.”

src:

(at 43:50 in)

or:

Paula Dobriansky, Former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs; Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Vice Chair, Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy & Security

But by the way that’s not - forgive me - that’s not the point. The point here is also not about seizing of territory too, I’d like to say that here it’s about a sovereign country’s political future, its own right to make its choices. Putin has outright said that Ukraine doesn’t exist as a country - he has said that over and over and over so it’s not just about territory, it is also about sovereign country political choices and an invasion that actually started back in 2014 and right up to the present.

here at 32min in.

So that Ukraine has to remain a sovereign country (to decide on its own military strenght, to never be politically influenced by russia ever again (only by creditors.. 😉 ) then also extents to whats happening right now -

here are the changes from the draft of the Bürgenstock conference that Switzerland provided to all invited states on the 28th of May compared to the final draft --

https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/06/13/7187968/

Here is what Sitzerland had put in there initially and what the Ukraine has lobbied to replace it with:

2. Territorial Integrity and the UN Charter

– Old wording: the previous summit decision version created a legal window to include Ukraine abandoning part of its territory in the conditions of “sustainable peace with Russia”, if necessary.

– New wording: the new draft decision clearly states that the basis for sustainable peace will be only “a solution based on the principle of respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states”.

src: click

also

3. Alternative Peace Formulas

– Old wording: the previous draft blurred the meaning of the Peace Formula and opened up space for international discussion of all alternative visions of peace, such as the Chinese-Brazilian one, which envisages a halt to the strengthening of Ukraine’s Armed Forces and a cessation of hostilities.

– New wording: the new wording states that only peace proposals that comply with international law (i.e. an unconditional return of the 1991 borders, unless revised by Ukraine itself) and the UN Charter (in particular, Ukraine’s unconditional right to continue repelling Russian aggression and liberating the occupied territories) will be taken into account.

src: click

Those are now points that are active in the final communique that 78 countries signed at Bürgenstock - and according to Sergiy Sydorenko (Ukrainian Journalist, sponsored by USAID), same source article, also the main reason, that 15 countries refused to sign, and more than two dozen of countries downgraded their participation from Presidential/Ministerial level to ministers or even their deputies.

With he final gag being the following:

Viktoria Kirner vor 14 Stunden

Ukraine: Ein Land des globalen Südens könnte zweiten Friedensgipfel ausrichten
Die Ukraine ist der Ansicht, dass ein zweites Gipfeltreffen, bei dem Kiews Vorschläge für einen Frieden mit Russland erörtert werden sollen, von einem Land des globalen Südens ausgerichtet werden könnte, wie ein hochrangiger Beamter der Nachrichtenagentur Interfax-Ukraine am Freitag sagte. Das berichtet die Nachrichtenagentur Reuters.

Mehr als 90 Länder nahmen letzte Woche am ersten Gipfel in der Schweiz teil, da die Ukraine eine breite Unterstützung für ihren Plan zur Beendigung des Krieges sucht.

Moskau, das nicht eingeladen war, bezeichnete das Ergebnis des Gipfels - ein Kommuniqué, das von den meisten Teilnehmern unterzeichnet, aber insbesondere von Indien, Brasilien und Saudi-Arabien abgelehnt wurde - als “nahezu null”.

“Wir haben mehrere Länder [die sich als Gastgeber anbieten], und ich kann mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit sagen, dass ein solcher Gipfel in einem der Länder des globalen Südens stattfinden könnte”, wurde der Präsidentenberater Ihor Zhovkva von Interfax-Ukraine zitiert.

Die Ukraine wolle, dass der nächste Gipfel vor Ende des Jahres einberufen werde, sagte er und fügte hinzu, dass Russland eingeladen werden könne, wenn es bereit sei, den von der Ukraine vorgelegten Fahrplan zu berücksichtigen und keine Ultimaten zu stellen.

src: click

There are now ongoing “Peace conferences” - twice a year - with changing host states. Where the Ukraine will always invite their “guardian states”, based on the Bürgenstock Communiquee (and Selenskyjs 10 point peace formula), where the Ukraine - currently states, at this very minute, it will only ever invite Russia, if russia agrees to the “Peace formula framework” established at Bürgenstock -- which in itself already includes that it has to be based on “the principle of respect for the territorial integrity” and “sovereignty of all states”.

With the first one being the stand in for “the Ukraine needs Crimea and the Donbas back, before we can invite Russia to our peace formula conference”, and the second part “sovereignty of all states” being the stand in for:

3. Alternative Peace Formulas

– Old wording: the previous draft blurred the meaning of the Peace Formula and opened up space for international discussion of all alternative visions of peace, such as the Chinese-Brazilian one, which envisages a halt to the strengthening of Ukraine’s Armed Forces and a cessation of hostilities.

– New wording: the new wording states that only peace proposals that comply with international law (i.e. an unconditional return of the 1991 borders, unless revised by Ukraine itself) and the UN Charter (in particular, Ukraine’s unconditional right to continue repelling Russian aggression and liberating the occupied territories) will be taken into account.

“We need to be allowed to decide how large our army is, and what its aim/goal is in the future.”

And only if russia agrees to that framework, it can be invited to the next “peace conference”.

Die Ukraine wolle, dass der nächste Gipfel vor Ende des Jahres einberufen werde, sagte er und fügte hinzu, dass Russland eingeladen werden könne, wenn es bereit sei, den von der Ukraine vorgelegten Fahrplan zu berücksichtigen und keine Ultimaten zu stellen.

To ensure this, the Ukraine insisted on removing the following passage from the original draft of the final communiquee Switzerland sent out to all attending states on the 28th of May - entirely:

4. Involvement of Russia
– Old wording: the earlier version turned Russia from an aggressor into a participant in peace talks, requiring only vague “confidence-building measures” on nuclear and food security.

– New wording: this section has been rewritten from scratch. The Swiss agreed not to mention Russia at all in the provision on peace talks, instead referring to “all parties”. There is no longer a weakened requirement for “confidence-building measures”, but instead “specific actions” are required. And most importantly, the references to a “second peace summit” that hinted at a commitment to invite Russia to participate have been removed.

src: click

So why create those “peace summits” at all?

(If only 78 countries out of 193 UN countries signed and the talked about points at those conferences still remain points from Selenskyjs 10 Point peace formula, which now only become more controversial (internatinal tribunals requested, reperation payments requested, crimea and donbas back already part of the “global peace summit framework” (territorial integrity), we decide how big our military is already part of the “global peace summit” framework, the last russian soldier has to leave Ukraine -- all having to be agreed on by Russia -- BEFORE Russia can be invited.…)

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The two quintessential lies

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The two quintessential lies

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