This is a thread which addresses the low intensity conflict currently occurring in Eastern Europe, and how it can/does affect the rest of the world.

 

Hmmm, let me see, Hilter invaded the Ukraine when it was part of Russia, it's been independent since the end of the war as far as I know.

 

And according to google the US sent 650 million in aide last year,

 

Higher energy costs across the Globe, most specifically the U.S.

 

Split it in half.

 

OK...Canada too.

 

google says it went independent in 1991, my mistake

 

Canada is a member of NATO. Canada has more Ukrainians than any other country in the world.
They are not without power at the ballot box. No question where our loyalties are.

 

For some reason I was thinking of croatia, it was part of another country for 900 years, until hilter invaded, it then stayed independent after the war.

 

The following was written by Scott Ritter. Some of you may remember him from his days as a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He later became a critic of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. Prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter stated that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities, becoming according to The New York Times "the loudest and most credible skeptic of the Bush administration’s contention that Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction."

It seems the man was pretty much on point.... I did not support him then, but I certainly am listening now, if not yet believing. I am having difficulty understanding why Biden is so concerned about the sovereignty of Ukraine's border, but could care less about America's southern border. I know that lunatics on the Left like @username1 will immediately begin cawing about Russian propaganda, but honestly, I don't care.

Agree or disagree with Ritter, this is still a fascinating article. Forget about the source site, and with a critical eye, just look at what he's saying.... No one can predict the future, but does what he's saying make sense?

I have a son in the Army. A Major in one of the Combat Arms, he is also a Russian speaker. I do not want him fighting the Russians in Ukraine for Biden. After all the games our elites have played over the last 2 years, I do not trust them or our government as far as I can throw them. I certainly have not yet been convinced that what we are being told by Biden's government is true....all we hear is "intelligence sources from the UK", and "anonymous intelligence sources in our government." We see drone photos of what we are told are Russian vehicles lined up and see videos of Russian troops in winter gear. These are appeals to our emotions, to our patriotism, but we get no context.

I predict that as we are more and more pushed towards open conflict, this will turn out just like COVID. One side will be asking, give me unassailable proof: why do this now, where is the data? The other side will be using propaganda and military-style psyops and the corporate media to make their opponents seem like morons and "bad" Americans, just because they challenge the government's narrative.

A War With Russia Would Be Unlike Anything the US and NATO Have Ever Experienced
By Scott Ritter
RT News

February 5, 2022

In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance.

“Their [NATO’s] main task is to contain the development of Russia,” Putin said. “Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve this goal. They could draw us into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked about in the United States today,” he noted. “Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw us into an armed conflict.”

Putin continued, “Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are state-of-the-art missile systems just like in Poland and Romania. Who will stop it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a combat operation. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems not.”

But these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox “screaming from the top of the hen house that he’s scared of the chickens,” adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine “should not be reported as a statement of fact.”

Psaki’s comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The principal goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the “de-occupation” of Crimea. While this goal has, in the past, been couched in terms of diplomacy – “[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula,” Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining control over Crimea – the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified as a “military adversary”, and the accomplishment of which can only be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine’s membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO’s Article 5 – which relates to collective defense – when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a state of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine being rapidly brought under the ‘umbrella’ of NATO protection, with ‘battlegroups’ like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil as a ‘trip-wire’ force, and modern air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict against what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing unconventional warfare capability it has acquired since 2015 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to “kill Russians.”

The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than likely use its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Article 5. In short, NATO would be at war with Russia.

This is not idle speculation. When explaining his recent decision to deploy some 3,000 US troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, US President Joe Biden declared, “As long as he’s [Putin] acting aggressively, we are going to make sure we reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we’re there and Article 5 is a sacred obligation.”

Biden’s comments echo those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 last year. At that time, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America’s commitment to Article 5 of the NATO charter. “Article 5 we take as a sacred obligation,” Biden said. “I want NATO to know America is there.”

Biden’s view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work told reporters, “As President Obama has said, Ukraine should … be able to choose its own future. And we reject any talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made it clear that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance there are no old members and there are no new members. There are no junior partners and there are no senior partners. There are just allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single ally.”

Just what would this defense entail? As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can attest that a war with Russia would be unlike anything the US military has experienced – ever. The US military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined arms conflict. If the US was to be drawn into a conventional ground war with Russia, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In short, it would be a rout.

Don’t take my word for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking about the results of a study – the Russia New Generation Warfare – he had initiated in 2015 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect. “Should US forces find themselves in a land war with Russia,” McMaster said, “they would be in for a rude, cold awakening.”

In short, they would get their asses kicked.

America’s 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria produced a military that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a study conducted by the US Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO’s Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The study found that US military forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military aggression from Russia. The lack of viable air defense and electronic warfare capability, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would result in the piecemeal destruction of the US Army in rapid order should they face off against a Russian military that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The issue isn’t just qualitative, but also quantitative – even if the US military could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it can’t), it simply lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign. The low-intensity conflict that the US military waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built around the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will be made to evacuate the wounded so that they can receive life-saving medical attention in as short a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the US was in control of the environment in which fights were conducted. It is, however, pure fiction in large-scale combined arms warfare. There won’t be medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue – even if they launched, they would be shot down. There won’t be field ambulances – even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in short order. There won’t be field hospitals – even if they were established, they would be captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is death and destruction, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster’s study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade by Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of any similar US combat formation. The superiority Russia enjoys in artillery fires is overwhelming, both in terms of the numbers of artillery systems fielded and the lethality of the munitions employed.

While the US Air Force may be able to mount a fight in the airspace above any battlefield, there will be nothing like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American military in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian ground troops will be operating under an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the US nor NATO has ever faced. There will be no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the ground will be on their own.

This feeling of isolation will be furthered by the reality that, because of Russia’s overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability, the US forces on the ground will be deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons cease to function.

Any war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of 30-40 percent and continue the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat. Back then, we were able to effectively match the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability – in short, we could give as good, or better, than we got.

That wouldn’t be the case in any European war against Russia. The US will lose most of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a thing of the past. Our tactics are no longer up to par – when there is close combat, it will be extraordinarily violent, and the US will, more times than not, come out on the losing side.

But even if the US manages to win the odd tactical engagement against peer-level infantry, it simply has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia will bring to bear. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US ground troops were effective against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will simply be overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians will confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-style attack carried out by specially trained US Army troops – the ‘OPFOR’ – at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-style Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off against a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the morning. By 5:30am it was over, with the US Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. There’s something about 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would look like. It would not be limited to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. It would involve Russian strikes against NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

This is what will happen if the US and NATO seek to attach the “sacred obligation” of Article 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION KING: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/02...ything-the-us-and-nato-have-ever-experienced/

 

Not 1 army has kicked russia in the butt, first warning, second warning, it's winter, you will lose if you start a war now.

 

Russian speaking Ukrainians reject the corrupt, ultra right wing politicians supported by the west.
Draw a line down the middle of it and call it a day.

 

yeah put up a wall, iron curtain number 2,

 

For some strange reason this all sounds very familiar. All 89 pages of it.

Coverage of Ukraine by the Leftist Moonbat Mainstream Media
https://forum.xnxx.com/threads/coverage-of-ukraine-by-the-leftist-moonbat-mainstream-media.322220/

 

If NATO had bent the admission requirements a bit and allowed Ukraine entry we wouldn’t be talking about this.

 

One of the strategies that has been at play is maybe Ukraine, the US, and the West cannot stop Putin from invading Ukraine. But they can make him pay and when the body bags start coming back to Russia it could coast Putin the support he has now.

And now there is real evidence of that. Ukraine civilians are going into military training that includes everything from weapons training to evacuating wounded, and emergency first aid. Private gun 0ownership is also surging. But probably more important are who these volunteers are. They include both men and women and their ages span from teenagers to elderly.

And they are not kidding. They are more than willing to die for Ukraine and make Putin pay.

That is the kind of thing that might actually make Putin change his mind. Because the only reason Putin has support on Ukraine now is because its not costing Russia anything. But when the body bags start coming home that could change. And Putin cannot afford anymore trouble on the home front.

 

US "intelligence analysts" are taking the war propaganda into over drive...
They're now speaking of 50,000 dead....

U.S. Warns of Grim Toll if Putin Pursues Full Invasion of Ukraine
Biden administration officials told lawmakers that a large-scale Russian invasion could kill as many as 50,000 civilians and prompt a refugee crisis in Europe.


An arrangement of ballistic missiles in Belarus late last month. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could strike Ukrainian targets before sending any troops over the border.Credit...Maxar Technologies, via Associated Press

By Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger
Published Feb. 5, 2022Updated Feb. 6, 2022, 6:31 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Senior Biden administration officials told lawmakers this past week that they believed the Russian military had assembled 70 percent of the forces it would need to mount a full invasion of Ukraine, painting the most ominous picture yet of the options that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, has created for himself in recent weeks.
During six hours of closed meetings with House and Senate lawmakers on Thursday, the officials warned that if Mr. Putin chose the most aggressive of his options, he could quickly surround or capture Kyiv, the capital, and remove the country’s democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky. They also warned that the invasion could prompt an enormous refugee crisis on the European continent, sending millions fleeing.
The officials stressed that U.S. intelligence analysts still did not assess that Mr. Putin had made a final decision to invade. But satellite imagery, communications among Russian forces and images of Russian equipment on the move show that he has assembled everything he would need to undertake what the officials said would constitute the largest military operation on land in Europe since 1945.
They also warned of enormous possible human costs if Mr. Putin went ahead with a full invasion, including the potential deaths of 25,000 to 50,000 civilians, 5,000 to 25,000 members of the Ukrainian military and 3,000 to 10,000 members of the Russian military. The invasion, they said, could also result in one million to five million refugees, with many of them pouring into Poland.
Should Mr. Putin decide to invade, American officials believe he is not likely to move until the second half of February. By that point, more ground will have frozen, making it easier to move heavy vehicles and equipment, and the Winter Olympics in Beijing will have ended or be winding down, which could help Mr. Putin avoid antagonizing President Xi Jinping of China, a critical ally for the Russian president.
The grim briefings were the latest salvo in weeks of grave messaging from the Biden administration about Mr. Putin’s plans. On the same day as the briefings, the administration also publicly warned that Russia may try to stage a false-flag operation suggesting that Russian-speaking populations are being attacked, which could create a pretext for an overt military operation. The drumbeat of warnings is part of a concerted campaign by the administration to expose Mr. Putin’s maneuvers in an attempt to build international pressure on him and make clear to him the risks to Russia of escalating the situation further.
Late Saturday, after the briefings became public, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, denounced the assessment.
“Madness and scaremongering continues,” Mr. Polyanskiy wrote on Twitter. “What if we would say that US could seize London in a week and cause 300K civilian deaths? All this based on our intelligence sources that we won’t disclose. Would it feel right for Americans and Britts? It’s as wrong for Russians and Ukrainians.”
Whether Mr. Putin decides to go through with a maximalist approach or a more scaled-down version is the question with which American, European and Ukrainian officials are all grappling.
For example, European officials, examining the same evidence, suggest that Mr. Putin could start smaller and test the reaction — with cyberattacks to paralyze Ukraine’s electric grid and communications, an invasion limited to the Russian-speaking territory in eastern Ukraine or an effort to cut the country in half, roughly along the Dnieper River. American officials have acknowledged the possibility, especially if Mr. Putin wants to see if a smaller military action would create more divisions within Europe over whether to impose the most crushing economic sanctions.
Western intelligence officials also say that they have picked up chatter suggesting Russian military leaders are confident they could take Ukraine in a blitzkrieg attack, but worry that they may not be able to hold on to the country, especially if the invasion sets off a significant insurgency. That has prompted speculation inside the NATO alliance that Mr. Putin might invade, seek to change the Ukrainian government and then partly withdraw his forces.

Image

A delivery of equipment and defensive munitions from the United States arrived last month in Ukraine. Should Mr. Putin decide to invade, U.S. officials believe he is not likely to move until the second half of February.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
The briefings to Congress on Thursday were led by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III; Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The American officials described to lawmakers five options that Mr. Putin could take, depending on the scope of his ambitions and his calculations about whether he would rather try to take the whole country quickly, no matter the human and economic cost to Russia, or attack it in pieces, in hopes of dividing Europe and NATO allies.
The options include a coup that would depose Mr. Zelensky; a limited incursion into eastern Ukraine similar to what Mr. Putin did when he annexed Crimea in 2014; an incursion into the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine accompanied by a Russian declaration of Donbas as an independent republic; or a Donbas incursion followed by an invasion and annexation of all of the eastern part of the country.
The worst-case assessment is that Mr. Putin is preparing to take the entire country — the scenario that would most likely produce the greatest casualties and, presumably, prompt the harshest sanctions from the United States and Europe.
Mr. Putin, General Milley told lawmakers, is putting in the “military capability to do any and all, building himself a set of options.”
The unclassified parts of the briefings to lawmakers were described to The New York Times by officials in the room, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Diplomats and intelligence officials from three other countries involved in seeking to deter a Russian invasion confirmed the broad outlines of the status of Russian forces, though they disagreed about the importance of certain elements.
After hearing from administration officials, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, told reporters that a Russian invasion was a “near certainty.” He added that “if we now live in an era where someone can move into a country and just take it over and claim it as their own, I don’t think it’s going to stop at Ukraine,” echoing the fear that Mr. Putin may be trying to redraw the map of the continent to return to the days of the Soviet Union.
Increased planning in Russia’s military apparatus began last fall, Biden administration officials told lawmakers. The expansiveness of the effort alarmed intelligence analysts, who assessed that Mr. Putin had concluded that he would need some 150,000 troops from 110 battalion tactical groups to conquer Ukraine, which the Russian president views as a part of Russia.
The officials said that, as of this past week, Mr. Putin had amassed about 70 percent of the forces he would need to pull off a large-scale invasion to take the entire country, with more than 110,000 troops at the border with Ukraine from 83 battalion tactical groups. Some 14 additional groups were in transit to the border, the officials said.

Image

A Ukrainian soldier in eastern Ukraine on Saturday. The worst-case assessment by U.S. officials is that Mr. Putin is preparing to take the entire country.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
They said Russian troops had been positioned in a manner that suggested a pincer movement, in which Russia would invade the country from three sides. Thirty thousand troops, according to American and NATO estimates, are now in Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north.
Ballistic missiles in Belarus, and to the east inside Russian territory, have captured British and Ukrainian attention in recent days. The Iskander-M missiles are mounted on mobile launchers, meaning they can be rolled closer to the border in short order, and they have a range of about 300 miles. That suggests that Mr. Putin, if he chose, could begin attacking cities and military emplacements before he moved any troops over the border.
Mr. Austin and General Milley described to lawmakers a bristling array of additional Russian military assets that have encircled Ukraine. They include 11 amphibious assault ships, in the Black Sea and in the Mediterranean, with the capacity to carry five battalions of Russian Marines who could land in Ukraine from the south, the officials said. In addition, Mr. Putin has deployed a number of submarines to the Black Sea, the defense officials told lawmakers.

Understand the Escalating Tensions Over Ukraine
A brewing conflict. Antagonism between Ukraine and Russia has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, annexing Crimea and whipping up a rebellion in the east. A tenuous cease-fire was reached in 2015, but peace has been elusive.
A spike in hostilities. Russia has recently been building up forces near its border with Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s messaging toward its neighbor has hardened. Concern grew in late October, when Ukraine used an armed drone to attack a howitzer operated by Russian-backed separatists.
Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.
The Kremlin’s position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscow’s military buildup was a response to Ukraine’s deepening partnership with the alliance.
Rising tension. Western countries have tried to maintain a dialogue with Moscow. But administration officials recently warned that the U.S. could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Russia invade.
Mr. Putin has also deployed Special Operations forces — some 1,500 troops — near and even inside the Ukrainian border, the officials told lawmakers. Those troops, they said, work closely with the Russian military intelligence agency, the G.R.U., which has in the past directed cyber- and other attacks on foes.
European officials tend to be more skeptical that Mr. Putin would try to take the country in a large-scale invasion. Some believe that he would seek to take the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where a grinding proxy war has been underway since 2014.
Another theory is that Mr. Putin could expand that operation in an effort to annex all of eastern Ukraine, up to the Dnieper River. Along the way, he could try to decimate Ukrainian troops in that part of the country, roughly half of the Ukrainian military. That could incite panic in the western part of Ukraine — where resistance to Russia might be highest — and prompt people to flee the country. Over time, that could lead top government officials to flee or to try to rule from exile.
American and European officials have made clear that a physical attack over the borders of Ukraine would lead to enormous sanctions on Russia’s banks, trade restrictions on semiconductors and other high-tech items and the freezing of the accounts of Russian oligarchs and leaders. But there is far less unanimity, as President Biden himself has acknowledged, about how to respond to a “minor incursion.” Or even what a minor incursion might be.
European and American officials worry that Mr. Putin might try to stage a coup in Kyiv. Another possibility is a cyberattack devised by Russia that tries to bring down parts or all of Ukraine’s electric and communications infrastructure, similar to the 2015 and 2016 attacks on parts of the country’s electric grid.
European officials say it is unclear how the Western allies would respond to such an attack. If they believed that the cyberoperations were a face-saving way for Mr. Putin to act and then retreat, they note, there might be a temptation to de-escalate and not seek to impose major sanctions, especially if there were few human casualties. On the other hand, a cyberattack could be a prelude to a full invasion, essentially cutting off Ukraine’s ability to communicate or track where Russian forces were coming from.

From the New York Times, 2/5/22
Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/us/politics/russia-ukraine-invasion.html

 

This the kind of propaganda-driven effort on Ukraine and Russia that we have come to expect from our government, especially after what it has done to us with the COVID narrative.

Finally though, one reporter -- ONE reporter -- had the courage to publicly challenge this American-born "Baghdad Bob."

State Department Spokesman Ned Price Absent After He Got Shredded By AP Reporter
Carmine Sabia February 5, 2022

A member of President Joe Biden’s administration did not show up for work after he appeared to be stunned during a press briefing when a mainstream media news reporter actually did his job. State Department spokesman Ned Price was absent from Friday’s press briefing after giving his briefing on Thursday and stating that there was evidence that Russia was planning a false flag attack by NATO, complete with crisis actors. The reporter, Matt Lee of the Associated Press, demanded to see evidence of such a plot and not simply the word of Price, and that is where things got heated.

“One possible option the Russians are considering, and which we made public today, involves the production of a propaganda video – a video with graphic scenes of false explosions – depicting corpses, crisis actors pretending to be mourners, and images of destroyed locations or military equipment – entirely fabricated by Russian intelligence,” the spokesman said.

“To be clear, the production of this propaganda video is one of a number of options that the Russian Government is developing as a fake pretext to initiate and potentially justify military aggression against Ukraine. We don’t know if Russia will necessarily use this or another option in the coming days. We are publicizing it now, however, in order to lay bare the extent of Russia’s destabilizing actions towards Ukraine and to dissuade Russia from continuing this dangerous campaign and ultimately launching a military attack,” he said.

If you think this sounds like something you would be more likely to hear from Alex Jones you are not alone. The AP reporter did too.

LEE: Thanks. Okay, well, that’s quite a mouthful there. So you said “actions such as these suggest otherwise” – suggest meaning that they suggest they’re not interested in talks and they’re going to go ahead with some kind of a – what action are you talking about?

PRICE: One, the actions I have just pointed to, the fact –

LEE: What action? What —

PRICE: The fact that Russia continues to engage in disinformation campaigns.

LEE: Well no, you’ve made an allegation that they might do that. Have they actually done it?

PRICE: What we know, Matt, is what we – what I have just said, that they have engaged in this activity, in this planning activity —

LEE: Well, engage in what – hold on a second. What activity?

PRICE: But let me – let me – because obviously this is not – this is not the first time we’ve made these reports public. You’ll remember that just a few weeks ago –

LEE: I’m sorry, made what report public?

PRICE: If you let me finish, I will tell you what report we made public.

LEE: Okay.

PRICE: We told you a few weeks ago that we have information indicating Russia also has already pre-positioned a group of operatives to conduct a false flag operation in eastern Ukraine. So that, Matt, to your Lee, is an action that Russia has already taken.

LEE: No, it’s an action that you say that they have taken, but you have shown no evidence to confirm that. And I’m going to get to the next Lee here, which is: What is the evidence that they – I mean, this is – like, crisis actors? Really? This is like Alex Jones territory you’re getting into now. What evidence do you have to support the idea that there is some propaganda film in the making?

PRICE: Matt, this is derived from information known to the U.S. Government, intelligence information that we have declassified. I think you know —

LEE: Okay, well, where is it? Where is this information?

PRICE: It is intelligence information that we have declassified.

LEE: Well, where is it? Where is the declassified information?

PRICE: I just delivered it.

LEE: No, you made a series of allegations and statements —

PRICE: Would you like us to print out the topper? Because you will see a transcript of this briefing that you can print out for yourself.

LEE: But that’s not evidence, Ned. That’s you saying it. That’s not evidence. I’m sorry.

PRICE: What would you like, Matt?

LEE: I would like to see some proof that you – that you can show that —

PRICE: Matt, you have been —

LEE: — that shows that the Russians are doing this.

PRICE: You —

LEE: Ned, I’ve been doing this for a long time, as you know.

PRICE: I know. That was my point. You have been doing this for quite a while.

LEE: I have.

PRICE: You know that when we declassify intelligence, we do so in a means —

LEE: That’s right. And I remember WMDs in Iraq, and I —

PRICE: — we do so with an eye to protecting sources and methods.

LEE: And I remember that Kabul was not going to fall. I remember a lot of things. So where is the declassified information other than you coming out here and saying it?

PRICE: Matt, I’m sorry you don’t like the format, but we have —

LEE: It’s not the format. It’s the content.

PRICE: I’m sorry you don’t like the content. I’m sorry you —

LEE: It’s not that I don’t like it or —

PRICE: I’m sorry you are doubting the information that is in the possession of the U.S. Government.

LEE: No, I —

PRICE: What I’m telling you is that this is information that’s available to us. We are making it available to you in order – for a couple reasons. One is to attempt to deter the Russians from going ahead with this activity. Two, in the event we’re not able to do that, in the event the Russians do go ahead with this, to make it clear as day, to lay bare the fact that this has always been an attempt on the part of the Russian Federation to fabricate a pretext.

LEE: Yes, but you don’t have any evidence to back it up other than what you’re saying. It’s like you’re saying, “We think – we have information the Russians may do this,” but you won’t tell us what the information is. And then when you’re asked —

PRICE: Well, that is the idea behind deterrence, Matt. That is the idea behind deterrence.

LEE: When you’re asked – and when you’re asked —

PRICE: It is our hope that the Russians don’t go forward with this.

LEE: And when you’re asked what the information is, you say, “I just gave it to you.” But that’s not what —

PRICE: You seem not to understand —

LEE: That’s not the way it works.

PRICE: You seem not to understand the idea of deterrence.

LEE: No, no, no, Ned. You don’t – you seem not to understand the idea of —

PRICE: We are trying to deter the Russians from moving forward with this type of activity. That is why we are making it public today. If the Russians don’t go forward with this, that is not ipso facto an indication that they never had plans to do so.

LEE: But then it’s unprovable. I mean, my God, what is the evidence that you have that suggests that the Russians are even planning this?

PRICE: Matt, you —

LEE: I mean, I’m not saying that they’re not. But you just come out and say this and expect us just to believe it without you showing a shred of evidence that it’s actually true – other than when I ask or when anyone else asks what’s the information, you said, well, I just gave it to you, which was just you making a statement.

PRICE: Matt, you said yourself you’ve been in this business for quite a long time. You know that when we make information – intelligence information public we do so in a way that protects sensitive sources and methods. You also know that we do so – we declassify information – only when we’re confident in that information.

LEE: But Ned, you haven’t given any information.

PRICE: If you doubt – if you doubt the credibility of the U.S. Government, of the British Government, of other governments, and want to find solace in information that the Russians are putting out —

LEE: Solace?

PRICE: — that is for you to do.

LEE: I don’t want – I’m not asking what the Russian Government is putting out. And what do you – what is that supposed to mean?

https://conservativebrief.com/price-59288/

 

Shooter doesn't think the US will go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
No benefit, you see.
Now, the US might impose some sanctions on Russia, and sanctions can be very effective, but Russia won't cave just because of santions.
The rest of Europe might gang up on Russia, and that could get interesting.
If, say, Great Britian declares war on Russia we could get sucked into a war we don't want.
But, in the end, Shooter thinks Putin is smart enough to back off before that happened.
He may think he can beat the US and the rest of the world.
But he can't.

 

There are long standing sanctions Shooter thinks. Nothing new.