All Things Russia & Ukraine

[old salt]

They can't handle bad news Joe. They personalize everything that does not support their narrative or preferred outcome.

They don't care how many people die or have their lives ruined, just so long as they can see their preferred outcome.

Well, you could say the same thing about your support of staying in Iraq or Afghanistan, could you not?

You cheered both on, if you'll recall, and like those you are criticizing here....you didn't want to hear about other paths. The other paths were wrong, and yours was right.

Not at all. Our residual force was minimal. It's presence prevented the kind of carnage we are seeing in Ukraine now.

Look at the death & destruction ISIS brought to Iraq & Syria the first time we pulled out of Iraq.
Look at what the Taliban are doing to Afghanistan (again)

We prevented all that with fewer troops than we've sent to Poland in the past 3 weeks.

Right. Which is why you can also say....and I'm quoting you here, so you don't get to complain......You don't care how many people die or have their lives ruined, just so long as you can see your preferred outcome.

Get it? This door swings both ways, OS. Your path in Iraq and Afghanistan leads to death, too. Lots of it.

Yes it did. I was never for going ashore in Iraq & I wanted out of Afghanistan before we surged & stayed to nation build.
After 9-11, did you oppose going after OBL & toppling the Taliban ?

After all that we invested in blood & treasure, & what we meant to the continued stability for the people there, I felt we owed it to them to leave a small residual force to maintain that stability while helping them rebuild their shattered countries & societies.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Apparently, Ukraine is now reaching into Russia to destroy supply capabilities.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/0 ... dn-vpx.cnn

Embedded CNN video clip trying to explain away the 15% rise in Putin's domestic approval rating to 85%.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/0 ... -conflict/

Still openly rooting for Putin.

How embarrassing for this forum.

DocBarrister

He's not openly rooting for Putin, you should be banned from this site for even INSINUATING that. The fact that you could even suggest that notion is sickening and very scary. Cartoon Character.

Joe

What’s sickening and very scary are folks who are openly rooting for Putin … like Donald Trump and more than a few conservatives.

DocBarrister

DocB,

You are entitled to your opinion regarding Trump, etc. But you have ZERO right to insinuate that a fellow poster that has given absolutely no indication whatsoever that he is "Rooting for Putin", that he indeed is doing so. For once, maybe stop being so concerned with being so hyperbolic and showing faux "wokeness" and be more concerned with the facts themselves.

Joe

Joe,

Do you believe Ukraine shouldn’t fight back and should let Putin take whatever he wants because the USA backed him into a corner?

Nope, but when has Youth ever explicitly uttered those exact words? That was my point? DocB is making a huge ASSUMPTION, as he is always so quick to do, to show that "he cares". It's foolish stuff. I'm nervously excited for tomorrow night's game!

Joe

What would you say about a person that suggest that it’s our fault and that Ukraine should lay down because we separated Ukraine from Russia?

Keep up the delusional happy talk. Maybe it will come true. Fools.

Rah Rah.

You believe it’s the United States of America’s fault and Putin is justified. What’s delusional about that? Enjoy the USNA games this weekend Old S. You get a free ticket?

It's our fault for pushing the Ukrainians into a war, expecting us to defend them. Enjoy your war of revenge against Putin.
Keep hope alive. We may get dragged into it yet.

God Bless America! Keep Hope Alive! “My war”? Have fun this weekend.

[a fan]

They can't handle bad news Joe. They personalize everything that does not support their narrative or preferred outcome.

They don't care how many people die or have their lives ruined, just so long as they can see their preferred outcome.

Well, you could say the same thing about your support of staying in Iraq or Afghanistan, could you not?

You cheered both on, if you'll recall, and like those you are criticizing here....you didn't want to hear about other paths. The other paths were wrong, and yours was right.

Not at all. Our residual force was minimal. It's presence prevented the kind of carnage we are seeing in Ukraine now.

Look at the death & destruction ISIS brought to Iraq & Syria the first time we pulled out of Iraq.
Look at what the Taliban are doing to Afghanistan (again)

We prevented all that with fewer troops than we've sent to Poland in the past 3 weeks.

Right. Which is why you can also say....and I'm quoting you here, so you don't get to complain......You don't care how many people die or have their lives ruined, just so long as you can see your preferred outcome.

Get it? This door swings both ways, OS. Your path in Iraq and Afghanistan leads to death, too. Lots of it.

Yes it did. I was never for going ashore in Iraq & I wanted out of Afghanistan before we surged & stayed to nation build.
After 9-11, did you oppose going after OBL & toppling the Taliban ?

After all that we invested in blood & treasure, & what we meant to the continued stability for the people there, I felt we owed it to them to leave a small residual force to maintain that stability while helping them rebuild their shattered countries & societies.

Yes. A perfectly valid, reasonable position!

The point is: your posters have valid positions, too. You don't get to yell at them and say "they don't care how many people die"....that's not fair.

Both your position and theirs lead to death and destruction.

[old salt]

They can't handle bad news Joe. They personalize everything that does not support their narrative or preferred outcome.

They don't care how many people die or have their lives ruined, just so long as they can see their preferred outcome.

Well, you could say the same thing about your support of staying in Iraq or Afghanistan, could you not?

You cheered both on, if you'll recall, and like those you are criticizing here....you didn't want to hear about other paths. The other paths were wrong, and yours was right.

Not at all. Our residual force was minimal. It's presence prevented the kind of carnage we are seeing in Ukraine now.

Look at the death & destruction ISIS brought to Iraq & Syria the first time we pulled out of Iraq.
Look at what the Taliban are doing to Afghanistan (again)

We prevented all that with fewer troops than we've sent to Poland in the past 3 weeks.

Right. Which is why you can also say....and I'm quoting you here, so you don't get to complain......You don't care how many people die or have their lives ruined, just so long as you can see your preferred outcome.

Get it? This door swings both ways, OS. Your path in Iraq and Afghanistan leads to death, too. Lots of it.

Yes it did. I was never for going ashore in Iraq & I wanted out of Afghanistan before we surged & stayed to nation build.
After 9-11, did you oppose going after OBL & toppling the Taliban ?

After all that we invested in blood & treasure, & what we meant to the continued stability for the people there, I felt we owed it to them to leave a small residual force to maintain that stability while helping them rebuild their shattered countries & societies.

Yes. A perfectly valid, reasonable position!

The point is: your posters have valid positions, too. You don't get to yell at them and say "they don't care how many people die"....that's not fair.

Both your position and theirs lead to death and destruction.

When attacked personally often enough, I eventually respond in kind, as do you.

[a fan]

When attacked personally often enough, I eventually respond in kind, as do you.

Ah, I get it. That's fair. I didn't see all the posts, I guess...

[MDlaxfan76]

Apparently, Ukraine is now reaching into Russia to destroy supply capabilities.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/0 ... dn-vpx.cnn

Embedded CNN video clip trying to explain away the 15% rise in Putin's domestic approval rating to 85%.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/0 ... -conflict/

Still openly rooting for Putin.

How embarrassing for this forum.

DocBarrister

He's not openly rooting for Putin, you should be banned from this site for even INSINUATING that. The fact that you could even suggest that notion is sickening and very scary. Cartoon Character.

Joe

mmm, actually it's a fair critique, albeit a stinging one and a bit of hyperbole perhaps.
and the critique goes back almost a decade.

You do realize that there are indeed Americans "rooting" for Putin to succeed, war to end with Ukraine divided or entirely part of Russia, Biden look bad, Europeans' "punished"...etc, etc...

Personally, I think Salty's more complicated that that, but he does tread that line quite a lot. Let's just say that he's flown a lot of air cover for those who are definitely in that camp, small though it may be today.

There are differences in views on all this.

...fair because it supports your McCarthyite tendency of attributing sinister motives to anyone with the temerity to disagree with you.

My view on this goes back 3 decades, to the dissolution of the USSR, which I have explained repeatedly.
My enemy was the Soviet Union, not the Russian people. We never stopped meddling in their affairs, seeking our advantage.

A divided Ukraine is preferable to a destroyed Ukraine, with it's population dead or displaced.
The Korean War didn't turn out badly for the S Koreans. Our motives in fomenting & promoting this war are not pure.

I'll take you seriously on this despite the "fomenting & promoting" crap.

Reasonable, though trite, to say that your enemy was the Soviet Union not the Russian people. Same needs to be said for the situation of China today. And of course, the "Soviet Union" was run by a specific group of people, making specific decisions.

But here's the thing, the same is true of Russia today...the enemy needn't be the Russian people... to oppose Putin and his henchmen. He's every bit as brutal and deceitful as his Soviet predecessors (though comparing to Stalin is, at this point, too much). He and his henchmen are the enemy...shouldn't be hard to say so, clearly. Anyone giving or taking orders to invade Ukraine, shelling civilians, hospitals, schools...should dealt with as the war criminals they are.

No excuses for Putin, no more "we made him do it" crap.

Yes, a divided Ukraine is better than a demolished, all dead, Ukraine. True.

But a Ukraine that defeats Russia is a heck of a lot better outcome than one in which Ukraine surrenders because we pressured them to do so. Also shouldn't be hard to say that.

and yet it is for you.

[old salt]

But a Ukraine that defeats Russia is a heck of a lot better outcome than one in which Ukraine surrenders because we pressured them to do so. Also shouldn't be hard to say that.

and yet it is for you.

It is my analytical opinion that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia militarily or force them to withdraw from all occupied territory.

They may eventually get Russian forces to withdraw somewhat, but imo it is not worth the continued death & destruction.

A divided, partially free Ukraine is preferable to a destroyed Ukraine entirely under the control of Russia, imo.

If the Ukrainians can get the Russians to withdraw, while still occupying Crimea, Donbas & the land bridge between them, I see that as the best outcome which can be reasonably hoped for, absent direct kinetic US military intervention, with or without NATO support.

[MDlaxfan76]

But a Ukraine that defeats Russia is a heck of a lot better outcome than one in which Ukraine surrenders because we pressured them to do so. Also shouldn't be hard to say that.

and yet it is for you.

It is my analytical opinion that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia militarily or force them to withdraw from all occupied territory.

They may eventually get Russian forces to withdraw somewhat, but imo it is not worth the continued death & destruction.

A divided, partially free Ukraine is preferable to a destroyed Ukraine entirely under the control of Russia, imo.

If the Ukrainians can get the Russians to withdraw, while still occupying Crimea, Donbas & the land bridge between them, I see that as the best outcome which can be reasonably hoped for, absent direct kinetic US military intervention, with or without NATO support.

Did your "analytical opinion" expect Ukraine to do this well?

Or were you predicting a swift collapse of the Zelensky government? A swift success by Russia?

Seriously, I take a lot of your expertise on weapons systems etc as far superior to mine, but I'm not so confident in your assessment of people. Both the Ukrainians and the Russians...and for that matter, the neighbors and the US.

So, I think we need to stop assuming defeat and instead look at what it will take to win, which by definition means repelling Russia from Ukraine.

My far less informed assessment of the weapons is that Ukraine needs more weapons, more firepower, especially that which can destroy the Russian forward capabilities, whether on land or air, and then to be able to strike at their supply lines and their stand off missile capabilities. And my assessment is that'll take time, much more time.

But that's what the Ukrainians want, and as long as they believe that fighting is the right path, I think we should support them to win, not show, place or lose.

[Typical Lax Dad]

“It's our fault for pushing the Ukrainians into a war, expecting us to defend them.”

Why would they expect us to defend them?

[old salt]

So now the WSJ & Michael Gordon are Putin apologists.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/vladimir-p ... 1648826461

Vladimir Putin’s 20-Year March to War in Ukraine—and How the West Mishandled It

Washington and the EU vacillated between engagement and deterrence, as the Russian leader became more isolated and more obsessed
By Michael R. Gordon, , Bojan Pancevski, Noemie Bisse, and Marcus Walker, Apr. 1, 2022 11:21 am ET

{Text edited out to save thread space. Still avail in the following post.}

[Typical Lax Dad]

So now the WSJ & Michael Gordon are Putin apologists.
{lengthy post due to WSJ paywall}
https://www.wsj.com/articles/vladimir-p ... 1648826461

Vladimir Putin’s 20-Year March to War in Ukraine—and How the West Mishandled It

Washington and the EU vacillated between engagement and deterrence, as the Russian leader became more isolated and more obsessed
By Michael R. Gordon, , Bojan Pancevski, Noemie Bisse, and Marcus Walker, Apr. 1, 2022 11:21 am ET

In early November, months before the war began, CIA Director William Burns visited Moscow to deliver a warning: The U.S. believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was preparing to invade Ukraine. If he went ahead, he would face crippling sanctions from a united West.

The American spy chief was connected on a secure Kremlin phone with Mr. Putin, who was in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, isolated from all but a few confidants. The Russian leader made no effort to deny Mr. Burns’ charge. Instead, he calmly recited a list of grievances about how the U.S. had for years ignored Russian security concerns.

As for Ukraine, Mr. Putin told Mr. Burns, it wasn’t a real country.

After returning to Washington, the CIA chief advised President Biden that Mr. Putin hadn’t yet made an irrevocable decision, but was strongly disposed to invade. With European nations heavily dependent on Russian energy, the Russian military modernized, Germany going through a change of governments and the U.S. increasingly focused on a rising China, Mr. Putin gave every sign of seeing this winter as his best opportunity to bring Ukraine back under Moscow’s control.

Over the next three months, Washington struggled to persuade its European allies to mount a unified front. The U.S. itself was trying to balance two aims: talking Mr. Putin down while avoiding actions that he might treat as a provocation; and arming Ukraine to make an invasion as costly as possible.

In the end, the West managed neither to deter Mr. Putin from invading Ukraine nor reassure him that Ukraine’s increasing westward orientation didn’t threaten the Kremlin.

By now, this had become a well-established pattern. For nearly two decades, the U.S. and the European Union vacillated over how to deal with the Russian leader as he resorted to increasingly aggressive steps to reassert Moscow’s dominion over Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

A look back at the history of the Russian-Western tensions, based on interviews with more than 30 past and present policy makers in the U.S., EU, Ukraine and Russia, shows how Western security policies angered Moscow without deterring it. It also shows how Mr. Putin consistently viewed Ukraine as existential for his project of restoring Russian greatness. The biggest question thrown up by this history is why the West failed to see the danger earlier.

Washington, under both Democratic and Republican presidents, and its allies at first hoped to integrate Mr. Putin into the post-Cold War order. When Mr. Putin balked, the U.S. and its European partners had little appetite for returning to the strategy of containment the West imposed against the Soviet Union. Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, led the EU’s big bet on peace through commerce, developing a dependence on Russian oil and gas that Berlin is now under international pressure to reverse.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization made a statement in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would one day join, and over nearly 14 years never followed through on membership. The EU drew up a trade deal with Ukraine without factoring in Russia’s strong-arm response. Western policies didn’t change decisively in reaction to limited Russian invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, encouraging Mr. Putin to believe that a full-blown campaign to conquer Ukraine wouldn’t meet with determined resistance—either internationally or in Ukraine, a country whose independence he said repeatedly was a regrettable accident of history.
***
No neighbor was as important to Russia’s sense of its own destiny as Ukraine. The czars’ takeover of the territories of today’s Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries was crucial to Russia’s emergence as a major European empire. Collapsing Russian empires lost Ukraine to independence movements amid defeat in World War I and again in 1991, when Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence.

After the chaotic 1990s, the security-service veterans around Mr. Putin who took over Russia’s government complained bitterly about what they saw as the West’s encroachment on Moscow’s traditional sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe. An array of newly democratic countries that had been Moscow’s satellites or former Soviet republics joined NATO and the EU, seeing membership of both institutions as the best guarantee of their sovereignty against a revival of Russian imperial ambitions.

Since the end of the Cold War, a string of countries have joined NATO or sought to do so.
In 2008, NATO said Ukraine and Georgia would be members one day. NATO gave Bosnia a Membership Action Plan in 2010.
Viewed from elsewhere in Europe, NATO’s eastward enlargement didn’t threaten Russia’s security. NATO membership is at core a promise to collectively defend a member that comes under attack. The alliance agreed in 1997 not to permanently station substantial combat forces in its new eastern members that were capable of threatening Russian territory. Russia retained a massive nuclear arsenal and the biggest conventional forces in Europe.

Mr. Putin thought of Russian security interests more broadly, linking the preservation of Moscow’s influence in adjacent countries with his goals of reviving Russia’s global power and cementing his authoritarian rule at home.

The link became clear in Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election. Mr. Putin let the U.S. know in advance who should win.

When White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice visited Mr. Putin at his dacha outside Moscow in May that year, the Russian leader introduced her to Ukrainian presidential contender Viktor Yanukovych. Ms. Rice concluded that Mr. Putin had arranged the surprise encounter to signal his close interest in the election’s outcome, she recalled in a recent interview.

Mr. Yanukovych’s initial election victory was marred by allegations of fraud and voter intimidation, triggering weeks of street protests and strikes that were dubbed the Orange Revolution. Ukraine’s supreme court ordered a new vote, which pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko won.

The Kremlin saw the Orange Revolution as U.S.-sponsored destabilization aimed at pulling Ukraine out of Moscow’s orbit—and as a prelude to a similar campaign in Russia itself.

Mr. Yushchenko was swept into power during the Orange Revolution, seen as a threat by Mr. Putin.
To ease Moscow’s concerns, the Bush administration outlined the limited financial support it had given to Ukrainian media and nongovernmental organizations in the name of promoting democratic values. It totaled $14 million. The White House thought the modest sum was consistent with Mr. Bush’s “freedom agenda” of supporting democracy but hardly enough to change the course of history.

The gesture only confirmed Russian suspicions. “They were impressed at the result that they thought we got for $14 million,” recalled Tom Graham, the senior director for Russia on Mr. Bush’s National Security Council.

Three months after losing Ukraine’s government to a pro-Western president, Mr. Putin decried the breakup of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

U.S. intelligence learned in 2005 that Mr. Putin’s government had carried out a broad review of Russian policy in the “near abroad,” as the Kremlin termed former Soviet republics. From now on, Russia would take a more assertive approach and vigorously contest perceived U.S. influence.

Ukrainian officials heard the message too. When President Yushchenko’s chief of staff, Oleh Rybachuk, visited the Kremlin in November 2005, he discussed the Orange Revolution with Mr. Putin. Mr. Rybachuk described the street protests as an indigenous movement of Ukrainians who wanted to choose their own political course.

Mr. Putin brusquely dismissed the notion as nonsense. He said he had read all of his intelligence services’ reports and knew the movement had been orchestrated by the U.S., the EU and George Soros, Mr. Rybachuck recalled in an interview.

At a separate encounter, Mr. Bush asked Mr. Putin why he thought the end of the Soviet Union had been the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Surely the deaths of more than 20 million Soviet citizens in World War II was worse, Mr. Bush said. Mr. Putin replied that the USSR’s demise was worse because it had left 25 million Russians outside the Russian Federation, according to Ms. Rice, who was present.

Mr. Putin showed another face to Western European interlocutors, however, encouraging them to believe that he wanted Russia to be part of the wider European family. Soon after becoming president, he wowed Germany’s Parliament with a speech promising to build a strong Russian democracy and work with the West. Speaking in fluent German, perfected while he was a KGB officer in the former East Germany, he declared: “The Cold War is over.”

He charmed politicians and business leaders around Europe and opened pathways for lucrative trade. European leaders called Russia a “strategic partner.” German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi were among those who considered him a close friend.

Mr. Putin was personally active in facilitating good economic relations, recalled longtime German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger. In one meeting, the issue of bureaucratic obstacles to German purchases of Russian wood came up. Mr. Putin phoned the relevant minister and resolved the matter in minutes.

“Putin said ‘Right, problem solved—what’s next?’ ” Mr. Ischinger remembered.

Perceptions changed in January 2007, when Mr. Putin vented his growing frustrations about the West at the annual Munich Security Conference. In a long and icy speech, he denounced the U.S. for trying to rule a unipolar world by force, accused NATO of breaking promises by expanding into Europe’s east, and called the West hypocritical for lecturing Russia about democracy. A chill descended on the audience of Western diplomats and politicians at the luxury Hotel Bayerischer Hof, participants recalled.

“We didn’t take the speech as seriously as we should have,” said Mr. Ischinger. “It takes two to tango, and Mr. Putin didn’t want to tango any more.”

After more than a month of war in Ukraine, President Biden and NATO allies have promised a new round of sanctions, more weapons and humanitarian aid. But there are questions over what else they can do and how effective the Western alliance can be. Photo: Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
Mr. Putin’s demeanor with pro-Western leaders became more aggressive. In a meeting with a Balkan head of state during an energy summit in Croatia, Mr. Putin railed against NATO and called its severing of Kosovo from Serbia the greatest violation of international law in recent history. Years later, he would cite Kosovo as a precedent for seizing Crimea from Ukraine.

His rage rising, Mr. Putin rattled through grievances. He shouted expletives at his translator, who was struggling to keep up.

“The room fell silent. It was incredibly awkward: The president of the mighty Russian Federation was bullying a mere interpreter trying to do their job,” one participant said.

In Ukraine, President Yushchenko was struggling to fulfill the hopes of the Orange Revolution that the country could become a prosperous Western-style democracy. Fractious politics, endemic corruption and economic stagnation sapped his popularity.

Mr. Yushchenko sought to anchor Ukraine’s place in the West. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2008, he met with Ms. Rice, by then the U.S. Secretary of State, and implored her for a path to enter NATO. The procedure for joining the alliance was called a Membership Action Plan, or MAP.

“I need a MAP. We need to give the Ukrainian people a strategic focus on the way ahead. We really need this,” Mr. Yushchenko said, Ms. Rice recalled.

Ms. Rice, who was initially uncertain about having Ukraine in NATO, gave a noncommittal answer. When the request was debated in the National Security Council, Mr. Bush said NATO should be open to all countries that qualify and want to join.

A NATO summit was set for April 2008 in Bucharest, in the vast Palace of the Parliament built for Romania’s former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. The alliance’s summits are usually well scripted in advance. Try as it might, the White House couldn’t overcome German and French resistance to offering a MAP to Ukraine and Georgia.

Berlin and Paris pointed to unsolved territorial conflicts in Georgia, low public support for NATO in Ukraine, and the weakness of democracy and the rule of law in both.

Ms. Merkel, remembering Mr. Putin’s speech in Munich, believed he would see NATO invitations as a direct and deliberate threat to him, according to Christoph Heusgen, her chief diplomatic adviser at the time. She was also convinced Ukraine and Georgia would bring NATO no benefits as members, Mr. Heusgen said.

Ms. Merkel told Mr. Putin in advance that NATO wouldn’t invite Ukraine and Georgia to join, because the alliance was split on the issue, but the Russian leader remained nervous, Mr. Heusgen recalled.

As the NATO summit approached, Mr. Bush held a videoconference with Ms. Merkel, but it soon became clear that no consensus would be reached beforehand.

“Looks like a shootout at the OK Corral,” Mr. Bush said, according to James Jeffrey, the president’s deputy national security adviser at the time.

Ms. Merkel was flummoxed by the American reference and turned to her interpreter, who confessed that he, too, had no idea what the U.S. president meant.

Over dinner in Bucharest, Mr. Bush made his case for giving Ukraine and Georgia a MAP—to no avail. The next day, Ms. Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley tried to find a compromise with their German and French counterparts.

Ms. Rice, a Soviet and Russia expert, said Mr. Putin wanted to use Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia to rebuild Russia’s global power, and that extending the shield of NATO membership could be the last chance to stop him. German and French officials were skeptical, believing Russia’s economy was too weak and dependent on Western technology to become a serious threat again.

In the final session, Ms. Merkel debated in a corner of the room with leaders from Poland and other eastern members of NATO, who advocated strenuously on behalf of Ukraine and Georgia. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus strongly criticized Ms. Merkel’s stance, warning that a failure to stop Russia’s resurgence would eventually threaten the eastern flank of the alliance.

Mr. Bush asked Ms. Rice to go join the animated discussion. The only common language among Ms. Merkel, the east European leaders and Ms. Rice was Russian. So a compromise statement was negotiated in Russian and then drafted in English, Ms. Rice said.

“We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO,” it read. But it didn’t say when. And there was no MAP.

Many of Ukraine’s supporters were heartened. But some officials in Bucharest feared it was the worst of both worlds. NATO had just painted a target on the backs of Ukraine and Georgia without giving them any protection.

“The fact is we rejected Ukraine’s application and, yes, we left Ukraine in a gray zone,” Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister at the time, said in an interview.

Mr. Putin joined the summit the next day. He spoke behind closed doors and made clear his disdain for NATO’s move, describing Ukraine as a “made-up” country.

In public comments that day, he also questioned whether Crimea had been properly transferred from Russia to Ukraine during the Soviet era. Daniel Fried, who was the top State Department official on Europe, and Mariusz Handzlik, then the national security adviser to Poland’s president, jumped to their feet in shock. It was an early sign that Mr. Putin wouldn’t let the status quo stand.

Four months later, the Russian army invaded Georgia, exploiting a conflict between Georgia’s government and Russian-backed separatists. Russia didn’t take Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, but it showed it had no qualms about intervening in neighboring countries that wanted to join NATO.

Mr. Putin’s fears of a Ukrainian-style popular revolution infecting Russia were heightened by a wave of demonstrations in Russian cities beginning in 2011, when tens of thousands took to the streets to protest against the lack of democracy. “For fair elections” was the protesters’ slogan.

Mr. Putin believed the protests were a U.S.-sponsored effort to overthrow him, said Ivan Krastev, a Bulgarian political scientist who later attended a dinner hosted by Mr. Putin in Sochi. The Russian president told his guests that people didn’t take to the streets spontaneously but rather were incited by the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Krastev said. “He really believes it.”

The Kremlin organized large countermarches, which were billed as “anti-Orange demonstrations.”

Sporadic pro-democracy protests continued for nearly two years, despite rising repression. Mr. Putin cracked down on opposition parties, free media and nongovernmental organizations.

The concurrent Arab Spring protests, which toppled several authoritarian rulers in the Middle East, further heightened Mr. Putin’s fear, said Mr. Heusgen, the adviser to Ms. Merkel.

“He then became a fervent nationalist,” said Mr. Heusgen. “His great anxiety was that Ukraine could become economically and politically successful and that the Russians would eventually ask themselves ‘Why are our brothers doing so well, while our situation remains dire?’ ”

Ukraine hung in the balance again.
Mr. Yushchenko slumped to 5% of the vote in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential elections. Mr. Yanukovych won—fairly this time, said international observers—after campaigning for friendly relations with the West and also Russia. He found it was difficult to have both.

Mr. Yanukovych negotiated a free-trade agreement with the EU. At the same time, however, he was under pressure from Mr. Putin to join a customs union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. EU officials said Kyiv couldn’t do both, because the customs rules would clash.

The EU, following its standard playbook on trade and governance, demanded that Ukraine revamp its judiciary and improve the rule of law as a precondition for a trade deal. Russia used sticks and carrots: At various moments it blocked goods imports from Ukraine, but it also offered Kyiv cheaper gas prices and a $15 billion loan.

In November 2013, Kyiv abruptly suspended talks with the EU, citing Russian pressure. Mr. Putin called the draft EU-Ukraine deal a “major threat” to Russia’s economy.

At an EU summit in Lithuania, Mr. Yanukovych defended the suspension and asked the EU to include Moscow in a three-way negotiation about the deal. EU leaders replied that letting a third party infringe on others’ sovereignty was unacceptable.

“We expected more,” Ms. Merkel sternly told Mr. Yanukovych in a conversation caught on camera.

“We have great problems with Moscow,” Mr. Yanukovych replied. “I have been left alone for 3½ years in very unequal circumstances with Russia,” he said.

To the protestors, the EU association agreement was more than a trade deal: It expressed hopes of reorienting Ukraine towards the more democratic and prosperous part of Europe.

Clashes with riot police became frequent. In February 2014, police killed dozens of protesters in one day, sparking defections among Mr. Yanukovych’s political allies.

On Feb. 21, a group of EU foreign ministers brokered a power-sharing deal between Ukraine’s government and parliamentary opposition aimed at defusing the crisis. But the massive crowd on the Maidan booed the agreement and demanded Mr. Yanukovych’s resignation. Riot police melted away from central Kyiv as they sensed power, and political cover, slipping away.

Antigovernment protests spread across Ukraine that winter. The largest were on Kyiv’s central Independence Square, known locally as the Maidan. To the protesters, the EU association agreement was more than a trade deal: It expressed hopes of reorienting Ukraine toward the more democratic and prosperous part of Europe.

Clashes with riot police became frequent. In February 2014, police killed dozens of protesters in one day, sparking defections among Mr. Yanukovych’s political allies.

On Feb. 21, a group of EU foreign ministers brokered a power-sharing deal between Ukraine’s government and parliamentary opposition aimed at defusing the crisis. But the massive crowd on the Maidan booed the agreement and demanded Mr. Yanukovych’s resignation. Riot police melted away from central Kyiv as they sensed power, and political cover, slipping away.

The beleaguered Mr. Yanukovych sat in his office with Colonel General Sergei Beseda of Russia’s FSB, successor to the KGB, who had been dispatched by Mr. Putin to help quell the revolt. Gen. Beseda told Mr. Yanukovych that armed protesters were planning to kill him and his family, and that he should deploy the army and crush them, according to Ukrainian intelligence officers familiar with the conversation.

Instead, Mr. Yanukovych soon fled from Kyiv in a helicopter.

The Kremlin saw the turn of events as a coup by U.S. puppets and anti-Russian nationalists. In support of this view, Kremlin propagandists cited a video of two U.S. diplomats handing out cookies on Maidan to protesters and police after a night of clashes. Russian intelligence later leaked a recorded phone call in which the same two U.S. officials discussed who should be in the next Ukrainian government.

Mr. Putin held an all-night meeting with his security chiefs, in which they discussed the extraction of Mr. Yanukovych to Russia—and also the annexation of Crimea, the Russian leader later recounted. Mr. Yanukovych, who is believed to be living in exile, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Within days, Russian troops without insignia occupied the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow had affirmed as Ukrainian territory in three treaties in the 1990s. Crimea’s regional parliament, in a session held at gunpoint, voted to secede from Ukraine.

Russia also fomented and armed a separatist rebellion in the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland. When Ukrainian forces took back much of the rebel-held territory that summer, Russian regular troops intervened and dealt Ukraine’s poorly equipped army a bloody defeat.

Putin’s Wars
Vladimir Putin has used military force in his quest to rebuild Russia as a great power

Mr. Putin’s show of military force backfired politically. He had won control of Crimea and part of Donbas, but he was losing Ukraine.

The country had long been deeply divided along regional, linguistic and generational lines. If young educated people in western Ukraine dreamed of Europe, older people and workers in eastern regions were more likely to speak mother-tongue Russian and look to Russia as the country’s natural partner.

Those divisions manifested themselves during Ukraine’s bitterly fought elections and during the Orange and Maidan revolutions. But they receded after 2014. Many Russophone Ukrainians fled from repression and economic collapse in separatist-run Donbas. Even eastern Ukraine came to fear Russian influence. Mr. Putin was doing what Ukrainian politicians had struggled with: uniting a nation.

Moscow sought to regain its political leverage in Ukraine by using the so-called Minsk agreements: fragile cease-fire deals brokered by Germany and France that aimed to end the fighting in Donbas. The agreements promised local self-government for separatist-held districts of Donbas within a decentralized Ukraine.

Ukraine’s new government under President Petro Poroshenko, elected in May 2014, which signed the Minsk agreements under duress, feared Moscow wanted to cement pro-Russian statelets within Ukraine that would limit the country’s independence. Moscow in turn accused Kyiv of failing to honor the accords. A low-level war in Donbas rumbled on until this year, claiming over 13,000 lives.

Mr. Putin never tried to implement the Minsk accords, said Mr. Heusgen, the German chancellery aide, because their full implementation would have resolved the conflict and allowed Ukraine to move on.

Ms. Merkel took the lead in Western efforts to talk Mr. Putin out of his course. Mr. Putin frequently lied to her face about the activities of Russian troops in Crimea and Donbas, aides to the chancellor said.

At a conversation at the Hilton Hotel in Brisbane, Australia, during a G-20 summit in late 2014, Ms. Merkel realized that Mr. Putin had entered a state of mind that would never allow for reconciliation with the West, according to a former aide.

The conversation was about Ukraine, but Mr. Putin launched into a tirade against the decadence of democracies, whose decay of values, he said, was exemplified by the spread of “gay culture.”

The Russian warned Ms. Merkel earnestly that gay culture was corrupting Germany’s youth. Russia’s values were superior and diametrically opposed to Western decadence, he said.

He expressed disdain for politicians beholden to public opinion. Western politicians were unable to be strong leaders because they were hobbled by electoral pressures and aggressive media, he told Ms. Merkel.

Despite having few illusions about Mr. Putin, Ms. Merkel continued to support commercial cooperation with Russia. On her watch, Germany became increasingly dependent on Russian oil and gas and built controversial gas pipelines from Russia that bypassed Ukraine and Europe’s east. Ms. Merkel’s policy reflected a consensus in Berlin that mutually beneficial trade with the EU would tame Russian geopolitical ambitions.

The U.S. and some NATO allies, meanwhile, began a multiyear program to train and equip Ukraine’s armed forces, which had proved no match for Russia’s in Donbas.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-held Ukrainian territory in 2014, killing 298 crew and passengers.

The level of military support was limited because the Obama administration figured that Russia would retain a considerable military advantage over Ukraine and it didn’t want to provoke Moscow.

President Trump expanded the aid to include Javelin antitank missiles, but delayed it in 2019 while he pressed Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to look for information the White House hoped to use against Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and Mr. Biden’s son, an act for which he was impeached.

Russia, for its part, tried to end the U.S. military aid by hinting at a geopolitical swap. In March 2019, two Russian planes landed in Caracas, Venezuela, carrying military “specialists” to support Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. Russian commentators close to the Kremlin floated the idea of trading Russian support for Venezuela for American support for Ukraine.

Fiona Hill, the top NSC official for Russia, flew to Moscow the next month, where she told foreign ministry and national security officials there would be no trade, Ms. Hill recalled in a recent interview.

Mr. Zelensky, a former comic and political outsider, had won a landslide election victory in 2019 on a promise to clean up corruption and end the war in Donbas. But he aroused Mr. Putin’s scorn at their first and so far only meeting, a December 2019 summit in Paris where French President Emmanuel Macron and Ms. Merkel tried to break the impasse on implementing the Minsk accords.

Mr. Zelensky bluntly rejected Russia’s interpretation of the accords, recalled a senior French official who was present. “The Russians were furious,” the official said. Eventually, Messrs. Putin and Zelensky agreed on a new cease-fire and to exchange prisoners. Many present thought the Russian leader loathed his new Ukrainian counterpart, the official said.

Mr. Macron sought a rapprochement with Mr. Putin, even suggesting he could be a partner for Europe in managing China. He invited Mr. Putin to the Palace of Versailles and to his summer residence in the Fort of Brégançon on the French Riviera. Their conversations were mostly cordial and businesslike, according to French officials.

But in telephone conversations from 2020 onward, Mr. Macron noticed changes in Mr. Putin. The Russian leader was rigorously isolating himself during the Covid-19 pandemic, requiring even close aides to quarantine themselves before they could meet him.

The man on the phone with Mr. Macron was different from the one he had hosted in Paris and the Riviera. “He tended to talk in circles, rewriting history,” recalled an aide to Mr. Macron.

In early 2021, Mr. Biden became the latest U.S. president who wanted to focus his foreign policy on the strategic competition with China, only to become entangled in events elsewhere.

The U.S. no longer saw Europe as a primary focus. Mr. Biden wanted neither a “reset” of relations with Mr. Putin, like President Obama had declared in 2009, nor to roll back Russia’s power. The NSC cast the aim as a “stable, predictable relationship.” It was a modest goal that would soon be tested by Mr. Putin’s bid to rewrite the ending of the Cold War.

Russia positioned tens of thousands of troops around Ukraine’s eastern border as part of a spring military exercise. Meanwhile, Kyiv was cracking down on Mr. Putin’s Ukrainian friend and ally, the politician and oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, shuttering his TV channel and placing him under house arrest for alleged treason.

In April, the White House considered a $60 million package of weapons for Ukraine. But after Russia ended its military exercise the administration deferred a decision to set a positive tone for a June summit between Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin in Geneva.

When Mr. Zelensky met with Mr. Biden in Washington in September, the U.S. finally announced the $60 million in military support, which included Javelins, small arms and ammunition. The aid was in line with the modest assistance the Obama and Trump administrations had supplied over the years, which provided Ukraine with lethal weaponry but didn’t include air defense, antiship missiles, tanks, fighter aircraft or drones that could carry out attacks.

Soon afterward, U.S. intelligence agencies learned that Russia was planning a military mobilization around Ukraine that was vastly greater than its spring exercise.

U.S. national security officials discussed the highly classified intelligence at a meeting in the White House on Oct. 27. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned that Russian forces could be ready to attack by the end of January 2022.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan posed several questions, including why Russia would take such a military action at that time, what the U.S. could do to harden Ukraine and how the U.S. might try to dissuade Mr. Putin. The gathering decided to send Mr. Burns on his mission to Moscow.

On Nov. 17, Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, urged the U.S. to send air defense systems and additional antitank weapons and ammunition during a meeting at the Pentagon, although he thought the initial Russian attacks might be limited.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Mr. Reznikov that Ukraine could be facing a massive invasion.

Work began that month on a new $200 million package in military assistance from U.S. stocks. The White House, however, initially held off authorizing it, angering some lawmakers. Administration officials calculated arms shipments wouldn’t be enough to deter Mr. Putin from invading if his mind was made up, and might even provoke him to attack.

The cautious White House approach was consistent with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s thinking. He favored a low-profile, gradual approach to assisting Ukraine’s forces and fortifying NATO’s defenses that would grow stronger in line with U.S. intelligence indications about Russia’s intent to attack.

A paramount goal was to avoid a direct clash between U.S. and Russian forces—what Mr. Austin called his “North Star.”

Efforts to dissuade Mr. Putin from ordering an invasion, however, were faltering. When Karen Donfried, the top State Department official for Europe and Russia, visited Moscow in mid-December, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov handed her two fully drafted treaties: one with the U.S. and one with NATO.

The proposed treaties called for a wholesale revision of Europe’s post-Cold War security arrangements. NATO would withdraw all nonlocal forces from its Eastern European members, and the alliance would shut its door to former Soviet republics.

In a cavernous conference room at Russia’s foreign ministry, Ms. Donfried asked Mr. Ryabkov and the numerous other Russian officials present about the proposals. She received scant answers and left convinced that the demands had been drawn up at the highest level. The draft treaties were soon posted on a Russian government website, which added to U.S. concerns that the demands were diplomatic camouflage for a military decision it had already taken.

On Dec. 27, Mr. Biden gave the go-ahead to begin sending more military assistance for Ukraine, including Javelin antitank missiles, mortars, grenade launchers, small arms and ammunition.

Three days later, Mr. Biden spoke on the phone with Mr. Putin and said the U.S. had no plan to station offensive missiles in Ukraine and urged Russia to de-escalate. The two leaders were on different wavelengths. Mr. Biden was talking about confidence-building measures. Mr. Putin was talking about effectively rolling back the West.

On Jan. 9, as U.S. intelligence indications pointed ever-more-clearly to a full-blown invasion of Ukraine, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met Mr. Ryabkov and a Russian general for dinner in Geneva. Ms. Sherman brought along Lieutenant General James Mingus, the chief operations officer on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, whom she hoped might encourage the Russians to think twice about their invasion plan.

Gen. Mingus had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, been wounded and earned a Purple Heart, and he spoke frankly about the challenges Russian forces would face. Invading a territory was one thing, but holding it was another, and the intervention could turn into a yearslong quagmire, he said. The Russians showed no reaction.

Not all U.S. allies believed its intelligence assessment. All could see that Russia was deploying a massive force on three sides of Ukraine. But most European allies found it hard to believe Mr. Putin would really invade.

In mid-January, Mr. Burns made a secret trip to Kyiv to see Mr. Zelensky. The U.S. now had even more information about Russia’s plan of attack, including that it involved a rapid strike toward Kyiv from Belarus. The CIA director provided a vital piece of intelligence that helped Ukraine significantly in the first days of the war: He warned that Russian forces planned to seize Antonov Airport in Hostomel, near the Ukrainian capital, and use it to fly in troops for a push to take Kyiv and decapitate the government.

European leaders made last-ditch attempts to talk Mr. Putin down. Mr. Macron visited the Kremlin on Feb. 7, where he was made to sit at the far end of a 20-foot table from the socially isolating Russian dictator.

Mr. Macron found Mr. Putin even more difficult to talk to than previously, according to French officials. The six-hour conversation went round in circles as Mr. Putin gave long lectures about the historical unity of Russia and Ukraine and the West’s record of hypocrisy, while the French president tried to bring the conversation back to the present day and how to avoid a war.

Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had succeeded Ms. Merkel only in December, fared no better at Mr. Putin’s long table on Feb. 15.

Mr. Putin opened the meeting with a forceful litany of complaints about NATO, meticulously listing weapons systems stationed in alliance countries near Russia. Mr. Putin then talked about his research on Russian history going back a millennium, about which he had written a lengthy essay last summer.

He told Mr. Scholz that Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians were one people, with a common language and a common identity that had only been divided by haphazard political interventions in recent history.

Mr. Scholz argued that the international order rested on the recognition of existing borders, no matter how and when they had been created. The West would never accept unraveling established borders in Europe, he warned. Sanctions would be swift and harsh, and the close economic cooperation between Germany and Russia would end. Public pressure on European leaders to sever all links to Russia would be immense, he said.

Mr. Putin then repeated his disdain for weak Western leaders who were susceptible to public pressure.

The German chancellor returned to Berlin far more worried than he had left it.

Mr. Scholz made one last push for a settlement between Moscow and Kyiv. He told Mr. Zelensky in Munich on Feb. 19 that Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and Russia. The pact would be signed by Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden, who would jointly guarantee Ukraine’s security.

Mr. Zelensky said Mr. Putin couldn’t be trusted to uphold such an agreement and that most Ukrainians wanted to join NATO. His answer left German officials worried that the chances of peace were fading. Aides to Mr. Scholz believed Mr. Putin would maintain his military pressure on Ukraine’s borders to strangle its economy and then eventually move to occupy the country.

U.S. and European leaders held a video call. “I think the last person who could still do something is you, Joe. Are you ready to meet Putin?” Mr. Macron said to Mr. Biden. The U.S. president agreed and asked Mr. Macron to pass the message to Mr. Putin.

Mr. Macron spent the night of Feb. 20 alternately on the phone with Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden.

The Frenchman was still talking with Mr. Putin at 3 a.m. Moscow time, negotiating the wording of a press release announcing the plan for a U.S.-Russian summit.

But the next day, Mr. Putin called Mr. Macron back. The summit was off.

Mr. Putin said he had decided to recognize the independence of separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine. He said fascists had seized power in Kyiv, while NATO hadn’t responded to his security concerns and was planning to deploy nuclear missiles in Ukraine.

“We are not going to see each other for a while, but I really appreciate the frankness of our discussions,” Mr. Putin told Mr. Macron. “I hope we can talk again one day.”

Who said “they” were?

[old salt]

Who said “they” were?

No need to be a jerk & quote the entire lengthy post, obstructing the thread.

[MDlaxfan76]

The way that I read all this is that western democracy has been in conflict with Russian autocracy for many decades, with only a brief hope that Russian leaders favoring democracy would prevail.

But Putin ended that hope, including for any of the former vassals.

So, back to an ongoing conflict between those choosing freedom from authoritarian oppression and Putins Russia.

Trump tried to choose Putin’s side, the side of kleptocracy and authoritarianism.

But hey, blame it on the West.

To me the blame we share is not adequately recognizing who Putin really is and giving the benefit of the doubt that Russians would be able to become more and more free given more access to the West and a free press. But Putin saw all that as an existential threat to his power , lifestyle and perhaps life.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Who said “they” were?

No need to be a jerk & quote the entire lengthy post, obstructing the thread.

I know.

[DocBarrister]

They can't handle bad news Joe. They personalize everything that does not support their narrative or preferred outcome.

They don't care how many people die or have their lives ruined, just so long as they can see their preferred outcome.

Well, you could say the same thing about your support of staying in Iraq or Afghanistan, could you not?

You cheered both on, if you'll recall, and like those you are criticizing here....you didn't want to hear about other paths. The other paths were wrong, and yours was right.

Not at all. Our residual force was minimal. It's presence prevented the kind of carnage we are seeing in Ukraine now.

Look at the death & destruction ISIS brought to Iraq & Syria the first time we pulled out of Iraq.
Look at what the Taliban are doing to Afghanistan (again)

We prevented all that with fewer troops than we've sent to Poland in the past 3 weeks.

Right. Which is why you can also say....and I'm quoting you here, so you don't get to complain......You don't care how many people die or have their lives ruined, just so long as you can see your preferred outcome.

Get it? This door swings both ways, OS. Your path in Iraq and Afghanistan leads to death, too. Lots of it.

Yes it did. I was never for going ashore in Iraq & I wanted out of Afghanistan before we surged & stayed to nation build.
After 9-11, did you oppose going after OBL & toppling the Taliban ?

After all that we invested in blood & treasure, & what we meant to the continued stability for the people there, I felt we owed it to them to leave a small residual force to maintain that stability while helping them rebuild their shattered countries & societies.

That “small residual force” would have to be stationed there indefinitely.

Sorry, I will not support sending American troops on an essentially permanent basis to prop up an Afghanistan government that flees at first sight of the Taliban or an Afghanistan army that refuses to fight.

That’s very different from what we are witnessing in Ukraine.

Afghanistan doesn’t deserve our help. They refused to fight the Taliban. We can’t defend them forever.

President Biden made the right choice in Afghanistan.

DocBarrister

[old salt]

After all that we invested in blood & treasure, & what we meant to the continued stability for the people there, I felt we owed it to them to leave a small residual force to maintain that stability while helping them rebuild their shattered countries & societies.

That “small residual force” would have to be stationed there indefinitely.

Sorry, I will not support sending American troops on an essentially permanent basis to prop up an Afghanistan government that flees at first sight of the Taliban or an Afghanistan army that refuses to fight.

That’s very different from what we are witnessing in Ukraine.

Afghanistan doesn’t deserve our help. They refused to fight the Taliban. We can’t defend them forever.

President Biden made the right choice in Afghanistan.

DocBarrister

The ASF fought bravely & died in great numbers, until we slinked out in the middle of the night.
They would still be fighting had we not bailed on them.

We've sent more troops to Poland in the last 3 weeks than we had in our residual forces in our final years in Iraq & Afghanistan. They were trainers & advisors who were not taking casualties.

The Afghans deserved our help & support as much as S Korea still does. Speaking of staying somewhere indefinitely, they really do not need us still in S Korea. What would Korea be today had Truman bailed out in Aug, 1950, when US forces were pushed back to Pusan & hemmed in ? ...like Biden bailed on Afghanistan.

[old salt]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/01/us/p ... raine.html

U.S. Will Help Transfer Soviet-Made Tanks to Ukraine
The transfer, a response to a request from Ukraine’s president, will mark the first time the Biden administration has helped send tanks in the five-week-old war.
by Helene Cooper, April 1, 2022, 8:53 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will work with allies to transfer Soviet-made tanks to bolster Ukrainian defenses in the country’s eastern Donbas region, a U.S. official said on Friday.

The decision to act as an intermediary to help transfer the Soviet-made tanks, which Ukrainian troops know how to use, comes in response to a request from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the official said. It marks the first time in the war that the United States has helped transfer tanks.

The official said the transfers would begin soon, but declined to say how many tanks would be sent, or from which countries they would come. They will allow Ukraine to conduct long-range artillery strikes on Russian targets in Donbas, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The tanks’ arrival could be another signal of a new phase in the war, which is five weeks old and has been dominated by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and installations from the air, and a stalled Russian advance on the ground. Earlier this week, Russian officials indicated that they were refocusing their efforts on eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian soldiers since 2014.

Mr. Zelensky called on Sunday for NATO allies to provide tanks and planes, in addition to the antitank and antiaircraft weaponry that have become a staple of the arms transfers to Ukraine from the West. Frustrated at what he views as a slow pace of weapons transfers, Mr. Zelensky asked specifically for tanks, in remarks a day after President Biden met with senior Ukrainian officials in Poland.

An angry Mr. Zelensky criticized the West for what he called its “Ping-Pong” about weapons transfers. “I’ve talked to the defenders of Mariupol today,” he said, in a reference to the besieged city that has been under an onslaught from Russia for four weeks. “If only those who have been thinking for 31 days on how to hand over dozens of jets and tanks had 1 percent of their courage.”

In the past, the Biden administration has taken pains to call the weapons it is providing to Ukraine defensive, and has focused on smaller, easily portable arms. But as the war has progressed, the definition of defensive has become more elastic.

Ukraine had already found one source of tanks, capturing at least 161 from Russia on the battlefield, according to the military analysis site Oryx, though Russia has also destroyed a number of Ukrainian tanks. For its part, Russia has captured 43 Ukrainian tanks, according to analysts who study photos and videos on social media.

The decision to help transfer the tanks comes as the Ukrainian military has continued to turn back Russia’s ground advance. Pentagon officials have been quick to point out that Russia’s pivot to Donbas and away from capturing Kyiv, the capital, might be a necessity for Moscow after Russian forces stalled out in the central part of the country.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/01/us/p ... raine.html

U.S. Will Help Transfer Soviet-Made Tanks to Ukraine
The transfer, a response to a request from Ukraine’s president, will mark the first time the Biden administration has helped send tanks in the five-week-old war.
by Helene Cooper, April 1, 2022, 8:53 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will work with allies to transfer Soviet-made tanks to bolster Ukrainian defenses in the country’s eastern Donbas region, a U.S. official said on Friday.

The decision to act as an intermediary to help transfer the Soviet-made tanks, which Ukrainian troops know how to use, comes in response to a request from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the official said. It marks the first time in the war that the United States has helped transfer tanks.

The official said the transfers would begin soon, but declined to say how many tanks would be sent, or from which countries they would come. They will allow Ukraine to conduct long-range artillery strikes on Russian targets in Donbas, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The tanks’ arrival could be another signal of a new phase in the war, which is five weeks old and has been dominated by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and installations from the air, and a stalled Russian advance on the ground. Earlier this week, Russian officials indicated that they were refocusing their efforts on eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian soldiers since 2014.

Mr. Zelensky called on Sunday for NATO allies to provide tanks and planes, in addition to the antitank and antiaircraft weaponry that have become a staple of the arms transfers to Ukraine from the West. Frustrated at what he views as a slow pace of weapons transfers, Mr. Zelensky asked specifically for tanks, in remarks a day after President Biden met with senior Ukrainian officials in Poland.

An angry Mr. Zelensky criticized the West for what he called its “Ping-Pong” about weapons transfers. “I’ve talked to the defenders of Mariupol today,” he said, in a reference to the besieged city that has been under an onslaught from Russia for four weeks. “If only those who have been thinking for 31 days on how to hand over dozens of jets and tanks had 1 percent of their courage.”

In the past, the Biden administration has taken pains to call the weapons it is providing to Ukraine defensive, and has focused on smaller, easily portable arms. But as the war has progressed, the definition of defensive has become more elastic.

Ukraine had already found one source of tanks, capturing at least 161 from Russia on the battlefield, according to the military analysis site Oryx, though Russia has also destroyed a number of Ukrainian tanks. For its part, Russia has captured 43 Ukrainian tanks, according to analysts who study photos and videos on social media.

The decision to help transfer the tanks comes as the Ukrainian military has continued to turn back Russia’s ground advance. Pentagon officials have been quick to point out that Russia’s pivot to Donbas and away from capturing Kyiv, the capital, might be a necessity for Moscow after Russian forces stalled out in the central part of the country.

We should be sending tanks to Putin.

[old salt]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/01/us/p ... raine.html

U.S. Will Help Transfer Soviet-Made Tanks to Ukraine
The transfer, a response to a request from Ukraine’s president, will mark the first time the Biden administration has helped send tanks in the five-week-old war.

We should be sending tanks to Putin.

Meanwhile, Biden's approval ratings tank @ 40% -- the lowest of his Presidency, so far.

[old salt]

But a Ukraine that defeats Russia is a heck of a lot better outcome than one in which Ukraine surrenders because we pressured them to do so. Also shouldn't be hard to say that.

and yet it is for you.

It is my analytical opinion that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia militarily or force them to withdraw from all occupied territory.

They may eventually get Russian forces to withdraw somewhat, but imo it is not worth the continued death & destruction.

A divided, partially free Ukraine is preferable to a destroyed Ukraine entirely under the control of Russia, imo.

If the Ukrainians can get the Russians to withdraw, while still occupying Crimea, Donbas & the land bridge between them, I see that as the best outcome which can be reasonably hoped for, absent direct kinetic US military intervention, with or without NATO support.

Did your "analytical opinion" expect Ukraine to do this well?

Or were you predicting a swift collapse of the Zelensky government? A swift success by Russia?

Seriously, I take a lot of your expertise on weapons systems etc as far superior to mine, but I'm not so confident in your assessment of people. Both the Ukrainians and the Russians...and for that matter, the neighbors and the US.

So, I think we need to stop assuming defeat and instead look at what it will take to win, which by definition means repelling Russia from Ukraine.

My far less informed assessment of the weapons is that Ukraine needs more weapons, more firepower, especially that which can destroy the Russian forward capabilities, whether on land or air, and then to be able to strike at their supply lines and their stand off missile capabilities. And my assessment is that'll take time, much more time.

But that's what the Ukrainians want, and as long as they believe that fighting is the right path, I think we should support them to win, not show, place or lose.

None of the "experts" who are paid to opine or analyze predicted the way this war proceeded in the opening phase.
Even our publicly released intell predicted Kyiv would fall within 72 hours.

In modern warfare, esprit & morale only count for so much. Weapons systems capabilities, firepower & logistics eventually carry the day.
Imo, If we ever get the S-300's & Harpoon coastal defense batteries to the Ukrainians, they might have a chance, but time is running out.
What long range weapons do you propose we provide & how do we get them in the hands of Ukrainians capable of using them ?