Article

2022-06-13 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Kremlin Responds After Polish EU Official Says West Should Give Ukraine Nukes

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Besoeker 2022-06-13 00:59|| || Front Page|| [11125 views ] Top

#1 Given that the Russians have directly or indirectly referred to using nukes (and not just in the Ukraine) in this situation draws a big 'so what'.

Posted by Procopius2k 2022-06-13 08:28|| 2022-06-13 08:28|| Front Page Top

#2 Mr. Radoslaw is experiencing a severe stupidity moment here.

Hopefully it will pass.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2022-06-13 08:30|| 2022-06-13 08:30|| Front Page Top

#3 The lies and hysteria are catching up with Ukraine's propagandists. The Ukrainians have lost the war. Their most valuable and economically productive territory, the Donbas, is lost.

It was always a matter to be settled at the negotiating table, but last March, Biden, Nuland, Sullivan and the other leftovers from 2014 told Zelensky that he need not negotiate. He walked away from Minsk and declared he would seize Crimea.

Reality has finally set in. Not even NATO's Jens Stoltenberg is pretending any longer that Russia has not won the war and that no terroritorial concessions are necessary. Stoltenberg: "The [only] question is how much territory, how much independence...are [the Ukrainians] willing to sacrifice for peace."

Posted by Jean-Paul 2022-06-13 09:00|| 2022-06-13 09:00|| Front Page Top

#4 Their most valuable and economically productive territory, the Donbas, is lost.

So all this alarm and hand wringing over the world's grain supply was just the normal hysteria of the media.

Posted by Procopius2k 2022-06-13 09:04|| 2022-06-13 09:04|| Front Page Top

#5 Incredible infrared video shows Russian soldiers fleeing as drone with thermal sights drops bombs on their comrades in 'night hunt' – as Ukraine launches Donbas counter-attack

Posted by Skidmark 2022-06-13 09:10|| 2022-06-13 09:10|| Front Page Top

#6 The British tabloids' propaganda is laughable. Even the New York Times and Washington Post have abandoned their "counter-attack" myth. The only option now is negotiation. The only question is how much territory will belong to Russia.

Washington Post: Russia likely to seize all of Luhansk in coming days -- US official

The Times reports that the Ukrainians have withdrawn to Lysychansk. However, the center of Severodonetsk was occupied over a week ago, not yesterday.

Biden and the Democrats in the US have abandoned Zelensky. NATO's chief is urging negotiations. It's over.

Posted by Jean-Paul 2022-06-13 09:22|| 2022-06-13 09:22|| Front Page Top

#7 Biden and the Democrats in the US have abandoned Zelensky. NATO's chief is urging negotiations. It's over.

Ukraine stories aren't even above the fold anymore. The American public doesn't give a shit about Zelensky or Ukrainians. It's a losing issue for the Democrats

Posted by Cravilet Henbane6049 2022-06-13 09:30|| 2022-06-13 09:30|| Front Page Top

#8 Their readers are tired of the war and want to move on, but they're still printing lies: Media Tone Down Ukraine Hysteria - Continue To Print Falsehoods

Posted by Cravilet Henbane6049 2022-06-13 09:35|| 2022-06-13 09:35|| Front Page Top

#9 So, Jean Paul, at a guess how many Ukrainians will have to be sent to filtration camps for their own good? 2 million? Or is this going to be more like a Katyn Forest kind of thing?

Posted by Matt 2022-06-13 09:54|| 2022-06-13 09:54|| Front Page Top

#10 @Matt: I understand your frustration, but it has no bearing on the facts of the situation. There is no alternative to a negotiated settlement that involves significant losses of territory, at a minimum Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk.

Your anger should be directed at Zelensky and the Ukrainians' handlers in Washington.

I know it acts as a kind of therapy for you but really, there's no point in bashing the Russians: you're only increasing the pain and devastation suffered by the Ukrainians. The longer the war goes on, the more Ukrainians will be slaughtered and the more territory will be lost.

Posted by Jean-Paul 2022-06-13 10:01|| 2022-06-13 10:01|| Front Page Top

#11 It was never about the best interests of the Ukrainians. This was a Washington neo-con obsession with another chance for a Forever War.

Then it morphed into a Democrat (Pelosi-Schiff etc) and Deep State get-Trump effort stoked by Ukrainian agents and arms dealers in DC: Chalupa, Igor Pasternak, Vindman etc

Posted by Eohippus Whailing4247 2022-06-13 10:08|| 2022-06-13 10:08|| Front Page Top

#12 I thought "nonproliferation" was sorta up there with gerbil worming and LGBTQWERTYXYZ=/- as a gerbalist sacred cow. Well except for iran. Now it's a free-for-all.

Posted by M. Murcek 2022-06-13 10:47|| 2022-06-13 10:47|| Front Page Top

#13 @Matt: I understand your frustration, but it has no bearing on the facts of the situation. There is no alternative to a negotiated settlement that involves significant losses of territory

Several million nationals forcibly stolen to work in Russian factories and add their offspring to Russia’s falling population count is not merely an anodyne loss of territory, Jean-Paul. Please answer the hotshot lawyer’s question instead telling him not to worry his pretty head about it.

And given the destruction in the economically productive Donbas, one has to ask how much Russia will have to invest to make it productive again. Or does Russia really just care about removing competitors to their own factories, just as they only care about stealing the grain produced in Ukraine, and Ukraine’s subsequent ability to grow more, increasing the prices Russia can charge for its own harvest?

Posted by trailing wife 2022-06-13 11:42|| 2022-06-13 11:42|| Front Page Top

#14 the hotshot lawyer

Is this a joke? What kind of lawyer would advise his client to continue getting his people slaughtered and losing territory? How much more territory do you want them to lose? How many poor press-ganged "reservists" have to mutiny, and how many thousands need to be slaughtered, before this "lawyer" admits reality?

Zelensky's government could have retained 93% of what they claimed as Ukraine and almost all of its productive assets and territory, without sacrificing tens of thousands of their people.

All they had to do was make a serious, good-faith effort to honor Minsk -- to rein in their neo-Nazi terrorists, restore water to Crimea and to leave alone the Russians' base on that historically Russian and extremely pro-Russian peninsula.

Instead, the neo-conservatives and the Democrats in Washington urged him to rip up Minsk, and provoke the Russians.

If this represents the counsel of a "hotshot lawyer," then that's a rather strange definition of "hotshot." Perhaps a hotshot such as Michael Avenatti

Posted by Jean-Paul 2022-06-13 12:55|| 2022-06-13 12:55|| Front Page Top

#15 What kind of lawyer would advise his client to continue getting his people slaughtered and losing territory? How much more territory do you want them to lose? How many poor press-ganged "reservists" have to mutiny, and how many thousands need to be slaughtered

It's not about Ukraine. It's never been about Ukraine.

Instead, the neo-conservatives and the Democrats in Washington urged him to rip up Minsk, and provoke the Russians.

Now you got it! This was McStain and Miss Lindsey and the Nudelman cunt's latest neo-con crusade. Then Pelosi and Schiff and the Demorats saw a way to use Ukraine to try to link Orange Adolf with Russian Adolf.

And then Lloyd Raytheon and Lockheed and the other Beltway Bandits saw a chance to take in millions. And awayyyy they went.

Posted by Spitch Uneretle6140 2022-06-13 13:02|| 2022-06-13 13:02|| Front Page Top

#16 OK, I get it: When the US invades a country, that's naked American aggression. When Russia invades a country, that also is naked American aggression.

Posted by Matt 2022-06-13 13:40|| 2022-06-13 13:40|| Front Page Top

#17 First the question, chér Jean-Paul, then the counsel. How many Ukrainian civilians has Russia taken?

After all, all Russia had to do was not invade a neighbour and destroy the landscape, but they couldn’t even do that. Following the inevitable win, what will Russia have? Sanctions targetting Russia’s ability to buy the things needed to repair and rebuild, despite all the money piled up from sales of petroleum and other raw materials with which to pay for it all; accrued goodwill from Russia’s work in Syria and against the Russian portion of the worldwide jihadi network destroyed in a few short months; long term oil and gas customers turning to more trustworthy suppliers, while the replacement customers will need expensive investment in pipelines and equipment to feed the new markets; new distrust from near neighbours and those farther away that is resulting in all of them arming up instead of lying complacently under the American security umbrella — and none of them are buying weapons from Russia — which will make the planned next steps of reconquest harder. And worst of all, the world’s firm belief in the irresistible Russian army shattered beyond repair, making everything more difficult for Russia going forward, domestically as well as internationally.

Ukraine is being punished for its choices. But Russia is working hard for a Pyrrhic victory that she can ill afford.

Posted by trailing wife 2022-06-13 13:41|| 2022-06-13 13:41|| Front Page Top

#18 The Ukrainians have lost the war.

You keep saying that and yet the fighting continues.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2022-06-13 13:46|| 2022-06-13 13:46|| Front Page Top

#19 I thought they lost it in February when Putin executed a coup de main removing the existing regime and putting in place his own puppets. Oh, wait. Then it was the blitzkrieg in March to encircle and capture Kiev and do the same. Oh, wait. Then it was April or was it May, that the Ukrainians lost.

There is no end to this war. It's now generational. There will be lulls with paper signings and rearming, but its only time till it gets going again. This is now a blood match that Europe has always been host to in history.

Posted by Procopius2k 2022-06-13 13:57|| 2022-06-13 13:57|| Front Page Top

#20 General Lord Richards, former Head of the British Army, warned against the stupidities of the Iraq fiasco and again about the Syria debacle. He warned today in The Telegraph about the stupidity of the US and UK's Russia strategy, or lack thereof.

The West does not seem to know what the aims of the Ukraine should be
General Lord Richards
The Telegraph
10 June 2022

"Good strategy is about hard choices. As Chief of Defence Staff, my outstanding team devised a coherent Syria strategy which independent experts agreed had a good chance of leading to a successful strategic outcome.

Once again [as with the Iran and Afghanistan dusasters], political leaders were not prepared to align ends, ways and means with Washington going as far as to say that “the General’s plan is more than the market can bear”.

What “market”? Consequently, my advice was to let Assad win and quickly and to stop encouraging and supplying opposition groups with insufficient support to ensure their success. The price in deaths, ruined lives and destroyed cities would be too huge and a massive strategic setback for the West. Russia was already sensing an opportunity and so it proved.

A similar lack of a coherent strategy is now apparent in Ukraine.

There is, at best, what might be termed incremental strategy with again no early and decisive synchronisation of ends, ways and means. It is a “let’s see how it goes” “strategy”, in other words not really strategy at all. There is still little idea in London, Washington or elsewhere how “we” want the war to pan out, or what sort of Russia we are seeking to shape, especially on the vital long-term issue of relations with China.

Is there an opportunity, using carrots and sticks, to persuade a weakened Russia to align with the West rather than having it pushed ineluctably into China’s orbit? No one is thinking grand strategically because no one is brave enough to think beyond the political convention of the moment.

Posted by Palmerston 2022-06-13 14:12|| 2022-06-13 14:12|| Front Page Top

#21 The West does not seem to know what the aims of the Ukraine should be

Whatever the West might aim, it looks like Ukraine’s is to become Russia’s Gates of Vienna.

Posted by trailing wife 2022-06-13 14:18|| 2022-06-13 14:18|| Front Page Top

#22 #18 The Ukrainians have lost the war.

You keep saying that and yet the fighting continues.

Because the Ukrainian leadership are too stupid to admit they've lost and too mad to halt the slaughter. As has been pointed out, Jens Stoltenberg is urging them to negotiate. So are Lord Richards and other western military leaders.

Even Biden says the only point of further Ukrainian resistance is to "strengthen their hand at the negotiating table." Precisely the opposite is happening. Their hand is getting weaker by the day. Madness

Posted by Palmerston 2022-06-13 14:19|| 2022-06-13 14:19|| Front Page Top

#23 OK, we got two questions on the table:

1- Has Russia won the war? I just skimmed the TASS website and don't see anything about that. You would think a banner headline would be in order.

2- What will happen to the Ukrainians who surrender or who are in territory that Ukraine gives up to buy peace? If the outcome is Katyn Forest or exile to Norilsk, why should Ukraine, or at least those Ukrainians, give up? It's a question relevant to the negotiation process.

Posted by Avenatti 2022-06-13 14:22|| 2022-06-13 14:22|| Front Page Top

#24 Whatever the West might aim, it looks like Ukraine’s is to become Russia’s Gates of Vienna.

A dumb reference beloved of deranged Jewish neo-conservative loonies during the fevered runup to the botched Iraq War. This absurd view of Russia as another one of the neo-cons' bêtes noires is the source of this disaster and the reason it continues beyond all reason,

Posted by Palmerston 2022-06-13 14:24|| 2022-06-13 14:24|| Front Page Top

#25 Observation: I see some civil, well-reasoned discourse in this thread, and some deflection and long-winded hand-waving.

Posted by Bobby 2022-06-13 14:32|| 2022-06-13 14:32|| Front Page Top

#26 Seriously, Mr. Palmerston? What dumb reference did the deranged non-Jewish neocon loonies use?

Posted by trailing wife 2022-06-13 14:33|| 2022-06-13 14:33|| Front Page Top

#27 Confucius say, "Kindly refrain
From shaking her potentate's chain,
For the Bear's clumsy dance--
Er, great Russian romance
Could reduce her to China's Ukraine!"

Posted by Unomosh Elmuper5821 2022-06-13 14:44|| 2022-06-13 14:44|| Front Page Top

#28 "Gates of Vienna" refers to a false historical analogy that's been favored by neo-con trolls ever since 9/11. It was silly when it was applied to the Mideast Muslim terrorist challenge; it's totally ludicrous in this context.

Ukraine is not our ally and is not a part of the West. It's just a miserable kleptocracy on an African scale, one that only exists because of the stupidity and criminal incompetence of first Lenin, then Khrushchev

Posted by Palmerston 2022-06-13 14:48|| 2022-06-13 14:48|| Front Page Top

#29 ^ And you could have said that without being anti-Semitic about it.

Posted by Matt 2022-06-13 14:59|| 2022-06-13 14:59|| Front Page Top

#30 British. It comes naturally to "him"

Posted by Frank G 2022-06-13 15:29|| 2022-06-13 15:29|| Front Page Top

#31 Because the Ukrainian leadership are too stupid to admit they've lost and too mad to halt the slaughter.

It's not over until the fat lady sings. Face it, the Russian military performance has been pathetic and Ukrainians have fought them to a standstill.

I'll say one thing for you: The idea that Putin wants to restore the Soviet Union to its former glory has been thoroughly debunked. I mean, how's he gonna do that when he's bogged down in Donbass?

It's Putin who needs to seal this deal before Biden and his handlers do something we'll all regret.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2022-06-13 17:28|| 2022-06-13 17:28|| Front Page Top

#32 What we've learned in the last few days from our visitors:

1- The Ukrainian leaders are stupid.

2- The Ukrainian army is down to about 40,000 old men and boys spread over a 1000 km front.

3- Those old men and boys are out of ammunition.

Against those odds let's see if the flower of the Russian army can advance two kilometers tomorrow.

Posted by Matt 2022-06-13 17:47|| 2022-06-13 17:47|| Front Page Top

#33 Y'all are worried about the wrong bear

Posted by Whaviting Fleting8645 2022-06-13 18:08|| 2022-06-13 18:08|| Front Page Top

#34 regime change begins at home

Rick Scott says Biden 'destroyed America's economy' in ads calling on president to resign
Florida senator says: 'Joe Biden is unfit for office and should resign'

Posted by Whaviting Fleting8645 2022-06-13 18:37|| 2022-06-13 18:37|| Front Page Top

#35 Against those odds let's see if the flower of the Russian army can advance two kilometers tomorrow.

Good lord, Matt — mono-molecular edges haven’t been invented in real life yet!

Posted by trailing wife 2022-06-13 18:52|| 2022-06-13 18:52|| Front Page Top

#36 Y'all are worried about the wrong bear

Those who trusted the Democrats to follow their usual pattern, only more so, have been preparing since Mr. Biden was sworn in to office. No point in wasting energy worrying about the inevitable.

I can highly recommend Check Your Connections: How to Thrive in an Uncertain World by Robin Burk as a guide to thinking about the situation — I found it comforting to realize how many things I could already check off, or were already partway there.

Posted by trailing wife 2022-06-13 19:11|| 2022-06-13 19:11|| Front Page Top

#37 Talk about ungrateful little shits:

Zelensky's adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, accused Western leaders of being reluctant to seriously address Ukraine’s gigantic disadvantage in long-range weaponry ...[while Ukraine's army] is being battered in fighting in the East.

And he suggested that some Western European countries, including France and Germany, were “hiding from the war.’’

“If you think we should lose, just tell us directly: ‘We want you to lose.’ Then we will understand why you give us weapons at this level,” Mr. Podolyak said in an interview in the presidential office compound in Kyiv.

Posted by Billy Budd 2022-06-13 19:55|| 2022-06-13 19:55|| Front Page Top

#38 Ok, Poodlyakety-Yak: We want you to lose. So you can stop draining our money. We're running out of it, and need it for our own country to deal with real threats.

Posted by Billy Budd 2022-06-13 19:57|| 2022-06-13 19:57|| Front Page Top

#39 Only if the promise to use them.

Posted by Woodrow 2022-06-13 21:26|| 2022-06-13 21:26|| Front Page Top

23:26 Pholing Crererong6639
21:47 Besoeker
21:26 Woodrow
21:23 Frank G
21:21 49 Pan
21:19 49 Pan
21:14 Besoeker
20:56 Frank G
20:49 ruprecht
20:41 ruprecht
19:57 Billy Budd
19:55 Billy Budd
19:46 Silentbrick
19:40 Silentbrick
19:33 Mercutio
19:26 CrazyFool
19:11 trailing wife
19:11 trailing wife
18:52 trailing wife
18:41 Zhang Fei
18:37 Whaviting Fleting8645
18:24 Besoeker
18:12 JohnQC
18:08 Whaviting Fleting8645