Russian War Crimes (Part 2)

what if I said it was NATO influence in Euromaiden

No evidence of that, is there?

really??

Iā€™m not sure what youā€™re trying to say here? It explicitly says that NATO engagement was poor prior to the 2014 invasion, specifically in the second paragraph?

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:man_facepalming:

Iā€™m not going to spell it out for you. If you havenā€™t got a basic grasp of why this thread exists, then please donā€™t say shit like this:

It sounds like a whole lot of innuendo and no evidence to me. What youā€™re saying is essentially that NATO/US/UK may have had a strategic interest in seeing Ukraine turn against Russia, therefore something must have happened.

Iā€™m asking you for proof, and all youā€™ve given is an article that contradicts you, and a condescending reply.

Next itā€™ll be M16 and CIA were the UA death squads.

Azov, dumbass.

To be honest, its all very simple. One of the primary driver is oil and gas (as has Russia other activities in the area outside of Ukraine). Huge previously unknown oil and gas reverses were discovered.

Which just so happens to be the locations Russia targeted/occupy. Gas pipe were being built to Europe, which would have reduced the EUs dependence on Russia.

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donā€™t forget the trillions in lithium deposits which the ā€œWestā€ are so dependent on for their vehicle battery systems in their efforts to ā€œgo greenā€

this isnā€™t an innuendo or conspiracy, itā€™s connecting the fā€™ing dots.

didnā€™t take long for Nordstream2 to get blown to pieces, did it?

true that.

what day did Russia invade Ukraine, Feb 24 2022?

This a really long video, but a really good one.

Russiaā€™s Catastrophic Oil & Gas Problem - YouTube

Goes into detail how various countries (Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Georgia) having been trying to build oil/gas pipes to the EU. (Southern gas cooradore, Trans Caspian gas pipline etc). The response of Russia in trying to prevent these.

Also the planned work by Ukraine to supply the EU eith energy.

The impact on Russia is essentially:
*Those countries gain further independence away from Russia (with financial indepednece)
*Decreases Russiaā€™s market share
*Reduces EUs reliance on Russia.

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Then you would be repeating Russian propaganda and lending credence to Putinā€™s rationale for the invasion. NATO had nothing to do with Euromaiden.

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Whatever western intelligence agencies did or did not do in regard to Euromaidan is by no means a justification for a full-scale military invasion. Citing western interference as a cause is nothing more than cheap, unintelligent propaganda.

The war and the subsequent loss of thousands of lives, the uprooting of thousands of others and the destruction of billions of dollars in infrastructure, agricultural production and homes can only be attributed to the Russian leadership and one particular individual who had revealed his criminal and murderous nature decades ago.

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To be clear ; Semmy is as pro - Ukraine / anti - Putin as they come , which makes it all the more surprising , to me at least , that he would be making this kind of inference.

NATO relies on its intelligence from its member states , and sure some of those states might have had intel ops active during Euromaiden , but to extrapolate that to suggest that NATO itself was involved in the revolution is to veer awfully close into conspiracy theory territory.

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Thank you @peterroberts and @RedArmada for expressing what I wanted to say better than I did.

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In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of liesā€™ Churchill, W.

Only somewhat correct, which is why I posed it as a question. However, even though NATO had nothing to do with Euromaiden itself they had been lending support to Ukraine (as per the link that I mentioned) strengthening ties to ā€œThe Westā€ and that in itself would be considered interference in Russiaā€™s control over a former Soviet state. The richest one next to Russia itself. The alliance between NATO and Ukraine referenced above started in 1997, which is 6 years after the breakup of the USSR and Ukraineā€™s declared independence. Putin didnā€™t come into power until 3 years later and it was as this time that Ukraine had a pro-Russian president in Leonid Kuchma who ran the country for nearly 11 years until 2005 when Yushchenko took over in the midst of the Orange Revolution. Yanukovych was next in line in 2010, another pro-Russian president who was ousted as a result of Euromaiden and thus the original invasion of Ukraine (Crimea) by Putin.

documentary on Euromaiden is on Netflix now

youā€™re goddamn right I am. Iā€™m half Ukrainian and half UK (50/50 Scot/Brit)

see above. Euromaiden was a peaceful revolt by the people of Ukraine, but it was the Russian-backed leaders of the Verkhovna Rada who they were fighting with. Those leaders (Victor Yanukovych) were tied to Putin.

This is not the first time Russia has tried to instill leaders in former Soviet States. Look at what is happening in Armenia/Azerbaijan and the unrest in Kazakhstan which has recently happened in 2022

see below for some insight into Russiaā€™s outreach into former states. well outlined.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/06/30/whose-rules-whose-sphere-russian-governance-and-influence-in-post-soviet-states-pub-71403

In Ukraine, Russia outright annexed Crimea in 2014, putting that territory in a much different category than any of the other breakaway republics. But, elsewhere in Ukraine, Moscow instigated a separatist movement. Moscow does not does formally recognize the independence the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, but it provides them with financial, political, and military support.

With the exception of Crimea, all of these territories share the following common features: a set of governing political institutions distinct from the official parent state; limited or no recognition from the outside world; extreme security dependence on an external patron (usually Russia); infiltration of security and intelligence services by Russian organs; their own currencies and economic orientation; and their own self-identification as part of a different social and normative orientation from that of their parent state. Recent academic research and survey work indicates that the residents of most of these breakaway territories favor aligning with Russia and its institutions rather than the official parent state or the West. Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia, however, do not follow this mold in full. About half of the formerā€™s residents favor joining Armenia and 38 percent favor independence. The Abkhaz generally favor independence over formal integration with Russia.

Russia projects influence over the post-Soviet states by promoting regional cooperation and integration through new regional organizations under Russian leadership. It also increasingly uses bilateral instruments of soft power to pressure the post-Soviet states to join these organizations and follow its leadership priorities.

NEW REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

The most important of these regional organizations are the Collective Security Treaty Organizationā€”comprising Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistanā€”in the security realm, and, in the economic realm, the Eurasian Economic Union, comprising Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Russiaā€™s attempts to forge new regional organizations to assert its influence are not new. During the 1990s, Moscow tried to preserve its influence and a common superstructure by promoting the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In retrospect, however, the CIS became mired in ceremony and convening seemingly endless summits, rather than actively forging new practical cooperative frameworks; it issued hundreds of proclamations, but that seemed more of a defensive attempt to preserve Soviet-era ties rather than establish a new forum for actual problem solving. Accordingly, the limited accomplishments of the CIS in the 1990s led Western commentators to remain skeptical about subsequent Russian efforts at promoting regional integration or to deem them symbolic or ā€œvirtual.ā€

Since first assuming office in 2000, President Putin redoubled efforts to reinvigorate regional cooperation in both the security and economic realms. Unlike the CIS, which seemed set on trying to preserve past associations and ties, both the CSTO and the EEU seek greater and more substantive integration through the creation of institutionalized rules and decisionmaking processes. These organizations have established supranational bureaucracies that allow Russia to embed personnel within multilateral organizational structures. Tellingly, both organizations are modeled after a Western counterpart: the CSTO emulates NATO, while the EEU mimics some of the institutions of the EU.

The CSTO, established in 2002, is a successor to efforts in the 1990s to forge an intergovernmental military alliance and Russian-led collective security organization from the CIS. Putin sought to re-engage with post-Soviet states on counterterrorism, an effort to which the 2001 NATO-led mission in Afghanistan gave further impetus. The CSTO also provides the legal framework for peacekeeping operations and border management. It is also through this that Russia maintains long-term leases on military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia (it retains facilities in Tajikistan on a bilateral basis) and that it plans to establish a joint air-defense system and aerospace monitoring arrangement with its members.4 Following the Arab Spring, the organization also launched cybersecurity and information-space initiatives designed to monitor and undermine the Internet activities of regime opponents of its member states.5

The CSTO prohibits individual countries from allowing other foreign military actors the right to establish military bases on their territory, effectively giving Russia a veto over basing access across the region. Members also receive the right to procure military hardware from Russia at discounted prices. The CSTO conducts annual training exercises and facilitates personnel exchanges among member states.

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