Brinkmanship
- Dear Leader Obama is deliberately sending American troops into a nation at war with Russia. Is Obama hoping for an "incident", an attack by some mysterious "Russian connected" faction . . . . all just in time for the election.
- The West is playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship over the Ukraine.
Soldiers from Canada and other NATO countries will take part in joint exercises with the Ukrainian army this month that are likely to further fuel suspicions between Moscow and the West.
A total of 1,300 soldiers will take part in the 10-day drills, which begin on Sept. 16 at the Yavoriv training centre, near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. The Pentagon said the United States will contribute 200 soldiers to the exercise, which is code-named Rapid Trident. It wasn’t clear Wednesday how many Canadian troops would take part.
A press statement from the U.S. Army’s European Command, which is leading the exercises, said Germany, Britain, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Spain would also contribute troops, as well as Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan, which are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization reports The Globe and Mail.
Though the exercises have taken place annually since 2006 under the auspices of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, this will be the first time that NATO troops have set foot in Ukraine since the country first fell into a succession of crises late last year.
The drill was originally supposed to take place in July, but was delayed as fighting roared in the east of Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed rebels. NATO officials say the drill will go ahead this time, despite the ongoing fighting in the other end of the country, and the mounting evidence of direct Russian involvement there.
A NATO official told The Globe and Mail ahead of a summit that begins Thursday in Wales that the alliance believes that there are now at least 3,000 regular Russian troops fighting inside Ukraine, accompanied by more than 100 battle tanks.
Russia, for its part, accuses NATO of deliberately stirring up tensions in Ukraine. Mikhail Popov, the deputy secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, said Tuesday that Moscow would soon draw up a new military doctrine, in response to “the desire of U.S. and NATO leaders to continue their policy of aggravating tensions with Russia.”
The Ukraine Never Existed Above is a February 1918 article from The New York Times showing a map of the Russian Imperial territories claimed by the new Ukraine People’s Republic at the time. . Until recent times Ukraine has never even existed as a nation. Briefly from 1917–1921 a Ukrainian People's Republic was born but was rapidly re-absorbed back into Russia (Soviet Union). Even then Ukraine did not claim the Crimea which was still part of Russia. The modern nation of the Ukraine was born in 1990 as the Soviet Union fell apart. . Call me crazy, but I just can't get worked up about a nation that has only existed for 24 years and has been part of Russia for centuries. |
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