Tell me who is right...

Putin correctly states ..."they're parking missiles in front of our house"

Ask yourself a question that deserves an honest answer if that's possible. Do you truly understand the question?

https://youtu.be/MOkl2XgZlw0

Tell me, what is it that you don't UNDERSTAND...Putin definitely has got a very strong point.

You may not like him but it is totally true...how often does Washington RENEGED on promises.

The argument is that it wasn't in writing only verbal,

This was a mistake by "world pleaser" and very stupid traitor Gorbachev who succumbed to manipulation during negotiations in 1990 with US secretary, James Baker...that is why he is hated in Russia. If documents were drawn up then and signed this threat would have never happened.

They claim the United States has failed to uphold a promise that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe, a deal made during the 1990 negotiations between the West and the Soviet Union over German unification. In this view, Russia is being forced to forestall NATO’s eastward march as a matter of self-defense.

The West has vigorously protested that no such deal was ever struck. However, hundreds of memos, meeting minutes and transcripts from U.S. archives indicate otherwise. Although what the documents reveal isn’t enough so they say?

Read this

James A. Baker III’s Words on NATO Loom in Ukraine Standoff - The New York Times

Does America ever keep it's word...maybe sometimes but we have seen clearly that they lie clearly, ie the false invention of weapons mass destruction in Iraq.

WASHINGTON MEMO

In Ukraine Conflict, Putin Relies on a Promise That Ultimately Wasn’t

The current confrontation turns partly on what, if any, commitments Secretary of State James A. Baker III made about NATO’s expansion in the waning days of the Cold War.

WASHINGTON — When officials from Russia and the United States sit down in Geneva on Monday for high-profile discussions with another war in Europe on the line, hovering over the talks will be an American diplomat who will not even be in the room.

Nearly 30 years after James A. Baker III stepped down as secretary of state, the current confrontation over Ukraine turns in part on a long-running argument about what, if any, commitments he made to Moscow in the waning days of the Cold War and whether the United States fulfilled them.

President Vladimir V. Putin and other Russian officials have asserted that Mr. Baker ruled out NATO expansion into Eastern Europe when he served as President George H.W. Bush’s top diplomat. The West’s failure to live up to that agreement, in this argument, is the real cause of the crisis now gripping Europe as Mr. Putin demands that NATO forswear membership for Ukraine as the price of calling off a potential invasion.

But the record suggests this is a selective account of what really happened, used to justify Russian aggression for years. While there was indeed discussion between Mr. Baker and the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in the months after the fall of the Berlin Wall about limiting NATO jurisdiction if East and West Germany were reunited, no such provision was included in the final treaty signed by the Americans, Europeans and Russians.

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“The bottom line is, that’s a ridiculous argument,” Mr. Baker said in an interview in 2014, a few months after Russia seized Crimea and intervened in eastern Ukraine. “It is true that in the initial stages of negotiations I said ‘what if’ and then Gorbachev himself supported a solution that extended the border that included the German Democratic Republic,” or East Germany, within NATO. Since the Russians signed that treaty, he asked, how can they rely “on something I said a month or so before? It just doesn’t make sense.”

In fact, while Mr. Putin accuses the United States of breaking an agreement it never made, Russia has violated an agreement it actually did make with regard to Ukraine. In 1994, after the Soviet Union broke apart, Russia signed an accord along with the United States and Britain called the Budapest Memorandum, in which the newly independent Ukraine gave up 1,900 nuclear warheads in exchange for a commitment from Moscow “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against the country.

Russia trampled Ukrainian sovereignty when it annexed Crimea and sponsored proxy forces to wage war against the Kyiv government in eastern Ukraine. And it is once again threatening the use of force by assembling 100,000 Russian troops along its border to extract guarantees that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO.

The dispute traces back to the final years of the Cold War, when East and West were negotiating the framework of what Mr. Bush would call the new world order. The fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, led to negotiations over unifying the two Germanys formed after World War II.

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War.Credit...Diana Walker/Getty Images

The Bush administration was determined to anchor a combined Germany within NATO, but Western officials sought to assuage the Soviets’ concerns about their security. On Jan. 31, 1990, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the West German foreign minister, said in a speech that there would not be “an expansion of NATO territory to the east, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union.”

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He was talking about whether NATO troops would be stationed in territory then constituting East Germany, not whether other countries would eventually be considered for membership in the alliance. Nonetheless, Mr. Baker picked up on Mr. Genscher’s formulation during a Feb. 9 visit to Moscow.

Understand Russia’s Relationship With the West

The tension between the regions is growing and Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly willing to take geopolitical risks and assert his demands.

·         Competing for Influence: For months, the threat of confrontation has been growing in a stretch of Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

·          Threat of Invasion: As the Russian military builds its presence near Ukraine, Western nations are seeking to avert a worsening of the situation.

·         Energy Politics: Europe is a huge customer of Russia’s fossil fuels. The rising tensions in Ukraine are driving fears of a midwinter cutoff.

·         Migrant Crisis: As people gathered on the eastern border of the European Union, Russia's uneasy alliance with Belarus triggered additional friction.

·         Militarizing Society: With a “youth army” and initiatives promoting patriotism, the Russian government is pushing the idea that a fight might be coming.

As an inducement for agreeing to German unification, Mr. Baker offered what he called “ironclad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward,” according to a declassified memorandum recording the discussion.

“There would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east,” Mr. Baker told Mr. Gorbachev, coming back to the formula three times during the conversation.

Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine Tensions

Updated 

Jan. 28, 2022, 3:02 p.m. ETJan. 28, 2022

Jan. 28, 2022

·         Russia has enough troops and equipment at Ukraine’s borders to invade the whole country, the Pentagon says.

·         If Russia invades, the Biden administration plans to hit Russian banks harder than ever before.

·         The Ukraine crisis has renewed attention on political prisoners in Belarus.

Back in Washington, the National Security Council staff was alarmed. The word “jurisdiction” could imply that the NATO doctrine of collective defense would apply only to part of German territory, limiting German sovereignty. It was one thing to agree not to move troops into the East right away, as far as American officials were concerned, but all of Germany had to be part of NATO.

“The N.S.C. got to him pretty quickly and said that language might be misinterpreted,” Condoleezza Rice, then a Soviet adviser to Mr. Bush and later secretary of state under President George W. Bush, remembered in an interview for a biography of Mr. Baker.

Mr. Baker got the message and began walking back his words by ditching the term “jurisdiction” from all future discussions. Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany likewise rejected Mr. Genscher’s formulation.

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“I may have been a little bit forward on my skis on that, but they changed it and he knew that they changed it,” Mr. Baker recalled of Mr. Gorbachev. “He never once again in all the months that followed ever raised the question of NATO expanding its jurisdiction eastward. He then signed documents in which NATO did expand its jurisdiction.”

Understand the Escalating Tensions Over Ukraine

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A brewing conflict. Antagonism between Ukraine and Russia has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, annexing Crimea and whipping up a rebellion in the east. A tenuous cease-fire was reached in 2015, but peace has been elusive.

A spike in hostilities. Russia has recently been building up forces near its border with Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s messaging toward its neighbor has hardened. Concern grew in late October, when Ukraine used an armed drone to attack a howitzer operated by Russian-backed separatists.

Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.

The Kremlin’s position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscow’s military buildup was a response to Ukraine’s deepening partnership with the alliance.

Rising tension. Western countries have tried to maintain a dialogue with Moscow. But administration officials recently warned that the U.S. could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Russia invade.

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When Mr. Baker returned to Moscow in May, he offered what were called the nine reassurances, including a commitment to allow Soviet troops in East Germany to remain for a transition period and not extend NATO forces into that territory until they left. This was hardly a promise not to extend the alliance east, but he insisted to the Soviets that this was the best the United States could do.

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Secretary of State James A. Baker III, right, shaking hands with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a meeting in 1989.Credit...Dirck Halstead/Getty Images

Mr. Gorbachev eventually agreed. The final treaty unifying Germany later in 1990 barred foreign troops from the old East Germany, but German troops assigned to NATO could be deployed there once Soviet forces withdrew by the end of 1994. Nothing in the treaty addressed NATO expansion beyond that.

“Now remember, it’s not clear the Soviet Union is going to collapse at this point,” Dr. Rice recalled. “It’s not even clear that the Warsaw Pact is going to collapse. This is about the unification of Germany.” She added, “The expansion of NATO was just not on the table as an issue in ’90-’91.”

No less a witness agreed than Mr. Gorbachev. “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years,” he told an interviewer after Russia’s intervention in Ukraine seven years ago. The issue was foreign troops in eastern Germany. “Baker’s statement” about not one inch “was made in that context,” Mr. Gorbachev said. “Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”

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As it happens, one of those who suggested a different approach was Mr. Baker. In 1993, as NATO was contemplating admitting Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, he proposed in an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times that the alliance consider another possible member: Russia itself.

The idea would be to force democratic change before it could join, while making clear that Russia was not an enemy. “For our relations with Russia, it can both encourage reform and hedge our bets against a return to authoritarianism and expansionism,” Mr. Baker wrote. That obviously never happened.

Funny how Russia wasn't a problem under the 45th Presidency,  but Crimea was lost under the 44th Presidency and under the 46th, there's huge tension again...Guess who 44 put in charge of Ukrainian afairs during his Presidency? under 44, ISSIS emerged and under 46 the Taliban gets to rise to power in Afghanistan again...Funny how nobody sees a patern.

Biden is a corrupt arsehole...the clown has plunged the whole world into inflation...he doubled the price of crude in less than a year...during a pandemic while the demand should be at a historic low over an extended period.

100000 troops... I wouldn't join Nato with Putin so close. 

Been through borders in and out of Russia... they do a serious job. 

Would love to know how many border posts they have. 

All would and will be fine if USA keep their "promises" and stop their shenana gins.

Ofcourse it's only natural that they get this response from Russia with another power or powers camping on their doorstep...especially as it (Nato formations) moved originally from Eastern Germany, Poland, and gradually from west to east, then south and north slowly encroaching with security threat of missile erections.

How the hell does one blame them. The USA shat themselves under JFK when missile launchers were erected in Cuba. This is even worse. As Putin said, how would the USA feel if Russia erected missile bases on USA's borders of Mexico and Canada.

How the devil does one law apply to one country and not the other? Who do they think they are?

Liars and hypocrites. Still wondering where the imaginery Weapons of Mass Destruction evapourated too after the Iraq shambles.

 Actually glad this has come to this because Putin won't back down. Stop NATO encroaching Ukraine...of course Putin won't attack Ukraine if they comply with his request. This will be the end of Biden as the whole world can see what a senile, weak and corrupt creature he is. Putin is very astute strategist and always has a contingency plan too.

I'm not anti USA provided they show some integrity and respect to others and concern themselves only with getting their own house in order and stop interfering with others.

These words I quoted once before from a Billy Joel's lyrics, keep ringing in my ears and I thought how appropriate to this very situation, in fact very appropriate:

Once there were trenches and walls and one point of every view
Fight 'til the other man falls
Kill him before he kills you
These days the edges are blurred, I'm old and tired of war
I hear the other man's words
I'm not that sure anymore

Shades of grey are all that I find
When I look to the enemy line
Black and white was so easy for me
But shades of grey are the colors I see

Now with the wisdom of years I try to reason things out
And the only people I fear are those who never have doubts
Save us all from arrogant men, and all the causes they're for
I won't be righteous again
I'm not that sure anymore

Shades of grey are all that I find
when I look to they enemy line
There ain't no rainbows shining on me
Shades of grey are the colours I see

Document confirms US told Russia NATO won’t expand

Putin was right, Stoltenberg was wrong: NATO “brazenly deceived” Russia about expansion and a British document proves it

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A newly discovered document from March 1991 shows US, UK, French, and German officials discussing a pledge made to Russia that NATO will not expand to Poland and beyond. Its publication by the German magazine Der Spiegel on Friday proves Moscow right and NATO wrong on the matter. 

The minutes of a March 6, 1991 meeting in Bonn between political directors of the foreign ministries of the US, UK, France, and Germany contain multiple references to “2+4” talks on German unification in which the West made it “clear” to the Soviet Union that NATO will not expand past the eastern borders of Germany.

“We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in the 2+4 talks, as well as in other negotiations – that we do not intend to benefit from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe,” the document quotes US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz.

“NATO should not expand to the east, either officially or unofficially,” Seitz added. 

A British representative also mentions the existence of a “general agreement” that membership of NATO for eastern European countries is “unacceptable.”

“We had made it clear during the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe,” said West German diplomat Juergen Hrobog. “We could not therefore offer Poland and others membership in NATO.”

The minutes later clarified he was referring to the Oder River, the boundary between East Germany and Poland. Hrobog further noted that West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had agreed with this position as well.

The document was found in the UK National Archives by Joshua Shifrinson, a political science professor at Boston University in the US. It had been marked “Secret” but was declassified at some point.

Shifrinson tweeted on Friday he was “honored” to work with Der Spiegel on the document showing that “Western diplomats believed they had indeed made a NATO non-enlargement pledge.”

“Senior policymakers deny a non-expansion pledge was offered. This new document shows otherwise,” Shifrinson said in a follow-up tweet, noting that “beyond” the Elbe or Oder by any standard includes Eastern European countries to which NATO started expanding just eight years later.

During a major press conference in December 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the West had promised the Soviet Union NATO would not expand “a single inch” to the east, but “brazenly deceived” and “cheated” Moscow to do just that.

Responding to these comments, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance “has never promised not to expand.” In an interview with Der Spiegel later, Stoltenberg repeated that “there has never been such a promise, there has never been such a behind-the-scenes deal, it is simply not true.”

Yes Seb, the fools keep on poking the bear and are pretending not to understand the consequences...this whole Russian/Ukraine BS has been orchestrated by the Biden Administration to cover their failures elsewhere AND to make a hell of a lot of money...it's deliberate,  just like before when he was in charge of Ukrainian affairs under BO...sick fcks dumping the whole world into uncontrolled inflation.

Well Draad, it just is the way that fools everybody...I guess it's more prevalent in USA today...they have always been bullshitters in politics (and people believe them) Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and South America...talk about Pots calling Kettles Black...Lies and more lies to cover up, then flex their muscles as if they won (with Hollywood being the biggest money making propaganda machine). Goeb bels said if tell enough lies over and over again, eventually the people swallow them . What is most concerning people don't really care. Indifference is a killer of man's soul.

Now even Ukraine said an attack on Ukraine  is unlikely - but the US propaganda says otherwise.   They have somehow to prove that they prevented a certain attack because of the "strong actions" of Biden  - who are sneered at by the enemies of the USA and governments worldwide.   The strong actions were meaningless because their never was a planned invasion attack  by the Russians on Ukraine.

I must remind you that in 2017 there were similar army maneuvers in the same area and the same allegation was made by the media - but not by the US Government at the time - since the stories were fake news BS and now the dishonest Biden Administration is stoking the media fires to try and draw away attention from their own disastrous administration. 

As the mid-term election  is now a mere 8 months away one can expect the same rype of vicious Goebbels attacks o the truth will become endemic.     It is not beyond the Biden Administration to use the terrorist subsidiaries of the Democratic Party - BLM and Antifa to attack the cities as they have done in  2020 to engineer a State of Emergency and then declare the election can proceed only by using mail-in ballots without any requirement as to ID.   The Democrats will try their utmost to sabotage the upcoming election by election fraud.                 .         

Perhaps someone close to Talibiden should explain this "unclassified" agreement on NATO expansion in the former eastern block countries to him.

Unfortunately the USA is of the opinion that they control everything.

What war have they really won and how many lives, families and countries have they destroyed in their pledge   to "Help".

They are great in promising to secure borders for others but themselves.

Just look what is taking place on the USA southern border and they are frantic about Russia wanting to secure their borders and country.

Wake up folks the "Left" Politicians are destroying democracy and everything our fathers and families fought for in two world wars.

Take back you country and do what has to be done.

Ready, Aim and FIRE, FIRE, FIRE...........

Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq are just some of the many.

ANKARA

A China's human rights group in a report released on Friday blamed the US for repeatedly waging wars in foreign lands under the banner of "humanitarian intervention," and added that from the end of World War II to 2001, it has "initiated 81% of armed conflicts in the world."

In a report, "Severe humanitarian disasters caused by US aggressive wars against foreign countries," the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS) said the US foreign wars have "caused massive loss of military lives, serious civilian casualties as well as property damage, leading to horrific humanitarian disasters."

"The selfishness and hypocrisy of the United States have also been fully exposed through these foreign wars," the report alleged.

It is one of several such reports released by Beijing in recent times amid tensions with Washington.

The report mapped wars in Korea, Vietnam, Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria where the US was directly involved and "caused enormous humanitarian tragedies."

From the end of WWII in 1945 to 2001, said the report, "among the 248-armed conflicts that occurred in 153 regions of the world, 201 were initiated by the US, accounting for 81% of the total number."

"Most of the wars of aggression waged by the US have been unilateralist actions, and some of these wars were even opposed by its own allies... The selfishness and hypocrisy of the US have also been fully exposed through these foreign wars," it said.

According to the report, Washington intervened "directly or indirectly in other countries' affairs by supporting proxy wars, inciting anti-government insurgencies, carrying out assassinations, providing weapons and ammunition, and training anti-government armed forces, which have caused serious harm to the social stability and public security of the relevant countries."

"These wars have directly led to humanitarian disasters in the war-affected countries, such as personnel casualties, damage to facilities, production stagnation, and especially unnecessary civilian casualties," it said.

"In the war-affected areas, people died in their homes, markets, and streets, they were killed by bombs, bullets, improvised explosive devices, and drones, and they lost their lives during airstrikes launched by the US forces, raids launched by their government forces, terrorist and extremist massacres, and domestic riots," it added.

And now, has fueled Ukraine.

Make your own opinion but the record and evidence is there...so do your own research and be honest if that's possible with contaminated reports controlled by biased media.