Ukraine rejects Russia’s conditions for a 30-day ceasefire:
Ukraine has just released their own ‘red lines’, which contravene virtually every one of Russia’s most important demands.
- No restrictions on the size of the army;
- No restrictions on Ukraine’s participation in the EU and NATO;
- Russia should not have a veto over Ukraine’s participation in international organizations.
What exactly, then, is the point of giving Ukraine a 30-day ceasefire, when they are expressly rejecting Russia’s core conditions?
It’s interesting that Kiev would implicitly accept the Russian territorial demands, but considering that its forces are a) probably less than 30 days from retreating from the remainder of those four regions, and, b) Russia has already entered a fifth region, the Oblast of Sumy, in force, that is little more than refusing to deny an effective fait accompli.
But as Simplicius points out, the strangest thing is that the US is now threatening to do something Russia hasn’t even been accused of doing by anyone, which is to invade a NATO signatory.
The Chairman of Denmark’s Defense Committee, Rasmus Jarlov responds to today’s statement by U.S. President Donald J. Trump while meeting with the Secretary-General of NATO, in which he said that he believed the U.S. annexation of Greenland would happen, with Jarlov stating, “It would mean war between two NATO countries. Greenland has just voted against immediate independence from Denmark and does not want to be American ever.”
What Jarlov references above is the new polls that show 85% of Greenlanders do not want to become a part of the US. What makes the hypocrisy even more outrageous is that in the video above, Trump even hints at a potential referendum for Greenland to join the US. So, referenda are “not democracy” when it comes to Russia in Crimea, Donbass, and elsewhere—but are fine when the US does it?
At this point, anyone who claims to know what’s going on is posturing, because the rhetoric is now so far beyond the dialectic it’s not even possible to make any coherent sense of it all. Best just to ignore all the words and pay attention to the actual facts on the ground. However, it’s becoming apparent that Russia expects Odessa and Nikolaev to peacefully come under its control, as its demand for self-determination on the part of the Ukrainian-controlled territories obviously anticipates.
In addition to the fact that all our constitutional territories are unequivocally not subject to any revision, and the organization and conduct of a Tribunal on the facts of war crimes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, our interests also extend to the entire left-bank Ukraine, where there should be no Ukrainian troops, and the territories themselves should be under our protectorate. The same applies to the Odessa and Nikolaev regions, where our monitoring missions will operate. This effectively means the establishment of our bases there. The administration of these regions should be appointed from representatives loyal to us. And, of course, these regions, like the regions of left-bank Ukraine, should have the right to self-determination.