The U.K has announced it’s discovered a plot to oust the current leadership in Ukraine and install pro-Kremlin leadership in Ukraine.
“We have information that indicates the Russian government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine,” the Foreign Office [the counterpart to the U.S. State Department]A statement was made Saturday.
The Foreign Office’s statement named an ex-lawmaker as the Russian candidate for prime minister and cited Russian intelligence links with four former senior officials who fled to Russia in 2014 when their boss, then-President Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted during mass street protests.
“Some of these have contact with Russian intelligence officers currently involved in the planning for an attack on Ukraine,” the Foreign Office said.
They didn’t go into detail on how this was supposed to occur, but said that Russia was debating different options “from a military invasion to destabilization campaign” aimed at getting rid of “pro-West president Volodymyr Zelensky” and his administration.
They are currently home to around 100,000 troops at the Ukrainian border. Recently, they shipped planes and air defense system from Belarus.
Russian fighter jets arrived in Belarus, northern Ukraine. U.S. officials concerned Ukraine’s capital “now in the crosshairs.”
pic.twitter.com/5RhuUkFmfN— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) January 22, 2022
The U.S. intends to expel the relatives of the diplomats living in Ukraine, as we previously reported. It’s not clear how many Americans are in Ukraine, and the White House seemed clueless on the question during Friday’s press briefing, and again seemed angry they were even asked, with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki saying they don’t microchip people — an eerie, deja vu statement reminiscent of what she said when they left Americans behind in Afghanistan.
The White House called this latest information about a possible coup “deeply concerning.” NSC spokesperson Emily Horne said, “The Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to determine their own future, and we stand with our democratically-elected partners in Ukraine.”
Except the problem is that Joe Biden ratcheted up the danger to Ukraine with a huge blunder, not only suggesting that a “minor incursion” wouldn’t get a swift and terrible response but indicating there were divisions within NATO thought on the matter and even that he thought Russia would ultimately prevail.
Biden clearly said whatever he’d been advised, without any filtering out of the things he shouldn’t be revealing. Russia seems to be more mobile and has many options. Because even though the Biden team tried to clean it up, you can’t prevent Russia from unhearing what he said. With the weak Biden still in power, they may think that this is it.
It’s worth looking back a little on the history of how we got to this spot. Many people know about the failures of Obama-Biden in 2014, with Obama’s lack of any real response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine at that time. It’s not a coincidence that Vladimir Putin didn’t escalate while President Donald Trump was in office. Russian puppet master. It’s with the more “flexible” ones, Obama and Biden, that he made his moves.
We gave Ukraine some assurances, even though Ukraine isn’t a NATO member, in return for their giving up their nuclear arms in 1994 (which they had in the aftermath of the Soviet Union collapse).
In the Budapest Memorandum were security assurances to Ukraine. With the entrance of Ukraine into the international order as a non-nuclear state, Russia, the U.S., and the U.K. pledged to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” The memo reaffirmed their obligation to “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.” The signatories also reaffirmed their commitment to “seek immediate” UN Security Council action “to provide assistance to Ukraine … if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression.”
But there’s another part to the history — that’s the involvement of Barack Obama in weakening Ukraine. Obama’s junior senator status in 2005 meant that he helped to secure $48million in U.S. funds for Ukraine to get rid of some of its weapons. They were not only convinced to get rid of the weapons, we used our own money. They extended the nuclear weapon agreement to cover artillery, small arms and conventional ammunition.
If we had stood firm to Ukraine’s commitments in exchange for the cessation of their weapons, all would have been well. Obama, however, left them hanging in the winds in 2014 as Russia attacked. Obama refused to give them lethal help to defend themselves when he himself had made them even more vulnerable. Trump, the Russian puppet master? Talk about “flexibility.”
So, it’s not surprising that Putin may now be moving given Biden was Obama’s Vice President — not to mention Biden’s own weakness.
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