conflict
How Biden-Harris blocked a Russia-Ukraine peace deal
From LifeSiteNews
By Bob Marshall
While a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine seemed likely weeks into the war, we must remember when U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin admitted in April 2022 that America’s goal wasn’t peace, but weakening Russia.
Western media sources documented Ukraine and Russia peace proposals during the first weeks of the conflict in February 2022. Reuters noted, “Ukraine wants peace and is ready for talks with Russia, including on neutral status regarding NATO, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters. … ‘If talks are possible, they should be held. If Moscow … want[s] to hold talks, including on neutral status, we are not afraid of this. … Our readiness for dialogue is part of our persistent pursuit of peace.’”
Reuters printed a follow-up 14 hours later: “The Russian and Ukrainian governments … signaled an openness to negotiations even as authorities in Kyiv urged citizens to help defend the capital from advancing Russian forces. … Ukraine and Russia will consult in the coming hours on a time and place for talks.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s spokesman said, “Ukraine was and remains ready to talk about a ceasefire and peace. … We agreed to the proposal of the President of the Russian Federation.” But as Reuters went on to note, “U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Russia’s offer was an attempt to conduct diplomacy ‘at the barrel of a gun,’ and that President Vladimir Putin’s military must stop bombing Ukraine if it was serious about negotiations.”
In Foreign Affairs, Fiona Hill and Angela Stent wrote: “According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and … Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”
The British Financial Times reported in March 2022: “Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has been the primary international mediator. … Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelensky told the Financial Times that any deal would involve: ‘the troops of the Russian Federation … leaving the territory of Ukraine’ captured since the invasion began on February 24. … Ukraine would maintain its armed forces but would be obliged to stay outside military alliances such as NATO and refrain from hosting foreign military bases on its territory.”
The Times report continued, “Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters … that neutrality for Ukraine based on the status of Austria or Sweden was a possibility. ‘This option is really being discussed now, and is one that can be considered neutral.’ … Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said that ‘absolutely specific wordings’ were ‘close to being agreed’ in the negotiations. … The putative deal also included … rights for the Russian language in Ukraine, where it is widely spoken though Ukrainian is the only official language. … The biggest sticking point remains Russia’s demand that Ukraine recognize its 2014 annexation of Crimea and the independence of two separatist statelets in the eastern Donbas border region. Ukraine … was willing to compartmentalise the issue.”
Ukrainska Pravda reported: “[T]he Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson, who appeared in the capital almost without warning, brought two simple messages. The first is that Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not. Johnson’s position was that the collective West … now felt that Putin was not really as powerful as they had previously imagined, and that here was a chance to ‘press him.’ Three days after Johnson left for Britain, Putin went public and said talks with Ukraine ‘had turned into a dead end.’”
U.S. changes war aims
Originally, NATO and the U.S. claimed that they were helping Ukraine simply so that it could retain its sovereignty and defend its territory. But U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced at an April 2022 press conference in Poland that the U.S. wants to see “Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” adding that with “the right equipment” and the “right support” Ukraine could win over Russia.
But logically, weakening Russia was significantly less likely to happen if the Ukraine war ended in April 2022. Pentagon officials met in mid-April in a classified meeting with eight large defense contractors including Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation for discussion on resupplying weapons to Ukraine to prepare for a longer war with Russia.
Charles Freeman, past U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, noted that “from the very beginning the solution has been obvious, which is some variant of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955, meaning a guaranteed independence in return for … decent treatment of minorities inside the guaranteed state; and … neutrality for the guaranteed state.”
Prolonging the war for whatever reason is not a criteria for conducting a “just war.” Extending the war would mean many more grandchildren, children, husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, cousins, and civilians would be killed, wounded, or maimed among both Ukrainian and Russian casualties. Surely, the Russian and Ukrainian families and friends of those killed, wounded, or injured as well as owners of businesses destroyed in the war, when reflecting on their losses, would have thought that accepting the initial agreements were much better than what has happened since.
American columnist Pat Buchanan pointed out that “President Joe Biden almost hourly promises, ‘We are not going to war in Ukraine.’ Why would he then not readily rule out NATO membership for Ukraine, which would require us to do something Biden himself says we Americans, for our own survival, should never do: go to war with Russia?”
Russia-Ukraine accidental nuclear war
Putin warned that if the U.S. or NATO gave permission for Ukraine to use western missiles to strike deeply into Russia, that would radically change the current war because while choosing targets inside Russia can be done by Ukraine military personnel, getting the missiles to hit the long range Russian targets depends directly on western control guiding and directing the missiles. Putin said, “[I]t will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, and European countries, in the war in Ukraine.”
Dmitry Peskov, Russia’s press representative, said that Putin’s statement was, “extremely clear, unambiguous and does not allow for any double readings. We have no doubt that it has reached its intended recipients.” Biden-Harris have backed away for now.
America was founded on the belief in Providence, which consists of the Creator acting within the sphere of human history. Similarly, many citizens of Austria, a Catholic country, placed their trust in Divine Providence by engaging in a multi-year prayer crusade to free Austria from the Soviet military occupation that occurred after World War II. It included the Catholic Rosary organized by the Austrian Franciscan priest, Fr. Petrus Pavlicek, who believed that, “Peace is a gift of God, not the work of politicians.”
The effort to secure Austrian neutrality succeeded on May 15, 1955 with representatives of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States, and France signing a treaty under which all military occupation forces from WWII would withdraw from Austria if it would maintain neutrality. Austria has not joined NATO and has remained neutral to this day.
Unlike Biden-Harris, President Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance do not have to reverse themselves on the prosecution of the Russia-Ukraine war. Barron’s reported in October that Donald Trump told Ukraine President Zelenskyy that the war never needed to happen, and that The Wall Street Journal reported that about one million have been killed or wounded on both sides.
Our late President John F. Kennedy told the 1963 graduates at American University that nuclear powers must avoid confrontations where the choice is between, “either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy — or of a collective death-wish for the world.”
Rolling the dice on nuclear war especially when the United States has no defensive shield to stop ICBMs and no defense whatsoever against Russia’s 6,000mph hypersonic nuclear missiles is completely lacking in prudence.
When Americans voted on November 5, perhaps they considered which ticket had promised to “quickly” end the Russia-Ukraine war.
This article is reprinted with permission from the Family Research Council, publishers of The Washington Stand at washingtonstand.com.
conflict
Trump has started negotiations to end the war in Ukraine
For the first time since Russian soldiers entered Ukraine in February 2022, the US is negotiating with Vladimir Putin. Surprisingly it’s not President Biden’s team at work, but President Elect Donald Trump. Trump has been working through Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban. President Orban traveled to the US to meet with Trump a day before he had an hour long phone conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Clearly Trump is looking for at least a quick de-escalation if not an all out end to the conflict in Ukraine. Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris of The Duran podcast explain the current situation.
conflict
Sending arms to Ukraine is unnecessarily placing American lives in danger
U.S. President Joe Biden signs the guest book during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Ukrainian presidential palace on February 20, 2023, in Kyiv, Ukraine
From LifeSiteNews
By Bob Marshall
Joe Biden’s direct military support, coupled with ignoring peace efforts and sidelining containment principles, could spark global conflict.
To understand why a congressional budget fight over continuing or possibly expanding the Ukraine-Russia war is so fraught with dangers, some background of the relevant history and politics must be considered.
Ukraine-Russian hostilities
On February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated what he designated as his “special military operation.” He undertook this action in Ukraine which was an extension of the hostile acts that started in February 2014 with a U.S.-supported coup of the Ukraine government. But, recall that Putin approached Biden in late December 2021 through mid-February 2022 with proposals to forestall or avoid Russian military action mainly centering around assurances that Ukraine and other countries would not join NATO, an expansion policy which had its proximate beginnings at the end of the Cold War right after the reunification of Germany.
Putin did not approach Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with such proposals because the United States, and specifically President Biden, was the sine qua non for making such a decision regarding Ukraine’s entrance into NATO both for the U.S. and NATO. Basically, Biden told Putin there was nothing to talk about, especially with regard to reaching any agreement on Ukraine not entering NATO.
Biden rejects Ukraine-Russia peace agreement
Biden and British Prime Minister Johnson refused to accept bona fide peace agreements reached and worked out between Ukraine and Russia during the first weeks of this unnecessary conflict achieved with the assistance of Israel’s 13th prime minister, Naftali Bennett. Former Fox News commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote that Biden and Johnson urged Zelensky to reject a more than 100-page peace treaty, “each page of which had been initialed by both sides, and its essence accepted by the Kremlin and by Kyiv,” and that by trusting the U.S. and Britain for military assistance, eastern Ukraine could be protected and Ukraine would not have to make concessions to Putin.
For these reasons, Biden and Great Britain own this war and bear partial responsibility for the Ukraine, Russian, and other lives lost as well as other war costs incurred after the treaty’s rejection.
So, American, Russian, and Ukrainian citizens now suffer the political, economic, and military consequences of the myopic and imprudent judgments of Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, and perhaps much less so by Volodymyr Zelensky who apparently believed promises of continued economic and military support from Biden and Johnson.
Biden trashes Kennan Containment Doctrine
In one feckless and politically vindictive act, Biden put our troops and the American homeland in harm’s way. He obliterated George Kennan’s highly successful “containment” policy, which our country has skillfully employed since 1947 in Europe and East Asia as a means of avoiding a direct military confrontation with communist governments across several conflicts and near conflicts and the resulting horrors of nuclear exchanges with Russia, China, and North Korea.
Containment worked! America avoided nuclear war.
Direct U.S./NATO Attacks on Russia
The headlines, of course, say that “Ukraine fires UK-made missiles” and that “Russia says Ukraine attacked it using U.S. long-range missiles.” Not so fast. Zelensky may have given the order to fire, or maybe even pushed the buttons, but the White House needs to explain to the American voters who paid for these weapons, who guided the missiles to their targets in the Russian homeland, and why it is not constitutionally and morally irresponsible for Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer to risk a much wider or even a worldwide nuclear holocaust to call Vladimir Putin’s bluff.
On November 24, Rebekah Koffler, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official, told Fox News that “we are now on the escalation ladder inching towards a nuclear war. Those ATACMS do not fire by themselves.”
Even if Ukrainian soldiers technically pushed the button, “the targeting of the weapons systems, ensuring that there is a proper flight trajectory of the missile, that it destroys the right target, and the actual battle damage it achieved that we wanted it to achieve, all requires U.S. personnel and U.S. satellites. This is why the Russians have stated that the United States and European targets are now in the crosshairs. In every wargame that we conducted back in the intelligence community ended up in a nuclear war.”
This is direct engagement.
In September, Vladimir Putin explained why a decision like Biden’s is radically different from all other “redlines.”
[T]his is not a question of whether the Kiev regime is allowed or not allowed to strike targets on Russian territory. It is already carrying out strikes … using Western-made long-range precision weapons. … This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or U.S. satellites. … [O]nly NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. … Therefore … It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not. If this decision is made … this will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia.
Biden finesses radical policy change
Biden has still refused to take public ownership of his radical departure from George Kennan’s Cold War containment policy of communist powers when he committed the one cardinal sin of American diplomacy: authorizing the direct military attack of a nuclear opponent, however “small.”
The initial press coverage from the Associated Press on November 17 announced that President Biden had authorized Ukraine, for the first time, to use U.S.-made long-range missiles for use by Ukraine inside Russia, “according to a U.S. official and three people familiar with the matter…. The official and the people familiar with the matter were not authorized to discuss the decision publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.”
The stark refusal of even one Biden official to put their name to this monumentally dangerous and radical policy change is astonishing. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) noted on X that, “Joe Biden just set the stage for World War III[.] Let’s all pray it doesn’t come to that[.] Otherwise, we may never forget where we were [t]he moment we received this news.”
AP also noted that “Biden did not mention the decision during a speech at a stop to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil on his way to the Group of 20 summit.”
Press disguises Biden policy switch
Biden’s “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” approach to not acknowledging the political-military consequences of his own actions was received with favorable “silent” coverage from the nation’s compliant mainstream media.
Indeed, none of the following news organizations told readers that Biden has converted American military personnel and civilian employees into warfighters who are directly engaging Russian troops, equipment, buildings, and territory by his direction: Associated Press, New York Times, NBC-Washington, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg News, ABC-News, Public Broadcasting, Seattle Times, Minnesota Star Tribune, Miami Herald, and The Hill.
Checking the White House, the State Department, and the Defense Department websites for this period reveals no press releases, fact sheets, or acknowledgments about the unprecedented and radical missile policy change with Ukraine or any of its particulars. However, Biden’s White House website posted a note on November 20 expressing sympathy with the Transgender Day of Remembrance but is silent on the possible escalation toward World War III.
Even a week later, National Security Advisor John Kirby still did not acknowledge that Biden has authorized direct attacks on Russia in obvious disregard of Kennan’s successful policy of avoiding nuclear war by avoiding direct military to military conflict with nuclear powers. Below is an exchange between National Security Advisor John Kirby and a reporter at an “on the record” press gaggle:
QUESTION: In the past, you kind of downplayed [the] potential impact of the ATACMS on the battlefield and warned that allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia could lead to escalation by the Kremlin. How do you see it now?
KIRBY: Right now, they are able to use ATACMS to defend themselves, you know, in an immediate-need basis. And right now, you know, understandably, that’s taking place in and around Kursk, in the Kursk Oblast. I’d let the Ukrainians speak to their use of ATACMS and their targeting procedures and what they’re using them for and how well they’re doing. But nothing has changed about the – well, obviously we did change the guidance and gave them guidance that they could use them, you know, to strike these particular types of targets.
Biden’s war escalation ladder
At this point, in light of the grim statistics about a completely avoidable war killing and maiming young men and women, Americans are entitled to the truth, not to a rehash of tired legalisms about Ukraine’s right to defend itself.
On November 25, Judge Andrew Napolitano cited 27-year veteran former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, a frequent guest on Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” podcast, as confirming that Biden made the decision to let Ukraine use the ATACMS missiles without any input from his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, which is highly unusual.
Biden and weakening Russia
Previously, Austin admitted on April 25, 2022 that the point of the war is “to see Russia weakened,” and Zelensky told The Economist on March 27, 2022, that “there are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives.” As Leonid Ragozin wrote in May 2024:
The West has crossed many red lines and is willing to try even more, but it is impossible to predict how the close-knit group of criminally inclined individuals which rules Russia will act if their country begins losing. It has always been a tough proposition to play chess with a guy who is holding a hand grenade. And it makes no sense, as Biden’s predecessors knew very well during the Cold War.
Biden initiated direct but “lower level” hostilities with Russia on November 19, and Biden ally, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, followed suit with similar hostile bombardments of Russia on November 20, partially fulfilling the goal of British and American war hawks attempting to push Russia into larger hostilities under Biden’s lead, or that of his “handlers,” to turn the second cold war with Russia – the aspirations of Washington and London’s armchair generals – into a conflict more likely in their minds of bringing Putin into a more contentious and uncontrollable situation that would relieve Putin of power.
This article is reprinted with permission from the Family Research Council, publishers of The Washington Stand at washingtonstand.com.
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