Ivanhoe wrote: 
Laying the groundwork for your boss to use them, are you? Nice work, really. You guys are as transparent as gossamer paper.

Some perplexing and possibly bad signs. Poland’s public announcement that it would transfer MIGs to US base in Germany for subsequent transfer to Ukraine was difficult to understand, as it apparently caught US  by surprise and was quickly labeled “untenable” by the US. 

Biden’s announcement of US ban on oil/gas from Russia was a unilateral action that seems more motivated by domestic political demands. Germany and Hungary already had stated their opposition to such bans  in their countries.

Up till this point, it at least appeared that the NATO members were trying to take actions in unison. Signs of any breakdown in that unity likely will bolster Putin.

Saudis, UAE Refuse To Take Biden's Calls To Discuss Ukraine Situation, Talk To Putin Instead

Maybe it was a mistake to call Saudi Arabia a "pariah" state...

Ukraine Ready For "Diplomatic Solution" But Won't Trade "Single Inch" Of Territories: Zelensky Aide

Some negotiating back and forth, now that Ukraine's core demand for membership in NATO appears to no longer be on the table.

Doesn't look like liberation to me.

Chernobyl site knocked off power grid

Can we do something about these Russian trolls on here?

An International Relations Theory Guide to the War in Ukraine - Stephen M. Walt/FP
A consideration of which theories have been vindicated—and which have fallen flat.

Warfare also has its own logic, and it unleashes political forces that tend to drown out alternative voices, even in societies where freedom of speech and open debate remain intact. Because the stakes are high, wartime is when public officials, the media, and the citizenry should work hardest to resist stereotypes, think coolly and carefully, avoid hyperbole and simplistic clichés, and above all remain open to the possibility that they might be wrong and that a different course of action is required. Once the bullets start flying, however, what typically occurs is a narrowing of vision, a rapid descent into Manichaean modes of thought, the marginalization or suppression of dissenting voices, the abandonment of nuance, and a stubborn focus on victory at all costs. This process seems to be well underway inside Putin’s Russia, but a milder form is apparent in the West too. All told, this is a recipe for making a terrible situation worse.

Ukraine just needs to give up the right to be in Nato and recognize Odessa which is 75% Russian to be in the Russia sphere and same with 2 other eastern provinces, give up those three areas and give up Nato and then Putin says he is all set, no more war. And Putin is making 350 million per day in oil and gas sales, they are not going to give that up. So war will not happen they will negotiate giving up territory and right to be part of Nato.

This is very informative

 Animal-Farm wrote: I would imagine if we were being invaded by Russia, some people would change there minds.

Pentagon says Poland’s jet offer for Ukraine ‘not tenable’

 black321 wrote: 
Does anyone remember that Ukraine's sovereignty was guaranteed by treaty when they gave up their nukes after the fall of the USSR ?  IIRC, Ukraine then had the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal on earth.  Russia was a signatory to that treaty.  So much for a treaty going forward.  If they still had the nukes, this would not be going on right now.  And the other elephant in the Treaty Room is the CCP who was supposed to wait 50 years before a full assimilation of Hong Kong.

The mention here from abroad of the USA being the bad "good guys" whose transgressions are greater than either Russia or China and thus tarnished, irredeemable and without a proper moral voice on all of this makes me wonder even more how this all ends.  With there being even less reason to trust the USA's word over either Russia or China based on this view.

This stuff about Trump weakening NATO pisses me off, though.  All's Trump did was try to make everyone pay their bill.  The USA was carrying all of the freight, as someone mentioned about Libya somewhere, too.  The French sucked us in because Sweet Libyan Crude was what their refineries were built to run and they were almost totally dependent on Libyan oil.  Yet because they and the rest of NATO did not invest in their military like they were supposed to, they got us to run the air war, even though we had long settled our difference with Qadaffy and even had him on our payroll.  We destroyed a country because of France / the EU's (NATO's) personal local economic problems.

The only true imperialist empires right now are the Russian's and the Chinese.  They are the only ones seeking to add to their territory.  And now they are doing it aggressively.  The gloves are off.  So Climate Change is a bigger existential threat than this overt imperialism ?  Yeah, ok.  I'll have what y'all are smoking and get over it then, cuz it seems to be working for you.

Zelensky Ready To 'Discuss & Find Compromise' On Crimea, No Longer Insists On NATO Membership

"Regarding NATO, I have cooled down regarding this question..."

Poland to give MiG-29 jets to US for expected donation to Ukraine

 R_P wrote:
Hmm, is this not something they can swallow, and put an end to the inevitable further destruction, loss of life...eventually Putin will die, and perhaps negotiations can restart. 
Everyone has played a part in this tragedy...

Discerning Volodymyr Zelensky

Posted on March 8, 2022 by Lambert Strether

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

“‘Not A Very Nice Person At All,’ she read. ‘I wonder what kind of person would put that on a wallet?’ ‘Someone who wasn’t a very nice person,’ said William.” –Terry Pratchett, The Truth

In this extremely short and simplistic post, I will do what it says on the tin: Scrape away the already deeply impacted layers of wartime propaganda<1>. I propose to do this in the old-fashioned American way: By following the money. (I was inspired to write this post by Gonzalo Lira, former NC contributor (!), streaming from Kharkiv (!!). His video, “Who Is Zelensky? A Puppet—and Here’s Why,” is perceptive, lucid, and convincing, albeit NSFW. I recommend you listen to it, on the off chance that the more hits this video has, the more of a public figure — hence, safer — Lira will be.)

As a caveat: I’m going to be looking at the dealings of a billionaire, the armed militants he funds, and a politician he funds. All these relationships are so complicated and intricate as to make, say, The Clinton Foundation look like a child’s scribbled drawing. All these relationships are deeply rooted in the history of Ukrainian nationalism as well, with plenty of heroism and villainy to go around. By taking a transactional approach (“follow the money”) I abstract away from all that. (For example, Watergate exploded because it involved cash payoffs, not because of the often bizarre personal histories of the participants.)

With that, let’s begin with the money man.

——

Reuters:

Some of Ukraine’s private battalions have blackened the country’s international reputation with their extremist views. The Azov battalion, partially funded by Taruta and Kolomoisky, uses the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol as its logo, and many of its members openly espouse neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic views. The battalion members have spoken about “bringing the war to Kiev,” and said that Ukraine needs “a strong dictator to come to power who could shed plenty of blood but unite the nation in the process.”

(There’s that “redemptive violence” thing.)

And besides funding the Azov Battalion, Kolomoyskyi is funding somebody else, seriously and for some time.

The Politician: Volodymyr Zelensky

That would be the current President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky<5>. From the BBC:

n the Ukrainian political television dramedy Servant of the People, Volodymyr Zelensky plays a teacher who becomes president after a video of him ranting against government corruption goes viral. It’s typical of the programme’s slapstick take on the country’s struggles with oligarchy and overindulgent bureaucrats during its 18 years as an independent, post-Soviet nation. But scenes like this one have taken on a new significance now that Zelensky has become the real president of Ukraine, thanks to his popularity as a fictional leader.

Ironic, history. More:

Servant of the People premiered in Ukraine in 2015, starring Zelensky – then known as a comic actor – as a regular guy-turned-president named Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko. The show ran for three seasons on the country’s 1+1 channel

In terms of quality, Servant of the People holds its own against any internationally known prestige comedy, which likely contributed to its effectiveness in both pointing out such corruption and crowning a real president. It falls somewhere between Armando Iannucci’s dark, cutting political satires, The Thick of It and Veep, and the sunny American take on local politics, Parks and Recreation. Servant of the People hits close to the bone at times, but offers a ray of hope too, packaged in smooth production, tight writing, fine performances, and laugh-out-loud sequences.

It’s little wonder that such a series, coupled with Zelensky’s winning performance as a smart, moral everyman, added up to a presidential victory that exceeded the show’s fantasy version of election night: on Servant of the People, he won 67% of the vote; in real life, he won 73.2%.

And the kicker:

Kolomoisky owns 1+1, which broadcast Servant of the People and ostensibly helped to bring Zelensky to power.

“Ostensibly” is doing more work there than any mere adverb should every have to do. And Zelensky fits into the West Wing-shaped hole in the liberal Democrat brain. A telling detail on the 2019 election:

With the Ukrainian economy stalled and Poroshenko’s approval rating approaching single digits, it seemed likely that the 2019 presidential election would be a repeat of the 2014 contest, with the incumbent facing Orange Revolution veteran Yulia Tymoshenko. Instead, more than three dozen candidates entered the race, and Zelensky emerged as one of the front-runners virtually from the moment of the declaration of his candidacy. That announcement was made on 1+1 on December 31, 2018, preempting Poroshenko’s annual New Year’s address. The provocative move raised questions about the involvement of 1+1 owner Kolomoisky in Zelensky’s campaign.

I’ll bet!

Conclusion

Everything you always wanted to know about Ukraine*

*But were afraid to ask

AJC Boone is back with the kind of post that is destined to become the default reference for everyone trying to separate propaganda from empirical reality over the manufactured Ukraine crisis. A former diplomat, Boone is very much on her home turf here, and it shows: for the first time you will read about the real nature of Ukraine – its history, culture, leadership disaster and political corruption; and you can follow the evidenced blow-by-blow story of just how little Putin really ‘wants’ in relation to the country – as well as just how much diplomatic demonisation has been used by American and European media-military machines in search of an ethereal ‘threat’. In a theatre where Truth long ago left by the back door, Amy Boone is a class act. Enjoy.

What I Saw Then

In my Kievan summer of 1992, the US embassy was staffed largely by the diasporan-offspring of WWII Displaced Persons, slavically world-weary Americans called Ihor and Natalja and Bohdan. The subject of lunchtime chatter in the canteen ambled from no-goodnik relatives nicknamed “Snake,” to the unwelcome prospect of obligatory visits to country-cousins at the weekend. My own three staffers were not Americans but local-hires. These included an administrator-of-a-certain-age with dreamy blue Mitford eyes, who sighed like a Xanaxed Chekhov sister over lost romance; and soon-departing Oleh, who on the basis of his Jewish ethnicity had finagled permission to emigrate to Israel. This felt like a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket escape from a place whence there literally was no escape (the USSR a mere three years before had been exactly such a place). I could hardly imagine that any Jews survived the predations of the 20th c in this part of the world. Oh, hang on a second, Oleh was not, strictly-speaking, Jewish, I learned. His wife, from whom he was long-divorced – she was Jewish…. Oh.

Onto this Green Acres tableau of lassitude and mischief came a hard-assed US Ambassador, Roman Popadiuk. Formerly President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, Popadiuk spoke quickly, walked briskly, and grilled his team of diplomats at morning meetings with the surly impatience of a Very Important Person who still expected to be called at any moment to the Situation Room under the West Wing. Emigré Popadiuk spoke native Ukrainian in meetings with actual Ukrainian functionaries who, characteristic of the residual Soviet elite, preferred to speak Russian.

I thought at the time that it must be Popadiuk’s peculiar self-regard that drove his outsized (not to say delusional) diplomatic expectations, so ill-matched to the place where he was stationed. He seemed occasionally to notice the mismatch himself, as his voice would taper off in mid-soliloquy, a sour twinkle in his eye reflecting the dawning realisation of the frankly comical limits of his environment. I now realise that Popadiuk was far more likely to have been carrying Washington’s brief than any private one. Popadiuk was therefore not so much an ambitious eccentric, as a man dangling in the abyss between what Washington needed Ukraine to be, and what Ukraine actually was.

What Washington has needed Ukraine to be since the end of the Cold War – given President George Bush Sr’s Administration’s fateful and oft-quoted (by Russians) promise to Gorbachev that NATO would not extend itself “eastward by a single inch” – is a plucky little damsel-in-distress, a restless democratic republic yearning-to-breathe-free, who will invite the Americans in to rescue her from the big bad monster next-door. In rescuing the damsel/Ukrainian land-mass, the US-NATO alliance will be able to snuggle right up against the pancreas of its old Soviet foe. And everybody will cheer and hoist the FBI/CIA operatives on their shoulders…

What I’ve Noticed Since

As for what Ukraine actually is, I offer this little string of pearls:

 Ivanhoe wrote:

I was unable to fix via editing so I deleted it 

 Ivanhoe wrote: 
took care of my post if that is what you were referring to.