Russian officials on Thursday reacted to a report from The New York Times that said the US was warming to the idea of helping Ukraine strike Crimea despite the risk of a Russian escalation.
When asked about the report on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Ned Price didn’t deny its contents and said, “Crimea is Ukraine,” as the US hasn’t recognized Crimea as Russian since Russia took control of it in 2014.
Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US, responded to Price’s comments and the reports, likening the plans to potential “terrorist attacks” and warning of escalation.
“The State Department, through out-of-touch assertions that ‘Crimea is Ukraine’ and that the Armed Forces of Ukraine can use American weapons to protect their territory, is essentially pushing the Kiev regime to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia,” Antonov said, according to a press release from the Russian Embassy in the US.
“Hearing such remarks from Washington, the criminals in Kiev will once again feel complete permissiveness. The risks of conflict escalation will only increase,” he added.
Over in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the US delivering weapons for attacks on “Russian soil” was “extremely dangerous.” The Times report said that the Biden administration previously avoided supporting strikes on Crimea due to the risk of escalation, but that concern of Russia resorting to nuclear weapons has waned in Washington even though the risk clearly still exists.
“Naturally, the very discussion of the acceptability of supplying Ukraine with arms which would allow strikes to be delivered on Russian soil … is potentially extremely dangerous,” Peskov said. “This will mean taking the conflict to a whole new level which certainly will not bode well in terms of global European security.”
The US reasoning for being less concerned about escalation is based on the fact that Russia hasn’t used a nuclear weapon up to this point. But Moscow has shown a willingness to massively escalate the war in response to attacks on Crimea.
Russia didn’t start large-scale missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure until October, after the truck bombing of the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea to the Russian mainland. Since then, the bombardments have become routine, and millions of Ukrainians are struggling to power and heat their homes.
This is one of those days…. I want to ask if we, the US, have lost our freaking minds….
It feels like being the only sober person in a room full of drunk people. Don’t underestimate the State’s willingness to destroy the economy and the world.
Well said, well said.
I tried that, after I got sober. Had to leave and get new friends. What they laughed at simply was not funny, they were just tiresome.
So where do we leave to, when the “drunks” are driving and the world is about to crash?
Since we are sharing, I recently got sober. Well, it has been a year. I appreciate your points.
Happy new year. I sure hope.
Good for you Donna! My one vice is cigarettes…but giving them up ain’t never gonna happen!
However, Donna, I’m STILL gonna offer you a Black Russian while we’re watching the mushroom clouds together….
I quit smoking over a year ago. I bought my cousin a carton of cigarettes for Christmas but never made it over to his home because he had a flu he told me, liar! and so I wound up smoking his cigarettes.
😂
wow so his loss was also your loss ?
My last vice is caffeine.
If if turns nuclear, my wife and I will watch K drama together.
Well Korean or Chinese. She started watching Asian series, liked it a lot, and now we both watch them.
This is a good time to spend with loved ones. We have known each other for 32 years. I moved in with her that first year
“This is a good time to spend with loved ones”
indeed! – i was about to reply re; vices, but suddenly i am glad that i did not
I maintain that it’s a great time to max out your credit cards 😁
Caffine is now mine too. I have cut back, but that is as far as I’m going.
I just lost my wife of 31 years. It sounds like a long time, but it somehow feels both, a long time and no time at all.
I’m sorry to hear of your loss. Been kind of a bad week for me in that respect as well.
Hope the coming ones are an improvement.
In the end, we’re all just a group of fellow humans here.
Thomas….?
My brother died early Thursday morning. Sudden massive brain bleed. That makes both my parents and both my siblings since 2017.
I am very sorry, Thomas.
I am extremely sorry for your loss, Thomas.
Please accept my heartfelt condolences.
Stay strong.
Thomas, my most profound sympathy to you.
I’m so very sorry.
My heart goes out to you Mark…
Deal!
I have not given up mine either, lol.
The people at the top apparently have. They seem to have a ‘blood lust’ accompanied by money and power.
Well, as far as the guy at the top of the pig pile goes, he lost it before he took office, and what was left of it was stuck in there by the cold war.
I like that: pig pile. Well said.
Oh yes, a long time ago. On November 22, 1963 to be precise. The day the lunatics took over the asylum.
Sadly the US lost its mind and soul long ago. Killing millions in Vietnam over a false tlag incident on the gulf of Tonkin. The US is the most corrupt nation on earth.
55 years ago it looked different. It was a cold war between the communist ideology and the capitalist democracy ideology. Kind of a religious war or the war for the world domination. Vietnam war was a proxy one between USA and their allies on on side and USSR and China on the other side (despite the fact that relations between USSR and China at that time were very hostile, in this ideological war they stayed together). Yes, millions were killed, but at that time it was accepted as normal. At least, it didn’t looked so cynical and so evil as American wars of 21st century. The point is, North America and West Europe 55 years ago were dominated by different ideology and preached different values than those we hear them preaching now. New “values” were promoted after the collapse of USSR. It was done in order to justify the militarism and pretentions for the world domination.
No you havn`t your leaders have just like all the NATO lackies
I wonder if Ned Price has any comprehension of how he sounds to all of the other nations when he explains that “Crimea is part of Ukraine because WE said so.”
Guantánamo isn’t part of Cuba; Panama isn’t part of Columbia; Maduro is not the President of Venezuela; and a whole host of claims… “because We said so”.
The Germans just told him. He probably was not listening.
Not listening seems to be ol’ Ned’s primary function.
It’s hard to say if that were more of a primary function than lying.
Americans don’t mind a small nuclear war in Europe. They don’t believe in a possibility of a great nuclear disaster in US. Maybe they are right. It could be ended with just a one nuclear explosion somewhere between Warsaw and Berlin.
I have nominated Montenegro and or North Macedonia to be the recipient(s) of the honor. Its hard for me to believe that France wants to trade Paris, or England wants to lose London to strengthen the “attack on one is and attack on all” assurances that are responsible for this extreme danger. I imagine the prospect of an unstoppable hypersonic strike of a 200 megaton message might be the end of these lesser two members of what is becoming a very dangerous club. One can be absolutely sure, were such a strike were to occur, the club might see more than a few resignations before any other shoes were apt to drop.
Major American military bases and major concentration of NATO troops are in Germany and in Poland. In this Ukrainian war, the major NATO logistics center is in Poland. Poland is already involved very heavily in this war. So, most likely, Poland would be targeted first.
Hopefully the missiles will be hypersonic conventional, and not tactical nuclear.
Yes, conventional, but it will trigger a conventional counterattack against Russia from territory of Poland. Next step could be the nukes.
I’m guessing it will be on Brussels, Belgium.
If the purpose of the nuclear strike is to stop the onslaught of NATO conventional forces against Kaliningrad and Belorussia, there are no need to nuke anything west of Poland.
Some politicians in NATO noticed that the war in Ukraine doesn’t go well. At the moment Bakhmut is almost surround by Russians. It is not a big town but the concentration of Ukraine (NATO) troops over there is great. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk will be next. Many experts predict a soon defeat of NATO in Ukraine. Maybe even before this summer.
Yeah Russia, keep on doing nothing!
Cowardly idiots work their way into positions of control and measure their dominance by making humanity skirt suicide. Hollywood, news media and finance centers are where war mongers carry on their perverted behavior taunting normal people in broad daylight.
War mongers share the same mental problem as streakers; they are forced by their own mental illness to carry on in public.
Agreed. Psychopathes or Sociopathes? Either way, not good for the rest of us.
What do you think about Dissociates?
Or all three?
The real issue is Sevastopol.
True. And than the real issue would become various governmental buildings in Ukraune that until now have not sern any damage. When US bombed Serbia to force chopping off of its Kosovo province — first thin bombed was Ministry of Defence, followed by all Belgrade electrical power generating plants, few bridges and a main TV station building. And Chinese embassy, for good measure.
If any government building gets damaged in Sevastopol, there will be plebty to chise from in Ukraune. Uf Sevastopol port is attacked, there are plenty of ports in Ukraine.
This seepms to be tge pattern in this war.
Well past time to “Bring Down Parliament”
This is like poking a bear with and stick, and asserting that he has not woken up yet as justification for using progressively larger and sharper sticks.
NEVER Never, never wake a sleeping BEAR by poking with a stick… It could result in major loss of ones anatomy!
Or one’s very life, Mv!
West needs a sugar rush. Russia’s war is so boring, depleting Ukrsinian resources, weakening the country, creating dissatisfaction in rank and file, as sending wave after wave of “reinforcements” for a pontless determination to hold a line — has brought only damage. Continuing this trend means that Russia only needs to keep artillery in olace until a place, any place, becomes nearly emty, then move in. This was exactly how the last place, Soledar, was taken. And as always, Zelenski will claim that is not true, capitalizing in a few dazed and confused soldiers still thinking that they are winning.
This cannot go on like this. Especially, as the heavily fortified line of defense in Donbas is slowly being breached. There are no good places to fall back to.
Thus, what spectacle can be choreographed to capture the imagination of the West, as support is waning.
A new sugar rush is needed.
I hope Russia is making clear to Biden in private that there would be retalliation, against NATO and the Continental US, for strikes on the Russian homeland. That was long understood, and the neocons have now departed that understanding into their own fantasyland. We need to bring this back to Earth.
Biden & Co are gone. They will keep twisting the knife until they get the violent reaction they’re apparently hoping for.
Biden and his administration are dead to me as of a year ago.
Dumbest, most clueless jackass to have occupied the Oval in my lifetime, bar none.
I have never experienced such utter revulsion toward a politician in the 55 years I have been aware of American politics.
Bear, did you ever imagine we’d have worse than Bush in the White House? 🙁
Well Bush lied about yellow cake and got more that 275000 people killed starting in 2002.
But Biden seems bent on outperforming Bush by millions. Since no one who acts this way is sane, Biden wins hands down. I have no words when it comes to Biden or to the political establishment who dance to his madness. Right now Biden is the most dangerous human in the history of the race.
So I guess the answer to your question is a clear no.
I try to put each one in the others place in history and wonder how much things would be different. But I just can’t convince myself we wouldn’t be in pretty much the same place we are in right now no matter who was in the white house at any particular time. They all just flat out suck. Even Carter. I think he was President for that very short period in our history when no one was in the mood for war.
I agree. Our political leadership is more driven by myths and fantasies about American preeminence than competence and rationality.
“Our political leadership is more driven by myths and fantasies” – It could be described as a religious war. They are driven not only by their fantasies about the unipolar world with themselves on the top of it and about Russia which is on the brink of collapse, but also by their fantasies about the human rights, where the right to merry an animal is more important than the human life itself.
Exactly. I was just reading the second in the Red Sparrow series written by a guy who spent his career in the CIA. The thinking is shocking. This is from long before the current war, an established view.
“”the villainy of the Russian Federation . . . everything happened to maintain the nadrizateti, the overseers.” Putin personally is described, as reptilian, with unblinking eyes and licking his liverish lips.
They really thought that hurting the “overseers” with sanctions would be the schwerpunkt, and would collapse the regime. “What motivated it . . . was not to formulate a foreign policy based on national security requirements.”
What we got instead was an American leadership guided by its fantasies, and their ambitions for neocon hegemony, instead of by our own national security requirements.
They project. They confess, but don’t know it.
I don’t believe that itFurterrmore would be smart of Russia to threaten the U.S. Homeland for attacks on Crimea. I think it’s better for him to keep this a proxy war. One where Russia has the advantage of close proximity. Furthermore, for Biden to draw the Russian homeland into this war automatically will removes the gloves from both sides and risk dangerous consequences which will play badly for all. The idea of a proxy war is not to trigger a hot war between these thermonuclear super powers, but to skate the lin.es without Jumping the shark!!! How about take out the Ukraine Parliament building as an overt attack on the state, but avoid any thoughts of moving on from proxy war to war between the sponsors, and destruction on their soil not on Ukrainian soil.
30 years neocons (American imperialists) were working very hard to achieve an absolute military superiority over Russia. They were so sure that their plans are achievable that when the reality proved the opposite, they can’t believe in the reality and go hysterical. All their lives were invested in this project; they just can’t abandon it.
There can be no peace between the U.S. and Russia because the U.S. will not tolerate Russia as an independent power.
The U.S. has adopted the Joint Vision 2020 policy document, which calls for the U.S. to maintain full-spectrum dominance over the world, and not to allow any rival superpower to emerge.
The Joint Vision 2020 is an update on the Wolfowitz Doctrine, written in 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz, and the Bush Doctrine, adopted by president George W. Bush. These doctrines emphasize unilateralism and preemptive war by the U.S.
So conflict between the U.S. and Russia was inevitable, and it was just a question of time. And it has nothing to do with Putin, so conflict won’t stop even after Putin is replaced (soon I hope).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Vision_2020
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine
“conflict between US and Russia was inevitable” – Since 1945 US never stopped their efforts to undermine Russia. Now it became obvious for everyone but in Yeltsin time, some people in Kremlin, including Yeltsin himself, believed they could live peacefully with US. Even Putin had such an illusion. Thanks to God, Putin recognized the danger not too late and now Russia is ready for the fight.
I would have to say that Rusdia prepared properly.
The ruble is not rubble. We have not retaken Crimea. Non-western nations have replaced their old European trade deals.
They still have major challenges ahead. But they seem to have successfully survived their biggest challenges.
The US is in a state of denial. We are not going to replace Putin with a pro-American leader, we are not going to make the ruble rubble, and Russia is not going to become a third world nation. The sooner we can coexist with these realities, the better.
True, the ruble is not rubble.
“Re-taking Crimea” isn’t a plausible outcome barring some unforeseen, unforeseeable, and unlikely domestic political collapse in Russia (and in fact, such a collapse would more likely strengthen than weaken Russian resolve on that particular subject).
On trade deals, the movement so far is mixed. Some non-western nations are already moving into the European energy market as fast as they can go, even as Russia is creating new trade blocs to its south and east to replace the European markets they’re getting sanctioned out of. And those changes will have future political consequences, with various regimes moving into, out of, or juggling their alliances/affiliations.
The geopolitical situation is changing fast in favor of Russia and China. Chinese leadership is planning to achieve the military parity with US by 2027. Russia will provide Chinese industry with hydrocarbons, timber and everything what is necessary. The multipolar world is already here. In few years even lunatics will accept it.
The multipolar world never went away, and a unipolar world has always been a fantasy.
Looks like the US hit the “Pause” button after Russia warned on the dangers of a Crimean campaign.
There is little doubt that the most Crimeans supported the Russian takeover in 2014. A Ukrainian invasion of Crimea would be resisted by the Crimean people. In Crimea Ukraine would be the invader because the hearts and minds of the Crimean people seem to be with Russia.
Ukrainians are doing an excellent job of resisting the Russian invasion in the rest of Ukraine. A Crimean campaign would be at best, a distraction, and at worst a disaster for Ukraine.
To Donna’s point above, yes, the powers-that-be in the US have indeed lost their freaking minds. They will just keep at it until Russia decides it no longer wants to put up with their meddling with Russia’s security. I can only hope the strike is non-nuclear and is limited to a swamp outside Delaware.
We could only hope it was limited to that swamp. But they’ve made human shields of us all. Every state gobbles up every military related thing they can get their hands on and then their politician’s campaign on that. There is a shipyard not far from me making Navy vessels so I’m sure I’d hear some booms!
Sh*t, Wars!
I live between Flint and Lansing, which still have sufficient manufacturing capabilities; I wonder if I’ll vaporize or die a nice slooooow death 🙁
Before the empire crashes, it will resort to many desperate and dangerous moves.
Hegemons can only make a few serious mistakes before the vassals head for the EXITS. I’d say that the weakened one seems to be coming to the conclusion that they may not be able to bluff their way through this particular fiasco and is beletedly waking to the danger of poking the bear. Then a day or two later it’s back to the tough guy talk. With all this pushing and threats, I would guess there are at least a few Russian submarines off the U.S. East coast at about the latitude of DC with those unstoppable hypersonic missiles waiting to launch if they are told. I’m wondering what the Neocon perpetrators of the 2014 coup that liberated the Russian hating Nazis were expecting to be the endgame of their ‘clever coup.’ I am wondering if they realized how weakened the whole 911, Great War On Terror caused the empire to become chasing ‘terrorists’ while Russia and China got ahead in the “Great Gamesmanship” of peer to peer nuclear weapons and rocketry powers. Hubris precedes a great fall, and hubris seems to have been the guiding light of America and NATO for the last two decades.
If the Russian MoD’s public announcements are to be believed, submarines aren’t armed with the Zircon yet. It’s been tested for submarine launch, but the first batch of the missiles in actual deployment only went to the frigate Admiral Gorshkov last month.
Well then, in that case, this would constitute a great opportunity for a real world test run, no?
“‘Extremely Dangerous’: Russia Reacts to US Plans to Help Attack Crimea The
State Department appeared to confirm that the US is in discussions with
Ukrainian officials on a potential offensive against the peninsula”
Let’s face it, the arrogant Ivy League types who run the American government look down on the military and anyone who is a gun owner. They have no concept of what a war is and absolutely no concept of how dangerous nuclear weapons are.
Perhaps this is why they come up with ridiculous ideas like pushing Ukraine to attack Crimea.
Agreed. Their awareness of what they are doing in relation to how it affects facts on the ground is purely hypothetical. Ukraine is just a board game.
The current “hot” issue on the Russo-Ukrainian war is that of the German tanks. It brings to my memory the earlier issue of US fighter planes. These planes and I suspect the two kinds of tanks too contain secret, advanced technologies which must not fall into the hands of the Russians. The plane-plan was to remove them at the US Ramstein base in Germany. It never happened.
The Germans might still be annoyed by the plane hullabaloo.
Of course a discovery by the opponent of one’s superior technology does not necessarily mean that the opponent will use it. The undercarriage of the Soviet’s T34 was superior to anything the Germans had but the Germans never copied the T34’s system.
Back to the current tank case. If technology must be removed or replaced before they can be given to the Ukraine, how much will they become degraded?
The Americans began preparing for war in Europe where they can use tanks and infantry on open terrain after being kicked out of Vietnam because the US Military is no good at jungle fighting and air support is useless because of triple canopy jungle .
The USA could risk being bombed and destroyed on the US mainland in North America. Russia has more capability to do this than any country in the world. If the US wants to be destroyed they are following all the idiotic prerequisites to total destruction of their country.