NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reaffirmed on Tuesday that the alliance wants to eventually admit Ukraine, a promise first made in 2008 that was a major motive in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the war.
“NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of our alliance, but at the same time that that is a long-term perspective,” Stoltenberg said in Helsinki alongside Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin.
“What is the issue now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation, and therefore we need to support Ukraine,” the NATO chief added.
Zelensky has been repeatedly rebuffed when he’s asked for Ukraine to be admitted into the NATO alliance, but Western officials still maintain it will happen one day. During the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow sought security guarantees from the US and wanted a promise that Ukraine wouldn’t ever join NATO.
But the Biden administration refused to make the promise even though, according to reports at the time, the US was telling Ukraine privately it won’t be joining NATO within the next decade.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in March 2022 that he was told privately there would be no NATO membership for Ukraine, but publicly, the door would “remain open.”
President Biden said in June 2021 that Ukraine must “clean up corruption” before it joined NATO, concerns that have waned as the US has since shipped tens of billions in weapons and direct budgetary aid to the Ukrainian government.
CIA Director William Burns warned in a 2008 cable he wrote when he was the US ambassador to Russia that trying to bring Ukraine into NATO would be a major provocation toward Russia.
“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” Burns wrote in the cable that was released by WikiLeaks. “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
While Ukraine isn’t expected to receive formal NATO membership in the near future, Ukrainian officials consider themselves a “de facto” member of the alliance since they have so much Western military equipment and support. NATO countries also have big plans for a post-war Ukraine to ensure the country keeps receiving weapons and builds up its military-industrial conference, plans that are likely unacceptable to Russia and could prolong the war.
“NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of our alliance” – only Russian military presence in Ukraine can prevent it to happen. It gives to Russia a good motivation to capture Kiev and create there a military base.
Well they can try.
Right now the odds are definitely in their favor. Be careful what you ask for.
Provided China supplies Russia. China is key.
[“What is the issue now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation, and therefore we need to support Ukraine,” the NATO chief added.”]
That’s rich. Breathtakingly moronic more like. NATO through their infinite stupidity and debilitating near-sightedness have exactly caused it into existence that it is “now an issue” in the first place. This congregation of mental patients can’t “ensure” anything. The only thing they can do is try with all their might to continue the destruction and eternally boosting op the meatgrinder. For that I regret being atheist and not believing in those fiery pits that folks like me were to be thrown in.
There’s never gonna be peace if Stoltenberg gets his way. The central demand of the Russians has always been the neutrality of Ukraine. How many more Ukranians and Russians will die over ideology?
Ask Putin.
And since the US and NATO keep saying stupid stuff, his answer inevitably becomes “a lot of Ukrainians and a lot of NATO mercenaries”.
Intentionally egging Russia on to kill so many Ukrainians and NATO mercenaries seems cruel to me.
It’s horrible. These are young men, some of the best. It’s more than cruel.
Not really sure how such promises can be made, considering that if even one existing member objects it doesn’t happen.
I agree. In fact, Stoltenberg may soon be spending his time trying to hold his coalition together. Germans know who destroyed Nord Stream 2. France and Germany have both criticized the price gouging of Liquid Petroleum Gas imported from the US. Germany’s economy is expected to shrink this year, and German industries are fleeing the country in search of less expensive energy. Large demonstrations against the war have begun, and one might assume that they will become larger if Europe cannot control inflation and the retail cost of energy.
Yes, finally, the Washington Nazis can’t overcome their own core contradiction: good old Capitalist greed. “They will sell you the rope to hang them with.”
You have a good point that the US is warring for the profit of some, but many of these Neocons come from communist families.
The goals the US has, this global domination, it’s communist like. The divides just aren’t as people like you believe.
Every revolution in its triumphalist phase exhibits a fervid evangelistic impulse. But as for the patriarchate of neocon-ism, there was profound disillusion after the exposure of the Stalin purge trials (the ’30’s gen), and again with The Gulag Archipelago (the ’60’s gen) -Darkness at Noon and The God That Failed- that flipped the Leninists and Trotskyist, i.e., vanguard-ist intellectuals 180′ toward Leo Strauss and the idea of an intellectual revolutionary vanguard/elite allying itself with the plutocrat class in place of the proles. All which has eventuated in a dispensation vastly more bloody and cruel .
In Trotsky’s own writing, the problem of substitutism of party for the proletariat gets quite a bit of negative analysis.
In that respect, I guess it’s somewhat like Christianity: “Dear Jesus, please save us from your followers.”
Critique is, or should be, the business of all intellectuals; but for Marxist it’s like prayer to a Xtian, thee creative dialectic, the method to insight, and first applicable logically and chronologically to the microcosm, the self or party.
That’s a really impressive reply.
Right, communism and neoconservatism have this in common that they are purist ideologies of an inherent exclusivist global revolutionary nature. They do not tolerate competitors. Capitalism, even though it can take on particularly nefarious forms and generate egregious excesses when ideologized and demand blind faith in it, is in basis organic. Wipe all knowledge from existence, have a human colony in isolation and they will start to trade. In the shortest time you will have a very, very few gathered much of the resources in their possession and in the best of cases the many just getting by. Chances of spontaneous generation of neoconservatism or communism are considerably smaller.
“Not really sure how such promises can be made, considering that if even one existing member objects it doesn’t happen.”
Zelensky stated he was clearly and unequivocally told, ‘You will not be a NATO member.’ Full stop. Despite which, he was told, publicly, the door would remain open.
So what’s going on: NATO members say ‘no’ behind doors – just as, doubtless, they said ‘no’ at the time of the 2008 ‘sometime in the future’ statement re Ukraine admission.
But – as in 2008 – in subservience to the US, they won’t come out and say ‘no’ publicly. So, as a result, Stoltenberg and the US can still repeat their war-inciting claim…
…despite Germany, for one, being entirely clear NATO was the underlying factor making Russian invasion likely:
“Zelensky Was Offered a Peace Deal to Prevent War, But Rejected It” 4/22 [quotes from WSJ story]:
“Scholz was in the process of brokering a deal and told Zelensky… ‘Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and Russia,’ and that ‘the pact would be signed by Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden.'”
https://21stcenturywire.com/2022/04/04/revealed-zelensky-was-offered-a-peace-deal-to-prevent-invasion-but-rejected-it/
When Trump got in trouble for threatening to cut US Military Aid to Ukraine, rumors about Joe Biden’s efforts to prevent Ukraine from prosecuting Hunter Biden began circulating. But the stated purpose of Biden’s visit was to get rid of Viktor Shokin,, Ukraine’s Chief Prosecutor, because Shokin was blocking the prosecution of ousted President Yanukovych.
(To recap, Yanukovych was ousted with considerable US support after winning the 2004 election by the Orange Revolution. It was said that he rigged the vote. But when he won the 2010 election, that claim could no longer be made because Timoshenko was President when the election was held. So, Yanukovych had to be removed by the violent EuroMaidan coup. The infamous leaked conversation between Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt revealed that Nuland was instrumental in the selection of “Our Man Yats” (Arseny Yatsenyuk) as the new Prime Minister. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘥 that Yats ran against Yanukovych in the 2010 Presidential election, but did not receive enough votes to qualify for the runoff election.)
Biden’s held that prosecutor Shokin represented corruption in Ukraine. But, obviously, his real purpose was to eliminate any possibility that Yanukovych might return to be elected for a 3rd time. Biden continued to oppose allowing Ukraine to join NATO as recently as June 2021 because, in my opinion, Ukraine had not ousted everyone who might favor normalizing relations with Russia.
defacto member = proxy = sucker
Ukraine Will Eventually Join NATO
that is part of the red line that russia drew in the sand.
keep it up uncle sam, and there won’t be a ukraine any more.
Or life on earth. Besides the cockroaches.
Russia is armed by China now, or will be soon. So, I think there’s no risk of nuclear war now. Russia will have all it needs unless China backs out. China seems to have been the key.
Russia has legit been struggling. However, the US and NATO are empty. China, in a way, has gotten much stronger, though it was harmed by Covid.
It appears from Stoltenberg’s comment that the US/NATO have given up on Ukraine and wish to see it utterly destroyed. Because that is what will happen if they keep up this sort of talk.
“US/NATO have given up on Ukraine and wish to see it utterly destroyed.”
Destroyed, not destroyed – for US/NATO it’s win-win – so long as they don’t blow us all up in the process (a risk they’re also fine with – as with the ‘Don’t Look Up’ calculation that money could be made if the incoming asteroid could be broken up vs destroyed.):
either way, they use the war for the new, re-militarized, ‘hot’ Cold War, with spiked military spending and ‘never again’ zeal not only against Russia, but in going after the next official enemy, China.
They clearly do want Ukraine destroyed. I said from the beginning that the US hates nationalists, especially “Nazis.” All of these Eastern European nationalists should take notice.
The Ukraines deserve some blame, some of them. They’re too full of hatred, some anyway. I guess they’re victims of propaganda…
Well, I’m glad there’s SOMETHING good about the US, anyway. Nationalism is cancer.
Your alternative is fantasy, just another path to enslavement.
“My alternative” is:
Not pretending murderous death cults aren’t murderous death cults.
Your ideal: Tiny elite rules over a people who lack nationalism, lack religion, lack history, lack any means of resisting the elite.
Enslavement.
And that’s just how slavery worked in the New World. You break them by removing their past. We have the record. We know where it leads.
We also know what slaves do when they have their old identities: Revolt!
Similarly, if a people have an historical memory, they can check past records, compare them with the present. But if hey lose that memory as you’d want, there’s no record to compare with; there’s only what the master says.
My ideal: No one rules over anyone.
“People” is a description of humans.
“A people” is a description of a death cult.
Thats just rhetoric. Anyway, you openly admit your own bias to Jews in Israel, also to Amerindians I assume. I don’t try to analyze you, just going by what you’ve written.
Your ideas absolutely lead to enslavement though. Before city states, people had tribes, families. There was never this individualism you speak of.
Politics is about who rules. The neat concepts that have interested me are how life can be improved for those ruled over.
“Anyway, you openly admit your own bias to Jews in Israel, also to Amerindians I assume.”
I’m not sure what either of those statements is supposed to mean. I’m just as much against Zionism as I am against any other nationalism, and especially against any ethno-nationalism.
You posted you were biased one time. I wasn’t referring to Zionism. I just try to make sense of your posts as best I can.
Regardless, you seem to believe in your anarcho-Marxism, but it just doesn’t work. It probably is a legitimate extreme to be considered on a political chart, but what would actually happen if order broke down is a return to organisation by tribe and faith, just as prisons are somewhat organized. That doesn’t mean clear cut divisions; there’d be great diversity of groups. Eventually… states would arise from it.
I happen to not want such a breakdown in society, because I’m not a sociopath.
I don’t believe in any form of Marxism.
As to what doesn’t work, if the criterion of “working” is to promote human health, prosperity, peace, and well-being, what doesn’t “work” is the Westphalian Model nation-state, which is the basis of nationalism (kin/tribal relations are very distant ancestors).
Before the Westphalia model, you still had nationalism. You speak of it as if it created something new. It was a return to something old.
If you look at city-states: very nationalist.
Kin/ancestors arent so distant really. In Iceland, nearly everyone is a 4th cousin. In Europe, the Church banned consanguineous marriages beyond any degree, had to reduce the ban to the 8th degree due to difficulty in finding spouses.
Under feudalism, a peasantry often had nationalism even if no power.
When I said, in an earlier post, you want an elite, I was making a point, not accusing you.
Two things that reduce kin orientation: social security, which reduces dependence on one’s family and children, and the police, who greatly reduce vendettas, vigilantes (obviously).
If you don’t like nationalism, you need the state to keep it away.
This is why people accuse Antifa of just serving the elites. Because if they really got anarchy, they wouldn’t like it.
“If you don’t like nationalism, you need nationalism to keep it away.”
Fixed for clarity.
It’s not. You’re just uneducated then. Without states, you have strong nationalism. It’s only states that can eliminate it.
“Anyway, you openly admit your own bias to Jews in Israel, also to Amerindians I assume.”
I’m not sure what either of those statements is supposed to mean. I’m just as much against Zionism as I am against any other nationalism, and especially against any ethno-nationalism.
“Anyway, you openly admit your own bias to Jews in Israel, also to Amerindians I assume.”
I’m not sure what either of those statements is supposed to mean. I’m just as much against Zionism as I am against any other nationalism, and especially against any ethno-nationalism.
NATO keeps pissing in everyones Cheerios.
“NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of our alliance, but at the same time that that is a long-term perspective,” Stoltenberg said
In the meantime, the death and destruction of Ukraine will continue. But as Madelyn Albright once said……
When Trump got in trouble for threatening to cut US Military Aid to Ukraine, rumors about Joe Biden’s efforts to prevent Ukraine from prosecuting Hunter Biden began circulating. But the stated purpose of Biden’s visit was to get rid of Viktor Shokin,, Ukraine’s Chief Prosecutor, because Shokin was blocking the prosecution of ousted President Yanukovych.
(To recap, Yanukovych was ousted with considerable US support, after winning the 2004 Presidential election, by the Orange Revolution. It was said that he rigged the vote. But when he won the 2010 election, that claim could no longer be made because Timoshenko was President when the election was held. So, Yanukovych had to be removed by the violent EuroMaidan coup. The infamous leaked conversation between Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt revealed that Nuland was instrumental in the selection of “Our Man Yats” (Arseny Yatsenyuk) as the new Prime Minister. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘥 that Yats ran against Yanukovych in the 2010 Presidential election, but did not receive enough votes to qualify for the runoff election.)
Biden’s held that prosecutor Shokin represented corruption in Ukraine. But, obviously, his real purpose was to eliminate any possibility that Yanukovych might return to be elected for a 3rd time. Biden continued to oppose allowing Ukraine to join NATO as recently as June 2021 because, in my opinion, Ukraine had not ousted everyone who might favor normalizing relations with Russia.
Ukraine might join but it will be a deserted wasteland if and when it does.
What Ukraine? It will not exist or if it does certainly not with its present borders which do not include Crimea and the LDPRs, and the Kherson and Zapporhezia oblasts which are now formally part of Russia. So Stoltenberg is just following his US pentagon generated script as he in fact will soon be replaced by another mouthpiece of US propaganda.
Remember when the liars said there were no plans for Ukraine’s eventual admittance?
Yah, so Stoltenberg says. Except hopefully that’s public bs’ing to keep the warmongering parts of NATO aroused before citizens turn more against their govt’s new endless war. As Snider says elsewhere of what may be shaping up in private:
“Officials from the UK, Germany and France told The Wall Street Journal that, despite the NATO door that is publicly being held open for Ukraine, the arrangement would neither include NATO forces being stationed in Ukraine nor Article 5 protection. Instead, ‘it would provide Ukraine with the military means to deter any future Russian attack.'”
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/public-vs-private-managing-perceptions-of-the-war-in-ukraine/
Not that NATO isn’t fine with that…if they can get away with re-filling Ukraine to the gunnels w/made in the USA materiel now.
More rhetoric to further provoke WWIII. I guess Europe didn’t get enough destruction in the last world wars. I predict there will be real trouble if the Europeans are forced to implement Wash.’s plans to destroy Russia, since it will also destroy Europe as well.
Disband that pack of dogs[nato] now!
The hypocrisy of it all.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/03/jacob-hornberger/rato-and-nato/
Zelenski of course got voted into power on a peace platform. The total betrayal of the working class in Ukraine is no different than anywhere else in the western world.
The Russian MOD is fighting a very successful war of attrition disarming NATO (Ukraine was disarmed in March), tank by tank, artillery by artillery, air defense by air defense.
NATO overall has accumulated the following equipment losses;
391 Aircraft, 211 helicopters, 3281 UAV’s, 406 Anti Aircraft systems, 8086 tanks inc. APC’s, 1045 multiple rocket launchers, 4240 rocket launchers and 8621 military automotive equipment.
What the empire looses in the Ukraine, they loose for the final Russian attack on NATO. Remember Russia attacked Ukraine just as NATO was about to unleash in the Donbass. Russia has shown they will pre-emptively attack to defend the Motherland when the time is dictated by events on the ground.
The US just wants to encourage Russia to keep on with the war. It seems in the US interest to continue while in the Russian interest to exit.
“Stoltenberg reaffirmed on Tuesday that the alliance wants to eventually admit Ukraine…’NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of our alliance, but at the same time that that is a long-term perspective'”
Asked by a reporter if, by “long-term perspective,” the NATO chief meant, “when Hell freezes over long-term,” Stoltenberg elaborated, “I want that filthy Putin-lover’s press badge permanently revoked.”
Stoltenberg Reaffirms Pledge That NATO Will Be Disbanded