The White House has come out against a ceasefire in Ukraine ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to Moscow to potentially mediate between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart in Kyiv.
Xi is due to arrive in Moscow on Monday and is expected to speak virtually to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following his talks with Putin. Xi’s trip comes after Beijing released a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine that called for the two sides to cease hostilities and for peace talks to begin.
Zelensky expressed openness to China’s proposal, but it was immediately rejected by President Biden.
“We don’t support calls for a ceasefire right now,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday, according to Newsweek. “We certainly don’t support calls for a ceasefire that would be called for by the PRC in a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia.”
Kirby’s comments come as Ukrainian and Russian forces continue to battle in the Donbas city of Bakhmut, which has become known as the “meat grinder” due to the heavy casualties. Ukraine has been pouring in barely-trained conscripts to fight in the city, and the US thinks Kyiv is wasting too many resources in the battle.
The US wants Ukraine to launch a counteroffensive in the spring, although a senior Ukrainian official told The Washington Post last week that Kyiv doesn’t have the resources to pull it off. Kirby’s reasoning for opposing a ceasefire at this time is that a pause in fighting could concede territory to Moscow.
Kirby said the ceasefire would, “in effect, recognize Russia’s gains, and its attempt to conquer his neighbor’s territory by force, allowing Russian troops to continue to occupy sovereign Ukrainian territory and, of course, it would be another continued violation of the UN Charter.”
The US and its allies discouraged peace talks and mediation efforts that were conducted shortly after Russia’s February 2022 invasion. At that time, Moscow was seeking a deal that would have reverted to the pre-invasion territorial lines. But now, Ukraine stands to lose much more as Russia has annexed the territory it controls in the Ukrainian oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and the breakaway Donbas republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
“Peace is not our profession”…
Kapitalismus, Krise und Krieg
Ah yes, the KKK.
A ceasefire would be very much helpful for Kiev regime. Ukrainians badly need a ceasefire. Neocons are against it because they don’t want China to interfere into European affairs.
“Neocons are against it because they don’t want China to interfere into European affairs.”
Neocons are against it because they don’t want China to broker a peace deal.
Chinese leadership know that Russia needs no ceasefire. They are doing it for their own PR. Besides it is better for China if this war will carry on longer.
European affairs are Eurasian affairs and the US instigated Eurasian war is mucking things up in Eurasia. Of course China is interested in what is going on in Eurasia.
Neocons are against it because they recognize that this is a full-on Great Powers struggle between the US and its two global competitors, Russia and China. The US was hoping to knock off Russia first and then go after China. Now it’s facing the joined force of Russia + China. And the alternative to pushing forward is for the US to admit defeat and watch its empire crumble.
It’s not about China getting involved in Europe — it’s about the US getting blocked from interfering in Asia. And Africa and South America and Europe.
Before recently, China never interfered in the internal European politics. Americans themselves made the conflict in Donbass a global issue. If NATO wanted to solve the Donbass problem peacefully, it could be done easy. Minsk Agreements were signed by all sides and approved by the resolution of UNSC. The aggressive behavior of US and NATO is obvious for all the world outside NATO. Of course, particularly concerned about that are Russia and China because it is directed against them. It is clear that China and Russia are going to stand together in this global confrontation. By the way, this week, Xi is visiting Moscow and it is going to be a very important visit.
When is the last time that the US minded its own business? Like never.
So..the Ukrainians dont get a say? Shows where weve got to. No hiding now of the fact its a proxy war.
Does anyone take Kirby’s blatherings as anything more than propoganda?
Of course the US is opposed to cease-fires and negotiations….until the day they are in favor……
Then Kirby will announce it as a logical step that they were always planning to do.
It’s pretty rich for Kirby to be talking about Russia’s “continued violation of the UN charter.” The US government should look in the mirror to see violations of the UN charter. The United States government is their name, and projection is their game.
I find it pretty rich that the UN believes they can tell anyone what to do.
Not us nor our percieved enemies should give a crap about the UN and so-called “international law” .
ZaSu, nations choose to become UN members and agree to abide by the UN charter. So it’s not the UN telling everyone what to do. If you haven’t, then I highly recommend reading the UN charter. It’s not that long. It sets out rules for nations to deal peacefully with each other, and procedures for resolving violations of the charter.
Problem is, Johnny, the Useless Nations doesn’t work, when a single country can veto the wishes of the rest of the world,
A simple majority vote would solve that problem.
A simple majority vote won’t work either when one nation, the United States, can intimidate other nations into voting the way that the United States wants them to.
It would help get rid of these kinds of travesties.
“For the 29th straight year, the members of the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution demanding an end to the 60-year U.S. economic blockade on Cuba. This year, 184 nations voted in favor of the resolution, while the U.S. and Israel voted against it. Three nations–Brazil, Colombia, and Ukraine–abstained.”
It would be hard to intimidate that many all at once.
And what happens when nations don’t abide by the rules as the U.S. has done in Syria? Any penalties for the U.S.? No.
I know. Funny you should mention Syria. I just had an exchange with my US House representative, Jack Bergman, about how US involvement in Syria violates the UN charter. He obviously has other priorities. I ended up telling him that Russia and China will be the ones to solve Syria’s problems, and that all the United States was doing was standing in the way, and that this is a damn shame. I’m sure it didn’t go down well with him.
He’s my Rep too. But what would you expect, he is an ex general after all.
I didn’t think my words would make a difference with him. So it was more me venting than anything else. He used terrorism as his excuse.
The phone calls are good, the more the better. Sometimes persistence pays off.
Thanks for the encouragement.
I admire you fellows for making a good effort. We all need to keep those phones ringing!……………………………………………..
Good for you, Jonnyo! We need to give our legislators hell for being on the wrong side of Truth.
who is protecting the lives and financial health of the citizens of the US? Who is looking out for the future. of Mankind and the Planet? who is in favor of eliminating Fossil fuels and Nuclear Weapons? Obviously not the people running things.As long as their being paid for killing nothing will change. First spoken by Obama,{ Yes we Can} and repeated by Biden as Capitalisms financial struggles get deeper to the pain of starving and wondering if we are going to survive and for how long.
Wendell, my investments are modest but they’re all I have. When I spoke to my advisor last week, I asked him when they’re going to stop losing money; he replied “When the government stops SPENDING money”. An obvious reference to the Cadaver’s war.
The elites who govern us only care about their own wealth and aggrandizement. Any benefits that ordinary people receive is incidental to serving the interests of the elite. This state of affairs will continue until enough people recognize that centralized political control does not serve their interests. It only serves the interests of the elite.
What are our alternatives?… I’ve looked at every political alternative and they all seem possessed with the same
downfalls……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Power, greed, money…
Donna, the alternative is to decentralize political authority. The more decentralized political authority is the better chance there is to hold that authority accountable to the people being governed. It needs to start with the recognition that the benefits people derive from centralized government pale in comparison to the cost people pay for that government. It’s like the most important lesson in economics, which is the seen vs the unseen.
You summed it up very well and thank you.
Washington doesn’t want a cease-fire yet because they haven’t made the plans to turn on Zelensky and get rid of him. Z better conjure up the ghost of Hussein or Diem and ask what happens to US ‘allies’ who are no longer useful.
Biden administration is insane. Criminally insane.
Criminal, yes. Insane, no. All of this is consistent with US foreign policy and strategy going back to the Wolfowitz Doctrine of 1991-1992, if not earlier.
Doesn’t matter how far back the “policy” goes. It is criminally insane.
Hypersonic missiles, bombs 4000 times the blast of the ones that ended WWII, and Russia and China both together to take on the U.S. & NATO changes things. While the U.S, & NATO were chasing “terrorists” the Russians and China surpassed the GWOT fools and got ahead in top tier military technology and the U.S. NATO fell decades behind, but somehow the Neocons never got the memo, being blinded by hubris and their belief in their superiority and invincibility. Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland out to recover their diplo-reputations of having lost Crimea. Is there any other possible explanation for this ongoing Ukraine fiasco that puts the world on the brink of destruction.??? It is insane i.e. irrational!!!
The opportunity to savage Russia and China and Iran can not be passed up. Any country that does not kowtow to the US will be rewarded with bombs or sanctions.
Oh but Wendell…what an alliance! 🇷🇺🇨🇳🇮🇷
I doubt that even the United Snakes would f*ck with that!
But, again, Amerikkka and its boss IsraHell just might be stupid enough, then we can kiss our collective asses goodbye…
I like my ass…. 😉
neocons are neo-Nazis hiding under the euphemism neocon. There is no better model than Nuland and then there are her in-laws, the Kagan brothers. A real NAZI family.
PNAC is a real NAZI doctrine, and it is still alive.
US the colonialist power it is once more revealed as it commands its proxy to obey. Utterly horrifying. I believe the military industrial complex has triumphed.
I agree. There is no political capacity in the US to mount an opposition to the Biden/Nuland/Blinken apocalypse, and no courage in Europe to step aside from the coming catastrophe.
Wars, almost by definition, cannot be managed.
I no longer look forward to a good outcome for this planet. I intend to enjoy as much of it as I can before it is destroyed by the bast*rds who manipulated the two sides into it. There is no scenario I can discern short of the murder of millions of people.
We are ruled by criminal psychotics. My only wish is that the mushrooms engulf DC before we see them sprouting here on the west coast.
Psychotics can be put on medications but not the war criminals we haqve. They actually believe that America is great and good and is only bringing good intentions to the world. That means they are fully delusional and can not be treated
Unfortunately, Wendell, there is no way to medically manage psychopaths and sociopaths, which of course are whom we’re dealing with.
The neocons should publicly avow their actual allegiance is to Israel, a phantom state that is no longer what it once was. Such a pitiful state of affairs.
Whether publicly avowed or not — it is obvious, But let us ask a more interedting question, why do they want Ukraine so bad, what is their hatred ifvRusdia all about. How about being men (or women) enough to own up their interests. Not making it an American cause, Or glibal. Or intraplanetary. Seriously.
Their hatred of Russia is because Putin stopped them from further looting the country as they had done under Boris Yeltsin. Their hatred for Russia and China is because they know that on a level playing field the U.S. cannot compete economically with Russia and China. They hate Russia and Putin because they know that Putin is smarter than they are and Russian people are better educated than Americans are. I guess it boils down to jealousy and a refusal to admit that America has lost its way under their stupid, evil leadership.
Mary, no one could have said it better! 👏
AP, what IsraHell “once was” was nothing more than blatant land theft, displacement of, and murder of the indigenous Palestinians.
Which simply continues.
Really? I thought it was UKRAINE’s choice!
Nothing is Ukraine’s choice as long as they are 150% dependent on U.S,& Europe for 100 % of nearly everything. But how hard one whips the horse will NOT make it run faster than the horse that needs NO whipping to run fast.. Ukraine is not only dependent on the West, he is enslaved. The minute he allowed Stoltenburg to refuse negotiations was the one that showed what a feckless puppet he is. HE sold his soul and his country to the NATO crime family. The Russians will be writing any peace offer either behind the curtain or publicly.
China could help Ukraine make a choice other than more of the US/NATO. That is why Biden’s team is losing its mind over the visit.
What Kirby really means:
‘Why should we want a ceasefire? The only people dying are Russians, Ukrainians and some stupid mercenaries. And we don’t care about any of them.
Second, all it IS costing us is money (and some weapons we can just pay to have produced again). But if you look at our deficits? We clearly do not care about that.
Third, we neocons LOVE this.
And finally, the gullible masses are still (somewhat) for our support of the war. And since our President’s approval sucks for almost everything but the war? We would be crazy to want a ceasefire now.’
I would only revise that to change “(somewhat)” to “(95%)”. The propaganda machine is having to work harder these days, but public attitude is still very war-supportive. Based on my scan of comments in the NYT and WaPo.
Actually, in a mid-February AP-NORC Poll? Less than half of all Americans are in favor of sending arms to Ukraine.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-biden-politics-poland-33095abf76875b60ebab3ddf4eede188
That doesn’t mean they aren’t pro war. Ask them same people what they think of Russia. Or China. Or Iran. The propaganda machine might not be swaying the public on sending weapons to Ukraine but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still working to continually vilify these countries on our enemies list.
I said nothing about whether Americans were pro or anti-war.
I simply showed a poll that proves that American support for supporting Ukraine is waning.
You replied to someone who thought the public was very war supportive with a post showing more American’s being against sending aid to Ukraine. I just pointing out that they can still be pro war and against sending aid. I guess I was assuming something that wasn’t there.
Strawman blather.
We are done here.
Damn man, I wasn’t even arguing with you.
They do oppose to pay for it.
Truth.
Many Americans – many – remain as attached to all the phobic BS against Russia and Russians as they are against everything Chinese see Communist, as they are against everything Iranian see Shia.
Been that way for a long time. Murka doesn’t know its ass from a hole in the ground if there ain’t a war going on.
Propaganda has turned the USA/NATO led nations into neo-Nazis. They all are in bed together. In Germany the former Greens have turned into neo-Nazis, the old idealistic Greens are gone. They are extreme warmongers, I believe that corruption is involved big time. They are not stupid, they must know what they are doing, the SPD, and CDU are silent. MSM reports the universal governing narrative.
There is no other plausible explanation, what else can explain the universal insanity?
But other than neocons, who reads those papers?
Sorry Renate but those publications are MSM and a lot of people read them…
They are hopeless anyway.
“public attitude is still very war-supportive. Based on my scan of comments in the NYT and WaPo.”
‘fraid yr largely right – especially if measured by weak u.s. antiwar activism vs, e.g., germany.
still, the nyt readership does skew it especially due to its Democratic demographics – where posters’ warmongering is often openly bound up with Russiagate-Trump brain rot (anti-Putinism partisanly framed as anti-Putin-and-his-pro-Russian-accomplice-Trump):
“political affiliation, more than 9 in 10 people who cite The New York Times as their go-to news source identify as Democrats.”
https://letter.ly/new-york-times-readership-statistics/
The readership is more right of center, conservative overlapping center republicans, that is true for the editorial page too, I thought. I cancelled my subscription.
fair enough – want general news from somewhere, and get an educator rate – but gonna see if ’12 foot wall’ breaches the not-logged-in article limit…could support antiwar or a decent substack instead…
The two big papers, WP and NYT have a political narrative, the problem is their lack of objectivity on which their political narrative is based.
Right of center is a description of democrats. Republicans are farther right of center.
You are correct, the nation has no left party at all. Even the few progressives in the democratic party are a farce, we have a government of neocons or to be more blunt, a government of neo-Nazis.
NYTimes/WaPo commenters are part of an American troll operation. The same appears on Reddit where it once was discovered that most Reddit comments on their r/worldnews subreddit comes from a US military base.
When the NYTimes released an article trying to claim pro-Ukraine separatists blew up Nordstream, the comment section was filled with trolls trying to discredit any notion of Seymour Hersh’s article about the US blowing up the pipelines. Same thing happened on Reddit.
No surprise here. The US provoked the war and wants it to continue. This is a challenge and an opportunity for China to emerge as a the go-to global peace maker. To succeed China needs to broker a deal that balances Russia’s security concerns with Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity.Not an easy task. But the Chinese are resourceful and patient.
I will be surprised if there is a ceasefire in the near term. Peace talks typically take years. But Zelenskyy’s openness to discussing peace terms with China is encouraging.
I would add: a disposition re territory which recognizes the need to protect the safety of the people in the east who want no further relationship with Kiev. This could be solved via a supervised plebiscite.
It’s important to bear in mind that for ethical people, humans have more value than ore.
Maybe tapped down, but there is no solving the strain of ethnic hatred this war has created and nurtured of Nazi underpinnings & raw indiscriminate violence.
There we go, he just came out and said it – plain as day – we oppose peace and an end to the war.
One has to question the judgment of a leader who takes his cues from a senile warmonger with delusions of grandeur coupled with a galactic fear of failure.
A ceasefire is not recommended by the bosses of the United States Government.
That’s the CEO’s and shareholders of Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon.
LL and my thought also
Let us never forget our gutless,money grubbing politicians and our tax evading Corporations for ripping out the soul of the people.
And their official representative, Sec. of Defense (Offense, actually) General Lloyd Austin.
He’s pretty damn offensive, all right 😉
After all the BS reports from Ukraine how is the MSM going to explain to the American war loving population the defeat of the Fascist Ukrainian Govt and the billions of arms we sent them in a futile attempt no strangle the Russians economic base and hurting our ally Europe.
Hmm … I wonder why?
Kirby:
“We certainly don’t support calls for a ceasefire that would be called for by the PRC in a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia.”
Let’s say the cease fire started today. How many Ukrainians would not die as a result? Would that simply benefit Russia?
But this is the same guy who also said this:
China and Russia, Kirby said on “Fox News Sunday,” “are two countries that are chafing against this international rules-based order that the United States and so many of our allies and partners have built up, since the end of World War 2.”
He added: “They’d like to rewrite the rules of the game globally.”
I mean, does this guy know that we’ve killed between 20 to 30 million people since then? Comparatively speaking, they aren’t even playing the same “game”.
The current administration proves every day that there really is such a thing as evil.
The Donbas republics are gone and will not allow themselves to be reintegrated into Nazi-controlled Ukraine. Neither will Crimea. Those republics formally voted to rejoin Russia because the Nazi regime in Kiev insisted on bombing them and outlawing their language and culture. They held referendum formally leaving Ukraine. Even if they officially become separate political entities from Russia, they still will not be part of Ukraine. It’s a non-happening, and the regime in Kiev is now in no position to do anything about it having wasted so many soldiers, weapons, ammunition, and vehicles trying to hold on to a single town in the Donbas.
Yep. That one way road goes both ways.
The yanks don`t want peace in Ukraine , there`s no profit in it for them , war mongering SONS OF BITCHES
Establishment yanks jj, just like establishment NATO euros.
If there is peace in the world, then how does military industrial complex in the US makes money, and fleeces American tax payers??!!!
You make a good point Fargo but I would like to add that there is something intrinsic in our human nature the compels us towards war. It has been with us since the beginning of our existence and it grow and grows, to such a point, we seem hell bent on our own destruction…
The first caveman threw a rock at the second cave man and all hell broke loose……………………………….
I do not believe that at all! Politicians are NOT ‘just like the rest of us’. Few of us wish to control others, especially if we would have to personally attack others in order to try to make them obey us.
What mankind should have done long ago is to eliminate the mentally ill people possessing sociopathic and psychopathic traits because such people are a real threat to our survival!
Many people support war in the U.S. because they do not see the expense of war, thanks to the Federal Reserve and deficit spending! If each taxpayer had to directly fund the wars from his or her own pocket; then suddenly the masses would be strongly anti-war!!!! That scenario was by design!
You might be interested in reading the following articles:
Birth of the State:
https://mises.org/library/state-its-history-and-development-viewed-sociologically
https://mises.org/library/state
https://mises.org/library/aristocracy-monarchy-democracy
Good Morning B_man, not very philosophical
are you and a tad abrasive as well.
Drink some coffee and cool down.
So, you believe we should eliminate certain people? People with certain defects?
Who shall live and who shall die?
It is a tad Hitler-esque.
Do you pay taxes?…
Stop funding the wars!
Who said I was not calm? I specifically listed 2 types of personalities that should be eliminated from the gene pool since they are a real threat to the rest of us. There is no way to test them ahead of time because they can fake being normal. Once they get into any type of power and start displaying those traits, then they need to be banished or eliminated.
Mankind has given each of them chance after chance even to the point that they accumulate too much power to be removed without great bloodshed because they pay other sickos to guard them!
Tens of millions of deaths have been caused by them; yet you think I am being a tad Hitler-esque? I call it protecting ourselves.
Yes Donna, I believe that humans are intrinsically violent. No other species kills merely for the sake of killing, with the possible exception of weasels.
I see a pretty good analogy there 😁
If there is a devil, he’s got nothing on this crowd of misfits.
Damn China, they keep screwing up US plans to accidentally stumble into world war 3.
Is anyone else getting this feeling? Our true goal is making someone else start a nuclear war? The US wants the destruction and death, but doesn’t want to be the one directly responsible? I keep wondering what the US has to gain from apocalypse. Maybe we think we can stop enough nukes that we can rebuild the whole world in our image after?
I keep wondering what it feels like to vaporize?…
“Only a moments pain; then eternal bliss.” –Dracula
LOL!
The energized particles and radiation from the criticality would be moving faster than your nerve impulses. Your nerves would be blown apart before your synapses would register the event.
Actually, the preferred way to go, IMHO.
Sounds pleasant enough…NOT.
I believe that Amerikkka would prefer an apocalypse to giving up its world status.
If Zelenski hasn’t figured out by now that we don’t give a sh*t about Ukraine, then I don’t know how anyone can help him. Last time I looked, Ukraine forces and Russian forces were shelling each other, dying, not U.S. forces (except for stupid mercenaries). So I say to Biden, “go f*ck yourself, and take Nuland with you”.
Better than ByeDone f*cking Nudelman, V. Can you imagine the offspring? 😂
One side of the mouth says, “Whether or not to negotiate is entirely up to the Ukrainians.”
The other side says, “There will be no negotiations until Washington gives the OK.”
What’s a poor soul to believe?
What a surprise!! Would a country that’s been at war with someone for 93% of its existence really want peace?
Until lobbying (legal bribery) is outlawed, there will be no peace since the war industry pays for Wash. campaigns, and even some states also. The solution is to nationalize the weapons factories and take profits out of the mix. Wash. is relentless in its pursuit of starting WWIII with Russia, China and Iran. What’s going on in the middle east right now is of great concern as well.
Good ideas Lily, very good but let me know when hell freezes over….
I’m refurbishing my at home bomb shelter…
Any deal would be a recognition of defeat of the US/NATO project.
It would be a worse deal than Minsk 2, and a worse deal than Putin set out in December 2021.
So they can’t do it. No deal is possible.
What remains possible is for Ukraine to jettison the US and NATO, and cut its own deal. China could help with that.
No diplomacy as long as Biden is around, it is Biden’s war and he wants a bigger war.
That is also my concern Renate, very much so……..
We have a word for this creature: Arschloch.
genau
Gesundheit.
The US is old and rotten. We the people need a new constitution in order to form a more perfect union.
My guess is endless war, bought out politicians, environment and climate collapse will be on the agenda. Medicare for all and land reform will also be important when considering whether automobiles are legal.
In the US Policians,Climate Change and Banking regulations are non starters..This corruption runs deep.
Biden is responsible for the genocide of all the young Ukrainians getting killed in senseless battle for what, a regime change in Russia, and break-up of the RF just because the deranged old man and his criminal neocon advisers insist on it? Every member of congress in support of that insane policy is a war criminal, moral Nazis.
“It’s not our blood being shed” – White House
Fingers crossed: China becoming a global peace leader would be a perfect response to continual US belligerence. Ignoring US propaganda, our allies and enemies all know we wanted this war, we worked very hard to make it inevitable and unavoidable, we destroyed our allies’ pipeline, we caused immense economic damage (and may collapse our own banking system) and mass suffering throughout Europe. We continually stand in the way of peace as the whole world moves dangerously closer to apocalyptic war….
Then China shuts it down by being the adult while Biden and company pisses and moans about this being the wrong time to stop our march towards world war 3? Perfect.