Stoltenberg Says NATO Should Be Ready for Bad News About Ukraine

127 thoughts on “Stoltenberg Says NATO Should Be Ready for Bad News About Ukraine”

1. So NATO is married to Ukraine?

   What about this?

   GENERAL TO GENERAL

   A potential peace is being negotiated in Ukraine by military leaders

   Everyone in Europe is talking about this”—the peace talks—an American businessman who spent years dealing with high-level Ukrainian diplomatic and military issues in the government told me earlier this week. “But there are lots of questions between a ceasefire and a settlement.” The veteran journalist Anataol Lieven wrote this week that the battlefield situation in Ukraine and thus “a ceasefire and negotiations for a peace settlement are becoming more and more necessary for Ukraine.” He said that it was “exceptionally difficult” for the Ukrainian government headed by Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to talks, given its repeated refusal to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

   The driving force of those talks has not been Washington or Moscow, or Biden or Putin, but instead the two high-ranking generals who run the war, Valery Gerasimov of Russia and Valery Zaluzhny of Ukraine.

   https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/general-to-general

   1. And this from your site:
      Internal Polling Suggests Zelensky Would Lose Election To Gen. Zaluzhny
      Internal polling in Ukraine shows that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could lose a presidential election if he faces off with Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, The Economist reported on Tuesday.
      So far, Zaluzhny has not expressed an interest in entering the political fray, but he’s been rumored to be a potential candidate. It’s also been reported that he’s been at odds with Zelensky, a spat that spilled into the public after Zaluzhny called the war against Russia a stalemate and said there would likely be no “deep and beautiful breakthrough.”…
      polling shows the Ukrainian public trusts Zaluzhny more than the country’s political leadership, as Kyiv has been rocked by corruption scandals.
      The Economist report reads: “The figures, which date from mid-November, show trust in the president has fallen to a net +32%, less than half that of the still revered General Mr Zaluzhny (+70%). Ukraine’s spychief, Kyrylo Budanov, also has better ratings than the president (+45%).”
      https://news.antiwar.com/2023/11/29/internal-polling-suggests-zelensky-would-lose-election-to-gen-zaluzhny/

      1. But will a new leader end the war ? , or just become the latest US LACKEY ? .

         1. Don’t know, but he was the one calling the war unwinnable, no?

         2. “General valery zaluzhny concedes that five months of counter-offensive have not gained much—and can see from history why the impasse may be impassable”

         3. All we get is more US lackeys and we need them like more holes in the head.

         4. As Obama said, we are good at killing. Remember when Trump ordered the assassination of Major General Soleimani, one of Iran’s top military leaders? Zelensky knows he has to keep up appearances or he will not be appearing anywhere, as in zapped.

      2. Zaluzhny is not much better with TWO busts of Stefan Bandera in his office!

         1. The only advantage would be that he’s the perfect messenger to tell the neonazis that it’s over.

   2. If Zelensky had not listened to those IDIOTS Biden . Boris he could have had a peace settlement and come out smelling of roses , all Putin wanted was a guarantee Ukraine wouldn`t join the Criminal gang NATO it was that simple , Dombass ect except for Crimea would have remand Ukrainian and the infrastructure would still be intact .

      1. Lavrov publicly rejected the peace settlement the day before Boris even arrived in Kyiv. Remind me which of the two countries Lavrov represents again? Oh, yes, the Russian Federation. The publicly stated reason for rejection was that Zelenskyy had vetoed the portion of the draft agreement giving the Russian Federation perpetual, total, and unilateral veto power over all Ukrainian military activities, not that it might join NATO.

         1. That’s not what Lavrov says.

            1. That was EXACTLY what Lavrov said, in public, on television, at a press conference in China, on April 8, 2022, the day before Johnson arrived in Kyiv. I published the video of him saying it (from Chinese state media) in a thread somewhere on this site several weeks ago.

               The draft negotiated in Istanbul gave Russia complete veto power over Ukrainian military activity. When it went back to the principals for acceptance or changes, Zelenskyy changed it such that vetoes on Ukrainian military action would require a majority of guarantor states rather than Russia alone. The Russians rejected that change.

            2. Crickets.

               You can present that video daily and they will claim you are wrong daily.

               It doesn’t pay to be factual here. .

            3. Believing what you can establish as fact is just a lot harder than believing what you happen to want to believe — especially when other people are agreeing with you that what you want to believe must be true because they want to believe it too.

               I’m not immune to that problem in general. I just don’t happen to have a dog in this hunt. My fairly evenly distributed / all-around hatred of and distrust for all the involved regimes means I’m not attached to whatever fairy tales any of them happen to be preaching at any given moment.

            4. Unfortunately, you are the unicorn here.

            5. Believing what you can establish as fact is just a lot harder than believing what you happen to want to believe — especially when other people are agreeing with you that what you want to believe must be true because they want to believe it too.

               I’m not immune to that problem in general. I just don’t happen to have a dog in this hunt. My fairly evenly distributed / all-around hatred of and distrust for all the involved regimes means I’m not attached to whatever fairy tales any of them happen to be preaching at any given moment.

            6. Hi Thomas,

               1. Would you be so kind to post a link to Lavrov’s video again?
               (It appears to be of importance, so I would like to hear Lavrovs own words.)

               2. I’ll also try to find the original full text of the Istanbul draft. I cannot imagine it contains “perpetual, total, and unilateral veto power over all Ukrainian military activities”, but maybe words that in fact do mean that.

               3. On 29 march 2022 – 10 days before Lavrov’s remarks – Zelensky put this on his presidential website:
               https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/na-peregovorah-iz-rosiyeyu-ukrayinska-delegaciya-oficijno-pr-73933
               Zelensky talked about guarantor countries.

               4. I would like to analytically compare the draft or drafts, Zelensky’s text and Lavrov’s words.

            7. Here’s one video of Lavrov addressing the matter. I’m not sure if it’s the same as the one I originally found on Chinese state media:

               So far as I know, the full text of the Istanbul draft has never been publicly released, but as you can see in the video, Lavrov explicitly says that any one state (including Russia) would be able to veto Ukrainian military actions, because consent of the signatory/guarantor states would have to be unanimous (as opposed to majority, which Kyiv proposed).

            8. Thank you very much Thomas!

            9. Any time!

         2. That is not what the Ukrainians themselves now admit.

            1. Who?

            2. I don’t care what the Ukrainians “admit” — I have no more or less use for, or trust in, the Kyiv regime than I do for the Moscow regime. Maybe even an eensy teensy bit less.

            3. A blindingly obvious position of convenience as practised by a veteran renegade.
               Marvellous.

         3. Twisted to the point of being irreparable interpretation of historical reality.
            You can always suggest what you would’ve done in Lavrov’s position.
            Changing the subject ever so slightly, intolerable owd moi was wondering what incomparable young toi might think on the subject of this essay, penned by recently awoken from decades-long sleep, a giant of contemporary intellectual thought Prof. Richard D Wuff.
            https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/12/07/socialisms-self-criticism-and-real-democracy/

            1. “You can always suggest what you would’ve done in Lavrov’s position.”

               The same thing Lavrov did — announce the decision made by the principals I worked for. Lavrov is a diplomat/negotiator, not the final policy decisionmaker (although that decisionmaker or decicionmakers may rely on his advice).

               Wolff’s essay is interesting, and as a Wobbly I’m all in favor of workers’ self-directed enterprises, but I’d say the problem is that the concept of “democracy” as a political value is antithetical to both capitalism and socialism.

               As Marx is often misquoted, “the state is the executive committee of the ruling class.” Whether the members of that ruling class are called capitalists or commissars, their interests and incentives are never going to be “democratic” in nature.

            2. Top Class reply, thank You.

      2. Boris did Brexit the same way, lies that the credulous trusted.

         He got fired from his first jobs in media for doing the same thing, and then failed upward all the way to Prime Minister. That must have served power, because they must have known what they were getting with him; it was very public disgrace.

2. NATO is too Effed up to be thinking clearly…

   1. That’s according to you.
      I suppose your Russian team is thinking very clearly, right?

3. “The Ukrainian military wants to lower the age of involuntary conscription for men without military experience to 25, which could add around 140,000 recruits.”

   I guess those videos that appear to show teenagers grabbed on the street and dragged away actually depict the traditional form of voluntary enlistment in Ukraine. Slava! 😏

   1. Yea, they need more civilians to chase the Russians back to Moscow…..Julio.

4. Russia is many times the size of Ukraine and God is on the side of the big battalions. Still Ukraine is doing well holding out and it isn’t over till it is over.

   1. Don’t you realize President Putin NEVER intended to defeat Ukraine? He’s only protecting the people who joined Russia and stop the madman, Zelenskyy, from killing them.

   2. “Ukraine is doing well holding out and it isn’t over till it is over.”

      Awriiight! Ukraine needs more brave American Joes like you to knock some sense into Ukrainian women:

      “In Lviv, a city in the West that has avoided serious shelling, wives and mothers …have protested, terrified about their husbands’ and sons’ deployment into combat in the East. To assuage concerns, a commander…met with about 200 women in a concert hall but the conversation devolved into screaming and crying, local media reported.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/01/world/europe/ukraine-russia-losses-east.html

      1. The protestation should have been directed at the good old U.S. of Atrocities. Our geniuses in D.C. wanted to draw Russia into a conflict so as to “bleed” Russia, as articulated by Austin. From the first moments of the coup in 2014, the plan was to draw Russia into a conflict. Well, unfortunately for the folks in Ukraine governed by NAZIs and led by a lousy piano player, it worked.

         1. There you go again with your russian propaganda and pretending to be American.

         2. The Neocon plan to use Ukraine as a club to break up Russia and re-colonize China.

      2. Terrible thing, Russian women hate their men so much that they don’t protest? Russian authorities more efficient or more ruthless than that Ukrainian ones?

5. “Stoltenberg Says NATO Should Be Ready for Bad News About Ukraine” Who is he talking to? I thought he was a NATO official? Any Psychologists or Psychiatrists here? Is that Schizophrenia or split personality disorder? …What’s that? It’s both, all, and altogether? Wait! Who is that talking to me in my own head? Is that you, Wars? Or is it you, Spy?

   1. dammit i will find you and i will get you ,,, a beer.
      how cool will that be?
      GRRR
      what

      1. wut
         LOL. Sounds good. Make it a Corona. …No, not the Virus.

         1. son of bitch dammit
            what

6. “Wars develop in phases,” Stoltenberg told the German broadcaster ARD. As Germans they have lots of experience.

7. War in Ukraine brought to you by idiots like Lloyd J Austin the Turd.

8. Love how they want to “Lower” the age to 25…A confirmed report was posted. Showing a Ukrainian soldier was killed. He was 17 years old. He was also an orphaned child. Ukraine is now using orphans. Any male orphan that is being cared for by the “State” will be used as cannon fodder. Please end this stupid war. All Russia wanted: Ukraine to stop shelling the Donbas region. Which has been going on since 2014. And Ukraine to stay neutral and not join NATO. But instead Ukraine would rather send 500,000 of their men to their death. The true definition of INSANITY

   1. As long as it is the youth of Ukraine being killed and not American or NATOs youth being killed the US / NATO could careless , read the last day`s of the Third Reich old men & children where press ganged into fighting a lost cause .

   2. All the Confederate States wanted was to be free of the Washington DC Government, and remember slavery was LEGAL,,but rather than Lincoln negotiating a friendly separation, he choose to kill over 700,000 people and destroy most of the Southern States. Looking back at how that played out,,not so good. But maybe Zelenski thinks old Abe was a good role model.

      1. Negotiate what? The slave owners said they would not give up their preoccupation of slavery.

         1. the Civil War was about southern states trying to escape uncle sam’s taxation. uncle sam was always the dick and he really didn’t care if Bubba had him a slave or two. or seven.
            what

            1. That’s not really true at all except for the part about not wanting slaves taxed. First act of Johnson when appointed head of Tennessee when Union took over was to free the slaves.

            2. well i have been proven wrong regarding this by at least 3 other guys including you. i concede that i am wrong and everybody else is correct

            3. Well, LATER (after slavery wasn’t fashionable anymore), the southern states said it was about trying to escape Uncle Sam’s taxation.

               At the time, however, their published ordinances of secession made it clear that they were worried Lincoln was going to take their slaves away, even though he’d said he had no intention of doing so.

            4. If slavery delegitimizes secession then the effort of the 13 colonies to gain independence from Britain was illegitimate, as there was slavery in the colonies.

            5. I didn’t claim that slavery delegitimizes secession. I just pointed out that slavery was the big issue that moved the particular secession in question.

               Personally, I’m a fan of secession in general, and think the US should have let the Confederacy go in peace, Ukraine should have let Donetsk and Luhansk go in peace, etc.

            6. We are in agreement, then.

            7. The problem was that it was never about taking Luhansk and Donetsk, it was about taking Crimea and establishing the land corridor to it with the rich land and warm water seaports while eliminating any chances of Ukraine ever being able to export its own natural gas to tge EU and other nearby counties.
               Also about the other southern land corridor to Odessa and Transnistria.
               So giving Putin the first two oblasts was never going to stop the war’s ultimate goals.

            8. You obviously don’t trust yourself much, Thomas.

            9. I don’t trust anyone very much, myself included.

            10. As made clear in the letters back to Government from the British Consul in Charleston, the Southern slave owners were led by some very nasty minded and hateful people. Decent opinion was disgusted in the 1850’s when he wrote.

                That does not mean they would have remained in control. They were failing. Their steady failure made them behave even worse, but it was still steady failure.

            11. Yep. Chattel slavery of the variety existing in the southern US was on its way out one way or another. Ending it (or preserving it) was a poor justification for a war that cost, by some estimates, a million lives.

            12. (Lincoln) said he had no intention of doing so (taking away their slaves).
                because they really didn’t care about slavery

            13. If you go state by state you will see that each state had it’s own priorities. For some of the Southern States Slavery was a key issue although they were in the minority. People who want to think the war was about slavery always point to those few states and the things those state leaders said, while forgetting that they didn’t represent the entirety of the South.

                The South was NOT one monolithic block, when you see anyone telling you that the South was XYor Z, Keep in mind that it’s more like the South was XY AND Z.

                Most of the Southern States viewed slavery as negotiable, some even had their own plans for ending it, if need be. Many of them saw the writing on the wall and wanted to replace slavery with modern equipment but knew they couldn’t afford to give up slavery until they had the modern equipment in place, which they couldn’t make happen if they were being taxed to industrialize the North.

                Then there was the entire issue of allowing new slave states to enter the union which would have taken political power out of the hands of the North. Again this made slavery an issue, but it was more the politics of it that mattered. The North didn’t want more slave states primarily because those states would vote with the South, not because they were against slavery per se, keep in mind that Slaves were still held in most of the Union, including states who fought for the North.

            14. Getting your information from RT news and TASS makes you look like an idiot.

                Even more when trying to be a historian.

         2. vip, slavery was LEGAL, can you understand that? Go to war over something that was legal?? Negotiation would have been the right thing, if you really believe in the Constitution and freedom. When the Gov. fails you you have the right to form a new Gov., that is all the Confederacy wanted, and we would have been far better off if Lincoln would have choose life over mass death, but he really was a serial killer and a despot.

            1. Many very bad ideas, failing ideas, were legal until they weren’t. Slavery was one of them.

               It did not last anywhere in the world, nor would it have had a future in the South.

            2. The people in D.C. and generally up North treat Lincoln like he’d a DemiGod while others in the South not so much. To me, Lincoln was just another along the lines of Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson, wartime presidents that got us into or escalated wars that weren’t necessary. Yes, I know about Pearl Harbor but very little is said about the embargo that the U.S. placed upon Japan which was put in place to draw them into war. It worked.

      2. The Border States were also destroyed.

         Slavery was failing, worldwide, for economic reasons. It was not given up in the last backward places out of a sense of keeping up with US virtue. Places like Cuba and Brazil gave it up because it failed.

         It was a high price to pay for something already inevitable.

   3. Toward the end of the European theater, Germany conscripted kids, teenagers, to fight for the motherland.

9. So i will take from that US LACKEY Stolenburg Russia has won , however we want Ukraine to continue fighting as it`s not the North American Terror Organizations soldiers being killed , because if it was the war would now be over , the last thing the NATO LACKEYS want is 200,000 DEAD NATO soldiers coming home in body bags RIGHT .

   1. The Russian Orcs stole land from a neighboring country.
      I guess that makes them winners.

10. It’s so bad, it’s good like:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/s/pjUKIrAWdQ

    1. Oh no, you are like my bad pun buddy.

       1. I’ll take it as a compliment, ED.

          1. Yeah. My real life bad pun bud gets groans, but is a great person.

             1. Wait! It just registered. Are you saying I’m not a real live person? LOL

             2. No, you’re my second bad pun bud.

11. Stoltenberg is a politician whose career is being destroyed with every loss Ukraine is experiencing. I doubt if he’ll be around much longer.
    Good riddance to him and all of those who would mislead their own people.

    1. Like all the Ghouls in DC?

       1. And in the Kremlin

12. No kidding another clusterf…k. Well, it looks like even Ukraine has had enough of the piano player. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zelensky-is-on-his-way-out-kyiv-s-mayor-vitali-klitschko-claims/ss-AA1kZ4zG?ocid=msedgntp&pc=EDGEDB&cvid=1ae3801c261b4a0aa22e93f69636e7f6&ei=21

13. Since NATO now accepts “bad news” it is willing to admit thinking about, that means that reality is far worse.

    Stalemate? That is crushing defeat.

    Give up territory? That is disintegration of Ukraine as a nation state, like Afghanistan’s government and Army when they collapsed.

    That is what we can expect — collapse.

    Furthermore, our arms sales prove it. We do not send anything we still wish to keep from the Russians, because they will take possession of everything when Ukraine collapses. Hence, no new model tanks, none of the newest weapons or electronics. Cutting losses, preparing for the disintegration.

14. “be ready for bad news”

    oh wait, bad news regarding Ukraine. according to The NATO chief.
    who is the NATO chief? oh it is General Jens Stoltenberg ….
    the boss of NATO is a man who previously was the fearless leader of Norway.
    Norway = 5.5 million populace. Jens was the apparently the boss of all of them.
    that is approximately 5 times the number of people who reside in the state of Rhode Island.
    oh sh*t here we go = Jens Stoltenberg became NATO Secretary General in October 2014,
    oh sh*t right before Ukraine tried to swallow up Crimea.
    what
    edit) = Jens’ claim to fame is that he once built a snowman with the help of his little brother.
    what.

    1. You are such a russian propagandist.

       1. and what are you, a Ukrainian propagandist ?

15. Yes, one of the bad news is that Ukrainian soldiers that surrender may be executed on the spot the way they just executed these two couple days ago. All recorded by a drone. Now, that’s some real Nazi sh!t.
    What a sick Army of criminals.

    https://youtu.be/3pteU89FAsQ?si=OZ9z9ARwWhFGVSnH

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