Links and Stuff
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Yesterday's discussion post.
Murderous rage against the fucking succdem worms who are now accusing Swedish leftists of "spreading Erdogans propaganda" by implying that he objectively has influence and power over Swedish politics due to us being reliant on his vote for our undemocratic entry into NATO. "Oh Erdogan can't force us to do anything so its dishonest to imply that we will be forced to do something like crack down on Kurds". Fuck off.
Also these fucking worms are now saying shit like, "oh this isnt an undemocratic flip of policy from the past social democratic party congress, because inbetween party congresses the party leadership are in command", so what the fuck does a congress mean, just broadly establishing a preferred direction that you fucking shitheads can choose to ignore then? How do you fucking have the stomach to imply thats in any way a democratic system, social fascist scum.
If the situation is of such immediacy that you have to circumvent literally every single democratic avenue for influencing the decision, from internal party congresses and votes, to a general referendum, to even rushing this past mere months before a general election(Particularly when in the general election that got you fucks elected last time, you opposed all suggestion of NATO membership), fucking demonstrate it, but no, it involves matters of state secrets so you get to just handwave this through while smearing other countries as undemocratic.
Edit: WOW WHAT A SURPRISE, specific Kurds have been named in demands to extradite them, several who have alleged that Turkey has tortured them in the past and almost certainly they will be tortured if extradited, yet all the twitter socdems are saying is "He's just bluffing we're negotiating with him behind the scenes".
Westoids are being told no. By a non-white country. They're not used to this at all and it makes their brains short-circuit.
Do Turkish Nationalists consider themselves white or European? I've never been that clear on how Turkish nationalism works.
They want to join a pact with the devil and then complain that the devil is making them do bad things.
Maybe don’t join NATO if you don’t want to be forced into alliance with evil terrorist supporting dictators like Erdogan?
Im eagerly anticipating the article about how its conspiratorial to question if Sweden will be on the hook for supporting nations and militaries that we fundamentally disagree with(or are supposed to at least).
But I mean its not like we havent been training Azovs or sending troops into every imperialist war as "peacekeepers" for decades, so the principle of the matter is moot already, its just a concern over scale.
what the fuck does a congress mean
In western succdem parties a congress simply means that the leadership gives bland speeches, the delegates claps like trained sealions without interfering and then at night everyone gets drunk.
yet all the twitter socdems are saying is “He’s just bluffing we’re negotiating with him behind the scenes”.
Man, they're going to be so surprised when their social fascist politicians give the literal terrorist state everything it wants.
Western framing of the Azovstal surrender as an ‘evacuation’ or a ‘retreat’ is incredible. From the fact that they’re all using exactly the same language, I assume they’re just writing exactly what the Ukrainian government has told them?
According to the recent radio war nerd episode with a western journalist just back from Ukraine, the UKR military basically prohibits journalists from any access to the front lines, active duty troops, hospitals, etc. They set up a ministry of information or something in what used to be a brewery and all the western journos just hang out there on nice couches and do stenography.
i'd say they've handled the information war excellently, but then again it's probably really easy to do that when all western journalists want to do is write adulatory puff pieces and stoke naziesque fears of asiatic hordes lmao
Yeah I see these takes about Zelensky being super good at media but it doesn't seem that way to me, it just seems like the western journalist is selected by their willingness to believe in a narrative. Hard to fuck up asking for more missiles when there's a legion of english major nerds falling all over themselves to write hagiographies about you.
well, zelensky certainly isn't fucking up his job as a media figurehead for the ukrainian state. he could have fled to lviv when the US asked him to for example, but he stuck around in kyiv (obviously i don't buy the manufactured narrative of him dodging russian assassins and missiles all over the place but still). i think you can give him some credit for not shying away from the danger but instead appearing to face up to it. you could also criticise him for being bloodthirsty to the point of arguing in favour of WW3...
I'm of the opinion that he doesn't really have the freedom to choose. I think their security service has him under their thumb.
There is no denying that the Ukrainian propaganda effort is working excellently for them. It wouldn't work for Russia though, even if they had the same skills and audacity.
Telling people what they want to hear gas always been orders of magnitude easier than telling them something they hate to hear.
yeah. i wonder what the situation regarding propaganda and public opinion in russia is like. is it as heavily one-sided as here?
I think Russian media are one-sided and full of propaganda as well but unlike in the west, Russians are aware that it is bullshit.
This was basically the gist I got from a part-Russian sometimes-colleague recently who still has family there.
A Danish MSM outlet has a headline that claims that "their mission is completed". You have to read the article in order to figure out that they are not in Ukrainian-controlled territory and nowhere does it mention that the Azov Nazis are essentially POW's.
Worse than POWs, the Russian state duma just passed a bill forbidding trading of Nazi prisoners. POW can normally hope for exchange, Azov will rot in Russian prisons forever
I can't wait for the public trials to start. Nazis will be facing consequences and westoids will be seething and crying about how unfair it is
It seems like the Russian state duma has already passed a law banning the exchange and release of nazis. Maybe there will be trials? It could also be that their will wait holding trials until the war is over and the conflict has cooled down.
And yes, Russian courts will be kangaroo courts, just like they are in many other capitalist nations. But nonetheless these Nazis are guilty and even a sentence passed by a flawed court will do justice.
Ukraine official compares soldiers in Mariupol to Spartan warriors in ‘300’ for holding back Russia for 83 days while massively outnumbered. Holy shit, Business Insider is dying of a fucking copium overdose. Anybody here a doctor?
If Azov are "heroes" for holding back a mere 2 1/2 months then what about everyone else on this list?
The ISIS fighters that lasted 9 months in Mosul against the Iraq and allies must all be demigods or something. Nevermind all the WW1-2 sieges those wars must have been fought by literal gods then I imagine. Fucking idiotic pandering shit is not just disgusting on an ideological basis but this is shit you write to convince a child or a 75yo boomer that thinks history started in 2018.
Reading this nonsense is an intellectual assault and that is before we talk about ideology even.
Mariupol only "lasted" for so long because Russia "wasted" a lot of time setting up humanitarian corridors in March during negotiations I think they did 3 or 4 of those. And then they gave the Azov ultimatums and that was another 2 or 3 cease fires.
But militarily speaking the town was encircled around week 2-3 and by mid April they already captured most of the city. Patric Lancaster already made videos about reconstruction efforts and the city going back to normal weeks ago by now.
2 and half months with the short attention span of today's journalists is like 15 years. Plus the added multiplier of it being somebody you like doing it against somebody you hate.
The world would have been a better place had the Achaemenids maintained control over Hellas. (I know, I know, but imm just so tired of all the “THE WEST IS UNDERSIEGE FROM THESE ORIENTALS” bullshit that I want us orientals to win and shut them up forever)
Critical Support for Business Insider in their devaluing of other fascist "heroic stands", considering how much fascists love spartans and their stupid shit. I say let all those journalists mine the past dry to drape some glory over other fascists let all that spartan and viking and samurai stuff become plastic.
The Spartan pedophile slavers are in fact an excellent analogy for these fascists.
Standing in a mountain pass awaiting certain death is identical to sitting in a hole waiting for someone else to help you because they always have before.
From Telegram:
🇪🇪🇷🇺️Estonian President Alar Karris admitted that "it is impossible to isolate Russia."
He made such a statement in an interview with the American edition of Newsweek.
"We must look for ways to communicate with Russia in other ways and conduct some kind of business with Russia," the president added.
By the way, back in March, the President of Estonia called for "driving Russia into a corner." The result is clear.
Not so long ago, the Estonian Statistics Department admitted that inflation has accelerated to 18.8% per annum in recent years.
European elites were high on pure ideology but now they seem to be waking up to one hell of a hangover. Is it beginning to dawn on them that the yanks have left them holding the bag?
Europeans just now realizing that the Americans engineered this whole scenario to slurp them up
Europeans just now realizing that the Americans are turning them into slurp juice.
The scene from There Will Be Blood but about slurp juice instead of oil
Westerners immediately showing their entire asses the moment a Nazi is on "their side".
Westerners when they try to push the Nazis into the Soviet Union and Molotov-Ribbentrop is signed as a last resort: "Stalin is literally worse than the Nazis."
Westerners when they do a coup to put neo-Nazi militias and their allies in power: "Sorry sweaty, necessary evil." :maybe-later-kiddo:
STALIN FELT FULLY JUSTIFIED IN SIGNING THE PACT
It was a dramatic moment when in the conference room of the Kremlin, Stalin and Molotov, the leaders of world revolution, stood side-by-side with Ribbentrop the spokesman of Hitler, the leader of world counter-revolution. But Stalin was unperturbed. His evaluation of the course of events and of the forces engaged was not that of the frantic critics in the West. Rightly or wrongly, he was convinced that he had averted, at least for a time, a war with Nazi Germany in which the Chamberlain and Daladier Governments of Britain and France would have become first Hitler’s arms merchants and finally his co-belligerents. He felt that his conscience had nothing with which to reproach him. He laughed to scorn those who regarded the pact as a wedding of Bolshevism and Nazism, and regarded their attacks as the chatter of fools. Why should he be regarded as a criminal for signing such an agreement when the statesmen of the critics’ own governments had been in constant political and personal association with the leaders of Nazism and Fascism, and had made pacts with them without consulting the Soviet Union or even the League of Nations, of which they were members and with which they were pledged to prior consultation?
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 215-16
As for Stalin’s decision to sign the Treaty, that was also a political maneuver. He thought he was deceiving Hitler, turning him against the West. I don’t think either Stalin or Hitler took the Treaty seriously. Each was pursuing his own goals. Hitler’s were those that we knew from Mein Kampf. Stalin understood correctly what Hitler was up to, but he thought he could deflect the blow of the German army away from the USSR and direct it at the West, and in that way buy time. Of course, the West, meanwhile, did everything it could to turn Hitler against the East. Schecter, Jerrold. Trans & Ed. Khrushchev Remembers: the Glasnost Tapes. Boston: Little, Brown, c1990, p. 50
These events served to feed the suspicion and arouse the dissatisfaction of the realistic Soviet leaders, including Stalin. Apparently they got “fed up” with attempting to stop the aggressors by participation in European affairs, and characteristically boldly reversed their attitude and decided to secure their own position by making a pact of nonaggression with Germany, which would assure peace for Russia, at least for a time, regardless of any possibility of war in Europe. Davies, Joseph E. Mission to Moscow. New York, N. Y.: Simon and Schuster, c1941, p. 456
At the same time, however, it was obvious that a rapprochement between the Soviet Union and France, marked by the signing of a mutual assistance treaty, was proceeding at an even more intense pace. The Soviet Union had also joined the League of Nations and was conducting intensive diplomatic and political activities aimed at curbing the aggressive aims and actions of the ruling circles in Germany, Italy, and Japan. The policy of the Soviet Union found very little support among the ruling parties of England and France. They, like Hitler, were pursuing a double game at that time, playing now an anti-Soviet card, now an antifascist one. Under the circumstances, Soviet diplomats also had to play a double game….
Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 725
…As Stalin learned, his negotiating partners were, moreover, simultaneously continuing their secret efforts to reach an acceptable understanding with Hitler. It was clear that Britain and France were simply playing for time while seeking the most favorable outcome from their own point of view and without regard for Soviet interests. In effect, the Western powers offered no concrete ideas for joint action against Germany. Their intention was plainly to let the USSR play the chief part in resisting possible German aggression without giving guarantees that they would share a proportion of the burden. …By the end of the summer of 1939 in had become plain to the Soviet leadership that, with Nazi Germany to the West and militaristic Japan to the East, in had no one on whom to rely. The argument Stalin had put forward at the 18th Congress seemed justified: anti-communism and a lack of a desire by Britain and France to pursue a policy of collective security had opened the sluice gates for aggression by the anti-Comintern pact. London and Paris were blinded to the real danger by their self-interest and hatred of socialism. Short-sighted politicians were saying, let Hitler make his anti-Communist crusade in the east. He seemed to them the lesser evil. The Soviet Union faced an extremely limited choice, but Stalin realized that it must be made, however negative the reaction in other countries. As a pragmatist, he cast ideological principles aside and, once he was sure the Anglo-French-Soviet talks would not produce results, he resorted to the German option which was being offered so assiduously by Berlin. He thought there was now no other choice. The alternative was to place the USSR in confrontation with the broad anti-Soviet front, which would be far worse. He had no time to think of what successive generations would say. The war was at hand and he had to postpone its outbreak at any cost.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 351
Looking back, the Non-Aggression Pact appears extremely tarnished, and morally an alliance with the Western democracies would have been immeasurably preferable. But neither Britain nor France was ready for such an alliance. From the point of view of state interest the Soviet Union had no other acceptable choice. A refusal to take any step would hardly have stopped Germany. The Wehrmacht and the nation were tuned to such a degree of readiness that the invasion of Poland was a foregone conclusion. Assistance to Poland was hampered not only by Warsaw’s attitude, but also by the Soviet Union’s unpreparedness. Rejection of the pact would could have led to the formation of a broad anti-Soviet alliance and threatened the very existence of socialism. In any case, Britain and France had both signed similar pacts with Germany in 1938 and were conducting secret talks with Hitler in the summer of 1939 with the aim of creating an anti-Soviet bloc. It is commonly suggested that the pact triggered the start of the Second World War, while it is commonly forgotten that by then the Western powers had already sacrificed Austria, Czechoslovakia and Memel to Hitler, and that Britain and France had done nothing to save the Spanish republic.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 356
After the war, the French Communist leader Bonte stated that the Kemsley visit, along with knowledge of the clandestine meeting between Goering and the British businessman, had been the chief factors in influencing the Soviets to seek an agreement with Germany. While this is certainly an exaggeration, there can be no doubt that the undercover dealings did have a strong influence on Stalin, as well as on Hitler, who was convinced by them that Britain would not fight. How could the Soviet leader trust a government which continued to indulge in such underhand activities while supposedly negotiating seriously with him? Admittedly, he was himself talking to the Germans, but he could always justify this as insurance, in case the Allied talks failed. In keeping his options open until the very last moment, Stalin does seem to have been prepared to give the allies every opportunity to succeed.
Read, Anthony and David Fisher. The Deadly Embrace. New York: Norton, 1988, p. 230
To the people of the USSR and foreign Communists, this Soviet-German Pact was a blow. True Communists were dismayed that Socialist Russia should make a treaty with the arch-enemy Hitler. They regarded Fascism as “the most aggressive form of Capitalism and Imperialism.” But Stalin had his answer. He called the unpopular pact a “Marriage of Reason” and slowly the Soviet nation swallowed the pill, accepted their leader’s explanation, and even began to agree that Stalin had made “one of the wisest moves in history.”
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 131
At half-past-six on the afternoon of July 3, 1941, the day after his return to Moscow, Stalin spoke to his people: “What did we gain by concluding a Pact of Non-Aggression with Germany? We assured our country peace during 18 months, as well as an opportunity of preparing our forces for the event of Germany’s attacking our country. This was a gain for us, and a loss for Fascist Germany.”
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 142
STALIN MOVED INTO POLISH TERRITORY WHEN JUSTIFIED
Accordingly, in the hour when the Polish government and general staff abandoned their country to its fate, with a promptitude that once more surprised the world Stalin set the Red Army on the march towards the “Curzon line.” This line, which had been universally recognized as the Russo-Polish boundary until the Poles tore a great area of white Russia and the Ukraine from the Soviets during the intervention wars, meant an advance through territory containing 12 million inhabitants. The banner of Revolution was raised, and to the rescue of these 12 million former Soviet subjects the Red Army hastened. However the argument may go, the fact is that Stalin did not send the Red Army into the onetime Polish territory until there was no government left in Poland and the country was wide-open for the Nazis to acquire land as far beyond the “Curzon Line” as they chose.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 215
Their [the Russians] immediate purpose was to occupy as quickly as possible the Polish area whose possession they had wrung from Germany as part of the price for their pact of friendship and their supplies of oil, grain, manganese, and cotton. That they did this with no regard for Polish or Anglo-American public opinion is neither to their detriment nor their credit; it simply showed that Stalin, fully alive to the danger of Nazi invasion, was determined to put as much space as possible between his prepared defense zone and the coming blitzkrieg.
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 251
Maybe they say the "Stalin was worse than Hitler!" thing because they think Hitler was kind of okay?
How many times is the west going to fund far-right orgs only have it to bite their asses later on? You can't write this shit. This is Isis all over again.
"ISIS was an OP to get Radicalized Muslims to leave western nations. This is USA's plan to rid the west of Nazis. The USA isn't supporting Nazis they are tricking them into exile and giving them old defunct weapons to make room for new super advanced stuff. The bonus part is weakening Russia and China so that we can democratize them. " HAHAHAHA! My Conspiracy Theory Liberal RP is off the chain today.
I think it says a lot about the legitimacy of the Poroshenko government that the only guys he could find willing to fight "For Ukraine" were a bunch of Nazis and associated filth. I almost feel bad for Zelensky. He inherited the Nazis after they'd already started to metastasize.
Good to see anti-chinese propaganda rag upholding the one china policy
“had been born in Taiwan in 1953, still had an active Taiwan passport, and had done military service for Taiwan”
Very frustrating the way the news framed this immediately.
And how much damage does it do when people read the initial reports about "Chinese man kills Taiwanese and by the way the PRC hasn't ruled out invading Taiwan" and then don't read the follow-up retractions because it's already churned out of the 24 hour news cycle. The only people who know about this are people like us who have :brainworms: and sickos who collect newspaper clippings (man that term no longer applies) about mass shootings.
had been born in Taiwan in 1953
Fucking called it. Lying bastard "journalists".
It's so funny that the two main people fighting against the EU and NATO making catastrophically bad moves for like, global stability, is Erdogan and fucking Orban. These scumbags are the people who are doing anything at all to pull these organizations back from the edge, even if it's purely for their own selfish reasons (which in Hungary's case isn't bad if it like, keeps your citizens' lights on, but for Turkey it's just like, fuck). All of the leaders of liberal democracies, the pinnacle of the "meritocracy", are so fucking keen to self-destruct for the sake of idealistic reasons that hurt themselves much more than they hurt Russia.
Well, I guess China is sorta in the background with their popcorn and occasionally shouting "No, stop fighting!" but they've got their own fish to fry with ASEAN and Taiwan and coronavirus so, can't blame them too much. And it's not their thing to directly intervene most of the time.
EU Softens Stance in Gas Fight With Russia Bloomberg. Also: EU gives companies green light to buy gas from Russia AlJazeera
Are European elites starting to realise what they have gotten themselves into? Pure ideology can't distract the European bourgeoisie from the fact that they are losing huge amounts of money on the kamikaze sanctions forever. Is the high they got from being united in the defense of western liberal democracy etc. beginning to wear off?
There is not enough renewables in the world to replace Russian gas atm. Solar panels are years behind in production. Europe would have to rely mostly on coal and wind, but it would require a massive upgrade in infrastructure like substations in any area built before electric furnaces became a thing.
It was never going to happen. Like Russia the EU is talking big in public and then negotiating behind the scenes pragmatically.
Like Russia the EU is talking big in public and then negotiating behind the scenes pragmatically.
The EU is divided and incoherent. They aren’t being pragmatic, they are stumbling and being pushed by events. Hungary and other nations are vetoing their oil embargoes, Hungary is getting pissed about loss of sovereignty and EU overreach and might even Hungrexit if they keep this up.
EU keeps saying that gas-for-rubles breaches sanctions but also is allowed, mixed messaging leading to lurching business crises and economic damage.
Poland has stopped paying for Russian gas, but keeps siphoning it anyway and buying it through middlemen who reverse it back to them. There’s not enough gas for everyone of Poland isn’t paying and still taking a portion. This is causing anger and mistrust between nations like Poland and Germany.
France seems to be very hesitant about all this compared to UK and Poland, despite being less reliant on Russian energy.
All in all, I would say this is causing growing fractures in the EU and in NATO.
I think "Hexit" is smoother and because there are no other EU nations starting with "H" it wont be confusing.
It already has 22 000+ likes:
"The Azovstal defenders pinned Russian forces in Mariupol until Ukraine won in Kharkiv. Encirclement of Kyiv’s troops in Donbas is now highly unlikely. Their contribution to the county’s freedom is immense. Their sacrifice should be celebrated as heroic. It will become historic." https://twitter.com/MaxRTucker/status/1526323894973607936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Libs really, really like Azov for some weird reason 🤔
It’s almost like fascists are the fighting force of the bourgeoise
Would the forces pinned at Azovstal have otherwise been defending Kharkov … ? They don’t seem exactly nearby
Watching Fishhook theory being confirmed in real time is pretty epic and cool
https://nitter.net/RWApodcast/status/1526583221059731458
this is like that dress photo - absolutely melting my brain. Thoughts?
After 70+ replies and looking at it some more I still can't tell so I will now assume that both videos are authentic & the tanks are still engaged in a match of tug-of-war
Thousands of people are killing each other over the stupidest shit imaginable and people are arguing about tank tug of war. Absurdism is truly the only lens for examining our existence.
My first guess was that it's the Ukrainian tank towing the Russian tank, but honestly idk. The best way to tell would be to see which direction dust is being kicked up, but the video is too low res and too short to really tell anything definitively.
However, someone in the replies did point out that whoever was filming this would be more likely to focus on the tank being towed rather than the one doing the towing, so I'm still leaning towards the T-90 being the one getting towed.
Neither one makes sense :cat-confused:
If the T-90 is towing, why is the driver buttoned when there's a dude just sitting on the T-80? And I think he's sitting on the opposite fender, but if he's actually sitting on the glacis he'd be massively in the way of any T-80 driver.
If the T-80 is towing, why does the T-90 have its headlight on? But the T-80 has its marker lights on too?
There looks to be dust between the tanks and on the T-80 side, but the video quality is too shit to really be sure. But since this video was released by Ukrainians, the video quality might have been intentionally degraded to hide that.
Both videos look to be at double speed and half framerate for no good reason, but putting them both at half speed the image stabilization in the version with the T-90 towing looks much more natural. But it's hard to tell due to the missing frames.
The camera shake from zooming looks weird on the vid with the Ukrainian tank towing. It immediately snaps to a "resting" position as opposed to slowly returning to it.
That NATO article from Politico. Dear lord.
Like, Operation GLADIO didn't run smoothly either. There was friction between the CIA and MI6 over who would arm and train the terrorists because, at the end of the day, it's a racket. Now we're just expecting Europe to "restructure NATO" while keeping the United States in charge and we don't expect their nationalism or Euroskepticism to get in the way of that? Also rich that they're trying to paint the organization that is entirely beholden to America and that every European country denounced as undermining their sovereignty and democratic practices in the 90s as the bastion for "liberal democracy".
NATO personnel gonna be evacuated to the basement of the FSB.
United States To Release Venezuela From Some Oil Sanctions
Washington will start to relax restrictions placed on U.S.-based oil company Chevron with regards to its crude business in sanctioned Venezuela. Chevron will soon be able to negotiate directly with the Venezuelan government and its state-run oil company, PDVSA, with the final details of the new arrangement expected to be complete as early as today.
The move is thought to support the talks between Venezuela’s socialist government led by Nicolas Maduro and the Western-backed opposition government led by Juan Guaido, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday afternoon.
According to Washington officials who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity, the license to negotiate, granted to Chevron, could be just the first step towards relaxing other oil-related sanctions on Venezuela. The opposition government in Venezuela is expected to announce today that it has reached an agreement with Maduro to return to the negotiating table as early as this month.
So the US allowed Chevron to buy embargoed Venezuelan oil. The whole Guiaido negotiation makes no sense and I'll bet its a pure spin: "we didn't crawl on our knees for the oil, Guaido negotiated it."
Your daily :you-think-this-is-funny: Jokah :i-do: update on Erdogan, as per Bloomberg:
Turkey’s demanding that Sweden and Finland publicly denounce not only the PKK, but also its affiliates before being allowed to join the [NATO] bloc. The Turkish officials said that designating the PKK as a terrorist organization isn’t enough: the Nordic applicants must do more to clamp down on PKK sympathizers it says are active in their countries.
Turkey also wants Sweden and Finland to put an end to arms-export restrictions they imposed on Turkey, along with several other European Union members, after its 2019 incursion into Syria to push the YPG back from the frontier, the officials said.
If the two above seem to be explicit demands, these next two, even though Bloomberg also paints them as demands, are not something Ergogan govt seems to have asked for explicitly, afaik, just an extrapolation from the history of US-Turkey arms sales relationship:
Turkey wants to be re-included in the F-35 advanced aircraft program, from which it was barred after it bought S-400 missile-defense systems from Russia. It also has an outstanding request to the US to purchase dozens of F-16s warplanes and upgrade kits for its existing fleet. Moreover, Turkey wants the US to lift sanctions over its possession of the S-400 missiles.
Re S-400 and quite likely F-16s, Turkey would like that. Re F-35, I think at this point this is just wishful thinking on the part of the Bloomberg journalist. If I were Erdogan I'd buy S-400s just to be barred from having to buy F-35s, but I could be wrong.
And here I though Turkey's leadership might be opposing it because it would escalate the current situation :agony-deep:
turning a big dial taht says "WWIII" on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right
