8chan/8kun QResearch Posts (2)
#22788494 at 2025-03-19 16:57:53 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #27835: JFK Files N Moar Edition
>>22788491
Ukraine and Russia trade accusations
Shortly after the lengthy phone call between Trump and Putin on Tuesday, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions as residents took shelter.
Despite efforts to repel the attack, several strikes hit civilian infrastructure, including two hospitals, a railway and more than 20 houses, Zelenskyy said.
Russian drones were reported over Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its military had launched seven drones at power facilities related to the military-industrial complex in Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region, but that it shot them down after receiving Putin's order to not hit energy infrastructure.
Moscow accused Ukraine of targeting its energy facility in the Krasnodar region bordering the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, several hours after the Putin and Trump talks.
The ministry said that three drones targeted oil transfer equipment that feeds the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, causing a fire and leading one oil tank to lose pressure.
"It is absolutely clear that we are talking about yet another provocation deliberately concocted by the Kyiv regime, aimed at derailing the peace initiatives of the U.S. president," the ministry said.
Russia said that its air defenses intercepted 57 Ukrainian drones over the Azov Sea and several Russian regions - the border provinces of Kursk and Bryansk and the nearby regions of Oryol and Tula.
Zelenskyy said that "words of a ceasefire" weren't enough. "If the Russians don't hit our facilities, we definitely won't hit theirs," Zelenskyy said.
Meanwhile, the two combatants said Wednesday that they had each swapped 175 prisoners in one of the largest exchanges of the war.
Ukraine's red line
Zelenskyy rejected Putin's key condition that Western allies stop providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine. He said that doing so would endanger lives if citizens were blind to incoming air raids, and lead to the continuation of the war.
"I don't think anybody should make any concessions in terms of helping Ukraine, but rather, assistance to Ukraine should be increased," Zelenskyy said. "This will be a signal that Ukraine is ready for any surprises from the Russians."
Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it was "completely unsurprising" that Putin rejected the ceasefire, adding that it's "imprudent for him to tell President Trump that directly, since Trump has made ending the war a very, very high priority."
"What we have now, in effect, is a competition or rivalry between Kyiv and Moscow to persuade Trump that it's the other side that is responsible for preventing Trump from achieving his goal of ending the war," Gould-Davies said.
Zelenskyy said that one of the most difficult issues in future negotiations would be the issue of territorial concessions.
"For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian," he said. "We will not go for it."
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#20435411 at 2024-02-18 16:27:07 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #25070: Truckes For Trump NYC Edition
Death of Kremlin Foe Alexei Navalny Provokes Western Outrage but Few Concrete Actions to Stop Putin
https://apnews.com/article/russia-putin-navalny-ukraine-21fcaf4737fc7c8224501781693a64d7
As outrage over the death of chief Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny reverberates across the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin is turning a deaf ear to Western anger as he prepares to extend his 24-year rule in an election next month and police across Russia continue to squelch any protest attempts.
The U.S. and its allies are pondering new sanctions against Russia over Navalny's death and the Kremlin's recent actions in Ukraine. But as U.S. aid for Ukraine remains stuck in Congress and NATO allies in Europe struggle to fill the gap, many wonder what the West can actually do to stop the ruthless Kremlin leader, given that multiple previous rounds of penalties have failed to.
"There isn't really the room for any great value in additional sanctions" against Russia, already one of the most sanctioned countries in the world, Mark Galeotti, head of the London-based Mayak Intelligence consultancy firm noted in a YouTube commentary.
Instead, Galeotti said, the West should focus more on working with Navalny's allies and helping ordinary Russians get access to information channels that counter Kremlin propaganda.
Such efforts are key especially now, according to Galeotti, who described Navalny's death as yet another step in Putin's transition from "hybrid authoritarianism" to "brutal thuggish despotism."
The U.S. and NATO allies have been weighing more actions to bolster support for Ukraine, where the Russian military has just forced Ukrainian troops to retreat from the key eastern stronghold of Avdiivka after a four-month ferocious battle. The allies discussed ways to increase the cost of war to Russia to force Putin to back down.
But the 71-year-old leader has vowed to press on, refusing to relinquish any of his gains and declaring in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last week that the West will "sooner or later" be forced to negotiate a deal - on his terms.
Navalny's death shows Putin's "complete ruthlessness and disdain ... for both Western and international opinion," said Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Russia announced Navalny's death on Friday, just as Western leaders gathered at a security conference in Munich.
Putin is "throwing down a gauntlet to the West," Gould-Davies said. "As we come up to the second anniversary of the (Ukraine) war, he is again testing Western resolve."
Navalny's death should serve as a "wake-up call" to U.S. Republicans opposing aid for Ukraine in Congress and also encourage European NATO allies to bolster their assistance to Ukraine, Gould-Davies said.
"Ultimately it depends on the lessons that the West draws," he said.
But Navalny's death didn't appear to move the U.S. House speaker Friday to commit to a proposed $61 billion aid package for Ukraine, seen as crucial to a Ukrainian victory.