CCI Friends,

Katrina vanden Heuvel, life-partner of deceased Stephen Cohen, has written an assessment that is of immense importance. It makes more sense than any of the articles demanding Russia to forget needing to get agreements to protect against NATO. Please pass on to your friends and colleagues.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Washington Post

Stop the Stumble Toward War with Russia

January 18, 2022
By Katrina vanden Heuvel

In the technical argot of diplomacy, what’s going on in the Ukraine crisis is nuts.

With 100,000 troops massed on Ukraine’s border, Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded a written response this week from the United States and its NATO allies regarding his demands for a guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward.

Three rounds of negotiations reached a dead end. The White House suggests Russia is planning a “false flag” operation in Ukraine as pretext for invasion. President Biden threatens severe sanctions; Putin says they would be a “colossal mistake.”

Hotheads are having a field day. A White House task force that includes the CIA is reportedly contemplating U.S. support for a guerrilla war if Russia seizes Ukraine; Russian hawks talk of a military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela. A former NATO secretary general says the alliance could admit Finland and Sweden “overnight” if provoked by the Russians.

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CCI Followers,

Thanks to journalist Fred Weir, we are able to understand the latest on the Kazakhstan uprising.

All the best from a frigid St.Petersburg.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Christian Science Monitor

How the Kazakhstan Crisis Reveals a Bigger Post-Soviet Problem

January 10, 2022
By Fred Weir

Peace and order appear to be returning to the major cities of Kazakhstan. But the political landscape, both at home and in Kazakhstan’s relations with its neighbors, is vastly changed.

Despite a week of the most violent and destructive disorder in Kazakhstan since the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago – set off by apparently spontaneous protests over the doubling of gas prices at the start of the new year – the Central Asian republic’s authoritarian regime seems more firmly entrenched than ever. That is due in part to the intervention of Moscow, through its post-Soviet military alliance, the six-member Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

The crisis in Kazakhstan has turned the CSTO from what formerly looked like a paper tiger into a functioning tool of regional elite solidarity. Now, its future goals will likely be to crush attempts at regime change and enforce pro-Moscow geopolitical alignment across a space that contains several emerging states that have yet to solidify strong national identities amid the turbulence and power struggles of the still-collapsing former USSR.

“Moscow was afraid that the state system in Kazakhstan might collapse, and if that happened the consequences for Russia and the region would be huge,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, a leading Russian foreign policy analyst. “Turmoil across this region is common, and to be expected, so there are signs that Russia has been developing these tools for some time.

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Dear CCI Friends,

Again Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and briefer of the President’s Daily Brief under President Reagan, forces us to comprehend the consequences of today’s U.S. political leaders’ actions in the world. Study Ray McGovern’s latest piece.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Antiwar.com

Ray McGovern: Peeking Past the Pall Put OverArms Talks With Russia

January 14, 2022
By Ray McGovern

Western media are painting an image of gross failure for Russia at the U.S.-Russia bilateral talks in Geneva, as well as subsequent talks between Russia and NATO in Brussels and the Organization for Co-operation and Security in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna.

Adamant! is the impression being fostered by both Russia and the West (largely for domestic consumption): Russia will continue to oppose NATO membership for countries like Ukraine and Georgia; NATO, for its part, will continue to reject Russian opposition as “none of your business”. (Bear in mind that Ukraine and Georgia are each several years away from qualifying for NATO membership in any case.)

The corporate media takeaway is that Russian President Vladimir Putin abjectly failed to get the West to agree formally on no further expansion of NATO and that, in these circumstances, no one can divine how he might lash out (maybe invade Ukraine?). World War III, anyone?

Did Western pundits really believe that Putin expected early acquiescence to that “non-starter” proposal on NATO expansion? Far easier to make believe he did, show how he went down to defeat, and conveniently ignore signs of real progress with respect to what Moscow’s (and President Joe Biden’s) actual priorities are.

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Natylies’s Place: Understanding Russia
By Natylie Baldwin
January 12, 2021

Based on Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s remarks in a press conference on Wednesday that followed the nearly 4-hour meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (link to transcript below), while reiterating its position that it will not countenance limiting any future expansion of the alliance, NATO apparently stated a willingness to work with Russia on “reciprocal actions around risk reduction and transparency, improved communication, and arms control.” Of course, this is better than nothing and may keep the parties talking which could maybe lead ultimately to some meaningful agreement that would satisfy Russia’s security concerns. However, it should be kept in mind that First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov commented earlier in the week that Russia’s security concerns about NATO and Ukraine are a separate issue, with strategic stability matters of important but secondary concern at the moment.

Another proposal, according to NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg, was that NATO and Russia restore their respective delegations in Brussels and Moscow. Russia has, of this writing, acknowledged the proposal but not responded to it. It’s no surprise that Russia would not be impressed with this idea since it would merely take the two parties back to a status quo that Moscow made clear had not been working for a long time and that it consequently viewed as virtually useless.

Stoltenberg also suggested that Russia expressed a willingness to keep the dialogue going.

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Dear CCI Followers,

At last … 30 years plus, the truth comes out. There are numerous accounts by the top leaders of the Free World that they all agreed that the United States would never enlarge NATO to reassure Mikhail Gorbachev that the new Russia had no worry from NATO, definitely there would be no enlargement beyond the borders of the reunited Germany.

Below note how many of the VIP’s assured Gorbachev that he need have no fear … they were adamant that NATO would never move closer to the struggling-to-survive new Russia in the 1990s.

These facts below have been ignored, blurred and buried as Bill Clinton mercilessly began admitting one piece of the  former USSR into NATO. Today NATO surrounds Russia with the latest NATO missiles and troops aimed at Russia.

This is what Putin’s defiant resistance and threat to NATO in Ukraine is all about. He demands to have assurances that NATO will back off … or else. Russia is now strong enough militarily to make such demands. All of us could be caught in the crossfires if this situation isn’t resolved.

Read the article below to let it sink in how unfair, how two-faced our policies have been since Clinton began taking in former Soviet countries, several of which had fought with Hitler against the USSR in WWII. This is why today the world is facing nuclear annihilation unless Biden, et al, are ready to backtrack and be responsible and responsive toward Russia … as was intended in good faith in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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