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Putin tells Tucker it would have been ‘culpable negligence’ for Russia to not intervene in Ukraine

Published

3 months ago

8 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Patrick Delaney

‘When did the developments in Ukraine start? Since the coup d’etat and the hostilities in Donbas began. That’s when they started. And we were protecting our people, ourselves, our homeland and our future,’ the Russian president said.

In a much-anticipated interview with popular commentator Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed his motivations behind invading Ukraine two years ago, the many decisions the United States and their partners made to provoke the war, the CIA’s ability to disregard the policy of U.S. presidents, and the notion that Russia intends to invade Western Europe as obviously “imaginary.”

After a long, detailed presentation on the history of the region and the immediate run-up to Russia’s February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine, Putin made the case for how the U.S. broke its verbal commitment to expand NATO eastward after the collapse of the Soviet Union. With five waves of expansion, this came to a critical point at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest that declared the alliance’s intention to welcome Ukraine and Georgia despite the Bush administration having a clear understanding this could set the stage for war with Russia.

He also described the process behind the 2014 coup d’etat of the democratically elected government in Ukraine as being orchestrated by the CIA to facilitate the utilization of this nation as a springboard of aggression against the Russian motherland. This included the government of Kiev’s war against native Russians within their own borders in the east.

READ: ‘Monumental provocation’: How US and international policy-makers deliberately baited Putin to war

“So, in 2008, the doors of NATO were opened for Ukraine. In 2014, there was a coup (and) they started persecuting those who did not accept the coup,” Putin said. “They created the threat to Crimea, which we had to take under our protection. They launched the war in Donbas in 2014 with the use of aircraft and artillery against civilians. This is when it all started.”

“They launched a large-scale military operation. Then another one. When they failed, they started to prepare the next one. All this against the background of military development of this territory and opening of NATO’s doors.”

“How could we not express concern over what was happening? From our side this would have been a culpable negligence,” he said. “It’s just that the U.S. political leadership pushed us to the line we could not cross because doing so could have ruined Russia itself. Besides, we could not leave our brothers in faith, in fact, a part of Russian people, in the face of this war machine.”

“My counterparts in France, in Germany said, ‘How can you imagine them signing a treaty with a gun to their heads?” demanding he pull back troops from Kiev, the Russian president explained. “As soon as we pulled back our troops from Kiev, our Ukrainian negotiators immediately threw all our agreements reached in Istanbul into the bin and got prepared for a longstanding armed confrontation with the help of the United States and its satellites in Europe.”

He explained the real presence of Nazi ideology in Ukraine and elsewhere, which strikes a prominent chord in the memory of the Russian people due to Hitler’s atrocities against them and others during World War II.

Asked about the notion stated in the U.S. and elsewhere that Russia is aggressive and plans to expand its territories west to Poland and other nations, Putin said, “They’re trying to intimidate their own population with an imaginary Russian threat. This is an obvious fact. And thinking people, not Philistines, but thinking people, analysts, those who are engaged in real politics, just smart people, understand perfectly well that this is a fake. They’re trying to fuel the Russian threat.”

This statement is supported by prominent political science scholar and author Dr. John Mearsheimer, who observed in a 2015 lecture that “there is no evidence that (the United States) thought Putin was aggressive before the (2014 coup) crisis. There’s no evidence that we were talking about expanding NATO because we had to contain the Russians.”

“What happened here was that after the crisis broke out on February 22nd, we then decided that Russia was aggressive. We then decided that Russia was bent on creating a Greater Russia. It was after the fact,” the best-selling author explained.

Putin went on to address “the war of propaganda,” telling Carlson “it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world’s media and many European media.”

Regarding the falling U.S. dollar, Putin explained that “to use the dollar as a tool of foreign policy struggle is one of the biggest strategic mistakes made by the U.S. political leadership. The dollar is the cornerstone of the United States power… As soon as the political leadership decided to use the U.S. dollar as a tool of political struggle, a blow was dealt to this American power.”

The Russian president also stated that despite all the sanctions and restrictions utilized against his nation, “Russia was the first economy in Europe last year,” the fifth largest economy in the world.

He complained about aggressive Western policy toward Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union and discussed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky deceiving his voters by embracing a hardline policy against Russia after campaigning that he would bring about peace.

Putin also mentioned famous literary giant “Dostoyevsky, who was very well known in the West” and who spoke much “about the Russian soul.”

“Everyone in the West thinks that the Russian people have been split by hostilities forever, and now they will be reunited. The unity is still there,” he exclaimed. “Why are the Ukrainian authorities dismantling the Ukrainian Orthodox Church? Because it brings together not only the territory, it brings together our souls. No one will be able to separate the soul.”

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conflict

Columbia on Lockdown After pro-Palestinian Protesters Take Over Building, Hold Janitors Hostage

Published on April 30, 2024

By

From Heartland Daily News

Columbia University locked down its campus Tuesday to everyone but essential personnel and students after anti-Israel protesters smashed windows and barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall early in the morning.

A staff member in the building at the time said he was temporarily taken hostage, The Columbia Spectator reports.

As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, the New York university even barred the media from campus “as a safety measure,” a news update states.

“Access to campus has been limited to students residing in residential buildings on campus and employees who provide essential services to campus buildings, labs, and residential student life,” according to the announcement.

The Spectator reports more:

The [lock down] comes six hours after around three dozen protesters occupied Hamilton Hall, pledging to remain inside the building until the University meets its stated demands, including divestment from Israel, financial transparency, and amnesty for students detained and suspended in the mass arrests on April 18.

Protesters sealed off the building minutes after entry, barricading the doors with wooden tables, chairs, and zip ties. Demonstrators outside moved the metal tables outside Hartley Hall to the front of the doors, securing them shut with ropes and zip ties.

A facilities worker said he was temporarily held hostage but allowed to leave about 10 minutes later, according to the student newspaper. Later, two other janitors said they also were temporarily held hostage, according to Fox News.

Several students also reported being assaulted by protesters trying to enter the building, according to an X video by freelance reporter Jessica Schwalb.

Pro-Palestinian protests have been going on for weeks at Columbia, with some demonstrators establishing a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the lawn.

On Monday, university spokesperson Ben Chang said students began receiving suspension notices after ignoring repeated warnings to leave their encampment by 2 p.m. that day.

“Students who agreed to leave and sign a form committing to abide by University policies will be allowed to complete the semester,” Chang said in a campus update.

Some faculty members, many of them wearing masks, joined the protesters just ahead of the 2 p.m. deadline, locking arms to form a human chain around the encampment, according to videos on X.

As of Tuesday morning, the pro-Palestinian demonstrators continue to occupy the building. The Spectator reports  New York Police Department officers have been at the scene since about 12:45 a.m. but have not entered the building.

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conflict

Col. Douglas Macgregor torches Trump over support for bill funding wars in Ukraine and Israel

Published on April 24, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

” He’s essentially throwing his principles overboard and his supporters under the bus.

If I were working for him right now and he were president I would have advised him under no circumstances to support the bill and instead focus our attention on the on the borders of the United States [and] restoring the rule of law. “

With another interview appearance, retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor has warned the United States is no longer in control of the wars it continues to fund, against overwhelming public opposition.

According to Macgregor and host Clayton Morris, a former Fox News anchor, “70 percent of the American people” now oppose sending money to fund wars present and future in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

What is more, Macgregor says that given Donald Trump’s “catastrophically stupid” support of the $95 billion funding bill passed by Congress on April 20, if he were working for Trump now he “would have to resign.”

Speaking of Trump’s approval for the bill, Macgregor said, “What he did… is essentially align himself with the money pigs in Washington who were interested in everything other than the American people.”

Macgregor’s verdict on Trump was damning:

He’s essentially throwing his principles overboard and his supporters under the bus.

If I were working for him right now and he were president I would have advised him under no circumstances to support the bill and instead focus our attention on the on the borders of the United States [and] restoring the rule of law.

So why did Trump go ahead and endorse billions more for two wars which are widely acknowledged as having been disastrous – if not genocidal – failures?

“I think Mr. Trump wants desperately to be president,” explained Macgregor. “So, he is turning to everyone and anyone who has money willing to support him and will promise to do so – whatever they’re asking.”

The retired colonel is the CEO of Our Country, Our Choice, an organization which appeals to Americans “to come together to save America.” It’s motto is “Truth sets you free,” echoing the Christian roots of the American dream which is, according to Macgregor, verging on becoming a nightmare.

Instead of supporting the funding bill, Macgregor says Trump “should have stood with the 21 members” of Congress who opposed it because, “quite frankly, most of America stands with those 21 members.”

Macgregor is aware that this is about political power, not the interests of the people – whether they be in the U.S. or in Ukraine. He is practically alone in noting that throughout the proxy war, the Ukrainian people seldom get a mention.

“No one expresses any interest in what’s happened to the Ukrainian people,” he said, before citing the horrendous toll of deaths and injuries which has devastated the Ukrainian populace.

“Ukrainians are exhausted. They’re tired of this war. They’ve lost now, we think, 600,000 dead and another million or two wounded.”

Added to these sobering figures is the fact that much of the surviving population has fled.

“Millions have left. The country is destroyed. It desperately needs peace.”

As the Washington Post claimed last December, up to “90 percent” of the money given in “aid” stays in the U.S. anyway. On April 21, the U.K.’s Financial Times concluded that the aid package “would not stop Russia.” On April 23, it reported that Ukraine now “pressures draft-age men abroad to join the war effort,” following a Politico report of last month titled “Draft-dodging plagues Ukraine as Kyiv faces acute soldier shortage.” The report cites the BBC in claiming up to “650,000 military aged men have fled the country” in the past two years, despite a law forbidding them to do so.

Former humanitarian volunteer and Catholic convert Ryan Miller told LifeSiteNews last month of how human traffickers operate freely on the Ukrainian border, preying on women and children separated by this law from their husbands and fathers.

This news portrays a grim reality behind the Ukraine flag-waving seen on the United States House floor. It is a narrative of ugly truths supporting Macgregor’s assessment of a war he has consistently claimed could never have been won. Against the notion that America must “stop Putin,” he said:

We’ve never had any option other than to accept his [Putin’s] victory because, as we said from the very beginning, Ukraine had no more chance against Russia than Mexico would have against us in the United States.

The second war funded in this package has, according to Israeli media, already ended in “total defeat.”

Israeli newspaper Haaretz published this story on April 11, “Saying What Can’t Be Said: Israel Has Been Defeated – a Total Defeat”

The story by Chaim Levinson displayed a remarkable level of candor.

“The war’s aims won’t be achieved, the hostages won’t be returned through military pressure, security won’t be restored and Israel’s international ostracism won’t end.”

Macgregor shares this assessment, which he couples with a warning that “Biden is not in control” of events in the Middle East, and neither is the U.S. “Mr. Netanyahu is in control. And he cannot back down. If he does not escalate, he is finished.”

Macgregor warns that the “world has turned against Israel, we are increasingly isolated, but we are not in control. Mr. Netanyahu owns us. What do we do?”

Macgregor stressed that U.S. backing for Netanyahu is the result of his having more influence in the U.S. government than the president. This means, in effect, that the U.S. is funding a man whose only option is to escalate to war with Iran.

“Mr. Netanyahu is in a difficult position,” explains Macgregor, “we can’t help him. All we can do is tell him to back down. He can’t back down.”

“Netanyahu has to escalate or he’s finished. So I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the Israeli-Iranian confrontation.”

Warning that Netanyahu is likely going to “kill women, children, and men with no connection to Hamas in Gaza’s Rafah area,” he foresees a real potential for the outbreak of a major regional war involving the U.S.

I don’t think we’ve even seen the beginnings of what could happen in the region because, if anything, we’re seeing more and more and more solidarity across national lines inside the Muslim world.

As this develops, Macgregor claims even the Western military alliance is leaderless:

NATO is essentially a battleship with no one on the bridge and engines that don’t power the ship anymore. It’s adrift.

He says in previous years the “stupid comments” of French President Emmanuel Macron to threaten to send French troops to Ukraine would have been unimaginable. Responding to claims that French and American soldiers are now on the ground in Odessa in Ukraine, he replied, “A Russian this morning contacted me… and said that he sees no French or American troops in Odessa.”

His relief at this news was tempered by a stern reminder that such an action would lead to a U.S. war with Russia, which has the largest nuclear arsenal on earth.

I sincerely hope that that condition does not change. If it does, then I think the Russians will accelerate all of their movements and we will find ourselves at war with Russia unnecessarily.

He asks, “For what particular purpose?”

The direct funding of two major flashpoints for a global war left the host, Clayton Morris, unable to explain Trump’s support of the move.

“This rises to the level of coming out and supporting the COVID vaccines,” he said, speaking of Trump’s recent praise for the mRNA injections.

“I think there was a lot of MAGA Republicans who said ‘Wait a second – did Trump just praise COVID vacc [sic] – wait did I hear that right?’”

The news of Trump’s backing for the war funding has left Morris equally baffled, as he quoted Trump’s recent comments:

In the same week [Trump] says we’ve spent 7 to 9 trillion dollars on boondoggle wars in the Middle East… where we have blood on our hands… we’ve got nothing but blood and misery, we should have never supported those Wars.

He added, “and then four days later… supporting speaker Johnson supporting all of this money to Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan? I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

For Colonel Macgregor, this is a decision which will follow Trump long into the future.

“So we have to be realistic about this whole business. He’s let a lot of people down. I think it will come back to haunt him.”

The dangerous business of funding death no longer haunts only the politicians – like Trump and Netanyahu – who rely on it to secure their power. If Macgregor is right, the world may be engulfed in a nuclear war as a result of these bargains with the devil.

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