CIA director holds secret meeting with Zelensky on Russia’s next steps

January 19, 2023January 19, 2023 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

CIA Director William J. Burns traveled in secret to Ukraine’s capital at the end of last week to brief President Volodymyr Zelensky on his expectations for what Russia is planning militarily in the coming weeks and months, said a U.S. official and other people familiar with the visit.
CIA director holds secret meeting with Zelensky on Russia’s next steps

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Nyet means Nyet

Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a
major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

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Diplomatic Cables Show Russia Saw NATO Expansion as a Red Line

January 17, 2023January 17, 2023 Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Nearly a year in, the war in Ukraine has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and brought the world to the brink of, in President Joe Biden’s own words, “Armageddon.” Alongside the literal battlefield has been a similarly bitter intellectual battle over the war’s causes.
Diplomatic Cables Show Russia Saw NATO Expansion as a Red Line