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Instigating Putin
Instigating Putin
By Jon Gold
4/4/2022
UPDATED: 4/5/2022
UPDATED: 3/29/2023
I am a FIRM believer that our foreign policy over the last 20 years, completely destabilizing the Middle East in Putin's backyard, adding former Soviet States to NATO using 9/11, some of which are on the border of Russia, trying to take out Russia's allies like Syria and Iran, the war between Russia and Georgia, our involvement in the 2014 coup that took place in the Ukraine, 14,200–14,400 military and civilian deaths during the war in Donbas (2014–2022), have pushed Putin to do what he's doing now in the Ukraine. I DO NOT condone it. I'm just pointing out the truth. Instead of calling to "SUPPORT THE UKRAINE" by sending them arms and such, people should be DEMANDING that Joe Biden put an end to the war that's going on right now that could end in a flash of light, and that is currently hurting A LOT of people. He could easily do it by stating that the Ukraine will not become part of NATO (Zelensky himself said that was no longer on the table). He could also allow the Ukraine to decide for themselves what they want, and take out all American "influence" from the country. That's certainly a start. I don't think Putin likes NATO very much (neither do I. Add one more to the list):
"In an address to an international security conference, Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about U.S. domination of global affairs, included many themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration. Among them were the expansion of NATO into the Baltics and the perception in Russia that the West has supported groups that have toppled other governments in Moscow's former sphere of influence." - [seattletimes.nwsource, 2/11/2007]
"Putin attacked NATO expansion into the former Soviet Union and was scathing about a plan to set up US missile-defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. He suggested these weapons were aimed at Russia." - [AFP, 2/14/2007]
"Military alliances are strengthening, and especially NATO," the Russian security council claimed." [...] "In Moscow on February 22 Putin warned, "We are encountering a dangerous disdain for international law, ambitions to use military force to achieve personal interests," in what appeared to be a veiled reference to the United States." - [Rawstory, 3/5/2007]
"In February Mr Putin accused the Bush administration during a speech in Munich of seeking a "world of one master, one sovereign." [....] "Yevgeny Myasnikov, a senior research scientist at Moscow's Centre for Arms Control, told the Guardian. "Russia has been deeply disappointed by what has happened after 1991. NATO started to expand, and the US started to think it had won the cold war. We had hoped for a partnership. But it didn't happen." - [Guardian, 4/11/2007]
"President Vladimir Putin, already angry about the expansion of the NATO alliance into former Soviet bloc countries, escalated the dispute last month by announcing Russia was suspending compliance with a key Cold War-era defence pact, the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty." - [brisbanetimes, 3/6/2007]
"President Vladimir V. Putin seemed to obliquely compare the foreign policy of the United States to the Third Reich in a speech on Wednesday commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The comments were the latest in a series of sharply worded Russian criticisms of the foreign policy of the United States on Iraq, missile defense, NATO expansion and, more broadly, United States unilateralism in foreign affairs." - [NYTimes, 3/10/2007]
"Ivanov is a former defense minister seen as a potential Kremlin favorite to succeed Putin next year. Both he and Putin have said repeatedly that Russia would continue to improve its nuclear arsenals and respond to U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic _ NATO nations that were in Moscow's front yard during the Cold War as Warsaw Pact members." - [WaPo, 5/29/2007]
"Putin has threatened to target U.S. allies in Europe with nuclear missiles as the Soviet Union did during the Cold War if Washington proceeds with the deployment of missile defense elements in Europe. [...] "Putin made the proposal to U.S. President George W. Bush after months of bitter criticism of the U.S. plans. Bush agreed to consider the initiative, but the U.S. administration made it clear it was not abandoning plans for the project in Poland and the Czech Republic former Soviet satellites that are now NATO members." - [USAToday, 6/22/2007]
"Washington can throw strong support behind NATO plans to provide short-range missile defense for all of Europe. U.S. relations with Poland could quickly be repaired if Warsaw's vulnerability were addressed with the drafting of a bilateral executive agreement on defense, such as those afforded to Britain and Turkey. Commitments to Western-backed energy projects in the Caucasus and Central Asia could be reaffirmed in conjunction with a European Union strategy for the region launched this month. And how best to respond to Mr. Putin's G-8 masterstroke? Call his bluff and have it both ways. Accept cooperation with Russia in Azerbaijan, but continue plans for facilities in Eastern Europe, while countering Russian rhetoric with compelling presentations of the technical argument for the plan." - [baltimoresun, 6/24/2007]
"The two sides also sniped about interference in Ukraine's 2004 presidential election. Generally, the Kremlin chafed at what it saw as U.S. meddling in its sphere of influence, through NATO expansion and relations with former Soviet republics." - [AP, 6/30/2007]
"Putin put forth new ideas in the nature of broadening the consultations by including Europe, through NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the Russia-NATO Council. But the thrust of his proposals was to make sure that "there would be no need to place any more facilities in Europe facilities in the Czech Republic and the missile base in Poland." - [atimes, 7/6/2007]
"President Vladimir V. Putin, angered by American plans to deploy a missile shield in Eastern Europe, formally notified NATO governments on Saturday that Russia will suspend its obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, a key cold war-era arms limitation agreement." - [NYTimes, 6/15/2007]
"Mr Putin's decision boosts his standing at home and raises the stakes in the Kremlin's dispute with NATO over the American plans. He gave 150 days' notice of withdrawal from the treaty, effectively giving NATO until December to resolve the missile defence stand-off before his authority begins to drain away as the election campaign to succeed him in March gets under way." - [timesonline.co.uk, 7/16/2007]
"Putin also criticized the United States and other NATO members for failing to ratify an amended version of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, which limits the deployment of tanks, aircraft and other heavy non-nuclear weapons around the continent." - [AP, 7/25/2007]
"Putin also urged the US delegation, which was in Moscow to address spiralling Russian-US tensions, "not to force" the planned deployment of an anti-missile system in new NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic." - [AFP, 10/12/2007]
"Putin went out of his way to aid American forces after 9/11 and did not use his security council veto to block the US invasion of Iraq. What has been his reward? The US, exploiting Russian weakness at every turn, moved NATO into eastern Europe and then into the former Soviet republics. The US bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999 despite Russian protests, and is now placing a missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic as well as unilaterally abrogating the ABM treaty, which has produced stability for 30 years. Is it any surprise that Putin is now so suspicious and uncooperative towards the west? This is fundamentally the wrong policy, and we should be saying that loud and clear to the US before we alienate yet further one of the great powers that should be our ally." - [Guardian, 11/13/2007] - (RIP Michael Meacher)
"President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday warned that Moscow would not remain indifferent to NATO's "muscle-flexing" and said Russia's nuclear forces would be ready for an adequate response to any aggressor. Putin, speaking to top generals less than two weeks before December 2 parliamentary elections, said the NATO military alliance had built up its forces close to Russia's borders. "We see that military resources of certain states and members of the NATO alliance are being built up right by our borders and in contravention of previously reached agreements," Putin said in remarks shown on state television." - [Reuters, 11/20/2007]
"Russia has threatened to target the Ukraine with nuclear warheads if the former Soviet republic joins NATO and accepts the deployment of United States anti-missile defences on its territory. President Vladimir Putin of Russia warned Ukraine's leader Viktor Yushchenko of "retaliatory actions" should his country join the Western alliance during a joint press conference in Moscow." - [telegraph, 2/14/2008]
"Russian President Vladimir Putin says NATO's continued enlargement creates the impression that the alliance is trying to replace the United Nations." [...] "President Putin has opposed a possible admission of former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia to NATO, saying that many people in those countries are against joining the Western alliance. He has also disagreed with Germany over U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic." - [VOANews, 3/8/2008]
"Echoing earlier statements by Putin, the review criticized U.S. policy as "destructive ... aimed at breaking strategic stability, imposing its military superiority in the world." [...] "The report said Russia was also increasingly concerned about the future of NATO -- a Western bloc originally set up to confront the Soviet Union. Russia is watching with concern NATO plans to integrate ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine, seeing the move as hostile. "The slowing down of NATO's adaptation to new realities, a lack of clarity about its further transformation and attempts to assume global functions by NATO affected the dynamics of the dialogue," the review said." - [Reuters, 3/18/2008]
"NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer cautioned Russian President Vladimir Putin against using "unhelpful," anti-western rhetoric at next week's annual summit meeting of the 26-member alliance, the Financial Times reported, citing an interview with de Hoop Scheffer. The "tone" used by Putin during the first summit-level meeting of the Nato-Russia Council will affect the success of the talks, the secretary general said, according to the FT. Putin must avoid rhetoric such as threatening to aim missiles at certain countries, the newspaper cited de Hoop Scheffer as saying." - [Bloomberg, 3/28/2008]
"In all this, Washington is definitely playing with potential nuclear fire by escalating pressure to push Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg on July 8 signed an agreement allowing US deployment of special radar facilities on Czech soil as part of the top-secret US "missile defense" it alleges is aimed at rogue missile threats from Iran. As even former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger recently pointed out, the Bush administration's categorical refusal to pursue the 2007 counter-offer of then-president Vladimir Putin to station US radar at the Russian-leased reconnaissance facility in Azerbaijan instead, was a provocative mistake." - [atimes, 7/16/2008]
Plans to fly long-range bombers to Cuba "would be a good answer to attempts to place NATO bases new Russia's borders," former top air force commander Pyotr Deinekin told the RIA Novosti news agency in response to the Izvestia report.In a speech last year, then president Vladimir Putin likened the US missile defence dispute to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, though he added that relations between Moscow and Washington "have changed a lot" since then." - [AFP, 7/22/2008]
"Georgia, which borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union. The country has angered Russia by seeking NATO membership. A bid Moscow regards as part of a Western effort to weaken its influence in the region." - [MSNBC, 8/8/2008]
"Moscow said it was NATO expansion and Western support for Georgia that was causing the new East-West divisions, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States for using military ships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia." - [AP, 8/28/2008]
"By choosing Batumi, the US opted for a less confrontational move than docking at Poti, another Georgian port where Russian troops are dug in. The US may have also suspected that the Russians had mined the harbour at Poti, possibly one of the precautionary measures referred to by Mr Putin's spokesman. General Anatoli Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, accused NATO of "ratcheting up tension" in the Black Sea. Mr Peskov said: "It's not a common practice to deliver humanitarian aid using battleships." - [timesonline.co.uk, 8/28/2008]
"Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with Georgia, but promised that "there will be an answer." - [AP, 9/3/2008]
And just to show you that I'm NOT a "Putin Apologist," here is a possible example of Putin being responsible for a series of bombings in Chechnya.
September 9, 1999: Apartment Blast in Moscow Kills 94; Chechen Rebels Blamed
September 13, 1999: Second Moscow Apartment Bombing Kills 118; Chechen Rebels Blamed
September 22-24, 1999: FSB Agents Plant Large Bomb in Ryazan: ‘Security Exercise’ or Terror Plot?
March 6, 2002: Russian Billionaire Berezovsky Accuses FSB, Putin of Terror Plot
