Nobody interested in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

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All the tanks being sent to the Ukraine...there's a big problem with that. It takes a very long time to train troops to use them effectively.

I don't whether it's possible for Ukraine to to win this war now. Let's face it, it's now a proxy war between the U.S./Nato and Russia. It's a dangerous situation that will push the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

There's got to be a diplomatic solution to end this madness.

That makes sense and those are good points. But why isn't there a bounty out on Putin. Rich people give to the Ukraine, like Elon Musk for example, but would the money be better spent on a bount on Putin?

But if they went public with the bounty then there would be more people trying to collect on it, if they knew about it. Wanted dead posters don't do near as much good, if you don't put up the posters. If everyone knew they could become a multi-millionaire by ending Putin and new where and how to collect it, then much more people would be willing to do it.

Could the US just send people who know how to operate the tanks rather than training new people? Also is the US just sending tanks are do they have aerial plane weapons they can use, since I am guessing it's easier to win with aerial combat against the ground?

But also does the US have any satellite weapons they can use as well?

But if they went public with the bounty then there would be more people trying to collect on it, if they knew about it. Wanted dead posters don't do near as much good, if you don't put up the posters. If everyone knew they could become a multi-millionaire by ending Putin and new where and how to collect it, then much more people would be willing to do it.

Big if true, highlighting mine:

http://johnhelmer.net/blinken-concedes- ... offensive/

David Ignatius (lead image, left) has been a career-long mouthpiece for the US State Department. He has just been called in by the current Secretary of State Antony Blinken (right) to convey an urgent new message to President Vladimir Putin, the Security Council, and the General Staff in Moscow.

For the first time since the special military operation began last year, the war party in Washington is offering terms of concession to Russia’s security objectives explicitly and directly, without the Ukrainians in the way.

The terms Blinken has told Ignatius to print appeared in the January 25 edition of the Washington Post. The paywall can be avoided by reading on.

The territorial concessions Blinken is tabling include Crimea, the Donbass, and the Zaporozhye, Kherson “land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia”. West of the Dnieper River, north around Kharkov, and south around Odessa and Nikolaev, Blinken has tabled for the first time US acceptance of “a demilitarized status” for the Ukraine. Also, US agreement to restrict the deployment of HIMARS, US and NATO infantry fighting vehicles, and the Abrams and Leopard tanks to a point in western Ukraine from which they can “manoeuvre…as a deterrent against future Russian attacks.”

This is an offer for a tradeoff – partition through a demilitarized zone (DMZ) in the east of the Ukraine in exchange for a halt to the planned Russian offensive destroying the fortifications, rail hubs, troop cantonments, and airfields in the west, between the Polish and Romanian borders, Kiev and Lvov, and an outcome Blinken proposes for both sides to call “a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity”.

Also in the proposed Blinken deal there is the offer of a direct US-Russian agreement on “an eventual postwar military balance”; “no World War III”; and no Ukrainian membership of NATO with “security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5.”

The U.S. is backing down. This is good news for anyone who doesn't want World War 3. This comes hot after the RAND think tank recommended de-escalation (reading between the lines, what RAND really said was the US needs all these resources it is sending to Ukraine in order to fight the Chinese *sigh*, but it is still something).

The White House and the CIA have responded to a report that CIA Director, William Burns, offered Russian President Vladimir Putin a fifth of Ukraine's territory to end the ongoing war as part of a peace plan drawn up on behalf of President Joe Biden.

A CIA official told Newsweek that claims in the report from Swiss-German newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) that Burns took a secret trip to Moscow in January and that there was a peace proposal put forward by the director on behalf of the White House were "completely false."

Last month, Burns traveled in secret to meet and brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, The Washington Post reported.

Burns is said to have submitted the plan in mid-January to put an end to the war, which began on February 24, 2022. The story was reported by NZZ on Thursday, citing high-ranking German foreign politicians.

Both Kyiv and Moscow reportedly rejected the proposal.

Newsweek reached out to the foreign ministries of Ukraine and Russia for comment.

According to the newspaper, the proposal offered "around 20 percent of Ukraine's territory"—approximately the size of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

Kyiv reportedly shut down the proposal "because they are not willing to have their territory divided" while Russian officials said they "will win the war in the long run anyway," reported NZZ, which has been described as the Swiss newspaper of record.

Sean Davett, the deputy spokesperson at White House's National Security Council, told Newsweek that the report from NZZ is "not accurate," and that the CIA would say the same.

According to the news outlet the German politicians said Biden wanted to avoid a protracted war in Ukraine, and so, offered the territory as part of the peace plan.

And when Ukraine and Russia both rejected the proposal, the Biden administration pledged to provide Kyiv with Abrams tanks, NZZ reported.

The two politicians reportedly said that U.S. officials were split on how to handle the Ukraine war, which started nearly a year ago.

Burns and Biden's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, "wanted to end the war quickly so they could focus on China," while Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin "didn't want to let Russia get away with destroying the rule-based peace order and called for massive military support for Ukraine."

One of the politicians told NZZ that he believes it is becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. is preparing for a long war of attrition. He raised concerns that Germany would suffer economically, financially and militarily from such a war.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that negotiations between Russia and Ukraine "are now impossible since there are no conditions for them either de facto or de jure."

Putin was seen delivering remarks in a clip shared on Twitter Thursday by Max Seddon, the Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times.

In relation to the Western tanks being sent to Ukraine, Putin said: "Those who plan to defeat Russia on the battlefield don't understand a modern war with Russia will be very different."

"We have ways of responding, and it won't just be limited to armored vehicles," the Russian leader added, according to an English translation of a portion of his comments shared by Seddon.

t was not immediately clear what Putin was referring to in his remarks on Russia's "ways of responding," but he said in September 2022 that he could respond to what he alleged was "nuclear blackmail" from the West with his country's own weapons.

"If Russia feels its territorial integrity is threatened, we will use all defense methods at our disposal, and this is not a bluff," Putin said.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, Russia owns the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Experts and officials have been divided on whether Putin could use nuclear weapons, with some saying it is unlikely and others warning the prospect should be taken seriously.

This conflict has already caused a great deal of damage to the US internationally, far beyond whatever dollar amount they have spent. "Can't really afford it" is more true of the US than Russia. Magz's troublemakers are already emboldened and are making moves against the US.

Below is more commentary on the RAND report and the possible shift in US policy.

https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/ukraine-is ... iling-out/

Consider, for a minute, this excerpt from the preamble of the report:

“The costs and risks of a long war in Ukraine are significant and outweigh the possible benefits of such a trajectory for the United States.”

This quote effectively summarizes the entire document. Think about it: For the last 11 months we have been told repeatedly that the US will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” The above quote assures us that that’s not going to happen. The United States is not going to undermine its own interests to pursue the unachievable dream of expelling Russia from Ukraine. (Even the hawks no longer believe that is possible.) Rational members of the foreign policy establishment are going to evaluate Ukraine’s prospects for success and weigh them against the growing likelihood that the conflict could unexpectedly spiral out-of-control. That, of course, would serve no one’s interest and could ignite a direct clash between Russia and the United States. Also, US policymakers will decide whether the ballooning collateral damage is worth the expense. In other words, are the ruptured supply lines, the rising inflation, the increasing energy and food shortages, and the declining weapons stockpiles a fair trade-off for “weakening Russia”. Many would say, “No.”

...

While the report does not explicitly state that ‘US interests (are) being harmed’, it certainly infers that that is the case. Not surprisingly, the report doesn’t mention any of the collateral damage from Washington’s war on Russia, but, surely, that must have been foremost on the minds of the authors. After all, it is not the $100 billion or the provision of lethal weapons that is costing the US so dearly. It is the accelerating emergence of international coalitions and alternate institutions that has put the US empire on the fasttrack to ruin. We assume that the analysts at RAND see the same things that every other sentient being sees, that Washington’s misguided conflagration with Moscow is a ‘bridge-too-far’ and that the blowback is going to be immense and excruciating. Hence, the urgency to end the war quickly.

...

Interestingly, while the report details the main escalation risks, (The main risks include a broader war with NATO, a spillover of the conflict into other EU countries, and a nuclear war.) it fails to explain why exactly a ‘long war’ would be so damaging to the United States. We believe that this omission is intentional and that the authors do not want to concede that the backfiring of sanctions and the forming of anti-American foreign coalitions is clearly undermining US plans to maintain its grip on global power. Among elites, such talk is verboten. Here’s how Chris Hedges summed it up in an article at Consortium News:

"The plan to reshape Europe and the global balance of power by degrading Russia is turning out to resemble the failed plan to reshape the Middle East. It is fueling a global food crisis and devastating Europe with near double-digit inflation. It is exposing the impotency, once again, of the United States, and the bankruptcy of its ruling oligarchs. As a counterweight to the United States, nations such as China, Russia, India, Brazil and Iran are severing themselves from the tyranny of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, a move that will trigger economic and social catastrophe in the United States. Washington is giving Ukraine ever more sophisticated weapons systems and billions upon billions in aid in a futile bid to save Ukraine but, more importantly, to save itself."
(“Ukraine — The War That Went Wrong”, Chris Hedges, Consortium News)



Hedges sums it up perfectly. Washington’s foolish intervention is clearing the way for the greatest strategic catastrophe in US history. And yet, even now, the vast majority of corporate and banking elites resolutely back the existing policy while shrugging off the obvious signs of failure.

Russia's propaganda related to "Nazis in Ukraine" and their "security situation" was just that......propaganda. Bogus propaganda.

Putin also explicitly stated, many times, that no "invasion" was planned. In light of this, the 2/24 Invasion was called, by him, a "special operation," with a potential 5-year prison sentence for anyone calling his "special operation" a "war" or "invasion."

Well, if you send American military personnel to operate the tanks, then what you have is the U S. entering the conflict directly on the ground. That would make the situation even more dangerous than it already is. We're already at a higher threat of this conflict going nuclear than at any time during the cold war.

Who says there isn’t a bounty on putin?

You think a bounty to assassinate a world leader is going to be on the 6 o’clock news?

There are most certainly multiple countries trying to end his life - hence the extreme security precautions he, and others like him, take. The guy doesn’t even sit near any of his own “trusted,” advisors - he’s like 20’ away in photos so they can’t poison him or anything.

If a bounty were published it would cause all sorts of havoc for whoever offered it and published it. Requests for world leader assassinations are the stuff of top secret CIA meetings, not broadcast to the world..