Russia international relations

Dario Rivolta 10 October, 2022 The European sanctions on Russia would have expired on 31 January 2017. They were imposed at a time as one insinuated that the Russian side had a hostile attitude in the question of Ukraine. These sanctions have been extended for six months at an early stage. Certainly, the reason for this was some fear that the new American President Donald Trump could lift them and urge Europe to do the same. Recently, the American President has stated that at the moment nothing in this direction would be undertaken, but everyone knows his desire to establish good relations with Moscow. As the NATO and Europe support the current Government in Kiev and accuse Russia, to be blamed for the current crisis, one has to remember in the name of truth how it all started. Originally published by the Swiss journal Current Concerns in April 2017 Ukraine...

Shastri Ramachandaran TFF Associate September 20, 2022 As the war in Ukraine grinds on, the US-led West is discovering that defeating Russia was easier said than done. The West is now realising that: the war will drag on for longer than foreseen; the US and Europe cannot keep boosting President Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime with a steady flow of readily usable weapons; Russia, far from being beaten by sanctions, has reaped economic gains in the process; and, above all, weaponising resources is a game that both sides can play.   Originally published at WION on September 6, 2022 To take the last point first, OPEC+ which has discussed an output cut to prop up oil prices, has proved that it is no pushover. Petroleum prices have acquired a new urgency in the wake of Russia’s decision last week to shut down the Nordstream gas pipeline to Germany. Moscow said that this...

Jeffrey Sachs By Amy Goodman (*) – Democracy Now! September 19, 2022 Jeffrey Sachs: “Dangerous” U.S. Policy & “West’s False Narrative” Stoking Tensions with Russia, China GUESTS: Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, sustainable development solutions advocate under Secretary-General António Guterres, and former adviser to three U.N. secretaries-general. We discuss Western hegemony and U.S. policy in Russia, Ukraine and China with Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose new article is headlined “The West’s False Narrative About Russia and China.” Sachs says the bipartisan U.S. approach to foreign policy is “unaccountably dangerous and wrongheaded,” and warns the U.S. is creating “a recipe for yet another war” in East Asia. Originally published at Other News on September 5, 2022 Transcript This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: Politico is reporting...

Putin’s latest comments reveal that Moscow’s thinking has shifted and compromise is no longer on the agenda Dmitry Trenin is a Research Professor at the Higher School of Economics and a Lead Research Fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council.    This very insightful and balanced article was published by RT – Russia Today (that you cannot read in most of the West unless you have a VPN, or proxy server) on September 8, 2022, a couple of weeks before President Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilisation of Russia’s military forces.   Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to Ukraine as an “anti-Russian enclave” which has to be removed. He also said that the Russian soldiers taking part in the military operation there were fighting for their “own country.” These statements carry important implications. Over the last...

David Swanson TFF Associate September 6, 2022 It’s tricky to oppose both sides of a war, and rarer even than supporting both sides. The weapons dealers support both sides. In obedience to their televisions, people all over the world spend a great deal of time expressing the opinions dished out by those televisions regarding a particular war that is far from the worst war at the moment. It is the war that creates the greatest risk of nuclear apocalypse, but that does not typically enter into the opinions. Originally published at World BEYOND War on September 4, 2022 You cannot just state that you oppose both sides, because that will quite literally be understood by almost everyone as asserting the unrelated and ridiculous proposition that the two sides are identical, and that will be understood as outrageous propaganda on behalf of whichever side the listener opposes. So, you have to...

Yet ‘experts’ still cling to the narrative that Ukraine can somehow ‘win.’ If Ukraine can hang on for just a few more months. Image: iStock Cameron Leckie August 24, 2022 The more events proved them to be wrong, the stronger their defences became against admitting this to be the case’ – Norman Dixon (On the Psychology of Military Incompetence) In my last piece for Pearls and Irritations I argued that the conflict in, or more accurately, over Ukraine was rapidly accelerating the transfer of the balance of power from West to East. The progress of events associated with the conflict has resulted in a re-evaluation of this assessment. What we are witnessing is the self-inflicted demise of the West as a major power bloc. The belief in a series of delusions by Western leaders and governments is the driving force behind this demise, with the conflict in Ukraine being the focal point. Originally published...

Image: Wikimedia Commons By P&I Guest Writers August 24, 2022 The G-7 countries are democratic domestically but are dictatorial globally. By contrast, the G-20 group, which has many autocratic regimes, represents a more democratic forum for governance. The G-7 is dictatorial, while the G-20 is democratic. This statement is obviously paradoxical. The G-7 countries are very proud of their liberal democratic societies. And they should be. However, while they are democratic domestically, they are dictatorial globally. By contrast, the G-20 group, which has many autocratic regimes, is more representative of the world’s population. The spiritual essence of democracy is conveyed in the phrase: a government of the people, by the people, for the people. In short, it must represent a hundred per cent of the people. The G-7 represent just 10 per cent of the world’s population. Yet, they make decisions and take actions that disrupt the lives of billions of...

Abolish NATOOr Convert ItTo ServePeace 30 Arguments & 100s of Inspirations This report can be reproduced or quoted freely,but only when referring clearly to TFF, the author and the link Read and download as PDF at the end of the catalogue • Read as Flipbook Media & other inquiries to tff@transnational.live or +46 738 52 52 00 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Catalogue contains 30 arguments for the abolition of NATO. Each argument is based on rational peace research analysis, in contrast to the fact-resistant propaganda that NATO and mainstream politics and media promote about the ’defensive’ peace alliance. The Catalogue is based on the democratic assumption that diverse perceptions and concepts can exist – for instance, about what peace is – and that this hugely influential Western organisation is not sacrosanct and shall, therefore, not be exempt from critical analysis. While set up in 1949, NATO passed its ”best before” date long ago. The alliance of...

Together We Are Wrong — by Mr Fish By Chris Hedges August 4, 2022 The massive expansion of NATO, not only in Eastern and Central Europe but the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia, presages endless war and a potential nuclear holocaust. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the arms industry that depends on it for billions in profits, has become the most aggressive and dangerous military alliance on the planet. Created in 1949 to thwart Soviet expansion into Eastern and Central Europe, it has evolved into a global war machine in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia.  Originally published in The Chris Hedges Report on July 10, 2022 NATO expanded its footprint, violating promises to Moscow, once the Cold War ended, to incorporate 14 countries in Eastern and Central Europe into the alliance. It will soon add Finland and Sweden. It bombed Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo. It launched wars in...

Arms Control Today June 30, 2022 On June 26, 1997, a group of 50 prominent foreign policy experts that included former senators, retired military officers, diplomats and academicians, sent an open letter to President Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion. Stanley Resor, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Association, spoke at the press conference announcing the letter, focusing on the arms control implications of expansion. Resor’s remarks and the group’s letter are printed below. Remarks by Stan Resor: A key, if not the key, U.S. interest in Russia is a rapid and substantial reduction in the tens of thousands of Russian strategic and tactical nuclear weapons and the hundreds of tons of nuclear material which are still deployed or stored throughout that nation some six years after the end of the Cold War. Progress towards these goals will require comprehensive and sustained cooperation between the...

President Joe Biden speaks at the NATO summit at the group’s headquarters in Brussels on June 14, 2021. Photo: Francisco Seco/Pool/AFP via Getty Images Jon Schwarz June 30, 2022 NATO’s summit showed how the “North Atlantic” Treaty Organization has decided it has an extremely expansive global mission. IN A STOP last week on his way to Belgium for Monday’s NATO summit, President Joe Biden visited a Royal Air Force base in eastern England. “In Brussels,” he told the assembled crowd, “I will make it clear that the United States’s commitment to our NATO alliance and Article 5 is rock solid. It’s a sacred obligation that we have under Article 5.” These lines were aimed at a tiny number of human beings. Certainly almost no Americans have any idea what “Article 5” is part of or what it says. Originally published at The Intercept on June 15, 2022 But Biden’s words were genuinely significant. Article 5...

Craig Murray June 17, 2022 I was in Turkey to try to further peace talks, as an experienced diplomat with good contacts there, and as a peace activist. I was not there as a journalist and much of what I discussed was with the understanding of confidence. It will be probably be some years before I judge it reasonable and fair to reveal all that I know. But I can give some outline. Originally published on Craig Murray’s homepage on June 7, 2022 Turkey continues to be the centre of diplomatic activity on resolving the Ukraine war. It is therefore particularly revealing, and a sign of Western priorities, that I did not come across a single western journalist there trying to follow and cover the diplomatic process. There are hundreds of Western journalists in Ukraine, effectively embedded with the Ukrainian authorities, producing war porn. There appear to be none seriously...