Wednesday
This is well worth reading in its entirety, including, as usual, the comments…
21 February 2023 by Larry Johnson

Reflecting on Putin’s long awaited speech to Russia’s national assembly I was struck by some similarities with Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. What do I mean? Jefferson started with his iconic preamble (i.e., We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .) and then proceeded to present an indictment of Great Britain that created the predicate for the rebellion of the Colonies:
That is precisely what Putin did in the first 45 minutes of his speech — he presented the “history of repeated injuries and usurpations” by the United States and NATO that forced Russia’s hand to undertake the Special Military Operation. Here are some of the key points:
Russia did everything possible to solve the problem in Ukraine by peaceful means. But the statements of Western leaders turned into a forgery and a lie.
The West supplied weapons, trained the nationalist battalions. Even before the start of the SMO, negotiations were underway on the supply of air defense systems and aircraft. We remember Kyiv’s attempts to obtain nuclear weapons.
The United States deployed bases and biological laboratories near our borders, mastered the theater of military operations, prepared Ukraine for a big war.
We received a refusal on all fundamental positions. It became clear that the go-ahead for the implementation of aggression had been given. The threat grew every day. By February 2022, everything was ready for the next punitive action of Kiev in the Donbass.
They spare no expense to encourage unrest and coups around the world. At a conference in Munich, Russia was blamed so that everyone would forget what the West had done in recent decades. Entire regions are in chaos. American experts say that as a result of the wars unleashed by the United States after 2001, more than 900 thousand people died, more than 38 million became refugees.
In the 1930s, the West opened the way to power in Germany for the Nazis, today they are making “anti-Russia” out of Ukraine, this project goes back to the 19th century, Austria-Hungary, Poland nurtured it to tear off historical territories from our country.