UNDESTANDING THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT/WAR (FEBRUARY 2022 to PRESENT). SUGGESTED READINGS (more in progress)

To understand an important issue, we need to know its history and how it came about. Of course, the historical background must be vetted and/or verifiable. - Bert M. Drona

Memory is a happening that links to the present but may be biased. History reconstructs the past via research and critical analysis. 

"To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful." - Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)

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NOTES TO READERS:  
1. Colored and/or underlined words are HTML links. Click on them to see the linked posts/articles. Forwarding this and other posts to relatives and friends, especially those in the homeland, is greatly appreciated. To share, use all social media tools: email, blog, Google+, Tumblr, X-Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. THANKS!!
2. Click the following underlined title/link to check these Essential/Primary Readings About Us Filipino Natives:

Primary Blog Posts/Readings for my fellow, Native (Malay/Indio) Filipinos-in-the-Philippines
3. Instantly translate to any of 71 foreign languages. Go to the sidebar on the right to choose your preferred language.
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LET US NOT KEEP OUR HEADS IN THE SAND

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A.  AMBASSADOR JACK MATLOCK Jr.

1. ‘Ukraine Today Is Not a Democracy’: An Interview with Former Ambassador Jack Matlock

by Gregor Baszak Posted onMay 01, 2024

Jack F. Matlock, Jr. served from 1987 until 1991 as the US ambassador in the Soviet Union and from 1981 until 1983 in Czechoslovakia. Es served in the National Security Council under President Reagan and participated in several arms control summits, including in Reykjavik in 1986. He served 35 years in the US Foreign Service, from 1956 until 1991. From 1996 until 2001 he served as the George F. Kennan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He is the author of three books: Superpower Illusions (2010), Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (2004) and Autopsy of an Empire (1995). The transcript of a conversation held on April 22, 2024 follows. The transcript was lightly edited for clarity and length.

PLAY/SEE:
Ukraine Today is not a Democracy 

2. Despite Media Cheerleading, $61 Billion Won’t Beat Russia 
by Ted Snider 

Posted onMay 01, 2024

The United States continues to be the world’s banker for war. Last week, the U.S. invested $95 billion more in war. $61 billion of that is headed to Ukraine. While Congress waved Ukrainian flags, the American mainstream media abandoned its responsibility as investigative journalists and dutifully and enthusiastically acted as cheerleaders, celebrated the continuation of war and led the call for more.

What the mainstream media did not do is tell the American public that, while $61 billion is a lot of money, it is not enough to change the inevitable long-term outcome of the war. The current package of lethal aid will change the situation. It will prolong the war, and it will prolong Ukraine’s suffering. But it will not alter Ukraine’s inevitable defeat

PLAY/SEE:
Despite Media Cheerleading, $61B will not beat Russia,

3. Zelensky Told Trump That Putin Cannot Be Trusted. But Who Killed Minsk 2?

by Ted Snider 

Posted on March 06, 2025

On February 28, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky got a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump that he had been hoping for. It was an opportunity to sign their agreement on minerals and, more importantly, to improve relations and heal their recent fight.

Instead, another fight erupted (you can see the whole discussion below).

PLAY/SEE: Can Putin be Trusted?

4. Trump Suspends Intelligence Sharing With Ukrainian Military

Mike Waltz said the pause on intelligence sharing and military aid could be lifted once peace talks with Russia are set.

 by Dave DeCamp March 5, 2025 at 1:59 pm ET CategoriesNewsTagsUkraine

PLAY/SEE:  Trump Suspends Intelligence Sharing With Ukrainian Military

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B. PROF. JEFFREY SACHS SPEECH AT EU PARLIAMENT IN BRUSSELS/BELGIUM [PLUS Q&A]

1. Professor Jeffrey Sachs’ speech at the European Parliament gains traction after the heated Oval Office exchange between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. On February 19, 2025, Sachs stressed Europe’s need for an independent foreign policy, recognizing both Russian and European perspectives. His remarks carry added weight as Trump’s approach to Ukraine fuels global concern. The recent Trump-Zelenskyy confrontation underscored sharp disagreements over handling Russia’s aggression, with Zelenskyy rejecting territorial concessions without security guarantees.
PLAY/SEE:
1. "PUTIN'S PUPPET..."

2. Putin's Speech. 43rd Munich Security Conference 2007

C. PROF. JOHN MEARSHER 

BIO: I am the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago, where I have taught since 1982.

Above all else, I am an international relations theorist. More specifically, I am a realist, which means that the great powers dominate the international system, and they constantly engage in security competition with each other, which sometimes leads to war.

Although I have dedicated my life to scholarship, I have also engaged in the policy debates of the day. For example, I was one of the most outspoken opponents of the 2003 Iraq War before it happened, and I have been deeply involved in the public discourse about the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. I firmly believe that social science theories are invaluable for making and analyzing foreign policy.

PLAY/SEE: John Mearsheimer REVEALS: The U.S. Deep State HIDES the TRUTH! U.S. KNEW Ukraine & Israel Would FAIL

D. PEPE ESCOBAR 
Pepe Escobar (born 1954) is a Brazilian journalist and geopolitical analyst.^[1][2] His column "The Roving Eye" for Asia Times regularly discusses the multi-national "competition for dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia."^[3] - WIKIPEDIA 

PLAY/SEE: ZELENSKY IS A "DEAD MAN WALKING" 

E. MICHAEL SCHULENBURG 

Michael von der Schulenburg, a former UN/OSCE diplomat, who has lately been working on the Vatican peace plan has published a new article on the Ukraine war, the importance of the UN-Charta, and the obligation to seek peace. 

Michael Sergius Graf von der Schulenburg (born 16 October 1948 in Munich) is a German politician and former diplomat of the OSCE and the UN. From 2009 to 2012 he was the highest representative of the UN in Freetown in Sierra Leone and head of the world's first integrated peacebuilding mission. In the 2024 European elections, he received a mandate in the European Parliament for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party.

1. PLAY/SEE: EU NARROWMINDEDNESS

2. PLAY/SEE: EU MADNESS

OUR WORLD: THE WAR IN UKRAINE WAS NOT "UNPROVOKED" - JEFFREY SACHS

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." - H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

Remember: Philip Agee, John Stockwell, Daniel Ellsberg, Julian Assange, Ed Snowden,

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OUR WORLD: US-UK/EU-NATO PROXY WAR AGAINST RUSSIA IN UKRAINE

[CAUTION: Presenting different thinking to official/conventional US/West may label one as a "Putin/Russia Lover."]

JEFFREY SACHS: Fri Jun 2, 2023, 08:00 AM

Last update on Fri Jun 9, 2023, 02:09 PM HIGHLIGHTS:

There were in fact two Nato-related provocations:

1. The first was the US intention to expand Nato to Ukraine and Georgia, which would surround Russia in the Black Sea region with Nato countries (Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia, in counter-clockwise order).

2. The second was the US's role in the violent overthrow of Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, who had pushed for Ukraine's neutrality. The shooting war began nine years ago, with the installation in Ukraine of a US-backed, Russophobic government intent on joining Nato...

THE US REFUSES TO DISCUSS THE ROOTS OF THE WAR. To recognize them would undermine the Biden administration in three ways.

A. First, it would expose the fact that the war could have been avoided, or stopped early, sparing Ukraine its current devastation, and sparing the US more than $100 billion in outlays to date.

B. Second, it would expose President Biden's own role in the war dating back to 2014 and earlier, as a staunch advocate of Nato enlargement and participant in the overthrow of Yanukovych.

C. Third, it would lead to the negotiating table, which the administration avoids as it continues to push for Nato expansion.

Admitting that Nato expansion provoked the war would also undermine decades of US policy...

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Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries.

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE BY JEFFREY SACHS, CLICK THE BELOW HIGHLIGHTED LINK:

The war in Ukraine was not ‘unprovoked’: There is no fairy tale end to the war in Ukraine, in which Ukraine defeats Russia on the battlefield and then joins Nato.

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NOTES TO NEW READERS/VISITORS:  

1. Colored and/or underlined words are HTML links. Click on them to see the linked posts/articles. PLEASE SHARE: Forwarding this and other posts to relatives and friends, especially those in the homeland, is greatly appreciated. To share, use all social media tools: email, blog, Google+, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. THANKS!!

2. Click the following underlined title/link to checkout these Essential/Primary Readings About Us Filipino Natives:

Primary Blog Posts/Readings for my fellow, Native (Malay/Indio) Filipinos-in-the-Philippines

3. Instantly translate to any of 71 foreign languages. Go to the sidebar on the right to choose your language. Fellow native Filipinos translation in Cebuano and Tagalog.

4. The postings are oftentimes long and a few readers have claimed being "burnt out."  My apologies...The selected topics are not for entertainment but to stimulate deep, serious thoughts per my MISSION Statement and hopefully to rock our boat of ignorance, apathy, and complacency, and hopefully lead to active citizenship.

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