"TALKING" with the appearance of doing something is a required artfrom to master if one wishes to become a successful politician in the west. Expecting for these politicians to be competent at their jobs is asking too much.
Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
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Ai weiwei loves the China where he can enjoy the privileges more than he did in this China.
U.S., Russia still poles apart after Ukraine talks in Geneva
Russia and the United States gave no sign that they had narrowed their differences on Ukraine and wider European security in talks in Geneva on Monday, as Moscow repeated demands that Washington says it cannot accept.Russia has massed troops near Ukraine's border while demanding that the U.S.-led NATO alliance rule out admitting the former Soviet state or expanding further into what Moscow sees as its backyard.
"Unfortunately, we have a great disparity in our principled approaches to this. The U.S. and Russia in some ways have opposite views on what needs to be done," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters.
Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said: "We were firm … in pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters to the United States."
Washington and Kyiv say the 100,000 Russian troops moved to striking distance could be preparing a new invasion eight years after Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
Russia denies any such plans and says it is responding to what it calls aggressive behaviour from NATO and Ukraine, which has tilted toward the West and aspires to join the alliance.
Ryabkov repeated a set of sweeping demands including a ban on further NATO expansion and an end to the alliance's activity in the central and eastern European countries that joined it after 1997.
He said it was absolutely "mandatory" for Russia to ensure that Ukraine never becomes a NATO member.
In response, Sherman said the U.S. would "not allow anyone to slam closed NATO's open-door policy," which she called central to the NATO alliance.
"We will not forgo bilateral co-operation with sovereign states that wish to work with the United States," Sherman said. "And we will not make decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine, about Europe without Europe, or about NATO without NATO."
NATO talks with Russia later this week
As Ukraine is not a NATO member, it could not count on alliance members to defend it.But U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that the United States and European allies would impose tough sanctions if Russia chose to invade Ukraine. Putin has said new sanctions could lead to a "complete breakdown in ties."
Last month, Russia presented sweeping demands, including a ban on further NATO expansion and an end to the alliance's activity in central and eastern European countries that joined it after 1997.
The United States and NATO say large parts of the Russian proposals are non-starters.
Before Monday's meeting, Ryabkov told RIA news agency Russia would not accept U.S. attempts to limit the agenda to discussion of military exercises and missile deployments — the topics outlined by the Biden administration as areas it is willing to broach.
Russia wants flexibility
"We need legal guarantees of the non-expansion of NATO and the elimination of everything that the alliance has created since 1997," Ryabkov said.
Russia had tried to show flexibility for the past 30 years, he said, noting it was time for the other side to be flexible.
"If they are unable to do this, they will face a worsening situation in their own security."
There is no Utopia anywhere coming from some who has lived in the west for 26 years
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I’m sure if this had been the over way around the western MSM would also fail to point how the extremely sexist nature of that ‘traditional’ greeting or praise her for her progressiveness in fighting said sexism n
So, everyone focusing on a hypothetical Russia attack Ukraine scenario, but how that could worsen the security situation of the USA or the EU ?
That would decrease the security of Russia , by creating a war next they borders that consume resources and internationa l blowback. Means expecting an Ukrainan invsaion from Russia is equivalent with saying Russia is stupid. And we haven't seen sign for that .