Podcasts about budapest memorandum

UKRAINE, WISCONSIN, BURNING THE REICHSTAG & THE REALITIES OF GRASSROOTS / WEB ORGANIZING We start GREEP Zoom #218 with our laureate MIMI GERMAN & her fabulous poetry. With TATANKA BRICCA we then celebrate the birthday of the great CESAR CHAVEZ & The United Farmworkers Union. The Green Party's HOWIE HAWKINS & Ukrainian engineer DENYS BONDAR relate the realities of Putin's “hybrid nuclear war” that combines the horrors of atomic weapons and power plants. Denys reminds us of the Budapest Memorandum in which Ukraine thought it had traded the warheads it inherited from the former Soviet Union in exchange for peace & security. Howie tells us of the brave Ukrainians staying behind the maintain the Ukrainian reactors to keep them from causing another Chernobyl-sized disaster despite being tortured by the Russians. We also hear that Putin has destroyed 70% of Ukraine's wind power while Vampirizing the juice from Crimea's solar panels. The question of whether mass rallies can become more than photo ops through the use of QR codes is discussed by organizer GINI LESTER & computer guru LEE FELSENSTEIN. Howie then wonders if organizers at April 5 rallies throughout the country. Ohio's SANDY BOLZENIUS lauds the decentralized nature of these pro-democracy rallies nationwide. Solar homeowner PAUL NEWMAN of Healthcare For Us describes using cell phone hotspots to link into rallies. We hear further MURTZA MURTI about using a MailChimp page to further working groups for democratic progress. A call for a working group comes from Lee Felsenstein. Howie refers us to the book subtitled THE MASS PROTEST DECADE & THE MISSING REVOLUTION. Re-localization is advocated for us by MIKE HERSH. The history of the farmworkers is revisited by Tatanka. Recalling her radio interview with Dolores Huerta is LYNN FEINERMAN. We finish with Tatanka conjuring up Communities of Resistance to carry us through the coming Reichstag Fire & fascist putsch, where we will begin again next week.     

We start this monumental legal exposition with the great hero-attorney STEVE DONZIGER & the high-profile corporate attack on Greenpeace & the Indigenous community. Greenpeace has been sued by Energy Transfer in a North Dakota court with a jury dominated by fossil-fuel workers and a pro-corporate judge. Hawaii-based attorney NATALI SEGOVIA gives us detail on the particulars of this rigged indictment in a case meant to “target the environmental movement as a whole.” Natali emphasizes that the land devastated by the contested pipeline is, by treaty rights, still Indigenous land. Much-revered long-time campaigner CHARLIE CRAY explains that Greenpeace's role in the Standing Rock demonstrations was to train people in non-violence, and that the corporate attack on the Greenpeace organizational structure has been misguided. Steve Donziger then explains where the next legal battles will go amidst the long-standing campaign to weaponize the law against the human attempt to preserve our ability to live on this planet. Charlie Cray explains that the courts refused to allow a live broadcast or official transcript of the court proceeds while the corporations used “pink slime journalism” to propagandize the local North Dakota population. Natalie Segovia confirms that the willingness to ignore tribal sovereignty and fight against movement solidarity is at the core of the corporate attack, as she calls for courage among all of us. Charlie & Steve remind us that a Dutch court will hear anti-SLAPP proceedings against the corporations trying to kill Greenpeace & its pro-ecological campaigning.  To start our second hour, we then get an on-the-ground report from journalist/filmmaker ROGER RAPOPORT about Michigan's insane attempt to re-start the Palisades nuclear reactor. An expert on air travel, Roger also reports on the real horrifying & infuriating reasons for the recent deadly crash at Washington DC's National Airport. Performance Artist TOM ENGLISH gives us a great poem about try to humanize our nation's billionaire CEOs. We then move into the nightmare of lithium battery storage & the horrifying disaster of a major fire at Moss Landing California. Nationally syndicated Flashpoint host DENNIS BERNSTEIN talks to us about the human damage being done by this terrible fire & its fallout. MICHELLE A. gives us a heads-up on water based batteries called Aqueous Metal batteries. Western Massachusetts activist & no nukes organizer ANNA GYORGY tells us of her great victory over an unwanted lithium battery center in her neighborhood. Activist/film-mater JILL LONG makes the connection between Moss Landing & the horrors of Three Mile Island. Thanks to MYLA RESON we touch on upcoming supreme court election in Wisconsin, which we will revisit NEXT WEEK! We sign off with PAUL SHERMAN & the Budapest Memorandum that should have prevented to war in Ukraine.

Larry talks with UK professor Dr. Robert Farley about the Budapest Memorandum and US diplomacy in the tension between China and Taiwan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former President of Poland Lech Walesa wrote the following letter to Trump.Your Excellency, Mr. President,We watched the report of your conversation with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, with fear and distaste. We find it insulting that you expect Ukraine to show respect and gratitude for the material assistance provided by the United States in its fight against russia. Gratitude is owed to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. They have been dying on the front lines for more than 11 years in the name of these values and the independence of their homeland, which was attacked by Putin's russia.We do not understand how the leader of a country that symbolizes the free world cannot recognize this.Our alarm was also heightened by the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation, which reminded us of the interrogations we endured at the hands of the Security Services and the debates in Communist courts. Prosecutors and judges, acting on behalf of the all-powerful communist political police, would explain to us that they held all the power while we held none. They demanded that we cease our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people suffered because of us. They stripped us of our freedoms and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the government or express gratitude for our oppression. We are shocked that President Volodymyr Zelensky was treated in the same manner.The history of the 20th century shows that whenever the United States sought to distance itself from democratic values and its European allies, it ultimately became a threat to itself. President Woodrow Wilson understood this when he decided in 1917 that the United States must join World War I. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this when, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he resolved that the war to defend America must be fought not only in the Pacific but also in Europe, in alliance with the nations under attack by the Third Reich.We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and America's financial commitment, the collapse of the Soviet empire would not have been possible. President Reagan recognized that millions of enslaved people suffered in Soviet russia and the countries it had subjugated, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their defense of democratic values with their freedom. His greatness lay, among other things, in his unwavering decision to call the USSR an “Empire of Evil” and to fight it decisively. We won, and today, the statue of President Ronald Reagan stands in Warsaw, facing the U.S. Embassy.Mr. President, material aid—military and financial—can never be equated with the blood shed in the name of Ukraine's independence and the freedom of Europe and the entire free world. Human life is priceless; its value cannot be measured in money. Gratitude is due to those who sacrifice their blood and their freedom. This is self-evident to us, the people of Solidarity, former political prisoners of the communist regime under Soviet russia.We call on the United States to uphold the guarantees made alongside Great Britain in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which established a direct obligation to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for its relinquishment of nuclear weapons. These guarantees are unconditional—there is no mention of treating such assistance as an economic transaction.Signed,Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner, President of PolandSubmitted by Roman Sheremeta, Professor of Economics, Board Member, Founding Rector of American University Kyiv.Available in The Neoliberal Journals at https://theneoliberal.com/former-president-of-poland-lech-walesa-wrote-the-following-letter-to-trump/Subscribe to The Neoliberal Round Podcast by Renaldo McKenzie on any stream. Find your stream here: https://anchor.fm/theneoliberal.Donate: https://anchor.fm/theneoliberal/support

Marco Rubio faces off with George Stephanopoulos in a heated interview, defending President Trump's stance on Ukraine. Pags breaks down the fiery exchange and what it means for U.S. foreign policy. Plus, Robert Greenway, Director of the Allison Center for National Security at Heritage and former Deputy Assistant to the President, joins Pags to discuss Friday's chaotic meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy. Greenway delves into the 1990s Budapest Memorandum, exploring whether it obligates the U.S. to send money or even troops to Ukraine. He also outlines the next steps in the Ukraine situation and what they mean for America's role on the global stage. Don't miss this deep dive into the complexities of international diplomacy and national security! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A firm and lasting peace treaty, a ceasefire, in or out of NATO, in or out of the EU, European or international peacekeeping forces, an unending slog, or Russian tanks in downtown Kyiv?What are the realistic…and unrealistic…options for Ukraine as they enter the 4th year of the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022?Is the best path for Ukrainian security instead a new security architecture based on Ukrainian power itself?How do you create a framework that could produce a realistic peace, while giving Ukraine a deterrence from future conflict?Using her recent article in Foreign Affairs, Ukraine Must Guarantee Its Own Security, as a kicking off point for our conversation on these and related topics returning to Midrats will be Emma Ashford.Emma is a senior fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center, and the author of First Among Equals: U.S. Foreign Policy for a Multipolar World, forthcoming from Yale University Press.Showlink Ukraine Must Guarantee Its Own SecuritySummaryIn this conversation, Sal, Mark, and Emma Ashford delve into the complexities of the Ukraine conflict, discussing historical agreements like the Budapest Memorandum, the implications of NATO membership, and the current geopolitical landscape. They explore the challenges of European defense strategies, the lessons from Finland's historical context, and the potential pathways to peace negotiations. The discussion emphasizes the need for Ukraine to build its own security capabilities while navigating the intricate dynamics of international relations.TakeawaysThe Budapest Memorandum's implications are still relevant today.NATO membership remains a contentious issue for Ukraine.European states have divergent threat perceptions affecting defense strategies.The concept of 'Bluff and Pray' highlights European defense challenges.Lessons from Finland's Winter War can inform Ukraine's strategy.Ukraine must focus on internal capabilities for security.The US presence in Europe influences European defense initiatives.Negotiating peace involves complex territorial and sovereignty questions.European defense production can align with Ukraine's needs.The need for a unified European defense strategy is critical.Chapters00:00: Introduction and Context of the Ukraine Conflict03:59: The Budapest Memorandum and Its Implications06:41: NATO's Role and European Security Dynamics11:55: European Military Capabilities and Collective Action Problems18:25: Bluff and Pray: The Dilemma of European Deterrence20:52: The Risks of European Military Engagement in Ukraine28:10: NATO's Role in Ukraine's Security32:45: Ukraine's Self-Defense and Historical Parallels37:39: Models of Neutrality and Defense40:20: European Defense Production and Cooperation46:49: US Withdrawal Scenarios and European Responsibility51:19: Negotiating Peace: Territory, Arms, and Finance

I think the information about what is happening in the war in Ukraine is getting watered down, lost in translation, or is getting intentionally left out.  There is an agreement called the Budapest Memorandum which in my opinion brings a lot of information out that will highlight things that are being said in public today.  There is more to this than what we are hearing, and in this episode I will shine a light on some things to take a look at.

With Eliot traveling Eric welcomes Eugene Finkel, the Kenneth H. Keller Professor of International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to discuss his recent book Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (New York:  Basic Books, 2024). They discuss the long-term Russian effort to dominate, subordinate and eliminate Ukrainian nationality, culture and language. They touch on the pillars of Russian national identify and how Russians came to see Ukraine and Ukrainians as inferior members of a hierarchy of Russian-ness and how the emergence of Ukrainian nationalism in Poland and later the Austro-Hungarian empire came to represent an existential threat to Russian ethnic domination of St. Petersburg's multinational empire in the run up to world war one. They discuss the collapse of the Russian Empire and the emergence of an independent Ukraine, the reasons for its failure and Stalin's efforts to destroy Ukrainian nationalism, his drive for collectivization of agriculture and the ensuing Holodomor -- a man-made famine that cost perhaps as many as 5 million lives. They also discuss Ukraine during World War Two, caught between the Wehrmacht and Red Army. The collaboration of some Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazis and the guerrilla war to prevent Soviet re-occupation of Ukraine which lasted into the early 1950s, cost perhaps 100 thousand lives and gave birth to the Russian notion that Ukrainian nationalism was inherently fascist. They consider Ukraine's independence in 1992, the negotiation of the Budapest Memorandum and the myth that Ukraine "gave up nuclear weapons, as well as the cultural shift that will have to take place in Russia if there is to be lasting peace that ends the current war. Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine: https://a.co/d/5fsdy8L Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Edition No89 | 03-02-2025 - This episode is all about energy – especially gas supply to Europe. Rumours abound that the EU is considering renewing gas purchases from Russia as part of a Ukraine peace deal. Where do we even start with this unbelievably misguided, opportunistic, immoral and strategically brain-dead idea? Dependence on Russian gas is what led Putin to believe he could invade a sovereign European nation in the first place and coerce all the others to just tolerate that. ---------- We ran two events in Ukraine in the last two weeks. Lviv (part 2) and Kyiv. The event we ran in August 2023 was a huge success, and had a great impact. Now our aim is even more ambitious. Two cities. Two events. Multiple panels consisting of the best experts, and all filmed in high definition for the channel. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras But it costs. Last time the overall cost was £3,500 for Live in Lviv, and we covered 80% of this through ticket sales. This time the costs are higher, and there's less opportunity to sell tickets at the available venues and studios, so I'm creating a campaign to raise £5,000 to make this trip a reality. We also have a much more ambitious programme to film interviews around Kyiv and Lviv for the channel. This project will have an impact, so please help if you can. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras ---------- Allegedly, EU officials are discussing the potential resumption of gas purchases via a Russian pipeline as part of a potential settlement of the Russia-Ukraine war. This was reported by the Financial Times reported on Jan. 30, citing undisclosed sources. The proposal's advocates, including Hungarian and German officials (of course), argue the move could give both Russia and Europe incentives to maintain a peace deal while stabilizing the continent's energy market, the outlet wrote. And this based on the theory that Russia was so trustworthy the first time round, through the Budapest Memorandum and Minsk Accords, that we should have another go at surrendering our security to the tyrant in the Kremlin? Such logic also assumes that the Russian leadership are economically and politically rational and ignore the clear imperialistic and genocidal motivations behind the war of aggression. ---------- SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISER A project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras ---------- NEWS SOURCES: https://kyivindependent.com/eu-denies-any-ties-between-russian-gas-purchases-and-peace-talks-over-war-in-ukraine/ https://kyivindependent.com/eu-mulls-restarting-russian-gas-purchases-as-part-of-ukraine-peace-deal-ft-reports/ https://www.ft.com/content/a19aa690-fb54-41ea-9885-10972b11ab24 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungary-block-eu-russia-sanctions-next-time-unless-ukraine-gas-transit-resumes-2025-01-31/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-lets-russian-gas-slip-again-in-new-sanctions-package/ https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-europe-gas-transit-ukraine-replace-cyprus/ https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/20/donald-trump-tells-eu-buy-more-us-oil-gas-tariffs ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ----------

This week Howie is joined by Denys Bondar for a discussion of the 30th Anniversary of the Budapest Memorandum between Ukraine, Russia, and the US. Streamed on 12/21/24 Watch the video at: https://youtube.com/live/FU1lUpAnRoQ Green Socialist Notes is a weekly livestream/podcast hosted by 2020 Green Party/Socialist Party presidential nominee, Howie Hawkins.  Started as a weekly campaign livestream in the spring of 2020, the streams have continued post elections and are now under the umbrella of the Green Socialist Organizing Project, which grew out of the 2020 presidential campaign.  Green Socialist Notes seeks to provide both an independent Green Socialist perspective, as well as link listeners up with opportunities to get involved in building a real people-powered movement in their communities. Green Socialist Notes Podcast Every Saturday at 3:00 PM EDT on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch. Every Monday at 7:00 AM EDT on most major podcast outlets. Music by Gumbo le Funque Intro: She Taught Us Outro: #PowerLoveFreedom

THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. INVESTING IS RISKY AND OFTEN PAINFUL. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.There are about 45,000 Russian casualties a month now in Ukraine. That equates to a rate of 540,000 soldiers per year or about 1% of Russia's male, fighting-age population, thus the call to North Korea to supply troops. About 15% of Russia's population died in World War 2, so today's losses are modest in comparison but by modern standards an incomprehensible cost for territorial gain. Almost all of those who die come from Russia's hinterlands. An American equivalent would be if the Pentagon emptied US jails, drafted from the poorest zip codes, sent them to attack Canada, and then gave generous cash packages to the next of kin. Some provincial Russians have even welcomed the war because the poorest, most alcoholic locals have been disposed of and replaced with a cash subsidy. The question is if President-elect Trump will view Putin's negotiating position as strong. I don't know the answer. I do know Trump's answer has vast implications for geopolitics. China is weighing Taiwan, Iran is weighing its tactic of spreading death and chaos in the Middle East. This also matters for US government finances, bond yields, and equity valuations. Today, I want to talk about the policy choice and financial implications and also share a conversation I had with Lt. Gen (Ret) HR McMaster, Trump's former National Security Advisor. He offers a perspective I lack and I am grateful he made the time to talk with me and allowed me to share that conversation with you. US Policy DecisionWhile Republicans control the White House and Congress, there are splinters within the Party. Some are isolationists, others are internationalists. HR does not share his affiliation but he believes the US can be a force for good. If someone like Musk wants to cut government spending, he needs to slash either social security, medicare, or defense. Slashing defense would narrow the US budget deficit and be a radical restructuring of the global order. But such a sharp jag is off-brand for traditional Republicans. A report by Senator Wicker (R. Miss) is making the rounds. It is titled “Peace Through Strength” and is clearly meant for Trump's desk. Below is an excerpt. I put the key sentence in bold. America's national defense strategy and military budget are inadequate for the dangerous world in which we find ourselves. An emerging axis of aggressors is working to undermine U.S. interests across the globe. Congress and military leaders agree: The United States has not faced such a dangerous threat environment since the years before World War II. The epicenter of this test is Ukraine. Regardless of Party, US Presidents have not wanted to deal with Russia for the last quarter century. It's far away, has almost no economic relationship with the US, and is highly corrupt. But time and again, US Presidents have been forced to focus on Russia in a way that has sometimes sabotaged their domestic agenda. Could this happen to Trump 2.0?ContextPutin took over on December 31, 1999. Not long after problems began developing and each US President sought their best to ignore them for the same reason—they didn't want to engage in conflict. However, this has only allowed the situation in Russia to metastasize. This echoes the same process that unfolded in Germany in the 1930s, so Wicker's comment is apt. While Russian assassinations at home and abroad began early in Putin's reign, the key events where the US whiffed was when:* Russia annexed parts of Georgia under President Bush in 2008.* Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 under President Obama.* Russia fired on Ukrainian ships in 2018 traveling between Ukrainian ports under President Trump.* Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 under President Biden.In each case, the response was bumbling and timid. Note that Russia and the US both signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum whereby Ukraine gave up its nukes in return for its borders being secured. While it sounds extreme, I don't think it is a stretch to say that this is the 1930s with Putin playing the role of Hitler and the US playing the role of UK's Neville Chamberlain. Russia has slowly been swallowing more territory, violating international law, and threatening the West with nuclear war if the West intervenes. The assassinations on Western territory continue. Just last week, the UK foiled a Russian plot to murder investigative journalist Christo Grozev. If Putin isn't stopped in Ukraine, I believe he will move on, possibly to the Baltics. Fiscal ImplicationsThe US budget deficit is currently at 6%, even as the economy is strong. This is unusual. The only solution to narrow the deficit is by raising taxes and cutting spending. The solution isn't conceptually complicated but it is politically toxic. But what will Trump do? From what I can tell reading McMaster's books, Trump is conflicted. He wants to appear “strong” and also hates foreign entanglements. His ideal environments are neater, like Trump Tower or Mar a Lago or a golf course he owns. If he were to quickly sign a peace deal with Putin, I suspect Trump would look weak. But Ukraine is exactly the type of mess he wants to avoid. To deter Russia, the US is going to need to spend a lot of money. McMaster said he thought the US defense budget needed to go from 3% of GDP to 5% of GDP. Without tax hikes, that would drive the deficit to 8% of GDP and possibly drive bond yields to 5% or 6%. This then would hit the stock and housing markets. Since Trump got elected, US bond yields have fallen. It's interesting and counter-intuitive unless one thinks a significant adjustment in government spending is coming. This is also a bet that the Fed will cut rates later this month, of course. To be sure, If the Fed were strictly following an inflation mandate, they would not cut. Inflation in the US is around 3%. The target is 2%. The last major inflation print of the year comes out next week and is expected to be 3.3%. Trump confronting Putin is not in anyone's expectations. But if he goes down that route, it certainly is not priced into markets. This document is strictly confidential and is intended for authorized recipients of “A Letter from Paul” (the “Letter”) only. It includes personal opinions that are current as of the date of this Letter and does not represent the official positions of Kate Capital LLC (“Kate Capital”). This letter is presented for discussion purposes only and is not intended as investment advice, an offer, or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any security. 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While Kate Capital believes such information to be accurate, it has relied upon such third parties to provide accurate information and has not independently verified such information.The graphs, charts, and other visual aids are provided for informational purposes only. None of these graphs, charts, or visual aids can of themselves be used to make investment decisions. No representation is made that these will assist any person in making investment decisions and no graph, chart or other visual aid can capture all factors and variables required in making such decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit paulpodolsky.substack.com

What happens when global powers abandon their word? Just ask Ukraine…See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cohost of the RADICALIZED Truth Survives podcast, Jim Stewartson gives a warning that the Q fringe has not gone away. America doesn't want a Cabinet full of abusers and drunks!? What happens when global powers abandon their word? Just ask Ukraine. It has been 30 years since the betrayal of the Budapest Memorandum. Reporting from Kyiv, Veteran War Correspondent Phil Ittner gives an update. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thirty years ago, in early December 1994, at a security summit in Budapest, the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, and Ukraine signed a memorandum in which Kyiv agreed to eliminate all nuclear weapons left on its territory after the collapse of the USSR. In exchange, the other signatories offered assurances to refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine's territorial integrity or political independence. Events would prove the Budapest Memorandum to be worth less than the paper it was printed on. Thirty years later, Russia has invaded Ukraine and occupies much of its eastern regions. The war has been devastating, killing tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides. In this episode, historian Michael Kimmage looks back at the empty assurances of the Budapest conference, which were made at a time of great optimism and even cooperation among former foes. Kimmage also contends that today's war is a world war insofar as it has expanding global repercussions and is attracting the involvement of non-European countries. Further reading: How Ukraine Became a World War by Michael Kimmage and Hanna Notte in Foreign Affairs, the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations

Political scientist Kathryn Stoner is the Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford and an authority on Russian/Ukrainian politics. She says views on the current war depend on which side someone is on: Many Russians and their leader Vladimir Putin say Ukrainians are Russians and have been since the 10th century. Ukrainians strongly disagree, likening the two nations to the U.S. and Great Britain. How the present conflict is resolved has important implications for other former Soviet states and the future of the European Union, as Stoner tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast.Have a question for Russ? Send it our way in writing or via voice memo, and it might be featured on an upcoming episode. Please introduce yourself, let us know where you're listening from, and share your quest. You can send questions to thefutureofeverything@stanford.edu.Episode Reference Links:Stanford CDDRL Profile: Kathryn StonerConnect With Us:Episode Transcripts >>> The Future of Everything WebsiteConnect with Russ >>> Threads or Twitter/XConnect with School of Engineering >>> Twitter/XChapters:(00:00:00) IntroductionHost Russ Altman introduces guest Kathryn Stoner, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.(00:02:09) Historical Context of the Russia-Ukraine ConflictHow historical narratives shape perspectives on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.(00:05:38) U.S. and International PerspectivesThe strategic implications of the Russia-Ukraine conflict for the United States and its historical agreements.(00:08:49) The Domino Effect and Regional RisksThe potential risks to other former Soviet republics and the concept of the domino effect.(00:12:43) Democracy in the Post-Soviet StatesAnalysis of the state of democracy in Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics(00:18:59) The Unexpected StalemateWhy the Russia-Ukraine war has not gone as expected and the strategic missteps by Russia.(00:22:39) Domestic Impact in RussiaThe impact of the war on Russian public opinion and why Russians are not openly protesting against it.(00:28:46) Hope for the FuturePotential sources of optimism for the future of Russia and its younger generation.(00:31:40) Conclusion Connect With Us:Episode Transcripts >>> The Future of Everything WebsiteConnect with Russ >>> Threads or Twitter/XConnect with School of Engineering >>> Twitter/X

Join America's Roundtable (https://americasrt.com/) radio co-hosts Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy with Ronald Maxwell, one America's most noted independent film writers and directors. Ron Maxwell's most known and revered productions mirror his life-long interest in American history. He was the writer and director of epic war drama films: "Gettysburg," starring Martin Sheen, Jeff Daniels, and Sam Elliott (New Line Cinema, 1993); “Gods and Generals,” starring Robert Duvall, Steven Lang, and Jeff Daniels (Warner Bros. Entertainment, 2003); and "Copperhead," starring Peter Fonda, Billy Campbell, Lucy Boynton, Geneviève Steele, Angus Macfadyen, and François Arnaud (2013). He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Ronald Maxwell is the son of a World War II veteran. Ron's father John F. Maxwell served in the U.S. Army Air Corps in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Germany. On June 6, 1944 his unit had arrived in the newly liberated Rome. americasrt.com (https://americasrt.com/) https://ileaderssummit.org/ | https://jerusalemleaderssummit.com/ America's Roundtable on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/americas-roundtable/id1518878472 Twitter: @ileaderssummit @AmericasRT @NatashaSrdoc @JoelAnandUSA @supertalk America's Roundtable is co-hosted by Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy, co-founders of International Leaders Summit and the Jerusalem Leaders Summit. America's Roundtable (https://americasrt.com/) radio program - a strategic initiative of International Leaders Summit, focuses on America's economy, healthcare reform, rule of law, security and trade, and its strategic partnership with rule of law nations around the world. The radio program features high-ranking US administration officials, cabinet members, members of Congress, state government officials, distinguished diplomats, business and media leaders and influential thinkers from around the world. Tune into America's Roundtable Radio program from Washington, DC via live streaming on Saturday mornings via 65 radio stations at 7:30 A.M. (ET) on Lanser Broadcasting Corporation covering the Michigan and the Midwest market, and at 7:30 A.M. (CT) on SuperTalk Mississippi — SuperTalk.FM reaching listeners in every county within the State of Mississippi, and neighboring states in the South including Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee. Listen to America's Roundtable on digital platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Google and other key online platforms. Listen live, Saturdays at 7:30 A.M. (CT) on SuperTalk | https://www.supertalk.fm

Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War, is a nine-part documentary series from director Brian Knappenberger, that provides a comprehensive appraisal of the events that led to the Cold War and traces the conflict around the world and through the decades. While the Cold War ended in 1991, even a casual appraisal of current headlines reveals that relations between the United States and Russia — the one-time centre of the Soviet Union — remain tense, to say the least. The global repercussions of the Cold War continue to ripple through the current geopolitical landscape to this day, but it can be difficult to understand just how a mid-20th century struggle for ideological dominance continues to ensnare countless nations in ongoing unrest. To tell this story, the series draws on more than 100 interviews with subjects ranging from past and present world leaders (Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas) to historians as well as everyday people whose lives were drastically altered by the events of the Cold War. As the history unfolds, each episode considers the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine as an example of how the history being examined is directly tied to the events of today. “Nearly every part of the war in Ukraine is an echo of the Cold War,” Knappenberger explains. Watch the series here https://www.netflix.com/title/81614129 Watch the trailer here https://youtu.be/qHuuLo-CSRo?si=ZaNGZyeP0nZe5Nwp The fight to preserve Cold War history continues and via a simple monthly donation, you will give me the ammunition to continue to preserve Cold War history. You'll become part of our community, get ad-free episodes, and get a sought-after CWC coaster as a thank you and you'll bask in the warm glow of knowing you are helping to preserve Cold War history. Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ If a monthly contribution is not your cup of tea, we welcome one-off donations via the same link.   Find the ideal gift for the Cold War enthusiast in your life! Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/store/ Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/ Youtube https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations Love history? Check out Into History at this link https://intohistory.com/coldwarpod 00:00 The Chilling Call: A Cold War Nightmare 00:21 Welcome to Cold War Conversations 00:39 Inside 'Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War' Documentary 01:02 The Cold War's Legacy and Today's Nuclear Threats 03:15 The Making of a Cold War Documentary 05:09 Why the Cold War Story Matters Now 06:17 The New Cold War: A Hot and Unstable Conflict 10:24 The Munich Security Conference: A Turning Point 13:32 Crafting the Documentary: Challenges and Insights 15:06 Personal Connections and the Impact of Nuclear Weapons 19:32 The Importance of First-Person Cold War Accounts 19:59 Daniel Ellsberg: A Courageous Insider's Perspective 23:19 Uncovered Stories: The Challenges of Time Constraints 23:46 Exploring Untold Cold War Stories 24:37 The Intriguing Case of the AIDS Misinformation Campaign 28:14 The Ripple Effects of Cold War Decisions 28:45 Project Sapphire: Securing Nuclear Materials Post-Soviet Union 30:47 The Budapest Memorandum and Ukraine's Nuclear Dilemma 34:43 Post-Cold War Transitions and the Rise of Putin 41:18 Reflecting on the Series: Favorite Moments and Missed Opportunities 44:48 Dream Interviews: Cold War Figures Who Left a Mark 49:03 Closing Thoughts and Acknowledgments Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Following a visit to Capitol Hill last week, Volodymyr Zelenskyy (President of Ukraine) made one final push to Congress in hopes of preventing Ukraine fatigue. This week, the government is on the verge of a government shutdown, and many members of Congress have made their intentions clear about whether or not they will support more funding as we head into October. To help us sort through all of this we spoke with Dr. Leon Aron, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He studies Russian domestic and foreign policy, US-Russia relations, and the economic, social, and cultural aspects of Russia's post-Soviet evolution. We dive deep into the complex web of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the geopolitical factors at play. We kick things off by discussing the mysterious return of the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization, to Ukraine. Who's really pulling the strings behind this mercenary group, especially after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key figure in Putin's invasion strategy? We also delve into the role religion plays in Russia's military actions, examining how the Russian Orthodox Church influences public opinion and policy. And Will wonders how come the Budapest Memorandum isn't making headlines despite Russia's blatant violation of it?Dr. Aron, who shares his incredible journey from Moscow to the United States and offers a unique perspective on Russian and American politics. Dr. Aron sheds light on the evolving landscape of Russian domestic politics since the fall of the Soviet Union and the key factors driving these changes. We also explore the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in shaping both public opinion and policy in Russia. This episode is packed with insights that will help you understand the intricacies of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Wagner Group's activities in Africa, and why it's crucial for Americans to be informed about Putin's motives as we send aid to Ukraine. Guest Bio:From 2014 to 2020, Dr. Aron was a governor of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the operations of several international broadcasting outlets, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. From 1990 to 2004, he was a panelist on “Looking from America” (Gliadya iz Ameriki), a weekly Voice of America Russian-language radio and television show. Dr. Aron has taught at Georgetown University and was the recipient of the US Institute of Peace's Peace Fellowship.Dr. Aron is also a prolific writer and editor, and his books include Roads to the Temple: Memory, Truth, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987–1991 (Yale University Press, 2012), in which he details and analyzes the intellectual and moral revolution that precipitated the end of the Soviet Union; Russia's Revolution: Essays 1989–2006 (AEI Press, 2007); and the first in-depth biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin's Press, 2000).Support the showTo learn more about the show, contact our hosts, or recommend future guests, click on the links below: Website: https://www.faithfulpoliticspodcast.com/ Faithful Host: Josh@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com Political Host: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com Twitter: @FaithfulPolitik Instagram: faithful_politics Facebook: FaithfulPoliticsPodcast LinkedIn: faithfulpolitics

In 1994, Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons it had inherited from the Soviet Union. It was invited to sign the Budapest Memorandum with Russia, the UK, and the US, which was supposed to give Ukraine security assurances. Russia broke these assurances first in 2014, and then in 2022, by invading and occupying Ukraine. Since 1994, Ukraine has found itself in a security vacuum, which, directly or indirectly, invited Russia to attack. - In this episode, Ukrainian philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko speaks to Mariana Budjeryn, Senior Research Associate at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. Mariana is the author of the recent book Inheriting the bomb. The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine. In this episode, we talk about the genealogy of the Budapest Memorandum, its consequences for today's war, Russia's nuclear blackmail, and lessons for the future. Thinking in Dark Times is a podcast series by UkraineWorld. This series seeks to make Ukraine and the current war a focal point of our joint reflection on the world's present, past, and future. We try to see the light through and despite the current darkness. UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of the largest Ukrainian media NGOs. Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld

If the free world fails in our efforts to support Ukraine's self-defense & enforce this agreement signed by the United States, future prospects for peace in the world will be significantly diminished. Also Banning abortion wasn't far enough for anti-abortion extremists in Idaho - they now want to ban where you go. Will judge let Trump continue his attacks on DA and Judge? Good news - Newson take DeSantis on in Florida. Veteran War Correspondent Phil Ittner on the ground in Ukraine. And Dean Obeidallah - Trump's crimes were not victimless. The victims were Roe v. Wade, gun safety laws and more. We, The People, are the victim of Trump's crimes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The people of Ukraine call on the leadership of Ukraine's allies for the immediate deployment of the coalition forces of the United States of America and Great Britain as guarantors of the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine in accordance with the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine had a symmetrical response, we also demand that submarines be handed over to Ukraine to fight the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. In 2027, China plans to attack Taiwan, so it is important to knock out the enemy's troops - the Russian Federation - from the territory of Ukraine. Also, we, as the people of Ukraine, demand to return the status of a nuclear country to the state of Ukraine, in order to protect our population from possible hostilities by the Russian Federation. Return tactical level nuclear weapons to Ukraine. We Ukrainians pay a high price for holding back the enemy's troops. We call for the entry of US and UK troops as guarantors and allies since 1992. Also, taking into account the threat of the people of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic neighboring the Russian Federation, strengthen the grouping of allied troops in Ukraine. History goes in circles, only then will there be peace when the enemy is defeated, Glory to Ukraine, Glory to the Heroes.

war in ukraineAccording to the information of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the total combat losses of the enemy from February 24 to January 10 approximately amounted to: — about 112,470 soldiers; — tanks — 3,084; — combat armored vehicles — 6154; — artillery systems — 2,073; — RSZV — 434; — air defense means — 217; — planes — 285; — helicopters — 275; — automotive equipment and tank trucks — 4817; — ships/boats — 17; — UAVs of operational-tactical level — 1,860; — cruise missiles — 723.

As the Russian campaign of murder, rape, and destruction continues, America has both a moral and a legal obligation to defend Ukraine and enforce the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Let me put Trump's tax returns in context. Senator Bernie Sanders is dropping by for a few minutes to chat. Also Congressman Mark Pocan joins the show to answer listener questions for a Progressive Town Hall Meeting. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Once again, as a citizen of Ukraine, I remind the citizens of the United States and Great Britain that they are the guarantors of the security of Ukrainian citizens in accordance with the Budapest Memorandum, and your delay in the transfer of weapons entails the death of Ukrainian citizens, we have reports that about a hundred died in the city of Mariupol thousands of citizens of Ukraine, those very citizens whom you guaranteed to protect, also your delay in supporting Ukraine in 2014 turned into an illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories. From reliable sources, we have information that about 800 thousand Russian citizens live on the territory of the Russian-occupied Crimea who are illegally staying there, history repeats itself, and how in the last century the guarantors of our security do not make efforts and do not go to war against Russia, our Ukrainian children illegally hijacked, taken to the territory of Russians and adopted, and this, from the point of view of international law, is genocide, I demand that US troops be sent to the territory of Ukraine and, by joint efforts, defeat murderers, thieves, rapists, executioners, alcoholics and scammers, whose hordes of jailers are recruited by Wagner's private military campaign, I declare that my people, the people of Ukraine, still needed and have urgent military support for Ukraine on February 22, I demand and declare that the military of the United States and Great Britain must and must be together with the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the same battlefield, I call on all those who are not indifferent to our grief to help Ukraine, we need Abrams tanks, aircraft F15, F16, we need helicopters, we need pickups, SUVs, we need more max pro cars, we need all your decommissioned and decommissioned tanks, like Spartans. Air raid warning sounds in Ukraine every day, the enemy has broken our energy system by 50 percent, the citizens of Ukraine live without electricity, but even in this case we do not lose heart, we stock up on diesel generators and also extract current from car batteries, Russia has suffered huge losses in personnel. about 75 thousand soldiers and officers, the Ukrainians sank, knocked out more than 18-20 boats and ships, more than 510 enemy combat aircraft and helicopters were destroyed, but we demand to give us tomahawk missiles that are capable of flying from Ukraine to the base area and launching cruise missiles in Caspian region, we call to help Ukrainians with weapons, tanks, multiple launch rocket systems, weapons of the former USSR, soldiers, engineering structures, bridges, doctors, prosthetists, blood of all groups and Rh factors, communications and automotive equipment, bulldozers, fuels and lubricants, gasoline and diesel fuel, our refineries have been smashed by Russia, we demand intervention With the help of the US Army and the British Army for the speedy victory of Ukraine as well as the normalization of security in the European region, be sure that in the event of our defeat, missiles will fall in Europe, in Germany, France, Poland, Italy. Russia's mobilization fund is 25 million people, but with the help of modern weapons, Ukraine will defeat and repel the enemy, after the victory, Ukraine will be forced to rebuild and create fortifications on the borders. Russians remove T-34 tanks from post-war World War II and use outdated equipment, but they go on the offensive a lot under drugs, there are testimonies of fighters that when shooting a horn of 30 rounds at the enemy, a person crawls and advances, only a bullet stops him head or heart, the Russians use prohibited ammunition such as phosphorus, which, when blown up in the air, burn everything they touch, there is information about torture, castration, cutting out the genitals of the Ukrainian military and civilians of Ukraine, and gutting the body, that is, the corpses were handed over without organs, to soldiers the armed forces of Ukraine cut off their hands only because the coat of arms of the country - Ukraine was tattooed on it, our women aged 12-60 were subjected to mass rape in order to suppress the feeling of giving birth, they became pregnant and some did not terminate the pregnancy, that is, they gave birth to children from these bastards , our children were also raped, there is information that a soldier of the Russian army and raped a baby after killing his mother. We, citizens of Ukraine, declare and demand the introduction of US troops into the territory of Ukraine in order to normalize the situation and push the Russian army beyond our borders as of 1991, which were generally recognized and guaranteed by your government. SOS - save our souls or history will repeat itself again and millions of people will flee the horrors of war to Europe USA Berlin Paris WarsawAct every day of the war, this is the loss of citizens of Ukraine

Я від імені українського народу звертаюся до країн-партнерів України, до США, Великої Британії, як до гарантів Будапештського меморандуму, та громадян країн Європейського союзу із закликом передати Україні більше засобів протиповітряної оборони, танки всіх видів, зенітно-ракетні комплекси, літаки Ф15, Ф16, А10, ударні гелікоптери, та боєприпаси до них, танки Абрамс старих модифікацій, транспорт типу Макс про та хамви, для перемоги Україні необхідні ракети до 1000 кілометрів, Україну атакують з Каспійського регіону, і щоб вразити ці засоби, а це літаки ядерної тріади, нам необхідні ракети томогавк або схожі за цими характеристиками, наших військовослужбовців катують і відрізають їм геніталії, розпускають м'ясо з кісток пальців, називаючи це трояндочкою, наших жінок ґвалтують військовослужбовці рф, нам потрібна допомога, ви як гаранти нашої незалежності повинні були вже в 2014 році бути з нами в одному окопі і захищати нас від атак терориста путіна і його військової машини, передайте нам необхідну зброю, передайте нам АТАКАМС, передайте нам танки, передайте нам броню, якщо самі не готові воювати. Світ пізнає ще страх вибуху ядерної зброї, росія повинна бути денукліаризована, а іран повинен понести відповідальність за передачу баражуючих боєприпасів і безпілотників типу шахід і мохаджер, в Україні рф скоро застосує безпілотник араш-2 і ракети середньої дальності типу земля земля, ми закликаємо стати з нами в один стрій ті країни, які гарантували нашу безпеку в дев'яностих, коли Україна віддавала ядерну зброю, у нас було дві тисячі різних типів ракет з ядерними боєголовками. Допоможи мені я помираю, моя країна зазнає збитків і втрачає найкращих синів і доньок на полі бою, дай мені зброю. дай мені зброю дай мені зброю в маріуполі загинуло вісімдесят шість тисяч мирного населення в лимані бучі родовищі ізюмі ми знаходимо братські могили наших українських жителів зупини це, дай мені зброю дай мені засіб ураження і я впораюсями впораємося і будемо чекати всіх вас на день перемоги у всіх містах всіх хто допоміг перемогти всіх хто зігрів всіх хто будував і лікував всіх хто жертвував кошти всіх хто переганяв машини на фронт ми втратили дуже багато хлопців з озброєних сил і багато наших хлопців є ампутантами, допоможіть їм стати знову на ноги допоможіть знайти нові руки, відновити обличчя та зір, наших дітей викрали до Росії та там піддавали тортурам, є свідчення про те, як у Маріуполі один із всрф прихопив 2 діточок 9 і 10 років, хлопчику він розрізав ахілове сухожилля, щоб той не втік, а дівчинці щовечора робив надрізи й дивився на їхні ненависні очі, де ви гаранти нашого миру, де ви політики й військові зі США, Великої Британії, у Канаді велика діаспора українців, поверніться до України - в нас біда - ми чекаємо на всіх охочих воювати на боці України в інтернаціональному полку збройних сил України. Дякую за увагу.On behalf of the Ukrainian people, I appeal to the partner countries of Ukraine - the USA, Great Britain as guarantors of the Budapest Memorandum and citizens of the European Union countries - to give Ukraine more means of anti-aircraft defense, tanks of all kinds, anti-aircraft missile systems, F15, F16, A10 aircraft, attack helicopters, and ammunition for them, Abrams tanks of old modifications, Max Pro and Humvee vehicles, to win Ukraine needs missiles up to 1000 kilometers, Ukraine is under attack from the Caspian region, In order to defeat these weapons, these are nuclear triad planes, we need Tomogawk missiles or missiles with similar characteristics, our servicemen are tortured, their genitals are cut off, flesh is stripped off their finger bones, calling it a rose, our women are raped by Russian servicemen, We need help, you as guarantors of our independence should have been in the same trench with us in 2014 to protect us from attacks by the terrorist Putin and his war machine, give us the weapons we need, give us ATACAMS, give us tanks, give us armor if you are not ready to fight. The world will know the fear of exploding nuclear weapons, russia must be denuclearized and iran must be held accountable for the transfer of barrage munitions and drones like shahid and mohajer, in ukraine the rf will soon use the arash-2 drone and medium-range ground-to-ground missiles, We call on those countries that guaranteed our security in the nineties when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons to stand with us, we had two thousand different types of missiles with nuclear warheads. Help me I am dying, my country is losing its best sons and daughters on the battlefield, give me weapons. give me weapons give me weapons in mariupol eighty-six thousand civilians were killed in liman bucha izym we find the mass graves of our Ukrainian citizens stop it, give me weapons give me the means of destruction and I will copewe will cope, and we will be waiting for all of you on victory day in all cities, for all who helped to win, for all who warmed, for all who built and healed, for all who donated money, for all who transported cars to the front, we lost many guys from the armed forces and many of our guys are amputees, help them get back on their feet, help them regain new arms, restore faces and eyesight, our kids were kidnapped in russia and tortured there, There is an evidence that in Mariupol an FARF kidnapped two kids, aged 9 and 10, the boy got his Achilles tendon cut so he would not run away, while the girl got nightly cuts and looked at their hateful eyes, where are you guarantors of our peace, where are you politicians and military officers from the US and UK, Canada has a large diaspora of Ukrainians, return to Ukraine we have a problem, we are waiting for everyone who is willing to fight for Ukraine in the international regiment of the Ukrainian armed forces. Thank you for your attention.

(Part 2 of 2) – In honor of Law Day on May 1st, we bring you special opening remarks from ABA President, Reginald Turner, along with the second half of our interview with Russia-Eurasia expert, Professor Angela Stent. Together with Elisa, Professor Stent continues to unpack the tangled history between Russia and Ukraine, and the resulting conflict that has dominated the world stage. What role does corruption play in the Russian military? And what are the scenarios in which this conflict may end? Professor Angela Stent is Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian & East European Studies at Georgetown University, and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution: https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RWsfAAG/angela-stent Reginald Turner is President of the American Bar Association: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/leadership/aba_officers/turner-reginald/ References: Angela Stent, “Putin's World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest” Twelve, 2019: https://www.twelvebooks.com/titles/angela-stent/putins-world/9781455533015/ Angela Stent, “The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century” Princeton University Press, 2015: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691165868/the-limits-of-partnership The 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf Law Day 2022 Resources: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/law-day/

In order to understand today's tensions between Russia and Ukraine, we have to start at the beginning. This week, host Elisa is joined by Russia-Eurasia expert, Professor Angela Stent, to unpack the tangled history between these two nations, and the resulting conflict that has dominated the world stage. How have the last two decades, and the rise of Vladimir Putin, altered the Russian-Ukrainian relationship? What is Ukraine's history with international partnerships and treaties? And why are Crimea and other assets along the Black Sea of such interest to Putin right now? Professor Angela Stent is Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian & East European Studies at Georgetown University, and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution: https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RWsfAAG/angela-stent References: Angela Stent, “Putin's World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest” Twelve, 2019: https://www.twelvebooks.com/titles/angela-stent/putins-world/9781455533015/ Angela Stent, “The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century” Princeton University Press, 2015: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691165868/the-limits-of-partnership The 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf

Considering why Austin Powers and Rip Van Winkle see so much change, how it's relevant to the amount of time that passes for each of them, and what it means for countries that are trying to understand what change they might see.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle_(Irving) Back to the Future at IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/ Blast from the Past is another movie that similarly uses a 35-year time period to show a significant change, in its case from 1962 to 1998: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124298/ There are a number of Treaties of Paris: I was speaking of the one in 1783: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)

Guests featured in this episode:Slawomir Sierakowski, a Polish sociologist and political analyst, with extensive knowledge of not only Ukraine and Russia, but also the potential third party in the current war, Belarus. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of the Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique) magazine. His more than 400 articles and op-eds include not only publications in Polish, but regular monthly columns in the international edition of The New York Times and Project Syndicate, among others. GLOSSARYWhat is the “Budapest Memorandum”?(00:8:02 or p.2 in the transcript) On December 5, 1994, leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation met in Budapest, Hungary, to pledge security assurances to Ukraine in connection with its accession to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear-weapons state. The signature of the so-called Budapest Memorandum concluded arduous negotiations that resulted in Ukraine's agreement to relinquish the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal, which the country inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union, and transfer all nuclear warheads to Russia for dismantlement. The signatories of the memorandum pledged to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity and inviolability of its borders, and to refrain from the use or threat of military force. Russia breached these commitments with its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and aggression in eastern Ukraine, bringing the meaning and value of security assurance pledged in the Memorandum under renewed scrutiny. Source What is Nord Stream 2 pipeline? (00:17:10 or p.4 in the transcript) The construction of the controversial natural gas pipeline Nord Stream brings gas from Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany, running parallel to, and expanding the capacity of, the existing Nord Stream pipeline.  The project would allow additional Russian gas to flow directly to Germany.  Opponents  argue that it would increase Russian influence in Germany. This is a concern for Poland, the Baltic states, and the Ukraine, which also fear that they would lose out on revenue from the transport of natural gas via other existing routes. Critics also argue that a new gas pipeline does not fit with the EU's strategy that aims at replacing fossil with renewable energy in the medium term, which would make Nord Stream 2 a stranded investment.Nord Stream 2 has been completed with some delay, but hurdles in the certification procedure and political tensions at the Ukrainian-Russian border have held up the project. Source Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:• Central European University: CEU• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD• The Podcast Company: Novel Follow us on social media!• Central European University: @CEU• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentreSubscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks! 

What do we really know? What makes you think the news here is telling the whole story when they just got done lying to us for a couple years to further an agenda? Let's look at the facts.1:40 - Budapest Memorandum - what the hell is it?4:16 - Krista debunks a “fact check” by USA Today about Viktor Shokan7:45 - The USA violates The Budapest Memorandum15:33 - Who is really controlling Ukraine and what the hell have we been doing over there for the last 10 years?16:28 - Propaganda be propaganda17:17 - American Hypocrisy17:33 - Article 5 of the Budapest Memorandum19:30 - Is Russia that stupid? And is NATO trustworthy24:30 - Krista has a beef with Trump and Chloe sings us a song25:00 - Joe Biden and his grandkid he won't acknowledge from the smartest man he knows, Hunter.28:00 - Putin and World War 242:27 - What is actually in our history books?45:20 - How our memories shape history51:45 - Ukraine was never supposed to be a part of NATO55:30 - Instagram account @lookattheatrussianRecorded on February 26th, 2022Follow us on Instagram to see us live weekly:https://www.instagram.com/drunkrepublic/https://www.instagram.com/thekristahilton/Check out our apparel at drunkrepublic.coDon't forget to subscribe and give us a review.

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the Soviet-era atomic weapons on its soil and became - for a few years - the world's third biggest nuclear power. After months of tense diplomacy, the newly independent Ukraine agreed to give up the weapons in return for what were termed "assurances" about its future security and territorial integrity. These "assurances" were agreed by Russia, the USA and Britain in the Budapest Memorandum, signed in December 1994. They are now controversial given the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 and then the rest of Ukraine in 2022. Louise Hidalgo talks to Steven Pifer, a senior American diplomat involved in the talks. PHOTO: Pro-Ukrainian demonstrators in London in 2022 (Getty Images)

This week, I will continue the series outlining how Trump was most likely--a Russian Asset working against the best interests of the United States. I will discuss Chapter 2 of the Moscow Project, titled "Hybrid Warfare", Russian President Vladimir Putin's strategy to undermine democracies around the world.  The title of this chapter speaks for itself.  Next, I will discuss how Russia under Putin's dictatorial rule has broken the Budapest Memorandum, which was a treaty engineered to guarantee Ukraine's right to exist as an independent nation. Russia was one of the signatories, but Putin has no use for truth or honor. This report will also discuss how the Trump administration weakened our national security when it came to Russian aggression.  And of course, there's our Jackass of the Week award.  Come join us. Jeanine    

On February 24th the world watched in horror as the Russian military started its invasion of Ukraine.In this episode we are discussing all the things that led to Putin's war on Ukraine, the west's lax attitude and response, and Ukraine's fight for freedom and acceptance in the EU over the past three decades. Latest developments at the time of recording are of course discussed as well. If you enjoy our episodes, please subscribe. Historical and geopolitical context is key to understanding the current tragedy unfolding under our eyes. We start off with The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 when, after the fall of the USSR, Ukraine was assured by the US, UK and Russia that its territorial sovereignty would be protected as long as they gave up their nuclear warheads. 1 Next we discuss The Orange Revolution of 2004, when the Ukrainian people organized nationwide protests in support of fair elections after Russian tampering, and the poisoning of candidate Viktor Yushchenko by Russian intelligence. He almost died and remained disfigured. We also discuss how the protest movements of this time in led to similar uprisings in support of elections in other countries in the region such as Moldova and Belarus, and how all of this led to similar protests within Russia itself in 2011, and Putin's personal feud with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 2 Then we discuss the Revolution of Dignity following the elections of 2010, in which the Russian-favored candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, was elected to the presidency of Ukraine, leading to another round of protests and a violent response from the state police and military. We also go over the subsequent Russian annexation of Crimea, and failure (again) of western countries and NATO to live up to their assurances made in the 1994 agreement that saw Ukraine stripped of nuclear weapons. 3 In addition to all of this we discuss the specifics of no-fly zones and how Russia has evaded them in the past, for example during the recent Syrian conflict. Also the firings of Ukranian officials at the behest of US presidents, such as the "Trump phone call" from 2019 to current Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and the overlap between GOP and Ukranian right-wing campaign advisors, Paul Manafort for example. We also discuss the persecution of Russian dissidents Boris Berezovsky, Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Politkovskaya who were all killed by Russian intelligence agents while living in London. 4 This is a multi-part series, in the next episode we'll discuss the devastation from the invasion in Mariupol, Kharkhiv, Kherson. Irpin, Kyiv and other Ukranian cities, and the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 17 incident. 1. Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations, December 1994. ⇤2. Ukraine's Ex-president on Being Poisoned, BBC, April 2018. ⇤3. Revolution of Dignity, Maidan Museum. ⇤4. David Cenciotti, Syrian Mig-29 Fulcrums Escorted the 28 Russian Jets... Hiding Under Cargo Planes, The Aviationist, September 2015. ⇤

The issue is THE BUDAPEST MEMORANDUM and the question is, why isn't anyone talking about this? In this episode, the boys are still left to their own devices as Michael and Anthony take a deep dive into The Budapest Memorandum, a denuclearization agreement signed back in 1994 between the US, UK, Russia and Ukraine. Tune in to find out what exactly this was and how Russia is in clear violation of it. Instagram: @politicalplaylist Website: politicalplaylist.com

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine going into its third week, it's important to remember that Ukraine has been fighting Russia for over 8 years. We cover this and a whole host of other topics in this week's episode.Our guest this week, Judy Twigg is a professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she teaches courses on global health, international political economy, and Russian politics. Judy helps us better understand the rich history that exists between these two countries and how, through sanctions, the Russian people will be affected. We then talk about an agreement that hasn't been getting much attention these days, the Budapest Memorandum, which is an agreement that Ukraine made with the US and Russia to get rid of their nuclear weapons in exchange for assurances on their security. This wide ranging discussion covers elements of Russia-Ukraine that you likely have not heard before and you'll want to listen to the very end! If you want to help and get involved please consider checking out these resources suggested by our guest:International Rescue Committee (https://www.rescue.org)UNICEF Ukraine (https://www.unicefusa.org)Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (https://bank.gov.ua) Use your browser's translate functionCome Back Alive foundation, providing auxiliary support for the Ukrainian armed forces  (https://www.comebackalive.in.ua)Guest Bio:Judy Twigg is a professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she teaches courses on global health, international political economy, and Russian politics. She is also a senior associate with the Global Health Policy Center and Russia & Eurasia Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; consultant for the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank and the Office of Evaluation and Oversight of the Inter-American Development Bank; adjunct professor at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University; and member of the board of trustees of the Eurasia Foundation. She has been a consultant for the Kennan Institute, John Snow, Inc., UNICEF, the Social Science Research Council, and various U.S. government agencies.Twigg's work focuses on issues of health, demographic change, and health systems reform in Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. She also conducts program and project evaluations for development assistance efforts world-wide spanning human development and public sector management. She has testified as an expert witness before the U.S. Congress and has been a member of several congressional and other U.S. government advisory groups on Russian affairs. She received the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia's Distinguished Faculty Award in 2005. Dr. Twigg is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/faithpolitics)

Michael asks Professor of Law Joel Samuels to break down the concept of oligarchs. Later, Michael analyzes The Budapest Memorandum and connections between Putin's invasion & The Cold War. New York Times White House Correspondent Peter Baker joins Michael to provide his expertise. Original air date 14 March 2022

Rose Gottemoeller, the Steven C. Házy lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation in Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and research fellow at the Hoover Institution, leads a conversation on international security and cooperation. FASKIANOS: Welcome to today's session of the Winter/Spring 2022 CFR Academic Webinar Series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach at CFR. Today's discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website at CFR.org/academic. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We are delighted and honored to have Rose Gottemoeller with us today to talk about international security and cooperation. Rose Gottemoeller is the Steve C. Házy lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation. She is also a fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2016 to 2019, she served as the deputy secretary-general (DSG) of NATO, where she advanced NATO's adaptation to the new security challenges in Europe and the fight against terrorism. And before that, she served as the undersecretary for arms control and international security at the State Department. In 2009 and 2010, she was the assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance, during which time she served as chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russian Federation. So, Rose Gottemoeller, thank you very much for being with us. I can't think of anybody better to have this conversation with us than you. When we planned this webinar, we knew it was the sixtieth anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but what we did not know was Russia would invade Ukraine and that there would be a war going on. So perhaps you can put this in context, talk about the lessons learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis, and where we are now, given what's going on in Ukraine. GOTTEMOELLER: Thank you so much, Irina. And it's wonderful to be with you, and with everyone who was able to join us today from across the country. I know there are many impressive institutions who are dialing in, and I really appreciate the chance to have a conversation with you and look forward to talking with the students and hearing what your questions are as well. Let me indeed begin talking today about the Cuban Missile Crisis, which happened sixty years ago this coming October. It was a time—I was a fourth grader at the time. And I remember, I was going to a Catholic school in Dearborn, Michigan. And the nuns said to us: You really must get home quickly tonight, children, there might be a nuclear war. You need to be with your parents. None of us knew exactly what was going on, but we knew that nuclear war was a really bad thing. We'd been through many drills, hiding under our desks or out in the hallway with our head between our knees. I have to tell you, even as a third grader, during one of those drills I thought to myself: If we get hit by a nuclear weapon, putting my head between my knees is not going to help one bit. So even as a third grader, I knew that nuclear weapons were weapons of mass destruction. So, we did manage to solve that crisis, with a secret deal, as it turned out. President Kennedy agreed quietly to withdraw intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Turkey. Never made public, until much later. And Khrushchev agreed to withdraw what were equivalent missiles from Cuba. And we got back to the negotiating table. In fact, the Cuban Missile Crisis dealt not only the United States and the Soviet Union, but other countries around the world, what I call a short, sharp shock. We recognized how devastating would be the effect of nuclear war, and we decided we really did need to talk together about how we were going to control and limit those risks. So, it led to a blossoming of negotiations on all kinds of limitations and controls. First, the Limited Test Ban Treaty. It was a test ban on nuclear testing in the atmosphere that was very quickly agreed after the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy gave an important speech at American University in June of 1963, when he said we really must control this most dangerous of weapons. And he proposed at that time a test ban treaty limiting testing in the atmosphere. And that was agreed rather quickly. It's amazing to me, as an arms control negotiator, that that treaty was then agreed by August of that very year. So record time. The U.K. also joined in those negotiations. But one thing that's very interesting, the Limited Test Ban was the first, I would say also, environmental arms control treaty. It was inspired by the fact that countries around the world and publics around the world were recognizing that testing in the atmosphere was producing a lot of strontium-90 and other radioactive pollutants that were getting into the food supply. Again, I remember from that period my own mother saying, “We've got to be worried about the milk we're drinking because it's got strontium-90 in it from testing in the atmosphere.” So even then, there were some environmental pushes that led to, I think, in part the quick negotiation of the Limited Test Ban Treaty. After that, we went to the step of controlling tests also under the sea and underground, starting with the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, that did not enter into force until the early 1990s. It was a long negotiation, but it was negotiated through that period of the 1960s into the 1970s. We also negotiated what has been the foundational document of the nonproliferation regime: the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). That was negotiated through the late 1960s and entered into force in 1972. It did basically designate five nuclear weapon states. These days they are U.S., U.K., France, China, and Russia. But at that time, those nuclear weapon states were the only states that would be permitted to possess nuclear weapons. All other states around the world would give up their right to nuclear weapons. But there was a grand bargain there. The nuclear weapon states agreed to proceed with total nuclear disarmament, under Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and in return for which the non-nuclear weapon states under the NPT would, again, not build their own weapons. They would prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. And everyone would work to promote peaceful uses of the atom, whether in nuclear energy, or agriculture, manufacturing, mining industry, et cetera, promoting—or medical uses as well—promoting peaceful uses of the atom. So those are what are called the three pillars of the NPT: disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses. So that was agreed in 1972. And working in that multilateral way was important, but there was also an impetus given in this commitment to disarmament for the United States and the Soviet Union to get together and to begin to negotiate bilaterally the two together on limiting their nuclear weapons. We built up a tremendous nuclear arsenal during the Cold War years. At the time that we were beginning to talk to the Soviets about limiting nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon delivery systems, missiles and bombers, submarines—at that time, in the late 1960s, we had about 32,000 nuclear warheads, if you can imagine that. And the Soviets built up their stockpile to be about 40,000 nuclear warheads. So there were tremendous numbers of nuclear weapons being held in storage, but there were also tremendous numbers that were deployed. So we worked steadily from that period, the 1970s into the 1980s, to try to limit nuclear weapons. Didn't work so well. There are various reasons why. Most specifically, I think, we were just driving harder and harder with more effective missiles to deploy more warheads on those missiles. And so, by the time we got into the 1980s, we had about 12,000 warheads deployed on missiles and deployed or designated for deployment on bombers. The Soviets the same, about 12,000. Now, remember those numbers I gave you, 32,000 total, 40,000 total in the USSR. We held a lot of weapons in storage, not on top of missiles, not on top of delivery vehicles, as we called them. They were just held in storage. But we also then had 12,000 deployed on missiles and pointed at each other in a very high-readiness state. So we had got through the 1970s and 1980s not blowing each other up, but we also didn't have much success limiting those systems because there was this technological jump ahead, being able to put more warheads on individual missile systems. So, that's when Reagan and Gorbachev entered the scene. In the mid-1980s they got together. Reagan had not been very easy on the USSR when he came into office. He declared the USSR the “evil empire.” And he drove hard military modernization that included some nuclear modernization as well. The sclerotic Soviet leadership at that time, they were dying off one by one. First it was Brezhnev, then it was Andropov, then there was a third fellow. They all went very, very quickly. And Gorbachev took over in the mid-1980s. And he and Reagan actually then got together and began to talk about how they might reduce—not try to limit, because limit wasn't good enough. The technology was always pushing ahead. But how could we actually begin to reduce nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, and the missiles we put them on? So that was the negotiations that began in the 1980s for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and also the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which finally entered into force in 1994. And that treaty, once again, took the number of deployed warheads on both sides down from 12,000 deployed warheads on each side to 6,000 deployed warheads on each side. If you think about one of these warheads, a single warhead is enough to destroy a city. It's nothing like what we're seeing in Ukraine today. Sadly, such horrible destruction and the really barbaric attacks on civilian targets like this maternity hospital yesterday. I'm just heartbroken about this, as I'm sure many of you are. But that was a big bomb that was really directed at a single facility and was very destructive. But if you can imagine a nuclear weapon, that could really pulverize—pulverize—the center of a city. And that's what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, when the United States was the only country to use nuclear weapons in wartime. And that is what has led to this nuclear taboo that has been pretty clear, because it was recognized these are weapons of mass destruction. They completely pulverize, and many, many lives lost. And those who are left living, as it was said at the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would envy the dead because of the severity of their injuries. So, people were recognizing that we had too many deployed warheads. We had 12,000 pointed at each other on a high state of alert. So getting them down to 6,000 on each side was important. That was the goal of the START treaty. Then in the early 2000s, in 2002, President Bush and President—believe it or not—Putin at that time decided in the Moscow Treaty on a further reduction. That took us down to 2,200 deployed warheads on both sides. And then the treaty that I worked on negotiating, the New START treaty in 2009 and 2010, took us down to 1,550 deployed warheads on both the U.S. and Russian sides. So 12,000 down to 1,550. That's a pretty good disarmament record. And it all sprang from that short, sharp shock of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now, sixty years later, it's a tragedy, but we seem to be facing another crisis on par with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Vladimir Putin has been rattling the nuclear saber. We are very concerned, not necessarily about a big nuclear exchange between the United States and the Russian Federation, but about some smaller strike, perhaps use of a nuclear weapon on Ukrainian territory, perhaps a so-called demonstration strike, where Russia would launch a nuclear explosion over the Black Sea, for example, just to prove that they're willing to do it. And so, at the moment, we are facing these nuclear threats out of the Kremlin with a lot of concern, but also very serious attitude about how we sustain and maintain nuclear deterrence at this moment of supreme crisis in Ukraine, and ensure that we continue to deter Russia from taking these disastrous actions with weapons of mass destruction. But also think about ways—how can we go forward from here to preserve what we have achieved in these sixty years since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This great foundation of big nuclear international regimes that we have been able to put in place—such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, that means the only country that has tested nuclear weapons in this century is North Korea. There is a taboo against nuclear testing that is strongly held, the taboo against nuclear use has held since Hiroshima and Nagasaki over seventy-five years ago. And now, we are looking at ensuring that we sustain and maintain the Nonproliferation Treaty regime so that we do not see a lot of new nuclear weapon states emerging across the globe. Just one thing I forgot to mention—President Kennedy spoke quite a bit about these things. I think the Cuban Missile Crisis really for him personally was a big shock, and really provoked his thinking quite a bit—but he said, “We need this Nonproliferation Treaty because otherwise we're going to end up with twenty, twenty-five nuclear weapon states around the world. And that will be hugely destabilizing.” So the Nonproliferation Treaty regime, although we pay attention to the rogue states, the DPRKs [Democratic People's Republic of Koreas], the Irans, of course. It looks like we may be now returning to the Iran nuclear deal. I certainly hope so. We also need Iranian oil at this moment, which is another matter. But we have a couple of nuclear rogues out there. But, in general, we have prevented the proliferation of nuclear weapons, thanks to the Nonproliferation Treaty regime. We need to do everything we can at this moment to preserve and protect these important big regimes. And that goes not only for nuclear, but also the so-called other weapons of mass destruction. The Chemical Weapons Convention bans the use of chemicals in wartime. Not only chemical weapons, that is chemical designed to be used as weapons, but also what we've been seeing in Syria, the use of chlorine gas in wartime. That is forbidden by the Chemical Weapons Convention as well. So we need these big regimes to continue—the Biological Weapons Convention, the same. So I really wanted to stress this point as we get to our discussion period, because it's going to take a lot of attention and effort if Russia is now turning its back on playing a responsible role in the international community. If Russia is turning into a very big pariah state, as I argued yesterday in a piece in Foreign Affairs, we need to figure out what we are going to do, losing Russia as a partner. Because Russia has actually been a great player in negotiating all these treaties and agreements. But if Russia is turning its back on a responsible role in the international community, then the United States has to look for other partners. I would argue that we should be really approaching Beijing. They are, after all, a nuclear weapon state under the Nonproliferation Treaty. And historically they have been a rather responsible nuclear weapon state under the Nonproliferation Treaty, joining in efforts to advance the goals of nuclear disarmament. So it's hard, because at the moment, as you know, Beijing and Washington have been at great odds over any number of issues—Taiwan, trade and investment, human rights with the Uyghurs. So many issues we've been at odds over. But I think the moment has come where we need to think about how we are going to preserve these weapons of mass destruction regimes, the nuclear regimes, the testing—the ban against nuclear testing. How are we going to preserve it in the face of Russia as a pariah state? And that means, I think, we must partner with China. So those are my remarks to begin with. I see we have a few questions already. And I'm really looking forward to our discussion. Irina, back over to you. FASKIANOS: Rose, thank you very much. So let's start with a raised hand from Babak Salimitari. And please state your institution and unmute yourself. Q: Good morning. My name is Babak Salimitari. I'm a third-year economics major at University of California, Irvine. And my question really pertains with NATO as a force for international security. I was looking at the list of countries that were not paying the 2 percent of their necessary GDP for defense. And these are some rich countries, like Norway, and the Netherlands, and Germany. These aren't poor, third-world countries. I don't understand why they don't pay their fair share. So when you were in NATO, what did you tell these people? GOTTEMOELLER: That's a very good question, Babak. And, honestly, it's been great for me to watch now with this otherwise terrible crisis in Ukraine—it's been great for me to watch that countries who were very resistant of paying their 2 percent of GDP are now stepping forward and saying they are ready to do so. And Germany is the prime example. President Trump was very insistent on this matter, and very much threatening dire action by the United States, including that the United States would fail to honor its so-called Article 5 commitments to NATO, which that is—under the founding document of NATO, the so-called Washington Treaty of 1949, Article 5 states that if a single country in the NATO alliance is attacked, then all countries must—and it asks for help, there's that important point too—if it asks for help then other NATO countries are obliged to come to its assistance in defending it. So President Trump was threatening that the United States would not fulfill its Article 5 commitments. He was very tough on this matter. I was the deputy secretary-general at NATO during the years of the Trump presidency. My boss and I, Jens Stoltenberg and I, always welcomed President Trump's pressure on these matters, because every single U.S. president, again, since Jack Kennedy—I'll go back to him. There's a great—now in the public domain—a great report of a National Security Council meeting where John Kennedy says, “I am tired of these NATO European freeloaders. We spend all the money on defense; they take our defenses and don't build up their own. And they're freeloading, they're freeriding on us.” So every single U.S. president has raised this issue with the allies. But it was Donald Trump who got them to really sit up and take notice in the first instance. So President—I'm sorry—Secretary-General Stoltenberg and I always supported his efforts, although we were not supportive of his drawing any question about U.S. obligations with regard to Article 5. But we supported his efforts to push the allies on paying 2 percent of GDP. A number of them did step up during the Trump years, and so more were paying 2 percent of GDP now with this crisis. Unfortunately, again, it's taken a dire crisis in Ukraine. But we see even Germany stepping up. Just one final word on Germany. At the time, when I was DSG, they kept saying, well 2 percent of our GDP, we are the most enormous economy in Europe. And if we spend 2 percent of GDP, then other countries are going to start worrying about casting back to the past and remembering Nazi Germany, and thinking about the big military buildup in the 1930s. So we don't want that to happen. So that was very deeply ingrained in the political elites in Berlin. But now, we're seeing that 180-degree switch just in the last ten days. I think it's remarkable. But I welcome it, for one, that they are now willing to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. FASKIANOS: Great. I'm going to take the next question, a written question, from Caleb Kahila, undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. One issue that I don't hear much about is the actions of individuals involved in nuclear weapons. An example is Abdul Qadeer Khan, who leads the Pakistani nuclear program but is also believed to have given nuclear information to Iran, North Korea, among others. With examples like Khan, should the international community take the issue of individual nuclear proliferation more seriously? GOTTEMOELLER: That is a great question. And indeed, certain individuals have had a profoundly malignant effect on nuclear nonproliferation. It is worthwhile to note that the Nonproliferation Treaty—the membership is very wide, but there are a few outliers. And India and Pakistan are both outliers. And I think for some weird reason, Khan felt justified in being an outlier to share nuclear weapons information with a number of countries, including also Libya, as I understand. So there was this notion I think that he had, almost an ideological notion—he's dead now—but an ideological notion of producing an Islamic bomb to counter both the Indians, their mortal enemies, but also to ensure that the rest of the world did not mess with Pakistan, and also did not mess with the rest of the Muslim world, the Islamic world. So it was, I think, very clear that this one malignant individual had an enormous deleterious effect on the nonproliferation regime. We have been able to, I think, place constraints and dial back in many ways from some of his export activities, including when the Libyans were willing to give up their weapons of mass destruction programs. But you're absolutely right that it necessary to pay attention to individuals—powerful individuals, they have to be—who have that kind of access. And luckily, they are fairly rare. But we have to pay attention to the individuals who could make a very big problem for the nonproliferation regime. I do worry nowadays about the North Koreans, about the DPRK. The trouble is, they are themselves bent on acquiring nuclear bombs. And if they give away their fissile material, for example. One of the big barriers to getting a bomb is you need a significant amount of either highly enriched uranium or plutonium. And it's rather difficult to acquire. So if the DPRK were going to get into this business of giving away their expertise, the next question would be, well, how about some fissile material to back that up? And I dare say, they'd rather keep all their fissile material for themselves. But that's a very good question, Caleb. Thank you for that. FASKIANOS: I'm going to go next Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké Okome at Brooklyn College. Q: Thank you very much. Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké Okome. And I teach political science at Brooklyn College. And I have two issues that are kind of bothering me. One is, what are the chances that Russia will turn its back on the NPT in totality, and on other weapons regimes in this war? And then, besides an alliance with China, what are the other options for the U.S.? The second thing is, would Russia have been so bold to invade Ukraine if Ukraine hadn't destroyed its weapons—it's nuclear weapons and joined the NPT? I remember a Mearsheimer article in Foreign Affairs, I think, where he was giving a very unpopular view at that time that nuclear—destroying nuclear weapons in the Ukraine was a bad idea, because there was a need to kind of have a defense against Russia's potential invasion of the Ukraine. This was in the 1990s. And now it seems like he was right. So I'm just wondering what you think of these two issues. GOTTEMOELLER: Very good questions, Dr. Okome. And very difficult ones. But let me start on your first question. I argued yesterday in my Foreign Affairs article that I don't think it's so much that Russia would actually leave the regimes. I don't believe that they would turn their backs on the regimes by leaving them. What I believe, though, is that they will just prove to be not the good partner they have been historically. Historically they have really been, as I put it in the article, a giant of the nonproliferation regime, always looking for solutions for problems. Helping to drive forward top priorities, not only in the Nonproliferation Treaty but in what I call the wider regime, which includes these other treaties and agreements, including our bilateral treaties, the New START treaty is currently still in force, thank God. So I do worry that now they would instead turn to a more negative role, perhaps a wrecker role, in trying to stymie decision making in the regime implementation bodies, and trying to be mischievous in the way they interact with the rest of the regime members. And for that reason, I think we will need to have strong leadership. And the United States will need allies. And so that is why I have been emphasizing looking to China as a possible ally in what will be a very difficult, very difficult time going forward. But I do feel very sure that we must have as a top objective, a top priority preserving these regimes and agreements. Your second question, let me say a few words about the so-called Budapest Memorandum. I was involved in negotiating it. I worked for President Clinton in the 1990s. I was convinced at the time, I remain convinced, that what the Budapest Memorandum bought Ukraine was thirty years of peace and stability to build itself up as an independent and sovereign nation. We, in the Clinton administration, argued to Ukraine at the time that if they tried to hang on to the nuclear weapons that were left on their territory after the breakup of the Soviet Union, that they would end up in an immediate conflict with Russia that would be destabilizing and would not allow their fragile, young democracy to take root. And I still believe that very strongly. For those of you who don't remember those years, when the Soviet Union broke apart, over a thousand warheads were left on Ukrainian territory, over a thousand warheads were left on Kazakh territory, Kazakhstan, and approximately a hundred warheads were left in Belarus. So there—and there were strategic delivery vehicles. There were intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) deployed in all three countries, and there were bombers deployed in Ukraine. So there were weapon systems that needed to be destroyed and eliminated. And in this case, we got the Ukrainians to agree to join the Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. Their warheads were returned to Russia for down-blending to low-enriched uranium, which was then used in—(laughs)—it's ironic—but it was used for power plant fuel for the nuclear power plants in Ukraine. I do want to stress that at that time there was a very cooperative negotiation going on. And our assumption working—it was with the Russians and the Ukrainians and the Americans together. We were all working on this problem together in good faith. And it was a very, very positive effort overall. I still believe that Ukraine would have been caught immediately in the maelstrom of conflict with Russia if they had tried somehow to hang onto those weapons. And technically, it would not have been easy, because the command and control of all those missiles was in Moscow. It was not in Ukraine. They would have had to try to guillotine themselves from the command-and-control system in Moscow and build up a command-and-control system in Ukraine for these nuclear weapon systems. And it was our judgment, it remains my judgment, that it would have been very destructive for the young Ukrainian state, the young Ukrainian democracy to try to hang on to them. And I do think that they have taken shape as an independent power, not entirely healthy economically but, before this terrible crisis, their economy was growing. And so I do think that what we are seeing today, with the brave—very brave defense of Ukraine by the Ukrainian public, and its armed forces, and first and foremost its president—that was all born out of the thirty years that the Ukrainians got to build up their country as an independent and sovereign state. And, again, they would not have had that if they had insisted in the 1990s on holding onto nuclear weapons. FASKIANOS: Great. I'm going to take a written question from Michael Strmiska, who is associate professor of world history at Orange County Community College in New York State. I'm going to shorten it. In essence, the Biden administration has said they will not impose a no-fly zone, as have other nations. And then we recently saw the Polish fighter jets via the U.S. to Ukraine. They have declined on that. So at what point do you think—there's been a lot of talk that either one of those will trigger a nuclear war. And in his question he says: Putin says “nuke” and we run and hide. If the death toll in Ukraine approaches the levels of the Holocaust, do you think the calculus will change? And do you think that this—that would trigger nuclear war? GOTTEMOELLER: Well, it's a complex question, Dr. Strmiska. Let me—let me try to give you my point of view on it. I'll just say, first of all, that I don't think we're running and hiding at all. We have sustained—and when I say “we” I'm still talking as if I'm NATO DSG. (Laughs.) But what I mean is the United States and its NATO allies have been providing a steady stream of military assistance to Ukraine, and a steady stream of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and also to the countries bordering Ukraine—Moldova, Hungary, Poland—that are—that are sheltering refugees from Ukraine. So we are really, I think, continuing to support them in, so far, pretty amazing ways. I have been talking to some military experts this morning, retired military officers here in the United States. And they think Putin and the Russians may be running out of ammo. We'll see to it that the Ukrainians do not run out of ammo. And so we are doing a lot to help them. And in terms of the deterrence messaging that's gone on, I've actually been rather admiring of the way that the administration has been clear about, and firm, about the dangers of rattling the nuclear saber, but also has been very clear that we are not taking steps ourselves to up the readiness of our nuclear forces, nor will we do so. They, the White House and the Department of Defense (DOD), basically postponed an ICBM test this week to ensure that there was no hint of a message that we, ourselves, are escalating. But we've been very firm and clear that nuclear use of any kind would be crossing, for us, a redline that is significant. So now let me get to your question about the no-fly zone, because I think this is—this is a complex question. It's turned into this kind of cause célèbre in the media, the press. You're watching the twenty-four-hour news cycle. All of us are, like, glued to our televisions right now, it's so horrible what is unfolding before us in Ukraine. So everybody's saying, no-fly zone, no-fly zone, no-fly zone. But when you look at it, the Russians aren't actually flying aircraft very much in Ukraine. These missiles are being delivered from Russian territory, from Belarusian territory, from ships in the Black Sea, and some now from Ukrainian territory in Donetsk and Luhansk in the eastern part of the country. But the vast majority—yesterday, the count was over 670 missiles. The vast majority of them have come from Russia. The Ukrainians don't need a no-fly zone right now. They need missile defenses. And so some of the actions that have been taken, for example, by the—by the U.K. government, for example, to get into their hands some handheld capability—now, these are not going to go after those big missiles, like the terrible explosion at the maternity hospital yesterday. That was caused by a very big missile. But some—they can be useful to defend their skies against some smaller—some smaller projectiles. And I think that's going to be important, those kinds of steps. I wish there were a way to get the Ukrainians the Israeli Iron Dome system. That's the best missile defense system around for short- to medium-range missiles. But I have my doubts that—(laughs)—the Israelis are going to want to get involved in this thing. But that's the point. This is not an air superiority problem at the moment. It is a problem of missile attacks. And so we need to do, I think, what we can to, again, get some help to the—to the Ukrainians. But we've got to be clear in our own mind what kind of help they really need. We'll see. This could change. And the Russians are upping their activity, so it may turn into more of an air battle than it has been up to this point. But I think it's really good to think harder about what the actual threat to Ukraine is today, rather than just being so fixated on a no-fly zone. FASKIANOS: Thank you. That's an important clarification. Let's go now to Kazi Sazid, who has raised his hand. Q: Hello. So I'm a political science student at CUNY Hunter College, just right next to CFR, actually. So my question is, we've seen in the past in how geopolitics and geopolitical biases obscures if not manipulates the reality of certain threats to international security and cooperation. One example is Nixon destabilizing the Allende government because there's a fear that socialism triumphed the narrative that socialism can only happen through dictatorships basically falls flat. So my question is, what avenues and mechanisms are available to ensure that security situations are not sensationalized to the point where people believe it is a bigger threat than it truly is? Sorry if that's a loaded question. GOTTEMOELLER: Well, it's a good question because it points to the information/misinformation space. And I think we've all been thinking about that a lot right now. And the United States and its NATO allies I think in the run up to the invasion actually were doing a pretty good job controlling the information space by, for example, undoing these false-flag operations that the Russians were trying to launch in the run-up to the invasion. They were actually apparently on the cusp of trying to replace the Zelenskyy government with their own puppet government. All of this was outed by some very astute use of intelligence by, again, the U.S. and the U.K., and getting it out into the information space. So in the run-up to the invasion, we were actually winning the misinformation war. Nowadays, I'm a little concerned about a couple of things. First, I'm concerned—well, there's so much to talk about here, but let me—let me just give it a shot, Kazi. We have to be concerned about the fact that Vladimir Putin is closed up in his bubble with his small cohort and is not getting sources of information that may cause him to think twice about what he's doing. And that is of concern when you're trying to deter the man, when you're trying to ensure that he knows that there will be a firm response. I don't think he had any idea—and maybe even today doesn't have any idea—at the strong pushback and the very capable pushback he's getting from the Ukrainian armed forces. They are defending their country well. And the Ukrainian public is joining in on that effort. Putin, in his bubble, just did not realize that. And now I'm not sure he's getting the information that would really help him to understand the situation that his armed forces are in right now. If, as my military experts conveyed this morning, they're beginning to run low on missiles, they're beginning to run low on ammunition, it's going to be a problem. They're going to start doing worse, rather than being able to pick up the pace, as we were talking about a moment ago, and as many people expect. So that's number one problem, is how is that deterrence messaging thing working with the Kremlin right now? The second thing I'd point to, though, is how do we reach the Russian people? Everybody takes note of the fact that all the—the internet backbone is closing down now in Ukraine. Harder and harder for Russians who are interested to get independent news that is not the product of state TV and state radio, state propaganda outlets. So how to get that message across is one that is really, really important. But I note at the same time, there was a poll that came out yesterday that was so interesting to me. It said, 58 percent of Russians support the war. And they say, well, that's pretty good. 58 percent of Russians support the war? But then when you think about it, there were a lot of “I don't knows” in that—in that poll as well. And when people don't want to say publicly what they really think they may say “I don't know,” or “I don't have an opinion on this matter.” Fifty-eight percent, when you juxtapose it against the support for the invasion of Crimea in 2014, is extraordinarily low. There was over 90 percent support for the invasion of Crimea in 2014. And now we're looking at 58 percent against the war—no, I'm sorry—it's 58 percent support the war. Sorry about that. And then a bunch of “I don't knows” in there, or “I don't want to comment” in there. So I think that there is an issue here about trying to talk directly to the Russian people. And the president has discussed that already in public. And I think we need to do better about figuring out how to reach the Russian people, especially now that social media's being shut down, other, I would say, more open forms of internet communications are being—are being shut down. We need to figure out how to message the Russian people as well. And finally, I'm not sure I'm actually answering your question, but I think—I think it's time that we start pivoting. We, the United States and NATO, to a more positive overall message of global leadership. That this is about our values and this is about what we want the world to be like in the years going forward. Let's talk about what we would need to support an independent Ukraine, no matter what. And let's talk about how we see the necessity of democratic principles and the rule of law being reenergized, restrengthened by this terrible crisis. I think we need to get a message out there about how we have a positive agenda, and we will push to pursue it, come what may. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Our next question is from Susie Risk, a first-year economics student at West Virginia University. Do you believe economic sanctions from the West on Russia is a viable way to slow Russia's advance on Ukraine? From my understanding they are mostly affecting civilians in the country, not those attacking Ukraine. And what are the other ways states like the U.S. could affect Russia in a nonviolent way? GOTTEMOELLER: I actually think the coherence of these sanctions across the board have turned them into a powerful instrument to both convey to the Kremlin, to the Russian government, and to the Russian people that they are on the wrong course. The coherence of them—there aren't any workarounds left. And in fact, even in the case of the Europeans, for example, saying that they can only cut back partially on their purchases of Russian oil because they cannot—they can't do without Russian oil and gas at the moment, but they say they're going to cut by 65 percent by the end of the year. OK, that's great, but what I'm hearing is, again, this status of the Russian Federation now as being the invader, being the country that has taken these wrong steps and is so deserving of these coherent sanctions across the board, that it is leading—like, the insurance industry—to think twice about insuring tankers that are picking up Russian oil. And so it's leading to ports messaging that they will not offload Russian oil. So despite the fact that they are still selling oil, the overall behavior of the Russian Federation and the way it is now wrapped in this coherent sanctions regime, is leading, I think, to a situation where, yeah, sure, they're going to continue to put some oil through—gas and oil through the pipelines into Europe. And they, I think, may be more likely to continue pushing that, rather than trying to turn the tap on and off, as they've done historically to try to pressure the Europeans. I think they'll be wanting to sell their gas and oil. But I think increasingly, on the stock market and in other settings, they are going to have a harder and harder time pushing oil sales, gas and oil sales. So you see this coherent sanctions regime as having knock-on effects that I think will have an even greater effect on the Russian economy, even on the Russian oil economy. FASKIANOS: It's been pretty amazing to watch the sanctions both from governments and from private—as you said—private companies and social media companies pulling out. Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and all of that, to try to—and the ruble has devalued. I think it is pretty much devalued to the very bottom. GOTTEMOELLER: Well, that's a great—that's a great point too, Irina. And particularly mentioning the sanctions against the central bank have had a profound effect. Russian rating has gone to junk—it's gone below junk bond status now, and so they're not rated anymore by the big rating companies. So it's had a profound effect on the Russian economy overall. And so, I'm wondering about—they've got very good technocrats running their banking system. That was always, I think, one of the things Putin was very proud about in coming out of the 2014 invasion of Crimea with a lot of sanctions slapped on him. He basically turned his country inward and said we are going to be more self-sufficient now and you, the bankers, you do what you can to ensure that we have lots of reserves, a rainy-day fund, that we are protected from shocks in future. Well, what happened in sanctioning the central bank is 70 percent of that rainy-day fund is held in Western financial institutions, and those now have placed blocks on the Russians getting their hands on their—on their financial reserves. So I think those steps have been coherent and very strong and have led to this really tanking of the Russian economy. FASKIANOS: Right. And with the sanctions now affecting the oligarchs and the well-to-do in Russia, that also could bring pressure on Putin—assuming they can get close enough to him—because, as you said, he is very much in a bubble that probably has been exacerbated by the two-year pandemic that we all have been living through. I'm going to go next to Nancy Gallagher, with a raised hand. Nancy, over to you. There we go. Q: I'd love to go back to the history that you started with briefly as a way of thinking about the future. And you've spent your entire career, basically, thinking about what mix of toughness and cooperation is appropriate for our relations with Russia or the Soviet Union at any given time. And even during the worst periods that you talked about, there was still some tacit cooperation that was going on to make sure—or to try to reduce the risks of a nuclear war that neither side really wanted. So it's never been 100 percent confrontation. And I'm just wondering, as you think about our relationship with Russia now, whether you've essentially written Russia off for the indefinite future or if you think that we should be continuing to think about ways of simultaneously being as tough as we need to right now, but also not completely closing the door on cooperation either to keep the risks of escalation under control now or to improve the prospects for reengagement with Russia in the future. GOTTEMOELLER: Thank you for that question, Nancy, and thank you so much for joining this call. The other half of my Foreign Affairs piece yesterday talked about this and really stressed, as strongly as I could, that we need to do everything we can to keep Russia at the nuclear, both arms control and also nonproliferation regime tables, that we need to do everything—for one thing, Russia, as I mentioned, has been a giant of these regimes. They are really very good diplomats and negotiators who work these issues, and they can help to find solutions. They have helped to find solutions throughout the fifty years since we began seriously negotiating bilaterally in the Strategic Arms Limitation agreement of the 1970s, agreed in 1972. From that time forward to the present day, fifty years we've had this great relationship at the negotiating table. We haven't agreed by any means at every step of the way, and sometimes we've been in negative territory, but we've always slowly and steadily driven forward on nuclear disarmament objectives. So I think we need to do everything we can to preserve that, and I am hopeful that we can do so. Even in the depths of this horrendous crisis, the Russians have been continuing—although with some issues coming up in recent days over sanctions—but they've been continuing to try to resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal. And I've got my fingers and toes crossed that, in fact, we will resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal. Now, the Russians maybe were reluctant at the moment because I think the United States is seeing the potential for Iranian oil to start to flow again, which would help with this cutoff that we've embraced of our purchases of Russian oil and gas. So there's a whole bunch of issues there. But the point I wanted to make is, despite this severe disagreement and a really dire crisis over Ukraine, in this particular case we've been able to continue to work together more or less positively, and that has been the history of this. Nuclear weapons are an existential threat to our survival and to the survival of Russia, clearly, but also to humankind. If we suddenly have a massive nuclear exchange, the effect on humankind overall is going to be dire. So for that reason, that existential threat has continued to place us together at the negotiating table to try to find solutions here. So I do hope that we can work our way through this and find ourselves back at the table with the Russians before too long to negotiate a replacement for the New START Treaty, which goes out of force in 2026, and to work on other issues, such as a replacement for the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which we withdrew from after Russian violations in 2019. But I think there are actually some good proposals on the table about how we return to constraints on intermediate-range ground-launched missiles. The Russians initiated some of those. Again, they are good diplomats and they are good policymakers in this realm, so I would hate to do without them. But what spurred my concern in the first place and what led to the article was this message that Dmitry Medvedev put out two weeks ago when he said, well, maybe we ought to, just withdraw from the New START Treaty and maybe we ought to just kick the embassies out of Moscow and hang—kick all the diplomats out and hang big padlocks on the embassies. Maybe we don't need the world was his message, and that's what alarmed me, so that's why I was talking about the worst case. But I do hope we can keep the Russians at the table. FASKIANOS: And just to pick up, Doru Tsaganea, an associate professor at the Metropolitan College of New York, has a question about China. And there have been reports that Xi asked Putin to hold off the invasion until after the Olympics in Beijing. There seems to be alliance between China and Russia, and now some—maybe China coming back can be—I mean, the way to bring—to give Putin an off ramp is via China. You just wrote this article in Foreign Affairs about—and you've mentioned how we can leverage—really get China in the mix to help give Putin an off ramp. Can you talk a little bit more about that dynamic? GOTTEMOELLER: Yes. Again, I started thinking about this—well, I was thinking about it during their appearance together at the Olympics—at the Olympics opening ceremony. Doesn't that seem like twenty years ago now? February 4, it was. FASKIANOS: It does. (Laughs.) GOTTEMOELLER: But, clearly, they have a joint agenda. They'll be working together on some things. But I was actually—at the time, I was actually quite positively impressed that what they did talk about—the one thing they talked about in the arms-control realm was beginning to put in place constraints on ground-launched intermediate-range missiles not only in Europe, but also in Asia. And I thought, wow, now that's interesting. If there's going to be, you know, generally Eurasian constraints on ground-launched intermediate range missiles, that's a really interesting development. And so I came away from February 4, rather positively impressed that we might be able to do something with both Russia and China in that regard. But fast forward to the 24 of February and the invasion of Ukraine, and here in—just a few days after that terrible day, the foreign minister of Ukraine, Mr. Kuleba, phoned his counterpart in Beijing and asked for facilitation again of diplomacy with Russia. And at least from the readouts of that meeting, slightly less forward-leaning on the Chinese side but not contradicting anything Kuleba said, the Chinese seemed to indicate a willingness to facilitate diplomacy. It does—I don't know what's going on behind the scenes. In diplomacy, it's always better if you don't know what's going on behind the scenes—(laughs)—if it is quiet diplomacy, if it's not out in public, if it's not this—one of the reasons why I was pretty—well, we all hoped against hope regarding no invasion. But, the Russians seemed to be in bad faith from December on because they kept playing at megaphone diplomacy—putting out their proposals to the public and the press, and even leaking U.S. answers in some cases. So they were clearly not playing a proper diplomatic game, which is quiet diplomacy behind the scenes trying to make quiet progress. So I hope that this Chinese facilitation has begun. I have no hint of it at the moment, but I certainly think that it could be—it could be a productive way to begin to develop some new off ramp. We've tried a lot off ramps with Putin and it hasn't worked, but maybe the Chinese can help us develop another way of approaching this matter. Finally, I will just take note of the fact that there are other facilitators in the game. For example, President Erdoğan of Turkey has been very active, and today there is a meeting between the foreign ministers of—again, Kuleba, foreign minister of Ukraine, and Foreign Minister Lavrov of Russia in Turkey. I, for one, I haven't seen any reports of it. You may have seen reports of the outcome, Irina, but I think that that—that kind of facilitation is important, and I hope it will continue. We all want to see diplomacy taking precedence over the bombing of innocent civilians in Ukraine. FASKIANOS: Right. There are a lot more questions, and I—we can't get to them. I apologize. But I don't want to—and we are at the end of our time, but I just want to give you an opportunity and give the students to hear your thoughts on public service. You've devoted your—mostly your entire career to it. You're now teaching. You have a lecturer spot at Stanford, so you're clearly working with students. And what you would say about public service. GOTTEMOELLER: I was so privileged to have the opportunity to serve both President Clinton and President Obama. I think if you can in your career do a stint of public service it will be absolutely a wonderful experience for you. Now, sometimes bureaucracies can be pretty frustrating, but it's worth—it's worth the price of admission, I would say, to begin to operate inside that system, to begin to figure out how to make progress, and it is the way you put ideas into action. You know, from the outside I can write all the op-eds I want to, and, yeah, some of them may get picked up by somebody inside the government. But when you're working inside the government, you can really put ideas into action from the lowest levels, even if you have a chance to be an intern at the State Department or in one of the other agencies of government, you can begin to get a flavor for this. But you might be surprised that they're asking for your opinion because you all at the, I would say, less-old—(laughs)—end of the spectrum have a lot of good new ideas about how the world should work going forward. And particularly I think this problem I talked about, how to communicate now directly with the Russian people, for example, you've got the skills and savvy to help people inside government to understand how to—how to do that effectively. So you've got some special skills, I think, that are much needed at the present time. So I would not shy away from some time in government. People often ask me, well, won't I get trapped there? I think your generation will not get trapped there just because you already think about the world of work differently. You're not going to be a lifer in any organization. You don't want to start in the State Department and work there for forty years. You'll be working, in—maybe in Silicon Valley; and then you go work for Capitol Hill, the Congress; then you may go into government for a little while, the executive branch; and then back to—back to the corporate world. So I know that you'll be thinking quite differently about how to build your careers, but don't shy away from public service. It's a very good experience and it's where you can make a difference. FASKIANOS: Well, with that, Rose Gottemoeller, thank you very much for being with us today and for sharing your expertise and analysis. We really appreciate it. And giving us a historical context, which is so valuable to understanding where we are today. You can follow Rose on Twitter at @gottemoeller. Our next Academic Webinar will be on Wednesday, March 23, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Jody Freeman at Harvard University will talk about global climate policy. We will send out the link to this discussion—the video, transcript—as well as the link to Rose's Foreign Affairs article so you can read it if you didn't have a chance. It was in yesterday's background. And I encourage you to follow us on Twitter at @CFR_academic, and go to CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. So thank you all again and thank you, Rose. GOTTEMOELLER: Thank you. Thanks for a great discussion. (END)

Price Van Ray supervises Hakeem and Reggie Brown.  These two kids  talk about  the Ukraine and the Budapest Memorandum.  This is something that 99% of Americans do not know anything about.  Ukraine is in an uproar.   This is an important episode for all the youth out there today.  Listen to what two young African American boys  have to say about this matter .  . . . Pop City Culture By Kids for Kids!

Negar Mortazavi speaks with Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear expert at the IISS and former acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Non-Proliferation, about Russia's attack on Ukraine, threats of a nuclear standoff, the Budapest Memorandum, Chernobyl, and the current Iran nuclear talks in Vienna. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/theiranpodcast/message

More from Dr. Victoria Malko on the war in Ukraine. Here Dr. Malko discusses The Budapest Memorandum (an agreement between the U.S., Great Britain and the Russian Federation), the real endgame for Vladimir Putin, his prolific propaganda machine and NATO. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More from Dr. Victoria Malko on the war in Ukraine. Here Dr. Malko discusses The Budapest Memorandum (an agreement between the U.S., Great Britain and the Russian Federation), the real endgame for Vladimir Putin, his prolific propaganda machine and NATO. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your timeline and analysis of the stories to follow on the Russo-Ukrainian War. We (briefly) armchair psychoanalyze Putin and the unexpected strength of U.S. intel, NATO cooperation (what's happening now? Is it too little too late?), and Ukrainian resistance. After a bit of history on the Budapest Memorandum, we walk through where and why sanctions go wrong. We look at energy independence as national defense, critique Europe's green hypocrisy, talk about the “other” nuclear option, and discuss how U.S. grand strategy can both return to its roots and adapt its modes for the 21st century: Re-orient our focus to defending sovereignty (not spreading democracy); practice strategic humility; and concentrate our resources on superior intel, cyberdeterrence, and irregular operations. Oh, and maybe don't let Russia broker the Iran nuclear deal.    We'll continue working to separate the signal from the noise and aggregate credible reports on what's newsworthy now. Follow us on Twitter for updates and summaries of top lines.  Watch the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGpswHOCPO0JiqBHHANoxbw  Follow the show on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CivilDiscordPod  Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/civildiscordpodcast Follow Amanda on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AjaxtheGriff Follow Maurice on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/callmemaurice

Los Angeles Times Ukraine Agrees to Give Up Its Nuclear Arsenal, NATO endorses the U.S. ‘Partnership for Peace' plan to broaden alliance. The year is 1994, Bill Clinton is President of the U.S. and Russia holds fears about Ukraine (apparently). In announcing both the Partnership for Peace plan and the trilateral agreement with the Ukraine and Russia, Clinton said, “we have taken two giant steps toward greater security for the United States.” It would allay Russia's fear of a hostile nuclear neighbour and answer concerns that Ukraine's nuclear weapons could wind up in the hands of other countries. The problem was, the memorandum signed in 1994 is not legally binding. At the time Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Oh how times have changed. Fox News This is my opinion. J Fallon Apple Music J Fallon Spotify --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jason-fallon/message

Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched an illegal, unjustified war against Ukraine and Putin himself is the only person who can stop the war immediately. In this episode, we seek to understand why President Putin has launched this horrific war in order to judge our country's ability to bring the war to a quicker end. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD244: Keeping Ukraine CD186: National Endowment for Democracy CD168: Nuclear Desperation Ukraine Civil War Alan MacLeod. Feb 22, 2022. “Documents Reveal US Spent $22 Million Promoting Anti-Russia Narrative in Ukraine & Abroad.” The Washington Standard. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Oct 8, 2021. “Conflict-related civilian casualties in Ukraine.” United Nations. Andrew Higgins and Peter Baker. Feb 6, 2014. “Russia Claims U.S. Is Meddling Over Ukraine.” The New York Times. NATO Expansion Becky Sullivan. Updated Feb 24, 2022. “How NATO's expansion helped drive Putin to invade Ukraine.” NPR. Henry Meyer and Ilya Arkhipov. Dec 17, 2021. “Russia Demands NATO Pullback in Security Talks With U.S.” Bloomberg. Joe Dyke. Mar 20, 2021. “NATO Killed Civilians in Libya. It's Time to Admit It.” Foreign Policy. NATO. Updated May 5, 2020. “Enlargement.” NATO. 2020. “The Secretary General's Annual Report.” National Security Archive. December 12, 2017. “NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard.” Arms Control Association. “The Debate Over NATO Expansion: A Critique of the Clinton Administration's Responses to Key Questions.” “Record of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow. (Excerpts.)” February 9, 1990. National Security Archive. “Ukraine: The Orange Revolution and the Yushchenko Presidency.” In The Encyclopedia Britannica. NATO in Ukraine Xinhua. Nov 14, 2021. “Ukraine, NATO countries hold naval drills in Black Sea.” News.cn Chad Menegay and Aimee Valles. Sept 22, 2021. “US, NATO, Ukraine enhance interoperability with Rapid Trident exercise.” NationalGuard.mil Reuters. April 3, 2021. “Ukraine and Britain to Hold Joint Military Drills.” U.S. News and World Report. NATO Allied Maritime Command. Mar 17, 2021. “NATO forces train with the Ukrainian Navy.” European Deterrence Initiative Paul Belkin and Hibbah Kaileh. Updated July 1, 2021. “The European Deterrence Initiative: A Budgetary Overview” [IF10946.] Congressional Research Service. Weapons Treaties TASS. Feb 21, 2022. “Europe won't understand Kiev talking of regaining nuclear weapons — Russian diplomat.” Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation. Updated March 2021. “Fact Sheet: Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.” Arms Control Association. Last reviewed August 2019. “The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at a Glance.” General Dynamics General Dynamics. “Corporate Governance: Board of Directors.” Russia-China Alliance Chen Aizhu. Feb 4, 2022. “Russia, China agree 30-year gas deal via new pipeline, to settle in euros.” Reuters. Robin Brant. Feb 4, 2022. “China joins Russia in opposing Nato expansion.” BBC News. Sanctions Matina Stevis-Gridneff. Feb 25, 2022. “European Leaders Agree to a Second Wave of Russia Sanctions.” The New York Times. Congressional Response Joe Gould. Feb 22, 2022. “Emergency funding proposal for Ukraine gets bipartisan backing in Congress.” Defense News. Reuters. Feb 25, 2022. “U.S. providing $600 mln for Ukraine defensive weapons -House Speaker Pelosi.” Reuters. Images State Property Fund of Ukraine USAID Partnership Audio Sources House Speaker Weekly Briefing February 23, 2022 YouTube Version Overview: At her weekly briefing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), along with several of her Democratic colleagues, talked about the situation in Ukraine and President Biden's sanctions after Russia recognized the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region. Clips 10:25 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Putin is terrified by the prospect of a democracy at his border. A democracy, giving an example to the Russian people of the kind of life and economy they might enjoy if they cast aside their own autocrat. This is, I think, one of the preeminent motivations of Vladimir Putin. 15:32 Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA): I chair the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign operations, which oversees many of the resources to assist the Ukrainian people through this crisis. This includes our economic assistance to Ukraine, including loan guarantees. Economic assistance would come through the economic support accounts for Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia, those of the accounts that would come through. Without getting in too many of the weeds, I wanted to just mention that because it's an effort that we're looking at now in terms of our funding. It also includes humanitarian plans, including funding for refugees, God forbid, and for those internally displaced by conflict. The administration has committed to us that in the event of conflict, there is a need over the next 12 months of at least $1 billion for humanitarian needs. So I support the efforts of the administration also to bolster Ukraine's economy, including the proposed $1 billion in loan guarantees to continue with Ukraine's economic reforms. 22:08 Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): I will just close by saying this: I had the privilege of going with President Clinton, who invited four members of Congress House and Senate, Democrat and Republican, the Senate Democrat was Senator Joe Biden. And we went to the expansion of NATO meeting in Paris. And it was all the heads of state of the then NATO countries who spoke and it was so beautiful because they all spoke in such a positive way about NATO. We thought like we were NATO and they were also NATO, they had ownership and agency in possession of the NATO possibilities. The representative of Russia who was there was Boris Yeltsin. And he was very ebullient, but he was welcoming to what was called was the expansion we had supported in our own country, the Baltic States, Poland, others countries becoming what was called the Partnership for Peace and it included many countries. Now Putin is saying push it back to pre-1997. Don't ever try to add another country and remove weapons out of Eastern Europe. That's what he wanted. No, that was not going to happen. 33:35 Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): What is this about? The people of Hung -- many of us have visited Ukraine and have seen that they love democracy. They do not want to live under Vladimir Putin. He does not want the Russian people to see what democracy looks like. And therefore he wants to bring them under his domain. 35:15 Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): When we talk about the president, he's doing the sanctions. He has a full picture of all this. As I said, he was present there the day of the expansion of NATO. I saw the respect he commanded then, and that was 1997, by the heads of state of all those countries, and of course, that has only grown over time, by his leadership, but also the expansion of NATO. I think we're very well served, I respect his judgement. And again, it's not just about when you do the sanctions, or how you support the people. It's about how the world views what Putin is doing. This is a very evil move on the part of Vladimir Putin. President Biden Remarks on Russia and Ukraine February 22, 2022 YouTube Version Transcript Overview: During an address, President Biden announced new sanctions against Russia in response to President Vladimir Putin sending Russian troops into separatist regions of Ukraine. Clips 1:57 President Biden So, today, I'm announcing the first tranche of sanctions to impose costs on Russia in response to their actions yesterday. These have been closely coordinated with our Allies and partners, and we'll continue to escalate sanctions if Russia escalates. We're implementing full blocking sanctions on two large Russian financial institutions: V.E.B. and their military bank. We're implementing comprehensive sanctions on Russian sovereign debt. That means we've cut off Russia's government from Western financing. It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either. Starting tomorrow [today] and continuing in the days ahead, we will also impose sanctions on Russia's elites and their family members. They share in the corrupt gains of the Kremlin policies and should share in the pain as well. And because of Russia's actions, we've worked with Germany to ensure Nord Stream 2 will not — as I promised — will not move forward. 3:23 President Biden: Today, in response to Russia's admission that it will not withdraw its forces from Belarus, I have authorized additional movements of U.S. forces and equipment already stationed in Europe to strengthen our Baltic Allies — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Let me be clear: These are totally defensive moves on our part. We have no intention of fighting Russia. We want to send an unmistakable message, though, that the United States, together with our Allies, will defend every inch of NATO territory and abide by the commitments we made to NATO. 4:22 President Biden: Russian forces remain positioned in Belarus to attack Ukraine from the north, including war planes and offensive missile systems. Russia has moved troops closer to Ukraine's border with Russia. Russia's naval vessels are maneuvering in the Black Sea to Ukraine's south, including amphibious assault ships, missile cruisers, and submarines. Russia has moved supplies of blood and medical equipment into position on their border. You don't need blood unless you plan on starting a war. 6:25 President Biden: I'm going to take robust action and make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at the Russian economy, not ours. We are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption. We're executing a plan in coordination with major oil-producing consumers and producers toward a collective investment to secure stability and global energy supplies. This will be — this will blunt gas prices. I want to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump. This is critical to me. 7:37 President Biden: Yesterday, the world heard clearly the full extent of Vladimir Putin's twisted rewrite of history, going back more than a century, as he waxed eloquently, noting that — well, I'm not going to go into it, but nothing in Putin's lengthy remarks indicated any interest in pursuing real dialogue on European security in the year 2022. 8:04 President Biden: He directly attacked Ukraine's right to exist. He indirectly threatened territory formerly held by Russia, including nations that today are thriving democracies and members of NATO. He explicitly threatened war unless his extreme demands were met. And there is no question that Russia is the aggressor. Russian President Putin Statement on Ukraine February 21, 2022 YouTube Version Transcript Overview: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced after a Security Council meeting that Russia would recognize the independence of the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine's Donbas region. Clips 00:15 President Putin: I would like to emphasise again that Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us – not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties. 1:22 President Putin: I would like to start by saying that the modern Ukraine was completely created by Russia. To be more exact, Bolshevist, partially communist Russia. This process started almost immediately after the 1917 revolutions, leading and planning and his group of supporters did it in a rough way. If we talk about Russia, they were alienating parts of historical territories of Russia. And millions of people who live there, obviously no one asked anything. Then before the Great Patriotic War, Stalin added to the USSR and handed over some lands that belonged to Poland and Hungary, and as a compensation gave some ancient German lands to Poland. And the 1960s crucial decision to take Crimea away from Russia and also gave it to Ukraine. That's how the territory of Soviet Ukraine was formed. 3:05 President Putin: We cannot help but react to this real threat, especially since I would like to reiterate that Western backers they can help Ukraine with getting this weapon to create yet another threat for our country because we can see how consistently they are pumping Ukraine with weapons. The United States alone starting from 2014 transferred billions of dollars including the arm supply training personnel. In recent months, Western weapons are sent to Ukraine given ceaselessly in front of the eyes of the entire world 7:05 President Putin: Actually, as I have already said, Soviet Ukraine is the result of the Bolsheviks' policy and can be rightfully called “Vladimir Lenin's Ukraine.” He was its creator and architect. This is fully and comprehensively corroborated by archival documents, including Lenin's harsh instructions regarding Donbass, which was actually shoved into Ukraine. And today the “grateful progeny” has overturned monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. They call it decommunization. You want decommunization? Very well, this suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show what real decommunizations would mean for Ukraine. 9:31 President Putin: Everything seemed to be working well in conditions of the totalitarian regime, and outwardly it looked wonderful, attractive and even super-democratic. And yet, it is a great pity that the fundamental and formally legal foundations of our state were not promptly cleansed of the odious and utopian fantasies inspired by the revolution, which are absolutely destructive for any normal state. 10:05 President Putin: It seems that the Communist Party leaders were convinced that they had created a solid system of government and that their policies had settled the ethnic issue for good. But falsification, misconception, and tampering with public opinion have a high cost. The virus of nationalist ambitions is still with us, and the mine laid at the initial stage to destroy state immunity to the disease of nationalism was ticking. As I have already said, the mine was the right of secession from the Soviet Union. 13:55 President Putin: Even two years before the collapse of the USSR, its fate was actually predetermined. It is now that radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence. As we can see, this is absolutely wrong. The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of the Bolshevik leaders and the CPSU leadership, mistakes committed at different times in state-building and in economic and ethnic policies. The collapse of the historical Russia known as the USSR is on their conscience. 14:39 President Putin: It was our people who accepted the new geopolitical reality that took shape after the dissolution of the USSR, and recognised the new independent states. Not only did Russia recognise these countries, but helped its CIS partners, even though it faced a very dire situation itself. This included our Ukrainian colleagues, who turned to us for financial support many times from the very moment they declared independence. Our country provided this assistance while respecting Ukraine's dignity and sovereignty. According to expert assessments, confirmed by a simple calculation of our energy prices, the subsidised loans Russia provided to Ukraine along with economic and trade preferences, the overall benefit for the Ukrainian budget in the period from 1991 to 2013 amounted to $250 billion. 21:24 President Putin: A stable statehood has never developed in Ukraine; its electoral and other political procedures just serve as a cover, a screen for the redistribution of power and property between various oligarchic clans. Corruption, which is certainly a challenge and a problem for many countries, including Russia, has gone beyond the usual scope in Ukraine. It has literally permeated and corroded Ukrainian statehood, the entire system, and all branches of power. Radical nationalists took advantage of the justified public discontent and saddled the Maidan protest, escalating it to a coup d'état in 2014. They also had direct assistance from foreign states. According to reports, the US Embassy provided $1 million a day to support the so-called protest camp on Independence Square in Kiev. In addition, large amounts were impudently transferred directly to the opposition leaders' bank accounts, tens of millions of dollars. 23:37 President Putin: Maidan did not bring Ukraine any closer to democracy and progress. Having accomplished a coup d'état, the nationalists and those political forces that supported them eventually led Ukraine into an impasse, pushed the country into the abyss of civil war. 26:30 President Putin: In fact, it all came down to the fact that the collapse of the Ukrainian economy was accompanied by outright robbery of the citizens of the country, and Ukraine itself was simply driven under external control. It is carried out not only at the behest of Western capitals, but also, as they say, directly on the spot through a whole network of foreign advisers, NGOs and other institutions deployed in Ukraine. They have a direct impact on all the most important personnel decisions, on all branches and levels of government: from the central and even to the municipal, on the main state-owned companies and corporations, including Naftogaz, Ukrenergo, Ukrainian Railways, Ukroboronprom, Ukrposhta , Administration of Sea Ports of Ukraine. There is simply no independent court in Ukraine. At the request of the West, the Kiev authorities gave representatives of international organizations the pre-emptive right to select members of the highest judicial bodies - the Council of Justice and the Qualification Commission of Judges. In addition, the US Embassy directly controls the National Corruption Prevention Agency, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, and the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court. All this is done under a plausible pretext to increase the effectiveness of the fight against corruption. Okay, but where are the results? Corruption has blossomed as luxuriantly, and blooms, more than ever. Are the Ukrainians themselves aware of all these managerial methods? Do they understand that their country is not even under a political and economic protectorate, but reduced to the level of a colony with a puppet regime? The privatization of the state has led to the fact that the government, which calls itself the "power of patriots", has lost its national character and is consistently leading the matter towards the complete desovereignization of the country. 31:04 President Putin: In March 2021, a new Military Strategy was adopted in Ukraine. This document is almost entirely dedicated to confrontation with Russia and sets the goal of involving foreign states in a conflict with our country. The strategy stipulates the organisation of what can be described as a terrorist underground movement in Russia's Crimea and in Donbass. It also sets out the contours of a potential war, which should end, according to the Kiev strategists, “with the assistance of the international community on favourable terms for Ukraine.” 32:05 President Putin: As we know, it has already been stated today that Ukraine intends to create its own nuclear weapons, and this is not just bragging. Ukraine has the nuclear technologies created back in the Soviet times and delivery vehicles for such weapons, including aircraft, as well as the Soviet-designed Tochka-U precision tactical missiles with a range of over 100 kilometres. But they can do more; it is only a matter of time. They have had the groundwork for this since the Soviet era. In other words, acquiring tactical nuclear weapons will be much easier for Ukraine than for some other states I am not going to mention here, which are conducting such research, especially if Kiev receives foreign technological support. 33:47 President Putin: Foreign advisors supervise the activities of Ukraine's armed forces and special services and we are well aware of this. Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads. The United States and NATO have started an impudent development of Ukrainian territory as a theatre of potential military operations. Their regular joint exercises are obviously anti-Russian. Last year alone, over 23,000 troops and more than a thousand units of hardware were involved. A law has already been adopted that allows foreign troops to come to Ukraine in 2022 to take part in multinational drills. Understandably, these are primarily NATO troops. This year, at least ten of these joint drills are planned. Obviously, such undertakings are designed to be a cover-up for a rapid buildup of the NATO military group on Ukrainian territory. This is all the more so since the network of airfields upgraded with US help in Borispol, Ivano-Frankovsk, Chuguyev and Odessa, to name a few, is capable of transferring army units in a very short time. Ukraine's airspace is open to flights by US strategic and reconnaissance aircraft and drones that conduct surveillance over Russian territory. I will add that the US-built Maritime Operations Centre in Ochakov makes it possible to support activity by NATO warships, including the use of precision weapons, against the Russian Black Sea Fleet and our infrastructure on the entire Black Sea Coast. 36:54 President Putin: Article 17 of the Constitution of Ukraine stipulates that deploying foreign military bases on its territory is illegal. However, as it turns out, this is just a conventionality that can be easily circumvented. Ukraine is home to NATO training missions which are, in fact, foreign military bases. They just called a base a mission and were done with it. 37:16 President Putin: Kiev has long proclaimed a strategic course on joining NATO. Indeed, each country is entitled to pick its own security system and enter into military alliances. There would be no problem with that, if it were not for one “but.” International documents expressly stipulate the principle of equal and indivisible security, which includes obligations not to strengthen one's own security at the expense of the security of other states. This is stated in the 1999 OSCE Charter for European Security adopted in Istanbul and the 2010 OSCE Astana Declaration. In other words, the choice of pathways towards ensuring security should not pose a threat to other states, whereas Ukraine joining NATO is a direct threat to Russia's security 38:10 President Putin: Let me remind you that at the Bucharest NATO summit held in April 2008, the United States pushed through a decision to the effect that Ukraine and, by the way, Georgia would become NATO members. Many European allies of the United States were well aware of the risks associated with this prospect already then, but were forced to put up with the will of their senior partner. The Americans simply used them to carry out a clearly anti-Russian policy. 38:41 President Putin: A number of NATO member states are still very sceptical about Ukraine joining NATO. We are getting signals from some European capitals telling us not to worry since it will not happen literally overnight. In fact, our US partners are saying the same thing as well. “All right, then” we respond, “if it does not happen tomorrow, then it will happen the day after tomorrow. What does it change from the historical perspective? Nothing at all.” Furthermore, we are aware of the US leadership's position and words that active hostilities in eastern Ukraine do not rule out the possibility of that country joining NATO if it meets NATO criteria and overcomes corruption. All the while, they are trying to convince us over and over again that NATO is a peace-loving and purely defensive alliance that poses no threat to Russia. Again, they want us to take their word for it. But we are well aware of the real value of these words. In 1990, when German unification was discussed, the United States promised the Soviet leadership that NATO jurisdiction or military presence will not expand one inch to the east and that the unification of Germany will not lead to the spread of NATO's military organisation to the east. This is a quote. They issued lots of verbal assurances, all of which turned out to be empty phrases. Later, they began to assure us that the accession to NATO by Central and Eastern European countries would only improve relations with Moscow, relieve these countries of the fears steeped in their bitter historical legacy, and even create a belt of countries that are friendly towards Russia. However, the exact opposite happened. The governments of certain Eastern European countries, speculating on Russophobia, brought their complexes and stereotypes about the Russian threat to the Alliance and insisted on building up the collective defence potentials and deploying them primarily against Russia. Worse still, that happened in the 1990s and the early 2000s when, thanks to our openness and goodwill, relations between Russia and the West had reached a high level. Russia has fulfilled all of its obligations, including the pullout from Germany, from Central and Eastern Europe, making an immense contribution to overcoming the legacy of the Cold War. We have consistently proposed various cooperation options, including in the NATO-Russia Council and the OSCE formats. Moreover, I will say something I have never said publicly, I will say it now for the first time. When then outgoing US President Bill Clinton visited Moscow in 2000, I asked him how America would feel about admitting Russia to NATO. I will not reveal all the details of that conversation, but the reaction to my question was, let us say, quite restrained, and the Americans' true attitude to that possibility can actually be seen from their subsequent steps with regard to our country. I am referring to the overt support for terrorists in the North Caucasus, the disregard for our security demands and concerns, NATO's continued expansion, withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and so on. 43:05 President Putin: Today, one glance at the map is enough to see to what extent Western countries have kept their promise to refrain from NATO's eastward expansion. They just cheated. We have seen five waves of NATO expansion, one after another – Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were admitted in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004; Albania and Croatia in 2009; Montenegro in 2017; and North Macedonia in 2020. As a result, the Alliance, its military infrastructure has reached Russia's borders. This is one of the key causes of the European security crisis; it has had the most negative impact on the entire system of international relations and led to the loss of mutual trust. The situation continues to deteriorate, including in the strategic area. Thus, positioning areas for interceptor missiles are being established in Romania and Poland as part of the US project to create a global missile defence system. It is common knowledge that the launchers deployed there can be used for Tomahawk cruise missiles – offensive strike systems. In addition, the United States is developing its all-purpose Standard Missile-6, which can provide air and missile defence, as well as strike ground and surface targets. In other words, the allegedly defensive US missile defence system is developing and expanding its new offensive capabilities. The information we have gives us good reason to believe that Ukraine's accession to NATO and the subsequent deployment of NATO facilities has already been decided and is only a matter of time. We clearly understand that given this scenario, the level of military threats to Russia will increase dramatically, several times over. 45:07 President Putin: I will explain that American strategic planning documents confirm the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike at enemy missile systems. We also know the main adversary of the United States and NATO. It is Russia. NATO documents officially declare our country to be the main threat to Euro-Atlantic security. Ukraine will serve as an advanced bridgehead for such a strike. 46:00 President Putin: Many Ukrainian airfields are located not far from our borders. NATO's tactical aviation deployed there, including precision weapon carriers, will be capable of striking at our territory to the depth of the Volgograd-Kazan-Samara-Astrakhan line. The deployment of reconnaissance radars on Ukrainian territory will allow NATO to tightly control Russia's airspace up to the Urals. Finally, after the US destroyed the INF Treaty, the Pentagon has been openly developing many land-based attack weapons, including ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 5,500 km. If deployed in Ukraine, such systems will be able to hit targets in Russia's entire European part. The flying time of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Moscow will be less than 35 minutes; ballistic missiles from Kharkov will take seven to eight minutes; and hypersonic assault weapons, four to five minutes. It is like a knife to the throat. I have no doubt that they hope to carry out these plans, as they did many times in the past, expanding NATO eastward, moving their military infrastructure to Russian borders and fully ignoring our concerns, protests and warnings. Excuse me, but they simply did not care at all about such things and did whatever they deemed necessary. Of course, they are going to behave in the same way in the future. 47:46 President Putin: Russia has always advocated the resolution of the most complicated problems by political and diplomatic means, at the negotiating table. We are well aware of our enormous responsibility when it comes to regional and global stability. Back in 2008, Russia put forth an initiative to conclude a European Security Treaty under which not a single Euro-Atlantic state or international organisation could strengthen their security at the expense of the security of others. However, our proposal was rejected right off the bat on the pretext that Russia should not be allowed to put limits on NATO activities. Furthermore, it was made explicitly clear to us that only NATO members can have legally binding security guarantees. 48:35 President Putin: Last December, we handed over to our Western partners a draft treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security guarantees, as well as a draft agreement on measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and NATO member states. The United States and NATO responded with general statements. There were kernels of rationality in them as well, but they concerned matters of secondary importance and it all looked like an attempt to drag the issue out and to lead the discussion astray. We responded to this accordingly and pointed out that we were ready to follow the path of negotiations, provided, however, that all issues are considered as a package that includes Russia's core proposals which contain three key points. First, to prevent further NATO expansion. Second, to have the Alliance refrain from deploying assault weapon systems on Russian borders. And finally, rolling back the bloc's military capability and infrastructure in Europe to where they were in 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed. These principled proposals of ours have been ignored. 50:21 President Putin: They are again trying to blackmail us and are threatening us with sanctions, which, by the way, they will introduce no matter what as Russia continues to strengthen its sovereignty and its Armed Forces. To be sure, they will never think twice before coming up with or just fabricating a pretext for yet another sanction attack regardless of the developments in Ukraine. Their one and only goal is to hold back the development of Russia. 51:06 President Putin: I would like to be clear and straightforward: in the current circumstances, when our proposals for an equal dialogue on fundamental issues have actually remained unanswered by the United States and NATO, when the level of threats to our country has increased significantly, Russia has every right to respond in order to ensure its security. That is exactly what we will do. 51:33 President Putin: With regard to the state of affairs in Donbass, we see that the ruling Kiev elites never stop publicly making clear their unwillingness to comply with the Minsk Package of Measures to settle the conflict and are not interested in a peaceful settlement. On the contrary, they are trying to orchestrate a blitzkrieg in Donbass as was the case in 2014 and 2015. We all know how these reckless schemes ended. Not a single day goes by without Donbass communities coming under shelling attacks. The recently formed large military force makes use of attack drones, heavy equipment, missiles, artillery and multiple rocket launchers. The killing of civilians, the blockade, the abuse of people, including children, women and the elderly, continues unabated. As we say, there is no end in sight to this. Meanwhile, the so-called civilised world, which our Western colleagues proclaimed themselves the only representatives of, prefers not to see this, as if this horror and genocide, which almost 4 million people are facing, do not exist. But they do exist and only because these people did not agree with the West-supported coup in Ukraine in 2014 and opposed the transition towards the Neanderthal and aggressive nationalism and neo-Nazism which have been elevated in Ukraine to the rank of national policy. They are fighting for their elementary right to live on their own land, to speak their own language, and to preserve their culture and traditions. How long can this tragedy continue? How much longer can one put up with this? Russia has done everything to preserve Ukraine's territorial integrity. All these years, it has persistently and patiently pushed for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2202 of February 17, 2015, which consolidated the Minsk Package of Measures of February 12, 2015, to settle the situation in Donbass. Everything was in vain. Presidents and Rada deputies come and go, but deep down the aggressive and nationalistic regime that seized power in Kiev remains unchanged. It is entirely a product of the 2014 coup, and those who then embarked on the path of violence, bloodshed and lawlessness did not recognise then and do not recognise now any solution to the Donbass issue other than a military one. In this regard, I consider it necessary to take a long overdue decision and to immediately recognise the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic. I would like to ask the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to support this decision and then ratify the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance with both republics. These two documents will be prepared and signed shortly. 54:52 President Putin: We want those who seized and continue to hold power in Kiev to immediately stop hostilities. Otherwise, the responsibility for the possible continuation of the bloodshed will lie entirely on the conscience of Ukraine's ruling regime. Ukraine is 'longing for peace' says Zelensky at Munich Security Conference February 19, 2022 Transcript Overview: Western powers should drop their policy of "appeasement" toward Moscow, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky told a security forum Saturday, as fears mount of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Clips 13:37 Vladimir Zelensky: Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world's third nuclear capability. We don't have that weapon. We also have no security. 14:37 Vladimir Zelensky: Since 2014, Ukraine has tried three times to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum. Three times without success. Today Ukraine will do it for the fourth time. I, as President, will do this for the first time. But both Ukraine and I are doing this for the last time. I am initiating consultations in the framework of the Budapest Memorandum. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was commissioned to convene them. If they do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt. President Biden Remarks on Russia-Ukraine Situation February 18, 2022 YouTube Version Transcript Overview: Following talks with NATO allies, President Biden provided an update on Russia-Ukraine tensions and international efforts to resolve the crisis. Clips 3:04 President Biden: You know, look, we have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning to and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week — in the coming days. We believe that they will target Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people.War posturing - Biden US provided record security assistance to Ukraine 4:00 President Biden: This past year, the United States provided a record amount of security assistance to Ukraine to bolster its defensive — $650 million, from Javelin missiles to ammunition. And we also previously provided $500 million in Ukrai- — in humanitarian aid and economic support for Ukraine. And earlier this week, we also announced an additional sovereign loan guarantee of up to $1 billion to strengthen Ukraine's economic resilience. 7:24 President Biden: Well, I don't think he is remotely contemplating nuclear — using nuclear weapons. But I do think it's — I think he is focused on trying to convince the world that he has the ability to change the dynamics in Europe in a way that he cannot. President Biden Remarks on Russia and Ukraine February 15, 2022 YouTube Version Transcript Overview: President Biden gave an update on tensions between Russia and Ukraine, calling for diplomacy to resolve tensions. Clips 1:47 President Biden: The United States has put on the table concrete ideas to establish a security environment in Europe. We're proposing new arms control measures, new transparency measures, new strategic stability measures. These measures would apply to all parties — NATO and Russia alike. 2:14 President Biden: We will not sacrifice basic principles, though. Nations have a right to sovereignty and territorial integrity. They have the freedom to set their own course and choose with whom they will associate. 3:17 President Biden: And the fact remains: Right now, Russia has more than 150,000 troops encircling Ukraine in Belarus and along Ukraine's border. An invasion remains distinctly possible. That's why I've asked several times that all Americans in Ukraine leave now before it's too late to leave safely. It is why we have temporarily relocated our embassy from Kyiv to Lviv in western Ukraine, approaching the Polish border. 4:12 President Biden: The United States and NATO are not a threat to Russia. Ukraine is not threatening Russia. Neither the U.S. nor NATO have missiles in Ukraine. We do not — do not have plans to put them there as well. 4:26 President Biden: To the citizens of Russia: You are not our enemy. And I do not believe you want a bloody, destructive war against Ukraine — a country and a people with whom you share such deep ties of family, history, and culture. 5:52 President Biden: Today, our NATO Allies and the Alliance is as unified and determined as it has ever been. And the source of our unbreakable strength continues to be the power, resilience, and universal appeal of our shared democratic values. Because this is about more than just Russia and Ukraine. It's about standing for what we believe in, for the future we want for our world. 7:25 President Biden: And when it comes to Nord Stream 2, the pipeline that would bring natural gas from Russia to Germany, if Russia further invades Ukraine, it will not happen. 7:35 President Biden: While I will not send American servicemen to fight Russia in Ukraine, we have supplied the Ukrainian military with equipment to help them defend themselves. We have provided training and advice and intelligence for the same purpose. 7:50 President Biden: And make no mistake: The United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power. An attack against one NATO country is an attack against all of us. And the United States commitment to Article 5 is sacrosanct. Already, in response to Russia's build-up of troops, I have sent additional U.S. forces to bolster NATO's eastern flank. Several of our Allies have also announced they'll add forces and capabilities to ensure deterrence and defense along NATO's eastern flank. We will also continue to conduct military exercises with our Allies and partners to enhance defensive readiness. And if Russia invades, we will take further steps to reinforce our presence in NATO, reassure our Allies, and deter further aggression. 9:12 President Biden: I will not pretend this will be painless. There could be impact on our energy prices, so we are taking active steps to alleviate the pressure on our own energy markets and offset rising prices. We're coordinating with major enersy [sic] — energy consumers and producers. We're prepared to deploy all the tools and authority at our disposal to provide relief at the gas pump. And I will work with Congress on additional measures to help protect consumers and address the impact of prices at the pump. Hearing on U.S. Policy Toward Russia Senate Committee on Foreign Relations December 7, 2021 Overview: Victoria Nuland, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, testified at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on U.S. policy toward Russia. She addressed President Biden's earlier call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said that Russia would suffer severe consequences if it attacked Ukraine. Other topics included the use of sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, the cooperation of NATO and U.S. allies, Russia's use of energy during conflict, and the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Clips 10:42 Victoria Nuland: Since 2014 The United States has provided Ukraine with $2.4 billion in security assistance including $450 million this year alone. 30:55 Sen. Todd Young (R-IN): President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have repeatedly indicated that they seek to deny any potential path to NATO membership for Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. Does the administration view this demand is a valid issue for negotiation? Victoria Nuland: No we do not and President Biden made that point crystal clear to President Putin today that the issue of who joins NATO is an issue for NATO to decide it's an issue for applicant countries to decide that no other outside power will or may have a veto or a vote in those decisions. Foreign Affairs Issue Launch with Former Vice President Joe Biden January 23, 2018 Clips 24:30 Former Vice President Biden: I'll give you one concrete example. I was—not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn't. So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I'm not going to—or, we're not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You're not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars. I said, you're not getting the billion. I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

Ryan and Jake talk about some terms that are floating around with the crises in Ukraine. What is Budapest Memorandum? Does it move SWIFT? Can it fly over Ukraine? We are educating ourselves in real time over the context of this awful aggression against the people of Ukraine. Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/thelunchboyspod Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thelunchboyspod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelunchboyspod _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Show Links: Antiwar.com Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Budapest Memorandum Document Budapest Memorandum Wikipedia Page What is SWIFT?

Ukraine's Nuclear Disarmament – A History, published by the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, outlines the factors which led Ukraine to sign the Budapest Memorandum in 1994. This agreement denuclearized the country.It also questions whether this was the right decision for Ukraine's future. Yuri Kostenko's insider account will help readers understand the power dynamics involved with Ukraine's fateful decision to give up its nuclear weapons in the mid-1990's, leaving Ukraine vulnerable to Russian aggression. In 2014, twenty years after the Budapest Memorandum was signed, Russia annexed Crimea and supported an insurgency in eastern Ukraine.Those countries who had “guaranteed” Ukraine's borders did not live up to their commitments... until 2022. Full transcript here. Support the show on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Albert Goldson, Executive Director, Cerulean Council joins the show to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US role in the Budapest Memorandum, speculation on Putin's plan, the role of China and potential impacts on Americans See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Albert Goldson, Executive Director, Cerulean Council joins the show to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US role in the Budapest Memorandum, speculation on Putin's plan, the role of China and potential impacts on Americans. Jurors have convicted three ex Minneapolis police officers for violating the civil rights of George Floyd. Sentencing guidelines suggest the officers will not get the maximum punishment, which includes life in prison or even death. California State Senator, Andreas Borgeas, joins the show to discuss the international chess board that is Russia/Ukraine, China/Taiwan and the impact on the US.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Levin. Pelosi's Gestapo, Jan 6th Political Prisoners Update, Ukraine, Lost Stealth Fighter in South China Sea. https://www.marklevinshow.com/audio-rewind/ The race is on between the U.S and the Chinese to retrieve America's most advanced stealth fighter jet which has reportedly slid off the deck of a U.S Navy aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. U.S officials are concerned about China salvaging the aircraft before they do, to have a sample of the Navy's most elite warplane. Then, many are concerned with why America should do anything with Ukraine. If the U.S ignores its responsibility to defend Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances of 1994 it would be violating its part of the treaty. The founders warned against an activist court. Where is judicial review in the Constitution? It's not. This power exercised by the Supreme Court known as judicial review started in Marbury versus Madison. Jefferson noted that declaring what the law is, has more influence than every other branch of government. This practice contravenes the Constitution and is an authority given to the Court by itself, not by the framers or We The People. The constitutional case for the 2020 election in Pennsylvania that was brought by Greg Teufel and Julie Levin scored a victory today in the state's Commonwealth Court. The court ruled that the practice of no-excuse mail-in ballots, put in place by Democrats right before the 2020 election was unconstitutional. This case was initially dismissed outright by the U.S Supreme Court despite being meritorious.   Mark Levin Audio Rewind - 2/10/22 Author Julie Kelly calls in to discuss today's bombshell update in the January 6th court saga. It was revealed by the judge that the whereabouts of then-Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris were misrepresented by the government in their filings. It turns out that Harris was at the DNC offices where a pipe-bomb was reported, and that Vice President Pence was also not in the building at the time of the breach as reported. Will the Judge hold anyone in contempt? Will the trespassing charges stick since that was the reason the building was off-limits? Afterward, Congressman Troy Nehls, a former Sheriff, caught the Capitol Police taking photos of the whiteboard in his office on a Saturday Afternoon. The Capitol Police claimed that they found his door open and entered to investigate. They then claimed that the information on the whiteboard was suspicious, so they took photographs of it. Nehls is pushing back because his legislative priorities noted on the board in his office fall under the speech and debate clause of the Constitution. Nehls views this retaliation for being a vocal critic of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

On this Washington Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests are Dov Zakheim, PhD, former DoD comptroller, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute, Michael Herson of American Defense International and Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO who is now with the Center for a New American Security. Topics: — Congress moves to toward appropriations measure in March, but political hurdles remain in Senate as House moves ahead on another temporary measure — Whether Russia's manufactured Ukraine crisis marks an inflection point that drives Washington and the West to toughen up or stick with business-as-usual approach — Russia crisis and the Biden administration's tepid approach to hard power as White House prepares new strategies and defense spending requests — Ways China can support Russia, whether Moscow invades Ukraine or not — Implications of disregarding the 1994 Budapest Memorandum that extended security guarantees to Ukraine in exchange for Kiev giving up Russian nuclear weapons on its territory — Why Washington has to weigh in as Argentina joins China's Belt and Road Initiative and the two nations backed each other's territorial claims to the Falklands and Taiwan — Biden administration's Indo-Pacific strategy that includes new Pacific partnership with US, UK, France, Japan, Australia and New Zealand as the Quad begins to look increasingly like an alliance — Grading Biden on handling of Ukraine crisis — Diverting $7 billion in frozen Afghan assists for 9/11 fund and humanitarian aid for Kabul — Irrelevance of RNC censure of Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and former President Trump's mishandling and destruction of documents on GOP

On the Best of Mark Levin, following the resignation of Justice Stephen Breyer, President Biden has said that he will nominate the first Black woman to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The practice of hiring someone based on race or sex has been found to be unlawful for schools, businesses, and others but when Biden does it it's no longer a problem. The perverse ideology of American Marxism has crept into every facet of our government including the judiciary. The race is on between the U.S and the Chinese to retrieve America's most advanced stealth fighter jet which has reportedly slid off the deck of a U.S Navy aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. U.S officials are concerned about China salvaging the aircraft before they do, to have a sample of the Navy's most elite warplane. Then, many are concerned with why America should do anything with Ukraine. If the U.S ignores its responsibility to defend Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances of 1994 it would be violating its part of the treaty. The founders warned against an activist court. Where is judicial review in the Constitution? It's not. This power exercised by the Supreme Court known as judicial review started in Marbury versus Madison. Jefferson noted that declaring what the law is, has more influence than every other branch of government. This practice contravenes the Constitution and is an authority given to the Court by itself, not by the framers or We The People. The constitutional case for the 2020 election in Pennsylvania that was brought by Greg Teufel and Julie Levin scored a victory today in the state's Commonwealth Court. The court ruled that the practice of no-excuse mail-in ballots, put in place by Democrats right before the 2020 election was unconstitutional. This case was initially dismissed outright by the U.S Supreme Court despite being meritorious.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John's Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today's edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Like many of you, I've been watching the escalating events in Ukraine and Russia with a fair amount of anxiety. Russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding several things, including a promise for NATO never to expand eastward to countries like Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Russian troops have amassed on Ukraine's borders, ignoring calls from the US and NATO allies to remove them. And, since it was only a few years ago that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine, the threat of a new invasion seems very real. So, I thought this week might be a good one to break some of the myths surrounding Christianity and war—and, in particular, to look at the theory of just war as it might apply to this situation. Though Just War theory goes back to Greco-Roman philosophy, it was best laid out in in a Christian understanding by Augustine of Hippo, and then later by Thomas Aquinas. In “Just War” theory, there is a hesitance regarding the inherent violence of war while also recognizing that sometimes it is the lesser of two evils. In the view of Aquinas, a just war must be waged by a lawful government, for a just cause due to a wrong done to those being attacked. The waging of a just war must also have a just intent to promote good and avoid evil. Aquinas was also clear that war should always be the last resort, done in the pursuit of justice. And later developments have also made it clear that there must be a probability of success and that non-combatants must be protected. When Putin invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, he sent unmarked troops into the region and fomented a civil war that cost over 14,000 lives. Russia was slapped with economic sanctions, but little else. The Minsk protocol effectively gave half of the Crimean region to Russia as reward for his belligerence. Not Putin wants the rest of the territory, the regions that were given back to Ukraine in 2014. As I said, he demands a promise that Ukraine never enter the NATO alliance and is further demanding that NATO withdraw all forces from Romania and Bulgaria, both NATO member countries. Under Just War theory, wars of conquest are illegal war, with Russia's desire to control the entire Crimean region being an example of just such an attempted conquest. Ukraine is a victim of this aggression, and her allies are justified under Christian just war theory to use force to protect her, if negotiations fail and Russia does invade. In the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, Ukraine gave up all of her nuclear weapons from her Soviet days to Russia, in exchange for a promise from Russia that Ukraine's borders and territorial independence would be protected. Russia has clearly broken those promises. As John Davenport, professor of philosophy at Fordham University argued in a recent essay, the United States cannot betray and abandon Ukraine. We must demand the immediate removal of forces that threaten this country and be clear that if these forces are not removed by a hard timeline, Ukraine will immediately be invited into the NATO alliance. We must be clear that if Ukraine is invaded again, that the US and NATO will send in forces to protect the innocent citizens of that country. As Davenport says near the end of his essay, “Peace, as the aim of just wars, should not be the false peace of life under tyranny.”As a Christian, like many of you, I have lived through a good amount of wars at this point, a good amount of conflicts that, in the end, many Christian leaders have regarded as unjust. Both the invasion of Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan were deeply problematic from a just war standpoint. It has seemed at times that our country is not really concerned about protecting non-combatants and citizens. And so, Christians have spoken up and have urged an end to violence. I have joined them in those calls. But protecting the weak and the vulnerable is central to Christian teaching and our siblings in Christ in Ukraine are hoping their western neighbors will stand up and defend them, that we will not fall back in a fear of war that would enable the tyranny of Putin to expand. We must never forget that that it was the hesitancy of many Christians toward war against Hitler that enabled his aggression to go unchecked until it was almost too late. Putin has demonstrated he will not stop on his own. We must force him to stop, or the peace under which we live will be a false peace caused by massive injustice and oppression.Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today. 

On Tuesday's Mark Levin Show, the race is on between the U.S and the Chinese to retrieve America's most advanced stealth fighter jet which has reportedly slid off the deck of a U.S Navy aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. U.S officials are concerned about China salvaging the aircraft before they do, to have a sample of the Navy's most elite warplane. Then, many are concerned with why America should do anything with Ukraine. If the U.S ignores its responsibility to defend Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances of 1994 it would be violating its part of the treaty. Plus, America's enemies will take note that the U.S has become weak. Later, contrary to the media, all science is not decided within 5 buildings in Washington, DC. Anthony Fauci is not the only doctor in America yet he acts like it. There was no peer-reviewed scientific data to discontinue therapeutics in yet Fauci and the FDA recklessly closed monoclonal treatment sites for citizens in Florida.  Fauci claims that the therapeutics are ineffective against omicron since they weren't designed to combat omicron although, neither were the current vaccines. Afterward, the CEO of Convention of States, Mark Meckler, calls in to share the good news of a 16th state that has accepted the Convention of States legislation supporting a constitutional convention of states. Finally, author and scholar Peter Schweizer joins the show to discuss the release of his new book "Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win." Schweizer describes a web of politicians, tech companies, academic institutions, and foreign governments that all have a hand in paving the way for the Chinese communist party while lining their own pockets with consulting deals and other cash incentives.

Will Russia Actually Invade Ukraine?, What Might Result if Russia Invades Ukraine?, Will Putin Violate a Signed International Agreement If He Invades Ukraine?, Putin's plans to organize a coup against Pres. Zelinski and Install a PuppetRetired US Diplomat to 5 different nations  David Hunter shares his knowledge, passion, interest, and experience. 1) Will Russia Actually Invade Ukraine?: The news is full of reports that Russia may actually invade although it is still not certain.  US Secretary of State Blinken has been working furiously to build allied support to invoke strong sanctions if Putin crosses the line.  Biden misstepped in a 2 hour press conference saying NATO allies may disagree on what to do if it is a limited invasion.  What do you think will happen?  2) What Might Result if Russia Invades Ukraine?:  We hear of Russia's 100,000 troop buildup and various points of attack.  The US and NATO allies are sending in anti-tank and anti-aircraft equipment to help Ukraine's army.   And even 8,000 US troops being set to redeploy to Baltic NATO member states to protect them from Russian aggression.  What can Ukraine and Baltic states do to defend themselves?3) Will Putin Violate a Signed International Agreement If He Invades Ukraine?:  The US, UK and Russia (then headed by Putin)  signed the "Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances" on December 5, 1994.  It was/is a signed international political treaty by all three nations to provide security assurances against the threat or use of force against Ukraine's territorial integrity or political independent, and to respect it's existing borders.  It was part of a deal to get Ukraine, then the 3ed largest nuclear power state, to denuclearlze.  Putin signed this diplomatic treaty.   Should he be held accountable for now breaking it?  4)  Putin's plans to organize a coup against Pres. Zelinski and Install a Puppet: UK  intelligence announced this week that Russia is trying to overthrow Ukraine's President and install a pro-Russian puppet.  They did that in Afghanistan, w/ Major General Mohammed Najibullah, before he was overthrown and hanged by the Taliban in 1992.  Will we see a repeat of Russia's failure in this new Ukraine situation?  CHOICE PEST MANAGEMENT for South Florida High-grade pest control services in Stuart, Vero Beach, Palm city, Port St. Lucie , and Fort PierceCutter & Company -Financial Advisors We proudly serve individual investors, business owners and our financial advisors.

On this week's #HollowNet Matt does takes a deep look at the history of Ukraine's struggle to maintain its sovereigty and how they are being buried under the broken promises of the US, Great Britain and Russia. The U.S. whenever we are ruled over by a Democrat-Socialist Regime acts without honor, and our abandonment of the Budapest Memorandum and our promise of security for Ukraine in exchange for the surrender of their nuclear weapons, should mark the Democrat Party overall and Clinton, Obama and Biden in particular with shame forever.Source Links:https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-embassy-personnel-family-in-ukraine-ordered-begin-evacuating-officialshttps://patriotunitednews.com/breaking-putin-makes-serious-threat/https://thegoptimes.com/jen-psaki-tries-to-walk-it-back-fails-horribly/https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-chancellor-turned-down-biden-invite-discuss-ukraine-crisis-der-spiegel-2022-01-21/https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-war-of-nerves-germany-has-little-maneuvering-room-in-ukraine-conflict-a-faece2a7-c098-48cb-a9cc-cd0d5daf78f1https://www.politico.eu/article/white-house-olaf-scholz-reject-joe-biden-invite/https://web.archive.org/web/20140317182201/http://www.cfr.org/arms-control-disarmament-and-nonproliferation/budapest-memorandums-security-assurances-1994/p32484Support Links:NEW MERCH!!!https://the-hollownet-store.creator-spring.com/listing/buy-tree-of-liberty?product=823https://the-hollownet-store.creator-spring.com/listing/gadsden-2021?product=823http://www.preparewithmojo50.comhttps://americanprideroasters.com/https://www.mypillow.com/ Promo Code: MOJO50https://teespring.com/stores/the-hollownet-storehttps://www.patreon.com/TheHollowNethttps://www.subscribestar.com/the-hollownethttps://www.givesendgo.com/HollowNet

On Monday's Mark Levin Show, the late Sen. Bob Dole was a generous man, a patriot, and a complex politician that was a World War II hero. He was a wonderful man that loved this country. Then, corporate media's systemic corruption is much worse than anything Chris Cuomo did. The media has been complicit in covering up the crimes Marxists have exacted on the public for over a century. Later, the Democrats sell out our allies and blame Donald Trump. In 1994 the Budapest Memorandum was reached with Ukraine so they'd give up their nuclear weapons at the fall of the Soviet Union so long as the United States, Russia, and Great Britain assured the continued security of Ukraine. Tensions escalate between Taiwan and Beijing and the Israelis and the Iranians. Will the U.S back its allies? Afterward, combat veteran Rep. Mike Waltz calls in and said that America needs a wake-up call. He added that President Xi has openly called for the U.S and its currency to be replaced as the global standard. China aims to militarize their space stations so that they can wage war on the US from space and they're doing it with the money Americans spend on Chinese products. Waltz also called for the U.S to not participate in any Olympic Games that are held in China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices