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What do you think about the conclusions of this piece published by a former UN official, a former NATO military official, and an academic? https://braveneweuro

What do you think about the conclusions of this piece published by a former UN official, a former NATO military official, and an academic? https://braveneweurope.com/michael-von-der-schulenburg-hajo-funke-harald-kujat-peace-for-ukraine https://braveneweurope.com/michael-von-der-schulenburg-hajo-...

ganeshkrishnan 3y ago
[flagged]
mopsi 3y ago
Carbon copy of Russian propaganda, with central thesis that Ukraine doesn't want to fight, but Americans are forcing them to. For example, from the article: In March 2022, direct peace negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian delegations and mediation efforts by the then Israeli Prime Minster, Naftali Bennet created a genuine chance for ending the war peacefully only four to five weeks after Russia had invaded Ukraine. However, instead of ending the war through negotiations as Ukrainian President Zelensky and his government appeared to have wanted, he ultimately bowed to pressures from some Western powers to abandon a negotiated solution. Western powers wanted this war to continue in the hope to break Russia. Bennett has refuted all this. According to him: 1. There was no negotiated solution. 2. Western powers were forcing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia and reach a solution at any cost. 3. Western powers relieved the pressure to negotiate after mass grave was discovered in Bucha and leaving Ukrainians on occupied territories to the same fate became indefensible. The entire narrative seen in your article originates from an interview with Bennett that Russian propaganda machine picked up, painting a completely different picture as if western powers had forced Ukraine into war. They equated "less pressure to negotiate" with "forcing into war". That is not supported by facts. Western powers stalled military aid to Ukraine every way they could in the hope that forcing Ukraine into negotiations with Russia would sweep the whole thing under the rug and business with Russians could continue as usual, as it did after Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, and the invasion of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. If western powers wanted war, then where were the jets, tanks and artillery pieces that Ukraine was asking for? Why are they tiptoeing around Russia and providing too little, too late out of escalation fears? Members of Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations have recently said that they negotiated just to satisfy western demands. Ukrainian delegation had no confidence that Russia would follow any agreements. Furthermore, experts like Kozyrev, the former minister of foreign affairs of Russia (now living in exile), have pointed out that the negotiations deserve no attention at all, because the people negotiating on Russian side were total nobodies with no authority, and that the entire exercise looked like a stalling tactic.
toss1 3y ago
This is the same bullshit line Putin spouted with Tucker Carlson: It was Poland that started WWII by forcing the Hitler to invade. It is standard psychopathic tactics — DARVO — Deny, Attack, Reverse victim and Offender. "Ukraine left us no choice to invade!" — Utter bullshit start to finish "NATO forced us to invade!" — Mor of the same. NATO is ZERO threat to Russia's integrity, and Putin knows it. when Finland joined NATO, Russia PULLED troops from away from Finnish border, the exact opposite of what they'd do if NATO was actually a threat, or even a perceived threat. The list is endless (because they'll always come up with more, just throw it up there and see what sticks). Stop falling for it.
khokhol 3y ago
A former UN official, a former NATO military official, and an academic? Yet another example of the general rule that the fact of one having held at one point a high-status position does not, ipso facto, validate what one has to say about any particular topic. As to the content -- some interesting history, albeit with a lot cherry-picking and selective omission; and apparently not a few simple misstatements or reversals of fact. The sibling commenters have done a better job of dissecting its content. But beyond their words -- it's important to look at who these guys are, and crucially -- who they associate with, and who's buying them lunch. As to Harald Kujat, from Wikipedia: Since July 2016, Kujat is a member of the Supervisory Board of the Berlin-based Research Institute Dialogue of Civilizations[4] (DOC), allegedly financed by Vladimir Yakunin,[5] until 2015 CEO of the Russian Railways and by some sources considered a member of the Russian president Vladimir Putin's inner circle. By some conservative German media (Bild-Zeitung, Die Welt) Kujat was criticized for his pro-Russian views in German TV talk shows,[6][7][8] allegedly being considered with misgiving by the German Federal Government.[9] Yakunin is (or was at one time anyway) the President of the DoC, and he's definitely very close to Putin. As for the criticisms of the German Press -- there's an article titled Talkshows verkaufen Propagandisten als „Experten“ you can easily which seems to get right to the point. As for mister Hajo Funke (translated): In February 2023 Funke was one of the first signatories of the Manifest for Peace initiated by Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer that calls for [essentially the same "peace" plan described in the article] Wagenknecht (former opposition leader in the Bundestag) and Schwarzer (an activist) have both held some notably weird, authoritarian views over the years (while seeming to mostly promote good wholesome left-wing views). Wagenknecht's were considered so extreme that it led to a row within her own party (The Left), some of whom said publicly that she ought to join the far-right AfD. In any case, she's generally considered to be radioactive in Germany politics right now - such that one doesn't go around signing or otherwise publicly endorsing something she says - unless one wishes to make a very conspicuous statement. That tells you what you need to know about these guys (2 out 3 anyway).

ganeshkrishnan 3y ago

[flagged]

mopsi 3y ago

Carbon copy of Russian propaganda, with central thesis that Ukraine doesn't want to fight, but Americans are forcing them to. For example, from the article: In March 2022, direct peace negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian delegations and mediation efforts by the then Israeli Prime Minster, Naftali Bennet created a genuine chance for ending the war peacefully only four to five weeks after Russia had invaded Ukraine. However, instead of ending the war through negotiations as Ukrainian President Zelensky and his government appeared to have wanted, he ultimately bowed to pressures from some Western powers to abandon a negotiated solution. Western powers wanted this war to continue in the hope to break Russia. Bennett has refuted all this. According to him: 1. There was no negotiated solution. 2. Western powers were forcing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia and reach a solution at any cost. 3. Western powers relieved the pressure to negotiate after mass grave was discovered in Bucha and leaving Ukrainians on occupied territories to the same fate became indefensible. The entire narrative seen in your article originates from an interview with Bennett that Russian propaganda machine picked up, painting a completely different picture as if western powers had forced Ukraine into war. They equated "less pressure to negotiate" with "forcing into war". That is not supported by facts. Western powers stalled military aid to Ukraine every way they could in the hope that forcing Ukraine into negotiations with Russia would sweep the whole thing under the rug and business with Russians could continue as usual, as it did after Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, and the invasion of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. If western powers wanted war, then where were the jets, tanks and artillery pieces that Ukraine was asking for? Why are they tiptoeing around Russia and providing too little, too late out of escalation fears? Members of Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations have recently said that they negotiated just to satisfy western demands. Ukrainian delegation had no confidence that Russia would follow any agreements. Furthermore, experts like Kozyrev, the former minister of foreign affairs of Russia (now living in exile), have pointed out that the negotiations deserve no attention at all, because the people negotiating on Russian side were total nobodies with no authority, and that the entire exercise looked like a stalling tactic.

toss1 3y ago

This is the same bullshit line Putin spouted with Tucker Carlson: It was Poland that started WWII by forcing the Hitler to invade. It is standard psychopathic tactics — DARVO — Deny, Attack, Reverse victim and Offender. "Ukraine left us no choice to invade!" — Utter bullshit start to finish "NATO forced us to invade!" — Mor of the same. NATO is ZERO threat to Russia's integrity, and Putin knows it. when Finland joined NATO, Russia PULLED troops from away from Finnish border, the exact opposite of what they'd do if NATO was actually a threat, or even a perceived threat. The list is endless (because they'll always come up with more, just throw it up there and see what sticks). Stop falling for it.

khokhol 3y ago

A former UN official, a former NATO military official, and an academic? Yet another example of the general rule that the fact of one having held at one point a high-status position does not, ipso facto, validate what one has to say about any particular topic. As to the content -- some interesting history, albeit with a lot cherry-picking and selective omission; and apparently not a few simple misstatements or reversals of fact. The sibling commenters have done a better job of dissecting its content. But beyond their words -- it's important to look at who these guys are, and crucially -- who they associate with, and who's buying them lunch. As to Harald Kujat, from Wikipedia: Since July 2016, Kujat is a member of the Supervisory Board of the Berlin-based Research Institute Dialogue of Civilizations[4] (DOC), allegedly financed by Vladimir Yakunin,[5] until 2015 CEO of the Russian Railways and by some sources considered a member of the Russian president Vladimir Putin's inner circle. By some conservative German media (Bild-Zeitung, Die Welt) Kujat was criticized for his pro-Russian views in German TV talk shows,[6][7][8] allegedly being considered with misgiving by the German Federal Government.[9] Yakunin is (or was at one time anyway) the President of the DoC, and he's definitely very close to Putin. As for the criticisms of the German Press -- there's an article titled Talkshows verkaufen Propagandisten als „Experten“ you can easily which seems to get right to the point. As for mister Hajo Funke (translated): In February 2023 Funke was one of the first signatories of the Manifest for Peace initiated by Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer that calls for [essentially the same "peace" plan described in the article] Wagenknecht (former opposition leader in the Bundestag) and Schwarzer (an activist) have both held some notably weird, authoritarian views over the years (while seeming to mostly promote good wholesome left-wing views). Wagenknecht's were considered so extreme that it led to a row within her own party (The Left), some of whom said publicly that she ought to join the far-right AfD. In any case, she's generally considered to be radioactive in Germany politics right now - such that one doesn't go around signing or otherwise publicly endorsing something she says - unless one wishes to make a very conspicuous statement. That tells you what you need to know about these guys (2 out 3 anyway).