Trump on releasing the JFK records

Sandy Larsen · March 27

2 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Specifically cite the evidence that you maintain proves that "Trump's 2016 Campaign Manager, Paul Manafort, was a long-term Kremlin employee who shared sensitive polling data with his Russian colleague, GRU agent Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 Trump campaign."

Manafort admitted to it in 2022.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-campaign-chief-paul-manafort-owns-up-to-passing-sensitive-data-to-suspected-russian-agent

W. Niederhut · March 27

41 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Manafort admitted to it in 2022.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-campaign-chief-paul-manafort-owns-up-to-passing-sensitive-data-to-suspected-russian-agent

Ouch.

Keven Hofeling · March 27

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

How do you suppose the CIA got 200,000 Ukrainians to protest against President Yanukovych for his corruption and his decision not to sign the EU–Ukraine Association Agreement... instead, choosing closer ties to Russia? Which the citizens wanted no part of.

Oh, you mean the region of Ukraine stolen by Russia?

Zelenskyy's government agreed with Boris Johnson, that it would be a mistake to sign that agreement. It would allow Putin to invade again, this time better prepared. (Source)

If Ukrainian neutrality is what Putin wanted, why didn't he threaten to invade unless Ukraine agreed to it? When his troops were surrounding Ukraine, Putin could have said he wouldn't invade if they agreed not to join NATO.

Instead, Putin go right in claiming to be there to protect everyone from the proliferation of neo-Nazis.

No thank you.

Sandy Larsen wrote:

Quote

How do you suppose the CIA got 200,000 Ukrainians to protest against President Yanukovych for his corruption and his decision not to sign the EU–Ukraine Association Agreement... instead, choosing closer ties to Russia? Which the citizens wanted no part of.

It's not that simple. Wikipedia is not going to present you with an accurate picture of the complexities involved. And if you want to put that to the test then search Wikipedia for information about Europe and the United States being critical of the neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, and the major role played by those groups in the overthrow of Yanukovych. Next, click on the links of the following in order to read about it directly in the New York Times, the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and CNN. You will find that Wikipedia does not reflect the realities on the ground in real time that the Western media was reporting at the time:

"...In 2010, pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko declared Bandera a Hero of Ukraine, a status reversed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was later overthrown.

More than 50 monuments, busts and museums commemorating Bandera have been erected in Ukraine, two-thirds of which have been built since 2005, the year the pro-American Yuschenko was elected.

At the time of the 2014 overthrow of the elected Yanukovych, Western corporate media reported on the essential part the descendants of Petliura and Bandera played in the coup.

As The New York Times reported, the neo-Nazi group, Right Sector, had the key role in the violent ouster of Yanukovych. The role of neo-fascist groups in the uprising and its influence on Ukrainian society was well reported by mainstream media outlets at the time.

The BBC, the NYT, the Daily Telegraph and CNN all reported on Right Sector, C14 and other extremists’ role in the overthrow of Yanukovych.

Thus today’s Ukrainian nationalism draws a direct link to the history of extremist nationalists beginning with the post World War I-period...."

No ‘End of History’ in Ukraine
by Scott Ritter | Scheerpost | October 4, 2023 | https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/04/scott-ritter-no-end-of-history-in-ukraine/

I'm going to assume you are aware of the late Robert Parry, and how reputable he was and is in his investigative reporting of matters concerning the national security state and the CIA, such as Reagan's October Surprise against Jimmy Carter in 1980. There was a lot for Parry to report about the 2014 Ukraine coup, and he reported it well and in real time. Concerning the overthrow of Yanukovych he wrote in pertinent part as follows (and NOTE that if you want to watch this interview on video, you can see it via the link) :

"...ROBERT PARRY, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: Thanks for having me.

NOOR: So let’s first start by addressing this move by the Russians. Is it a violation of international law? And they’ve justified it by saying there’s a humanitarian crisis. Is there any indication to support this?

PARRY: Well, I think it seems like international law is–almost depends on the eye of the beholder at this point.

We have, in the case of Ukraine, a democratically elected leader in Yanukovych who was overthrown by a coup d’état that was spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias after he’d agreed to move up the elections so people could even vote him out of office if they wished. That led to his being forced to flee and a sort of rump parliament begin to pass a bunch of laws while some of these neo-Nazi militias control the government buildings.

So I think how you look at this depends on whether you consider President Yanukovych still a legitimate leader, elected leader of the country. He has asked for Russian help. And the situation with Ukraine is a bit complicated in that Crimea was historically part of Russia. It was only moved into Ukraine as part of a procedural matter when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.

So it’s a much more mixed situation, I suppose, than, say, the U.S. invading Iraq back in 2003, which was more clearly a violation of international law. But I suppose legal scholars could give you different opinions about it.

NOOR: And you write a lot about–you’ve written a lot about what the neocons and other officials in the Obama administration have–their roles in this and how it’s played out. But let’s kind of talk about, let’s address the internal factors as well, because it did appear, especially in the western parts of Ukraine, that there was this popular sentiment that Yanukovych had to go. What’s your response to that?

PARRY: Well, I mean, obviously Yanukovych is an imperfect leader, and many flaws. But that’s probably true of all the Ukrainian politicians, and, frankly, it’s probably true of all our politicians. But he was elected in 2010. He even agreed to move up the elections so the policy dispute that was at the center of this could be tested out. He was chosen by a majority of the Ukrainian people. Now, many of them come from the South and East, which are more Russian-oriented. And Kiev is based in the western part, which is more European-oriented. But still, the idea that a minority would be able to overthrow an elected leader doesn’t strike me as particularly democratic. It would be as if some group [snip] decided to get rid of a president of the United States who has strong support across the country. It’s not a real act of democracy for a minority to overthrow a democratically elected leader.

And the issue at play, really, was not one like possibly a structural issue. It wasn’t as if Yanukovych had said, we’re not going to have future elections and I’m just going to be president for life. The issue was whether or not he should accept an E.U. economic package that involved major concessions to the IMF, i.e. more austerity for Ukraine, or whether he would accept a more generous package of a $15 billion from Russia, which is already supporting Ukraine through discounted natural gas. So it was really a policy issue, not an issue of whether democracy would go forward.

Yet it became this issue where a group, a minority group in the streets, decided to get rid of their president. And that can be cheered on by some people, I suppose, but it’s not exactly an act of democracy for a minority to overthrow a democratically elected president.

NOOR: And so talk about what the West’s role has been in this, especially the United States and Germany, which is another player in this whole affair that hasn’t gotten as much attention.

PARRY: Well, the United States has been trying to pry Ukraine away from a close relationship with Russia. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said in December to a group of business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion, she said, in helping Ukraine achieve its European aspirations, that is, moving it away from Russia into the E.U. So, obviously, the United States has played a role in trying to achieve this antidemocratic transition. As much as they may call it democratic, overthrowing an elected leader is on its face not democratic.

There’s also the issue of the National Endowment for Democracy and another U.S.-funded political operations. NED, according to its report, has 65 projects underway in Ukraine, including training activists, supporting journalists, organizing business groups, essentially creating a sort of a shadow political structure that could be put in play to destabilize the country. And that’s what we’ve seen here. We saw a destabilization of a country–which had problems, no question, and had leadership that was very flawed. But still, instead of going through a constitutional electoral process, another approach was taken.

And Yanukovych did agree–after the protests turned violent, he agreed to a deal negotiated by the E.U. to advance the elections and to have the police stand down.

NOOR: The counter–.

PARRY: And it was after that [the militias] intervened and took power, basically, and forced him to flee, along with his administration.

NOOR: And–sorry about that. Our connection cut out for a moment.

But I guess–so the counterpoint would be, despite the external pressure, despite the role the West has played in Ukraine, this could not have happened without this popular uprising. And some reports, at least, have indicated that at least–you know, there are definitely fascist groups, part of this opposition movement. But it did include some broader parts of the middle and the working class, at least in the western region.

And I also wanted to get your take on what’s at stake here. Why is this such a vital part of–economically and with the industrial base there, what exactly is at stake for the West and for Russia?

PARRY: Well, you know, I think for Russia this is a–has an important strategic value. It’s on their border. And along the Black Sea in the Crimea, the Russians have had traditional military bases. And Crimea was historically part of Russia. It was–as I say, it was only put into the Ukraine for more of a bureaucratic reason when they all were part of the Soviet Union, so it didn’t really matter much.

So you have your Russian people of Russian ethnicity who speak Russian, who feel that they essentially are Russian, who are now being put under this minority-coup-generated government.

And, you know, this goes back historically to many ways where the United States has overthrown elected governments in the past. And in all those cases, you could say that the elected leaders had flaws and that there was some legitimacy, there was some opposition to them, whether it was Mosaddegh in Iran in ’53 or Árbenz in Guatemala in ’54 or Allende in Chile in ’73 or Morsi a year or so ago in Egypt, you can always–and there are many, many more, Aristide twice in Haiti. So you can always cite these flawed leaders and say that there are elements in those countries that legitimately want to get rid of their elected leadership, and the United States sides with them. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for the people of those countries, ultimately. In all the cases I mentioned, I think you could argue that it was worse for them. They ended up under severe dictatorships, often fascist dictatorships. In the case of Iran you had decades of control by the Shah of Iran. In the case of Guatemala, you had 200,000 peasants being slaughtered. You had–in the case of Chile, you had widespread repression under Pinochet. So, you know, you don’t always–so while it may seem like it’s all very nice that Victoria Nuland, our assistant secretary of state for European affairs goes out and passes out cookies to the demonstrators in the plaza, it doesn’t always lead to what is best for the people of that country.

NOOR: And, Robert Parry, finally–we’re almost out of time, but what does a principled position on this conflict look like for you, in your opinion?

PARRY: Well, a principled position was, I think, what was ultimately negotiated before the coup occurred, which was to have the police back off, let the protesters have their say, allow for early elections, allow the people of Ukraine to really have a voice in what they want their government to do. I suppose what we’re now faced with, essentially, is a civil war on the Russian border, which maybe some of the neocons in the United States thinks is a pretty clever idea, but it’s obviously a very dangerous idea. So I think principle is almost one thing at this point. Practicality and how to avoid a worse conflict or a worse crisis is what people really should be focused on, rather than trying to make hay out of being tough and swaggering, which is what we’re seeing in official Washington. We’re seeing a lot of chests puffed out. We’re seeing a lot of tough talk about standing up to the Russians. We’re seeing kind of a Cold War mentality sort of clamp down on us. That’s a very dangerous thing. And it’s also dangerous because Putin and Obama have had a constructive relationship in avoiding confrontations or worsened confrontations in places like Iran, in places like Syria. Violence there has been avoided, or at least the escalation of the violence has been avoided, because Putin and Obama have been able to strike deals. Now that whole relationship is at risk, which puts a whole number of other issues in play: whether or not the Syria conflict will spiral further out of control with U.S. intervention, whether Iran’s negotiations will fail, whether that will lead to bombings of the nuclear sites. So a lot is in play here. And I think the neoconservatives who have been trying to stir this up, including Victoria Nuland, who is a holdover at the State Department from the Bush years, that the neocons want to achieve this idea of creating more pressure and more confrontation. They have achieved that. But I’m not sure it’s a good idea for the world or for the United States’ policies...."

DID THE U.S. CARRY OUT A UKRAINIAN COUP?
BY ROBERT PARRY | THE REAL NEWS NETWORK | MARCH 4, 2014 | https://therealnews.com/rparry0303ukraine
Investigative journalist Robert Parry talks about Russia’s move to invade Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and the role of the US and the west in fomenting crisis there.

And the following article by Robert Parry focuses on the U.S. role in engineering the coup:

The Mess That Nuland Made
By Robert Parry | Special to Consortium News | July 13, 2015 | https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/26/robert-parry-the-mess-that-nuland-made/
Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s “regime change” in early 2014 without weighing the likely chaos and consequences, wrote Robert Parry on July 13, 2015.

Oliver Stone's documentary “Ukraine on Fire” tells the story of the 2014 Ukraine coup, as described in the following 2017 Real News Network interview of the director, Igor Lopatonok (and NOTE that if you want to watch this interview on video, you can see it via the link) :

"...Aaron Mate: That’s a clip from the trailer for Ukraine on Fire, produced by Oliver Stone, and I’m joined now by the film’s director, Igor Lopatonok. Igor, welcome.

Igor Lopatonok: Hi. Hi Aaron.

Aaron Mate: Let’s just do a brief summary of what the Ukraine crisis is all about, just to remind people. So in 2013, you have these protests break out against the president, Yanukovych, ostensibly over the fact that he neglected a trade deal with the European Union in favor of one that was offered by Russia. There was also anger over corruption allegations against his administration. And these protests culminate in February 2014 in Yanukovych being overthrown. There’s a very famous intercepted phone call as this crisis is exploding between the U.S. Ambassador at the time, Geoffrey Pyatt, and the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland. And so Yanukovych is facing all these protests and Nuland and the ambassador have this conversation.

Speaker: Questions of credibility are being raised after a private chat between two top U.S. diplomats was leaked online.

Victoria Nuland: I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the … You know, what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. I just think Klitsch going in, he’s going to be on that level working for Yatseniuk, it’s just not gonna work.

Geoffrey Pyatt: Yeah, no, I think that’s right. OK. Good. Well, do you want us to try to set up a call with him as the next step?

Victoria Nuland: Sullivan’s come back to me VFR saying “You need Biden?” And I said “Probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets to stick.” So Biden’s willing.

Aaron Mate: So that’s a phone call between Victoria Nuland, at the time the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, and they’re talking about Arseniy Yatseniuk, who they call Yats. And, low and behold, he became the leader of Ukraine after Yanukovych was deposed, not long after this phone call. So, Igor, talk about what is going on here.

Igor Lopatonok: That’s a very advanced operation. Who dispatch in Ukraine to organize the coup, to organize the regime change and talking to his supervisor. That’s very, very … I think that’s Russian Secret Service who intercept that call, and they make it available public, show in the light how to … how United States official just floating the result of coup d’etat in the country.

Aaron Mate: For you have interviews where Oliver Stone, who executive produced the movie, he interviews Yanukovych and also Putin. And when he talks to Yanukovych, Yanukovych tells him that his point man in the U.S., who he was talking to, was Biden.

Igor Lopatonok: Correct.

Aaron Mate: And he suggests very strongly that Biden was basically playing a double game with him. He was telling him one thing but doing another.

Igor Lopatonok: First of all, Biden’s son was involved in a business in Ukraine. He held a position in the board of company that’s named Burisma. Now that company accumulate up to 40 percent of all oil and gas exploitation in Ukraine as well, so Biden have an interest. And when Victoria Nuland delivering this speech, about $5 billion what the State Department United States spent on the promoting of democracy in Ukraine for the years. She talking on the ground of [Chevron], when Chevron tried to make the Shell oil pumping in Donetsk area. So that’s follow the money rule working all the time. So Ukraine as usual was not only political battlefield, but also someplace when oil and gas involved. And don’t forget about pipeline from Russia to Europe was going through Ukraine, was giving them very big leverage against Russia. So, that’s the big and complex situation. But that situation happened, and situation violently blow up. And is no way, no military solution for that war. And there’s a legit civil war going on in Ukraine and 10,000 people already killed. And it is no way, and only Minsk agreement when they tried to prevent the Ukrainians from attacking that. Because you cannot say there’s 3 million terrorists living in my country. This is your people who live in Donetsk. You cannot blame them to be terrorists because it’s like woman, older man, the kids …

Aaron Mate: OK, Igor, so you’re speaking to the division that exists inside Ukraine. And I think that this is part of the problem with Western media coverage, and it’s something that you point out inside your film, which is that, in terms of the grievances of people inside Ukraine, attention at least in the West, has mostly been paid on those who the U.S. has officially allied with, the parts of Western Ukraine like Kiev, the more nationalist parts of Ukraine that don’t want Russian involvement, that don’t want to speak the Russian language. Whereas you’re saying there’s a whole bunch of people who are being ignored who actually want ties with Russia, and, you know, who speak Russian as their, as a dominate language. But it’s those voices who have been silenced. So, if you can comment on that and also talk about then who are, who is the opposition who the U.S. supported who came to power? And your film suggests that there are, you know, far right Nazi elements inside this wing.

Igor Lopatonok: So first of all, of course it’s not Nazis who come to power, but in the Germany just before Hitler, during the Weimar Republic, that also was Nazi. They look on the Nazi and then that storm troops as in, like, you know, blunt, brutal force. So they using that brutal force until they understand, the brutal force grow up so big so you cannot control them. So exactly same situation happened in Ukraine, all that free leaders from Maidan the Vitaly Klitschko, famous boxer, and the Yatseniuk, who was prime minister of Ukraine one day and the famous guy from a party, now Nazi party, Svoboda, Tyahnybok, they was on the stage. They was hungry for power. They was hungry for the ability to exploit my fellow country, to make some money on that, and they was very, very against idea just to go for election and to be elected. Because, if everybody’s saying that Yanukovych was bloody tyrannical dictator, blah, blah, blah, do not forget people, and the democratic election, and the election was accepted everywhere in the United States as well. They worked for that Yanukovych. They elect him as a president, and they put him in the power, that was the people of Ukraine. So idea was to go to the power a different way because they know is that a lot of people who support the Russian influence and who are friends of Russia, they would never elect them to be a president. That was a problem. And that’s happened. They go, they go very violent way. Before that, Ukraine already experienced a [kind of] revolution in 2004. In 2004, 10 years ago before Maidan. And it was kind of peaceful. But that was also technology, what was used and produced a result. And after the election they start blaming election on fraud, asking for [inaudible]. And against in violation of constitution of Ukraine that Yushchenko proceed to be president of Ukraine. What’s happened after? Economy collapsed, people totally was disappointed by his presidency, and the next election he take 3 percent of electoral votes. So that’s what happened 10 years ago before Maidan. What we experiencing right now, the economy in collapse, in a free fall, the debt of country rose 300 percent and the GDP per capita diminished 180 percent and the exchange rate 300 percent. So basically all that revolution, so-named revolution, and joining the European Union trade agreement was a huge mess and huge disaster for Ukrainian people. That why we experiencing now exodus of people from Ukraine. They leaving the country. They don’t want to stay anymore. They want to find a better way to live for them and their families...."

HOW THE US HELPED SET ‘UKRAINE ON FIRE’
BY IGOR LOPATONOK | REAL NEWS NETWORK | AUGUST 22, 2017 | https://therealnews.com/iiopatonok0810ukraine

Sandy Larsen wrote:

Quote

Oh, you mean the region of Ukraine stolen by Russia?

They've had referendums in the areas of the Donbass that have been annexed in which the citizens voted overwhelmingly to unite with Russia, and you can click on the links below to see footage of the referendums as well as interviews of some of the participants filmed by American independent journalist Eva Karene Bartlett who was present during these referendums and agrees that the votes were overwhelmingly to join Russia:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2016JUSTICE4ALL/posts/5362229393892148/

Eva Karene Bartlett | September 27, 2022
I went to schools serving as voting stations for this final day of the referendum on whether the DPR will join Russia. After schools in central & northern Donetsk, I went to Kuibyshevskiy, w Donetsk, where by chance I ran into Vadim Pysarev, Art Director of Donetsk Opera Theatre.
[I'd met Vadim in August, after Ukraine repeatedly bombed central Donetsk, including just outside the theatre. He spoke to me about the 11 year old ballerina killed in the bombings, & her grandmother & ballet teacher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQNQ_vT_j-k]
**I have more footage to share, but this was the easiest to share quickly since I didn't have to add subtitles as I am doing (manually) now to other clips.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2016JUSTICE4ALL/posts/5365457796902641/

Eva Karene Bartlett | September 29, 2022

More from on the ground in the DPR, during the referendum.
[Please tell me, is this your personal opinion? They ask you who is forcing you—perhaps a soldier?—to vote. ]
"No, no, God forbid. It's personal. Here absolutely everyone expresses their opinion and go to vote purely on their own."
(Apologies for my attempt at asking questions in Russian, but, silver lining, the man understood what I was trying to ask)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2016JUSTICE4ALL/posts/5514166885365064/

Eva Karene Bartlett | November 19, 2022
Video and announcement from the #StopKillingDonbass movement:
On November 19, 2022, we want to remind and once again draw the world's attention to the fact that peaceful citizens of Donbass are subjected to endless shelling by the AFU and neo-Nazi paramilitary units of Ukraine.
In eight years, more than 35,000 civilians have suffered, and thousands of families have been left homeless and some without their breadwinners. Every day dozens of shells and missiles fly into the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk republics.
Today every child in Donbass can distinguish by the sound what type of shells are flying towards them.
Just think about it!
Since 2014, the collective West has provided more than $41 billion in military aid to Ukraine and continues to supply arms and ammunition to this day. It is well known that it is NATO shells that are being fired on cities, elements and fragments from French, American, German and Spanish ammunition are being found at the scenes of accidents.
At the same time, the "civilized" world continues to ignore this fact and to dance to the tune of the USA despite the losses that this world itself bears by sponsoring the killing of Donbas.
Today we again call the West to pay attention to this!
We are announcing another peaceful action in Italy, France
and Spain on November 19, 2022 with an appeal to the leaders of these countries - to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine,
- abandon the "sanctions war" with Russia
- Resume direct dialogue with Moscow.
#StopKillingDonbass🕊

And the following is Russian news coverage of the referendums:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2016JUSTICE4ALL/posts/5363441823770905/

Ismaeel Abdur-Rasheed | September 28, 2022
Ukraine 🇺🇦 Russia 🇷🇺
“The referendum on joining Russia started simultaneously on September 23 in the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, as well as in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. Voting lasted five days, until September 27. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia would support the decision made by the residents.”
— Local Electoral Commissions: Referenda in Kherson, Zaporozhye, DPR & LPR Recognized as Valid [full article text]:
According to the results of processing 100% of the ballots, 98.42% (over 1.6 million people) of the inhabitants of the Lugansk People's Republic voted for joining Russia, Elena Kravchenko, chairwoman of the republic's electoral commission, told reporters on Tuesday evening.
The head of the LPR Leonid Pasechnik said upon declaring the results that intimidation by nationalists and shelling by Ukraine could not prevent the referendum from taking place. He added that he is "proud" of his fellow citizens, and that the result is "a victory for us," given that the breakaway republic has been striving toward this goal for "a long eight years."
"We deserve it, and we have reached it," Pasechnik stressed.
Meanwhile, in the neighboring Donbass republic of Donetsk, based on all of the ballots processed, 99.23% of its residents voted for joining the Russian Federation, according to Vladimir Vysotsky, chairman of the DPR CEC.
The total turnout was 97.51% of all registered voters. A total of 2,133,326 voters took part in the voting.
Vysorsky pointed out that only 0.68% voted against accession to Russia during the five-day referendum. The central electoral commission of the republic declared the referendum valid, as the chairman stated that there were no complaints about irregularities in the referendum at the time of determining the results of the vote.
The republic's head, Denis Pushilin, said that the referendum has officially been held,and it's results are "colossal."
"We have been moving towards this for so long, and here it is - a colossal result. To say that we did not expect such a result would be untrue. I personally believed and continue to believe in Donbass, I believe in our people. We have all wanted this," Pushilin said.
Pushilin added that after the results of the referendum were announced, the agreement would be signed and ratified by the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, the lower and the upper chambers of the nation's parliament.
In the Kherson region, located just north of the Crimean peninsula, per the local central electoral commission, as 100% of the votes were processed, a total of 87.05% of the inhabitants voted for joining the Russian Federation.
Per Marina Zakharova, chairwoman of the regional electoral commission, a total number of 497,051 participants in the referendum said "Yes" to the question put forward at the referendum: "Are you for the withdrawal of the Kherson region from Ukraine, the formation of an independent state by the Kherson region and its entry into the Russian Federation as a constituent entity of the Russian Federation?" The number far exceeds 50% of the votes required to pass the referendum.
In total, 571,001 people took part in the referendum in the Kherson region, which is 76.86% of the list of voters there. Members of the commission unanimously voted for the recognition of the referendum as valid and approved the voting results.
And in the Zaporozhye region, after processing 100% of the referendum ballots, 93.11% of voters supported reunification with Russia, said the head of the regional electoral committee, Galina Katyushchenko. According to the local CEC, there were also no major violations or any irregularities during the referendum.
Following the referendum, the region de facto withdrew from Ukraine and is waiting for the decision of Moscow on admitting it, the region's head Evgeny Balitsky told reporters on Tuesday evening, adding that the local authorities have already submitted the formal application to the Russian government.
'Welcome Home, to Russia'
Deputy Chairman of Russia's Security Council, former President Dmitry Medvedev claimed in his post on Telegram that the results of the referenda are "clear."
"Welcome home, to Russia!" he wrote.
In turn, the DPR head Pushilin said that in terms of the local authorities' next steps, everything is proceeding according to plan, and the plan is to become part of Russia.
"Of course, we will come to the next legal step. Everything is according to the plan that we drew for ourselves a long time ago - this is the plan to become part of a great country, Russia, as soon as possible," Pushilin said.
Earlier this month, the local public movements addressed the regional authorities with an initiative to immediately hold referendums. According to representatives of the republics and regions, joining Russia will secure their territories and restore historical justice.
In their opinion, this decision is extremely necessary amid the constant acts of terror by the nationalist authorities of Ukraine and NATO members, who supply Kiev with weapons to kill civilians.
Russian President Putin said that Moscow will support the decision made by the residents of the Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
As for the republics of Donbass, on February 21 this year, Putin announced the recognition of the sovereignty of the LPR and the DPR. He asked the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation (Russia's bicameral parliament) to support this decision and then ratify the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance with the republics of Donbass.
Back in 2014. when the conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted, both the DPR and the LPR held referenda on self-determination on May 11, 2014, amid the military operation launched by the Ukrainian authorities in April of the same year against the Donbass.
96.2% of the referendum participants voted for self-determination of the LPR, while 89.7% voted the same in the DPR. The next day, May 12, 2014, the state sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics was proclaimed.
—
sputniknews com/20220927/local-electoral-commissions-referenda-in-kherson-zaporozhye-dpr--lpr-recognized-as-valid-1101288885.html
#Russia #Ukraine #UkraineReferendum

Sandy Larsen wrote:

Quote

Zelenskyy's government agreed with Boris Johnson, that it would be a mistake to sign that agreement. It would allow Putin to invade again, this time better prepared. (Source)

If Ukrainian neutrality is what Putin wanted, why didn't he threaten to invade unless Ukraine agreed to it? When his troops were surrounding Ukraine, Putin could have said he wouldn't invade if they agreed not to join NATO.

Instead, Putin go right in claiming to be there to protect everyone from the proliferation of neo-Nazis.

Of course Zelensky is going to claim something like that, but the fact is that Ukraine had a delegation present for the negotiations and was just about to put pen to paper. Ukraine has lost approximately 400,000 men in the war (deaths, the number of wounded men is even higher), with Russia suffering less than one quarter that number of casualties. Because of the much larger population of Russia, and Russia's much greater industrial capacity, it has been known by all of Nato and the world itself that Ukraine is going to eventually lose this war, and so it is a tragic loss of life that is associated with NATO's obstruction of an early settlement of the conflict. Had Ukraine signed the Minsk 2 Accords, Russia would have withdrawn by April of 2022, requiring only that Ukraine remain neutral and not join NATO. Ukraine's calculation for continuing the war was to somehow get NATO in to the conflict, but as that means certain nuclear war, that is never going to happen. There will eventually be a negotiated settlement supported by NATO, but it is 400,000 Ukrainian and 50,000 Russian deaths too late. The U.S./NATO goal of weakening Russia has not even been met, as the Russian war economy has surged, and Russian military strength has dramatically increased, with its weapons factories operating at wartime capacity 24/7. It's truly a monumental waste of life.

And as for your question of why Putin didn't warn Ukraine when his forces were on the border ready to invade, Putin has been warning Ukraine and NATO that Ukraine membership in NATO is a red line for Russia, and they were through xxxxing around. Secondly, the U.S. and NATO had turned the Ukrainian military into the most formidable force in Europe at that point, and it was a matter of operational security as to what exactly they were going to do, which is why so many were predicting Russia would not invade at the time.

Lastly, given that Ukraine would have the U.S. and NATO involved in a hot war with Russia, regardless of the fact that it would mean the world being on the brink of nuclear annihilation, it makes little sense that you are so determined not to learn more about this war and the history thereof. The JFK assassination actually has A LOT to do with it, as it involves the rotten fruit that is the product of the victory of the military industrial complex over the ideals set forth in JFK's peace speech.

Edited March 27 by Keven Hofeling

Keven Hofeling · March 27

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Manafort admitted to it in 2022.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-campaign-chief-paul-manafort-owns-up-to-passing-sensitive-data-to-suspected-russian-agent

The article you cited does not constitute evidence that "Trump's 2016 Campaign Manager, Paul Manafort, was a long-term Kremlin employee who shared sensitive polling data with his Russian colleague, GRU agent Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 Trump campaign."

And that Manafort admitted to directing polling data to Ukranian oligarchs is a far cry from directing it to the Kremlin.

This simply is not the smoking gun that you think it is:

"...The fervent speculation suffered a setback when it was revealed that the polling data was not intended to be passed to Deripaska or any other wealthy Russian. The New York Times corrected its story to inform us that Manafort actually wanted the polling data sent to two Ukrainian tycoons, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov. That correction came long after viral tweets and articles from liberal outlets amplified the Times’ initial false claim about Deripaska. Most egregiously, New York magazine’s Chait doubled down on the initial error by incorrectly claiming that the Times was now reporting that Manafort’s intended recipient was “different Russian oligarchs.” For his part, Akhmetov says he “never requested nor received any polling data or any other information about the 2016 US elections” from Manafort or Kilimnik.

That two Ukrainian tycoons were confused with a Russian one reflects a broader error that has transmuted Manafort’s business dealings in Ukraine into grounds for a Trump-Russia conspiracy. Because Manafort worked for Ukraine’s Russia-aligned Party of Regions, it is widely presumed that he was doing the Kremlin’s bidding. But internal documents and court testimony underscore that Manafort tried to push his client, then–Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, to enter the European Union and turn away from Russia. As Manafort’s former partner and current special-counsel witness Rick Gates testified in August, Manafort crafted “the strategy for helping Ukraine enter the European Union,” in the lead-up to the 2013-2014 Euromaidan crisis. The aims, Manafort explained in several memos, were to “[encourage] EU integration with Ukraine” so that the latter does not “fall to Russia,” and “reinforce the key geopolitical messaging of how ‘Europe and the U.S. should not risk losing Ukraine to Russia.’” As his strategy got underway, Manafort stressed to colleagues—including Kilimnik—the importance of promoting the “constant actions taken by the Govt of Ukraine to comply with Western demands” and “the changes made to comply with the EU Association Agreement,” the very agreement that Russia opposed.

Rather than imagining it as part of some grand Trump-Russia conspiracy, there’s a more plausible explanation for why Manafort wanted public polling data to be forwarded to Ukrainian oligarchs. Manafort was heavily in debt when he joined Trump’s team. Being able to show former Ukrainian clients “that he was managing a winning candidate,” the Times noted, “would help [Manafort] collect money he claimed to be owed for his work on behalf of the Ukrainian parties.”

All of this highlights another inconvenient fact about Mueller’s case against Manafort: It is not about Russia, but about tax, bank, and lobbying violations stemming from his time in Ukraine. The Virginia judge who presided over Manafort’s first trial said the charges against him “manifestly don’t have anything to do with the [2016] campaign or with Russian collusion.” The collusion probe, the DC judge in Manafort’s second trial concurred, was “wholly irrelevant” to these charges.

The same could be argued about the entirety of Mueller’s indictments to date. Not a single Trump official has been accused of colluding with the Russian government or even of committing any crimes during the 2016 campaign. As The New York Times recently noted, “no public evidence has emerged showing that [Trump’s] campaign conspired with Russia.” The latest error-ridden hoopla generated by an inadvertent disclosure from Manafort’s attorneys does nothing to change that picture. If anything, it underscores that after two years there is still no strong case for Trump-Russia collusion—and that only shoddy evidentiary standards have misled its proponents into believing otherwise...."

POLITICS
JANUARY 11, 2019 : https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/manafort-no-smoking-gun-collusion/

The Manafort Revelation Is Not a Smoking Gun

Proponents of the Trump-Russia collusion theory wildly overstate their case, again.

AARON MATÉ

President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort leaves a district court in Alexandria, Virginia, May 4, 2018.(Reuters / Jonathan Ernst)

Partisans of the theory that Donald Trump conspired with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election believe that they have found their smoking gun. On Tuesday, defense attorneys inadvertently revealed that special counsel Robert Mueller has claimed that former Trump-campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to prosecutors about sharing polling data with a Russian associate. Now we’re being told that the revelation “is the closest thing we have seen to collusion,” (former FBI agent Clint Watts), “makes the no-collusion scenario even more remote,” (New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait), and, “effectively end[s] the debate about whether there was ‘collusion.’” (Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall). But like prior developments in the Mueller probe that sparked similar declarations, the latest information about Manafort is hardly proof of collusion.

According to an accidentally unredacted passage, Mueller believes that Manafort “lied about sharing polling data…related to the 2016 presidential campaign,” with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national who worked as Manafort’s fixer and translator in Ukraine. Manafort’s employment of Kilimnik has fueled speculation because Mueller has stated that Kilimnik has “ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.”

Yet Mueller’s only references that Kilmnik has Kremlin “ties” came in two court filings in 2017 and 2018, and it’s not clear what Mueller meant in either case. In April 2018, Manafort’s attorneys told a Virginia judge that they have made “multiple discovery requests” seeking any contacts between Manafort and “Russian intelligence officials,” but that the special counsel informed them that “there are no materials responsive to [those] requests.”

Kilimnik insists that he has “no relation to the Russian or any other intelligence service.” According to a lengthy profile in The Atlantic, “insinuations” that Kilimnik has worked for Russian intelligence during his years in Ukraine “were never backed by more than a smattering of circumstantial evidence.” All of this has been lost on US media outlets, who routinely portray Kilimnik as a “Russian operative” or an “alleged Russian spy.”

That same creative license that makes Kilimnik part of the Russian-intelligence apparatus is now being applied to the claim that Manafort shared polling data with Kilimnik. The New York Times initially reported that Manafort instructed Kilimnik in the spring of 2016 to forward the polling data to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian tycoon to whom Manafort owed a reported $20 million. The Times also reported that “[m]ost of the data was public,” but that didn’t stop pundits from letting their imaginations run wild.

“Deripaska is close to Putin, and he has zero use for campaign data about a US election, other than to use it for the then on-going Russian campaign to elect Donald Trump,” wrote TPM’s Josh Marshall. “There is only on reason I can think of: to help direct the covert social-media propaganda campaign that Russian intelligence was running on Trump’s behalf,” declared The Washington Post’s Max Boot.

The fervent speculation suffered a setback when it was revealed that the polling data was not intended to be passed to Deripaska or any other wealthy Russian. The New York Times corrected its story to inform us that Manafort actually wanted the polling data sent to two Ukrainian tycoons, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov. That correction came long after viral tweets and articles from liberal outlets amplified the Times’ initial false claim about Deripaska. Most egregiously, New York magazine’s Chait doubled down on the initial error by incorrectly claiming that the Times was now reporting that Manafort’s intended recipient was “different Russian oligarchs.” For his part, Akhmetov says he “never requested nor received any polling data or any other information about the 2016 US elections” from Manafort or Kilimnik.

That two Ukrainian tycoons were confused with a Russian one reflects a broader error that has transmuted Manafort’s business dealings in Ukraine into grounds for a Trump-Russia conspiracy. Because Manafort worked for Ukraine’s Russia-aligned Party of Regions, it is widely presumed that he was doing the Kremlin’s bidding. But internal documents and court testimony underscore that Manafort tried to push his client, then–Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, to enter the European Union and turn away from Russia. As Manafort’s former partner and current special-counsel witness Rick Gates testified in August, Manafort crafted “the strategy for helping Ukraine enter the European Union,” in the lead-up to the 2013-2014 Euromaidan crisis. The aims, Manafort explained in several memos, were to “[encourage] EU integration with Ukraine” so that the latter does not “fall to Russia,” and “reinforce the key geopolitical messaging of how ‘Europe and the U.S. should not risk losing Ukraine to Russia.’” As his strategy got underway, Manafort stressed to colleagues—including Kilimnik—the importance of promoting the “constant actions taken by the Govt of Ukraine to comply with Western demands” and “the changes made to comply with the EU Association Agreement,” the very agreement that Russia opposed.

Rather than imagining it as part of some grand Trump-Russia conspiracy, there’s a more plausible explanation for why Manafort wanted public polling data to be forwarded to Ukrainian oligarchs. Manafort was heavily in debt when he joined Trump’s team. Being able to show former Ukrainian clients “that he was managing a winning candidate,” the Times noted, “would help [Manafort] collect money he claimed to be owed for his work on behalf of the Ukrainian parties.”

All of this highlights another inconvenient fact about Mueller’s case against Manafort: It is not about Russia, but about tax, bank, and lobbying violations stemming from his time in Ukraine. The Virginia judge who presided over Manafort’s first trial said the charges against him “manifestly don’t have anything to do with the [2016] campaign or with Russian collusion.” The collusion probe, the DC judge in Manafort’s second trial concurred, was “wholly irrelevant” to these charges.

The same could be argued about the entirety of Mueller’s indictments to date. Not a single Trump official has been accused of colluding with the Russian government or even of committing any crimes during the 2016 campaign. As The New York Times recently noted, “no public evidence has emerged showing that [Trump’s] campaign conspired with Russia.” The latest error-ridden hoopla generated by an inadvertent disclosure from Manafort’s attorneys does nothing to change that picture. If anything, it underscores that after two years there is still no strong case for Trump-Russia collusion—and that only shoddy evidentiary standards have misled its proponents into believing otherwise.

Edited March 27 by Keven Hofeling

Sandy Larsen · March 27

51 minutes ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Trump's 2016 Campaign Manager, Paul Manafort, was a long-term Kremlin employee who shared sensitive polling data with his Russian colleague, GRU agent Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 Trump campaign."

Manafort admitted to the pertinent part of the characterization.

Keven Hofeling · March 27

Just now, Sandy Larsen said:

Manafort admitted to the pertinent part of the characterization.

We know Paul Manafort was not a "long-term Kremlin employee," and that Konstantin Kilimnik was not a "GRU agent," so by "the pertinent part of the characterization," you must mean that Paul Manafort shared polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, right?

Well that is A FAR CRY from the claim you've made in two posts so far that you have evidence that "Trump's 2016 Campaign Manager, Paul Manafort, was a long-term Kremlin employee who shared sensitive polling data with his Russian colleague, GRU agent Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 Trump campaign."

Moreover, it has NOTHING to do with Russian collusion:

"...The fervent speculation suffered a setback when it was revealed that the polling data was not intended to be passed to Deripaska or any other wealthy Russian. The New York Times corrected its story to inform us that Manafort actually wanted the polling data sent to two Ukrainian tycoons, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov. That correction came long after viral tweets and articles from liberal outlets amplified the Times’ initial false claim about Deripaska. Most egregiously, New York magazine’s Chait doubled down on the initial error by incorrectly claiming that the Times was now reporting that Manafort’s intended recipient was “different Russian oligarchs.” For his part, Akhmetov says he “never requested nor received any polling data or any other information about the 2016 US elections” from Manafort or Kilimnik.

That two Ukrainian tycoons were confused with a Russian one reflects a broader error that has transmuted Manafort’s business dealings in Ukraine into grounds for a Trump-Russia conspiracy. Because Manafort worked for Ukraine’s Russia-aligned Party of Regions, it is widely presumed that he was doing the Kremlin’s bidding. But internal documents and court testimony underscore that Manafort tried to push his client, then–Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, to enter the European Union and turn away from Russia. As Manafort’s former partner and current special-counsel witness Rick Gates testified in August, Manafort crafted “the strategy for helping Ukraine enter the European Union,” in the lead-up to the 2013-2014 Euromaidan crisis. The aims, Manafort explained in several memos, were to “[encourage] EU integration with Ukraine” so that the latter does not “fall to Russia,” and “reinforce the key geopolitical messaging of how ‘Europe and the U.S. should not risk losing Ukraine to Russia.’” As his strategy got underway, Manafort stressed to colleagues—including Kilimnik—the importance of promoting the “constant actions taken by the Govt of Ukraine to comply with Western demands” and “the changes made to comply with the EU Association Agreement,” the very agreement that Russia opposed.

Rather than imagining it as part of some grand Trump-Russia conspiracy, there’s a more plausible explanation for why Manafort wanted public polling data to be forwarded to Ukrainian oligarchs. Manafort was heavily in debt when he joined Trump’s team. Being able to show former Ukrainian clients “that he was managing a winning candidate,” the Times noted, “would help [Manafort] collect money he claimed to be owed for his work on behalf of the Ukrainian parties.”

All of this highlights another inconvenient fact about Mueller’s case against Manafort: It is not about Russia, but about tax, bank, and lobbying violations stemming from his time in Ukraine. The Virginia judge who presided over Manafort’s first trial said the charges against him “manifestly don’t have anything to do with the [2016] campaign or with Russian collusion.” The collusion probe, the DC judge in Manafort’s second trial concurred, was “wholly irrelevant” to these charges.

The same could be argued about the entirety of Mueller’s indictments to date. Not a single Trump official has been accused of colluding with the Russian government or even of committing any crimes during the 2016 campaign. As The New York Times recently noted, “no public evidence has emerged showing that [Trump’s] campaign conspired with Russia.” The latest error-ridden hoopla generated by an inadvertent disclosure from Manafort’s attorneys does nothing to change that picture. If anything, it underscores that after two years there is still no strong case for Trump-Russia collusion—and that only shoddy evidentiary standards have misled its proponents into believing otherwise...."

POLITICS
JANUARY 11, 2019 : https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/manafort-no-smoking-gun-collusion/