President Biden said Friday he plans to send a small number of U.S. forces to Eastern Europe in the “near term” amid growing fears of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I’ll be moving troops to Eastern Europe in the NATO countries in the near term,” Biden told reporters at Joint Base Andrews upon returning from a trip to Pittsburgh. “Not too many.”
The Pentagon has put 8,500 troops on heightened alert for potential deployment to NATO countries in Eastern Europe,nand Biden’s comments seemed to signal definitively that at least some of those forces would deploy soon. Most of the troops are expected to join a NATO rapid response force in Eastern Europe.
Biden’s comments are the latest sign that the White House believes a Russian invasion to be a strong possibility in the near future. Administration officials have said for more than a week a Russian invasion could be imminent, though U.S. officials have not judged that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made up his mind on invading Ukraine.
“We don't believe that President Putin has made a final decision to use these forces against Ukraine,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters earlier Friday. “He clearly now has that capability.”
Ukraine has disagreed, however, arguing that an invasion is not imminent and taking issue with the heightened rhetoric of U.S. officials and the decision by the State Department earlier this week to urge Americans and family members of embassy officials to leave Ukraine.
Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday during and stressed that the U.S. and European allies would “respond decisively” in the event of an invasion. Biden also said there was a “distinct possibility” Russia could invade Ukraine in February, according to the White House.
Russia has staged more than 100,000 troops at the Ukrainian border and recently conducted military drills in Belarus.
The Biden administration has threatened punishing economic sanctions should Russia choose to launch a renewed invasion of Ukraine. Biden and other officials have engaged in a flurry of talks with European partners in recent weeks to convey unity on a fierce response to a Russian incursion.
At the same time, Biden administration officials have offered a diplomatic alternative to Russia should it pull back troops from the border. The State Department sent a response to Russian demands of NATO earlier this week, to which the Russians reacted coolly.
The U.S. has asked the U.N. Security Council to hold a meeting on Russian aggression towards Ukraine on Monday, in an effort to escalate pressure on Moscow.
Briefing reporters alongside Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley warned of “horrific” consequences if Russia invades Ukraine as both defense officials urged Putin to take the diplomatic route.
“Given the type of forces that are arrayed, the ground maneuver forces, the artillery, the ballistic missiles, the air forces, all of it packaged together. If that was unleashed on Ukraine, it would be significant, very significant, and it would result in a significant amount of casualties,” Milley said. “You can you imagine what that might look like in dense urban areas, all along roads, and so on and so forth.”
metmike: What happens if Russia invades Ukraine?? Then we could have an escalating war with Russia......the country with the biggest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world.
Supposedly, Biden and NATO know what they are doing in deterring actions by Putin and we are being told that they are taking pre emptive actions to prevent Putin from being more aggressive.
But they might actually be provoking him. They could quite possibly have triggered outrage in him because NATO and the US are dictating to him what he can and cannot do in his part of the world that he assumes they have no business meddling in.
Putin is a dictator, narcissist and control freak. Making threats to people like that can trigger rage and be totally counterproductive.
Biden now has gone from threatening statements and sanctions, to actually sending troops.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/biden-putin-russia-ukraine-minor-incursion.html
So Biden is spending alot of time talking in a threatening way to Putin, warning him that he and the United Nations will punish him severely if he dare do this and that.
Several European countries in NATO are reliant on Russian gas and oil. Russia has a strong capability of making cyber-attacks on the US that we can't stop.
We are hearing all sorts of talk from the Biden administration and leaders of NATO countries(that are letting Biden lead).
They are talking like they are in total control and have a great plan to respond to anything Putin does.
They are misleading us.
Putin has a massive home court advantage and we have no clue what he is really thinking.
We are being told that Putin is just sending all these troops to the border to increase his negotiations to get a better deal.
Wow, are they all naive to assume that and are acting based on that or are they just trying to make us think it and that they have a wonderful plan but in reality.. know better that this could end up being something like WW-3?
https://www.the-sun.com/news/4536758/russian-invasion-ukraine-trigger-world-war-3/
"Boris Johnson warns Putin invading Ukraine would spark worst bloodshed since WW2 and many Russians ‘won’t come home’"
metmike: What's the matter with these leaders?
Threats like that to Putin are just as likely to tick him off and motivate him than to scare him.
If the US and NATO get tied up in a war with Russia, this would be the perfect opportunity for China to take control of Taiwan.
Then what happens?
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-ukraine-crisis-spark-world-war-iii-199893
"All parties owe it to themselves, their citizens, and the world to avoid an armed conflict that could accidentally escalate into World War III. Time is growing short."
metmike: The threats to Putin coming from Biden and NATO countries is not a very promising tactic to avoid war with a huge super power led by a man with a super ego.......the size of Russia.
If the threats don't work.............then one assumes there's a high chance of a major war. Once it starts, there may not be much opportunity to start over from the beginning to see if they can get it right.
They should have solid, secret negotiations and stop the threatening rhetoric in public meant to vilify and demean Putin and Russia in front of the world. This is counterproductive and increases tension, hatred and distrust.
Republicans are pushing President Biden to be tougher on Russia over its aggression toward Ukraine, but their isolationist far-right flank is denying them unity on the issue.
Some of former President Trump’s closest allies have questioned why the U.S. would side with Kyiv over Moscow at all and expressed skepticism that it’s worth pouring American resources into the conflict.
Top GOP leaders espousing the party’s traditional hawkish views have urged the Biden administration to impose sanctions and bolster Ukraine’s military capacity to counter Russia’s troop buildup along their shared border in recent weeks after its past invasion of Crimea in 2014.
But Republicans more closely aligned with Trump — who during his presidency at times expressed pro-Russia sentiment — argue that America should stay out of it.
“Despite claims by war hawks on both sides of the aisle, it is not in our national interest to spill American blood and treasure in Ukraine. A nation that cannot effectively secure its own border and protect its own territorial integrity cannot be responsible for doing so for nations in Eastern Europe,” said Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.).
“Russia invading Ukraine is not an immediate threat to the security of the American people, homeland, and way of life. The flow of dangerous drugs, crime, and criminals over our sovereign border is,” echoed Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.).
Others are suggesting, without evidence, that Biden’s actions to side with Ukraine could benefit the business interests of his son, Hunter, who previously served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) argued that Biden is “compromised” and renewed her regular calls for his impeachment.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), however, said this week that he thinks Biden is “moving in the right direction” to deter Russian aggression.
metmike: My biggest concern by far is that Biden and NATO leaders are being pretty reckless with threatening, demeaning public rhetoric attacking Putin in a manner that could actually enrage him and force his hand to be MORE aggressive.
This seems like amateur diplomacy....in fact, totally lacking in diplomacy by world leaders that should know better but are just trying to generate support for their side by forming narratives in peoples mind..........vilifying Putin.
If I was Putin, I would be pretty dang ticked off and it would make me more vengeful vs being cooperative.
Putin has no following or anything to say that would be broadcast on a large scale....... so their tactic is to use their powerful positions to convince the entire world that Putin is a pile of crap and stands for everything that is evil and they, on the other hand are for everything good and thats why the world should support them.
This is propaganda man!
Maybe much of is true but its still propaganda, with some lies in there.
https://www.quora.com/Can-propaganda-be-the-truth
Can propaganda be the truth?
Alexander Finnegan, J.D. Law, Marxist-Leninist
Yes. This ad is both factual and propaganda.
734 viewsView 31 upvotesAnswer requested by Hunter Jam
And the recklessness of them using the propaganda against Putin threatens to start WW-3!
This isn't North Korea or Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq or some other country you can tick off by using propaganda against them and have limited concerns about immediate consequences(although 9-11-01 should have taught us a FOREVER lesson about meddling in the Middle East).
This is Russia!
Let's fight DISinformation............with MISinformation (-:
We live in a world of entities battling each other using the age of technology......often featuring convincing sounding manufactured realities being pushed using powerful communication/internet sources.
The trick is to get the most people to believe in your fake reality.
Feb 3 (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russia has formed a plan to fabricate a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine, potentially by producing propaganda videos showing a staged attack, the United States said on Thursday.
The United States accused Russia of formulating several options to give it an excuse for an invasion of Ukraine amid rising tensions with Western countries.
One of the options is a fabricated video showing the graphic aftermath of an explosion targeting Russian people, featuring corpses, mourners and equipment appearing to belong to Ukraine or allied nations, State Department spokesman Ned Price and a Biden administration official said.
"The video will be released to underscore a threat to Russia's security and to underpin military operations," the official said. "This video, if released, could provide (Russian President Vladimir) Putin the spark he needs to initiate and justify military operations against Ukraine."
TASS news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responding to reports that Russia will stage fabricated attacks by Ukraine as saying: "This is not the first report. Something similar was also said earlier. But nothing has come out."
U.S. officials said they publicized their most specific allegation yet of possible Russian propaganda in order to "dissuade" Moscow from following through with such plans.
They said it was not clear if Russia has decided to take such a step or if they have decided whether to invade Ukraine.
"The production of this propaganda video is one of a number of options that the Russian government is developing as a fake pretext to initiate and potentially justify military aggression against Ukraine," Price told reporters.
"We don't know if Russia will necessarily use this or another option in the coming days."
Price declined to provide more specifics or evidence of the video.
U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Jonathan Finer in a media interview said the United States does not definitively know if this is the route Russia will take.
British foreign minister Liz Truss said on Twitter that the U.S. intelligence was "clear and shocking evidence of Russia's unprovoked aggression and underhand activity to destabilise Ukraine."
Russia has accused the United States of ramping up tensions and ignoring Moscow's calls to ease a standoff over Ukraine, a day after Washington announced it would send nearly 3,000 extra troops to Poland and Romania. read more
Russia has denied plans of an invasion but has amassed thousands of troops on its border with Ukraine.
metmike: I dunno about this one. What the US and NATO have been saying and doing sure smells like propaganda to me and its like they are demeaning, vilifying, challenging and baiting Putin in front of a global audience that they are targeting with the propaganda.
Sure doesn't seem like the ideal way to conduct sincere diplomacy to me.
They can all collude with each other on the tactic and when Putin says or does anything......they are claim its him making it up for propaganda. They even know what his propaganda will be BEFORE he even releases it. That one has me the most skeptical.
That's what people do when THEY are not being honest and they tell us what will happen BEFORE it happens so they can control the narrative based on THEIR plan.
This is how that works.
If there is a conflict over there before we hear what caused it and who caused it.........we might go with wherever the facts take us.
However, if NATO convinces us beforehand that there IS a planned conflict by Putin and Putin is going to use it for his propaganda(that they somehow know about) then, they can trigger it and if Putin shows facts to show THEY triggered it, everybody will immediately assume that it was Putin that caused it because the NATO propaganda already planted that idea in peoples heads (NATO somehow knew this).
Once you convince somebody of something........it's almost impossible to get them to consider information that contradicts that.
This happens all the time.
Accusing the other side of doing exactly what you're doing.
This is just speculation on my part based on some of the strangest behaviors of NATO in recent weeks, as they appear to be telling us what will happen before it happens to lead our minds.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/18/nato-is-the-aggressor-here/
metmike: One should also remember that there is a history of bad relations between Russia and NATO. Each of them want people to see the other as the bad guy. I think both of them use propaganda and both are dishonest at times.
We watched Mueller and one side convince the world that Russia was the bad guy in the 2016 elections with 2+ years of lies. Once you convince people of something, it's almost impossible for them to change their minds.
Since then, it's been too easy to use minds already convinced of how bad Russia is, for NATO to have their way using propaganda on Russia.
Previous thread on this:
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6296144777001#sp=show-clips
Metmike: This guy makes great points. This is a European issue. Biden and Putin have NEVER gotten along. Bringing Biden and the US into it will NOT help solve it with diplomacy.
So what is Russia's threat to the US?
What is China's threat to the US?
The answer is no brainer for our country. If we get caught up in a war fighting for Europe's interests..........China will be celebrating their great fortune!
and who is meeting with Putin, doing photo ops with all parties laughing and smiling all the while wondering where is Biden and number 2 why would the leader of the free world want to kill oil and gas........those meeting the last couple days include the leaders of our x - allies in France and Germany
