Crimea
Tuesday 19 January 2021
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"Achieving sustainable development goals could become one of the elements in the bilateral dialogue between Moscow and Washington, but it is not. Because this dialogue is generally far from being in the best state right now, and not because of Moscow."
The major break in U.S.-Russia relations came in 2014 with Russia’s Crimea annexation, followed by its war in Ukraine and U.S. election interference. -
“If it wants to be taken seriously on the world stage, Russia should take a leaf out of Washington’s book and deploy more of its soldiers in other countries. That’s according to former U.S. President Barack Obama.”
Obama didn’t actually write that. In fact, he said Russia lacks the ability to project its military might globally. -
“Why should our people participate in the experiments of some foreign uncles, if there are those who have already conducted two phases of testing, have confirmed the possibility of using the vaccine and are ready to provide it?”
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has not finished final testing, scant data about prior tests has been shared, and there are doubts about whether it works. -
“Moscow insisted that the probe ignored a large batch of data on the crash that Russia was eager to provide, instead relying largely on the evidence from Ukraine, and on ‘open-source’ information such as clips of purported evidence posted on social media.”
Russia provided radar data on the 2014 airliner tragedy, then said it was faulty. Other evidence confirms the plane was shot down. -
The article leaves out Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ties to the Kremlin, that he is sanctioned by the United States and key details of his business.
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“I believe that the allocation of $300 million in the United States for military assistance to Ukraine, on the contrary, opens the door for us to help the people at whom they want to shoot with these weapons.”
Russia was first to supply arms to proxy forces in eastern Ukraine, despite official denials. The support has continued since the war began in 2014. -
“[I]t is unfair to claim that the two-day visit to Moscow of Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop was the main reason for the start of the Second World War. All the leading countries are to a certain extent responsible for its outbreak.”
Putin’s view is not shared by most historians. The subsequent Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the USSR and Germany triggered the Nazi invasion of Poland, and it provided Soviet economic aid that made German conquests possible. -
In 2014, Russia invaded the Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and, after a “referendum,” brought it into the Russian Federation. Moreover, Russia maintains effective control over separatist territories in former Soviet states without annexing them.
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The names may have changed since Russian tycoons rallied around Boris Yeltsin in the early post-Soviet era, but there are still Russian oligarchs aplenty, and they have clout.
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“This (claim about persecution of Crimean Tatars) once again confirms that in Ukraine the name of the presidenthas changed, but the regime that came power in Ukraine after the coup has not changed. The actions are the same, the policy is the same, which is based on outright falsification, outright distortion of facts, outright labeling without any attempt to confirm them with any evidence.”
Repression targeting Crimean Tatars occurred even before Russia fully annexed the peninsula in 2014. It has been documented by human rights organizations and the United Nations. -
“However, we have long had questions regarding what the United States is guided by in including or not including certain organizations on its ‘blacklists’ [of terrorist organizations]. As you know, Washington has long refused to add the ISIS group to them.”
After the U.S. State Department named a Russia-based white-supremacist group to its terrorist list, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman falsely said the U.S. had refused to treat Islamic State terrorists the same way. -
“Crimea is part of the Russian Federation, with all the consequences this entails. Russia doesn’t have to leave Donbas soil since it had never entered there.”
Most governments have stated that Russia illegally occupied Crimea. An avalanche of evidence points to Russia’s involvement in the ongoing separatist conflict in Eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.