What military attack is that?
I know Russian troops were stationed in Sevastopol before February of 14 Even if we were to accept the little green men story, are we to believe a few soldiers cowered the Crimeans without a shot?
Where is your evidence of Russian troops and tanks in the Easter Ukraine?
Wgy would you think your say so would be proof of anything?
If you wall yourself off, assuming everything is fake news unless Trump assures he has not been victimized by it, you'll continue to give the impression you are too clever by half, at least to those who assume the POTUS cannot be a victim without seeming absurd and pathetic. A newly inaugurated POTUS is expected to assume administration of the government, hence the word, "administration," and not posture as if he is still a reality TV host somehow, "on the outside," a fake "renegade," if you will. Big Trump party donors would not donate six, seven, or eight figures to a "victim," not in control of things that matter to them, like dismantling regulators in every department and slashing tax levels of the wealthiest below the percentage levels paid by wage earners.
Those around Trump are not pleading or being found guilty of felonies by juries and then going to prison because they are martyrs, Matt. They are as criminal as the man who appointed and directed them!
Why Ukrainian forces gave up Crimea without a fight - and NATO is alert
Pavel Polityuk, Anton Zverev
10 MIN READ
https://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKBN1A90G0-OCATP
Jul 23, 2017 - Naval chief Denis Berezovsky did defect, along with several of his commanders, and was later made deputy chief of the Russian Black Sea ...
Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky appointed deputy ... - Tass
https://tass.com/russia/725041
CRIMEA AND SEVASTOPOL24 MAR 2014, 07:02
... Minister Sergei Shoigu during a working trip to Crimea has appointed Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky deputy commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Navy#Defections_to_Russia
.....
Defections to Russia
When Crimea was annexed by Russia, a number of Ukrainian Navy servicemen left the service for Russia. Among those were members of the upper echelon of command of the Ukrainian Navy. The Ukrainian Navy compiled and released a list of the officers who left the Ukrainian Navy for Russia, calling their actions treasonous.[34]
Vice Admiral Sergei Yeliseyev, a first deputy commander.
Rear Admiral Dmitriy Shakuro, a first deputy commander and chief of staff for the Ukrainian Navy.
Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Navy for one day, now a Black Sea Fleet deputy commander and chief of the combat training directorate.
Colonel Sergei Tarkhov, a chief of staff assistant in organization and sustainment of international relations.
Michman Sergei Gorbachov, a sergeant major of the Ukrainian Navy.
Administrative command - 5 officers.
Operation command - 17 officers.
Intelligence command - 8 officers.
Finance - 6 officers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/world/europe/zelensky-ukraine-russia.html
Zelensky’s Opponents Fear He Is Ready to Capitulate to Russia
The Ukrainian president’s political opponents worry that the Trump impeachment inquiry may have weakened Ukraine’s position before peace talks in Paris next week.
By Andrew E. Kramer
Dec. 5, 2019
KYIV, Ukraine — Washington may be obsessed with the impeachment inquiry over President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, but it was far from the minds of a few thousand protesters who gathered on a recent frosty night in Kyiv to vent their anger at their own country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, over his peace overtures to Russia.
If he struggled to resist demands by Mr. Trump for investigations affecting next year’s United States elections, some protesters said, imagine what will happen when he meets President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday for talks on ending the war in eastern Ukraine. As speakers derided Mr. Zelensky as soft on Russia, the crowd answered with cries of “No to capitulation!” and “Treason!”
Mr. Zelensky campaigned for the presidency on a two-plank platform of fighting corruption and ending a grinding war with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine that has killed at least 13,000 people.
While the peace effort has received less notice, it is undoubtedly the more politically treacherous of the two undertakings. Everyone is against corruption, in theory at least, but there are sharp divides over how to deal with Russia, which is widely despised by Ukrainians outside the breakaway eastern territories......
...Domestic political opponents are concerned that Mr. Zelensky, having no clear American diplomatic backing, may be too willing to make concessions to Moscow in the talks. Any widespread perception that he has done so could weaken him politically, hampering his ability to follow through with his anticorruption efforts.....
...In the worst-case scenario, they say, Mr. Zelensky would give amnesty to rebel leaders and grant sweeping autonomy to the breakaway regions, while allowing Russian forces to linger in or just outside Ukraine even after any political settlement.
In the peace talks, scheduled for Monday in Paris, most analysts see Russia seeking at a minimum to trade de facto control over the two separatists zones in eastern Ukraine for influence in domestic Ukrainian politics, including a veto on membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.....
...But through the summer, Mr. Zelensky sought a White House visit to urge Mr. Trump to press Russia and side with Ukraine in the negotiations. It never materialized.
To the contrary, at a news conference in New York in September, Mr. Trump backed away from Mr. Zelensky and his troubles in the war, telling the Ukrainian leader, “I really hope you and President Putin get together and can solve your problem.”
By distancing himself from Mr. Zelensky in the negotiations, as stressed by many of the security professionals who testified in the recent impeachment hearings, Mr. Trump has raised doubts about how far he will go to support Ukraine and made it harder for the Ukrainian government to defend the concessions it is making to end the war.
Some analysts say that despite Mr. Zelensky’s weak hand going into the talks, worries of a pivot to Russia are overblown and mostly whipped up by domestic political opponents.
“Accommodation with Russia would be a very hard sell inside Ukraine,” Steven Pifer, a former United States ambassador to Ukraine, said in a telephone interview...
Trump obviously wants whatever Putin wants. DiEugenio does, too, along with most who have posted on DPF since the 2016 election. Other Putin apologists on the Ed Forum receive almost no pushback from other posters.
Trump's demonstrated intent is for no other country to trust the U.S. about any pledge Trump or a prior administration has ever committed to.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/trade-trump-china.html
Is It Possible Trump Is on the Right Track With China?
Paul Krugman responds to reader questions about the lasting effects of Trump’s trade wars.
By Paul Krugman Opinion Columnist
Dec. 7, 2019
....Could electing a new administration reverse damage?
Any silver lining is a long way off, according to Krugman. “To really get back on track, we’d need a defeat — not just of Trump but also of Trumpism, which would take multiple elections,” he wrote in response to one reader....
....Krugman: None of the businesspeople I know think that. China is a bad actor in some ways, especially in not respecting intellectual property and arguably in de facto subsidizing some industries. But Trump isn’t taking on China over those issues, and hasn’t even made any clear demands.
He also hasn’t rallied other countries to join America in pressing China to change. Instead, he’s picking fights with everyone. So even if you think China should be confronted, Trump is doing it wrong....
....Krugman: We have numbers on this! If China were bearing the tariff, the price of imports to the United States from China would be falling a lot. They aren’t. All the evidence says that United States consumers are bearing the tariffs, and that Navarro is just making stuff up....
Don't wear your inclination to give Putin the benefit of the doubt on your sleeve, Matt, unless you're not posting with your actual name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances refers to three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994, providing security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. China and France gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.[1]
The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
As a result, between 1994 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons. Before that, Ukraine had the world's third largest nuclear weapons stockpile,[2][3] of which Ukraine had physical if not operational control.[4][5] The use of the weapons was dependent on Russian-controlled electronic Permissive Action Links and the Russian command and control system.[4][5]
In 2009, the Russian Federation and the United States released a joint statement that the memorandum’s security assurances would still be respected after the expiration of the START Treaty.[6]
Following the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, the US,[7][8] Canada,[9] the UK,[10] along with other countries,[11] stated that Russian involvement was a breach of its obligations to Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum, a Memorandum transmitted to the United Nations under the signature of Sergei Lavrov, amongst others,[12] and in violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. On 4 March 2014, the Russian president replied to a question on violation of Budapest Memorandum, describing current Ukrainian situation as a revolution, when "a new state arises, but with this state and in respect to this state, we have not signed any obligatory documents".[13] Russia stated it had never been under obligation to "force any part of Ukraine's civilian population to stay in Ukraine against its will." Russia suggested that the US was in violation of the Budapest Memorandum, describing the Euromaidan as a US-instigated coup.[14]....
