В предыдущих parts of this military-diplomatic saga, I told how the Kremlin turned the entire American military-industrial complex on its ears and forced it to “stand, be afraid!” the entire Biden administration. Today we will talk about what cunning Joe opposed to this.
The last personal communication between our presidents, which took place on December 30, on New Year's Eve, took place at the initiative of the Russian side (I remind you that Washington was the initiator in the first two cases), but this time Biden called Putin himself. There is no paradox here, just to the Kremlin's initiative, which took place even before Catholic Christmas, the representative of the White House replied that Biden could not immediately answer, he needed to prepare for the conversation. Grandpa Joe prepared for a week. Why this happened, think at your leisure. And do not attribute everything to the fact that Putin is a former intelligence officer and owns the tools of neuro-linguistic programming, and therefore every conversation with him is a test.
This, of course, is true, but not everything is so simple, apparently, Putin has something that keeps Grandpa Joe awake. These are only lap dogs from his pack, all sorts of Polish Pekingese and Baltic Spitz, can menacingly break off the leash, choking on barking, feeling the heavy breathing of the American Bull Terrier behind, in the hope that he will protect him in case of emergency. They are simply not allowed to know that all the last time the American Bull Terrier is occupied with only one thought - who would protect him from the Russian bear. While he shared these thoughts only with German shepherds, French bulldogs and English collies, no pot-bellied riff-raff just reached his hands, and they are not supposed to know about the problems that worry the leader of the pack (not to say, the leader of the pack). Let them bark for now. No pity. And the problems Grandpa Joe had with the Russians were global. There is no time for a pack, you would save yourself.
Distracting attention to an unusable object
You were not surprised by all this endless hype in the American and European media about the Russian military threat, about Russia's preparations for an attack on Ukraine, about its pulling troops to the borders of Ukraine (which turned out to be the borders of Belarus), as well as overflights of American reconnaissance and strategic aviation over the territory of Eastern Ukraine directly near the borders of Russia and the visits of US Navy warships to the Black Sea, which have recently been supplemented by the barrage of the American aircraft carrier strike group as part of the aircraft carrier Harry Truman and six escort ships in the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Italy, instead of moving to the Middle East? For all the dull ones, I explain - all these were links of the same chain, separate elements of the joint operation of the US State Department and the Pentagon to cover up the main event of the past year - negotiations between the White House and the Kremlin.
However, even with the advent of the New Year, nothing in the information field has changed; in all Western media, Putin still rushed to the Dnieper. This time, the reason for this was the negotiations in the RF-US, RF-NATO and RF-OSCE formats held in the first half of January in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna. All of them also went to the accompaniment of the same avalanche of reports about the impending attack of the Russian Federation on Ukraine. You will laugh, but the American and European layman is still fully convinced that these negotiations took place at the initiative of the United States, which pulled an insolent Russia onto the carpet for public flogging in order to knock out a promise not to attack Ukraine. About the ultimatum of Putin, who rolled out to his dearest "partners" a list of claims with imperative requirements for ensuring the security of the Russian Federation, and who pulled whom in real life on the carpet, neither the Europeans nor the Americans have the slightest idea. This is an objective fact that the Kremlin cannot do anything about, and a clear example of how it is really necessary to carry out campaigns for information support of important events. We still need to learn and learn from our sworn "friends and partners" in this matter.
Scouts call such operations "distracting attention to an unusable object." Their task is to hide the real goals pursued by the resident under white noise and an abundance of information. In this case, the resident is directly the 46th US President Joe Biden. The purpose of the operation is to distract the attention of the American and other public under the protectorate of the United States from his impending deal with Putin. And therefore, gigabytes of redundant information are thrown onto the heads of the unsuspecting, bored public, listing the numbers of military units, battalion tactical groups and their numbers, concentrated directly at the borders of poor Ukraine, the numbers and types of reconnaissance aircraft that make almost daily flights in the immediate vicinity of the Russian- Ukrainian border in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the number and types of ships freezing in the "cold" waters of the Ionian Sea instead of sunbathing on the shores of the Red. The philistine who does not understand anything is already dizzy from this, and behind all this pandemonium he does not see the main thing - America is turning back, under a howl about the fate of Ukraine, the United States is merging Europe (at least Eastern) to Russians:
On December 12, the US Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint strategic reconnaissance aircraft flew for the first time in the airspace of Ukraine, including in the southeast and south of the country north of Crimea, according to data from Western air resources.
In total, the aircraft was in the airspace of Ukraine for more than 6 hours. Previously, flights of such an aircraft over the country were not recorded. In operations in Ukraine, only RQ-4 Global Hawk strategic drones were used, which, in particular, conducted aerial reconnaissance along the line of contact in Donbass.
It hasn't even been two weeks since:
reconnaissance Boeing E-8C of the US Air Force (Air Force) on December 27 approached the Russian-Ukrainian border. This is evidenced by the data of the aviation monitoring website Flightradar.
Judging by the map, the plane started its journey from the Ramstein Air Force Base, then flew through European airspace to Ukraine and is currently on a reconnaissance mission south of Kharkov.
Earlier, on December 9, Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, reported that US strategic aviation had increased the number of flights near Russia's eastern borders. He noted that, in particular, the Americans are training launches of cruise missiles. On December 3, a civilian plane flying from Tel Aviv to Moscow was forced to change course over the Black Sea to avoid a dangerous rendezvous with an American reconnaissance aircraft. It was noted that the military aircraft chaotically crossed the established civil aviation routes and approached the passenger Airbus. Even earlier, on November 30, Russian leader Vladimir Putin stated that the Russian Federation was concerned about military exercises, including unplanned ones, near its borders. The President noted that bombers were flying 20 km from the border of the Russian Federation, carrying high-precision weapons, and possibly nuclear ones.
Let me remind you that all this happened directly during the preparation and immediately after the talks between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, which took place on December 7. On December 30, another telephone conversation took place between them, this time at the initiative of the Russian side. And as ordered, a couple of hours before the scheduled conversation, two reconnaissance aircraft crossed the border of Ukraine at once:
Today, December 30, two reconnaissance aircraft flew in the sky over Ukraine at once: the UK and the US. Video of movements displayed on the Flight Radar 24 service map.
The American Boeing E-8C Joint STARS aircraft carried out reconnaissance over the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, and the British RC-135 flew through Ukraine to the Black Sea to monitor the occupied Crimea.
Help: E-8C Joint Stars was created on the basis of the Boeing 707-300 passenger airliner and is designed to track and control the combat operations of ground forces.
The Boeing RC-135 is a family of large reconnaissance aircraft that the United States and the United Kingdom use to collect, process and transmit intelligence information. During the Cold War, these aircraft monitored Soviet air defense forces and Soviet intercontinental missile launches.
But this was not enough for the Americans, and on the same day, December 30, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the American carrier strike group led by the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman to be left in the Mediterranean due to the situation around Ukraine, reports the Associated Press, citing a representative Pentagon. According to the agency, this happened "against the background of fears about the accumulation of thousands of Russian troops near the border with Ukraine." The aircraft carrier, as part of a strike group of five US Navy ships, was supposed to head to the Middle East, however, according to a Defense Ministry spokesman, plans have changed. “This is necessary in order to reassure US allies and partners in the region,” the source said.
The information is confirmed by USNI News. A Pentagon spokesman said the carrier group would remain in the Ionian Sea between Greece and Italy for the time being, instead of heading towards US Central Command's area of operations via the Suez Canal. In addition to the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, the group includes the guided missile cruiser USS San Jacinto, the destroyers USS Bainbridge, USS Cole, USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and the Norwegian frigate Fridtjof.
false flag operation
According to Ukrainian media, according to satellite images, the Russian military buildup on the Ukrainian borders continues. The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense reported that the accumulation of Russian troops would continue and would peak at the end of January 2022. At the same time, Western media report that the Russian invasion of Ukraine can be carried out in early 2022, up to 175 thousand Russian military personnel will be involved in this.
In particular, they write:
The Russian leadership avoids commenting on information about a possible invasion, stating that the transfer of troops is an internal affair of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the Kremlin declares possible provocations from Ukraine and allegedly plans of Kiev to return the occupied territories by military means.
And although the Kremlin denies that it is preparing a new invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin simultaneously demands that the United States guarantee security and puts forward a number of demands, including not granting Ukraine membership in NATO and stopping the expansion of the Alliance to the east, as well as stopping the supply of weapons to Ukraine, withdraw a contingent of military advisers and instructors and not participate in exercises on Ukrainian territories.
Diplomacy Lessons
In the meantime, the New Year quickly passed and the Russian delegations, one after another, were drawn to Europe for the long-awaited negotiations with their sworn "friends". On the fact of the talks held in the RF-US, RF-NATO and RF-OSCE formats and subsequent briefings for Russian and foreign journalists given by the heads of the Russian delegations, Deputy Foreign Ministers of the Russian Federation Sergey Ryabkov and Alexander Grushko, as well as by the Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich , I can state only one thing - Lavrov has an excellent team, he is not ashamed of the Russian Foreign Ministry! Based on the results of the negotiations, only one sad fact can be summarized - the process moved off the ground and immediately ran into a wall of misunderstanding. We clearly stated our position, and the other side listened to it with all due respect. But on this good news ends for us.
As it became known from the lips of our diplomatic representatives, the first negotiations in Geneva lasted 7,5 hours (which is a record!), And the second about 4, of which 1,5 hours were devoted only to Ukraine (this is once again to the question "not a word about Ukraine without Ukraine!”), Lukashevich did not say how much time our delegation lost in Vienna, but also far from 15 minutes. The counterparts in all three cases were emphatically polite. Even at the RF-NATO talks, where the floor was given to all 30 of its members, no one allowed a rude word to be said against Russia (it's one thing to bark at the public, another thing face to face!).
From personal impressions, Sergei Ryabkov personally seemed to me a softer negotiator than Alexander Grushko, and the second’s English is more fluent. But according to the results of the briefings, I liked the first one more (and the briefing was better organized, there were no problems with sound and image), but Grushko had an excellent translator (not only I noted this), although he himself spars in English at a speed machine gun as a graduate of Cambridge.
After Ryabkov's briefing, I think many of the journalists present at it ran after it to look in explanatory dictionaries, which means the word imperative. For those who are not in the know, I will explain - this is a command, an unconditional requirement. In the 21st century, we have lived to the point that such words can only be heard from the lips of career diplomats. Sergei Alekseevich, in his usual mild manner, emphasized three imperative demands of Russia, without which the negotiations could be considered counterproductive or simply worthless (7,5 hours down the drain!). This, firstly, receiving legal written guarantees from the United States and their allies of non-expansion of NATO to the east, which is an absolute imperative for the Russian Federation. Second an imperative requirement is to obtain written guarantees not to deploy strike weapons at our borders that can hit targets on our territory (here we are talking about medium and short-range strike missiles that fell under the very INF Treaty, from which the States withdrew back in 2019 through the efforts of our beloved Trump). AND third the requirement is the zeroing of all NATO territorial acquisitions after the signing of the Russia-NATO founding act of 1997, i.e. in a simple way, the demand of the Russian Federation to roll back the Alliance to the borders of 1997, when there were no Poland, no Hungary, no Czech Republic, no Romania, no Bulgaria, no Slovakia, no Slovenia, no Croatia, no Albania with the North. Macedonia and other Montenegros, not to mention the Baltic countries. Agree, the requirements are initially unfeasible for either the United States or NATO.
Wendy Sherman, First Deputy Secretary of State of the United States, who led the American delegation, who conducted the parallel briefing, in turn told reporters that the American side was ready to fulfill only the second condition, i.e. to start negotiations on the renewal of the INF Treaty. This, of course, is good, but Ryabkov emphasized that our demands can only be considered as a package, isolating what you like and throwing away what you don’t like. Either everything or nothing! What will happen otherwise, the polite Sergey Alekseevich answered only in English, and this answer made the New York Times journalist who asked this question cringe. Sergei Alekseevich said that this would require some kind of military response from Russia, and this response might not please the United States and its European allies. Ryabkov refused to specify what kind of military and military-technical measures Russia is going to take in this case, so as not to aggravate the already tense situation.
Regarding the timing, Sergei Alekseevich did not limit the negotiations to some kind of deadline, but nevertheless noted that it was not about months or even weeks, Russia needed an instant response from the USA and NATO. As to whether one could even trust the written guarantees of the Americans, Ryabkov only grinned sarcastically that it was still better than nothing. And finally, regarding Ukraine and the impending attack on it by the Russian Federation, our diplomat said that Russia is not going to attack anyone, and therefore there is no subject for discussion here. When asked what guarantees Russia could provide for its non-aggression, he only reminded the journalist of Schwarzenegger's words from the film "Red Heat": "What is your evidence?"
Alexander Grushko, who held his briefing on the results of the RF-NATO talks two days later at the Russian Embassy in Belgium, in fact, did not say anything new, emphasizing that such negotiations in this format were the first in the last two years, relations between the Russian Federation and NATO for this time only degraded, but this is not our fault, since the Alliance since 2014 has actually returned to the times of 1949 and the Cold War, having taken a tough position of containing Russia.
Further, Grushko identified three main factors that influenced this. First - this is the recognition of the Russian Federation as the main enemy of NATO, which clearly did not contribute to the strengthening of European collective security. Second The factor is the expansion of NATO to the east and the use of the territories of the states newly included in the bloc to project force against Russia from various geographic directions and to various strategic depths, which created unacceptable risks to the security of the Russian Federation, which it cannot and is not going to put up with. AND third factor is the complete degradation of arms control, after the US withdrew successively from the ABM treaties (2001), the INF Treaty (2019) and the Open Skies Treaty (2020), as well as the sabotage by most NATO countries of the ratification of the Conventional Arms Treaty in Europe (CFE), which was intended to be the cornerstone of European security. In addition, Grushko stressed that the United States and its allies in their military development are trying to achieve superiority in all traditional operating environments (on land, in the air and at sea), to which space with cyberspace has now been added. In all possible theaters, they conceptually, operationally and technically lower the ceiling for the use of nuclear weapons and completely curtail cooperation with the Russian Federation in the areas of combating terrorism, piracy and the spread of drugs. Sadly, he stated that the current situation in relations with NATO is more than bleak.
The main The reason for the existing problems, as Grushko emphasized, is NATO's selective understanding of the principle of the indivisibility of security. In the eyes of NATO, it exists only for members of the Alliance, and in its practical activities, the bloc actually ignores the interests of other countries that are not members of the bloc. Russia, on the other hand, believes that the concept of "indivisible security", which was proclaimed back in 1975 by the Council for Security and Cooperation in Europe (now the OSCE), is based on the fundamental principle that no country (or group of countries) can ensure its security for security account of other countries. The Russian Federation believes that the eastward expansion of NATO is a direct violation not only of this principle, but also of the oral agreements that the Alliance gave to the leadership of the USSR. Grushko reminded journalists that now NATO's borders actually pass in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, and if NATO moves even further east, then the Russian Federation will have to transfer its weapons beyond the Urals, which is unacceptable for us (he meant the threat of possible missile defense systems in Ukraine, which will force the Russian Federation to shift silo-based strategic missile forces beyond the Urals in order to get out from under the American missile defense umbrella). And so, he concluded,
if NATO moves to policies containment of Russia, then Russia will then switch to a policy of counter-deterrence, if NATO applies a policy of deterrence, then on our part we will take counter-intimidation measures, if NATO looks for vulnerabilities in the defense of the Russian Federation, then the Russian Federation will find vulnerabilities in the defense of NATO countries. This is not our choice, but NATO leaves us no other choice, and therefore Russia's response will not be long in coming!
The last one is a direct quote from Grushko. Unlike his colleague Ryabkov, he was not delicate in terms, and the members of the Alliance themselves can guess what kind of military measures he was talking about.
Kremlin's New Tactic: Piecemeal Bad News
Summarizing, we can say that the negotiations ended in complete failure, and although the written response of the opposing (in every sense) side has not yet been received (it should be expected no earlier than in 10 days), but now all fans of non-science fiction can reflect on what military measures the Kremlin has up its sleeve. And the fact that the Kremlin is not bluffing is understood by everyone, except for some citizens of Ukraine.
The briefing of the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the OSCE, Alexander Lukashevich, held in Vienna on January 13 following the results of a special meeting of the OSCE Council, convened at the initiative of the Polish side presiding in the Council, only aggravated our sad assumptions - it was not possible to agree, they did not hear us, these gentlemen hear only themselves. And how can you negotiate with 57 countries at once? Well, if they don't want to talk to our diplomats, then they will talk to our military. I don't think they'll like it very much. The last, final part will be called so - Sergey Kuzhugetovich, your way out! From it you will learn what Putin was counting on, putting forward impossible demands to our "partners" in advance.
Only people with altered consciousness caused by the abuse of synthetic psychostimulants or even worse, such as hallucinogenic fly agarics and toadstools, can demonstrate their fearlessness in the face of Putin's armored underwater divisions, and then only by feeling friendly pats well, if on the shoulder, and not on the back place, senior comrades from across the ocean and from foggy Albion. But the well-groomed Anglo-Saxons will not fight either for the overgrown Poles, or for a pack of Baltic dwarfs, not to mention lovers of lace panties and free beer. And then what? Then you will have to urgently run for advice to a prisoner of a Georgian prison, find out from him where he bought such delicious ties, on which, in which case, you can hang yourself.
And since Biden does not belong to the first, nor to the second, and even more so to the third, he prefers to listen to his generals and intelligence officers. And they tell him that it's rubbish - the Russians overtook us in hypersound for a lifetime. Moreover, this is the life of him, Joseph Biden. And since even though grandfather is old, he is not going to the other world yet, he will have to negotiate with the Russians if he wants to live longer. And it's good if they let him save face in the process. Because the grandfather may not survive the second Afghanistan.
Take my word for it, Putin will strike where he is not expected at all. And they are waiting for him in Ukraine, they have already prescribed the terms - the end of February-beginning of March, Zelensky will just run out of gas, it's time to fight. But Putin prefers other latitudes for this. Somewhere around this time, we have long planned large-scale exercises of the entire nuclear triad - land-based, air-based and sea-based. Americans have never seen such a movie before. They will have tickets in the 1st row. But more on that in the final part.