Tensions russo-ukrainiens

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Investigating The Kerch Strait Incident

On the 25th of November, Ukraine and Russia were involved in one of the most serious confrontations of the almost 5-year long conflict between the two countries. Russian Navy vessels first rammed and then later fired on and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels, marking the first time Russian-flagged military units had officially attacked those of Ukraine.

Like many events in this conflict, both sides put out conflicting stories of what happened, as well as statements accusing the other of breaching international law. But what can we say for certain happened?

The First Confrontation

The opening act of the clash between the two navies began around 07:00 Russian time. Three Ukrainian Navy vessels – the Gyurza-M-class artillery boats ‘Berdyansk’ and ‘Nikopol’ and the tugboat ‘Yany Kapu’ – sailed towards the Kerch Strait, aiming to transit to the Ukrainian port of Mariupol. At around this time, they were intercepted by Russian Coast Guard vessels including the ‘Don’ and the ‘Izumrud’.

At this point, the clarity of the picture begins to break down. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claims that Russian vessels attempted to hail the Ukrainian ships and ask them to turn back, as they were not allowed to transit the Kerch Strait without a Russian navigator on board. The Ukrainians, for their part, claim they were illegally intercepted and had the right to free navigation through the strait.

As to what happened next, we need to analyse several primary sources. The first of these is an alleged communications intercept released by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). In it, several groups of Russian naval officers discuss the events which took place. There is no specific timeframe given, and it appears that the intercept is a collection of several recordings between different people forming seven discrete conversations.



From this recording, several key pieces of information can be taken away. The first is that the Russian vessel ‘Don’ rammed the ‘Yany Kapu’ twice. Once at 07:35 at the location (44°56’00″N 36°30’08″E) and a second time at 7:44 at (44°56’06″N 36°30’05″E). The second takeaway is that Russian vessel ‘Izumrud’ was damaged in a collision with another Russian ship.

Another piece of evidence is a video showing the Russian ship ‘Don’ appearing to intentionally ram the Ukrainian tug ‘Yany Kapu’. This footage can be seen below.



From this footage, several things can be seen. First, the identity of the boat which the video was shot from can be determined from the distinctive off-set 30mm autocannon seen at 0’51” in the footage, which is also present on the preexisting photos of the ‘Don’. Second, the approximate time of day that the video was shot can also be determined. In the footage, it appears to be shortly after sunrise. According to SunCalc, sunrise on the 25th of November in this area was at 7:46. As such, the video must have been shot within around an hour after sunrise the given the relatively low position of the sun in the sky. As well, in the video, a voice (presumably that of the pilot of the ‘Don’) shouts “eight twenty-one (08:21)” immediately after the collision. It is likely this is the time of the collision and appears to converge with the timeframe suggested by the solar position.

This is further backed up by an apparently unnoticed detail in the video. In it, the tug ‘Yani Kapu’ has already sustained damage from at least two individual strikes. This would confirm that it happened after the 07:35 and 07:44 strikes mentioned in the SBU intercept video. Photos of these areas of damage, when compared to a photo of the undamaged ship taken just a day before can be seen below.

Notably, following this video, the Yani Kapu was struck at least one more time. Video released by Telekanal Zvezda shot an hour or two later in the morning, when the sun was higher in the sky, shows that the tug has sustained additional damage to its port stern, which was not present either in the ramming video or the image taken of the Yani Kapu on the 24th of November.

Further evidence also backs up information from the SBU intercept. Images released by Kerch.FM show damage sustained by the Russian Coast Guard ship ‘Izumrud’. The location of this damage (high on the starboard midship area) is consistent with a strike from a Russian vessel larger than the smaller Ukrainian boats. As well the long scar along the side of the ship is inconsistent with weapons damage. This fits in with the SBU tape wherein a collision between ‘Izumrud’ and another Russian vessel is discussed.

The Second Confrontation

As the day continued, Russian Coast Guard vessels continued blocking manoeuvres against the three Ukrainian ships. A large cargo vessel was used to physically block the narrow passage under the Kerch Bridge, and a separate group of three Ukrainian naval vessels in the Sea of Azovwas forced to return to their base in Berdyansk.

Little information exists for what transpired over this period, however, the SBU intercept recording suggests that one of the Russian Coast Guard vessels took on a complement of 10 special forces soldiers to assist in later actions.

The aforementioned Telekanal Zvezda video also contains another piece of useful information. In the first few seconds of the video, a bulk freight ship identified as the ‘Aviona’ can be seen within a few hundred meters from one of the Ukrainian armoured artillery boats. Using ship-tracking website MarineTraffic, we can determine that the ‘Aviona’ was at anchor in the Kerch Strait in effectively the same location for the entirety of November 25. This gives us a new data point for the location of the Ukrainian ships later in the day, much further north than previous positions.

Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which Ukraine and the Russian Federation are parties to, territorial waters extend at most 12 nautical miles (22.2 km; 13.8 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state. Notably, this additional position near the ‘Aviona’ shows a Ukrainian vessel within not just the territorial waters of Crimea, but also mainland Russia.

It is also worth noting that Ukraine, as well as most Western countries, does not recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and by extension its territorial sea. Moreover, Ukraine has cited a 2003 agreement with Russia that denotes the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait as a shared waterway, allowing free passage.

After 18:00 local time, however, the Ukrainian ships attempted to leave the area, and return to their home port of Odessa. They were, by all accounts pursued, intercepted, fired on, and boarded. Several Ukrainian soldiers were injured and the ships were later captured by Russian Naval forces.

Both sides made attempts to assert that this clash happened either outside of Russian-claimed territorial waters (in the case of Ukraine) and inside them (in the case of Russia).

The Russian FSB released a detailed timeline of the events of the day, including a number of geographical positions in which key events occurred. These events are plotted on the map seen below.



The Russian FSB makes that point that the initial interception, as well as the warning shots, and finally the shots which hit the ‘Berdyansk’ all took place within the ‘territorial waters of Russia’. This does not align with the location data they themselves released.

Specifically, the most serious incident – the shooting of the ‘Berdyansk’ – took place at 44°51.3’N, 36° 23.4 E (notated in the official release as Ш=44° 51’3 СШ, Д=36° 23’4 ВД). We know the FSB is using decimal arc-minutes in their notation, rather than arc-minutes and arc-seconds, due to the fact that an earlier location is given as (Ш=44° 53’47 СШ, Д=36° 25’76 ВД) something which would be impossible under a degrees and minutes notation style – specifically the final digits ‘76’.


As can be seen in the above image, the FSB data, if correct, shows that the ‘Berdyansk’ was 22.72km from the coast of Crimea, and more than 500m outside of Russian-claimed territorial waters when it came under fire.

Ukraine for its part provided less detailed information regarding key locations during this period.


Unfortunately, while Ukraine asserts that its ships were outside of the 12 nautical mile UNCLOS limit, even if their location data is taken at face value, it is inconclusive. This is due to the fact that they only provided 4-digit locations. Such locations do not pinpoint a single point but rather a rectangle approximately 1.8 km on the N-S axis and 1.3km on the E-W axis. Given this level of imprecision, the positions could be potentially within, or outside of the 12 nautical mile limit. Ukraine likely does have access to more precise location data, and could make this public if it wishes to add clarity.

Additionally, an alleged mayday call released by Ukrainian publication Liga Novosti from one of the three Ukrainian vessels includes the audio “How many wounded do you have? I need help! I need help! Mayday! Mayday!” followed by the coordinates N 44° 51’ 00’’, E 36° 23’ 04’’. This location is southwest of the position Russia claims it fired on the ‘Berdyansk’, and is also outside of the 12 nautical mile limit, and thus in international waters.

As for the details of the confrontation itself, we again fall back on statements by both Ukraine and Russia, in lieu of primary sources. Interestingly, neither country’s statements contradict the other aside from their positions relative to the territorial waters line. Both sides claim that Russian forces shot at and crippled the ‘Berdyansk’, capturing it and the tug Yani Kapu shortly after. Initially, the Ukrainian military claimed that both the ‘Berdyansk’ and the ‘Nikopol’ ships had been damaged, before clarifying at 23:20 (Russian time) that only the ‘Berdyansk’ was hit.



Photos of the Ukrainian ships in port in Kerch post-capture show many small calibre bullet holes in the ‘Berdyansk’ as well as at least one large calibre hole in its bridge. This larger hit especially confirms that Russian forces were not shooting to disable the vessel, but rather to harm the crew. The FSB release itself notes that the Russian Coast Guard vessel ‘Izumrud’ issued threats to the ‘Berdyansk’ that “weapons to kill” would be used if the vessel did not comply with its request to stop.




Summary:

From this information, several things are made clear. Firstly, based on geolocated video footage, Ukrainian ships did enter Russian-claimed territorial waters, both that of Crimea and mainland Russia in the Kerch Strait. Ukraine nonetheless argues this was legally permissible due to the 2003 agreement between the two countries. Secondly, we can say that the Ukrainian tug ‘Yani Kapu’ was intentionally rammed at least four times over a period of at least an hour. Thirdly, based on information provided by the Russian FSB which appears to incriminate themselves, the shooting of the ‘Berdyansk’ most likely took place in international waters.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/11/30/investigating-the-kerch-strait-incident/

elite17 a raison et il connaît le pays

il n'y a pas d'ukrainien russophone, c'est à dire des russes ukrainiens ....çà n'existe pas

c'est comme les algériens qui nous disent que tous les oujdis sont plus algérien que Marocain et que les Oujdis sont proches de chengriha et tebboune ...bla bla ....bla bla

Il n'y a que des Ukrainiens en Ukraine et ce depuis que poutine a eu la grande intelligence d'attaquer ce pays ...

elite17 a écrit:

le rouble russe est déjà revenu au taux d'avant-guerre ..

C'est totalement artificiel !

La bourse a réouvert mais pas vraiment ...
Les étrangers (physique & morale) n'ont plus le droit de vendre du rouble ni de vendre des actions russes ...
Beaucoup de gens reste coincé avec de la daube qui ne vaut plus rien ET qu'ils ne peuvent plus vendre

ça ne peut que s'effondrer

marques a écrit:

elite17 a raison et il connaît le pays

il n'y a pas d'ukrainien russophone, c'est à dire des russes ukrainiens ....çà n'existe pas

c'est comme les algériens qui nous disent que tous les oujdis sont plus algérien que Marocain et que les Oujdis sont proches de chengriha et tebboune ...bla bla ....bla bla

Il n'y a que des Ukrainiens en Ukraine et ce depuis que poutine a eu la grande intelligence d'attaquer ce pays ...

Poutine a fait ses calculs sur la base des infos que l'intelligence lui alimente .. et il n'y a rien de plus toxique et destructeur qu'une intelligence alimentant le pouvoir politique ce qu'il veut entendre, c'est comme un connard de cercle. (idem Iraq 2003)
Poutine voulait faire une Crimée 2.0 à plus grande échelle, une opération sans heurt et sans effusion de sang qui impose un fait accompli. Et malheureusement pour lui, cela n'a pas fonctionné pour très peu de raisons : 1- si zelesnky et son entourage avaient peur et quittaient Kiev, les russes contrôleraient le pays en 48H ou moins, ce n'était pas le cas donc tout le pays pris les armes
2- Son armée n'était pas vraiment préparée pour un plan B, et ils n'ont su le plan d'invasion que lorsque la dernière seconde, chose qui s'est avérée fatale. Et ça fait des mois que les américains gâchent ses plans ce qui tue la surprise

Je veux vraiment donner mon avis sur le rôle de l'Occident dans tout cela. Les gens avaient l'habitude de penser que l'ouest était le maître de la planification et de la stratégie, mais dans cette histoire d'ukraine, l'ouest voulait vraiment que ça se termine le plus tôt possible, même le premier jour, les américains ont dit que les ukrainiens ne pouvaient pas résister plus de 3 jours et ils ont offert à zelesnky un passage pour s'enfuir. L'Ukraine est un ennui pour l'Occident plus que les gens ne le pensent, et ils aident juste à sauver visage. Personne ne préférerait laisser des affaires de centaines de milliards avec la Russie juste pour les yeux d'une nation qui vient de découvrir ce qu'est le nationalisme. Mais maintenant ils se sentent obligés de les aider

ScorpionDuDesert a écrit:

elite17 a écrit:

le rouble russe est déjà revenu au taux d'avant-guerre ..

C'est totalement artificiel !

La bourse a réouvert mais pas vraiment ...
Les étrangers (physique & morale) n'ont plus le droit de vendre du rouble ni de vendre des actions russes ...
Beaucoup de gens reste coincé avec de la daube qui ne vaut plus rien ET qu'ils ne peuvent plus vendre

ça ne peut que s'effondrer

je ne pense pas que le rouble devrait souffrir lourdement des sanctions , la russie a déjà une bonne balance courante (import/export) , les départs des entreprises réduiront déjà les importations , et le prix élevé du pétrole augmentera les chiffres d'exportations. Mais je pense que c'est leur PIB qui sera lourdement endommagé, surtout si les sanctions sont maintenues plus longtemps. Mais ca c'est un autre sujet

vous vous trompez sur certaines choses, Ssi elite17.
l'argent ne fait pas les rapports entre la russie et le reste de l'europe, surtout occidentale, la première donne est la réalité politique de l'état russe, c'est une dictature déguisée en régime républicain, mais de facto ce n'est qu'un énième régime autoritaire tiers-mondiste...
avec les mêmes travers et vices !
chaque régime autoritaire en manque de légitimité qui atteint le seuil fatidique ou la contestation s'oriente contre la personne du dirigeant et non plus contre ses politiques, envisage l'action militaire comme exutoire pour s'échapper de la pression interne.
putin l'à essayé une première fois et ça a marché, et refait le coup et encore marché...
tchétchènie et géorgie, ukraine une première fois, et toutes ces fois là lui ont garantit un soutien populaire qui est naturel, ce qu'on appel l'effet drapeau, quand une nation se soude suite a une confrontation armée avec une force externe.
effet que l'on observe même dans les démocraties occidentales, tout comme dans des régimes dictatoriaux tiers-mondiaux !
donc l'aspect premier qui régi la relation des l'europe occidentale avec la russie c'est la nature de son régime, et son incompatibilité avec l'évolution souhaitée sur le sol européen, et du poids qu'il donne en exemple a la propension au dirigisme si ce n'est l'autoritarisme et la tentation dictatoriale dont l'europe veut débarrasser le sol européen !
ensuite il existe un pan qui découle directement de celui ci, a savoir celui des libertés fondamentales, individuelles et collectives.
qui elles encadrent l'activité commerciale et financière de tout échanges entres les deux parties !!!
ce qui fait que l'europe est prête a abandonner les mirifiques milliards du marché russe si ils servent qu'à nourrir un régime voué a terme a devenir un problème géopolitique grave.
et la preuve en est donnée avec la guerre actuelle que poursuit le régime russe contre l'ukraine, contre tous les intérêts évidents qu'il devrait lui préserver et qui font ses assurances de survie.
la prétention a vouloir imposer les payements en roubles en fait parti, ce n'est ni viable ni profitable d'ailleurs pour l'économie russe.
c'est de facto un embargo que putin s'inflige a lui même !!!
une monnaie qui ne vaut rien ne peut servir a acheter quoi que ce soit dans le marché international...
même si il oblige certains pays dits hostiles a le payer en rouble, il sera toujours obligé lui de payer en devises étrangères viables et sécurisés pour ses potentiels clients neutres ou pas.
ce sont des mesures trompes-oeils, aucune efficience derrière si ce n'est l'effet d'annonce médiatique pour consommation interne.
autrement, la seule sortie viable pour putin c'est de retrouver un semblant d'utilité pour la communauté internationale, parce que là, il est juste un problème pesant et imprévisible.
plus il s'entête a être illisible, et donc imprévisible, plus il sera traité en paria.
plus il vaudra être réintégré dans le concert des nations, plus il devra donner de garanties et de lisibilité sur ses intentions.
il s'est piégé de lui même d'une façon assez surprenante.
la somme de ce qu'il devra payer en réparation de la bourde ukrainienne n'est même pas calculable actuellement, plus la situation s'enlise militairement, plus la somme sera lourde diplomatiquement, économiquement et surtout politiquement sur le plan intérieur.
il sera contesté et ouvertement critiqué par les loups de sa propre meute, ce qui est légitime et prévisible, puisque dans la nature des choses.
l'économie se contractant par effet des sanctions et aussi en réaction au rétrécissement des possibilités d'exportations et d'importations, plus la complexification des effets imprévisibles des retombées de cette guerre, il sera une cible facile a la contestation de tous bords, que les occidentaux ne se priverons pas d'attiser, et même d'appuyer d'éventuels remplaçants issu des rangs derrière lui.
si il survit, on pourras dire qu'il a le cul bordé de nouilles...

elite17 a écrit:

ScorpionDuDesert a écrit:

elite17 a écrit:

le rouble russe est déjà revenu au taux d'avant-guerre ..

C'est totalement artificiel !

La bourse a réouvert mais pas vraiment ...
Les étrangers (physique & morale) n'ont plus le droit de vendre du rouble ni de vendre des actions russes ...
Beaucoup de gens reste coincé avec de la daube qui ne vaut plus rien ET qu'ils ne peuvent plus vendre

ça ne peut que s'effondrer

je ne pense pas que le rouble devrait souffrir lourdement des sanctions , la russie a déjà une bonne balance courante (import/export) , les départs des entreprises réduiront déjà les importations , et le prix élevé du pétrole augmentera les chiffres d'exportations. Mais je pense que c'est leur PIB qui sera lourdement endommagé, surtout si les sanctions sont maintenues plus longtemps. Mais ca c'est un autre sujet

On verra demain s'il met à exécution sa menace sur la vente du gaz/pétrole en rouble. Si ca marche, les européens vont être obligés d'acheter du rouble, c'est à dire d'accepter le rouble comme monnaie d'échange. Cela va renforcer cette monnaie, et avec les prix qui continuent à culminer, surtout si Israël tente une aventure avec l'Iran, les russes auront de quoi investir massivement et combler le recul de leur PIB depuis 2014. Le seul hic avec ce plan c'est que cela suppose que les chinois ne les carottent pas, or si l'histoire leur a appris quelque chose, c'est qu'il ne faut as faire confiance à la Chine. Bref, on est loin d'une Russie à l'agonie économiquement comme l'aurait voulu les occidentaux, et si ca montre quelque chose, c'est que l'occident est en voie de marginalisation (relative) dans le volume total des échanges mondiaux. Ils ne sont que 1/8 de la population de la planète, le reste du monde finira par peser ne serait que démographiquement.

Sur un autre sujet, mais puisqu'on parle de pétrole, voici une vidéo qui présente l'expérience cubaine suite à l'arrêt de la fourniture du pétrole soviétique, on y voit toute une population transformer ses habitudes pour réussir à survivre malgré un embargo US très sévère.

Biden retire 1M de barils par jour du stock strategique US et ce pour les 6 mois prochains.
Reste à savoir si les prix rechutent et si Opec+ agira en conséquence.

Les prix baisseront quand l'Iran aura signé un nouvel accord, c'est pour ca que les russes trainent des pieds. L'annonce de Biden est plus importante par le symbole que par l'importance réelle.

Un bijou de la part de Wall Street Journal , Highly recommended to read

Citation :

Vladimir Putin’s 20-Year March to War in Ukraine—and How the West Mishandled It

Washington and the EU vacillated between engagement and deterrence, as the Russian leader became more isolated and more obsessed

In early November, months before the war began, CIA Director William Burns visited Moscow to deliver a warning: The U.S. believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was preparing to invade Ukraine. If he went ahead, he would face crippling sanctions from a united West.

The American spy chief was connected on a secure Kremlin phone with Mr. Putin, who was in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, isolated from all but a few confidants. The Russian leader made no effort to deny Mr. Burns’ charge. Instead, he calmly recited a list of grievances about how the U.S. had for years ignored Russian security concerns.

As for Ukraine, Mr. Putin told Mr. Burns, it wasn’t a real country.

After returning to Washington, the CIA chief advised President Biden that Mr. Putin hadn’t yet made an irrevocable decision, but was strongly disposed to invade. With European nations heavily dependent on Russian energy, the Russian military modernized, Germany going through a change of governments and the U.S. increasingly focused on a rising China, Mr. Putin gave every sign of seeing this winter as his best opportunity to bring Ukraine back under Moscow’s control.

Over the next three months, Washington struggled to persuade its European allies to mount a unified front. The U.S. itself was trying to balance two aims: talking Mr. Putin down while avoiding actions that he might treat as a provocation; and arming Ukraine to make an invasion as costly as possible.

In the end, the West managed neither to deter Mr. Putin from invading Ukraine nor reassure him that Ukraine’s increasing westward orientation didn’t threaten the Kremlin.

By now, this had become a well-established pattern. For nearly two decades, the U.S. and the European Union vacillated over how to deal with the Russian leader as he resorted to increasingly aggressive steps to reassert Moscow’s dominion over Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

A look back at the history of the Russian-Western tensions, based on interviews with more than 30 past and present policy makers in the U.S., EU, Ukraine and Russia, shows how Western security policies angered Moscow without deterring it. It also shows how Mr. Putin consistently viewed Ukraine as existential for his project of restoring Russian greatness. The biggest question thrown up by this history is why the West failed to see the danger earlier.

Washington, under both Democratic and Republican presidents, and its allies at first hoped to integrate Mr. Putin into the post-Cold War order. When Mr. Putin balked, the U.S. and its European partners had little appetite for returning to the strategy of containment the West imposed against the Soviet Union. Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, led the EU’s big bet on peace through commerce, developing a dependence on Russian oil and gas that Berlin is now under international pressure to reverse.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization made a statement in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would one day join, and over nearly 14 years never followed through on membership. The EU drew up a trade deal with Ukraine without factoring in Russia’s strong-arm response. Western policies didn’t change decisively in reaction to limited Russian invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, encouraging Mr. Putin to believe that a full-blown campaign to conquer Ukraine wouldn’t meet with determined resistance—either internationally or in Ukraine, a country whose independence he said repeatedly was a regrettable accident of history.

The roots of the war lie in Russia’s deep ambivalence about its place in the world after the end of the Soviet Union. A diminished Russia needed cooperation with the West to modernize its economy, but it never reconciled itself to the loss of control over neighbors in Europe’s east.

No neighbor was as important to Russia’s sense of its own destiny as Ukraine. The czars’ takeover of the territories of today’s Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries was crucial to Russia’s emergence as a major European empire. Collapsing Russian empires lost Ukraine to independence movements amid defeat in World War I and again in 1991, when Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence.

After the chaotic 1990s, the security-service veterans around Mr. Putin who took over Russia’s government complained bitterly about what they saw as the West’s encroachment on Moscow’s traditional sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe. An array of newly democratic countries that had been Moscow’s satellites or former Soviet republics joined NATO and the EU, seeing membership of both institutions as the best guarantee of their sovereignty against a revival of Russian imperial ambitions.

Viewed from elsewhere in Europe, NATO’s eastward enlargement didn’t threaten Russia’s security. NATO membership is at core a promise to collectively defend a member that comes under attack. The alliance agreed in 1997 not to permanently station substantial combat forces in its new eastern members that were capable of threatening Russian territory. Russia retained a massive nuclear arsenal and the biggest conventional forces in Europe.

Mr. Putin thought of Russian security interests more broadly, linking the preservation of Moscow’s influence in adjacent countries with his goals of reviving Russia’s global power and cementing his authoritarian rule at home.

The link became clear in Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election. Mr. Putin let the U.S. know in advance who should win.

When White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice visited Mr. Putin at his dacha outside Moscow in May that year, the Russian leader introduced her to Ukrainian presidential contender Viktor Yanukovych. Ms. Rice concluded that Mr. Putin had arranged the surprise encounter to signal his close interest in the election’s outcome, she recalled in a recent interview.

Mr. Yanukovych’s initial election victory was marred by allegations of fraud and voter intimidation, triggering weeks of street protests and strikes that were dubbed the Orange Revolution. Ukraine’s supreme court ordered a new vote, which pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko won.

The Kremlin saw the Orange Revolution as U.S.-sponsored destabilization aimed at pulling Ukraine out of Moscow’s orbit—and as a prelude to a similar campaign in Russia itself.

To ease Moscow’s concerns, the Bush administration outlined the limited financial support it had given to Ukrainian media and nongovernmental organizations in the name of promoting democratic values. It totaled $14 million. The White House thought the modest sum was consistent with Mr. Bush’s “freedom agenda” of supporting democracy but hardly enough to change the course of history.

The gesture only confirmed Russian suspicions. “They were impressed at the result that they thought we got for $14 million,” recalled Tom Graham, the senior director for Russia on Mr. Bush’s National Security Council.

Three months after losing Ukraine’s government to a pro-Western president, Mr. Putin decried the breakup of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

U.S. intelligence learned in 2005 that Mr. Putin’s government had carried out a broad review of Russian policy in the “near abroad,” as the Kremlin termed former Soviet republics. From now on, Russia would take a more assertive approach and vigorously contest perceived U.S. influence.

Ukrainian officials heard the message too. When President Yushchenko’s chief of staff, Oleh Rybachuk, visited the Kremlin in November 2005, he discussed the Orange Revolution with Mr. Putin. Mr. Rybachuk described the street protests as an indigenous movement of Ukrainians who wanted to choose their own political course.

Mr. Putin brusquely dismissed the notion as nonsense. He said he had read all of his intelligence services’ reports and knew the movement had been orchestrated by the U.S., the EU and George Soros, Mr. Rybachuk recalled in an interview.

At a separate encounter, Mr. Bush asked Mr. Putin why he thought the end of the Soviet Union had been the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Surely the deaths of more than 20 million Soviet citizens in World War II was worse, Mr. Bush said. Mr. Putin replied that the USSR’s demise was worse because it had left 25 million Russians outside the Russian Federation, according to Ms. Rice, who was present.

Mr. Putin showed another face to Western European interlocutors, however, encouraging them to believe that he wanted Russia to be part of the wider European family. Soon after becoming president, he wowed Germany’s Parliament with a speech promising to build a strong Russian democracy and work with the West. Speaking in fluent German, perfected while he was a KGB officer in the former East Germany, he declared: “The Cold War is over.”

He charmed politicians and business leaders around Europe and opened pathways for lucrative trade. European leaders called Russia a “strategic partner.” German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi were among those who considered him a close friend.

Mr. Putin was personally active in facilitating good economic relations, recalled longtime German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger. In one meeting, the issue of bureaucratic obstacles to German purchases of Russian wood came up. Mr. Putin phoned the relevant minister and resolved the matter in minutes.

“Putin said ‘Right, problem solved—what’s next?’ ” Mr. Ischinger remembered.

Perceptions changed in January 2007, when Mr. Putin vented his growing frustrations about the West at the annual Munich Security Conference. In a long and icy speech, he denounced the U.S. for trying to rule a unipolar world by force, accused NATO of breaking promises by expanding into Europe’s east, and called the West hypocritical for lecturing Russia about democracy. A chill descended on the audience of Western diplomats and politicians at the luxury Hotel Bayerischer Hof, participants recalled.

“We didn’t take the speech as seriously as we should have,” said Mr. Ischinger. “It takes two to tango, and Mr. Putin didn’t want to tango any more.”

Mr. Putin’s demeanor with pro-Western leaders became more aggressive. In a meeting with a Balkan head of state during an energy summit in Croatia, Mr. Putin railed against NATO and called its severing of Kosovo from Serbia the greatest violation of international law in recent history. Years later, he would cite Kosovo as a precedent for seizing Crimea from Ukraine.

His rage rising, Mr. Putin rattled through grievances. He shouted expletives at his translator, who was struggling to keep up.

“The room fell silent. It was incredibly awkward: The president of the mighty Russian Federation was bullying a mere interpreter trying to do their job,” one participant said.

In Ukraine, President Yushchenko was struggling to fulfill the hopes of the Orange Revolution that the country could become a prosperous Western-style democracy. Fractious politics, endemic corruption and economic stagnation sapped his popularity.

Mr. Yushchenko sought to anchor Ukraine’s place in the West. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2008, he met with Ms. Rice, by then the U.S. Secretary of State, and implored her for a path to enter NATO. The procedure for joining the alliance was called a Membership Action Plan, or MAP.

“I need a MAP. We need to give the Ukrainian people a strategic focus on the way ahead. We really need this,” Mr. Yushchenko said, Ms. Rice recalled.

Ms. Rice, who was initially uncertain about having Ukraine in NATO, gave a noncommittal answer. When the request was debated in the National Security Council, Mr. Bush said NATO should be open to all countries that qualify and want to join.

A NATO summit was set for April 2008 in Bucharest, in the vast Palace of the Parliament built for Romania’s former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. The alliance’s summits are usually well scripted in advance. Try as it might, the White House couldn’t overcome German and French resistance to offering a MAP to Ukraine and Georgia.

Berlin and Paris pointed to unsolved territorial conflicts in Georgia, low public support for NATO in Ukraine, and the weakness of democracy and the rule of law in both.

Ms. Merkel, remembering Mr. Putin’s speech in Munich, believed he would see NATO invitations as a direct and deliberate threat to him, according to Christoph Heusgen, her chief diplomatic adviser at the time. She was also convinced Ukraine and Georgia would bring NATO no benefits as members, Mr. Heusgen said.

Ms. Merkel told Mr. Putin in advance that NATO wouldn’t invite Ukraine and Georgia to join, because the alliance was split on the issue, but the Russian leader remained nervous, Mr. Heusgen recalled.

As the NATO summit approached, Mr. Bush held a videoconference with Ms. Merkel, but it soon became clear that no consensus would be reached beforehand.

“Looks like a shootout at the OK Corral,” Mr. Bush said, according to James Jeffrey, the president’s deputy national security adviser at the time.

Ms. Merkel was flummoxed by the American reference and turned to her interpreter, who confessed that he, too, had no idea what the U.S. president meant.

Over dinner in Bucharest, Mr. Bush made his case for giving Ukraine and Georgia a MAP—to no avail. The next day, Ms. Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley tried to find a compromise with their German and French counterparts.

Ms. Rice, a Soviet and Russia expert, said Mr. Putin wanted to use Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia to rebuild Russia’s global power, and that extending the shield of NATO membership could be the last chance to stop him. German and French officials were skeptical, believing Russia’s economy was too weak and dependent on Western technology to become a serious threat again.

In the final session, Ms. Merkel debated in a corner of the room with leaders from Poland and other eastern members of NATO, who advocated strenuously on behalf of Ukraine and Georgia. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus strongly criticized Ms. Merkel’s stance, warning that a failure to stop Russia’s resurgence would eventually threaten the eastern flank of the alliance.

Mr. Bush asked Ms. Rice to go join the animated discussion. The only common language among Ms. Merkel, the east European leaders and Ms. Rice was Russian. So a compromise statement was negotiated in Russian and then drafted in English, Ms. Rice said.

“We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO,” it read. But it didn’t say when. And there was no MAP.

Many of Ukraine’s supporters were heartened. But some officials in Bucharest feared it was the worst of both worlds. NATO had just painted a target on the backs of Ukraine and Georgia without giving them any protection.

“The fact is we rejected Ukraine’s application and, yes, we left Ukraine in a gray zone,” Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister at the time, said in an interview.

Mr. Putin joined the summit the next day. He spoke behind closed doors and made clear his disdain for NATO’s move, describing Ukraine as a “made-up” country.

In public comments that day, he also questioned whether Crimea had been properly transferred from Russia to Ukraine during the Soviet era. Daniel Fried, who was the top State Department official on Europe, and Mariusz Handzlik, then the national security adviser to Poland’s president, jumped to their feet in shock. It was an early sign that Mr. Putin wouldn’t let the status quo stand.

Four months later, the Russian army invaded Georgia, exploiting a conflict between Georgia’s government and Russian-backed separatists. Russia didn’t take Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, but it showed it had no qualms about intervening in neighboring countries that wanted to join NATO.

Mr. Putin’s fears of a Ukrainian-style popular revolution infecting Russia were heightened by a wave of demonstrations in Russian cities beginning in 2011, when tens of thousands took to the streets to protest against the lack of democracy. “For fair elections” was the protesters’ slogan.

Mr. Putin believed the protests were a U.S.-sponsored effort to overthrow him, said Ivan Krastev, a Bulgarian political scientist who later attended a dinner hosted by Mr. Putin in Sochi. The Russian president told his guests that people didn’t take to the streets spontaneously but rather were incited by the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Krastev said. “He really believes it.”

The Kremlin organized large countermarches, which were billed as “anti-Orange demonstrations.”

Sporadic pro-democracy protests continued for nearly two years, despite rising repression. Mr. Putin cracked down on opposition parties, free media and nongovernmental organizations.

The concurrent Arab Spring protests, which toppled several authoritarian rulers in the Middle East, further heightened Mr. Putin’s fear, said Mr. Heusgen, the adviser to Ms. Merkel.

“He then became a fervent nationalist,” said Mr. Heusgen. “His great anxiety was that Ukraine could become economically and politically successful and that the Russians would eventually ask themselves ‘Why are our brothers doing so well, while our situation remains dire?’ ”

Ukraine hung in the balance again.

Mr. Yushchenko slumped to 5% of the vote in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential elections. Mr. Yanukovych won—fairly this time, said international observers—after campaigning for friendly relations with the West and also Russia. He found it was difficult to have both.

Mr. Yanukovych negotiated a free-trade agreement with the EU. At the same time, however, he was under pressure from Mr. Putin to join a customs union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. EU officials said Kyiv couldn’t do both, because the customs rules would clash.

The EU, following its standard playbook on trade and governance, demanded that Ukraine revamp its judiciary and improve the rule of law as a precondition for a trade deal. Russia used sticks and carrots: At various moments it blocked goods imports from Ukraine, but it also offered Kyiv cheaper gas prices and a $15 billion loan.

In November 2013, Kyiv abruptly suspended talks with the EU, citing Russian pressure. Mr. Putin called the draft EU-Ukraine deal a “major threat” to Russia’s economy.

At an EU summit in Lithuania, Mr. Yanukovych defended the suspension and asked the EU to include Moscow in a three-way negotiation about the deal. EU leaders replied that letting a third party infringe on others’ sovereignty was unacceptable.

“We expected more,” Ms. Merkel sternly told Mr. Yanukovych in a conversation caught on camera.

“We have great problems with Moscow,” Mr. Yanukovych replied. “I have been left alone for 3½ years in very unequal circumstances with Russia,” he said.

Antigovernment protests spread across Ukraine that winter. The largest were on Kyiv’s central Independence Square, known locally as the Maidan. To the protesters, the EU association agreement was more than a trade deal: It expressed hopes of reorienting Ukraine toward the more democratic and prosperous part of Europe.

Clashes with riot police became frequent. In February 2014, police killed dozens of protesters in one day, sparking defections among Mr. Yanukovych’s political allies.

On Feb. 21, a group of EU foreign ministers brokered a power-sharing deal between Ukraine’s government and parliamentary opposition aimed at defusing the crisis. But the massive crowd on the Maidan booed the agreement and demanded Mr. Yanukovych’s resignation. Riot police melted away from central Kyiv as they sensed power, and political cover, slipping away.

The beleaguered Mr. Yanukovych sat in his office with Colonel General Sergei Beseda of Russia’s FSB, successor to the KGB, who had been dispatched by Mr. Putin to help quell the revolt. Gen. Beseda told Mr. Yanukovych that armed protesters were planning to kill him and his family, and that he should deploy the army and crush them, according to Ukrainian intelligence officers familiar with the conversation.

Instead, Mr. Yanukovych soon fled from Kyiv in a helicopter.

The Kremlin saw the turn of events as a coup by U.S. puppets and anti-Russian nationalists. In support of this view, Kremlin propagandists cited a video of two U.S. diplomats handing out cookies on Maidan to protesters and police after a night of clashes. Russian intelligence later leaked a recorded phone call in which the same two U.S. officials discussed who should be in the next Ukrainian government.

Mr. Putin held an all-night meeting with his security chiefs, in which they discussed the extraction of Mr. Yanukovych to Russia—and also the annexation of Crimea, the Russian leader later recounted. Mr. Yanukovych, who is believed to be living in exile, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Within days, Russian troops without insignia occupied the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow had affirmed as Ukrainian territory in three treaties in the 1990s. Crimea’s regional parliament, in a session held at gunpoint, voted to secede from Ukraine.

Russia also fomented and armed a separatist rebellion in the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland. When Ukrainian forces took back much of the rebel-held territory that summer, Russian regular troops intervened and dealt Ukraine’s poorly equipped army a bloody defeat.

Mr. Putin’s show of military force backfired politically. He had won control of Crimea and part of Donbas, but he was losing Ukraine.

The country had long been deeply divided along regional, linguistic and generational lines. If young educated people in western Ukraine dreamed of Europe, older people and workers in eastern regions were more likely to speak mother-tongue Russian and look to Russia as the country’s natural partner.

Those divisions manifested themselves during Ukraine’s bitterly fought elections and during the Orange and Maidan revolutions. But they receded after 2014. Many Russophone Ukrainians fled from repression and economic collapse in separatist-run Donbas. Even eastern Ukraine came to fear Russian influence. Mr. Putin was doing what Ukrainian politicians had struggled with: uniting a nation.

Moscow sought to regain its political leverage in Ukraine by using the so-called Minsk agreements: fragile cease-fire deals brokered by Germany and France that aimed to end the fighting in Donbas. The agreements promised local self-government for separatist-held districts of Donbas within a decentralized Ukraine.

Ukraine’s new government under President Petro Poroshenko, elected in May 2014, which signed the Minsk agreements under duress, feared Moscow wanted to cement pro-Russian statelets within Ukraine that would limit the country’s independence. Moscow in turn accused Kyiv of failing to honor the accords. A low-level war in Donbas rumbled on until this year, claiming over 13,000 lives.

Mr. Putin never tried to implement the Minsk accords, said Mr. Heusgen, the German chancellery aide, because their full implementation would have resolved the conflict and allowed Ukraine to move on.

Ms. Merkel took the lead in Western efforts to talk Mr. Putin out of his course. Mr. Putin frequently lied to her face about the activities of Russian troops in Crimea and Donbas, aides to the chancellor said.

At a conversation at the Hilton Hotel in Brisbane, Australia, during a G-20 summit in late 2014, Ms. Merkel realized that Mr. Putin had entered a state of mind that would never allow for reconciliation with the West, according to a former aide.

The conversation was about Ukraine, but Mr. Putin launched into a tirade against the decadence of democracies, whose decay of values, he said, was exemplified by the spread of “gay culture.”

The Russian warned Ms. Merkel earnestly that gay culture was corrupting Germany’s youth. Russia’s values were superior and diametrically opposed to Western decadence, he said.

He expressed disdain for politicians beholden to public opinion. Western politicians were unable to be strong leaders because they were hobbled by electoral pressures and aggressive media, he told Ms. Merkel.

Despite having few illusions about Mr. Putin, Ms. Merkel continued to support commercial cooperation with Russia. On her watch, Germany became increasingly dependent on Russian oil and gas and built controversial gas pipelines from Russia that bypassed Ukraine and Europe’s east. Ms. Merkel’s policy reflected a consensus in Berlin that mutually beneficial trade with the EU would tame Russian geopolitical ambitions.

The U.S. and some NATO allies, meanwhile, began a multiyear program to train and equip Ukraine’s armed forces, which had proved no match for Russia’s in Donbas.

The level of military support was limited because the Obama administration figured that Russia would retain a considerable military advantage over Ukraine and it didn’t want to provoke Moscow.

President Trump expanded the aid to include Javelin antitank missiles, but delayed it in 2019 while he pressed Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to look for information the White House hoped to use against Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and Mr. Biden’s son, an act for which he was impeached.

Russia, for its part, tried to end the U.S. military aid by hinting at a geopolitical swap. In March 2019, two Russian planes landed in Caracas, Venezuela, carrying military “specialists” to support Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. Russian commentators close to the Kremlin floated the idea of trading Russian support for Venezuela for American support for Ukraine.

Fiona Hill, the top NSC official for Russia, flew to Moscow the next month, where she told foreign ministry and national security officials there would be no trade, Ms. Hill recalled in a recent interview.

Mr. Zelensky, a former comic and political outsider, had won a landslide election victory in 2019 on a promise to clean up corruption and end the war in Donbas. But he aroused Mr. Putin’s scorn at their first and so far only meeting, a December 2019 summit in Paris where French President Emmanuel Macron and Ms. Merkel tried to break the impasse on implementing the Minsk accords.

Mr. Zelensky bluntly rejected Russia’s interpretation of the accords, recalled a senior French official who was present. “The Russians were furious,” the official said. Eventually, Messrs. Putin and Zelensky agreed on a new cease-fire and to exchange prisoners. Many present thought the Russian leader loathed his new Ukrainian counterpart, the official said.

Mr. Macron sought a rapprochement with Mr. Putin, even suggesting he could be a partner for Europe in managing China. He invited Mr. Putin to the Palace of Versailles and to his summer residence in the Fort of Brégançon on the French Riviera. Their conversations were mostly cordial and businesslike, according to French officials.

But in telephone conversations from 2020 onward, Mr. Macron noticed changes in Mr. Putin. The Russian leader was rigorously isolating himself during the Covid-19 pandemic, requiring even close aides to quarantine themselves before they could meet him.

The man on the phone with Mr. Macron was different from the one he had hosted in Paris and the Riviera. “He tended to talk in circles, rewriting history,” recalled an aide to Mr. Macron.

In early 2021, Mr. Biden became the latest U.S. president who wanted to focus his foreign policy on the strategic competition with China, only to become entangled in events elsewhere.

The U.S. no longer saw Europe as a primary focus. Mr. Biden wanted neither a “reset” of relations with Mr. Putin, like President Obama had declared in 2009, nor to roll back Russia’s power. The NSC cast the aim as a “stable, predictable relationship.” It was a modest goal that would soon be tested by Mr. Putin’s bid to rewrite the ending of the Cold War.

Russia positioned tens of thousands of troops around Ukraine’s eastern border as part of a spring military exercise. Meanwhile, Kyiv was cracking down on Mr. Putin’s Ukrainian friend and ally, the politician and oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, shuttering his TV channel and placing him under house arrest for alleged treason.

In April, the White House considered a $60 million package of weapons for Ukraine. But after Russia ended its military exercise the administration deferred a decision to set a positive tone for a June summit between Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin in Geneva.

When Mr. Zelensky met with Mr. Biden in Washington in September, the U.S. finally announced the $60 million in military support, which included Javelins, small arms and ammunition. The aid was in line with the modest assistance the Obama and Trump administrations had supplied over the years, which provided Ukraine with lethal weaponry but didn’t include air defense, antiship missiles, tanks, fighter aircraft or drones that could carry out attacks.

Soon afterward, U.S. intelligence agencies learned that Russia was planning a military mobilization around Ukraine that was vastly greater than its spring exercise.

U.S. national security officials discussed the highly classified intelligence at a meeting in the White House on Oct. 27. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned that Russian forces could be ready to attack by the end of January 2022.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan posed several questions, including why Russia would take such a military action at that time, what the U.S. could do to harden Ukraine and how the U.S. might try to dissuade Mr. Putin. The gathering decided to send Mr. Burns on his mission to Moscow.

On Nov. 17, Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, urged the U.S. to send air defense systems and additional antitank weapons and ammunition during a meeting at the Pentagon, although he thought the initial Russian attacks might be limited.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Mr. Reznikov that Ukraine could be facing a massive invasion.

Work began that month on a new $200 million package in military assistance from U.S. stocks. The White House, however, initially held off authorizing it, angering some lawmakers. Administration officials calculated arms shipments wouldn’t be enough to deter Mr. Putin from invading if his mind was made up, and might even provoke him to attack.

The cautious White House approach was consistent with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s thinking. He favored a low-profile, gradual approach to assisting Ukraine’s forces and fortifying NATO’s defenses that would grow stronger in line with U.S. intelligence indications about Russia’s intent to attack.

A paramount goal was to avoid a direct clash between U.S. and Russian forces—what Mr. Austin called his “North Star.”

Efforts to dissuade Mr. Putin from ordering an invasion, however, were faltering. When Karen Donfried, the top State Department official for Europe and Russia, visited Moscow in mid-December, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov handed her two fully drafted treaties: one with the U.S. and one with NATO.

The proposed treaties called for a wholesale revision of Europe’s post-Cold War security arrangements. NATO would withdraw all nonlocal forces from its Eastern European members, and the alliance would shut its door to former Soviet republics.

In a cavernous conference room at Russia’s foreign ministry, Ms. Donfried asked Mr. Ryabkov and the numerous other Russian officials present about the proposals. She received scant answers and left convinced that the demands had been drawn up at the highest level. The draft treaties were soon posted on a Russian government website, which added to U.S. concerns that the demands were diplomatic camouflage for a military decision it had already taken.

On Dec. 27, Mr. Biden gave the go-ahead to begin sending more military assistance for Ukraine, including Javelin antitank missiles, mortars, grenade launchers, small arms and ammunition.

Three days later, Mr. Biden spoke on the phone with Mr. Putin and said the U.S. had no plan to station offensive missiles in Ukraine and urged Russia to de-escalate. The two leaders were on different wavelengths. Mr. Biden was talking about confidence-building measures. Mr. Putin was talking about effectively rolling back the West.

On Jan. 9, as U.S. intelligence indications pointed ever-more-clearly to a full-blown invasion of Ukraine, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met Mr. Ryabkov and a Russian general for dinner in Geneva. Ms. Sherman brought along Lieutenant General James Mingus, the chief operations officer on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, whom she hoped might encourage the Russians to think twice about their invasion plan.

Gen. Mingus had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, been wounded and earned a Purple Heart, and he spoke frankly about the challenges Russian forces would face. Invading a territory was one thing, but holding it was another, and the intervention could turn into a yearslong quagmire, he said. The Russians showed no reaction.

Not all U.S. allies believed its intelligence assessment. All could see that Russia was deploying a massive force on three sides of Ukraine. But most European allies found it hard to believe Mr. Putin would really invade.

In mid-January, Mr. Burns made a secret trip to Kyiv to see Mr. Zelensky. The U.S. now had even more information about Russia’s plan of attack, including that it involved a rapid strike toward Kyiv from Belarus. The CIA director provided a vital piece of intelligence that helped Ukraine significantly in the first days of the war: He warned that Russian forces planned to seize Antonov Airport in Hostomel, near the Ukrainian capital, and use it to fly in troops for a push to take Kyiv and decapitate the government.

European leaders made last-ditch attempts to talk Mr. Putin down. Mr. Macron visited the Kremlin on Feb. 7, where he was made to sit at the far end of a 20-foot table from the socially isolating Russian dictator.

Mr. Macron found Mr. Putin even more difficult to talk to than previously, according to French officials. The six-hour conversation went round in circles as Mr. Putin gave long lectures about the historical unity of Russia and Ukraine and the West’s record of hypocrisy, while the French president tried to bring the conversation back to the present day and how to avoid a war.

Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had succeeded Ms. Merkel only in December, fared no better at Mr. Putin’s long table on Feb. 15.

Mr. Putin opened the meeting with a forceful litany of complaints about NATO, meticulously listing weapons systems stationed in alliance countries near Russia. Mr. Putin then talked about his research on Russian history going back a millennium, about which he had written a lengthy essay last summer.

He told Mr. Scholz that Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians were one people, with a common language and a common identity that had only been divided by haphazard political interventions in recent history.

Mr. Scholz argued that the international order rested on the recognition of existing borders, no matter how and when they had been created. The West would never accept unraveling established borders in Europe, he warned. Sanctions would be swift and harsh, and the close economic cooperation between Germany and Russia would end. Public pressure on European leaders to sever all links to Russia would be immense, he said.

Mr. Putin then repeated his disdain for weak Western leaders who were susceptible to public pressure.

The German chancellor returned to Berlin far more worried than he had left it.

Mr. Scholz made one last push for a settlement between Moscow and Kyiv. He told Mr. Zelensky in Munich on Feb. 19 that Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and Russia. The pact would be signed by Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden, who would jointly guarantee Ukraine’s security.

Mr. Zelensky said Mr. Putin couldn’t be trusted to uphold such an agreement and that most Ukrainians wanted to join NATO. His answer left German officials worried that the chances of peace were fading. Aides to Mr. Scholz believed Mr. Putin would maintain his military pressure on Ukraine’s borders to strangle its economy and then eventually move to occupy the country.

U.S. and European leaders held a video call. “I think the last person who could still do something is you, Joe. Are you ready to meet Putin?” Mr. Macron said to Mr. Biden. The U.S. president agreed and asked Mr. Macron to pass the message to Mr. Putin.

Mr. Macron spent the night of Feb. 20 alternately on the phone with Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden.

The Frenchman was still talking with Mr. Putin at 3 a.m. Moscow time, negotiating the wording of a press release announcing the plan for a U.S.-Russian summit.

But the next day, Mr. Putin called Mr. Macron back. The summit was off.

Mr. Putin said he had decided to recognize the independence of separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine. He said fascists had seized power in Kyiv, while NATO hadn’t responded to his security concerns and was planning to deploy nuclear missiles in Ukraine.

“We are not going to see each other for a while, but I really appreciate the frankness of our discussions,” Mr. Putin told Mr. Macron. “I hope we can talk again one day.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/vladimir-putins-20-year-march-to-war-in-ukraineand-how-the-west-mishandled-it-11648826461

L'Ukraine vient de découvrir des charniers à Irpin. Les soldats russes sont vraiment des sales fils de p*t*. L'Europe va définitivement se fermer à la Russie (officiellement du moins), les US qui se foutent de ce genres de considérations, continueront à faire des affaires là où ils veulent.

Pour l'instant à prendre avec précaution, mais en effet c'est inquiétant :
http://lignesdedefense.blogs.ouest-france.fr/archive/2022/04/03/zachistiki-a-boutcha-l-armee-russe-aurait-elle-oublie-l-ord-22943.html

Il n'y a aucune précaution à prendre !!!!

Ça se passe dans la région de Kyiv, je ne vais pas partager les photos et les vidéos ici mais certaines peuvent être facilement trouvées sur twitter.

Des photos et vidéos montrant que des hommes en civile (des fois sur leurs vélos ou devant leurs maisons) ont été tué avec une balle dans la tête.

D'autres ont été trouvé dans les égouts et dans des fosses communes !

Des femmes ont été violées, ont leurs a gravé le symbol nazi dans le dos avec un couteau .. avant de les tuer !!!!

Des mineurs torturés avec des oreilles coupées, des doigts coupés et des dents arrachées ont été trouvé dans des caves !!!!

On a pas encore terminé le décompte et on parle de ~450 victimes

Des journalistes de l'AFP et BBC ect ont pu voir et filmer l'horreur

L'armée régulière russe s'est transformé en Daesh !

et dieu sait ce qui se passe à Mariupol

La guerre c'est sale tres sale. Meme les armées des démocratie occidentale n'échappent pas a ca.
On l'oublie mais la Russie est et reste un pays en développement et les comportements des pays du sud reste.

toute cette guerre visait à ce que la russie reprenne de l'influence en ukraine .. ça a échoué,and that's a FACT

C'est même l'inverse qui va se produire.

RED BISHOP a écrit:

La guerre c'est sale tres sale. Meme les armées des démocratie occidentale n'échappent pas a ca.
On l'oublie mais la Russie est et reste un pays en développement et les comportements des pays du sud reste.

Peu importe ce qui se passe ailleurs, il faut voir l'ignominie des exactions russes, c'est clairement un crime de guerre.
Sinon c'est quoi cette manie d'accuser les pays du sud de sauvagerie. Saddam avait occupé le Koweit pendant 6 mois sans commettre de crimes de guerre. Les vietnamiens ont occupé le Cambodge pendant des années sans crimes de guerre. Non ce n'est pas une fatalité. C'est juste les russes et les américains qui ne peuvent pas s'en empêcher.

Je dis juste que dans les democratie en developpement on fait plus usage de la violence politique
Lorsque les pays occidentaux était a ce stade, il y avait la meme chose.
Les Russes était mal préparer, ils pensait a une promenade de santé, il se sont retrouver dans de sale drap avec des adversaires qui les harcelés, forcément il finise par perdre leur sang froid et tirer sur tout ce qui bouge.
Ces la meme que l'armée allemande lors de l'occupation de la Belgique pendant la 1er guerre mondiale.

Citation :

Yesterday, Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People's Republic (Donbass), awarded medals to some "brave" fighters. But notice the patches on the right arm of one of them: why does thia guy is displaying the Totenkopf and the Valknot, known for being (neo)nazi emblems?

Qui se souvient du charnier de Timisorara en 1989 ? Nous les plus anciens nous nous en souvenons de cette manipulation et restons prudents quant à qui fait quoi lors d'un conflit pour attirer la sympathie" au profit de son camp.

rafi a écrit:

Qui se souvient du charnier de Timisorara en 1989 ? Nous les plus anciens nous nous en souvenons de cette manipulation et restons prudents quant à qui fait quoi lors d'un conflit pour attirer la sympathie" au profit de son camp.

C'est à ce genre de choses que je faisais allusion en disant qu'il fallait rester prudent. Pour l'instant, on ne sait pas grand chose de ce charnier ukrainien que l'on vient de découvrir.

Il ne faut pas oublier que les seules informations que nous avons sur cette guerre nous viennent du camp ukrainien, et que c'est leur récit des événements que nous avons essentiellement.

Nous verrons ce qui ressortira de tout cela, mais c'est de toute façon particulièrement écœurant qu'il y ait eu ou non manipulation.

Ça c'est clair, qu'il y ait eu massacre ou manipulation, c'est assez "bas". Et vraiment abominable si c'est réellement un massacre de civils.

Bon

Il y a des vidéos témoignages de miliciens Ukrainiens qui ont flingues des civils qui n'avaient pas respecté le couvre feu !!!
J'ai vu une capture, où l'on voit un milicien qui vient d'abattre un civil..

Le problème c'est qu'ils ont donné des Armes à n'importe qui ( voyous etc )
Et voilà le travail...des bandes qui font la loi et qui se sauvent des que ça chauffe..

Bref
..il faut être très prudent sur ces faits..


Pour ma part, je ne crois pas à la responsabilité russe, en tout cas à grande échelle..

Les Ukrainiens savent arranger la vérité à leur avantage.

Je déplore le manque d'objectivité voir d'honnêteté des TV occidentales ..

Ah d'accord !

Peut être que les journalistes de l'AFP, de la BBC (&co) sont aussi des acteurs studio ?
Peut être que la croix rouge est une branche Hollywoodienne de la CIA ?
Peut être que les images satellites de fosses commune creusées (timestampé) pendant l'occupation russe sont du photoshop ?
Peut être que ces corps à moitié calcinés et mutilés sont des mannequins ?

ou alors .. c'est vraiment la 64ème qui l'a fait !

Par respect aux morts et à l'humanité, je ne posterai rien de plus.