I have little time today so I will give just a little of what is going on
UPDATED 1:08 PM EDT -- Putin: The West is Pushing World "To the point of no return" - Lays out Terms for Ukraine PEACE
Vladimir Putin has issued another chilling warning to the West, saying its ‘selfishness and hypocrisy’ has led to a ‘dangerous turn of events’ and brought the world ‘close to a point of no return.
Speaking to foreign ministry officials, the Kremlin leader said: ‘Calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which possesses the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons demonstrate the extreme recklessness of Western politicians.
‘They either do not understand the scale of the threat they are creating – or are simply obsessed with their own sense of impunity and exceptionalism.
‘Both can lead to tragedy.’
Putin also warned that plans by Western countries to provide Ukraine with loans using interest from Russian assets frozen abroad was theft and would not go unpunished.
‘Despite all the chicanery, theft will certainly remain theft. And it will not go unpunished,’ he said.
‘Now it is becoming obvious to all countries, companies (and) sovereign funds that their assets and reserves are far from safe in both the legal and economic sense of the word.
‘Anyone could be next in line for expropriation by the US and the West.’
Putin was speaking a day after G7 leaders agreed on an outline deal to provide $50 billion of loans for Ukraine using interest from Russian sovereign assets.
TERMS FOR PEACE IN UKRAINE
He told officials the ‘Western model’ of global security is collapsing and ‘needs to be essentially created anew’ – adding he is open to talks with everyone, including NATO.
‘All this requires us, together with our partners, with all interested countries, and there are many of them, to work out our own options for ensuring security in Eurasia, proposing them then for wider international discussion,’ he said.
‘We live on the same continent. No matter what happens, you cannot change the geography. We will have to coexist and work together one way or another.’
Putin also set out his prerequisites for peace talks with Ukraine.
‘Conditions are very simple,’ he said. ‘Ukrainian forces must be completely withdrawn from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
‘[It’s] important to note, from all territories of these regions within their administrative borders which existed upon their accession to Ukraine.
‘As soon as Kyiv says they’re ready for such decision and start the real withdrawal of forces form these regions and officially declare rejection of plans to join NATO, from our side, immediately, literally the same minute, will come an order to stop the fire and start negotiations.
‘We will do it immediately. Obviously, we will guarantee the uninterrupted and safe withdrawal of Ukrainian forces.’
UPDATE 1:08 PM EDT --
Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from the territory of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions
Ukraine must not join NATO
Russia wants a neutral, non-aligned, nuclear-free status of Ukraine
All Western sanctions against the Russian Federation must be lifted
The status of Crimea and Sevastopol, DPR and LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions as regions of the Russian Federation should be recorded in international treaties
If Kiev and the West refuse the new peace proposal, further conditions will be different, Putin said.
Ukraine rejects new Russian peace proposal
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, claimed that Putin's new initiative to settle the conflict allegedly does not contain a "real peace proposal".
Vladimir Putin has declared that Russia is making another real peace proposal but if the West and Kiev reject it, they will be responsible for the bloodshed.Vladimir Putin set the conditions for starting negotiations with Ukraine
"The selfishness and arrogance of the West have brought us close to the point of no return," said the Russian president
From Greek ProNews
Vladimir Putin set the conditions for starting negotiations with Ukraine
"The selfishness and arrogance of the West have brought us close to the point of no return," said the Russian president
Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated the conditions he sets for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the start of negotiations.
Putin stated that Western countries with their arrogance and selfishness have led the situation to a point of no return.
According to Putin, Western politicians with their " excessive adventurism " are calling for a strategic defeat in Russia, which has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons . This, according to him, has brought the world close to an extremely dangerous situation.
Putin set specific conditions for Moscow to sit at the negotiating table with Ukraine:
The withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from all areas under integration, including Zaporizhia, Kherson, Donbas and Donetsk (already a large part of which have been fully integrated following referendums in the Russian Federation), and Kiev's statement that it renounces its intentions to join NATO are the main two conditions.
Once Ukraine takes these steps, Russia will be ready to call for a ceasefire and start negotiations to resolve the crisis.
" Let me remind you that it was Washington that undermined strategic stability by announcing the unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty and the Open Skies monitoring program.
Together with the NATO countries, they destroyed the decades-long system of confidence-building measures and arms control in the European area.
Ultimately, the selfishness and arrogance of the Western states led to the current extremely dangerous state of affairs. We have reached - and this is unacceptable - close to the point of no return ," said Vladimir Putin.
Kiev has rejected all of Putin's peace terms as 'absurd' and continues the war
"It is absurd for Putin to present himself as a peacemaker," says the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
The ceasefire terms announced today (14/6) by Russian President Vladimir Putin have been roundly rejected by the Zelenskyi regime, which has described them as "absurd".
In fact, as Kiev claims, Vladimir Putin is trying to mislead the world powers and undermine the real peace efforts that exist only in Zelensky's mind.
The latter, buoyed by his recent contacts at the G7 summit and the $50 billion "loan" of frozen Russian funds, is trying to take a hard line on Russia, hoping that one day he will actively drag all of NATO this time into his conflict against Russia.
Vladimir Putin has said in a speech that Russia will end the war in Ukraine only if Kiev agrees to abandon its NATO membership ambitions and withdraw all troops from the four regions incorporated into the Russian Federation.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry described his words as "manipulative statements aimed at misleading the international community (and) undermining diplomatic efforts to achieve a just peace."
"It is absurd for Putin, who planned, prepared and executed, together with his fellow travelers,
the biggest armed attack in Europe since the Second World War, to present himself as a peacemaker," the ministry added in its statement.
In separate statements, the adviser to the Ukrainian president Mykhailo Podoliak told Reuters via Zoom that "there is no possibility of finding a compromise" between Putin's statements and the conditions set by Ukraine to end the war launched by Russia.
"He suggests that Ukraine admit defeat. He proposes that Ukraine legally hand over its territories to Russia. It proposes to Ukraine to sign away its geopolitical sovereignty ," said Podoliak.
Podoliak said Putin was trying to grab the news agenda from Ukraine by making his speech shortly before the summit.
The adviser, who often acts as a spokesman for the president's office, said Moscow is also trying to present itself to the world, and particularly to the countries of the "Global South," as the side most interested in peace.
"With Putin's statement, Russia appears as if they were not the ones who started the attack ... but as if they are proposing peace and Ukraine does not want it ," he said.
Podoliak said Ukraine wants peace, but only if Russia is fairly punished for its aggression and Ukraine's sovereignty is preserved.
Podoliak also told X that the Russian president's demands "go against common sense."
"We need to get rid of these illusions and stop taking Russia's 'proposals' seriously, which are contrary to common sense."
"There are no new "peace proposals" from Russia. The subject Putin simply expressed the "standard choice of the aggressor", which has already been heard many times.
Its content is quite specific, highly offensive to international law and absolutely eloquent for the inability of the current Russian leadership to adequately assess the realities," he wrote in X.
Speaking to Italian news channel SkyTG24 on the sidelines of the G7 summit, Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed Putin would not stop his military offensive even if his demands for a ceasefire were met.
"These are ultimatum messages that are no different from past messages," the Ukrainian leader said in remarks that were translated and broadcast live through an interpreter.
"He himself will not stop ," Zelensky said, referring to Putin, drawing a parallel to Adolf Hitler's expansionist policy before World War II broke out.
"It's the same thing that Hitler did... That's why we shouldn't trust these messages," Zelensky added.
This was a story from yesterday from Hal Turner
UNLOCKED: S-500 Deployed Earlier Than Expected; Posture Now Consistent with Nuclear First-Strike
This story is now UNLOCKED and available to the general public --
Yesterday, this website and radio show reported that Russia had suddenly commenced nuclear launch exercises with their naval group off the coast of Florida. What I chose to **not** report was that at the same time, Russia expanded its ongoing "Tactical nuclear weapons exercises" from the Southern Military District to also include the Leningrad Military District near St. Petersburg.
The unannounced missile drills off the coast of Florida was nerve-racking enough; but the added information about the expansion of tactical nuke drills to the area around St. Petersburg was just emotionally over the top.
TODAY things got exponentially worse.
Overnight, Russia deployed the second generation of its S-500 air defense systems . . . around Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Russia's strategic nuclear missile silos.
This second generation system - the undisputed pinnacle of air defense systems in the world - was not expected to be ready for deployment for at least another six months.
The fact that Russia deployed them last night, and did so in very significant numbers for which mass-production wasn't even known to be ready, never mind active, around Moscow, St. Petersburg AND their strategic nuclear missile silos, has now changed the balance of power completely.
There's no gentle way to say this, so I'm just going to say it: This posture is one that would be expected if Russia was planning a nuclear first-strike upon the West, and was readying to defend itself from the counter-strike.
Looking at the timing of all of this, underscores the harsh reality:
Russia announced Tactical nuclear weapons exercises about three weeks ago, and began them two weeks ago in their Southern Military District.
Russia then sortied eleven nuclear missile submarines into the Atlantic Ocean, about ten days ago.
About three days later, Russia then sortied twenty-seven (27) additional nuclear missile submarines into the Pacific Ocean.
Russia then waited about a week (for the subs to get into position????) and EXPANDED the Tactical nuclear exercises to also include the Leningrad Military District around St. Petersburg. This means the ENTIRE Russian border with the West, is presently seeing the movement of actual, Tactical nuclear weapons, brought to within striking distance of NATO forces and NATO member countries!
Last night, Russia made a surprise deployment of their newest S-500 "Prometheus" air defense system around Moscow, St. Petersburg, and their strategic ICBM silos.
Added together, E V E R Y indication is that Russia is fully prepared now to launch a severe nuclear first-strike, and successfully defend itself from a counter-strike.
The only things the Russians have not yet done are declare a General War Mobilization of the entire population, and begin moving people into Bomb shelters.
Everything else is already done.
hubris.... the entire western ruling class has ODed on hubris.
a fucking peace conference and one of the parties isn't invited! ffs these people need a reality check and I hope its not a nuclear one!
By design (the Western Alliance has set ti up this way), the gap between Russia and Ukraine is still huge. The likelihood of ceasefire/peace negotiations is minimal right now...a lot more Ukrainians are going to die, and a few Russians also. But the Western Alliance M.I.C. is going to continue to make out like the bandits they truly are. The chance of a mistake happening on either side leading to a nuclear exchange continues to rise. The Dooms Day Clock should be at 5 seconds to midnight, FFS!