{"id":204363,"date":"2022-02-07T12:01:01","date_gmt":"2022-02-07T12:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=204363"},"modified":"2022-02-07T06:39:38","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T06:39:38","slug":"press-stunned-as-ukraine-president-zelensky-points-finger-at-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/02\/press-stunned-as-ukraine-president-zelensky-points-finger-at-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Stunned as Ukraine President Zelensky Points Finger at West"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Under the Surface Is a Very Different Tale of the Ukrainian Tensions<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_204364\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Volodymyr_Zelensky_president-ukraine.webp\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-204364\" class=\"size-full wp-image-204364\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Volodymyr_Zelensky_president-ukraine.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Volodymyr_Zelensky_president-ukraine.webp 400w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Volodymyr_Zelensky_president-ukraine-300x200.webp 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-204364\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019, photo by President.gov.ua<br \/>CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Campaign to paint Russia as aggressor is huge, but there are cracks<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Putin placing troops on Ukrainian border is \u201cno different to last year\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Ukrainian leader tells journalists that Russia isn\u2019t the main problem, the press is<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>NATO has continuously broken promises made to Moscow, archives reveal<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>29 Jan 2022 &#8211;<\/em> In a stunning and unexpected outburst this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country\u2019s current problems came from the west rather than the east.<\/p>\n<p>The fears of a looming war were built on news stories that Russia had troops on the border it shares with the country\u2014but this was not unusual, and there had been a similar assembly of soldiers a year ago, he said.<\/p>\n<p>The truth was that threat level had <em>not<\/em> changed, he told a press conference this week.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore,<em> the real threat to Ukraine was not Russia, but the \u201cdestabilisation of the situation inside the country\u201d he told journalists.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The cause of the panic was the press itself, Zelensky said.<\/p>\n<p>Correspondents at the event were discomfited. The event was \u201ca slightly surreal encounter\u201d said the BBC\u2019s Sarah Rainsford.<\/p>\n<p>The Ukrainian leader went on to slam the US, British and other Western diplomats who were fleeing the country, as if the much-described war was actually real.<\/p>\n<p>He denied that Ukraine was a sinking ship, but even if they saw it that way, \u201cdiplomats are like captains. They should be the last to leave a sinking ship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s Really Happening?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Western powers appear to be repeating their Taiwan strategy in the Ukraine.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Step one is to travel to someone\u2019s territory and alter the status quo until the neighbors react.<\/li>\n<li>Step two is to angrily accuse the neighbors of being aggressive and expansionist\u2014even though they literally haven\u2019t left their own territory (unlike the accusers).<\/li>\n<li>Step three is to work with the press to mislead the world about which side is destabilizing the situation, and thus justify military expansion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ultimately, the aim is to push NATO borders eastwards, justify increased spending on the military, and attempt to further unite the world against communities which the West feels need to be \u201ccontained\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s Working<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The plan is working. Russia is being universally painted as the aggressor, and military activity from the west is rising. The UK government is sending weapons and troops to Ukraine, and calling on other NATO members to \u201cunite\u201d. The US says it has 8,500 troops ready to go.<\/p>\n<p>On the media front, the message is virtually identical in every outlet: Russia is suddenly being threatening, so the good guys are being forced to respond. US<strong> Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin<\/strong> said the US was committed to helping Ukraine \u201cdefend itself\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC rolled out politician <strong>Tobias Ellwood<\/strong> to explain that all the problems are Russia\u2019s fault. (The same man is used by the media as a source of negative comments on China.) The BBC newsroom always \u201cforgets\u201d to mention Ellwood\u2019s background. He served as part of the 77th Brigade, a British army propaganda unit focused on psychological warfare, media operations, and \u201cspecial influence methods\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>How differently viewers would see the news if they knew the full story: \u201cWe are the media, and we are about to showcase the views of a person trained in spreading disinformation via the media.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><strong>Problems with the Narrative<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>Just as the carefully balanced relationship between Taiwan and mainland China has been in place for years, with alternating periods of calm and tension, the same has been true in Ukraine. Russia has regularly placed troops on its border with Ukraine, and vice versa.<\/p>\n<p>As Ukrainian <strong>President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> said, the military tensions were a long-term fact of life between the two countries, and the threat level had not changed, despite every Western media outlet saying that it had.<\/p>\n<p>But the underlying issue is this: NATO promised not to expand eastwards. It has done so repeatedly. It is never called out for this.<\/p>\n<p>Yet those exact promises are well documented in history books \u2013 in the west as well as the east, as all students of recent European history know. Let\u2019s look at them below.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><strong>After the Quake<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>In 1989 and 1990, Europe went through a massive political earthquake, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and numerous related events. The Western powers and the Soviet Union held a series of meetings to reassure the other that they would not take advantage of the shake-up for purposes of aggressive expansionism.<\/p>\n<p>The Russian side, represented by <strong>Mikhail Gorbachev<\/strong>, had to play it straight. The country had large numbers of other urgent issues on its plate, so his argument was simple: Moscow would not move westward \u2013 as long as the west would not move eastward. Let the countries in between be.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload_inited wp-image-15178 pk-pin-it-ready aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fridayeveryday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/gorbachev.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 781px) 100vw, 781px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fridayeveryday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/gorbachev.jpg 781w, https:\/\/www.fridayeveryday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/gorbachev-300x208.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.fridayeveryday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/gorbachev-768x533.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fridayeveryday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/gorbachev-370x257.jpg 370w, https:\/\/www.fridayeveryday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/gorbachev-642x446.jpg 642w\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"472\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Gorbachev (seated, middle) talking with West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (left) and Helmut Kohl (right) in Russia, July 15, 1990.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Photo: Bundesbildstelle \/ Presseund Informationsamt der Bundesregierung.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Famous Inch<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The buzzphrase that emerged from those discussions was just three words long: \u201cNot one inch.\u201d It came, originally, from the mouth of the US<strong> Secretary of State James Baker,<\/strong> on February 9, 1990. NATO, he told Gorbachev, would move \u201cnot one inch eastward\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>NATO should rule out an \u201cexpansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders\u201d, the US Embassy in Bonn declared.<\/p>\n<p>America\u2019s national security archive, housed at George Washington University, sums up the meeting thus:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the \u201cnot one inch eastward\u201d formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev\u2019s statement in response to the assurances that \u201cNATO expansion is unacceptable.\u201d Baker assured Gorbachev that \u201cneither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,\u201d and that the Americans understood that \u201cnot only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO\u2019s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The following day, the West German <strong>Chancellor Helmut Kohl<\/strong> made a similar promise to Gorbachev: \u201cWe believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Douglas Hurd,<\/strong> the British Foreign Secretary, declared his country would be party to the same promise. In June of that year, his boss <strong>Margaret Thatcher<\/strong>, the UK\u2019s \u201cIron Lady\u201d Prime Minister, made the same pledge to Moscow: \u201cWe must find ways to give the Soviet Union confidence that its security would be assured.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><strong>A Promise Ignored<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>Fast forward to the present day: NATO has spent years declaring itself a \u201cdefensive\u201d rather than \u201cexpansionist\u201d force, while its actions show itself doing precisely the opposite, year after year.<\/p>\n<p>This diagram published this week by the BBC shows just some of the eastward expansion of NATO since that time.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15174 pk-pin-it-ready lazyload_inited aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fridayeveryday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Nato-expansionism-793x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"595\" height=\"768\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">BBC diagram showed the partial expansion of NATO over recent decades<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cnot one inch\u201d promised has been disregarded, with Western diplomats saying that it was never intended to be lasting, and was never put down on paper, anyway.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><strong>Russia\u2019s Requests<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>Coming back to the present day, what is Russia asking for?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is calling on NATO to halt its program of building missile bases in countries bordering or close to Russia\u2019s territory.<\/li>\n<li>It is asking NATO to withdraw troops in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.<\/li>\n<li>It is urging NATO to make it clear that Ukraine is not being groomed to join, thus further damaging the 1990 agreement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><strong>Putin Can\u2019t Win<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>Like China, Russia will be painted as the aggressor whatever it does. The western powers will be portrayed as the defenders, whatever they do. But while the press is taking a sharply pro-western angle, academics and the public have a much wider range of views.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou asserted that \u2018NATO is a defensive alliance\u2019. It is not perceived that way in Russia,\u201d wrote Robert Morley, a former staff member of the US National Security Council in a letter to the <em>Economist<\/em> published today. \u201cOur decision to expand into areas previously dominated by the Soviet Union reinforced the perception that NATO is aggressively pursuing policies detrimental to Russia\u2019s political and security interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Russia\u2019s response \u201cis relatively moderate when compared with the American reaction to Moscow\u2019s effort to establish a military presence in Cuba during the 1960s,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>But while there is little hope that the mainstream media will ever lose its pro-NATO bias, the growth of independent media around the world gives hope that a more diverse, more inclusive set of voices will eventually be heard.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, the Western hawks are once more banging the drums of war, but the East, so far, has always shown more patience than expected.<\/p>\n<div><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fridayeveryday.com\/press-stunned-as-ukraine-leader-points-finger-at-west\/\" >Go to Original &#8211; fridayeveryday.com<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Campaign to paint Russia as aggressor is huge, but there are cracks<br \/>\n* Putin placing troops on Ukrainian border is \u201cno different to last year\u201d<br \/>\n* Ukrainian leader tells journalists that Russia isn\u2019t the main problem, the press is<br \/>\n* NATO has continuously broken promises made to Moscow, archives reveal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":204364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[960,922,2314,1035,378,1855,278,961,92,172],"class_list":["post-204363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlight","tag-balkans","tag-bias","tag-corporate-media","tag-eastern-europe","tag-journalism","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-violent-conflict","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}