By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 12/9/21

An unnamed source told The Associated Press that senior US State Department officials told Ukraine that a NATO membership is unlikely to be approved within the next decade, a sign the US is not willing to further escalate tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

Biden administration officials also told AP that the US might pressure Ukraine to give some degree of autonomy to separatists in its eastern Donbas region, a move that would significantly de-escalate tensions in the region.

After the US orchestrated a coup in Kyiv in 2014, separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts rejected the new government and declared their independence. Kyiv rejected the oblasts’ bid for independence, and a war was started, which has killed over 10,000 people.

Since a ceasefire was reached in 2015, there have been occasional major flare-ups, but the war has essentially been at a stalemate. A “special status” for Donbas was agreed upon in the 2015 Minsk Agreements, but it was never defined. The AP report said the US could push Ukraine to give the region more authority on local issues.

President Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by Phone on Thursday and vowed support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and repeated warnings that if Russia invades, the US would implement new sanctions against Moscow. In a readout of the call, the White House made no mention of NATO or the push for giving Donbas some autonomy.

Biden spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine situation on Tuesday. No breakthroughs were made, but the two leaders agreed to continue a dialogue on the issue. Putin denies that he is planning an invasion but wants guarantees that NATO will not continue to expand further eastward or put missiles in Ukraine that could target Russia.

Biden Plans NATO Talks With Russia to Ease Ukraine Tensions

By Jennifer Epstein and Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg, 12/8/21

President Joe Biden said the U.S. and some of its NATO allies plan a meeting with Russia aimed at de-escalating tensions over Ukraine, where they’ll consider Russian President Vladimir Putin’s concerns about the alliance.

Biden said that he hopes by Friday to announce the meeting, which will include “at least four of our major NATO allies.” The subject will be Putin’s issues with the alliance “writ large and whether or not we can work out any accommodation as it relates to bringing down the temperature along the eastern front,” the U.S. president told reporters on Wednesday.

Read full article here.

Russian News Agency TASS Reports Russian Government Unaware of Such Meeting with NATO

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/. Russia knows no details concerning a meeting of Russia and NATO officials on Ukraine US President Joe Biden has announced, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told the media on Thursday.

“I know nothing about any such meeting. I did see comments by the US president on this score. I proceed from the assumption that the formats for further talks on the ‘red lines’ our leadership was talking about for the past few days, and also maximally reliable legally binding security guarantees for Russia are subject to further discussion,” Ryabkov said.

He speculated that there was a number of platforms where such discussions might be held.

“At this point, nothing is decided. The US announcements that are made unilaterally do not create a new reality for us. They are just a reminder these issues should be dealt with tightly,” Ryabkov said.

Read full article here.

By Natylie Baldwin, Antiwar.com, 12/6/21

Establishment institutions usually start their implementation of censorship and the throttling of press freedom by going after individuals and outlets that are small and/or not well liked by a cross-section of the public.  The obscurity or general unpalatable nature of the target ensures the success of setting the precedent. 

Most Americans have probably never heard of Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) and many would be unsympathetic once they learn that the U.S. government claims it is a think tank and journal associated with Russian military intelligence, although no evidence is offered to back up this assertion, and SCF denies it has ties to the Russian government.  But years of anti-Russia sentiment in the political sphere and in most American media ensures that the claim alone will suffice to tar any Americans associated with Strategic Culture Foundation with a black brush. 

I have confirmed that two American writers for SCF have received letters from the US Treasury Department in recent weeks warning them of fines of over $300,000 if they continue to write for the journal.  These threats are in response to alleged Russian interference in the 2020 US election and part of the US government’s enforcement of Executive Order 13848 signed by President Donald Trump in September of 2018 which sought to ascertain foreign interference in any future elections in the US and to punish those deemed guilty.  Threats to US elections included not only tampering with actual voting and its supporting infrastructure but “covert distribution of propaganda and disinformation.” 

According to the Treasury Department’s April 15, 2021 press release in connection with the designation of SCF and other Russian entities to be sanctioned pursuant to the executive order, the US government stated its intent to target those they see as Russia’s enablers on behalf of its alleged program to interfere in US elections:

 “Treasury will target Russian leaders, officials, intelligence services, and their proxies that attempt to interfere in the US electoral process or subvert US democracy,” said Secretary Janet L. Yellen. “This is the start of a new US campaign against Russian malign behavior.” (emphasis added)

The release also accuses SCF specifically, without evidence, of being directed by Russian military intelligence and that its articles spread “disinformation” – which appears to mean opinion and analysis that the US government doesn’t like:

The Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) is an online journal registered in Russia that is directed by the SVR and closely affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. SCF is controlled by the SVR’s Directorate MS (Active Measures) and created false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning US officials involved in the 2020 US presidential election. It publishes conspiracy theorists, giving them a broader platform to spread disinformation, while trying to obscure the Russian origins of the journal so that readers may be more likely to trust the sourcing…

…Treasury designated…the Strategic Culture Foundation pursuant to E.O. 13848 for having engaged in foreign interference in the US 2020 presidential election.

The ordeal started for the two American writers in July of 2020 when they each received a visit at their home from FBI agents inquiring about SCF and its connections to Russia.

Read full article here.

Intellinews, 12/2/21

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the West to start talks on a security deal and legal guarantees that would prevent Nato from expanding East.

“Western colleagues did not fulfil their respective oral obligations,” said Putin and reiterated that Russia sees threats in Nato exercises near its borders and has complained that the US is arming Ukraine with more weapons.

Putin’s proposal has been made as reports have come from Ukraine that Kyiv had moved 125,000 troops up to the contact line in Donbas, about half its active servicemen. Putin had earlier said that Moscow was concerned that Ukraine’s government would attempt to retake the Donbas region by force.

Moscow has been calling for a new post-Cold War security deal with the West since 2008, when then-president Dmitry Medvedev offer[ed] the EU a framework deal during his first foreign trip. The proposal was dismissed out of hand.
Putin brought the issue up again during a big foreign policy speech where he ordered Russian diplomats to get a new security deal with the West to govern Nato’s actions in countries neighbouring Russia.

On December 1 Putin followed up with the proposal to launch negotiations during a ceremony to swear in new ambassadors.

According to him, Russia intends to seek “reliable and long-term security guarantees” and in negotiations with the United States and its allies will “insist on the elaboration of specific agreements, excluding any Nato advance to the east,” Putin told the ambassadors. Putin stressed that it is precisely the legal guarantees that Moscow needs, because the Western countries have not fulfilled their oral obligations.

Read full article here.

By Alexander Baunov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 12/1/21

…Russia, for its part, is discovering its own worst option. For three decades, the greatest fear of the Russian leadership was that Ukraine (and Belarus) would join NATO and move Western military infrastructure right up to Russia’s borders. Now it turns out that that can happen even without NATO, and in more real and long-term and less predictable ways. An aggrieved country that is building its entire identity on the rejection of everything Russian is far easier to turn into a fortified area on Russia’s border than a country confined by NATO procedures. In the absence of any security guarantees from a bloc, that country will be ready at the drop of a hat to welcome foreign aircraft, ships, and troops, and to equip its own army, leaping into action out of fear…

Read full article here.