Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

As I've been saying for weeks now (and so has the Biden administration who has far better intel than little ol' me) any Russian invasion of Ukraine would be preceded by a false flag pretext for war in which Russian troops would enter the country in order to "protect Russian interests and human rights" in the pro-Russian Caucasus and Donbas areas of Ukraine that Russian troops already occupy and have occupied for eight years now.

Unfortunately, we've reached that stage today.

Ukraine's military and the Russian-backed separatists it has battled for eight years in the country's eastern Donbas region both accused the other side of opening fire on Thursday in violation of ceasefire agreements that have been shaky, at best, since they were signed seven years ago.

As the reported shelling raised tensions — and despite Russia's claims to be pulling forces back from Ukraine's borders — the Biden administration said "evidence on the ground" showed Russia was "moving toward an imminent invasion" of its neighbor.

The United States and its NATO partners have dismissed Moscow's assertions of an initial force drawdown along Ukraine's northern, eastern and southern borders, saying that President Vladimir Putin's military appears, in reality, to be bolstering troop numbers, not reducing them.

America and its allies have also warned for weeks that Russia could try to stage a "false-flag" incident — including a faked attack by Ukrainian forces on the rebels in Donbas — to use as a pretext to invade Ukraine. On Thursday, amid the claims of shelling from both sides, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was "concerned" that Russia was trying to do just that.

With U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken making an unscheduled stop in New York on Thursday to address a Security Council meeting requested by Ukraine, a senior State Department official echoed Stoltenberg's concerns about possible Russian preparations to fabricate a pretext for an invasion.

 

The playbook should seem eerily familiar here. It's the same one Dubya used to invade Iraq after 9/11. 

Putin's not a stupid man. He knows what works and what he can get away with, and increasingly it looks like he's going to invade in the days ahead. The question was always what NATO's response would be, and frankly there's no appetite here in the States to defend Ukraine with US troops.

Not after, well, two decades in Afghanistan (and 12 years in Iraq).

Hold on, folks. Things just got serious.