In a shocking statement today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said "Russia sees no point in maintaining diplomatic presence in the West."
He continued by saying “It makes no sense, and we have no desire to maintain the same presence in Western countries. Our people work in conditions that can hardly be called human. They face constant problems, threats of physical attacks.”
Lavrov went on to reveal "the Russian foreign ministry is currently carrying out a “geographical reorientation” of its activities both abroad and in the central office" suggesting a potential downgrade of Russia’s diplomatic presence in the West.
Hal Turner Remarks
Will this be a pretext for quiet embassy evac before the nukes launch?
When Diplomacy is shut off, we all know what comes next.
You know, if the United States or its NATO allies had one shred of self-respect, or one grain of honor, this whole Ukraine thing would never have taken place. But the people running the United States Government seem to me to have no honor - at all. They gave assurances to Russia that NATO "would not move one inch eastward" then later did the exact thing they assured Russia would NOT be done. That set in motion DECADES of betrayal of Russia, which have no lead us to the brink of actual nuclear war.
Our assurance was given, and recorded in official US State Department Records, on February 9, 1990. A portion of those records appear below.
The long and short of it is this: At a meeting in Moscow between then US Secretary of State James Baker, then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and then Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, Baker spoke about the then-pending re-unification of East and West Germany. Baker expressly stated (Page 5):
"I want you to know one thing for certain: The president and I have made clear that we seek no unilateral advantage in this process."
On the very next page (Page 6), Baker explicitly stated:
"We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the east. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east."
For all those ignorant morons cheering Ukraine, let me educate you with facts and evidence proving we in the west - and the government of Ukraine - are in the wrong. Here are the official US State Department records proving the United States assured the Soviet Union upon the re-unification of East and West Germany, "there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east:"
Cover Page of Freedom of Information Act release, so you can see the file number at the bottom:
Page 5 of the release:
Page 6 of the release:
OK, so there you have it. Official records from the US State Department. At this point, I would like to ask YOU, when you read that, how did you interpret NATO not moving "one inch to the east?"
For me, I took this to mean exactly what it said. No more eastward expansion. How about you?
Well, guess how the US government under the NEXT President, Bill Clinton, chose to interpret it.
The US Government chose to interpret it as applying ONLY INSIDE RE-UNIFIED GERMANY.
Under Clinton, the position of the United States became . . . the wider context of these assurances was not to expand NATO eastwards at all and that NATO should have stopped at eastern Germany. Sure, that was the context when the assurances were discussed. Yet no such assurances or promises were ever given, nor could they be given without consent of parliaments of NATO states. In western statesmanship you can’t bind a future government without an act of parliament (Congress, Senate or what have you) or a precedent by the supreme (Constitutional or what have you) court. Even if some sort of assurance was given to the Soviet Union or Russia, that assurance was only as good as the term of the executive that made it.
And that . . . that right there . . . is what set in motion the massive eastward expansion of NATO, right up to the border of Russia.
When Baker, Gorbachev, and Shevardnadze met, the nearest NATO base to Russia was 1200 miles away. As you sit wherever you are right now reading this, the nearest NATO base to St. Petersburg, Russia, is only 100 miles away. THAT's how close NATO has gotten to Russia.
It went like this:
Re-unified Germany became a NATO member in 1990, as discussed between the men named above.
In December of the next year, the Soviet Union dissolved itself on Christmas Day.
Since the big, bad, Soviet Union no longer existed, there was -factually - no longer a reason for NATO to exist. The reason NATO was created was to protect western Europe from Soviet Communism. That all ended on Christmas Day 1991, and NATO should have ended with it. It didn't.
Nine years later, under President Bill Clinton, our "assurances" against NATO expansion, went right out the window.
In 1999, NATO admitted former Soviet States Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.
Then in 2004, under President George W. Bush, he undermined his own father's Presidential assurances, and NATO admitted former Soviet states Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria. (How's that for "honorable?")
With the admission of Estonia, NATO troops got onto bases only 100 miles from St. Petersburg, Russia.
Here's a map/timeline of NATO's expansion:
The Russians balked. Loudly. And that's when they were told, show us the Treaty or your claims have no merit. Right then and there, Russia found out that the word of a US President, was worthless.
And at the time, there wasn't much Russia could do about it. They were still repairing the damage of 70+ years of filthy Communist rule, and, by the way, still paying off the DEBTS of the former Soviet Union.
Bet you didn't know that about Russia, did you? RUSSIA HONORED ALL THE OLD SOVIET DEBTS.
Yet all that somehow wasn't good enough for the West. In 2009, NATO expanded again. In 2014, the West overthrew the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, by financing and facilitating violent riots in the streets of Ukraine. When Yanukovich was overthrown, the US and EU financed the election of pro-western puppets in Ukraine, to bring Ukraine into NATO, so as to be able to put US missile defenses inside Ukraine.
Russia flatly refused to allow this to happen. Russia pointed out that US missiles in Ukraine would have about a five minute flight time to Moscow, and about a 7 to 10 minute flight time to Russia's nuclear missile silos. Russia made clear all the way back then, that Ukraine joining NATO was a "red line" for them that Russia would not tolerate.
NATO (The US and EU) ignored Russia. NATO expanded again in 2017, and formally began considering Ukraine and Georgia (to the south of Russia) in 2019.
Russia balked over and over, and was ignored.
In late December, 2021, Russia put forth a Treaty proposal to obtain iron clad, legally enforceable security guarantees. NATO laughed at the proposal and threw it in the trash.
Four days later, Russia delivered the same Treaty Proposal via Diplomatic Courier, to the White House, to #10 Downing Street in London, and to the Presidents/Prime Ministers of all NATO countries, making the exact same proposal but this time saying "If Russia cannot obtain iron clad, legally enforceable security guarantees via Diplomatic means, it will obtain them by military or military-technical means."
The US and NATO took about three weeks to respond, and when they did, the Treaty was again rejected out of hand, to the sounds of laughter.
About a month later, on February 24, 2022, Russia did exactly what they said they would do and began a Special Military Operation to De-militarize and de-Nazify Ukraine.
The West, stunned that Russia did exactly what they said they would do, erupted in a hissy fit, and started helping Ukraine. And the meddling of the West has now gotten us to the point, where we are literally ONE MISTAKE AWAY from actual nuclear war.
All this because we in the West did not honor our assurances, then commenced an aggressive campaign to literally surround Russia with NATO troops, bases, and missiles.
If you were the Russians, how would you feel? What would YOU do?
Diplomacy failed. Russia has no choice but to act militarily now, and it is all because we in the West lied, broke our word, and surrounded Russia with missiles.
Now, it may be only weeks until nuclear war destroys us all.
All for lack of honor. By us.
We are in the wrong here.
