The Betrayal of Ukraine By The U.S. (repost from December 2023)

First, the CIA. Now Biden,

In November 2021, just weeks before Russian armored columns raced south towards Kyiv from Belarus, American CIA Director William Burns (former US Ambassador to Russia) spoke with Vladimir Putin (via secure telephone) and senior Russian officials at the Kremlin. The only topic on the agenda was the looming Russian invasion into Ukraine. Burns knew full well that all the Kremlin talk about the Russian military merely staging pre-planned exercises on the Ukrainian border was 100%, unadulterated BS. The only challenge for Burns was making sure that both the Kremlin and the White House knew the rules for the upcoming invasion and then abided by those rules, just as they had all during the Cold War, a period for which Burns was very familiar. There were no real efforts by Burns of talking Putin out of the invasion, no mention of the 1994 Budapest Agreement guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity (and ratified by Russia), and there were no real threats of retaliation by America or NATO.…