Tweet

@danabrams

@danabramslive

More from @aaronjmate

Aaron Maté

@aaronjmate

Mar 1

@I_Katchanovski

For people who just watched me on Jimmy Dore, here are the links I promised: @I_Katchanovski's study on how the 2014 Maidan massacre was "perpetrated principally by members of the Maidan opposition, specifically its far-right elements." canadiandimension.com/articles/view/…

@I_Katchanovski

@I_Katchanovski Here's the leaked phone in which senior US official Victoria Nuland and then-US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt select the post-coup Ukrainian government:

And here's the call in which EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton & Estonia's foreign minister discuss evidence that the group behind the Maidan snipers "was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition," -- i.e. the US-picked coup gov't.

Read 4 tweets

Aaron Maté

@aaronjmate

Feb 28

Zelensky won on a platform of peace and quickly reneged, refusing to implement the Minsk accords. In his defense, he faced threats from far-right forces who threatened to coup him. US offered him no help. He's now presented as a hero for one main reason: he follows US orders.

If you doubt that the US plays such a major role in Ukraine, listen to what a top Zelensky aide told Time magazine: when Biden came to power, Zelensky offered him "a welcome gift" to "fit with the U.S. agenda": targeting Ukraine's pro-Russia opposition. mate.substack.com/p/stoking-war-…

The US is so influential in Ukraine that when a Russia-allied Ukrainian politician brokered a deal for Russia to provide free COVID vaccines, Zelensky said no -- along with the State Department. Why does the State Department get a say in Ukraine's COVID vaccine policy?

Read 4 tweets

Aaron Maté

@aaronjmate

Feb 27

Russia has not used anywhere near its full military power. It's avoided civilian areas & focused on NATO-tied military targets. That's why CNN-MSNBC-Fox have so little actual footage. US can avoid disaster if it stops treating Ukrainians as cannon fodder & gives up on NATO there.

Here's a top US expert on the Russian military noting that Russia has used a "only a fraction" of its operational forces; is "avoiding use of mass fires"; and hasn't deployed cyber-warfare, e.g. shutting down Ukraine's internet and phones. I fear that this won't last.

https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1497723820408377347?s=20&t=6iIzFgKDV5wMtBPy5SSxhw

Read 5 tweets

Aaron Maté

@aaronjmate

Feb 24

I did not think that Russia would invade Ukraine. The pushback from Kiev and other European allies to US warnings, coupled with the long history of Western intel deceptions, were the main reasons. I was wrong.

Russia’s attack is illegal.

It’s also exactly what US would have done had Russia done to Canada what US did to Ukraine: pledge hostile military alliance membership; back a coup; pour in weapons used to attack civilians; thwart diplomacy.

Except US would have done it years ago.

That doesn’t justify what Russia is doing, nothing can, but helps explain it. US has treated Ukraine as a “prize” in its bid to encircle & weaken Russia long after Cold War ended. I wish Russia pursued more diplomacy, but fact is they’re responding to a crisis they didn’t start.

Read 4 tweets

Aaron Maté

@aaronjmate

Feb 23

According to UN figures, from 2018 to 2021, 81.4% of civilian casualties in the Donbas war came in rebel-held territory. 16.3% were in Ukrainian gov't-controlled territory.

This is one key reality of the war that US media doesn't report. Too inconvenient. ukraine.un.org/sites/default/…

I haven't found the breakdown for 2014 to 2017 yet, but if someone does, please share it in the replies and I'll post it.

UN report covering Jan 2014-May 2016, while claiming that Russians have "fuelled" the conflict, reports that the Donbas breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk account "for the majority of violations of the right to life in Ukraine over the last two years." So, same trend.

Read 4 tweets

Aaron Maté

@aaronjmate

Feb 20

After weeks of US-generated war fever, European officials are finally fed up.

WashPost reports that "high-level European officials have expressed frustration that the United States had not shared the intelligence that led it to surmise Russia’s intentions with such certainty."

While Biden claims US intel has discovered that Russia plans to invade Ukraine, European officials "have not seen direct evidence."

“[W]e have no clear evidence ourselves that Putin has made up his mind and we have not seen anything that would suggest otherwise," one says.

EU officials say they've "been told little about [US] sources and methods... limiting their capacity to make independent decisions about how much weight to give statements from Biden that Putin has made a decision to attack."

If only US media had such independent standards.

Read 9 tweets

Share this page!

Aaron Maté

People who liked this thread also liked...

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @aaronjmate

Aaron Maté

Aaron Maté

Aaron Maté

Aaron Maté

Aaron Maté

Aaron Maté

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Like this author's thread?