WTF?
Russia's batshit letter to Uncle Sam, NATO
The following is the On Ukraine part of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s wacko letter to the United States and NATO. The collection of words is an excellent illustration of the bullshit we’ve been hearing from Moscow for almost eight years.
Вот где-то так:
«Жена твоя пусть ходит вечером мимо моей квартиры без белья, мобильный телефон оставляет дома, а сам ты ближе, чем за три квартала, к дому не подходишь. Но я обещаю тебе гарантировать ее полную безопасность».
The original, full text can be found here.
On Ukraine.
There is no “Russian invasion” of Ukraine, which the United States and its allies have been declaring at the official level since last fall, and no invasion is planned, so statements about “Russia’s responsibility for the escalation” cannot be regarded otherwise than as an attempt to put pressure on and devalue Russia’s proposals for security guarantees.
In this context, Russian obligations under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum have nothing to do with the internal Ukrainian conflict and does not apply to circumstances resulting from the action of internal factors there. The loss of territorial integrity by the Ukrainian state is the result of the processes that have taken place within it.
The accusations of Russia contained in the American response that it “occupied Crimea” also do not stand up to scrutiny. In 2014, a coup d'etat took place in Kyiv, the initiators of which, with the support of the United States and its allies, supported the creation of a nationalist state that infringes on the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking population, as well as other "non-titular" ethnic groups. It is not surprising, residents of Crimean voted for reunification with Russia. The decision of the people of Crimea and Sevastopol to return to the Russian Federation was made made by free will in the exercise of the right to self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter. No force or threat of force was used. The question of whether Crimea is a part of is closed.
If Ukraine is accepted into NATO, there will be a real threat that the regime in Kyiv will try to “return” Crimea by force, drawing in the United States and its allies, in accordance with Art. 5 of the Washington Treaty, into a direct armed conflict with Russia with all the ensuing consequences.
The thesis repeated in the US response that Russia allegedly “ignited the conflict in Donbas” is untenable. The reason for the conflict are purely domestic in nature. The settlement is possible only through the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the "Package of Measures," the priority and responsibility for the implementation of which are clearly defined and unanimously confirmed by UN Security Council Resolution 2202, including the United States, France and Great Britain. In paragraph 2 of this resolution, Kyiv, Donetsk and Luhansk are named as parties. None of these documents mentions Russia's responsibility for the conflict in Donbas. Russia, together with the OSCE, plays the role of a mediator in the main negotiating format - the Contact Group - and together with Berlin and Paris - in the Normandy format, which formulates recommendations to the parties to the conflict and monitors their implementation.
To de-escalate the situation around Ukraine, it is fundamentally important to take the following steps. They include compelling Kyiv to comply with the "Package of Measures," stopping the supply of weapons to Ukraine, withdrawing all Western advisers and instructors from there, refusing NATO countries from any joint exercises with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and withdrawing all foreign weapons previously delivered to Kyiv outside Ukrainian territory.
In this regard, we draw attention to the fact that President of Russia Vladimir Putin, at a press conference following the talks in Moscow with President of France Empress Macron on February 7, 2022, stressed that we are open to dialogue. He urged that we “think about stable conditions security for all, equal for all participants in international life.”