Trump and Ukraine-Russia Events like Ozark on Netflicks

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

                         Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, comedian 

Remember when President Trump asked Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, on July 2019, to investigate Joe Biden?  Joe was then Trump's opponent in the 2020 presidential election.  Joe's son, Hunter Biden and the company, CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm,  were to be investigated and to discuss matters with Rudy Giullani, Trumps personal attorney and William Barr, the Attorney General.  Allegations had been made against the Biden or Bidens.  Trump had been told that the Bidens were involved with the American company, CrowdStrike, but that hasn't been proven. 

                                               

          Hunter Biden and father Joseph Biden  

Trump admitted that he had told Zelensky that "we don't want our people like VP Biden and his son contributing to corruption that's already in the Ukraine.  Joe's son had a business in Ukraine.  Trump was said to be pressuring Ukraine into this investigations which may have included Trump cancelling a scheduled trip to Ukraine by VP Mike Pence and Trump withholding $400 million dollars in military aid from Ukraine.  

The business was that Biden's son Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company, on April 18, 2014. Hunter, then an attorney with Boies Schiller Flexner, was hired to help Burisma with corporate governance best practices, and a consulting firm in which Hunter is a partner was also retained by Burisma. 

In a December 2015 interview, Joe Biden said he had never discussed Hunter's work at Burisma. Joe Biden traveled to Ukrainian capital Kyiv on April 21, 2014, and urged the Ukrainian government "to reduce its dependence on Russia for supplies of natural gas". He discussed how the United States could help provide technical expertise for expanding domestic production of natural gas.

KIEV (Reuters) - During his time on the board of one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies, Hunter Biden, the son of former U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, was regarded as a helpful non-executive director with a powerful name, according to people familiar with Biden’s role at the company.

What I make out of this:

1. Joe told Ukraine to buy USA expertise about natural gas, not Russia.

2. Hunter was a partner and attorney with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company. Both Joe and Hunter are there about natural gas.  They couldn't help but do this;  talk about it together-outside.   

Since 2012, the Ukrainian prosecutor general had been investigating Burisma's owner, oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, over allegations of money laundering, tax evasion.

                Jason Bateman (Marty Byrde)  of Ozark just gets in deeper and deeper corruption.    (At this point the reader should watch Ozark on Net-flix, which is an exciting series- all about money-laundering,  and where it leads to.) 

President Trump was impeached by Congress on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress. The articles of impeachment were referred to the Senate, which held a trial over twenty days from January 16 to February 5, 2020. Trump was acquitted on both charges by the Republican-controlled Senate, with the vote split along party lines. 

Maine senator Susan Collins, who emerged as a key figure during the impeachment trial owing to her perceived willingness to break with her party, defended the acquittal as she believed Trump had learned from the trial and would not attempt to solicit foreign interference in future.

Donald Trump has accused President Joe Biden of giving Russia the "green

 light" to invade Ukraine. Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, the former

 president criticized Biden's remarks during a press conference about the 

buildup of Russian troops next to the border with Ukraine.

                                                     

Biden suggested on Wednesday that a "minor incursion" ordered by 

President Vladimir Putin would result in a softer response from Washington

 than a full-scale invasion. The comments sparked alarm in Kyiv and were 

quickly walked back by the White House.  

There are 100,000 Russian  troops lined up at the border.  With that, anything 

cannot be a soft response.  It can easily be WWIII.  Israel is poised and ready

to rescue any Ukranian Jews who want to change countries and live in Israel.

The President, Zelensky might be ready for such a change but chances are 

he'll stay.

Trump said this would never happen under his presidency.  Trump's remarks 

come after Russia recently told the U.S. to stop providing military aid to 

Ukraine, warning it had "almost completed" assembling 127,000 troops at 

the Ukrainian border.  

Resource:

****https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2019/10/all-about-ukraine-trump-and-joe-biden.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Ukraine_scandal

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-russia-ukraine-tensions-would-never-have-happened-under-his-presidency-1672311

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/politics/crowdstrike-ukraine.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hunter-biden-ukraine/what-hunter-biden-did-on-the-board-of-ukrainian-energy-company-burisma-idUSKBN1WX1P7

UKRAINE; Importance to the Jewish People

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Woman and Man in 1930s Soviet Propaganda Poster - Regional History Museum - Zaporozhye - Ukraine

My paternal grandparents were from Lithuania.  Why is it that so many DNA related people have been from Ukraine?  What went on in history that so many came from there?  Battles, fighting and wars affected the population movement. Ukraine's fights affected the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.  

Jews immigrated to the Ukraine in waves from Khazaria, the Caliphate, and Byzantium between the 5th and 12th centuries. Then they came from Central Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. 

 Jews went to Khazaria from other lands that were infested with anti-Semitism.  The original people there were a Turkish or Finnish tribe which had settled in the lower Volga region.  Russians called them the White Ugrians, and they had converted to Judaism. They were powerful from the 8th to 10th centuries, reaching Kiev.  Their Royal House intermarried with the Byzantium people.  From 786 to 809  their King Bulan and 4,000 of his nobles converted to Judaism.  

                                             

            Entrance of Bohdan Khmelnytsky to Kyiv, Mykola Ivasyuk
   

Severe massacres occurred there during the Chmielnicki and Haidamak  uprising of the 17th and 18th centuries.  The Khmelnytsky Uprising in Ukraine known as Khmelʹnychchyna  also known as the Cossack-Polish War, the Chmielnicki Uprising, the Khmelnytsky massacre or the Khmelnytsky insurrection, was a Cossack rebellion that took place between 1648 and 1657 in the eastern territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in Ukraine.  

"In Jewish history, the Uprising is known for the concomitant outrages against the Jews who, in their capacity as leaseholders (arendators), were seen by the peasants as their immediate oppressors. However, Shmuel Ettinger argues that both Ukrainian and Polish accounts of the massacres overemphasize the importance of the Jewish role as landlords, while downplaying the religious motivation for Cossack violence" In other words, they used a double-edged sword against the Jews.  

Within a few months almost all Polish nobles, officials and Catholic priests had been wiped out or driven from the lands of present-day Ukraine. The Commonwealth population losses in the uprising exceeded one million. In addition, Jews suffered substantial losses because they were the most numerous and accessible representatives of the szlachta regime.

The Frankist and Hasidic movements originated in the 18th century in the Ukraine which was also closely associated with the early development of Zionism in the 19th and 20th centuries.  

In the 19th century, the main influences were from Galicia and white Russia.  Always an anti-Semitic center, the Ukraine was the scene of pogroms in 1905 and 1918-20.  Possibly the movie, Fiddler on the Roof, was supposed to have happened in Ukraine.  

                                               

The Russian government encouraged Jewish agricultural settlement in southern Ukraine from 1804 to 1859, so that by 1897, there were 21 Jewish colonies in Kherson Province and 16 in Yekaterinoslav with 26,326 population.  

The Soviet government in the 1920's promoted Jewish settlement in the Ukraine with funds from the American Joint Distribution Committee in the regions of Kalinindorf, Zlotopol, and Stalindorf.  In 1930, there were 90,000 Jewish agriculturists there.  

In January 1918, a regime of national autonomy was established in the Ukraine and the following served as ministers for Jewish affairs:  M. Silberfarb in 1918, A. Revutzki and W. Latzki in 1919, and P. Krasny in 1920.

Jewish economy and culture suffered under Soviet rule.  About half of Soviet Russia's 3 million Jews lived there before World War II, but under Nazi rule, the Jewish inhabitants who had not fled to Russia were  wiped out by by the Germans and Ukrainians from 1941 to 1942.  

The Jewish population  was officially put at 777,126 in 1970 and  at 484,129 in 1989.  The Jewish Confederation of Ukraine is an association of Ukrainian public organizations founded in 1999. The Confederation unites independent social, charitable and religious Jewish organizations in Ukraine.                            

The president of Ukraine today is Jewish. He is Volodymyr Zelensky.  Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky is a Ukrainian comedian and politician who is the 6th and current president of Ukraine since 20 May 2019. He's 5'7" tall. He's been president since May 20, 2019.   

Zelensky was born 25 January 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union to Jewish parents. His grandfather, Semyon (Simon) Ivanovych Zelensky, served in the Red Army (in the 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division) during World War II; Semyon's father and three brothers were killed in the Holocaust. Volodymyr's father, Oleksandr Zelensky [uk], is a professor and head of Department of Cybernetics and Computing Hardware at the Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics; his mother, Rymma Zelenska, used to work as an engineer. Prior to starting elementary school, he lived for four years in Mongolia in the city of Erdenet where his father worked. At age 16, he passed the TOEFL and received an education grant to study in Israel, but his father did not allow him to study there 

• The latest population estimate for Ukraine is 42,800,000.
• As of 1 January 2016, the core Jewish population of Ukrainians was estimated to be 56,000 (0.13% of the wider population) and the enlarged Jewish population was estimated at 140,000.
• An estimated 200,000 Ukrainians qualify for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return.
• The largest Jewish population centres in Ukraine are Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Odessa.

Wikipedia

Odessa: 45,000

Dnipro: 60,000

Kyiv: 110,000

Resource:

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/12/ukraine-as-it-faces-down-hundred.html

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2019/10/all-about-ukraine-trump-and-joe-biden.html

https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2014/09/kiev-ukraines-jewish-connections.html

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Confederation_of_Ukraine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising

https://www.jpr.org.uk/country?id=344

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Ukraine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelensky

Ukraine, As It Faces Down a Hundred Thousand Russian Soldiers Right Now

  Ukraine, As It Faces Down a Hundred Thousand Russian Soldiers in 2021

Nadene Goldfoot                          

The fate of Ukraine is hanging today at a Tuesday meeting.   Russian President Vladimir Putin and the US President Joe Biden will have a videoconference on Tuesday, RIA Novosti news agency has reported, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.  Can they hold out without shooting until tomorrow's meeting? President of Ukraiane,  Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky,  is a Ukrainian comedian and politician who is the 6th and current president of Ukraine since 20 May 2019. 

• Tens of thousands of Russian troops have reportedly gathered at the border with Ukraine.  Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, a part of Ukraine, in 2014.

At this moment, Russian troops massing at Ukraine's border

                                               

    Crimea also had a Jewish history.  From the 7th century to 1117, easter Crimea was controlled by the KHAZARS.  A large Karaite population lived there from the 12th century.  Many Jews had to become Moslemss under Tatar rule.  The Genoese, rulers in 15th century, protested Jews.  Turks ruled from 1475 to 1783 and Chufut-Kale was the Jewish center.  Russians conquered Crimea in 1783.  In late 1920's, thousands of jews were settled in Crimea so as to have an autonomous Jewish agricultural center.  blky 1939, the Jewish population numbered 50,000 including 40,000 Ashkeneazim, 6,000 Krimchaks, and 4,000 Karaiatees.  They were mostly wiped out by the Germans by 1941.  In 1980, the Jewish population was 25,614.                                                

Service members of the Russian airborne forces line up before boarding Ilyushin Il-76 transport planes during drills at a military aerodrome in the Azov Sea port of Taganrog, Russia April 22, 2021. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Stringer

Orthodox Jewish pilgrims prayed near the tomb of Rabbi Nachman while celebrating Rosh Hashanah in Uman, about 200 km South of Kyiv, Ukraine, on 5 October 2016. Every year, thousands of Orthodox Bratslav Hasidic Jews from different countries gather in Uman to mark Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year, near the tomb of Rabbi Nachman, a great grandson of the founder of Hasidism. (Photo by Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto)(Maxym Marusenko / Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto/Sipa USA)

According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitutes the third-largest Jewish community in Europe and the fifth-largest in the world.

As of 2012, Ukraine had the fifth-largest Jewish community in Europe and the twelfth-largest Jewish community in the world, behind South Africa and ahead of Mexico. The majority of Ukrainian Jews live in four large cities: Kyiv (about half of all Jews living in Ukraine), Dnipro, Kharkiv and Odessa.

There is a growing trend among some Israelis to visit Ukraine on a "roots trip" to follow the footsteps of Jewish life there. Among the places of interest Kyiv is usually mentioned, where it is possible to trace the paths of Sholem Aleichem and Golda Meir; Zhytomyr and Korostyshiv, where one can follow the steps of Haim Nahman Bialik; Berdychiv, where one can trace the life of Mendele Mocher Sforim; Rivne, where one can follow the course of Amos Oz; Buchach – the path of S.Y. Agnon; Drohobych – the place of Maurycy Gottlieb and Bruno Schulz.

In 1989, a Soviet census counted 487,000 Jews living in Ukraine. Although discrimination by the state all but halted very soon after Ukrainian independence in 1991, Jews were still discriminated against in Ukraine during the 1990s. For instance, Jews were not allowed to attend some educational institutions. Antisemitism has since declined. According to the European Jewish Congress, as of 2014, there are 360,000–400,000 Jews in Ukraine.  

During the 1990s, some 266,300 Ukrainian Jews emigrated to Israel as part of a wave of mass emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel in the 1990s. The 2001 Ukrainian Census counted 106,600 Jews living in Ukraine (the number of Jews also dropped due to a negative birthrate. According to the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister of Israel, early 2012 there were 250,000 Jews in Ukraine, half of them living in Kyiv.

In the westernmost area of Ukraine, Jews were mentioned for the first time in 1030. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising between 1648 and 1657, an army of Cossacks and Crimean Tatars massacred and took into captivity large numbers of Jews, Roman Catholics and Uniate Christians. Recent estimates range from 15,000 to 30,000 Jews killed or taken captive, and 300 Jewish communities completely destroyed. During the 1821 anti-Jewish riots in Odessa following the death of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople, 14 Jews were killed. Some sources claim this episode as the first pogrom. At the start of 20th century, anti-Jewish pogroms continued to occur. When part of the Russian Empire, antisemitic attitudes can be seen in the number of blood libel cases between 1911 and 1913. In 1915, the government expelled thousands of Jews from the Empire's border areas.

Many of my DNA matches have ancestors from Ukraine.  It was in time of war that Jews were pushed into Ukraine from Poland and Lithuania.  Ukraine was not the religious center of Jewry like Lithuania was.  

                                                 

KYIV, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Jewish,  has said there are nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers near Ukraine's border and that Western countries had shared information about active Russian troop movements with Kyiv.  - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said there are nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers near Ukraine's border and that Western countries had shared information about active Russian troop movements with Kyiv.

Three days ago it was reported that Russia is planning massive military offensive against Ukraine involving 175,000 troops, U.S. intelligence warns.  They have observed military planning, personnel movements, artillery and equipment all at the ready.  

The Kremlin has been moving troops toward the border with Ukraine while demanding Washington guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO and that the alliance will refrain from certain military activities in and around Ukrainian territory. The crisis has provoked fears of a renewed war on European soil and comes ahead of a planned virtual meeting next week between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Zelensky was born 25 January 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union to Jewish parents.

 His grandfather, Semyon (Simon) Ivanovych Zelensky, served in the Red Army (in the 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division) during World War II; Semyon's father and three brothers were killed in the Holocaust. Semyon was lucky to live through it.  

Volodymyr's father, Oleksandr Zelensky [uk], is a professor and head of Department of Cybernetics and Computing Hardware at the Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics; his mother, Rymma Zelenska, used to work as an engineer. Prior to starting elementary school, he lived for four years in Mongolia in the city of Erdenet where his father worked. At age 16, he passed the TOEFL and received an education grant to study in Israel, but his father did not allow him to study there.

Zelensky earned a law degree from the Kryvyi Rih Institute of Economics, then a department of Kyiv National Economic University and now part of Kryvyi Rih National University, but has not worked professionally in the legal field. He speaks Ukrainian, Russian and English. 

“The Russian plans call for a military offensive against Ukraine as soon as early 2022 with a scale of forces twice what we saw this past spring during Russia’s snap exercise near Ukraine’s borders,” said an administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. “The plans involve extensive movement of 100 battalion tactical groups with an estimated 175,000 personnel, along with armor, artillery and equipment.”  It seems they're ahead of schedule.  

The head of Nato has urged Russia to be transparent about its military plans after an increase in the numbers of troops on its border with Ukraine.

Jens Stoltenberg said a "large and unusual" build-up of Russian forces had been spotted on the border in recent weeks.

"He spoke amid speculation Russia could be planning to invade Ukraine".  Do you think?  

Moscow has dismissed such fears as "alarmist" and complained of increasing Nato activities in the region.  Of course, they are the one alarming everyone !  

Speaking after talks with Ukraine's foreign minister in Brussels, Mr Stoltenberg said the important thing was to stop tensions from spiralling out of control. He warned Russia against taking any "aggressive actions".  All those men with arms, everything they need to act aggressively...are they tense besides?  

                                        

                        Russian units have been on exercises in Crimea

• Is Russia preparing to invade Ukraine?

Mr Stoltenberg said: "We see an unusual concentration of troops, and we know that Russia has been willing to use these types of military capabilities before to conduct aggressive actions against Ukraine." Are NATO's troops ready?  

June 14, 2021: 69.         We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process; we reaffirm all elements of that decision, as well as subsequent decisions, including that each partner will be judged on its own merits.  We stand firm in our support for Ukraine’s right to decide its own future and foreign policy course free from outside interference.  The Annual National Programmes under the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC) remain the mechanism by which Ukraine takes forward the reforms pertaining to its aspiration for NATO membership.  Ukraine should make full use of all instruments available under the NUC to reach its objective of implementing NATO principles and standards.  The success of wide-ranging, sustainable, and irreversible reforms, including combating corruption, promoting an inclusive political process, and decentralisation reform, based on democratic values, respect for human rights, minorities, and the rule of law, will be crucial in laying the groundwork for a prosperous and peaceful Ukraine. 

• Update: 12/6/21"Many European leaders do not seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation.... Ukraine has a gun to its head, but the German government only seems worried about the survival of its pipeline.... This is just the kind of poor judgement that enables Russian military aggression." — Gustav Gressel. Gatestone Institute

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Ukraine   (huge article)

Dallas Morning News:  Ukraine Jews Have a Little Hanukkah Miracle of their own going on

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-russia-has-nearly-100000-troops-near-its-border-2021-11-13/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelensky

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/russia-ukraine-invasion/2021/12/03/98a3760e-546b-11ec-8769-2f4ecdf7a2ad_story.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59288181

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_185000.htm

https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/154288 Gatestone Institute