Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 20, 2022 10:59 pm

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John Parker

Eyewitness: Human toll of eight-year Ukrainian army onslaught in Eastern Ukraine is shocking
Originally published: CovertAction Magazine on September 15, 2022 by John Parker (more by CovertAction Magazine) | (Posted Sep 19, 2022)
WarUkraineNewswire

The eastern Ukrainian countryside is being littered with Ukrainian Army mines while some towns have been abandoned as residents had to escape Ukrainian Army shelling.

Residents consider Americans who send money to the Ukrainian government in the belief that they are protecting them from the Russians to be “idiotic” and “foolish.”

The third part of an eyewitness report. (See Part 1; and Part II)


From May 1 to May 12, I traveled to both Russia and the Lugansk People’s Republic, an independent republic in the Donbas region, formerly part of eastern Ukraine. The purpose of this fact-finding mission initiated by the Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La-Lucha.org was to report the suppressed information challenging the narrative of NATO and its member states, led by the U.S., in this proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.

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Alexey Albu [Source: workers.org]

My visit to Lugansk was made possible with the assistance of Borotba (Struggle), a socialist political organization in Ukraine and Donbas that we have worked with for many years. Alexey Albu, one of the leaders of Borotba, also provided translation for me during interviews. This is the third part of my report.

On May 8, two days after we visited the Rubizhne shelter, we made our way from Lugansk city to the villages of Sokilnyky and Krymske. Both had recently been taken over by the joint forces of the Lugansk People’s Militia (LPM) and the Russian military.

After the 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup in Ukraine that brought to power a pro-Washington, anti-Moscow regime partnering with fascist forces, the majority Russian-speaking people of the Donbas region decided they did not want any part of this backsliding of history.

Dramatic evidence of the new coup government’s fascist leanings came in its support for the neo-Nazis who burned alive activists at Odessa’s House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014. To this day, none of the perpetrators has been charged with any crime. Given that incident, the people of the Donbas region declared themselves the independent Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR). They voted by 89% in Donetsk and 96% in Lugansk for that change.

Instead of honoring the wishes of the people of Donbas, Kyiv labeled them terrorists and sent armed forces with heavy artillery and aircraft against civilians, threatening to wipe out the population. The Lugansk People’s Militia was organized to defend the area.

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Valery Bolotov proclaims the Act of Independence of the Lugansk Peoples Republic May 12 2014 Source wikipediaorg

When the Minsk II cease-fire agreements took effect in 2015, the opposing sides’ positions were drawn. Sokilnyky was controlled by the Lugansk People’s Republic. Krymske was occupied and controlled by the Ukrainian military.

If the cease-fire stipulations under the Minsk II agreements were adhered to by the Ukrainian military, it would have protected this community. Instead, the agreement was used by Ukraine to create a one-sided shooting range against civilians in Sokilnyky. Today no one lives there and the homes and buildings have been destroyed.

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[Source: nationsonline.org]

The road that runs between Sokilnyky and Krymske is called Vulytsya Horkoho, named for the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky. Google also translates it as “Bitter Street.” The name is fitting since less than a quarter-mile north runs the Siverskyi Donets River—the border between two conflicting sides in a war.

When you travel along this road toward Sokilnyky, you see idle and broken-down Ukrainian tanks that were used against the villagers after 2014, when no military force was there to protect those communities.

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From left: Alexey Albu of Borotba; John Parker of Socialist Unity Party; and Evgeniy Miroshnichenko, member of the Youth Parliament, State Duma of Russia. [Source: Photo courtesy of John Parker]

Ukraine continued war after Minsk II

The 122-mm shells from the Ukrainian government’s arsenal rained down on villagers from the north of the river’s edge and west of Sokilnyky, aimed at anyone driving along this road or just relaxing at home. These shells are capable of stopping tanks, penetrating bunkers and taking down aircraft. And as we could see along the way, many homes were blown to bits or barely left standing.

The 2015 Minsk II agreements were negotiated by Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France and the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, allowing for some self-determination of the Donbas regions and the right to be protected by their own military forces—the Lugansk People’s Militia and the Donetsk People’s Militia.

By 2017, however, most residents on this road east of Krymske who survived left the area since it was too dangerous.

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Ukrainian soldier passes by ruins of bombed out building in the abandoned town of Krymske in eastern Ukraine. [Source: militarytimes.com]

Although the Minsk agreements forbade attacks within this area, our guide told us that, after 2015, the Lugansk militia forces began calling this street the “Road of Life,” where LPR forces had to travel fast to keep from being shot at. “For seven years Nazis violated the Minsk agreements…They attacked peaceful people who lived in this village during those Minsk violations,” explained our LPM guide, who led us to our next location further west toward Krymske.

We saw further evidence of houses resembling Swiss cheese rather than safe spaces for families. We stopped on the edge of Zynamyanka village, where a monument commemorating fallen World War II soldiers was located. We had to follow the steps of the person in front since the area was filled with unexploded shells dropped by the Ukrainian forces.

We reached an administrative building that was now more cinder block pieces than structure. Two wires strewn across our path warned us not to go any further since that area was not partially cleared of unexploded shells or mines.

Against the advice of our guide, a very brave journalist from the news service Izvestia continued walking and laying a path for us. Why would he take such a risk? Because, he said, he felt it was important for us to see up close the monument with the names of those from this and nearby villages of both Ukrainian and Russian Soviet soldiers killed fighting the Nazi threat during World War II—so we could appreciate the respect these residents had for their relatives who fought fascists. And to appreciate their suffering in being targeted by those who adhere to that same fascist ideology.

My comrades insisted they walk in front of me, following the soldier from the LPM. Then it hit me hard. From our friends in Borotba to the guides from the Lugansk People’s Militia and brave journalists dedicated to telling the truth—they were all here assisting me, putting their bodies on the line to keep me safe, because they believed the message I would relay back to the U.S. was that important.

I truly wish the U.S. anti-war movement that has so cynically and arrogantly dismissed any facts or testimony coming from the people in Lugansk and Donetsk, who refuse to acknowledge their experiences or even existence, could feel just one-tenth of what I felt in that moment.

When we reached the monument, carefully, the words with the hundreds of names of buried soldiers read: “Your Heroism Is Immortal and Your Glory Is Eternal.”

[Video walking to the Monument in Zynam’yanka] https://www.dropbox.com/s/d0r1r9pv7bm72 ... t.mp4?dl=0

Sister towns separated by war

The once Ukrainian-held territory in and around Krymske, just west of us, included areas within eyeshot of the LPR-held Sokilnyky village. In 2014 almost 2,000 people lived in Krymske, and 1,000 lived in Sokilnyky. They lie about five minutes from each other by car.

In fact, the communities were very close. One of the Izvestia reporters with us wrote: “If a guy from Krymske married a girl from Sokilnyky, the wedding was played in two villages at once.” But after the battles in 2014 and by 2015, the two communities remained separated with blocks of concrete and barbed wire.

After passing the town of Sokilnyky, we drove about a quarter mile to where the Ukrainian military had installed bunkers and barracks to target that village, using these places to launch missiles and those 122-mm shells against the LPR-held territories, even in the years when civilians were still there.

The south side of this “Bitter Street” had been swept for mines but the north side had not, so to remain relatively safe we stayed on the south side. On the ground were strewn Kalashnikov 5.45 caliber bullets and casings leading into an eight-foot dugout to tunnels of dirt and darkness protected by sandbags from retaliatory fire.

The Ukrainian forces were routed after the February operation by the Russians and the LPM so, undoubtedly, gunfire was exchanged. But even if there was activity targeting this compound in response to shelling, it lies more than a quarter-mile from 99% of the homes in the Krymske village.

In other words, the civilian population living in Krymske village was only victimized by the Azov, Aidar or Right Sector fascist regiments leading the Ukrainian military occupation there. This is according to the residents we spoke to, who also verified that those leading these soldiers were wearing Nazi regiment colors and fascist symbols.

About 100 feet down the road from the bunker, taking us to the eastern edge of Krymske, we observed on the side of the road a leftover decoy that had been used to frighten the Lugansk militia forces, mimicking a Swedish surface-to-air missile. The threat would have been believable since those real missiles and other military aid totaling $102 million was promised to Ukraine from Sweden on June 2—this on top of the other anti-armor weaponry already delivered.

Sweden’s AT4 anti-armor weapon

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My photo of a decoy surface-to-air missile weapon by a bunker near Sokilnyky. [Source: Photo courtesy of John Parker]
Nazi symbols
Due to the actual weapons present at that moment, the most common phrase I heard observing these sites was again, “Don’t step there”—not only because of the unexploded shells on this side of the river but also because the Ukrainian military would “sow” the area with mines that could not be seen in the grass.

We then drove a few feet further to a complex that was part of a tuberculosis clinic. The Ukrainian forces retrofitted this clinic for war by evicting the patients and health-care staff. In one of the buildings, the Ukrainian soldiers felt comfortable enough to scrawl in large letters the word representing a fascist soccer team in Ukraine, the ULTRAS—a team, we were told by one of the journalists with us, that is owned by an oligarch who funds Nazi regiments.

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Ukrainian football fans unfurl Nazi flag at soccer match in Kyiv in 2012. [Source: theguardian.com]

Something that seemed out of place, given the graffiti praising Nazi symbols and organizations, was a letter shaped as a heart with the colors of the Ukrainian flag from a child thanking these Nazi-led Ukrainian forces for keeping them safe. That is not surprising, since the Azov Battalion set up children’s “educational” facilities. According to a Time article from January 7, 2021, the battalion even has an entire building lent to them by the Zelensky government in Kyiv that serves such a purpose.

In addition to general misinformation passed on in their libraries, this facility raises funds by selling key chains, t-shirts and other items adorned with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. Again, this building is on loan from the Ukrainian government, supporting what goes on there.

In another building here, 122-mm shells were stacked on top of each other. Their presence in this room seemed to be a testament to the threat against humanity symbolically displayed over half of one of the walls with drawings of a swastika and a Black Sun or Sonnenrad.

[Video of tuberculosis hospital complex] https://www.dropbox.com/s/e1bygfenpqi4n ... l.mp4?dl=0

It should be noted that this Azov identifier is the same symbol used by the white supremacist shooter who recently targeted Black shoppers in Buffalo, New York. He was inspired by a white supremacist in New Zealand who murdered 51 Muslim worshippers in two mosques there. That New Zealand killer said he was in contact with the Azov Battalion and planned to go to Ukraine for military training.

As shocking as this is, it should not be too surprising that young people are falling into the hands of these unchecked fascist movements. In the 2021 report “Like, Share, Recruit: How a White-Supremacist Militia Uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members,” Time explained how Azov’s use of Facebook’s algorithm drives white supremacists and disaffected youth toward them, allowing Azov exponential visibility growth.

Just a few steps away, another building turned military bunker contained lookout holes punched through the walls, with coordinates written in pen giving targeting coordinates for the LPM positions and civilians when they lived there. On another wall the words “No One But Us” were written in Ukrainian in blue and yellow.

Military-industrial profits

We were accompanied by more than one camera crew with journalists representing various media from Ukraine and Russia. During our inspection of this site, one of the journalists from a Russian news agency found a container that once held explosive materials. This object, the journalist said, came from either the U.S. or a Western European country.

Of course, this is not surprising given that U.S. military aid to Ukraine, as reported in the May 20 New York Times, amounts to more money than given in any kind of aid to any country in the last decade. “It is roughly two times the amount given in 2011 to Afghanistan, the largest U.S. foreign aid recipient until now,” reported the Times.

The U.S. had already surpassed the entire defense budget of Russia back in May. Perhaps the reason for this unprecedented funding, in addition to world domination, also has to do with profits. Business Insider reported on May 23: “One of the largest defense contractors in the nation donated to nearly 150 members of Congress as they debated Ukraine military aid.”

On May 3, President Joe Biden went to Lockheed Martin’s Pike County Operations facility in Troy, Alabama, and did a photo op at the Javelin missile production facility.

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Joe Biden poses as workers in Troy, Alabama, plant apply finishing touches to a Javelin missile poised to be sent to the front lines in Ukraine. [Source: nytimes.com]

And the top member of Congress in charge of the military budget, Democratic Representative Adam Smith from Washington State is also the top recipient of money from the weapons makers.

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Adam Smith—a war profiteer. [Source: theintercept.com]

In its 2010 Citizens United decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that corporations may spend unlimited amounts on elections. When the selfish ambitions of bought-and-paid-for politicians coincide with the goals of the ruling class, even the sky is not the limit. The death and fear created are of no consequence to them.

Speaking of fear, while exploring this hospital complex I heard a constant buzzing, like a flying bee with a megaphone. When I asked what that sound was, I was told it was from a drone overhead. This caused me some concern, knowing that in April the U.S. had been training Ukrainian soldiers in the use of a very advanced drone called the Switchblade Drone 600.

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Zelensky is presented as a superhero in Western media, but even children in eastern Ukraine see through the façade. [Source: scheerpost.com]

I figured that was enough war talk for a child and that I’d give him a break and go back to my previous challenge to race him to the edge of the building. But instead of wanting to lighten the conversation or go play like most children his age in the U.S., he wanted to give some advice to the Ukrainian military and Zelensky: “Now the Ukrainian forces hide in Donetsk, but it will be better if they give up, because the peace will come sooner and we can repair our cities.”

After thanking him for helping me get the message to people in the U.S., he said, “Yes, I told you because I understand that my words can have a little influence on people in the world and maybe peace will come more quickly here.”

Although they may run around in a playground when war is present, children are forced to ponder things they should not have to. But when war comes knocking at their door—or shattering their windows—they have no choice.

[Video of 11-yr-old Ivan] https://www.dropbox.com/s/k4u7ain4geyz7qw/Ivan.mp4?dl=0

Laughter and solidarity

I then approached a few elderly women sitting on a bench. I asked about the situation here under Ukrainian military occupation. They all described the military as being led by the Aidar Battalion, which they could tell by the colors of their patches and Nazi symbols they wore.

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Members of Pro-Nazi Aidar Battalion who are hated by the people of eastern Ukraine. [Source: english.almayadeen.net]

They said that, although not all of the soldiers were Nazis, their leadership was. “They would make them get down on their knees and hit and humiliate them,” said one of the women about the treatment of rank-and-file soldiers who were not Nazis by their superior officers. They all assumed that this was designed to indoctrinate them.

When I asked one woman what it was like during the occupation, her eyes quickly darted down and her head gestured “no.” This made me wonder how horrible an experience she may have had, given the documented war crimes of the Aidar Battalion during this conflict, especially against women. So out of compassion for her, I did not ask again. If they humiliated their own troops, what might they have done to these civilians?

When I asked the women what they thought about people in the U.S. who send money to the Ukrainian government in the belief that they are protecting them from the Russians, one exclaimed: “Duratskiy!” A few of the definitions for that Russian word are “foolish,” “fatuous” and “idiotic.”

When Alexey told me it meant “stupid” and I repeated it in Russian, they all started laughing—first shyly, then out loud when they saw I joined them. I was glad our shared laughter communicated better than words my solidarity with their struggles here today.

[Video of Krymske residents] https://www.dropbox.com/s/vl3nd6qni4s8i ... h.mp4?dl=0

The last interview in Krymske was with a member of the Communist Party. He explained the situation in 2014, when the people here demanded their governor reject the coup government in Kyiv. But, he said, the governor sided with the coup and left.

After we talked, he walked me to an area where two monuments commemorated all of the people from the village who were killed fighting the Nazis during World War II and another honoring the soldiers who were not from that village, but died there fighting the German fascist military. This individual said he was very thankful that the Ukrainian occupiers did not destroy these two monuments as they had done in other parts of the Lugansk region.

[Video of WWII memorial in Krymske] https://www.dropbox.com/s/bel4jr9j9xso8 ... t.mp4?dl=0

The visit to Krymske was inspiring. From the determination and wit of the women on the bench, to the 11-year-old willing to take time out from the playground for important matters, to the passion of the communist who was so proud of the monuments with names of his own family members inscribed on one of them—and all of this community’s unceasing commitment to fight fascism if it rises here once again.

It is also clear that, here, the military that is despised is the Ukrainian one. When we first arrived, we noticed people walking around as if life were normal—although it is not. But now, for the remaining residents in Krymske—no longer threatened by the Ukrainian soldiers—cessation of the worst horrors of war and occupation allows them to take a breath.

Fire in the sky

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Smoke in sky from exploding projectile above Lugansk city. [Source: Photo courtesy of John Parker]

The day before we visited Krymske, Alexey Albu and Evgeniy Miroshnichenko, a member of the Youth Parliament under the State Duma of Russia, invited me on a tour of Lugansk, the capital city of the LPR. We observed the monuments and met with officials from the Lugansk city administration. We were, however, momentarily interrupted by the sight of smoke in the sky, coming from either a drone or rocket that had been intercepted by a Russian missile.

As we walked further I saw a playground and happier thoughts took over.

Playgrounds are wonderful. They are a place where children go to socialize and spend their energy with such excitement and joy. However, given the proximity of shelling or the very recent liberation of areas once occupied by the Ukrainian military, the priorities of food and shelter forced a lack of maintenance in those areas.

However, there in the city of Lugansk, which had been mostly free of attack for some time, I saw a beautiful playground full of children on the swings and slides and varied apparatus designed for the sole purpose of making joyful noises.

But what I had just seen threatening the skies above this well-attended and most precious sanctuary was a killer of children—thankfully destroyed, this time. What would have happened to this playground had the Ukrainian military, now armed with even more sophisticated weaponry thanks to the Biden administration and every other complicit politician, been successful?

The new reality we face as activists and members of organizations promoting social justice and peace is that the propaganda of the ruling class has become so capable, so well-funded, so fluid in its use of social media and Hollywood, that most, including many in the movement for social justice, are not even aware of its effects in molding our own opinions and distorting our sense of reality.

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Playground in Lugansk city. [Source: Photo courtesy of John Parker]

This three-part series began solely as an attempt to expose the fact that the war in Ukraine has been manufactured to further the expansion of U.S.-led NATO, targeting Russia and China. But perhaps the more important story is how the State Department and its right hand—the corporate media—are today able to so effectively use false information manufactured in such a consistent and frequent manner and build on those past prejudices against Russian people.

The political left in the U.S. and Europe has a big problem that comes from a cultural disease developed especially by U.S. capitalism’s history of racism. Not only is there class bias, but the added dehumanization with all its arrogant trappings intrinsic to the system of racism carries over to anyone deemed as “the other.”

In the U.S., the “other” is usually anyone who is non-white and is therefore not taken as seriously, not as believable, not as legitimate and reliable a source of information, and definitely not due as much empathy. This is even carried over to certain white people deemed as the other. And we are told by the U.S. government who the latest other is—sometimes it is the Iraqis and their leaders, or it is the Syrians and their leadership, or the Libyans and their leadership.

Despite the fact that information that comes from the U.S. corporate media during a U.S. war drive is consistently false—from the Lusitania incident in 1915 or the Gulf of Tonkin lie pushing the U.S. into war with Vietnam or the lies pushing war in Iraq and Libya—we are supposed to accept it as gospel and reject all information coming from the official or unofficial sources from the latest target of U.S. imperialism.

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[Source: claytoonz.com]

This is why the sources of information that comes directly from white supremacist neo-Nazi military organizations in Ukraine is more trusted than those in the Donbas region—because the people of Donbas, in Lugansk and Donetsk, are now among the other.

My friends from Borotba, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the United Communist Party—the other; the 82-year-old woman from the shelter in Rubizhne, who was crying over the bombing of her home by Ukrainian tanks and the loss of all her belongings; and the women in Krymskoye who identified the Right Sector and Aidar Batallion as their occupiers and torturers; the entire political and religious leadership in Lugansk; the Lugansk People’s Militia members—all the other.

And even to much of the “left” in the U.S. and Western Europe, who refused to even acknowledge their existence, they are deserving of neither an ear nor a heart for empathy.

Is the history of the Soviet Union or Russia, before this current conflict, filled with the intentional targeting of civilians in any degree close to that of the U.S. military and NATO?

Did the Soviet Union yesterday, or Russia today, participate in European and U.S. colonialism or neocolonialism, or have a worldwide troop deployment and military bases anywhere near that of the U.S. or NATO?

Some will say that Russia is not the Soviet Union and it is now capitalist. Well, so are Finland and Sweden. But because years of Cold War propaganda did not target the integrity of the people of Finland and Sweden, folks see them in a different light—even though those governments said nothing about the NATO expansion for the past 20 years that caused this crisis and are now enabling and actively expanding the most belligerent military alliance in history at this critical and dangerous moment in time.

Accusations that are today thrown against Russia, if thrown against their people or soldiers, would not be so easily believed, even though the people of Sweden and Finland did not play the deciding role in defeating fascism in World War II that the people of Russia heroically played.

Hopefully, this information countering the lies of the ruling class will help to refocus our attention on the reality that the U.S. and its imperialist allies are driving us not toward fighting runaway inflation that threatens to impoverish us all, and not toward solutions stopping life-threatening climate change, but are instead driving us toward World War III. And that is a very bad thing.

So let’s refocus, quickly.

John Parker is a 2022 Socialist Unity Party and Peace and Freedom Party candidate for the U.S. Senate from California.

Parker has been a union organizer, public school teacher, and is the Coordinator of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice.


https://mronline.org/2022/09/19/eyewitn ... -shocking/

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Many reasons why price cap on Russian oil exports cannot work
Originally published: Peoples Dispatch on September 16, 2022 by Shirin Akhter and C Saratchand (more by Peoples Dispatch) | (Posted Sep 19, 2022)

In their ongoing economic war on Russia, the United States and its allies propose a price cap on Russian oil exports. The oil price cap idea promoted by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggests that oil-consuming nations organize into a buyer’s cartel to limit Russia’s revenues from oil exports. This proposal follows previous measures against Russia, which have not dented its economy to the extent that it would be induced to change its posture (as the U.S. and its allies desire) concerning the conflict in Ukraine.

Instead, the direct restrictions placed on Russian exports, principally of primary commodities such as oil and natural gas, have increased their world prices. They are so high that Russia’s export earnings have increased even if the volumes of some export have declined.

Russia currently accounts for about 10% of global oil, producing approximately 10 million barrels daily. Of these, Russia exports about 7 million barrels per day. If its exports decline, the resulting demand-supply mismatch will have speculators (principally international finance) bidding oil prices up to astronomical levels. Consequently, the proposed price cap, going by the intentions of the U.S. and its allies, is meant to work by reducing Russian oil export earnings without reducing their magnitude.

Let us examine the US’ plan and that of its “allies” in detail. First, the ceiling price on Russian oil exports will be at a level that exceeds the cost of production of oil but below world oil prices. Second, the cap is meant to be enforced principally through controls over shipping insurance dominated by firms based in the U.S. or its allies. It would be with the hope that if the price cap is successful, world oil prices and traded oil volumes will remain relatively stable, but Russia’s oil export earnings will decline.

If this decline is sufficiently large, the U.S. and its allies can expect Russia to change its posture in the conflict in a way they find acceptable. However, these hopes are unlikely to be realized for several reasons.

The U.S. has failed to convince OPEC to increase oil production, partly because of capacity constraints in coming years. Further, the U.S. currently lacks strategic wherewithal (the “unipolar moment” has passed) to “persuade” OPEC members such as Saudi Arabia to activate their limited spare oil production capacity. Now, Iranian oil exports are part of world trade but outside the framework of the so-called rules-based international order due to unilateral U.S. sanctions. Venezuelan oil production is also constrained by years of unilateral U.S. sanctions. In both countries, markedly increasing production capacity will require years of investment. Moreover, their oil exports will be more expensive for European buyers than Russian oil due to higher transportation costs.

This is why Russian oil exports are irreplaceable in world trade for years to come.

Let us also examine the likely consequences of attempts by the U.S. and its allies to enforce a price cap on Russian oil exports. Firstly, it will require a cartel of most actual and potential importers of Russian oil. China and India have effectively ruled out participating in any such exercise, using different idioms to articulate their reasoning. China is unlikely to accept a negotiation that strategically weakens Russia (the possible result if a price cap is effective) since this would be detrimental to China’s strategic standing vis-a-vis the U.S.

If India agrees to join this proposed buyer’s cartel, there could be at least two adverse consequences even if the price cap is effective. One, it could undermine India’s defense capacity, which disproportionately depends on Russian imports. Two, it could enhance the strategic proximity between China and Russia. This closeness could become antagonistic to India’s interests. Strategic proximity to the U.S. may not counterbalance it in the future.

Secondly, Russia could respond to attempts to enforce a price cap by partially withholding its oil exports, leading to a rise in world oil prices. If Russian oil prices are below world market prices but above the proposed cap, some countries would find it worthwhile to import Russian oil. It has been argued that stopping oil production may require repairs when production restarts. These expenses may deter Russia from partially curtailing oil production.

However, this would be true only if the difference between Russia’s earnings from oil exports (when selling at an intermediate price between the world and capped prices) and the cost of restarting temporarily unused oil wells is lower than the earnings from oil sold at the capped price. If world oil prices rise adequately because of partial halts in oil production, it would be worthwhile for Russia to refuse to export oil at the capped price.

Thirdly, other countries that export oil or related commodities will rightly apprehend the success of the price cap as a strategy the U.S. and its allies can use against them should they stray from the “rules-based international order.” Therefore, they are unlikely to want to cooperate with the price cap idea. Further, if Russia exports all its oil at the capped price, as long as it is below the world oil prices, any adjustment of oil supply towards demand will involve only non-Russian oil producers.

The increased volatility in the earnings of non-Russian oil-exporting countries would make them not want to cooperate with the proposed price cap.

Fourth, it is unclear how shipping insurance companies based in the U.S. (and its allies) can monitor the actual price at which Russian oil is being exported. Suppose a country imports fertilizer and oil from Russia. The difference between the actual price of Russian oil and the capped price could be recorded in documents as part of the transaction value of fertilizer exports. Further, insurance companies in Russia or countries that import oil from it can provide insurance. It should not be very complicated since shipping insurance companies in the U.S. or its allies primarily provide “expertise” and are not the source of the premiums. It is also possible that oil traders could “blend” oil from Russian and other sources and label it non-Russian to operate outside the framework of any price cap. Further, they could use mid-ocean ship-to-ship oil transfers to mark Russian oil as having originated in other locations, making the price cap inapplicable to such cargo.

Fifth, it is not militarily feasible for the U.S. armed forces to impound ships carrying Russian oil exports since it would invite massive retaliation by the Russian Federation’s armed forces.

Sixth, Russia could retaliate against attempts to enforce a price cap on its oil exports in many other ways besides reducing production. For instance, contrary to reports in the mainstream media, Russia could escalate militarily in Ukraine without using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. The Russian Federation government may conclude that the negative fallout of defeating Ukraine militarily by using overwhelming conventional force is lesser than if it allows itself to be bound by a price cap.

Resisting attempts to enforce the price cap by dropping the relative restraint of its armed forces would lead to a steep rise in casualties and refugee inflows from Ukraine into Europe and the Russian Federation. The latter may calculate that a swift end to the armed conflict will change the “cost-benefit” calculations of the U.S. and its allies, making the proposed price cap lose its raison d’être.

Seventh, Russia is a leading primary commodity exporter. It could institute selective export restrictions of primary commodities against countries that seek to enforce the price cap. If these restrictions involve grains, fertilizers etc., it could greatly aggravate the world food crisis.

So we have a strong likelihood of Russian retaliation, an unwilling India and China, the impossibility of substituting Russian crude and gas, and unilateral sanctions raising rather than lowering Russia’s earnings. The proposed oil price cap does not seem worthwhile for those who propose it. It will likely be a strategic setback to the U.S., principally reflecting a fundamental feature of the contemporary international political economy—it is not strategically possible for the U.S. to successfully contend simultaneously with China and Russia.

https://mronline.org/2022/09/19/many-re ... nnot-work/

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Pushilin's address to Putin on the referendum in the DPR
September 20, 15:15

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Pushilin officially appealed to Putin, urging him to recognize the results of the referendum in the DNR as soon as possible after it was held.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!
Dear compatriots!

I appeal to all Russians, to all Russian people who wholeheartedly empathize with what is happening now in the Donbass.
For the ninth year there has been a war on our land, and all this time the Ukrainian regime has been doing everything to wipe Donbass off the face of the earth. In addition to shelling, Kyiv arranged an economic, transport, water blockade, trying to create a humanitarian catastrophe on our territory.
At the end of last year, the enemy began to pull together a huge amount of military equipment and personnel to the line of contact, and the number of provocations increased significantly. Western countries supplied military equipment to Kyiv in huge volumes. In early 2022, the escalation from Ukraine began to gain momentum again. The offensive of Kyiv was a matter of several days, which was later confirmed by the evidence found in the headquarters left by the enemy.

The recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic by Russia and the start of a special military operation thwarted the aggressive plans of the Kyiv regime. A liberation operation began, and the allied forces of the Russian Federation, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics began to drive the enemy out of the settlements of Donbass occupied by Ukraine.

We all saw the state in which the enemy left Volnovakha, Mariupol and other settlements. The militants did not hide from the locals that they would not leave stone unturned from their homes. We have hundreds of testimonies that Ukrainian terrorists from tanks fired at multi-storey buildings at point-blank range, set fire to what they could not destroy with shelling.

This is exactly how these monsters are behaving now, shelling our settlements without any military necessity.
Shelling the central square of Donetsk, they know that there are no military installations on it. While shelling the Baku Commissars Square, they know that this is a crowded place where public transport stops, shops, and banks are located. Yesterday, cynical shelling by Ukraine claimed the lives of 10 people, wounded 11.
Ukraine opens fire on the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic from American HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, Tochka-U tactical missile systems, NATO 155 mm howitzers, French Caesar self-propelled howitzers, Uragan and Grad multiple launch rocket systems. Thousands of guns are directed daily at children, women, the elderly - civilians of Donbass.

The enemy scatters prohibited mines "Petal" in residential areas only to injure as many civilians as possible. Fools, you can't say otherwise. 67 cases of undermining civilians, including two children, have already been registered at Lepestki.
In total, 9,044 residents of the Republic died during the war, including 120 children!

Armed formations of Ukraine purposefully disable critical infrastructure facilities. Every day, I repeat, every day, hundreds of substations are de-energized by shelling from Ukraine, high-voltage power lines are damaged, tens of thousands of subscribers are left without electricity.
Only in our historical territory, without taking into account the liberated settlements, about eight thousand apartment buildings and more than 72 thousand private houses were damaged.

Residents of the Republic steadfastly endure the terrorist attacks of Ukrainian militants. I am proud of the courage of my countrymen. But any patience comes to an end. Ukraine deliberately, I would even say defiantly, crossed all possible red lines. Then in 2014, fencing off the nationalist criminal Kyiv regime, we held a referendum on the independence of the Donetsk People's Republic, we were sure that we would definitely hold the second one - on joining the Russian Federation. People are looking forward to this event the most. This is the main aspiration of the people of Donbass - to be part of the Russian Federation.
Therefore, we are absolutely confident in the results of the referendum. And we intend to carry it out immediately.

This event will be the restoration of historical justice, the approach of which millions of Russian people crave.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

In the event of a positive decision following the referendum, which we have no doubts about, I ask you to consider the issue of the Donetsk People's Republic joining the Russian Federation as soon as possible. The long-suffering people of Donbass deserved to be part of the Great Country, which they always considered their Motherland.
This event will be the restoration of historical justice, the approach of which millions of Russian people crave.

Denis Pushilin,
Head of the Donetsk People's Republic

PS.
We are waiting for Donbass (and not only) to our native harbor. Donbass deserved it like no one else - with their blood and sweat.
The referendum in the DPR will also be held from 23 to 27 September. Both face-to-face and part-time. At the end of September they will become part of Russia.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7873836.html

New frontiers
September 20, 17:12

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The borders of Russia with Ukraine after the referendums on the reunification of the DNR, LNR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
And after the recognition of the results of the referendums and their entry into Russia, a situation will arise when the enemy invades these borders. Which must be destroyed.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7874093.html

Ukraine could have accepted Minsk II and preserved territorial integrity, it could have accepted the early offer of the loss of Donbass, de-militarization and de-nazification, but nooo..., the colonial masters in the US had other ideas, like fighting to the last Ukrainian. Eventually Zelensky will be remembered as the worst sort of quisling.

By referenda
September 20, 19:42

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Summing up the referendums.

1. Referendums will be held from 23 to 27 September in the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
2. Referendums will be held both in-person and in absentia (with door-to-door visits) for security reasons.
3. After the referenda, all territories will apply for joining the Russian Federation, which will be considered as a matter of priority.
4. After consideration of applications, all territories will become part of the Russian Federation - de facto, 4 new subjects of the Russian Federation.
5. DPR and LPR retain their names and flags. It is not yet clear by region. Zaporizhia is proposed to be called the Zaporozhye region.
6. According to sociological surveys, one can count on 70-85% for joining the Russian Federation, with an average turnout of 65-75%.
7. The USA, NATO and Germany have declared that they do not recognize the results of the referendums. In Ukraine, they immediately became hysterical that holding referendums would cross out the slightest chance of negotiations.
8. The war in Ukraine, of course, will not stop, but now it will have a qualitatively different context. Today, he is waiting for the announcement of specific measures to modernize the NWO.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7874549.html

Google Translator


***********

On The Upcoming Putin Speech And Announcements

Moscow has made a decision how to proceed in the proxy war with NATO in the Ukraine.

We do not yet know what the decision is.

The President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin will hold a TV speech at 8 pm Moscow time (17:00 UTC) followed by an announcement by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

In July Putin has held a press conference or speech where he said with regards to Ukraine something like: "We haven't even started yet."

It may be that Russia will do that now.

That a decision had been made was noticeable.

Yesterday the parliaments of the Luhansk and Donetz People's Republics suddenly requested their government to immediately launch referendums about the republics accession to the Russian Federation. Today Denis Pushilin, the head of of the DNR government, announced that a referendum will be held on September 23 to 27.

Also yesterday the Russian parliament introduced amendments to the Russian Criminal Code which will increase the prison penalties for 'voluntary surrender', 'looting', 'non-fulfillment of military orders' during a time of mobilization, martial law and war. Companies who reject to produce for the military will also be penalized. The amendments passed their second reading in parliament today and will become law after a third reading.

If the LNR and DPR vote to become part of Russia, and if Russia accepts it, any attack of them will be an act of war against Russia. The 'Special Military Operation', which Russia is currently proceeding with, would thus change into something way more serious. Russia could declare the conflict to be a war. It could then use conscripts in war functions, mobilize reserves and use its full arsenal against the Ukraine. Potentially also against those who support it with weapons and other war material.

I find this whole seemingly hasty process atypical for Putin's usual way.

My hunch is that Russia received information over some weapon systems the U.S. is secretly providing to the Ukraine. This could be missiles with several hundred kilometer range or other types of weapons that could seriously threaten Russia's towns and cities.

If so, Russia has to do something now to end the war before its becomes more than a nuisance for Russia and its people. Ending means of course by winning it.

Training up a mobilization force takes about three months. It would put it on the front in the mid of winter, a season during which Russian forces can operate quite well.

Posted by b at 16:32 UTC | Comments (6)

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/o ... l#comments

***************

From Cassad's Telegram account:

***

Colonelcassad
Kherson region will briefly become an independent state. Literally for a few hours.

The question of the referendum in the Kherson region sounds like this.

"Are you for the withdrawal of the Kherson region from Ukraine, the formation of an independent state by the Kherson region and its entry into the Russian Federation as a subject of the Russian Federation?"

Accordingly, in the period from the announcement of the final results of the referendum to the adoption of the application for the entry of the Kherson Republic (?) into Russia, from a legal point of view, there will be an independent state with its capital in Kherson. This is the Crimean scenario, where in the period from the announcement of the results of the referendum to the admission of Crimea to Russia, Crimea de jure was formally an independent state for some time.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin


Can't buy a sit-rep.....
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 21, 2022 12:08 pm

Donbass and southern Ukraine hold referendums
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/21/2022 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENT

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After months of treating the issue of holding a referendum on the regions' accession to Russia as something to be done in the medium-term future, when all the territory had been recovered and when the military situation allowed it, the DPR first and the RPL shortly after yesterday approved laws for the imminent celebration of said plebiscites. On Monday, a telephone conversation between the leaders of the two Republics of Donbass, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik, had staged the launch of the process with the coordination agreement between the two territories in search of a vote that formalizes Russian control over the territory. Just a few minutes later, the authorities appointed by the Russian Federation for Kherson and Zaporozhye also joined the initiative and,

The general situation in the area and the context in which it occurs suggests that the movement is coordinated by Moscow The referendums will be held over the next few days, between September 24 and 27, after which It foresees that the two Republics formally request access to Russia to finally complete what was not possible in May 2014: to repeat the Crimea scenario. This month's referendums will take place very differently than on May 11, 2014, held as a form of protest at a time of collective anger following the events in Odessa on May 2, Mariupol on May 9, and the start of the armed assault on Slavyansk in what Kiev then called an anti-terrorist operation. Unlike on that occasion, when the military situation had not yet turned into an open war, the vote will not be able to take place throughout the territory - a part of the DPR remains under the control of Ukraine, Russia does not control the entire Kherson region nor from Zaporozhie and the situation is extremely dangerous in large areas of the front.

In recent weeks, the military situation has worsened and the stagnation that has been observed since last July, the last moment of significant Russian advances, has given way to a rapid Ukrainian offensive in the Kharkov region with which it has regained the initiative. The seriousness of the situation on the front, taking into account that the withdrawal from Kharkov compromises the Donbass territories captured in these months, the obvious shortcomings of the Russian military group and the evidence that none of the objectives of the special military operationstarted on February 24 have been fulfilled are some of the factors that could have caused the rapid events of the last few hours. The conditions in which the referendums are going to be held, for which there are neither democratic guarantees nor security guarantees, are an example of the difficulty of the situation.

After months of repeating that “Russia is here forever”, Russian troops have withdrawn from large areas of Kharkov, where a significant part of the population is now exposed to Ukrainian reprisals. The risk of the population losing confidence in the ability of the Russian authorities to defend the territory may also have been a factor to take into account. An affirmative vote for the union with Russia, which President Vladimir Putin has already confirmed will be accepted, would officially oblige Moscow to defend those territories, thus eliminating any possibility of regrouping or gesture of goodwill .

Throughout the day, not only Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Melitopol took steps towards a new situation. In Moscow, the Duma introduced into the Penal Code penalties of up to fifteen years in prison for looting, surrender or desertion in the event of a war situation. With this, all the conditions for a partial or general mobilization were set in motion at the moment in which President Putin ordered it. In recent days, there has been an increase in initiatives to recruit volunteers for the Armed Forces and calls to accept that the military operationIt has long since turned into a war - actually it has been since May 2014 - have increased. So have calls for mobilization, whether centralized or carried out voluntarily by the federated regions. Yesterday, Moscow announced quick access to Russian nationality for foreigners who enlist in the Armed Forces. A few days ago, images were published of Evgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner private military company, which has been operating in Donbass since February, recruiting inmates in a Russian prison. All these data point not only to the shortage of troops in the conflict zone, but also to the weakness of the Russian troops. So far, the Russian government has openly rejected the possibility of mobilization,

The holding of referendums on accession to Russia and the acceptance of these territories in the Russian Federation, something that today is taken for granted, would radically change this situation. Moscow would not only have the obligation to defend these territories, but de factoany alternative except unilateral withdrawal would disappear. As it has repeated on previous occasions, the Office of the President of Ukraine affirmed yesterday that there would be no diplomacy in the event of holding "pseudo referendums". In reality, diplomacy lost all prominence last March, at which time Russia was willing to abandon all the territories of Ukraine except Donbass, so for months now the war has been doomed to a military solution, either the defeat of one of the parties or the exhaustion of both.

Preventing by force the holding of referendums on independence or accession to Russia has been, for weeks, one of the objectives of kyiv. Ukraine, which continues to try to capture Krasny Liman and targets Lisichansk after crossing the Oskol River, has already warned that "the Russian danger" will be eliminated by force and has condemned, as have its partners. , the “farce” referendums. On behalf of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg called the referendum proposal “escalation”. Neither Stoltenberg nor his European partners saw any escalation in the dozen civilians killed at home in indiscriminate shelling of the city of Donetsk that has been repeated almost daily since May 29.

The rapid loss of territory in Kharkiv to a rival with better tactics has forced Russia to make a choice between two extremes: withdrawal or escalation. The coordination for the holding of referendums for the accession of the Ukrainian territories and Donbass to Russia necessarily implies, as the Russian recognition of the DPR and the LPR already did, a political escalation that joins the military escalation initiated by the offensive but it may also imply changes that would imply the implicit acceptance of the failure of the intervention model launched in February. With the special military operation, Russia has not managed to fully recover the territory of the People's Republics and a part of what has been recovered is now in danger. Neither has the demilitarization of Ukraine, more militarized than ever, been achieved. Denazification has failed to get Ukraine to agree to remove far-right groups from its army, and despite the defeat at Mariupol, even Azov has regrouped and formed new military units. And in the current conditions of exaltation of nationalism and the promise of criminal punishment for acquiring Russian nationality, any proposal to defend the linguistic or cultural rights of the Russian-speaking population is unthinkable.

The changes that will occur in the coming days or weeks mean leaving behind a failed phase of the war in favor of another that is even more uncertain and in which two of the largest armies of Europe. Now aware that there will be no interruption in the supply of foreign weapons or the collapse of an army it considered weaker, Russia will now have to demonstrate its ability to defend the territories under its control in an increasingly dangerous conflict. Climbing is not a sign of strength but of weakness. But the certainties will have to wait. Contrary to what was expected, the public appearance of Vladimir Putin to address the nation did not take place yesterday. In the long-awaited appearance, apparently recorded on Tuesday but broadcast on Wednesday morning,

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/21/donba ... more-25544

Google Translator

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Russia Announces Partial Mobilization
Updated below (8:45 UTC)

The expected TV speech by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, advertised for yesterday evening, did happen only this morning.

Putin announced a partial mobilization of military reserves:

Only citizens who are currently in the reserve and, above all, those who served in the ranks of the Armed Forces, have certain military specialties and relevant experience will be subject to conscription for military service.

Those called up for military service before being sent to the units will necessarily undergo additional military training taking into account the experience of a special military operation.


Additionally all military service contracts currently in force (usually 3 to 12 months) are extended indefinitely.

Putin said that the current conflict was instigated by the West, noting that the Western countries seek the destruction and disintegration of Russia. He said that the West had been supporting international terrorists, promoted the infrastructure of the NATO offensive close to Russia's borders and fostered Russophobia.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said (video, Sputnik report) that 300,000 reservist will be mobilized. Conscripts and people currently studying will not be send to Ukraine.

He also said that, so far, 5,937 Russian soldiers have died during the war in Ukraine. (This number does not include the militia of the DPR and LPR, or the Wagner group, who have done most of the frontline work and thus have had higher losses.) Shoigu puts Ukrainian losses at some 62,000 killed and some 50,000 wounded. (I regard this as a low estimate.)

Russia's total military reserve, people who have previously gone through military training, is 25 million. It also has the equipment to arm those forces.

There are rumors that the Ukraine is preparing for an all out offensive, mobilizing and preparing new units from Kiev and further west for one big push against the Russian and allied forces. It will take a few months to prepare for this. The Ukraine will need much more equipment and ammunition from the 'west', including 'western' tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, and has yet to train troops to be able to use it. It is likely intending to start the offensive only in spring.

The call up Russia announced now may have the intent to draw Kiev into a premature launch of its general offensive. The mobilized Russian troops will take about three months to be ready for war. Russia could thus launch its own offensive during the winter season. In the meantime constant defensive work will continue to severely degrade the Ukrainian units which are currently on or near the frontlines.

With a force of an additional 300,000 troops, far beyond the 100,000 to 150,000 engaged now in the war, the Russia forces could change their tactics from the slow grind that is happening now into a larger scale maneuver war with heavy strikes into the operational depth of the Ukrainian army.

Belarus, allied with the Russian Federation, is also in the process of getting ready for war. It could, as it had threatened before, cut of the supply lines from the 'west' into the Ukraine in the western part of that country.

Should current Ukrainian attacks on civilians and infrastructure in Russia and the Donbas regions continue, we can expect that the Russian forces will start to degrade Ukrainian infrastructure on a large scale. The electricity and railway networks would be the primary targets.

Update:

Some two weeks ago a successful Ukrainian offensive led to the retreat of Russian troops in the Kharkov region. That at least is the 'western' version of that story. A different narrative is that the Russian troops intentionally withdrew from the region to raise Russian calls for an escalation of the war. The Izium withdrawal was thus probably a mere catalyst for 'starting in earnest':

The Russian public, which at first did not fully understand why the war was necessary, has since grown in its awareness. It now understands the big game that is played against its country. It may soon demand to adjust the level of resources put into the war to the one needed for a decisive victory. Polls will clarify if or when that point is reached.
That is why Dima concludes that: "We can say that today was the best ever [..] day for the Russians in the territory of Ukraine."

It is now probably assured that they will be liberated. One way or another.

I also believe that the withdrawal from the Izium region, which left behind a significant number of pro-Russian civilians under deadly threats from fascist 'filtration' groups, will be the catalyst for a significant escalation on the Russian side.


Finally the gloves are coming off.

Update:

Yves Smith just published an English version of Putin's speech and the decree on mobilization:

Below is the Russian transcript of Putin’s morning speech announcing a partial mobilization of Russia starting September 21. There is apparently not an official English translation up yet, and in any event, the Kremlin site is blocked in the US (which it hasn’t been since early in the Special Military Operation) and even to friendly VPN users in some countries in Asia. So we are also posting a machine translation and will replace it with an official English translation when one becomes available.
We are also posting an English version of the mobilization order, which here and apparently in the original Russian has Item 7 missing. You can theoretically find the order here: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69391.

As you can see, Putin refines and extends his critique of the “collective West” and its campaign to preserve the unipolar order at the expense of the Global South, and its campaign against Russia. Towards the end, Putin states: ...


Posted by b on September 21, 2022 at 7:44 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/r ... .html#more

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Decree on partial mobilization in Russia
September 21, 9:43 am

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Decree on partial mobilization in Russia

In accordance with the federal laws of May 31, 1996 No. 61-FZ "On Defense", of February 26, 1997 No. 31-FZ "On mobilization training and mobilization in the Russian Federation" and of March 28, 1998 No. 53- Federal Law "On military duty and military service" I decide:

1. To declare partial mobilization in the Russian Federation from September 21, 2022.

2. To carry out the call of citizens of the Russian Federation for military service for mobilization in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Citizens of the Russian Federation called up for military service by mobilization have the status of military personnel serving in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation under a contract.

3. Establish that the level of pay for citizens of the Russian Federation called up for military service by mobilization into the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation corresponds to the level of pay for military personnel serving in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation under a contract.

4. Contracts for the passage of military service concluded by military personnel continue to be valid until the end of the period of partial mobilization, with the exception of cases of dismissal of military personnel from military service on the grounds established by this Decree.

5. Establish during the period of partial mobilization the following grounds for the dismissal from military service of military personnel undergoing military service under a contract, as well as citizens of the Russian Federation called up for military service for mobilization into the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation:

a) by age - upon reaching the age limit stay in military service;

b) for health reasons - in connection with their recognition by the military medical commission as unfit for military service, with the exception of military personnel who have expressed a desire to continue military service in military positions that can be replaced by the specified military personnel;

c) in connection with the entry into force of a court verdict on the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment.

6. To the Government of the Russian Federation:

a) to finance activities for partial mobilization;

b) take the necessary measures to meet the needs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops, military formations and bodies during the period of partial mobilization.

8. The highest officials of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation shall ensure the conscription of citizens for military service for mobilization in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the number and within the time limits determined by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation for each constituent entity of the Russian Federation.

9. Provide citizens of the Russian Federation working in organizations of the military-industrial complex with the right to deferment from conscription for military service for mobilization (for the period of work in these organizations). The categories of citizens of the Russian Federation who are granted the right to deferment and the procedure for granting it are determined by the Government of the Russian Federation.

10. This Decree comes into force from the day of its official publication.

PS. According to Shoigu's statement, 300,000 people with military specialties and who are on military records will be called up. Students will not be called. Conscripts, as before, will not be sent to the NWO zone.

PS2. Full versions of speeches by Putin and Shoigu regarding partial mobilization in Russia and the war with the US and NATO in Ukraine https://t.me/boris_rozhin/64605

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7875295.html

Google Translator

***********************

Kremlin dismisses mass-grave claims
Updated: 2022-09-21 09:12

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Residents carry away donated bread in the town of Izyum in Ukraine's Kharkiv region on Monday. GLEB GARANICH/REUTERS

KUPIANSK, Ukraine-The Kremlin on Monday denied its forces were responsible for large-scale killings in eastern Ukraine and accused Kyiv of fabricating its discoveries of mass graves in the recaptured territory.

Ukraine recaptured Izyum and other towns in the east this month, crippling Kremlin supply routes and bringing fresh claims of Russian atrocities with the discovery of hundreds of graves.

"These are lies," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. Moscow, he said, "will stand up for the truth in this story".

Ukraine said its troops have marched farther east, paving the way for a potential assault on Moscow's forces in the Donbas region as Kyiv seeks more Western arms.

"The occupiers are clearly in a panic," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a televised address late on Monday, adding that he was now focused on "speed".

"The speed at which our troops are moving. The speed in restoring normal life," Zelensky said.

Western supplies

British Prime Minister Liz Truss will tell world leaders this week that the UK will next year match or exceed the 2.3 billion pounds ($2.63 billion) it committed to Ukraine in 2022, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Her comments came as British politics returned to center stage on Tuesday after the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, with Truss flying to her first major summit in New York.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock vowed to support countries hardest hit by the fallout from Russia's special military operation in Ukraine as she headed to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

Some 150 leaders from around the world gathered in New York on Tuesday for the United Nations' massive annual summit, returning in person after two years of pandemic restrictions and video addresses.

In one of the largest exchanges in the seven-month conflict, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told US television that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to swap 200 prisoners. Erdogan made the announcement after talks last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan.

Erdogan did not provide full details about the swap, calling the people being exchanged "hostages" and not saying how many there were from each side.

"Two hundred hostages will be exchanged upon agreement between the parties. I think a significant step will be taken forward," Erdogan told PBS television late on Monday.

Agencies via Xinhua

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 78d32.html

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Game Changer? Immediate Referendums, Ukraine’s Spent Reserves – Russian Ops in Ukraine 09/21/2022
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 20, 2022



Update on Russian military operations in Ukraine for September 21, 2022

– Referendums have been announced across Russian-held territory in Ukraine;

– If incorporated into the Russian Federation, Moscow could upgrade the special military operation significantly;

– The US Department of Defense, in a recent briefing, seems to acknowledge the limits of what aid it can provide Ukraine;

– Western analysts appear to agree that Ukraine’s offensives may have been a final gamble, exhausting their reserves and leaving them at the mercy of subsequent Russian escalations;

References:

US Department of Defense – Senior Defense Official and Senior Military Official Hold a Background Briefing SEPT. 19, 2022: https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcri

Newsweek – Putin Gives Army September Deadline to Take More Ukraine Land: Official: https://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-put

Österreichs Bundesheer (YouTube) – “All in!” The Ukrainian Offensives in Cherson and Charkiv: https://youtu.be/Q9-NER8aFJ4

Washington Post – Wounded Ukrainian soldiers reveal steep toll of Kherson offensive: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... 9-21-2022/

Mirotvorets Kill List: West Left Its Own People to the Mercy of Ukraine’s Gestapo
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 20, 2022
Ekaterina Blinova

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Nearly a month has passed since the hideous murder of Russian journalist Darya Dugina, who was immediately marked as “liquidated” on Ukraine’s Mirotvorets hit list. However, the western press remains numb about the crime, thus opening the door to new assaults, said Sonja van den Ende, a Dutch independent journalist also targeted by Mirotvorets.

“I was put on the Mirotvorets, so-called ‘Peacekeeper’, list in May 2022, after I came back from Kherson and attended a conference in Moscow about biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine,” said van den Ende. “I was aware of it, but didn’t think too much of it until the terrible murder of Darya Dugina! I suppose my colleagues, foreign journalists, who are on the list as well, felt like me, very terrible about it.”

Russian journalist Darya Dugina, daughter of Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, was killed on the evening of August 20 in a car explosion on the Mozhaisk highway in Moscow’s Odintsovo district. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said that the Ukrainian intelligence services were behind the attack and revealed the identities of two members of Ukraine’s sabotage group, Natalia Vovk and Bogdan Tsyganenko.

Prior to the bombing attack, Dugina was placed on Ukraine’s Mirotvorets nationalist website, which publishes the personal data of journalists, politicians, opposition figures, bloggers, and even children, whom it unilaterally declares “enemies of Ukraine.” Some of these individuals voiced opinions contradicting Kiev’s official agenda; others covered Kiev’s eight-year long war in Donbass or got accreditation in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Following the murder, Dugina’s entry was marked as “liquidated” on the notorious website.

Every time an individual on the list is killed, a “liquidated” inscription appears on his or her photograph on the website. Those murdered include Ukrainian publicist Oles Buzina and legislator Oleg Kalashnikov, Russian journalists Zemfira Suleimanova, Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, Russian photojournalist Andrey Stenin, and Italian freelance photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli, to name but a few.

“I am now more careful, when, for instance, I leave my apartment I look around in the street,” explained van den Ende. “When I go to sleep at night I watch the streets, if there are any unusual cars or people there. I avoid crowded places! But I will continue my reporting from the Donbass, it’s now more than ever very important to report, apparently the truth is too bad for them, why else should they put people on kill lists? Because that’s what it is!”

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Photos of slain Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli were branded by Mirotvorets editors with Cyrillic text reading: ликвидирован - liquidated. - Sputnik International, 1920, 19.09.2022Photos of slain Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli were branded by Mirotvorets editors with Cyrillic text reading: “ликвидирован” – “liquidated.” © Screenshot/Mirotvorets

West is Well-Aware of What Mirotvorets Do

Even though the western mainstream press and politicians are currently mute about the Mirotvorets, they have long been aware of the controversy surrounding the website, according to the Dutch journalist. The website was founded in December 2014 following the February coup in Ukraine and allegedly had links to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs and other law enforcement agencies.

On January 26, 2022, British tabloid newspaper The Mirror called the Mirotvorets database “Orwellian”: “Whether proven to be guilty or not, the online blacklist denounces those included as pro-Russian collaborators – with some then winding up dead,” the newspaper noted, commenting on the addition of Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters to the list. Waters was listed by Mirotvorets as a “threat” to Ukraine for saying that Russia had more rights to Crimea than Kiev.

Moreover, in February 2021, the European Parliament urged Kiev to shut the Mirotvorets website down, van den Ende highlighted. At that time, European MEPs lambasted the website for illegally using personal data of hundreds of people, including journalists, politicians and members of minority groups. The MEP’s resolution specifically accused Mirotvorets of extremism and inciting hate.

However, everything changed after the beginning of the Russian special operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine. Since, the notorious hate-inciting website has become immune to criticism, according to van den Ende.

She noted that this phenomenon is strikingly similar to the mainstream coverage of Ukraine’s neo-Nazis. Not long ago, European and US press openly chastised ultra-right nationalism and neo-Nazism in Ukraine, with Reuters reporting in March 2018 about a growing threat of “[Ukrainian] far-right vigilantes who are willing to use intimidation and even violence to advance their agendas, and who often do so with the tacit approval of law enforcement agencies.”

However, after the beginning of Moscow’s special operation, far-right elements and outright neo-Nazis including the infamous Azov* and Aidar battalions have been whitewashed as defenders of Ukraine while being used as western military proxies against Russia and the people of Donbass, the Dutch journalist argued.

UN, UNICEF: See No Evil, Hear No Evil?

Western and international institutions, including the UN, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are doing virtually nothing about the Mirotvorets website, despite knowing that it places children on its kill list, van den Ende highlighted. She refers to 13-year-old Lugansk writer Faina Savenkova, who was blacklisted by Mirotvorets.

On June 1, 2021, Savenkova made a video appeal to the UN Security Council with a request to stop the war and help children in Donbass, for which the nationalist website published her personal data and her home address, social networks and relatives’ passport details. Since, Savenkova sent numerous open letters to international entities and world leaders as well as to Ukrainian President Zelensky, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, UNICEF and Amnesty International, asking them to bring a halt to Mirotvorets’ violations and intimidation, but to no avail.

Guterres and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have avoided references in public and did not change their behavior toward the neo-Nazi Ukrainian website targeting children, stated Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy earlier this week.

“The secretary general carefully avoided references to this issue in public. As for UNICEF, it promised to hold a meeting between the relevant specialist of the Fund and Faina,” Polyanskiy tweeted on September 14, adding that the meeting with UNICEF did not take place with the entity’s representative only notifying Faina that a specialist is not able to meet her.

Nonetheless, the agency claimed that it had duly addressed this situation and met Faina, according to Polyanskiy. The Russian representative bemoaned the fact that even though Moscow’s mission in the UN immediately exposed the sham and shared the relevant information with Guterres and UNICEF, it received no reaction. In July, the Russian mission informed Guterres that 327 children have been listed on the Mirotvorets website so far as “enemies of Ukraine”.

On September 15, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told a press briefing that UNICEF is aware about Ukraine’s extremist website Mirotvorets with its “enemies of Ukraine” list and is happy to provide more information on its position. According to Russell, the entity had concerns about all that is happening in Ukraine as a result of the current conflict.

Meanwhile, the Foundation to Battle Injustice notes that the analysis of the network protocol of the domain of the site Myrotvorets indicates that the resource uses the services of a technology company from California. “Thus, the United States has every opportunity to block an extremist website,” the foundation explained, adding that despite the website violating human rights of journalists, children and opposition figures by exposing their data and location to potential assailants, “the United States does not take any measures to restrict its working.”

“All the so-called humanitarian agencies, claiming they fight for human rights in western countries, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are doing nothing against the fact that children, minors, have been put on this kill list. Why? Because these organizations are a tool of the EU and western countries,” explained van den Ende.

The Dutch journalist noted that she is no longer feels safe after being placed on Ukraine’s “Gestapo hit list”. While western governments remain indifferent to the sufferings of Russians and Ukrainians placed on the website, they similarly ignore the fact that US, Canadian and European journalists working in Donbass have also been targeted by Mirotvorets and Ukraine’s hit squads.

“To conclude I would like to say [that] by censoring journalists, the West is killing the truth and let their own people become the target of murders!” van den Ende emphasized.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... s-gestapo/

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THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY GOES TO WAR — GORILLA RADIO GOES NUCLEAR

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By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

Last week the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) board of governors voted to go to war with Russia by a vote of 26 member countries against 9.

China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Senegal and South Africa voted against war with Russia.

The IAEA Secretary-General Rafael Grossi (lead image, left) has refused to tell the press whether a simple majority of votes (18) or a super-majority of two-thirds (23) was required by the agency charter for the vote; he also wouldn’t say which countries voted for or against. The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres then covered up for what had happened by telling the press: “I believe that [IAEA’s] independence that exists and must be preserved is essential. The IAEA cannot be the instrument of parties against other parties.” The IAEA vote for war made a liar of Guterres.

In the IAEA’s 65-year history, Resolution Number 58, the war vote of September 15, 2022, is the first time the agency has taken one side in a war between member countries when nuclear reactors have either been attacked or threatened with attack. It is also the first time the IAEA has attacked one of its member states, Russia, when its military were attempting to protect and secure a nuclear reactor from attack by another member state, the Ukraine, and its war allies, the US, NATO and the European Union states. The vote followed the first-ever IAEA inspection of a nuclear reactor while it was under active artillery fire and troop assault.

There is a first time for everything but this is the end of the IAEA. On to the scrap heap of good intentions and international treaties, the IAEA is following the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and the UN Secretary-General himself. Listen to this discussion of the past history when the IAEA responded quite differently following the Iranian and Israeli air-bombing attacks on the Iraqi nuclear reactor known as Osirak, and later, the attacks on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons sites.

Grossi is an Argentine by nationality; he’s been employed by the Argentine Foreign Ministry as well as serving as the Argentine nominee as chief of staff at both the IAEA and OPCW. He’s very sensitive to the difference between simple majority and super-majority voting on the IAEA board because in 2019, in Grossi’s first attempt at election to the secretary-general’s job, he failed to muster enough votes to win. On his second attempt, Grossi won with 24 votes, one more than the 23 needed. If Grossi wants to keep his job and win re-appointment when his term runs out next year, he must keep counting on the votes of the war faction on the IAEA board; Grossi’s job and pay depend on giving them what they want to hear.

Grossi’s spokesman at IAEA headquarters in Vienna is Fredrik Dahl; he was a Reuters employee on the NATO side in the war against Serbia and the Israeli side in the war against Iran. Dahl’s job and pay depend on repeating what the war faction wants Grossi to say. Dahl not only refused to answer questions on the last week’s voting rules and roll call; he has also not published the texts of the two Ukraine war resolutions which the IAEA board has voted – the first on March 3 and the second last week – on the IAEA website. Read the March 3 resolution here and the September 15 resolution here.

RAFAEL GROSSI & IAEA DECLARE WAR ON RUSSIA

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Source: https://www.iaea.org/
The resolution was drafted and tabled for the Ukraine by Canada and Poland.

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Source: https://www.iaea.org/

Like its March 3 predecessor, this resolution was also drafted and presented for the Ukraine by Canada and Poland.

When the March 3 resolution was presented by Canada and Poland on behalf of the Ukraine for IAEA board debate and vote, the US governor at the time, Louis Bono, claimed the US “fully support the DG’s [Grossi] efforts to find a mutually acceptable solution to this unprecedented aggression against civilian nuclear power plants.” Russia was excluded, Bono said, from “mutual acceptance” because of “the nuclear safety and security implications of Russia’s unprovoked and premediated invasion of Ukraine and attacks harming Ukraine’s nuclear installations. The regular updates [Grossi] highlight the dangers of Russia’s military offensives, including at Ukraine’s civilian nuclear sites, which had been safe and secure for decades.”

Just how demonstratively Bono identified the US with the Ukrainian side in the war is clear from the display next to the identification of the US by a placard reading “today we are all Ukraine”, and the wearing of Ukrainian flag colours by his staff assistant.

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Louis Bono, deputy chief of the US mission at the IAEA, presenting his allegations against Russia on March 3, 2022, ahead of the board of governors’ vote on Resolution Number 17; the Ukrainian colour-flyer behind is unidentified. Source: https://vienna.usmission.gov/ On the same day, March 3, in New York, the UN General Assembly voted 193 to 141, to condemn the Russian military operation. In that roll call, Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea and Syria joined Russia in voting against, and there were 35 abstainers, including China.

The March 3 IAEA resolution used similar language to the text of the September 15 resolution. The war faction declared it “deplores the Russian Federation’s actions in Ukraine, including forcefully seizing control of nuclear facilities and other violent actions in connection with a number of nuclear facilities, nuclear and other radioactive material, which have caused and continue to pose serious and direct threats to the safety and security of these facilities and their civilian personnel, significantly raising the risk of a nuclear accident or incident, which endangers the population of Ukraine, neighbouring States and the international community; 2. Expresses further grave concern that the Russian Federation’s aggression is impeding the Agency from fully and safely conducting safeguards verification activities at Ukrainian nuclear facilities within its internationally recognised borders, in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Ukraine’s safeguards agreement and the Statute…”

The earlier resolution also called for a ceasefire around the nuclear plants – “to immediately cease all actions against, and at, the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and any other nuclear facility in Ukraine, in order for the competent Ukrainian authorities to preserve or promptly regain full control over all nuclear facilities within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders and ensure their safe and secure operations, and in order for the Agency to fully resume its safeguards verification activities, including the necessary verification of material accountancy and control.”

However, the vote of March 3 stopped short of accusing Russia of the shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear plant; the vote of September 15 made this allegation explicit. Follow that story here.

The only precedent in IAEA history for a direct military attack on a nuclear reactor was the Israeli Air Force bombing of the Osirak reactor being built near Baghdad in June 1981.

Before that, in 1979, Israelis had sabotaged French equipment intended for installation at Osirak; in 1980 they assassinated an Iraqi nuclear scientist. For an American review of what happened, click to read. Iran had also tried air-bombing the site in September 1980 at the start of the Iraq-Iran War, but the damage was repaired by the French.

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The Osirak reactor site after the Israeli attack on June 7, 1981.

The Osirak attack has helped to support the case for balance and independence between warring sides among IAEA’s staff and in voting at the board of governors and the general conference; take this US paper, for example, arguing that the effect of the Iranian and Israeli attacks on Osirak was short-term delay but reinforcement for the long term of plans to develop a secret reactor program to give the Arabs their own nuclear deterrent to Israeli nuclear attack. The IAEA could not ignore the likelihood that Israel would fire its nuclear weapons at the Arab cities, and neither could the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein. In 1990, nine years after the Osirak attack, Hussein discussed the problem with Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. “[Arafat]: [Israel] has 240 nuclear warheads, 12 out of them for each Arab capital…[Saddam]: I say this and I am very calm and wearing a civil suit [everyone laughs]. But I say this so that we can get ready at this level.” The IAEA board of governors was never as partisan in the Arab-Israeli conflict as it is now anti-Russian in the present war.

Israel is a member of IAEA but its nuclear weapons program is protected from censure and from IAEA inspection by the US. Annually, the Israelis claim they adhere to the IAEA guidelines; they attack the Arab states and Iran for violating them.

In responding to the development of the Pakistan bomb and the role of the A.Q. Khan network in assisting states to follow with their own weapons, Pakistan actively cooperates with IAEA but protects its own security stake in nuclear weapons as does India.

Listen to the discussion by clicking on the Gorilla Radio link, commencing at Min 00:40.
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As you listen, the Ukrainian shelling of the Zaporozhye has continued. According to this bulletin from the Ministry of Defence in Moscow, on September 20, “five artillery attacks on a thermal power substation located in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear power plant were recorded. In total, 24 artillery shells were fired from the settlement of Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region, controlled by the Kiev regime. One of the technical buildings was damaged. The artillery units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine which shelled the territory of the nuclear power plant were suppressed by return fire. The radiation situation at the Zaporozhye NPP is normal.”

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Gorilla Radio is broadcast every Thursday on CFUV 101.9 FM from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The radio station can be heard here . The Gorilla Radio transcripts are also published on the blog. For Chris Cook’s broadcast archive, click to open.

http://johnhelmer.net/the-international ... more-68946
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Thu Sep 22, 2022 12:42 pm

About the mobilization
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/22/2022

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Yesterday morning, half a day later than expected, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation to announce changes to the Russian military operation in Ukraine. As Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu later detailed, military needs force Russia to increase its contingent in Donbass and Ukraine. Faced with speculation about whether Putin would decree total mobilization or even martial law, the Russian president announced only a partial mobilization with which Moscow will recruit 300,000 troops from reservists with prior military training and even combat experience. The decision, widely condemned by Ukraine and its partners, has both short- and medium-term political and military implications.

The difficult situation at the front, which has led to this decision, which Moscow had wanted to avoid at all costs, makes it necessary to pay special attention to the military issue. The mobilization is also a sign that the war has dragged on beyond what was expected, which implies de facto accepting that the objectives of the special military operationNot only have they not been met, but under the current conditions, they were not going to be met. With this decision, Russia presents the Ukrainian numerical superiority as the cause of the military difficulties, so it seeks to compensate for this lack with already experienced people who will receive military training before being sent to the front. The mobilization is a message to the Russian and republican contingent in Donbass and in the Ukrainian territories under Russian control. Help is on the way, but its arrival is by no means imminent.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/22/sobre ... more-25552

Google Translator

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A few remarks on mobilization
September 21, 15:49

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A few remarks on mobilization.

1. The decision on limited mobilization is an acknowledgment that purely voluntary recruitment methods cannot achieve the desired size of the grouping of the Armed Forces in Ukraine, as well as the necessary "operational depth".

2. The integration of large masses of mobilized into the current composition of the grouping of the Armed Forces in Ukraine will require time for the preparation and coordination of new personnel, so that a rapid one-time increase in the grouping will not occur, the process will proceed progressively during the autumn and winter. It can be expected that in the second half of winter-early spring of 2023, the group of the RF Armed Forces will outnumber the enemy, which will facilitate the conduct of further offensive operations.

3. Having a situational superiority in manpower due to the mobilization already carried out, the enemy will try to realize it in the course of several offensive operations aimed at disrupting the referendums, as well as to improve their positions before moving on to strategic defense.

4. The war in Ukraine obviously will not stop, we are waiting for the winter campaign of 2022/2023 and, of course, the spring-summer campaign of 2023. The risk of a nuclear confrontation between the US and Russia will certainly increase. However, even before the start of the war in Ukraine, he wrote more than once that after the destruction of the current international rules, new ones will be developed only after the parties reach the last line, when they have a simple choice - compromise and new rules or nuclear war. So I have no doubt that there will certainly be a remake of the Caribbean Crisis. But in what form and with what ending, this is an interesting question ...

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7875896.html

Google Translator

Boris is a bit too nonchalant about 'nuclear confrontation' for my liking...though I suspect such talk from the Kremlin is aimed at Western Europe, which would be part of the battlefield in a 'limited confrontation...(oh boy)

Big exchange
September 22, 0:33

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It became known that in addition to the foreign mercenaries released through Saudi Arabia, a large exchange of prisoners of war took place. As they write, the exchange was carried out in the Chernihiv region.
The entire top of the Nazis from Azov, who were captured in Mariupol, were released to Ukraine (we are talking about a few dozen people at least). Delivered by plane to the Chkalovsky airfield.
55 people of our prisoners of war have already returned to Russia (one of them is seriously wounded - among them are captured pilots and officers who were captured during the "regrouping" in the Kharkov region).
Also, the Ukrainian media report that Medvedchuk (hand-face) was given as a load to the prisoners of war. So far, the exact number of exchanges on both sides is not entirely clear. It is said that during the day another 30 of our prisoners of war will also return home.

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We cross out the topic of the trial of the main war criminals in Mariupol and the execution of foreign mercenaries.

UPD:

Of the 55 Russians who returned from captivity today:

2 senior officers (lieutenant colonel and major)
6 junior officers
4 ensigns
40 privates and sergeants
2 servicemen of the NM DPR
1 serviceman of the NM LPR

Out of 55, seven were hospitalized.

Plus, Medvedchuk has already been handed over to them.
Ukraine said it received 215 people, 108 of them from Azov.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7877025.html

No doubt Donbass is seething at the release of these Nazi scum. If any of these bastards break their parole and are captured on the battlefield they should be executed out of hand.

**********

From Cassad's Telegram account:

***

Colonelcassad
🇬🇧🇺🇦What military specialties are subject to partial mobilization?

We were sent pre-prepared mailing lists - in the Rostov region they even prescribed specific military specialties as part of the planned military training. In total, there are six digits in the numbers of military registration specialties. The first three indicate species/genus.

The list of military registration specialties looks like this:
▪️100 - rifle units
▪️106 - military intelligence units
▪️107 - units and subdivisions of special purpose
▪️113 - tank units
▪️121 - specialties of infantry fighting vehicles
▪️123 - specialties of tracked armored personnel carriers
▪️124 - specialties of wheeled armored personnel carriers
▪️125 - specialties of armored personnel carriers of the airborne troops
▪️131 - specialties of artillery pieces
▪️166 - engineering and sapper units
▪️247 - specialties of airborne electronic warfare
▪️878 - orderlies
▪️879 - physicians

The document itself is drawn up with a bunch of errors. He may be fake. Or can this be attributed to the usual military laxity of the military commissariats.

Instructions from the headquarters of the Southern Military District were given on September 17th. This is another confirmation that the mobilization activities were planned well in advance .

As part of the call for military training, lists of military personnel in the reserve were formed for their subsequent high- quality and targeted mobilization.

No one is missing indiscriminately on the streets.

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the main points during the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine at 22.44 Moscow time on September 21, 2022, specially for the Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok channel :

1. No significant progress in the Avdiivka direction.
Fighting in the area of ​​​​Pervomaisk and Sand.

2. In the area of ​​Marinka and Ugledar - no changes.
Positional battles with sluggish attempts by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to probe the possibility of advancing in the area of ​​​​Pavlovka and Nikolsky .

3. In the Artemovsk area - fighting near the Artemovsk-Dzerzhinsk highway andZaitsevo.
There are fights on the outskirts of Artemovsk.
In Soledar , no significant progress has been made.

4. Fights for Disputed and Belogorovka continue .
The enemy continues to attempt to advance in the direction of Kremennaya .

5. In the Slavic direction, the enemy continues to attempt to attack Krasny Lyman and Yampol .
There are battles for Drobyshevo and Yarovaya.

6. The front on Oskol has relatively stabilized.
For the eastern part of Kupyansk are fighting.
The enemy continues to press Scars .
On the border with the Russian Federation, shelling of border villages continues. The RF Armed Forces strike at Kharkov and Chuguev .

7. In the Zaporozhye direction - no change.
The enemy continues to probe for an opportunity to start advancing in the direction of Vasilievka , Tokmak and Pologi .

8. On the Nikolaev direction - no changes.
After the catastrophe with the attack on Pravdino , the offensive fervor of the Armed Forces of Ukraine subsided.
Positional battles continue on the Andreevsky bridgehead.
In the area of ​​Arkhangelsk and Olgino - no change.

Google Translator

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

****************

Terrorist Mirotvorets Website Based in Langley, USA, Not Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 21, 2022
Jeremy Kuzmarov

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[Source: schillerinstitute.com]

Just a coincidence, right?

Under Public Law 117-128, the U.S. Congress is funding an organization called Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), whose professed purpose, according to its website, is to “counter Russian disinformation.” But its real purpose may be to create the equivalent of a “fatwah list” of alleged traitors whom patriotic Americans and/or Ukrainians will feel they have a green light to assassinate.

The fatwa list includes such “traitors” as writers Chris Hedges and Glenn Greenwald, political scientist John Mearsheimer, Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, conservative military analyst Edward Luttwak who was placed on the list for suggesting that referendums should be held in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions concerning their relations to Ukraine, and Henry Kissinger, who is worried about the prospects of a war between the U.S. and Russia.

The profiles of many people targeted under the “hit list” has been posted on a website,Myrotvorets(meaning “peacemaker” in Ukrainian), whose domain name is listed as being in Langley, Virginia, headquarters of the CIA.

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Established in 2014 following the Maidan coup with assistance from a U.S. army intelligence officer, Joel Harding, Myrotvorets aims to out Russian intelligence service (FSB) agents and Wagner mercenaries alongside pro-Russian propagandists and features gruesome photos of dead Russians. Its welcome message advertises itself as a “CIA project.”
Sadly, many on the Myrotvorets enemies list have already been assassinated. When this occurs, the Ukrainian word ЛИКВИДИРОВАН (“LIQUIDATED”) is stamped across their picture in big red letters—as happened when Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli was murdered.

In an indication of its foul character, Myrotvorets has listed the names of more than 300 children, among them 13-year-old Faina Savenkova who has written on social media about the terror meted out by the Ukrainian Army in eastern Ukraine.

Craven Acts of Terrorism

The expansion of the Ukrainian government’s assassination campaign—modeled after the CIA-run Phoenix operation in Vietnam—was exemplified with the killing of Sergey Gorenko, the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) Prosecutor General, and his deputy, Yekaterina Steglenko, after a Kyiv bomb rocked the headquarters of the Prosecutor General’s office in Luhansk on September 16.

The New York Times earlier reported on Ukrainian commando teams who admitted to planting car bombs targeting pro-Russian police officers and politicians behind Russian lines.

Also on September 16, at least five U.S.-made HIMARS missiles hit the civil administration building in Kherson city in an assassination attempt on Kirill Stremousov, the deputy chair of the military-civilian administration. Ekaterina Gubareva, a government employee who was wounded, (a driver was killed), called the strike a “craven act of terrorism.”[1]

Scott Ritter Speaks Out

Scott Ritter, the former Marine Intelligence Officer who exposed the fraud surrounding the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq, is among those on the CCD’s list of traitors who has been listed as an “enemy of Ukraine” on the Myrotvorets website.

On September 7, Ritter participated in a press conference hosted by the Schiller Institute, a German-based economic think tank, where he criticized New York’s congressional delegation for supporting House Resolution 7691, the Additional Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022, which became Public Law 117-128 on May 21, 2022.

In a July letter to Democrats Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand and Paul Tonko, Ritter wrote that Public Law 117-128 violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution which asserts that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Public Law 177-128 abridges freedom of speech and a free press by supporting the Government of Ukraine’s publication of the “blacklist,” which singles out U.S. citizens as “Russian propagandists” for exercising their constitutional rights pertaining to free speech and a free press.

At the press conference on September 7, Ritter reiterated his disdain for the fact that U.S. taxpayer funds that are subsidizing the Ukrainian government are “being used to target and intimidate American citizens voicing their constitutional rights to freedom of speech.”

Particularly dangerous, Ritter said, is the use of the label “information terrorist” by the CCD, which “basically gives a green light for critics of government policy to be adjudicated as terrorists,” and could “mean sanctioning the murder of Americans abroad or at home.”

According to Ritter, the threat of Ukrainian state terrorism extending into the U.S. is very real.

There are many Ukrainians living near him in upstate New York, he said, who worship Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist and Nazi collaborator in World War II.

According to historian Norman J.W. Goda, Bandera’s lieutenants launched a pogrom that killed 4,000 Lvov Jews in a few days, using weapons ranging from guns to metal poles.

What kind of message does it send, Ritter asked, for the U.S. government to be supporting these groups and to label critics of its policies as “information terrorists”?

“If you think the website is a joke, ask Alexander Dugin who had to attend the funeral of his daughter [Darya Dugina who was killed in a car bomb by terrorists in Moscow on August 23].”

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Rather, it has been largely controlled by the U.S. State Department and CIA and has been shelling innocent civilians in Donetsk and Luhansk, killing more than 10,000 civilians—three times more than were killed in the U.S. on 9/11.

Ukraine has further sent well-armed Nazi groups to attack ethnic Russians in acts of ethnic cleansing that have been unreported in U.S. media.

Young says that his inclusion on the hit list is a form of election meddling—they are trying to discredit his name and ruin his chances of unseating Republican Party incumbent Andy Barr, against whom Young is running.

LaRouche Candidate for New York Senate Diane Sare Attacked

Another person on the hit list is Diane Sare, a Burlington, Vermont, native who is challenging Chuck Schumer for his Senate seat in New York in the November midterms.

A former classical musician and choral conductor, Sare is a founder of the Schiller Institute and worked for 32 years with Lyndon LaRouche until his death in 2019.

LaRouche was a controversial figure in U.S. politics who is regarded by some as a cult leader, CIA creation or even fascist.

Many of his ideas were visionary nevertheless, including in his support for U.S.-Russia cooperation and the development of a new world security architecture and economic system that would be more democratic, equitable and prevent future wars.

Sare said at the September 7 press conference that the death list and demonization campaign has been successful in silencing debate over the U.S. arming of a fascist regime in Ukraine—a regime that has banned 13 opposition parties, shut down Russian media, outlawed collective bargaining and threatened anyone who plans to vote to rejoin Russia in referenda being set up in eastern Ukraine.

Sare also said that Payton Gendron, the Buffalo, New York, shooter who shot up Black people in a grocery store earlier this summer, wore logos on his jacket that were similar to ones worn by members of the Azov Battalion.

Every American in her view should demand that their elected representatives take a stand and dissociate the U.S. from the Ukrainian government and its neo-Nazi army regiments.

Colonel Black

The first speaker at the September 7 press conference was Colonel Richard Black, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and former State Senator from Virginia, who emphasized like Ritter how the U.S. Congress was attempting to control freedom of speech in the U.S. in violation of the U.S. Constitution by having a foreign entity—the CCD—do it.

According to Black, the Department of Homeland Security tried earlier in the year to establish a disinformation governance board headed by Nina Jankowicz, a Ukrainian linguist and adviser to former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Her presentation to the public was so extreme and off-putting that the center’s formation was paused—at least for the time being.

Black said that, among those targeted by the CCD, are patriotic Americans with well-informed views on foreign policy like Senator Paul and former Congresswoman Gabbard.

Black said that U.S. policy in Ukraine is disastrously courting the risk of all-out nuclear war. The labeling of dissenters as “information terrorists” potentially exposes them to the death penalty, with many people on the Myrotvorets website having been assassinated.

Though the facts remain speculative, a Rio de Janeiro newspaper reported that the assassination attempt on September 1, 2022 directed against Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner may have even resulted from her refusal to condemn Russia’s special military operation and her calls for peace talks to end the war.

The Problem When People Know What Ain’t So

Among the things Americans claim to know that ain’t so is that Russia is the aggressor in the conflict with Ukraine, and that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was “unprovoked”—which is patently untrue.

The final speaker at the September 7 press conference, CIA veteran Ray McGovern, a founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), quoted from humorist Will Rogers who said “it isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.”

Crimeans in fact voted to rejoin Russia right after the U.S.-backed Maidan coup in 2014—which academics like Timothy Snyder of Yale along with mainstream media analysts, McGovern said, continue to deny.

In 2013, McGovern said, Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an op-ed in The New York Times after he had backed a deal that prevented U.S. military intervention in Syria in which he expressed his happiness at the increasing trust between the U.S. and Russia.

Putin also wrote that he did not agree with Obama’s speeches about American exceptionalism—which is what made him a target of U.S. regime-change and destabilization efforts in which Ukraine has been used as a proxy.

Earlier this year, former president George W. Bush gave a speech in which he said that one man had “decided to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq—I mean of Ukraine”—and his audience in Texas laughed.

The propaganda in the U.S. has generally become so thick, McGovern said, that people are convinced “they know what ain’t so.” In turn, they end up supporting the deadliest policies—like they did with Iraq and are now doing with Ukraine.

Notes:

Leaked audio records show Ilya Bondarchuk, a Ukrainian intelligence official who coordinated the assassination program in Crimea and Kherson, trying to pay an assassin who was told to carry out the dirty deed “before everyone’s eyes, so that they see it.” ↑
Ritter has also recently helped expose, through careful investigation, that Ukraine and not Russia was responsible for the attacks around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant—Europe’s largest nuclear power plant—using the cover of an international inspection mission in violation of international law. ↑

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... t-ukraine/

Time to Drop Our Illusions: The West is Waging a War to Destroy Russia
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 21, 2022
Vladimir Kornilov

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Moscow’s enemies want to land a fatal blow on the country, some even want to dismember it

And here comes Bucha 2.0: Another provocation where Ukraine has allegedly discovered “mass graves of victims” shortly after Russian troops have withdrawn.



This time in Izium. What it amounts to is clear evidence that along with the development of the military conflict in Ukraine, the informational “special” operation against Russia is intensifying.

It’s not even about Kiev’s reaction – officials there concoct primitive fakes against our state and the army non-stop, around the clock.

The indicator here is the way in which this provocation was immediately picked up by Western politicians, who are already urgently calling for an “international tribunal” to punish Russia. Meanwhile, the West’s media, in a united push, is putting unfounded statements about “mass executions and torture in Izium” on its front pages.

This fakery is crass and easily refuted. But it is clear from this unanimous reaction of the West that no one there cares at all how and when the people buried in the cemetery died. The culprit has been appointed in advance – and it has to be Russia. Because only this verdict fits into the overall strategy of the current campaign in Ukraine.

Which, as we can see, has nothing to do with Ukraine. The West is completely indifferent to whatever happened to the Ukrainians, whoever killed them (even if it was Kiev’s own army or foreign mercenaries) and no matter how many of them died. Because it is not fighting a war on this territory for the Ukrainians,and especially not for Ukraine.

We must speak frankly and openly: the West is waging a fierce war against the Russian state, using local forces as proxies. And this is covered by the fig leaf of “defending democracy.” However, what they really want is for Russia to be destroyed. Forever! Irrevocably!

Janusz Bugajski, a leading expert, recently published his book “Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture.” It is worth highlighting that the work is not a reaction to the Ukrainian conflict, instead it is a logical continuation of all that this ‘Kremlinologist’ has been publicly talking and writing about for years.

Back in early 2019, three years before the current crisis started, he published a feature article in the influential Washington newspaper The Hill, entitled ‘Managing Russia’s Dissolution.’

This was not just a forecast or theoretical speculation by some dreamer, it was a direct call to action by an outspoken Russophobe. Suffice it to recall that Bugajski then openly urged the White House to promote regional and ethnic self-determination within the Russian Federation. At the same time, he was speculating which regions of the state destroyed by the West should receive independence and which should be given to Ukraine, Finland, Japan and even China.

It cannot be said that Bugajski’s article was the only theoretical work on the disintegration of our state. But other reports (at least in the public domain) still sought to veil direct calls for the forced break-up of Russia with arguments about the need to weaken our state. This was the case, for example, with a sensational study by the US intelligence corporation RAND commissioned by the US Department of Defense in 2019.

Now the masks are being thrown off and the cadre of Russophobes can openly articulate their long-held dreams. The Daily Telegraph recently featured the former NATO commander in Europe, General Ben Hodges, in a high-profile article about preparing for Russia’s disintegration. Hodges, who is employed by CEPA – a lobby group bankrolled by US arms contractors and NATO – is arguably one of the most active ‘talking heads’ about the Ukrainian crisis on Western television right now.

The general hopes the collapse of our state will be fueled by our ethnic diversity and he hopes that Western economic sanctions will create a situation in which it will be impossible to feed 144 million people. The American has clearly not thought how these arguments could also be applied to his home country, which has been torn apart by racial divisions in recent years.

Below Hodges, the idea has been cheerfully picked up by less well-known figures operating on the ideological field of Russophobia. The Polish magazine New Eastern Europe published an article about deconstructing Russia and reconstructing the “post-Russian space,” calling it a risky but inevitable scenario. The authors called on the West to lead the process of our state’s disintegration right away.

This is echoed by the Canadian-British professor Taras Kuzio on the pages of the Atlantic Council, a NATO-aligned pressure group and the main mouthpiece of Western Russophobes. He, too, cheerfully declares that the process of “the collapse of Putin’s Russian empire” has begun.

Hodges’ theses are repeated almost word for word by Estonia’s top Kremlinologist Vladimir Yushkin on the pages of the website of the International Centre for Defence and Security. However, he adds nonsense about the allegedly developing “colonization of Siberia by the Chinese” –which tells us he doesn’t know how to use statistics.

All these “prophecies” have been brought into the political realm by Estonian President Alar Karis. Opening the NATO Military Committee conference in Tallinn last Friday, he openly admonished the Chiefs of Staff of the US-led bloc to give up their “fear of destabilizing the situation in Russia.”

This is not some retired general, nor a private person with a professorial rank – it’s the official head of a NATO member country. And he is not shying away from calling on the high command of the alliance to pursue a deliberate policy of creating a situation of instability in Russia.

So, what more proof does anyone need of what the collective West is hoping to achieve?

The ideological touchstone of European liberals, The Economist magazine, has devoted its latest issue to how the West should ensure Ukraine’s victory over Russia. Apart from the traditional advice on further arming the Kiev regime, the magazine explicitly demands that the West must try to drive a wedge between the Russian government and the Russian people. To do this, leaders are urged to bet on Russian liberals who have moved abroad, who in these circumstances can be safely called traitors back home.

They are now in a situation where Russia’s enemies are now openly talking about using them to carry out an unrealistic plan to dismember our common motherland!

Thus, we can safely say that the collective West has already moved from talk to action and is openly challenging the very existence of the Russian Federation.

It’s ideologues and a number of top politicians make no secret of the fact that by exploiting the conflict in Ukraine, they are deliberately helping to create an existential threat to our state. The sooner we ourselves officially acknowledge this, the more effectively we will be able to move to a different stage in both relations with our neighbors and the military operation in Ukraine itself.

We still adhere to certain gentlemen’s rules of the game, which were adopted after the end of the Cold War. But now the stakes have been raised too high.

To be clear, I am not calling for us to copy the criminal actions of Ukraine. We, unlike them, do not deliberately kill children, torture prisoners of war, or exterminate civilians.

But in the face of increasing threats to Russian citizens, we are left with no choice but to act much more forcefully against military infrastructure, even if it’s also used by civilians, in the direction of decision-making centres, and towards those individuals directly responsible for terror and murders wherever they are located, as well as tackling states that pursue hostile policies.

After all, we should not forget that when an existential threat to Russia arises, we need to present a tough response.

Those who threaten our homeland should be constantly reminded of this.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... oy-russia/

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Devils and the Ukraine: Berlin Bulletin 204, September 21, 2022
By Victor Grossman (Posted Sep 21, 2022)

My last article, “My Seventy Years” caused so many subscription requests for my monthly Berlin Bulletins (though I did not count it as one) and such a flood of responses, some critical (but thought-provoking) but mostly very favorable (and sometimes written with great emotion), that as lone (gray) wolf I have simply been unable to reply to all of them or send my usual “welcome” mail to new readers. I’m doing my best – but must now turn to a new Berlin Bulletin in an increasingly dangerous world. Anyone interested in previous Bulletins, or my autobiography and other books and info, can find them at victorgrossmansberlinbulletin.wordpress.com or at MR Online.

Some readers might expect—at last—a jolly, happy bulletin from Berlin.Germany, fourth richest power in the world, the strongest in Europe, seems to have overcome at least for now the ravages of covid-Corona; except in public transportation and medical institutions, face masks have all but disappeared. There are more jobs again—at least in fast-food or discount shops, in restaurants and hotels. Or for computer experts. Subway, bus and streetcar usually run on time—and sometimes even the inter-city trains.

But all is not well, and anxiety is widespread, for living costs have soared. Worst of all – heating and cooking gas, and electricity. But also groceries: meat and sausage, many fruits and vegetables, bakery products, even margarine ; the many, many food pantries for the hungry, not a few of them from the middle class, can no longer cope. Most frightening of all—mounting rent costs for apartments, in Germany the homes of a majority.

Behind this distress—and for many like me most painful—is the Ukrainian war. During the many wars I have followed in the news I have learned to be highly skeptical about all news reports. I have seen so many lies and clever distortions that I know enough to believe neither side. But, distorted or not, every report, every picture of death and destruction wrenches at my heart. Though I was always lucky enough to escape it, I hate war. And especially heart-wrenching for me is that Vladimir Putin, despite my hopes and expectations, took that fateful step on February 24th and sent troops, tanks and planes across the Ukrainian border!

During the many wars fought in my lifetime, all the way back to Spain, Ethiopia and World War Two, it was usually easy to discern who was the perpetrator, the aggressor. And this time the media immediately and almost unanimously decided which devil to demonize for the hoi-polloi—occasionally with tail and horns added on. Since other old Satans are dead and gone, Putin could easily be consigned to an even lower circle in the Inferno than Xi Jinping.

The liberal, “center-left” three-party coalition now governing Germany adopted this interpretation immediately and unreservedly; it was Putin’s army which crossed that borderline and is now bombing and shelling or, allegedly, even worse.

I could not argue with the facts. But neither could I ignore worrisome questions: Where was the indignation, where were the flags, the welcome mats for refugees when NATO or its surrogates putsched, invaded, bombed, shelledor otherwise “democratized” Guatemala, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Indonesia, Libya, and a dozen or so others? How many wept with the mothers of Hanoi, or Santiago, Baghdad or Kabul?

There are so many uncomfortable questions. Yes, Russia has its oligarchs—too damned many in my view. And delusions of grandeur may be found in Putin’s court-like appearances, possibly overmuch Russian national pride. But with Russia facing an American armaments build-up thirteen times as big as its own, and seventeen times as big when NATO is added in, and with its heartland almost totally surrounded and cut off from warm water shipping in the Black Sea if Georgia and above all Ukraine are US-dominated—it was undeniably the underdog. Yes, underdogs can also bite sharply. But they remain underdogs—and on the defensive, primarily against products of Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing – and KruppThyssen; but also the unimpeded spread of Tesna, Bayer, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Aldi, Coke and Burger King—and the Murdocks and Springers.

Whose voices have been loudest in confronting the evil on the Moskva? In the USA it would be mistaken to say that the GOP and the Democrats are exactly the same. They compete, currently more than ever. But for the Ukraine they are flagbearers in the same crusade. It is similar in Germany with the current three-party ruling coalition, which is known as “the Traffic-Light”, for each party here has a campaign color. Green of course is for the Greens, red, not so naturally, for the Social Democrats.

Yellow (in German it’s not negative) is the chosen color of the Free Democrats. The basic program of this “Let ‘em eat cake” party is: no tax increases for the big-biz wealthy, the least possible “alms” for single parents, seniors, the unpaid and jobless—and as many weapons as possible for Zelensky (or almost anyone as long as the Euros keep tinkling – or rustling!).

As for the Greens, once viewed as leftist radicals, they have long led the chase against the Russian devils. Loudest among the exorcists is Annalena Baerbock, Green party co-chair and Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose life mission, long seen as wrecking Russia, is now best accomplished by backing Zelensky with all it takes. As she stated: “I will put Ukraine first no matter what my German voters think!” This did not go down well with some of her German voters, but friendly media quickly (if falsely) blamed the Russians for misquoting the video and are keeping her popularity undamaged. Yes, the Greens form the vanguard in backing “rules-based order” with Zelensky and NATO.

The Social Democrats of Chancellor Scholz are more complicated. A few SPD leaders can still hear and maybe heed the demands of labor union constituents, whose votes they urgently hope to win back. The hardships caused by the boycott of Russian oil imports—and by profiteers—with the soaring prices on nearly everything, threaten to motivate growing protests, one already very visibly with several thousand protesters in Leipzig on September 5th, yesterday in Chemnitz (called Karl Marx Stadt in GDR days.) Not all too far away, in Prague, an angry crowd reached five-, maybe even six-digit size.

This makes even stolid Chancellor Olaf Scholz , a Social Democrat, a bit shaky. Despite his coalition partners he has been accused of dragging his feet at meeting every new Zelensky demand for big tanks and more and heavier weaponry and for saying “We mustn’t move even faster than the USA and other NATO countries.” On September 14th Scholz had an unusual 90-minute telephone exchange with Putin, in which he “urged a diplomatic resolution of the Russian war in the Ukraine as soon as possible, based on a cease fire, a full withdrawal of Russian troops and respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.” We had “very different views,” he said , but there was “definite movement” and “always a friendly tone.” Even the word “diplomatic” was almost unique—instead of “victory”. But his partners are actively reining in any undesirable deviation. Many are now scrambling to pass relief measures (but constrained by the Free-Democrat-yellow Finance Minister) to demonstrate their concern for hard-hit citizens—and thus discourage protests and demonstrations.

As for the two “Christian” sister parties, officially in opposition, they too bark loudly for more weapons for Kyiv and a more martial war spirit, and attack their unsteady rivals for doing a bit too much for families with children, the jobless and underpaid while they wait eagerly for the Traffic Light to fizzle out so they can resume rule of the highway.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD),furthest right in the Bundestag, takes the perhaps odd position of supporting Putin, embarrassingly for some on the left. The AfD is always supports anything against the European Union, also a key Putin target because of its sanctions policy. But it wants to build up the German army with a big increase in armaments, re-introduce the draft and start up a compulsory year of semi-military service for young people, male and female, while opposing “alternative family lifestyles” and abortion. Its main line is to hate Muslims, hate all immigrants and– more discreetly—hate Jews as well. Its pace-setters are busy planning “DayX”, a German equivalent of January 6 in Washington. Their growth, generally stalled at 10-14%, is still strong in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony, where it leads with 26%.

For me, other voices are at least as alarming. While fully supporting NATO in the Ukraine and aiming at its main goal, weakening Russia and ideally replaying the 2014 victory in Kyiv’s Maidan Square in Moscow’s Red Square, they are hinting at a break with any further subservience to US power. “OK, keep on building up the military force of NATO, led by the Pentagon. But also, independently, strengthen European military power led by Germany. The €100 billion armament program advanced by Olaf Schulz—who wasn’t a bit hesitant in this matter—must be further increased; there is already a stress on aggressive weapons for attacking, for landing, for seizing and holding areas in Eastern Europe, in Africa, the Near East and now, with its navy maneuvers, in the “Indo-Pacific” region near China.

Here are a few samples:

Annalena Baerbock (in her English-language interview with Fareed Zakaria):

Back in the 1990s Bush, Sr. said to our German chancellor, why don’t we start a partnership in leadership? But Germany was not ready. We were not reunited. Many other Europeans were a bit afraid of a strong Germany again, after the Second World War. But I think now… it’s really the time to step up a new step to set up this partnership in leadership between Europe and the US…

I come from a region around Berlin. It’s called Brandenburg. … it has a direct border over the Oder River to Poland. And my own grandfather fought like in the winter of 1945 at this river, at this border. And I was there standing in 2004 on this bridge, … I thought, wow, we are standing on the shoulders … of our grandparents, who made it possible that countries who were enemies are again not only in peace but in friendship together.” (On Wehrmacht shoulders?!, VG)… “Germany is the biggest player in the EU and it’s crucial that if the EU wants to be strong, if the EU wants to play its international role and also its role in its own neighborhood, then it needs a strong, open, but active German foreign policy…

Lars Klingbeil, Social Democratic co-chair, said:

Germany has earned a great deal of trust, accompanied by expectations of its international role. We should meet these expectations… For this new role …a completely different security policy debate in Germany is needed. In the competition of the political centers in the world, the European Union must develop a geopolitical significance … In competition with Russia and China, it must win over other countries and forge new strategic alliances based on economic interests and political orientation. Our claim must be that we are the most attractive centre… Supplying Ukraine with weapons from Germany is part of this…also heavy artillery… That is part of the role of the Federal Republic.” Klingbeil also called for “a different social approach to the Bundeswehr,” complaining (but with no evidence) that “the armed forces have moved further and further backwards in public debate.

Am I mistaken in hearing echoes of grating radio voices from my childhood, in 1938, frightening even without translation, and omens of the giant tragedy which descended upon the world just one year later? Today’s tones are smoother, the words more circumspect, but I see election results in Spain, Italy, France, even Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, the wrecking of the Labour Party in England and news from many regions of the USA—and I grow fearful.

In Germany I took hope from one protective coral reef standing up to any such surging tides. It was not a big reef, but it acted as a barrier; the leftist LINKE opposed, mostly alone, the bolstering of aggressive weaponry, it alone (except for the dodgy AfD) called for a cease fire and negotiations in Ukraine and a full halt to weapons exports. Its deputies, almost alone, voted against sending troops to Afghanistan and Mali, bombing Serbia, strengthening military occupation in Bosnia and Kosovo and for ending the illegal coexistence of American atomic block-buster bombs next to top-speed German planes in the base at Büchel, with the giant base at Ramstein relaying to US drone missiles on their killer missions in the whole Middle East and much of northern Africa.

These positions, so often alone or nearly alone, justified the proud claim of those in the LINKE of being the “Peace Party”.

But for years, within the party, there have been those who opposed anti-NATO positions and a bar to deployment of German forces outside the country. Sometimes they were a minority, sometimes they gained strength. They hoped to join a national government coalition—for which the Social Democrats and Greens, their desired partners, if at all amenable (and then only in case LINKE deputies were numerically needed), would insist on pro-NATO positions. This led to a willingness to accept “compromises”—“always necessary in politics,” they explained. Even when the chances of getting a few of those comfortable, prestige-cushioned coalition chairs dwindled to the zero point in the 2021 elections, they stuck to their “flexible” positions, or widened them, often paired with total rejection of every bit of left-over respect for accomplishments of the defunct GDR plus a tendency to neglect large-scale militant action in favor of parliamentary maneuvering.

The war in the Ukraine has greatly strengthened their hand. Anyone in or outside the party who rejects more armaments for Zelensky is labeled pro-authoritarian, a Putin-lover or, at best, out of touch with mass opinion, hence unelectable and dispensable. At the party congress in June, with the help of emotional voices from Putin opponents and a curtailing of debate time, they pushed through on some key issues and on some elected officers, usually with 60-70% of the vote.

But while some top officers, including party co-chair Janine Wissler and Bundestag fraction co-chairs Dietmar Bartsch und Amira Mohamed Ali try to overcome the rift, they are finding it hard to stay impartial, while others compare the situation to an unsealed pressure cooker.

Then, September 8th, came the Bundestag speech by Sahra Wagenknecht, surely the party’s most controversial member—and best orator, a former caucus co-chair and popular talk-show invitee (no doubt thanks to her good looks, fine apparel and spunky, forceful disputation, mostly out-balanced by several male opponents). She shocked most deputies by vehemently arguing that ending all energy imports from Russia and basically breaking off all economic relations, Germany was cutting off its nose to spite its face, “unleashing an unprecedented economic war against our most important energy supplier.” This would hurt Russia less than huge sectors of German industry and millions who will soon face cold homes, extremely high prices, job losses and evictions. The war in Ukraine was “a crime,” she added. “But the idea that we are punishing Putin by plunging millions of families in Germany into poverty and that we are destroying our industry while Gazprom is making record profits—yes, how stupid is that?”

Her facts were hard to deny, but the position was heresy—and treated as such not only by the other parties and the media but by some in the LINKE who immediately launched a petition campaign to expel her from her seat in the Bundestag or even from the party. The petition was matched by a counterpetition in her favor which quickly received more signatures. But an open battle had been launched, dividing and endangering the party more than ever before, at a time when its polling average was stumbling at about 5% in the polls, the bare minimum required to seat deputies, which it has already failed to achieve almost anywhere in western Germany.

The LINKE, a small but important opposing reef in a corrupt ocean filled with rubbish and worse and an ally for struggling left wing parties all around Europe and beyond, has often been forced to fight inner erosion. It has now been threatened with a split which would mean its demise. (The latest news—this morning—is that a break-up of the LINKE in the Bundestag has been averted!) Some, further on the left, and long critical of status quo leanings within the LINKE, speak of the rebirth of a “truly socialist party“ and the German Communist Party, despite all past quarrels, has shown interest in some militant cooperation or even combination—and found a remarkable level of leftist enthusiasm at the annual press festival of its weekly, “Unsere Zeit,” in late August. But it has its own problems and is tiny in size, receiving only 15,000 votes in all of Germany in 2021 while the LINKE, though missing the 5% level and far weaker than in 2017, still received over 2,270,000 votes.

Will the anger of masses of people, hard hit in their daily lives, give rise to growing resistance and protest? Can pressure for peace negotiations increase and lead to a movement recalling the giant numbers in West Germany in the 1980s? The media—and some within the LINKE—stress their fears that the AfD and other far-rightists will barge in and utilize the protests. This can raise problems, but the rallies in Leipzig and elsewhere drew sharply visible lines against such unwanted intrusions and accused the media of using false or exaggerated issues to inhibit all protests. Some saw the warnings as attempts, within the LINKE, to tame a militant fighting spirit—and thus further inhibit their hopes of joining the Greens and Social Democrats in respectable, orderly coalitions on state or national levels.

I fear that I can offer no happy prognostications on the outcome. But I am greatly moved by the urgency of motivating more and more people to oppose three giant menaces which approach us all, ever more dangerously: the growth of fascist forces, the threat of ecological disaster and the danger of atomic conflict. These three dangers create a moral compulsion: a search for unity in resisting every poisonous new head of the billionaire Hydra monster. But we can also rejoice at every victory, big or small, proving the power arising from united militancy: in an election in Colombia (and hopefully in Brazil), in massive protests and palace occupations in Sri Lanka, in every victorious union vote in an Amazon warehouse or Starbucks shop, in every victory of railroad workers or dockers or flight attendants. This is a time for resistance—to keep kicking! And, above all, to demand peace!

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I have just received an internet message purportedly proving that Zelensky, when rejecting Minsk 2 compromises, had long aimed at a NATO-backed war against Russia—and provoked one. As I wrote above, caution about reports from all sides causes me to wait for more facts and judgements—until the next Berlin Bulletin.

https://mronline.org/2022/09/21/devils- ... letin-204/

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Urgent: Witch hunt by neo-Nazis in Kharkov, Ukraine[/i]
September 12, 2022 Borotba

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Borotba banner at a rally outside the Kharkov Regional Administration building in May 2014. Photo: Svetlana Licht

Borotba (Struggle) is a revolutionary Marxist organization based in Ukraine and the Donbass people’s republics. It has been outlawed by the Kiev regime since the U.S.-backed coup in 2014.

Sept. 10 — Very disturbing news comes from the Kharkov region. Supporters of Borotba report that Ukrainian neo-Nazis have begun massacres of civilians.

From the city of Balakliya, which was occupied by Ukrainian troops yesterday, there are reports that people are being taken away in an unknown direction. We are talking about doctors, public utility employees, and other citizens who continued to interact with the Russian military-civilian administration.

There are eyewitness accounts that militants with neo-Nazi symbols simply grabbed people at their workplaces, and no one saw these people again.

We do not yet have the opportunity to double-check this information, but we have no reason not to trust our supporters.

We fear that Ukrainian neo-Nazis will organize another provocation, as they did in Bucha, and will try to blame the Russian military. Massacres are a common practice of neo-Nazis.

We ask you to spread this information as widely as possible. Perhaps it will save someone’s life.

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... v-ukraine/

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Letter to President Biden: ‘Enough Is Enough – War Is Not the Answer’
SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

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By Gerry Condon – Sep 15, 2022

Letter To President Biden From Gerry Condon, Former President Of Veterans For Peace.

Dear President Biden,

I am writing you as a proud member of Veterans For Peace and its former president. We have been following the war in Ukraine closely, since well before the Russian invasion on February 24 of this year. We were alarmed when you and President Obama supported the regime-change coup in Ukraine in 2014, which was openly cheered on by the State Department’s Victoria Nuland, and spearheaded by self-described Nazis.

We watched in horror as those same self-described Nazis set fire to an Odessa union building full of Ukrainians who were protesting a new law outlawing the Russian language as an official language of Ukraine. 50 people were burned alive or shot and beaten to death. This in a country with a long history with Russia and millions of Russian speakers.

Appalled at the aforementioned atrocities, the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass in Eastern Ukraine declared their independence from Ukraine, and were soon attacked by Nazi militias. These self-described Nazi militias were then incorporated into the Ukrainian army, and the attacks continued. By the time that Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 of this year, 14,000 Ukrainians had already been killed in that terrible civil war.

Russian president Putin repeatedly warned and almost begged the US and NATO: Do not push your hostile military forces any further onto Russia’s borders. Taking Ukraine into NATO would cross a serious “red line.” Russian troops then massed along the border with Ukraine, in a clear show of force.

Mr. President, you might have stopped this war from happening merely by announcing that Ukraine would not become part of NATO and that you would end the militarization of Ukraine. You could have accepted President Putin’s offer to negotiate a new security arrangement in Europe. We looked on in disbelief as you rather cavalierly brushed aside Russia’s legitimate concerns. It looked like you were saying, “Bring it on!”

Well, Russia brought it on. We were horrified by the Russian invasion as well as by your response. You armed Ukraine to the teeth and fanned the flames of war. Ukraine (and the Black market in Europe) is now awash with high-tech US weaponry. A full-on war has killed many thousands of civilians, made millions homeless, and destabilized much of the world. We are now facing economic disasters and fearing the all-too-real possibility of nuclear war. Why?

As veterans who have experienced the carnage of war, we are concerned about the young soldiers on both sides who are being killed and injured in the tens of thousands. We know all too well that the survivors will be traumatized and scarred for life. These are additional reasons why the Ukraine war must end now.

We ask you to listen to veterans who say “Enough is Enough – War is Not the Answer.” We want urgent, good faith diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine, not more US weapons, advisors, and endless war. And certainly not a nuclear war.

It is not too late to do avoid further disaster, Mr. President. It is never too late to do the right thing. Show us a Profile of Courage and save the world from World War III, a war that could literally destroy human civilization as we know it. You must distance yourself from the neocons and weapons manufacturers who are giving you terrible advice. You must reverse course now. Drop the weapons and embrace diplomacy. For the sake of Ukraine. For the sake Russia, Europe and the United States. For the sake of the all the peoples of the world.

Negotiate, Don’t Escalate!

Gerry Condon, former president
VETERANS FOR PEACE

https://orinocotribune.com/letter-to-pr ... he-answer/

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Russian FM Comments on Donbass, Zaporozhye & Kherson Referendum

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Sep 21, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@Mousacisse1

Published 21 September 2022 (9 hours 41 minutes ago)

The DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions announced on September 19 they will simultaneously hold referendums on accession to Russia between September 23 and 27.


In this regard, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Newsweek that these regions are making use of their right to self-determination, codified in the UN Charter, by announcing popular consultations on their intentions to join Russia.

The Russian diplomat said that "as for other Ukrainian territories liberated from the yoke of the neo-Nazi Kiev regime you mentioned, we proceed from the premise that their inhabitants have the right to independently determine their own destiny."

"We see the desire of people to be together with Russia, and therefore we shall treat their choice with respect," Lavrov said, noting that these regions "are entitled to use the right to self-determination in accordance with the UN Charter."

Lavrov also brought up Russia's earlier recognition of the independence of the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) within the borders of the respective Donetsk and Lugansk regions of the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR).


Sergey Lavrov: "The DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions have the right to exercise the right to self-determination in accordance with the UN Charter."

The Donbass republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, through upcoming referendums, will ask their populations whether they want to join the Russian Federation.

As these regions are being targeted by continuous Ukrainian forces shelling, the referendums will be held for several days at the same time in all four territories between September 23 and 27.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Rus ... -0020.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 23, 2022 12:22 pm

Before the referendum
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/23/2022 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENT

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On Wednesday night, the first details of the largest prisoner exchange since the Russian intervention began in February and, for those released, possibly since the start of the war in 2014, became known. Details are still scarce and the issue deserves an in-depth analysis, but for the time being it can be said that Ukraine achieved, four months later, the evacuation it wanted for its “defenders of Azovstal”. Among the 255 soldiers handed over to Ukraine, 108 of them are members of the Azov regiment, whose senior commanders Denis Prokopenko and Vyacheslav Palamar, together with the commander of the 35th Brigade, also an Azovstal prisoner, were transferred to Turkey. It is there that, under the guarantees of President Erdoğan, they must remain, if the agreement is respected, until the end of the war.

It is likely that the prisoner exchange will be presented by the media, analysts or third countries interested in mediating in the conflict, as a first step towards compromise, especially due to the symbolic weight that Russia, which presented denazification as one of its objectives, has freed a hundred prisoners from the Azov regiment, whose symbol is still a modified Wolfsangel. This has happened in the past on each occasion that an agreement between the parties has progressed. It happened in previous prisoner exchanges and also with the signing of the agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea ports.

As on those occasions, the minimal political commitments that occur far from the front do not imply changes in the military situation, which continues to worsen both at the front and in the rear. As has been the case since the end of May, the city of Donetsk was once again the target of indiscriminate Ukrainian bombing yesterday.

Original Article: Denis Grigoriuk

On the eve of the start of the DPR accession referendum in the Russian Federation, Ukrainian troops again attacked the center of Donetsk. The Voroshilovsky district of the capital of the Republic came under fire from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This time, Western shells hit the covered market area. This is the second attack in this district in the last seven days.

There are no military installations in the vicinity. The Ukrainian Armed Forces struck the center of Donetsk in broad daylight on a weekday. There are always a lot of people there at that time. There is the market, the bus station, the Academy of Management, the DonMac, small restaurants and flower shops. They attacked a large number of people. In flower shops, young women work late, just before curfew. A projectile hit right there and another directly hit a bus.

The mayor of the DPR capital, Alexey Kulezmin, claimed that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had fired five 155mm shells at the Voroshilovsky district. In addition to the ones that blew up in the covered market area, another one blew up in front of the Donetsk local administration on Artyom Street [central Donetsk- Ed Street ].

As a result of the Ukrainian artillery attack, the market building was damaged. A huge crater formed at their gates. The market workers were not injured. The building absorbed the impact and there was only damage to the façade. The situation turned out to be much worse on the road next to the bus station, the market halls and the Academy building. Ukrainian criminals overtook bus number 38. The passengers had no chance of survival. Bodies were mangled and shrapnel hit several flower shop vendors along the road.

According to the first data, four civilians had died, but the situation turned out to be worse than the preliminary information. Later it was learned that the number of fatalities had risen to six. Among them, a 14-year-old teenager. Among the dead are also a mother of two children, a flower seller and the bus driver. All of them died on the spot. Four other Donetsk residents were injured.

Ambulances evacuated them to medical institutions in the city. Russian Federation investigators and emergency services were working on the ground. According to witnesses, the “buzz” of the arrival was not heard . The survivors explained that there were several more explosions without previous sounds.

It is clear that the attack was deliberate. The next day the polling stations opened for the referendum on joining Russia. The Ukrainian military attacks the accumulation of people to intimidate the local population before the imminent plebiscite. In reality, it is one more terrorist act, the third to take place in Donetsk in recent weeks. kyiv seeks to disrupt the referendum, which will legally consolidate Donbass as part of the Russian Federation, even though the West and its satellites do not recognize it. Few people in the DPR are interested in the position of foreign countries considering that no one condemns the war crimes committed by Ukrainian troops on an almost daily basis.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/23/antes ... more-25559

Google Translator

Bolding added.

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Historic Context Of The Referenda In Ukraine
Voting for membership in the Russian Federation has started in four oblast of Ukraine:

Russian proxy officials in four regions — Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, and Kherson and Zaporizka in the south — earlier this week announced plans to hold referendums over four days beginning on Friday. Russia controls nearly all of two of the four regions, Luhansk and Kherson, but only a fraction of the other two, Zaporizka and Donetsk.
Ukrainian officials have dismissed the voting as grotesque theater — staging polls in cities laid to waste by Russian forces and abandoned by most residents.

President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ukraine’s allies for their steadfast support and said “the farce” of “sham referenda” would do nothing to change his nation’s fight to drive Russia from Ukraine.


The Ukrainian regime has resorted to pure terrorism to prevent the votes from happening:

Ukrainian partisans, sometimes working with special operations forces, have blown up warehouses holding ballots and buildings where Russian proxy officials preparing for the vote held meetings. Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that they are engaged in a campaign to assassinate key Russian administration officials; more than a dozen have been blown up, shot and poisoned, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials.
Such behavior by the Zelenski regime against its still Ukrainian compatriots will only encourage the people in the four oblast to vote for an alignment with Russia.


The propaganda in the 'west' will declare that the vote is irregular and that the results, likely to be pro-Russian, will be fake.

But a view on historic election outcomes since Ukrainian independence in 1991 show clear geographic preferences in east and south Ukraine for pro-Russian policies:

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The graphic above is from research published by the Eurasian Research Institute of the International Hoca Ahmet Yesevi Turkish-Kazakh University. Its author writes:

As we can see, the have always been a clear-cut geographical split in the way the regions of Ukraine vote for particular candidates. The East and West division or also referred as Southeast and Northwest division was always present throughout the electoral history of the independent Ukraine. It is conventionally believed that the eastern part of Ukraine is more influenced by Russia politically, economically and culturally. Therefore, the presidential candidates proposing more pro-Russian agenda usually gain much more political support in eastern regions than in other parts of Ukraine. On the other hand, the western part of the country has traditionally been more pro-European with strong reference to traditional core Ukrainian ethnic traditions and values. Consequently, presidential candidates with pro-European political agenda and traditional Ukrainian appeal usually had strong support in western regions of the country. It is interesting to note that preferences of the electorate were not related to the geographical origin or background of the presidential candidates and any candidate could easily become popular in the east as well as in the west. Moreover, the same candidate could be both pro-eastern and pro-western in different periods of time as did Leonid Kuchma in 1994 and 1999, who is the only Ukrainian president to serve two consecutive terms from 1994 to 2005.

The division is consistent with ethnic and linguistic differences between those parts of Ukraine.

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In 2014, after the violent fascist coup in Kiev, one of the first laws implemented by the new government removed the Russian language from official use. Instead of overcoming the differences between its people it only sealed the predominant split in Ukraine.

The election promise of the current Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelenski to make peace with the Russia aligned rebellious Donbas region by adhering to the Minsk 2 agreements was rewarded with a large share of southeastern votes for his presidency. However, after having been threatened with death by fascists, Zelenski has made a 180 degree turn and has since posed as Ukrainian nationalist. In consequence he has lost all support in southeastern Ukraine.

The southeastern parts of today's Ukraine have for centuries been part of the central Russian empire. They were only attached to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine under Lenin's rule in 1922 and, in the case of Crimea, in 1954 under Nikita Khrushchev who himself had grown up in the Donbas region.

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A likely high turnout and majority vote for membership in the Russian Federation will only correct the historic misalignment created by those illogical transfers.

Posted by b on September 23, 2022 at 10:18 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/h ... .html#more

Well, those transfers were not illogical in the context of the USSR and therein lies the problem....

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Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the principles of partial mobilization in Russia
September 22, 19:41

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Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the principles of partial mobilization in Russia

1. Those who are necessary to complete the tasks will be called up - these are, of course, shooters, tankers, artillerymen, drivers, driver-mechanics

2. As such, there is no call-up order from the reserve, but priority is given to those who have suitable military registration specialties

3. The number of those called up is determined by the regular needs of completed military units

4. One of the main factors is the presence of combat experience

5. Both officers and privates and sergeants will be called

up 6. By law, privates and sergeants under 35 years old, junior officers are subject to conscription for mobilization up to 50, seniors up to 55

7. There are positions that can be filled by women with relevant military specialties, for example, medical workers - but the need for such specialists is minimal

8. In accordance with the law, the following will not be called up:

• reserved citizens, these include employees of defense industry enterprises
• recognized as temporarily unfit for health reasons
• engaged in constant care for a family member or group I disabled
• having 4 or more dependent children in under the age of 16
• those whose mothers, in addition to them, have 4 or more children under the age of 8 and raise them without a husband preparation"

10. If a military pensioner, regardless of belonging to law enforcement agencies, is retired (over 65 years of age or for health reasons) and removed from the military register, he is not subject to conscription for mobilization

11. Quotas for the number of those called up from the reserve are not set based on volumes of the available mobilization reserve, each region has a separate mobilization task, it depends on the number of citizens on military registration in the

region of residence in Russia is registered with the military, can be called up.

https://cdn.news-front.info/uploads/202 ... d05a5.jpeg

Referendums start tomorrow
September 22, 18:19

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Referendums will start tomorrow

1. Tomorrow, referendums on reunification with Russia will begin in the DPR, LPR, Kherson region and Zaporozhye region. Residents are invited to either agree or refuse to join the Russian Federation as a subject.
2. Current sociology shows that the answers will be positive, and in the LPR and DPR, overwhelmingly positive. Which, among other things, is due to the unrealistically long wait for this choice, which Crimea got almost for free, and in the LDNR they waited 8 years and fought for this choice.
3. We can expect a sharp increase in shelling of civilian infrastructure by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, terrorist attacks and murders. Undoubtedly, Ukrainian terrorists will kill a certain number of civilians in the coming days, which of course will not change either the very fact of holding referendums or their outcome. After the referenda are held, a full-fledged CTO regime will most likely be introduced in the new territories of the Russian Federation and the filtration of former ATO officers and other bastards will begin.
4. Bulletins in the DPR and LPR only in Russian, in Zaporozhye and Kherson regions in Russian and Ukrainian. The choice is simple - Yes or No. Both in Russian and Ukrainian.
5. Residents of these regions, who are located on the territory of the Russian Federation, will be able to vote on the territory of Russia. We have already prepared 4 points for voting in Sevastopol. So the refugees are exercising their right to vote, and the hope of Ukrainian terrorists that the refugees who fled the shelling by the very fact of their absence will lower their turnout at the vote will not come true.
6. After September 27, within 1 to 5 days, the results will be calculated and after their official announcement, applications will be submitted for joining Russia. which will be promptly accepted. This will ensure legal irreversibility, since by accepting these regions into the Russian Federation, any attempts to challenge their new status will be a direct violation of the Constitution, as well as touch upon issues of nuclear doctrine.
7. Accordingly, having passed through a bifurcation point with mobilization, Russia in the next week will rapidly pass another one, connected with the consolidation of the expansion of its borders.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7878202.html

Google Translator

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Confidential RAND Report: Halt of Russian Energy Supplies Will Destroy German and EU Economies, Strengthen US
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 22, 2022
Deborah L. Armstrong

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Construction of Nord Stream 2. Photo: en.riss.ru

What if I told you that the economic hardships which Germany and the European Union are experiencing right now are all part of a plan which was outlined back in January? And what if I told you that the White House Chief of Staff, US Department of State, NSA, CIA and the Democratic National Committee all knew of this plan?

You can choose whether or not to believe me, but first I suggest that you examine this report titled, unambiguously, “Weakening Germany, strengthening the US.” The confidential report, which says that it was issued by RAND Corporation, a DC think-tank, was provided by an anonymous whistleblower in Germany to John Mark Dougan, an American journalist living in Moscow, Russia.

It’s a short, 6-page executive summary which says that it was distributed to all of the above-named agencies as well as a mysterious group known as “ANSA.” Whoever, or whatever, ANSA is, I was unable to determine, and neither was Mr. Dougan, whom I messaged this evening.

A quick online search of the term brought up several foreign-language websites which report about the war in Ukraine. Those websites were mentioned in previous RAND Corp publications, but it’s not clear whether or not they are related to the same “ANSA” listed in this document.

Here are screen prints of the report:

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And here is John Mark Dougan’s original discussion of the report with two other insightful journalists. Very much worth watching if you want a deeper understanding of what all this entails.



John Mark Dougan discusses the “RAND” report

Since John broke the story, it’s been picked up by others including a Swedish publication. You can read their article here.

RAND Corp unsurprisingly denied publishing this report in a press release on September 14.

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Screen shot of RAND Corporation statement denying publication of the January report. https://www.rand.org/news/press/2022/09/14.html

However, if RAND Corporation did, in fact, publish this report it would not be out of character for the DC think-tank, which previously published a lengthy study about how to overextend and unbalance Russia by fomenting a coup in Ukraine, which is exactly what happened.

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RAND Corp brief on Overextending and Unbalancing Russia.” Photo: RAND Corp

And, interestingly enough, the actions outlined in this more recent report have also been happening, presumably just as planned.

In fact, this think-tank, which employs nearly 2,000 people and has an operating budget of $350 million, has been influencing US foreign policy for several decades already. It was first exposed by none other than Daniel Ellsberg, who currently writes for Consortium News. In 1971, Ellsberg, who had worked for RAND Corp as a strategic analyst, leaked to the media classified documents detailing the US scope of involvement in the Vietnam War. RAND Corp is primarily tied to the Department of Defense and has been influencing, if not directing, US military and economic strategy since Cold War times.

The document begins, “The present state of the US economy does not suggest that it can function without financial and material support from external sources.”

That seems accurate enough, if you live in the US and you pay attention to what’s going on around you. That is, if you have seen how the numbers of homeless are steadily increasing in cities all across the country, how prices on just about everything have been skyrocketing, and how many jobs have been exported overseas.

The report goes on to blame the Fed for its “quantitative easing policy” as well as the Fed’s “uncontrolled issue of cash during the 2020 and 2021 Covid lockdowns” for leading to a “sharp increase in external debt and an increase in the dollar supply.”

These factors, the report says, are “highly likely to lead to a loss in position of the Democratic Party in Congress and the Senate in the forthcoming elections to be held in November, 2022.” It also says that “the impeachment of the President cannot be ruled out under these circumstances, which must be avoided at all costs.”

Clearly, RAND Corp (or whoever wrote this document, wink wink, nudge nudge) does not like the idea of Republicans on Capitol Hill (or any third parties, for that matter). And here you thought American elections were all about the choices of the people! Tsk-tsk.

“There is an urgent need for resources to flow into the national economy, especially the banking system,” the report continues,” Only European countries bound by EU and NATO commitments will be able to provide them without significant military and political costs for us.”

There is just one fly in the ointment, according to the report, and that is… Germany?

You read that right. Apparently, Germany’s increasing independence is the main obstacle in the way of the US gaining this influx of resources which is supposed to heal our broken economy. Or at least make more billions for the billionaires.

“Although it is still a country with limited sovereignty,” the report says about Germany, “for decades it has been consistently moving toward lifting these limitations and becoming a fully independent state.”

After the end of the Second World War, Germany’s economy, and most of Europe’s, was in tatters. And all of these decades since then, European countries have been rebuilding slowly and painfully. These days, the standard of living in Europe is certainly comparable, if not superior in some places, to America’s.

“This movement is slow and cautious, but steady,” the document reads. “Extrapolation shows that the ultimate goal can only be reached in several decades. However, if social and economic problems in the United States escalate, the pace could accelerate significantly.”

And Brexit, the report says, has contributed to Germany’s economic independence. With the UK’s withdrawal from the EU governing structures, “we have lost a meaningful opportunity to influence the negotiation of crossgovernmental decisions.”

“It is fear of our negative response,” the document continues, “which by and large determines the relatively slow speed of those changes. If one day we abandon Europe, there will be a good chance for Germany and France to get a full political consensus. Then, Italy and other Old Europe countries — primarily the former ECSC [European Coal and Steel Community] members — may join it on certain conditions. Britain, which is currently outside the European Union, will not be able to resist the pressure of the Franco-German duo alone. If implemented, this scenario will eventually turn Europe into not only an economic, but also a political competitor to the United States.”

And we can’t allow that to happen because at all costs, the US must maintain its global hegemony.

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“Besides,” the report says, “if the US is for a certain period engulfed by domestic problems, the Old Europe will be able to more effectively resist the influence of the US-oriented Eastern-European countries.”

So now, it becomes even more clear why the US has fostered such a presence in Eastern Europe. Next, the report outlines the vulnerabilities of the German and EU economies.

“An increase in the flow of resources from Europe to US can be expected if Germany begins to experience a controlled economic crisis. The pace of economic development in the EU depends almost without alternative on the state of the German economy. It is Germany that bears the brunt of the expenditure directed towards the poorer EU members.”

The German economy rests on two pillars, according to the report. Unlimited access to cheap Russian energy is the first pillar, and cheap French electric power obtained from nuclear power plants is the second pillar. The stronger pillar of the two, by far, is the Russian one. And that is why the report suggests that the US make like the mighty Sampson of the bible, break the pillars, and bring down the whole economic house in a terrifying crash that will ruin untold millions of lives.

“Halting Russian supplies,” the report says, “can well create a systematic crisis that would be devastating for the German economy and, indirectly, for the entire European Union.”

“But Putin turned off the gas,” you may argue. Yes. Russia did indeed close the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and warned that it will not resume gas supplies until all the sanctions against Russia are lifted. At last count there were around a thousand of them. However, Russia would not have taken this action had it not been provoked to do so. Which is exactly what this report recommended.

In fact, the report brags about having blocked the alternative Nord Stream 2 pipeline. “Thanks to our precise actions,” it says, “it has been possible to block the commissioning of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, despite the opposition of lobbyists from the steel and chemical industries. However, the dramatic deterioration of the living standards may encourage the leadership to reconsider its policy and return to the idea of European sovereignty and strategic autonomy.”

Meaning, as it gets colder and there is no heat, people are going to become angry and there will be protests, pressuring leaders in Europe to cave in to Russian demand that the sanctions be lifted. But thankfully for the billionaires who profit from this ugly mess, RAND Corp (allegedly) has a solution which, from the looks of things, has already been put into play.

“The only feasible way to guarantee Germany’s rejection of Russian energy supplies is to involve both sides in the military conflict in Ukraine,” the document says. Bear in mind, this was published in January, well before Russia began its Special Military Operation in Ukraine.

“Our further actions in this country will inevitably lead to a military response from Russia,” the report continues, referring to the covert assistance that the US/NATO has been providing to Ukraine since the Maidan coup in 2014, when the new regime in Kiev declared war on the Russian-speaking people in the eastern parts of the country.

“Russia will obviously not be able to leave unanswered the massive Ukrainian army pressure on the unrecognized Donbass republics.” Indeed, the mass slaughter of 14,000 civilians in the Donbass has outraged Russians for eight long years and there has been tremendous pressure on Russia’s president to intervene. But Putin, clearly aware of the trap being laid for him, avoided entering the conflict all this time despite many desperate pleas for help.

When Russian intelligence learned that a massive new onslaught against Donetsk and Lugansk was planned, Putin finally recognized the sovereignty of the two break-away republics in Donbass and announced the Russian SMO, which began on February 24th.

It was necessary, according to the report, to force Russia’s hand so that there would be a justification for a new round of sanctions against Russia, with the aim of forcing Putin to propose some sanctions of his own. Namely, the embargo of energy supplies to Europe via Nord Stream 1.

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Happier days. Schröder (far left), French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, Merkel, Medvedev, and others open the Nord Stream pipe in 2011. Photo: DW

Next, the report spends some time badmouthing Germany’s Green Party, which it refers to as “a strongly dogmatic, if not zealous, movement” which is easy to manipulate. It lambastes the leaders of the Green Party as “unprofessional” and unable “to admit their own mistakes in a timely manner,” citing the current foreign minister of Germany, Annalena Baerbock, and the climate minister, Robert Habeck, as examples.

“Thus,” the report continues, “it will be enough to quickly form the media image of Putin’s aggressive war to turn the Greens into ardent and hardline supporters of sanctions, ‘a party of war.’ It will enable the sanctions regime to be introduced without any obstacles.”

The report goes on to say that Germany’s supply of weapons to Ukraine will generate strong mistrust in Russia, lengthening any negotiations the two countries might engage in. And, “if war crimes and Russian aggression against Ukraine are confirmed, the German political leadership will not be able to overcome its EU partners’ veto on assistance to Ukraine and reinforced sanctions packages. This will ensure a sufficiently long gap in cooperation between Germany and Russia, which will make large German economic operators uncompetitive.”

And what has the media been talking about almost non-stop since Russia crossed over into the Donbass? Russian aggression and Russian war crimes, whether real or invented by a media complicit in this scheme.

Indeed, at a recent press conference in Prague, Baerbock stated, “We will stand with Ukraine, and this means that the sanctions will stay, also in winter time — even if it gets really tough for politicians.”

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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock pledges to support Ukraine despite any resistance from her own people, while speaking at the Forum 2000 conference in Prague on September 1. Photo: Ruptly

She didn’t mention the dire consequences which this will have on the German population or the population of the entire EU, perhaps a less pressing concern than the potential downfall of politicians like herself.

But never fear, the writers of this report are very concerned about the future of all the little people. In fact, you can almost feel their glee as they logically conclude that the halt of Russian energy supplies will be disastrous for German industries. “The need to divert significant amounts of Russian gas for winter heating of residential and public facilities will further exacerbate the shortages.”

The report predicts a “domino effect” beginning with lockdowns of major industries, followed by shortages of components and spare parts used in manufacturing, leading to a breakdown of logistic chains and finally, a “complete standstill at the largest in the chemical, metallurgical and machine-building plants,” as well as “the shutting down of continuous-cycle enterprises, which would mean their destruction.”

Sitting here, reading this, I can only shake my head in amazement at the cynical minds behind this report, which outlines the destruction of a foreign economy and war in a foreign land where real people are dying by the hundreds every day. Little children blown apart. Land mines everywhere. Bombs falling on civilian buildings killing men, women and children who just went to the market to buy groceries for dinner. But hey, as long as it helps the US economy, right? Well, not the part of the economy that benefits you and me, but at least the wealthiest among us will benefit, right?


September 19 attack on Donetsk city center. 13 killed including 2 children. Video courtesy Russell Bentley on Telegram: https://t.me/TXDPR/2181

When businesses and industries shut down, people lose their jobs. Children go without. People suffer. But I guess coming up with ways to destroy other people’s lives pays pretty well, doesn’t it? I bet the authors of this report laughed all the way to the bank, uncaring about how many thousands, or millions, of lives will be ruined by the war in Ukraine and the resulting economic fallout.

How do such people live with themselves? How do they sleep at night? But I digress…

The report estimates that Germany could hemorrhage as much as 200–300 billion Euros. “Not only will it deliver a devastating blow to the German economy, but the entire EU economy will inevitably collapse.” The report predicts a sustained recession and decline in the GDP of 3 to 4 percent over the next 5–6 years, leading to panic and collapse of financial markets.

“The euro will inevitably, and most likely irreversibly, fall below the dollar,” the report goes on glibly. “It will become a toxic currency, and all countries in the world will rapidly reduce its share in their forex reserves. The gap will be primarily filled with dollar and yuan.”

The report predicts a sharp drop in living standards and rising unemployment (between 200,000 and 400,000 out of work in Germany alone) which will lead to “the exodus of skilled labour and educated young people” to the United States. Well, how convenient! And as a side benefit, the report says, Americans will be distracted from their immediate financial worries and consolidated in such a way as to “reduce electoral risks.” For the Democratic party, I assume? We wouldn’t want any third parties or Republicans getting any crazy ideas about having democratically-run elections, now would we?

And what would the US gain from this calamity? Around 7–9 trillion dollars if everything goes according to this plan. Of course, you and I won’t be seeing any of that money. But I’m sure that the oligarchs will be rewarded handsomely.

“Unfortunately,” the report concludes, “China is also expected to benefit over the medium term from this emerging scenario.” But don’t worry, these guys have that all thought out, too. “At the same time, Europe’s deep political dependence on the US allows us to effectively neutralize possible attempts by individual European states to draw closer to China.”

Hear that? No one can be friends with China or the US will not be happy. And when the US is unhappy, it does things like this to its neighbors. So hurry up and fall into line, get with the program, and OBEY.

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A scene from the 1988 film “They Live”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... ngthen-us/

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Faina Savenkova
13-year-old on Ukrainian gov’t kill list speaks out: Video
By Max Blumenthal (Posted Sep 22, 2022)

Originally published: The Grayzone on September 13, 2022 (more by The Grayzone) |

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal speaks to Faina Savenkova, a 13-year-old resident of the Lugansk Republic who was placed on the Myrotvorets (Peacemaker) “kill list” of the Ukrainian government after she issued a call to the United Nations for an end to the war she has lived through since 2014.

Meera Terada also joins to provide background on the role of Myrotvorets in the killing of many journalists and doxxing of hundreds of children, and to identify the Ukrainian officials and public figures behind the disturbing website.



https://mronline.org/2022/09/22/13-year ... peaks-out/

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

***

Colonelcassad
Lukashenko said today that mobilization is not being carried out in Belarus and there are no plans to carry it out at the moment. Actually, he confirmed what they had already said before.
Now we are only talking about increasing the combat readiness of the Belarusian armed forces and the people's militia, the verification of which Batka recently initiated in the light of military threats emanating from the territory of Poland.

***

forwarded from
Grantoed.by
No longer a Belarusian, but an international house in Warsaw

We continue a series of investigations about organizations sponsoring Belarusian and Ukrainian criminals. The queue reached the "Belarusian House in Warsaw" .

Established in 2011, the Belarusian House in Warsaw performed various tasks. Either it acted as a cultural center, then as a gathering of oppositionists, then as a “government” in exile, but for all this time this organization has not been able to fulfill the main instruction of the West - to overthrow the incumbent President of Belarus. For its implementation, soft power was not enough, so the House began to create criminal armed groups, incl. to seize power in Belarus. Thus, the “Belarusian House in Warsaw” turned into a terrorist training center.

Using Ukraine as a training ground, the West is practicing new forms of struggle against countries that refuse to be puppets. Therefore, at the first suitable opportunity, "freedom fighters" trained by organizations such as the Belarusian House in Warsaw will be sent to Belarus.

***

Colonelcassad
❗️The situation in the east of Ukraine
by the end of September 22, 2022

🔻Border territories of the Russian Federation:

▪️Ukrainian formations fired at the village of Dvulichnoye and the Verigovka border crossing in the Valuysky district of the Belgorod region.

🔻Liman direction:

▪️In the morning, Ukrainian troops attempted to storm Liman from the south from the settlements of Dibrova and Shchurovo , but the RF Armed Forces managed to counterattack.

▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine made an attempt to encircle Liman from the north-western direction. The Ukrainian armored group broke through the front northwest of Liman . The enemy's motorized infantry advanced from the villages of Rubtsy and Lozovoe to the second line of defense of the RF Armed Forces in the area of ​​the villages of Redkoduba and Karlovka . The armored group was detected in a timely manner by means of aerial reconnaissance: a fire defeat was inflicted on it. Fighting is still going on in the fields between the villages of Karpovka and Lozovoe .

▪️In the vicinity of Drobyshevo , fighting for the settlement continues for the third day. Despite the lack of serious successes, the Ukrainian command intends to transfer additional reserves to the front.

▪️Additional forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as several MLRS installations, have been deployed to the Yarovaya area . Servicemen of the 103rd Terodefense Brigade arrived in the vicinity of Yampol .

🔻Bakhmutskoe (Artemovskoe) direction:

▪️The fighting in the area of ​​​​Disputed, Belogorovka, Verkhnekamensky acquired a positional character .

▪️In Bakhmut , units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine blew up a road bridge between the eastern and central parts of the city in order to stop the advance of the Wagner PMC units.

🔻Donetsk direction:

▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine are making regular unsuccessful counterattacks in the direction of the village of Peski from the side of Vodiane and Pervomaisky.

▪️Ukrainian formations again fired at the cities of the Donetsk agglomeration: the capital of the DPR , Yasinovataya, Gorlovka, Makeevka were hit .

🔻Zaporozhye direction:

▪️Artillery duels are taking place along the entire line of contact.

Image

***

forwarded from
Operation Z: Military commissars of the Russian Spring
0:45
0:29
‼️🇺🇦🇬🇧The enemy is advancing on the DPR, trying to surround Krasny Liman - the situation is dangerous
▪️Recently, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have built a number of pontoon crossings across the Seversky Donets and deployed considerable forces.
▪️In a number of places, the advanced positions on the front have been broken through, the enemy, a few kilometers from the Liman, is attacking in the direction of the settlement. Karpovka and Redkodub.
▪️The enemy is trying to inflict flank attacks and go to the rear, to cover the city, taking it in a half ring, but stumbles upon fierce resistance.
▪️Attacks on Drobyshevo reflect the "Russian Legion" of veterans of Donbass.
▪️In a number of areas, positions are held by BARS fighters and Russian motorized rifles.
▪️Artillery of the LPR and the “O” group is working on the advancing enemy forces, several crossings were destroyed .
▪️Russian special forces constantly collide on the flanks with enemy DRGs.
▪️American MLRS Himars hit our positions in the city.

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the main points during the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine on 19.08 Moscow time on 09/22/2022 especially for the Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok channel :
1. The enemy, having failed with a frontal assault on Krasny Liman and Drobyshev , relied on a breakthrough Oskol Front through N. p. Scars and Cow Yar . In the area of ​​Yarovaya and Korovy Yar , enemy DRGs are actively operating. The enemy launched an attack on the settlement today. Karpovka and Redkodub


, but was dropped. Nevertheless, the infiltration of enemy infantry between Rubtsy and Drobyshevo is noted .

2. In the area of ​​Artemovsk , the fortifications near the settlement continue to be hacked. Zaitsevo and the battles for Otradovka on the Artemovsk-Dzerzhinsk highway . There are fights in the industrial zone of Artemovsk . The enemy blew up the last bridge in the city, which looks like preparations for leaving the eastern part of Artemovsk .

3. They took Zhovanka in the Gorlovka region. Opportunities for advancement in the direction of Kurdyumovka are being probed .

4. On Fighting continues in the Seversk direction near Belogorovka and Disputed . The UAF did not succeed in a swift attack on Kremennaya and Novodruzhesk .
However, the ruins of the Disputable enemy are still holding.

5. On Avdeysky , Maryinsky, Ugledarsky, Zaporizhia direction - without significant changes. Positional battles continue
in the Nikolaev and Krivoy Rog directions. @voenkorKotenok

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******************

STATEMENTS BY PRESIDENT PUTIN AND THE RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: REVIEW
21 Sep 2022 , 2:07 pm .

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This Wednesday, September 21, just as the "Day of Military Glory of Russia" is celebrated to remember the victory of the Russians over the Tatars, Mongols and Lithuanians in 1380, President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu addressed the country and the region to deal with the situation in Donbás and the course of the conflict after the Special Military Operation in Ukraine.

Next, we present some keys of both speech.

He addressed all citizens of the country and the region, including the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, as well as the inhabitants of the Liberated Ukrainian Regions.
He referred to the necessary and imperative measures to protect the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Russia and support for those who want to vote to decide their incorporation into the Russian Federation.
He mentioned the desire of the "collective West" to divide Russia in order to weaken it, as they did in 1991 with the Soviet Union.
He also added that they are using Ukraine to promote Russophobia, terrorism and subsequently force entry into the federation.
He added that a special military operation was a necessity and the main objective of this operation: demilitarization, denazification and liberation of the entire Dombas from Nazism, remains unchanged.
He signed an Executive Order for the partial mobilization of the reserve in order to defend Russia and the liberated territories. That is why they call on those who have served in the armed forces and have experience. Mobilization will begin immediately.
The war economy is activated to achieve strategic goals: increase the production of weapons and military equipment.
Regarding the NATO nuclear threat against Russia, he recalled that the country also has different types of weapons, and some of them are more modern than those of NATO countries. In the event of a threat to the territory, they will use all weapons systems within reach.
For its part, the Russian defense minister provided other data from the war report and offered other technical details of the military operation.

The Russian army has had 5,973 casualties during the Special Military Operation in Ukraine (the figure excludes the Donetsk and Lugansk militias, as well as the Wagner private military company).
All Soviet weapons in the Ukraine were destroyed. Ukraine has lost half of its Army, they have approximately 61 thousand 207 dead and 49 thousand 368 wounded.
Russia is not only at war with Ukraine, but with the entire West. The entire NATO satellite constellation is working against Russia.
Ukraine fights with Western weapons, supplied in large quantities, and with them shoots civilians in Donbas and other regions.
Russia has a huge mobilization resource. Russia's total military reserve, people who have previously gone through military training, is 25 million. It also has the equipment to arm those forces.
This new phase of the Russian military operation, which is only a partial mobilization, is to face an enemy that is increasingly using all the human, technological, financial and military resources at its disposal. And this is not about Ukraine but about NATO and the whole western imperial machine.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/de ... uso-resena

Google Translator

*********************

Alejandro Kirk: Kiev ‘Tries to Kill as Many People as Possible’
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 22, 2022
Kirill Kurevlev
© Photo : Alejandro Kirk

Kiev troops subjected the Donbass republics to almost daily shelling long before the start of the Russian special military operation at the end of February of this year. Civilians are frequently the victims of attacks carried out by Kiev’s military and its national battalions, as the shelling often targets residential areas.

Alejandro Kirk, a special correspondent for teleSUR and HispanTV news channels in Donbass, has told Sputnik in an interview that people living in the republics are aware of the fact that “a Ukrainian projectile can fall at any time and anywhere,” as he was wounded during a Ukrainian attack on Donetsk this weekend.

Kirk expressed his belief that such shellings are “punitive attacks,” since “they punish ordinary people just for living here.”

“On Saturday, September 17, around noon, we heard explosions in the city center. As in many other cases, with other colleagues, we ran to report. When we arrived at Lenin Square, the central square of the city, there was another explosion nearby, a van caught fire,” the journalist recounted the events. “I went to the van to find a more accurate, more informative shot. There were two people in the car. Based on experience, I did not think that another projectile would hit the same place, but I was wrong.”
Venezuelan journalist Alejandro Kirk - Sputnik International, 1920, 20.09.2022Venezuelan journalist Alejandro Kirk
© Photo : Alejandro Kirk

Kirk claimed he heard “the characteristic whistling sound of 155-mm shells and an explosion a few meters to the north, on Artyoma Street, exactly where the buses run,” so he turned his camera only to see a brief flash and feel the impact on his right shoulder. “No noise or pain,” he noted, adding that the fragment also hit his right eye, causing his vision to become blurry.

“I continued to shoot, called my colleagues, and we found that the wound was bleeding profusely. The eye was also bleeding. I took off my sunglasses and found that a fragment had pierced the lens, it was probably the glasses that prevented the fragment from entering the eye,” he said.

Sputnik: How do you rate medical care in Donetsk? Have you already been operated on? What is your condition and prognosis for your recovery?

Kirk: In my case, the medical care was exemplary. My colleagues took me to the government hospital, and within a few minutes, they were washing my wound and examining me. Then, they conducted an X-ray and CT scan. I was hospitalized for follow-up at the weekend, and from Monday as an outpatient, with daily check-ups. After the wound has healed, it will be decided when to remove the fragment.

“No one has ever asked me for documents, or told me that I had to pay,” he underscored. “For me, this is a clear example of the fact that in the field of public health, no matter who you are and how much money you have, humanity prevails and not business, and this, in my opinion, is one of the most important legacies of the Soviet system, which still goes on in this republic. By the way, the hospital where I was examined was also subjected to artillery shelling. One of them I covered myself, and I made a report from the site with the remains of a downed Ukrainian missile, at the gate of the maternity hospital.”

Sputnik: What are your feelings about what happened?

Kirk: The impact of the projectile was such that it made a hole of about an inch in diameter in the shoulder. The fragment hit me in the rib and fractured it. The impact occurred 15 centimeters from the face and neck, 25 centimeters from the heart. The rib saved the lung, and the sunglasses saved the eye. That’s a lot of luck, isn’t it?
Alejandro Kirk's sunglasses - Sputnik International, 1920, 20.09.2022Alejandro Kirk’s sunglasses
© Photo : Alejandro Kirk

Therefore, it’s impossible not to think of this easily happening and about what actually happens to many people every day in Donetsk: that they do not have the same luck and the shrapnel kills them.

Here people go shopping with a bag, a girl leaves a dance lesson, a cook prepares lunch for children, or, for example, here is a girl walking in one direction, apparently she forgot something, stops, or just some woman is returning home from work. These are the people I saw and wrote about in my time. That’s why my thoughts are always with these people, they just became easy enemies to annihilate with impunity.
“I think this is intended to create terror, force the people to leave their homes, feel permanently threatened,” he asserted. “Every person in this city knows that when you go outside, chances are you won’t come back. That’s why, when you ask them, almost everyone is calling for more action in the military operation.”
Footage from the scene in Donetsk where Venezuelan journalist Alejandro Kirk was wounded - Sputnik International, 1920, 20.09.2022Footage from the scene in Donetsk where Venezuelan journalist Alejandro Kirk was wounded
© Photo : Alejandro Kirk

Sputnik: What is the current situation in Donetsk?

Kirk: Unfortunately, the residents of Donetsk live in terror. Many have left, and those of us who are still here know that at any moment, in any place, a Ukrainian shell could fall. These are punitive attacks: they punish ordinary people just for living here. It seems that the defense systems are not able to detect and prevent this terrorism. We know that these are mobile, long-range artillery systems that are very difficult to detect. That is why many are demanding more decisive action, not against troops and weapons, but against those who command this barbarity, in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine.

Sputnik: How long have you been in Donetsk? What else have you seen?

Kirk: I came to Donbass in March last year. I toured the two republics and liberated areas in southern Ukraine, such as Kherson and Zaporozhye. I was able to witness the struggle for Mariupol and the current reconstruction process. In Lugansk, I have seen the liberation of such cities as Lisichansk and Severodonetsk, the tragedy of Popasnaya.

I’m helping with a humanitarian aid project called Bukhanka, after a Russian UAZ van nicknamed this way, which delivers food and water to small, recently liberated villages where state aid has not yet arrived. We go mostly unaccompanied and without an escort or military presence. This standalone project, promoted by journalist Nikita Tretyakov, allows me to talk to dozens of ordinary people who tell us their story, and the story is always the same: the indifference of the Ukrainian authorities, which contrasts with the humanity of Russian soldiers or Donbass militias, who often share their rations with them.

Of course, not everything is unanimous, but it is remarkable that people in the worst conditions, living in basements for months, have never, with the exception of one person, told me that they prefer the return of the Ukrainian military or ultra-nationalist battalions.

Sputnik: After the injury, do you plan to continue working in Donetsk?

Kirk: My editors are now assessing the situation, but I have the determination and desire to stay here for as long as I can. After all, I too have spilled my share of blood on this soil.

Sputnik: Could you tell us about the recent attacks in Kuibyshev. What do you think the Kiev authorities are trying to accomplish?

Kirk: Nine 155mm shells fell in Kuibyshev, one of these shells killed nine people at noon. This was praised on Ukrainian channels as an example of efficiency. They target streets rather than buildings, places where a higher concentration of people is expected.

I saw a simultaneous attack on two schools in Donetsk on Monday at 11:00 a.m., when parents and teachers gathered. Friday night attacks on Pushkin Boulevard, where restaurants are located. At noon on the same boulevard where families walked. The residential and industrial districts of Kuibyshev, Kievsky, Petrovsky, Leninsky, were attacked day and night. All this cannot be the idea of ​​a creative artillery commander, this is undoubtedly a political decision of the highest level.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... -possible/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 23, 2022 12:28 pm

Before the referendum
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/23/2022

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On Wednesday night, the first details of the largest prisoner exchange since the Russian intervention began in February and, for those released, possibly since the start of the war in 2014, became known. Details are still scarce and the issue deserves an in-depth analysis, but for the time being it can be said that Ukraine achieved, four months later, the evacuation it wanted for its “defenders of Azovstal”. Among the 255 soldiers handed over to Ukraine, 108 of them are members of the Azov regiment, whose senior commanders Denis Prokopenko and Vyacheslav Palamar, together with the commander of the 35th Brigade, also an Azovstal prisoner, were transferred to Turkey. It is there that, under the guarantees of President Erdoğan, they must remain, if the agreement is respected, until the end of the war.

It is likely that the prisoner exchange will be presented by the media, analysts or third countries interested in mediating in the conflict, as a first step towards compromise, especially due to the symbolic weight that Russia, which presented denazification as one of its objectives, has freed a hundred prisoners from the Azov regiment, whose symbol is still a modified Wolfsangel. This has happened in the past on each occasion that an agreement between the parties has progressed. It happened in previous prisoner exchanges and also with the signing of the agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea ports.

As on those occasions, the minimal political commitments that occur far from the front do not imply changes in the military situation, which continues to worsen both at the front and in the rear. As has been the case since the end of May, the city of Donetsk was once again the target of indiscriminate Ukrainian bombing yesterday.

Original Article: Denis Grigoriuk

On the eve of the start of the DPR accession referendum in the Russian Federation, Ukrainian troops again attacked the center of Donetsk. The Voroshilovsky district of the capital of the Republic came under fire from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This time, Western shells hit the covered market area. This is the second attack in this district in the last seven days.

There are no military installations in the vicinity. The Ukrainian Armed Forces struck the center of Donetsk in broad daylight on a weekday. There are always a lot of people there at that time. There is the market, the bus station, the Academy of Management, the DonMac, small restaurants and flower shops. They attacked a large number of people. In flower shops, young women work late, just before curfew. A projectile hit right there and another directly hit a bus.

The mayor of the DPR capital, Alexey Kulezmin, claimed that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had fired five 155mm shells at the Voroshilovsky district. In addition to the ones that blew up in the covered market area, another one blew up in front of the Donetsk local administration on Artyom Street [central Donetsk- Ed Street ].

As a result of the Ukrainian artillery attack, the market building was damaged. A huge crater formed at their gates. The market workers were not injured. The building absorbed the impact and there was only damage to the façade. The situation turned out to be much worse on the road next to the bus station, the market halls and the Academy building. Ukrainian criminals overtook bus number 38. The passengers had no chance of survival. Bodies were mangled and shrapnel hit several flower shop vendors along the road.

According to the first data, four civilians had died, but the situation turned out to be worse than the preliminary information. Later it was learned that the number of fatalities had risen to six. Among them, a 14-year-old teenager. Among the dead are also a mother of two children, a flower seller and the bus driver. All of them died on the spot. Four other Donetsk residents were injured.

Ambulances evacuated them to medical institutions in the city. Russian Federation investigators and emergency services were working on the ground. According to witnesses, the “buzz” of the arrival was not heard . The survivors explained that there were several more explosions without previous sounds.

It is clear that the attack was deliberate. The next day the polling stations opened for the referendum on joining Russia. The Ukrainian military attacks the accumulation of people to intimidate the local population before the imminent plebiscite. In reality, it is one more terrorist act, the third to take place in Donetsk in recent weeks. kyiv seeks to disrupt the referendum, which will legally consolidate Donbass as part of the Russian Federation, even though the West and its satellites do not recognize it. Few people in the DPR are interested in the position of foreign countries considering that no one condemns the war crimes committed by Ukrainian troops on an almost daily basis.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/23/antes ... more-25559

Google Translator

Bolding added.

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Historic Context Of The Referenda In Ukraine
Voting for membership in the Russian Federation has started in four oblast of Ukraine:

Russian proxy officials in four regions — Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, and Kherson and Zaporizka in the south — earlier this week announced plans to hold referendums over four days beginning on Friday. Russia controls nearly all of two of the four regions, Luhansk and Kherson, but only a fraction of the other two, Zaporizka and Donetsk.
Ukrainian officials have dismissed the voting as grotesque theater — staging polls in cities laid to waste by Russian forces and abandoned by most residents.

President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ukraine’s allies for their steadfast support and said “the farce” of “sham referenda” would do nothing to change his nation’s fight to drive Russia from Ukraine.


The Ukrainian regime has resorted to pure terrorism to prevent the votes from happening:

Ukrainian partisans, sometimes working with special operations forces, have blown up warehouses holding ballots and buildings where Russian proxy officials preparing for the vote held meetings. Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that they are engaged in a campaign to assassinate key Russian administration officials; more than a dozen have been blown up, shot and poisoned, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials.
Such behavior by the Zelenski regime against its still Ukrainian compatriots will only encourage the people in the four oblast to vote for an alignment with Russia.


The propaganda in the 'west' will declare that the vote is irregular and that the results, likely to be pro-Russian, will be fake.

But a view on historic election outcomes since Ukrainian independence in 1991 show clear geographic preferences in east and south Ukraine for pro-Russian policies:

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The graphic above is from research published by the Eurasian Research Institute of the International Hoca Ahmet Yesevi Turkish-Kazakh University. Its author writes:

As we can see, the have always been a clear-cut geographical split in the way the regions of Ukraine vote for particular candidates. The East and West division or also referred as Southeast and Northwest division was always present throughout the electoral history of the independent Ukraine. It is conventionally believed that the eastern part of Ukraine is more influenced by Russia politically, economically and culturally. Therefore, the presidential candidates proposing more pro-Russian agenda usually gain much more political support in eastern regions than in other parts of Ukraine. On the other hand, the western part of the country has traditionally been more pro-European with strong reference to traditional core Ukrainian ethnic traditions and values. Consequently, presidential candidates with pro-European political agenda and traditional Ukrainian appeal usually had strong support in western regions of the country. It is interesting to note that preferences of the electorate were not related to the geographical origin or background of the presidential candidates and any candidate could easily become popular in the east as well as in the west. Moreover, the same candidate could be both pro-eastern and pro-western in different periods of time as did Leonid Kuchma in 1994 and 1999, who is the only Ukrainian president to serve two consecutive terms from 1994 to 2005.

The division is consistent with ethnic and linguistic differences between those parts of Ukraine.

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In 2014, after the violent fascist coup in Kiev, one of the first laws implemented by the new government removed the Russian language from official use. Instead of overcoming the differences between its people it only sealed the predominant split in Ukraine.

The election promise of the current Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelenski to make peace with the Russia aligned rebellious Donbas region by adhering to the Minsk 2 agreements was rewarded with a large share of southeastern votes for his presidency. However, after having been threatened with death by fascists, Zelenski has made a 180 degree turn and has since posed as Ukrainian nationalist. In consequence he has lost all support in southeastern Ukraine.

The southeastern parts of today's Ukraine have for centuries been part of the central Russian empire. They were only attached to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine under Lenin's rule in 1922 and, in the case of Crimea, in 1954 under Nikita Khrushchev who himself had grown up in the Donbas region.

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A likely high turnout and majority vote for membership in the Russian Federation will only correct the historic misalignment created by those illogical transfers.

Posted by b on September 23, 2022 at 10:18 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/h ... .html#more

Well, those transfers were not illogical in the context of the USSR and therein lies the problem....

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Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the principles of partial mobilization in Russia
September 22, 19:41

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Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the principles of partial mobilization in Russia

1. Those who are necessary to complete the tasks will be called up - these are, of course, shooters, tankers, artillerymen, drivers, driver-mechanics

2. As such, there is no call-up order from the reserve, but priority is given to those who have suitable military registration specialties

3. The number of those called up is determined by the regular needs of completed military units

4. One of the main factors is the presence of combat experience

5. Both officers and privates and sergeants will be called

up 6. By law, privates and sergeants under 35 years old, junior officers are subject to conscription for mobilization up to 50, seniors up to 55

7. There are positions that can be filled by women with relevant military specialties, for example, medical workers - but the need for such specialists is minimal

8. In accordance with the law, the following will not be called up:

• reserved citizens, these include employees of defense industry enterprises
• recognized as temporarily unfit for health reasons
• engaged in constant care for a family member or group I disabled
• having 4 or more dependent children in under the age of 16
• those whose mothers, in addition to them, have 4 or more children under the age of 8 and raise them without a husband preparation"

10. If a military pensioner, regardless of belonging to law enforcement agencies, is retired (over 65 years of age or for health reasons) and removed from the military register, he is not subject to conscription for mobilization

11. Quotas for the number of those called up from the reserve are not set based on volumes of the available mobilization reserve, each region has a separate mobilization task, it depends on the number of citizens on military registration in the

region of residence in Russia is registered with the military, can be called up.

https://cdn.news-front.info/uploads/202 ... d05a5.jpeg

Referendums start tomorrow
September 22, 18:19

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Referendums will start tomorrow

1. Tomorrow, referendums on reunification with Russia will begin in the DPR, LPR, Kherson region and Zaporozhye region. Residents are invited to either agree or refuse to join the Russian Federation as a subject.
2. Current sociology shows that the answers will be positive, and in the LPR and DPR, overwhelmingly positive. Which, among other things, is due to the unrealistically long wait for this choice, which Crimea got almost for free, and in the LDNR they waited 8 years and fought for this choice.
3. We can expect a sharp increase in shelling of civilian infrastructure by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, terrorist attacks and murders. Undoubtedly, Ukrainian terrorists will kill a certain number of civilians in the coming days, which of course will not change either the very fact of holding referendums or their outcome. After the referenda are held, a full-fledged CTO regime will most likely be introduced in the new territories of the Russian Federation and the filtration of former ATO officers and other bastards will begin.
4. Bulletins in the DPR and LPR only in Russian, in Zaporozhye and Kherson regions in Russian and Ukrainian. The choice is simple - Yes or No. Both in Russian and Ukrainian.
5. Residents of these regions, who are located on the territory of the Russian Federation, will be able to vote on the territory of Russia. We have already prepared 4 points for voting in Sevastopol. So the refugees are exercising their right to vote, and the hope of Ukrainian terrorists that the refugees who fled the shelling by the very fact of their absence will lower their turnout at the vote will not come true.
6. After September 27, within 1 to 5 days, the results will be calculated and after their official announcement, applications will be submitted for joining Russia. which will be promptly accepted. This will ensure legal irreversibility, since by accepting these regions into the Russian Federation, any attempts to challenge their new status will be a direct violation of the Constitution, as well as touch upon issues of nuclear doctrine.
7. Accordingly, having passed through a bifurcation point with mobilization, Russia in the next week will rapidly pass another one, connected with the consolidation of the expansion of its borders.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7878202.html

Google Translator

***************

Confidential RAND Report: Halt of Russian Energy Supplies Will Destroy German and EU Economies, Strengthen US
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 22, 2022
Deborah L. Armstrong

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Construction of Nord Stream 2. Photo: en.riss.ru

What if I told you that the economic hardships which Germany and the European Union are experiencing right now are all part of a plan which was outlined back in January? And what if I told you that the White House Chief of Staff, US Department of State, NSA, CIA and the Democratic National Committee all knew of this plan?

You can choose whether or not to believe me, but first I suggest that you examine this report titled, unambiguously, “Weakening Germany, strengthening the US.” The confidential report, which says that it was issued by RAND Corporation, a DC think-tank, was provided by an anonymous whistleblower in Germany to John Mark Dougan, an American journalist living in Moscow, Russia.

It’s a short, 6-page executive summary which says that it was distributed to all of the above-named agencies as well as a mysterious group known as “ANSA.” Whoever, or whatever, ANSA is, I was unable to determine, and neither was Mr. Dougan, whom I messaged this evening.

A quick online search of the term brought up several foreign-language websites which report about the war in Ukraine. Those websites were mentioned in previous RAND Corp publications, but it’s not clear whether or not they are related to the same “ANSA” listed in this document.

Here are screen prints of the report:

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And here is John Mark Dougan’s original discussion of the report with two other insightful journalists. Very much worth watching if you want a deeper understanding of what all this entails.



John Mark Dougan discusses the “RAND” report

Since John broke the story, it’s been picked up by others including a Swedish publication. You can read their article here.

RAND Corp unsurprisingly denied publishing this report in a press release on September 14.

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Screen shot of RAND Corporation statement denying publication of the January report. https://www.rand.org/news/press/2022/09/14.html

However, if RAND Corporation did, in fact, publish this report it would not be out of character for the DC think-tank, which previously published a lengthy study about how to overextend and unbalance Russia by fomenting a coup in Ukraine, which is exactly what happened.

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RAND Corp brief on Overextending and Unbalancing Russia.” Photo: RAND Corp

And, interestingly enough, the actions outlined in this more recent report have also been happening, presumably just as planned.

In fact, this think-tank, which employs nearly 2,000 people and has an operating budget of $350 million, has been influencing US foreign policy for several decades already. It was first exposed by none other than Daniel Ellsberg, who currently writes for Consortium News. In 1971, Ellsberg, who had worked for RAND Corp as a strategic analyst, leaked to the media classified documents detailing the US scope of involvement in the Vietnam War. RAND Corp is primarily tied to the Department of Defense and has been influencing, if not directing, US military and economic strategy since Cold War times.

The document begins, “The present state of the US economy does not suggest that it can function without financial and material support from external sources.”

That seems accurate enough, if you live in the US and you pay attention to what’s going on around you. That is, if you have seen how the numbers of homeless are steadily increasing in cities all across the country, how prices on just about everything have been skyrocketing, and how many jobs have been exported overseas.

The report goes on to blame the Fed for its “quantitative easing policy” as well as the Fed’s “uncontrolled issue of cash during the 2020 and 2021 Covid lockdowns” for leading to a “sharp increase in external debt and an increase in the dollar supply.”

These factors, the report says, are “highly likely to lead to a loss in position of the Democratic Party in Congress and the Senate in the forthcoming elections to be held in November, 2022.” It also says that “the impeachment of the President cannot be ruled out under these circumstances, which must be avoided at all costs.”

Clearly, RAND Corp (or whoever wrote this document, wink wink, nudge nudge) does not like the idea of Republicans on Capitol Hill (or any third parties, for that matter). And here you thought American elections were all about the choices of the people! Tsk-tsk.

“There is an urgent need for resources to flow into the national economy, especially the banking system,” the report continues,” Only European countries bound by EU and NATO commitments will be able to provide them without significant military and political costs for us.”

There is just one fly in the ointment, according to the report, and that is… Germany?

You read that right. Apparently, Germany’s increasing independence is the main obstacle in the way of the US gaining this influx of resources which is supposed to heal our broken economy. Or at least make more billions for the billionaires.

“Although it is still a country with limited sovereignty,” the report says about Germany, “for decades it has been consistently moving toward lifting these limitations and becoming a fully independent state.”

After the end of the Second World War, Germany’s economy, and most of Europe’s, was in tatters. And all of these decades since then, European countries have been rebuilding slowly and painfully. These days, the standard of living in Europe is certainly comparable, if not superior in some places, to America’s.

“This movement is slow and cautious, but steady,” the document reads. “Extrapolation shows that the ultimate goal can only be reached in several decades. However, if social and economic problems in the United States escalate, the pace could accelerate significantly.”

And Brexit, the report says, has contributed to Germany’s economic independence. With the UK’s withdrawal from the EU governing structures, “we have lost a meaningful opportunity to influence the negotiation of crossgovernmental decisions.”

“It is fear of our negative response,” the document continues, “which by and large determines the relatively slow speed of those changes. If one day we abandon Europe, there will be a good chance for Germany and France to get a full political consensus. Then, Italy and other Old Europe countries — primarily the former ECSC [European Coal and Steel Community] members — may join it on certain conditions. Britain, which is currently outside the European Union, will not be able to resist the pressure of the Franco-German duo alone. If implemented, this scenario will eventually turn Europe into not only an economic, but also a political competitor to the United States.”

And we can’t allow that to happen because at all costs, the US must maintain its global hegemony.

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“Besides,” the report says, “if the US is for a certain period engulfed by domestic problems, the Old Europe will be able to more effectively resist the influence of the US-oriented Eastern-European countries.”

So now, it becomes even more clear why the US has fostered such a presence in Eastern Europe. Next, the report outlines the vulnerabilities of the German and EU economies.

“An increase in the flow of resources from Europe to US can be expected if Germany begins to experience a controlled economic crisis. The pace of economic development in the EU depends almost without alternative on the state of the German economy. It is Germany that bears the brunt of the expenditure directed towards the poorer EU members.”

The German economy rests on two pillars, according to the report. Unlimited access to cheap Russian energy is the first pillar, and cheap French electric power obtained from nuclear power plants is the second pillar. The stronger pillar of the two, by far, is the Russian one. And that is why the report suggests that the US make like the mighty Sampson of the bible, break the pillars, and bring down the whole economic house in a terrifying crash that will ruin untold millions of lives.

“Halting Russian supplies,” the report says, “can well create a systematic crisis that would be devastating for the German economy and, indirectly, for the entire European Union.”

“But Putin turned off the gas,” you may argue. Yes. Russia did indeed close the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and warned that it will not resume gas supplies until all the sanctions against Russia are lifted. At last count there were around a thousand of them. However, Russia would not have taken this action had it not been provoked to do so. Which is exactly what this report recommended.

In fact, the report brags about having blocked the alternative Nord Stream 2 pipeline. “Thanks to our precise actions,” it says, “it has been possible to block the commissioning of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, despite the opposition of lobbyists from the steel and chemical industries. However, the dramatic deterioration of the living standards may encourage the leadership to reconsider its policy and return to the idea of European sovereignty and strategic autonomy.”

Meaning, as it gets colder and there is no heat, people are going to become angry and there will be protests, pressuring leaders in Europe to cave in to Russian demand that the sanctions be lifted. But thankfully for the billionaires who profit from this ugly mess, RAND Corp (allegedly) has a solution which, from the looks of things, has already been put into play.

“The only feasible way to guarantee Germany’s rejection of Russian energy supplies is to involve both sides in the military conflict in Ukraine,” the document says. Bear in mind, this was published in January, well before Russia began its Special Military Operation in Ukraine.

“Our further actions in this country will inevitably lead to a military response from Russia,” the report continues, referring to the covert assistance that the US/NATO has been providing to Ukraine since the Maidan coup in 2014, when the new regime in Kiev declared war on the Russian-speaking people in the eastern parts of the country.

“Russia will obviously not be able to leave unanswered the massive Ukrainian army pressure on the unrecognized Donbass republics.” Indeed, the mass slaughter of 14,000 civilians in the Donbass has outraged Russians for eight long years and there has been tremendous pressure on Russia’s president to intervene. But Putin, clearly aware of the trap being laid for him, avoided entering the conflict all this time despite many desperate pleas for help.

When Russian intelligence learned that a massive new onslaught against Donetsk and Lugansk was planned, Putin finally recognized the sovereignty of the two break-away republics in Donbass and announced the Russian SMO, which began on February 24th.

It was necessary, according to the report, to force Russia’s hand so that there would be a justification for a new round of sanctions against Russia, with the aim of forcing Putin to propose some sanctions of his own. Namely, the embargo of energy supplies to Europe via Nord Stream 1.

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Happier days. Schröder (far left), French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, Merkel, Medvedev, and others open the Nord Stream pipe in 2011. Photo: DW

Next, the report spends some time badmouthing Germany’s Green Party, which it refers to as “a strongly dogmatic, if not zealous, movement” which is easy to manipulate. It lambastes the leaders of the Green Party as “unprofessional” and unable “to admit their own mistakes in a timely manner,” citing the current foreign minister of Germany, Annalena Baerbock, and the climate minister, Robert Habeck, as examples.

“Thus,” the report continues, “it will be enough to quickly form the media image of Putin’s aggressive war to turn the Greens into ardent and hardline supporters of sanctions, ‘a party of war.’ It will enable the sanctions regime to be introduced without any obstacles.”

The report goes on to say that Germany’s supply of weapons to Ukraine will generate strong mistrust in Russia, lengthening any negotiations the two countries might engage in. And, “if war crimes and Russian aggression against Ukraine are confirmed, the German political leadership will not be able to overcome its EU partners’ veto on assistance to Ukraine and reinforced sanctions packages. This will ensure a sufficiently long gap in cooperation between Germany and Russia, which will make large German economic operators uncompetitive.”

And what has the media been talking about almost non-stop since Russia crossed over into the Donbass? Russian aggression and Russian war crimes, whether real or invented by a media complicit in this scheme.

Indeed, at a recent press conference in Prague, Baerbock stated, “We will stand with Ukraine, and this means that the sanctions will stay, also in winter time — even if it gets really tough for politicians.”

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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock pledges to support Ukraine despite any resistance from her own people, while speaking at the Forum 2000 conference in Prague on September 1. Photo: Ruptly

She didn’t mention the dire consequences which this will have on the German population or the population of the entire EU, perhaps a less pressing concern than the potential downfall of politicians like herself.

But never fear, the writers of this report are very concerned about the future of all the little people. In fact, you can almost feel their glee as they logically conclude that the halt of Russian energy supplies will be disastrous for German industries. “The need to divert significant amounts of Russian gas for winter heating of residential and public facilities will further exacerbate the shortages.”

The report predicts a “domino effect” beginning with lockdowns of major industries, followed by shortages of components and spare parts used in manufacturing, leading to a breakdown of logistic chains and finally, a “complete standstill at the largest in the chemical, metallurgical and machine-building plants,” as well as “the shutting down of continuous-cycle enterprises, which would mean their destruction.”

Sitting here, reading this, I can only shake my head in amazement at the cynical minds behind this report, which outlines the destruction of a foreign economy and war in a foreign land where real people are dying by the hundreds every day. Little children blown apart. Land mines everywhere. Bombs falling on civilian buildings killing men, women and children who just went to the market to buy groceries for dinner. But hey, as long as it helps the US economy, right? Well, not the part of the economy that benefits you and me, but at least the wealthiest among us will benefit, right?


September 19 attack on Donetsk city center. 13 killed including 2 children. Video courtesy Russell Bentley on Telegram: https://t.me/TXDPR/2181

When businesses and industries shut down, people lose their jobs. Children go without. People suffer. But I guess coming up with ways to destroy other people’s lives pays pretty well, doesn’t it? I bet the authors of this report laughed all the way to the bank, uncaring about how many thousands, or millions, of lives will be ruined by the war in Ukraine and the resulting economic fallout.

How do such people live with themselves? How do they sleep at night? But I digress…

The report estimates that Germany could hemorrhage as much as 200–300 billion Euros. “Not only will it deliver a devastating blow to the German economy, but the entire EU economy will inevitably collapse.” The report predicts a sustained recession and decline in the GDP of 3 to 4 percent over the next 5–6 years, leading to panic and collapse of financial markets.

“The euro will inevitably, and most likely irreversibly, fall below the dollar,” the report goes on glibly. “It will become a toxic currency, and all countries in the world will rapidly reduce its share in their forex reserves. The gap will be primarily filled with dollar and yuan.”

The report predicts a sharp drop in living standards and rising unemployment (between 200,000 and 400,000 out of work in Germany alone) which will lead to “the exodus of skilled labour and educated young people” to the United States. Well, how convenient! And as a side benefit, the report says, Americans will be distracted from their immediate financial worries and consolidated in such a way as to “reduce electoral risks.” For the Democratic party, I assume? We wouldn’t want any third parties or Republicans getting any crazy ideas about having democratically-run elections, now would we?

And what would the US gain from this calamity? Around 7–9 trillion dollars if everything goes according to this plan. Of course, you and I won’t be seeing any of that money. But I’m sure that the oligarchs will be rewarded handsomely.

“Unfortunately,” the report concludes, “China is also expected to benefit over the medium term from this emerging scenario.” But don’t worry, these guys have that all thought out, too. “At the same time, Europe’s deep political dependence on the US allows us to effectively neutralize possible attempts by individual European states to draw closer to China.”

Hear that? No one can be friends with China or the US will not be happy. And when the US is unhappy, it does things like this to its neighbors. So hurry up and fall into line, get with the program, and OBEY.

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A scene from the 1988 film “They Live”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... ngthen-us/

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Faina Savenkova
13-year-old on Ukrainian gov’t kill list speaks out: Video
By Max Blumenthal (Posted Sep 22, 2022)

Originally published: The Grayzone on September 13, 2022 (more by The Grayzone) |

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal speaks to Faina Savenkova, a 13-year-old resident of the Lugansk Republic who was placed on the Myrotvorets (Peacemaker) “kill list” of the Ukrainian government after she issued a call to the United Nations for an end to the war she has lived through since 2014.

Meera Terada also joins to provide background on the role of Myrotvorets in the killing of many journalists and doxxing of hundreds of children, and to identify the Ukrainian officials and public figures behind the disturbing website.



https://mronline.org/2022/09/22/13-year ... peaks-out/

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

***

Colonelcassad
Lukashenko said today that mobilization is not being carried out in Belarus and there are no plans to carry it out at the moment. Actually, he confirmed what they had already said before.
Now we are only talking about increasing the combat readiness of the Belarusian armed forces and the people's militia, the verification of which Batka recently initiated in the light of military threats emanating from the territory of Poland.

***

forwarded from
Grantoed.by
No longer a Belarusian, but an international house in Warsaw

We continue a series of investigations about organizations sponsoring Belarusian and Ukrainian criminals. The queue reached the "Belarusian House in Warsaw" .

Established in 2011, the Belarusian House in Warsaw performed various tasks. Either it acted as a cultural center, then as a gathering of oppositionists, then as a “government” in exile, but for all this time this organization has not been able to fulfill the main instruction of the West - to overthrow the incumbent President of Belarus. For its implementation, soft power was not enough, so the House began to create criminal armed groups, incl. to seize power in Belarus. Thus, the “Belarusian House in Warsaw” turned into a terrorist training center.

Using Ukraine as a training ground, the West is practicing new forms of struggle against countries that refuse to be puppets. Therefore, at the first suitable opportunity, "freedom fighters" trained by organizations such as the Belarusian House in Warsaw will be sent to Belarus.

***

Colonelcassad
❗️The situation in the east of Ukraine
by the end of September 22, 2022

🔻Border territories of the Russian Federation:

▪️Ukrainian formations fired at the village of Dvulichnoye and the Verigovka border crossing in the Valuysky district of the Belgorod region.

🔻Liman direction:

▪️In the morning, Ukrainian troops attempted to storm Liman from the south from the settlements of Dibrova and Shchurovo , but the RF Armed Forces managed to counterattack.

▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine made an attempt to encircle Liman from the north-western direction. The Ukrainian armored group broke through the front northwest of Liman . The enemy's motorized infantry advanced from the villages of Rubtsy and Lozovoe to the second line of defense of the RF Armed Forces in the area of ​​the villages of Redkoduba and Karlovka . The armored group was detected in a timely manner by means of aerial reconnaissance: a fire defeat was inflicted on it. Fighting is still going on in the fields between the villages of Karpovka and Lozovoe .

▪️In the vicinity of Drobyshevo , fighting for the settlement continues for the third day. Despite the lack of serious successes, the Ukrainian command intends to transfer additional reserves to the front.

▪️Additional forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as several MLRS installations, have been deployed to the Yarovaya area . Servicemen of the 103rd Terodefense Brigade arrived in the vicinity of Yampol .

🔻Bakhmutskoe (Artemovskoe) direction:

▪️The fighting in the area of ​​​​Disputed, Belogorovka, Verkhnekamensky acquired a positional character .

▪️In Bakhmut , units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine blew up a road bridge between the eastern and central parts of the city in order to stop the advance of the Wagner PMC units.

🔻Donetsk direction:

▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine are making regular unsuccessful counterattacks in the direction of the village of Peski from the side of Vodiane and Pervomaisky.

▪️Ukrainian formations again fired at the cities of the Donetsk agglomeration: the capital of the DPR , Yasinovataya, Gorlovka, Makeevka were hit .

🔻Zaporozhye direction:

▪️Artillery duels are taking place along the entire line of contact.

Image

***

forwarded from
Operation Z: Military commissars of the Russian Spring
0:45
0:29
‼️🇺🇦🇬🇧The enemy is advancing on the DPR, trying to surround Krasny Liman - the situation is dangerous
▪️Recently, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have built a number of pontoon crossings across the Seversky Donets and deployed considerable forces.
▪️In a number of places, the advanced positions on the front have been broken through, the enemy, a few kilometers from the Liman, is attacking in the direction of the settlement. Karpovka and Redkodub.
▪️The enemy is trying to inflict flank attacks and go to the rear, to cover the city, taking it in a half ring, but stumbles upon fierce resistance.
▪️Attacks on Drobyshevo reflect the "Russian Legion" of veterans of Donbass.
▪️In a number of areas, positions are held by BARS fighters and Russian motorized rifles.
▪️Artillery of the LPR and the “O” group is working on the advancing enemy forces, several crossings were destroyed .
▪️Russian special forces constantly collide on the flanks with enemy DRGs.
▪️American MLRS Himars hit our positions in the city.

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the main points during the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine on 19.08 Moscow time on 09/22/2022 especially for the Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok channel :
1. The enemy, having failed with a frontal assault on Krasny Liman and Drobyshev , relied on a breakthrough Oskol Front through N. p. Scars and Cow Yar . In the area of ​​Yarovaya and Korovy Yar , enemy DRGs are actively operating. The enemy launched an attack on the settlement today. Karpovka and Redkodub


, but was dropped. Nevertheless, the infiltration of enemy infantry between Rubtsy and Drobyshevo is noted .

2. In the area of ​​Artemovsk , the fortifications near the settlement continue to be hacked. Zaitsevo and the battles for Otradovka on the Artemovsk-Dzerzhinsk highway . There are fights in the industrial zone of Artemovsk . The enemy blew up the last bridge in the city, which looks like preparations for leaving the eastern part of Artemovsk .

3. They took Zhovanka in the Gorlovka region. Opportunities for advancement in the direction of Kurdyumovka are being probed .

4. On Fighting continues in the Seversk direction near Belogorovka and Disputed . The UAF did not succeed in a swift attack on Kremennaya and Novodruzhesk .
However, the ruins of the Disputable enemy are still holding.

5. On Avdeysky , Maryinsky, Ugledarsky, Zaporizhia direction - without significant changes. Positional battles continue
in the Nikolaev and Krivoy Rog directions. @voenkorKotenok

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******************

STATEMENTS BY PRESIDENT PUTIN AND THE RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: REVIEW
21 Sep 2022 , 2:07 pm .

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The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, during the speech on Wednesday, September 21 (Photo: AFP)

This Wednesday, September 21, just as the "Day of Military Glory of Russia" is celebrated to remember the victory of the Russians over the Tatars, Mongols and Lithuanians in 1380, President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu addressed the country and the region to deal with the situation in Donbás and the course of the conflict after the Special Military Operation in Ukraine.

Next, we present some keys of both speech.

He addressed all citizens of the country and the region, including the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, as well as the inhabitants of the Liberated Ukrainian Regions.
He referred to the necessary and imperative measures to protect the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Russia and support for those who want to vote to decide their incorporation into the Russian Federation.
He mentioned the desire of the "collective West" to divide Russia in order to weaken it, as they did in 1991 with the Soviet Union.
He also added that they are using Ukraine to promote Russophobia, terrorism and subsequently force entry into the federation.
He added that a special military operation was a necessity and the main objective of this operation: demilitarization, denazification and liberation of the entire Dombas from Nazism, remains unchanged.
He signed an Executive Order for the partial mobilization of the reserve in order to defend Russia and the liberated territories. That is why they call on those who have served in the armed forces and have experience. Mobilization will begin immediately.
The war economy is activated to achieve strategic goals: increase the production of weapons and military equipment.
Regarding the NATO nuclear threat against Russia, he recalled that the country also has different types of weapons, and some of them are more modern than those of NATO countries. In the event of a threat to the territory, they will use all weapons systems within reach.
For its part, the Russian defense minister provided other data from the war report and offered other technical details of the military operation.

The Russian army has had 5,973 casualties during the Special Military Operation in Ukraine (the figure excludes the Donetsk and Lugansk militias, as well as the Wagner private military company).
All Soviet weapons in the Ukraine were destroyed. Ukraine has lost half of its Army, they have approximately 61 thousand 207 dead and 49 thousand 368 wounded.
Russia is not only at war with Ukraine, but with the entire West. The entire NATO satellite constellation is working against Russia.
Ukraine fights with Western weapons, supplied in large quantities, and with them shoots civilians in Donbas and other regions.
Russia has a huge mobilization resource. Russia's total military reserve, people who have previously gone through military training, is 25 million. It also has the equipment to arm those forces.
This new phase of the Russian military operation, which is only a partial mobilization, is to face an enemy that is increasingly using all the human, technological, financial and military resources at its disposal. And this is not about Ukraine but about NATO and the whole western imperial machine.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/de ... uso-resena

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Sat Sep 24, 2022 12:00 pm

A new phase of the war
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/24/2022

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After months of impasse without major advances on the front and an absolute blockade on the diplomatic front, the last two weeks have caused a series of changes for which one can already speak of a new phase of the war. Although apparently less tectonic than those produced on February 24 with the start of the Russian military intervention, the current movements represent a new situation in both political and military terms. The origin of these changes can be traced back to the Russian and Republican failure to make progress in the Donetsk region this summer, failing even to move the front line away from the DPR capital, a constant and indiscriminately bombed for several months. However, the process of accepting that thespecial military operation has not achieved, nor was it going to achieve in its current format, only one of the initially proposed objectives has been accelerated by the successful offensive of the Ukrainian troops on the northern front.

The Ukrainian offensive in the Kharkov region, in the face of which the reinforcements sent by the Russian Federation could only cover the withdrawal, not only represent the loss of practically the entire Russian presence in the region or the confirmation that Russia does not have forces enough to capture the city -something already evident from the first hours of the military intervention in February-, but they call into question a large part of the military advances in Donbass, the main objective of the Russian intervention. The loss of Izium not only means giving up, in the medium term, an offensive on Slavyansk-Kramatorsk, rather, it implies the need to quickly regroup troops to defend the scarce republican presence in the north of the DPR -Ukraine continues to try to capture Krasny Liman and Svatovo and it is feasible that it will succeed in the coming days- and the ground gained in the RPL. Although Ukrainian advances have been limited since the weekend of 9-10 September, in which Ukraine recaptured a large amount of particularly dangerous territory potentially endangering Lisichansk or Severodonetsk, it cannot be said that the front has been stabilized. Ukraine still maintains the initiative at the front, something implicitly confirmed by the Russian announcement of partial mobilization.

Days after the proposal of the Communist Party, and especially of its leader, Gennady Ziuganov, to carry out a mobilization to alleviate the low number of military personnel in the conflict zone, was rejected in the Duma, Vladimir Putin signed this week the order of recruit 300,000 reservists with military experience and even combat experience in military sectors of special importance. It is not about looking for a conclusive victory, but about avoiding defeat.

Russia seeks to balance the forces - not in terms of equipment but in the size of their group - to maintain a front that extends over almost a thousand kilometers and in which attacks and offensives can take place in numerous areas. Wearing down Russian troops with attacks along the entire front has been precisely the tactic used by Ukraine in recent months. Although it has brought limited progress in the Kherson region, where kyiv has recaptured certain towns but remains some distance from the regional capital, Kharkov's success has exposed Russia's tactical and military weaknesses.

This discourse of Russian weakness - relative, taking into account that, despite the shortage of troops, Russia still maintains control over a large part of four regions in the south and east of Ukraine as well as Crimea - has been increased this week with the result of the exchange of prisoners that has taken place, with the delivery to Ukraine of more than 250 soldiers in exchange for a much smaller number of Russian and republican soldiers. Among the Ukrainian troops handed over, not to Ukraine but to a third country, were ten foreign citizens captured by Russia or the People's Republics, and the top commanders of the Azov regiment and the 36th Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine captured in Azovstal. In addition to surprise, the exchange has provoked outrage in large sectors of public opinion in Donbass and Russia,

Foreigners captured in the war, some of them sentenced to death, were transferred to Saudi Arabia. Without details about the negotiations, it is impossible to know if the different destination chosen for them is due, at least in part, to the legal problems that Aiden Aslin would have suffered due to his past in the Kurdish militias, in the second of the destinations, Turkey. There Redis , Kalina and Volina were transferred, possibly the most valuable prisoners Russia had. Prokopenko, Palamar and Volinsky must, if the agreement is fulfilled, remain in Turkey. For this, Russia counts on the personal guarantees of President Erdoğan, whose repeated attempts at mediation between Russia and Ukraine, largely in search of geopolitical benefit, have been successful in recent hours.

Faced with the silence of Russia, which has not explained to its population the reason for the surrender of such high-profile prisoners in exchange for a relatively small number of soldiers, nor if it was the fulfillment of an agreement reached at the time of the surrender, Ukraine has managed, without any difficulty, to present its version of events. On Wednesday morning, when the images of the Hero of Ukraine Denis Prokopenko and his entourage were released in Turkey, the Office of the President of Ukraine, in the mouth of Andriy Ermak, stated that Ukraine had exchanged 255 soldiers for Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the parliamentary opposition before the beginning of the Russian intervention and accused of high treason in a process that borders on farce. Despite having stated in the past that Russia was not seeking to exchange Medvedchuk, Ukrainian citizen, by prisoners of war, on Wednesday it was confirmed that his name was on the list of exchanged persons. Of course, along with 55 Russian soldiers who returned home. Since the exchange, only Denis Pushilin has spoken out to defend the rescue of Viktor Medvedchuk, which has raised particularly negative opinions in Donbass. The leader of the DPR has highlighted the mediation of the Ukrainian politician in the prisoner exchange processes throughout the years of war between Donbass and Ukraine.

In this context of losing the initiative at the front and completely losing the information battle, Russia is now trying to calibrate its forces, strengthen its grouping and redefine its objectives. Although the objectives of denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine continue to be publicly maintained , it seems clear that Russia does not have the necessary strength to force Kiev and its allies to comply with any demands. But what reveals the failure of the Russian intervention in the format of a special military operation is not these abstract and unattainable objectives, but the fact that in these more than six months Russia has not managed to recover the entire Donetsk region and that part of those territorial gains in Donbass are now in question.

That is why President Putin insisted this week, in his appearance to the nation, that the protection of Donbass is the main objective of the Russian intervention in what everyone already admits is a war, although, in reality, it already was. since the spring of 2014. The insistence on focusing the objectives on Donbass and the hasty call for referenda on accession to Russia, a process that began yesterday in the DPR, RPL and areas of Kherson and Zaporozhie under Russian control, really mark the current objectives of Russian policy in Ukraine. Moscow seeks to increase its grouping not in search of a victory, a territorial advance towards the dream of Odessa, but to stabilize and defend the front in its current form with the sole exception of the DPR. It's there,

The result of the referendums will mark the territory that Russia has decided to defend. With the example of Crimea, it can be expected that these regions will quickly become part of the Russian Federation, an annexation that will not be accepted by the West or even by kyiv, which has already stated that the "farce" of referendums will not change the situation. However, from the Russian point of view, any attack against these regions will be an attack against Russian territory, which Moscow will be legally obliged to defend, so any offensive on these territories will necessarily involve an escalation, be it military or political. As President Vladimir Putin recalled, in a thinly veiled threat, threats to the integrity of the State are one of the assumptions that Russian nuclear doctrine provides for the possibility of using this type of weapon.

Unlike eight years ago in Crimea, when Ukraine did not have the social or military force to confront the fait accompli and the population was able to celebrate the result of the referendum and its accession to Russia, the DPR and the LPR are now experiencing a accelerated process after many years of waiting. But with the front lines just a few kilometers, if not meters away, and exposed to long-range artillery fire from Ukraine, the citizens of Donetsk and Lugansk will hardly be able to celebrate something they have been waiting for many years.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/24/25564/#more-25564

Google Translator

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Rekindling Its Iraq WMD Fiasco The New York Times Is Back At Printing 'Officials Said'
At first I wondered why the New York Times homepage editor would put a piece about Putin and his alleged involvement in war strategy under 'U.S. Politics'.

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But after reading

As Russian Losses Mount in Ukraine, Putin Gets More Involved in War Strategy

I understand the qualification.

Some quotes:

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has [...], American officials said, ...
American officials briefed on highly sensitive intelligence said ...

... his involvement has created tensions, American officials said.

The officials said ...

..., Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview on Friday.

... is to both sides, American officials said.

Some American officials said they saw trouble ahead ...

A senior U.S. official said this week ...

...could eventually be threatened, American officials said.

Senior Russian officers repeatedly questioned [...], American officials said, ...

The Russian officers believed [...], American officials said.

... focused on massive artillery barrages, American officials said.

... hit by Ukrainian fire, Ukrainian officials said.

... said Seth G. Jones, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

... said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a defense research institute in Arlington, Va.

..., U.S. officials say Mr. Putin believes ...

... American officials have said that Mr. Putin has not been given accurate information ...

Mr. Putin, an American official said, has opposed ...

..., American officials said Russian officers themselves are divided ...


Adding up we have:

anonymous American/U.S. official/s [said/have said/say]: 15 times,
named American semi-officials (Jones, Kofman): 2 times,
a named American official (Milley): 1 time,
anonymous Ukrainian officials: 1 time.
There are no other sources in the piece.


Would you believe that it took 4 (FOUR) NYT 'reporters', Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Michael Schwirtz, to stenograph that nonsense?

A lot of anonymous American officials said that the U.S. was winning its wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan etc. Anonymous American officials said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The NYT printed all those false claims without providing evidence for their veracity.

There was some agonizing after the Iraq WMD claims turned out to be false. The NYT and other media promised to do better and to restrict the use of anonymous sources:

Under our guidelines, anonymous sources should be used only for information that we think is newsworthy and credible, and that we are not able to report any other way.
...
We understand readers’ wariness, but many important stories in sensitive areas like politics, national security and business could never be reported if we banned anonymous sourcing. Sources often fear for their jobs or business relationships — sometimes even for their safety.
Those anonymous American officials quoted in the above NYT piece are distributing 'newsworthy' and 'credible' information? Even some they very obviously have no way to obtain ('Mr. Putin believes ...')? They must be fearing for their jobs and safety when they reveal the secrets of Putin's believes to those assiduous NYT 'reporters'?


Or its all just another bunch of lies. Not only what the American officials say but also what the NYT claims to be. The above piece is not the result of journalism by independent media but the outcome of intense collaboration between a quasi state organ and the Biden administration. It is an information operation waged against its own people and propaganda for a real war waged against Russia.

Why do they expect anyone to pay for this dreck?

Posted by b on September 24, 2022 at 7:50 UTC | Permalink

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Statement by Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, at the UN Security Council Meeting on Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

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Madam President,

Excellencies,

Colleagues,

As I understand, today’s meeting was motivated by the desire of some delegations to discuss the topic of “impunity” in Ukraine. I think this is very timely. It is a term that fully reflects what has been happening in this country since 2014. National-radical forces, outright Russophobes and neo-Nazis then came to power as a result of an armed coup with the direct support of Western countries. Immediately afterwards, they embarked on a path of lawlessness and total disregard for basic human rights and freedoms – the right to life, freedom of speech, access to information, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and use of one’s native language.

The crimes on the Maidan in February 2014 are still unpunished. The perpetrators of the monstrous tragedy in Odessa on May 2, 2014, when about 50 people were burned alive and killed in the local Trade Union House, have not been found or punished. The political murders of O.A. Buzina, P.G. Sheremet and other public figures and journalists are also part of this list. Despite this, they are trying to impose a completely different narrative on us today about Russian aggression as the primary cause of all the troubles.

This ignores the fact that for more than eight years the Ukrainian army and militia of nationalist formations have been killing and murdering residents of Donbass with impunity simply because they refused to recognize the results of the criminal, bloody, anti-constitutional coup d’etat in Kyiv and decided to stand up for their rights guaranteed by the Ukrainian Constitution, including the right to freely use their native Russian language.

Recall how in 2015 then-Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said that “non-humans” lived in Donbass. Current President V.A. Zelensky did not go far from him either. In an interview in September 2021, when asked what he thought of the people living in Donbass, he said that there are people and there are “creatures,” “specimens. This is a persistent characteristic of the Ukrainian regime, both under Poroshenko and Zelensky.

They declared all those who disagreed with the results of the coup d’etat to be terrorists. For eight years, the Kiev regime conducted a “military operation” against civilians. In Ukraine, a total mobilization of the entire adult population, including women, has been carried out for years to recruit them into nationalist battalions and the AFU.

While hypocritically claiming to be committed to the Minsk agreements, the Kiev authorities have openly and with impunity sabotaged their implementation. A financial, transport and energy blockade of Donbas has been imposed. Residents of the region were cut off from social benefits, pensions, salaries, banking services, communications, education and health care. They were deprived of basic civil rights, including those guaranteed by the 1966 International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights.

At one point, tired of pretending, Zelensky declared that the Minsk “Package of Measures” was needed only to maintain the sanctions imposed on Russia. His predecessor and co-author of the Minsk agreements, Poroshenko, was even more outspoken. A couple of months ago, he publicly and proudly stated that neither he nor anyone in Ukraine was going to implement these agreements he had signed. They were only needed to buy time to obtain weapons from Western countries for the war with the Russian Federation. The Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, A.M. Danilov, spoke in the same vein.

The Kiev regime owes its own impunity to its Western handlers, primarily Germany and France, and, of course, to the United States. Instead of demanding that the leadership in Kyiv implement the Minsk agreements, Berlin and Paris cynically turned a blind eye to Kyiv’s open threats to solve the “Donbas problem” by force – the so-called Plan B.

In recent years, the Kiev regime has waged an all-out, frontal attack on the Russian language. It has infringed on the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking population of Ukraine with impunity. Scandalous “language” laws were passed – “On Education” (2017), “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language” (2019), “On Full General Secondary Education” (2020), “On the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” (2021). All of them were aimed at displacing the Russian language and, in fact, at its complete prohibition.

At the same time, laws encouraging the theory and practice of Nazism were passed. Kyiv ignored the timid recommendations of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities to rectify the language legislation. In turn, these multilateral structures did not find the courage (maybe they simply were not allowed) to encourage the Ukrainian authorities to fulfill their international obligations in the area of human rights.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Education has excluded the Russian language and Russian literature from the school curriculum. Books in Russian are banned and destroyed, as in Nazi Germany, and monuments to Russian writers are destroyed.

With state support, an ideology of national intolerance towards ethnic Russians is being implanted. Today, the country’s officials are no longer ashamed of their Nazi identity and openly and with impunity call for the murder of Russian people.

Here are a few examples. The ambassador of Ukraine in Kazakhstan P.J. Vrublevsky, now being in Kiev, in interview on August 22 of this year stated the following: “We try to kill them (Russians) as much as possible. The more we kill Russians now, the less our children will have to kill. That’s all.” Has anyone paid attention to this? Earlier, last spring, the mayor of Dnieper, B. A. Filatov, spoke in the same spirit: “The time for cold rage has come. Now we have a full moral right to calmly and with a completely unclouded mind to kill these beasts all over the world, indefinitely and in the largest possible quantity”. On September 13 this year, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, A.M. Danilov, stated: “In those settlements where the AFU enters, residents will be Ukrainianized without regard to their opinions. This will affect not only Russians, but also members of other nationalities. If you have a desire to study in any other languages, Romanian, Polish, Hebrew, you are welcome, but not at the expense of our state, you can improve your education at your own expense.

Needless to say, all of these Russophobic antics have gone completely unpunished. It’s not just about Russophobia. He spoke out about the representatives of other nationalities living in Ukraine.

The apotheosis was Zelensky’s interview of August 5, 2021, in which he advised everyone who feels like a Russian to go to Russia for the good of his children and grandchildren.

It seems to me that the decisions now made by the inhabitants of a number of regions of Ukraine to hold referendums are an answer to his wishes.

Under the “guise” of combating “Russian aggression” and “separatism,” the persecution of dissidents in Ukraine is intensifying. In March of this year, 11 political parties were banned under the pretext of their “ties to Russia. Leading opposition TV channels in Russian have been shut down for a long time. Websites undesirable to the government have been blocked. Journalists are persecuted for attempting to give an alternative view to the official one. A prominent Ukrainian social activist, E.Berezhnaya, who has repeatedly spoken at the United Nations and the OSCE about the rise of neo-Nazism in Ukraine, is being held in the SBU.

We have no doubt that Ukraine has finally turned into a totalitarian Nazi state, where the norms of international humanitarian law are flouted with impunity. It is not surprising that the Ukrainian armed forces and nationalist battalions are employing terrorist tactics, using civilians as human shields.

Against this background, the position of those States that pump Ukraine with weapons and military equipment and train the Ukrainian armed forces is particularly cynical. The goal is obvious (they are not hiding it, but declaring it): to prolong hostilities as long as possible, despite the casualties and destruction, in order to deplete and weaken Russia. Such a line means the direct involvement of Western countries in the Ukrainian conflict, making them a party to it. The deliberate fomenting of this conflict by the “collective West” also goes unpunished. Indeed, they will not punish themselves.

We have no illusions that today the Russian Armed Forces and the DNR and LNR militias are confronted not only by the neo-Nazi formations of the Kiev regime, but also by the military machine of the “collective” West. In real time, using modern systems, aircraft, ships, satellites, strategic drones, NATO supplies the AFU with intelligence, suggesting that Russia should be defeated on the battlefield (as explicitly stated by EU officials) and deprived of any sovereignty as punishment. This is no longer latent racism, but the most blatant.

Against the background of massive shelling of settlements in Donbass, V.A. Zelensky rejoices over the effectiveness of Western weapons. Here is his quote: “At last it feels that the Western artillery, the weapons we received from our partners, are working very powerfully. Its accuracy is really as it needs to be,” the leader of this state formation cynically declared. At the same time, no military or strategic targets in the shelled settlements were hit. The civilians of Donbass are suffering.

Since late July of this year, the Ukrainian armed forces have been remotely mining the center of Donetsk and its suburbs with prohibited “Lepestok” anti-personnel mines. Their use grossly violates the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines, ratified by Ukraine in 2005, as well as the Second Protocol to the Geneva Convention on Conventional Weapons (prohibiting mines without self-destructors).

Such atrocities became possible and remain unpunished because the United States and its allies, with the connivance of international human rights institutions, have been systematically covering up the crimes of the Kiev regime for eight years, building their policy toward Zelensky on the well-known American principle: “he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch”.

The inconvenient truth overshadowing the bright image of Ukraine as a victim of Russian aggression is diligently glossed over and sometimes blatantly omitted. Even the Western human rights organization Amnesty International, which can hardly be suspected of being sympathetic to Russia, has been severely criticized and listed as Kremlin agents. Only because in its report it confirmed the well-known facts that Kyiv was stationing combat positions and heavy weapons at civilian sites.

The criminal shelling of the Zaporizhzhya NPP (ZNPP) by militants of the Kiev regime, which creates risks of a nuclear catastrophe, remains unpunished. This is despite the fact that since September 1 this year, members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been permanently present at the plant and it is very easy to identify the side responsible for the shelling.

Let me remind you that the IAEA visit to the Zaporizhzhia NPP was artificially delayed, because already on June 3 this year all the details had been coordinated and the mission could have gone there without any delays. Then an unseemly situation arose when the Security Department of the UN Secretariat refused to “give its approval” to the specific route agreed upon by Russia and the Agency. Then it began to declare that the IAEA would determine all the parameters of the mission on its own. This unscrupulous undertaking delayed the visit of the Agency’s mission to ZNPP for three months.

We are seriously concerned about the fate of Russian servicemen who have fallen into the hands of Ukrainian nationalists. There is ample evidence of their ill-treatment, including summary executions, in violation of the requirements of international humanitarian law. I am sure that those who are interested in the real events in Ukraine have seen video footage of Ukrainian Nazis massacring Russian prisoners of war, who were thrown on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the head. Have any of the countries represented here commented on this crime?

We have plenty of evidence of these and other criminal acts of the Kiev regime that have been regularly committed since 2014. The Russian law enforcement authorities, in co-operation with their colleagues from the DNR and LNR, are carefully recording and investigating the facts of the crimes. The involvement of more than 220 persons, including representatives of the senior command of the Ukrainian armed forces and commanders of military units that shelled civilians, has been established. Criminal cases are being investigated against citizens of Great Britain, Canada, the USA and the Netherlands for mercenary and criminal activities in Ukraine. I assure you that all the perpetrators, regardless of their nationality, will be brought to justice.

Once again I would like to draw your attention to the following. When the Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul at the end of March this year practically agreed to the settlement parameters proposed by Kyiv, a couple of days later there was a tragedy in Bucha. No one doubts that it was staged. Immediately after this staged incident, our Western colleagues raised hysteria and imposed a new package of sanctions against the Russian Federation, accusing us of killing civilians. Since then, when this propaganda effect was realized, no one recalls the settlement of Bucha. Except us. I appeal once again in the presence of the Secretary General and respected ministers: please make the Ukrainian authorities take an elementary step – to publish the names of the people whose corpses were shown in the settlement of Bucha. I have been asking for this for months. No one hears it and does not want to respond.

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

At least you use your authority, please. I think it will be useful for everyone to deal with this episode.

We have noticed the increased activity of international justice with regard to Ukraine. Certain “efforts” are being advertised to investigate crimes in Ukraine attributed to the Russian military. This is all of a contractual nature. We can see this perfectly well.

Neither the bloody coup in Kiev in 2014, nor the tragedy in Odessa on May 2, 2014, nor the shelling of peaceful towns in Donbass, nor the bombing of Luhansk by airplanes on June 2, 2014, and many other facts have not given rise to any clear reaction from the International Criminal Court (ICC). More than 3,000 reports of crimes against residents of Donbas have been sent to the ICC. There has been no reaction. Apparently, the leadership of this “judicial body” has now received a command “from above” for them to develop a storm of activity. We have no confidence in this body. For eight long years we have been waiting in vain for the fight against impunity to begin in Ukraine. We no longer expect justice from this and a number of other international institutions. The time of waiting is over.

Everything I have said confirms once again that the decision to conduct a special military operation was inevitable. We have spoken about this more than once. We have presented a huge number of facts that show how Ukraine was preparing to play the anti-Russian role, a springboard for creating and implementing threats against Russian security. I can assure you that we will not allow this to happen.

UNOFFICIAL TRANSLATION

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... n-ukraine/

From ‘Special Military Operation’ to Open War
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 22, 2022
Gilbert Doctorow


Significance of the referendums in Donbas, Kherson and Zaporozhie

The televised speech yesterday morning by Vladimir Putin and the follow-up remarks by his Minister of Defense Shoigu announcing the partial mobilization of Russia’s army reserves to add a total of 300,000 men to the military campaign in Ukraine have been widely reported in the Western press. Plans to hold referendums on accession to the Russian Federation in the Donbas republics this weekend and also in the Kherson and Zaporozhie oblasts in the very near future also were reported by the Western press. However, as is very commonly the case, the interrelationship of these two developments has not been seen, or, if seen, has not been shared with the general public. Since precisely this interrelationship has been highlighted on Russian state television talk shows these past two days, I use this opportunity to bring to my readership the key facts on what turn the ongoing conflict in Ukraine will now take and an updated view of when it will end and with what results.

The very idea of referendums in the Donbas has been ridiculed by mainstream media in the United States and Europe. They are denounced as ‘sham’ and we are told that the results will not be recognized. In fact, the Kremlin does not at all care whether the results are recognized as valid in the West. Their logic lies elsewhere. As for the Russian public, the only critical remark about the referendums has been about the timing, with even some patriotic folks saying openly that it is too early to hold the vote given that the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Zaporozhie and Kherson oblasts have not yet been fully ‘liberated.’ Here too, the logic of these votes lies elsewhere.

It is a foregone conclusion that the Donbas republics and other territories of Ukraine now under Russian occupation will vote to join the Russian Federation. In the case of Donetsk and Lugansk, it was only under pressure from Moscow that their 2014 referendums were about declaring sovereignty and not about becoming part of Russia. Such annexation or merger was not welcomed by the Kremlin back then because Russia was not ready to face the expected massive economic, political and military attack from the West which would have followed. Today, Moscow is more than ready: indeed it has survived very well all the economic sanctions imposed by the West from even before 24 February as well as the ever growing supply to Ukraine of military materiel and ‘advisers’ from the NATO countries.

The vote over joining Russia will likely hit 90% or more in favor. What will immediately follow on the Russian side is also perfectly clear: within hours of the declaration of referendum results, the Russian State Duma will pass a bill on ‘reunification’ of these territories with Russia and within a day or so, it will be approved by the upper chamber of parliament and immediately thereafter the bill will be signed into law by President Putin.

Looking past his service as a KGB intelligence operative, which is all that Western “Russia specialists” go on about endlessly in their articles and books, let us also remember Vladimir Putin’s law degree. As President, he has systematically stayed within domestic and international law. He will do so now. Unlike his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin has not ruled by presidential decree; he has ruled by laws promulgated by a bicameral parliament constituted from several parties. He has ruled in keeping with international law promulgated by the United Nations. UN law speaks for the sanctity of territorial integrity of Member States; but UN law also speaks of the sanctity of self-determination of peoples.

What follows from the formal merger of these territories with Russia? That is also perfectly clear. As integral parts of Russia, any attack on them, and there certainly will be such attacks coming from the Ukrainian armed forces, is a casus belli. But even before that, the referendums have been preceded by the announcement of mobilization, which points directly to what Russia will do further if developments on the field of battle so requires. Progressive phases of mobilization will be justified to the Russian public as necessary to defend the borders of the Russian Federation from attack by NATO.

The merger of the Russia-occupied Ukrainian territories with the Russian Federation will mark the end of the ‘special military operation.’ An SMO is not something you conduct on your own territory, as panelists on the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show remarked a couple of days ago. It marks the beginning of open war on Ukraine with the objective of the enemy’s unconditional capitulation. This will likely entail the removal of the civil and military leadership and, very likely, the dismemberment of Ukraine. After all, the Kremlin warned more than a year ago that the US-dictated course of NATO membership for Ukraine will result in its loss of statehood. However, these particular objectives were not declared up to now; the SMO was about defending the Donbas against genocide and about de-nazification of Ukraine, itself a rather vague concept.

Adding another 300,000 men at arms to the force deployed by Russia in Ukraine represents a near doubling and surely will address the shortages of infantry numbers that has limited Russia’s ability to ‘conquer’ Ukraine. It was precisely lack of boots on the ground that explains Russia’s painful and embarrassing withdrawal from the Kharkov region in the past two weeks. They could not resist the massive concentration of Ukrainian forces against their own thinly guarded hold on the region. The strategic value of the Ukrainian win is questionable, but it greatly enhanced their morale, which is a major factor in the outcome of any war. The Kremlin could not ignore this.

At the press conference in Samarkand last week following the end of the annual gathering of heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Vladimir Putin was asked why he has shown so much restraint in the face of the Ukrainian counter offensive. He replied that the Russian attacks on Ukrainian electricity generating plants which followed the loss of the Kharkov territory were just ‘warning shots’ and there would be much more ‘impactful’ action to come. Accordingly, as Russia moves from SMO to open war, we may expect massive destruction of Ukrainian civil as well as military infrastructure to fully block all movement of Western supplied arms from points of delivery in the Lvov region and other borders to the front lines. We may eventually expect bombing and destruction of Ukraine’s centers of decision-making in Kiev.

As for further Western intervention, Western media have picked up on President Putin’s thinly veiled nuclear threat to potential co-belligerents. Russia has explicitly stated that any aggression against its own security and territorial integrity, such as has been raised by generals in retirement in the USA speaking to national television in the past several weeks about Russia’s break-up, will be met by a nuclear response. When Russia’s nuclear threat is directed at Washington, as is now the case, rather than at Kiev or Brussels, the supposition till now, it is unlikely that policy makers on Capitol Hill will long remain cavalier about Russian military capabilities and pursue further escalation.

In light of all these developments, I am compelled to revise my appreciation of what transpired at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting. Western media have focused full attention on only one issue: the supposed friction between Russia and its main global friends, India and China, over its war in Ukraine. That seemed to me to be grossly exaggerated. Now it appears to be utter nonsense. It is inconceivable that Putin did not discuss with Xi and Modi what he is about to do in Ukraine. If Russia indeed now supplies to its war effort a far greater part of its military potential, then it is entirely reasonable to expect the war to end with Russian victory by 31 December of this year as the Kremlin appears to have pledged to its loyal supporters.

Looking beyond Ukraine’s possible loss of statehood, a Russian victory will mean more than an Afghanistan-like bloody nose for Washington. It will expose the low value of the U.S. military umbrella for EU member states and will necessarily lead to re-evaluation of Europe’s security architecture, which is what the Russians were demanding before their incursion into Ukraine was launched in February.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... -open-war/

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The Donbass referendum and the blood on Biden’s hands
September 23, 2022 Melinda Butterfield

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The husk of a Donetsk bus destroyed by Ukrainian artillery on Sept. 22. Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old. Photo: Donetsk News Agency

On Sept. 21, U.S. President Joe Biden stood before the 77th United Nations General Assembly and said with a straight face: “If nations can pursue their imperial ambitions without consequences, then we put at risk everything this very institution stands for … You cannot seize a nation’s territory by force.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines projection as “the unconscious transfer of one’s own desires or emotions to another.” Or, in this case, one’s own actions.

Biden’s remarks were subject to widespread ridicule on social media. But many people who recognize the hypocrisy of a U.S. president condemning others’ alleged “imperial ambitions” may not fully understand how this slander was directed at the embattled people of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) of the Donbass region, who have been subject to eight and half years of unrelenting war since the 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup in Ukraine.

While Biden was in New York gracing world leaders with his comedy stylings and attempting to whip up a new wave of war frenzy against Russia and China, activists from around the U.S. gathered in Austin, Texas, to protest a conference of the biggest U.S. military-industrial corporations, including Raytheon Technologies, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.

Ukrainian president, U.S. tool, and war criminal Volodymyr Zelensky was the invited guest of honor of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). He only appeared virtually, but Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Volodymyr Havrylov was in Austin. Havrylov joined the chorus of U.S. officials and billionaire war profiteers, encouraging an unprecedented speedup of weapons production (and profits).

The Biden administration and Congress have committed $70 billion in war aid to Ukraine so far this year.

Thanks to these esteemed folks, on Monday, Sept. 19, another awful massacre occurred in Donetsk, the capital city of the Donetsk People’s Republic. At least nine people were killed and five more wounded when a Ukrainian shell hit a bus stop and destroyed a nearby market. As usual, the target was an entirely civilian area.

At first, rescue workers thought more people had been killed, Donetsk News Agency reported, “due to the large number of body fragments.”

On Tuesday, Sept. 20, a school and several residential buildings in Donetsk were damaged by Ukrainian fire. A civilian was wounded. The next day, a hospital was hit, wounding three.

Now it’s Thursday, Sept. 22. Another mass slaughter of civilians in Donetsk. “Kiev gunmen delivered artillery fire from the occupied town of Orlovka using 155mm projectiles which impacted near the Central Indoor Market building and flower shops and hit the Route 38 mini-bus. Six people, including a 14-year-old girl, were killed, and another six were wounded in the shelling, according to the latest reports.”

In the Lugansk People’s Republic, cities like Alchevsk that had been largely spared from attacks in recent months are now being routinely attacked by Kiev, using long-range weapons provided by the U.S. and other NATO powers. Svatovo, Novoaidar, and Troitskoye were all hit by U.S. high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) this week.

Referendum to join Russian Federation

This is the backdrop for the decision to hold a referendum for the DPR and LPR to join the Russian Federation. The referendum is being organized quickly, on an emergency basis, and will be held over five days from Sept. 23-27. Residents of the liberated Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine will also have the opportunity to vote.

All of these regions, along with Kharkov and Odessa, rose against the fascist-led, U.S.-sponsored coup regime in the spring of 2014. Mass movements in each region declared their intentions to proclaim people’s republics. Only Donetsk and Lugansk were able to successfully resist being crushed by the Ukrainian military and neo-Nazi gangs. Anti-fascists in those areas were forced into exile, imprisoned, killed, or driven underground.

The United States pressed Ukraine to launch a new offensive against the Donbass starting in late 2021 – a deliberate provocation to draw Russia into a military conflict with the NATO military alliance. In February, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Militias and the Russian Armed Forces united in a special military operation to protect the Donbass republics and de-Nazify Ukraine. Today many Ukrainian anti-fascists fight in the ranks of the Donbass militias.

A movement for a referendum on joining the Russian Federation has been growing in the Donbass republics for several years. It’s not something the Russian government wanted; Russian President Vladimir Putin resisted these calls in the interests of a negotiated agreement with Ukraine and its Western sponsors. But the U.S. rulers weren’t interested in a negotiated settlement — they wanted war.

If, as expected, the referendum is successful, the Russian government has signaled that it will accept the vote and incorporate the DPR and LPR as soon as October 1.

The decision to join the Russian Federation may not be ideal from a political standpoint and certainly was not the goal of many of the communists and socialists who inspired the independence struggle of 2014. But it is driven by necessity.

Stronger defense for Donbass

Under the Russian Constitution, once the DPR and LPR are part of the federation, Russia will have a much stronger basis to defend those areas and respond to the Ukrainian-NATO attacks, including exercising its nuclear deterrent. The republics will maintain their names and enter the federation as autonomous republics, as Crimea did in 2014.

The recent military setback for the anti-fascist alliance in Ukraine’s Kharkov region and subsequent attempts by the Ukrainian military to break into the DPR and LPR have created enormous anxiety for the people of Donbass, who face genocide in the event of a Ukrainian takeover. This has been the stated policy of not only the hardened fascist battalions like Aidar and Azov but even of high officials in Kiev for the last eight-plus years.

On Sept. 21, President Putin made a national address to present a decree on a partial military mobilization (draft). Up to 300,000 people are to be called up to protect Russian territory from NATO aggression, which will soon include the DPR and LPR. It appears that the Russian government has now accepted the fact that there will be a prolonged state of war with the imperialist West.

We can expect these new defensive measures to be met with a new wave of anti-Russia war propaganda heading into the midterm U.S. elections, on a par with the witch-hunt against all things Russia earlier this year. This is likely to have an impact on the politically weak sections of the anti-war movement here. It is incumbent on principled anti-imperialists and socialist workers to meet this challenge with courage and political clarity.

Victory to the Donbass republics, Ukrainian anti-fascists, and their allies!

Defeat U.S./NATO imperialism and its Ukrainian proxies!

End the New Cold War against Donbass, Russia, and China!

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... ens-hands/

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Idiots Are Just Discovering That This War Is Dangerous: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

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Everyone who acts like it’s a new and unprecedented horror whenever Putin reminds the west that Mutually Assured Destruction still stands is just admitting that they never understood what’s at stake in this proxy war and always thought this was some kind of fucking game.

“Oh my God, he’s saying he might use nukes!” Yeah that’s what happens when you start a war with a fucking nuclear-armed nation, dipshit. That’s why you’re a fucking moron for yelling at those of us who’ve been calling for de-escalation and detente. Change how you are. Stop cheerleading this insane game of nuclear chicken and begin calling for de-escalation.

It’s so crazy how people pretend the US wouldn’t use nukes in response to the exact same type of attacks that Putin is warning against. Like we all know this isn’t some weird new threat that Vladimir Putin invented, right? Do we understand that this is the very reason antiwar activists have spent years warning against this exact confrontation and calling for detente instead?

This shouldn’t scan as something new for you. If Putin reiterating the longstanding principle of Mutually Assured Destruction makes you freak out like something new is being said, it’s because you didn’t pay attention in history class. If you were previously unaware that the threat of nuclear annihilation was baked into this proxy war from the very beginning, that just means it’s time to reassess your support for this proxy war.

Yes this situation is insanely dangerous. No that’s not because of anything Putin has been saying.



If you’re wondering why we’re seeing more war propaganda today than at any point since World War Two, a big part of it is because it’s going to take a tremendous amount of psychological manipulation to get people to accept the financial hardship that must inevitably befall them as part of the empire’s economic warfare against Russia. Only by ungodly amounts of propaganda would people consent to having their bank accounts emptied for a US proxy war that benefits them in no way and which places them at greater and greater risk of nuclear annihilation.



A truly free and liberal society would not use propaganda, censorship and information ops to manipulate the way the public thinks about a war, but if you criticize the way the western empire is using those exact measures you get a bunch of “liberals” defending their use.



Pretty wild how the US State Department stopped publishing its annual transparency reports about US government arms trafficking right when the US government began pouring billions of dollars into proxy warfare campaigns.



Watch all the western right wingers who’ve been stomping on women’s rights at home transform into a bunch of bra-burning feminists over women’s rights in Iran.



One of the craziest things happening in the world today is the way weapons manufacturers are allowed to pour money into corrupt think tanks who go on to directly influence the foreign policy and military budget decisions of the most powerful war machine that has ever existed.

War profiteers being allowed to successfully and very effectively lobby for more war is not morally different from slaughtering human beings at industrial scale and selling their organs; the only difference is the way the money gets made. If you kill people and sell their bodies you’ll be called a monster, but if you kill the same number of people for the same amount of money via weapons industry profits in weapons industry-lobbied wars, you’ll be called an industrious job creator.

This is allowed to continue because the US empire is fuelled by human blood. It’s a symbiotic relationship; neither the arms industry nor the empire can live without war, so any amount of corrupt lobbying for murder and destruction is not just tolerated but warmly welcomed.

It turns out it’s impossible to get the world to unite under a single power structure without violence and the threat thereof. So it’s only natural that an empire where there’s no clear separation of corporation and state would see war profiteers knit themselves into state power.



Future generations, if there are future generations, will scarcely be able to believe that it was once legal for corporations which directly profit from war and militarism to insert themselves into key points of influence and lobby — successfully — for more war and militarism.



People ignore politics because they perceive (correctly) that neither of their country’s two mainstream political factions cares about them, and because they perceive (incorrectly) that those two mainstream political factions are the only possible framework for political action.

A tremendous amount of perception management has gone in to getting people to buy into the absurd delusion that not only can status quo politics be used to change the status quo, but that it’s the only way to change the status quo. People stop ignoring politics when they learn there’s a whole meaningful reality underneath that delusion.

That’s when the apolitical majority becomes political. When their eyes open to the fact that (A) things are fucked, (B) the political system is rigged to make sure they stay fucked, and (C) that the political system is irrelevant because we vastly outnumber those who run it.



Humanity taking another step toward world war between nuclear superpowers is as good a time as any to reassess our priorities in life. What we think about, what we talk about, what we speak out about, where our attention gravitates, where we place our political energy, how we spend our time on this earth, and with whom.

Anyone who is interested in a sincere relationship with reality must take seriously the possibility that this could all be gone soon, and use that as a guidepost for how they spend their time and energy on this planet.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/09/22 ... ve-matrix/

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"Geranium" blossomed in Odessa
September 23, 15:34

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UAV "Geran-2" (a localized version of the Iranian kamikaze drone Shahed-136) confidently hit the target in the area of ​​the Odessa port.
Despite the relatively low speed and engine noise, the enemy failed to hit him with fire from the ground from machine guns and machine guns. Chaotic shooting only frightened the inhabitants of the city, while the drone phlegmatically passed over the city and hit the target.
This is the first use of "Geranium-2" in Odessa. The day before yesterday, in Ochakovo, the same drone destroyed a port tug.

Video:

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/64880
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/64881
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/64890
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/64891
https:// t.me/boris_rozhin/64896

Need more Geranium.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7879546.html

Kadyrov about evaders
September 23, 19:18

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Kadyrov about evaders.

I'm talking to you, deviant.
You can come up with different excuses. You can say that you don't support the current policy. You can come up with a fairy tale that the idea of ​​war and the concept of weapons are alien to you, or that you simply do not accept violence. But know that you are just a coward, a traitor and a second-class person.

When you need the state, you are a citizen with a capital letter, demanding that your rights be respected, and you love to point your finger at the second chapter of the Russian Constitution. When you want to expand your comfort zone, you are a patriot to the core.

But when the state needs your support and they give you a summons, who are you? No, you are not grateful to the state and a defender loyal to the people. You are an ordinary coward, a slave of your hare soul, leaving your relatives, friends, acquaintances, home, city ...
And no excuses will wash away this disgrace of yours, deviationist. You are even afraid to admit your cowardice.


(c) Kadyrov

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7880019.html

Geranium Day
September 23, 23:34

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1. Today has become the day of the most massive use of Iranian UAVs in several areas at once. This was an extremely unpleasant surprise for the enemy, who had already suffered significant losses from pinpoint strikes by kamikaze UAVs before.

2. Despite a couple of downed drones, several reached the target, destroying, among other things, one of the local decision-making centers in Odessa (the headquarters of the Naval Forces of Ukraine was hit). The object air defense, apparently, completely failed in this case.

3. It is important to understand that Iranian drones are consumables. They pay for themselves even if only a part reaches the goal due to the cheapness of their production, which is embedded in the very concept of Iranian UAVs, which provides for the possibility of their assembly even in the theater of operations itself, as is happening in Yemen.

4. Accordingly, if Russia has already established mass production of these machines, especially the Geranium-2, then due to the obvious weakness of the tactical air defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine spread over a huge front, their effectiveness will be no less than it was in Yemen, Syria and Iraq .

5. I certainly thank the Iranian comrades for their assistance. I believe that as a "goodwill gesture" (in the good sense of the word), it would be possible to declare the year of Russian-Iranian friendship in 2023-2024 or, say, to erect somewhere in Russia a monument to General Qassem Soleimani (the most popular Iranian hero, not counting Ayatollah Khomeini), who did a lot to develop the Iranian UAV program, not to mention the fact that it was largely thanks to him that Russia sent troops to Syria.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7880693.html

Turnout at referendums. Day 1
September 23, 21:37

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Turnout on the first day of voting in referendums on the accession of 4 regions of the former Ukraine to Russia:

DPR - 23.64%
LPR - 21.97%
Zaporozhye region - 20.52%
Kherson region - 15.31%

There are 4 more days of voting ahead.
It is clear that the turnout will be sufficient.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7880447.html

Google Translator

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Russia Mobilizes, Referendums Underway: What Will Change and Why?
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 23, 2022

[youtube]https://youtu.be/u3-Yv-Y-kR0[/youtube]

Update on Russian military operations in Ukraine for September 23, 2022

– Russia to mobilize 300,000 in addition to 150,000 already involved in operations in Ukraine;
– Russian Ministry of Defense announces nearly 6,000 Russian dead, 61,000 Ukrainian dead plus another 49,000 Ukrainians injured;
– Russian MoD claims Ukraine has mobilized 300,000 itself, losing 100,000 meaning it now faces some 450,000 Russian forces in the coming weeks and months;
– Referendums in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Lugansk to join the Russian Federation means future operations will significantly expand in intensity, quantity, and quality;
– This major escalation follows two very expensive offensives launched by Ukraine in what appears to have been an “all or nothing” move;

References:

President of Russia – Article by Vladimir Putin “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” (July 2021):http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president…
Michael Kofman (Twitter) – Thread on Mobilization:https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/sta…
TIME – Why Russian Support for the War in Ukraine Hasn’t Wavered (August 2022):https://time.com/6208238/why-russian-…
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – RUSSIA: POLLING FOR DEMOCRACY, THE YURI LEVADA ANALYTICAL CENTER:https://www.ned.org/democracy-story/r…
Washington Post – Wounded Ukrainian soldiers reveal steep toll of Kherson offensive: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/…
Sky News – Russian reserves are not trained for war – and Putin’s escalation could be ‘extremely dangerous’, military expert says: https://news.sky.com/story/russian-re…

Other sources covering the Russian mobilization:

The Duran – Point of no return w/Garland Nixon (Live) (includes comments on mobilization & prisoner exchange):https://youtu.be/gP5IHoegHMo
iEarlGrey – Mobilization Reaction. 300k Reserves To Ukraine. Flights Out Of Russia Sold Out:https://youtu.be/A8XOy6R2-gk
Mark Sleboda on Sputnik Radio – Putin’s National Address on Russian mobilization and referendums on joining Russia in east and south Ukraine:https://marksleboda.substack.com/p/in…
Gonzalo Lira – The Roundtable #22: Alex Christoforou, Larry Johnson, The New Atlas (on Mobilization and more):https://youtu.be/gfz4WeN8cEs

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... e-and-why/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Sun Sep 25, 2022 2:55 pm

waiting for winter
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/25/2022

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Original Article: Antifashist

The Russian press scoffs at how Europeans will freeze in winter after gas supplies through the Nord Stream are cut off. Sometimes it sounds funny, but keep in mind that the supply through Ukraine and the Turkish Stream continues. There are countries of the European Union in which panic is brewing among the population, whose governments want to limit the temperature in homes to 17-19 degrees. Personally, I don't care how Europeans spend the winter. Because in much of Donbass, the heating season may not start this year at all.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Jusnulin, who oversees the reconstruction of Mariupol, said in an interview that the city is 80% ready for winter. Under the message on the Telegram channel 250 comments from Mariupol residents appeared in one day. The vast majority write that their homes are not prepared for winter. Some are completely destroyed, others have no windows, electricity or running water.

Here is a sample of the most common messages:

*Cheriomuji, the single-family housing sector is not prepared for winter at all.
*Melamed Street: there is neither electricity nor gas.
*Without windows, batteries and roof. He's prepared?
*Komsomolsky Boulevard 48A, 50A: no windows, no water, and the cold is coming.
*Metalurgist, 83: not a single window in the house, no one has come to see.

I would like to see Jusnulin, see his reports and show him what has actually been done.

In our neighborhood of eight buildings, two cannot be rebuilt and another five are being managed, but there are no results yet. In one building, the roof is already being repaired. In August, some houses received water and in September the electrical system was connected. In my house there is a hole from a shell in the roof, an elevator is damaged and windows are broken on many floors. There is not a single double window in my apartment. Some are luckier and only have to replace one or two windows. In many, the windows are covered with plastic, but that will not save you from the cold. In the middle of August, they came to measure our windows. They promised to start the free replacement of the windows in the flats in mid-September. The production and delivery of windows from the Russian Federation takes about a month. We're waiting. There are still no windows, but its need persists. The situation is similar in many areas.

There are also, of course, houses that have hardly been affected by the bombing, mainly blocks 17, 21 and 23 of Najimov Avenue and the upper floors of the control. But that's not 80% of homes. Gas supply has not yet been restored to much of the housing and boiler rooms are damaged. Our boiler has survived, it has water, electricity and gas, but what kind of heating is there going to be with the broken windows. If the thermal circuits of the buildings are not restored, nobody is going to turn on the boilers to heat the environment.

In dwellings where the boilers are out of order, modular boilers have been promised to be installed in the buildings, but, again, it all depends on the glazing. In addition, it is necessary to check all floors to assess the conditions of the heating system. During the frosts in March, the pipes and batteries simply burst. In some houses, the system has been out of service and will be replaced by plastic pipes and metal batteries, but they have not yet arrived. The situation is complicated by the fact that no one lives in some flats. If the residents left their keys with the neighbors, it will be possible to enter. If not, it will have to be done in the presence of the police. The Russians may be bored reading these things, but for us the recovery of the heating system is a vital problem.

It is not clear what Jusnulin's message seeks. If it's for the Russian audience, what for? Among Mariupol residents, it has done nothing but cause a wave of outrage.

Actually, we understand everything. Russian builders are doing a lot to rebuild the city. The first three housing blocks have already been delivered in less than three months. There are more to come. But there is simply too little time to do all the work and to rebuild too many destroyed homes. By November, a thousand families who have lost their homes have been promised to be rehoused. But what about those whose houses have survived but have been left without windows?

There are many companies in the city willing to install double windows or single windows, but for money. A double window costs 3,000 rubles; a block of balconies, 20,000. Where are they going to get that money if pensions are 10,000 and men's salaries range between 12,000-30,000. Most of the women are out of work. Generally speaking, only one person per family receives a salary or a pension. The delivery of humanitarian aid has decreased and many cannot save on the purchase to invest in windows. And the cold is coming.

There was talk in the news that the heating was going to be turned on in Moscow on September 18. We have healthy envy of Muscovites. We'd like it to come on in November, but for many homes that's unrealistic.

This summer, many residents returned home. Those whose floors are intact can hope for a relatively warm winter if the boilers are brought back online. But what about those still living in basements or destroyed homes? Many houses in which several families continue to live are not going to be rebuilt, so no one is going to repair or heat them. They promise to relocate people from basements to bedrooms, but the question is whether there will be room for all of them. People are already leaving the city. Some go to Russia, others to Europe and a few go to Ukraine. In the local Telegram channels they talk about the increase in queues at the Russian border. The worsening on the front has also affected the population march. No panic yet

Mariupol is now deep in the rear and the situation here is much better than in Donetsk, Makeevka, Gorlovka and other DPR/PRL cities, constantly shelled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. NATO's long-range artillery and multiple rocket launchers make it possible to bombard the liberated territories of the DPR, as well as Kherson and the region. The number of damaged buildings increases every day. And there is another serious problem in the urban area of ​​Donetsk. There the water supply is interrupted and even the technical water is only supplied to the houses every three days. So there is nothing to fill the heating system with. The Ukrainians prevent the pumping station from being repaired.

The heating season may just not start in Donetsk. The situation is also difficult in Severodonetsk. If the repair of infrastructure and housing has been carried out in Mariupol since May, it has barely begun there. And there is still a significant number of civilians who will simply freeze in winter. Although, in reality, many will be cold throughout the Donbass territory.

There is something else. While Russian journalists and pundits laugh at Europe, things are not going so well in Russia either. Many localities do not have a centralized gas supply and the population is heated with firewood and coal. It is expensive to connect gas pipes, even if they are close by. The other day, I heard President Putin in a speech in which he talked about reducing the price of connection and giving subsidies to do so. Then I remembered Ukraine. After the declaration of independence, the Russian Federation continued to supply cheap gas to the country, continued to invest large amounts in the Ukrainian economy. That made it possible to connect gas even to remote areas. I worked in one of the district centers in the Rovno region. There medium pressure pipes were taken to all the streets in the mid-nineties and the population only had to pay for a small pipe, connect it to the system, install batteries and a boiler in their houses. It was done cheaply, so even pensioners could afford gas heating. I visited remote regions of Ternopil and Rovno where the gas was brought. And now, as thanks for this, the bandits bomb the territory of Russia. It may be time to stop the transit of gas through Ukrainian pipelines and stop financing the economy of enemies, both in Europe and in Ukraine, and remember the domestic market again.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/25/25571/#more-25571

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Putin’s ‘in earnest’ phase in Ukraine has begun
Originally published: Al Mayadeen on September 21, 2022 by Salam al-Obaidi (more by Al Mayadeen) | (Posted Sep 23, 2022)

On the 7th of past July, when Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with heads of Russian parliamentary blocs, said that Moscow hadn’t yet started its special military operation in Ukraine in earnest. Everyone assumed, especially in Western capitals, that he was hinting at an imminent military escalation by the Russian forces. But the two-and-a-half-month period that has passed since then has proved just the opposite. The Ukrainian forces, backed by new shipments of Western weapons, were the ones that initiated the military escalation.

Putin: “In general, Russia has not yet started in Ukraine in earnest”

The West was disappointed, and the offensive of the Ukrainian forces in Kharkov, Zaporozhye and Kherson was smothered, when the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions surprised everyone by announcing the organization of a referendum on their accession to the Russian Federation. These are precisely the earnest steps that Putin was referring to.

If the accession of Donetsk and Lugansk to Russia was a settled issue (but postponed since 2014 when the two republics held a referendum on secession from Ukraine), then the accession of Kherson and Zaporizhia to the Russian state is a strategic and geopolitical necessity in terms of militarily and logistically securing Crimea and connecting it to the Russian mainland.

Of course, this Russian preemptive step will force Ukraine to further its military escalation and NATO to increase military support to the Kiev regime. However, Moscow’s opponents will suddenly find themselves engaged in a war in Russian lands, not only de facto but legally as well. As Deputy Chairman of the Russian National Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said, this is why Kiev and the West are so afraid of these referendums.

Medvedev: “Encroachment onto Russian territory is a crime, and if committed, allows you to use all your force in self-defense”

Thus, the referendum is a strategic move that flips the balance of power in the Russian-NATO conflict in Russia’s favor and puts the collective West’s credibility at stake and in the face of two options: either retreat and enter into negotiations with Moscow on the security guarantees it requested before the outbreak of the crisis, or engage in further military escalation until reaching a direct clash with Russia. However, it is clear from the statements made by the Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, that the NATO Alliance is not in the process of waging a war against Russia, in which Europe will be its battlefield.

Bauer: “NATO is not at war with Russia. I have to be very clear about that.. If Russia would attack one of our allies, then it is absolutely clear, and we make that as clear as we can to Russia, that we would defend every inch of allied territory. Then Russia and NATO will be in a conflict. But until that moment, NATO is not at war with Russia.”

To be historically correct, during the bloody winter events in Ukraine in 2014, the Russian President warned his then-American counterpart, Barack Obama, that the West’s continued interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine and attempts to distance Ukraine from Russia would lead to the disintegration of this country, and it would open the appetite of Ukraine’s greedy neighbors to annex parts of it under claims that it historically belongs to them, such as Poland, Romania and Hungary.

It was the West that created and fueled the Ukrainian crisis for years, and it is hard to imagine that the decision-makers in NATO countries, along with their advisors and experts, were not able to foresee such a dramatic development that threatens to break up Ukraine. Is the demise of Ukraine a common target for Russia and its opponents?

https://mronline.org/2022/09/23/putins- ... has-begun/

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WHAT WILL HAPPEN AFTER THE MOBILIZATION OF THE RUSSIAN RESERVE, ORDERED BY THE KREMLIN
23 Sep 2022 , 2:51 pm .

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Russian troops during a parade in Moscow (Photo: Vitaly V. Kuzmin)

Last Wednesday, September 21, President Vladimir Putin signed an Executive Order for the partial mobilization of the reserve in order to defend Russia and the liberated territories. This new phase of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine could define the conflict and raises some questions.

Regarding all the questions that may arise, the military commissar Gennadiy Dubovoy on his Telegram channel predicted the development of the situation and here are some details of how and when the situation on the war fronts will change and what the results will be:

*Of the total reserve of 25 million, only 300 thousand will be called to arms. In addition, only those who are currently in the reserves and have certain military specialties and relevant experience will participate.
*Those called to military service will inevitably undergo additional military training.
*The influx of Russian volunteers in the active troops will increase. They are not obliged, but many are ready to participate in the final solution of the Ukrainian problem.
*Volunteers from neighboring countries - a law was passed on the simplified granting of Russian citizenship to foreigners who have signed a contract for military service. With a normal organization of the process, the formations of volunteers can increase half a million.
*Since the West will not recognize the liberated territories as Russian, the war will continue and then we will only have the option of crushing the entire military infrastructure and key industries, an American tactic.
*This must be carried out simultaneously with the second wave of mobilization, since the territory controlled by Ukraine will remain too large to ensure the density of our troop presence sufficient for the safety of the civilian population. They will have to go further, liberate the Nikolaev and Odessa regions in the south, and the Kirovograd, Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkov regions in the north, while continuing to plunge the rest of the "square" into darkness with air and missile strikes.
*"And we will get what I wrote in 2014: a compact Ukraine, devoid of high-tech companies and therefore the possibility of revenge, demilitarized and denazified."

https://misionverdad.com/que-pasara-tra ... el-kremlin

Google Translator

*************

To Be or Not to Be: One With Russia
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 23, 2022
Deborah L. Armstrong

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“REFERENDUM” sign taped to car windshield. Photo: Eva K. Bartlett

The right to hold free elections is one of the fundamentals of a democratic society, but it’s a freedom which has been outlawed in Nazi-controlled Ukraine where eleven opposition parties have been banned. In August, the Kiev regime warned that anyone who promotes or organizes referendums faces a staggering fifteen years behind bars.

But even such dire warnings could not stop citizens of the Kherson and Zaporozhe regions nor those from the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, who began voting in earnest Friday on whether or not to become republics of the Russian Federation.

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Sample Ballot. “Are you in favor of the Donetsk People’s Republic becoming part of the Russian Federation as a subordinate republic of the Russian Federation? Yes/No” Photo: RIA Novosti

According to Canadian correspondent Eva K. Bartlett, who was in Kalinskiy district when the voting started, the process is simple and straight-forward. People show their ID, write their home address, get a ballot and vote “yes” or “no.”

“Of course, western pundits have already decided this is a sham referendum,” Eva notes on her Telegram channel, “but the people here don’t care what the West says. The West has been arming Ukraine, which is raining bombs down on Donetsk, killing 6 people yesterday, 16 people Monday, 4 people Saturday…and thousands over the past 8 years. Enough is enough, the people are voting and don’t be surprised if the results are for the DPR to join Russia.”

As a correspondent working in the Donbass region, Eva has already seen enough death and destruction to last a lifetime, and this month has been especially brutal, as Ukrainian military forces have been shelling civilian areas with long-range artillery supplied by the US and NATO allies. You can see just some of the mass murder here, but I must warn you that these photos are uncensored and extremely graphic. There are bodies, pieces of bodies, and blood everywhere.

So it is no shock to anyone who has seen this terrifying slaughter, why the majority of people living in the eastern part of Ukraine may no longer want to be part of a country which has targeted them for oblivion.


Voting in Kalinskiy district. Video courtesy Eva K. Bartlett

But like everything in the Donbass these days, voting is dangerous. Special precautions have to be taken so that people can vote despite intermittent bombardment by Ukrainian troops and neo-Nazi militias. Many residents volunteer to go door to door, delivering ballots to their neighbors who will vote from home rather than risk traveling to the center of the city where bombs are more likely to fall.

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A woman delivers ballots to neighbors in Kirovsky district. Photo: Eva K. Bartlett

The voting will go on for five days, from September 23rd until September 27th, to help ensure the safety of the people living in the war-torn regions where the referendum is taking place. Because of the danger of shelling, voting is not being held at polling stations but in adjacent areas and in people’s homes. However, on the final day, the polling stations will be open.

The day before the referendum began, Eva talked with a woman at a market in Donetsk. The woman was from Makeevka, an area which has been bombarded by shells from Ukraine’s nationalist militias and fighting forces, who show no mercy when it comes to civilians.


Woman in Donetsk talks about the referendum. Video courtesy Eva K. Bartlett

“The choice is up to the people,” the woman said. Her name is withheld, common practice in eastern Ukraine where residents have been punished for having “pro-Russian” views. “If Russia protects us, we are ready to vote for it.”

She worries about her tiny grandson, only seven months old. And about her family and those who are unable to flee to safer places.

“Many do not know how we live here. It’s very, very scary,” she continues, referring to people in countries influenced by western media, which has been mostly silent about the suffering of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, referring constantly to Russia’s Special Military Operation as “unprovoked.”

As the Nazi propagandist Goebbels (a man much-adored by the nationalists in Kiev) famously stated: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

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But none who know Ukraine’s history of Nazi collaboration doubt the real reason Russia crossed its borders into the Donbass.

Donetsk resident Russell Bentley has no doubt that the majority of people will vote to join Russia. An American ex-pat who has served alongside soldiers from the Donetsk People’s Republic, Russell is more concerned that the referendum might divert the Russian Federation from its originally-stated goals.

“The concern is that the referendums in the liberated territories may be used as an excuse to scale back the original goal of the operation — ‘the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine,’ — to ‘protecting the liberated territories,’ which will neither ensure their security or that of Russia,” Russell wrote. “Anything less than Russia’s full military control of Kiev and everything east of a line from Kiev down to the Moldovan border is a military and political failure that threatens Russia’s very existence. We are fighting the Nazis of the 21st century, war criminals and terrorists.”

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Russell Bentley’s full statement on the referendum to join Russia.

“The people of the Donbass Republics were forced into a military response in order to defend themselves against terrorist attacks by the Ukrainian military and the Kiev regime 8 years ago,” Russell continues. “The Russian government, after exhausting every diplomatic option, was forced into a military response to prevent genocide of Russian people in Donbass. A military response has been taken, and must be adequately maintained until full victory is achieved, because in this war, just as in the Great Patriotic War, we have only 2 choices — Victory or Death.”

Russell supports the referendum, he says, “to the extent that the referendum promotes and enables the full victory over Nazism in Ukraine.”

“We are tired of fighting this. Tired. We’re scared. We’re really scared,” the woman at the marketplace says, her eyes filling with tears. Like most of her neighbors, she speaks Russian, a language de-facto outlawed by the nationalists of Ukraine. Just one of many reasons that she, her family and friends, have been targeted by the nationalists. “These are not people. They pit brothers against brothers, they pit their relatives and loved ones against each other. How is it possible to live in one city and bomb another? It is impossible. It’s unreal! We are peaceful people. We are all alive. You can’t just do that!”

Many Russian-speakers look forward to unification with the Russian Federation. It isn’t just that they want the military security that Russia is already providing. It’s because they miss their family. Ukraine, they feel, has not treated them as family but as unwanted bastards, or as outlanders, despite the fact that many have lived in the region for generations. Now, they just want to live in peace.

In a Friday address, the head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, said, “We have been waiting for this moment for more than 8 years! We waited through anxious nights and busy weekdays, at the battlefront and from behind lines. We waited as people wait for their return to the family after many years of separation.”


DPR Head Denis Pushilin speaks about referendum, Video courtesy Denis Pushilin

“Holding a referendum is a historic milestone,” Pushilin continues. “Not only because we are confident in its positive result, but because it is the end of the difficult road we have traveled together.”

He refers to the eight-year struggle of the people in the Donbass, who formed their own independent states, which were finally recognized as sovereign republics by the Russian Federation and its allies in February of this year. The third step of the journey, he says, is joining Russia. To him, it is a foregone conclusion that the voters of DPR will follow the voters of Crimea in their desire to reunite with the rodina — the motherland.

“We are returning home ,” he says. “This is the main reason for all our deeds and battles, the innermost desire, and at the same time the absolute certainty that the day will come when we will become Russia.”

This desire to be one with Russia may sound strange to western ears. Let me put it this way:

For hundreds of years, Ukraine was a region, not a country. Russians and Ukrainians are not truly separate ethnicities. Though many Ukrainian nationalists insist that they are descended from Rurik Vikings and are not related to the “Moskals,” which is what they call Russians, the truth is that both peoples have occupied the region for hundreds of years, and they share the same ancestors. Their DNA is the same Eastern Slavic DNA. The same blood runs through their veins. Many Russians have family in Ukraine and vice-versa.

The longing to return to Russia is a literal longing for family, and an end to the ostracization and persecution of the excruciating, nightmarish years which pushed many beyond what they can bear.

“I want there to be peace in the world. I want everything to be good and beautiful,” the woman at the marketplace says, tears now running down her cheeks.

“We have come a long and dangerous way home,” Pushilin says, concluding his address. “Each of your votes will confirm the truth: Donbass is Russia.”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... th-russia/

It is interesting that that the tone and content of NPR's non-stop denunciations of the referendums is similar to those of Trump and his chumps about US elections.

Western Media Continues to Ignore Ukraine is Using NATO Weapons to Kill Civilians in the Donbass
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 23, 2022
Eva Bartlett

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On Monday, Ukraine slaughtered 16 civilians, including two children, with 155mm NATO shells, according to the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin. The projectiles hit two adjacent neighborhoods, decimating residential and commercial areas – including a market that had previously suffered fatal attacks.

Scenes of death are nothing new for residents and reporters here in Donetsk, which is intermittently the target of Ukrainian attacks, like the one that hit its central region on August 4, killing six people, including an 11-year-old ballerina, her grandmother, and her ballet teacher.

But the carnage on Monday was worse than anything I’ve seen in my months of reporting here. Chunks of flesh littered the street – part of a hand, a foot, an ear. Someone had put a dead man’s phone on his stomach. It was ringing, the cheery ringtone incongruous with his lifeless body and the scenes and stench of death around him.


For most people, the concept of war is a distant one, and deaths are normalized by media reporting the numbers of victims and destroyed buildings – so most who hear of civilians being killed don’t really understand what a scene like this looks or smells like.

For the locals, it is also normalized, in its own way, after over eight years of Ukrainian attacks – a tragically grotesque kind of normality, where the post-bombing routine starts soon after the last explosions die down.


When I arrived at the scene, locals were already sweeping up glass shards and boarding windows, preparing to reopen their shops. Inspectors from the Russian Investigative Committee were on site collecting shrapnel and measuring the shell’s impact point, to determine the nature of the armament. When asked about what happened, they were careful to state that they could not say anything until the conclusion of their investigation.

An emergency vehicle arrived and workers began loading the bodies, or body parts, onto stretchers, clearing them away.


About 100 meters away, there was a gaping hole in the side of an apartment building. The shell had struck right where writing on the wall indicated the direction to the nearest basement, which was to be used as a bomb shelter. Doors to such stairways are generally permanently left open, so that anyone caught up in shelling might have a chance to survive, if they can make it to the door and basement in time.

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RT© Eva Bartlett

Victims of another Ukrainian assault, which took place on Saturday, didn’t have that option. The center of Donetsk was hit by at around ten bombs over the course of 30 minutes around noon. At least four civilians were killed, one of whom I saw still on the ground. Some minutes later, her body was taken away. One of the shells hit a car driving along Artema Street, setting it ablaze and killing two civilians. By the time I reached that site, the vehicle had burned out, the dead taken away. Workers were already repaving the roads, sweeping debris and glass from sidewalks.


Western weapons killing Donbass civilians

When Russian and Donbass voices state that Ukraine is killing Donbass civilians with Western weapons, the reply is silence, derision, or inversion of reality: claims that Russia is bombing Donbass – which any ordinary resident here would disprove easily, having been under Ukraine’s shelling for over eight years.


War correspondent, Christelle Neant, wrote of Saturday’s bombings:

“After submitting the photos of the shrapnel I found on the spot to Adrien Bocquet, who is now a NATO weapons expert for the DPR’s representation in the JCCC (Joint Monitoring and Co-ordination Center on Ukraine’s War Crimes), he confirmed that they were American 155mm shells, some fired from Caesar guns and others from TRF1 guns.

The famous TRF1 guns that can fire (banned) 155mm cluster munitions, which I had mentioned in June, and which the Western press had assured that France had not supplied to Ukraine! Before learning at the beginning of September that Paris had indeed sold them to Kiev!”


Europeans in Germany, France and Italy recently held “#StopKillingDonbass” actions, denouncing the sale of Western weapons to Ukraine, and calling for it to end. It was rather fitting that the actions occurred the day after Ukraine bombed central Donetsk again.


These actions were followed by the release of a petition against arms supplies to Ukraine, which stated:

“Today, contrary to the fundamental principles set forth in Article 2 of the UN Charter, in particular, the principles of sovereign equality and the peaceful settlement of international disputes, our countries supply Ukraine with weapons that cause massive deaths and injuries of civilians in Donbass, including children.”

It concludes: “We demand an end to the financing of state terrorism and genocide against the people of Donbass, as well as the ongoing violations of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and other acts of international humanitarian law since 2014.”


At this point, there is no safe region in Donetsk, nowhere is off-limits for Ukraine’s bombings, not maternity hospitals, nor busy markets. The issue does, however, appear to be off-limits for the reporting of Western corporate-owned media.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... e-donbass/

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Turnout for referendums. Day 2
September 24, 21:08

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The total turnout in 4 regions by the end of the 2nd day of voting on joining Russia.

Donetsk People's Republic - 55.05%
Luhansk People's Republic - 45.86%
Zaporizhia region - 35.54%
Kherson region - 31.79%

There are 3 more days of voting ahead.

The Federation Council says that the issue of joining new regions to Russia can be considered as early as September 29. Accordingly, the official entry of 4 new regions into Russia can be either at the same time on September 29, or on the morning of September 30, when Pasechnik, Pushilin, Balitsky and Saldo sign the relevant documents with Putin in the Kremlin in the same way as they were signed by Chaly in 2014 and Aksenov.

The State Duma reported that the process of accepting the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions into Russia could take place on September 30. That is next Friday. In principle, everything is within the framework of the previous statements of the Federation Council.

The enemy will now obviously throw all available reserves on the offensive in order to break through the front and disrupt the referendum in at least one of the areas. In addition, terrorist attacks and attempts at terrorist attacks in the liberated territories continue. I am sure that with the competent work of the military and special services, all this will not prevent the onset of historical and legal irreversibility as early as next week. But one should not underestimate the intentions of the enemy (primarily the US and NATO).

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7881923.html

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

***

Colonelcassad
Ukrainian air defense is still more alive than all the living: why is this and what will happen next?

In the afternoon, Ukrainian resources published a video with a Russian Su-34 bomber flying on one engine: the authors claimed that the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to shoot down two Russian aircraft in a day.

Regardless of the veracity of the allegations, the situation raises one extremely unpleasant question. Even during the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kharkov, we were often asked in feedback: why do the VKS work on targets only at the front line from extremely low altitudes, and not bomb columns in depth?

The reason is the unsuppressed Ukrainian air defense . The command protects the aircraft and does not send them to bomb behind enemy lines, and the crews have to "snuggle" to the ground in order to avoid detection.

And you know what's the saddest thing? Even at the beginning of the SVO, the RF Armed Forces were comprehensively engaged in the destruction of Ukrainian air defense, but for some unknown reason they completely stopped this work.

🔻Offensive on Kiev and the fight against enemy air defense

In February-March, the Aerospace Forces faced the task of countering the powerful layered air defense around the Ukrainian capital. For these purposes, A-50U long-range radar surveillance aircraft, Il-22PP jammers and Su -35S fighters with Kh-31P anti-radar missiles were constantly in the air.

Some kind of interspecific interaction was established: to destroy the identified air defense systems, artillery and even the Iskander OTRK were involved, which successfully hit the S-300 complexes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine even in Kiev buildings.

Yes, there were losses. That's just one bomber regiment on the Su-34 in March flew almost to Western Ukraine,bombing concentrations of manpower, command posts and bridges deep in the rear in the Zhytomyr region. And for some reason, no "Stingers" or British "Starstreaks" beloved by television "talking heads" did not really interfere with this.

With the withdrawal of troops from near Kiev, the successful experience of targeted suppression of air defense and its improvement was simply forgotten. Why? Alas, we have no logical answer.

🔻What will further connivance in the issue of suppression of Ukrainian air defense lead to

Let us repeat once again: the RF Armed Forces have the technical and organizational capabilities to carry out this task. There are AWACS aircraft, there are electronic warfare aircraft, there are modern aircraft, there are anti-radar missiles. To the surprise of many, there are even planning bombs, which have been repeatedly used by bomber crews.

Yes, all this is inferior to American or Israeli counterparts. But the "Kyiv experience" clearly demonstrates that everything can be solved in principle. Everything rests solely on the unwillingness of the command to engage in targeted suppression of enemy air defenses.

And if this continues further, then the VKS will not only work half- heartedlyfrom their real capabilities, but also to lose expensive modern aircraft. The stock of which is extremely limited by production capabilities.

It's time to finally remember the spring experience, make decisions at the level of management of the entire NMD and launch a separate operation to destroy the remaining Ukrainian air defense systems. With planning, interspecies interaction and allocation of forces and means.

Moreover, very interesting products have recently arrived from Iran, which, with an adequate approach, greatly facilitate the task. You can't miss this opportunity!

***

Colonelcassad

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On the preparation of the amphibious assault for a sortie to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the ongoing preparation of Ukrainian formations for the next sortie to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant . The Ukrainian command still has not abandoned these plans.

Special forces, primarily marines, are training before another attempt to capture a nuclear power plant. Over the course of two nights, 17 Ukrainian boats have been conducting a training session on landing Ukrainian military personnel on an unequipped coast on the Dnieper River .

According to the plan of the exercises, a company of enemy personnel (up to 110 people) in the dark is practicing landing in the vicinity of Volnoandreevka. The Turkish UAV Bayraktar TB2 accompanies the group, “suspended” at a distance of 50 km from the landing site.

The very fact of the ongoing preparations confirms the seriousness of the intentions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to regain control over the power plant. Taking into account the fact that next week the Zaporozhye region will already be part of the Russian Federation, an attempt to seize the nuclear power plant can be made in the coming days.

***

Colonelcassad

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The situation in the Limansky direction
as of 18.00 on September 24, 2022, the

Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to develop an offensive against the positions of the Russian Armed Forces on the eastern bank of the Oskol River . However, units of the 20th Army not only held back enemy attacks, but also pushed him back to his original lines.

▪️The enemy motorized infantry tried to re-attack the Russian positions in the area of ​​Redkodub and Karpovka from Lozovoye , but was driven back to their original positions.

▪️In the fields west of Koroviy Yar and Karlovka , mobile groups of the RF Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of Ukraine are facing battles.

▪️The village of Drobyshevo and the surrounding villages are held by reservists from BARS-13, who previously fought in the vicinity of Bogorodichny. For four days of active fighting, the Armed Forces of Ukraine failed to break through the front. The enemy units entrenched themselves in the buildings of the Novoselovka village . At Novoselovka and Drobyshevo , the Armed Forces of Ukraine inflict artillery and missile strikes, using phosphorus ammunition.

▪️Russian artillery inflicted massive fire damage on units of the 66th Ombre of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which were forming up in combat formations near the village of Shchurovo for a subsequent attack on Liman from the south. The enemy suffered significant losses in manpower and equipment. Another attempt to advance on Liman was thwarted.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine are throwing all their reserves into battle in an attempt to develop success in the Kharkiv direction in order to capture Kupyansk and Liman and enter the operational space on the territory of the Luhansk People's Republic.

Heavy bloody battles are going on along the entire front.

***

forwarded from
Operation Z: Military Correspondents of the Russian Spring
‼️🇺🇦🏴‍☠️The Russian army continues its offensive in the DPR - the main thing from the summary of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:

▪️The RF Armed Forces continue to concentrate their efforts on occupying the entire territory of the Donetsk region.
▪️The Russian army is advancing in the areas of the settlement. Petropavlovka, Vyemka, Bakhmutskoye, Zaitsevo, Experienced, Otradovka, Nevelskoye and Novomikhailovka.
▪️The RF Armed Forces carried out 5 missile and 12 air strikes, as well as 9 attacks from MLRS on objects in the areas of 20 settlements, in particular - Artemovsk, Nikolaevka, Kalinovka, Nikolaev, Sukhoi Stavok, Yuzhnoye, Malye Shcherbaki.
t.me/RVvoenkor/26944

***

forwarded from
Operation Z: Military Correspondents of the Russian Spring
‼️🇺🇦🇬🇧Enemy attack on the DPR: the enemy is trying to surround Krasny Lyman
▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine have created crossings and bridgeheads on our bank of the Seversky Donets, continuing to transport equipment.
▪️The enemy is attacking from several directions, threatening to encircle our Liman grouping.
▪️The enemy is storming Drobyshevo:
The village is now of paramount importance, because “they are trying to take it with the Armed Forces of Ukraine in order to“ squeeze the vise ”over Liman. Chosen forces are thrown here - not only ukrov, in fact, already NATO. The fights don't stop. The situation is tense,” volunteers of the Russian Legion detachment (Bars-13) report.
“In the morning there were 2 attacks, the first at 8.00 using a helicopter, the second at 10.30 - repulsed, attacked along the entire front, resisted,” Battalion Commander Sergei Fomchenkov:
▪️For several days, the enemy stormed Novoselovka, the village was divided in half and turned into ruins.
▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to attack Liman from Ozerny.
▪️Detachment "Kuban" ("Bars-16") is fighting on the outskirts of the Red Estuary and makes sorties, destroying the T-62, BTR-80, pickup truck with 82-mm.
▪️Both sides actively use artillery.
▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine use the HIMARS MLRS at our reconnoitred facilities in Liman and Drobyshevo.
▪️Artillery"🅾️brave" and NM LNR hit the advancing enemy forces.
▪️The special forces of the "O" group continue to carry out raids, destroying the forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the rear.
▪️Ours and the Nazis are pulling up reserves.

***

Colonelcassad

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The situation in the Kharkiv direction
as of 15.00 September 24, 2022

🔻The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue the counteroffensive to reach the borders of the LPR and strike at the flank of the grouping of allied forces.

▪️Units of the 14th and 92nd Ombre of the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to transfer forces across the Oskol River along the established crossing in the Dvurechnaya area . Assault detachments of the 14th brigade occupied Gryanikovka and Gorobyevka .

In addition, Ukrainian servicemen entrenched themselves on the outskirts of Dvurechny . In the occupied settlements, engineering groups are equipping firing positions before attacking the railway station in the village and the subsequent exit to Tavolzhanka .

▪️Separate units of the 92nd brigade, with fire support from artillery groups of the 14th brigade, are trying to gain a foothold on the northern and northwestern outskirts of Kupyanskusing a pontoon.

▪️During the battles for Kupyansk , the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered significant losses. To assist the Ukrainian troops, 1 battalion of the 14th brigade was sent to the clash zone. The evacuation of the wounded is carried out by Mi-8 helicopters, and the damaged equipment is transported to Rogan for repair.

▪️Ammunition storage depots and a supply point for the advanced group have been organized in Shevchenkovo ​​and Bolshoy Burluk .

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Kiev’s Bloody Attempts to Disrupt the Referenda
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 24, 2022





Great Freedom Speech for the Donbass from the South African International Referendum Observer Team. A team of journalists and observers in the Donbass during this historical moment in time!



Western countries condemn the referendums in the Donbass republics and two Russian-controlled regions in Ukraine, calling them undemocratic after years of their own selective policies towards the self-determination of people.





(Screen shots by Eva Bartlett at link.)

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... referenda/

Ukraine Targets Civilians for Retribution: Tens of Thousands of Residents of Kharkov Region May Become Victims of Kiev’s “Justice”
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 23, 2022
Vladislav Ugolny

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A woman on the street during the distribution of humanitarian aid by the Donbass branch of the Night Wolves motorcycle club in Rubezhnoye. © Sputnik / Valery Melnikov

The Ukrainian offensive in Kharkov Region, launched earlier this month, led to Russia’s armed forces losing control of a number of settlements.

These include the towns of Balakleya, Izium, Kupiansk, Volchansk and a number of villages and small locales. Nevertheless, the Russian army, by concentrating on rearguard battles, was able to avoid significant losses and managed to retreat to the left bank of the Oskol River to regroup.

However, the primary victims of this turn of events were the inhabitants of the aforementioned areas who are now in the hands of Ukraine.

Left behind

There is no exact information about the population of this region. The last census was conducted by Kiev more than 20 years ago, and the country’s statistics are known to be wildly inaccurate.

At the outset, we can estimate the pre-war population at 200,000 people. After the outbreak of hostilities, some were forced to flee. The number of refugees depended on the intensity of the fighting. For example, in the Russia-border town of Volchansk, people continued to live normally – they had not heard firing in the city since March – and there has always been humanitarian aid. However, the frontline villages south of Izium were virtually wiped off the face of the earth.

In any case, we are talking about tens of thousands of people. Most likely, at least 100,000 people lived in the Russian-controlled territories. Some of them remain under the protection of the Russian army, which controls the left bank of the Oskol, and villages such as Kupiansk-Uzlovoi and Borovaya, which have now become the sites of intense hostilities.

After the beginning of the Ukrainian offensive, some Kharkov Region residents were forced to leave their homes. An evacuation was carried out in Volchansk, Veliky Burluk, Kupiansk and Izium. Various estimates suggest that between 5,000 and 25,000 people have fled to Russia in September alone.

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People queue for aid outside a humanitarian aid center as Russia’s military operation in Ukraine continues, Volchansk, Kharkov Region, Ukraine. © Sputnik / Viktor Antonyuk

According to Readovka journalists, Voronezh Region accommodated about a thousand refugees. Another small number left Kharkov and headed to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, in particular to the nearest district center of Svatovo.

In any case, most local residents have remained in situ. Based on the communication with residents of small Donbass front-line towns that have been shelled for eight years, it is safe to say that such a decision is not politically motivated. Residents of such areas, many of whom are older people, those with disabilities, families with household plots or low-mobility relatives who require care, usually cling to their land, homes and traditional way of life to the end. They are the ones who have not evacuated their homes in recent months, and it is they who are now under threat.

Ukraine is preparing ‘mop-ups’

A number of channels have appeared in the Telegram messenger app, one of the leading social media platforms for both sides of the conflict, which publish the personal data of so-called “collaborators.” The basis for accusations could be anything, including communicating with the Russian military or receiving humanitarian aid. Some of these channels are currently blocked, after a wave of complaints to Telegram’s technical support.

Despite this, some remain operational and many dehumanize Russia’s supporters as “zhduny(rus) – waiters.” According to the public consensus in Ukraine, such people who sympathize with Moscow are the cause of the conflict. In the eyes of Ukrainian radicals, anyone who expresses a positive attitude towards Russia is a threat to national security.

Thus, personal data in the early days of the offensive was published for one purpose: to point out enemies so that they would be killed during the “sweep” – a set of actions aimed at establishing control over occupied territory undertaken by the army, mercenaries and nationalist battalions. ‘Mopping-up’ is outside the criminal procedure code and is not regulated by any laws. Law may come to the territory later but, in the very first days, “revolutionary justice” is carried out, without lawyers and with the functions of judge, prosecutor and executioner performed by Ukrainian combatants.

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A Ukrainian soldier stands beside a burnt-out vehicle. © Scott Peterson / Getty Images

To help their murderous cause, similar channels are being created that publish personal data with calls for lynching.

After the ‘cleansing’ is completed, elements of the Ukrainian legal system will come to the captured cities. They will focus on the concealment of war crimes committed during the “clean-up,” and instead point the finger at Russia. The last two tasks will be carried out simultaneously, such as in Bucha, and those killed by Ukrainians will be cynically presented as victims of the Russian army.

Demonstrative detentions

According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), as of last week 16 people suspected of collaborating with Russian authorities had already been detained. The security agents are first and foremost interested in tax officials responsible for the functioning of local businesses during Moscow’s control of the territory. However, local teachers who switched to teaching the Russian curriculum are also at risk.

Despite international humanitarian law, which obliges the party in control of a territory to preserve the educational process and emphasizes that no harm be done to educators, Kiev seems determined to punish teachers, to use them as an example to others.

Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk says that these teachers committed crimes and should be punished for high treason. Such measures by the Ukrainian government are aimed primarily at intimidating educators in Russian-controlled territory. By showing a willingness to prosecute civilian workers, Kiev is raising the stakes.

Ukrainian law enforcement is also known to detain forestry workers, for having helped the Russian army to collect firewood. The details are unknown: whether they supplied the Russians with firewood on a commercial basis, felled the forests entrusted to them, or simply told the soldiers where to chop, remains unknown.

Traditions of Ukrainian ‘justice’

Any civilian living in Russian-controlled territory could be charged with collaboration. Ukraine has a special ministry for the reintegration of “temporarily occupied territories,” which since 2016 has been developing a policy of “filtering” the civilian population. Initially, its activity was concentrated around Donbass and Crimea but its scope has now expanded.

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Exterior of the parliament building, the Supreme Council of Ukraine in Kiev, Ukraine. © Pierre Crom / Getty Images

The most striking example is the law ‘On the State Policy of the Transitional Period’, which has been criticized by, among others, the Venice Commission [on constitutional law] for the fact that Ukrainian state policy in the territories it occupies is aimed at investigating only the alleged war crimes of the opposite side, ignoring the goal of establishing the truth about all crimes. This law also introduced differentiated treatment of citizens, depending on their level of interaction with Russia and/or the Donbass republics.

The topic of differentiating guilt – and, according to Ukraine, the entire civilian population is guilty to a greater or lesser degree – was then promoted by all sorts of non-profit organizations. So the Crimean Tatar Resource Center engaged with the Soros Foundation’s ‘Vozrozhdeniye’ and the extremist organization ‘Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people,’ who claim to be the exiled Ukrainian government of Crimea, developed a whole methodology for evaluating the degree of collaboration.

For a demonstration of this scale, Ukrainians cited three respective examples: a doctor at a Crimean city hospital, an acting city council deputy and the ex-chief prosecutor of Crimea, Natalya Poklonskaya.

According to the methodology, the doctor scores 17 points, the deputy 30, and Poklonskaya 86. Thus, any Crimean doctor is already guilty of collaborationism, having 17 points. Since 2014, Ukrainian society, represented by non-profit organizations, has debated the doctor’s degree of guilt and the punishment which ought be meted out. We see the results of such discussions in Kharkov Region.

Preparing the ‘next Bucha’

In addition to fighting teachers and foresters, Ukrainian law enforcement and the media are also busy falsifying war crimes. They open the so-called “cellars” – illegal prisons and torture chambers, in which alleged prisoners of war and civilians were kept. The process of falsification relies on vivid shots – frames with a prayer scratched on the wall of one of the basements.

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Residents of Mariupol in the basement of a house. © Sputnik / Ilya Pitalev

Another fabrication involved seven Sri Lankan students attending the Kupiansky Medical College, which was allegedly held by Russian military personnel since March, who testified about torture by the Russians.

The official position is simple: angry Russians simply detained and tortured foreigners. That the Russian army in fact evacuated them from Mariupol and Kherson is ignored. For the time being, Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is asking Kiev to provide more information about its citizens. A fair investigation, however, should not be expected until those Sri Lankans find themselves outside the hands of the Ukrainian state.

Speaking of Kiev’s hand, another media symbol of the “genocide of the Ukrainian people” was presented as hand of the deceased with rubber bracelets in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Apparent evidence of a hate crime: a man killed for wearing Ukrainian symbols. As it turned out, the body was that of Sergey Sova, a member of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, who was killed during fighting near Izium.

In general, the only mass graves that Ukrainian propaganda now clings to are the cemeteries organized by Russians, where the victims of the military conflict were buried, including Ukrainian soldiers. There is an inscription on one of the crosses, in particular, “APU [Ukrainian Armed Forces] 17 people, Izium, from the morgue.” Ukrainians claim that there are 440 bodies there. Some of the crosses have memorial plaques, some only an inventory number.

The bodies were buried by the Russian army in accordance with the traditions of the region. Perhaps, of course, among those buried under the cross are Muslims, Jews, or adherents to pagan beliefs popular among Ukrainian neo-Nazi battalions, but the Russians did everything possible on their part to ensure the remains of the enemy were not desecrated.

In normal circumstances, these bodies would have been given to the Ukrainian side in return for the bodies of dead Russian soldiers, but Ukraine boycotted these exchanges due to an unwillingness to admit significant losses. In particular, the son of the aforementioned Sergey Sova learned a few months later about the fate of his father and through the media requested the body be transferred back home for a proper burial. Prior to that, Sova had most likely been listed as missing, a ploy that suppresses official numbers of dead Ukrainian soldiers and avoids compensation payments to their families.

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Ukrainian servicemen stand on guard in front of destroyed military vehicles at the Hostomel Airfield, after battles with Russian troops. © Pavlo Gonchar / SOPA Images / Light Rocket via Getty Images

Now, however, the Ukrainian soldiers killed in battle and buried in accordance with the dominant religious traditions in Ukraine will be counted as victims of an “alleged genocide.” After a while, when it is impossible to distinguish whether people were killed in early September or mid-September, they will be presented as victims of the retreating Russian army.

All of this is a sinister and cynical story, the truth of which we can learn only after the return of the Russian army to Kharkov. Only then will the massive machine of lies, propaganda and disinformation, which is the work of the Ukrainian government in the occupied territories, be broken, and the world will be able to learn about the real war criminals. As when we discovered after the liberation of Mariupol and the establishment of control over the buildings of Mariupol Airport, that the Ukrainian Security Service and Azov turned it into a concentration camp, known as ‘The Library.’

Vladislav Ugolny, a Russian journalist based in Donetsk.


September 19 attack on Donetsk city center. 13 killed including 2 children. Video courtesy Russell Bentley on Telegram: https://t.me/TXDPR/2181

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... s-justice/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 26, 2022 11:44 am

eight years of waiting
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/26/2022

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Eight years ago now, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics were beginning to talk about holding elections in which to legitimize the de facto authorities that had been created, first improvised and through internal struggles with which some of the leading figures with whom the Donbass rebellion against the new Ukrainian government had started. The first peace of Minsk had left a more stable front after the republican victory in Ilovaisk and the Ukrainian withdrawal towards Mariupol, but the proximity of the Ukrainian troops to the main cities -Donetsk, Gorlovka and Lugansk- and the control over Debaltsevo, which practically it cut the territory of the People's Republics in two, made it unlikely that the ceasefire would be maintained.

The absence of a political framework for real dialogue and the lack of interest in commitment made it unfeasible for the agreement to be maintained over time. Ukraine aspired to regroup and put an end to the People's Republics by force and they sought to continue defending their territory and advance on the territory under Ukraine's control, which had shown signs of weakness. Without a real ceasefire at any time, hostilities were fully reactivated in December with the resurgence of the battle for the destroyed Donetsk international airport and later with the hard battle for Debaltsevo, when the second Minsk agreement was signed, which would mark politically and militarily the seven years after the war in Donbass.

The brief interval between the signing of the first Minsk agreement and the outbreak of the second major military campaign was enough to make the authorities of the People's Republics and Moscow advisers understand the need to consolidate political power in the territory under your control. The process of the November elections marked continuity in the People's Republics and also separated practically every element with aspirations for changes beyond what was allowed, fundamentally in economic terms. In contrast to the importance that it had initially had in the formation of the DPR, for example, only three starting positions were granted to deputies linked to the newly created Communist Party of the DPR. The line was marked and after being separated figures like Strelkov, linked to the orthodox oligarch Malofeev and to Russian nationalism, it was clear that the People's Republics had to follow a path of economic continuity in economic matters and maintenance of the status quo in political and military matters.

The situation, and especially the Russian response both to the May 11 referendum, which President Vladimir Putin had asked to delay in search of an agreement with Ukraine, and to the November elections, in which Russia only admitted to having seen a sample of rejection of the Ukrainian government, showed that the long-awaited scenario in Crimea was not going to be repeated in Donbass. The strategic position of Crimea for Russia, the vast majority of the population in favor of joining Russia, the chaos that reigned in the newly formed Government of kyiv and the geographical situation made it easy for Moscow to quickly reabsorb the peninsula in just a few weeks.

Months later, volunteer battalions already organized - fundamentally from the extreme right groups, one of the most mobilized parts of civil society, with state support and recruitment capacity - and with the intention of preventing a repetition of the March scenario, Ukraine began its anti-terrorist operation just a few hours after the arrival of the first armed group, the one linked to Igor Girkin, Strelkov, to Slavyansk on April 12, 2014. On April 14, then Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk stated that “Ukraine is already at war”. The Ukrainian attitude and the start of the fighting not only contributed to the polarization and increased rejection of the Donbass population to the new government, but also forced that population to take a stand. They did so in the May 11 referendum, which Ukraine could have seen as a manifestation of discontent, but which it preferred to see as a sign of Russia's intention to annex the area. At that time, with the first fighting starting just nine days ago, the war could have been stopped through a political agreement that was never sought.

Without that vast majority of the population that advocated joining Russia, a more militarily organized opponent, without the geographical facilities that Crimea provided and, above all, without any economic incentive, there was no benefit for Moscow in exchange for the battery of sanctions. which would have meant the annexation of Donbass, which would also have implied the need for a military operation. With industry and coal extraction in decline, especially since the years of independence - in which Donbass has lost specific weight in Ukraine's GDP - Donbass did not have the importance for Moscow that it had in the past. “Donbass is not just any region. Without this region, socialist construction will remain a chimera," reads the column next to the Lenin monument in Donetsk's central square. Nevertheless,

For eight years, the Russian position has been based on supporting the DPR and the LPR, avoiding their military defeat against Ukraine and seeking an accommodation of the regions in Ukraine, not only with security guarantees and political, economic and linguistic rights assured by the Constitution of the country. During this time, Ukraine's refusal to enter into any political negotiations with Donetsk and Lugansk has allowed Moscow and the People's Republics to take a series of steps that, little by little, have introduced the region first to the Russian economic and then to the political sphere. Russia began by introducing the "ruble zone" in the face of Ukrainian non-payment of pensions and public salaries, which Moscow had to compensate. With this, Russia not only avoided the economic blockade initiated in 2014 and confirmed in 2017 with the commercial blockade imposed by kyiv,

Faced with the administrative limbo in which, over the years, a part of the population of Donbass was left, Moscow began to accept the documents issued by the DPR and the RPL: ​​birth certificates, death certificates, passports and also academic titles. , which have given Donbass students the possibility of accessing Russian higher education or emigrating in search of a better economic situation. Finally, after years of rumours, Russia began to offer fast access to Russian citizenship to citizens of the DPR and LPR and with it the right to vote, for example, in the last legislative elections, with which Donbass began to be seen as a matter of national politics after years in which much of the Russian press had not paid special attention.

The slow process of economic and administrative accession to Russia, which could always be interrupted by complying with the Minsk agreements, something that was never an option for Ukraine, was suddenly broken on February 22, 2022. Russian recognition and the start of the Russian military intervention two days later not only put an end to the always stalled Minsk process, but was another step in the elimination of the border between Donetsk, Luhansk and the Russian Federation. Now, more than six months later and in unexpected conditions for Russia, which not only has not managed to recover all the territory of the DPR but finds itself on the ropes after the defeat in Kharkov and with the need to defend a front that stretches over a thousand kilometers, events are accelerating again.

Although it was the geopolitical element that determined the introduction of Russian troops into Ukraine, the special military operation it was raised in terms of defense of the population of Donbass. Now, the difficulties in maintaining the captured territories have made it necessary to justify a partial mobilization of reservists that began this past week. Hence the rapid reactivation of the option of the referendum of accession to Russia that the authorities of the DPR and the LPR have repeatedly promised their citizens. Faced with the first referendum, in which the population voted for independence following the example of Crimea, that is, waiting for a response not from Donetsk and Lugansk but from Moscow, it is Russia that now needs this process to formalize the situation and justify the need to defend those territories. If this adherence to Russia occurs and consolidates - the war may drag on and Ukraine will continue fighting to recover those territories -,

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/26/25580/#more-25580

Google Translator

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Kadyrov about draft dodgers and mobilization
September 25, 23:16

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Ramzan Kadyrov about draft dodgers and mobilization.

Increasingly, I think about running dodgers.
Do they have the right to call themselves men? Not!
Do they have honor? Not!
A sense of dignity? Not!
Or some moral values? Not!

Particularly surprising are some men in the Caucasus. Guys, do you think you're escaping death? So if it is destined in the battle for their homeland, isn't this outcome the highlanders at all times perceived as an honor?

Understand, finally, that with the help of the fascists operating in Ukraine, they want to destroy our country. And this means that the Motherland is in danger. Tens of millions of Russians have no idea how many times our state has been threatened over the past 20 years. And only thanks to the clear and competent policy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, they did not succeed.

SVO is an inevitable measure. Even if we left all the regions, including Crimea, the West would not stop trying to put pressure on Russia. This will be done through the Ukrainian Nazi formations as long as they exist.

I give you my word, if we do not defend our interests, it will be bad for all Russians. We will lose the sovereignty and independence of Russia, and then the enemies will come to every home.
Decide for yourself, and we, Chechens, will defend our country and fulfill the ORDER of the President of the country! (c) Kadyrov

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7883011.html

Turnout for referendums. Day 3
September 25, 21:37

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Official turnout in referendums on the entry of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions into Russia:

Donetsk People's Republic - 77.12%
Luhansk People's Republic - 76.09%
Zaporizhia region - 51.55%
Kherson region - 48.91%

In three of the four future constituent entities of the Russian Federation, de jure referendums took place, exceeding 50% turnout.
Khersonskaya is expected to be slightly behind, but tomorrow it will get the remaining 1.5%.

According to a number of reports, official recognition may take place on September 30, when Putin will make a speech.
It can also be noted that all summer there was talk that the referenda would be held in the second half of September. In late August and early September, talk began about the fact that they should be held in November, tied to the Day of National Unity. But in the end, as it was said in the summer, they are held in September.

There is no need to worry too much about the turnout and the result, the main thing is to ensure the forceful support of the results of the referendum, which should be facilitated by partial mobilization and the resumption of active offensive operations in a number of areas after the build-up of troop groupings. The enemy understands this, so he seeks to use the remaining time to the maximum before the inevitable transition to the defense.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7882843.html

Google Translator

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Ukrainian Army War Crimes Include Shelling of Ambulances, Firetrucks, and Rescue Workers in the Donbass Republics
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 23, 2022
Eva Bartlett

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Remnants of a Ukrainian-fired “Hurricane” MLRS missile on the grounds of a Donetsk Emergency Services station in a civilian area. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

*Local residents describe the perpetrators of these crimes—who have received lavish U.S. funding—as “shameless,” “scumbags” and “terrorists.”
*Heroic rescue workers in Donbas should be accorded rights under international law to help people without being targeted

In the more than eight years of bombing the civilians of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Ukraine has committed untold numbers of war crimes. These include bombing residential areas, markets, hospitals, schools, parks—including with prohibited heavy weapons and banned cluster munitions—and, since late July, raining banned “Petal” mines down on populated civilian areas, including the very center of Donetsk, including as recently as September 7.

A lesser-known war crime is Ukraine’s routine targeting of ambulances, fire trucks, medics and rescuers, and their headquarters and stations. Many of the times Ukraine bombs such heroic rescuers, it is when they are on the way, or already on site, to help civilians often themselves just bombed by Ukraine.

On August 21, Ukrainian shelling of the DPR’s Gorlovka wounded twelve, including five firefighters.

The day prior, Ukrainian shelling targeted an ambulance station in the LPR’s Lysychansk, wounding several and damaging some of the ambulances.

On June 23, the Kievskiy District of Donetsk came under repeated shelling over the course of the two hours I was visiting the Emergency Services headquarters there. On the grounds, I saw the remnants of a “Hurricane” missile from a previous Ukrainian attack.

Choose the item that does not belong on the premises of Emergency Services.

From the Kievskiy region of Donetsk today pic.twitter.com/LvjgsLRHVd

— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) June 23, 2022

See https://twitter.com/EvaKBartlett/status ... 7195783170


The previous day, Ukrainian forces targeted an Emergency Services fire truck on call, leaving the driver hospitalized in critical condition. According to his colleagues, they saw a drone above them just prior to Ukraine’s strike. The targeting was unquestionably deliberate.

On June 18, Ukraine targeted a central Donetsk district after Emergency Services had arrived, killing a firefighter and the driver, and injuring three more rescuers.

In early June, heavy Ukrainian shelling of Kuibyshevsky District, Donetsk, destroyed an ambulance and seriously injured the driver.

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Donetsk ambulance destroyed by Ukrainian shelling while out on a call. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

Ukraine’s attacks on emergency workers is not new; Ukraine has been doing so for years.

In June 2021, during a humanitarian cease-fire, Ukrainian forces targeted an ambulance which had arrived to evacuate three injured DPR soldiers.

In October 2019, Ukrainian forces fired an anti-tank guided missile at a DPR military ambulance en route to help a child, wounding the driver and a paramedic.

In August 2018, Ukrainian forces fired a missile at a DPR ambulance, killing the driver and two female paramedics.

When I first visited the DPR in September 2019, going to hard-hit areas around Gorlovka, I was told by Zaitsevo administration that ambulances could not reach the villagers.

“The paramedics don’t go farther than this building; it’s too dangerous. If somebody needs medical care near the front lines, someone has to go in their own car and take them to a point where medics can then take them to Gorlovka. The soldiers also help civilians who are injured.”

This is something I was very familiar with in Gaza, occupied Palestine, where Israeli soldiers routinely fire at Palestinian farmers and other laborers on agricultural land, a policy of harassment to drive Palestinians off their land. In most cases, ambulances likewise could not reach the injured due to Israel’s policy of targeting ambulances. Consequently, seriously injured Palestinians bleed to death.

In Zaitsevo, I was told this had happened there, too. “A woman died due to huge blood loss because no one could reach her house to take her away in time. She was injured in the shelling and bled to death.”


Targeting medics and other rescuers ensures those in need of help are deprived of it, and increases the likelihood that people who might have lived instead die of their injuries.

The intentional targeting of ambulances and medics, as well as fire trucks and other emergency services vehicles and workers, is against international law.

Speaking to DPR Rescuers

During my last two visits to the DPR, in June and August 2022, I interviewed a number of Emergency Services workers and medics.

According to Konstantin Zhukov, the Chief Medical Officer of Donetsk Ambulance Services, the ambulance services workers face shelling daily, constantly, and many employees have been wounded while working. One of the ambulance stations was completely destroyed by Ukrainian shelling.

Outside, I spoke with Tatyana Golota, an emergency physician, and Alena Kondrasheva, a paramedic.

Both reiterated that it is normal coming under repeated Ukrainian fire. They spoke of Ukraine shelling after medics and emergency services workers had arrived to help civilians.

They showed me an ambulance completely destroyed by Ukrainian shelling. It was new and had only been operational a few months before being destroyed.

“That day we were at work and heard about the brigade coming under fire. The doctor had gone to help people, and the driver, by chance, walked away to try to get a mobile signal. At that moment, there was a direct hit on the vehicle.”

Also in Donetsk, I spoke with Sergei Neka, Director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

He likewise said rescuers increasingly come under fire when they go out on a call, sometimes making it impossible to reach the people in need.

According to him, from February 24, 2022, to when I spoke with him in August, four people were killed and 40 injured, as well as significant damage to equipment and buildings.

“Our units arrive at the scene of the accident and Ukraine begins to shell it. A lot of equipment has been damaged and destroyed.”

I asked about the impact of the “Petal” mines Ukraine has been dropping on the city, and was told a 21-year-old employee was injured by a PFM-1S mine after a region was cleared, the mine falling from the building and the unsuspecting rescuer stepping on it, losing his foot.

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Ukrainian terror mines PFM-1 "Petal"Petal mine on street in Donetsk. [Source: entopwar.ru]


In Makeevka, just east of Donetsk, I went to an orphanage that had been shelled with the mines. Most of the clean-up was completed by the time I arrived on the second day of de-mining, but one remained. I watched a sapper find and detonate it, and although I had previously seen a group of eight mines detonated, creating a massive blast, the force of the single mine was still quite powerful.


According to Dmitry Chamota, Head of Donetsk Emergency Services Deminers, they found 26 PFM-1 mines scattered around the grounds of the orphanage, including on the playground.

In June, I met Andrey Levchenko, Chief of Kievskiy District Emergency Ministry. Over the course of the two hours at his station, Ukraine was intensively shelling the district, leading us to take cover inside the building lest the property be targeted again.

We did venture outside between bouts of shelling, where Levchenko pointed out damage to the buildings and the shell of the Ukrainian-fired Hurricane MLRS which struck the premises.

The building has blown out windows, sandbagged windows to attempt to protect the workers; some days prior, the chief’s office had been damaged by shrapnel from the shelling. Thankfully, he had just stepped out a minute before the blast.


He showed me the fire truck damaged on June 22, pointing out the many shrapnel holes and noting one of the rear tires had been blown out.

Two of the employees who had been out on that call spoke to me about that day, saying that, after Ukrainian shelling of the district, they received a call that people were trapped inside a building with the door blocked after the shelling. A fire was spreading to the second and third floors, and that people were unable to escape. As the rescuers assessed the situation, a shell hit a wall near the truck and wounded the driver.

They said that, prior to the shelling, they saw a drone overhead. This, combined with the facts that they were uniformed and the fire truck was clearly marked and in a civilian area where people were calling for help, makes it credible to believe Ukraine deliberately targeted the rescuers.

Of Ukraine’s heightened shelling over the past many months, Levchenko said it was constant and daily. “Before, if we speak about 2014-2015, twenty minutes, one hour maximum. Now six-seven hours non-stop, every day.”

Excerpts from my report on Ukraine’s targeting of Donbass rescuers, war crimes.
In August, the Donetsk Fire & Rescue Dpt Director told me 40 employees had been injured, 4 killed. In past few days, reports from the DPR note 14 more rescuers have been killed, 9 more injured. pic.twitter.com/fzhcRoOwLT

— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) September 3, 2022


He said that the Ukrainian forces shell, wait until rescuers arrive and then shell again. “They wait for 30 minutes for us to arrive. We arrive there, start assisting people, and the shelling resumes.”

This is something I witnessed for myself when, on August 4, Ukraine bombed the hotel in which I was staying, the fourth and fifth shells landing 50 meters away and then directly beside the hotel, respectively. When the fifth struck, shattering inwards the lobby glass doors, I had fortunately just stepped out of the lobby where 30 seconds earlier I had been speaking to journalists who had run in from the street.

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Ukraine’s bombing of central Donetsk on August 4 targeted a hotel the author was in, killing a woman outside and five others nearby. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]


When it seemed the shelling had stopped, journalists went outside to document the damage. Sadly, a young woman outside the hotel had been killed by the shelling. Five others just two streets away were also torn apart by the bombs, including a promising 12-year-old ballerina, her grandmother, and her world famous former ballerina ballet teacher.


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Galina Vasilyevna Volodina (left), and twelve-year-old Katya Kutubaeva, the ballerina killed by Ukraine. [Source: slippedisc.com]

Emergency Services arrived and, not long after, Ukraine resumed its shelling. Fortunately, they were able to get inside, but this is just one example of Ukraine’s double strikes.

According to Levchenko, Ukraine does not only shell two times, but that they sometimes shell three times: “They wait again, our guys hide in the shelters, as soon as we go out, put out the fire, help people, there could be people under the debris, doors stuck, people can’t get out and get to the basement…then shelling resumes.”

He described the people engaging in this sort of warfare against civilians and rescuers as “Shameless. Scumbags. Terrorists.”

He is not wrong.

Targeting Rescuers: A Terrorist Tactic Adopted by U.S. Allies in Ukraine, Israel and Syria

As the DPR Emergency Services chief pointed out damage to the fire truck, I was reminded of Israel’s attacks on Palestinian medics and fire brigades in Gaza, including during the December 27, 2008-January 18, 2009, Israeli war on Gaza, where I was living at the time.

During those three weeks, I rode in the medics’ ambulances, documenting the destruction and the victims of Israel’s war crimes, but also in a sense as a human shield, in the hope that Israel would not strike ambulances in which a handful of internationals and I were riding.

As it turned out, by the end of the Israeli massacre of Gaza, Israeli forces killed 16 medical rescuers, four in one day alone. Another 57 were injured. At least 16 ambulances were damaged, with at least nine completely destroyed.

One of the murdered was a 35-year-old paramedic, Arafa Abd al-Dayem, who I had accompanied the night prior to his murder. As I wrote of that evening, “The dead, a 24-year-old night watchman, had no warning of the at least 2 missiles which leveled the school and tore him apart. The medics work to load the corpse, first having to replace the flat tire. Working frantically, still fearful of potential strikes, they crowd the ambulance, hoist the van, replace the flat. A missile hits 50 meters away. Surely, undoubtedly, those warplanes above us know—from the markings of the ambulance, the clothes of the medics, the crystal clear photos their drones can take—that we are civilians and medics below. Yet they fire.”

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[Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

Arafa was killed later that day, when Israeli forces fired a flechette shell directly at his ambulance, shredding him with the dart-like flechettes, causing massive internal bleeding in his abdomen, blood in his lung, shock, and death.

A surgeon I interviewed later when writing about Israel’s widespread use of flechettes in Gaza told me that flechettes cause more injuries than other small munitions precisely because they spread in a larger area. And while the darts appear innocuously small, their velocity and design enable them to bore through cement and bones and “cut everything internal.” Accordingly, the prime cause of death is severe internal bleeding from slashed organs, particularly the heart, liver and brain.

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A picture containing diagram Description automatically generated[Source: twitter.com]

One of the injured, Hassan al-Attal, 35, was a medic whose ambulance I was in when he and another medic came under Israeli sniper fire while attempting to retrieve a corpse from the street just beyond the ambulance. The sniper fire reached the ambulance itself. Hassan was wounded in the leg. This was during a few hours of supposed cease-fire. But in any case, the medics never should have been targeted.

As I wrote, “Although the Geneva Conventions explicitly state that ‘medical personnel searching, collecting, transporting or treating the wounded should be protected and respected in all circumstances,’ throughout Israel’s invasion this was not the case. Indeed, as the injured and emergency workers testify, Israeli forces targeted and prevented medical workers from reaching the wounded.

Without coordination, many ambulances did not dare risk Israeli gunfire and shelling, meaning hundreds of calls went unanswered, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Denied medical care, many victims succumbed to their wounds.”

Israeli forces killed 13 Civil Defense workers and injured 31, also destroyed six civil defense stations and damaging four.

From that same article, “Civil Defense workers, like medics, are protected under international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention states not only that emergency workers must be respected and allowed to do their work, but that their buildings, equipment and vehicles must not be targeted.

Yousef al-Zahar, director-general of Civil Defense in Gaza, told me at the time, ‘Targeting the Civil Defense centers and teams is an obvious indicator that the Israeli forces intended to paralyze Civil Defense activities in the Gaza Strip to raise civilian victims’ numbers in the casualties.’”

According to statistics from the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health and the PRCS, from the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000 to when I wrote the 2010 article, Israeli Forces have killed at least 56 medical rescuers, including paramedics, drivers, doctors and volunteers—an average of one rescuer every two months—and have injured at least another 500 medical rescuers.

Likewise, British journalist Vanessa Beeley has written at length about Syrian rescuers targeted by terrorist factions in Syria, their equipment stolen. In one of her articles, she cited a Commanding Officer of the Real Syria Civil Defense in an Aleppo district describing a scenario which Donbas and Palestinian rescuers would recognize:

“They (terrorists) targeted us deliberately in order to destroy our equipment & structures. They wanted to prevent us being able to work for our people. They would target our crew with sniper fire and explosive bullets. Their main mission was to kill the crew and destroy our base so we couldn’t care for the people of Aleppo.”

In that same article, she noted that “terrorist groups systematically carried out double-tap attacks” on the rescuers, just as Israel does to Palestinian rescuers and Ukraine to Donbas rescuers.

Thanks hun, the REAL Syria Civil Defence suffered horribly at the hands of #WhiteHelmets & co – many were murdered, kidnapped, equipment was stolen and these real volunteer heroes came under constant attack fm terrorist handlers of WH.

— vanessa beeley (@VanessaBeeley) September 1, 2022


Ukraine Continues Killing Donbas Rescuers

On September 1, 13 DPR Emergency workers were killed and 9 injured from Ukrainian shelling. According to a representative of the Emergency Situations, the shelling was intentional.

“The missiles exactly hit residential buildings. The vehicle was outside and it was hit with shrapnel and pieces of the destroyed building. But again, you can see it’s an emergency vehicle—a fire vehicle. This is a war crime.”

The following day, two more Emergency Services workers were killed and two injured by Ukrainian shelling of their fire truck, in Makeevka. They were en route to put out a fire. Images accompanying the news show a mangled bright red fire truck, unmistakably a rescue services vehicle.

When in August I spoke with the Director of the Donetsk Department of Fire and Rescue of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, he told me that, at that time, four Emergency Services workers had been killed and 40 injured by Ukrainian shelling.

With Ukraine’s targeting of Emergency Services in September, the number of rescuers Ukraine has killed is now at least 19, with another 51 injured.

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A funeral ceremony of farewell to two dead employees of the 14th fire and rescue unit of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the DPR was held in Makeevka” Photo courtesy DPR Ministry of Emergency Services. [Source: vk.com]

I had the chance to speak with the mother of a young firefighter, Pavel (“Pasha”) Legonkiy, killed by Ukrainian shelling on June 18, 2022. He and other Emergency Services personnel had gone to the site of a Ukrainian shelling, in central Donetsk. A Ukrainian double-tap strike killed Pasha and the driver, injuring three others.

Svetlana spoke proudly of her courageous, compassionate son.

“He loved his work very much. He lived for this work. It was his duty to help people. My son dreamed of starting a family, dreamed of having children, dreamed of working! And one shell that you sent here ended his life.”

These men and women know very well the threats they face when going out on a call, but go anyway, to help their citizens under Ukrainian attacks.

The two women I spoke to at Donetsk Ambulance Services replied to my question about whether they considered stopping their work.

“I’m really scared, everyone is scared. But what can we do? How about the patients? They are people like me, they hurt and are even more scared. They are waiting for our help. While you are driving you feel fear, but as soon as you get to the place of the tragedy, the fear goes away and you just start doing your job and forget about this fear.”

The Kievskiy Emergency Ministry Chief, Andrey Levchenko, said of the rescuers, “They are all heroes. If it were possible, I would give a medal to every one of them, to honor their work, to support them. But they don’t do that for the medals, no way. Nobody ever said, ‘we’re not going, we don’t want to,’” he said, referring to when rescuers go out on calls.

He is right. These rescuers are heroes, putting their lives on the line every time they go out to help a person in need, knowing full well Ukraine frequently strikes an area a second and a third time, specifically to target rescuers. While they might not receive or want medals, they should be afforded their right under international law to rescue people without fear of being shelled by Ukraine.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... republics/

(Other videos at link)

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

***

Colonelcassad
Special operation, 25 September. The main thing from RIA Novosti :

▪️Russian air defense shot down 12 Ukrainian drones, 21 MLRS shells, including 18 HIMARS, and 3 American HARM anti-radar missiles, the Defense Ministry said.

▪️Ukrainian troops lost more than 110 people killed and wounded in the Nikolaev-Kryvyi Rih direction, the Russian military said.

▪️Russian fighter jets shot down two Ukrainian MiG-29s converted for HARM missiles, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

▪️The launcher of the Osa-AKM air defense missile system was destroyed in the Zaporozhye region, a Ukrainian armored boat of the Gyurza type was sunk in the Ochakov area.

▪️In the Nikolaev region, a HIMARS launcher was hit.

▪️Attempts by the Kyiv regime to strike at the territory of the Zaporizhzhya NPP with 8 "kamikaze drones" were prevented, they were shot down outside the plant.

▪️The armed forces of the Russian Federation destroyed up to 100 foreign mercenaries in the Zaporozhye region with a missile attack, the Defense Ministry reported.

▪️The turnout at referendums in the DPR, LPR and Zaporozhye region on the 3rd day exceeded 50%, they can be considered valid, the election commissions reported.

▪️The turnout in the Kherson region was 48.91%, the chairman of the election commission said.

▪️Pushilin said that the preliminary results of the referendum in the DPR were better than expected, none of the 129 foreign observers recorded violations.

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the main points during the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine on 20.12 Moscow time on 25.09.2022 especially for the Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok channel :
and Drobyshevo by DRG forces through forests. The enemy seeks to get to the communications of the grouping defending in the Limansky direction in order to force it to withdraw from Drobyshevo , Krasny Liman and Yampol . Our troops here are in a tough defense and are still holding key positions.



2. Fierce fighting continues on the Oskol Front. The enemy continues to try to break through our defenses near Redkodub , but we hold the front here too.
Fighting is going on near Kupyansk and north of the city. The enemy does not abandon attempts to ram the defenses of the RF Armed Forces and advance to the borders of the LPR.

3. In the Artemovsk area , battles continued for Zaitsevo and fortifications on the Artemovsk-Dzerzhinsk highway . So far, there have been no significant changes
in Artemovsk and Soledar . Fights in urban and industrial buildings.

4. On Avdeevsky , Maryinskyand Ugledar directions - without changes. The enemy tried to attack several times, but suffered losses and rolled back.
The shelling of the cities of Donbass continues in order to disrupt the referendum, which obviously will no longer work.

5. In the Seversky direction, fighting continued for the ruins of the Disputable and near Belogorovka .
There are no enemy advances in the direction of Kremennaya and Novodruzhesk , just as we have no significant advance in the direction of the Seversk-Soledar highway . Yakovlevka and Ivano-Daryevka are under the enemy. @voenkorKotenok

***

Colonelcassad
First referendum observation report

German blogger Thomas Röper, author of the Anti-Spiegel blog, is practically the only international observer who follows the referendum in Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson. He spoke about his first impressions.

“In Novaya Kakhovka, we first went to the city administration building to talk to the mayor and get bulletproof vests and helmets because of the shelling. After that, we crossed the street to the cultural center across the street, where mobile trash cans were set up. There were many people in front of the building, and there were also many people inside the building.

One of the instructions we received before the trip was to ask people if they wanted to be photographed or filmed. The reason is that in Ukraine, participation in a referendum faces long prison terms, and therefore many people do not want to be filmed.

However, in practice, everything suddenly changed, because the people's fear that Russia might again leave and leave them to take revenge on Ukraine disappeared with the referendum. People suddenly wanted to be filmed, which was a completely new experience for me in these areas.

When I was about to shoot the ballot box, people were waiting, not throwing ballots. So I asked if they would like to be filmed, to which they replied that they did not want to interfere with my work. To my answer that I am an observer and they do not interfere with me, on the contrary, laughing at the camera, they threw their ballots into the ballot box. One person even brought him to my cell with a cross for Russia before leaving, saying that now they had nothing to hide.

From what I saw everything went right. Identity documents were carefully checked and recorded, voting booths guaranteed everyone that the decision to vote would remain secret if they so desired, which, however, was not desired by many, since most ballots in transparent boxes were not folded, so it was possible clearly see many crosses for unification with Russia .

@notTASS

***

forwarded from
War on fakes
❗️According to a source in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in all regions there is a high turnout of reservists.

In 11 regions, the number of arrived reservists has already exceeded the required plan. There is a large influx of volunteers, as a rule, who have served military service and with combat experience.

In the light of the debriefing conducted yesterday at the Ministry of Defense, the military registration and enlistment offices are working according to new guidelines, reservists and volunteers are being screened out according to the designated criteria.

As we reported today, marked with VUS codes 998 and 999 are not called up as part of partial mobilization, they mark those who have a military ID, but did not serve in the army, or are partially fit and did not undergo military training. If the owners of such codes receive subpoenas, they are sent home directly from the military registration and enlistment office. We have reviewed such cases many times .

In fact, only reservists are called in who are capable of performing combat missions, with popular military specialties, fit for health reasons, with experience in military service, as well as combat veterans.

According to sources in the Defense Ministry, most of the problems now arise with those storekeepers who themselves did not come in due time and did not update their data at the military registration and enlistment office. For example, if someone's health condition worsened, family composition, educational status or specialty changed. The bulk of those who mistakenly receive subpoenas and then return home fall into this category.

***

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Brainwashed for war with Russia
By Ray McGovern (Posted Sep 26, 2022)

Originally published: Antiwar.com on September 22, 2022 (more by Antiwar.com)

Thanks to Establishment media, the sorcerer apprentices advising President Joe Biden—I refer to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jacob Sullivan, and China specialist Kurt Campbell—will have no trouble rallying Americans for the widest war in 77 years, starting in Ukraine, and maybe spreading to China. And, shockingly, under false pretenses.

Most Americans are oblivious to the reality that Western media are owned and operated by the same corporations that make massive profits by helping to stoke small wars and then peddling the necessary weapons. Corporate leaders, and Ivy-mantled elites, educated to believe in U.S. “exceptionalism,” find the lucre and the luster too lucrative to be able to think straight. They deceive themselves into thinking that (a) the U.S. cannot lose a war; (b) escalation can be calibrated and wider war can be limited to Europe; and (c) China can be expected to just sit on the sidelines. The attitude, consciously or unconsciously,

Not to worry. And, in any case, the lucre and luster are worth the risk.

The media also know they can always trot out died-in-the-wool Russophobes to “explain,” for example, why the Russians are “almost genetically driven” to do evil (James Clapper, former National Intelligence Director and now hired savant on CNN); or Fiona Hill (former National Intelligence Officer for Russia), who insists “Putin wants to evict the United States from Europe … As he might put it:

Goodbye, America. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Absent a miraculous appearance of clearer heads with a less benighted attitude toward the core interests of Russia in Ukraine, and China in Taiwan, historians who survive to record the war now on our doorstep will describe it as the result of hubris and stupidity run amok. Objective historians may even note that one of their colleagues—Professor John Mearsheimer—got it right from the start, when he explained in the autumn 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault.”

Historian Barbara Tuchman addressed the kind of situation the world faces in Ukraine in her book “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam.” (Had she lived, she surely would have updated it to take Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine into account). Tuchman wrote:

Wooden-headedness… plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.

Six Years (and Counting) of Brainwashing

Thanks to U.S. media, a very small percentage of Americans know that:

*14 years ago, then U.S. Ambassador to Russia (current CIA Director) William Burns was warned by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia might have to intervene in Ukraine, if it were made a member of NATO. The Subject Line of Burns’s Feb. 1, 2008 Embassy Moscow cable (#182) to Washington makes it clear that Amb. Burns did not mince Lavrov’s words; the subject line stated: “Nyet means nyet: Russia’s NATO enlargement redlines.” Thus, Washington policymakers were given forewarning, in very specific terms, of Russia’s redline regarding membership for Ukraine in NATO. Nevertheless, on April 3, 2008, a NATO summit in Bucharest asserted: “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”
*8 years ago, on Feb. 22, 2014, the U.S. orchestrated a coup in Kiev—rightly labeled “the most blatant coup in history’, insofar as it had already been blown on YouTube 18 days prior. Kiev’s spanking new leaders, handpicked and identified by name by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in the YouTube-publicized conversation with the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, immediately called for Ukraine to join NATO.
*6 years ago, in June 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Western reporters of his concern that so-called antiballistic missiles sites in Romania and Poland could be converted overnight to accommodate offensive strike missiles posing a threat to Russia’s own nuclear forces. (See this unique video, with English subtitles, from minute 37 to 49.) There is a direct analogy with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when Moscow put offensive strike missiles in Cuba and President John Kennedy reacted strongly to the existential threat that posed to the U.S.
*On December 21, 2021, President Putin told his most senior military leaders:“It is extremely alarming that elements of the U.S. global defense system are being deployed near Russia. The Mk 41 launchers, which are located in Romania and are to be deployed in Poland, are adapted for launching the Tomahawk strike missiles. If this infrastructure continues to move forward, and if US and NATO missile systems are deployed in Ukraine, their flight time to Moscow will be only 7—10 minutes, or even five minutes for hypersonic systems. This is a huge challenge for us, for our security.” [Emphasis added.]
*On December 30, 2021, Biden and Putin talked by phone at Putin’s urgent request. The Kremlin readout stated:

“Joseph Biden emphasized that Russia and the U.S. shared a special responsibility for ensuring stability in Europe and the whole world and that Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.” Yuri Ushakov, a top foreign policy adviser to Putin, pointed out that this was also one of the goals Moscow hoped to achieve with its proposals for security guarantees to the U.S. and NATO. [Emphasis added.]

*On February 12, 2022, Ushakov briefed the media on the telephone conversation between Putin and Biden earlier that day.

The call was as a follow-up of sorts to the… December 30 telephone conversation… The Russian President made clear that President Biden’s proposals did not really address the central, key elements of Russia’s initiatives either with regards to non-expansion of NATO, or non-deployment of strike weapons systems on Ukrainian territory … To these items, we have received no meaningful response.” [Emphasis added.]

*On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Unprovoked?

The U.S. insists that Russia’s invasion was “unprovoked”. Establishment media dutifully regurgitate that line, while keeping Americans in the dark about such facts (not opinion) as are outlined (and sourced) above. Most Americans are just as taken in by the media as they were 20 years ago, when they were told there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They simply took it on faith. Nor did the guilty media express remorse—or a modicum of embarrassment.

The late Fred Hiatt, who was op-ed editor at the Washington Post, is a case in point. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review [CJR, March/April 2004] he commented:

If you look at the editorials we wrote running up [to the war], we state as flat fact that he [Saddam Hussein] has weapons of mass destruction.

If that’s not true, it would have been better not to say it.


(My journalism mentor, Robert Parry, had this to say about Hiatt’s remark. “Yes, that is a common principle of journalism, that if something isn’t real, we’re not supposed to confidently declare that it is.”)

It’s worse now. Russia is not Iraq. And Putin has been so demonized over the past six years that people are inclined to believe the likes of James Clapper to the effect there’s something genetic that makes Russians evil. “Russia-gate” was a big con (and, now, demonstrably so), but Americans don’t know that either. The consequences of prolonged demonization are extremely dangerous—and will become even more so in the next several weeks as politicians vie to be the strongest in opposing and countering Russia’s “unprovoked” attack on Ukraine.

THE Problem

Humorist Will Rogers had it right:

The problem ain’t what people know. It’s what people know that ain’t so; that’s the problem.

https://mronline.org/2022/09/26/brainwa ... th-russia/

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Kiev’s NATO-Backed Terrorist Attack in Kherson Was a Strike Against Democracy & Journalism
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 25, 2022
Andrew Korybko

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No number of missiles will succeed in stopping the exercise of the locals’ democratic rights as enshrined in the UN Charter nor in deterring world-class Russian journalists from reporting on this historic event.

Kiev bombarded a hotel in the former Ukrainian city of Kherson with missiles on Sunday morning in what local authorities described as a NATO-backed preplanned terrorist attack. A former Rada official who’d since broken ranks with the US-installed fascist regime was killed as was another person, while two RT journalists who were covering that polity’s ongoing referendum on joining Russia miraculously escaped unharmed. Considering the targets and the political context in which this civilian site was attacked, it can be said that it was meant as a strike against democracy and journalism.

Regarding the first, Kiev and its NATO patrons want to intimidate the locals from exercising their political right to self-determination that’s enshrined in the UN Charter. They’re not content with just attempting to discredit this process in the eyes of the Golden Billion’s citizens, but have decided to escalate by carrying out a preplanned terrorist attack to punish anyone who wants to participate in it. Regarding the second target of this strike, there’s no doubt that Kiev knew that RT journalists were lodging at that hotel, which means that it wanted to kill members of the press for reporting on the referendum.

The irony is that the West and its proxies claim to be in support of democracy and journalism while simultaneously alleging that their geostrategic foes like Russia are supposedly against them, but Kiev’s latest NATO-backed terrorist attack exposes the tragic truth behind this rhetoric. The reality is that it’s the first pair that hates democracy and journalism so much whenever they’re exercised in ways that go against their interests that they’ll carry out a strike against a hotel where journalists are lodging while covering a local referendum.

The so-called “rules-based order” that they never tire of reminding everyone that they support is therefore nothing more than the arbitrary implementation of double standards intended to advance American aims at everyone else’s expense. If Kiev and its Western patrons truly stood in defense of democracy and journalism like they claim, then they’d have restricted their attacks to purely military targets instead of deliberating hitting civilian ones, not to mention while journalists were lodging there. The latest terrorist attack thus proves that the ongoing referendum is something that they deeply fear.

The reason for this is self-evident, and it’s that the predicable outcome of the locals voting to reunify with their historical Russian Motherland will result in the expansion of that Eurasian Great Power’s borders, after which Moscow can protect its newly incorporated territories with nuclear arms if needed. Although intended by the Kremlin as a pragmatic de-escalation measure to freeze the line of control or only expand it up to those regions’ pre-reunification administrative borders, America might ignore this olive branch to order Kiev into launching a suicidal invasion across the post-referenda frontier.

While there are arguments for and against the US provoking Russia into employing tactical nukes in self-defense as an absolute last resort from the perspective of its subjective hegemonic interests, Washington is still nevertheless being forced onto the horns of an unprecedented dilemma by Moscow after President Putin’s latest judo move in declaring that he’ll recognize the votes’ result and utilize all means at his disposal to protect his country’s people and territory. That’s why the US wants so badly to derail the referenda by ordering Kiev’s latest attack in a desperate attempt to avert that scenario.

No number of missiles will succeed in stopping the exercise of the locals’ democratic rights as enshrined in the UN Charter nor in deterring world-class Russian journalists from reporting on this historic event. All that this terrorist attack achieved is that it further eroded the US and Kiev’s own credibility by exposing their “rules-based order” as the deceptive rhetoric that it was earlier described in this analysis as being. The world should take note that neither of those two truly care about democracy or journalism otherwise Sunday morning’s terrorist attack would never have happened.



https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... ournalism/
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:51 pm

From the Tops Market massacre to Ukraine’s war crimes in Donbass
September 24, 2022 John Parker

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John Parker speaks at Burning Books in Buffalo, N.Y., Sept. 17. SLL photo

Talk given at Burning Books in Buffalo, New York, on Sept. 17, during the Eyewitness Donbass and Russia national speaking tour.

We have to first address the most recent accusations against Russia regarding alleged mass graves since the ruling class is flooding the airwaves with this.

In the first place, I’d like to ask – who is the source of that information? Well, according to Reuters, which tries a little harder to show a semblance of objectivity, the source is solely the police. So the sources are the police and Ukrainian President Zelensky repeating this accusation.

Since 2014, however, the police and official sections of the military in Ukraine are led by open supporters of the World War II Nazi German occupation and celebrate the symbols of Nazi Germany.

Second – the Euromaidan Press, one of the very few media outlets still allowed to operate in Ukraine, is widely circulating this story on social media. It also ran stories pushing allegations of rape by Russian soldiers, “confirmed” by former Ukrainian Ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova, who claimed that 25 teenage girls were kept in a basement in Bucha and gang-raped; nine of them were said to be pregnant.

After evidence showed those claims were completely false, these accusations called into question the legitimacy of other Ukrainian government claims. The Ukrainian parliament promptly fired Denisova.

However, these stories had already gotten a very wide circulation. The same exact stories are still being circulated. Now, has Zelensky ever set the record straight on those lies as they continue today?

Third – has the U.S. corporate media been caught passing on outrageous lies that push U.S. imperialist war? Remember the crying and sad 15-year-old girl from Kuwait testifying before a very sympathetic and angered legislative body in Washington about babies being thrown from incubators by Iraqi soldiers, verified by corporate media? It was beamed around the world to build support for the first Iraq War.

Or how about the weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons stories passed on as verified truth, but weren’t? At least 500,000 Iraqi children died of U.S. sanctions as a result of those tales, which all turned out to be unverified lies by the Pentagon and the Kuwaiti monarchy.

U.S. fueled Ukrainian civil war

Enough of that. I want to talk about playgrounds.

Playgrounds are wonderful. I saw the joy when my child was between ages 3 and 8 playing on the playground. Here we have the science of physics and engineering used for the sole purpose of creating see-saws and swings designed to hold a child’s weight, manufacturing squeals of joy from children, not bombs.

But children can’t live on playgrounds alone. They need nourishment. Speaking of that, isn’t it incredible that there was a shortage of infant formula in the richest country in the world? But there was plenty of money for weapons for Ukraine.

In fact, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last week brought another $2.8 billion to Kiev. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Some $70 billion has now been pledged for the war just this year. It’s the largest single transfer of arms in U.S. history.

See, the war didn’t start with the Russian intervention on Feb. 24. The U.S. began this war against Russia in 2002, and in a more concerted effort in 2004 with NGOs like the National Endowment for Democracy fomenting civil war in neighboring Ukraine.

Do you remember Blackwater, the corporation that provides mercenaries to the U.S. military? They are the folks who shot at Black people trying to escape the floods in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

Well, U.S. military advisers and Blackwater (now called Academi) trained fascist forces in Ukraine, with Washington sending them weapons for the coup in 2014 against a democratically elected Ukrainian government.

Up to this year, they spent $22 billion in that effort.

This war for oil profits and to increase threats against Russia and China includes the desire to further expand NATO, the most belligerent, violent, and aggressive military alliance in the history of the world. When Martin Luther King Jr. said “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government,” he would have surely included the U.S.-led NATO.

After the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, NATO was free to bomb Yugoslavia’s passenger trains, demolish homes and kill Chinese journalists, then go on to the wars of Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan. In fact, the number of NATO countries doubled in 20 years and encircled Russia like a noose. And when Ukraine, following orders from the U.S., called for its inclusion in NATO, with weapons that would be controlled by Nazi forces like the Azov Battalion, Aidar Battalion, Right Sector, and others – this presented an existential threat to Russia.

When 150,000 Ukrainian troops were lined up at the border of the Donbass region earlier this year, after increasing their bombings from 70 per day to 1,400 between Feb. 15 and Feb. 22, the people of the now independent republics of Lugansk and Donetsk formally requested protection from the Russian government to stop a humanitarian crisis caused by the Ukrainian military. The Russian military had a responsibility to stop a genocidal nightmare pushed by the U.S.

U.S. media cover-up

Why hasn’t all of this been reported by the corporate media?

When the U.S. targets a country for war, the media lose their pretense of objectivity and become an arm of the Pentagon. They report without verification any stories that fit the narrative vilifying the people and leadership of the targeted country.

Ukraine has purged itself of any public opposing views against this U.S. proxy war against Russia. Journalists not willing to play along have either been jailed or killed and media outlets are closed for simply reporting the truth.

There are two major manufacturers of U.S. propaganda in Ukraine, established with money from NGOs like the National Endowment for Democracy, the European Endowment for Democracy, and other U.S. intelligence and NATO funders. They are the Kiev Independent and the Euromaidan Press.

The Kiev Independent has a cozy relationship with the Azov Battalion, one of those fascist organizations that got money and weapons in 2014. Azov is now an official part of the Ukrainian military, and along with other fascist and white supremacist groups including Aidar, Right Sector, and Svoboda, they especially target the Donbass region.

Azov sends out videos and reports of “verified” atrocities by the Russian military and the Kiev Independent funnels these stories and videos to Western media, while also disseminating them through social media.

The Euromaidan Press had an interesting and heart-wrenching story about an older couple who were simply trying to get humanitarian aid to a shelter established by the Ukrainian military to protect people in Rubizhne, a city in the Lugansk region, from the Russian military which, they said, were targeting civilians.

What is so interesting about this story is that the alleged account they wrote about happened a few weeks before I visited Rubizhne.

Euromaidan Press’ story becomes more dramatic when it is revealed that this well-meaning couple met up with bullets from a Russian checkpoint. The woman, they wrote, was instantly killed, but the man lasted just long enough to call his son and speak to him for the last time before the last beat of his heart.

The reality of Rubizhne

Heart-wrenching, isn’t it? However, the fact is that the shelter in Rubizhne, which I visited and at one point held 350 people, was filled with people who were escaping the bombings of their homes, not by Russian tanks, but by Ukrainian tanks – according to them. And, the Russian military was not in control of the area when this story allegedly happened – the Ukrainians were.

Larissa, the manager of the shelter in Rubizhne, was brought to tears when she told me what had happened weeks before we arrived. She said the people in the shelter, including her daughter, were under threat of starvation, with no food or water or fuel to run the well, nor the ability to go out and get these things, due to the heavy fighting going on while this area was under Ukrainian control.

She said that even under those conditions, Russian military personnel made the choice to risk their lives to bring water, food, and vital supplies to the shelter. If not for that humanitarian aid, they may not have survived.

As we traveled further west in the Lugansk region, we ran across a tuberculosis hospital that had been retrofitted by the Ukrainian military to make war against civilians and used in violation of the 2015 Minsk II agreements.

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Memorial for the victims of the Tops grocery massacre in Buffalo. SLL photo: Sharon Black

That facility was full of artillery – 122mm shells that penetrate tanks and aircraft. The walls had been redecorated with symbols of Nazi Germany and the emblem of the Azov Battalion – the same one used by the 18-year-old white supremacist who massacred Black shoppers at the Tops grocery on Jefferson Avenue here in Buffalo.

We then traveled to Krymske, which in 2015 was occupied by the Ukrainian military. They violated the ceasefire treaty by using this location and bunkers just east of it for the sole purpose of bombing civilians and the Lugansk Peoples Militia in the neighboring town of Solkinyki.

Ukraine’s assault on these areas began in 2014 when the people of the Donbass region decided not to go along with the backsliding of history created by the U.S.-sponsored coup: a new anti-Russian government of puppets to U.S. interests and fascists who glorified World War II German Nazis and their collaborators in Ukraine.

So, with a vote of over 89%, the people of the Donbass region voted to have two independent republics – the Lugansk People’s Republic in the north of Donbass and the Donetsk People’s Republic in the south.

However, instead of honoring the democratic wishes of the people of Donbass, the new coup government in Kiev began massacring civilians in this region with tanks, resulting in the occupation of Krymske by the Ukrainian military, until late February 2022 when the combined forces of the Lugansk People’s Militia and the Russian military forced them out.

The first impression you get when entering the town of Krymske is how normal-looking the homes and buildings are, unlike in Solkyniki, where the homes look more akin to Swiss cheese and the administrative buildings are more rubble than structure.

This is due to the constant bombing of Solkyniki by the Ukrainian forces from 2014 until February 2022. By 2017, in fact, the civilian population there had to flee for their lives.

In Krymske, however, although they did not have to fear being bombed by the forces of the Lugansk People’s Militia, the horror this population faced was the occupation of a military led by Nazis.

U.S., Ukraine and white supremacy

Before coming here today, we visited the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue. What was once abstract in our heads became very real when we saw the pictures of those who had died at the corner memorial there.

This community understands the ugly danger of white supremacy all too well. And it has also raised its head most blatantly and proudly in Ukraine today, thanks to the billions of dollars in U.S. support given to the Azov Battalion and other white supremacists since 2014.

Andriy Biletskyi, founder of the Azov Battalion, said in 2010 that the Ukrainian nation’s mission was to “lead the white race of the world in a final crusade…” Today followers of the Azov movement are encouraged to commit atrocities wherever they are living and post them on social media.

In 2019, Olena Semenyaka, the head of international outreach for the Azov movement, told Time Magazine that Azov’s mission was to form a coalition of far-right groups across the Western world, with the ultimate aim of taking power throughout Europe.

She also acknowledged contacts with the U.S. Rise Above Movement (RAM) and said that RAM members came to Ukraine from the U.S. to “learn how to create youth forces in the ways Azov has.”

After this meeting, RAM members participated in and helped organize the August 2017 Unite the Right riot of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, North Carolina, where Heather Heyer was killed by a white supremacist who drove into the counter-protest she participated in. Three RAM members were arrested for inciting and organizing violence there and sentenced to a little over two years in prison.

How does this relate to right here, right now?

Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims in March 2019 as they worshiped in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, wrote in his manifesto that he visited Ukraine. He also wore the emblem used by Azov (the same one we saw on the wall in the tuberculosis hospital) when he did the killing. He featured the Azov emblem in his manifesto.

The recent killing here in Buffalo was done by an 18-year-old white supremacist who said he was influenced by Tarrant — and the beat goes on.

In spite of protest from a former FBI agent about the danger of white supremacist groups here in the U.S. that have international ties, the FBI refuses to put the Azov Battalion, RAM or other white supremacist groups on their terrorist list, which would give them more legal avenues to shut them down. Instead, the FBI recently went after the African People’s Socialist Party for simply having relations with a legal Russian organization.

The FBI has a history of assisting or orchestrating assassinations against Black organizations and activists from Martin Luther King Jr. to Fred Hampton to Malcolm X. We, especially Black and Brown peoples, can’t rely on them. We have to rely on ourselves and the solidarity from our working class.

We can’t rely on those who don’t give a damn about the threat to Black people from these fascist groups, like the Biden Administration and the Democrats, all of whom voted to continue to support feeding these monsters in Ukraine. They are no better than the racist Republican Party when it comes to white supremacy and the murder of our children by either the cops or fascist organizations.

The money they are literally sending up in smoke to bomb ethnic Ukrainians, ethnic Russians, and other peoples in Ukraine could have saved countless lives from COVID – which, by the way, hits us Black people three times harder – or solved the homeless crisis and stopped the march towards poverty for our entire class due to inflation. But they don’t give a damn about our security or our children’s lives.

We are at a critical juncture. What lies before us is the threat of World War III. What lies before us is the threat of unprecedented poverty due to the rise in costs of basic necessities. What lays before us is a return to Jim Crow laws and the lynchings we have already seen in the form of shootings of stores, shootings of churches – all resurrecting the past horrors of the bombing of the church in Birmingham by the KKK.

But if we unify our struggles, if we pledge our solidarity to every movement of working and poor people and people of color; to women and gender non-conforming people and our trans family; to Starbucks and Amazon workers fighting for a union; to Haitian immigrants fighting for their lives along with the entire immigrant community; and pledge to never let U.S. imperialist war be allowed to decimate our class and our struggle – instead of us fearing them, they will tremble at our strength and actions.

Let’s get organized and unified, now! You can do that by keeping in touch with the Socialist Unity Party and joining our efforts to unify and reinvigorate a truly anti-imperialist movement in this country.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... n-donbass/

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Why Ukraine referendum is a big deal
The potential accession of Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye creates a new political reality and Russia’s partial mobilization on a parallel track is intended to provide the military underpinning for it

September 26, 2022 by M.K. Bhadrakumar

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Russia’s newest ICBM Sarmat equipped with maneuvering warheads. Photo: Russian defense ministry

The referendum on September 23-27 in the Donbass and southern Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine on their accession to Russian Federation is, prima facie, an exercise of the right of self-determination by the native population who reject the Western-backed regime change in Kiev in 2014 and the ascendancy of extreme nationalist forces with neo-Nazi leanings in the power structure.

But it has other dimensions, too. In all probability, the referendum will overwhelmingly opt for accession to Russian Federation. In Donbass, it is a straightforward question: “Do you support the entry of the DPR into the Russian Federation as a subject of the Russian Federation?” For Kherson and the Zaporozhye, the referendum ascertains three sequential decisions: secession of these territories from Ukraine; formation of an independent state; and its entry into the Russian Federation as a subject.

In 2014, all legal procedures for the admission of Crimea and Sevastopol to the Russian Federation were completed in four days. An expeditious process can be expected this time around too. There is huge mass support within Russia for reunification with the ethnic Russian populations in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine that suffered severe persecution during the past eight-year period, including brutal violence, at the hands of extremist Ukrainian nationalist elements in control of the state apparatus. This is a highly emotive issue.

In the post-Cold War era, the genie of self-determination was first let out of the bottle by the West during the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia. Although the US midwifed the secession of Kosovo from Serbia as far back as in 2008, the entity is yet to be accorded recognition by the UN. Serbia rejects the secession despite sustained Western pressure.

That said, the Kosovo precedent will not stop the Western powers from condemning the accession of regions of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

The big question today is about the Russian calculus. President Vladimir Putin has surely factored in that the accession of the “Russian regions” of eastern and southern Ukraine is an immensely popular decision in the domestic opinion. The most revealing comments on the topic have come from former President Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev wrote in his Telegram channel: “Referendums in Donbass are of great importance not only for the systemic protection of the inhabitants of the LNR, DNR (Donbass) and other liberated territories, but also for the restoration of historical justice.”

In Medvedev’s opinion, these plebiscites “completely change the vector of Russia’s development for decades.” He adds, “And not only our country. Because after they (referendums) are held and the new territories are accepted into Russia, the geopolitical transformation in the world will become irreversible.”

Most important, Medvedev forewarns, “An encroachment on the territory of Russia is a crime, the commission of which allows you to use all the forces of self-defense.”

Furthermore, he says, once the process of annexation of the new territories is completed, “not a single future leader of Russia, not a single official will be able to reverse these decisions. That is why these referendums are so feared in Kiev and in the West. That is why they need to be carried out.”

What emerges is that Russia has given up hopes of any negotiated settlement. Moscow was initially optimistic that Kiev would negotiate, but the bitter experience turned out to be that President Zelensky was not a free agent. It is the Biden administration that holds the stop watch for the proxy war. And Washington’s timeline is linked to the weakening and destruction of the Russian state, which has been the ultimate US objective. Lest we forget, Biden played a seminal role in installing the new regime in Kiev in 2014 and in moulding Ukraine as an anti-Russian state.

Suffice to say, the referendum on Wednesday is Russia’s only available course of action under the circumstances, while Kiev maintains a maximalist position as advised by the US, UK and Poland.

The accession of Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye creates a new political reality and Russia’s partial mobilization on a parallel track is intended to provide the military underpinning for it. The accession signifies a paradigm shift insofar as any further attacks on these regions that are part of Russia can be construed by Moscow as attacks on Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Certainly, Kiev’s wanton attacks in future on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye will trigger Russian reaction. Any attack on them will be considered aggression and will give Moscow the right to respond “adequately.” The fact the Russian deployment in these territories will be significantly augmented and upgraded signals the willingness to use force.

Meanwhile, Russia’s special military operations will also continue until its set objectives are met. Which means, even more territories may come under Russian control, creating ever newer facts on the ground, whilst the track of dialogue has become extinct. And, of course, all this will be playing out at a juncture when Europe descends into recession, as the sanctions against Russia boomerang. It is improbable that the European public will want their governments to lurch toward a war with Russia. Kiev and its mentors in Washington and London need to factor all this very, very carefully.

The Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder has reacted as follows: “No one will take such bogus referendums seriously, and the US will certainly not recognize their results. How will this affect our and international support for Ukraine? This will not affect in any way, we will continue to work with Ukraine and our international partners to provide them with the necessary assistance to protect their territory.”

That is, admittedly, a sufficiently evasive statement couched in brave words. Neither Pentagon nor the Russian military command will risk brinkmanship. The likelihood, therefore, is that the accession of the new territories to the Russian Federation will not be militarily challenged by the US or NATO.

That said, Russia is already at war with the NATO, as Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said, albeit not in terms of weapons supplies, which “we find ways to counter,” but in the Western systems that exist – communication systems, information processing systems, reconnaissance systems and satellite intelligence systems.

The point is, the accession of Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to the Russian Federation is an irrevocable step that cannot and will not be undone for as long as Russian Federation remains an independent state, as Medvedev underlined. The US – and the collective West and NATO – knows it. Plainly put, the NATO’s proxy-war algorithm has become obsolete and needs to be shelved as a museum piece.

The CIA’s analogy of the Afghan jihad of the 1980s does not hold good anymore, if it ever did at all. In effect, Russia has avoided a “quagmire” in Ukraine and is on its way to turn the tables on NATO.

In Putin’s national address on Wednesday, he had said, “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.” Putin also said Russia has superior nuclear strike capability.

To make things doubly sure that the message has gone home, Moscow lifted the veil today on its newest ICBM, Sarmat. The results of the referendum must be determined not later than five days after the last voting day (September 27), and the issue of accession to Russia is considered approved if more than 50% of the plebiscite participants vote for it. Significantly, the Russian state Duma is scheduled to hold plenary sessions in Moscow on September 27 and 28.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/09/26/ ... -big-deal/

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Neo-Colonial Apologia, Imperialist Hypocrisy, & the Chauvinism Driving Pro-NATO Liberals
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 26, 2022
Rainer Shea

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None are more hypocritical than the Americans who say that Russia is waging an imperialist war. The same goes for when they say China is carrying out a colonial genocide, or when they say the DPRK violates its people’s human rights, or when they say Cuba is anti-democratic. The biggest of these projections is the one in which Americans say the PRC is carrying out neo-colonialism. Because not only are the U.S. and its wealthiest allies themselves guilty of neo-colonialism, but the central motive behind their cold war escalations is to maintain this neo-colonial extraction.

The Ukraine proxy war is about maintaining parasitism

“Stand with Ukraine” is a euphemism for “we must defend neo-colonialism.” The perpetual robbery of Africa, Asia, and Latin America is the indispensable economic basis for the USA, and for all the countries that have joined in the USA’s effort to use Ukraine as a cudgel to destabilize Eurasia. Their riches aren’t built off of their own merits, but off of the continuation of colonialism’s siphonings from the vast majority of the global population. Since 1960 alone, $152 trillion have been transferred from the Global South to the imperialist countries, obviously without any transfers in the other direction apart from predatory loans. This has followed centuries of theft from these countries which was so extreme that Africa, an unfathomably rich continent, had come to be one of the world’s “poorest” places by the standards of the colonial thieves who pretend Africans handicapped their own civilizations. With the emergence of neo-colonialism, in which capital rather than material goods is the primary export from the core countries, even the outlying colonial resistor Ethiopia got assimilated into the global market structure which makes up modern imperialism.

So was the case for countries like Haiti, which had managed to fight off domination by slavers during imperialism’s previous era. No one was spared this new paradigm of enslavement. In the age of New Imperialism, the only way for an exploited country to escape its exploitation is by refusing to comply with the policy demands of foreign capital. Which comes at the cost of the imperialists using sanctions to try to starve its people, and bringing war to it if that’s what’s needed to subdue the disobedient government. The material assets that the imperialist powers find so much pride in possessing, from the USA’s unparalleled wealth to the British Crown’s jewels, all come from theft. And for the settler colonies among them, that includes theft via internal imperialism in addition to the external kind. The oil that U.S. executives are making great profits off amid the resource cutoff from the Russia sanctions is being extracted within occupied indigenous land. While the inhabitants of the exploited countries bear the humanitarian costs from the economic crisis the war has created, and the U.S. empire’s internal colonies suffer the most from the wartime sacrifices, these parasites build their personal empires from the catastrophe’s byproducts.

The liberal academics, activists, NGO members, and commentators who provide the “progressive” side of the Ukraine proxy war’s narrative backing don’t dispute that neo-colonialism is real. Yet their recognition of the existence of U.S. imperialism is rendered inconsequential by their promotion of imperialism’s propaganda. The fact that they know imperial extraction is happening makes their pro-imperialist stances all the more reprehensible, because they’re consciously complicit in the warfare which keeps global exploitation going. They would say that they’re merely concerned about “human rights,” or whatever other slogan the State Department is using. But they’re not being truthful. They know the wars Washington is waging in the name of these “concerns” are what prop up the neo-colonial structure, as not even the most elite of the imperialists believe Washington invests its resources for altruistic reasons. It invests its resources in the hope to benefit capital.

Not only does their stance enable Washington’s sanctions, backing of terrorists, support for genocidal proxy war states, military occupations, bombings, drone strikes, propagations of disinformation designed to sow violence, outright resource theft from places like Syria, and other criminal actions, but it enables the enforced poverty of billions. All of these crimes make the Global South vastly less equipped to absorb the climate crisis, which these liberals claim to take seriously.

The current imperialist scheme to break up Russia and recolonize China isn’t going to work, as these powers are too strong and united to be beaten at this point. But the fact that liberals are backing this pathetically desperate maneuver, with all the human costs it’s having, shows they’ll do anything to try to preserve their share of imperialism’s dwindling spoils. That includes condemning the working class in the core countries to further deterioration in their conditions from the sanctions blowback, even after half a century of neoliberal attacks on their livelihoods. It also includes exploiting the conflict to impose more privatization and austerity onto the Ukrainian people, even after they’ve suffered especially badly among those impacted by the post-Soviet corporate shock policies.

The imperialists are creating more neo-colonies in eastern Europe, while bringing those in the core ever closer to the conditions of the neo-colonies, in the hope that this will stop capital’s demise. They also hope the Nordic states joining NATO will restore U.S. hegemony. In reality, these developments have accelerated the decay of the imperialist bloc, subjecting more places to militarization and austerity that will intensify capitalism’s contradictions. Imperialism needs a social base of well-bribed labor aristocrats in the core to function, and neo-colonial extraction is the only way to maintain that social base. The more the imperialists lose control over the neo-colonies, the more they’ll be forced to contract their capital, and the more those in the core countries will experience the harm from imperialism’s inward turn. The great oil, arms, and financial profits our ruling class is enjoying can’t reverse the system’s decline as long as its global extractive base keeps disappearing. Imperialism’s benefactors are living on borrowed time.

Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine, which is only one among a series of destructive U.S. projects to counter the emergence of a multipolarity, was launched to try to maintain that neo-colonial equilibrium. The hope of the imperialists is that Russia will be destabilized. That would leave China vulnerable to getting subdued, and eliminate the BRI’s threat towards neo-colonialism’s enforced underdevelopment. The opposite will happen. When the exploited countries gain the ability to stand on their own feet economically, they’ll be freed from the predatory relationship to the core which perpetuates their exploitation. This scenario would mean a drastic weakening of capital, so capital’s allies from all parts of the ideological spectrum will never stop supporting imperialism’s machinations. That’s why this country’s “left” has consistently united with the neoconservatives not just on the current funneling of weapons to Ukraine, but on the bombings of Syria, the murders of Libya and Yugoslavia, the coup attempts against socialist governments across Latin America, and Washington’s hybrid warfare tactics against China.

U.S. & its proxies on the verge of being even further discredited

It’s crucial that the benefactors of this parasitic global order foist the blame for our crises onto Washington’s adversaries, because otherwise the truth of the situation would be apparent. Under no circumstances can the context of U.S. meddling that led up to the Ukraine conflict be recognized, or else the myths they depend on will become impossible to ignore. The 2014 phone call showing Obama’s team facilitated Ukraine’s transition towards an ultra-nationalist government can’t be discussed. Neither can the evidence that the protests leading up to the power transfer were U.S.-backed. Neither can the over eight-year-long U.S. backing for self-described National Socialists in Ukraine. Neither can the stated intentions of post-coup Kiev officials to ethnically cleanse the Donbass, which (along with the regime’s already consistent racial war crimes pattern) is what compelled Russia to intervene on behalf of the Russian-speaking population.

Apologia for neo-colonialism, in which the western economic and political model gets fetishized as the only proper option for the entire globe, is at the root of this denial of the U.S. interference in Ukraine. The reason behind why deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych declined to join the EU, provoking a U.S.-backed uprising by kulak descendants, is because the EU had offered Ukraine a deal of neoliberal restructuring. The imperialists were trying to turn Ukraine into a neo-colony, which they’ve ultimately succeeded at through their coup and the conflict it led up to. They’ve manufactured a domino effect of crises within the country, and then within the world more broadly, in order to force through their desires for full Ukrainian economic subjugation and Eurasian instability.

Ukraine has already been thoroughly looted by western corporations, so all the imperialists can now wring out of it is labor surplus from an increasingly destitute population. All while Zelensky turns Ukraine into a “big Israel,” where the country’s notoriously brutal National Guard gets inserted into daily life. Creating this police state is the only way the ultra-nationalists can hope to maintain control in the next few years, now that Ukraine’s economy has been almost cut in half and Ukraine’s military has been so effectively reduced in number. When Zelensky is freeing convicted torturers and child molesters so that they can fight, you know the Ukrainian imperialist compradors are getting desperate. Their blatant disregard for the laws of war, in which they’ve needlessly placed combat locations in places that put civilians at risk, has already discredited them to the point where even Amnesty International is talking about their war crimes.

The war will drag on through the winter, picking off ever more of Ukraine’s generation of fighters as Europe suffers from the sanctions blowback. How long the imperialists will be able to keep it up after then is dubious. At some point, a breaking point will be reached. The conflict will be forced to shift towards an irregular kind, where the CIA’s neo-Nazis carry out random terrorist attacks in place of any actual military strategy. NATO’s propagandists will endlessly insist that the war can still be won, while manufacturing more atrocity stories to rally sympathy for their defeated fascist project. Ukraine will be a shell of itself even more than it is already, economically crippled and without the tools it needs to fulfill Washington’s scheme for wider chaos.

Maintaining hatred for Washington’s rivals is the only way this failing cold war endeavor can keep up its charade as something viable. False flags must routinely be directed against Russia, like they were against Serbia, Syria, and Washington’s other past prolonged war psyops. As the imperialists routinely shift the focus of their propaganda between Russia and China, the same demonizing lens must be held up to the Belt and Road Initiative, and to China’s policies in the crucial BRI node of Xinjiang. However conclusively the narratives of “rogue states” and “human rights abuses” can be debunked, the State Department’s propagandists will never stop repeating their lies, as these lies are what hold together the extractive setup.

If these lies get sufficiently exposed, as the momentum of history amid U.S. imperial decline will ultimately make happen, the illusion of NATO’s role as an innocent justice enforcer will be irreparably shattered. The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions have already cost the imperialists so much narrative ground that they’ve had to resort to concealable warfare tools, and a discrediting of NATO’s fighting capacity in Ukraine would expose them even more damningly.

When the Kiev regime loses, Washington’s TPLF terrorists in Ethiopia will become less able to propagandize for their own destabilization project, which has been floundering as is. U.S. anti-Chinese militarization, which is intensifying a new occupation of historically colonized places like Africa, will get placed under more scrutiny. Imperialism’s warfare, whether in direct military form or in proxy form, will get fully revealed to be being nothing more than one big terrorist operation. This is because if Washington and NATO can’t win against Russia, when they’ve insisted they can, there’s no reason to support them, or to believe anything they say. As far as the Global South is concerned, Washington lost credibility as the “humanitarian” enforcer a long time ago; the formerly colonized countries have rejected Washington’s call for sanctioning Russia because whereas Moscow has a history of aiding decolonial struggles, Washington has an even more recent history of murdering millions for the sake of profit. The false human rights pretenses the U.S. has used in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and so many other places have cost it the respect of everyone besides its imperial allies, and even those allies are now having to be coerced into going along with its cold war escalations.

By instigating the war in Ukraine, Washington made a risky geopolitical chess maneuver. When this maneuver backfires, it will lose credibility not just as a humanitarian actor, but as a military power. From there its economic hegemony will crumble as well, destroyed by the further shift away from the dollar which Ukraine’s conflict has been bringing closer. With Iran and Venezuela’s pivots away from the petrodollar, Washington has found its status at unprecedented risk of being lost. So it’s used absurdly expanded sanctions as a desperate bid for subduing these and the other disobedient countries. The endless assertions that Ukraine is winning are about covering up the reality of this strategy, which is that when you sanction a gargantuan section of the world, that section is able to become economically self-reliant. When Ukraine is lost, and Russia comes out from the crisis even stronger, that fantasy about imperialism engaging in some masterstroke against multipolarity will be shattered. There’s no way the rise of the post-American world can be reversed, and to try to reverse it only speeds up the process.

The signs become more apparent every day that such a narrative collapse is approaching. We can see it in how the imperialist narrative managers, despite their supposed assuredness that Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive represented confirmation that Kiev will win, are now frantically calling for more NATO weapons infusions in response to Russia’s military involvement expansions. The truth is that Kiev’s regaining of that one stretch of territory was not a strategic victory, but a purely PR-motivated decision. A decision which gave Russia pivotal new advantages. Operation Z was never about gaining land for the sake of it, that’s what the colonial powers want from the wars they wage. It’s been about taking away Kiev’s military tools for violating the sovereignty of the independent Donbass republics, and about eliminating the Nazi militias which also menace the Donbass people. It’s been about ensuring the wellbeing of the Russian people, without asking for anything more.

Russia continues to be on track to achieve this. It doesn’t aim to occupy all of Ukraine, but to make Ukraine lose its ports on the Black Sea while making the breakaway of the Donbass permanent. The Kiev regime’s fixation on gaining soil for the sake of it, at the cost of intelligent military strategy, has sealed its fate as another fascist relic, like the Third Reich or Mussolini’s fascist government. This absurd warfare practice is directly informed by the deficient counterinsurgency strategy of the U.S. empire, which drives Kiev’s actions both politically and ideologically.

Self-destruction & cannibalization are the system’s responses to its decline

Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists have been trying to forcibly relocate the Donbass Russian speakers, and then let those deemed to be the real “Ukrainians” settle the leftover land, because like Hitler before them, they’re taking example from America’s model for colonial genocide. They embrace U.S. settlerism’s sick philosophy that might makes right, and that the supposedly superior nation must grab up land from the savages to enable its own development.

It’s a medieval, if not neolithic, worldview. It’s rooted in the idea that earth’s natural resources being finite justifies whatever actions a people take to gain more of those resources. Such a barbaric way of thinking encourages a country to treat those outside the “superior” population as detritus, to view them as nothing more than irritating obstacles in the chosen people’s quest for dominance. When one’s counterinsurgency strategy is based around terroristic brutality towards the local population, of course it fails. The U.S. failed to nation-build in Iraq because Iraq’s people didn’t want to be colonized, as Ukraine has been met with a successful separatist revolt because the Russian speakers don’t want to be ethnically cleansed. And since Ukraine’s fascist takeover has been another U.S. nation-building project, it counts as a direct loss for U.S. imperialism.

The ancient empires, like Rome, lasted so long because they understood the need to facilitate societal development within their colonies to avoid provoking unmanageable revolt. The U.S. empire, being based in the wildly unsustainable system of capitalism, doesn’t build anything. All it does is destroy and loot, which becomes truer as Washington desperately spreads chaos to try to stop the BRI. As a consequence, it’s unable to keep a stable social contract with any of the peoples it’s colonized or tried to recolonize. The only reason why Latin America isn’t already fully socialist is because the CIA has had to carry out dozens of coups throughout it, so the empire can maintain neo-colonial control over the hemisphere. The same goes for Africa and Asia, with imperialism’s tactics for delaying revolution in those places morso involving direct invasions. Now that imperialism’s means for exacting such counterrevolutionary violence are growing weaker, more and more countries are breaking from its control. Their worker movements are able to gain growing amounts of leverage, while the BRI spreads its development projects.

Even successful recent U.S. coup efforts, like the recent one in Sri Lanka, haven’t produced sustainable political projects. Sri Lanka continues to be a powder keg for mass economic discontent, one whose class contradictions are now being furthered by its new neo-colonial regime. It’s also undergoing an anti-Chinese militarization process at the expense of its people. This applies to the rest of the neo-colonies, which have in the last couple years been hit by even more privatization, austerity, and wage cuts. The IMF has exploited the pandemic to impose these policies onto 81 struggling impoverished countries, and has in the process dug its own grave. The peoples of these countries will rise up. Between the pandemic and the climate crisis, they have no choice.

The equivalent crisis is happening in Europe, especially Germany, which has undergone U.S. meddling that’s forced it into rejecting Russia’s Nordstream pipeline. Because of the sanctions blowback, Germany is now in a depression, sure to get more damaging as the energy crisis combines with a climate-impacted winter. Washington’s closest allies are being strong-armed into acting against their own interests, placing ever more pressure on their leaders to cease the sanctions. Stalin assessed that the three big contradictions of imperialism are antagonism between the exploiting and exploited countries, the intensification of class contradictions caused by global monopoly capital, and division among the imperialist powers. We’re seeing these cracks within the system get bigger as Washington takes reckless actions to try to reverse its decline.

Imperialism is a dying order with a shrinking global social base, which was always tiny to begin with. Mao predicted that upwards of 90 percent of the global population will ultimately rise up against imperialism, and that remaining less than 10 percent are who’s cheering on NATO. These warmongers are stubborn in their desire to see their parasitic lifestyles continue, because they can’t see any other way society can be set up. They’re stuck in that ancient, barbaric mindset, in which someone always has to be trampling over another. In the modern age, in which we can point to working examples of societies successfully developing towards communism, this philosophy of inevitable human competition lacks credibility on its face.

Socialist China has lifted a record amount of people out of poverty, with Vietnam following a parallel path. Laos and Cuba are progressing towards such a point of economic development. The DPRK has already developed so far along the path to communism that it’s abolished taxation, and hasn’t even needed to carry out market reforms like the other workers’ republics. Existing socialism has proven wrong the reactionary argument that history can only involve one group subjugating another. The big lie the imperialists tell, propagated through their narrative about “imperialist” Russia and China, is that if the U.S. weren’t exploiting and murdering the peripheral peoples then another player would be doing so. Communism, and the multipolar order more broadly, are showing a cooperative economic and global model is possible.

Imperialism’s weakening grip, & how we in the core can throw it off

The emergence of the new cold war’s alliance between Russia and China, which has lately been deepening despite Washington’s attempts to use Ukraine as a wedge issue between the two, reveals how ineffectual Washington’s hand has become. No longer can it successfully stoke division among its challengers, whether Russia and China, Iraq and Iran, or China and Vietnam. The imperialists have been attempting to do so with their coup efforts in the former Soviet states, which have failed apart from the proxy warfare fiasco of Ukraine. Kazakhstan has been defended from NED terrorists by Russia’s peacekeeping forces, and Washington’s more recent coup attempt in Uzbekistan hasn’t succeeded either. It’s in Uzbekistan where Russia and China have been working to strengthen their ties, following a Chinese diplomatic meeting with the Uzbeks themselves. Eurasia’s unity, and collective economic vitality, only grow stronger.

The “big Israel” the Ukrainian compradors aim to create will be a tiny sliver of the landmass, next to a Donbass breakaway area that will likely soon vote to become part of the Russian Federation. It’s only a matter of time before this state fully collapses, along with much of the rest of the capitalist world during our age of intensifying climate chaos. And Israel itself will have to try to navigate a new order where its biggest ally Washington has largely pulled out of southwest Asia, in order to expand a desperate anti-Chinese military buildup in the Indo-Pacific. The Zionist criminals have been empowered by this emergence of a more anarchic international order, but so have the states that oppose them. Iran has become more influential than ever, Assad’s government has survived, Lebanon continues to be ruled by the same Hezbollah entity which fought off Israeli occupation, and Yemen has been won by the anti-Zionist Houthis. As a favor to their Zionist proxy, the imperialists are attempting a color revolution in Iran. But color revolutions these days invariably fail within countries that are strongly part of the anti-U.S. bloc.

The parasites are undermining themselves. Their system of destruction and violence is being replaced by a new world. The tasks of revolutionaries in the core are to lift the people up to the knowledge level of a trained cadre member, better educate and train our own cadres, and build solidarity with those fighting imperialism abroad. Crucial to this is defending imperialism’s targets from the slanders that constantly get brought upon them. Not just because this helps these peoples counter Washington’s violence, but because this is essential for equipping us in our own struggle against the U.S. empire. Be a chauvinist, and the consequences of this will come back to you. If socialists in the core only focus on their own local conditions, without standing up for anti-imperialist countries or studying how the empire operates, they’ll be wiped out by what’s coming.

During the Cold War, the last time the imperialists were struggling against an existential threat, they reacted by orchestrating genocides within numerous Global South countries they feared would break from neo-colonialism. Indonesia’s “Jakarta Method” of suppressing communism involved the systematic mass murder of every person suspected to as much as have socialist sympathies. This method got exported to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Bolivia, and the other victims of the CIA’s coup spree. Since then, it’s evolved into violence campaigns like Plan Colombia, the Zionist-assisted effort to pick off political dissidents that could be revitalized should the fascists replace Colombia’s current centrist government. As long as the fascist military leadership and personnel remain, capitalist reaction will have the tools to carry out new mass exterminations.

The equivalent is on its way to happening in the United States, but here the fascist backlash will look different. So far, during its early stages, it’s resembling not the Jakarta Method, so much as the Kiev coup regime’s anti-communist suppression model. This is a model where fascist terrorists are given the tools to exact massive bloodshed, and where these terrorists gain the protected status to do so with impunity. Crucial to instigating the counterrevolutionary terror are psyops, designed to demonize the targeted groups and identify these targets in the eyes of the fascist terror agents. Anti-communist hoaxes were used to stoke Indonesia’s reactionaries into a violent frenzy, but here the process is subtler. Our spooks have refined their manipulation tactics, learning how to infiltrate revolutionary groups in an insidious fashion that can’t be detected by an untrained mind. They’ve come to weaponize our revolutionary passions against us, manufacturing cults that claim to oppose the system while leading us into peril.

We must learn the nature of the counterinsurgency we face, and proceed with vigilance. The foundation of this education on revolutionary cadre intelligence is to study what the empire is doing abroad, so we can avoid falling victim to its destructive campaign. Only then can we hope to destroy the enemy from within.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... -liberals/

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Turnout for referendums. Day 4
September 26, 21:42

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Turnout in referendums by the end of the 4th voting day.

Donetsk People's Republic - 86.89% (the referendum took place)
Lugansk People's Republic - 83.61% (the referendum took place)
Zaporizhia region - 66.43% (the referendum took place)
Kherson region - 63.58% (the referendum took place)

Tomorrow is the last day of the historical choice, after which the millstones of history will finally turn and another irreversibility will come regarding the ongoing disintegration of Ukraine.

It is worth noting that the DPR and LPR today bypassed Crimea-2014 in turnout (81.37% turnout), but Sevastopol is still the leader - in 2014 turnout was 89.51%.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7885151.html

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

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Colonelcassad

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The situation in the Soledarsky direction
at 17.00 September 26, 2022

▪️"PMC Wagner" entered Otradovka from the east and cut off the southern side of the settlement from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In parallel with this, the assault on a large stronghold on the Artemovsk - Mayorsk highway , located to the west of Nikolaevka, continues.

▪️In Zaitsevo, the Wagner troops took up positions along the entire southern outskirts and advanced deep into the private sector in the southeastern part of the settlement. Also, the Wagner PMC fighters continue to move from the Donbasskaya substation with the aim of subsequently attacking the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the east of Zaitsevo with two converging strikes.

▪️Detachments of the "Wagnerites" continue to develop the offensive towards the Soledar - Bakhmut (Artemovsk) highway from the southern outskirts of Bakhmutskoye.

▪️The successful actions of the Wagner PMC in the Soledar direction are part of the plan to reach Bakhmut from the south, east and north for a further one-time assault on the city from several directions. This will avoid unnecessary losses and speed up the liberation of a strategically important settlement.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:31 pm

Referendums and the future of war
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/27/2022

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Today, Tuesday, the voting process ends in the referendums called by the DPR, RPL and the authorities appointed by Russia in the areas of the Ukrainian oblasts of Kherson and Zaporozhie under Russian control. Yesterday, based on the participation data offered, the Russian and local authorities already declared the referendums valid, so that, over the next few days, once the recount is complete, Moscow will recognize the results presented and begin a process of annexation of all or part of the territories where the voting has been held.

Without the enthusiasm shown by the population in the spring of 2014, when the specter of war was felt only in very specific points in Donbass and there was no sense that the violence could spread in space and time, the population of the DPR and the RPL vote for the second time in a referendum in which they are certain of an affirmative response from Moscow. The situation is different in Kherson and Zaporozhie, where after six months of Russian military presence, a political change could be made official through military means that Moscow wants to legitimize through a plebiscite.

Without having been defeated militarily, much better armed than a few months ago and with the initiative on a front as important as that of southern Kharkov-northern Donbass, Ukraine has tried in recent weeks to avoid that step. Moreover, scheduled (although never officially announced) for mid-September, the announcement of the delay of the referendums in Kherson and Zaporozhye due to security conditions was understood in kyiv as a victory. However, the need to increase the military grouping in the war zone after the rapid Ukrainian advance and the certainty that none of Moscow's objectives could be met without reinforcing the number of troops has made it necessary to politically justify the partial mobilization announced last week. pass.

Donbass, which de facto had long ago left the Ukrainian sphere and had been integrated, at least partially, into the Russian political and economic space, did not require a new referendum. Hence the sensation of a necessary procedure to initiate a series of steps that could possibly have been taken without the need for a second referendum. On this occasion, it has been the Russian Government, the same one that in 2014 publicly declared itself in favor of delaying the referendum on May 11, which it would not recognize until 2022, which has required the votes to give a legal framework to the events consummated and thus justify the need to recruit the thousands of soldiers with whom he hopes to stabilize the front, now converted into a Russian border.

Obviously, Ukraine, which did not accept the result of the March 16, 2014 referendum in Crimea - which had greater preparation and many more guarantees than the current one, held between bombings and sabotage - has no incentive, not only to recognize the results, but even to accept its celebration as a sign of rejection of the kyiv government by, at least, part of the population. kyiv, which rejected in March -either on its own initiative or encouraged by its Western partners led by Boris Johnson- an agreement to end the war by accepting the loss of Donbass but recovering Kherson and Zaporozhie through political means, has always foreseen a resolve the conflict on their own terms.

kyiv, which continues trying to capture Krasny Liman and attacking other areas of the front, aspires to recover, through military means, the lost territories. And despite the insistence of the official discourse on the idea that Russia will not be able to recruit and arm the planned troops, it tries to advance as much as possible at the present time, when it knows how to have a significant numerical superiority. Even so, despite the fact that the situation in several areas of the front is serious, Ukraine has not achieved a decisive advance in Kherson or Donbass. And despite the fact that the sabotage activities have continued - in these voting days there have been explosions in Berdyansk or Melitopol and indiscriminate attacks in Alchevsk, Donetsk or Kherson,

The actions of the parties over the next few days will mark the development of this new phase of the war. Ukraine, without the feeling of weakness that it still had in March, will continue to try to break through in Kherson, Energodar, Ugledar, Krasny Liman, Volnovakha or Lisichansk. Making the situation untenable for Russian troops has long been the strategy employed. However, despite the optimism of experts since last July, the goodwill gesture in the form of Kherson's withdrawal has not taken place.

Rumors have already begun about the possibility of introducing martial law or even a formal declaration of war on Ukraine as Moscow's next steps in its attempt to maintain control over a special military operation .in which he did not expect to have to maintain such a wide front during such a prolonged period of hostilities. It is likely that throughout this week, Russia will announce what it considers to be its new borders, assuming the obligation to defend those territories and protect its population. Whether Moscow tries to do so through an attempt to freeze the conflict - complicated considering the conditions on the ground -, a new escalation with the attack on critical Ukrainian infrastructure or a mixture of both will depend on the new tactic that Russia will have to raise to maintain its military and political positions in the new situation.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/27/los-r ... more-25588

Google Translator

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The U.S. Is Winning Its War On Europe's Industries And People


Disclose.tv @disclosetv - 10:03 UTC · Sep 26, 2022
JUST IN - German economy deteriorated significantly in September. IFO business climate index continues to fall.


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On February 7 Professor of Economics Michael Hudson explained why America’s Real Adversaries Are Its European and Other Allies:

What worries American diplomats is that Germany, other NATO nations and countries along the Belt and Road route understand the gains that can be made by opening up peaceful trade and investment. If there is no Russian or Chinese plan to invade or bomb them, what is the need for NATO? And if there is no inherently adversarial relationship, why do foreign countries need to sacrifice their own trade and financial interests by relying exclusively on U.S. exporters and investors?
These are the concerns that have prompted French President Macron to call forth the ghost of Charles de Gaulle and urge Europe to turn away from what he calls NATO’s “brain-dead” Cold War and beak with the pro-U.S. trade arrangements that are imposing rising costs on Europe while denying it potential gains from trade with Eurasia. Even Germany is balking at demands that it freeze by this coming March by going without Russian gas.

Instead of a real military threat from Russia and China, the problem for American strategists is the absence of such a threat.


What the U.S. needed was to provoke Russia, and later China, into reacting to U.S. arranged threats in a way that would oblige its 'allies' to follow its sanction policies.

The rather dimwitted European leadership fell for the trick.

The U.S. arranged for a Ukrainian attack on the rebel held Donbas region. This started on February 17 with intense artillery preparations against Donbas positions as recorded by the OSCE observers at that border. Russia had to react or see the ethnic Russians in those areas getting maimed and killed by Nazi devoting Ukrainians.

There was no way to prevent that but by other than military means. On February 22 Russia recognized the Donbas republics as independent states and signed defense agreements with them.

The same day the German chancellor Olaf Scholz canceled the launch of the undersea Nord Stream II pipeline which was to transport Russian gas to Germany's industries and consumers.

The Europeans launched a sequence of extremely harsh economic sanctions against Russia which, prodded by the U.S., had been prepared months in advance.

Russia's Special Military Operation, under Article 51 of the UN Charter, commenced on February 24.

A follow-up piece by Michael Hudson on February 28 stated that Germany had been defeated for a third time in a century:

The active military force since 1991 has been the United States. Rejecting mutual disarmament of the Warsaw Pact countries and NATO, there was no “peace dividend.” Instead, the U.S. policy by the Clinton administration to wage a new military expansion via NATO has paid a 30-year dividend in the form of shifting the foreign policy of Western Europe and other American allies out of their domestic political sphere into their own “national security” blob (the word for special rentier interests that must not be named). NATO has become Europe’s foreign-policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic economic interests.
The recent prodding of Russia by expanding Ukrainian anti-Russian ethnic violence by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi post-2014 Maiden regime aims at forcing a showdown. It comes in response to the fear by U.S. interests that they are losing their economic and political hold on their NATO allies and other Dollar Area satellites as these countries have seen their major opportunities for gain to lie in increasing trade and investment with China and Russia.
...
As President Biden explained, the current military escalation (“Prodding the Bear”) is not really about Ukraine. Biden promised at the outset that no U.S. troops would be involved. But he has been demanding for over a year that Germany prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from supplying its industry and housing with low-priced gas and turn to the much higher-priced U.S. suppliers.
...
So the most pressing U.S. strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices. In addition to creating profits and stock-market gains for U.S. companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy.


(Some people currently peddle a 'Secret RAND study from January 2022'. It is obviously faked. It is simply a write up of Hudson's analysis.)

Nord Stream II was created to make Germany independent from pipelines running through Poland and the Ukraine. Blocking it was the most stupid thing for Germany to do and thus chancellor Scholz did it.

In the following months Poland blocked the Jamal pipeline which also brought Russian gas to Germany. Ukraine followed up with cutting off two Russian pipelines. The main compressor stations of the Nord Stream I pipeline, which the German company Siemens had build and has the maintenance contract, failed one after the other. Sanction are prohibiting Siemens from repairing them.

It is not Russia that has blocked its gas and oil from European markets. It were the German, Polish and Ukrainian governments that did it.

Russia would in fact be happy to sell more. Putin has recently again offered to push as much Russian gas as possible through Nord Stream II to Germany:

After all, if they need it urgently, if things are so bad, just go ahead and lift sanctions against Nord Stream 2, with its 55 billion cubic metres per year – all they have to do is press the button and they will get it going. But they chose to shut it off themselves; they cannot repair one pipeline and imposed sanctions against the new Nord Stream 2 and will not open it. Are we to blame for this?

It is the German government that is to blame for rejecting that offer.

The economic war against Russia that the sanctions against were meant to win has failed to move Russia. The Rubel is stronger than ever. Russia is making record profits even while selling fewer gas and oil than before the war. Russia may have a small recession this year but its standard of living is not in decline.

As was easy predictable and, as Michael Hudson explained, the economic consequences of the anti-Russian sanctions within Europe have in contrast huge catastrophic consequences for the Europe's industries, its societies and its political standing in the world.

Governments and the media had so far refrained from noting the gigantic problems that are coming up and which industry leaders had pointed out early on. Only over the last two weeks or so have they picked up the urgent warnings.

Der Spiegel, Germany's major weekly, asks: How Bad Will the German Recession Be? and states the obvious:

The first German companies have begun throwing in the towel and consumption is collapsing in response to the fallout from exploding energy prices. The economy is sliding almost uncontrolled into a crisis that could permanently weaken the country.

The piece discusses the five stages along which the catastrophe will happen.

Act One: Freezing Production - It is becoming prohibitively expensive to produce in Germany.
Act Two: The Price Trap - No one buys at the high prices German products now cost.
Act Three: The Consumer Crisis - Needing to pay high energy prices German consumers buy less of everything else.
Act Four: The Wave of Bankruptcies.
Act Five: The Final Act on the Labor Market.


When Germany will have some 6 to 10 million unemployed people, and the government less tax income as only a few companies will be profitable, the social system will break down.

European industry buckles under weight of soaring energy prices headlines the Irish Examiner:

Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker, warned last week that it could reallocate production out of Germany and eastern Europe if energy prices don’t come down.
Europe is paying seven times as much for gas as the US, underscoring a dramatic erosion of the continent’s industrial competitiveness that threatens to cause lasting damage to its economy. With Russian President Vladimir Putin redoubling his war efforts in Ukraine, there’s little sign that gas flows - and substantially lower prices - would be restored to Europe in the near term.

OilPrice.com provides that Europe Faces An Exodus Of Energy-Intensive Industries.

In fact The EU is sleepwalking into anarchy:

All eyes may be on the Italian election results this morning, but Europe’s got much bigger problems on its hands than the prospect of a Right-wing government. Winter is coming, and the catastrophic consequences of Europe’s self-imposed energy crisis are already being felt across the continent.
As politicians continue to devise unrealistic plans for energy rationing, the reality is that soaring energy prices and falling demand have already caused dozens of plants across a diverse range of energy-intensive industries — glass, steel, aluminium, zinc, fertilisers, chemicals — to cut back production or shut down, causing thousands of workers to be laid off. Even the pro-war New York Times was recently forced to acknowledge the “crippling” impact that Brussels’s sanctions are having on industry and the working class in Europe. “High energy prices are lashing European industry, forcing factories to cut production quickly and put tens of thousands of employees on furlough,” it reported.

...
It’s truly a sign of the feebleness of Europe’s politicians that despite the fast-approaching cliff, no one can bring themselves to state the obvious: that the sanctions need to end. There’s simply no moral justification for destroying the livelihoods of millions of Europeans simply to school Putin, even if the sanctions were helping to achieve that aim, which they clearly aren’t.
The U.S., while also going into a recession, will profit, as it had planned, from the European catastrophe.

The Handelsblatt, a business daily, reports that Germany companies are moving production to North America.

Washington is attracting German companies with cheap energy and low taxes.

The German government is claiming it wants to prevent that but that is impossible without ending the energy sanctions.

The New York Times is of course happy with the situation. As European producers get out-priced from their markets the U.S. is taking up their slack:

Factory Jobs Are Booming Like It’s the 1970s

U.S. manufacturing is experiencing a rebound, with companies adding workers amid high consumer demand for products..


The U.S., with the help of European politicians, is waging a war against the people of Europe and their standard of living. It is now on the verge of winning that war.

No help will come from outside to prevent that from happening:

Germany Secures Just One Tanker of Gas During Scholz’s Gulf Tour

Europe, and especially Germany, can only escape this obvious trap if it opens the pipelines from Russia. It now high time to do that.

Posted by b on September 26, 2022 at 16:34 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/t ... .html#more

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

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Colonelcassad

Image

The situation in the Limansky direction
as of 13.00 on September 27, 2022, the

Armed Forces of Ukraine crossed the Seversky Donets east of the Liman . Limansky group of troops under the threat of encirclement.

▪️Continued attempts to attack Liman from Ozerny and Shchurovo are repelled by allied forces.

▪️A unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine entrenched itself in the village of Novoe . From the bridgehead near Redkodub - Novy , the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to develop success in the direction of the village of Zelenaya Dolina and the Zherebets River , in order to surround the Liman group of troops from the north and go to the rear of the troops defending the city of Liman .

▪️On the western flank, the BARS-13 army reserve unit successfully repulsed all enemy attacks on Novoselovka , Drobyshevo and Shandrigolovo .

▪️To the east of Liman, units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine set up several pontoon crossings between Kriva Luka and Belogorovka , created a bridgehead on the northern bank of the Seversky Donets, transferred equipment to the bridgehead and began preparations for an active attack on the positions of the allied forces in this sector

▪️Enemy mobile reconnaissance groups on light armored vehicles conducted reconnaissance in combat of the positions of the RF Armed Forces in Yampol and Torskoy . The road Kremennaya - Lyman is no longer safe.

▪️The last safe supply route for the Limanskaya Group of Forces runs along the Svatovo - Makeevka - Terny - Liman road, the road is under threat of blocking the Armed Forces of Ukraine both from the west, from the Novy , and from the south, from the Seversky Donets .

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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Colonelcassad
Factories, "Spetsremont" and the liquidation of defense enterprises during the SVO

Against the backdrop of numerous demands for the mobilization of the economy and its transfer to a military footing, the news about the bankruptcy and sale of property of defense plants sound absolutely fantastic . This process, of course, did not begin yesterday and has been going on for several years.

But seven months after the start of the special military operation and the seemingly obvious problems with the lack of production capacities of the military-industrial complex, such processes are surprising.

The following factories are currently being liquidated:

▪️50th Automobile Repair Plant, Rostov-on-Don
▪️258th repair plant for refueling and transporting fuel, Bataysk
▪️751st repair plant, Rostov, Yaroslavl region
▪️5th Central Automobile Repair Plant, Yekaterinburg
▪️88th Central Automobile Repair Plant, Chita
▪️15th Central Automobile Repair Plant, Novosibirsk
▪️172nd Central Automobile Repair Plant, Voronezh
▪️9th Central Automobile Repair Plant, Saratov and Engels
▪️487th Central Automobile Repair Plant, Republic of Bashkortostan
▪️81st Central Engineering Base, Yaroslavl Region
▪️1st Design and Fortification Bureau, Moscow
▪️85th repair plant, Bryansk
▪️261st repair plant, Novgorod.

This is not a complete list of dying defense enterprises, but I would like to dwell on these separately. All of them belonged to JSC Spetsremont , controlled by the Ministry of Defense , which, in theory, is engaged in the repair and modernization of armored vehicles. But the effectiveness, to put it mildly, is debatable.

In 2017, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated in the State Duma that JSC Spetsremont owed the Ministry of Defense: in 2012-2013, the enterprises of the subholding were supposed to supply about 22 thousand units of military equipment for 12 billion rubles . However, this never happened.

🔻Apparently, after that it was decided to transfer these enterprises to Rostec JSC . But even the state corporation could not clearly answer the question about their prospects.

As a result, only one of the entire list of enterprises was lucky - the 258th repair plant in Bataysk, where Rostvertol is going to make a flight test station.

The rest of the factories are selling unique equipment for next to nothing, and experienced personnel are being fired. This process is accompanied by corruption scandals.

▪️For example, Andrey Yakovlev, the former director of the 88th Central Auto Repair Plant from Chita, was arrested in 2015 for organizing a criminal community . Sergei Chadaev was appointed to replace him, who, as they say, sold out the entire repair fund of the plant.

▪️The 9th Central Automobile Repair Plant is a developer of unique ceramic armor for military equipment. But military customers refused the services of the plant, and it was bankrupted by its own trade union.

▪️Most factories are waiting for the sale of equipment, cutting out all the metal and re-profiling into warehouses, shopping centers, office space , etc. Perhaps - complete demolition and construction of an LCD in their place . And this is now, in conditions of an extremely urgent need for military equipment against the backdrop of hostilities.

All these enterprises today are vital for increasing the country's defense capability. But since the decision to preserve them was never made by the Russian Ministry of Defense, most likely, we, naive bloggers, do not understand anything about this: after all, there, at the top, they know better what is needed and what is not for the needs of the military-industrial complex, right ?
#Russia

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forwarded from
Operation Z: Military commissars of the Russian Spring
‼️🇬🇧🇺🇦Heavy battles are going on: the enemy is throwing large forces at Krasny Liman
. Data from ours from the spot:
▪️The enemy continues to throw troops into attacks on different sectors of the front near Liman, trying to cut off our grouping.
▪️The assault company of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with the support of the BMP, tried to break through the defenses from the eastern side of the Liman. Having met fierce resistance from our fighters, the Nazis lost 3 infantry fighting vehicles and 2 pickup trucks, the remnants retreated to Dibrovo, not even taking the wounded and the bodies of the dead with them.
▪️In the area of ​​​​Drobyshevo and Novoselovka, 5 attempts to infiltrate Ukrainian DRGs were prevented. Novoselovka itself was practically wiped off the face of the earth, the main forces left it.
▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine are attempting an offensive from Ozerny and Shchurovo.
▪️A group of militants entrenched themselves in the Novoye area, from where enemy troops are trying to advance in the direction of Zelenaya Dolina.
▪️The enemy is continuously attacking Drobyshevo, using artillery and helicopters, enemy attacks are repulsed by Bars-13 (Russian Legion) and units of the 40th Army.
▪️Heavy fighting in the district of Shandrigolova, the enemy was able to advance here.
▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to cut off the supply of the Limansky group, they are hitting the Svatovo-Kremennaya highway.
▪️Ours are transferring reinforcements and actively working with artillery.
▪️The Russian Aerospace Forces continue to strike at the enemy.
▪️The reconnaissance groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine work in the areas of the settlement. Yampol, Torskoye.
t.me/RVvoenkor

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the main points during the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine on 22.10 Moscow time on 27.09.2022 specially for the channel Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok :
head-on. Making a roundabout maneuver, the enemy captured Redkodub and today again took Yekaterinovka , from which he had already been knocked out earlier. The enemy is increasing pressure in the Yampol area . The main goal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine here is to create a direct threat to our communications on the site, to force the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to leave Yampol, Krasny Liman and Drobyshevo


to avoid being surrounded.

2. In the area of ​​Kupyansk - intense fighting. The enemy occupied another piece of the Kupyansk industrial zone and the Kupyansk-Uzlovaya station .
Attempts are continuing to break through the front to the north of Kupyansk , but there, for the time being, the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is bogged down in the defense of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The enemy advanced into Peski-Radkovskie south of Borovaya .
In general , the Kharkov sector of the front remains the most problematic for the RF Armed Forces - full stabilization after the Balakleysky breakthrough of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has not yet come here, and the fight against the consequences of the breakthrough and forced withdrawal continues.

3. OnThe Nikolaev and Krivoy Rog directions of the front are generally stable.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to methodically clean out the Andreevsky bridgehead, from where the enemy was never able to develop an offensive on Berislav , which turned out to be heavy losses for him in people and equipment. The front is also stable in the area of ​​Aleksandrovka, Pravdino and Posad-Pokrovsky .
At Olgino and Arkhangelskoye in the Nikopol direction - without significant changes.

4. On the Artemovsky direction, our troops continue the assault on Zaitsevo , Otradovkaand Podgorny .
Fighting on the eastern outskirts of Artemovsk . To the south, fighting continues in the direction of Kurdyumovka .

5. Street fighting continues in Soledar , the pace of advance here is low.
There are fights in Bakhmutskoye , near Belogorovka and Berestovoye .
In the Seversk direction, fighting is underway near Disputed and Ivano-Daryevka . The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are trying to recapture Disputed .
The enemy did not abandon plans to regroup and try to advance in the direction of Kremennaya and Novodruzhesk .

6. Marinka , Avdeevka , Vuhledar , Dzerzhinsk , Zaporizhia direction - no significant changes. @voenkorKotenok

***

Colonelcassad
Battle for Kherson: the situation in the Andreevsky sector
as of 20.00 September 27, 2022

Image

▪️Russian bomber aircraft throughout the night carried out strikes with FABs on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the “gut”. The contingent of the Armed Forces of Ukraine practically did not remain in the area due to the heaviest losses (more than 500 killed and wounded) in manpower and equipment.

▪️The surviving Ukrainian formations urgently left their positions in all settlements, except for Andreevka . Only artillery gunners remained in Belogorka .

▪️Trying to save their lives, Ukrainian soldiers left the bodies of the dead and dozens of wounded to their fate. Currently, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is regrouping forces.

Two companies from the reserve arrived in Bereznegovatoe . They are planned to be sent to Sukhoi Stavok , which has already become a cemetery for Ukrainian personnel and equipment.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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‘Hot Autumn’ of Resistance as Germans Suffer from Sanctions on Russia
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 26, 2022
C.J. Atkins

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A banner at the protest in Leipzig reads: ‘Prices down, Wages up.’ | Martin Heinlein / Die Linke via Unsere Zeit

LEIPZIG, Germany—Around 5,000 in Leipzig and another 1,000 in Berlin last Monday took part in the first rallies of a campaign that’s being called the start of a “hot autumn” of resistance to Ukraine war-imposed hardships on German workers.

Demonstrators demanded caps on gas and electricity prices, the abolition of gas surcharges that fall on the working class, nationalization of the energy industry, and an end to the economic war the German government is waging with Russia.

Along with other EU countries, Germany has imposed economic sanctions on Russian energy sales in a bid to punish President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine. But in a boomerang effect, the effort at fiscal warfare is hitting working people in Germany much harsher than it is the Russian state.

Inflation clocked in at 7.6% for Germany in summer 2022, a near-40-year high. At the core of the problem? Energy costs, which are up 38% according to official statistics. Before the war in Ukraine, Germany secured much of the natural gas that heats its homes and powers its industry from Russia. It had been that way for decades, even during the Cold War.

After the Russian military crossed the Ukrainian frontier in February, Germany and other countries set in motion a process of weaning themselves from Russian energy. The idea was that if the Russian economy could be strangled, then Putin would call back his tanks.

The whole affair backfired, though, with Russia finding new customers like India and China and thus raking in more money than ever thanks to higher global oil and gas prices.

Working people in Germany, meanwhile, have been left to pay the price for the faulty sanctions regime, and with autumn coming on fast in central Europe, the frustration is becoming more palpable. Temperatures are falling, and the level of anger is rising.

The Left Party (Die Linke) initiated the protest in Leipzig, where Sören Pellmann, a local member of the Bundestag (parliament), spoke of an “opening rally for the hot autumn.”

In Berlin, a left-wing alliance staged protests in front of the Green Party headquarters. While participating in Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government, the Greens have totally renounced their pacifist, anti-war roots and become the most hawkish voices among the ruling class.

Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who is also the economy and climate minister, and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock were the key actors in cabinet who pushed for Germany to overturn its long-standing policy of not exporting weapons abroad. Habeck and Baerbock, in particular, pressured Scholz to ship heavy offensive arms to Kiev.

Under the motto, “Enough is enough—protest instead of freezing; Heating, bread, and peace,” the Berlin protesters targeted the galloping inflation of gas and electricity prices. Taking Germany’s energy industry under public ownership and giving up on the sanctions charade were highlighted as the only realistic ways forward.

No kind words were heard for the Russian military’s attack on Ukraine, contrary to mainstream media claims that anti-war protesters are puppets for Putin. Instead, the fire was focused on the bungled response to the war by the powers-that-be in the Bundestag.

“We shouldn’t have to dress so warmly at home this winter, but the ladies and gentlemen in government tell us that we have to freeze for their wrong policy,” said Berlin rally announcer Uwe Hiksch, representing the Naturefriends Germany (Naturfreunde).

In Leipzig, the German Communist Party (DKP) and the Socialist German Workers Youth (SDAJ) provided a considerable chunk of the 5,000+ who marched. Co-chair of Die Linke’s parliamentary group, Amira Mohamed Ali, told the crowd she was demonstrating to “keep normal life affordable.”

Back in the capital, Angelika Teweleit from the Network for Militant Trade Unions, said the federal government has tried to contain the people’s anger with the inflation relief packages it has offered so far, such as limited household energy subsidies and public transit discounts.

But she argued the government is unwilling to do anything more substantial in the interests of the people, such as placing the energy companies under public control. It “prefers to protect corporate profits” instead.

Die Linke MP Sevim Dagdelen called for a planned natural gas surcharge to be terminated. The German government is planning an extra charge of 2.4 euro cents per kilowatt hour on households as a means of controlling demand.

Critics say the measure will make it more expensive for the public to heat their homes and cook their meals while padding the bottom lines of already-profitable private energy corporations. The surcharge, due to take effect in October, will act as a direct subsidy to utility companies who’ve had to pay for more expensive imported gas.

It’s a case of the people being forced to put up the cash for corporate welfare.

Image
The red banners of the DKP and the SDAJ were prominent among the crowd in Leipzig. | Herbert Münchow / Unsere Zeit

Die Linke co-chair Martin Schirdewan told demonstrators in Leipzig that they should not accept charges by the government or media that they are “dividing society” or “endangering democracy.”

Slogans including “NATO out of Ukraine” and “We are not freezing for your profits” were popular ones on the placards carried by protesters. Simplistic mainstream press coverage has latched on to these demands and equated the “hot autumn” protesters with the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which opposes Germany’s participation in the Ukraine war.

Ferat Koçak, a Die Linke deputy in the Berlin Senate, declared, “There is no place for Nazis here,” and said it’s a common tactic of the capitalist ruling class to try to sow confusion among the people about the aims of the left and the extreme right.

As for the AfD and other far-right groups, they try to take advantage of these disinformation efforts to co-opt or hijack left-wing popular protest.

On the fringes of the rally in Berlin, anti-fascists prevented a group of supporters of the party “Die Basis” and the group “Freie Linke,” who had demonstrated several times together with neo-Nazis, from taking part in the rally.

In Leipzig, around 500 people took part in parallel to the left-wing rally in a meeting registered by the right-wing group “Freie Sachsen,” which the authorities in the immediate vicinity had approved.

Despite the Nazi distractions, Die Linke leader Gregor Gysi said he was pleased to see his party “finally able” to organize such events again after its recent divisions and poor election showing.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... on-russia/

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The War On Germany Just Entered Its Hot Phase
Just yesterday I laid out how the U.S. is winning its war on Europe's industries and people.

That war, hidden behind the U.S. created Ukraine crisis, is designed to destroy Europe's manufacturing advantage compared to the U.S. It is more likely though to strengthen the economic position of China and other Asian economies.

I have argued that Germany must open the Nord Stream II pipeline which can bring Russian natural gas to Germany without crossing other countries' territory. It must also allow Siemens to repair the defect Nord Stream I compressors. It is in fact inevitable if German's industry is to survive.

Others have come to similar conclusion and decided to sabotage the pipelines to make their re-opening impossible:

Three offshore lines of the Nord Stream gas pipeline system have sustained "unprecedented" damage in one day, Nord Stream AG, the operator of the network, said on Tuesday in what one German official has suggested is a "targeted attack”. Nord Stream 2 suffered a gas leak which was then followed by a drop of pressure on Nord Stream 1.
The company also said that it was impossible to estimate when the gas network system's working capability would be restored.


The simultaneous sub sea damage to three pipelines is obviously not an accident.

A German economy official told Tagesspiegel: "We can't imagine a scenario that isn't a targeted attack."
They added: "Everything speaks against a coincidence."


Image

The war mongers at the British Telegraph claim without any evidence or logic that Russia is the culprit:

Russian sabotage to gas supplies to Europe is feared after three offshore lines of the Nord Stream pipeline system suffered “unprecedented” damage in a single day.
...
Russia has withheld gas supplies to Europe as it seeks to hit back for Western sanctions imposed for the illegal invasion of Ukraine. German newspapers reported sources saying the leaks were as a result of a "targeted attack".


As stated in yesterday's piece the claim that Russia is withholding gas from Europe is outright false:

Nord Stream II was created to make Germany independent from pipelines running through Poland and the Ukraine. Blocking it was the most stupid thing for Germany to do and thus chancellor Scholz did it.
In the following months Poland blocked the Yamal pipeline which also brought Russian gas to Germany. Ukraine followed up with cutting off two Russian pipelines. The main compressor stations of the Nord Stream I pipeline, which the German company Siemens had build and has the maintenance contract, failed one after the other. Sanction are prohibiting Siemens from repairing them.

It is not Russia that has blocked its gas and oil from European markets. It were the German, Polish and Ukrainian governments that did it.

Russia would in fact be happy to sell more. Putin has recently again offered to push as much Russian gas as possible through Nord Stream II to Germany: ...


If Russia were to cut pipelines in the Baltic Sea it would damage those that bring Norwegian gas to Europe, not the pipelines it owns and which give it some leverage.

Russia thus surely has no plausible interest in sabotaging the Nord Stream system. Others though do have such interests. They likely want Germany to 'stay in line' with their war to Decolonize Russia. The major potential actors behind this are the U.S., the British, the Ukrainian and the Polish government or a mixture of those.

Geography, and the shallow depth of the Baltic Sea, seem to exclude that a U.S. or British submarines did the damage. Ukraine does not have access to the Baltic Sea. Poland, which had already tried to prevent or hinder the Nord Stream II construction, is the most likely actor behind this though I doubt that it would dare to act alone.

Consider this from April 2021:

The developers of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline have accused foreign naval forces of "provocative" activity in the vicinity of construction work. The controversial pipeline is about 93 percent complete, and two Russian pipelay vessels are on station and working on the project in Danish waters.
Andrei Minin, the branch director of Gazprom-run Nord Stream 2 AG, told TASS that "foreign warships and vessels were demonstrating higher activity" near the operation, and that "such actions are provocative and can lead to gas pipeline damage." He also accused Poland of deploying a military M-28 patrol aircraft to survey the site.

"The Polish Navy is not conducting provocative operations and has been carrying out its statutory tasks in agreement with international laws," responded the Polish Army's central command in a social media post. "M-28B Bryza planes regularly conduct patrol flights in the Baltic Sea region."

Poland strongly opposes the development of Nord Stream 2, which will give Gazprom a subsea alternative route for supplying natural gas to Western European customers. At present, that gas has to pass through overland pipeline networks in Poland and Ukraine, bringing in valuable transit fees and providing both nations - which do not always have cordial relations with Russia - a measure of energy security.


Followed by this from May 2021:

Poland has reacted angrily to President Joe Biden’s decision to waive US sanctions on Nord Stream II, warning the move could threaten energy security across Central and Eastern Europe.
“The information is definitely not positive from the security point of view, as we know perfectly that Nord Stream II is not only a business project – it is mostly a geopolitical project,” said Piotr Muller, a spokesman for the Polish government.


On February 7 Biden stated that he would decided if Nord Stream II opens:

After both leaders appeared to avoid mentioning the pipeline, under repeated questions from reporters at an afternoon press conference, Biden, standing next to the German chancellor said Nord Stream 2 would not move forward if Russia invades Ukraine, in a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin of potential economic consequences.
"If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the -- the border of Ukraine again, then there will be -- there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2," Biden said during the press conference with Scholz, who did not go as far as Biden, but insisted the U.S. and Germany remain "absolutely united."


On February 27 Biden sanctioned the company owning the pipeline.

Under its current rightwing leadership Poland has been extremely hostile to Germany. This month it even renewed is demand for war reparations from Germany, an issue that had been settle decades ago:

Poland’s top politician said Thursday that the government will seek equivalent of some $1.3 trillion in reparations from Germany for the Nazis’ World War II invasion and occupation of his country.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice party, announced the huge claim at the release of a long-awaited report on the cost to the country of years of Nazi German occupation as it marks 83 years since the start of World War II.
...
Germany’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday the government’s position remains “unchanged” in that “the question of reparations is concluded.”

“Poland long ago, in 1953, waived further reparations and has repeatedly confirmed this waiver,” the ministry said in an emailed response to a Associated Press query about the new Polish report.


It is high time for the German government to wake up and to recognize that a war has been launched against its country.

And no. It is not Russia that is waging it.

Posted by b on September 27, 2022 at 12:03 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/t ... .html#more

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Undermining the "Nord Stream"
September 27, 18:02

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In the morning the Nord Streams were blown up. There were explosions on three lines. In Sweden, 2 explosions with a power of 2.3 points were recorded.

As a result of the sabotage, the gas goes out to sea and is observed on the surface over an area of ​​hundreds of meters (video https://t.me/boris_rozhin/65278 ).
Earlier, NATO drones and helicopters with the Kirsarge UDC were noted at the site of the explosions https://t.me/vatfor/8088 , which recently came to the Baltics.

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It is worth noting that in February Biden directly stated https://t.me/SeaPower/1921 that the United States would destroy Nord Stream.
Thus, the process of economic enslavement of Germany is completed in the foreseeable historical perspective of Germany, as well as Europe as a whole, you can forget about cheap gas.

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https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7886712.html

Numbers for history textbooks
September 27, 23:47

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Figures for history textbooks

Total figures for all 4 referendums.

Donetsk People's Republic - 99.23%
Lugansk People's Republic - 98.42%
Zaporozhye region - 93.11%
Kherson region - 87.05%

These figures will go into the history books.
The people have made their choice.

PS. Zaporozhye and Kherson regions today left Ukraine, the fragmentation of which continues.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7888051.html

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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