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 » Fri Dec 02, 2022 12:28 am

ACTION ALERT: NYT Has Found New Neo-Nazi Troops to Lionize in Ukraine
ERIC HOROWITZ

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The New York Times has found another neo-Nazi militia to fawn over in Ukraine. The Bratstvo battalion “gave access to the New York Times to report on two recent riverine operations,” which culminated in a piece (11/21/22) headlined “On the River at Night, Ambushing Russians.”
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New York Times (11/21/22): “The Bratstvo battalion has undertaken some of the conflict’s most difficult missions, conducting forward spotting and sabotage along the front lines.”
Since the US-backed Maidan coup in 2014, establishment media have either minimized the far-right ideology that guides many Ukrainian nationalist detachments or ignored it completely.

Anti-war outlets, including FAIR (1/28/22, 3/22/22), have repeatedly highlighted this dynamic—particularly regarding corporate media’s lionization of the Azov battalion, once widely recognized by Western media as a fascist militia, now sold to the public as a reformed far-right group that gallantly defends the sovereignty of a democratic Ukraine (New York Times, 10/4/22; FAIR.org, 10/6/22).

That is when Azov’s political orientation is discussed at all, which has become less and less common since Russia launched its invasion in February.

‘Christian Taliban’
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“We need to create something like a Christian Taliban,” Dmytro Korchynsky told the Intercept (3/18/15). “The Christian Taliban can succeed, just as the Taliban are driving the Americans out of Afghanistan.”
The lesser-known Bratstvo battalion, within which the Times embedded its reporters, is driven by several far-right currents—none of which are mentioned in the article.

Bratstvo was founded as a political organization in 2004 by Dmytro Korchynsky, who previously led the far-right Ukrainian National Assembly–Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO).

Korchynsky, who now fights in Bratstvo’s paramilitary wing, is a Holocaust denier who falsely blamed Jews for the 1932–33 famine in Ukraine, and peddled the lie that “120,000 Jews fought in the Wehrmacht.” He has stated that he sees Bratstvo as a “Christian Taliban” (Intercept, 3/18/15).

In the 1980s, the Times portrayed the religious extremists of the Afghan mujahideen—who were receiving US training and arms—as a heroic bulwark against Soviet expansionism. We all know how that worked out.

In an echo of that propaganda campaign, the Times neglected to tell its readers about the neo-Nazi and theocratic politics of the Bratstvo battalion. Why should anyone care who else Bratstvo members would like to see dead, so long as they’re operating in furtherance of US policymakers’ stated aim of weakening Russia?

Modern-day crusade

The article’s author, Carlotta Gall, recounted Bratstvo’s Russian-fighting exploits in quasi-religious terms. Indeed, the only instances in which the Times even hinted at the unit’s guiding ideology came in the form of mythologizing the unit’s Christian devotion.

Of Bratstvo fighters embarking on a mission, Gall wrote, “They recited a prayer together, then loaded up the narrow rubber dinghies and set out, hunched silent figures in the dark.” Referring to battalion commander Oleksiy Serediuk’s wife, who also fights with the unit, Gall extolled, “She has gained an almost mythical renown for surviving close combat with Russian troops.”

The piece even featured a photograph showing militia members gathered in prayer. Evoking the notion of pious soldiers rather than that of a “Christian Taliban,” the caption read, “Members of the Bratstvo battalion’s special forces unit prayed together before going on a night operation.”

The Times also gave voice to some of the loftier aims of Bratstvo’s crusade, quoting Serediuk’s musing that, “We all dream about going to Chechnya, and the Kremlin, and as far as the Ural Mountains.” Nazi racial ideologues have long been enamored by the prospect of reaching the Urals, which they view as the natural barrier separating European culture from the Asiatic hordes.

While plotting Operation Barbarossa, Hitler identified the Urals as the eastern extent of the Wehrmacht’s planned advance. In 1943, referring to the Nazi scheme that aimed to rid European Russia of Asiatic “untermenschen” so the land could be settled by hundreds of millions of white Europeans, Himmler declared, “We will charge ahead and push our way forward little by little to the Urals.”

‘Mindset of the 13th century’
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Bratstvo commander Oleksiy Serediuk explained to Al Jazeera (4/15/15): “I left the Azov because it was full of pagans. Committed Christians in the Azov were not allowed to stop to pray throughout the day.”
The only two Bratstvo members named in the piece, meanwhile, are Serediuk and Vitaliy Chorny. While Chorny—who the Times identified as the battalion’s head of intelligence gathering—is quoted, his statements are limited to descriptions of the unit’s fighting strategy. Serediuk’s recorded utterances are similarly lacking in substance.

Far more illuminating is an Al Jazeera article (4/15/15) titled “‘Christian Taliban’s’ Crusade on Ukraine’s Front Lines,” which quotes both Serediuk and Chorny extensively. Serediuk, Al Jazeera reported, “revels in the Christian Taliban label.” In reference to his decision to leave the Azov battalion, the piece went on to say:

Serediuk didn’t leave the Azov because of the neo-Nazi connections, however—extreme-right ideology doesn’t bother him. What does irk him, however, is being around fighters who are not zealous in their religious convictions.

In the same piece, Chorny invoked the violently antisemitic Crusades of the Middle Ages to describe Bratstvo’s ideological foundation:

The enemy—the forces of darkness—they have all the weapons, they have greater numbers, they have money. But our soldiers are the bringers of European traditions and the Christian mindset of the 13th century.

To circumvent the Times’ exultant narrative, one has to do a certain amount of supplementary research and analysis. But even the most basic inquiry—searching “Bratstvo battalion” on Google—reveals the far-right underpinnings of the unit with which the Times embedded its reporters.

The seventh search result is a June 2022 study from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, which reported, “Another such far-right entity is the so-called Brotherhood (Bratstvo) ‘battalion,’ which includes Belarusian, Danish, Irish and Canadian members.”

The ninth result is an article from the Washington Free Beacon (4/6/22), which quoted a far-right Canadian volunteer as saying on Telegram that he was “fighting in the neo-Nazi ‘Bratstvo’ Battalion in Kyiv.”

SS memorabilia
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The New York Times (11/21/22) captioned this photo, “Members of the Bratstvo battalion’s special forces unit prayed together before going on a night operation.”
In a world where journalists actually practiced what they preached, someone at the paper of record surely would have noticed the Nazi insignia appearing in two photos in the piece. In this world, however, the Times either forgot how to use the zoom function—though the paper made extensive use of this capability when reporting on China’s Communist Party Congress the month before (FAIR.org, 11/11/22)—or they simply did not want to report on this ugly and inconvenient discovery.

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Totenkopf insignia worn by Bratstvo member in photo above.

One soldier is seen wearing an emblem known as a “Totenkopf” in a photo of Bratstvo’s prayer circle. The Totenkopf, which means “death’s head” in German, was used as an insignia by the Totenkopfverbande—an SS unit that participated in Hitler’s war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, and guarded the concentration camps where Nazi Germany condemned millions of Jewish men, women and children to death.

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Totenkopf emblem on eBay.

Individuals donning the Totenkopf also took part in the murder of millions of others in these camps, including Soviet prisoners of war, political dissidents, trade unionists, persons with disabilities, homosexuals and Romani people.

In September, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted—and then quietly deleted—a picture on social media of himself with a number of soldiers, one of whom was wearing a Totenkopf patch similar to that seen in the Times’ photo of Bratstvo’s prayer meeting. One can easily find this particular iteration on Amazon or eBay.
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The New York Times described this photo as “Russian volunteer fighters preparing to go on a joint night operation with the Ukrainian Bratstvo battalion.“
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The Totenkopf insignia can also be seen in this photo.

Later in the Times article, another photograph of a soldier wearing a slightly different version of the insignia appeared. Here, bathed in the light of an interior room and staring out from the very center of the image, the Totenkopf is even harder to miss. Amazon’s product description for this specific variant reads, “This gorgeous replica piece takes you back to World War II.”

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Amazon promises that “this gorgeous replica piece takes you back to World War II.”

If the Times simply failed to identify the Totenkopf in two separate photos—both of which were taken by a Times photographer while he was embedded with Bratstvo, and were then featured prominently in the article—that would certainly amount to a journalistic failure.

The alternative scenario is that the Times did recognize the SS memorabilia worn by the soldiers they chose to embed with, and decided to publish the images anyway without commenting on the matter.

https://fair.org/home/action-alert-nyt- ... n-ukraine/

A historian might note that the totenkopf badge was used by Prussian Uhlans(light cavalry) in the 19th century but these clowns know nothing of this.
(but an apologist might try...)

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It Was Never About Ukraine

by Ted Snider Posted onNovember 23, 2022

In his March 21 press briefing, State Department spokesman Ned Price told the gathered reporters that “President Zelenskyy has also made it very clear that he is open to a diplomatic solution that does not compromise the core principles at the heart of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.” A reporter asked Price, “What are you saying about your support for a negotiated settlement à la Zelenskyy, but on whose principles?” In what still may be the most remarkable statement of the war, Price responded, “this is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine.”

Price, who a month earlier had discouraged talks between Russia and Ukraine, rejected Kiev negotiating an end to the war with Ukraine’s interests addressed because US core interests had not been addressed. The war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.

A month later, in April, when a settlement seemed to be within reach at the Istanbul talks, the US and UK again pressured Ukraine not to pursue their own goals and sign an agreement that could have ended the war. They again pressured Ukraine to continue to fight in pursuit of the larger goals of the US and its allies. Then British prime minister Boris Johnson scolded Zelensky that Putin "should be pressured, not negotiated with." He added that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, the West was not.”

Once again, the war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.

At every opportunity, Biden and his highest ranking officials have insisted “that it's up to Ukraine to decide how and when or if they negotiate with the Russians” and that the US won’t dictate terms: “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” But that has never been true. The US wouldn’t allow Ukraine to negotiate on their terms when they wanted to. The US stopped Ukraine from negotiating in March and April when they wanted to; they pushed them to negotiate in November when they did not want to.

The war in Ukraine has always been about larger US goals. It has always been about the American ambition to maintain a unipolar world in which they were the sole polar power at the center and top of the world.

Ukraine became the focus of that ambition in 2014 when Russia for the first time stood up to American hegemony. Alexander Lukin, who is Head of Department of International Relations at National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow and an authority on Russian politics and international relations, says that since the end of the Cold War Russia had been considered a subordinate partner of the West. In all disagreements between Russia and the US up to then, Russia had compromised, and the disagreements were resolved rather quickly.

But when, in 2014, the US set up and supported a coup in Ukraine that was intended to pull Ukraine closer into the NATO and European security sphere Russia responded by annexing Crimea, Russia broke out of its post Cold War policy of compliance and pushed back against US hegemony. The 2014 “crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s reaction to it have fundamentally changed this consensus," Lukin says. "Russia refused to play by the rules."

Events in Ukraine in 2014 marked the end of the unipolar world of American hegemony. Russia drew the line and asserted itself as a new pole in a multipolar world order. That is why the war is “bigger than Ukraine,” in the words of the State Department. It is bigger than Ukraine because, in the eyes of Washington, it is the battle for US hegemony.

That is why US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on November 13 that some of the sanctions on Russia could remain in place even after any eventual peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. The war has never just been about Ukraine: it is about US foreign policy aspirations that are bigger than Ukraine. Yellen said, “I suppose in the context of some peace agreement, adjustment of sanctions is possible and could be appropriate.” Sanctions could be adjusted when negotiations end the war, but, Yellen added, “We would probably feel, given what’s happened, that probably some sanctions should stay in place.”

That is also why the US announced a new army headquarters in Germany “to carry out what is expected to be a long-term mission” while it simultaneous began pushing Ukraine toward peace talks. The military pressure on Russia and support for Ukraine will survive the war.

It is also why on June 29, the US announced the establishment of a permanent headquarters for US forces in Poland that Biden boasted would be “the first permanent U.S. forces on NATO’s eastern flank."

It is again why, on November 9, the State Department approved the sale of nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System to Lithuania. They are not to be used by NATO in the Ukraine war. But they will, according to the State Department, “support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the military capability of a NATO Ally that is an important force for ensuring political stability and economic progress within Eastern Europe.” At the same time, the State Department approved the potential sale of guided multiple launch rocket systems to Finland to bolster “the land and air defense capabilities in Europe's northern flank.”

Presumably, the delivery of upgraded B61-12 air-dropped gravity nuclear bombs to NATO bases in Europe is also not in the service of current US goals in Ukraine.

Though to the US, the war in Ukraine is “bigger than Ukraine,” it is also “in many ways bigger than Russia.” Although the recently released 2022 National Defense Strategy identifies Russia as the current “acute threat,” it “focuses on the PRC,” or the People’s Republic of China. The Strategy consistently identifies China as the “pacing challenge.” The long-term focus is on, not Russia, but China.

The National Defense Strategy clearly states that “The most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security is the PRC’s coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences.”

If Ukraine is about Russia, Russia is about China. The “Russia Problem” has always been that it is impossible to confront China if China has Russia: it is not desirable to fight both superpowers at once. So, if the long-term goal is to prevent a challenge to the US led unipolar world from China, Russia first needs to be weakened.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently said that "China will firmly support the Russian side, with the leadership of President Putin . . . to further reinforce the status of Russia as a major power."

According to Lyle Goldstein, a visiting professor at Brown University and author of Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry, an analysis of the war in Ukraine published in a Chinese academic journal concludes that “In order to maintain its hegemonic position, the US supports Ukraine to wage hybrid warfare against Russia…The purpose is to hit Russia, contain Europe, kidnap ‘allies,’ and threaten China.”

The war in Ukraine has never been just about Ukraine. It has always been “bigger than Ukraine” and about US principles that are bigger than Ukraine and “in many ways bigger than Russia.” Ukraine is where Russia drew the line on the US led unipolar world and where the US chose to fight the battle for hegemony. That battle is acutely about Russia but, in the long-term, it is about China, “the most comprehensive and serious challenge” to US hegemony.

https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider ... t-ukraine/

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NATO Exists To Solve The Problems Created By NATO’s Existence

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NATO has doubled down on its determination to eventually add Ukraine to its membership, renewing its 2008 commitment to that goal in a meeting between the foreign ministers of the alliance in Bucharest, Romania this past Tuesday.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes:

The Romanian city was where NATO initially made the promise to Ukraine back in 2008, and at the time, US officials acknowledged that attempting to bring the country into the alliance could spark a war in the region.



“We made the decision in Bucharest in 2008 at the summit,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. “I was there … representing Norway as Prime Minister. I remember very well the decisions. We stand by those decisions. NATO’s door is open.”



In a joint statement, the NATO foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said that they “reaffirm” the decisions that were made at the 2008 Bucharest summit.


It has become fashionable among the mainstream western commentariat to claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO expansion, but as recently explained by Philippe Lemoine for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, that’s a completely false narrative that requires snipping past comments made by Putin out of the context in which they were made. Many western experts warned for years in advance that NATO expansion would lead to a conflict like the one we’re seeing today, and they were of course correct.

The recent push to expand NATO in Ukraine along with nations like Finland and Sweden as justified by “Russian aggression” is a good example of what professor Richard Sakwa has called the “fateful geographical paradox: that NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence.” As the late scholar on US-Russia relations Stephen Cohen explained years before the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014, Moscow sees NATO as an “American sphere of influence,” and the expansion of NATO and NATO influence as expansion of that sphere. It reacts to this with hostility just as the US would react to China or Russia building up aggressive military alliances on its borders, and arguably with vastly more restraint than the US would.

Other future examples of Sakwa’s fateful geographical paradox are likely to include the push to reconfigure NATO into an alliance dedicated to “restraining” China, which of course means halting China’s rise on the world stage and working to constrict, balkanize and usurp it. A recent Financial Times article titled “Washington steps up pressure on European allies to harden China stance” gives new detail to this agenda:

The US is pushing European allies to take a harder stance towards Beijing as it tries to leverage its leadership on Ukraine to gain more support from Nato countries for its efforts to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.



According to people briefed on conversations between the US and its Nato allies, Washington has in recent weeks lobbied members of the transatlantic alliance to toughen up their language on China and to start working on concrete action to restrain Beijing.



US president Joe Biden identified countering China as his main foreign policy goal at the start of his administration, but his efforts have been complicated by the focus on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.



But with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion in its 10th month, Washington was making a concerted effort to push China back up Nato’s agenda, the people said.



The “North Atlantic” Treaty Organization added China to its security concerns for the very first time this past June, and ever since it’s seen a mad push from Washington to ramp up aggressions against Beijing. Another Financial Times article titled “Nato holds first dedicated talks on China threat to Taiwan” details a meeting between alliance members this past September:

They also discussed how Nato should make Beijing aware of the potential ramifications of any military action — a debate that has gained significance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid questions about whether the west was tough enough in its warnings to Moscow.

The US has been urging allies, particularly in Europe, to focus more on the threat to Taiwan, as concerns mount that Chinese president Xi Jinping may order the use of force against the island.

Senior US military officers and officials have floated several possible timelines for military action, with some eager to increase the sense of urgency to ensure Washington and its allies are prepared.


Some are noticing that Washington’s eagerness to “increase the sense of urgency” on this front can easily wind up having a provocative effect which serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told Bloomberg a month ago that Washington’s haste to prepare everyone for another major conflict could “end up provoking the war that we seek to deter.”

“NATO should be renamed ASFP: the Alliance for Self Fulfilling Prophecies,” tweeted commentator Arnaud Bertrand of the alliance’s discussions about Taiwan.

“A defensive alliance doesn’t look to pick fights with a country on a different continent,” tweeted Jacobin’s Branko Marcetic. “This is some classic mission creep from NATO – or, more accurately, Washington.”


When you ignore all the empty narrative fluff and really boil it down to the raw language of actual behavior, NATO’s existence really does seem to be premised on the circular reasoning that without NATO there’d be nobody to protect the world from the consequences of NATO’s actions. It goes out of its way to threaten powerful nations and then justifies its existence by their responses to those threats. It’s a self-licking ice cream cone, or, if you prefer, a self-licking boot.

And this is all happening as news comes out that European nations are beginning to notice they’re bearing a lot more of the cost of Washington’s proxy warfare in Ukraine than the US is, while the US reaps all the profits. In an article titled “Europe accuses US of profiting from war,” Politico reports:

Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer.

“The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,” one senior official told POLITICO.

The explosive comments — backed in public and private by officials, diplomats and ministers elsewhere — follow mounting anger in Europe over American subsidies that threaten to wreck European industry.


Washington is taking extreme risks and angering allies at this time because it’s getting to do-or-die time as far as preserving US unipolar hegemony is concerned. As Antiwar’s Ted Snider explains in a recent article, the US proxy war in Ukraine has never really been about Ukraine, and hasn’t even ultimately been about Russia. In the long run this standoff has always been about China, and about the desperate campaign of the US empire to preserve its unrivaled domination of this planet.

“The war in Ukraine has always been about larger US goals,” writes Snider. “It has always been about the American ambition to maintain a unipolar world in which they were the sole polar power at the center and top of the world.”

“Events in Ukraine in 2014 marked the end of the unipolar world of American hegemony,” Snider says. “Russia drew the line and asserted itself as a new pole in a multipolar world order. That is why the war is ‘bigger than Ukraine,’ in the words of the State Department. It is bigger than Ukraine because, in the eyes of Washington, it is the battle for US hegemony.”

“If Ukraine is about Russia, Russia is about China,” Snider writes. “The ‘Russia Problem’ has always been that it is impossible to confront China if China has Russia: it is not desirable to fight both superpowers at once. So, if the long-term goal is to prevent a challenge to the US led unipolar world from China, Russia first needs to be weakened.”

Snider quotes Lyle Goldstein, a visiting professor at Brown University, who says that “In order to maintain its hegemonic position, the US supports Ukraine to wage hybrid warfare against Russia…The purpose is to hit Russia, contain Europe, kidnap ‘allies,’ and threaten China.”


As the world becomes more multipolar and securing total control looks less and less likely, the empire is fighting more and more like a boxer in the later rounds who’s been down on the scorecards the entire fight: taking more risks, throwing wild haymakers, preferring the possibility of a knockout loss over the certainty of losing a decision.

We’re at the most dangerous point in humanity’s abusive relationship with US unipolar domination, for the same reason the most dangerous point in a battered wife’s life is right when she’s trying to escape. The empire is willing to do terrible and risky things to retain control. “If I can’t have you no one can” is a line that can be said to a wife, or to the world.

The importance of opposing these megalomaniacs, and their games of nuclear chicken, has never been higher.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/12/01 ... existence/

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ROMAN ABRAMOVICH REVEALS HE IS LOBBYING THE US GOVERNMENT FOR THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT TO END THE UKRAINE WAR

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch who is under British and European Union sanctions, is lobbying in Washington for an early peace deal with the Ukraine.

According to a document Abramovich has filed through the New York law firm of Kobre & Kim, Abramovich has told the US Department of Justice (DOJ) he is being “directed” and “supervised” by the Russian government to “interface with government agencies” with the “goal of finding a diplomatic solution to end the armed conflict.”

The lawyers have been meeting US government officials on Abramovich’s “mediation” since July.

On July 5, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) unit of the Justice Department received a filing from Roman Abramovich who gave his address as Ulitsa Lipovaya Alleya (“Linden Alley”), Nemchinovo Village (“Speechless Village”), Odintsovo District, Moscow Region, Russia 143025. This is an elite dacha area thirty kilometres west of the centre of Moscow.

Abramovich describes himself in the file as “a citizen of Russia, Israel and Portugal. He is a recognized businessman and philanthropist and is primarily known as the former owner of the football club Chelsea FC. He is also the Chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, and a trustee of the Moscow Jewish Museum. In 2018 Mr Abramovich was recognized with an award by the Federation of Jewish Communities to commend the contribution of over $500 million that he has donated to Jewish causes around the world over the past 15 years. Mr Abramovich’s primary industrial business interest is his shareholding in EVRAZ plc (a Russian steel and mining corporation) (investor); Mr Abramovich is also the owner of Fordstam Ltd. (A UK company, former owner of Chelsea Football Club, which was sold during 2022. All sale proceeds from the sale currently held by Fordstam are due to be donated to charitable foundations, subject to license approvals from appropriate Governments and authorities).”

Under the foreign agents registration statute, non-American individuals, companies and governments are required to register ahead of making contacts with US government officials if their purpose is lobbying. Following registration, which includes terms of payment, the law requires six-monthly reports of how much money has been spent, what officials of the US government or Congress have been contacted, and what related lobbying activities and press promotions have been carried out. The first of Abramovich’s reports isn’t due to be filed and then published until January.

Read the Abramovich file here. https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6604-Exhibi ... 0705-4.pdf

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Source: https://efile.fara.gov/

The Justice Department requires the foreign principal and the lobbyist he has hired to say what relationship he has with “a foreign government, foreign political party, or other foreign principal.” Abramovich ticked two of the yes boxes indicating his acknowledgement that he is “supervised” and “directed” by a foreign government.

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Source: https://efile.fara.gov/

At the same time, further down the dossier, Abramovich explained what his answers mean. He claims that by “supervised” and “directed”, he means that “since February 2022, Mr Abramovich is acting as a mediator in the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, with the goal of finding a diplomatic solution to end the armed conflict. Mr Abramovich is acting in an independent capacity within these negotiations and was approved by both countries to take on the role as a mediator. In addition to his involvement in the negotiations, Mr Abramovich has been heavily involved in advocating for, and coordinating the establishment of humanitarian corridors and other humanitarian rescue missions. Mr Abramovich is not a Government official and he has not held any political office in Russia for more than a decade, with his last official government duty terminating in 2008, where he served as Governor of Chukotka Region, Russia (2000-2008).”

Between “independent capacity” and “approved by both countries” there is state secrecy in the initiation of what Abramovich has been doing, and ambiguity in his process. The story of the Istanbul negotiations of March 29-30 revealed that Abramovich was ranked by the Turkish hosts as higher than the Russian government officials at the negotiating table with the Ukrainians. The outcome, however, was refusal of the terms under discussion by both governments. Read that story here.

Since then Abramovich has told US officials he’s still engaged in his “mediator” role; he isn’t saying in the file whether for his Washington lobbying he is still being “directed” and “supervised” by the Ukrainian government in Kiev – not by the Kremlin.

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Source: http://johnhelmer.net/

In Moscow there is discreet but categorical opposition to any role Abramovich claims to be playing on the Russian side from the Stavka and the General Staff. No comparable disclaimers have been detected from Kiev or Lvov.

The FARA dossier was signed by Brian Murphy. He is a junior lawyer in the New York office of Kobre & Kim. Murphy is not one of the law firm’s experts on US government lobbying, sanctions, and the Justice Department’s National Security Division, which runs the FARA registration unit. The experts are Sean Buckley in the New York office of Kobre & Kim and Wade Weems in the Washington, DC, office.

As they explain themselves, both have worked for the Justice Department in the past. Buckley has “an extensive background in national security law, Mr. Buckley also advocates for clients affected by sanctions issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Commerce, and handles other issues relating to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and Title III of the Helms-Burton Act. Before joining Kobre & Kim, Mr. Buckley served as a DOJ prosecutor, most recently as co-chief of the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. In that capacity, he was responsible for overseeing complex international and cross-border investigations relating to international terrorism and terrorism financing across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, as well as economic espionage, U.S. sanctions and violations of anti-money laundering laws.” Next week in New York, Buckley will be lecturing on sanctions.

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Left: Sean Buckley; centre, Wade Weems; right, Steven Kobre, the firm’s co-founder. In the record of client engagements and case outcomes, the law firm does not indicate past involvement with Russian or Ukrainian clients.

Weems is a China specialist. After leaving the Justice Department his initial appointment at Kobre & Kim was in the firm’s Shanghai office “subject to approval by the Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China.” That was in mid-2018. It is not known if Weems was permitted to work in China. He is currently listed by his firm in the Washington office where he has been reporting on Chinese counter-sanctions. According to Weems, he was “a prosecutor and trial lawyer with the DOJ in the National Security Division in the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.”

Another US federal court lawyer who has dealt with Kobre & Kim in the past says “it is the modus operandi of the firm to hire former prosecutors. They were federal prosecutors who formed a firm to do bank collection work relating to international fraud and became successful. All they do is litigation to my knowledge, a lot of it offshore and in England.”

The firm’s contract with Abramovich, which has been revealed in the Justice Department filing, explicitly rules out any litigation or court work. “For the avoidance of doubt, this engagement does not include conducting court litigation or the Firm being on the court record, which may be the subject of a further agreed engagement letter and budget.” The contract says the lawyers will be charging up to $1,900 per hour.

Another US attorney source says Kobre & Kim isn’t known as a lobbyist in Washington. The FARA unit files reveals, however, that in 2021 the firm was retained by the EN+ aluminium group controlled by Oleg Deripaska.

For the time being Abramovich has not been sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC):

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Source: https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/

He is sanctioned by the British Government, which announced its measure on March 10, when Elizabeth Truss was Foreign Secretary. Two of his co-shareholders in the Evraz steelmaking group were added to the UK sanctions list on November 2. The European Union (EU) followed London by sanctioning Abramovich on March 15; he then issued a law suit challenging this in the European Court at the end of May. His partner, Alexander Abramov, is suing in an Australian court to lift his sanction in that country.

Kobre & Kim reported that after its contract went to Abramovich on June 15 “we are legally required to obtain a license from the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation and other government authorities before we can receive any fees or disbursements for the Covered Services, or receive any on account payment. We shall therefore be making license applications to those authorities, and in the form we deem necessary.”

By July 5, when the firm filed its registration in Washington, it is unclear whether it had received its permit from London and started receiving Abramovich’s money.

A Washington lawyer believes that with Buckley’s and Weems’s experience in sanctions, “that fits with Roman Abramovich’s needs.” This implies lobbying to persuade OFAC not to follow the British and EU lead in attacking Abramovich or his assets in the US. According to the July 5 document, Abramovich has hired the lawyers to give him “government relations strategy” and “interface with other government agencies”. This wording is vague enough to cover US government sanctions decisions as well as those of the governments in London, Brussels, and Lisbon.

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Source: https://efile.fara.gov/

Abramovich has considerable assets in the US, including personal residences in New York and Colorado, and through his stake in Evraz, steel and pipemaking assets in Delaware, Colorado, Oregon, and two Canadian provinces. One of the Russian-owned US steelmills produces steel plate for US tanks. The US assets were the target of special US government investigation in 2006 before Evraz was permitted to acquire them. Follow Abramovich’s US establishment here. When that article was being prepared in January 2015, Abramovich was asked through his spokesman: “In the present war does Mr Abramovich indicate which side he prefers his assets to be on?” The spokesman replied: “Last I checked, Russia was not at war!”

Since August of this year, Abramovich and his partners in Evraz have been trying to sell their North American assets. In 2015 they sold the Claymont steelmill in Delaware.

For the record that Abramovich has been stripping Evraz’s Russian steel assets of revenue and capital to support his lossmaking offshore operations, click to read.

The Abramovich file’s emphasis on his role as a government-approved mediator between Russia and the Ukraine, in “finding a diplomatic solution to end the armed conflict”, and “advocating for, and coordinating the establishment of humanitarian corridors and other humanitarian rescue missions” represents his lobbying pitch to government officials. “Perhaps the package”, one source speculates, “is that Roman helps resolve the war and avoids sanctions in the US. Good luck on that first one.”

http://johnhelmer.net/roman-abramovich- ... more-70302

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LEAKED DOCUMENTS CONFIRM NATO PLANS TO DESTROY KAKHOVSKAYA DAM IN KHERSON REGION

Leaked Documents Confirm NATO Plans To Destroy Kakhovskaya Dam In Kherson Region

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The Russian military has been constantly warning of the terrorist warfare of the Ukrainian military, which threatened the civilians of their own country as well as the entire Europe. The claims of the Russian top military officials are always ignored by the mainstream media as well as by the so-called international community, including, the UN Security Council.

The reason why the West does not hear Russia is clear: the US and NATO militaries are preparing and orchestrating all operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including those that threaten the world with catastrophes or, at least, can claim the lives of hundreds of civilians at once.

Before the recent withdrawal of Russian troops from the western bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson region, Moscow together with the local officials claimed that the Ukrainian military was preparing attacks on the Kakhovskaya dam which could destroy dozens of settlements located along the large Dnieper River. This was one of the main reasons for the timely evacuation of civilians from the western bank region, including from the large city of Kherson.

The newly leaked documents of the NATO military confirmed that the Kakhovskaya dam, which was secured by Russian forces, was considered as one of the military targets for the Ukrainian and NATO military.

An anonymous team of hackers “Joker DPR” has recently published a new batch of secret NATO documents which they achieved after having hacked the notorious US DELTA military command and control system.

You may read the newly released documents HERE. You may also read the first part of the leaked documents HERE.

The publication was provided with the following sarcastic comments by the Joker:

Here is another batch of secret NATO documents that my hackers pulled out of the Ukrainian-American DELTA command and control program. In general, it is very interesting. NATO gives Ukrainians almost all intelligence data and targets to defeat, not to mention weapons, equipment and soldiers. Without the participation of NATO, the Ukrainian army would have ceased to exist long ago. So don’t be surprised that they are praying for NATO. But it would be better to pray for the Joker, then there would be a chance to stay alive.

The leaked documents confirmed that the Kakhovskaya dam was among the targets to destroy. The satellite imagery and the targets in the area were provided by the US intelligence back in summer.

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With the active support of NATO, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been constantly shelling the dam, threatening the lives of thousands of civilians in the region. The damage of the dam would also disrupt the work of the Zaporozhskaya nuclear power plant, which would affect the security of the entire Europe.

In its turn, the Russian side has all means to devide Ukraine in two parts by several missile strikes on the bridges and dams on the Dnieper River. Such attacks would leave the Ukrainian military without possibility to transfer any military equipment and personnel to the war-torn regions in the East. Such attacks would immediately bring Russia victory in the war in Ukraine and would save lives of Russian servicemen. However, the destruction of Ukrainian dams would also claim lives of hundreds of civilians. That’s why the Russian military does not launch its missiles on such facilities.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has already shown that Russia is fighting to protect people, while the United States and NATO pay no attention to the cost of human lives in the war they have ignited in Ukraine.

https://southfront.org/leaked-documents ... on-region/

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"Ready to Negotiate"
December 1, 22:49

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"Ready to Negotiate"

“Putin must leave Ukraine, this is number one. So far, he is not going to do this, ”Biden made a number of statements following a meeting with Macron

. The Presidents of the United States and France held talks in the White House. After the meeting with Macron, the head of the United States made a number of statements, including on issues of contacts with Russia:

- Biden, commenting on the issue of peace negotiations, indicated that Putin should leave Ukraine, this is number one;

- Possible contacts with Putin will take place only in consultations with NATO, not on an independent basis;

- Biden said he does not plan contacts with Putin in the near future;

- Biden said that he was ready to negotiate with Putin on the completion of the special operation in Ukraine, if the President of the Russian Federation makes such a decision;

- The United States will do everything to call to account those who are responsible for the violation of human rights in Iran, support Russia's military actions.

In addition, the heads of the two countries prepared joint statements regarding assistance to Ukraine - France and the United States intend to intensify the supply of air defense systems and equipment necessary to restore the power system of the Kyiv regime.


Biden's statements about "Readiness to negotiate with Putin" are, in fact, ordinary calls to "surrender, or else ...". There are no fundamental changes since spring. Like, give up 4 or 5 regions, and then we will kind of communicate with you. There is nothing interesting in these proposals, so we must continue to methodically destroy the Ukrainian infrastructure and increase the rate of utilization of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, so that von der Leyen in one of her speeches could complain about 200,000+ killed APU soldiers.

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/71730 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8006516.html

Google Translator
"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 Dec 02, 2022 1:35 pm

Rain, mud and artillery
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/02/2022
Original article: Alexander Kots / Komsomolskaya Pravda

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The boots mercilessly sank into the mud as soon as I got out of the car in the camp of one of the artillery units of the Western Military District in the Svatovo area. A contented colleague, dressed in knee-high boots, was smirking with self-satisfaction. As the smartest, he, as if he were an icebreaker, volunteered to lead the way through the forest, where we had come to visit the gods of war and to meet the units, made up exclusively of recruits mobilized for the front. ukrainian. Recently, relatives of those who have been called up for the special military operation have complained on Telegram about the difficult conditions at the front: "There is water in the trenches, it rains, they sleep in sheds."

On the one hand, you have to understand the civilian population: they are worried about their husbands, brothers, children. And it is difficult for a purely civilian person to simply accept that the whole of Donbass has been fighting under these conditions for the ninth year in a row. On the other hand, it is the norm that soldiers have to "endure the hardships and harshness of service." Although that does not mean that they can be used as mules. Thirdly, as I warned at the beginning of the mobilization, nobody was going to run after the soldiers to teach them life. They will have to do it on their own. I have long realized that everything depends on the commanders. Where a competent officer is able to organize the work of his subordinates, as a rule, there are usually no serious problems. But where soldiers are left to fend for themselves, complaints begin. So,special military operation at the end of November 2022?

“Well yeah, mud. How do you get rid of him? It doesn't help in civilian life either. In general, we hold on,” says a recruit named Orel with a forced smile , examining us from head to toe.

After a short trip through the forest, we completely camouflage ourselves in space by getting dirty “on the flanks”. Orel is from Kotovsk, Tambov region. In his “previous” life, he worked in construction, built shopping malls, and liked to go fishing. He says that when he received the summons, he didn't think of running away. A few weeks of training and now he's on the front line, side by side with a Yuveril . He is there with another comrade from Kotovsk, one is 32 years old and the other 38.

“A lethal weapon,” Orel says, looking respectfully at a heavy machine gun.

“Is it used often?”

“Why do you think we call it the jewel ?” winks Orel 's partner , Zolotoy , who in civilian life was a welder.

“Do you remember any specific targets?”

“When we were working in the Kharkov direction, in the Kazachey Lopani area, intelligence gave us the targets. There, the enemy was seriously fortified, with cement. In short, let's say we broke them. The scouts thanked us for the work.”

“Do you work a lot in cooperation with them?”

"Of course, they are the ones who give us the coordinates." It is an example of live work. The special forces of the Western Military District, through reconnaissance, identify the targets immediately, avoiding the complex system of hierarchies and subordination, and transfer the data to the artillerymen, who are prepared to act in two minutes.

"We have an estimate of the Tulip (the largest caliber mortar, 240mm) of the recruits, who prepare five times faster than the others," explains the officer who accompanies us.

It can be observed how soldiers live in autumn conditions. The tent-barracks are scattered throughout the forest. There is a shower, a sauna and a "café" where we are invited to the remains of the barbecue: the boys have modestly celebrated the artillery day.

Laundered uniforms “dry” on clotheslines in the rain. It looks like hell.

It reminds me of the years when I was engaged in military archeology of the Great Patriotic War camps in Novgorod. There, in the mud, the second shock army had died. It has always impressed me how our grandparents managed to struggle in such unbearable conditions: continuous mud, damp, cold and all the amenities of forest life, from mosquitoes to rodents that try to bite your boots.

In all this splendor , you look at ordinary Russian citizens who have become soldiers and understand that they carry within them the way to adapt.

A record-breaking team is also here. Zhenek is a modest man from the town of Verjni Shibrai, also in the Tambov region. He used to work on a farm and now shoots projectiles the size of half a man. He admits that at first he was strange and even scary, but he got used to it.

“How much do you shoot on average a day?” I ask Evgeny.

"Ten".

"That's a lot?"

“It seems to me that it is not enough. The desire is to shoot as much as possible.”

“You have to see how happy they are when they are informed of the destruction of the targets. As if they were children”, admits our guide. “They are no longer distinguishable from the professionals. Sometimes they are prepared before.

At that moment, something buzzed on the other side of the “cafe” walls. Someone had abruptly turned on the sound of water. The rain began to fall through a small dam and the water covered the entire camp.

"Well, we'll have to rearrange the stores again," one of the soldiers shrugged. He said it like he's going to the next store for some bread.

“If we have done it twice, we will do it three. We don't stay long in one place. We have moved so much, that one move more or one less doesn't matter”.

The boys are in an explosive direction. The border has turned into a kind of “abatis line” facing the territory of the Luhansk People's Republic, which the enemy has been trying to break into for months. Their goal was to occupy the city of Svatovo before October 17, but something went wrong. The defense line in Ukraine began to fill up with equipment and has been able to withstand the advance of the enemy.

Currently, endless columns of civilian trucks are advancing towards the “abatis line”. Some carry cement material with which impassable barriers are built. Others carry construction material for fortifications and sheds. Tractors and excavators work in the fields. They are not soldiers with shovels, but civilian builders who erect lines of defense according to the canons of military science.

"How is the enemy behaving?" I ask a soldier in one of the positions.

“Periodically he tests his strength. He tries to hit the flanks. At the moment, everything is fine, he gets good answers.

“Have you been fighting for a long time?”

"Eight months. I fought in 2014. I am from here, from Krasny Luch. My name is Vladimir Savchenko. I advised the first and second president of the Republic. And I worked in the mine, in management, not underground. Also in the local administration. When the motherland called, I went."

"Were you mobilized?"

“I came as a volunteer. I was a member of the resistance, I helped prepare the 2014 referendum. Now we have to rewind and destroy what we have built with our own hands? No way. My wife is also an officer. How are you doing this? With experience. There are moments when you go from happiness to tears.

"The situation for us is stable within the difficulty," explains the battalion commander, named Oskol , who is next to him and has twenty bruises on his back. “In principle, almost every day the enemy tries to break in, they spare no forces, spare no soldiers. Sometimes there is intense artillery fire. Under the noise, they approach in groups, one goes on the attack and another waits. When one runs out of ammo, the second enters the battle. In this way they try to advance ”.

“Does the weather directly affect the course of hostilities?”

“It is dirty, very dirty. There is water in the trenches. Now the guys are pulling her with all their might from her. They are tired, of course. But the sun doesn't shine on the other side either.

Behind the commander, the soldiers bail out water with their shovels to dry the trenches. It seems that until the ground freezes, the enemy will not start serious offensive actions. But after the withdrawal from Kherson, kyiv transferred part of his forces here. The enemy has not given up hope of being able to break into the RPL.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/12/02/26073/#more-26073

Google Translator

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

“Russia Has Lost the War”
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 1, 2022
Eugenio de Dobrynne

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Kherson (Google Earth).

So says Western media… And if all we do is listen to what is published in the West and listen to what the various “strategists” say on all the talk-shows, we would come to the following conclusions:

*Russia has lost the war, with the capture of Kherson by the Ukrainian army and its offensives in the north of the Donbass.
*The casualties among the ranks of the Russian army are very considerable and it is demoralized, its generals are incompetent and are dying at the front, if they are not dismissed and arrested.
*The Russian army has practically no more ammunition left to continue the war and its missiles are unable to reach their targets, thanks to the excellent Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense that intercepts them. And Russia is also running out of missiles.
*The Ukrainian army has reconquered territory in the Kherson region and its offensives in the north of Donbass, as well as its resistance on the Donetsk front, augur a clear victory of its army which will lead them to reconquer all the territory annexed by Russia, including, of course, Crimea, forcing Russia to sign a peace which will lead its current president, Vladimir Putin, to be tried and sentenced and make recompense for all the expenses undertaken because of the conflict.
*As for the Russian people, they do not want this war and hope for a quick replacement of their president by one of the opposition leaders, who will be much more liberal and supported by the United States and Europe.
*Faced with this disaster, Putin and his generals have resorted to wild, indiscriminate shelling of the Ukrainian population, leaving these people without electricity, water and supplies. The Russians do not rule out the use of nuclear weapons, if things get even worse.


Such is the picture painted by the European and Anglo-American mass media, although it must be acknowledged that the latter are making an effort to provide other, more objective analyses in view of the latest developments in the conflict. The intellectual laziness of many information professionals, who limit themselves to reproducing the propaganda reports of Zelensky’s government, if not submitting to the doxa dictated by the media management bodies, as well as the censorship imposed by the authorities and pressure groups, prevent a more impartial knowledge of the real situation of the conflict.

To begin with, Russia cannot lose this war, nor can it give up the territories that since the referendums have been incorporated into the Russian Federation. First of all, it is a question of survival in the face of the Anglo-American world’s determination to put an end to the existence of a Russia that opposes its hegemonic domination and that, on the contrary, is committed to a multipolar world where a balance of forces coexists. Secondly, the Russian society, and even more so the recently annexed populations, and in particular the Donbass regions which have suffered a war for eight years, would never accept to stop being part of Russia.

As for the situation on the ground, if we look at the development of events from the information provided by objective military specialists and analysts, some even coming from armies committed to Ukrainian interests, since the appointment of General Surovikin as Commander-in-Chief of the Armies in the Ukrainian campaign, things have changed quite a lot. His appointment has meant a single command, subordinating the rest of the generals who earlier directed the operations in each of the territories where they acted independently and without coordination with the rest. Since his appointment, a reorganization of the troops assigned to the operation has been carried out, rotating them after the attrition suffered during these nine months of war and reinforcing their material, in particular with artillery pieces and armored vehicles, and massively incorporating observation and destruction drones.

From the tactical point of view, Russia has no need, as Surovikin himself stated, to expose its soldiers uselessly, when it has other means at its disposal to win this war. Russia, because of its demographic situation, cannot afford to send hundreds of thousands of young men to the front, as the Soviets did in World War II, with the result that that entailed. The use of tactical missiles directed against military installations and recently against strategic infrastructures, whose effectiveness is difficult to refute in view of the express acknowledgement by the Ukrainian authorities themselves, is bringing about a substantial change in the course of this conflict.

What some media have considered as a defeat and a withdrawal of the Russian army in Kherson, has been in reality a tactical withdrawal to avoid exposing a significant part of its troops who could have been surrounded in a compromising situation, and thus to better defend themselves. It has been sold that the Ukrainians had defeated the Russians and that this meant that they had practically won the war. The reality is that the Russians have temporarily ceded ground to regroup and organize themselves. They have abandoned the city, transforming it into a ghost town without electricity or water and with a population, albeit a very small one, which the Ukrainian troops will have to feed. At the same time, they have moved, in a successful operation, to the other bank of the Dnieper, turning the river into a natural line of defense very difficult to cross, since at this time, its width is about two kilometers.

So much so that in spite of the fact that the operation had been announced in advance by Surovikin himself, something surprising for a military commander, the Ukrainian forces did not give him credit and delayed their entry into the city until they were certain that it had been abandoned by the Russians, as they believed that it was all a trap. The withdrawal was made without loss of material or men and in an orderly manner, despite the fact that more than 20,000 men were mobilized. Previously, more than 150,000 civilians had been evacuated from the city to the other side, under Ukrainian artillery shelling. They even moved the remains of the founder of the city and mythical person in the history of Russia, Marshal Potemkin, so that his remains would not be desecrated by the Ukrainian troops. Clear proof of this is that we have not seen those images of casualties or destroyed materials that the Ukrainian propaganda media lavished so much on when, at the beginning, they confronted the Russian forces. What has been seen, on the contrary, is a deserted city whose population is trying to survive in hardship and which has been announced that it will be evacuated because of the impossibility of supplying it, while the repressive rearguard forces are engaged in arresting the Russians’ collaborators. In their military history, the Russians have a long experience of strategic retreats that have been successful.

Located on the other bank of the river, with the natural barrier of its width and the difficulty of crossing it under artillery fire, the Russian troops have a considerable advantage. So much so that part of the troops assigned at the time to this front have been transferred to the Donbass front to reinforce the offensive which is being carried out there and which, little by little, is gaining ground despite the difficulty of overcoming the lines of fortifications built by the Ukrainians more than eight years ago and which they have been defending with extraordinary courage and tenacity.

The mobilization of reservists decreed last September and the enlistment of volunteers means the incorporation of 318,000 soldiers and commanders directly on the front line. Unlike the mobilized Ukrainians, who are already in their seventh or eighth mobilization with hardly any training, these troops are undergoing intense military training by veterans of the operation, so that their incorporation will be carried out when they have completed their training and proven their operational capacity. As of today, about 80,000 of them have already joined the front lines, integrating into already hardened units. The rest will do so by mid-December. There has been no haste, and their training is being prioritized to avoid casualties and strengthen their effectiveness.

Meanwhile, on other fronts, Donetsk and Lugansk, Russian troops are advancing slowly, favoring artillery fire both when advancing and retreating, avoiding unnecessary exposure of men and material. The use of observation drones for the localization of enemy forces is being abundantly employed, with excellent results, as this allows for accurate and effective artillery fire. There is abundant filming that proves their use and effectiveness. The practical non-existence of Ukrainian aviation, because it was cancelled at the beginning, and the little effectiveness of its anti-aircraft defenses, in spite of receiving new Western materials, makes Russian aviation have control of the skies and intervene more and more in support of the troops on the ground. Although the equipment provided is not always of the latest generation, the technological complexity also requires trained servants when it comes to more modern systems, which is why the Russians are suspicious of the involvement of NATO troops who covertly handle such equipment.

The Russians are expected to carry out a major offensive when weather conditions permit, i.e., when the ground freezes, because now, with the heavy rains, it is impracticable. The Ukrainians are suffering to a greater extent, because much of the material sent by the Ottoman allies, replacing the Soviet material they had and have been losing, is wheeled, unlike the Russian material, in which tracks predominate. The priority will undoubtedly be focused on recovering the territories of the Donbass up to its territorial limits and, perhaps, on descending from above along the right bank of the Dnieper to recover the territories of Zaporiyia and Kherson. Who knows if they will not go on to Odessa. Nor can the Russians afford to delay their offensive too long, because the longer they delay, the more time the Ukrainian army will have to mobilize and train its levies.

On the other hand, the destruction, by means of tactical missiles, of energy infrastructures, especially power plants and sub-power plants, by the Russian forces, is having considerable effects on the deterioration of the supply on the material fronts, since it prevents their transfer from the borders, slowing down their offensives and weakening their defenses. Although its effects are being felt to a greater extent on the living conditions of civilians, depriving them of electricity and water, the destruction of these infrastructures was something that Russian military officials had been demanding for some time in view of the increase in military aid received by the Ukrainian army from its NATO allies.

Finally, as far as casualties are concerned, the number of deaths in the ranks of the Ukrainian army is staggering. According to American officials, there are about 100,000 dead, to which must be added the wounded in the proportion of three for every one dead. This means that, between the dead and the wounded, they are losing between 300 and 400 men a day on the various fronts. Russian losses are around 48,000 wounded and 16,000 dead, 8,000 of which belong to the Russian army and the rest to the territorial units, Chechen forces and the Wagner group. It should be borne in mind that the brunt of the war has so far been carried out by the territorial units of the Donbass and the special forces on their respective fronts. Initially, the Russian army have started the conflict with between 125,000 and 150,000 troops, to which were added about 60,000 mobilized between the territorial troops of the Donbass and the Chechen special forces and the Wagner Group, with 10,000 troops each. For its part, the Ukrainian army numbered about 600,000 men at the beginning of the conflict. According to UN data, more than 10,000 civilians were killed between the two sides during the eight months of the conflict.

We will probably soon witness a change in the situation, both on the ground and politically, although the media and talk show hosts with careers in the offices of Brussels or NATO headquarters tell us that the Ukrainian army is going to win this war and that they will force Russia to return the annexed territories. American officials have already suggested to Zelensky that he should reconsider negotiating with Russia, and we know that he who pays the piper calls the tune, and American governments have never been known for their unswerving loyalty to the leader of the day. Rather, they have been dedicated to defending their own interests.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... t-the-war/

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s Interview for the Film, Nazism on Trial, Moscow, November 26, 2022
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on NOVEMBER 30, 2022

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Nothing would have happened without external forces, neither glorification of the Nazis, or the transformation of Nazism into the current Ukrainian government’s theory & practice.

Question: Today, we are being told (primarily by the Ukrainians) that the Russians have “made things up” and there are no Nazis in Ukraine and there have never been any. However, we remember history well. We can see that over the years of independence they have brought up vast numbers of Nazi-aligned organisations that enjoy support at the state level. For instance, the oligarch-sponsored Azov was under the Ukrainian Interior Minister’s wing. How did this become possible in a place that is called a European country? How did it happen? Did external forces influence it in any way?

Sergey Lavrov: Absolutely. Nothing would have happened without external forces, neither glorification of the Nazis, or the transformation of Nazism into the current Ukrainian government’s theory and practice. This has been the case since the creation of the Soviet Union. President Putin repeatedly made clear how Ukraine was formed within the borders in which it found itself at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Back then one of the masterminds of the US approach to international affairs and US dominance Zbigniew Brzezinski said that Russia with Ukraine was a superpower, but without Ukraine it was just a regional player. It was Washington’s hands-on policy. In many ways, this position prevented our approach – “that’s the way life goes” – from coming to fruition after December 1991. We wanted to see Ukraine a good neighbour of ours and a reliable friend. Our “family ties” were tight, and so many people’s lives were intertwined. It was something we really wanted. I know what I’m talking about, because back then I was working on the issues that arose in the post-Soviet space.

The Americans sought to achieve the opposite outcome and to make Ukraine “anti-Russia.” The then Ukrainian leaders fell for the smooth tactics of the Americans. Back when no one could see Ukraine becoming an “anti-Russia,” President Leonid Kuchma wrote a book titled “Ukraine is not Russia.” Perhaps, everyone is striving to attain some kind of a romantic goal and to become part of some culture, but even then the subtext of this “tagline” was that there was Europe, and there was Russia.

Talk at the OSCE in the late 1990s about the need to build a common economic and humanitarian space, as well as a security space, spanning the entire Eurasian continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, turned out to be just that, empty talk. Behind these beautiful words, what the West really means was “either you’re with us or you’re with Russia.” Back in 2003, early on during another presidential race in Ukraine, the EU official figures, including Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, publicly stated that the Ukrainian people should decide who they want to be with: Europe or Russia. This particular “either-or” and “whoever is not with us is a Moskali” philosophy that is deeply embedded in European and Western minds has played a major, if not decisive, role in getting us where we are now. The neo-Nazi ideology is made part of Ukrainian life in every possible way.

You mentioned volunteer and nationalist battalions and regiments like Azov. When the coup took place in 2014, Azov was already known as an extremist organisation. In 2015, when deciding on the allocation of aid to Ukraine, including military aid, the US House of Representatives introduced a special clause to remove this formation from the list of recipients. Azov was put on the list of terrorist organisations in a number of European countries and Japan. Now, look at the Japanese outdo everyone. After the special military operation began, they officially apologised to the Azov members for putting Azov on the terrorist lists and assured them that “this will not happen again.”

Under what banners did the putschists come to power in February 2014? Their first demand was to strip the Russian language of its regional status, which it had under Ukrainian law. The hastily cobbled together Verkhovna Rada chose not to rescind this law, but the instincts of the people who illegally grabbed power became clear instantly. One of the coup leaders and head of the Right Sector (which is outlawed in our country just like the Azov regiment) Dmitry Yarosh said that Russians will never think like Ukrainians, will not speak Ukrainian and will not honour Ukrainian heroes, so the Russians must be pushed out of Crimea. This extremist was behind the idea of sending “friendship trains” to Crimea with armed thugs, including the Right Sector and other radicals. This highlights the philosophy and ideology of the people who carried out the coup and came to power. The West swallowed it whole.

Maidan was not yet at the boiling point and had not come to a head. The Ukrainian Security Service and the police did not use weapons, and NATO, speaking through then Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, repeatedly urged President Yanukovych not to use force against the protesters. When the coup was effectively carried out, the Maidan powerbrokers announced a “campaign” against Crimea, branded as terrorists the people of eastern Ukraine who refused to accept the neo-Nazi putsch and sent the armed forces and the nationalist battalions there. At that point, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the alliance called on the new authorities in Kiev to “use force” proportionally. Do you see the difference? No one really tried to cover this bias up. Dmitry Yarosh who told the Russians to get out of Crimea is, in fact, the spiritual father of Vladimir Zelensky who said exactly the same thing, but this time with regard to all of Ukraine. In September 2021, long before the current developments, taking a question about the people living in eastern Ukraine during an interview, the Ukrainian President said there were people and there were “species” (a slip of the tongue that is typical of Nazis), and that if someone lives in Ukraine and feels like a Russian, they should leave for Russia for the good of their children and grandchildren. This is exactly what Dmitry Yarosh was talking about. The Kiev regime’s neo-Nazi nature was clear from the start and has not changed a bit.

Question: This entire philosophy that they have adopted over the past few years has led to a situation where the second President of Ukraine is fighting Russia. The first one said that he was waging and heroically winning a proxy war against the Russian Federation. The incumbent president is saying that he is winning a real war. Both of them are united by the fact that they assured everyone that our two countries did not have and could not have a common future. They tried hard to erase our common past. What will be the outcome of the efforts to destroy our common past and history?

Sergey Lavrov: When Pyotr Poroshenko realised that a blitzkrieg aiming to forcibly suppress Donbass had failed, he decided to sign the Minsk Agreements and, as we believed at that time, he showed that he had deal-making skills. In reality, that was just a semblance of his negotiability. In July 2022, the former President of Ukraine told Radio Liberty that he had signed the relevant agreements, but that he did not intend to honour them. He noted that he had to temporise in order to obtain more Western weapons. This is undisguised cynicism. For many years after the signing of the Minsk Agreements, Western colleagues ignored their sabotage by Poroshenko and his regime. They used slogans, calling for them to be fulfilled because allegedly there was no alternative to these documents.

We submitted specific proposals to Germany and France, as countries that were involved in the Normandy Format. We also made proposals to the United States, the main patron and overlord of the Kiev authorities. We urged them to pressure Kiev to fulfil purely specific requirements, namely, a special detailed status for certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, rather than the whole of Donbass. We expected that they would clarify all aspects of that status, from A to Z. Although the relevant document was ready for signing, Poroshenko did his best to delay this process, and the West pandered to him in this respect. At the final stage of sabotaging the Minsk Agreements, Germany and France started claiming that Russia should fulfil them. However, there was no reply when President Vladimir Putin asked what we should do.

At that time, they were fighting a proxy war, and now a real war is going on. While stating his line, Vladimir Zelensky is saying that Ukraine will win this war and will regain control of all its territories, including Crimea. At the same time, he is forgetting the history of the peninsula. Perhaps he did not know its history when he was starring in the Club of the Merry and Resourceful show. I have no doubt that this line will fail.

We will not tolerate neo-Nazism on the territory of Ukraine. We are fighting neo-Nazis, rather than the people of Ukraine, and we have nothing against the latter. This nation is closely related to us, we are intertwined at the level of human destinies, and this concerns millions of families with a multitude of ties, spiritual, cultural and other bonds. I am convinced that the neo-Nazi government in Kiev will be unable to undermine this genetic code; at the same time, we must also accomplish a lot. It is necessary to offer specific ideas, involve civil society and facilitate contacts between people in Ukraine and Russia. The Russia-Ukraine-Belarus format existed some time ago, and public organisations and experts met within its framework in Minsk and elsewhere. For obvious reasons, this is not happening today, but we need to think about the future.

The people of Ukraine will be liberated from neo-Nazi rulers, and they deserve to live in neighbourliness, friendship and prosperity together with fraternal Slavic nations.

Question: The current regime appears to be in the terminal phase of the disease called Nazism. They are bringing up new Ukrainian “patriots” who are programmed for maximum cruelty which can be seen in their slogans (“a good Russian is a dead Russian” or “hang Moskali from a branch”) all the way to heinous violence that they are broadcasting on all channels. Europe is backing this. Aren’t they concerned that these people who are overflowing with hatred and aggression, and now armed with Western weapons, can take advantage of visa-free travel regulations and go to Europe in this state of mind?

Sergey Lavrov: Europe is playing along with the United States. The EU has almost no independence left. Washington has brought Brussels to heel. There are almost no independent voices left in the EU. Now and then, but increasingly less often, French President Emmanuel Macron is trying to remind everyone of the EU’s “strategic autonomy.” No one will let them create any kind of autonomy, let alone strategic.

European leaders are emboldening the Ukrainian government and encouraging neo-Nazi acts. President of the European Council Charles Michel, Head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg never stop saying that a “battle for European values” is going on in Ukraine, and President Zelensky is “defending freedom and democracy.” In the same way, they backed the neo-Nazi coup of 2014 which sought to abolish everything that is Russian in Ukraine. Later, it was codified in numerous laws outlawing Russian education, media and culture. Today, they are supporting the slogans which Vladimir Zelensky is using to carry out his campaign and presidency.

I operate on the premise that Europe is part of the processes that seek to revive neo-Nazism. It’s hard to draw other conclusions. President Macron recently wondered why Ukraine should live according to a Russia-imposed model. A statement that says it all. In the years that followed the coup, he never asked why the Russians in Ukraine should live according to a model imposed by the neo-Nazis, which is a clear case of double standards. A person who claims to be the number one politician in Europe is saying things like that unashamedly. Amazing.

You got it right in your assessment of the ensuing course of events. There are statistics showing that about 8 million Ukrainian refugees are now in Europe. There are media reports about some of them mistreating citizens of European countries and breaking the law. This is Europe’s choice. If they chose to provide shelter to Ukrainians, the vast majority of whom are people of means who want to continue to live like that going forward – then the people of Europe should feel the consequences of their choice for themselves. We saw similar things in a situation where the Europeans took in the militants from the North Caucasus during a rampage of international terrorism in that region of our country, or refugees from North Africa and the Middle East, including proponents and members of ISIS, who committed bloody crimes in a number of European countries. We do not wish evil to Europe. It must make up its own mind on what it wants to do.

The Arab Spring has created an enormous number of illegal migrants. The Europeans decided to give them legal status and began to place them on their territory and to agree on distribution quotas. The Arab Spring problem was created by military aggression, primarily, against Libya. That country was bombed out and turned into a black hole. It was later used as a conduit for refugees and illegal immigrants fleeing to Europe. Terrorists and weapons smugglers surged in the opposite direction to the Sahara-Sahel region. African countries are still dealing with the aftermath of the reckless Libyan operation, and the EU with the crowds of people of no definite occupation, not all of whom are willing to be law-abiding residents of the European countries.

Europe has created this situation in Ukraine, because it outright refused to convince Pyotr Poroshenko and then Vladimir Zelensky to honour the Minsk agreements. The EU was openly pandering to Kiev’s proclaimed policy for implementing Plan B to capture Donbass by force. This was the reason behind our special military operation. Over the years, we came to realise the futility of our trying to convince the West to consent to an equal and mutually respectful agreement on ensuring security for all without expanding the Alliance.

In this regard, Europe is, to a certain extent, acting as someone who is behind the current state of affairs as well. I hope that after the Arab Spring the EU will see the ongoing Ukrainian “wave” as food for thought, but so far the EU countries have not been thinking much about themselves. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock made it clear (many are citing her) that she is aware of German voters’ issues, but it is now “more important” to meet Ukraine’s needs for military help. With a philosophy like that, Europe… Well, I wish it good luck.

Question: We live in an interesting era when the media is a dangerous weapon. What is the role of the mass media in the revival, rise and flourishing of Nazism in modern Ukraine, in your opinion?

Sergey Lavrov: The role of the media, including traditional and electronic media, as well as social networks, is constantly growing but it is not they who “rule the roost,” but politicians. In recent years, we have already seen that the West, especially the United States, Germany, France and other European countries are good at “bossing around” journalists, the media, and ensuring loyalty to the policy that this or that government wants to pursue.

This is especially noticeable in the case of the Biden Administration, when almost all electronic media, television, and print publications are aimed at mobilising public opinion in support of what the United States is doing in Ukraine. However, this does not always work out. Now US newspapers are openly criticising the indifference with which the Administration treated the natural disaster in Florida against the background of tens of billions of US dollars allocated to Ukraine. This shows that the authorities cannot always control the media and public opinion. In Germany, there is virtually no dissent in the media. All mass media are “mobilised” to justify what the Germans are doing in Ukraine. In France, the situation is similar.

Europe, through various international agencies, primarily those created under the European Union, has been using outright censorship for more than a year (it started about eight years ago), preventing alternative points of view from reaching the public consciousness on the continent. A “good” example: when RT and Sputnik opened representative offices in Paris and tried to get accreditation at the Elysee Palace, they were refused. President of France Macron explained to journalists that “this is not the media but Moscow’s propaganda tool.” In addition, various platforms and associations were established in the West to protect freedom in cyberspace and the independence of the media, within which alternative sources of information were stifled under the pretext of finely worded slogans.

During the events leading up to the Soviet Union’s disappearance, we were so complaisant in all international arenas, as if an era of universal, eternal wellbeing had dawned. In 1990, at the initiative of France and other Western states, the OSCE adopted a document obliging all the member states without exception to provide full access for their citizens to any sources of information, both domestically and abroad. Therefore, the refusal to issue accreditation to RT and Sputnik at the Elysee Palace is a gross violation of the obligations assumed 30 years ago at the initiative of France.

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https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/11/ ... r-26-2022/

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LEAKED DOCUMENTS REVEAL ACTIVITIES OF UKRAINIAN SECURITY FORCES IN DONBASS YEARS BEFORE RUSSIA ENTERED MILITARY CONFLICT

Leaked Documents Reveal Activities Of Ukrainian Security Forces In Donbass Years Before Russia Entered Military Conflict

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Another batch of secret documents of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was leaked online. The following reports of heads of SBU departments in different settlements in the Donbass were left by the staff of the SBU in Mariupol when they were fleeing the war-torn city. As a result, the secret documents were found by Russian forces.

There are secret reports and classified correspondence on the implementation of measures in accordance to the decision of the SBU Board on activities in the Donetsk region and towards Russia.

The SBU staff in different settlements reported on informational operations, recruitment of agents for cooperation with security forces, filtration of civilians and hunt on pro-Russian citizens in the Donbass.

The operations of the SBU were aimed at undermining the internal situation in the Republics, sowing panic among the civilian population and spread of pro-Ukrainian propaganda. The set of measures that can be observed in the documents below shows that the main goal of the SBU was to inflict maximum damage to the civilian population of the region, including the creation of unbearable living conditions, an increase in crime and hindering the work of local social vital services, including hospitals, ambulances, energy and water supply facilities, etc.

All the following operations were conducted in 2016-2018, far before the beginning of the Russian military operations in Ukraine. The illegal activities of the Kiev regime were accompanied by its attempts to blame Russia for the same operations in the war-torn regions, based on fake news revealed in the following documents.

READ THE LEAKED DOCUMENTS IN UKRAINIAN HERE

The documents were translated by the SF Team. The texts may contain some inaccuracies caused by translation difficulties.

In near future, SouthFront will publish another batch of secret documents of the Kiev regime.

Leaked Documents Reveal Activities Of Ukrainian Security Forces In Donbass Years Before Russia Entered Military Conflict
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The secret document #1
from Department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Donetsk region to lieutenant–colonel Yatsenko A.S.

on June 15, 2017

Please be informed that in pursuance of paragraph 5.1 of the decision of the SBU Board of 07.10.2016, approved by the order of the SBU dated 17.10.2016 № 004, the Department of CIIS of the SBU takes measures to:

– create real operational positions among the leaders of terrorist organizations, separatist movements, illegal paramilitary formations in order to influence the operational situation and induce them to abandon illegal activities:
within the framework of the SCP № 154 “Siren” (dated 31.12.2015), with the classification “terrorist and extremist activity”, the information on one of the main functionaries of the Ministry of Information of the “DPR” (departmental institution of the so-called “DPR”, which carries out, among other things, the preparation, coordination and dissemination of anti-Ukrainian propaganda, thereby acting as the main information body of influence on the society of the ORDLO (note: Separate districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions)) is being checked. In order to create real operational positions among the representatives of the “DPR” MIP, to influence the operational situation and to persuade them to abandon illegal activities, the SBU identified a person “K.V.S.”, a resident of Volnovakha district, and a person “Z.A.M.”, a resident of Kostiantynivka, who have a stable contact with one of the main functionaries of the “DNR” MIP and may be used by the latter to carry out activities to the detriment of Ukraine’s information security. Verification measures are being carried out with the aim of possible involvement of the latter in confidential cooperation.

– to divert the efforts of enemy special services to specially created false objects of imaginary importance, to create conditions for effective information support of active counterintelligence measures:
in order to divert the efforts of enemy special services to specially created false objects of imaginary importance, to create conditions for effective information support of active counterintelligence measures, it was received information that panic is actively spreading among the representatives of the terrorist organization “DNR” and the lack of morale is recorded. Taking into account the above-mentioned, in order to undermine the situation in the ranks of the illegal armed group “DNR”, to further inflame panic, to form a negative attitude and discredit the so-called leadership of the “DNR”, to obtain information about the members of the illegal armed group “DNR” who are planning to lay down arms, to promote information about the all-Ukrainian program “Waiting for You at Home”, it is planned to conduct a special information operation “Nine” (letter of approval to the State Committee of the Security Service of Ukraine No. 25260e of 08.06.17). The purpose of the special operation is to undermine the situation in the ranks of illegal armed formations and to distract the attention of the representatives of the mentioned terrorist organization to a false object. The following tasks will be solved in the course of the JS

– dissemination of information on the facts of looting, lack of morale, fatigue from combat operations, the real state of affairs in the ranks of the illegal armed groups of the 9th Separate Marine Brigade of the First AC of the so-called “DPR”

– preparation and dissemination of materials on the facts of concealment of non-combat losses among the personnel, facts of desertion and food supply by the leadership of the 9th regiment;

– bringing to the audience the facts of non-compliance with the Minsk agreements by the militants of the so-called “DPR”.

– bringing to the target audience positive examples of the “Return home” program implementation.

– reducing the effectiveness of illegal activities of terrorist organizations and weakening their control over the occupied territories
– in order to divert the efforts of the enemy special services to specially created false objects of imaginary importance, to create conditions for effective information support of active counterintelligence measures, the measures taken in the framework of the JCS “Siren” №154 of 31.12.2015, identified a person who currently holds the leading position of the “Ministry of Information of the “DPR”, shapes the ideology and information policy of the “DPR”, coordinates anti-Ukrainian media and actively promotes the ideology of the “Russian world”. At the same time, his daughter and her family live in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. Taking into account the above-mentioned, it is planned to conduct a special information operation (hereinafter referred to as SIO) under the name “Kinship” in several stages united by a single idea – coordinated successive special information actions (letter of approval of the State Committee for Intelligence of Ukraine No. 25101e of 20.03.2017, approval of the State Committee for Intelligence of Ukraine No. 30/3/1-4713 of 06.04.2017, in.№2068/1t of 19.04.2017).

The purpose of conducting the SJ is to reduce the effectiveness of the activities of the terrorist organization “DPR”, discredit the so-called “authorities of the said organization and the leadership of the so-called “Ministry of Information of the DPR” in the eyes of the residents of the temporarily occupied territory, actualization in the information space of the fact of their close family ties in Ukraine and their receipt of benefits allocated from the budget of Ukraine. The main channels of information dissemination are domestic mass media, TV channels, mostly Ukrainian Internet resources, communities of socially oriented networks of neutral, patriotic and pro-Russian orientation.

In addition, in order to reduce the effectiveness of the illegal activities of terrorist organizations and weaken their control over the occupied territories, the Department of the State Security Service of Ukraine in the framework of the SCP № 154 “Siren” (dated 31.12.2015), with the classification of “terrorist and extremist activities”, is checking information about one of the main functionaries of the Ministry of Information of the “DNR” (departmental institution of the so-called “DNR”, which carries out, among other things, the preparation, coordination and dissemination of anti-Ukrainian propaganda. In order to reduce the effectiveness of the illegal activities of the terrorist organization “DPR” and the activities of the MIP “DPR” as its component, through the capabilities of the agent “Patriotka” (c.f. No. 269), the information “trends” produced and disseminated by the representatives of the MIP “DPR” are constantly monitored and measures are taken to counteract the negative information influence. Thus, during the reporting period, in order to counteract the identified main “trends” of the MIP “DPR”, the IEC of the Department with the involvement of operational sources from the expert environment prepared and disseminated the following position materials through information campaigns:

– to counteract the information trend “negligence of the Ukrainian military, non-involvement of the Russian Federation in the sabotage in Balakleya” on 17.04.2017, a counter-information action was held under the title “Russian sabotage in Balakleya was liquidated and did not achieve its goals”

– in order to counteract the information trend “DPR will not resume selling coal to Ukraine until the latter restores water supply to Crimea” on 18.04.2017 a counter-information action was held under the title “Miners have not been paid salaries for months at the “nationalized” mines of the “DPR””

– in order to counteract the information trend “Russia does not pursue aggressive policy (actions) against its neighboring states” on 21.04.2017, a counterinformation action was conducted under the title “Lithuanian Minister: Russia is already waging information and cyber war in the Baltic States”

– in order to counteract the information trend “Russia does not provide weapons to militants in Donbas” on 21.04.2017, counterinformation actions were conducted under the titles: “Russian command supplies army UAV complexes to Donbas” and “Russia used T-90 battle tank in the battles in Donbas”

– to counteract the information trend “The so-called “DPR” successfully nationalizes industrial enterprises” on 20.04.2017, a counterinformation action was held under the title “Well, that’s all”

– in order to counteract the information trend “voluntary accession of Crimea to Russia, prosperous occupation Crimea in Russia” on 21.04.2017, a counter-information campaign was conducted under the title “We were loaded, transported to the isthmus and told that Banderites from Lviv are going to slaughter Russians”

– in order to counteract the information trend “Ukraine suffers from constant conflicts between the centers of religious diasporas” on 18.04.2017, a counter-information action was held under the title “In Dnipropetrovsk, the bishop of the UOC-KP and the chief rabbi are building interfaith peace together”

– to counteract the information trend “Extremist sentiments of Ukrainians towards Poles, Ukraine despises Poland” on 21.04.2017, a counterinformation action was conducted under the title “Russian terrorist echo in Lutsk – shocking conclusions of a Polish expert”

– to counteract the information trend “residents of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea are satisfied with the occupation of the Russian Federation” on 27.04.2017, a counter-information action was held under the title “This is how the occupiers are loved in Ukrainian Crimea”

– in order to counteract the information trend “OSCE car exploded on a mine planted by the Ukrainian military” on 23.04.2017, a counter-information action was conducted under the title “OSCE car exploded on a landmine in occupied Luhansk”

– in order to counteract the information trend “Russia does not prevent Ukrainians from traveling to the occupied Crimea” on 12.05.2017, a counter-information campaign entitled “Crimea is not waiting for you here!”

– to counteract the information trend “The illegal armed groups of the so-called “DPR/LPR” are independent states, not puppet Kremlin formations” on 12.05.2017 a counter-information campaign was conducted under the title “Surkov determines the policy of the occupation administrations in ORDLO – Reuters investigation”

– in order to counteract the information trend “ORDLO residents do not want to return to Ukraine” on 16.05.2017, a counter-information campaign was held under the title “Ukraine, come back! Iconic photos from occupied Donetsk published on the Internet, social networks admired the touching act”

– to counter the information trend “Russia does not pursue aggressive policy, does not interfere in the internal political processes of sovereign states” 16.05.2017 4

a counter-propaganda action was held under the title “The hunt for Russian hackers continues”

The prepared position materials were posted on local Internet resources with a total daily number of visitors of more than 150 thousand people/day and in the communities of social networks “VKontakte”, “OK” and “Facebook” (more than 78) with a total number of participants of more than 600 thousand people, which in turn allowed to convey objective information to citizens, including the occupied part of Donetsk region, and thereby weaken the control of the so-called “DPR” authorities over the occupied territories.

Conducting special information operations in the uncontrolled territories in order to inform local residents about significantly higher social standards in the territories controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, about the advantages in education, employment, treatment, etc;
with the aim of conducting special information operations in 4 uncontrolled territories to inform local residents about significantly higher social standards in the territories controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, about the advantages in education, employment, medical treatment, etc. and to weaken the control of the occupied territories by illegal armed groups. The Department is planning to conduct a series of offensive, united by a single idea, coordinated with each other sequential special information actions – special information operation “Education in the DPR”. (Letter of approval for DKIB No. 25227 of 22.05.2017)

Thus, in the course of the JS, the tasks of discrediting the level of education offered by the leaders of the so-called “DPR”, encouraging Ukrainian citizens to leave for permanent residence in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities and enroll young people in higher educational institutions of Ukraine, preventing the outflow of qualified potential personnel to the so-called “DPR” will be solved. The target audience of the SJU are: citizens of Ukraine, residents of the temporarily uncontrolled territory of Ukraine, primarily school graduates, users of the Russian and Ukrainian segments of the Internet. And also on bringing to the audience through the channels of information dissemination (including through controlled communities of anti-Ukrainian orientation and public resources that have a significant attendance in the temporarily uncontrolled territory of Ukraine) messages about the inadequacy of the quality of education offered by educational institutions of the occupied territory, non-recognition of diplomas of the so-called “DPR/LPR” by the countries of the world.

According to clause 6.1. of the IAC of the Office, in order to take effective measures to organize filtration and verification measures to detect the facts of Ukrainian citizens traveling to the Russian Federation (migrant workers, private entrepreneurs, etc.) in compromising situations on the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as recruiting approaches to them by Russian special services, the following measures were taken. Due to the capabilities of the available operational sources (“Y.1.1.”, “T.O.V.”, “R.A.B.”), counterintelligence search activities have been organized among persons who periodically travel to Russia. No recruiting activities or the fact of involvement in covert cooperation and use of the above-mentioned category of citizens to the detriment of the state security of Ukraine was established.

According to clause 6.2 – CI Department, in the reporting period, as a result of the measures taken to identify among the IDPs persons involved in the creation of agent networks of the Russian special services and the so-called “DPR”, destabilization of the situation in Ukraine, separatist and terrorist activities, including participation in hostilities as part of illegal armed (military) formations, no information was received.

The Head of the CID of the SBU Office in Donetsk region Colonel O. Balyasov

(more...............)

https://southfront.org/leaked-documents ... -conflict/

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Macron Seeks Concrete Goals in Talks With Putin on Ukraine

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French President Emmanuel Macron is on an official visit to the U.S. from Nov. 29 to Dec. 2. Dec. 1, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@cmbortowski

Published 1 December 2022

French President Emmanuel Macron said from the White House that he will continue to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine conflict, seeking "non-escalation" and "concrete things."

His comments came Thursday in the framework of an official visit to the U.S. running from November 29 to December 2. Macron and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden held talks at the White House today.

At a press conference following the talks, the French President said, "I will continue to talk to President Putin. We have already discussed it with Biden today because we have always sought to avoid escalation and to achieve quite concrete things."

For his part, the U.S. President expressed his willingness to talk to Putin about the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict in case "there is in fact an interest in him deciding that he is looking for a way to end the war." Biden added that he has "no immediate plans to contact Mr. Putin."

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, no conversation between the Russian President and his French counterpart has been agreed so far.


The French and U.S. presidents agreed to continue to support the Ukrainian side amid the ongoing conflict with Russia. Their support includes the continued "provision of political, security, humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine for as long as necessary."

They also intend to "urge international financial institutions to increase their financial support," according to a joint statement adopted at Thursday's Macron-Biden meeting.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Mac ... -0016.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 » Sat Dec 03, 2022 1:05 pm

The danger of living in Donetsk
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/03/2022
Original Article: Denis Grigoriuk

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Typical Donetsk mornings are something like this: shells stuck in the asphalt, glass fragments scattered everywhere, the smell of rubber from burning civilian vehicles, study of the consequences of nightly shelling of the city, public services repairing the stalls of transport, security forces recording the destruction and reports of weapons used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Last night, the center of Donetsk was shelled again. Some twelve Grad BM-21 missiles hit the area around the city hall building. The town hall is starting to look like what we used to see in Mariupol after the battles. In addition to the administration building, residential blocks were also damaged, civilian vehicles were burned and a direct hit was recorded on the unfinished hotel building on Universitetskaya street. An employee of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, who was driving in an official vehicle, died.

But that was not the only attack that occurred in Donetsk on December 1. In the afternoon, the Ramada hotel and a day care center were damaged and an apartment building suffered a direct hit. There were civilian casualties, as the shelling occurred during the day. It is not news that the center of Donetsk is constantly under Ukrainian fire. Unfortunately, it has been convinced of something that has already been accepted, so the reports about the bombings do not cause any resonance. You only think: "They have attacked again places where the population gathers, so what?" In addition, there is no progress on the front as it was in the spring.

For months, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been hitting residential neighborhoods with the artillery systems at their disposal. The latest attacks differ only in the fact that Soviet Grad BM-21s are being used more frequently. Until recently, Western shells flew over the center of Donetsk more often, now it is the Grads that stick out from the asphalt. The difference is that the NATO weapons are more accurate than the old Grads.

In this case, it does not matter where there are military installations, important or administrative buildings in the surroundings or in the vicinity (although they too are damaged by the numerous bombardments), what is important is the message. The attacks do not have a military objective. Artillery shelling against purely civilian targets does not bring the Ukrainian Army closer to military victory, but kyiv is aware of its importance in the minds of the population. Hence, the emphasis is placed primarily on attacks in which Ukrainian bombing "works" against residential neighborhoods.

Parallel to psychological attacks, “informational” attacks take place. That is exactly what the Center for Information and Psychological Operations does, which is much talked about, albeit with increasing skepticism, since the arguments that kyiv has used for years in the Donbass conflict work well. There is no need to refute anything when it is possible to ridicule it, which means that you cannot make a “toxic” thesis that will not be taken into account. However, the Center will continue its work and will do so effectively.

In the comments, you can see more and more bots that are dedicated to causing panic among the civilian population of the DPR. The Ukrainian training manual is also distributed by Russian liberals, who say that these Donetsk bombings are real, but everything that has happened so far was propaganda, because if they had hit the city like this for eight years, everything would be like Mariupol for the battle. This is a deliberate distortion of the facts and an attempt to adjust them to their perception of what has been happening in Donbass for eight and a half years.

There is nothing new in this situation. Everything looks more and more like the end of 2014, when both sides in the conflict were entrenched and there were hardly any offensive actions. At that time, the Minsk agreements were in force. Everything changed in January 2015, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces tried to attack the territory of the DPR, laughing at any peace agreement. That ended with the capture of the Donetsk airport by the republican forces, which also gained control of Uglegorsk, Debaltsevo and adjacent towns.

The result of that worsening was the signing of Minsk-2, which also existed only on paper, while Ukraine was preparing to settle the issue by force. Ukraine took into account the experience of the previous worsening, so no one was going to go on an open attack, but instead spent years rearming its army to ensure that it could take Donbass, while, in parallel, the Ukrainian Armed Forces gradually occupied the so-called gray zone to shorten the distance between the opposing parties, but then February 24 came.

It is clear that the fight will continue in 2023. There is no doubt that neither side will stop at the current situation. Contrary to the information that is read online about the attempt to freeze the conflict, the conditions for this do not yet exist. Even if some kind of agreement could be reached, it would have no meaning for Donetsk. Shelling will continue as long as the Ukrainian Armed Forces have artillery range. Given that his systems allow him to hit the rear of the DPR, it's hard to say when the DPR populace will feel safe.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/12/03/26080/#more-26080

Google Translator

*************Newsbits On Ukraine - Swamp Trenches, Short Training, Out Of Ammo

Realistic reports from the Ukrainian frontline are rare. Yesterday the British Express had this (@7:30, also here) from Bakhmut / Artemovsk in its Live coverage. One wonders how it has bypassed the censor:

Inside Bakhmut frontline 'littered with corpses' and 'colossal' losses

The Ukrainian commander of the Svoboda battalion, Petro Kuzyk, whose unit is one of those holding Bakhmut said his soldiers are staying in trenches full of corpses, fighting in extremely cold conditions and in knee-deep water against Russia's attacks.
...
"I apologise for speaking slowly now, because I'm very cold – it's making me dizzy. I've now left the first line (since I was called). I'm warming up in the car, I'm almost falling asleep, because I haven't slept all this time. They charged yesterday, quite seriously. They felt a weakness in our defence, because (I will not name the numbers of the units, so as not to spoil their honour) there are units that are less motivated than ours. And yesterday they weakened our defence a little in the area just around the Bakhmut. Some units could not withstand this artillery onslaught and retreated.

"This is our principle: we, the Svoboda Battalion, do not retreat. And because of that, we found ourselves in a semi-surrounded situation, and we had a lot of work to do. In addition, it is a swamp full of mud. It is very difficult to evacuate the wounded or to deliver ammunition. The trenches are constantly deteriorating, and in this swamp they must be constantly rebuilt."

He added: "Today is the first day without rain, but then and yesterday when it fell, all the water flowed into the trenches. And the shelling was such that it was impossible to get out of the trench, so the guys were constantly wet for a day or two. Plus the temperature is like this. Many are contused, many with pneumonia. But we hold our ground, and we defend. I see young guys standing with their teeth clenched. I would really like someone to write about their achievements, because few people in the country know about it."


The above reads like a report from Verdun.

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More from that Express Live coverage (@8:31):

Biden mulling expansion of US military training to Ukraine forces
The US administration is considering expanding the US military training programme it provides to Ukraine, including instructing as many as 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers a month at a US base in Germany.

According to US officials speaking to CNN, "under the new programme, the US would begin training much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics, including how to coordinate infantry manoeuvres with artillery support – 'much more intense and comprehensive' training than Ukraine has been receiving in Poland or the UK, according to one source briefed on the proposal".


The proposal is still under review.

This program seems weird. If it is only one month long there is no way that the soldiers will learn coordinated maneuvers. One learns those by knowing and experiencing the doctrines of all involved elements - infantry, tanks, artillery, supply etc. Those are sergeant or officer courses tat take at least 6 months and usually more.

The number of 2,500 is also questionable. The Ukrainian army is currently losing around 400 men per day. The training will not hold up with those losses.

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A week ago I described how Ukraine is running on empty:

Aside from HIMARS Ukraine's front artillery has become smaller with less reach than those systems used on the other side. That will make it easier to counter it. Ukraine also has an acute lack of ammunition for those few weapons that still exist. It has long lost the artillery war.

The war in Ukraine is waged on an industrial level. But the 'west' and its Ukrainian proxy are not prepared for industrial warfare.


Another piece from the Express confirms this (@1:40)

Ukraine and NATO allies facing 'major issue' amid heavy fight against Russian forces
A retired US general has pinpointed a "major issue" for NATO as the West look to keep up with ammo demands as fighting in Ukraine continues to eat up Western stockpiles.

Ukraine is burning through ammunition and shells at a faster rate than the West can maintain according to retired US Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

The former commander believes that NATO lacks the industrial base to replace depleted stockpiles and Ukraine continues to demand ammunition to use against Russian forces.

Mr Leighton told CNN: "The defence industrial base of all these countries, the NATO countries in Europe as well as the United States it is really not built for this kind of war.

"That very fact has made it really difficult for the West to resupply Ukraine, Ukraine is using weapons at a very high rate it is using ammunition as well as part of this.

"Then the other thing we are confronted with is the barrels of the various artillery pieces are overheated because of overuse.

"So that is a major for the Ukrainians and for the West, especially if the West wants to continue helping the Ukrainians stop the Russians."[/i]

Posted by b on December 2, 2022 at 15:13 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/12/n ... .html#more

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HOT AIR VERSUS HOT CASH – THE EUROPEANS PREFER RUSSIAN LNG TO US LNG

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By Olga Samofalova, introduced and translated by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

When Ursula von der Leyen (lead image) was nominated in 2019 to be Germany’s candidate to lead the European Commission, German politicians from her own party privately described her as too stupid and potentially too corrupt to be risked inside Germany during the political succession race to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor. German military sources say von der Leyen was the stupidest defence minister in German military memory.

Since the war began in February, von der Leyen did not say a true word until November 30, when she announced that Ukrainian military deaths had reached more than 100,000, and civilian fatalities more than 20,000. Within hours these numbers were removed from the published record of her speech. Von der Leyen’s admission implied the war toll of Ukrainian wounded is more than 300,000, and that the sum of military and civilian casualties has already reached half a million. Von der Leyen was confirming Russian estimates and contradicting the Kiev regime’s propaganda.

In September von der Leyen announced her support for a price cap on the international trade in exports of Russian pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Last month she said the European Union is “ready to go” with a price cap on Russian oil exports.

However, the European and Asian gas and oil trade is not only contradicting what von der Leyen is claiming; it is demonstrating they are profiting from her public lies. In the gas market there is new evidence that the French, Dutch and Belgian governments are allowing the purchase of record volumes of imported Russian LNG, and the re-export of this gas at a profit to other European states, including Germany. The arbitrage – that is, the profit from buying Russian LNG at the Russian selling price and then reselling it at a premium to European consumers – is so lucrative, the Chinese are diverting their contracted volumes of Russian LNG to Europe.

Olga Samofalova, the energy market analyst at Vzglyad , reported yesterday on how the markets are defeating the sanctions.

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Source: https://vz.ru/

The translation which follows is verbatim, without editing. The illustrations and URL links have been added.


WHY EUROPE IS BEING SAVED BY RUSSIAN LNG, NOT AMERICAN LNG

December 1, 2022
Text: Olga Samofalova

While pipeline gas supplies from Russia are under scrutiny, the European Union (EU) is quietly buying up more and more volumes of the other Russian gas – that is, liquefied natural gas (LNG). Europe’s costs of importing Russian LNG have soared to record levels, Bloomberg has discovered. How did Russia start supplying more liquefied natural gas to Europe and, most importantly, why do the Europeans themselves see nothing terrible in this?

As you know, Brussels has imposed a Russian coal embargo; an oil embargo will start operating in a week. A number of countries have refused pipeline gas supplies; others have let technical and bureaucratic problems of the “Northern Streams” take their course. They claim not to have noticed the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines or the way in which the Ukraine has been so unaffected by the present situation that it has restored the transit volumes of gas across Ukrainian territory.

At the same time, Europe’s costs for importing Russian LNG in 2022 have soared to a record level, according to Bloomberg. The EU has increased the purchase of LNG from Russia by about 40% over this year. The EU spent a record €12.5 billion ($13 billion) on Russian LNG from January to September – five times more than a year earlier. This is a bitter pill for many countries of the bloc, which imposed tough sanctions on the Kremlin in order to deprive it of funds to conduct its military operations in Ukraine, the western news agency writes.

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Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/

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Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/

As ship and port tracking data show, growing demand from countries such as France and Belgium has helped make Russia the number-two LNG supplier to northwest Europe this year. In the first place is Qatar, which traditionally supplies LNG to the European region. The current situation is that northwestern Europe accepts significantly more Russian than American LNG, although it was the United States which promised to save the Europeans with its gas after the removal of Russian pipeline supplies.

It should be understood that Belgium, the Netherlands and France accept Russian LNG, but then it is distributed throughout Europe. Among European countries, only the UK and the Baltic states have stopped buying Russian LNG.

Russian LNG will continue to flow to Europe, and most European countries are happy to turn a blind eye to this, says Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a researcher at the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Because the EU is faced with a real physical shortage of natural gas, this leads not only to the high cost of the resource, but also to a reduction in the work of industry, and therefore of their demand for fuel.

There are two LNG plants in the north-west of Russia. These are Gazprom’s Portovaya and Vysotsky LNG. However, these are small plants; the first of them started working only this autumn. Accordingly, we are mainly talking about the supply of Novatek’s Yamal LNG to Europe. Initially, the Yamal LNG plant was counting on delivering its supplies to Asia, primarily to China. And until 2022, the main volumes from Novatek did indeed go there.

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Why has the situation changed so much this year?

Firstly, for the first time, the European market, not the Asian one, has become the premium market for gas. Until 2022, gas prices in Europe were always lower than in Asia. Now everything is the other way around, so the growth in Russian LNG supplies is explained by the economic or commercial factor, says Igor Yushkov, a leading expert of the National Energy Security Fund, an expert at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.

The second point is that there are ice restrictions for the supply of Yamal LNG to Asia. “As soon as the navigation season on the Northern Sea Route ends, LNG can only be shipped to Europe. But when the premium market was Asian, often what happened in winter was that Yamal LNG was shipped to Europe by ice-class tanker, , then reloaded on a conventional tanker, and then this LNG cargo went through the Suez Canal to Asia,” explains Yushkov. But this year, all free LNG from the market is being vacuumed up, not by China, but by Europe.

“Therefore, even in the summer, when Novatek Yamal had the opportunity to supply LNG via the Northern Sea Route to the East, the main volumes still went to the European market for economic reasons,” Yushkov adds.

The third reason is the overall increase in the capacity of the Yamal LNG plant, where all four stages are operating at full capacity this year. The design capacity is about 16.5 million tonnes, but by the end of the year, much more will be produced – about 20 million tonnes.

It is noteworthy that almost 16 million tonnes are contracted and have been delivered under long-term contracts to the signing customers. But the gas which the plant produces in excess of these volumes is not under contract and this is going to the spot market. The owner of Yamal LNG, Leonid Mikhelson, has said that the company now earns more from these surpluses, which amount to about 4 million tonnes, than it earns from the contract sale of all the other 16 million tonnes.

This is easily explained. The contracts were signed when LNG prices were significantly lower than they are now. Buyers of Russian LNG under these contracts are in a very favourable position for themselves. But Novatek is already selling the “surplus” at spot prices – and they are many times more expensive.

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Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/

“Even the Chinese company CNPC, which has a contract with Novatek, sells part of this LNG on the European market, acting as a trader,” says Yushkov. We are talking about the fact that it is profitable for a Chinese company to resell LNG to Europeans and get a favourable margin on the difference between the purchase price (which is prescribed in the contract) and the spot price at which Europeans buy.

Gas consumption in China has decreased, firstly, due to the ongoing lockdowns this year. Secondly, because of the increase in coal consumption against the background of the withdrawal of the European environmental agenda into the shadows. China has increased its own coal production and increased coal imports from Russia at attractive prices.

Thus, the growth of Russian LNG supplies to Europe is explained by economic factors. And that’s why the EU is quietly increasing its purchase and does not consider this a problem, whereas there is a constant chatter in European political circles about pipeline gas from Russia and the necessity of getting rid of it.

According to Bloomberg, the share of Russian pipeline gas in the region has decreased from 30% in 2021 to 10% in 2022. By contrast, the share of LNG in Russian supplies to Europe is now close to half.

“Europeans do not perceive LNG as a kind of national gas. They do not have the same negative attitude towards LNG as they have towards pipeline gas. Perhaps this is all because of the demonization of Gazprom, which has been obvious for more than a year now. This is because pipeline gas has always come from Russia and from Gazprom until now,” says Yushkov. Whereas LNG was initially perceived as the gas which would rescue everybody from Russian gas. First of all, the United States actively advertised its LNG as the salvation for Europe. In other words, the European perception is all about effective PR and the right headlines in the media, which help to form the public and political distinction between “good gas” and “bad gas”.

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Source: https://ycharts.com/

Bloomberg has been reporting the surge in Chinese “discount” buying of Russian LNG.

At the same time, Yushkov notes that, in principle, the Europeans have not refused Russian gas, with the exception of several countries. This is despite the fact that European politicians have talked about reducing the Russian gas share and in a few years’ time abandoning it altogether. However, problems have arisen with the failure to deliver this gas through the pipelines. The reasons for that, as you know, are well known and quite different.

The Yamal–Europe gas pipeline was closed by the Poles due to the nationalization of Gazprom’s share in the pipe operator. Ukraine refused to accept gas through the Sokhranovka pumping station, so only Sudzha has remained.

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According to the contract, 109 million cubic meters per day should go through Ukraine, and for now the flow is two and a half times less – 42 million cubic meters. The flow to Germany through Nord Stream-1 gradually stopped by September due to sanctions problems with turbines. The flow through Nord Stream-2 was halted due to the suspension of certification, and then both these pipelines were blown up — in seemingly safe waters of Europe right in front of NATO forces. Europe would be happy to buy Russian gas through the pipelines, but there is no possibility, Yushkov believes. The channels have been completely cut off.


http://johnhelmer.net/hot-air-versus-ho ... more-70312

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NATO Narratives and Corporate Media Are Leading to ‘Doorstep of Doom’
ROBIN ANDERSEN
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Wall Street Journal (4/27/22): “Unless the US prepares to win a nuclear war, it risks losing one.”
A popular cartoon aptly expresses the political angst provoked by media pundits today as they chatter on about nuclear war: Two people, both a little hunched over, burdened with the world, are walking down a city street. The woman says to the man, “My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.”

As we slide closer to what was once considered the ultimate insanity—nuclear Armageddon—corporate media seem to be egging on reckless leaders as they make thinly veiled threats across an imaginary nuclear line. On 60 Minutes (9/18/22), in response to the question, “What [would you] say to [Vladimir Putin] if he is considering using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons?” Joe Biden said, “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.” The president was, of course, referencing the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Biden also reiterated the US’s goal of total victory: “Winning the war in Ukraine is to get Russia out of Ukraine completely.” Interviewer Scott Pelley did not point out that this would mean driving Russia out of Crimea—territory that Russia has long promised to defend with nuclear weapons (Diplomat, 7/11/14).

Two months into the war in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal (4/27/22) proclaimed, “The US Should Show It Can Win a Nuclear War.” Gone are the days of rational deterrence and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), a doctrine based on knowledge of the deadly consequences of nuclear war: Just the threat of using such awesome destruction against an enemy would prevent the enemy’s use of those same weapons.

‘Dangerous’ peace deals
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Insider (10/15/22) argues that “desire to avoid a nuclear war could actually make the world more dangerous.”
In a moment of sanity, the LA Times (8/15/22) admitted that a nuclear exchange involving only 3% of the world’s stockpiles would kill a third of the global population within two years. And The Nation (10/18/22) admonished the US and Russia both for what it called “playacting nuclear war,” each with its own nuclear games. Consortium News (10/31/22) warned that the US deploying nuclear-capable B-52s to Australia, presumably to threaten China, is “military madness.”

But other media have engaged in strained linguistic maneuvering to promote the murder of billions of people. One pretzeled headline from Insider (10/15/22): “Putin’s Nuclear Threats Are Pushing People Like Trump and Elon Musk to Press for a Ukraine Peace Deal. A Nuclear Expert Warns That’s ‘Dangerous.’” The article began, “An understandable desire to avoid a nuclear war could actually make the world more dangerous if it means rushing to implement a ‘peace.’”

Seeking to explain how we’re learning to love to bomb and give up our engagement with reasoned thought, sports writer Robert Lipsyte (TomDispatch, 10/18/22) noted that we’ve been trained to look for something huge, like a big bang or grand slam:

The dream of the game-changing home run has shaped our approach to so much, from sports to geopolitics. Most significantly, it’s damaged our ability to solve problems through reason and diplomacy.

When the Bomb is treated as the ultimate home run, the loss of reason and diplomacy lies directly at the feet of war censorship and propaganda, which have permeated corporate news since World War I. The domination of NATO narratives has followed this lead, even as the stakes have become existentially higher.

Demonize the enemy
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Washington Post (3/10/22): “Perhaps nuance is overrated.”
There has been no better villain than Vladimir Putin, a point recognized by the Washington Post (3/10/22), which recalled decades of some of the worst movie stereotypes. But it concluded, “Real life provided the foundation for every pop culture depiction of Russia.” In other words, Putin really is a Bond villain.

He’s an enemy beyond redemption, not part of the human family, an unspeakable monster, an evil Other who cannot be reasoned with (Extra!, 5/14; FAIR.org, 3/30/22, 7/21/22). And this extends from Putin to Putin’s government to Russia itself.

Many Western news outlets repeated unsourced allegations made by Lyudmila Denisova, Ukrainian commissioner for human rights, of atrocities carried out by Russian troops. An implausible story about how two Russians raped a one-year-old baby to death was repeated in Business Insider, the Daily Beast, the Daily Mail, the Sun, Metro, the Daily Mirror and Yahoo News (Consortium News, 6/1/22).

Newsweek (4/8/22) promoted another story sourced to Denisova that claimed, “Russians Raped 11-Year-Old Boy, Forced Mom to Watch: Ukraine Official.” This story lacked the warning that an earlier Newsweek piece (3/4/22) about rape charges included: “Although rape is common during wars, accusations of rape can also be used as a propaganda tool to vilify the enemy and this tactic has been used in past conflicts.”

In response to Denisova’s stream of atrocity narratives, Ukrainian journalists and media outlets signed an open letter requesting that reports of rape and sexual assault be “published with caution,” particularly when involving children. The letter criticized Denisova’s reports, many of which were unverified, that went into great detail about the alleged rape of children, some as young as six months old, by Russians. They asked her to “check the facts” and disclose only information with “sufficient evidence.”

One week later, Denisova was fired from her position (Newsweek, 5/31/22).

Beyond redemption
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Common Dreams (3/18/22) reports on a media “a narrative that war is inevitable, diplomacy is exhausted (before it even gets started), and being against militaristic US or NATO solutions to the crisis is unpatriotic at best.”
While rape and sexual assault are indeed military strategies in war, tales of raping and killing babies have also long served to foster outrage toward official enemies, from World War I German soldiers bayoneting babies to Kuwaiti babies yanked out of their incubators in the first Persian Gulf War.

But most Americans, especially young people, don’t recognize propaganda, because even when it is exposed at the time, it is not incorporated into the broader narratives of war. Debunked tales have gone down the Orwellian memory hole, and most of the true history of war goes down the same hole. As Bryce Greene pointed out on Counterspin (2/24/22), the roots of the escalations leading up to the war in Ukraine were “completely omitted from the Western media.”

Because the evil enemy is always solely responsible and beyond redemption, there is no need to include an accurate history, or correct the false claims, or include the reasons for war. As FAIR (3/4/22) pointed out, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is frequently described as “unprovoked.” The explanation for war is simple: It’s good vs evil.

And the US is always good, even though the country has perpetrated a senseless, expensive and brutal war in the Middle East for the entire 21st century. When corporate media did “explain” the war in Ukraine, it “almost universally gave a pro-Western view of US/Russia relations and the history behind them” (FAIR.org, 1/28/22). Common Dreams (3/18/22) observed that journalists were more hawkish at news conferences than Biden’s press secretary, often “cheerleading for US escalation in Ukraine,” with more weapons and no-fly zones.

Getting to the edge of doom
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Real News (10/28/22): “Ukrainians have been paying a terrible price for the failure of ensuring sensible and reasonable negotiations.”
Foreign Affairs (9–10/22), citing US officials, reported that in April 2022, two months into the war, “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,” in a deal worked out in Turkey. This deal was scuttled, however, reportedly after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Kiev and told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the West wasn’t ready for a deal, and that there would be no Western security for Ukraine if he signed the accord (Ukrainska Pravda, 5/5/22; see ScheerPost.com, 9/1/22). In public remarks (8/24/22) four months later, Johnson declared that “this is not the time to advance some flimsy plan for negotiation with someone who is simply not interested”:

You can’t negotiate with a bear while it’s eating your leg, you can’t negotiate with a street robber who has you pinned to the floor, and we don’t need to worry about humiliating Putin any more than we would need to worry about humiliating the bear or the robber.

The US has likewise continually refused to negotiate the end to the war. The Real News Network (10/28/22) reported that before the war started, the Kremlin told Biden that Russia was interested in “legally fixed guarantees that rule out NATO expansion eastward and the deployment of offensive strike weapons systems in states adjacent to Russia.” The talks were not pursued—in the context of US establishment media offering opinions that a war would hurt Russia, and would therefore be a good thing for the US (FAIR.org, 1/15/22).

Protests across the country, organized by Code Pink and the Peace in Ukraine Coalition, hit the streets in September to call for an end to the war. The organizers interrogated the ahistorical, one-sided, distorted NATO narrative that leaves out NATO’s role in the conflict. Led by the US, NATO has now expanded from 12 countries to 30. The inclusion of Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Lithuania pushed right up to Russia’s borders (Common Dreams, 9/20/22).

On a long Twitter thread (2/28/22), commentator Arnaud Bertrand cited over a dozen “top strategic thinkers” who had warned what was coming if NATO continued on the path it was taking. In 1998, George Kennan said NATO expansion would be a “tragic mistake” that would certainly provoke a “bad reaction from Russia.” John Mearsheimer, a leading US geopolitical scholar, warned in 2015 that the West was leading Ukraine down a “primrose path,” and it would result in Ukraine getting “wrecked.” Russia scholar Stephen Cohen told Democracy Now! (4/17/14) that moving NATO toward Russia’s borders would militarize the situation. These arguments are rarely included in corporate news reporting on the Ukraine War.

Further, the US supported the 2014 coup in Ukraine, and has loaded Ukraine with arms to undermine the 2015 Minsk II peace agreement. Russia and Ukraine signed the accord to end the civil war that followed the coup and left an estimated 14,000 people dead in Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region. Corporate media habitually omit Minsk II, and actively deny the documented history of fighting between the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and Russian separatists.

‘This isn’t a card game’
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UN chief António Guterres (Axios, 9/26/22): “Nuclear weapons are the most destructive power ever created…. Their elimination would be the greatest gift we could bestow on future generations.”
Without context and accuracy, reasoned discourse and the ability to find solutions or engage in diplomacy are beyond our reach as we approach nuclear Armageddon. Corporate newsframes regularly exclude alternative voices of peace and those who call for an end to war, leaving out an entire discourse that has animated global discussions about conflict resolution for decades.

Karl Grossman (FAIR.org, 8/5/22) reported that talk of nuclear weapons proliferated in US newspapers this year—mentioned 5,243 times between February 24 and August 4, 2022—but calls for an end to the nuclear threat were rare. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which went into effect in 2021, was mentioned only 43 times, mostly in letters to the editor or opinion columns.

There is a reason that threatening war, and threatening violence against another state, are violations of Article 2.4 of the UN Charter. As Chris Hedges says, war itself is the greatest evil. War itself causes the ultimate humanitarian disasters.

Speaking at an event to commemorate the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, UN Secretary-General António Guterres (Axios, 9/26/22) said:

The era of nuclear blackmail must end. The idea that any country could fight and win a nuclear war is deranged. Any use of a nuclear weapon would incite a humanitarian Armageddon.

And the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) observed:

This isn’t a card game, the risk of nuclear war is increasing with every threat. Using nuclear weapons or threatening to use nuclear weapons is unacceptable and this must stop now.

The number of countries now signed onto the treaty to end nuclear arms has risen to 91. That most of the world is not on the side of the US is information that is absent from big journalism’s reporting. The many entreaties from governments across the globe to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine are not on corporate news agendas.

Choosing planet over war
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Common Dreams (9/5/22): “The only realistic alternative to this endless slaughter is a return to peace talks to bring the fighting to an end.”
Journalists and peace activists alike have argued that war in general, and the war in Ukraine exacerbate the climate crisis. The Intercept (9/10/22) documented the destructive power of the $40 billion worth of weapons the US has supplied to Ukraine, now up to $50 billion, which is over “four times the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency during an existential climate crisis of wildfires, droughts, storms and rising sea levels” (Common Dreams, 9/20/22). And World Beyond War estimates that the enormous fossil fuel footprint of the Department of Defense makes it the largest institutional user of oil in the world.

Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies (Common Dreams, 9/5/22) warned:

Further escalation should be unthinkable, but so should a long war of endless crushing artillery barrages and brutal urban and trench warfare…. The only realistic alternative to this endless slaughter is a return to peace talks to bring the fighting to an end.

The fact that 30 progressive politicians felt compelled to pull back a letter requesting negotiations to end the war in Ukraine the day after it was delivered to President Biden indicates the severity of the lockdown on public debate about war in the US.

Today US combat troops remain stationed in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Turkey, the Philippines and Cyprus, while Washington conducts counterterrorism operations in 61 additional countries around the world. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed by US airstrikes alone in the last two decades. US wars are still killing and starving people around the world.

To date, there has been no accountability for wars’ failures, or for the trillions of dollars unaccounted for, or the atrocities perpetrated on the people of the Middle East. The Real News Network (9/14/21) reported that the total “cost of US militarization since 9/11 is a staggering $21 trillion.” After so much destruction in the Middle East fighting a “war on terror,” the worldwide number of both terrorist attacks and victims are “three to five times higher annually than in 2001” (Brookings, 8/27/21). As the Institute for Policy Studies’ John Cavanagh and Phyllis Bennis (The Nation, 9/10/21) argue, “That money should have been used for healthcare, climate, jobs and education.”

Big journalism does not tie military spending to the lack of funding for domestic programs popular with Americans such as Medicare for All, and even left-wing democrats have not found a way to make that case. And the voices for peace are censored by the search algorithms that hide the alternative media and the broader dialogue that can be found there.

Caitlin Johnstone (4/7/22) has argued that “the US empire has been working to shore up narrative control to strengthen its hegemonic domination of the planet” for some time, and the war in Ukraine has certainly furthered that goal.

Declassified Australia (9/22/22) detailed a “covert online propaganda operation” promoting “pro-Western narratives” for two decades, operating mostly out of the United States. Declassified Australia (11/3/22) further revealed that a team of researchers at the University of Adelaide unearthed millions of tweets by fake “bot” accounts pushing disinformation on the Ukraine war. The “anti-Russia propaganda campaign” of automated Twitter accounts flooded the internet at the start of the war. Of the more than 5 million tweets studied (both bot and non-bot), 90% came from accounts that were pro-Ukraine.

Every day we move closer
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“The big one is coming,” promises the commander of the US nuclear force (DoD News, 11/3/22).
Navy Adm. Charles Richard (DoD News, 11/3/22; AntiWar.com, 11/6/22), the commander of US Strategic Command, stated that so far in Ukraine, it’s been “just the warmup.” He warned: “The big one is coming…. We’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested [in] a long time.”

Recently the US released the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which reported that “arms control has been subdued by military rivalry.” The position document affirmed the US doctrine allowing for the first use of nuclear weapons, and identified one use of nuclear weapons as to “achieve US objectives if deterrence fails.”

As journalist and war critic Ben Norton put it on Twitter (11/6/22), “The US empire really is threatening all life on Earth with potential nuclear apocalypse.”

Even in the face of the lack of reasoned nuclear war reporting in corporate media, nearly 60% of Americans support diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine “as soon as possible,” even if that means Ukraine having to make concessions to Russia. As Alfred de Zaya, former UN independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, tweeted:

If the US were a functioning democracy, US citizens would be asked whether they want billions of dollars to be given to Ukraine for war, or whether they would prefer promoting mediation with a view to a ceasefire and sustainable peace.

Corporate media are failing democracy, and failing to disclose our current, stark choice between war on the one hand and life and the planet on the other. They speak in a loud voice that shouts for more war. In doing so, they censor and poison public discourse and position Americans as targets of propaganda—the denizens of empire—instead of citizen participants in a democracy who determine their own fates.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (1/20/22) warned, “The doorstep of doom is no place to loiter.” The sane alternative to war—and the humane thing to d0—would be to close the door on war, lock it, and throw away the key.

https://fair.org/home/nato-narratives-a ... p-of-doom/

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

From Cassad's Telegram account:

***

Colonelcassad
Today, the subject of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant came to life again. The announced parameters so far coincide with what representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry said after the talks in Turkey - the cessation of shelling of the station and the actions of the DRG near the station. In response, the Russian Federation withdraws heavy weapons from the territory of the ZNPP and does not fire at the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the territory of the plant. Russian guards with light weapons remain at the station.
The question here is that, like all previous deals, even if it is concluded, it will undoubtedly be violated. I really would not like the situation, so that later some official would go on camera and say, we thought it would be like this, but we were again deceived.

***

forwarded from
Readovka
Map of hostilities and the situation on the fronts on the evening of December 2

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Today militants once again brutally shelled Donetsk. The Armed Forces of Ukraine fired from the north-west of the city in the Kyiv, Kuibyshevsky, Kirovsky and Voroshilovsky districts. In the Kiev region, a shell of the Armed Forces of Ukraine tore apart a man, hail covered the shopping center "Donetsk City", a woman died. Barbaric shelling of a peaceful Russian city has not stopped for several days, the Nazis are deliberately hitting residential areas. This can be stopped only after the liberation of all Ukraine!

⚔️The situation on the fronts for the past day:

⚫️The Svatovo-Kremennaya direction

of the Russian army, with the support of army aviation and heavy flamethrower systems, an attack of militants in the direction of Kotlyarovka , Kharkov region, was suppressed. The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost two tanks, four infantry fighting vehicles and two Kozak armored vehicles. An attempt by the enemy to attack Chervonopopovka of the LPR was also prevented, the enemy suffered huge losses: more than 100 killed and wounded, two tanks, two armored vehicles, and 11 militants surrendered.

⚫️The Ugledar direction of the

Armed Forces of Ukraine unsuccessfully tried to counterattack from the direction of Vugledar in the direction of Nikolsky , but they were rebuffed by the Russian army, losing up to 50 militants, one tank and three armored personnel carriers.

💥A Ukrainian MiG-29 was shot down near the village of Ukrainka in the DPR . Also, in the area of ​​Nikolsky, a Su-25 of the Ukrainian Air Force was shot down by means of air defense.

💡Heavy artillery was obsolete, they said. So look at the results, we say. The 203-mm self- propelled gun 2S7M Malka is one of the heaviest guns in the Russian artillery park and a deep modification of the 2S7 Pion. Despite the opinion that heavy artillery has long outlived its usefulness, reality proves otherwise. How? Readovka explains .

***

Colonelcassad
▪️ Chronicle of the special military operation
for December 2, 2022

🔻Belgorod region:

▪️Ukrainian formations shelled the village of Stary Khutor, damaging several residential buildings and a power line.

▪️At night, in the Belgorod region , air defense systems worked out against air targets.

🔻Starobelsk direction:

▪️The enemy attempted an offensive in the direction of Krasnopopovka and Kuzemovka, but the Ukrainian formations could not achieve visible success.

🔻Soledar direction:

▪️In the Bakhmut (Artemovsky) area, units of the 53rd Ombre of the Armed Forces of Ukraine tried to counterattack in the area of ​​Opytny , while the 5th Separate Assault Regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine made a similar attempt in the vicinity of Mayorsk.

Both attacks were repulsed by Russian troops.

▪️On the Soledar sector of the front, positional battles continue in the vicinity of Disputed.

▪️Artillery of the RF Armed Forces hit the enemy stronghold in Toretsk, destroying at least 5 fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

🔻Lugansk People's Republic:

▪️Ukrainian formations fired from Starobilsk, Horoshee and Svatovo with MLRS HIMARS , causing damage to civilian infrastructure.

🔻Donetsk direction:

▪️Ukrainian fighters intensively shelled Donetsk during the day : at least 3 civilians were killed in the city, several more people were injured.

▪️In the evening, the Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked an oil depot in Shakhtersk , a fire broke out at the facility.

▪️As a result of the shelling of Gorlovka , the contact network was damaged, and the operation of electric transport was temporarily stopped.

🔻Zaporozhye direction:

▪️The Russian Armed Forces carried out several missile strikes on the Zaporizhtransformator plant in Zaporozhye, which produces the equipment necessary to stabilize the Ukrainian energy system.

▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine, in turn, fired at civilian infrastructure in the city of Tokmok.

🔻Southern Front: Kherson direction

▪️Artillery duels continue on this sector of the front: the RF Armed Forces have worked on targets in Kherson, Kachkarovka, Zolotaya Balka, Dneprovsky, Daryevka and Nikolsky.

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source: @rybar

***

forwarded from
Witnesses of Bayraktar
I managed to communicate with the paratroopers of the elite 25th separate airborne brigade. Our interlocutors were mobilized. Have not served in the army before. Since the summer they have been preparing hard. First in the Zhytomyr region, then in Britain. In the depths of foggy Albion, they ran for 20 days with an AK-47 and learned to storm buildings. The paratroopers generally don't rate British training too highly. Interestingly, they were given special lectures on the rights and duties of military personnel. In particular, they said that it was forbidden to kill and torture prisoners (Iraqi prisoners of British prisons must weep somewhere here).

In a word, the guys were seriously prepared for serious operations, and now, finally, they were sent to the front line. On November 5, they were in position and realized that it was an asshole. The road to the outpost was shot through. Food and water were literally beaten out from the authorities. And besides, their unit was not allocated a fashionable foreign uniform, so they had to freeze in the Ukrainian one. In addition, constant shelling seriously thinned out the personnel. For a month, 80 percent of the personnel on the opornik were injured. In the end, drivers and other service personnel were sent to the front line. The technology is also bad. They had one MTLB assigned to the battalion. The wounded had to be dragged across an open field for 2 km in the hope that they would not die from loss of blood.

Such is the bleak picture. It is not surprising that during the first shooting battle, the entire opornik raised his hands up and surrendered. And the most interesting thing is that they were stormed by yesterday's mobilized. Yes, yes, the same men who were sent to the army a month ago. I don’t know if they gave lectures to our prisoners on the humane treatment of prisoners, but their opponents were not carefully delivered to headquarters, unlike the Ukrainian butchers who shot our prisoners near Makiivka. Here are the European values ​​for you...

At this point, one could finish with the consolation of the thought that the Ukrainians have lost their offensive potential, but I will not be so optimistic. It is felt that a shortage of equipment has been created at the forefront. At the same time, supplies from abroad do not stop. This means that equipment and personnel are concentrated in the rear. Today we were able to drive an SUV across the field and did not get stuck. Frost bound the earth. If this weather continues for another week, the tracked vehicles will easily be able to move forward. And this means that Ukrainian attacks can be expected in a week. They have strength, even though they pretend to be poor and unhappy. I think that they will hit Zaporozhye and near Svatovo at the same time. They will try to repeat the successes of the autumn campaign.

Alexander Kharchenko

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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

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

Post by blindpig » Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:58 pm

OSCE Nothing More Than a Branch of NATO
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 2, 2022
Ahmed Adel

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The West is attempting to turn the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) into a subsidiary organisation of NATO, which is paradoxical because it is meant to be concentrated on peacebuilding, unlike the Atlantic Alliance which fosters tensions to justify its existence in a post-Soviet world. It is for this reason, among others, why Poland refused to grant a visa to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, thus barring him from attending the OSCE meeting held on December 1 and 2 in Lodz.

Poland claims it refused to grant Lavrov a visa because he is on the list of people who have been sanctioned. However, this does not explain why many from the Russian delegation were also denied visas despite not being on a sanctions list.

This weak excuse is to justify Warsaw’s consistent policy of provocation against Moscow, especially in the context of the current war in Ukraine. Poland and the West are hoping that by humiliating Russia, the country will withdraw from the OSCE. The West are desperate for Russia to withdraw as a hurdle from being able to implement and impose whatever it wants on the OSCE will be removed.

It is recalled that Moscow very effectively blocked the 2022 OSCE budget. Without a Russian withdrawal, the West will not be able to put the OSCE under its complete control, something that should be avoided as it would undermine the very foundation of the organisation – serving as a platform where Western and Eastern Europe could discuss and resolve issues.

Rather, the OSCE today has turned into a political tool of the West and effectively has no meaning or role anymore. With the OSCE descending into childlike behaviour by barring Russian delegates and top diplomats, it does seem that the organisation has become redundant as it is appearing more like a Euro-focussed political wing of NATO.

The OSCE meeting in Poland was essentially a two-day event for speakers to bash Russia.

None-the-less, Moscow is unlikely to be deterred by these provocations and will remain committed to its responsibilities as an OSCE member. This is likely to ensure that paths of reconciliation are always open despite Western attempts to close them.

The Kremlin might also believe that the OSCE’s uptick in provocations is because Poland is the current chairman. Russian policymakers might also believe that tensions will relax when North Macedonia takes over the chairmanship in 2023. It could be for this reason that Lavrov called out Poland by highlighting that its “anti-chairmanship” was taking the OSCE to its “most miserable place ever in this organisation’s history.”

It can be argued though that the OSCE has always been geopolitically against Moscow. It is recalled that the American establishment boasted that they had inserted a Trojan horse into the Eastern Bloc with the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975, the roots of today’s OSCE.

The Helsinki Accords stresses the respect for human rights and equal rights, a result of Western insistence because the Soviets were instead mostly interested in finalising Germany’s borders. The West is not interested in human rights though, and rather their main interest is ideological, economic and military hegemony all over the world, with human rights only being weaponised as one vehicle of achieving this goal.

Effectively, it can be argued that the OSCE was born as a trap for Moscow. When “security”, “cooperation” and “Europe” are in the name of the OSCE but it turns into an organisation completely dominated by promoting US interests, the argument is made that the organisation now resembles something like a branch of NATO.

Playing its own role in serving Western interests, Ukraine continues to call for Russia to be kicked out of the OSCE entirely, with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba claiming in a tweet that the “OSCE is on a highway to hell because Russia abuses its rules and principles.”

“Everything has been tried in regards to Russia: to please, to appease, to be nice, to be neutral, to engage, not to call a spade a spade. The bottom line: It would be better for OSCE to carry on without Russia,” he added.

However, this is once again an example of Kiev’s classic projection of portraying their own illiberal values as that of Russia. In fact, it is Europe’s own unwillingness to “call a spade a spade,” such as whitewashing Ukraine’s fascistic policies and pretending it was a Western-styled liberal country, which ultimately led to war.

Proving that the OSCE is now nothing more than a branch of NATO, US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said, when speaking in Lodz, that Russia had “failed demonstrably to break the OSCE.”

If the OSCE is not nothing more than a branch of NATO, it must be questioned why the US Under Secretary of State was an honoured guest at a Europe-focussed and Europe-based organisation, which was initially established to connect Western and Eastern Europe together, while Russia’s top diplomat and other officials were barred.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... h-of-nato/

Joint Statement by the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation on Security Crisis and Co-operation in the OSCE
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 2, 2022

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2 December 2022

Reaffirming the commitment to the idea of developing friendly, equal, and mutually beneficial interstate relations in the Euro-Atlantic area and Eurasia as well as to the vision of establishment free, democratic, common, and indivisible Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security community rooted in agreed principles, shared commitments, and common goals,

Emphasizing the need of keeping the central coordinating role of the United Nations Organization in the interstate relations and further strengthening the primary responsibility of the United Nations Security Council for maintaining international peace and security, facilitating the solution of international problems,

Guided by the need of upholding and respecting the fundamental principle of equal and indivisible security that prescribes that within the OSCE no State, group of States or organization can have any pre‑eminent responsibility for maintaining peace and stability and will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States,

Underscore the importance of preserving the OSCE as a regional European forum based on consensus and the principle of sovereign equality of States in the interest strengthening security and developing co-operation between participating States,

Convinced of the need to strengthen the effectiveness of the OSCE and eliminate “double standards”, geographical, and thematic imbalances,

Believe that Chairmanship-in-Office, Secretary General, and all executive structures shall strictly follow the Rules of Procedure alongside with the decisions of OSCE decision-making bodies as well as respect the idea of impartiality, transparency, and accountability,

Strive to promote unifying agenda, openness to discuss the most pressing issues and challenges, non-ideological pragmatic dialogue to tackle common security problems that assumes:

– joining efforts to counter transnational threats on an equal basis, primarily international terrorism, organized crime, illegal migration, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, threats to security in the use of information and communication technologies, as well as illicit trafficking of light arms and small weapons and drugs, human trafficking,

– developing mutually beneficial co-operation in addressing economic and environmental challenges in the OSCE area, enhancing free from protectionism and discrimination co-operation in the fields of transport, energy, trade, and tourism, promoting connectivity, as well as ensuring social and economic rights of people,

– respecting the diversity of civilizational, cultural, and historical models of OSCE participating States, considering the concepts of exceptionalism and superiority of some participating States over others as inadmissible,

– promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms and unconditionally respecting ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious identity of national minorities and other ethnic groups,

– accelerating efforts to combat all forms of racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination, anti-Semitism, Christianophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, manifestations of aggressive nationalism and neo-Nazism, combating discrimination in sports, culture, education, and science,

– preserving and promoting freedom of movement and people-to-people contacts, circulation of goods, capital without any ideological, political restrictions, free of dividing lines, “double standards”, exclusive political-military and geo-economics alliances, unilateral promotion of one’s interests at the expense of others’ in the OSCE area,

– joining efforts to maintain an open and secure global information space, free of political censorship and dissent suppression.

The present statement remains open for joining by other OSCE participating States and partners for cooperation.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

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Interviews with Ukrainian Ultranationalists: “When I Learned Who Dylann Roof Was, I Began to Admire Him.”
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 1, 2022
Lindsey Snell and Cory Popp

As Ukrainian forces took control of Kherson on Friday, soldiers flooded social media with victorious pictures and videos of themselves in the city. Nazi insignia was abundant, including Azov Regiment’s Nazi Wolfsangel, Totenkopfs, Black Suns, and patches advertising Misanthropic Division, a neo-Nazi organization that has recruited far-right volunteers for Azov from dozens of countries. As has become the norm, the overt displays of white supremacist ideology were unacknowledged in most of the major media coverage of Kherson.

“I agree with almost everything you’ve written about Ukraine,” said Mike*, a US military veteran and volunteer combatant in Ukraine, about a past article detailing mass corruption, theft of weapons and humanitarian aid, and inept military command leading to senseless injuries and deaths. “But I don’t believe that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine. That’s just Russian propaganda.”

Steve*, an American volunteer military trainer, recalls seeing Azov Regiment militants covered in SS logos and Swastikas at a course he lead in Kiev. He asked Azov commanders to order the men to remove the Nazi insignia, and they refused. Still, Steve says he doesn’t think Azov men are truly white supremacists. “I think it’s just trendy to them,” he said.

Azov was founded in 2014 as a volunteer militia led by Andriy Biletsky during the Donbas War and was later integrated into Ukraine’s National Guard. Azov’s use of neo-Nazi iconography and abundance of members with far-right, white supremacist ideology immediately made them controversial, as did their violent attacks on feminists, minorities, and the LGBT community in Ukraine.

Major media outlets that condemned Ukraine’s ultranationalists in the years before the war now gloss over the history of human rights violations and white supremacist ideology of far-right organizations like Azov. In a piece examining Russia’s designation of Azov as a terrorist organization, German outlet Deutsche Welle writes, “the Azov Regiment originally grew out of a controversial right-wing extremist volunteer battalion. These days, Azov has been absorbed into Ukraine’s national guard, which answers to the interior ministry,” seemingly implying that the Ukrainian government’s legitimization of Azov eliminated the group’s deeply-rooted neo-Nazi ideology.

On a leadership level, Azov says it has purged its ranks of white supremacists. All of the Azov militants interviewed for this piece adamantly insist that they are not neo-Nazis. That said, all of the Azov militants interviewed for this piece openly display Nazi insignia and express white supremacist views.

Dmytro*, a 24 year-old Azov militant, posted a conversation he had with a man in Italy on his Instagram account. “Real Ukrainian warriors love their people and are proud that they are white Europeans,” he wrote. “Why does everyone cringe when they hear the word white?”

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“Dmytro” with an OK hand gesture, a Nazi salute, and in an Azov video

“I want my nation to survive and prosper,” Dmytro said in an interview. “I support traditional values and the revival of white Europe. It’s important for white families to restore the greatness of Europe. Look at America. It’s a crime to be white. Look at Black Lives Matter!”

Centuria

Dmytro joined Azov through Centuria, a far-right Azov spin-off organization led by Igor Mykhaylenko, an ex-Azov commander who has been referred to as Azov founder Andriy Biketskyi’s right hand. Mykhaylenko went on to lead the National Guards, the militia associated with the far-right National Corps party. In 2020, Centuria emerged as a rebrand of the National Guards.

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An Azov Centuria unit

Centuria began steadily supplying its members to Azov units after the start of the war in Ukraine. “Centuria basically became the backbone of Azov Special Forces,” Dmytro said. “We are very important to the war effort.”

Centuria describes itself as a group that, “stands on the ideological foundations of Ukrainian Statehood and European traditions.” Centuria members espouse white supremacy, misogyny, and homophobia. “Terrorism is the result of Western Europe’s multicultural policies,” Centuria wrote on its Telegram channel. “The only thing that can save France is the nationalists.”

Vitaly Avramenko, a commander of an Azov Centuria Special Forces unit, referred to the Zelensky Presidency as the “Jewish government” on his Telegram channel. Der III Weg, a German neo-Nazi party, celebrated the inception of Centuria on their website in 2020. Centuria, in turn, promoted Der III Weg’s endorsement of the organization.

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Azov Centuria commander with Nazi Wolfsangel, Totenkopf**, and US and British flags

Centuria emphasizes the importance of providing Ukrainian youth with nationalist education. “No government in Ukraine has been interested in educating the youth,” reads a blurb on Centuria’s official website. “They thought only about their own enrichment, not about building the national future. Our task is to raise a strong, proud Ukrainian.” Centuria often announces efforts to recruit boys as young as 15 years old.

Marko* is one such youth, recruited into Centuria as a teenager. He speaks about Centuria with the formality of a spokesperson. “We consider right-wing, patriotic movements very important to our country,” he said. “Centuria was formed for the Ukrainians who want to see Ukraine be a strong, independent, and prosperous European state.

“We believe that the best ideology for Ukraine is nationalism. Our nation, language, traditions and customs have been destroyed by enemies for much of history, and now, the Russian invaders are again trying to wipe the Ukrainian nation off the face of the earth. We will never forget how Russia tried to destroy our nation, and we will take revenge for every drop of Ukrainian blood shed.”

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Marko poses in front of a Nazi Party flag hanging on the walls of his barracks. “That’s just to troll the Russians,” he said. “Because the Russians are always calling us Nazis. The Russians are the real Nazis.”

But Marko’s Instagram account contains enough virulently racist, misogynistic, and homophobic rants to fill a manifesto. He quotes George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. “If Israel is a Jewish Country and has the right to be Jewish, if Ghana is a negro country and has the right to be black, then why don’t we whites have the right to keep our white race?” He decries the white women who have children with “Chinese, Turks, Arabs, and Negroes”, wears a shirt that says, “White Pride World Wide”, and complains that Ukrainian youth aren’t sufficiently educated about Ukrainian nationalism.

Oleksander*, 24, is another Centuria member who joined an Azov unit when the war began. His Instagram is full of masked selfies in uniform, sometimes featuring a Hitler salute. Oleksander quotes figures he finds inspirational, like Adolf Hitler and American neo-Nazi Dylann Roof, who shot and killed 9 people in a predominantly Black South Carolina church in 2015.

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Caption reads: “Even if my life is worth less than a speck of dirt, I want to use it for the good of society.”-Dylan (sic) Roof

“Once I found out who Dylann Roof was, I read his manifesto,” Oleksander said. “I began to admire him. I understand him, because he is a nationalist, like me. I support him. He is a man who loves his nation. The blacks commit crimes against his nation, and those crimes go unpunished. He is a hero. My call sign in my military unit is his name.”

Oleksander bristled when asked if he considered himself a neo-Nazi. “Ukrainian nationalists and Nazis are two different things,” he said. He didn’t respond when asked why he’d quote Adolf Hitler if he didn’t have Nazi sympathies.

Anton Radko, 32, is a professional MMA fighter and trainer who became an Azov commander after the war started in Ukraine. He, too, complains when he is referred to as a neo-Nazi, though he, too, uses Nazi iconography and white supremacist symbols liberally.

The username of Radko’s private Instagram account was “SSGalizien”, referring to the predominantly Ukrainian 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the Nazi SS. And fittingly, Radko posted Nazi content, including pictures of Nazi party flags and SS marches, on a near-daily basis before his account was suspended by Instagram. The Azov Regiment, which has claimed repeatedly to have purged its ranks of neo-Nazis, uses Radko in its official videos, social media posts, and even on billboards in Ukraine.

Groups like Azov have long been a draw for far-right volunteers from Western countries. It’s not clear how many foreign volunteers have traveled to Ukraine to join Azov, or how many have switched from other militant groups while in Ukraine. Centuria’s Poltava division recently shared an interview with a 23 year-old American militant in their ranks. “Francis,” from Texas, came to Ukraine and joined the International Legion, the official unit of foreign volunteers.

“I always wanted to join Azov,” Francis said. “I jumped when I got the chance.” When asked about how he felt about the US government’s issues with Azov, Francis said he was unconcerned. “To be honest, I don’t care,” he said. “I have my own opinion. I came to work, help, and support my friends.”

Azov and the West

US Congress has included stipulations in appropriation provisions that Azov may not receive “arms, training, or other assistance.” But a 2021 report found that that Azov Centuria members were trained by Western countries while at the Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Army Academy. But it’s clear that US aid is reaching Azov. Azov militants are frequently seen in photos with weapons provided to Ukraine by Western countries.

Beyond aid from Western governments, private donations have poured into Ukraine from the West. In March, money transfer and online payment system PayPal expanded their services to allow Ukrainians to receive funds from abroad. Virtually every Azov militant with social media uses it to court donations.

One Azov militant sought donations in honor of a fallen solder in an English-language Instagram post. “He spoke about support of the European people against Black Lives Matter riots. Our fight is 14 words,” referring to a quote from American neo-Nazi David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.” The Azov militant linked his PayPal account at the end of the post.

In September, a delegation of Azov members visited Washington, reportedly meeting with more than 50 members of Congress. The meetings apparently went so well that an Azov co-founder present in them, Giorgi Kuparashvili, predicted that Congress would remove the ban on funding and arming Azov.

The current size of the Azov Regiment is unknown, though the size of Azov relative to the Ukrainian Armed Forces as a whole is often cited to downplay the influence and danger of the organization. As a result of a widespread, continuous recruitment initiative, Azov’s ranks are growing. Azov’s recruitment page mentions that special dispensations can be made for active military personnel who aren’t able to visit recruitment centers in person, indicating that Azov is potentially swelling its ranks by poaching soldiers from elsewhere in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Azov is one of a number of ultranationalist militant groups active in Ukraine. Although bans on US funds being used to arm and train militants only apply to Azov, the rest of the Ukrainian far-right is equally problematic.

Ukraine’s Far-Right Beyond Azov

Carpathian Sich, a volunteer battalion formed by the ultranationalist Svoboda Party in 2014, was originally comprised of nationalists unable to enlist with the National Guard. Carpathian Sich’s current iteration, the 49th Separate Rifle Battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has been an official part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since May and has a substantial number of foreign volunteers. Unlike Azov, Carpathian Sich seems to have muted its overt expressions of neo-Nazi ideology since the war began.

While volunteers from the US and Europe were welcomed into Carpathian Sich, a volunteer from a South American country says volunteers from his part of the world had a different experience. The volunteer, an army veteran, visited a Ukrainian Embassy and was encouraged to travel to Ukraine to join the International Legion. Once he arrived, the International Legion rejected him because he didn’t speak English. He was directed to Carpathian Sich.

The volunteer says that Carpathian Sich initially refused to enlist volunteers from South America. Eventually, they agreed to spend a month on the frontlines without payment. At the end of the month, Carpathian Sich was satisfied with their performance and enlisted them. The South American volunteer said he planned to remain in Ukraine permanently after the war.

Mikhail*, a militant from a Carpathian Sich-linked militia, says non-white volunteers should go back to their home countries as soon as the war is over. “Europe is white,” he said. “Europeans are meant to be white. This is how we Europeans differ from savages such as the Russians.

“We appreciate the help people from other countries have given us,” Mikhail continued. “But we have paid them, and they really should go back to their countries when the war ends. This is why we send food and grain to Africa, for example. So they don’t flee to Europe and try to live here.”

Right Sector

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1st Separate Assault Company of the DUK with NLAW anti-tank missiles

The Ukrainian Volunteer Corps (DUK) is the militant wing of the Right Sector, a far-right wing, ultranationalist organization founded in 2013. Today, the DUK is an official part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But in the years following the Euromaidan, even as other militias split or merged into the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Right Sector remained independent. Though Right Sector’s prolonged consternation with Ukrainian authorities eventually mellowed, the organization’s ultranationalist, neo-Nazi ideology remained strong.

Right Sector rails against the LGBT community and feminism, even crediting the war in Ukraine for slowing the spread of tolerance by causing the departure of “most supporters of feminism and LGBT”. Human rights watchdog organizations have cited Right Sector’s role in many violent, racist attacks, noted that some municipalities have used members of far-right groups as street police, and complained that Ukrainian authorities have prosecuted activists attacked by far-right groups while taking no action against their far-right attackers.

Right Sector has an active youth outreach program with chapters throughout the country. Like Centuria, Right Sector places heavy emphasis on nationalist indoctrination of youth. “Right Sector seeks to educate the youth and eliminate the internal occupation,” said one DUK militant whose Instagram username features both “white boy” and “88” (a numeric abbreviation for “Heil Hitler”). “That means the political forces that reduce the rights of our indigenous nation to a minimum.”

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Right Sector nationalists visit a secondary school in Mykolaiv in 2021

As with Azov and all other far-right militant groups in Ukraine, the current size of the DUK is unknown. The DUK consists of “combat units, reserve units, operational units, initiative groups for the creation of reserve units, training centers, local training bases, and other auxiliary structures.” New militants are actively being recruited. As with Azov, Right Sector mentions that it’s possible for soldiers in the Ukrainian Army and elsewhere to transfer into DUK.

The Other Carpathian Sich

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Carpathian Sich at a rally.

“Alien, remember! The Ukrainian is the boss!” chanted black-clad men demonstrating against the Hungarian minority in Uzhgorod in 2017. The demonstrators were members of a second, distinct group named Carpathian Sich.

This Carpathian Sich existed pre-Euromaidan and has been responsible for many of the worst attacks against marginalized communities in Ukraine. Among the group’s stated activities are patrols to combat “ethnic crime.” Carpathian Sich often joins forces with Azov and Right Sector. In 2016, 300 members of the three groups marched through the streets of Uzhgorod, calling for the extermination of Hungarians.

Carpathian Sich founder Teras Deyak says that at the start of the war in February, Carpathian Sich reformatted into a military unit. Existing members took up arms, and volunteers approached Deyak to join. In the years before the war, Deyak actively participated in Carpathian Sich’s attacks on feminist demonstrations. In 2017, Deyak filmed attacking people inside a bar in Uzhgorod and yelling “Sieg Heil!”

New Far-Right Groups Emerge

As the war drags on, there is an ever-growing number of new far-right militias appearing in Ukraine. Ilya*, a Russian militant belonging to the Russian Volunteer Corps, a new unit of far-right Russians fighting against Russia in Ukraine, has a tattoo on his left hand bearing an SS logo and the numbers 14 (“14 words”) and 88. In one of the photos on his Instagram, he is standing in front of an American flag. 14, 88, and SS are written on his ear protection.

Still, Ilya balked at being labeled a neo-Nazi based on his use of neo-Nazi insignia. “1488 is a lifestyle,” he said. “Muslims kill people all the time, but no one is trying to cancel the Islamic religion. And the world is determined to commit genocide against white Slavs, so this lifestyle is necessary,” apparently referencing the inherently white supremacist “Great Replacement” theory.

There’s Nordstorm, co-founded by an Azov Centuria militant from Latvia. “Nordstorm is more radical than Centuria. “We are engaged in more right-wing, radical actions,” he said in an interview. “The things we do are illegal, and I can’t say what they are. But the people who know Nordstorm know what we do very well.”

Additionally, white supremacists are plentiful within militant groups in Ukraine that aren’t inherently far right, like the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, a unit of Belarusian volunteers. One Belarusian volunteer with the Kastuś Kalinoŭski posted collection of horrifically racist poetry on his Instagram account. Excerpted from one: “Once in the white Europe, enslaved by the Jew. They broke in like their own home. Open doors cannot be closed.”

In short, Ukraine’s far-right is a growing problem, and it’s much bigger than the Azov Regiment alone.

“Here comes the myth that we’re Nazis,” said Boris* an Azov militant and member of Misanthropic Division, frustrated by our questions about the use of white supremacist symbols. “Russians confuse nationalism and Nazism.” We asked why so many nationalists in Ukraine would get Swastika tattoos, express admiration for the SS, and use 1488 if they weren’t neo-Nazis.

“We’re just trolling the Russians,” he said.

* an alias.

** the Totenkopf in this style is a Nazi Symbol. The patch reads “Boys of the Northern Capital”, which is an openly neo-Nazi football club.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... dmire-him/

(Some images didn't 'take'.)

'Shy Nazis, who ever heard of such a thing?

A decade ago I was in Costa Rica visiting an ex-pat herpetologist. His assistant, a Dutch national, on three occasions got directly in my face and flashed that 'OK" sign. I had no idea what was going on, and only became aware of the significance sometime later. You wouldn't have thought it to look at him, long hair & all...Never judge a book by it's cover.

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EU Countries Agree to Cap Russian Oil Prices as of December 5

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Russia has warned that it will not sell its oil to countries that impose price caps. Dec. 2, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@ArthurBenta

Published 2 December 2022 (13 hours 43 minutes ago)

European Union countries agreed on Friday to a 60-dollar-per-barrel cap on seaborne trade in Russian oil.


The measure, which is part of the economic war against Russia for its special military operation in Ukraine, will come into force on December 5, according to a statement by the Group of Seven (G7).

The consensus reached by the G7, the European Union (EU) and Australia came after several days of intense discussion by EU countries. The European Commission acted as an intermediary between the bloc and the G7.

The EU's veto on Russian oil, which prohibits "the purchase, import or transfer of crude oil and certain petroleum products from Russia to the EU," is scheduled to come into force on December 5.

As for oil derivatives, the restrictions will take effect from February 5, 2023. "We will announce price limits for oil derivatives of Russian origin at a later date," the G7 said.

A periodic review of the cap is planned, to keep it at least 5 percent below the Russian selling price and in line with market trends.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the cap claiming that it will "further decrease Russia's revenues" and "stabilize world energy markets."

Russia, for its part, has warned that it will not sell its oil to countries that impose price caps. "We will not supply oil and gas to countries that set and add to the cap," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/EU- ... -0018.html

They will but Russian oil via third parties just as they do LGN. Another 'sanction' fail.

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

From Cassad's Telegram Account:

Forwarded from
Readovka
Map of hostilities and the situation on the fronts on the evening of December 3

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👍The brutal, massive shelling of Donetsk, undertaken by the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the past few days, is based on a cynical calculation. The Kiev regime wants to pull our air defense from the front to defend the city. Therefore, the militants use Grad MLRS for shelling a peaceful city. In addition, all this is happening on the eve of a possible offensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the Svatovo-Kremennaya line. Barbaric actions have not caused any irritation in Ukrainian society for a long time, because the residents of Donbass have not been spared for eight years, and now they are even less likely to.

⚔️The situation on the fronts for the past day:

⚫️The Svatovo-Kremennaya direction

of the Armed Forces of Ukraine once again counterattacked in the direction of Kuzemovka of the LPR, but thanks to the work of Russian artillery and heavy flamethrower systems, the enemy was thrown back to their original positions with losses in manpower and equipment. Also, the militants tried to advance in the direction of Kolomyychikha and Zhitlovka of the LPR, but were stopped by the work of our artillery.

⚫️Donetsk direction

All unsuccessful attacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the direction of Andreevka, Kurdyumovka, Avdeevka and Maryinka were repulsed by the Russian army units. The enemy lost up to 60 militants, two tanks and five armored vehicles.

⚫️Vuhledarskoye direction

Attack aircraft with artillery support frustrated attempts by militants to counterattack our positions in the areas of Sladkoye , Shevchenko and Novomayorsky . The enemy lost up to 40 soldiers killed and wounded, as well as two infantry fighting vehicles and five vehicles.

💥In the Selidovo region of the DPR, the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down a Ukrainian Mi-8. In addition, an American AN / TPQ-37 radar was destroyed in Kaleniki of the DPR .

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator
"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 Dec 05, 2022 1:40 pm

more pressure
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/05/2022
Original Article: Antifashist

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The deputy of the Ukrainian Parliament David Arajamia has stated that the new negotiations between kyiv and Moscow could be held in the second half of 2023. “Honestly, I think that this can happen when the election cycles start both in Russia and in the United States, i.e. , sometime in the second half of next year, when the presidential race in the United States has already begun," he insisted. David Arajamia was the person who headed the Ukrainian delegation to peace talks with Russia last spring.

“David Arajamia has announced Ukraine's new conditions for the start of peace talks with the Russian Federation. Since the last contacts, two conditions have been added:

*a military court
*denuclearization of Russia

According to the Ukrainian authorities, consultations can only start when those points have been met. Even for the current authorities of the Russian Federation [ready to make all kinds of concessions] the voluntary surrender of nuclear weapons is an excessive goodwill gesture that they cannot accept. Objectively, the situation currently does not allow those conditions, which are for surrender, not for peace. So we are further from an attempt to freeze the conflict or at least a minimal truce. Local agreements on the exchange of prisoners and on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant are in progress, but there can be no talk of a comprehensive approach," wrote the ZeRada Telegram channel .

“Our source reports that the front has risen and long-range artillery has entered the battle. In this, Ukraine is inferior to the Russians in number of barrels. For every Ukrainian cannon there are six Russian ones. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are also in short supply of ammunition. Everyone understands that the Ukraine is suffering more casualties than the Russians at this "static" moment. The Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered heavy casualties in the autumn military campaign, even the Americans admit this. It is clear that the Office of the President is trying to build up forces in the rear for the next military campaign, but the energy crisis adds problems. At the same time, attacks on Russian fortified positions continue, leading to constant losses of Ukrainian equipment.

The Russians have gradually evened out the issue of drone numbers, although they remain inferior to the Ukrainian Army in terms of satellite intelligence (Ukraine receives intelligence from the US and NATO). The source indicates that the question of sabotage in the delivery of material is being insisted on again to the Western partners. Exactly what is deemed necessary for defense is delivered, not attack. The Ukrainian crisis situation can be described like this: everything is complicated,” wrote the Ukrainian Telegram channel Legitimny .

“Comrades, if you look at the situation through the prism of the Sullivan formula, you can understand the actions of the West. Before our eyes, a challenge is being presented to Russia in which the interests of Ukraine do not matter, which is not a subject of international relations. Unfortunately, the President's Office does not know enough history to understand how a peace treaty will ultimately be reached," said the Rezident Telegram channel .

In recent days, the Western press has started to write that the United States and its allies are pushing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia. After those messages, Zelensky presented the conditions to start the dialogue. According to the Ukrainian president, they are "the restoration of territorial integrity [according to the borders recognized in 1991, that is, including Crimea], respect for the United Nations charter, compensation for all losses, punishment of every war criminal and guarantees that this will not happen again." A few months ago, the Ukrainian leader signed a decree prohibiting negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russia remains open to dialogue with Ukraine, but there is no possibility of continuing it, since kyiv has made official the refusal to negotiate with Russia. According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, Russia does not set any prerequisites for negotiating with Ukraine, but kyiv must show goodwill. Maria Zajarova, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, insisted that kyiv and its partners do not want to negotiate, their goal is destructive.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/12/05/26098/#more-26098

The arrogance of Nazis is proverbial but this is over the top even for such scum. It seems that nothing short of the destruction of the Nazi war machine will do.

Military, political and economic war
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/04/2022
Original Article: DonRF

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A lot has happened in the last few days: France, together with its European and Ukrainian partners, has started working on the creation of a special court for the crimes of Russian aggression in Ukraine according to the website of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of France. In other words, all the hopes that there would be some kind of agreement can be thrown away. There is a court. What does France have to do with it? France is only the face. The court is a NATO thinginternational. In fact, this is a direct quote: the European Union will go all the way. President Joe Biden has defined what that ending is: “He [Biden] stated that the first thing is that Putin must leave Ukraine. Biden believes that this should be the sign that Putin is prepared to negotiate. That would change things. The United States does not recognize Russia's new territories and that complicates the search for common ground for a discussion between the two parties” – Dmitry Peskov.

The first thing is to leave Ukraine, specifically Crimea and Donbass. From the point of view of the United States, all that is Ukraine. Peskov did not specify "the second", but before there had been talk of a trillion in repairs. A trillion dollars. The previous statements suggest... you can think so, but it is a discredit of the authorities. I'm a law abiding person and I'm not going down that road. But you have to take it into account. And Olaf Scholz confirmed the Western consensus: “specifically, the chancellor condemned the Russian attacks against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and reaffirmed Germany's support for Ukraine to guarantee its defense capabilities against Russian aggression. The foreign minister appealed to the Russian president to achieve a diplomatic solution as soon as possible, starting with the withdrawal of Russian troops."

Reading all this together, Moscow is offered to surrender, return to the borders of December 1991, pay a trillion and withdraw. Who is to blame for that? The West does not want peace but the victory of kyiv. It's what he talks about openly. But if Moscow collapses, as it did in the 1990s, kyiv will collapse with it and then someone will come to feed it and it will all make sense. If not, why freeze now? To put up with shortcomings in the name of Ukraine? The State is committing suicide on orders from the West. Someone will come to feed the ruins better than the Russian Federation. In addition, it is better to have many small Russian federations. And also pay for the Ukrainian ruins, to the last penny. Let's face it, everything is going according to plan, even ahead of schedule. There's a plan, sure.Ed ]. And that encourages the West to go all out.

From here, the current escalation is accompanied by economic measures: “the G7 countries and their allies have officially approved a cap on Russian oil prices. It came just after the countries of the European Union finally managed to agree that this ceiling would be at 60 dollars”, something that does not cause particular fear, since the oil from the Urals is sold cheaper, but it is a challenge, since that selling according to Western standards is a defeat and not selling means losing markets. Money is the true blood of war. Even more so now that "Venezuela will sign a series of new contracts with Chevron once the United States Government has eased economic sanctions against the South American country to allow the resumption of limited operations there." Losses will be compensated.

Summing up the news flow, it can be said that a military victory is no longer expected. Shells, missiles and equipment are in short supply. It is logical. Without workshops for repair, without long and thorough training and with the custom that losses can be compensated immediately, there is no other way. The Armed Forces of Ukraine can still attack, they can recapture a couple of cities, so what? Although we are "extraordinary", but we are also preparing reserves. And in the fight between good and better, we have more. At least all the equipment is of the same type. And we have massive attack capacity.

Hence, it is committed to political and economic pressure. The demands are clear. It's not just Energodar, at least not just that. Scholz also demanded an end to the mass attacks. the Ukrainian system is giving its last throes. The next blow will be fatal. To do? In it are the relevant comrades, who will fix everything, or who will fight among themselves with the participation of the farce of the press. In reality, the options are slim. There will have to be tough decisions, which means there will be objectives to be met through offensives in reverse, towards The Hague. There will continue to be massive attacks, because it seems they have decided to go all the way. The West has no capacity to prevent it. It is the people who can do it, both from above and from below, like those who directly say that “I will not fight for your Donbass”. Neither for Pskov, where the Americans will not arrive. Why would they have to die? Because they have been designated for it.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/12/04/guerr ... more-26087

Google Translator

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

More observations on Russia today
gilbertdoctorow Uncategorized December 4, 2022 5 Minutes

In this installment I offer both an observation that may be characterized as totally relevant to the ongoing war and an observation that is timeless and relates to what Russian society and behavior is all about. What these have in common is that they are firsthand observations, based on what I see and hear from real people in St Petersburg during this visit.

The first item comes from a 20-minute chat with a fellow who has been one of my best sources of information on the war thanks to his personal relations with siloviki, meaning in this case military intelligence officers, that go back to his college days and to his initial service as an administrator in the penitentiary system.

As many readers are aware, my pied à terre is a one bedroom apartment in the outlying Petersburg borough of Pushkin, which in pre-Revolutionary times was known as Tsarskoye Selo, literally, the tsar’s hamlet. Just 200 meters from our apartment complex is the Catherine the Great summer palace and park, which is a major attraction for both domestic and foreign tourists.

This area today is also home to an important military school which has students from Africa and other developing world regions enrolled alongside native Russians. There is a training base for helicopter pilots nearby. And there is a military hospital of national importance. It is from the latter that today’s news comes.

My acquaintance tells me that the hospital is now filled with wounded Russian soldiers from the Ukraine campaign, and in particular with maimed POWs who were released by the Ukrainian authorities in prisoner exchanges. The hospitalized include a good many traumatized soldiers who were savagely castrated or otherwise disabled by their Ukrainian captors.

If publicized, these cases would be far more inflammatory in broad Russian society than the horrendous video which circulated in social media a week ago showing the brutal execution of a dozen disarmed Russian POWs by jubilant Ukrainian soldiers. Clearly, the Kremlin is holding this back, lest detailed knowledge of the Ukrainian brutality unleash violent emotions in the Russian public.

In these circumstances, I call attention to the very difficult balancing act required of the Russian President. The man has nerves of steel. He is surely under great pressure from the patriotic hard-liners in the Kremlin who are au courant about the castrations and other evidence of Ukrainian depravity. One nod from Vladimir Vladimirovich and Kiev would be leveled to the ground in a matter of hours. It is tragic that Washington and Brussels confuse this restraint with incompetence, fear and other nonsense.

(more...)

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/12/04/ ... sia-today/

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

From Cassad's Telegram account*

forwarded from
military chronicle
A shortage of equipment was added to the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Bakhmut: the main thing

Due to the temperature drop in the Bakhmut region, the APU had an aggravated problem with spare parts and rubber for foreign equipment, which the Military Chronicle reported earlier . During the day, impassable mud is replaced by severe frosts, which makes it difficult to use wheeled armored vehicles MaxxPro, Bushmaster, Sisu and Kirpi.

For the delivery of ammunition, medicines and food to the garrison of the city, the Ground Forces of Ukraine use Soviet armored personnel carriers MT-LB, removed from storage in the Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkov regions.

The advanced units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are forced to get to the line of clashes in civilian vehicles, which is why both regular formations and territorial defense brigades suffer heavy losses.

From November 30 to December 4, the shortage of armored vehicles caused high losses in the 109th and 241st territorial defense brigades in the southeast in the area of ​​Opytny, the regiment of Belarusian nationalists named after Kastus Kalinouski, as well as the 71st jaeger brigade. The situation in the Azov National Battalion (the organization was recognized as a terrorist organization) is especially difficult: among others, the deputy commander of the company, Anton Radko, was seriously wounded. When trying to get out of the shelling on the southeastern outskirts of Bakhmut, five Georgian mercenaries from the "Foreign Legion" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were killed.

The highest percentage of losses in these units was recorded as a result of the use of Kornet and Konkurs ATGMs by Wagner PMC units, as well as T-80BV tanks supported by D-20 and Giacint-B guns.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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

Explosion at Engels airbase
December 5, 11:11

Image

Regarding the explosion at the Engels air base. According to unofficial information, a drone (which type is not indicated) flew in and damaged two planes. In fact, one of the objects of the nuclear triad of the Russian Federation was attacked. If they missed from the side of Ukraine, right up to Engels, then this is a clear flaw in air defense, if a terrorist group launched from the territory of the Russian Federation (as we have in Crimea in a couple of cases), then that is a flaw in the special services. In any case, the possibility of such attacks must be taken into account, since NATO, through the hands of its Ukrainian puppets, will seek to strike at the Russian military infrastructure, this is extremely obvious. Actually, it already does.
I hope that the explosion at the airfield in Engels will soon be followed by a new knockout blow.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8012510.html

Google Translator

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

Von Der Leyen Advocates Response to U.S. Anti-inflation Law

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The Inflation Reduction Act, signed in August by US President Joe Biden, provides some $369 billion in funding for US green technology and energy security. Dec. 04, 2022. | Photo: Twitter: @vonderleyen

Published 4 December 2022 (16 hours 11 minutes ago)

Von der Leyen also assured that the EU will continue to work with the US to resolve competition differences.

The European Union (EU) must take measures to balance global competition after the approval of the US Inflation Reduction Act, declared the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

We must adjust our rules to facilitate public investment in environmental transformation, and pan-European funding must also be re-evaluated," Von der Leyen declared while speaking at the College of Europe in the Belgian city of Bruges.

At the same time he assured that the EU will continue to work with the US to resolve differences in competition, as well as to ensure a level playing field for companies that have emerged since the passage of the new law.


The Inflation Reduction Act, signed in August by US President Joe Biden, provides some $369 billion in funding for US green technology and energy security.

In addition, the US directs $80 billion for tax enforcement from the Internal Revenue Service.

The EU has branded this step as discriminatory towards similar production imported from other countries, fearing that US subsidies will withdraw potential investment from the European continent.

In this context, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, stated on November 7 that countermeasures were not ruled out if the US did not review its business support measures as stipulated in the Inflation Reduction Act.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Von ... -0004.html

The Europeans start to realize they are not partners but vassals. It's the Delian League all over again with the dominate power's legitimacy even more thin this time.

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GORILLA RADIO LOOKS AT THE MAP OF UKRAINE – DESEXUALIZED, DEREGIONALIZED, DISARMED

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

During the last German administration of Ukraine, the German military and their Ukrainian allies murdered Jewish, Polish and Russian Ukrainian men, women, and children in roughly equal numbers.

In this war, the Zelensky administration is depopulating the country of its women; relocating eastern city refugees to the west; leaving the lights on in Lvov; refusing the army at the front the options of medical evacuation, retreat or surrender; and letting thieves and marauders take over the resupply lines and the rear.

The US policy of fighting the war against Russia to the last Ukrainian has this new meaning – to the last Ukrainian man.

Listen to Chris Cook leading the discussion, starting at Min 30:00:
https://gorilla-radio.com/2022/12/05/go ... -5th-2022/

Since October, Gorilla Radio has been banned from broadcasting by the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The Gorilla Radio transcripts are published on the blog. For Chris Cook’s broadcast archive, click to open.
https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/
https://gorilla-radio.com/2022/

For the time being the Ukrainian government, its allies and their propaganda media are concealing the drastic change in the country’s sex ratio between males and females, and the relocation of refugees from the east to the west, before they spill over the Polish border. Polish, Hungarian and west European sources all confirm that between 90% and 100% of their Ukrainian refugee numbers are women.

Ethnic cleansing has been Galician region policy for more than a hundred years. The chart illustrates what happened in 1940, and then the ethnic Ukrainian repopulation since 1950.

THE REPOPULATION OF LVOV WITHOUT JEWS, POLES, RUSSIANS

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/

http://johnhelmer.net/gorilla-radio-loo ... more-70327

When you shout "Slava Ukraini!" this is what you endorse, you cunts.
"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 Dec 06, 2022 2:32 pm

Death and destruction
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/06/2022

Image

Yesterday, with attacks of different caliber in various areas of the front and rear, both Russian and Ukrainian, was a good representation of the current state of the war in its military field, the only one really active in an almost complete absence of diplomacy. Despite some good words from Western leaders, mainly Emmanuel Macron, who these days has once again repeated the idea that the security architecture of the European continent must include Russia, diplomacy is currently limited to the attempt to reactivate economic projects such as the flow of ammonia through the Togliati-Odessa pipeline, the increasingly common prisoner exchanges and the negotiations with which the IAEA hopes to get Russia to hand over control of the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant, located in Energodar.

At a time when Ukraine is trying to stoke panic in Russia by claiming, with increasing frequency, that it seeks to position itself for a final assault on Crimea in the coming months or weeks - unrealistic even for US generals - and presenting the complete military, political and economic surrender of Russia as a prerequisite for negotiation, it is the military situation that marks the present. To this must be added the economic war, with the announcement of the imposition of a maximum price at which Russia will be able to sell oil to the countries that adhere to the agreement, that is, the G7 countries, the European Union and its allies. Alexander Novak has already stated that Russia will not sell oil on non-market terms even if it means reducing production.

The measure seeks to put Russia between a rock and a hard place before the decision to interrupt these sales or not: to continue would mean subservient to the measures imposed by Western countries, thus showing their weakness, and interrupting them would lose that income, key to maintaining the economy of the country. country if Russia fails to redirect crude exports. Added to military pressure, this strong economic pressure shows that Ukraine's allies have Russia's defeat, not peace, as their priority, a situation that gives Moscow no incentive to de-escalate the situation. Macron's words can be understood in this sense: an apparent incentive that could make Russia think that there is a possibility of achieving one of its objectives through diplomacy. Nevertheless, the attitude of the European Union and the NATO countries exactly one year ago, months before the war in Ukraine spread from Donbass to the whole country and with it death and destruction, forces one to question the sincerity of those words . At the time, both the EU and NATO openly rejected any negotiations.

In purely military terms, we must highlight four different scenarios that took place yesterday. In the afternoon, an attack with around 70 Russian missiles again attacked Ukrainian critical civilian infrastructure. The attacks, in which Ukraine once again claimed to have shot down virtually all Russian missiles, caused blackouts, water supplies and internet access to large parts of the country. Throughout the day, kyiv reported the death of two people, which is why a small number of casualties is also repeated in this type of massive attack.

The attack, an action that has been repeated several times in recent weeks and that seeks, according to Russia has openly stated, to force kyiv to negotiate, cannot be considered "revenge" for what happened just hours before. In the morning, the explosions at two Russian airbases, Dyagilevo in Ryazan and Engels in Saratov, were known, where there was talk of the damage suffered by at least two Tupolev strategic bombers. In the afternoon, the images from the Western satellites showed the absence of damage to the base, although Russian sources speak of the use of Soviet drones, which would have flown hundreds of kilometers until they were shot down (that is, at least, the version offered by Russian journalists, i.e. the version that Russia wants to present) in the immediate vicinity of the base, causing significant damage to several aircraft. Hours later, Russia showed that the attacks had not modified the combat capacity with a major missile attack.

Apart from this double attack on the Russian rear, in which, according to Russian sources, three people lost their lives, the Ukrainian troops also continued with their usual attacks in Donbass. Nor can the attack on Alchevsk or the shooting of Grads against the city of Donetsk be considered a form of “revenge” for the Russian attacks, something that has already become a habit for the Ukrainian troops. In the morning, the RPL denounced a Ukrainian attack against a residential building in Alchevsk, a city that since 2015 has been far from the front. According to RPL sources, at least nine people were killed in the attack, to which must be added at least four fatalities in the city of Donetsk, once again attacked indiscriminately and in broad daylight.

The Ukrainian attacks produced yesterday in urban areas, in the case of Donetsk indiscriminately, caused a greater number of fatalities than the massive attack with Russian missiles. However, as on previous occasions, the material damage caused by the Russian missiles means added suffering for the civilian population, which has suffered power, water and communication cuts for weeks. Faced with this, its authorities, who through First Lady Olena Zelenska wanted to tell the Western press that 90% of the Ukrainian population is willing to put up with power outages for years, continue to appeal to the resilience of the population and demand more military aid from their partners to continue the war "until victory", not peace.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/12/06/26106/#more-26106

Google Translator

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

Consequences of the explosion at the airfield in Dyagilevo
December 5, 23:13

Image

Satellite images https://t.me/boris_rozhin/72052 of the airbase in Diaghilevo after the arrival of the UAV. Traces of the fall of the UAV are visible not far from the Tu-22M3 bomber. The explosion killed 3 people and injured 4 others. The bomber received damage to the tail, cut the elevators + crushed the engine.

Published footage https://t.me/boris_rozhin/72061 of the consequences of the fall of the UAV at the airfield in Dyagilevo. It flew near the airfield launcher, 3 people from the calculation of which died. Damage to the elevators and engine can also be seen. A suspended rocket is also visible, which could also be hooked by shrapnel. So the car got off lightly.

The main problem is that these engines have not been produced for a long time, which is why the number of spare parts and components for them is limited. The production of these engines was liquidated under Yeltsin. In this regard, the current work on the design of a promising long-range bomber, which should replace the honored Soviet veterans, is of great importance.

The plane will certainly be repaired.
Peace to the ashes of the dead and health to the wounded.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8014114.html

There can be no question of any withdrawal of the Zaporizhzhya NPP from the control of the Russian Federation
December 5, 22:02

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The Russian Foreign Ministry said that there could be no question of transferring the Zaporizhzhya NPP from the control of the Russian Federation to any third party.

There can be no talk of any withdrawal of ZNPP from the control of the Russian Federation or the transfer of control to some “third party”. There are no direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on the issue of a security zone around the Zaporozhye NPP (c) Russian Foreign Ministry

Earlier, representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry, after consultations through the IAEA in Turkey, announced an option where the Russian Federation agrees not to deploy heavy weapons at the ZNPP, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine stop shelling the ZNPP and renounce the actions of the DRG against the Zaporizhzhya NPP. Russian guards with light weapons remain at the station to ensure the safety of the station. Of course, the station remains under the full control of the Russian Federation, and only those specialists who have signed a contract with Rosatom, which manages the station, serve it.

In Ukraine, they continue to demand the transfer of ZNPP under the control of Ukrenergoatom and the withdrawal of Russian troops.
In view of this, the negotiations did not bring much success, which means that we can expect new shelling of the ZNPP as part of the 2022-2023 winter campaign.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8013948.html

Russian Defense Ministry about strikes on the energy system of Ukraine and attacks on airfields of the Russian Aerospace Forces
December 5, 20:06

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Statement by the Russian Ministry of Defense on the attacks on airfields in Engels and Diaghilev and today's missile attacks on targets in Ukraine.

[...] On the morning of December 5, the so-called. The Kyiv regime, in order to disable Russian long-range aircraft, attempted to strike Soviet-made jet unmanned aerial vehicles at the military airfields "Dyagilevo" in the Ryazan region and "Engels" in the Saratov region.

The air defense of the Russian Aerospace Forces, flying at low altitude, Ukrainian UAVs were intercepted.
As a result of the fall and explosion at Russian airfields of fragments of jet drones, the skin of the hull of two aircraft was slightly damaged.

Three Russian technical servicemen who were at the airfield were fatally wounded.

Four more servicemen who were wounded were taken to medical facilities, where they were provided with all the necessary medical assistance.

Despite the attempts of the Kyiv regime to disrupt the combat work of the Russian Long-Range Aviation by a terrorist act, today at about 15.00 (Moscow time) a massive strike was carried out on the military command and control system and related objects of the defense complex, communication centers, energy and military units of Ukraine with high-precision air and sea-based weapons .

The target has been reached. All assigned 17 objects were hit.

As a result of the strike, the transfer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reserves, foreign weapons, military equipment and ammunition to the combat areas by rail was disrupted.

PS. Satellite photos also confirm that there is no significant damage to the airfield infrastructure or signs of fire/detonation at the Engels airfield.

The broadcast of hostilities continues in the cart https://t.me/boris_rozhin (if you are interested, subscribe)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8013700.html

Payment of reparations to Ukraine. Part #3
December 5, 15:56

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The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are now carrying out another "payment of reparations."

1. Arrivals in Kyiv, Odessa, Nikolaev, Sumy, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kirovograd, Vinnitsa, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Zaporozhye regions, as well as at military facilities in the territories of the Russian Federation occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donbass.

2. The main goal was the objects of the energy structure. In some regions, electricity was cut off and problems with water supply began. Power outages also began in Moldova. Emergency shutdowns are underway in a number of areas.

3. Despite threats from the SBU, residents of Ukraine continue to publish footage of arrivals, as well as shots of misses by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles.

Photos and videos of strikes can be viewed on the channel https://t.me/boris_rozhin, where the online broadcast of hostilities continues

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8013245.html

Google Translator

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U.S. No Longer Supports Fight For Crimea

The U.S. seems to have changed its position with regards to Crimea.

Blinken in August 2022:

Secretary Antony Blinken @SecBlinken - 16:46 UTC · Aug 23, 2022
United States government official
In my remarks to the Crimea Platform Summit, I urged the international community to keep raising the costs and pressure on President Putin and his enablers until all Russian troops leave Ukraine. Crimea is Ukraine. That was our position in 2014, and it remains in 2022.
Embedded video


---
Same dude, yesterday:

Secretary Antony J. Blinken With Editor in Chief Matt Murray At The Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Our focus is on continuing to do what we’ve been doing, which is to make sure that Ukraine has in its hands what it needs to defend itself, what it needs to push back against the Russian aggression, to take back territory that’s been seized from it since February 24th, to make sure as well that it has the support economically and on a humanitarian basis to withstand what’s happening in the country every single day. That’s our focus.


"Territory that’s been seized from [Ukraine] since February 24th" obviously does not include Crimea which Russia 'seized' in 2014. This then is a significant shift in the position Blinken had earlier underlined.

Posted by b on December 6, 2022 at 13:11 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/12/u ... l#comments

Ukraine - Crimea Bridge Repaired, No Ammunition, Drone Attacks In Russia

On October 8 a Ukrainian bomb destroyed the southern part of the car bridge to Crimea. The northern part was also slightly damaged, a passing train on the rail bridge next to it burned out. Some people in Kiev were quite happy about it:

Syricide @Syricide - 8:33 UTC · 10 Oct 2022 #Kiev yesterday.

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But the train traffic resumed a day later. The northern part of the car bridge was checked and car traffic in both directions was allowed. Repair preparations for the broken southern part immediately began.

Two days later the Russian military responded to the attack with the first intense strike against Ukraine's electricity infrastructure.

Now, less than two month later, the work is already done. Four damaged bridge spans have been replaced and a new tar cover has been laid on them. Today the Russia president drove a car over it:

Putin, accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, was shown on state television behind the wheel of a Mercedes, asking questions about where the attack took place.
"We are driving on the right hand side," Putin said, as he drove across the bridge. "The left side of the bridge, as I understand it, is in working condition, but nevertheless it needs to be completed. It still suffered a little, we need to bring it to an ideal state."

Putin also walked along parts of the bridge, Europe's largest, to inspect sections that are still visibly scorched.


Bidirectional traffic will now run on the southern span while the slightly damaged northern span will be repaired. This is likely to be finished before the end of the year.

Since the bridge attack the electricity infrastructure of Ukraine has received more missile attention. Today another attack followed. Kiev is again without electricity and water. It may well find that it will no longer be able to repair the damage.

One wonders what the people who posed in front of that bridge attack stamp poster think about that.

---
Another bad news for Kiev is that the U.S. publicized that it has limited the range of the missile launchers it had given to Ukraine:

The U.S. secretly modified the advanced Himars rocket launchers it gave Ukraine so they can’t be used to fire long-range missiles into Russia, U.S. officials said, a precaution the Biden administration says is necessary to reduce the risk of a wider war with Moscow. The U.S. since June has supplied Ukrainian forces with 20 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers, or Himars, and a large inventory of satellite-guided rockets with a range of almost 50 miles. U.S. officials say the Pentagon has modified the launchers so they can’t fire long-range missiles, including the U.S.’s Army Tactical Missile System rockets, or ATACMS, which have a range of nearly 200 miles.

That this was published is likely a hint to Ukraine that any attempt to acquire ATACMS from some U.S. allies who also have those systems will be useless. But what happens if they provide such missile and launchers that were not disabled to use them? Is the U.S. confident that its allies will make similar modifications?

The Ukrainian war machine is running on empty because the 'west' can no longer provide weapons and ammunition in meaningful quantities. The chance to change that in any reasonable time frame is low:

“High-end conflict consumes a lot of munitions and a lot of weaponry,” Mike McCord, the Pentagon’s top budget official, said in an interview. “We are also looking at the supply chain limitations. We haven’t got this figured out just yet.”
Top Pentagon and industry officials maintain that efforts are finally ramping up to replace the weapons that the United States and its allies have shipped to Ukraine — depleting stockpiles that are deemed crucial to deterring China or other potential adversaries for years to come.
...
She cited recent deals for tens of thousands of 155mm artillery rounds that the Ukrainians are using up almost as soon as they arrive. By the spring, “we will be able to do 20,000 rounds a month,” she said.

But it will take time to manufacture enough of them, she said, adding that the U.S. will get that rate up to 40,000 rounds a month in the spring of 2025.


20,000 rounds is what the Russian army uses in Ukraine on a quiet day. 40,000 rounds per day may be the average consumption, 60,000 rounds per day are fired when things get hot. It also produces enough to replace those rounds.

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This morning an explosion took place at a Russian airfield in the Volga region. The Russian military now says that it was from the debris of an Ukrainian drone that its air defenses had shot down:

AZ @AZgeopolitics - 17:13 UTC · 5 Dec 2022
🇺🇦✈️🇷🇺The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation: On the morning of December 5, the Kiev regime attempted to strike with jet drones at the "Dyagilevo" and "Engels"airfields.

Ukrainian UAVs flying at low altitude in the Ryazan and Saratov regions were intercepted by air defense means

Three Russian soldiers who were at the airfield lost their lives as a result of an attack by the Kiev regime, four more were wounded and taken to hospitals.

Ukrainian UAVs fired at Russian airfields were intercepted by air defense means.

As a result of the fall and explosion of the wreckage of Ukrainian UAVs at Russian airfields, the hull plating of two aircraft was slightly damaged.


Video showed that the explosion in Saratov took place on the ground. Air defense usually explodes a drone while it is still flying. I therefore doubt that the Russian report of this is completely truthful.

One also wonders where Ukraine found jet powered, long range suicide drones. It strongly doubt that these were homemade or will become available in higher quantities.

Posted by b on December 5, 2022 at 17:51 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/12/u ... .html#more

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Daniel Kovalik: “World War III Has Begun”
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 5, 2022
Dan Kovalik and Mohsen Abdelmoumen

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American lawyer and peace activist Daniel Kovalik DR

The American lawyer and peace activist visited Donetsk where, he says in this interview, the Ukrainian army bombed a school, a football stadium and a monastery, without the Western media reporting these war crimes. The author of the book “The Plot To Overthrow Venezuela, How The US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil” reveals that the US military is directly involved in the war in Ukraine. Interview.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You are in Russia at the moment and you are following the conflict in Ukraine. Can you give us an update on the situation in the field?

Daniel Kovalik: I was in Donetsk and can say that the situation there is very stable. While there was some shelling by Ukraine into this area upon civilian targets (eg, a school, soccer stadium, a monastery), life is now slowly returning to some state of normalcy subsequent to the referendum in September in which voters thing to become apart of the Russian Federation. Russia is engaged in the construction and reconstruction of housing, hospitals, parks and other infrastructure, and people are going about their daily lives.

You assert that there are American troops engaged on the ground in Ukraine. How do you explain this engagement of American troops? Don’t you think this is a serious precedent?

This is a very serious situation indeed. While the Biden Administration claims that these troops are not involved in actual combat, the presence of these troops and their aid to the Ukraine military in training, advising and targeting underscores that this conflict is one between NATO and Russia. In short, this is a signal that World War III has begun, and a greater conflagration has now become very possible.

In your opinion, are we heading for a global conflict and a nuclear war?

We are certainly closer to a global conflict and nuclear war than we have been since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. But the difference is that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, both the USSR and the US were dedicated to finding a negotiated solution to the crisis quickly in order to avert war. Ultimately, the crisis was resolved in a matter of days with both sides making concessions to the other. In terms of the current conflict, the US has made it clear that it does not want to find a negotiated resolution or to give any concessions to meet Russia’s security concerns. This makes the current situation even more dangerous.

Why do the United States and the Europeans want to support the Ukrainian government at all costs? What are the real reasons?

From the West’s perspective, and in particular the perspective of the US which is calling the shots, this conflict is all about weakening and possibly destroying Russia. Statements by US officials and the Rand Corporation make it clear that the US is simply using Ukraine as a vehicle for undermining Russia, just as the US used the Afghan war to undermine the USSR. The US is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian to achieve its goal of weakening Russia.

The European Union’s sanctions against Russia have proven to be ineffective. Do they still make sense today and why is Europe following the United States to the point of harmonizing its people who live in the most precarious conditions?

The EU’s compliance in going along with these sanctions is devastating Europe. The people of Europe will suffer greatly this winter from high energy costs, if they can get energy at all, and countries like Germany are actually losing industries as a result of the sanctions. These sanctions make absolutely no sense for Europe and are harming it greatly. Indeed, it is now clear that the US intends to hurt the EU as much as Russia from these sanctions. The US views the EU is just another competitor in the capitalist economy, and is happy to see the EU suffer decline from all of this.

Some countries consider themselves above the law, such as Israel, which occupies the Palestinian territories and engages in the permanent massacre of the Palestinian people, and Morocco, which occupies and plunders the territory of Western Sahara and oppresses the Saharawi people. We saw the vote at the UN demanding the ending of the blockade against Cuba, countered only by the United States and Israel, which voted for the continuation of the blockade. Do we still need an organization like the UN? Shouldn’t we go beyond the UN and create another organization that will be more just?

We certainly need an international organization which has the will and the ability to hold all countries accountable for war crimes and human rights violations. The current international law sadly fails in this regard as it is applied only against the weaker countries while allowing the stronger countries to literally get away with murder. We need a new international order which will hold the powerful to account as much as the weak. Otherwise, this is no true international order at all.

Vladimir Putin is building another world freed from US hegemony, a more equitable multipolar world. Don’t you think that this is the only way for humanity to save itself?

I agree that the only way forward is through a multipolar world in which the power of the US is greatly checked and curtailed. Since 1991 and the collapse of the USSR, the US has had virtually unchecked power, and it has used this power to wage wars of aggression throughout the world, thereby undermining the peace and security of entire nations and regions. The US has also used its economic dominance to starve countries which it disagrees with. This must end, and the only way this ends is with a world in which equally-powerful countries challenge the US and provide other countries with alternative trading partners.

We noticed during this special Russian operation in Ukraine that the media misinform by permanently broadcasting US propaganda and the discordant voices are forbidden to express themselves while the West does not stop singing us human rights, freedom of speech, democracy, etc. Don’t you think that this conflict has shown us the ugly face of a fascist West?

I do think that the hypocrisy and blindness of the West has been exposed by all of this. This conflict in Ukraine could have been easily avoided by the West’s making very minor concessions to Russia’s reasonable security concerns, but the West, and especially the US, refused to do so because they believed they could simply bully Russia into submission. And now, those who point out the obvious facts about the conflict and about how the West provoked it are being censored and quieted. Any liberal notions of free speech are now giving way to more authoritarian measures in the West, with dissenters being denied their livelihood and being threatened with imprisonment for simply speaking the truth. The West is now dead .

How do you explain the fact that the West is plundering Russian assets to give them to Ukraine, as they stole Libyan assets? Isn’t this piracy on the part of the West? Don’t we live in a world of corrupt and pirates?

The West is now engaged in old-time colonial theft and pillaging throughout the world without the smallest fig leaf of legal justification. Not only has the West stolen $300 billion of Russia’s reserves, but the US has stolen $7 billion from Afghanistan; the US continues to plunder Syria of its oil; the US simply stole Venezuela’s US-based oil company CITGO and is now selling it off in pieces; and the UK has stolen $1 billion in Venezuelan gold. For the West to even talk about international law and due process is a cruel joke. The West has destroyed all semblance of international law and we now live under the law of the jungle.

My country, Algeria, which is a permanent target of US imperialism and its satellites, has been attacked by some neocon senators, including Marco Rubio, and deputies for having links with Russia, particularly through the purchase of weapons. These senators and deputies have called for sanctions against my country. In your opinion, when will the West with the United States at its head stop interfering in the affairs of other countries?

The West will only stop interfering in other countries when they simply cannot do so by virtue of economic and social collapse within the West. I think this time is coming soon. Living in the US, I do not relish this fact, but it is undeniable that the Western way of life is unsustainable and that the West will soon face its comeuppance.

How do you explain the corruption of Western political leaders who crush their peoples and engage in a suicidal war against Russia?

This can be explained by the fact that we now live under a regime of totally unrestrained capitalism in which the profits for the few are given precedent over the needs and well-being of the vast majority of people in the world. When the USSR existed, it played a moderating role on this, but since its collapse, the worst tendencies of capitalism have come to predominate. This has brought the entire world to the verge of destruction.

You know Latin America very well. Cuba and Venezuela continue to suffer from the empire’s attacks against them. What is your analysis of this?

Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua too are suffering from a relentless economic war being waged upon them by the US. Numerous international experts and bodies have condemned this assault as a violation of human rights and international humanitarian law norms as it targets the most vulnerable in these countries by denying them life-saving necessities such as food and medicine. Literally millions of people have died needless deaths in these countries as a result.

In your opinion, isn’t there a need to build a global anti-imperialist front that will put an end to the vile, corrupt and criminal oligarchy that rules the world?

Building such an anti-imperialist front is indeed the most pressing need of the peoples of the world today, and it is already coming into being. It is this which gives me hope.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... has-begun/

Merkel Reveals West’s Duplicity
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 5, 2022
Scott Ritter

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Russian President Vladimir Putin with then German Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 10, 2015, at the Kremlin. (Russian Government)

Recent comments by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel shed light on the duplicitous game played by Germany, France, Ukraine and the United States in the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.

While the so-called “collective west” (the U.S., NATO, the E.U. and the G7) continue to claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an act of “unprovoked aggression,” the reality is far different: Russia had been duped into believing there was a diplomatic solution to the violence that had broken out in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 U.S.-backed Maidan coup in Kiev.

Instead, Ukraine and its Western partners were simply buying time until NATO could build a Ukrainian military capable of capturing the Donbass in its entirety, as well as evicting Russia from Crimea.

In an interview last week with Der Spiegel, Merkel alluded to the 1938 Munich compromise. She compared the choices former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had to make regarding Nazi Germany with her decision to oppose Ukrainian membership in NATO, when the issue was raised at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest.

By holding off on NATO membership, and later by pushing for the Minsk accords, Merkel believed she was buying Ukraine time so that it could better resist a Russian attack, just as Chamberlain believed he was buying the U.K. and France time to gather their strength against Hitler’s Germany

The takeaway from this retrospection is astounding. Forget, for a moment, the fact that Merkel was comparing the threat posed by Hitler’s Nazi regime to that of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and focus instead in on the fact that Merkel knew that inviting Ukraine into NATO would trigger a Russian military response.

Rather than reject this possibility altogether, Merkel instead pursued a policy designed to make Ukraine capable of withstanding such an attack.

War, it seems, was the only option Russia’s opponents had ever considered.

Putin: Minsk Was a Mistake

Merkel’s comments parallel those made in June by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to several western media outlets. “Our goal,” Poroshenko declared, “was to, first, stop the threat, or at least to delay the war — to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.” Poroshenko made it clear that Ukraine had not come to the negotiating table on the Minsk Accords in good faith.

This is a realization that Putin has come to as well. In a recent meeting with Russian wives and mothers of Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, including a few widows of fallen soldiers, Putin acknowledged that it was a mistake to agree to the Minsk accords, and that the Donbass problem should have been resolved by force of arms at that time, especially given the mandate he had been handed by the Russian Duma regarding authorization to use Russian military forces in “Ukraine,” not just Crimea.

Putin’s belated realization should send shivers down the spine of all those in the West who operate on the misconception that there can now somehow be a negotiated settlement to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

None of Russia’s diplomatic interlocutors have demonstrated a modicum of integrity when it comes to demonstrating any genuine commitment to a peaceful resolution to the ethnic violence which emanated from the bloody events of the Maidan in February 2014, which overthrew an OSCE-certified, democratically-elected Ukrainian president.

Response to Resistance

When Russian speakers in Donbass resisted the coup and defended that democratic election, they declared independence from Ukraine. The response from the Kiev coup regime was to launch an eight-year vicious military attack against them that killed thousands of civilians. Putin waited eight years to recognize their independence and then launched a full-scale invasion of Donbass in February.

He had previously waited on the hope that the Minsk Accords, guaranteed by Germany and France and endorsed unanimously by the U.N. Security Council (including by the U.S.), would resolve the crisis by giving Donbass autonomy while remaining part of Ukraine. But Kiev never implemented the accords and were not sufficiently pressured to do so by the West.

The detachment shown by the West, as every pillar of perceived legitimacy crumbled — from the OSCE observers (some of whom, according to Russia, were providing targeting intelligence about Russian separatist forces to the Ukrainian military); to the Normandy Format pairing of Germany and France, which was supposed to ensure that the Minsk Accords would be implemented; to the United States, whose self-proclaimed “defensive” military assistance to Ukraine from 2015 to 2022 was little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing — all underscored the harsh reality that there never was going to be a peaceful settlement of the issues underpinning the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

And there never will be.

War, it seems, was the solution sought by the “collective West,” and war is the solution sought by Russia today.

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

On reflection, Merkel was not wrong in citing Munch 1938 as an antecedent to the situation in Ukraine today. The only difference is this wasn’t a case of noble Germans seeking to hold off the brutal Russians, but rather duplicitous Germans (and other Westerners) seeking to deceive gullible Russians.

This will not end well for either Germany, Ukraine, or any of those who shrouded themselves with the cloak of diplomacy, all the while hiding from view the sword they held behind their backs.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... duplicity/

There were many voices in 2014-2015 who said that Minsk was a betrayal of Dobass and cover for arms build up. But Vlad was so hot to join the Western 'club' that he ignored that until he saw that even the relatively friendly Trump regime was helpless against the juggernaut of US imperialism in 2018.

NATO Narratives and Corporate Media Are Leading to the ‘Doorstep of Doom’
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 5, 2022
Robin Andersen

Wall Street Journal (The U.S. Should Show It Can Win a Nuclear War 4/27/22): “Unless the US prepares to win a nuclear war, it risks losing one.”

A popular cartoon aptly expresses the political angst provoked by media pundits today as they chatter on about nuclear war: Two people, both a little hunched over, burdened with the world, are walking down a city street. The woman says to the man, “My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.”

As we slide closer to what was once considered the ultimate insanity—nuclear Armageddon—corporate media seem to be egging on reckless leaders as they make thinly veiled threats across an imaginary nuclear line. On 60 Minutes (9/18/22), in response to the question, “What [would you] say to [Vladimir Putin] if he is considering using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons?” Joe Biden said, “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.” The president was, of course, referencing the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Wall Street Journal: The U.S. Should Show It Can Win a Nuclear War

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Wall Street Journal (4/27/22): “Unless the US prepares to win a nuclear war, it risks losing one.”

Biden also reiterated the US’s goal of total victory: “Winning the war in Ukraine is to get Russia out of Ukraine completely.” Interviewer Scott Pelley did not point out that this would mean driving Russia out of Crimea—territory that Russia has long promised to defend with nuclear weapons (Diplomat, 7/11/14).

Two months into the war in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal (4/27/22) proclaimed, “The US Should Show It Can Win a Nuclear War.” Gone are the days of rational deterrence and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), a doctrine based on knowledge of the deadly consequences of nuclear war: Just the threat of using such awesome destruction against an enemy would prevent the enemy’s use of those same weapons.

‘Dangerous’ peace deals

Insider: Putin's nuclear threats are pushing people like Trump and Elon Musk to press for a Ukraine peace deal. A nuclear expert warns that's 'dangerous.'

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Insider (10/15/22) argues that “desire to avoid a nuclear war could actually make the world more dangerous.”

In a moment of sanity, the LA Times (8/15/22) admitted that a nuclear exchange involving only 3% of the world’s stockpiles would kill a third of the global population within two years. And The Nation (10/18/22) admonished the US and Russia both for what it called “playacting nuclear war,” each with its own nuclear games. Consortium News (10/31/22) warned that the US deploying nuclear-capable B-52s to Australia, presumably to threaten China, is “military madness.”

But other media have engaged in strained linguistic maneuvering to promote the murder of billions of people. One pretzeled headline from Insider (10/15/22): “Putin’s Nuclear Threats Are Pushing People Like Trump and Elon Musk to Press for a Ukraine Peace Deal. A Nuclear Expert Warns That’s ‘Dangerous.’” The article began, “An understandable desire to avoid a nuclear war could actually make the world more dangerous if it means rushing to implement a ‘peace.’”

Seeking to explain how we’re learning to love to bomb and give up our engagement with reasoned thought, sports writer Robert Lipsyte (TomDispatch, 10/18/22) noted that we’ve been trained to look for something huge, like a big bang or grand slam:

The dream of the game-changing home run has shaped our approach to so much, from sports to geopolitics. Most significantly, it’s damaged our ability to solve problems through reason and diplomacy.

When the Bomb is treated as the ultimate home run, the loss of reason and diplomacy lies directly at the feet of war censorship and propaganda, which have permeated corporate news since World War I. The domination of NATO narratives has followed this lead, even as the stakes have become existentially higher.

Demonize the enemy

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WaPo: When Russia was the villain: How this moment echoes the era of Cold War spy novels and ‘Rocky IV’

Washington Post (3/10/22): “Perhaps nuance is overrated.”

There has been no better villain than Vladimir Putin, a point recognized by the Washington Post (3/10/22), which recalled decades of some of the worst movie stereotypes. But it concluded, “Real life provided the foundation for every pop culture depiction of Russia.” In other words, Putin really is a Bond villain.

He’s an enemy beyond redemption, not part of the human family, an unspeakable monster, an evil Other who cannot be reasoned with (Extra!, 5/14; FAIR.org, 3/30/22, 7/21/22). And this extends from Putin to Putin’s government to Russia itself.

Many Western news outlets repeated unsourced allegations made by Lyudmila Denisova, Ukrainian commissioner for human rights, of atrocities carried out by Russian troops. An implausible story about how two Russians raped a one-year-old baby to death was repeated in Business Insider, the Daily Beast, the Daily Mail, the Sun, Metro, the Daily Mirror and Yahoo News (Consortium News, 6/1/22).

Newsweek (4/8/22) promoted another story sourced to Denisova that claimed, “Russians Raped 11-Year-Old Boy, Forced Mom to Watch: Ukraine Official.” This story lacked the warning that an earlier Newsweek piece (3/4/22) about rape charges included: “Although rape is common during wars, accusations of rape can also be used as a propaganda tool to vilify the enemy and this tactic has been used in past conflicts.”

In response to Denisova’s stream of atrocity narratives, Ukrainian journalists and media outlets signed an open letter requesting that reports of rape and sexual assault be “published with caution,” particularly when involving children. The letter criticized Denisova’s reports, many of which were unverified, that went into great detail about the alleged rape of children, some as young as six months old, by Russians. They asked her to “check the facts” and disclose only information with “sufficient evidence.”

One week later, Denisova was fired from her position (Newsweek, 5/31/22).

Beyond redemption

Common Dreams: Corporate Media Accused of 'Cheerleading' for US Escalation in Ukraine

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Common Dreams (3/18/22) reports on a media “a narrative that war is inevitable, diplomacy is exhausted (before it even gets started), and being against militaristic US or NATO solutions to the crisis is unpatriotic at best.”

While rape and sexual assault are indeed military strategies in war, tales of raping and killing babies have also long served to foster outrage toward official enemies, from World War I German soldiers bayoneting babies to Kuwaiti babies yanked out of their incubators in the first Persian Gulf War.

But most Americans, especially young people, don’t recognize propaganda, because even when it is exposed at the time, it is not incorporated into the broader narratives of war. Debunked tales have gone down the Orwellian memory hole, and most of the true history of war goes down the same hole. As Bryce Greene pointed out on Counterspin (2/24/22), the roots of the escalations leading up to the war in Ukraine were “completely omitted from the Western media.”

Because the evil enemy is always solely responsible and beyond redemption, there is no need to include an accurate history, or correct the false claims, or include the reasons for war. As FAIR (3/4/22) pointed out, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is frequently described as “unprovoked.” The explanation for war is simple: It’s good vs evil.

And the US is always good, even though the country has perpetrated a senseless, expensive and brutal war in the Middle East for the entire 21st century. When corporate media did “explain” the war in Ukraine, it “almost universally gave a pro-Western view of US/Russia relations and the history behind them” (FAIR.org, 1/28/22). Common Dreams (3/18/22) observed that journalists were more hawkish at news conferences than Biden’s press secretary, often “cheerleading for US escalation in Ukraine,” with more weapons and no-fly zones.

Getting to the edge of doom

Real News: The West must stop blocking negotiations between Ukraine and Russia

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Real News (10/28/22): “Ukrainians have been paying a terrible price for the failure of ensuring sensible and reasonable negotiations.”

Foreign Affairs (9–10/22), citing US officials, reported that in April 2022, two months into the war, “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,” in a deal worked out in Turkey. This deal was scuttled, however, reportedly after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Kiev and told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the West wasn’t ready for a deal, and that there would be no Western security for Ukraine if he signed the accord (Ukrainska Pravda, 5/5/22; see ScheerPost.com, 9/1/22). In public remarks (8/24/22) four months later, Johnson declared that “this is not the time to advance some flimsy plan for negotiation with someone who is simply not interested”:

You can’t negotiate with a bear while it’s eating your leg, you can’t negotiate with a street robber who has you pinned to the floor, and we don’t need to worry about humiliating Putin any more than we would need to worry about humiliating the bear or the robber.

The US has likewise continually refused to negotiate the end to the war. The Real News Network (10/28/22) reported that before the war started, the Kremlin told Biden that Russia was interested in “legally fixed guarantees that rule out NATO expansion eastward and the deployment of offensive strike weapons systems in states adjacent to Russia.” The talks were not pursued—in the context of US establishment media offering opinions that a war would hurt Russia, and would therefore be a good thing for the US (FAIR.org, 1/15/22).

Protests across the country, organized by Code Pink and the Peace in Ukraine Coalition, hit the streets in September to call for an end to the war. The organizers interrogated the ahistorical, one-sided, distorted NATO narrative that leaves out NATO’s role in the conflict. Led by the US, NATO has now expanded from 12 countries to 30. The inclusion of Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Lithuania pushed right up to Russia’s borders (Common Dreams, 9/20/22).

On a long Twitter thread (2/28/22), commentator Arnaud Bertrand cited over a dozen “top strategic thinkers” who had warned what was coming if NATO continued on the path it was taking. In 1998, George Kennan said NATO expansion would be a “tragic mistake” that would certainly provoke a “bad reaction from Russia.” John Mearsheimer, a leading US geopolitical scholar, warned in 2015 that the West was leading Ukraine down a “primrose path,” and it would result in Ukraine getting “wrecked.” Russia scholar Stephen Cohen told Democracy Now! (4/17/14) that moving NATO toward Russia’s borders would militarize the situation. These arguments are rarely included in corporate news reporting on the Ukraine War.

Further, the US supported the 2014 coup in Ukraine, and has loaded Ukraine with arms to undermine the 2015 Minsk II peace agreement. Russia and Ukraine signed the accord to end the civil war that followed the coup and left an estimated 14,000 people dead in Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region. Corporate media habitually omit Minsk II, and actively deny the documented history of fighting between the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and Russian separatists.

‘This isn’t a card game’

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Axios: UN chief calls for end of "nuclear blackmail"

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UN chief António Guterres (Axios, 9/26/22): “Nuclear weapons are the most destructive power ever created…. Their elimination would be the greatest gift we could bestow on future generations.”

Without context and accuracy, reasoned discourse and the ability to find solutions or engage in diplomacy are beyond our reach as we approach nuclear Armageddon. Corporate newsframes regularly exclude alternative voices of peace and those who call for an end to war, leaving out an entire discourse that has animated global discussions about conflict resolution for decades.

Karl Grossman (FAIR.org, 8/5/22) reported that talk of nuclear weapons proliferated in US newspapers this year—mentioned 5,243 times between February 24 and August 4, 2022—but calls for an end to the nuclear threat were rare. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which went into effect in 2021, was mentioned only 43 times, mostly in letters to the editor or opinion columns.

There is a reason that threatening war, and threatening violence against another state, are violations of Article 2.4 of the UN Charter. As Chris Hedges says, war itself is the greatest evil. War itself causes the ultimate humanitarian disasters.

Speaking at an event to commemorate the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, UN Secretary-General António Guterres (Axios, 9/26/22) said:

The era of nuclear blackmail must end. The idea that any country could fight and win a nuclear war is deranged. Any use of a nuclear weapon would incite a humanitarian Armageddon.

And the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) observed:

This isn’t a card game, the risk of nuclear war is increasing with every threat. Using nuclear weapons or threatening to use nuclear weapons is unacceptable and this must stop now.

The number of countries now signed onto the treaty to end nuclear arms has risen to 91. That most of the world is not on the side of the US is information that is absent from big journalism’s reporting. The many entreaties from governments across the globe to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine are not on corporate news agendas.

Choosing planet over war

Common Dreams: Peace Talks Essential as War Rages on in Ukraine

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Common Dreams (9/5/22): “The only realistic alternative to this endless slaughter is a return to peace talks to bring the fighting to an end.”

Journalists and peace activists alike have argued that war in general, and the war in Ukraine exacerbate the climate crisis. The Intercept (9/10/22) documented the destructive power of the $40 billion worth of weapons the US has supplied to Ukraine, now up to $50 billion, which is over “four times the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency during an existential climate crisis of wildfires, droughts, storms and rising sea levels” (Common Dreams, 9/20/22). And World Beyond War estimates that the enormous fossil fuel footprint of the Department of Defense makes it the largest institutional user of oil in the world.

Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies (Common Dreams, 9/5/22) warned:

Further escalation should be unthinkable, but so should a long war of endless crushing artillery barrages and brutal urban and trench warfare…. The only realistic alternative to this endless slaughter is a return to peace talks to bring the fighting to an end.

The fact that 30 progressive politicians felt compelled to pull back a letter requesting negotiations to end the war in Ukraine the day after it was delivered to President Biden indicates the severity of the lockdown on public debate about war in the US.

Today US combat troops remain stationed in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Turkey, the Philippines and Cyprus, while Washington conducts counterterrorism operations in 61 additional countries around the world. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed by US airstrikes alone in the last two decades. US wars are still killing and starving people around the world.

To date, there has been no accountability for wars’ failures, or for the trillions of dollars unaccounted for, or the atrocities perpetrated on the people of the Middle East. The Real News Network (9/14/21) reported that the total “cost of US militarization since 9/11 is a staggering $21 trillion.” After so much destruction in the Middle East fighting a “war on terror,” the worldwide number of both terrorist attacks and victims are “three to five times higher annually than in 2001” (Brookings, 8/27/21). As the Institute for Policy Studies’ John Cavanagh and Phyllis Bennis (The Nation, 9/10/21) argue, “That money should have been used for healthcare, climate, jobs and education.”

Big journalism does not tie military spending to the lack of funding for domestic programs popular with Americans such as Medicare for All, and even left-wing democrats have not found a way to make that case. And the voices for peace are censored by the search algorithms that hide the alternative media and the broader dialogue that can be found there.

Caitlin Johnstone (4/7/22) has argued that “the US empire has been working to shore up narrative control to strengthen its hegemonic domination of the planet” for some time, and the war in Ukraine has certainly furthered that goal.

Declassified Australia (9/22/22) detailed a “covert online propaganda operation” promoting “pro-Western narratives” for two decades, operating mostly out of the United States. Declassified Australia (11/3/22) further revealed that a team of researchers at the University of Adelaide unearthed millions of tweets by fake “bot” accounts pushing disinformation on the Ukraine war. The “anti-Russia propaganda campaign” of automated Twitter accounts flooded the internet at the start of the war. Of the more than 5 million tweets studied (both bot and non-bot), 90% came from accounts that were pro-Ukraine.

Every day we move closer

DoD News: Stratcom Commander Says U.S. Should Look to 1950s to Regain Competitive Edge

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“The big one is coming,” promises the commander of the US nuclear force (DoD News, 11/3/22).

Navy Adm. Charles Richard (DoD News, 11/3/22; AntiWar.com, 11/6/22), the commander of US Strategic Command, stated that so far in Ukraine, it’s been “just the warmup.” He warned: “The big one is coming…. We’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested [in] a long time.”

Recently the US released the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which reported that “arms control has been subdued by military rivalry.” The position document affirmed the US doctrine allowing for the first use of nuclear weapons, and identified one use of nuclear weapons as to “achieve US objectives if deterrence fails.”

As journalist and war critic Ben Norton put it on Twitter (11/6/22), “The US empire really is threatening all life on Earth with potential nuclear apocalypse.”

Even in the face of the lack of reasoned nuclear war reporting in corporate media, nearly 60% of Americans support diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine “as soon as possible,” even if that means Ukraine having to make concessions to Russia. As Alfred de Zaya, former UN independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, tweeted:

If the US were a functioning democracy, US citizens would be asked whether they want billions of dollars to be given to Ukraine for war, or whether they would prefer promoting mediation with a view to a ceasefire and sustainable peace.

Corporate media are failing democracy, and failing to disclose our current, stark choice between war on the one hand and life and the planet on the other. They speak in a loud voice that shouts for more war. In doing so, they censor and poison public discourse and position Americans as targets of propaganda—the denizens of empire—instead of citizen participants in a democracy who determine their own fates.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (1/20/22) warned, “The doorstep of doom is no place to loiter.” The sane alternative to war—and the humane thing to d0—would be to close the door on war, lock it, and throw away the key.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... p-of-doom/

Say what you will about Russian propaganda, it is neither as pervasive nor as effective as that of the USA(thank you! Edward Bernays) and I have yet to see the Russians actually threatening with nukes despite the twisted interpretation of the MSM. Anyone who suggests such madness should be removed from the public stage as psychopaths.

(Sorry I've been slack of late, I've been puny.)
"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 Dec 07, 2022 5:29 pm

Attacks in the rear and in the front
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/07/2022

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In recent days, Ukraine has demonstrated its ability to attack critical military infrastructure located at a great distance from the Ukrainian border. The attacks on Monday in Ryazan and Saratov were joined yesterday by one more in Kursk, all of them on Russian aviation bases. Although the actions that appear to have caused no irreparable damage and are hardly going to undermine Russia's combat capacity in a war that is fundamentally land and artillery, the explosions show the difficulty of anti-aircraft defense even in the rear and reveals the growing importance of drones in modern warfare. This week's attacks are not new: Crimean airfields have suffered a high number of drone strikes,

The latest attacks, which are an added concern for Russia and create doubts about the ability to defend its military infrastructures even in the rear, seek to cause panic, but perhaps also show its allies its ability to harm the enemy using its own means. The attack on Monday, for example, carried out with Soviet-made drones, managed to damage several strategic aircraft at an important Russian aviation base. These explosions coincide with a new round of publications alleging that the United States, the main supplier of arms and financing to Ukraine, continues to limit weapons deliveries to ensure that kyiv does not have the means with which to attack Russian territory. The Wall Street Journal,For example, it has published this week that the United States would have modified the HIMARS systems delivered to Ukraine to prevent those US-produced missiles from attacking the Russian Federation.

In one of his regular posts on social media, Mikhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, ironized in his usual style the latest attacks on Russian military bases in the rear, writing that “The Earth is round, it is Something Galileo discovered. The Kremlin has not studied astronomy, giving preference to court astrologers. If they had, they would know: if something is launched into the airspace of other countries, sooner or later unknown objects will return to the starting point.

That is precisely the reasoning of the United States in limiting the delivery of heavy and long-range weapons with which Ukraine can attack, as it repeatedly makes clear it intends to do, Russian territory. Since the start of the special military operation , the performance of Russian troops has been one of the most debated topics. Only some media, such as The New York Times,capable of arguing that the low number of casualties caused by the Russian missile attacks is a sign of their low quality, or hate professionals like Andrea Chalupa, who argued that, due to corruption, it is likely that “nuclear companies are also in bad shape conditions”, have doubted the ability of Russian weapons to cause far greater destruction than they have hitherto inflicted. The logic, the same one that justifies Ukraine trying to attack Russian territory now when it has not done so in the previous eight years, which it has also presented as a war against Russia, implies that the increase in Ukrainian attacks will cause, as it has already caused, an escalation by Moscow.

In the same way that the Ukrainian attacks against the Crimean bridge and other infrastructure catalyzed the start of the current campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure, a higher level of attacks against Russian territory, including the territory of Crimea, would possibly mean a tougher response by part of Russia. This need to keep the level of violence under control, preventing not only the war from spreading to Russian or NATO territory, but also the use of more powerful weapons, is the main argument of those who want to limit arms deliveries. Ukraine and also those who warn of the need to prevent Ukraine from trying to recapture, for example, Crimea. An attack that would jeopardize Russian control of Crimea would undoubtedly spell the Russian need for a tough response,

Yesterday, in response to a question from the press about the veracity of the information published by The Wall Street Journal, the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, without denying or confirming the data, made the US objective in this war relatively clear. “Our goal is to continue to do what we are doing, which is to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself, what it needs to fight Russian aggression, to take back the territory that has been captured from it since February 24. And also guarantee that there is economic and humanitarian support to support what is happening in the country every day. That is our goal,” Blinken said. These statements should not be understood as an opening towards peace. If that was the objective, the United States would have pressured kyiv to accept the agreement proposed by Russia last March,

During this time, the war has given Washington great benefits in the form of military and economic pressure on Russia, which, among other things, has lost an important part of its weight in the European energy market, but it is also a risk and is trying to contain it in its current level against the attempt of its Kiev proxies of an escalation that is difficult to control. Faced with the victory narrative presented by Ukraine, which would imply not only returning to the borders of February 24, but fundamentally recovering Crimea, the territory in which it is truly interested, the United States seems to be focused on returning to the status quo prior to the Russian military intervention.

kyiv, which no longer hides that it seeks the destruction of Russia, the disappearance of the Russian language from Ukrainian territory and continues to show its disinterest in the Grads-based population of Donbass, differs from this opinion. Hence, it seeks to justify its military value to its partners based on these attacks on the Russian rear, a propaganda coup, but also a way of demanding more weapons and more support.

Yesterday, President Zelensky went to Slavyansk to offer his support to the Ukrainian troops who are experiencing a situation that the president described as "difficult" in the city of Artyomovsk, a battle that long ago turned into carnage, but that Russia did not it can afford to stop if it still aspires to advance towards Slavyansk. Throughout the day, the world press took seriously the Ukrainian warning about a possible Russian mass bombing as “revenge” for the celebration of the day of the armed forces, a bombing that evidently did not take place. What did happen, instead, was a new bombardment of the city of Donetsk. In the afternoon, Mikhailo Podoliak described the Ukrainian soldiers as "rock stars covered in love and glory." Just yesterday morning

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/12/07/ataqu ... el-frente/

Google Translator

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About the course of the NWO. 06.12.2022
December 7, 13:25

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Answers to questions from the military correspondent Kotenok's channel about the course of the NWO.

About the course of the NWO. 06.12.2022

- What is the reason for the pause in the use of Geraniums at the facilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the energy infrastructure of Ukraine? Is there a climate factor? How efficient are these devices at sub-zero temperatures?

- There are several reasons. Deteriorating weather, the need to increase production for mass use, plus, perhaps, there is an accumulation of drones for mass strikes that will accompany offensive operations in the winter.
There is no data on the pace and volume of production of these drones in Iran and Russia, although Iranian military transport aircraft continue to fly to Moscow with enviable regularity, so the flow of cargo continues. As for the operation of Geraniums at sub-zero temperatures, there is no intelligible information in the public domain.

- Rumors are circulating more and more actively that the Zaporozhye NPP will either be transferred to Ukraine or transferred to the direct control of the IAEA. Is this scenario acceptable for Russia, and what impact will it have on the energy supply of the "square"?

- Such a scenario, of course, is unacceptable, and the implementation of something like this will be regarded as an obvious defeat for Russia. Officially, the Russian Foreign Ministry explained yesterday that nothing like this would happen and sovereignty over the ZNPP would not be handed over to anyone.
The maximum that Moscow agrees to in exchange for the cessation of shelling of the Zaporizhzhya NPP by the Armed Forces of Ukraine is to take an obligation not to place heavy weapons at the ZNPP while maintaining Russian guards with light weapons at the station, while Rosatom personnel work at the station.
Since Ukraine and its sponsors are not satisfied with this, shelling of the Zaporizhzhya NPP and Energodar is expected to continue. In the meantime, the ZNPP personnel have finally been purged - those who did not sign a contract with Rosatom were removed from it + the gunners of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were cleaned up.

— Russian troops are advancing in Artemovsk. At the same time, news about the "collapse of the Ukrainian defense" has repeatedly appeared. Is the Ukrainian command ready to leave the city, or is it planning to hold it despite the losses?

- There is no collapse of the enemy's defense. The enemy was forced to retreat south of Artemovsk, but maintains the integrity of the front north of Kurdyumovka, relying on the fortified area in Kleshcheevka and the Seversky Donets-Donbass canal. At the same time, a second line of defense is built at Yar's Clock.
The pace of our offensive here is low, which, however, pays off with the heavy losses that the Wagner PMC and the RF Armed Forces inflict on the Artemov group (according to Ukrainian and Western statements, from 500 to 800 killed and wounded per day). In Artemovsk itself, fighting continues for Experienced and in the industrial zone on the eastern outskirts.
Without taking Experienced, one can not count on a direct assault on Artemovsk. They will not simply hand over the city to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, so reinforcements are hastily driven here, including those removed from other directions. The loss of Artemovsk will have severe consequences for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, identical to the consequences after the loss of Popasna.

- If Artemovsk is liberated by the Russian army, will this reduce the threat to Donetsk in terms of artillery shelling of the capital of the DPR?

- Partly, since the capture of Artemivsk will force the Armed Forces of Ukraine to rebuild their defenses in the Donbass, but it is important to understand that until Maryinka and Avdiivka are taken, shelling from cannon artillery will continue in the current mode. The cessation of the shelling of Donetsk requires a serious advance to the west from Donetsk in the direction of Krasnoarmeysk, where Krasnohorivka, Selidovo, Kurakhovo, etc. must also be taken.
So it's not an easy task. At the same time, even in this case, Donetsk will remain within the reach of long-range MLRS and long-range artillery, but, of course, massive shelling of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be much more difficult to organize.

- What is the reason for the increase in the intensity of attacks on Donetsk, Alchevsk and other settlements of the DPR and LPR, incl. with the use of "Hymars"? What is the immediate interest of Kyiv to hit civilian targets and how adequate is the theory that we are talking about actions taken by individual Ukrainian commanders without sanction from above?

“Of course, these are concerted actions and approved war crimes, just like human shield tactics in defense in cities. In this regard, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are no different from the militants who have been shelling the residential areas of Aleppo for years. And this, of course, is not the excesses of the performers. All this is authorized and provided.
Terror against the civilian population is designed to sow panic, cultivate discontent among the inhabitants, force our command to carry out operations against powerful fortified areas at the expense of those forces that could be used elsewhere. So terror has a similar utilitarian function. The West, of course, will turn a blind eye to all the crimes committed and supply more shells and missiles to kill civilians.

- Within a few hours, two emergency situations occurred at once at the airfields near Ryazan and Engels, where Russian strategic aviation is based. What conclusions should be drawn from what happened?

- Conclusions are simple. We should not underestimate the enemy, because we are, first of all, at war with NATO, due to which the enemy has ample opportunities to organize sabotage and terrorist attacks on the territory of the Russian Federation. This requires strengthening the KTO regime, further strengthening the work on enemy agents (an analogue of SMERSH is necessary), strengthening the protection of important objects, not only in terms of guard duty, but also in terms of combating various UAVs, which will most likely be used further for attacks.
Now such attacks are, in fact, limited only by the flight range and the ability of NATO to build routes where there are more chances to slip through our air defenses. Where the process is built correctly, drones shoot down on a regular basis without loss or damage. It is necessary to end with the sluggishness of the rear life. There is a serious war going on with a serious enemy, and laxity and complacency cannot lead to anything good.

- Ukroboronprom reports on the final stage of testing a heavy drone capable of covering a distance of up to 1000 km. Is it worth taking such statements of the Ukrainian side seriously and is this apparatus, if it is really created, capable of delivering strikes against Central Russia?

- 1000 km. able to overcome the old Soviet "Strizh". Of course, several handicraft drones can be assembled in Ukraine or Poland, but this is a small-scale production, and the effect of the use of such drones will rather be media, which does not negate the obvious threat to various infrastructure facilities.
Of course, the United States will continue to raise the stakes, so you should not underestimate the threat from such drones, so as not to be surprised later by unpleasant arrivals. Again, it is necessary to build air defense taking into account the presence of such weapons in the enemy, and on the other hand, if possible, eliminate production facilities if they are located in Ukraine, which requires the work of undercover and technical intelligence in this direction.

- In the United States, the political crisis is intensifying associated with Elon Musk's targeted attack on the Democratic Party and Hunter Biden. How serious the consequences will be, and is it possible to expect that, losing political points, the Biden administration will try to dump "toxic assets", incl. control over the Zelensky regime?

This story will undulate until the 2024 US presidential election, and the Republican Party will no doubt use it. But this is, first and foremost, an internal American story that will not force the Biden administration to abandon the war in Ukraine.
On the contrary, the intensification of the internal political crisis in the United States will push Washington to escalate the war in Ukraine as part of the classic scheme of switching attention (see the film "The Tail Wags the Dog"). In addition, the use of this topic by Republicans will be complicated by the struggle of part of the party establishment against Trump.

— The new British government, led by Rishi Sunak, is actively demonstrating a decrease in foreign policy ambitions. What is this - the real course of London or a disguise to prepare for something more?

- The general course of London has not changed, it's just that the difficult economic situation in Britain is increasingly affecting it, which has already led to a reduction in Napoleon's plans to rearm the British army. A huge hole in the budget, inflation and rising prices are forcing the British elites to balance the Ukrainian "enterprise" with the need to maintain socio-economic stability, the decline of which, among other things, again actualized the topic of a referendum on the separation of Scotland from Britain.
The Scottish separatists want to hold a referendum this autumn. The British court forbade it, but the separatists insist. Against the backdrop of declining living standards, this issue will be very painful for Britain in the medium term. But one should not be under the illusion that Britain will abandon its Russophobic course and support for the war in Ukraine.

- After serious protests in Iran and China, both Tehran and Beijing made certain indulgences. In China, mass testing is softening, and Iran is ready to revise the law on the hijab. Does this mean that in both cases Moscow's partners suffered a situational defeat?

- Iran and China in their tactics of suppressing protests have repeatedly used both the stick and the carrot, varying them depending on the situation. This could be observed during the last iteration of the protests in Iran, and during the protests in Hong Kong, where the authorities could also make local concessions in some aspects, while continuing to bend the general line.

I do not think that there have been any changes in the approaches of the Iranian and Chinese authorities over the past 2-3 years. In the case of covid, almost all developed countries have gone through protests against restrictions, and China is no exception. There have been protests before, and there will be in the future, as long as the epidemic and related measures last. In the case of Iran, the authorities apparently relied on wearing down the protests with metered violence and cosmetic concessions.

The broadcast of hostilities in Ukraine continues in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin (if you are interested, subscribe)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8016779.html

Coup attempt in Germany
December 7, 11:48

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Coup attempt in Germany

In Germany, a coup d'etat, which was being prepared by far-right retirees from the armies of the FRG and the GDR, was again prevented. The Reichsburger conspirators hoped to return the constitutional order to the configuration of the Second Reich. To do this, it was planned to storm the Reichstag and the Bundestag, arrest deputies, create conditions for an uprising by cutting off electricity and overthrow the federal government by seizing power in the country. The conspirators have already appointed new ministers in their "shadow" cabinet.

The central figure of the conspirators is the Thuringian aristocrat Prince Heinrich Reiss, who works as a private financial consultant. Reiss has repeatedly stressed that modern Germany is not a sovereign state and is under the control of the United States and the United Kingdom. Reiss was supposed to become regent Henry XIII after the coup at the head of the government and the German state. The conspirators gathered in the hunting lodge of an aristocrat in Thuringia to discuss plans for a coup.

The ruling house of Reuss ruled the lands in Thuringia from the 12th century. The very name of the dynasty means "Russian". The ancestor of the younger line of the dynasty was Henry I at the end of the 13th century. married the granddaughter of Prince Daniel Romanovich. Among the representatives of the Reiss are Heinrich von Plauen, who led the Teutonic Order after the defeat in the Battle of Grunwald, Juliana-Henrietta-Ulrika, wife of the Russian Tsarevich Konstantin, husband of the British Queen Victoria, Consort-Prince Albert, Queen Victoria herself, Belgian King Leopold I, head of the house Heinrich XLV , arrested in 1945 by the Soviet state security agencies, numerous descendants from marriages with the Russian ruling house.

The military leader of the conspirators is Rüdiger von P., a retired German paratrooper who gathered around him like-minded German special forces, including active officers of the Special Forces Command.

https://t.me/thehegemonist - zinc

The prince, the judge and the failed coup d'état"

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As a result of the wave of arrests, investigators thwarted a nationwide network of right-wing extremists and Reichsburgers who appeared to be plotting a violent coup in Germany. From early morning, 3,000 police officers searched more than 130 houses and apartments throughout Germany. The anti-terrorist unit GSG9 combed the territory of the Special Forces Command (KSK) in Calw in search of a Bundeswehr soldier and evidence [yes ... Complete nonsense, but many really believe in such a network and in an attempted coup. However, we continue 😀- approx. "MP"].

It is reported that the network has 52 suspects, 25 people were arrested. This is one of the largest terrorism trials in years. It differs from similar cases not only in its scope and widespread structure with various subgroups, but also in the composition of the defendants: the conspirators are said to include Henry XIII, a prince from an old German noble family, as well as Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a former member of the Bundestag from the AfD and former commander of a special unit of the Bundeswehr. In addition, security agencies are investigating ties with Russia [well, where😀- approx. "MP"]. On Wednesday morning, a few minutes before the start of the raid, one of the suspects wrote on Telegram: “Everything will turn out as follows: the former prosecutors and judges, as well as responsible heads of medical institutions, together with their superiors, will soon find themselves in the dock in Nuremberg 2.0…”.

The investigation is being conducted by the Federal Prosecutor General's Office on suspicion of creating a terrorist organization, and the prince and the former commander of the Bundeswehr are considered its leaders. According to the investigation, the conspiratorial structure was divided into a political wing, called the "Council", and a military wing, whose task was armed sabotage. According to the investigation, individual conspirators from the "military wing" were said to have considered, among other things, the possibility of attacking the Bundestag and taking members of parliament hostage [🤦‍♂️- approx. "MP"] According to the scenario, electromagnetic pulses were supposed to lead to a power outage, which was supposed to be a signal. This was done in order to force the population to join the uprising [ 🤦‍♂️- approx. "MP"]. In the fall, a group of saboteurs was already planning to visit the Reichstag, presumably in order to conduct reconnaissance [Aaaaaa! 😀- approx. "MP"]. This caused great concern among the security forces, and investigators were already preparing to arrest the right-wing extremists. But the visit was canceled [Aaaaaa! 😀- approx. "MP"].

The question of what the post-revolutionary order should be like continued to cause controversy among the conspirators. However, the plans were probably far-reaching: for example, the prince had already been chosen as a possible new head of state, who was even assisted by a personal assistant [I wonder if they planned to restore the monarchy? 😀- approx. "MP"]. Other cabinet posts were to be filled by Paul G. and Ruth L. 58-year-old woman and judge Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who joined the AfD in 2013 and sat in the Bundestag from the party until 2021, and was thus destined to the post of Minister of Justice. More recently, she made headlines because the Berlin court administration wanted to ban her from serving as a judge at the Berlin Regional Court, but was unable to do so due to the position of the Administrative Court.
Friends, acquaintances and parliamentarians consider Malsack-Winkemann, who has been under surveillance for several months, a conspiracy theorist, inclined to the ideology of QAnon. She is close to the ideology of the Reichsburger and believes in esotericism. More recently, she is said to have urged in the circle of the conspirators to begin vigorous activity as soon as possible. On Wednesday morning, hooded and heavily armed SWAT police surrounded her home on the Wannsee in Berlin. Malsac-Winkemann was arrested [directly the level of raids on members of the "Operation Valkyrie" 😀- approx. "MP"].

Apparently, there were still differing opinions among the saboteurs as to what the planned X-Day was supposed to bring about. In recent weeks, more and more voices have been heard calling for finally taking action. Among other things, the group has already purchased satellite phones for secure communication, which will work even in the event of a failure of the mobile telephone network [a serious accusation!😀- approx. "MP"] Through arrests and house searches, the investigators wanted to prevent the group from suddenly attacking. It was not entirely clear to the investigators whether some members of the group had already armed themselves; several suspects not only have active service in the Bundeswehr under their belts, but are also suspected of having secretly disposed of weapons in the past. Others are licensed to carry firearms and thus have the legal right to carry weapons.

Investigators came to the trail of the network in April this year during a search of the home of Peter W., a former Bundeswehr paratrooper and survival expert, who predicted in an interview a few years ago: “Even a power outage for a few days can lead to disruption of public order in cities.” [well, you demonize people with eggs in the Bundeswehr even more, expelling them from work without a pension on mere suspicion based on chatter in the general chat of the messenger - then people with eggs will become even more loyal - approx. "MP"].

When, in mid-April, investigators searched V.'s apartment near Bayreuth, they found firearms, ammunition, magazines, a flail and a dummy hand grenade - as well as a list of the circle of acquaintances of former Bundeswehr soldiers [very strongly reminiscent of the "extremist literature" that FSB at the place of detention of all sorts of muddy people - ed. "MP"]. Among them: Rüdiger von P., former boss W. and retired lieutenant colonel in the paratrooper battalion 251 in Calw, an elite paratrooper unit from which the Special Forces Command (KSK) emerged in 1996. Even then, P. was suspected of stealing weapons from the National People's Army of the GDR. In 1996 he left the service. Federal prosecutors accuse him of leading the military wing; he is considered the leader of the association.

After weapons were found in the apartment of Peter W. in April of this year, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution began to collect all operational data from the environment of the former soldier. Operation Kangal, as the case was called by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, revealed various cross-links and contacts with other citizens of the Reich. Apparently, the suspects were not only more closely related to each other than first thought, but surprisingly far advanced in planning the coup d'état. So far that the conspirators have already begun to shamelessly recruit supporters in the circles of former and still active policemen and soldiers that the deputies and the cabinet of ministers are really expendable material, which does not cost anything to replace with new ones, having assembled a new composition in any of the federal states, relying on the support of the American occupying forces - ed. "MP"].

At the end of the summer, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution handed over the investigation to the Federal Attorney General and the Federal Criminal Police Office, which created a special investigative team called "Shadow" - after the shadow cabinet created by the conspirators.


Maximilian Eder, retired colonel, during a rally in Nuremberg earlier this year. For months, he has been spreading conspiracy theories on his social media channel © [M] ZEIT ONLINE, Photo: Schreyer/imago images

The group of former Bundeswehr soldiers included, for example, Maximilian Eder, a retired colonel who has become famous in the past two years for his activities in the protest movement against the coronavirus lockdown policy. After the flood in the Aar valley, Eder became so actively involved in the environment of the Querdenkers and citizens of the Reich that, according to media reports, the Bundeswehr initiated disciplinary proceedings against him. This did not stop Eder, on the contrary: he recently spread thoughts about the overthrow of power on social networks - he was becoming “cramped in a rotten, insulted and cornered system” [an intelligent person, apparently. Just a little crazy and the language is like a pomelo😀- approx. "MP"], wrote Eder. Before Christmas, he said, they would begin an "act of revenge" and begin a "catharsis." “And then,” he muttered, “many people will have to dress warmly, and not only because of the lack of gas!”

No less explosive among the investigators is the case of Andreas M., who still works in the Bundeswehr, in the logistics department of the elite KSK unit in Calw. M. almost did not hide his contempt for the democratic system of the Bundeswehr [but what, it exists, why respect it?🤔- approx. "MP"]; he is considered a supporter of the German Reich. Fearing that he might be armed and that he would resist if arrested, a special federal police unit, GSG9, took over the capture. An elite unit of GSG9 in combat against members of another elite unit of KSK - this has happened infrequently in German history [scandals, intrigues, investigations! 😀- approx. "MP"]

The most colorful figure among the accused is, of course, Henry XIII, Prince Reuss, a descendant of the noble family of Reuss, who ruled Thuringia from about 1200. Today, the 71-year-old prince commutes between Bad Lobenstein in Thuringia, where he owns a hunting lodge, and Frankfurt am Main, where he runs a real estate company.

The putschist prince does not consider the Federal Republic of Germany a sovereign state [well, he is not so wrong here - ed. "MP"] and is fond of the monarchy. For decades he insisted that he was entitled to vast lands and estates in Thuringia, for which he fought litigation after litigation, most of which, however, did not have a favorable outcome for him. According to other nobles of the family, Henry XIII has gradually become radicalized in recent years. He is "a partly confused old man who espouses the fallacies of a conspiracy theory," as the head of the Reuss noble family, Prince Heinrich XIV, put it.

Separation of powers? "Illusion". Wars and revolutions? Funded by Jewish financial capital and Freemasons, families such as the Rothschilds [Rothschild is not Rothschild, but Soros really finances - approx. "MP"]. In 2019, at a speech with anti-Semitic overtones in Zurich, the prince stated that the purpose of the First World War was, among other things, “to promote the spread of the Jewish population” [here, of course, my grandfather made a mistake 😀- approx. "MP"]

How the prince came to be surrounded by the conspiracy is still unclear, but he is considered the second leader along with Rüdiger von P. and is said to have been involved in financing the purchase of some of the equipment. In early June, investigators noticed how his partner Vitalia B., a native of Russia [well, finally, a Russian trace!😀- approx. "MP"], disappeared in the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Leipzig. A few days later, during the Russian banking holidays, the prince and his partner again visited the consulate. It is not known if they had political motivations there or if they went only for personal reasons, but investigators suspect that links with the Russian government must have been established in this way. More recently, another group of right-wing extremists arrested in the spring planned to make contact with the Russian government [suuuuuuuuaaa!!! 🤦‍♂️😀😀😀- approx. "MP"]. In Russia, they wanted to campaign for the recognition of the new German imperial government after the planned kidnapping of Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) [ahhhh! They really believe in it 😂🤣- approx. "MP"]

In security circles, the mixture of aristocrats, AfD politicians and a former and another active soldier is considered explosive. The suspected network of conspirators is “the most dangerous form of Reichsburgher movement that we could ever imagine,” the official declared, “that is, an environment that rejects the Federal Republic of Germany in its current form and desires the return of the German Reich. It is "a rebellious dimension on an unprecedented scale."

However, the shifts from radical political agendas to esoteric conspiracy narratives in the group happen rather quickly. For example, some putschists have already been looking for so-called visionaries - specialists with unusual abilities, whose task it would be to select people for implanting chips after the coup. A significant part of the population, which the conspirators have little doubt about, has long been controlled by Bill Gates and the pharmaceutical industry [IMHO, they wrote the last paragraph in vain. If before that it was a stretch to believe in a group of conspirators, now it leaves a feeling of some kind of farce - approx. "MP"].

https://telegra.ph/Die-Zeit-Princ-sudya ... orot-12-07 - zinc

Google Translator

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Denmark Sees Record Number of Bankruptcies in November

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An old factory building in Denmark. | Photo: Twitter/ @Gardtmansocial

Published 6 December 2022

[/b]Although bankruptcies are affecting all types of Danish businesses, the construction and retail industries have been particularly hard hit.[/b]

A total of 331 companies filed for bankruptcy in Denmark in November, the highest number in 13 years, according to a new report published by SMVdanmark on Monday.

Since the summer "businesses have been hit hard by high inflation, soaring energy bills and, not least, fears about the future of the economy, which have sent consumers' appetite for buying into a tailspin," the SMVdanmark report stated.

Many businesses were already struggling financially due to high energy costs and backlogs from the COVID-19 pandemic, the report adds.

"Never in the history of statistics have we seen so many bankruptcies among businesses with employees. This means that the crisis is hitting real businesses with turnover and employees," said Lasse Lundqvist, a consultant at SMVdanmark.


Although bankruptcies are affecting all types of Danish businesses, the construction and retail industries have been particularly hard hit. More than half of the bankruptcies in November were in the construction sector.

"Unfortunately we will see even more bankruptcies in the coming months," said Lundqvist.

SMVdanmark is a Danish company that carries out studies to promote the economic transformation of small and medium-sized companies. Currently, it represents 18,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in Denmark.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Den ... -0003.html

41 Pct of Finnish SMES Prepare for Layoffs in 2023

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A factory in Kärsämäki, Finland. | Photo: Twitter/ @TimRuhr
Published 6 December 2022

[]On Monday, the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) published a survey showing that up to 41 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Finland are preparing to carry out layoffs, and 10 percent consider it possible that they may go bankrupt next year.[/b]

The prospects for the country's SMEs in 2023 are in many respects almost as gloomy as they were at the end of 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Furthermore, 35 percent of SMEs estimated that demand would decrease, and the same percentage of the respondents anticipated that investments would shrink next year. Up to 25 percent of companies engaged in international operations predicted that foreign trade would decline.

As a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the increased raw material and energy prices force companies to be cost-effective and consider adaptation measures. Smaller businesses find themselves in the tightest spot as the consecutive crises have exhausted their financial buffers, said Jari Huovinen, the EK's leading expert.


However, what brings hope for next year is that, in addition to adjustment measures, many companies are also renewing their operations and intend to invest and recruit, Huovinen said.

The outlook for next year is gloomy all across Finland, especially in the country's eastern and northern regions, where, respectively, 44 percent and 43 percent of the companies expect demand to shrink. A company with at least two but fewer than 250 employees is considered an SME. There are approximately 84,500 such entities in Finland.

The EK is the largest employers' association in Finland. Its member companies contribute over 70 percent of Finland's gross domestic product (GDP) and over 95 percent of its exports.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/41- ... -0002.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 » Thu Dec 08, 2022 4:52 pm

Danger for some, peace of mind for others
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/08/2022
Original article: Dmitry Steshin / Komsomolskaya Pravda

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In recent weeks, the shelling of Donbass has intensified. Everyone has noticed it: both the experts from the JCCC (Joint Control and Coordination Center) and the citizens themselves. But there have been no such attacks possibly since 2014. The logical killer of the Ukrainian Armed Forces gunners and their commanders has become clear. Its own air defense and the weapons supplied by the West, which were to be an air shield covering the entire country and defending it from missile attacks on critical infrastructure, leave significant “holes” that make the defense not really work. So they take revenge on whom they can: ordinary citizens.

Since last summer, Donetsk has noticed that Ukrainian artillerymen began to choose paradoxical targets during shelling of the city center. They do not shoot at buildings, but at roads and sidewalks. The experts from the Joint Control and Coordination Center [a structure created within the framework of the Minsk agreements as a form of joint monitoring in which Donetsk, Lugansk, kyiv and Moscow had to cooperate, cooperation that never took place, as shown by the capture of a member of the Lugansk delegation on a routine observation. Locked in a cell in Starobelsk, he was released with the arrival of the RPL troops last March- Ed ] have unofficially confirmed to the KP correspondentthat it is not an accident. The number of scattered fragments is increasing, which means more people will be injured or killed.

The republican authorities had information stating that the shelling of Donetsk would not only continue, but would intensify. It is no coincidence that on the same Monday, the leader of the Republic, Denis Pushilin, ordered teleworking for the largest possible number of employees. But it is impossible to make everything telecommuting.

Once again, the objective of the bombardments has been the "Covered Market", located in the center of the city. A few months ago, in September, it was covered with artillery and a projectile hit a minibus in which there were deaths and injuries. During the day, especially at noon, the indoor market is always full of people.

There is a very good and cheap canteen there, so workers from different offices in the area usually eat there. This is also where the “DonMak”, Donbass' answer to the American fast food chain, and a dozen other fast food stalls are located. There are always queues near them, sometimes you have to wait up to twenty minutes. Students, office workers and medical personnel eat there daily, at that time the large groups of people are guaranteed, so the victims are guaranteed.

There is still no final data on the dead and wounded in the bombings. At the moment, it is known that the Grad shells hit the Court and Prosecutor's Office building, the Centauro Square office building, the Donbass Arena area and the covered market. As is traditional, Pushkin Boulevard was also hit. The day was sunny and they knew that there would be a lot of people walking there, especially mothers with minors.

Neighboring Makeevka, a huge satellite city, half the size of Donetsk, was also hit. There they tried to destroy an electrical substation [this modus operandi cannot be called revenge for the Russian attacks, but has occurred repeatedly since 2014- Ed ]. The only thing that the Armed Forces of Ukraine achieved is that the population has to leave again from a center that was quiet for a while to the outskirts. But there are no quiet outskirts in Donetsk. At least for now.

It seems a paradox, but in the minutes when Donetsk was being bombed, the President of Ukraine was calmly posing in front of the blue and yellow painted steel sign at the entrance to Slavyansk. The Donetsk population resented that fact. More than in any other bombed city, they cannot understand how Zelensky can calmly walk around Donbass.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/12/08/26122/#more-26122

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THE US TRACES THE WAR IN UKRAINE FOR ITS NEXT MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
5 Dec 2022 , 5:02 pm .

The United States has spent billions of dollars on the war in Ukraine (Photo: Getty Images)
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The participation of the United States spends billions of dollars in the wars where it participates directly. That is why he is studying a new strategy based on the example of the war in Ukraine: how to participate in an armed conflict without direct intervention.

Elements of such a strategy were developed at US military headquarters and agreed to with politicians in the period from 2018 to 2022, The Atlantic reports .

The publication's journalists found that "providing a high level of military support without deploying US military forces to a combat area is a new model for how the United States can understand its military involvement in other countries around the world."

Washington has discovered that the introduction of its troops into the territory of other countries to guarantee the national security of the United States has become extremely costly and counterproductive.

Much more can be achieved by avoiding the direct involvement of US soldiers in land wars. The effectiveness of such a strategy is now being tested in the Ukraine, which has also failed to produce the expected returns due to the Russian response.

Let's remember that the United States spent resources and human capital in an enormous way in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and everything ended in a great failure after two decades. The lesson is that it is more feasible to outsource the war to avoid the humiliation of defeat and save billions of dollars.

It is currently the country that has delivered the most financial and logistic resources to Ukraine for the war against Russia. Although it has avoided direct confrontation with this nuclear power, without a doubt this conflict will serve as a school to continue perfecting its warmongering enterprise in the future.

https://misionverdad.com/eeuu-calca-de- ... -militares

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The United Nations Promise of Peace – Also in Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 6, 2022
Alfred de Zayas

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The hybrid war in Ukraine has sadly revealed how ineffective the United Nations Organisation has been when it comes to preventing armed conflict or even negotiating a cease-fire when hostilities have broken out.

It is not only the fault of the Security Council and General Assembly, but also the fault of the mainstream media that continues to disseminate dis-information and pour fuel on the fire, the fault of the war-profiteers worldwide, the fault of the military-industrial-digital-financial complex that drives the process and prevents a sensible compromise to end hostilities.

Many are asking the question, what good is the United Nations? Who still believes in it? What good is a Secretary-General who does not take the bull by the horns, does not name a spade a spade, does not proactively propose implementable blueprints for peace and fails to mobilize the entire UN system in support of valid peace initiatives.

As we all know, the UN Charter is akin to a world constitution, which should serve as a basis for achieving a valid “rules based international order”, reflecting the interests of eight billion human beings and not only the interests of the “elites” of a handful of countries. Unfortunately, the drafters of the Charter of 1945 chose not to equip the organization with an effective enforcement mechanism. The “talk shop” vibrates with lip-service to peace and human rights, while the movers and shakers continue provoking conflicts and making sure that wars are prolonged.

The Organization’s declared Principles and Purposes aim at achieving peace, development and human rights, noble goals that require genuine political will, commitment to the cause, readiness to reach compromise through dialogue and multilateralism.

Following the gradual dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989/91, the world had an unique opportunity to leave both cold and hot wars behind, convert military-first economies into human-security economies, promote disarmament for development, transform the world of hostility into one of constructive cooperation. This achievable scenario was frustrated by the megalomania of a few politicians, the ambition to be and remain number one for all eternity. Zbigniew Brzezinski’s imperial vision in The Grand Chessboard, the neo-con Project for the New American Century, and other retrograde blueprints aimed at imposing a unipolar world on the rest of humanity, ruled by one and only one super-power, destroyed the real possibility of a Pax universalis based on the UN Charter.

These geopolitical and economic ambitions negate the Organization’s core Object and Purpose, which is and remains to promote international cooperation and thus save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. We can only acknowledge with regret that in the 77 years of its existence, hundreds of wars have taken place and that wars are continuing today, which the United Nations failed to anticipate, failed to prevent by coming forth with viable alternatives to resolve existing grievances.

Admittedly, the Organization has provided a forum for negotiation, which has been successful in some cases, notably during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when the world was very close to a nuclear confrontation.

When wars do break out, it must be the priority of all United Nations agencies to facilitate negotiation for an early cease-fire and proactively come forward with compromise proposals. Indeed, an imperfect peace is always better than a “good war” – if there is anything that can be termed a “good war” or even a “just war”? Indeed, in human affairs there are no simple black and white situations, but a continuum of actions and reactions, injustices, imbalances … there is good in the bad and bad in the good. The function of the UN is precisely to listen to all sides, weigh all narratives, mediate between adversaries, recognizing that the root causes of conflicts often go back to old, festering historical inequities. The outbreak of hostilities today does not mean that all responsibility falls on one party alone. Most of the time responsibility is shared. The party that provokes a conflict is not innocent. Thus, what the world needs is a mature, proactive UN that breaks the vicious circle and promotes reconciliation in mutual forgiveness.

Unquestionably, the UN mandate goes beyond helping to create the conditions for peaceful coexistence. Ideally the Organization should also advance international solidarity and cooperation in all fields of human activity, promote fair trade, cultural exchange, global health, practical solutions to global problems such as pandemics, climate change, deforestation, desertification, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, coordinating disaster relief.

On the other hand, we cannot forget that over the past seven decades the UN has done a superlative job in standard setting, it has established monitoring mechanisms, treaty-bodies, petitions procedures. Much progress was achieved during the 1950’s and 60’s decolonization process, when the right of self-determination of peoples was recognized as jus cogens. Yet, the indigenous peoples of North and South America, were never decolonized. This remains an important task for the United Nations.

Thanks to the United Nations, considerable progress was achieved in the recognition of women’s rights, minorities rights, the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Sustainable Development Goals, numerous judgments of the UN Human Rights Committee, e.g. concerning the right to water of indigenous communities, etc. Unfortunately, a significant implementation gap remains. International law is not self-executing.

As we know, international security is strengthened through stable relations among nations and benefits from internal peace in states, which is promoted by UN agencies like the United Nations Development Programme, the GA Department on Economic and Social Affairs, UNICEF, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the High Commissioner for Refugees, etc. When there are internal and external imbalances among countries, international peace and security is threatened, and the UN Security Council is called to act under article 39 of the Charter. Unfortunately the organization remains very polarized and has not taken effective action pursuant to Chapters VI and VII of the Charter to solve problems through mediation, diplomacy, advisory services and technical assistance.

The process of globalization, endorsed by UN agencies including UNESCO, WHO, ILO, WTO, WIPO, ITU, UNEP has contributed to international security, but the insistence of one country, the United States of America, to assert exceptionalism and to act outside of the UN Charter has destabilized the world.

The only existing “rules based international order” is the UN Charter, which, however, American pundits and think tanks consider obsolete, primarily because it has not permitted international law to fully surrender to US hegemony. In any event, many UN agencies have hitherto largely served the interests of the US and EU and kept silent in cases of gross violations of international law, e.g. with regard to torture centers in Guantanamo, the persecution of Julian Assange, etc.

The misuse of the veto power, e.g.to block legitimate UN investigations into bio-labs in Ukraine, have diminished the authority and credibility of the Organization. The perception of failure, however, is downplayed by the mainstream media, which disseminates fake news and propaganda while suppressing inconvenient facts and dissenting narratives. More and more we witness grave democracy deficits in countries ostensibly committed to freedom of opinion and expression and the tendency to divide the world into democracies and autocracies, between “good guys” and “bad guys”. It is this binary approach that leads to armed conflict.

The implications and consequences of NATO’s eastern expansion

At the NATO ministerial meeting of 29 November 2022 in Bucharest, the so-called “open door policy” was confirmed, and the 2008 invitation to Ukraine and Georgia was renewed. This confirms that NATO leaders have learned nothing from the consequences of their intransigence in the years 2008-2022 when they failed to understand that an European security architecture would have to take Russia’s legitimate security interests into account. European security cannot be built at the expense of Russia. The Bucharest meeting confirms that NATO is not interested in co-existence and de-escalation, but persists in its hegemonic ambition. NATO’s intransigent posture constitutes a further provocation of Russia and is contrary to the letter and spirit of the UN Charter. Any objective observer would agree that for decades NATO and the EU have engaged in a consistent pattern of provocations against Russia, weaponized sports against Russia, boycotted Russian sportsmen and women, demonized Russian leaders, imposed unilateral coercive measures, trade embargos and financial blockades that have destroyed the benefits of globalization and broken supply chains, affecting not only Russia but the rest of the world as well. The “Western democracies” have also violated the right to property of Russians, confiscated or frozen billions of dollars of Russian private citizens, whom we like to call as “oligarchs”, as if we did not have our own home-grown oligarchs, including in the military-industrial complex. These confiscations can only be referred to as magnum latrocinium, massive theft, and surely a prohibited form of “force” for purposes of Article 2, paragraph 4, of the UN Charter.

Moreover, it bears repeating that, article 2 (4) of the Charter prohibits both the actual use of force, and the threat of its use. NATO’s strategy of encircling Russia, the parallel attempt by the US to encircle China, the 800 US military bases worldwide, constitute a further menace to international peace and security within the meaning of article 39 of the UN Charter. Hence, Russia and China undoubtedly have a legitimate security concern that has been articulated repeatedly in the UN Security Council. Hitherto without success.

NATO has not been a “defensive alliance” for decades, at least since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. US President Bill Clinton’s decision in 1997 to expand NATO eastwards, in contravention of assurances given to Mikhail Gorbachev, clearly transformed the alliance into an offensive alliance that would threaten other states. This expansion was condemned by US Diplomat par excellence George F. Kennan, the father of the “containment” doctrine. In a critical essay that appeared in the New York Times on 5 February 1997, Kennan warned “expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking … ”[1].

Not only George F. Kennan warned against NATO expansion. The last US ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock, Prof. John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, Professor Richard Falk of Princeton, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, Prof. Francis Boyle of Illinois, Prof. Dan Kovalik of Pittsburgh, even former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have expressed their concern over provocations that could lead to a nuclear confrontation.

Barely two years after Clinton’s decision to expand NATO, the Western Alliance demonstrated that in reality it was an offensive alliance, impervious to control by the UN Security Council. NATO’s naked aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, a State that was not threatening any country, objectively constituted a violation of article 2(4) of the UN Charter and a “crime against peace” within the meaning of article 6(a) of the 1945 Nuremberg Statute, and a violation of article 5 of the 1998 Statute of Rome, which entered into force in 2002.

It is a disgrace for the UN Organization and for the International Court of Justice that this massive violation of the UN Charter was not formally condemned, that there was no accounting from the perpetrators. This created a precedent of impunity that has further eroded the credibility of the UN.

In 2014 the US and NATO’s overt and covert involvement in the coup d’état against the democratically elected President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich constituted a violation of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states as laid down in countless General Assembly Resolutions, including 2123, 2625 and 3314. Moreover, the rapid militarization of Ukraine, delivery of lethal weapons, drones and missiles since 2014, the training of its soldiers posed a growing existential threat to Russia. In a very real sense, the Ukraine war began already in February 2014, not February 2022.

Article 2(3) of the Charter imposes an obligation on all States to settle disputes by peaceful means, an obligation that continues even after armed conflict has broken out. This obligation to negotiate requires a compromise, a quid pro quo, and does not accept “victory or death” or any demands of “unconditional surrender”, which in the nuclear age means Apocalypse.

Prolonging a war by refusal to negotiate entails both a crime against peace and a crime against humanity, especially in a situation where the peace and security of the entire planet is at stake, bearing in mind the growing danger of nuclear confrontation.

NATO as a “criminal organization” or a Ship of Fools ?

The perception of NATO as a legitimate alliance is largely a result of Public Relations. Observers have already indicated that because of NATO’s aggressive wars, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, because of the involvement of NATO forces in torture and “extraordinary renditions” in violation of the Geneva Red Cross Conventions, NATO could very well be considered a “criminal organization” for purposes of articles 9 and 10 of the Nuremberg Statute, which found the Nazi SS and the Reichssicherheitshauptamt to be criminal organizations.

We can also think of NATO in softer colours, if we compare its orientation and practices with the allegory depicted in the famous painting by Hieronymus Bosch about the Ship of Fools.[2] In a very real sense, NATO is behaving like a ship of fools, — or maybe as Arthur Rimbaud’s Bateau Ivre – the drunken ship.[3]

Information war

The mainstream media has played a nefarious role in creating false perceptions, not only in Western public opinion, but also in the world at large, because many in Africa, Asia and Latin America are still influenced by the foreign language news services of CNN, BBC, Reuters, AP, Deutsche Welle, to say nothing about the purely propagandistic Voice of America. They all disseminate fake news and suppress dissenting views. Alas, the United Nations has no mechanism to counter this development, even though such dis-information ultimately constitutes a threat to international peace and security.

The mainstream narrative on Ukraine would make you think that there were no issues in Ukraine prior to February 2022 and that the Russian military action is totally irrational — aggression for the sake of aggression — predicated on generic, unreasoning villainy. Such manipulated “perception” actually constitutes a form of war propaganda and incitement to hatred, both of which are prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 20). Of course, the UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with ICCPR, has no effective mechanism to enforce compliance with Art. 20 ICCPR, even when it threatens the right to life (article 6).

Often enough the mainstream media succeeds in gaslighting us into submission, making us deny our own feelings and instincts, brainwashing us into cognitive dissonance and loving “Big Brother”. It is up to us to assert our rights and push-back against the media gaslighters. We must demand from our democratically elected representatives in the US Congress and in Parliaments the world over, to stop provoking World War III, stop fuelling the proxy war in Ukraine, to commit to Peace as a Human Right, and to the United Nations Charter as our universal constitution.

Conclusion

In this spirit, let us reaffirm that sustainable peace requires multilateralism and mutual respect among nations and peoples. One of the conditions of sustainable peace is the realization of the right of self-determination for all peoples, including the peoples of Crimea, Donbass, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, etc. The mainstream media downplays or even denies this crucial aspect of the conflict, but it was Ukraine’s aggressive stance against the Russian population of Crimea and Donbass, the countless breaches of the Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015 that directly led to the Ukraine war.

Let us remember that self-determination is much more than a right that has been codified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Art. 1), anchored in the UN Charter (Arts. 1, 55, Chapter XI) and in countless General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions. It is part of fundamental natural law, as recognized by Francisco de Vitoria already in the 16th century. Even before we explore natural law and its metaphysics, we should acknowledge that self-determination is an inborn impulse, an instinct for freedom, a sense of identity, individualism, self-fulfilment.

Far from being the source of conflict, self-determination is a condition for living together. Conflict emerges not from the exercise of this fundamental right, but from the unjust denial thereof. Far from being a form of anarchy, it constitutes a building-block of civilized governance, the fountainhead of a just society based on equal rights and level playing fields. The alternative is colonialism and exploitation – or the many manifestations of neo-colonialism and 21st century imperialism. Democracy is another word for self-determination. Freedom is an expression of self-determination, which concretely means the individual and collective right to shape our own future.

Undoubtedly, Russia broke international law on 24 February 2022 when it invaded Ukraine, but Ukraine had broken international law and the Minsk agreements since 2014 and engaged in gross violations of the human rights of its Russian-speaking population. Both international crimes must be condemned. The international community, the billions of human beings in Latin America, Africa and Asia should also demand immediate peace negotiations and condemn the enormous danger to the survival of the planet which NATO’s provocations against Russia have engendered. A NATO/Russia querelle over the question whether Lugansk lies in Ukraine or in Russia does not justify risking the nuclear annihilation of planet Earth.

If we genuinely want peace, we must also cultivate justice. This is the motto of the International Labour Organization – si vis pacem, cole justitiam. Let us make it our own motto.

Let us remember the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 and the peace lecture by US President John F. Kennedy on 10 June 1963[4], which is eminently applicable to the situation we find ourselves in today. Kennedy said:

“Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament–and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude–as individuals and as a Nation–for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward–by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.

… So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.

… Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy–or of a collective death-wish for the world.”

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/28/opin ... ditor.html

[2] This allegory goes back to Book VI of Plato’s Republic about a ship with a dysfunctional crew. The allegory alludes to governance problems when the leaders are ignorant or fanatics. In 1494 the book by Sebastian Brant Ship of Fools was published, a fleet setting off from Basel bound for a Paradise for Fools.

[3]Athur Rimbaud “Le Bateau Ivre”, 1871. The ship itself manifests a death wish: “Ô que ma quille éclate! Ô que j’aille à la mer! “O that my keel would break! O that I would go to the bottom of the sea!” This 100-line verse-poem recounts the drifting and sinking of a boat lost at sea.

[4] https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/oth ... y-19630610

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... n-ukraine/

Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC Briefing on Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 6, 2022
Mme.President,

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Western initiators of this meeting specified the topic as “the situation of children”. Even if we set aside for a second all the fables and concoctions regarding the fate of Ukraine’s children and their alleged treatment by Russia, the very fact that our Western colleagues decided to pay attention to the issue of children in the context of Ukraine is rather gratifying. But if you claim to be objective, then in the first place you need to mention the root cause of today’s acute crisis – the crimes of Ukraine against the civilians and children of Donbas. We know that the West bashfully conceals those facts, and whoever dares to raise those in the media domain puts their career at risk. It is much easier to hush up those facts, otherwise the narrative about the humanistic nature of the Kiev regime may go bust. Apparently, for this exact reason the English section of Wikipedia recently deleted the page about the Alley of Angels – a memorial in Donetsk to commemorate the children who had died during the war. Why confuse Western audience who may come up with some tough questions upon reading this page!

To be more specific – why keep Western readers aware that since 2014, the shelling of Donbas by Ukraine has killed more than 250 children, almost 140 of them in 2022? Unfortunately, Ukrainian armed forces add new names (i.a. of children) onto the casualties list every day, because they are firing at the peaceful towns and cities of Donbas almost nonstop. Only Western colleagues would rather turn their back on these facts.

Also, they ignore the fact that while Ukrainian neo-Nazis target the children of Donbas with their projectiles, for the recent 8 years they also have targeted their own children with disgusting neo-Nazi and Russophobic propaganda. On the Internet, one can find plenty of cases when Ukrainian children take part in neo-Nazi gatherings and torch processions, receive paramilitary training in specialized camps in the spirit of blatant Russophobia and antisemitism. As a result, Ukraine has brought up a generation of children and adolescents with a poisoned mentality, who believe that they must kill everyone who is connected to Russia.

Let me cite one telling example. Recently two photos became widespread on social media – the photos of the letters that two little boys, one of whom was from Ukraine and the other from Donbas, had written to Father Frost (Russian counterpart of Santa Claus). The kid from Donetsk who was born and has spent his entire life under fire asks for just one thing – for the shelling to stop. The boy from Ukraine asks for an automated gun so he can kill Russians and set the Kremlin on fire. The words of children reflect the views and values of the entire society. Now draw your own conclusions.

Speaking about observance of children’s rights in Ukraine, we cannot fail to mention the notorious website “Mirotvorets”, where nationalists post personal information of whom they believe to be the enemies of Ukraine. Following such a “lead”, one may persecute or bully those people, or even physically annihilate them, as was the case with Russian journalist Daria Dugina. Russian activists found out that this criminal web resource holds personal information of 327 children. As soon as we learned about it back in July, we notified the UN Secretary-General and UNICEF Executive Director. Let me now ask. What has UNICEF done since then and what does it think of the fact that personal information of minors is overtly posted on the web? Also, is there any reaction from Ukrainian authorities?

Mme.President,

During the GA debate on the issue of Ukraine, a strong majority of member states expressed their support for finding a diplomatic solution. We take those signals were seriously, and reiterate our readiness for negotiations that should address reasons that made us start the special military operation in Ukraine. Almost all states seem to understand this logic, except the countries of the collective West and the Kiev regime. Despite the clear military trends on the ground, they promote another type of logic, according to which Russia should be defeated on the battlefield. So what you see now is the continuation of the war on Russia that the West is fighting “until the last Ukrainian”. This leaves us no other option but to keep moving towards achieving the goals of the special operation by military means. Thereby the Ukrainian people suffer the most, because the West and the felonious regime in Kiev are using them as “cannon fodder”.

Outcomes of the North Atlantic Council meeting that was held on 29-30 November in Bucharest confirmed that the West is not interested in a political and diplomatic resolution of the Ukrainian crisis. By upscaling arms deliveries to Kiev, the West reiterates its commitment to further escalation of this conflict and also to destabilization throughout the European continent.

Obviously, uncontrolled supply of weapons to the Kiev regime is turning into a global problem, which however fails to be a game changer on the ground. Evidence is piling up that Western weapons that were meant for Ukraine, more frequently end up in the hands of terrorists and bandits of all sorts, and not only in Europe, but also in the Middle East and Africa. President of Nigeria M.Buhari confirmed that the conflict in Ukraine is the main source of weapons for terrorists in Lake Chad basin.

Transnational criminal groups take part in the arms smuggle and related money laundering, officials from the states who dispatch those weapons also appear to be implicated in these criminal schemes. This problem poses a real threat to the international peace and security and deserves focused attention of the Security Council; which is why we request the Indian Presidency to convene a UNSC meeting on 9 December to address this issue.

Western states promise that arms deliveries to Ukraine will continue for “as long as needed”, saying that they allegedly do it for the sake of peace. For example, the European Union even finances these arms supplies via its European Peace Facility, apparently in order to mislead the taxpayers. Kiev, however, has its own answer to why they need so many weapons. Lately, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine O.Danilov frankly stated that his country needs weapons because Russians “must be destroyed so that they cease to exist as a country”. In his opinion, negotiating with Moscow is something “unworthy of the Ukrainian people”.

It goes without saying that we cannot leave this sort of hate speech without a reaction. We will respond to Kiev’s hostile actions, i.a. by hitting the infrastructure that is used for military provision, logistics, and liaison of Ukrainian formations. In other words, we will keep impairing the military potential of Zelensky’s regime.

These facilities are targeted by high-precision strikes. Civilian infrastructure of Ukrainian cities would not be affected at all, if it were not for Ukrainian air-defense systems that they position in residential areas. Contrary to the obvious facts, Russia is also blamed for the consequences caused by falling Ukrainian air defense missiles, which some would try to pass off as Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure. Ukrainian surface-to-air missiles already landed in Poland, and as recently as yesterday – in Moldova, which proves that weapons in the UAF inventory pose risks not only to Ukrainians, but also to the people of neighboring states.

By the way, colleagues, it was not us who first invented the point that energy and transportation infrastructure is part of a state’s military potential.

Western states that are blaming Russia for inflicting allegedly premeditated damage on civilians seem to forget how they bombarded the peaceful cities of Yugoslavia, when Kosovo was being taken from it by force back in the 90s. Here is a very telling comment made by the then Spokesperson of NATO, Mr. Jamie Shea, at a press briefing on 25 May 1999.

“Question: If you say that the [Yugoslavian] Army has a lot of back-up generators, why are you depriving 70% of the country of not only electricity, but also water supply, if you say you [NATO] are only targeting military targets?

Answer: I’m afraid electricity also drives command and control systems. If President Milosevic really wants all of his population to have water and electricity all he has to do is accept NATO’s five conditions and we will stop this campaign. But as long as he doesn’t do so we will continue to attack those targets which provide the electricity for his armed forces. If that has civilian consequences, it’s for him to deal with.”

So 20 years back, NATO articulated its position as to what implications the strikes against civilian infrastructure have for a state’s defense potential. However the standards that are applied to Ukraine today are not the same that were applied to Serbia in the 90s.

Mme.President,

When breaking the militaristic backbone of the Kiev regime, we remain mindful of its criminal and hateful essence, which cannot be doubted once we recall Kiev’s policies and most recent steps. Apart from the political cleansing, which is going on in plain sight of our Western colleagues and given their silent approval, the Ukrainian leadership has started to uproot dissidence in the religious domain. The cynically formulated decision that seeks to “make it impossible for religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation to operate in Ukraine” basically means a ban on the freedom of conscience – a cornerstone right in a democratic state, which is something that Ukrainian authorities are longing to look like. The Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, a holy site for both Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox Christians, was recently searched by the Security Bureau of Ukraine that was looking for a so-called cell of the ‘Russian world’.

Coming up next is a ban on worshipping in Russian. Internet users already upload on social media photos of public notices from some Ukrainian churches. Those notices read that if one is going to pray in Russian, the prayer will not be fulfilled, whereas sorrows and maladies will befall the worshipper. A nice illustration of the level of madness that present-day Ukraine has reached.

For eight years straight, our Western colleagues have been raising an anti-Russian monster in Ukraine. They were so preoccupied that they turned a blind eye to Ukraine’s atrocious crimes against its people, killings of civilians in Donbas, glorification of Nazi criminals and their accomplices, oppressions Russian speakers from among Ukrainian nationals. Kiev was forgiven everything, and was expected to crack down on Russia with ferocity one day and serve as a tool of the US and NATO’s geopolitical confrontation with Russia. Hence their rigorous criticism of our country, because we are disabling their aggressive plans. We are neither surprised nor hindered by this criticism, so all goals of the special military operation will be achieved one way or the other.

If those goals are not attained by peaceful means and by turning Ukraine into a normal state and a good neighbor that poses no threat to Russia, then the goals will be achieved militarily. Due to the thoughtless actions of Ukrainian rulers who are subordinate to the West, the population of peaceful Ukrainian towns and cities is suffering. Responsibility for that fully rests with Zelensky’s regime and its Western sponsors, who resolved to defeat Russia on the battleground. This is their choice, not ours. Until they realize it, we will defend our interests by all methods that we have at our disposal.

Mme.President,

I must say that I am not going to listen to toxic eloquence of the representative of the Kiev regime. Two weeks ago, he made another “remarkably diplomatic” publication on social media. To those of you who are not familiar with his creativity, I strongly recommend to go and check this on Twitter. As we said, this is very characteristic of the “high” level of Ukrainian diplomacy.

Thank you.

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PERMANENT MISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... ukraine-3/

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GENERAL PATIENCE AND THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

When the US economy was in collapse in 1929, the advertising copywriters for Coca Cola were told to come up with a new slogan. The chief executive of the beverage company thought that for Coke to beat its rivals, it was necessary to persuade Americans who were desperate financially to pay five cents for a bottle of something to calm themselves down and cheer up. This is how the slogan “The Pause that Refreshes” was born (lead image, top).

General Patience, in league with the Russian Stavka (lead image, bottom), have a bottle of something similar. Calming down and cheering up are not what it’s meant to do, particularly if you have been drinking the Kool-Aid bottled in Kiev, Berlin and Washington, DC.

This is what it tastes like. Take a pause to refresh your understanding. In the conditions of this war, understand also that refresh is not the word for it.

The weather in Kiev and along the eastern front is staying relatively warm, with rain instead of snow, at least until the first week of January:

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Source: Gismeteo

The Russian missile and drone raids of December 5 and 6 have been announced by the Defense Ministry in Moscow to be targeted at the Ukrainian logistics required to sustain Kiev’s military operations. As Monday’s bulletin said, “the production and repair of Ukrainian weapons at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex were stopped, rail transportation of military equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including foreign production, was disrupted. The transfer of reserves to combat areas is difficult.”

Unstated is the reverse logistic: this is medical evacuation to the west for Ukrainian casualties. The blast and shrapnel intensity of artillery, missile, and drone weapons has been acknowledged by Ukrainian sources to have triggered the intensive hospitalisation requirements of NATO care levels 3 and 4. The hospitals working at these standards have all been located from Kiev westwards to Lvov, including over the border in Poland.

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Polish Radio and the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki reported from Lvov on April 29 that Polish personnel and hospitals were prepared for treating up to 10,000 Ukrainian military casualties.

Reporting by the western press agencies have also confirmed that train evacuation to the west was increasing through May; this reporting appears to have stopped since then.

The Moscow daily bulletins have been reporting between 200 and 300 men killed; reading these bulletins is censored in many NATO areas. The Russian evidence suggests that the Ukrainian wounded number between 600 and 900; altogether, a toll of almost a thousand per day, the magnitude of which was confirmed last week by the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen. When road and rail lines are cut, and military medevac operations stopped, this means that Ukrainian unit surrender rates will rise. The first Moscow sign from the General Staff that this is beginning to happen was published on December 2.

A US military source comments: “The field hospitals, triage areas, and ad hoc facilities to handle casualties – schools, for example — will become charnel houses. Along with the trenches and dugouts, they’ll also be riddled with disease. If they don’t surrender, they’ll literally rot. And unlike Korsun, or even Stalingrad in the early days of the pocket, there will not even be a meager airlift.”

American and Canadian military medical specialists have reported on treating their combat casualties in Afghanistan a decade ago. An American source reports this week: “I provided service to a Role III NATO hospital at Kandahar Airfield. There is no way anything like that level of care will be available at Bakhmut, let alone in the Liman sector. The logistical support required to provide even a NATO forward operating base level of care is immense. Generators, fuel, refrigeration, medicines, diagnostic equipment, blood plasma — all have to be constantly replenished and maintained 24/7. I remember the panic when the generator broke down and we were told we had less than two hours to get it working, or a replacement tied in, before the blood and medicine went bad – and we weren’t under nearly the intensity of fire those on the Donbass Front are. We didn’t face nearly the logistical issues either. Those Ukrainian aid stations and hospitals will be a nightmare in short order, if they are not already. If I were a Russian, I would not want to have contact with prisoners. They’ll be teeming with who-knows-what.”

By NATO medevac and hospital standards, the NATO manuals say that a “mass casualty event” amounts to about 20 casualties per day. The Ukrainian army rate is currently ten times that number. NATO veterans point out that in the present situation in the east, following the line from Sumy through Poltava to Dniepropetrovsk, Nikolaev and Odessa – this is western line of the Ukrainian demilitarized zone described here — the daily medevac rate may be more than 200, while the electric war raids are simultaneously cutting off the power and transport. “How can you stabilize the wounded in these areas? What means of transportation will they be put on, and where will they be sent to, with fuel and electricity in short supply and the transportation network smashed or under Russian fire?”

The Tuesday, December 6, raid targets have been identified as including the regions of Odessa, Nikolaev, Dniepropetrovsk, Vinnytsa, Poltava, Zhitomyr, Cherkasy, Kirovograd, and Zaporozhe. The General Staff have also announced: “We emphasize that there were no missile strikes on the city of Kiev.” Lvov, the de facto capital of the US and NATO officers directing the war, is being targeted. On the ground on the eastern front at the same time, the Russian army is moving on to the offensive in directions intended to disperse and dilute the firepower of the Ukrainian forces.

US, NATO and Russian military intelligence are following the heat, light, gas, noise, cell telephone and radio emissions from locations where there are combat units in order to pinpoint their position and mobility. Open-source civilian video clips are being published showing the impact of the electric war on urban civilians attempting to replace central system heating with home generators and other appliances.

These screenshots from a smartphone recording in Odessa illustrates what is happening as residents turn up their thermostats and heaters and overload the remaining grid infrastructure.

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Over-voltage on the lines in Odessa. Cellphone camera records the result of overvoltage or overcurrent on the distribution lines hours, possibly days after an attack. Incorrectly installed, tapped or damaged transformers have created an over-voltage condition, or lines are carrying too much current as utility crews place too much of a load, or damaged/short circuited gear, on them.

A NATO infrastructure specialist explains: “utility technicians are more than likely trying, but failing, to make fast repairs in order to restore power. They’re sure to be feeling the pressure from state officials, their management, the population and of course, the Russians. They’re overworked, underpaid, exhausted, and terrified. This means the likelihood of them making very dangerous technical mistakes is quite high. What you’re seeing in photographs like these means untold numbers of appliances and sensitive electronic devices (computers and cell phones) that are plugged in downstream are being destroyed.”

A Kiev source confirms that friends are no longer able to contact each other by cellphone. “The telephone networks are breaking down unpredictably in the city [Kiev]. The only normality is in Lvov where the luxury hotel was full. The city restaurants were functioning as normal. It had more lights than Kiev.”

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Source: https://m.gordonua.com/

In these conditions the eastern Ukrainian cities in which gangsterism has long thrived are reporting marauding, mugging, looting, and thefts of fuel, food, medicines, and other necessities; click to read in Nikolaev and Odessa. Local Ukrainian media are reporting the conditions; the mainstream US, Canadian, British and German media are concealing them. As water and sewerage pumping stations fail, the diseases of siege, well-known since the English armies imposed them on the French during the Hundred Years War, begin to spread.

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Source: https://visitukraine.today/

The last Voice of America report of the cholera threat was at the end of June.

A surge of Ukrainian refugees across the Polish border must start soon, Polish, German and European Union officials openly acknowledge. The Polish Border Guard daily reports of Ukrainians entering Poland and also returning to the Ukraine are not yet confirming this. Follow these official bulletins from Warsaw here, and for earlier analysis of the September-October refugee movements click to read here.


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Source: https://twitter.com/Straz_Graniczna

The improbability of some of these numbers is obvious. There is unofficial evidence in Poland that the Border Guard bulletins are being manipulated, and that far fewer Ukrainians are crossing the border to return home than the Border Guard tweets are reporting. According to this Ukrainian source in Poland, “the number of forced Ukrainian migrants in Poland continues to grow significantly from week to week, confirming the forecasts and expectations of experts regarding a new wave of refugees from Ukraine with the onset of cold weather. According to Polish portal tvp.info, the largest number of refugees has recently been recorded in the Lublin Voivodeship. For example, in just one day, November 26, for the first time in many months, more than a thousand newly arrived Ukrainian refugees were registered in the Lublin Voivodeship.”

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Source: https://www.ukrainianinpoland.pl/

Polish sources, as well as social media evidence in Lvov, indicate there is a significant process of civilian relocation from east to west, and that for as long as the roads and trains are open westwards, this is accelerating. As the numbers of refugees mount in and around Lvov, spillover into Poland is inevitable. To anticipate and prevent this has been Polish government policy since April, when the first refugee camp in Lvov was built by the Poles and opened by Prime Minister Morawiecki. In recent days, as the weather has deteriorated, the Polish government has been paying for heating centres on the Ukrainian side of the frontier.

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Unreported in the Ukrainian media, or the western press, is the desexualization of the Ukraine, except for Lvov. To resupply the army, the Zelensky government has imposed a prohibition on men leaving the country. Those who have escaped managed to do so by paying bribes of up to $25,000. The stream of Ukrainian refugees reported in Poland are predominantly women and children. The flow-on effect reported in Germany, Sweden and Norway is similar – and the result is widespread sex trafficking.

A source in Oslo: “Of 30,000 refugees in Norway, I’ve been told that 95% are women. For the first time in their lives they have decent living, education, training, welfare stipend and prospects of jobs. In return, they will solve the demographic crisis of northern Europe. I see many Arab migrants [to Norway] with Ukrainian women. In Germany, Britain and Sweden, men are having a great choice of feminine and not feminist women. The Swedish police also say that nearly 100% of the prostitutes they arrest are now Ukrainian. Some of this is what I read in our mass media. I’m not sure what is the truth.”

A source in Kiev: “Broken-family girls move abroad, those in stable relationships, with their men mobilized, do not. Undereducated or working class women, or men, eventually will leave because they know there is zero economic future. Their Ukraine is wrecked and people will leave. Just when, we can only guess. The Ukrainians who profit from the US and EU cash and from the arms trade – the westerners – they will stay until or unless the Americans evacuate Zelensky.”

Russian and NATO military sources suspect but are not yet sure that the Russian General Staff have “baited a trap” for the Ukrainian military along their eastern front. But the sources concede that the evidence of this week’s raids indicate that no one will be crossing the Dnieper River in either direction very soon.

“This is the calculus of General Patience,” a Moscow source claims. “There’s a clock on the wall of the Defense Ministry situation room, and its hands aren’t reacting to whatever the Ukrainians or Americans think of doing next for their PR. The timing of what General Patience has decided is helping the Ukronazis destroy themselves. That’s the denazification war aim. As for the demilitarization objective, remember that Russia is not at risk as it was in the ancient Swedish and Polish invasions; in Napoleon’s war or Hitler’s. Nor is there any chance of the Brits and Czechs sending their units to march on Yekaterinburg and put the tsar back in the Kremlin. No, this Russian defence is a war that will be fought with great patience, leveraging our strengths, minimising our losses, and ending the enemy’s capacity to threaten us for the future.”

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

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 09, 2022 2:59 pm

a long war
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/09/2022

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A few days ago, through David Arajamia, who headed the Ukrainian delegation for negotiations with Russia in the first phase of the Russian military intervention, we learned once again about Ukraine's objective: to achieve the complete defeat of Russia, which would imply not only the loss of all Ukrainian territories - including Crimea - but also the surrender of nuclear weapons and payment of war reparations to compensate for all the losses caused by the war in these years. In other words, Ukraine aspires, in a way that not even its partners consider realistic, to a total victory at the front, which translates into a humiliation of Russia.

The objectives of Ukraine, openly and constantly repeated by Ukrainian representatives, who sometimes also allow themselves the luxury of demanding the destruction or dismemberment of Russia, show confidence that their partners, without whom they could not continue the war, will be at your side in the long run. That is what can be deduced from the actions of the United States in reference to military planning and what Russia also understands, which finally seems to have accepted that the war will be long. Moscow clings, for the moment, to the fiction of the special military operation, but it is already beginning to prepare the population for the reality of war. Vladimir Putin's recent statements show the vision that Russia wants to convey to its population. Two ideas can be highlighted from the words of the Russian president: Russia aspires to maintain the territories recognized as its own, although it prefers not to mention those it has lost since then, mainly Kherson, and affirms that a complete mobilization is not necessary for the moment. However, this temporary condition reveals the doubt as to whether it will be necessary in the medium or even short-term future.

(more - https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8017424.html )

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/12/09/una-g ... more-26130

Google Translator

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Meet the Brutal Proxy Force Fighting the Russians
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 7, 2022
Evan Reif

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[Source: greydynamics.com]

The story of the Georgian Legion is more than just battles and atrocities. Far from the battlefield, thousands of people are now soldiers on a second, digital front. They are engaged in both propaganda and attack, relentlessly swarming anyone who dares to question approved narratives. These are not random Internet trolls; rather, they operate with the approval and backing of the Pentagon and the Ukrainian defense apparatus.


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[Source: twitter.com]

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[Source: twitter.com]

This digital army is called NAFO, or the North Atlantic Fellas Organization. It is a thoroughly modern group, a bizarre amalgamation of neo-Nazis, gamers, trolls, crypto-scammers, and many more, with NATO intelligence and NGO backing providing the horsepower necessary to spread their message to every corner of the globe.

Unlike most far-right groups, their reach is not limited to Telegram groups and Discord chats. Through clever Internet memes and seemingly endless signal boosting from NATO’s propaganda apparatus, the Georgian Legion’s online army has grown to such an extent that it counts members of Congress and prime ministers among its ranks.

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[Source: wykop.pl]

Fella Travelers

NAFO was created by 26-year-old Kamil Dyszewski, aka kama_kamilia, a Polish video game reviewer. When asked by a subscriber where they could donate to the Ukrainian war effort, Kamil suggested the Georgian Legion. Soon after, Kamil started making custom avatars for anyone who could prove they had donated to the Legion and before long a meme was born.

NAFO is steeped in gamer and “chan” culture with their memes, jokes and identity, all originating from the same hyper-online stock. Their avatars, known as “fellas,” are anthropomorphic cartoon Shiba Inu dogs based on a popular meme called Cheems. As memes tend to do, Cheems evolved from a funny picture of a dog posted on Instagram to an entire galaxy of derivatives and inside jokes. The meme has been widely circulating since 2017 and most “cheems” have no connection to NAFO whatsoever, even the anthropomorphized “fella” is little more than a derivative of earlier memes now turned to the service of the far right.

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Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) helping Nazis fund terrorists. [Source: twitter.com]

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Kamil is also a strident white supremacist, Holocaust denier, and neo-Nazi. As late as 2021, he regularly posted neo-Nazi and white supremacist memes on his Twitter account. Even after NAFO took off, he did not attempt to conceal this until he was outed in October 2022.

Once the curtain was lifted, Kamil released a pathetic “apology,” saying that he had changed and was too young to be held accountable for posts he made only two years ago. He now claims that he is not a Nazi and was simply making edgy jokes to “mess with people” and “fit in.” This begs the question of where Kamil was trying to fit in, and why anyone would ever want to win the approval of white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Kamil is predictably silent on this, but his silence speaks volumes as to his true motivations, and those of the Georgian Legion. As of the time of publication, Kamil still works with Saint Javelin, which remains similarly silent regarding his Nazi “past.”

After deleting more than 2,400 of his tweets, Kamil locked his account to prevent anyone else from finding out what he was doing only a couple of years ago. Unfortunately for him, a vast amount of evidence has been collected showing Kamil is more than just a neo-Nazi troll making edgy jokes. He has made posts advocating violence against Black Lives Matter protesters and even seemingly has called for civil war as the far right stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

The reaction from the rank-and-file NAFO trolls is one of almost complete support for Kamil, along with painting the whole affair as Russian propaganda or disinformation. Some of the more notable influencers (This person’s username, Lviv Nightingale, is a reference to the Lviv pogrom of 1941, during which more than 4,000 Jews were massacred by the OUN’s Nightingale Battalion as OUN leaders pledged allegiance to Adolf Hitler) within NAFO have tightened ranks in support of Kamil, who remains a well-paid and respected leader of NAFO.

To wit, Adam Kinzinger believes that thousands of neo-Nazi and white supremacist “jokes” made over years to “fit in” and “mess with people” is not enough evidence to call his friend Kamil a Nazi.

Sadly, Kinzinger did not require such a high standard of evidence before he participated in America’s illegal, brutal, and utterly unjustifiable war in Iraq, for which no evidence was ever presented. In Iraq, Kinzinger was not only willing to kill for an obvious lie but then based his entire political career on his participation in the greatest crime of the 21st century.

Despite collective amnesia from the western press and warmongers like Kinzinger, by 2006 when The Lancet released the most thorough and peer-reviewed study, America’s illegal war in Iraq was already the direct cause of more than 600,000 civilian deaths. This amounts to 100 times more than the current toll in Ukraine.

This staggering disparity has only increased in the following decade and a half as the world continues to grapple with the bloody fallout of America’s disastrous criminal invasion. Unfortunately, the extremely negative reaction to The Lancet study from a mainstream press cowed by arms dealers has prevented any follow-up studies to see how many more died because of Kinzinger’s war.

Kinzinger was not just a participant, but an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq war during his time in Congress. Perhaps some of those would still be alive had Adam Kinzinger demanded the same standard of evidence he now hides behind in defense of his Nazi friends.

The irony is particularly sharp from Kinzinger, who was once very concerned by imaginary anti-Semitism from Ilhan Omar, but now defends real anti-Semitism from his friends. It seems that Kinzinger’s opposition to anti-Semitism is about as real as Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

While NAFO uses memes and jokes as a mask to hide its true face, the Georgian Legion does not need such scruples. They continue their wanton slaughter unabated, no doubt pleased with both the endless well of funding and distraction their internet minions provide.

Western Values

“Ukraine has taken on the role of protecting not only its own democratic values, but also the values of the entire Western world” – Mamuka Mamulashvili

By the time a neo-Nazi gamer made them famous, the Georgian Legion had already been operating in Ukraine for eight years in one form or another.

According to Mamuka Mamulashvili, his unit was the first to enter the post-Maidan civil war. Starting in April 2014, they trained the infamous Special Tasks Patrol police units, recruited from among the thousands of neo-Nazis (many of them CIA-affiliated) who infested post-Maidan Ukraine. After the army evaporated almost overnight when asked by the Maidan regime to kill their friends, family, and countrymen, it fell to the STPs to crush the nascent counter-revolution in Donbas.

They carried out their mission with extreme brutality, subjugating cities and towns by any means necessary. It was more than just training; by his admission Mamuka took part in combat in Luhansk Oblast with the very first front-line units.

However, Mamuka was present in Ukraine much earlier. Weeks after the Maidan protests began in December 2013, Mamuka was already soliciting mercenaries, offering $60,000 to beat opposition leaders. Upon arriving in the country, Mamuka’s mercenaries attacked police with rocks and Molotov cocktails, hoping to provoke a massacre in response.

When that failed, Mamuka planned a massacre of his own. On February 20th, mercenaries opened fire on the crowd from the Kyiv Philharmonic and Hotel Ukraina buildings, killing some 50 people from both sides. While the Western media blamed the Yanukovych administration for these attacks, all evidence was destroyed by the Maidan government after it came to power and the crime remains unsolved. The victims were among those the Maidan regime dubbed the “Heavenly Hundred” and are venerated by the state with a nearly religious fervor.

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The Heavenly Hundred. [Source: images.unian.net]

While Mamuka had been fighting in Ukraine for years prior, the Georgian Legion was not officially founded until 2016 when a new law allowed foreigners to join the Ukrainian Army.

Almost immediately after, three unnamed U.S. Army officers were the Legion’s first recruits and they set about creating an officer corps for the fledgling unit. The unit was small until the 2022 war opened the floodgates and it now has thousands of soldiers from 32 countries. The Legion has grown in both size and sophistication; they have only the most cutting-edge NATO war machines and make sure to include them in their endless streams of slickly produced social media propaganda.
Georgian Legion with Lockheed-Martin HIMARS Rocket Artillery. [Source: twitter.com]

Mamuka frequently insists that he vets members, particularly looking to weed out neo-Nazis or fascists who, he claims, are not welcome in the Legion. If he is telling the truth, Mamuka has failed utterly at this and the unit is rife with neo-Nazis from around the world. Maybe Mamuka is too far from the battlefield in his headquarters shared with the Azov Battalion to see that some of the worst neo-Nazis in the world fight alongside the Legion.

Among them is Paul Gray, a former U.S. Army Airborne soldier who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gray is best known as a neo-Nazi terrorist affiliated with at least four known groups, the Traditionalist Workers Party (TWP), Vanguard America, Patriot Front, and the infamous Atomwaffen.

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Paul Gray [Source: thegrayzone.com]

Vanguard America was the group responsible for the murder of Heather Heyer at the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally, and it was the TWP which organized the rally. Gray was one of the lead organizers and provided combat training for the participants. After the attacks, Gray bragged on a neo-Nazi podcast about how TWP had “fought off the beaner hordes” and the host was so enraptured by Gray’s tall tales that, by the end of the segment, he was repeatedly shouting “white power” at the top of his lungs.

Gray’s association with Atomwaffen is even more disturbing. In keeping with their name, Atomwaffen is best known for attempted nuclear terrorism against historically Black colleges and at least a half dozen murders. Atomwaffen’s founder, Brandon Russell, was eventually arrested and sentenced to five years in a Federal Penitentiary. He served fewer than six months before his release in 2021, despite spending much of that time sending bomb-making instructions to his comrades.

Gray joined the Legion no later than January 2022 and was wounded by Russian artillery in April. Paul is more than just a soldier in the Legion; he often represents them on American TV with more than a half dozen appearances on Fox News and has received almost worshipful praise from the media.

It seems Mamuka’s “vetting program” is little more than a PR campaign designed to launder fascists into freedom fighters. Sadly, it has succeeded. Despite Paul’s well-publicized links to violent neo-Nazi groups, Gray and the Legion avoid any real scrutiny from the credulous Western press.

The Georgian Legion is not just foreign mercenaries; many of its members are the cream of the rotten crop from Georgia’s far right. Even in the company of some of the world’s most vile neo-Nazis, the Georgian Legion’s homegrown killers are second to none.

On March 30, 2022, the Legion released one of its many propaganda videos revealing a successful “cleansing operation” about five miles north of Bucha. A bearded man celebrates wordlessly, drowned out by music, in front of the bodies of several Russian soldiers before the camera cuts to a captured armored vehicle. In this censored version, you see a scene of military glory; the Georgian Legion has vanquished its enemies and captured their weapons.

In the full-length video, reserved at first for Ukrainian-language Telegram channels, you see what a “cleansing operation” really looks like. At the beginning of this extremely disturbing footage, several bound Russian soldiers lay with their throats slit in pools of their blood as the cameraman brags about Georgian prowess and shouts out his housing complex. One of the Russians starts to gurgle as he fights for air, catching the attention of the cameraman, who shoots the prisoner.

Somehow the bound prisoner survives, and his breathing grows increasingly ragged as he desperately struggles for air. The cameraman yells “Look, he’s still alive!” before one of his comrades finally executes the prisoner with three shots at close range. The Georgians spend the rest of the video looting, celebrating, and posing for pictures with the men they murdered as they shout the old Fascist greeting “Slava Ukraini” back and forth, albeit without the traditional “Roman salute” that accompanied it.

Some of the men’s clothes and equipment were still there when ex-Daily Mail journalist Oz Katerji toured the site several days later. Katerji was so impressed with what he saw that he donated to the Legion soon after and became one of the most enthusiastic NAFO fellas. Once again, a “mainstream conservative” who spent so much of his time decrying imaginary anti-Semitism, this time from Jeremy Corbyn, is enthralled the moment he sees the genuine article.

The killer was identified as Georgian Legionnaire Teymuraz Khizanishvili, a former bodyguard of Mikheil Saakashvili, the disgraced pro-NATO prime minister of Georgia from 2004 to 2013 and a close ally of the Mamulashvili family. The crime was so brazen that even British intelligence asset Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat and The New York Times were forced to confirm its veracity. For his part, Mamuka doubled down when confronted with this evidence in an interview.

“Yes, we tie their hands and feet sometimes. I speak for the Georgian Legion, we will never take Russian soldiers prisoner. Not a single one of them will be taken prisoner.”-Mamuka Mamulashvili

Mamuka attempted to backpedal in later interviews, denying that the killer was a member of the Legion before saying his rant about never taking prisoners was taken out of context. Mamuka said what he really meant is they were handed over to MPs instead of taken by the Legion, but the damage was already done.

Still, Mamuka’s panicked denial was much more credible than Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to the interior minister and former Kharkiv gangster in charge of the infamous and universally condemned hit list Myrotvorets. On Gerashenko’s Telegram, he released a bizarre statement claiming the massacre was faked by the Russian FSB using actors and animal blood. This fantasy was the best he could do in the face of such obvious evidence.

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Anton Gerashenko [Source: infos-israel.news]

The Ukrainian government claimed that the people responsible for this atrocity would be brought to justice. As of the time of publication, no charges have been filed, no arrests have been made, and there is no indication of any investigation whatsoever. The Legion is still active on the front lines, and NAFO has only grown larger in response to both scandal and atrocity.

Domesticated Wolves

Sometimes, when we look at dogs it can be hard to imagine that long ago, their ancestors were among the most formidable hunters on Earth.

Tens of thousands of years ago, the primordial wolf ancestors of every Pug and Chihuahua could chase prey for hours until it finally succumbed to exhaustion and then tear their quarry apart with their teeth. They would run dozens of miles in pitch darkness, with no food or water and little concern for terrain or weather, then feed for days straight. These wolves were highly intelligent, resilient and adaptable, leading to thriving populations all around the world. However, despite their prowess, even wolves sometimes go hungry.

We still do not know when or where, but at some point a very long time ago, a desperate wolf’s hunger overrode its fear of fire and it approached a group of humans hoping for some scraps. One of the humans must have obliged, and eventually the two species found themselves in a mutually beneficial situation. From then on, humanity went about the task of domesticating the wolf, and the two species were forever joined at the hip.

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Wolves chasing a bull elk. [Source: wikipedia.org]

It was a long genetic march over dozens of millennia to mold Canis Lupus into the domestic dog. After countless generations of selective breeding, the wild predator became a beloved friend and companion to humanity. Today many of us cannot imagine our life without a dog by our side, and our breeding efforts have resulted in countless breeds of all shapes and sizes, many of them a far cry from their wild ancestors.

However, despite humanity’s best efforts, some part of the ancient wolf remains in every dog. If you look closely enough, you can still see the killer inside as your dog chases after the ball it views as prey and shakes the squeaky toy designed to mimic the sounds of a dying rodent. In the mind of a dog, it is still the predator its ancestors once were.

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A Shiba Inu [Source: akc.org]

What we are seeing now is an attempt to domesticate the Georgian Legion, turning the Nazi wolves into NAFO’s funny little dogs in the mind of the public.

Many fellas cannot accept that Kamil is a Nazi because he is their friend and comrade. When they look at Kamil, they do not see the virulent neo-Nazi who was denying the Holocaust and glorifying right-wing terrorists to “fit in” and “mess with people” only a few years ago. Rather, they see their friend who makes funny memes and jokes while they hunt for “vatniks.” While Kamil has not changed, how he is perceived has.

Now, when the general public sees the media bending over backwards to fete Paul Gray, it will be as difficult for them to see him as a Nazi terrorist who orchestrated the murder of Heather Heyer and tried to send dirty bombs to Black colleges as it is to imagine a pug tearing apart a bull elk with its teeth. This is absolutely intentional.

NAFO is simply the latest evolution of a project that has been going on for 80 years. Before the Second World War was over, the founders of the so-called liberal international order were already setting up the structures they would use to weaponize the world’s fascists against the Soviet Union and China.

The echoes of these operations can still be heard throughout Ukraine today. Even after the death of Allen Dulles’s Gladiators (see Daniele Ganser’s NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Europe), their children and grandchildren still use the same structures, financed from the same places for the same end goal, crushing any nation that dares to challenge the “rules-based international order” that the ruling class holds so dear.

Of course, something of the predator will always remain. The Legion and all the other Nazis infesting Ukraine are not wolves that we can mold into our beloved pets. Violence and oppression are an indivisible pillar of their ideology; the idea of a peaceful, tolerant Nazi is a contradiction on par with a vegetarian wolf. The “domestication” of the Legion is nothing more than a ruse.

This is not a problem for the people who orchestrated this war; the liberal internationalists never wanted family pets. Mamuka and the fellas finally give them what they have spent 80 years looking for: a pack of wolves that can fool the world into believing that they are nothing but dogs.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... -russians/

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NYT, WSJ Look to Hawks for Ukraine Expertise
JOHN KEMPTHORNE

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US Bomber from CSIS's Project on Nuclear Issues page.

A crucial function of a free press is to present perspectives that critically examine government actions. In major articles from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal discussing the escalation of the war in Ukraine, however, such perspectives have been hard to come by—even as the stakes have reached as high as nuclear war.

In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin escalated the war by announcing a mobilization of up to 300,000 extra troops (CNBC, 9/21/22) and threatened to use “all the means at our disposal” to ensure “the territorial integrity of our motherland” (CNBC, 9/23/22). A month later, a letter endorsed by 30 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus was sent to the White House (and quickly retracted), urging a “proactive diplomatic push” to reach a ceasefire in the war.

Both of these major incidents could have been an opportunity for the media to ask important questions about US policy in Ukraine, which is—according to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (Wall Street Journal, 4/25/22)—to “weaken” Russia. Instead, elite newspapers continue to offer a very narrow range of expert opinion on a US strategy that favors endless war.

Assessing the threat
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Aside from Vladimir Putin, this New York Times article (9/21/22) is entirely sourced to “American and other Western officials,” “White House and Pentagon officials,” “Western officials,” the Pentagon press secretary, the British military secretary, President Biden “and other administration officials,” “current and former US military officials,” a National Security Council spokesperson, the director of Russia studies at the Pentagon-funded Center for Naval Analyses, “a former top US Army commander in Europe,” “experts,” a Russian military specialist (and former Marine) at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, “American officials and analysts,” “a former supreme allied commander for Europe,” “US intelligence and other security officials,” “officials,” “a senior State Department official” and the head of the US Strategic Command.
In the two days following Putin’s threats, the New York Times published three pieces assessing them. Of these pieces, expert analysis and commentary was provided by “military analysts” and a “director of Russia studies at the CNA defense research” (9/21/22), a “French author” and “a former French ambassador to Russia” (9/21/22), and several current and former government officials (9/21/22).

In these articles, probably the most critical comment was provided by nameless “Western officials” who have “expressed concern that if Mr. Putin felt cornered, he might detonate a tactical nuclear weapon”—though the Times immediately reassured that “they said there was no evidence that he was moving those weapons, or preparing such a strike.” None of the officials or analysts that the Times referenced in these articles explicitly advocated for changing US policy.

In the same timeframe, the Wall Street Journal ran six articles assessing Putin’s actions, and did not find any space in these articles to criticize US policy.

Russian public opinion of the war was cited in one piece (9/21/22):


Public interest in the invasion was initially high in February but has been declining steadily—especially among young people, who would presumably be those asked to serve in the fighting, according to a poll by the independent Levada Center earlier this month. Younger people were also far more likely to favor peace negotiations, the poll results said.

Strangely, the Journal did not cite US public opinion on peace negotiations in any of its coverage. A poll commissioned by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (9/27/22) found most American likely voters supported the US engaging in peace negotiations. Supporting this, an IPSOS poll has reported that most Americans support the US continuing “its diplomatic efforts with Russia” (10/6/22). I did not find a single Journal article that mentioned the Quincy Institute or IPSOS polls. The Journal has done its own polling on American opinion regarding the war (e.g., 11/3/22, 3/11/22); it does not ask for opinions about diplomacy as a strategy.

The Quincy and IPSOS polls are in line with Americans’ attitudes from a Gallup poll taken prior to the war, which found 73% of Americans “say that good diplomacy is the best way to ensure peace” (12/17/19). It seems Americans generally favor diplomacy. A more recent Gallup poll (9/15/22) did not ask about Americans’ support for diplomacy, but whether the US was “doing enough,” which is a vague question that obfuscates whether it refers to military, diplomatic support, or other means. It also asked a question that presented only two approaches for the US to take toward conflict: “support Ukraine in reclaiming territory, even if prolonged conflict” or “end conflict quickly, even if allow Russia to keep territory.” Other diplomatic options, such as those regarding NATO’s ever-expanding footprint in Eastern Europe, were not offered.

Favoring hawkish perspectives
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Part of the reason it was so easy to make progressives back away from their pro-diplomacy letter (Intercept, 10/25/22) is that the views behind the letter rarely appear in major media.
The October letter calling on the White House to consider a diplomatic end to the war was signed by 30 members of Congress and endorsed by a number of nonprofit groups, including the Quincy Institute (Intercept, 10/25/22).

To get a sense of how much tolerance there has been for dissenting expertise on the White House’s stance in the Ukraine war, I searched the Nexis news database for mentions of the Quincy Institute. As a Washington think tank backed by major establishment funders spanning the political spectrum, including both George Soros and Charles Koch (Boston Globe, 6/30/19), journalists should have little reservation in soliciting comments from experts associated with it.

In a Nexis search as of November 9, the Quincy Institute was mentioned nine times in the New York Times since February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine; five of these were in opinion pieces. Of the four reported pieces, two (7/3/22, 9/27/22) included quotes from members of the Institute that were critical of US military strategy in Ukraine.

On the website of the Wall Street Journal, which is not fully indexed on Nexis, I turned up a single mention of the Quincy Institute in connection with Ukraine, in a piece (3/23/22) on Ukrainian lobbyists’ influence in the US.

Pro-war bias
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Despite exposés that show CSIS literally functions as a PR organ for the weapons industry (Extra!, 10/16), the think continues to be a favorite source of establishment media.
That lack of coverage is all the more stark in comparison to a hawkish think tank. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), heavily funded by the US government, arms dealers and oil companies, is a consistently pro-war think tank: A FAIR investigation (Extra!, 10/16) of a year’s worth of CSIS op-eds and quotes in the New York Times failed to find any instance of the CSIS advocating for curtailment of US military policy.

At the Journal, a search for “Center for Strategic and International Studies” in Ukraine stories from February 24 to November 9 yielded 34 results. Four of these results were opinion pieces. For news articles, that’s a 30:1 ratio of the hawkish think tank to the dovish think tank.

In the same time period, CSIS appeared in the Times 44 times, according to a Nexis search, including five opinion pieces—a news ratio of just under 10:1.

It should be noted that, just as Quincy sources weren’t always quoted offering criticism of US Ukraine policy, affiliates of CSIS weren’t always advocating for an unrestrained stance in Ukraine. One even warned that “the risk of a widening war is serious right now” (New York Times, 4/27/22). But repeatedly reaching out to and publishing quotes from a well-known pro-war think tank will inevitably produce less critical reporting of a war than turning to the most prominent anti-war think tank in Washington.

And it’s not that these papers are seeking out “balance” from sources other than Quincy. Seven other nonprofit groups also endorsed the October letter; the New York Times has quoted a representative from one of those groups—Just Foreign Policy—exactly once (3/7/22) since the war began. The Journal has cited none. But considering the stakes at hand, reporters have a responsibility to seek out and publish such critical perspectives in their coverage of Ukraine.

https://fair.org/home/nyt-wsj-look-to-h ... expertise/

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West Ignores Evidence of Ukrainian Torture and Use of Prohibited Weapons When Making ‘War Crimes’ Claims
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 8, 2022
Olga Sukharevskaya,

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This week, Ukraine celebrated its Armed Forces Day. This public holiday was introduced in 1993 to replace Red Army Day, which was a Soviet holiday. Ironically, it also marks the anniversary of the 1240 fall of Kiev to the Mongol invasion led by Batu Khan.

While not comparable to exploits of the Golden Horde, The war that’s taken place in Ukraine since the spring of 2014 has also shaken the global order.

Wiping civilian infrastructure off the map

As soon as a large-scale “anti-terrorist operation” was sanctioned against Eastern Ukraine by the then acting president Alexander Turchinov, both the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Neo-Nazi ‘volunteer’ battalions, started to attack civilian population and destroy infrastructure.

As early as the spring of 2014, video evidence made it to the public domain of the military firing at unarmed individuals and driving armored vehicles at them. Footage of Ukrainian tanks taking a run at unarmed residents of the Donbass was taken in March 2014, i.e. two months before the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics proclaimed their independence.

After that, in April-May 2014, civilian killings proceeded on a large scale. The Ukrainian armed forces and ‘volunteers’ intentionally fired at unarmed locals. This happened in Mariupol on May 9, 2014, and in downtown Lugansk on June 2, 2014, when the central square was hit by unguided rocket fire from military aircraft.

The destruction of civilian infrastructure and sweeping artillery attacks on towns and villages were not accidental, judging by their number. It was an intentionally chosen tactic. On July 27, 2014, the Ukrainian armed forces shelled Gorlovka, killing 27-year-old Kristina Zhuk and her 10-month-old daughter Kira. A total of 20 people were killed on that day. On August 13, 2014, the 1st battalion of the Ukrainian army’s 107th Rocket Artillery Brigade commanded by Colonel Alexander Kelembet fired cluster munitions at a beach in Zugres from a Smerch multiple rocket launcher.

Alexander, a native of Manuilovo in the Donetsk region, recounted: “On July 15, 2014, my son was in our house in the village of Manuilovo, while his wife and son were in their apartment in Snezhnoye. A daycare facility teacher reached him on his cell phone and said Ukrainian aircraft had dropped bombs on Snezhnoye hitting the building where my grandson and daughter-in-law lived. We rushed to Snezhnoye, me and my son. It was 12 km from Manuilovo. When we got there, we saw that the part of the apartment block which held our unit was completely destroyed. Between 8 and 13 bodies were recovered from the debris on that day. My grandson Bogdan, born in 2009, was the only survivor. My daughter-in-law died of her injuries. The boy got stuck between two slabs and it took over three hours to get him out. He was severely injured – multiple pelvic fractures, fracture of the left femoral bone and compartment syndrome of the muscle tissues.”

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The consequences of a Ukrainian air raid in the city of Snezhnoye, Donetsk region. © Sputnik / Mikhail Voskresensky

It was exactly the civilian infrastructure that was targeted. On July 11, 2014, the shelling of Dzerzhinsk, a town in the Donetsk region, destroyed the Executive Committee Building and damaged a bank, a civil registration office, the Moskva department store, apartment blocks and a church. According to a report by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine, “a shelling salvo struck the Kirovskyi district in Donetsk city on 4 February 2015 which hit the direct surrounding of the Kindergarten No. 381, a neighbouring street near the Kindergarten and Donetsk Hospital No. 27. Based on the statement from the personnel employed at Hospitals Nos. 27 and 24, the SMM assesses that the shelling at Hospital No. 27 left 6 individuals killed and 25 injured. At hospital No. 24, the SMM spoke to a wounded woman who explained that she was hit by shrapnel while working as a nurse at Hospital No. 27 during the shelling.”

Also, the destruction of water supply facilities delivering drinking water from the Seversky Donets to Donetsk was mentioned in a report by the UN OHCHR which openly called it a war crime committed by Ukraine.

Lethal prohibited weapons

The DPR authorities have claimed that, in the summer of 2014, the Ukrainian army repeatedly used phosphorus bombs against civilians. HRW confirmed the use of incendiary weapons in Ukraine. And although the organization did not specify what kind of weapon it was and did not use the term “white phosphorus”, HRW pointed out the particular cruelty of the use of those incendiary weapons.

Traces of combustion products originating from the N17 incendiary mixture used in mines and air bombs were found in soil samples which eyewitnesses of Ukrainian shelling in the village of Semyonovka near Slavyansk, Donetsk region, handed to Russian investigators. The mixture in question can burn holes in human flesh and is almost impossible to put out. Therefore, those who are struck by such munitions suffer unthinkable pain and often die an agonizing death. Such weapons are banned by a UN International Convention and the Geneva Convention of 1949.

The OSCE also documented the use of cluster bombs. This type of weapon is widely used in military conflicts, although many nations have prohibited it as inhumane. US journalist Patrick Lancaster reported witnessing a cluster bomb attack in the Kherson region, “in which three civilians were killed. Shrapnel from a cluster bomb killed a man’s father and mother. Another local resident was killed in his own backyard. There is no question that it was a Ukrainian attack. This is the tactic that I’ve seen for the last eight years in Donbass and now here.”

After Russia’s special military operation kicked off, in March of this year, the Ukrainian army launched a cluster bomb attack firing Tochka-U ballistic missiles at downtown Donetsk and Makeevka, which killed dozens of civilians. The areas targeted had no military infrastructure. Large-scale use of brutal weapons was noticed by the UN. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said in a statement that the UN was launching an investigation into the alleged use of cluster munitions in Ukrainian attacks on Donetsk and other cities of the Donbass.

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A damaged car as a result of shelling in the center of Donetsk. © Sputnik / Maxim Blinov

Another tactic employed by the Ukrainian military to kill civilians is the use of antipersonnel mines. Starting from July 2022, Ukraine’s armed forces have regularly used antipersonnel “butterfly” (or “petal”) landmines scattered in the central streets of Donetsk and Gorlovka by submunitions-dispensing artillery projectiles. As of August 7, at least 29 cases of civilians (including one child) injured by PFM-1 “Lepestok” (‘petal’) mines were registered in the republic. One of the injured died in the hospital of their wounds. War correspondent Semyon Pegov was also injured by a “butterfly” mine. But let’s not forget that the 1996 amendments to Protocol II of the Geneva Convention introduced a number of restrictions on the use of “petal” mines. The protocol lists permitted mine types and bans the use of scattered landmines that don’t have a self-destruct mechanism.

Since early May, Ukrainian artillery has significantly intensified attacks on civilian infrastructure, children’s facilities and residential districts of Donbass cities using Smerch and Uragan multiple rocket launchers and barrel artillery. Ukrainians also actively use the weapons supplied by the West to target civilians in the war zone, including 155 mm guns used by NATO countries, M777 US howitzers and French self-propelled Caesar guns.

Who are the victims?

There are thousands of similar examples. Despite the Minsk Accords and many “ceasefire” agreements, civilian killings in the conflict zone did not stop even for a day. According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) 32nd Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, “During the entire conflict period, from 14 April 2014 to 31 July 2021, OHCHR recorded a total of 3,092 conflict-related civilian deaths (1,839 men, 1,064 women, 102 boys, 50 girls, and 37 adults whose sex is unknown). The number of injured civilians is estimated to exceed 7,000.”

In November 2020, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine published a report saying that the number of civilian deaths in locations on DPR and LPR territory along the contact line was three times higher compared to on the Ukrainian side. The UN OHCHR, too, had no trouble identifying where the shelling was coming from – a 2020 report said 81% of civilians injured by artillery fire lived outside the territories controlled by Ukraine and only 17% of the people living in the areas controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces suffered from shelling.

After the start of Russia’s military operation, Ukraine’s military intensified its bombing, which also spread to new areas. The Ukrainian armed forces launched a HIMARS missile strike at a river crossing near Kherson’s Antonovsky Bridge, which they had already destroyed, killing several people. Vladimir Rogov, a member of the main council of Zaporozhye Region’s administration, said that the Ukrainian target was the refugees from Kherson: “A lot of people spent the night by the river crossing… There is a curfew, of course, but they stayed inside their cars at the crossing and did not walk around, so they didn’t violate the curfew. And no one said anything to them. Everyone understood that if there’s a line, people need to keep their position in the line…There were a lot of people in the line because everyone wants to get out of Kherson now.”

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Kherson residents are seen during the evacuation to the left bank of the Dnieper river. © Sputnik / Evgeny Biyatov

Tortures, atrocities and the revival of concentration camps

In recent months, there have been several scandals around the executions of Russian POWs by the Ukrainian military. Neo-Nazis were filmed shooting Russian POWs in the legs, and another recent video shows a mass shooting of POWs in Makeevka, Lugansk Region. Even the UN couldn’t ignore these atrocities. Matilda Bogner, the head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said in a statement: “We have received credible information of torture, ill-treatment and incommunicado detention by Ukrainian Armed Forces of prisoners of war belonging to the Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups.” Not that it had any consequences for Kiev. And what was the reaction of Human Rights Watch? They demanded that the torture of POWs should not be recorded on a camera ever again. Of course, no evidence, no war crimes.

However, the torture, abuse and illegal detention in prisons of not only combatants but also civilians started as early as 2014. Alexey, who was taken prisoner on August 26, 2014, recounted: “They beat us indiscriminately with all kinds of objects – crushing the toes with a shovel shaft or a sledgehammer, or the knees with a hammer, or kicking us with their legs everywhere… At night, they stripped us to the underpants, tied us to a fence and threw cold water on us all night long, never letting us dry. In the morning, they resumed the battering. At noon, we were taken to the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) headquarters to be beaten up there. And we were thrown into a pit for the night.”

According to a report by Amnesty International, on August 25, Ukrainian fighters abducted four miners from Novodruzhesk (Lugansk Region). One of the men was undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer. He told Amnesty International that the fighters broke into his home armed with automatic weapons and ordered him to lie on the ground. They beat him up, breaking his jaw. Then they tied him up and took him to a provisional prison organized in the town where “there were about 12-15 other detainees.”

With time, the number of the illegal detention sites only grew. The most notorious of them was the one called the “Library,” organized by the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. It had branches in Mariupol’s airport, at the battalion’s headquarters in the city’s left-bank district, in a school, and in a house near the town’s outskirts.

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“Library,” organized by the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion © RIA News

This is what Pavel Karakosov, an Afghanistan veteran and resident of Mariupol had to say: “They tortured people like the Americans did in the Guantanamo Bay prison – they would tie them up to a board face up, put a piece of cloth over their heads and pour water on it. It makes you feel like you’re drowning. It makes you breathe deeper to get air and water gets in with the air too, and you experience it like you’re drowning. I had a mini stroke while being tortured. It felt like a million needles pierced my head. Another kind of torture they used was called “the scissors.” They had two pieces of railroad track rails, one hanging above another. They would place your hands on the bottom one, and let the other one fall down on them, crushing your fingers. Or they would stick needles under your fingernails. It caused an excruciating, piercing pain in my entire body. Yes, I experienced that, they tortured me. They also cut off people’s feet and hands with a chop saw like it was nothing.”

Pavel still has a saw mark on his foot. He explained, “They didn’t cut it off, they wanted to scare me.”

Kirill Filichkin, a 33-year-old resident of Mariupol, was one of the first detainees taken to the illegal prison in Mariupol’s airport on May 7, 2014. He testified that they “put his fingers on a rifle buttstock and crushed them with another [buttstock]. They cut the sinews on my hand with a bayonet ‘to make sure I can never fire a gun.’ Mosiychuk personally stabbed me with a bayonet in the leg.” Igor Mosiychuk was a member of the Ukrainian parliament from the Radical Party of Oleg Liashko. He and his boss tortured Kirill Filichkin together.

Mikhail Shubin, who was also taken to the “Library,” recalls having been thrown into a pit full of dead bodies. “They put a bag over my head, then I was knocked over and fell down on something weird, sort of soft and wet. When I touched it I realized those were bodies, men’s and women’s. Some had their throats or stomachs cut, some had their necks broken, all badly maimed. There were about six or seven bodies there.” Shubin said the electric shock torture was the most horrible experience he had ever had: “They took me to a room and made me undress, then pushed me to the ground, which was already wet. They placed one electrode on my penis, and the other one on my heel. It felt horribly painful. It caused sever spasms in my body. It made my body literally arch with pain.”

Mariupol wasn’t the only place where such jails existed – you could find them everywhere along the contact line, including Kramatorsk. Konstantin Afonchenko, a civilian from Yenakiyevo, ended up there and was tortured by future Ukrainian member of parliament Andrey Teteruk, and Vsevolod Stebliuk, a distinguished Ukrainian physician.

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(L) Ihor Mosiychuk © Sputnik; (R) Andriy Teteruk © Aleksandr Gusev / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

The prisoner shared that Stebliuk was “acting like a serial killer from a horror movie.” People were injected with unknown substances, so they would “talk.” Konstantin remembers how he was brought to see Alla Belousova one time: “You are going to rape a DPR minister, [they said]. I saw Alla, she looked completely out of it and there were pills everywhere. I had to muster up all my imagination to convince them that it was impossible.” Belousova later talked about how the guards murdered her husband right in front of her.

The signature torture move in Pokrovsk (formerly called Krasnoarmeisk) was the “hammer of truth” – a wooden mallet that was used to beat up prisoners.

The UN Human Rights Mission identified 184 people who were unlawfully detained at the Kharkov facility of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in 2014-2016. Amnesty International published a report in 2016 entitled “You don’t exist”, in which they revealed there were special detention centers where people lost all communication with the outside world: “We have found unlawful detention facilities in Mariupol and other places, but the main one was the SBU building in Kharkov, where some people were held for over a year.”

International human rights organizations eventually were able to visit SBU jails, but they never obtained testimony about the most gruesome torture procedures. Former prisoners said they got a chance to see human rights representatives only after they had received medical assistance and were made look “presentable.” International organizations never saw what was really happening in the “Library” or other torture chambers organized by Ukrainian nationalists.

ISIS playbook: human shields

Kiev was accused of using civilians as protection for the Ukrainian armed forces by stationing military equipment inside residential neighborhoods as early as 2014. The practice of employing “human shields” has become ubiquitous this year.

The fate of Mariupol’s civilian population was a genuine tragedy. “Those who tried to flee were, at best, stopped and turned back. They said, go back home, we’re not letting anyone out. There were Ukrainian armed forces and Azov checkpoints at exit routes from the city. Some cars left and never came back. We have no clue what happened to those people. There were rumors that those who tried to escape were simply shot,” says Veronika, a local resident.

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Residents walk in a street, as Russia’s military operation in Ukraine continues, in the port city of Mariupol, Donetsk People’s Republic. © Sputnik

Evgeniya, another local and the mother of a young baby, says: “When I tried to go out, a sniper would shoot near me so that I’d go back to hide in the basement. This is how they kept people trapped in the basements. I sometimes would have to run across the street between the basement where we were hiding and my house, and they routinely fired bursts in my direction just as a warning. They knew for sure that I had a baby in the basement because I had talked to them many times before the whole thing started.”

This was confirmed at an Arria-formula meeting of the UN Security Council by French journalist Anne-Laure Bonnel. At the meeting, she showed an interview with a Mariupol resident, who said: “I know for certain that they’re not letting people out, they’re beating them with buttstocks and forcing them to stay indoors. The Azov battalion stops all foot and car traffic. I personally know a guy who was not allowed to get out.”

UN representatives documented a case in the village of Staraya Krasnyanka (Lugansk People’s Republic) where Ukrainian soldiers occupied a nursing home, mined all roads in the vicinity, and did not allow the elderly residents to leave.

This practice is not limited to areas of active fighting. In Odessa, armor has been deployed inside densely populated residential districts and near the beautiful building of the Opera Theater.

On August 4, 2022, Amnesty International issued a report accusing the Ukrainian military of stationing its troops and artillery near hospitals, schools and residential buildings thus turning them into military targets. By doing so, it endangered civilians and violated international humanitarian law and the laws of war, the rights group said. After an aggressive pushback from the Ukrainian government, Amnesty was forced to apologize for the “distress and anger” it caused Ukrainians.

There is a full-scale witch hunt underway in the cities and towns Russia has withdrawn from. On November 17, 2022, the Ukrainian military, acting on local vigilantes’ reports, executed 39 residents of Kherson, while 74 people were taken away to undisclosed locations. A video has been posted online, in which soldiers of the Ukrainian 25th Brigade say they have their commanders’ orders to shoot all civilians on the territories formerly controlled by the Russian army. Members of Azov have published a video of the massacre of Kupyansk residents, which they blamed on Russia. The file metadata, however, shows that the video was recorded on November 9, and Kupyansk has been under Ukrainian control since early September. Those among their own ranks who don’t want to fight are treated no better than Russian prisoners. One Ukrainian serviceman complained that his fellow soldiers had shot him in the leg.

On April 25, the deputy head of the Zaporozhye Region’s police administration, Lt. Col. Alexei Selivanov, reported the kidnapping of the daughter of Kupyansk mayor Gennady Matsegora and two grandchildren of Valentina Kobeleva, a local entrepreneur and a member of the Kupyansk city council representing the Opposition Platform — For Life party. “So this government now kidnaps children,” Selivanov said. This brings memories of the assassination of Darya Dugina, the daughter of well-known Russian political scientist Alexander Dugin, which was perpetrated on Russian territory by a Ukrainian operative, something even the US has had to admit.

***
French President Emmanuel Macron has recently backed plans to create a special tribunal to investigate “Russia’s aggression.” But given that Ukrainian soldiers commit war crimes, including with the help of weapons send by Paris, Monsieur Macron may also want to look in that direction.

Olga Sukharevskaya, ex-Ukrainian diplomat


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

Post by blindpig » Thu Dec 15, 2022 5:12 pm

Work in Donetsk
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/15/2022
Original Article: Denis Grigoriuk

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It is correct to consider the center of Donetsk a “red zone”. In December there have only been a couple of days in which the Ukrainian shells have not hit the Voroshilovsky district [the most central of the city]. All the bombardments take place against civilian infrastructures. Despite DPR leader Denis Pushilin signing a decree requiring state institutions to send their staff home to work remotely, not all professions can afford to telework. This is the case of those who drive public transport.

Despite the shelling, minibuses continue to travel through the city and often come under fire. It is common that, after an attack, messages can be found on social networks in which Donetsk residents thank the drivers for having saved the lives of the passengers by protecting them from the Ukrainian Grad.

On December 12, the territory around the covered market was shelled again by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition to the market, there are shops, residential buildings, small stalls, a cafeteria, a hostel and a bus station in the same area. Several projectiles hit the apartment buildings and the facades suffered damage. Ukrainian shells dug several holes not only in the courtyards of residential buildings, but also in the area of ​​​​the market bus station.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked when the population of Donetsk was returning home by public transport after work. Normally, the accumulation of people is very high here, but luckily, due to the weather conditions, there were not many people left on the street. But minibus routes leave from the area and many others pass through the territory. Several of them found themselves at the epicenter of the “arrivals” of Ukrainian shells.

I was able to speak to Marina Krivulya, a woman from Donetsk who was traveling on bus number 70 at the time of the bombing, and she explained how, thanks to her professionalism, the driver was able to get passengers out of the fire zone. Marina works as a forensic expert in the DPR police, so she can't work remotely. Hence, she has witnessed several bombings in recent weeks. She can say that she was born again today, since everything could have ended badly if the driver had hesitated and had not accelerated decisively.

“I was coming home from work. I know that around 18:35 minibus number 70 should pass to “Izumrude” (the district in which the Donetsk local administration is located, which is also regularly bombed). I approached the stop and saw that the number 8 trolley bus was leaving. There were only two people at the stop. Then the minibus arrived. There were four or five people in it. We turned onto the street “50 years of the Soviet Union” and I heard two explosions. A second later, the third. You know, everything happened in slow motion. It seemed that everything was going very fast outside the bus, but very slowly inside it. The Lubavina bus stop was left in front. I saw smoke there. The driver slowed for a moment, the smoke cleared slightly, he cringed at the wheel and stepped on the accelerator. We were already going very fast and the shells fell on the control room of the market. I saw another minibus coming from the bus station on Bogdan Khmelnitsky Avenue [unlike in Ukraine, where Russian and Soviet references have been removed from the street map, in Donbass references to Ukrainian figures such as Shevchenko or Khmelnitski- have not been removed.Ed ]. That vehicle was turning towards the market station. Our driver signaled with his lights to the other bus and two other buses heading towards Shevchenko Boulevard. At that moment, the projectiles hit the building on the left. By then they were already burning," explained the forensic expert.

Unfortunately, Marina does not remember the number of the bus, but she wrote a message on social networks thanking the driver for his actions, with which he not only saved himself and those traveling on his bus, but also warned his colleagues, that they had time to change course so they could leave the area under fire before the next shell exploded. “He is a great driver, how coldly he drove,” explained Marina.

Donetsk is full of these kinds of stories. Those who work in the entertainment industry protect their visitors by offering their basements or crawl spaces as a refuge. Taxis not only carry passengers, but also anyone who happens to be on the street at the time of a bombing. Ordinary residents provide first aid to the injured.

Unfortunately, even the experience gained in the combat zone is not always enough to save a life. At some point, you may be unlucky and fall victim to a projectile. Civilians continue to die daily as a result of attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on residential neighborhoods in Donetsk. No matter how tough and experienced the Donetsk population is, no matter how much they help each other to survive the next shelling, there will still be residents in the city who need help. Under the current conditions, taking into account the military situation, it is extremely difficult to do so.

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For safety, more danger
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 12/14/2022

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Yesterday's donor conference in Paris, at which Western countries once again reaffirmed their unconditional support for Ukraine in their common fight against Russia, not only launched a political message of support and pledged an additional billion euros to help the country get through the winter, but some curious words were spoken. As is natural due to the seriousness of the situation of the population due to the Russian attacks against the electricity distribution infrastructures, the energy issue was one of the main topics. Hence the participation of the Minister of Energy of Ukraine, Herman Haluschenko, who took advantage of the international platform to return to a recurring theme.

Over the past few weeks, the international press, always following the example of the US and Ukrainian authorities, has raised the nuclear issue on numerous occasions, generally to highlight the danger that war poses in this regard. Both the danger of Russian use of nuclear weapons, a fear that seems to have disappeared for the moment after the words of President Vladimir Putin, and the threat posed by a situation in which nuclear power plants operate in a context of conventional war have been highlighted. Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Socialist Republic a whole network of electrical, hydroelectric and nuclear power plants that it has not expanded in the thirty years of independence, but which are currently a salvation for the civilian population. Despite the enormous damage caused by the Russian attacks, Ukraine has a sufficiently diverse production network to continue producing electricity. However, the issue of nuclear power plants poses a serious danger, both because of the possibility of direct impacts on the power plants and because of a more plausible scenario: that of the loss of the electricity supply that the power plants require for their operation.

Since last March, when the plant was captured by Russian troops on a night in which the Western press did not hesitate to exaggerate the danger, the Zaporozhye nuclear plant, located in the town of Energodar, has regularly returned to the headlines due to to the artillery bombardments against the installations. Although under Russian control, it has been the Ukrainian national company that has continued to operate the plant, which in all this time has supplied power to Ukraine as well as to the southern areas now under Russian control. Since August, when Ukraine feared that Russia would disconnect the plant from the Ukrainian energy system, the danger from the use of artillery has been constant. At that time, the plant supplied surplus energy that Ukraine aspired to export to the countries of the European Union in search of increased income. However, with the start of Russian attacks against Ukrainian critical infrastructures, power from the plant has become essential for internal use in the country.

In both situations, Ukraine's strategy has been the same: a combination of military and political pressure. It is the same thing that is currently happening. As already predicted last week, Ukraine has set its sights on the Zaporozhye region and has already begun to try to destroy the bridges, important for Russia to guarantee supplies to its grouping of troops from the south. The objective, as was also foreseeable, is Melitopol, a city until now relatively protected from attacks, but whose capture would endanger the entire southern front and would mean bringing Ukrainian troops even closer to Crimea, their real objective. In this case, a possibility of withdrawal does not exist, as it did in Kherson. Naturally,

In this context, the Minister of Energy of Ukraine stated in Paris that "the world must rethink nuclear security." Contrary to other aspects related to war, such as the supply of weapons, on this occasion, the Ukrainian government has the power to act in favor of what it is demanding. However, the Ukrainian tactic in winning back control of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant has been and continues to be to maximize the danger and thus make the Russian presence there untenable.

For weeks now, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, has been negotiating with Russia and Ukraine a way out of the dangerous situation at the plant, which continues to be bombarded by Ukrainian artillery. Faced with the first bombardments, when Ukraine claimed that it was Russian troops that were bombing the plant that they themselves controlled and from which kyiv also claimed that they were bombing Nikopol, there is no longer any need for justification. Far from the headlines, the Energodar bombings have become routine and the discourse is limited to Ukrainian demands and comments by Western proxies. A few weeks ago, in an interview, Grossi took for granted the creation of a security zone with the Russian handing over control of the plant, anothergesture of goodwill criticized in Russia, although for now it has not been confirmed. The Ukrainian objective is to achieve the handover of the plant, either to an international organization or directly to the Ukrainian troops, a concession that Russia cannot afford.

Meeting with the party that bombarded the meeting, the always optimistic Grossi highlighted the progress. Yesterday, after his meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal, he again spoke of progress in "discussions on nuclear safety and the creation of a security buffer zone around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant." Grossi, who admitted that he could not afford to "lose more time", was convinced that this security zone "will be agreed upon and will be implemented in the near future". The precedent of non-compliance with the agreements in this war, with the seven years of the Minsk process being the most flagrant case, makes that optimism questionable, especially considering that the use of nuclear danger by Ukraine does not only seek to get Russia to abandon the central, but to leave Energodar. There is no guarantee that handing over the plant to the IAEA or Energoatom would stop the bombing. kyiv also has eight years of experience when it comes to justifying its bombing by accusing the contrary of bombing itself.

However, it was not Grossi but Emmanuel Macron who went further. The French president announced that the coming weeks will be key to achieving the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the plant, a statement that has surprised Russia, which for several months has repeatedly stated that it does not have heavy weapons at the plant, something that can be verified. IAEA mission stationed in Energodar. The French president thus seems to be seeking a media victory, taking Russian concessions for granted, a new military withdrawal, which in reality is not. And to achieve this "victory", Macron and his allies, wrapped in the banner of defending the world from a nuclear incident, continue to protect and justify those who want to seek that security by increasing the level of danger to the point of making it unsustainable.

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Volodymyr Zelensky and Ethnopolitics
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 13, 2022
Thierry Meyssan

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President Zelensky has just been named by Time magazine “politician of the year 2022”. It is not to have realized his coup de force of July, in favor of the war. He had all the political parties that opposed him banned; assassinated the personalities who resisted him; controlled all the media, written, audiovisual and internet; banned the Russian language; destroyed 100 million books; confiscated many of the assets of the oligarchs, including the one who personally financed him; nationalized the assets of Russian investors and companies; and finally banned the Orthodox Church.

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has been named by Time Magazine as the “Person of the Year 2022”; an obvious choice, according to the magazine’s editors. Indeed, he embodies an infectious courage that has enabled his people to resist the Russian invasion.

However, in his country, power has gradually passed from his hands to those of his deputy chairman of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, since July 25. Zelensky is concentrating on his role as spokesman for the regime, leaving Danilov to prepare the decrees he signs. Together, the two men established a regime of terror.

On July 17 and 25, three members of the Council were dismissed for numerous acts of treason reported by the officials under their command:

the diplomat Ruslan Demchenko,
the childhood friend of Zelensky and the head of the security service, the SBU, Ivan Bakanov,
and Zelensky’s former legal adviser and general prosecutor of Ukraine, Irina Venediktova.
Speaking about those crucial days, Rinat Akhmetov, the richest man in Ukraine before the war, said that Zelensky had seized power, all power, under the guise of reform.

On August 26, Oleksiy Danilov revealed on the NTA channel that the Security and Defense Council had adopted a plan for the defense of the country in November 2021, that is, four months before the Russian military intervention. This document had been prepared since Zelensky rejected the plan for a Minsk-3 proposed by Paris on December 8-9, 2019. “It is a huge fundamental document that sets out the activities of all bodies without exception: who and how to act in a situation of martial law,” he said, September 7 in Left Bank.

ASSASSINATING POLITICAL OPPONENTS

Political assassinations are usually carried out by “mainstream nationalists” and not by government bodies. At any time, they can kidnap and disappear, or even execute political opponents directly in the street in full view of the public. The victims are primarily journalists and elected officials. This is not a new operation since these murders have punctuated the civil war since 2014.

One thinks of the deputy Oleg Kalashnikov, murdered with eleven bullets in the head on the doorstep of his house, in 2015. The police have never established, neither who carried out the assassination, nor who ordered it.

However, in some cases, they are the work of the SBU (security service). For example, the execution of the official negotiator, Denis Kireev, on his return from Kiev, where he had participated in contacts with Russia without success. He was killed in the street on March 6, 2022, because during the negotiations he had dared to mention the historical ties between Kiev and Moscow.

The political leaders do not publicly assume these acts, but encourage them. They say that the country must be “purified”. It is not a question of killing agents of the Russian Federation, but any bearer of Russian culture or anyone who recognizes the value of this culture.

The mayor of Kiev, boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, has commissioned the neo-Nazi group C-14 to hunt down and kill “saboteurs” among Ukrainians of Slavic origin.

Criminal proceedings have been initiated against former high-ranking state officials such as MP Yevhen Murayev, former Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, former Prime Minister Arseni Yatsenyuk, former Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Oleksandr Turchynov and former President Petro Poroshenko.

The SBU is henceforth arresting many civilians it accuses of collaborating with the Russians.

BANNING THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

While, according to the Minsk II Agreements (Art. 11, explanatory note [1]) of February 12, 2015, the Donbass regions were to be able to determine their own official language, Oleksiy Danilov declared on September 1, 2022: “It is they [the inhabitants of Donbass] who must find a common language with us, not we with them. We have borders, and if someone is not satisfied with the laws and rules that apply on the territory of our country, we do not hold anyone back.

On October 21, he was more specific: “The Russian language should disappear completely from our territory as an element of hostile propaganda and brainwashing for our population.

CONTROLLING THE MEDIA

Oleksiy Danilov, said on July 20, in the midst of the Security and Defense Council crisis, that many people who used to appear on television before the “Russian aggression”, no longer appear. “We do not know where they have gone. The SBU will make strong statements about them”. He accused them of reporting the Russian point of view: “Implanting these Russian stories here is a very, very dangerous thing. Apparently we should understand what they are. Look: we don’t need them. Let them leave us, let them go to their swamps and croak in their Russian language.

The Security and Defense Council had already placed all print and broadcast media under its surveillance. In addition, it had banned a hundred Telegram channels that it had labeled “pro-Russian.”

DESTROYING 100 MILLION RUSSIAN BOOKS

The Ukrainian Book Institute, which oversees all public libraries, was tasked on May 19, that is, before the Security and Defense Council crisis, with destroying 100 million books [2].

The aim was to destroy all books by Russian authors or printed in Russian or printed in Russia. In practice, a commission was appointed within the Verkhovna Rada to ensure the implementation of this intellectual purge. It turned out that the vast majority of books in the libraries were practical books on cooking, sewing, etc. They waited for a while before being removed. They waited for a while before they were plundered, with priority given to evil authors like Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy.

BANNING POLITICAL PARTIES

The 12 opposition political parties were banned, one by one. The latest one was sanctioned on October 22 [3]. Their elected representatives were dismissed.

Only the Transcarpathian oblast (close to Hungary) refuses to dismiss local representatives of banned political parties.

CONFISCATING THE PROPERTY OF OPPONENTS AND RUSSIANS

Since the end of February, the Ukrainian Agency for Asset Research and Management (ARMA), the European Union’s anti-corruption body, has seized assets worth more than 1.5 billion hryvnias, or $41 million dollars.

One by one, the oligarchs who own media outlets were forced to hand over their assets. This is a general plan to free the country from their influence. However, they still have the right to own other types of companies.

According to the Ukrainian law of 2021, oligarchs are the 86 citizens who have at least $80 million, participate in political life and have great influence on the media. According to Oleksiy Danilov, there should be no more oligarchs at the end of the war.

The Security and Defense Council decided on November 7 to nationalize factories belonging to oligarchs, including Igor Kolomoisky, the financier of Volodymyr Zelensky. They have been placed under the administration of the Ministry of Defence and should be “returned to the Ukrainian people” at the end of martial law.

This decision applies, among others, to the Ukrainian aircraft engine manufacturer Motor Sich, which was in dispute with Chinese investors before an arbitration court in The Hague (Beijing Skyrizon case). China, which claims 4.5 billion dollars, called the nationalization “theft”. According to Beijing: “Since 2020, the Ukrainian government has continuously created problems, blamed, repressed and persecuted Chinese investors without reason, and even imposed special economic sanctions without reason, with the intention of nationalizing Motor Sich PJSC by illegal means and shamelessly looting Chinese assets abroad.”

The Security and Defense Council on October 20 seized the assets of 4,000 Russian companies and individuals in the country.

This decision also applies to Ukrainian personalities who had settled in Russia before the war, such as singers Taisiya Povaliy, Ani Lorak, Anna Sedokova and television presenter Regina Todorenko.

BANNING THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine decided on December 1, 2022 to “prohibit religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence of the Russian Federation from operating in Ukraine,” President Zelensky announced when signing Decree 820/2022 [4].

The “State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience” was tasked with seizing the
Orthodox Church buildings under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Two weeks ago, the Ukrainian security service (SBU) violently searched a monastery, accusing popes of daring to describe Russia as the “Motherland.

President Zelensky believes that he respects Western human rights standards. Indeed, the European Court of Human Rights will no longer be able to register complaints from Russia since Moscow has left the Council of Europe.

CUTTING OFF ALL RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA

On October 4, President Zelensky signed a decree prohibiting any further negotiations with Russia.

On December 1, Oleksiy Danilov called for “the destruction of Russia. He clarified his statement as follows:

“They just need to be destroyed so that they cease to exist as a country, within the borders in which they now exist… They are just barbarians. And when you say that you have to sit at the same table with these barbarians and talk with them, I consider that unworthy of our people.”

Translation by Roger Lagassé

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... opolitics/

[youtube]https://youtu.be/U460dPmOJ_Y[/youtube]

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Artur Mankov died
December 15, 12:11

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Artur Mankov died

In the battles near Yakovlevka, while defending the people of Donbass, my friend and comrade from Tobolsk Artur Mankov died.
An ideological communist, a member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and a great friend of the National Bolsheviks, a volunteer and militia of the first wave of 2014, a fighter of the "Interbrigade".
Sleep well, brother, we will definitely win!

https://t.me/nezhurka/2854

Peace be upon you.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8032916.html

Free will for Odessa and Chernihiv
December 14, 14:06

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From the statements of the Kremlin.

1. No holiday truces (New Year or Christmas) can be expected.
2. The Special Military Operation will continue. At the current stage, the main focus of the SVO is the DPR and LPR.
3. Before the end of the year, Putin will hold a meeting with the leadership of 4 new regions of Russia.
4. Accession to Russia of Odessa and Chernigov is possible if such is the will of their inhabitants.


https://t.me/boris_rozhin/72762 (broadcast of hostilities in Ukraine, as usual, goes to TG, who are interested, subscribe)

Odessa and Chernihiv are certainly good. The main thing is to provide conditions for free expression of will, which means the liberation of these cities from Nazi occupation, so that people can freely make a choice, as we did in Sevastopol and Crimea.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8031248.html

Google Translator

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When False Claims Are News - Russia, India, Nukes

A few days ago a small news item about India and Russia was issued that made some anti-Russian/pro-Indian scribes very happy:

India’s Maddening Russia Policy Isn’t as Bad as Washington Thinks - Foreign Policy, Dec 9
India upholds the rules-based, Western-led international order—but in its own way.

Modi is also skipping an annual summit with Putin, reportedly over the latter’s threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.


That claim sounded strange to me. The author of the FP piece is Derek Grossman "a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp., an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, and a former daily intelligence briefer to the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs."

Hmm. The link he gives goes to a Bloomberg piece:

Modi to Skip Annual Putin Summit Over Ukraine Nuke Threats

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi won’t be holding an annual in-person summit with Vladimir Putin after the Russian president threatened to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The relationship between India and Russia remains strong but trumpeting the friendship at this point may not be beneficial for Modi, said a senior official with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.


Putin had never threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine or anywhere:

Note that Putin does not mention Russia's nuclear weapons. He instead empathizes that Russia has new 'different' weapons that are 'more modern' than those of the 'West'. He means hypersonic missiles which can avoid 'western' air defenses and hit decision centers in Brussels, London and Washington even without nuclear warheads.
...
All the war mongering talk and reports about Russia's alleged threat of nuclear weapon use in Ukraine is totally unfounded. That 'western' media suddenly engage in it shows that it is part of a well directed propaganda campaign.


It is an invention of U.S. propaganda. It is unlikely that the Indian government has fallen for it. So who then made Bloomberg replay that nonsense?

Note that while the Bloomberg report was written by its correspondent in India the nationality of its sources is not given. There are in fact two distinct sources: "people with knowledge of the matter" and "a senior official with knowledge of the matter". The 'nuclear' issue seems to have come from the first 'people' source while the 'official' second source only gives a general picture of Modi's potential motivation.

In an updated version of the piece, which kept the lede unchanged, Russian officials rejected the whole story:

“It won’t be this year,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of prospects for a Putin-Modi summit, the state-run Tass news service reported later Friday.
India’s decision was clear at a regional summit held in September in Uzbekistan, when Modi urged Putin to seek peace in Ukraine, said a Russian official familiar with the preparations, who asked not to be identified to discuss matters that aren’t public.


There had already been an Indian Russian summit at the side of the Uzbekistan meeting and no further summit was necessary.

In a Reuters piece an Indian source also rejected the claim:

No Modi-Putin summit this year after they met in September- Indian govt source

The government source, who declined to be named citing the sensitivity of the matter, said the decision not to hold a summit was taken much earlier and that the nuclear angle was not a factor.


Modi and Putin met on the sidelines of a regional security bloc summit in Uzbekistan in September and have spoken on the phone a number of times this year, including on the subject of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Indian Economic Times also debunked the Bloomberg claim:

India-Russia annual summit could not occur due to scheduling issues

The annual India Russia Summit could not happen this year due to scheduling issues, according to highly placed sources who dismissed reports of summit being postponed due to threat of nuclear war in Ukraine.
Sources dismissed Western media reports that Russian President's “nuclear threat” had any role to play in India-Russia Summit not happening in December.

The decision that the summit will not take place due to scheduling issues was taken months ago, sources said.

Relations between India and Russia are lively and excellent:

ET has learnt senior Russian functionaries could visit India in near future to discuss contours of the partnership. Last December the Russian President had travelled to India for the annual summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin had spoken several times over phone this year and the two met in Samarkand in September to give push to strategic partnership.

At the September meeting considerable time was devoted to Russian fertiliser exports to India to meet demands of local farmers.

Modi and Putin also discussed energy ties (oil & gas) besides coal, coking & other investments in each other’s country. The two leaders had also discussed predictability of supply of key commodities to India.

Later in November Foreign Minister S Jaishankar travelled to Moscow with a intra Ministerial delegation to push economic partnership. Earlier the NSA had travelled to Moscow with a intra Ministerial delegation to push economic partnership. Earlier the NSA had travelled to Moscow.


India had withstood Western huge to take sides in the Ukraine conflict and Russia is now India’s biggest oil supplier. Bilateral trade has jumped manifold this year.

The original Bloomberg claim is thereby completely debunked. But the piece is still up and without any correction. The "people with knowledge of the matter" it cited to inject the nuke stuff were likely either from the U.S. or Britain.

Neither the Indian nor the Russian side had planned for another summit this year. They have excellent relations and the nuke stuff was just outright nonsense.

That RAND experts, who write strategic plans for the Pentagon, fall for such obvious propaganda is dangerous.

Posted by b on December 13, 2022 at 16:44 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/12/h ... .html#more

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Sorry for my absence but I've been pretty sick. Expect to be back in the saddle in a few days
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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