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 Mar 24, 2023 12:30 pm

Avdeevka: the Donetsk front
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 03/24/2023

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Original Article: Dmitry Astrajan / Izvestia

From the positions it occupies in Avdeevka, the opponent fires hundreds of shells daily in the direction, for example, of Donetsk. In eight years, kyiv has turned this town into a fortress. Trenches have been dug and communication passages created between buildings and isolated areas, numerous cement fortifications and artillery positions have been built. Now, Russian units are systematically trying to hit the defenses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in this area in order to advance. Izvestia correspondents have visited the positions of the 1st Slavyansk Motorized Brigade of the Donetsk Army Corps to see with their own eyes how the battles in this direction take place and what role artillery coordination work plays.

“I have been traveling on this bird since 2014. I am sure that we will enter Avdeevka on him. There is very little left, a small barrier and we are there”, explains the mechanic and driver of the Gvozdika self-propelled artillery vehicle of the 1st Slavyansk brigade, with the nom de guerre Shustry and trying to talk about the sound of the engine running. "Niu York [Ukraine's name for Novgorodske] is already on the other side of the hill." The soldier brought the self-propelled gun to its firing position and while the personnel and journalists got out of the armored vehicle, he rested for a moment. Of course, there is also room inside, at least for the staff, but it is necessary to look at the sky, so they usually walk around the outside, leaning on their waists.

The fast and maneuverable Gvozdika self-propelled artillery is now supporting the offensive on Avdeevka with fire. For work safety, it is important to quickly get into the line of fire, get the job done, and get out just as quickly. Shustry maneuvers smoothly between the shell craters and burned debris from the explosions, positioning the vehicle exactly where it is needed between the mounds. It seems that the sunny weather has dried the floor and simplified the task, but things are not so simple. Visibility has improved and it is becoming easier for Ukrainian drones to detect vehicles. The counter-battery radars indicate the search area.

The personnel orients the vehicle and begins aiming the cannon. Grad rocket discharges are clearly audible on the other side of the mound, and flashes and flares are observed in the sky between earth and sun. Isto is not very good for us, because it draws extra attention to the area from which the shots are coming. But this section of the contact line is so narrow that it is not measured in kilometers but in buildings and structures. They go one after another; towns, industrial zones, more towns. This urban agglomeration seems to have no end. And every building is an obstacle. For example, one of the mines is a short distance away, and its ventilation shaft had until recently stayed in the enemy's fortified area. It has now been recaptured, but the battle continues in the adjacent buildings.

The cannon opens fire, rapidly firing four shells. By the time the cannon is fixed in the circular position, all personnel are already positioned on the armored vehicle, it is impossible to stay in this place.

“We have shot well, all the objectives that we have been given have been achieved”, Evgeny rejoices as he jumps out of the vehicle. He, like his driver, has been fighting since 2014 and has been a member of this unit since 2015. In addition to him, his family has one of his sons and two nephews in the war.

The vehicle starts and quickly leaves the positions. The unit commander, sitting in the front, suddenly points to something and warns the driver with a tap on the shoulder. There is a Ukrainian bird in the sky, a drone. The race begins. Considering that it is not a weaponized drone, it will be used to direct the artillery. That will take a while, especially against a moving target. In one fell swoop we jump onto the asphalt, where it will be possible to go at full speed. We stopped seeing the aerial enemy. The anti-aircraft defense begins to fire from their positions on the ground, a rocket goes out, then two more.

“Damage has been inflicted on the platoon's stronghold, undermining our progress in the direction of Avdeevka. The boys, the infantry, are doing a good job, they are advancing, they are trying. To support them, to give them the opportunity to take as much territory as possible while suffering the fewest casualties, it is necessary for the gunners to work at the highest level: precise aiming, speed, courage and audacity," explains Viktor, an artillery officer in the First Division. Brigade of the 1st Donetsk Army Corps.

Next to the shed where we chatted, the soldiers quickly load shells into the recently returned vehicle, which leaves for a new task. Viktor says that each combat unit makes up to thirty sorties a day to attack. Advancing requires constant fire support and the gunners try to meet that task.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/03/24/avdee ... more-26910

Google Translator

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PENTAGON ESTABLISHES A PERMANENT MILITARY GARRISON IN POLAND
23 Mar 2023 , 1:21 pm .

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The garrison in Poland is seen as a new US Army headquarters in the European country (Photo: Leonhard Foeger / Reuters)

On March 21, the first permanent US military garrison was inaugurated in Poland, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country that has the longest border with Ukraine, some 500 kilometers.

This execution comes amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine based on an order issued by President Joe Biden in 2022, as Russia continues its special military operation.

Since August 2020, with almost 10,000 US soldiers currently deployed there, the presence of Pentagon troops on Polish soil has not stopped growing.

Sputnik quotes the Polish Ministry of Defense on the targets of the US Army-Polish Garrison (USAG-P):

"His main task is to coordinate and supervise US ground forces in Europe, as well as deal with operational planning, cooperation and synchronization of the actions of US troops with the troops of other NATO countries."

From the Pentagon the garrison in Poland is considered as a new headquarters of the US army in the European country. Today there are a total of 13 US military bases in that Slavic country.

Apart from the USAG-P there are seven more on European soil:

Benelux , located in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Headquarters supports the international military community, including Supreme Headquarters, the Allied Powers, Europe and NATO.
Ansbach , located in the Franconian region of southwestern Germany.
Bavaria , made up of two facilities and two communities in Germany.
Rheinland-Pfalz , located in another area in the southwest of the same German country.
Stuttgart , made up of five facilities spread across that city's large metropolitan area.
Wiesbaden , home of the US Army Headquarters for Europe and Africa, serving 15 installations and residential areas in and around the German city.
Italy .

https://misionverdad.com/pentagono-esta ... en-polonia

Google Translator

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Hungary Rejects UK's Sending Depleted Uranium Shells To Kiev

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Head of the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office, Gergely Gulyas. Mar. 23, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@yasminalombaert

Published 23 March 2023 (14 hours 21 minutes ago)

Sending depleted uranium shells would not lead to a de-escalation of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Gergely Gulyas said.


The head of the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office, Gergely Gulyas, said Thursday that Budapest opposes the UK's decision to supply depleted uranium shells to Ukraine.

"Hungary does not support any action that could lead to an escalation of the war," Gulyas said in remarks to the press.

Sending depleted uranium shells would not lead to a de-escalation of the current conflict in Ukraine, the diplomat said, adding that Hungary does not recommend its use to anyone.

The Head of the Prime Minister's Office reaffirmed Hungary's commitment to stay out of the conflict. The European country is not involved in arms deliveries as it calls for a ceasefire and peace talks, Gulyas said.


Previously, UK Secretary of State for Defense Annabel Goldie announced the decision of the British authorities to send shells containing depleted uranium to Ukraine.

Such a move has been strongly opposed by Russia, with President Vladimir Putin warning that Moscow will respond accordingly as the West is beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Hun ... -0013.html

Western Sanctions Aim To Make Russian People Suffer: Mishustin

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Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. | Photo: Twitter/ @renemassmedia

Published 23 March 2023

The Prime Minister explained that the U.S. and its allies seek to bring down the Russian financial system.

On Thursday, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that Western sanctions against his country aim to make the Russian people suffer.

"The West insists that the sanctions are not aimed against our citizens. Now, even a person far from global politics understands that their main target is the Russian people," Mishustin said during his annual report to the Lower House (the Duma).

He explained that these sanctions seek to bring down the Russian financial system so that citizens cannot use bank cards and buy products from international businesses, which the West forced to withdraw from Russian territory.

“These coercive policies seek to cause mass unemployment, reduce the living standard, and block all economic activities in our country,” Mishustin pointed out, recalling that the U.S.-backed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) even blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines to reduce exports of Russian gas.


"The West always stresses the inviolability and sanctity of private property. However, it currently seizes our citizens' money only because they come from Russia," he highlighted.

Last year, analysts estimated that Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) would likely fall into double digits after the economic sanctions. The descent, however, was moderate.

"It has not been easy, but we have resisted," Mishustin stated, recalling that Russia had to take initiatives, such as expanding the use of national currencies with its partners in the Eurasian Economic Union (EUE), to counter the impact of sanctions.

"Some international organizations now predict that Russia will reach higher GDP growth rates than developed countries by 2024," the Prime Minister welcomed.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Wes ... -0011.html

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Paradoxes of Polandʼs Rise: Regional Integration & War
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 23, 2023
Ladislav Zemanek

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Polandʼs role in Central and Eastern European affairs has been strengthening. The country is a pillar of NATOʼs presence in the region and is among Washington’s closest allies. Its role has been further elevated in connection with the conflict in Ukraine, in which Warsaw has played an active part since the very beginning. Instead of escalating the war and deepening the divisions between Russia and Europe, the country could use its growth and potential to promote the development of European strategic autonomy, writes Valdai Club expert Ladislav Zemánek.

Warsaw has been one of the engines of Western assistance to Ukraine. The Polish Prime Minister―together with his Czech and Slovenian counterparts―paid a visit to Kiev less than three weeks after the launch of the special military operation, thus triggering an avalanche of these favourite tours of Western politicians to the Ukrainian capital. The conflict in the adjacent country has accelerated the implementation of the long-term priorities set by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party after it succeeded in gaining control of the domestic political scene in 2015. The National Security Strategy does not leave room for doubts. Russiaʼs “neo-imperial policy” must be resisted through the strengthening of NATO and EU capabilities, the deepening of transatlantic ties, as well as the further expansion of both organisations eastward. Warsaw wants to develop strategic cooperation with Washington while actively shaping the regional political, economic and military landscape through a variety of instruments.

Integrating the region militarily

The first of them is the Bucharest Nine (B9). This grouping was set up in 2015 to strengthen the security and military ties between the nine post-communist NATO countries stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, boost NATO’s military presence along its eastern flank, and promote the incorporation of other countries―originally Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, now also Finland and Sweden―into the alliance. The orientation of the initiative is obvious from the open US support. The B9 summits held in May 2021 and February 2023 were attended by Joe Biden. Warsaw, nevertheless, does not limit itself to the NATO members, for it tends to perceive the post-Soviet states from Transcaucasia to the Baltics as pertaining to its sphere of interest, which is to be rid of Russian influence. That is why Poland actively supports the Eastern Partnership, which was launched in 2009 to integrate these post-Soviet states into the EU. The European Peace Facility has delivered the security and military aspects of this initiative. At present, it provides financing to military operations in seven countries, including Ukraine.

The prospect of more post-Soviet countries joining NATO remains rather remote. However, it is not excluded that Poland, in conjunction with other CEE partners, could enhance joint military cooperation through such instruments as the B9, as well as bilateral or multilateral agreements similar to that between Azerbaijan and Türkiye (originally concluded in 2010, it is being expanded based on the 2021 Shusha Declaration), as well as forming joint units. Warsaw already has experience of such a kind. In 2009 Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine signed an agreement on the establishment of a joint brigade. Even though it took several years to make the unit operational, the structure exists and can serve as a model for military cooperation between NATO and non-NATO actors. Military integration in the region has been supplemented with political structures. In addition to the Interparliamentary Assembly, which was established in 2005, the Lublin Triangle was set up three years ago.

Revival of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?

The beginnings of the organisation were affected by the pandemic, so one can expect more activity from the development in the future. The three countries do not conceal that the Lublin Triangle draws upon the heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was once one of the largest empires in Europe. Polish influence expanded to the shores of the Black Sea, and King Sigismund was powerful enough to meddle in Moscowʼs affairs during the Time of Troubles and installed his son as tsar of Russia. These historical episodes of Polish expansionism may inspire the present ambitions, provoke culture wars in the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and other vulnerable countries, and destabilise the region. The Lublin Triangleʼs presidential summit, held in January in Lvov, declared the need for the conquest of Crimea and the Donbass, the admission of Ukraine to both the EU and NATO, as well as the establishment of an international tribunal for Russian “war criminals”. Warsaw used the summit to announce its decision to supply Kiev with Leopard tanks, which expanded the scope of military equipment provided by NATO allies.

The political and military collaboration within the Lublin Triangle, however, goes beyond its territory. It established ties with the opposition in Belarus. Svetlana Tikhanovskaia, as the head of the Coordination Council of Belarus (which gains increasing legitimacy among Western politicians), supports the inclusion of the country in the Lublin Triangle. Poland serves as a base of operations for the Association of Security Forces of Belarus, an organisation whose aim is to overthrow the Belarusian government and install a new cabinet led by Tikhanovskaia. All these activities are heading for the repetition of the tragic Ukrainian scenario. However, Western politicians should be aware that Belarus is not Ukraine; the country belongs to the Union State―and Moscow will hardly tolerate attempts to take control over this territory.

The fight for Trimarium

Last but not least, Polish representatives eagerly promote the Three Seas Initiative (3SI). The platform follows the interwar idea of the Trimarium in its bid for the integration of the space delimited by the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas. It could be a useful tool for the development of infrastructure and multifaceted regional interaction; however, such positive content has been pushed aside by geopolitical interests. Washingtonʼs support for the 3SI has been reaffirmed many times, starting from Donald Trumpʼs participation in the 2017 summit and ending with a 2020 resolution of the US House of Representatives. The document explicitly connected the 3SI with US national security, making a commitment to generous financial support to the project to counter Russian energy projects such as Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream, as well as Chinaʼs Belt & Road Initiative and 17+1 (which reduced to 14+1 in the meantime). The geopolitical dimension and incorporation of the 3SI into the US global strategy of containment, as well as the deterrence and encirclement of China and Russia devalue the positive potential of such an initiative. The role of the 3SI will likely grow since it is to be used for the integration of Ukraine into the transatlantic structures. Mateusz Morawiecki summed it up laconically: “There is no Three Seas without Ukraine.”

Poland aspires to become a regional hegemon with the strongest armed forces in continental Europe. Warsaw wants to have 300,000 troops by 2035, which would turn the country into a European military superpower. The Poles support pro-Western tendencies in the post-Soviet space, thus strengthening their role in the expansion of NATO and EU eastward. The Polish ambitions are used by Washington to militarise the CEE region and to press moderate actors in Europe such as Germany or France to join the campaign against Russia. Warsaw thus bears a great deal of responsibility for the growing division and animosity between Russia and Europe, and for the coma of the Europeansʼ strategic autonomy. Poland could play a much more constructive role if it focused on the development of strategic autonomy, including some form of European joint military. Warsaw’s dependence on its overseas ally will never allow Europe to grow into a self-confident actor living up to her own interests.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... ation-war/

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

forwarded from
War on fakes
2:06
Fake: The Russian Armed Forces launched a massive air and missile attack on the civilian population of one of the Ukrainian cities. The corresponding footage appeared on Twitter.

Truth: The video being circulated was edited from a video filmed in March 2003 of the US military launching cruise missile strikes on the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. More than 2,000 people died at the hands of the Americans. On the video frames, you can see a local landmark - the Swords of Cadisia, and the person who captured what is happening on camera clearly does not speak a language from the Slavic group.

It is noteworthy that Western sources (the fake is written in English) publish footage of American war crimes, passing them off as the actions of the RF Armed Forces.

***

Colonelcassad

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Frustrated offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Polozhsko-Orekhovsky direction

On March 23-24, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine planned to launch a counteroffensive in the Zaporozhye direction. According to the enemy's plan, the main blow was to fall on the Orekhovsky sector : a strike force was created in the city up to a reinforced battalion tactical group.

According to @ZSU_Hunter_2_0 , the command of the 58th Combined Arms Army of the RF Armed Forces decided to inflict massive fire damage on exposed enemy positions and warehouses. The offensive was thwarted before it even started.

From 21.00 to midnight on March 22, hotels and schools were hit in the city, which were used to accommodate personnel of both the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the recently formed assault brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine "Chervona Kalina" - in total, more than 20 targets were covered .

Several warehouses with ammunition, artillery shells, ATGMs, and equipment parking were put out of action.

Estimated losses of the enemy reach half a thousand people killed and wounded. The Internet was turned off in the city to prevent information leaks. The wounded are taken out through Zaliznichnoe towards Gulyaipole .

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the situation in the Artemovsky direction at 21.40 March 23, 2023, especially for the Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok channel :

1.
To the north-west of the city, battles continued for Orekhovo-Vasilyevka and Bogdanovka . Both settlements are still held by the enemy. Reinforcements are constantly transferred here at the expense of reserves taken from other directions.

2.
Khromovo is still held by the enemy, incl. due to reinforcements taken from the Kharkov direction . Roads through Khromovo- under constant artillery fire, it is possible to pass, but at risk. Part of the supply was rebuilt on primers. The slush has a significant impact on the supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine between Krasnoye and Khromovo .

3.
To the south of the city, fighting continues on the near approaches to Krasnoye and to the west of Kleshcheevka and Kurdyumovka . So far, ours have not been able to seriously enter Krasnoe , and the enemy, in turn, has not been able to throw ours away from Krasnoe in order to unblock the road. These efforts are expected to intensify in the near future.

4.
In the city itself, fighting continues in the southern part of the industrial zone of the AZOM plant, near the city center and in the southern quarters.
The pace of advancement is low due to the fierce resistance of the enemy, as Prigozhin once again pointed out today.

5.
The enemy grouping in Artemovsk reaches 15 thousand people, and the total number in the Artemovsky direction is 75-80 thousand people. And due to the transferred reserves, its number is increasing, including to the detriment of operations in the Kupyansky , Svatovsky and Krasnolimansky directions.

***

Colonelcassad

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The battle for Avdiivka
situation as of 20.00 March 23, 2023

🔻In the north of Avdiivka, soldiers of the 132nd separate guards motorized rifle brigade of the RF Armed Forces (formerly the 3rd Gorlovskaya brigade of the NM of the DPR) have advanced west of Novobakhmutovka in recent days , completely clearing the settlement from the presence of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

▪️South of Novobakhmutovka and northeast of Krasnogorovka, Russian units built on their success, knocking out Ukrainian formations from two strongholds. Now the Armed Forces of Ukraine hold positions in the forest belt near one of the sections of the H20 highway and are in a semi-encirclement.

🔻Positional battles near the railway continue northwest of Avdiivka. After the sortie of the RF Armed Forces in Petrovskoe (Stepovoye), the Armed Forces of Ukraine transferred reserves and forced the Russian military personnel out of the railway line. At the same time, the fighters of the RF Armed Forces expanded the zone of control along the railway.

🔻Mutual artillery shelling continues to the west and southwest. Servicemen of the RF Armed Forces are shelling the areas of concentration of Ukrainian formations in Lastochkino , Thin and Severny .

***

Colonelcassad
❗️🇬🇧🇺🇦 On preparations for landing on the left bank of the Dnieper

A few days ago, the White House announced the provision of a new package of military assistance to Ukraine, which included an unnamed amount of ammunition of various calibers, precision-guided missiles and uniforms, as well as river boats.

🔻Why is the specific number of transferred weapons not indicated?

If earlier the Americans indicated the exact number of shells and shots for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, now the situation is different. In the press releases of the White House and the Pentagon, only the type and name are present. To some extent, this may be due to the presence of problems in the production of ammunition - in the West , military-industrial capacities have been intensified to replenish stocks. And the lack of specific data is intended to hide the existing shortage.

At the same time, it is possible that in the United States they simply comply with the requirements of secrecy, saying only what the public needs to know. Each official announcement of a new package comes after a few weeks (sometimes months)after the actual transfer. However, thanks to such press releases, one can understand the immediate plans of the Ukrainian authorities, and the appearance of boats in the list is not accidental .

🔻Why were the boats handed over?

Boats are actively used by Ukrainian formations to force rivers and water barriers. They are agile, fast and have a large range. Depending on the type of boat, both the speed and the number of personnel transported vary.

The latest military aid package does not specify the type or quantity, so theoretically it could be absolutely any riverine boat type and in quite a large number.

🔻How will they be used?

Earlier, we wrote that before preparing for the main offensive, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are considering the scenario of conducting several false attacks on the left bank of the Dnieper to divert Russian troops and hinder their ability to maneuver and transfer to other sectors.

And the situation has not changed much since then. For the past few months, Ukrainian formations have been continuously conducting aerial reconnaissance from the Kinburn Spit to Energodar . In various parts of the left bank of the Dnieper, DRGs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are conducting sorties , just using small-sized boats.

A new batch in an unspecified amount will most likely be distributed among units near the Dnieper and the coast.Kakhovka reservoir . A little over a month ago, several boats were already delivered to the port of Kherson .

🔻That is, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are preparing for an operation on the left bank?

According to the characteristic signs, everything looks exactly like this. On the right bank from Ochakov to Nikopol there are up to 15 thousand people from various units of the regular army and the territorial defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In Bereznegovatoy , 63 OMBRs are being re-equipped, and in Mikhailovka , northwest of Nikolaev , the 22nd mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is being formed.

The activity of reconnaissance drones has increased along the Dnieper. At least two Scan Eagle UAVs operate from Ochakov on a permanent basis . Turkish UAVs "Bayraktar" are on patrol from the airfields of Kulbakino and Kanatovo .

Also, tactical planes and army aviation helicopters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fly daily along the Dnieper from the vicinity of Krivoy Rog and Voznesensk , and firing positions of the MLRS are also equipped. They conduct combined shelling of positions of the RF Armed Forces with unguided rockets and rockets.

🔻When will the attack be?

Western curators are driving the leadership of Ukraine into the offensive. The leaders of the NATO countries need to demonstrate the successes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and their weapons at the front. The offensive will most likely begin after the ground hardens and the armored vehicles can move freely.

On the eve of the assault, DRG sorties are activated in various areas, including in the Kherson region, to mislead and divert attention from the main direction.

Strikes on rear targets with high-precision weapons will resume, and engineering units will begin to prepare the area for the advance of troops and equipment. In addition, bridge layers for these purposes have already been delivered .

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***

Colonelcassad
NATO activity.

1. In Finland, patrolling of the airspace by NATO aircraft begins. This will certainly require further work to strengthen the northwestern borders of the country.

2. Repair of German 155-mm self-propelled guns will be transferred from the Baltic States to Slovakia in order to reduce the logistical shoulder and, accordingly, reduce the time required to repair damaged and broken howitzers (up to 50% of their losses are non-combat reasons).

3. Slovakia transferred 4 MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine. In total, it is planned to transfer 11 or 12. Well, Poland will also catch up there. Actually, the planes were delivered earlier, but now it is already open. It can be assumed that at least some of the machines will be adapted for the use of NATO missiles.

4. Also recently, Macedonia handed over to Ukraine 4 Su-25 attack aircraft in poor condition, which Ukraine once sold to Macedonia. Even such ones will do for Ukraine, since the fleet of its own attack aircraft is close to exhaustion, and the possibilities for cannibalization have also greatly decreased.

5. Ukrainian sources report receiving a large batch of drones from Taiwan, in addition to other purchases. As many have already realized, in the current realities, the front devours thousands, and requires tens of thousands of drones.
29

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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"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 Mar 25, 2023 1:00 pm

three scenarios
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 03/25/2023
Original article: Alexander Kots / Komsomolskaya Pravda

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“The offensive of the Ukrainian Army? There will be it for sure, do not doubt it ”, a commander of the Russian contingent delights me from his basement in the operational command. Commanding the units from the basement is the trend of the moment . Ours and the opponent's. The presence of high-precision and destructive weapons necessitates adjustments to command and control academic standards. Communications are deployed here, control of the territory is also carried out from this place and the drone operators are right there showing the images on the screens. Correction of artillery fire is carried out in real time. Seeing the flashes, one might think that this is the final in some kind of cybersport. But here are people dying. And that doesn't seem to bother our opponents.

“In fact, their mobilization is unlimited, they can afford it. So, if we destroy a company, a new one appears immediately”, explains my interlocutor. “They have established training in the rear, there is constant rotation in the front, it is rare that a unit is less than 90%. Even in equipment. They may be old armored vehicles and T-64s, or evacuation trucks, but everything the State needs is there. It is like this until the bulk of Western technology arrives, with which, by the way, Ukraine is forming up to three new shock corps. That's how they're going to go on offense."

Over the last couple of weeks, the Western press, which can be used to judge the mood of the potential opponent's political community, has displayed an uncharacteristic inconsistency. The Washington Post , for example, has called off the Ukrainian offensive, stating, in reference to a Ukrainian Armed Forces officer and other Ukrainian officers, that Kiev does not have such a capability. High losses, lack of experience among second-level commanders, an exhausted army corps…the US media described the problems in such a way that it was clear that there is definitely going to be an offensive.

In that sense, PoliticalHe added: "The United States is in a hurry to prepare Kiev for the spring offensive." The outlet talks about the casualties in Ukraine (estimated in Washington at "more than 100,000" [between dead and wounded]) and affirms that it is necessary to attack before mid-May. By the second half of April, the Ukrainian Armed Forces may have received more than a thousand armored vehicles, including a hundred tanks, more than 300 APCs, 250 infantry vehicles and around 400 vehicles. And that is only the beginning. The rest, including NATO 155mm ammunition, will be supplied to Ukraine by its allies under the arrangement. A total of 800 tanks have been promised, including 250 Western ones and the rest different model variations of the T-72s.

However, unlike last year, when the Kharkiv region offensive came as a surprise even to some military leaders, today everyone is aware of what is emanating from kyiv. The most dangerous directions are already clear.

Scenario number 1: blitzkrieg in Zaporozhye

Russian intelligence notes that, in the last month, Ukraine has begun to accumulate reserves in the Nikolaev, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions. Territorial battalions have been posted there, but also newly formed brigades. The most likely target of the next counteroffensive is Melitopol. It should be remembered that at the beginning of the year, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, in his epistle “On the prospects of the 2023 campaign” designated the capture of Crimea as the main goal of the period. To put it mildly, the task is ambitious. Russian troops will not allow it to approach the peninsula, but Zaluzhny could move combat operations, at least remotely, to Crimea (not through ground attacks, but with airstrikes or long-range weapons." . First of all, to imprison our “unsinkable aircraft carrier” as our main rear base on the southern front. For now, the Ukrainian Armed Forces can only inflict minimal damage in Crimea with the help of aerial and underwater drones, and the damage is more media than military.

kyiv also dreams of being able to destroy our headquarters, powder magazines and barracks on the peninsula. High-precision missiles are still only a promise for Ukraine and in order to use the weapons currently available to Ukrainian troops, they would have to get closer to Crimea, specifically to the isthmuses. And here we return to Melitopol. The city is located at a strategic crossroads. From here you can go to Berdiansk, the port on the Azov Sea, to Mariupol and to Genichesk, where the road to Crimea is. It is also possible to extend the bridgehead towards Kherson, isolating our group on the left bank of the Dnieper. It is no coincidence that in the last few days Ukrainian troops have carried out two reconnaissance missions towards Pologi, from where the highway to Tokmak is reached and later to Melitopol, the temporary capital of the Russian region of Zaporozhye. If the enemy is successful in Melitopol, our troops from the left bank in the Kherson region would have to withdraw to Perekop so as not to be cut off from the land corridor to the Crimea. What's more, this highway of life can quickly come under enemy control. This means that our grouping would be at risk of being surrounded. And if right now we can maintain skepticism about a Ukrainian attempt to launch an offensive by forcing the Dnieper, in the event of the fall of Melitopol, the threat will be obvious.

As they say, paper can handle anything. Two Ukrainian attempts to conduct combat reconnaissance in the Zaporozhye region have ended in defeat, dozens dead, equipment burned and left in the mud. Moreover, the Russian defense in this direction has shown the ability to repel unexpected attacks and also the desire to do so.

Ukraine will have to move in a southerly direction across the steppe, that is, in the open field. And if your troops have already suffered organized into two company-sized tactical groups, the largest artillery formations will become an indispensable target. Furthermore, I myself have seen the powerful defensive structures built by professional builders in these areas: from concrete barriers to anti-tank barriers and a whole network of trenches, sheds and fortified firing points. Overcoming them is not the same as entering an abandoned city without a fight.

Scenario number 2: breakthrough in Svatovo

Another dangerous direction for the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has already received the unofficial name of the Svatovo border. This is the northern part of the Lugansk region, the north-south line from Troitskoe to Kremennaya with Svatovo in the center. Last year, after the withdrawal of our troops from the Kharkiv region and the abandonment of Kupyansk, the enemy concentrated its forces in this city. In fact, it was possible to stabilize the front along this road only thanks to the reinforcements that arrived in the form of mobilized conscripts. Two factors have accompanied success here. On the one hand, the combat potential of the recruits has been increased: the assault units are mainly made up of soldiers mobilized last fall. On the other, for political reasons,

But that does not mean that kyiv has abandoned its plans. After all, with a strike towards Svatovo, he has a chance to advance towards Starobelsk bypassing Rubezhnoe. A simultaneous attack from Kupyansk, Krasny Liman and Seversk (if it remains under Ukrainian control in May) cannot be ruled out either. In that case, the Lisichansk-Severodonetsk agglomeration may be surrounded.

In principle, after the well-known development of events on the Kharkiv front and the loss of Krasny Liman, the enemy pursued this goal. It was possible to prevent that plan only thanks to the heroic efforts of our units, which at that time survived, not thanks to, but despite. Currently, the situation is different. In Svatovo and beyond, in the rear of the Luhansk People's Republic, a staggered defense has been built, the same as in the southern direction.

The initiative is now on the side of our military, who have learned to attack based on defending themselves. The ratio of forces here is now 1:1. The enemy is systematically testing our line of defense for weak spots, but hasn't found them yet. However, in case of transfer of reserves with new brigades equipped with Western equipment, it will be difficult. Much of the result will depend on the work of our artillery and consequently on our military industry, which should supply the gods of war with ammunition.

Scenario 3: the Mariupol adventure

There are two types of hawks in kyiv: the military and the political camp. With the “Artyomovsk carnage”, we see that decisions are made by the political wing led by Zelensky. In general, their propaganda objectives differ from strategic ones. The military wing, on the contrary, instead of senselessly destroying its reserves in a doomed city, would like to withdraw units to the next line of defense, as the Russian command did last fall making a bitter but necessary decision to withdraw from the right bank of the Dnieper.

In kyiv another political decision is now being discussed and Vladimir Putin's visit to Mariupol will surely make him have more followers. It would be an attack from Zaporozhye and Dnipropetrovsk through Ugledar and Volnovaja towards Mariupol. From a media point of view, the idea is a sure win as long as it is left for later to figure out how to justify another Azovstal. But you also have to be prepared for suicide attacks.

the ukrainian army

With what forces will Ukraine attack? It is known that currently, thanks to Western equipment and weapons, three shock corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with six brigades each are being created. A mechanized brigade has 4,5000-5000 troops. A simple mathematical operation gives the calculation of 100,000 people. Obviously, not all of them are going to attack. That reserve includes air defense, communications, support and medicine. Subtracting those who will not go to the first line, there are 20,000 left for each direction. By the way, in his “treaty”, Zaluzhny wrote that he needs only 60,000 people to capture the Crimea.

The assault corps will become an armored fist with high-precision artillery support and attack drones designed to break through the gaps in our defense so that the main forces can break through, expanding the bridgehead. In total, kyiv has 600,000 armed people today. Ukraine can afford to keep a serious reserve in the rear, which means that there is a possibility of an offensive in two directions - south and east. Depending on the success of any of them, the Ukrainian command would transfer reinforcements there in search of their victory.

“Something tells me they won't be able to catastrophically break through our defenses,” explains my friend, a combat officer. “It is possible that they can open a gap of a few kilometers somewhere, but nothing more. And, of course, they will suffer heavy casualties. And when the attackers run out of tanks and ammunition, the front will freeze for a moment. There will be no forces for further actions. And that will be a good window of opportunity for our counterattack against an exhausted enemy. If we quickly form several corps, we will have a chance to deliver an unpleasant surprise to Ukraine and the West this year.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/03/25/26917/#more-26917

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Why Britain’s Uranium Ammo Decision a Big Deal
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 24, 2023
Scott Ritter

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The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense announced that it would be sending anti-tank ammunition for the Challenger 2 tanks being delivered to Ukraine that contain depleted uranium.

According to the British MoD, depleted uranium, or DU, “is a standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons,” adding that “The British Army has used DU in its armor piercing shells for decades,” the statement added. Moreover, the ministry stated, “Independent research by scientists from groups such as the Royal Society has assessed that any impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be low,” declaring that “Russia knows this.”

For its part, Russia—which has always opposed the introduction of any uranium-derived weapons into the Ukraine conflict, responded with harsh words of censure and warning. “If all this happens,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “Russia will have to respond accordingly, given that the west collectively is already beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component.” The Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, likewise noted that, thanks to the British actions, there were now fewer steps left before a potential “nuclear collision” between Russia and the west.

The toxicity of depleted uranium ammunition used on the battlefield remains an issue of some dispute. In 1999, NATO fired some 30,000 rounds of depleted uranium munitions in Kosovo as part of the military intervention in Kosovo (KFOR). According to Lt. Col Alexander Willing, a KFOR spokesman, “NATO’s use of DU in the Kosovo conflict did not cause any continuing health risk and therefore no further action was required on our part,” he wrote.

The KFOR/NATO position is backed up by an assessment conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which concluded that “There was no detectable, widespread contamination of the ground surface by depleted uranium. This means that any widespread contamination is present in such low levels that it cannot be detected or differentiated from the natural uranium concentration found in rocks and soil. The corresponding radiological and toxicological risks are insignificant and even non-existent.”

The KFOR/NATO/IAEA reports, however, were contradicted by a study published by the National Institute of Health regarding an increase in hematological malignancies (HM) in Kosovo that appear to be linked with DU exposure. This report stated that the “incidence of HM increased by 3.19/100,000 persons (82%)” in regions where the use of DU ammunition was high.

“Despite these findings,” the report concluded, “this study warrants further investigation and does not lead us to a conclusive finding on the existence of a causal relationship between the use of DU during the war and the rise in incidence of HM in Kosovo.”

The same cannot be said about the use of DU munitions by the United States in Iraq. Human Rights Now (HRN), a Japan-based non-governmental organization, performed an independent analysis of the impact DU had on the civilian population of the city of Fallujah, the scene of heavy combat involving US forces who employed DU munitions. According to the HRN report, “an extraordinary situation of congenital birth defects” were detected “in both nature and quantity. The report concluded that the presence of DU in the environment resulting from combat “may be playing a significant role in the observed rate of birth defects.”

The US military itself points to the potential health hazard posed by exposure to DU. says depleted uranium ammunition is safe, for the most part. “When fired, or after ‘cooking off’ in fires or explosions, the exposed depleted uranium rod poses an extremely low radiological threat as long as it remains outside the body,” the US Military Health Agency notes. “Taken into the body via metal fragments or dust-like particles, depleted uranium may pose a long-term health hazard to personnel if the amount is large. However, the amount which remains in the body depends on a number of factors, including the amount inhaled or ingested, the particle size and the ability of the particles to dissolve in body fluids.”

Concerns about the toxicity of DU has led the Pentagon to announce that the US would not be providing DU ammunition to Ukraine.

There has been some effort by the Western media to paint Russia as somewhat hypocritical in its approach to the use of depleted uranium in its own anti-tank ammunition. While the Soviet Army did, in fact, make use of depleted uranium penetrators in certain types of anti-tank ammunition, it has been the practice of the Russian Army to remove these weapons from its inventory, something that was accomplished in the early 2000’s. However, some media outlets have published claims that the new Svinets-2 (3BM-60) round, employed on the new T-90 tank, uses a DU penetrator.

This is apparently a false claim. According to Rybar, an online analytical service, “the Svinets-2 has a tungsten alloy core that, together with the 4Zh96 Ozon-T charge, provides about 700 mm (27 in) of right-angle penetration through solid steel at 2 km. The projectile’s 740-mm length allows it to be used only in newer T-90A, T-90M, T72B3 and T80BVM tanks.”

That Russia has taken a principled stand about the use of DU as a weapon underscores the fact that its stance regarding the introduction of DU into Ukraine by the UK is not merely a political show, but a national security reality, and that Russian warning regarding the consequences of such actions should be treated with all seriousness.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/QGurLDVqkIY[/youtube]

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... -big-deal/

The US’ Rejection of China’s Peace Plan for Ukraine Exposes its Warmongering Intentions
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 24, 2023
Andrew Korybko

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By rejecting Beijing’s 12-step proposal, Washington exposed its warmongering intentions for the rest of the world to see and vindicated Moscow’s criticism that it wants to fight this proxy war “to the last Ukrainian”. The majority of the international community that resides in the Global South and which is most adversely affected by the systemic consequences of this conflict, particularly the food and fuel crises catalyzed by Western sanctions, had their perceptions of US soft power shattered once and for all.

Bloomberg cited an unnamed Biden Administration official on Thursday to report that “the US is worried about being backed into a corner over the Chinese proposal. Regardless of the US reservations, dismissing it outright could let China argue to other nations that are weary of the war — and of the economic damage it’s wreaking — that Washington isn’t interested in peace.” Alas, that’s precisely what America has done by acting as if China isn’t a serious mediator and that its peace plan is unrealistic.

By rejecting Beijing’s 12-step proposal, Washington exposed its warmongering intentions for the rest of the world to see and vindicated Moscow’s criticism that it wants to fight this proxy war “to the last Ukrainian”. The majority of the international community that resides in the Global South and which is most adversely affected by the systemic consequences of this conflict, particularly the food and fuel crises catalyzed by Western sanctions, had their perceptions of US soft power shattered once and for all.

Prior to the onset of Russia’s special operation last year that it was forced to commence in defense of its national security red lines in Ukraine after NATO clandestinely crossed them there, a significant share of folks in developing countries still generally had a favorable view of that declining unipolar hegemon. They might not have endorsed every one of its foreign policy moves, but these people still thought that its worldview had some redeeming factors that made it worthy of being listened to at the very least.

The allure of its soft power, particularly in the socio-cultural sphere as propagated by the mass media over the decades, still had a powerful hold over their hearts and minds. Now, however, these same people are directly suffering from the food and fuel crises catalyzed by the West’s unilateral sanctions. To make matters worse, the US signaled through its rejection of China’s peace plan for Ukraine that relief won’t be forthcoming, thus indefinitely perpetuating and thus exacerbating these problems.

It’s one thing for US-inclined folks in the Global South who’ve fallen under the sway of its soft power to oppose some part of its foreign policy regarding a faraway country and another entirely for that same foreign policy to directly affect them and their family. They might still enjoy consuming some of its socio-cultural products and perhaps still cling to believing in the so-called “American Dream” despite the odds of them ever benefiting from it, but their views of the US as a whole will certainly change.

This rapidly emerging outcome represents a latent crisis of the highest importance for the US’ grand strategic interests since the loss of such a critical mass of supporters will hamstring its goals across the Global South. These same people will be less susceptible to its information warfare products against their multipolar governments, thus reducing the chances that forthcoming Color Revolution plots will succeed, to say nothing of them tuning out the US’ fake news about the Sino-Russo Entente.

The combination of hunger pains and rising costs, which are the direct result of the food and fuel crises respectively that the US’ unilateral sanctions are responsible for, can turn anyone against anything even if they were previously the most fervent of believers. This is especially so when it worsens the living conditions of one’s own family, including their children. The arrogance of American policymakers, deluded by the supremacist belief in their system’s supposed “exceptionalism”, blinds them to this.

The aforesaid oversight, which could easily have been foreseen and thus avoided had groupthink not been in effect, is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and turned the Global South against the US en masse. There’s now no credible possibility of America advancing its interests there by information warfare-driven attraction ever again, thus leading to it doubling down on subversion and force out of desperation instead of accepting the loss of its influence in those countries.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... ntentions/

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EUROPEAN CITIZENS ARE THE FIRST VICTIMS OF NATO POLICIES
Mar 24, 2023 , 12:27 p.m.

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Who will be affected by the consequences of NATO's provocations in Eastern Europe if the conflict escalates throughout the region? (Photo: Getty Images)

It is not necessary to carry out a very deep analysis to realize that, in a war, the worst consequences are suffered by the citizens who, without being part of the conflict, are dragged by the stampede of events. A brief tour of the countries of Western Europe today is enough to note the brutal consequences of the war in Ukraine and the decision to support the military adventure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the eastern part of the continent.

The increase in fuel, the increase in the cost of goods and services, as well as failures in the supply chains, among others, derive directly from the warmongering policies of the Atlantic organization, which fall on the European population.

TOGETHER BUT NOT MIXED
It should be clarified that, above common objectives and full subordination to the interests of the United States, NATO and the European Union (EU) have different visions in terms of decision-making, so the relationship is not always it is harmonious. This goes beyond the fact that one has a military orientation and the other a political one. In addition, it must be clarified that not all the countries of one organization are part of the other, and vice versa.

"At its core, the NATO-EU relationship is not about the division of labor but about the coexistence of two different models for organizing defense in Europe," says Hanna Ojanen, director of research at the University's School of Business and Management. of Tampere, Finland, while suggesting that both organizations should work more closely.

The EU is a political platform and, to a large extent, a supranational entity. Meanwhile, NATO's strength is its military experience, but the biggest difference with respect to the EU is the transatlantic aspect since the United States, the largest partner, participates, which also defines the organization's war agenda.

Within the framework of the war in Ukraine, both organizations, with feigned complacency, launched a new joint statement . The message was clear: Maintain the facade of unity and transatlantic solidarity in the face of the challenge of confronting Russia.

What must not be denied is the indisputable complementarity in the current situation. The EU applies heavy "sanctions" packages and financial resources while NATO moves in and encircles Russia militarily. But complementarity does not equal cooperation, it must be clarified.

NATO AS A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE
Recently, in this rostrum we talked about how NATO and its military-industrial complex operate under business logic, so it was naive to think that their main interest in the current conflict lay in defending the Ukrainians.

On the other hand, it should be noted that its operational nature prevents it from bearing the repercussions of its actions. This means that, being a strictly defense entity, it does not have to deal with the pressure of having to find answers and solutions to social demands. EU politicians and governments have to take charge of resolving their wrongs.

For example, who will be affected by the circumstances arising from the NATO provocations in Eastern Europe if the conflict escalates throughout the region? It is likely that they are the European civilians. But the organization does not know the limits and continues to provoke Russia with approaches by military aircraft, tests like those it has already carried out along the western borders of the Eurasian country for a long time.

THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES
Letting go of Russian energy, contraction caused by uncertainty, de-industrialization and the imposition of arbitrary regulations to reduce energy consumption are burdens imposed on European citizens after the war.

Due to extension limitations, it is difficult to systematize the impacts generated, for each European country, by the economic shock associated with the conflict in Ukraine. However, they are all determined by three underlying factors: Russia's energy dependency, Russia's importance as an export market, and the rise in commodity imports over real income.

Before the war Europe depended on 40% of natural gas and coal, in addition to about 70% of oil and derivatives, from the Eurasian giant. Any change in this dynamic was obviously going to hit the population.

The most important channel of transmission of the economic effects of the crisis in Ukraine to other countries has been the strong increase in prices in the international energy markets, but also in essential raw materials, cereals and certain metals necessary for industries.

Spain , for example, since February 2022 has experienced a rise in the prices of some raw materials such as oil and natural gas. The direct consequences were the shortage of products such as fertilizers, sunflower oil or certain cereals. Tourism also fell; the country is visited by many Russian travelers and one of the measures was the ban on the entry of citizens from that country. If the economy was already stagnant due to the effects of the pandemic, everything has gotten worse since the war.

In the case of Germany, which was projected as the paradise of economic and industrial development in Europe, there are also serious effects and collateral damage that directly impact the population. There has also been strong inflation, but what weighs the most is the systematic deindustrialization since the conflict began. With the increase in fuel, since it depended on cheap Russian energy, many companies have had to announce their bankruptcy or the cessation of activities, including some with a long tradition that had been in operation for more than 100 years. With the closure of companies, the obvious thing is that unemployment will increase.

"Of course the consequences of the current crisis are felt directly," Markus Grabka, a senior researcher at the German Institute for Economic Research, tells DW . "Low-income households are hit harder by energy costs than middle- and high-income households."

Although the cases mentioned above do not capture the entire European panorama, they do serve to succinctly illustrate the consequences of the decisions taken by NATO and the EU. NATO's policies are the origin of the responsibility that falls on the establishment politicians , vassals of the logic of the organization led by the United States, who have to take charge of the massive protests that can already be seen far and wide. from the entire European continent. The French case radiates in this sense.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/lo ... de-la-otan

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Russia Warns Ukraine Over Crimea "A Threat To State Existence"

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Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev. Mar. 24, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@GonestAlbert

Published 24 March 2023 (13 hours 37 minutes ago)

According to Dmitry Medvedev, Ukraine's claims to retake the peninsula are propaganda.


Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev warned on Friday that any attempt by Ukraine to retake the Crimean peninsula would trigger a Russian response resorting to any means.

"An attempt to split off a part of the state would be tantamount to usurpation of the existence of the state itself," Medvedev told Russian media.

In this regard, the Russian diplomat said that an attempt to retake Crimea "will serve as a basis for the use of all means of protection, including those provided by the basic doctrine of nuclear deterrence, when the use of any kind of weapons against Russia poses a threat to the existence of the state as such."

However, Medvedev said that Ukraine's claims about retaking the peninsula are "propaganda." "This is propaganda and should be treated as such. It is always seen in times of war," the deputy chairman said.


The former Russian president also brought up NATO's constant pumping of weaponry into Ukraine, which toughens the ongoing conflict. Likewise, Medvedev warned about the North Atlantic alliance's injections of money into Kiev increasing the risk of a nuclear confrontation.

In the face of growing hostility from the West, the diplomat recalled Russia's interest in a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine.

In 2014, Crimea became part of Russia following an overwhelming vote by the local population in favor of joining after a Western-backed coup in Kiev.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Rus ... -0015.html
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Sun Mar 26, 2023 11:56 am

destruction and reconstruction
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 03/26/2023

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Despite the fact that a large part of the political and media agenda around the war in Ukraine is currently focused on the preparation of the offensive with which Kiev wants to definitively win the initiative on the front, create a turning point and impose its will on Moscow, the consequences of the war and the subsequent need for extensive reconstruction work are also a factor to be taken into account. The idea that Russia is guilty and Moscow has to bear full responsibility for a conflict that began when Ukraine sent troops instead of using dialogue in the summer of 2014 has become so ingrained in the collective consciousness of Western societies that Kiev no longer needs to be excused for have laid the foundations for what has happened over the past nine years. What's more, the war in Donbass has already been so forgotten that Kiev is aware that it has not had and will not have to answer for its actions during the almost eight years of war or for the seven years of the Minsk process, in which, as he now openly admits, he never had the intention of implementing the agreements he signed solely and exclusively to buy time and avoid his military defeat.

In this way, it is not surprising that articles dedicated to demanding that Russia take charge of the reconstruction of Ukraine have proliferated in recent weeks. “Support Grows for Making Russia Pay for Ukraine Reconstruction,” The New York Times wrote this week.in reference to the movement that seeks to use the Russian reserves confiscated by Western banks to pay for a reconstruction in which Ukraine is going to try to achieve, not only recover its infrastructure destroyed by the war, but also finance the renovation of everything that it did not do over time. throughout the first thirty years of the market economy. It is to be assumed that the 411,000 million dollars in which the reconstruction of Ukraine has been valued this week also includes the destruction caused in Donbass by the bombardments of all these years by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and that would have to be paid for by the Russian Federation.

So far, the idea of ​​using those confiscated and frozen Russian reserves in the West for Ukrainian use, as kyiv has been demanding since those funds were requisitioned, has caused great reluctance. For starters, it would set a precedent that could lead not only to reprisals, but to future surprises. On the one hand, the delivery of those Russian funds to Ukraine would force Russia to take action. Moscow would not have the possibility of responding with similar measures, although it would have the option of seizing Western funds and assets that still remain in the country. The risk to Western companies, facilities or assets in Russia in that case would be obvious. The departure of Western companies from the Russian Federation, an important and large market for them for three decades, can be explained in this way. Beyond the stigma or negative publicity that a brand's refusal to abandon a lucrative market for moral reasons may entail, the risk that the response to hostile economic actions from the West could affect them may more coherently explain the exodus of Western companies and the sale of assets at prices well below market prices.

On the other hand, the seizure of Russian assets and their delivery to a third country would set a precedent with uncertain consequences for the future for those countries that agreed to participate. As recent decades have shown, the West is not exempt from carrying out acts of aggression against those countries and enemies that it deems appropriate to attack. The war in Ukraine has caused a whole series of consequences for Russia that were not even raised, for example, during the Iraq war. American, British, Spanish or Polish assets (among other countries that participated in the war of aggression led by Washington) were not frozen, their citizens were not harmed when making international trips, their products were not banned, its banks were not disconnected from international payment systems and no one considered that its athletes could be deprived, not only of using their national flags in the competitions in which they participated, but also of competing in international events. It is not to be expected that the next aggressive war by the United States or its allies will have similar consequences. For the moment, theThe rules-based international order that the West claims to be defending by arming and financing Ukraine in the war against Russia implies that it is the United States and its allies who pull the strings and impose their rules in such a way that they do not apply to their actions, but are relentless with those of their opponents.

In the case of economic aspects, the different countries must be aware of the risk involved in participating in what would ultimately be the appropriation of public and private funds in terms of future similar situations in which those countries were considered aggressors. Until now, the hegemony of the United States and its allies and the centrality of the dollar as the world's economic base have guaranteed a control of global financial institutions that need not be maintained in the future, especially with the rise of countries like China and the attempt of Washington to once again impose a policy of blocs. Nothing indicates for the moment that Beijing's intentions include a voluntary return to Cold War policies. However, US pressure in the region that it now calls the Indo-Pacific, that is, in Asia, precisely in search of containing China and imposing this closure of the ranks of the Western bloc may end up pushing Beijing to act more firmly against the West. While it is in China's interest to continue the current trend of openness and trade, Western sanctions and threats may end up hindering that trend. In this context of growing tensions and reformulation of bloc policy, at least by the West, a precedent such as the seizure of Russian assets to be delivered to Ukraine must necessarily be considered dangerous by countries like China.

However, there are already two known precedents that have occurred in recent years: the seizure of Venezuela's gold reserves by the United Kingdom as a result of the British recognition of Juan Guaidó as interim presidentof Venezuela and the US appropriation of the assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan with the fall of Kabul in 2021. On both occasions, as would also have to happen in the case of Russian assets, the West took advantage of its position of force at the command of the international financial system and its power in the face of the weakness of these two opponents. Although the economic weight of Russia in the world economy cannot be compared to that of the United States or China, the qualitative leap that the economic punishments of Venezuela or Afghanistan represent is evident. The Russian Federation is, after all, one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, an aspect that cannot fail to worry countries like China.

Beyond the political and economic consequences that the transfer to Ukraine of all or part of the Russian assets frozen in the West could entail, the idea of ​​using these Russian funds for the reconstruction of the country shows the Western will to maintain political and globally and also to make only one party bear the consequences of something caused by the actions of more actors. The United States and the European Union are willing to maintain, on the basis of subsidies and credits that will never be repaid, the fiction that there is still a Ukrainian economy and have proven to be up to the task when it comes to financing the war. A war that could have been stopped by complying with the Minsk agreements and security guarantees for Ukraine outside of NATO before February 24, 2022 or after the bilateral negotiations in March of that year. In both cases, he prioritized the Ukrainian interest of not stopping the war if that meant admitting the loss of those territories whose population chose to leave Ukraine. Preventing the level of death and destruction from rising was not a determining factor either before the Russian invasion or at the only time when the parties directly negotiated peace terms. The consequence of the breakdown of negotiations led to the continuation and worsening of the war, which could become even more destructive in the face of a Ukrainian offensive that threatens regions where major fighting has not yet taken place, with the consequent increase in reconstruction needs and costs. A reconstruction in which Western countries and companies hope to profit by making Russia bear the responsibility for a war that did not start, but has not been able to stop either.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/03/26/26926/#more-26926

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NATO countries covered 94% of Kyiv's military spending in 2022
March 25, 20:30

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NATO countries covered 94% of Kyiv's military spending in 2022

Ukraine's military spending in 2022 reached $73 billion, or 50% of GDP, Ravenstvo calculated according to the Ministry of Finance. The country has become one of the most militarized in the world in 30 years.

Of these, military budget spending in 2022 was $37 billion ( https://mof.gov.ua/uk/budget_2022-538 ). NATO countries have allocated $32.4 billion to Ukraine ( https://mof.gov.ua/uk/news/ukraines_sta ... e_war-3435 ), of which $14.9 billion are gratuitous transfers, and $17.5 billion are external loans (under essences are also free). External funding almost completely coincided with the increase in the budget of Ukraine in 2022 (by $29 billion) and the increase in military budget spending in particular (by $31 billion). In other words, the West almost completely paid for the war.

The second part of military needs is the direct supply of weapons by the West. At the end of January 2023, they reached $69 billion ( https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/da ... ata-17410/ ), according to the Kiel Institute. Of these, weapons were actually transferred in 2022 for $36 billion.

The total military spending of Ukraine in 2022 reached $73.1 billion (50.5% of GDP). 94% of them are covered by the West. The estimate is still underestimated, because does not include mercenary activity.

Ukraine has become one of the most militarized in 30 years. For comparison: in Iraq in 2020, military spending was 6% of GDP, in Afghanistan - 11%, in Libya in 2014 - 16%, according to ( https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL .XPND.GD.ZS ) SIPRI.

2021 - $8.6 billion (4.3% of GDP)
2022 - $73 billion (50%)
2023 - $55 billion (36%)

In 2023, the total military spending will be the same, although so far lesser amounts have been provided - $55 billion (36% of GDP). Of these, arms deliveries are declared at $33 billion. Defense budget expenditures in 2023 are prescribed ( https://mof.gov.ua/uk/budget_2023-582 ) in the amount of $21.7 billion, but will be higher (spending in Jan. already $3.6 billion). They will also be covered by external financing ($33 billion).

The military spending of the Russian Federation in 2022 was $98 billion, but only a part went to military operations in the Donbass. Their growth for the year was $32 billion, while Ukraine's was $65 billion. If we assume that this growth reflects the forces at the front, then the RF Armed Forces not only have no advantage there, but in many respects they are inferior to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (the difference in the number of troops is 400 against 700 ( https://ria.ru/20220708/vsu-1801307373.html) thousand people). This makes Kyiv's upcoming counteroffensive extremely dangerous.

@ravenstvomedia - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8250800.html

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How Zelensky was Prevented From Making Peace in the Donbas
By Felix Abt - March 24, 2023 3

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Until recently, Ukraine’s Azov Battalion used Nazi symbols, as seen in this picture, but dropped them after being mentioned by “Russian propaganda and disinformation,” as Azov complained. The Western-backed military organization has since changed its appearance, but not its Russophobic and racist Nazi ideology. [Source: monomakhos.com]

A true story censored by the media bubble

There are two Volodymyr Zelenskys: the one we have known since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, who has since been celebrated every day in the Western media as a hero with a spotless white (or green) vest; the other, who was less well-known prior to this significant escalation of the war, which, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, began in 2014. (Here are details on the actual start of this war in 2014).

After all, prominent British, German and other European media already referred to the “Panama” or ”Pandora Papers” to describe the “former” Zelensky, who was not yet the illustrious governor of the American empire, as being highly corrupt. His hero status may abruptly end though, if and when Washington decides that he is no longer useful (e.g., when war results do not meet expectations despite massive NATO support and involvement) and the media start digging for dirt on him again. Wanna bet?

What the same media bubble fails to mention, however, is that Zelensky was elected to office with a large majority of the votes, with massive financial support from the richest Ukrainian oligarch at the time (who had stolen huge sums of money and was therefore banned from entering the United States) and with the promise of bringing peace to the Donbas. It may surprise you—but he actually tried.

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Before the Storm: Zelensky celebrating his election victory in 2019. [Source: scmp.com]

Zelensky’s original peace mission

His plan probably also had to do with the fact that he, the president of Jewish faith and Russian mother tongue, himself belonged to the minority. He learned fluent Ukrainian only late, when it became politically unavoidable for him.

Long before he became president, he had campaigned as a comedian against discrimination of the Russian-speaking minority. For example, in a 2014 television appearance, he declared, “In the east and in Crimea, people want to speak Russian. Leave them alone, just leave them alone. Give them the right to speak Russian. Language should never divide our country….We have the same skin color, the same blood, regardless of language.” When he took the highest office in the country, he tried to implement his election promise.

However, this was a Herculean task in view of the very strong ultra-nationalist forces and the “fascists who overran the country”” (according to the Jerusalem Post) who opposed his peace mission. The influence of these circles was (and is) so great that, from schoolchildren to senior citizens, all western Ukrainians were processed to hate Ukrainian citizens of Russian descent and to believe that it is good to slaughter them. Even in schools, students were goaded by their teachers to use slogans like these against Russian-speaking Ukrainians: “Hang the Muscovites,” “Put the Russians on the pyre,” and “Drink the blood of Russian babies!”

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Ukrainians in Kyiv last week making incendiary bombs to be used against Russian forces. [Source: nytimes.com]

Peaceful co-existence instead of final victory

Zelensky could only have achieved peaceful co-existence between western and eastern Ukraine if he had been permitted to negotiate as he originally desired with Russia and with representatives of the largely Russian-speaking Donbas. He also needed the backing of his supporters in Washington because the radicals leading the fighting in eastern Ukraine threatened him and said they would only accept a “final victory” over the Donbas.

But they did not want him to negotiate with Russia—and thus strengthened the position of the extremists. The western Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and Banderists even told Zelensky that he would sign his own death warrant if he talked to Putin, so the only result in the end was war. We currently experience that in Ukraine, and there is no end in sight.

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Spectators hold a banner with portraits of Prince Volodymyr the Great, Hetman Ivan Mazepa and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) leader Stepan Bandera during a football match between Ukraine and the Czech Republic in Arena Lviv on August 16, 2012. [Source: ukrweekly.com]

In addition to the threat to his life, Zelensky faced direct obstacles to his peace mandate on several fronts

Zelensky was met by irate members of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion who protested under the banner “No to surrender” when he traveled to the Donbas in October 2019 to campaign in Russian-speaking rebel-held areas. Zelensky argued with a soldier from the Azov Battalion about the president’s demand for a troop withdrawal in a videotaped exchange. “I am the president of this country. I am 41 years old. I am not a loser. I came to you and told you: withdraw your weapons,” Zelensky pleaded.

Despite his personal appearance on the ground, Zelensky encountered even further resistance: The same far-right forces set up an armed checkpoint to prevent or at least delay a withdrawal of the Ukrainian military. Thousands of far-right and nationalist demonstrators, cheered by the liberal intelligentsia and carrying flares, also marched in Kyiv.

Suffering in Donbas acknowledged by Zelensky, censored by Western media
Katharine Quinn-Judge of the International Crisis Group explained that Zelensky’s ex-press secretary, Yulia Mendel, acknowledged the suffering in the Donbas because “Zelensky had promised during the election campaign to treat the residents of the Russian-backed enclaves as full Ukrainians”—a misstep for the U.S.-favored far-right nationalists, who oppose equal rights for all Ukrainians.

Yet journalists in European countries are intimidated and prevented from reporting on Ukrainian terror and suffering in the Donbass by being defamed, losing their jobs, and even threatened with imprisonment. This explains why Europeans are generally unaware of the years of violence that the Ukrainian military and neo-fascist groups have inflicted on the population in the Donbas.

Moreover, the political and media elites in the West do not care that dissent and freedom of the press are suppressed in Ukraine. The few independent journalists who dare to report on the situation in the Donbas, where the Russian-speaking majority has been targeted by Ukrainian forces since 2014, bother them all the more.

After German journalist Patrik Baab dared to report from the Donbas, German universities and media accused him of ”legitimizing Putin’s war of aggression with his mere presence.” As a result, he lost his job as a lecturer at the University for Media, Communication and Economics in Berlin.

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Patrik Baab [Source: thepostil.com]

The French journalist and filmmaker Anne-Laure Bonnel had made two documentaries showing the situation of the Russian-born population in the regions attacked by Kyiv. As a result, she lost her job in Europe. Here you can see how she had to deal with biased editors in France while working in the Donbas. By the way, both Patrik Raab and Anne-Laure Bonnel had condemned the Russian invasion.

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Anne-Laure Bonnel [Source: beforeitsnews.com]

“I saw the war, yet we cannot speak the truth,” says Sonja van den Ende, a Dutch investigative journalist who has covered the Donbass, adding, “We’re being censored in Europe.”

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Sonja van den Ende [Source: sputniknews.com]

Italian photojournalist Giorgio Bianchi became the target of a defamation campaign waged by major Italian newspapers over his reporting from Ukraine. He was accused of being a pro-Russian propaganda stooge.

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Giorgio Bianchi [giorgioblanchiphotojournalist.com]

The media conjured up all sorts of wild suspicions against him, to which he responded: “All of these hypotheses are absolutely false and lack any support of evidence. It is a clumsy attempt to muzzle whoever disapproves of crazy policies by a government that is making the Italian people pay the cost of arbitrarily imposed sanctions against Russia.”

Bianchi noted that most intellectuals and journalists are increasingly reluctant to come out and voice their concerns about the escalation of the conflict for fear of jeopardizing their reputations or suffering a career assassination because of the witch-hunt atmosphere.

Alina Lipp moved to Ukraine in 2021—a year before Russia invaded—and traveled to Donetsk to spend some time there and find out for herself what was actually happening in the Donbas. The German freelance journalist was little known at the time.

Although Berlin loudly declared that it was protecting democracy and thus freedom of expression in Ukraine (nota bene: with heavy weapons, including tanks rolling against Russia again!), Germany wanted to punish her for this with three years in prison. Lipp saw her bank account frozen losing 1,600 euros without explanation. The German authorities also said that she would not be allowed to defend herself in court, as this could hinder the investigation.

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Alina Lipp [Source: telegraph.co.uk]

▪ Here is one of Alina Lipp’s uncensored documentaries about her stay in Donbas. Watch and form your own opinion!
https://vk.com/video-213298462_456239126

▪ For those for whom atrocities like the murder of Russian-speaking Ukrainians by Ukrainian nationalists don’t turn their stomachs, I recommend this video.

▪ And discover even more about the history of the war and its background in Ukraine in this insightful documentary by Paul Moreira, a renowned French filmmaker who has made quite a few investigative documentaries in conflict zones.

Nationalists and U.S. government prevented agreement
Although Zelensky was reluctant to accept the Minsk agreements on resolving the minority issue, he continued talks on their implementation. The radical nationalists expressed their violent opposition at every opportunity—including in August 2021, when at least eight police officers were injured during armed protests in front of the presidential office. Their threats against Zelensky undoubtedly thwarted a peace agreement that could have prevented the Russian invasion.

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The New York Times headline on Feb. 10, 2022

Just two weeks before Russian troops invaded Ukraine, The New York Times noted that Zelensky “would take extreme political risks to even consider a peace agreement with Russia” because his government could be “shaken and possibly overthrown” by far-right groups if he agreed to “a peace deal that they believe gives too much to Moscow.”

Yurii Hudymenko, leader of the far-right Democratic Ax Party, even threatened Zelenskyj with a coup d’état: “If anybody from the Ukrainian government tries to sign such a document, a million people will take to the streets and that government will cease being the government.” He also emphasized that “they (the Zelenskyj government, F.A.) fear the Ukrainian people more than they fear the Russian army.”

An example that the far-right is serious about its hostility toward Russian-speaking Ukrainians is the recent announcement by a Ukrainian soldier in the east of the country that he and his comrades will murder all Russian-born eastern Ukrainians in the Donbass as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

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Yuri Hudymenko seated at the headquarters of the far-right Democratic Axe Party. Note the axes on party headquarters walls, which party members are eager to use against Russians. [Source: nytimes.com]

Transatlantic politicians and the mainstream media portrayed the Maidan “revolution” as the work of liberal, pro-Western protesters motivated by righteous resentments against an authoritarian, corrupt president.

The fact that the insurrection served primarily to empower literal neo-Nazis while enacting only the goals of the Western powers that opportunistically provided their support was conveniently ignored. Instead, it was a marriage of convenience between opponents of the government, which at best represented one-half of a polarized country, and the far right.

Tryzub, one of the groups that came together to form the influential nationalist Right Sector, had urged the Ukrainian opposition to shift “from a peaceful demonstration to a street-revolutionary plane” in March 2013. In the event that the pro-Russian forces came to power, their leader Dmytro Yarosh had already called on his compatriots in 2009 to “take up an armed struggle against the regime of internal occupation and the Moscow empire.” Yanukovych was hated by nationalists as part of the “pro-Russian forces.” However, the Brookings Institution characterized Yanukovych’s foreign policy as “more nuanced” than his pro-Russian leanings had initially suggested.

Looking outside of Kyiv, a thorough examination of more than 3,000 Maidan demonstrations revealed that the far-right Svoboda party, whose leader once alleged that a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” controlled Ukraine, and which includes a politician who admires Joseph Goebbels, was the most active force behind the demonstrations. They were also more likely than any other group, with the exception of Right Sector, a collection of far-right activists with ties to collaborators with the Nazis who committed mass murder, to engage in violent acts.

For good reason, the Israeli embassy advised Jews to stay in their homes while a prominent rabbi urged them to leave the city and even the country.

A massacre perpetrated by snipers during the Maidan coup, which was strongly condemned, was a false-flag operation attributed by Western politicians and media to the Yanukovych government to lend some moral credibility to its overthrow.

Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian professor at the School of Political Studies & Conflict Studies and Human Rights Program at the University of Ottawa, who conducted research on the matter, refuted this claim: “All the evidence shows that this massacre was not perpetrated by government snipers or led by the police…. No one has been convicted of this mass murder…. They killed and wounded police officers and Maidan demonstrators in order to falsely blame government forces….”

Indeed, the post-Yanukovych interim government, in which leading far-right figures took prominent positions, swiftly passed a law giving Maidan participants immunity for any violence.

Adds Katchanovski: “He (President Yanukovych) was blamed for the massacre and the West, including the United States, no longer recognized him as president of Ukraine. In his memoirs, Biden writes that immediately after the massacre he called Yanukovych and told him that he had to leave Ukraine.”

Katchanovski points out that there is evidence of involvement of nationalists and neo-Nazis in the massacre.

The term “Nazi Ukraine” is not a creation of Vladimir Putin
Not surprisingly, the French-Israeli lawyer and anti-Semitism activist Arno Klarsfeld strongly opposes Ukraine’s accession to the European Union:

“Thirty years ago, Stepan Bandera, who called for the murder of Jews, was considered in Ukraine as a murderer, while today he is erected as a national hero,” the lawyer said about the Russophobic Ukrainian Nazi. “The country has issued postage stamps [with] his image, erected statues and established holidays in his honor. The largest avenue in Kiev, five kilometers long and leading to the site of Babi Yar, bears his name. As for the extension of this avenue, it was named after Roman-Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych, who was even worse than Bandera.”

Shukhevych, a Nazi and mass murderer of Jews and Poles, has become another outstanding national hero in today’s Ukraine.

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Roman Shukhevych [Source: ukrainiancrusade.blogspot.com]

While numerous monuments to Nazi criminals are being erected, at the same time monuments honoring greats of world literature, such as Leo Tolstoy and Alexander Pushkin, are being torn down along with monuments honoring Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin. The European Union and the United States have provided most of the funding for this demolition and renaming frenzy.

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Ukrainian nationalists bring down Lenin statue in Kharkiv in 2014. [Source: bbc.com]

Eighty years ago, in 1943, soldiers of General Nikolai Vatutin’s Red Army units liberated Kyiv from Nazi rule. Shortly after the liberation of Kyiv, he was ambushed and wounded by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) led by Stepan Bandera.

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Recent removal of the monument to General Vatutin, the liberator from the Nazi terror regime, by the current pro-Nazi Kyiv regime. [Source: darnitskiy.org.ua]

The general was rightly celebrated as a hero, and the people of Kyiv regularly decorated his monument with flowers. The Vatutin monument was recently demolished, in the year of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Kyiv, and the Kyiv authorities desecrated his grave.

The Azov Battalion, the Ukrainian military unit whose emblem is the “Wolfsangel,” a Nazi symbol used in particular by units of Nazi Germany’s SS, was given the honor of renaming the street named after Ukrainian Marshal Malinovsky, one of the leaders of the Red Army in the war against Nazism, to “Street of Heroes of Azov Regiment.”

President Poroshenko’s interior minister incorporated the Azov Regiment into Ukraine’s National Guard. From 2014 Ukraine became a Mecca for far-right extremists around the world, who came to learn and get training from Azov — including, ironically, Russian white supremacists who were hounded from their country by Putin.

Azov had been identified by the U.S. Congress as a terrorist and neo-Nazi organization.

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The Ukrainian commander-in-chief with a “Totenkopf” (skull) badge. [Source: Pikabu.ru]

Around the time the General Vatutin monument in Kyiv was destroyed, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Tenth Mountain Infantry Brigade received the nickname Edelweiss.

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[Source: globalespreso.tv]

The name had been used by the First Mountain Infantry Division of the German Wehrmacht during World War II. This division was responsible for the deportation of Jews, the execution of prisoners of war and the use of punitive measures against partisans in Yugoslavia, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Greece. Many members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including the current commander-in-chief, openly wear “Totenkopf” insignia, which are almost identical to the emblems of the SS “Totenkopf” division and other Nazi units.

Since the Euromaidan coup in 2014, more than 1,000 settlements and more than 50,000 streets have been renamed in Ukraine, almost all for political reasons. It was a massive neo-Nazi and de-Russification campaign.

On May 10, 1933, students across Germany burned more than 25,000 “un-German” books. Among them were the works of Jewish authors such as Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, leftist and liberal authors, and blacklisted American authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Helen Keller. More than 100,000 people took to the streets in New York and many other places in the United States to protest this fascist act.

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Russian language books in car tires at a checkpoint in Kyiv to be burned. The title of the yellow book with white stripes reads “”Огнестойкость строительных конструкций (“Fire resistance of building structures”). [Source: twitter.com]

Nobody in the West objected when millions of “un-Ukrainian,” i.e. Russian-language books, were recently banned throughout Ukraine and books for the Russian-speaking minority were publicly burned.Because the media either failed to cover this fascist act and the true nature of the banderist Ukraine, or because they chose to ignore it this time, Americans and Europeans were unaware of the striking similarity between the disappearance of countless books in Nazi Germany and in contemporary Ukraine.

And why, if they could, wouldn’t those who purge millions of books from Ukraine also exterminate their writers and readers, whom they despise so much, in large numbers like in Nazi Germany?

“One language, one Ukraine. Long live Ukraine. Long live the nation. Ukraine above all. Bandera, Shukhevych are heroes of Ukraine. Out with Judaism. Death to the enemies. Death to Moskal (ethnic slur for Russian speakers). Impale the (Ukrainian) Russians with knives.”

Since 2014, nationalist mobs have been shouting the above slogans in the streets, stadiums and elsewhere in western Ukraine, from Kiev to Odessa. Odessa already had a sad reputation for one of the worst massacres in Ukraine in 1941 and 1942, when more than 100,000 Jews were burned or shot. In 2014, Odessa saw another massacre, this time of Russian-speaking citizens, again perpetrated by fascists. This documentary depicts the new crime.

The ultra-nationalists that have become a mighty force after the overthrow in 2014 are not only targeting Russian speakers but also other minorities, a fact that seems to be purposefully ignored or downplayed in the West. Peter Szijjarto, the foreign minister of Hungary, recently lamented on his Facebook page that the Kiev regime had severely restricted the minority rights—including language rights—of the more than 150,000 ethnic Hungarian Ukrainians. For instance, schoolchildren who speak Hungarian are no longer allowed to receive instruction in their native tongue.

Article 10 of the Constitution stipulates that Ukrainian is the official language of Ukraine. In addition, a new law came into force in Ukraine in January 2022 that mandates the use of Ukrainian in almost all areas of public life and de facto prohibits the use of Russian and other minority languages.

According to a nationwide survey in 2021, 22 percent of Ukrainians speak Russian as their native language. The percentage is identical to that of French speakers in Switzerland. Unlike Ukraine, however, not only German, the language of the majority, is an official language in Switzerland, but French and Italian (the language of an even smaller minority) are also official languages with equal rights. Official documents such as law books and passports are issued in these three languages, schools teach in these languages, and Swiss citizens can use their mother tongue without restriction.

Which raises the question: Why does Ukraine discriminate against its minorities, while other countries do not, as the example of Switzerland shows, and treat minorities equally? (Such queries to the Ukrainian government are not made by Western politicians or media.)

The Roma, another minority, have become the target of heinous hate crimes.


It was a matter of political and physical survival
Zelensky clearly got the message. Instead of pursuing the peace program for which he was elected, he has instead forged alliances with the Ukrainian far right, which violently opposes the program. It was not until late January 2022, in the midst of final talks to salvage the Minsk Agreement, that Ukrainian security chief Oleksiy Danilov, appointed by Zelensky, declared instead that “fulfillment of the Minsk Agreement means the destruction of the country.”

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“Slava Ukrajini — Herojam Slava” (Glory to Ukraine — Glory to the heroes) was the rallying cry during the so-called “Euromaidan,” the Washington-backed “revolution,” in Ukraine in 2013/2014. After the successful regime change operation it was legally established as the official greeting of the armed forces and police. The then Minister of Interior Vadym Troyam, who until 2014 was a member of the neo-Nazi grouping “Patriot Ukrajiny,” justified this move this way: “These words have a sacred meaning, this is how all defenders and independence fighters of Ukraine should greet each other!” [Source: Metro.co.uk]

At the last round of Minsk talks in February 2022, just two weeks before the Russian invasion, a “major obstacle,” as The Washington Post reported, was “Kyiv’s resistance to negotiations with the pro-Russian separatists.”

Only through this opportunistic closing of ranks with the ultra-nationalists who sought his life could Zelensky ensure his political and physical survival. The peace-seeking mediator turned into an obdurate hardliner and a Russophobic warmonger.

He had no other choice. To hold him solely responsible for this would be unfair. Washington is primarily responsible for letting him hang, based on its primary strategic goals—uncompromising weakening of Russia and, in its wake, Europe.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/0 ... he-donbas/

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SOLDIERS UNDERSTAND CAPITULATION BETTER THAN POLITICIANS AND PROFESSORS – THE REAL OUTCOME OF THE PUTIN-XI TALKS

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

It takes time for politicians to understand.

When the Obama Administration pulled their Kiev putsch of February 21, 2014, they, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and their British and French counterparts understood they were in for a long war. Merkel has admitted as much; the British and French have lost power and been replaced by successors impatient to win propaganda victories if they can — and not lose on the battlefield too quickly if they cannot.

By December of 2021, US officials believed they were almost ready to expand their war, recover Crimea and the Donbass, and inflict such a battlefield defeat on Russian forces as to trigger chaos, then regime change in Moscow. This calculation is why the US and NATO dismissed negotiations on the terms of the small pact, the Minsk accords of 2015, and then the larger pact for Europe of December 2021 – an idea the Russians called indivisible sovereignty, the Americans reciprocal security, the Europeans non-aggression.

A quick preemptive defence and preventative war was an idea of President Vladimir Putin’s. It was neutralized in the Kiev operation during the first month of the campaign last year. The aim then was not to capture the city, but to trigger Ukrainian regime change, then negotiations. By the time the Istanbul talks began, the Zelensky group remained intact, and the long war commenced. This had been the anticipation of the Russian General Staff then. It still is.

Long means years.

Long enough in the US calculation for President Joseph Biden not to die before his re-election in November 2024. This is the only war casualty the US cares about for the foreseeable future; it explains why there is, and can be, no American anti-war movement of any consequence. So far, so good – Biden’s death has been averted at a cost of at least 250,000 Ukrainian combat and civilian deaths, plus Poles, Germans, French, British et alia. But these numbers don’t count in Washington because Biden is currently beating every potential Democratic or Republican Party presidential candidate in next year’s election. Polled about this, US voters who are negative towards Biden regard his conduct of the war against Russia in the Ukraine more positively, less negatively than any of his other policies.

This is not only curtains for anti-war voter mobilization in the US. It makes recent statements by Donald Trump that if elected, he will stop the war “no longer than in one day” a desperate, cynical bid, not for American votes, but for Kremlin support to his candidacy.

The Russian General Staff counts the length of the war as the time they plan to spend destroying all Ukrainian force capabilities east of the Dnieper River, and establish a demilitarized zone west of the new Russian border of the Donbass so deep as to put NATO artillery and other forms of attack out of range. Long enough also to destroy every new NATO weapon system promised, transported, or deployed from the US and NATO to Ukrainian territory.

The Chinese government and President Xi Jinping count the length of this war as even longer. They see the acceleration of US economic warfare and sanctions against them; new force deployments around China’s borders; and the expansion of US gun platforms like Japan, South Korea, and Australia will follow the pattern already set against Russia. Only by Russia’s victory on the field and the retreat of the NATO side to the underground bunkers of Lvov can China be secure for Xi’s Central Military Commission, who also need time to practice, plan, test, plan again.

All of this was very well understood in the talks between the Xi and Putin and their staffs in Moscow last week. The talks were a success because neither side is in a hurry now and said so. Negotiations on the Ukraine, Putin said in his concluding Kremlin statement, will start “when the West and Kiev are ready for it. However, so far, we have not seen such readiness on their part.” Xi replied in his Kremlin statement that his timing is longer than that. “We…firmly stand on the right side of history”, Xi said.

For failing to appreciate this, the Biden Administration warfighters and their propaganda organs can be excused. So long as Biden doesn’t die, they keep their confidence the field will be theirs, or at least the election clock.

Less excusable are the failures to read correctly what the hands on the Russo-Chinese clock are pointing to by the anti-war Americans – old soldiers like Douglas Macgregor; old professors like John Mearsheimer; old dissenters like Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg; old journalists like Seymour Hersh. Because this is a long war, they are running out of time.

For the time being Biden and his officials have neutralized an anti-war movement in the US, and put a stop to European attempts for a negotiated settlement short of battlefield defeat and Ukrainian capitulation – that was the Scholz-Macron-Sunak formula of “peace talks for arms” which was prepared in luncheon meetings during the month of February.

This formula was dropped after Scholz flew to a private meeting with Biden in Washington on March 3. The nine-line White House communiqué was not accompanied by any statement from the Berlin chancellery. Instead, the day before, Scholz had dismissed all negotiations for a Ukrainian settlement. “One cannot negotiate with a gun held to one’s head, except for one’s own subjugation,” he told the Bundestag. The gun and subjugation Scholz was referring to, he claimed, were Russian, but for Germany they are American.

After the session with Biden, the German state radio reported Scholz as saying it is “really important that we [have] acted together [and also] important that we give the message that we will continue to do so as long as it takes.”

In parallel to neutralizing German and other European resistance to the war, Biden is convincing US voters there is no liability for them if he continues running the war as he’s been doing.

BIDEN APPROVAL RATING OVERALL, INDIVIDUAL POLICY APPROVAL RATINGS
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Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com

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Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

BIDEN’S DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRAT, REPUBLIC OPPOSITION FOR 2024
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PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FAVOURABILITY RATINGS, BIDEN VERSUS THE REST
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Biden’s success in waging the largest war in Europe since 1945 without domestic liability – without even US voters noticing – is exceptional. In the Pew Research Center’s last polling of the issues Americans volunteer as their priorities, the war against Russia in the Ukraine didn’t rate a mention in the top 21 issues.

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Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/

American critics of the war policy and advocates for negotiations hold the view in common that the Russian Army is winning the war, and that politically the Kremlin will be in a position soon enough to dictate terms of Ukrainian and US capitulation. They differ in their degrees of hostility or sympathy for Russian policy-making; they are reluctant to endorse the possibility of Russia’s defeat of the US and NATO in Europe, they argue instead for a settlement to forestall that outcome.

They don’t recognize, however, that American voter indifference to the war, its risks and costs, is the writing on the wall. It is therefore unclear to whom the critics think they are addressing their message – and who in fact is listening. Retired US Army colonel and Trump Administration official, Douglas Macgregor, appears to be directing his views towards the competing Republican Party candidates for the presidency.

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Video of Macgregor (right) of January 13, 2023. His latest written commentary, March 14, 2023: “In contrast to the Soviet Union’s hamfisted and ideologically driven foreign policymaking and execution, contemporary Russia has skillfully cultivated support for its cause in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The fact that the West’s economic sanctions damaged the U.S. and European economies while turning the Russian ruble into one of the international system’s strongest currencies has hardly enhanced Washington’s global standing…Backing down from the Biden administration’s malignant and asinine demands for a humiliating Russian withdrawal from eastern Ukraine before peace talks can convene is a step Washington refuses to take. Yet it must be taken. The higher interest rates rise, and the more Washington spends at home and abroad to prosecute the war in Ukraine, the closer American society moves toward internal political and social turmoil. These are dangerous conditions for any republic.” Source: https://www.theamericanconservative.com

John Mearsheimer is a University of Chicago professor of international relations. His critique of US strategy dates the war against Russia as just ten years old – from the Kiev putsch of 2014. He ignores the evidence of US strategy, military plans and covert operations to destroy Russia in Europe since 1945, and more recently, the Brzezinski-Carter plans of 1977-80, followed by the Team B plans of the Reagan Administration, and then the Clinton plans for Russia.

Mearsheimer seems not to understand that all these plans have been understood by officials and voters alike as US victories. Instead, Mearsheimer declares that NATO expansion has been a mistake. He doesn’t believe the same of the preservation of US control of Europe, especially Germany. The current war he fails to see as “existential” for both sides. Perhaps university undergraduates in Chicago don’t know this.

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Source: https://www.youtube.com/

Enough has already been reported on Seymour Hersh’s coverage of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) version of the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last September. Without accepting any criticism or modification of his story, Hersh has continued repeating his original claims. The repetition is a Substack method for monetizing their products. According to the Substack presentations of Hersh’s work since his original Nord Stream report on February 8, his paid-up subscription has reached 113,000. At a fee average of between $5 to $10 per month, Hersh has earned revenues on his Nord Stream story of between $565,000 and $1.1 million. Less commission for Substack and minus production costs, Hersh has cleared between $200,000 and $600,000 for himself.

In the investigative journalism business, this is as exceptional as Biden’s success in waging the war Hersh is making money to investigate.

But the likes scoring of each new piece by Hersh indicates that since February 8,reader interest has been dwindling. As other well-known investigative journalists publishing on Substack have discovered, in order to sustain revenues they are obliged to keep printing novelties to draw new subscribers and sustain the rate of renewals – that turns out to mean repeat material. It is the journalistic equivalent of a Ponzi scheme.

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“Biden and Scholz had an 80-minute meeting, with no aides present for much of the time. There have been no statements or written understandings made public since then by either government, but I was told by someone with access to diplomatic intelligence that there was a discussion of the pipeline exposé and, as a result, certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2. In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was “to pulse the system” in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.” Source: https://seymourhersh.substack.com/
Substack now claims that Hersh has more than 113,000 subscribers; the much smaller numbers recorded as article views and likes casts doubt on this number.

Of the two critics of the war in the public intellectual category, Daniel Ellsberg is the most hostile towards Russian policy, and the least well informed on what it is. Noam Chomsky is relatively better informed; both argue for US policy out of ignorance of Russian policy, and unrecognition of the indifference to both on the part of most Americans.

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The New York Times’s valedictory interview with Ellsberg, qualifying the piece by an editorialist for the newspaper as “opinion”. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/

Ellsberg – “For 70 years, the U.S. has frequently made the kind of wrongful first-use threats of nuclear weapons that Putin is making now in Ukraine. We should never have done that, nor should Putin be doing it now. I’m worried that his monstrous threat of nuclear war to retain Russian control of Crimea is not a bluff. President Biden campaigned in 2020 on a promise to declare a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons. He should keep that promise, and the world should demand the same commitment from Putin.”

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Video interview of Noam Chomsky of February 18, 2023. “There have been real successes for the official policy of severely weakening Russia. As many commentators have discussed, for a fraction of its colossal military budget, the U.S., via Ukraine, is significantly degrading the military capacity of its sole adversary in this arena, not a small achievement. It’s a bonanza for major sectors of the U.S. economy, including fossil fuel and military industries” .

The new attack on Putin with arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Netherlands has begun with British prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan and Polish judge Piotr Hofmanski.

For more than a year, Khan has been trying to frame indictments of Russian war crimes on allegations submitted to the ICC by the government in Kiev. Support for their allegations has come from the US and other NATO allies. But the US, Russia and the Ukraine are not signatories of the Rome Statute establishing the ICC. Notwithstanding, the court charter allows Khan and Hofmanski the authority to initiate cases from any source.

Russia has reacted with a formal warning to the court against extending its jurisdiction unlawfully. “The Court cannot entertain a claim, even at a provisional measures stage, without first ascertaining that it has jurisdiction over it. As the Court has repeatedly stated, ‘one of the fundamental principles of its Statute is that it cannot decide a dispute between States without the consent of those States to its jurisdiction.’”

On March 16, 2022, Khan announced publicly “there is a reasonable basis to believe that both alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Ukraine in relation to the events already assessed during the preliminary examination by the Office. Given the expansion of the conflict in recent days, it is my intention that this investigation will also encompass any new alleged crimes falling within the jurisdiction of my Office that are committed by any party to the conflict on any part of the territory of Ukraine.” After twelve months of this “investigation”, there was Khan’s announcement of arrest warrants last week.

Khan has charged and Hofmanski has endorsed the allegation of war crimes against children for the “unlawful deportation” and “unlawful transfer” of children “from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute).” The allegations were made in a press release by Khan and a video clip by Hofmanski on March 17.

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Left to right: Karim Ahmad Khan; his brother Imran Ahmad Khan; Pyotr Holfmanski. The indictment, trial and conviction of Imran Khan for sexual assualt of a 15-year old boy in 2008 has been reported here. Imran Khan was sent to prison for 18 months in May 2022, and then released on early probation on February 22, 2023; he had served half his sentence. On the same day, February 22, 2023, Khan filed his formal application for the court arrest warrants on child war crime offences against President Putin and the Russian Commissioner for children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.

The prosecutor, judge, and court have so far failed to produce the formal indictment. They have not identified the number and names of the children allegedly involved or their families; the location of the alleged offences in what Hofmanski called “Ukrainian occupied territories”; or the source of their evidence linking Putin and Lvova-Belova to the children. Hofmanski claimed “the contents of the warrants are secret in order to protect [the] victims” despite his acknowledgement that the children are now living in Russia.

The wording of the Rome Statute, setting out the elements of the newly alleged crimes, can be read here. Khan and Hofmanski have ignored the requirement in the statute of the “existence of an armed conflict”: that began in the Donbass with Ukrainian military attacks on children’s facilities eight years before the alleged Russian offences.

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The secrecy of the new ICC action is in contrast with the public endorsement by the US State Department and Jill Biden, wife of the US President, of a Ukrainian woman, Yulia Payevska, accused by the Russian authorities and jailed for kidnapping two children and killing their parents during the siege of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. The US state media version of Payevska’s case can be read here. On the US Government award to Payevska on March 6. 2023, click to read the State Department release and the Ukrainian government endorsement of her actions.

Also in direct contrast to the claims of Khan and Hofmanski, the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier directly participated in the removal to Germany of 120 Jewish orphans from the Mishpacha [“Family”] Orphanage in Odessa in March 2022, shortly after the start of the special military operation.

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President Steinmeier (centre) at the Jewish Chabad organization function celebrating the removal of the children from Odesa to Berlin on March 7. Click to read more.

Listen now to the broadcast:
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Source: https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/

https://johnhelmer.net/soldiers-underst ... more-87705
"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 Mar 27, 2023 10:57 am

spring battles
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 03/27/2023
Original article: Alexander Kots / Komsomolskaya Pravda

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The media environment around the situation in Artyomovsk resembles an episode of “Ordinary Miracle”, when the princess tells the protagonist Abudlov: “I have been looking for you for three days to tell you that I don't care about you at all”. The same goes for Bakhmut. At the beginning of the year, both the Western press and the Kiev authorities were discussing among themselves the crucial importance of the fortress city, one that Ukraine would not surrender in any way.

So said Zelensky on February 2. But a month later, when the prospects for the defense of Artyomovsk became obvious, he assured that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would not defend the city at any cost or to the last soldier (although what is happening seems exactly that). The Pentagon, what a surprise, sympathized with them because, according to the US generals, the city has no special strategic importance. So even if it is lost, it will not be a terrible thing for kyiv.

However, not all foreign military analysts are so optimistic. Former Pentagon adviser Douglas McGregor, for example, believes that with the fall of Artyomovsk, there would be a chain reaction that would collapse Ukraine's defenses. “The Bakhmut story is in its final phase and that will be the start of a new phase of the conflict, during which the southern front will completely collapse,” McGregor thinks. “The Ukrainian army is in a difficult situation, it is experiencing shortages of food, medicine and ammunition. And the command has abandoned its soldiers to fate.

Bloomberg believes that by losing control of Bakhmut, Kiev risks losing the rest of the territory to the DPR.

And former US intelligence officer Tony Shaffer, in an interview, stated that as a result of the loss of control of the city, Ukrainian troops will have to withdraw to the Dnieper.

What really happens in the city? What are the real consequences of the capture of Artyomovsk and when can it happen?

So far, Russia has completely liberated the eastern part of the city and a stretch of the north. The main battles are now taking place in the north-west and south-west of the city, where the “pincers” are constantly tightening. From above, they are fighting for the town of Jromovo and Bogdanovka on the road to Chasov Yar, and from below - for Ivanskoe, also located on that road. The resistance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is extreme and aware that the loss of these locations means putting the lid on the cauldron of the Bakhmut group.

The commander of the ground forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Syrsky, continues to assure with maniacal insistence that the defense of Bakhmut will continue and that he is not going to withdraw the troops. You can only have that confidence in one case: if there is a real plan to unlock the city. According to Wagner, "in late March or early April, Ukraine plans a large-scale offensive to isolate the troops from the main grouping of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation." According to intelligence data, several assault groups have been created for this purpose: in Slavyansk, Seversk, Chasov Yar and Konstantinovka. Dozens of pieces of equipment and reserves have been moved there.

For kyiv, it is vital to move the front beyond Artyomovsk, as that moves the defense line away from Slavyansk-Kramatorsk. At the same time, the course of hostilities leaves open the idea of ​​a hypothetical Russian offensive. But that scenario would only be possible if Wagner's soldiers were actively and harmoniously integrated with the regular army units. With the capture of Artyomovsk, Russia would have the possibility of approaching Slavyansk and reaching Konstantinovka. This does not mean that tomorrow we will wake up to a new reality, when the liberation of Donbass will be tangible. It is not like this. I have worked in Artyomvosk and there are no easy advances in the kilometers ahead. The opponent fights for each stone. However, these battles are sapping kyiv's resources in the direction of Bakhmut.

And the enemy's spring offensive is also underway and can be simultaneously focused in two directions - Svatovo and Zaporozhie. However, there is a chance that in the coming months the front will move away from Donetsk, whose residents, tortured by Ukrainian shelling, may finally breathe with less anguish.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/03/27/batal ... more-26933

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

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

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 28, 2023 12:34 pm

project an image
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 28/03/2023

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In recent months, especially since Vladimir Putin signed the order to begin a partial mobilization with which to reduce the imbalance of troops in the area of ​​military operations, which in the summer and autumn of 2022 so undermined Russian defense capabilities, the Intelligence services and the Western media have seen in each Russian action an example of escalation and have repeatedly warned of the risk of new offensives by the Russian Federation. That discourse has always coexisted with the idea that Russian offensive capabilities had been exhausted, so that Russia would have already lost the war. Coherence in the discourse, especially the informative one, has never been a requirement in this war whose beginnings are so distant and forgotten that it is not even necessary to rewrite what happened.

From the scant interest in the war in Donbass during the seven years of low-intensity warfare and systematic Ukrainian sabotage of any option for a diplomatic resolution, there has now been an analysis of the war based fundamentally on the data and assessments published by British intelligence, the complex of think-tanks linked to the military sector and the leaks by interested officers in the US media. To this, obviously, we must add the Ukrainian discourse, generally accepted without the need for verification or questioning despite the many examples in which Ukraine has tried to manipulate reality, sometimes even against the opinion of its most loyal partners.

This manipulation of reality is not limited to establishing as a proven fact the Ukrainian superiority, the idea of ​​huge Russian casualties in comparison with the Ukrainian ones or the generalization of the argument of "unity" of Ukraine, but rather the projection of future prospects that They don't fit the facts. It is there where the work of the press is becoming more important, establishing as real the image projected by the intelligence services that support, finance and direct the war in Ukraine. In the months before the start of the Russian intervention, Western intelligence services began leaking the idea that Russian troops would be able to besiege and even capture Kiev in 72 hours, a totally unrealistic goal considering the magnitude of the capital. However, that argument has been and continues to be repeatedly used by Ukrainian representatives, who refer to it assuming that this was the Russian objective. Interestingly, an idea installed by the intelligence of one of Ukraine's partners, in this case the United Kingdom, becomes the reality that the other side, Russia, aspired to. This construction of an alternative reality is neither gratuitous nor random, but seeks to control the message and the story in which the West can classify as failure any result that is less than those absolutely exaggerated and clearly unrealistic expectations presented in an interested way.

Something similar has happened in recent months, in which the operational pause to prepare for the spring and summer military campaigns has slowed down the military scenario and increased speculation about future movements. The ease with which Ukraine broke through the front in the Kharkiv region, the chaotic and disorganized Russian flight, and the inability of the Russian Federation's reserves to play a role beyond covering the withdrawal opened a period in which the Western media they took Russian defeat for granted. Ukraine would also break through the Lugansk front, dealing a heavy blow to Russia, not only on her borders, but precisely in the place she had come to liberate: Donbass. Russian troops were fighting then, not to win the war, but to avoid losing it.

The partial mobilization ordered in September by Vladimir Putin provided an injection of optimism for the Russian side, which understood that, as even Russian journalists on the ground warned, there would be no good news from the front for a long time. However, the prospects of a better balance of forces in the war zone due to the progressive arrival of those 300,000 new recruits also implied the prospect of an improvement in the situation at the front. The announcement of the mobilization coincided with the beginning of a phase in which the Russian Federation began to carry out actions that, such as attacks on critical Ukrainian infrastructures, it had tried to avoid until then. From pro-Russian positions, these changes were observed as necessary acts to achieve the objectives of thespecial military operation , while from pro-Ukrainian positions, as a new Russian escalation.

Since then, and as the newly mobilized soldiers have been incorporated into the combat units and the lessons learned from almost a year of war have borne fruit and Russia has managed to stabilize a front that threatened to break up six months ago, the means and services Western intelligence agencies have once again used their tactic of presenting unrealistic scenarios as facts to allege failures in plans that never existed.

A few weeks ago, media such as The New York Times, citing intelligence sources and Biden administration officials, presented maps with possible Russian offensives, among which three scenarios stood out. But compared to the three scenarios of the Ukrainian offensive that the Russian media now present, all of them possible, at least two of those raised by the US sources lacked any realism: a new attack on Kiev and an offensive from the north of Kharkov to blockade Ukrainian troops east of the Dnieper. Only the most modest offensive in Donbass had a modicum of realism. And even in that case, what was stated by the media does not correspond to the reality on the ground, where the same strategy used since last summer of slow and methodical advances that can hardly be described as a great offensive continues.

Different media, repeating the Ukrainian message, even went so far as to talk about the start of a major Russian offensive on the Lugansk front, a ridiculous idea considering that Russia controls a large part of the region and all its important cities. Russia could, as it currently does, push the Ukrainian troops into the scant territory of the LPR, mainly the forests around Svatovo and Kremennaya, and try to get closer to Krasny Liman, important steps in pursuit of its objectives, but which were not going to to suppose the beginning of an offensive or a new phase of the war. With a densely urban and highly fortified territory, advances in Donbass have been made, not by way of a major offensive, but by using smaller groups in frontal assaults,

Despite the fact that this has been the tactic used by the Russian Federation since last summer, the absence of a major offensive has allowed those same media outlets that announced it to allege a lack of Russian preparation or to determine that the troops are exhausted, therefore that those plans have been shelved. The Russian offensive in the Lugansk region is exhausted, British intelligence stated last week, an idea repeated without criticism or explanation, by the media that, without presenting the maps of the operations, have not been tempted to explain that this "offensive" was nothing more than an attempt to move Ukrainian troops away from the road between Svatovo and Kremennaya. Since the withdrawal from Kharkov took place and the preparations for the defense of Lugansk began, there has not been a single Russian movement that suggested that even a local offensive was going to be launched beyond that defense. Not even the slightest deep advance towards Krasny Liman or Seversk, both already in the Donetsk region, has been attempted.

Something similar can be said of other areas of the front, including the one in Donbass. The attempted Russian and Republican advance on the town of Ugledar cannot be classified as offensive, where Ukraine enjoys privileged positions at a well-supplied point and where it has the visual advantage of observing the enemy in any approach attempt. With no chance to outflank the town, the chances of a breakthrough on this tactically important point are slim as long as Ukraine continues to maintain, as it does now, a presence in and around the destroyed Marinka.

Ever since the collapse of the front in Kharkiv and the loss of Kherson forced the Russian Federation to accept that the front would not remain stable pending a change in Ukraine's position on the possibility of political negotiation between the parties, Moscow has insisted on that mobilization would not create new units, but recruits would be incorporated into already existing units. The acts, at least according to the information transmitted from the front, confirm this idea, so it can be said that Russia has reinforced the already existing group. In parallel, both on the southern front and on the Lugansk front, the two directions in which the Russian command awaits the Ukrainian attack, Russian troops have built a whole series of defensive fortifications that already from the autumn of 2022 indicated that Russia was going to maintain a defensive, not offensive position. The only exception in this regard is the Donetsk region, where slow and complicated attempts to advance into the Ukrainian fortified areas continue.

The Western media and intelligence services may now try to present the absence of a full-scale Russian offensive as a change or even as an acceptance that the mobilization has failed to restore the troops to their offensive capability. However, the indications that such an offensive was being prepared never existed and the few movements of troops and equipment towards areas far from the current front, where these surprise offensives would have to be expected, have been limited to Belarus, where everything indicates that no actions are being prepared. of attack but the training of the mobilized troops.

The way of acting of the Russian command, the words of its leaders and even of the commanders on the ground indicate that, for the moment, the Russian Federation remains in a defensive position awaiting the Ukrainian offensive. Faced with the West, which has opted for this attack as a way to achieve the initiative on the front and with it the ability to impose the terms in diplomacy, Moscow seems to have chosen to prepare to endure a long war. That is why Vladimir Putin highlighted last week the ammunition production capacity of the Russian industry, given the difficulties that the European Union military industry is experiencing when it comes to supplying Ukraine with the huge quantities of projectiles it demands. Russia seems confident of being able to withstand the next Ukrainian attack and thus exhaust,Wall Street Journal begin to experience difficulties in mobilizing recruits, if not those who supply their Ukrainian proxy .

With the spring offensive as the only bet of the Western countries to defeat Russia militarily and politically, Zelensky has wanted these days to put a little more pressure on his partners. Aware of the media showcase he currently has, the Ukrainian president stated, in an interview with a Japanese outlet, that there will be no offensive if the West does not send more weapons. After months of preparation, training of soldiers and a constant supply of weapons, ammunition and financing, it is naive to think that this offensive that the United States expects to see in the coming weeks will be postponed or cancelled. The words of the Ukrainian president only seek to get more weapons to attack with more force, but also leave the door open to blame their faithful allies in the event that the victory that they have taken for granted for months is not complete. Doubts and reservations are for international consumption only. At the internal level, as was verified again yesterday with the statements of the Ukrainian president during his visit to the Zaporozhie front, Volodymyr Zelensky once again seemed convinced of victory. For the moment, the Ukrainian president can already score a point: although it had nothing to do with his words last weekend and it was an already scheduled delivery, yesterday the arrival of the 18 German Leopards and the British Challengers was confirmed.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/03/28/26937/#more-26937

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IMHO. the Russians prepare a counter-offensive which will strike the exhausted and depleted offensive.

**********

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus on the deployment of nuclear weapons in the country
March 28, 11:56

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus on the deployment of nuclear weapons in the country

Over the past two and a half years, the Republic of Belarus has been subjected to unprecedented political, economic and informational pressure from the United States, Great Britain and their NATO allies, as well as the member states of the European Union. This direct and gross interference in the internal affairs of an independent state, aimed at changing the geopolitical course and changing the internal political system of Belarus, directly contradicts the obligations assumed by individual signatories of the Memorandum on Security Guarantees in connection with the accession of the Republic of Belarus to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) .

Unilateral coercive measures in politics and the economy are accompanied by the build-up of military potential on the territory of neighboring NATO member countries in close proximity to our borders. Given these circumstances and the legitimate concerns and risks in the field of national security arising from them, Belarus is taking forced response actions to strengthen its own security and defense capability.

Military cooperation between Belarus and Russia is carried out in strict accordance with international law. The training of Belarusian pilots capable of flying aircraft with specific munitions, the modernization of such aircraft, as well as the deployment of nuclear warheads on the territory of Belarus without transferring control over them to Minsk, as well as access to relevant technologies, in no way contradict the provisions of Articles I and II of the NPT.

Moreover, this is not a novelty in the field of military cooperation between non-nuclear and nuclear powers. NATO has long had the practice of "joint nuclear missions", the aircraft of the Alliance member countries are certified for flights with nuclear weapons, the flight personnel for such "missions" are being trained, and appropriate exercises are being conducted. More than 150 US tactical nuclear weapons are stored on the territory of European NATO member countries, more than 250 aircraft have been prepared for their possible use.

The Belarusian side is convinced that the confrontational rhetoric and the unfolding spiral of the arms race should be replaced by a constructive and mutually respectful dialogue aimed at strengthening the architecture of global and regional security, multilateral mechanisms for disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control, including in the nuclear sphere. We called for this and continue to call on all our partners.

https://mfa.gov.by/press/news_mfa/d73d30578e49412b.html - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8256662.html

Google Translator

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

FRom Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Today we will show you a document from which it will become clear why there are so many weapons on the black market. We have already said that in the army everyone is stolen from junior commanders to the minister. The difference is only in volumes: some - by the piece, the other - by wagons.

And we said that they began to supply weapons to Ukraine long before the NWO. And today they are already declaring the supply of ammunition with depleted uranium. This pleases Minister Reznikov very much. The more they give, the more they sell. And no one hides the fact that Ukraine is being turned into a testing ground where weapons are tested and the old ones are disposed of.

One saddens the enterprising military. Not an hour is equal, checks of American inspections will come, which so far take their word for it, but understand that they are coolnae…deceive. But even here they found a way to get out of the situation. “Small fish” are caught, they are threatened with a finger and supposedly registered as a “find”, and then everything continues beautifully, but in an organized manner, to go to the black market.

Here is one example of how the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine gets rid of small competitors-suppliers of death by the hands of the commanders of military units. In the 299th tactical aviation brigade, the commander's commission found a whole arsenal of unaccounted for grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and ammunition for them. And all this was prepared for sale.

As a result: the weapons were recognized as “trophy”, they were registered for the time being, the personnel were instructed not to do this again and reported to the SBU. And this happens in many military units. But the commander of the military unit A4465, to whom we say hello, has questions: how did the military personnel of the tactical aviation brigade from the city of Nikolaev “visit enemy combat positions on the territory of settlements with. Gratitude, p. Bukharovka, with. Pravdino, p. Wide Beam? And how could two people drag all this to Nikolaev? Well, we know that these "trophies" were being prepared for sale.

We are Beregini! We know everything!

***

Colonelcassad
Special operation, 27 March. Main:

▪️The Russian Defense Ministry reported that more than 580 Ukrainian militants were killed in the main directions;

▪️In Mariupol, an attempt was made on the head of the Mariupol Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the DPR, Mikhail Moskvin, a criminal case was initiated;

▪️Ukrainian troops fired six HIMARS missiles at Melitopol, shooting down two of them, Balitsky said;

▪️Russia's permanent representative in Vienna, Ulyanov, said that Kyiv today is not ready to confirm that it will not subject the Zaporizhzhya NPP to shelling;

▪️18 Leopard 2 tanks promised by Germany delivered to Ukraine, German authorities said;

▪️Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov said British Challenger tanks had already entered service;

▪️British and American instructors trained Ukrainian troops in the use of depleted uranium shells, Declassified UK believes;

▪️the British Times, referring to an unnamed American official, claims that the US could tighten its strategy in the Ukrainian conflict, Washington allegedly wants Ukraine to return "lost territories";

▪️Ukraine handed over five seriously wounded servicemen to Russia, Moskalkova said;

▪️The reaction of the West will not affect Russia's plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Peskov said;

▪️NATO countries have made one big military camp out of Ukraine, they are a party to the conflict, Patrushev said.

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the situation in the Artemovsk direction at 21.55 March 27, 2023, specially for the Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok channel :

1.
To the north of Artemovsk , ours continue to put pressure on Bogdanovka and Orekhovo-Vasilyevka . At the moment, the villages have not been taken, the enemy is putting up fierce resistance here. Ukrainian reserves play a significant role here.

2.
Khromovo has not yet been taken either, although the roads that go from Chasov Yar through Krasnoe are under tight fire control. Ukrainian sources also confirm this.

3.
The main supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine still goes through the fields and primers between Khromovo and Krasnoe . In fact, this is the situation of the operational environment, but at the moment there is no boiler. The possibility of communication by the enemy remains.

4.
Our troops continue their assault operations to the east and south of Krasnoe . It is not yet possible to bypass the village and advance to the Chasov Yar-Krasnoye road , here the enemy is holding the line. In this area there is a chain of company trench posts, which so far have not been captured.

5.
Most of AZOM is controlled in Artemovsk itself. Some of the western quarters are already being vacated in the direction of the city center, in the market area and closer to the stadium. From the south we almost reached the southwestern outskirts in the direction of the monument to the pilots.

6.
The river did not have a critical impact on our offensive - the crossing to the western bank has already been sufficiently established. Therefore, the battles continue to shift precisely to western Artemovsk . Apparently, there will be a slow squeezing of the enemy to the western outskirts.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translatyor

*******

Polish Nukes

I was busy today but had a good laugh over this entity of the "When 'we' do it" versus "When 'they' do it" collection.

Poland suggests hosting US nuclear weapons amid growing fears of Putin’s threats - Oct 5, 2022 - Guardian
Poland: Nuclear arms in Belarus are further threat to European peace - Mar 26, 2023 - Anews
The Poles are (again) allowing the Anglo-Saxons to push them into rabbit hostility against Russia and Germany. Not that there is much pushing needed but still.

That won't end well.

Posted by b on March 27, 2023 at 17:47 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/03/p ... l#comments

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

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Major 1-day strike in Germany leaves all public transportation closed
Originally published: Al Mayadeen on March 27, 2023 by Agencies (more by Al Mayadeen) | (Posted Mar 28, 2023)

Silence roamed train stations and airports as public transit systems in much of Germany were included in a call by labor unions on Monday for a massive one-day strike in an effort to call for a raise in salaries to combat rising inflation.

Cargo transport by rail and ship was even impacted since employees and port workers also walked out. As a result, the German public took cars to drive to where they needed, which led to major delays on roads, while many opted for a work-from-home option.

One-day strikes have been occurring frequently across Germany. Just two weeks ago, hundreds of flights were canceled as security staff began their strike at four German airports in Berlin, Bremen, Hannover, and Hamburg – leaving more than 27,000 travelers stranded and reaching out to their airline for current flight updates.

The ver.di trade union is demanding a 10.5% pay raise as a result of inflation, and requesting higher remuneration for overtime and night shifts, alongside improvements to working conditions.

In February last month, a 24-hour strike by the ver.di union grounded more than 300 planes at Germany’s Duesseldorf and Cologne Bonn regional airports on Monday, as per airport authorities.

Postal workers, public transportation personnel, and nursery workers have also staged rallies as they cope with a rise in living costs, which was largely the result of the blowback of Western sanctions on Russia.

Employers have only offered an increase of 5% in one-time payments of 2,500 euros ($2,630) per employee. The next round of talks is due to start today, March 27.



https://mronline.org/2023/03/28/major-1 ... on-closed/

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Anti-war protests in Deutschland and the need to change course on Kiev
Originally published: Al Mayadeen on March 25, 2023 by Hamzah Rifaat (more by Al Mayadeen) | (Posted Mar 27, 2023)

Protests across Germany against weapons supplies to the Kiev regime reveal an important and strategically significant point that should not sidelined by those who continue to hold Russia solely responsible. Scenes of close to 13,000 anti-war protestors gathering at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin as well as across Germany also symbolize an acute understanding that exists in the German public that only dialogue and diplomacy, instead of camp politics and hegemony can resolve the Ukraine war. There is definitely a need to change course on Kiev.

These protests unfolded as the impasse in Ukraine is becoming unbearable. The war continues to fester in the absence of de-escalation calls and is further solidified as countries such as Germany sign off on € 8.9 million in arms exports in 2022, with a quarter of that amount heading straight to the Zelensky regime. The transnational nature of the conflict and various actors stepping in to prolong it, has resulted in the United States approving sales to countries such as Poland worth $10 Bn for interoperability. These hard facts continue to alarm pacifists and those vouching for negotiations with the Kremlin. Such state-sponsored war machineries remain unacceptable and the fact that this is coming from Berlin, which has historically adopted a nuanced foreign policy, is a cause for concern.

The protests are being spearheaded by figureheads such as Sahra Wagenknecht and veteran feminist campaigner, Alice Schwarzer, who are sending a clear signal that peace, amity, absence of hostilities and eschewing Cold War mentalities needs to take hold for a stable continent and world order. In a speech at the protest, Wagenknecht stated that a citizen’s initiative was the need of the hour as well as a new, strong and impactful peace movement across Germany. She also pointed out how demonstrators were united over grievances such as isolation and lack of representation by the Olaf Scholz administration. On the foreign policy front, the German public is also disillusioned by Foreign Minister Anna Baerbock’s doctrine of providing unfettered access to weapons.

The truth is that if Germany wants to ensure that its social contract with the people is not eroded, but kept intact, the flawed policy-making of its government cannot bypass public sentiment which is geared against confrontation and cooperation. One should note that the messaging from the protestors indicates that there is a clear aversion to the entire orientation towards Ukraine by German policymakers. Messages such as ‘Diplomats instead of Grenades’, ‘Stop the Killing’, ‘ Not My War, Not My Government’, and ‘ Helmets Today, Tanks Tomorrow, The Day After Tomorrow Your Sons’ reveal a clear disconnect between the official and societal stances to war. It is clear that taking sides in a conflict that has been the worst the world has seen since World War II is not the right strategy.

Interestingly but perhaps not surprisingly, the powers which are perpetuating this conflict have also been castigated by the German protestors. According to Nobert, a former soldier of the German Army, ‘the real enemy sits in the city of London and New York’ which is a direct reference to two global financial centers in the United States and the United Kingdom which have remained at the forefront of perpetuating the conflict. Nobert further states that, Germany had no right to participate in another conflict and that too, after the Second World War. Such castigation from public spearheads in Germany comes amid the promotion of figures such as John Lennon and Mahatma Gandhi as symbols of peace.

The protests also underline public discontent over the possibility of a nuclear conflict in the post-Cold War/ World War II era. This becomes more likely with the Ukraine regime’s adamancy in accessing weapons ranging from HIMARS to Leopard Tanks from Germany and Poland which threatens to upend the nuclear threshold. Deterrence stability which has been the hallmark of Europe in the post-World War scenario now remains increasingly vulnerable where the decision by either side to seek battlefield advantages that could involve nuclear weapons could result in catastrophic consequences for both the globe and the entire continent. For a continent and a country that has already borne the brunt of fascism, providing arms to Ukraine lacks wisdom and hints at strategic implosion.

To offset the crisis, Wagenknecht further said that the solution lies in offering Russia table talks where a never-ending war of attrition with the latest weaponry offers nothing but prolonged humanitarian suffering. The German public’s commitment to the humanitarian cause is reflected in the publication of ‘Manifest for Peace’ by Wagenknecht and Schwarzer, which urges Chancellor Olaf Scholz to change course on Kiev and prevent an escalation in weapons deliveries. 650,000 Germans including intellectuals and political figures signed the publication which is another example of the public’s rejection of war. It also shows that Russia is a sovereign state should be considered a party to peace talks which goes against Kiev’s vitriolic propaganda against Moscow.

The protests in Germany are a reminder that the Scholz administration must work towards peace instead of resorting to confrontation. As a great power in Europe with significant clout in international affairs, translating domestic sentiment into foreign policy will work well for Germany and aid the peacemaking process. It is high time to shelve nefarious policies, strategies and tactics for good.

https://mronline.org/2023/03/27/anti-wa ... e-on-kiev/

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UNSC Fails to Adopt Russia-Drafted Resolution Calling for Nord Stream Probe
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 27, 2023

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Explanation of vote by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia after UNSC vote on a draft resolution regarding the acts of sabotage at the Nord Stream pipeline

Mr.President,

I am afraid that after this vote the suspicion, who stands behind the sabotage at the Nord Stream, will but increase. Let me briefly remind of very basic facts in this regard. In plain view of the entire world, the United States and its allies did their best to preclude an objective international investigation regarding the blasts at the Nord Stream pipeline in September last year. First Washington make public threats at the highest level that they would blow up the pipe, then they scoffingly rejoiced at the news about the sabotage. In the meantime, mass media generated lots of speculations and very controversial and absurd (to say the least) versions who might have done it. All calls by Russia as an affected side to join the national investigations in Denmark, Germany, and Sweden, were turned down. All our written requests only received formal replies, this you had an opportunity to see with your own eyes. So here is my forecast. These so-called national investigations, where Russia takes no part, can go on for years. May I ask the representative of the United States what was so “predetermined” that he discovered in our draft resolution? You know the saying “a guilty conscience is never at ease”, don’t you? The United States routinely links this resolution to Ukraine, though not a single word about Ukraine was said in the document, and not only there.

When we raised the issue of an objective international investigation, the tactic of our American and European colleagues narrowed down to denying the involvement of the United States on the one hand and preventing a transparent and impartial inquiry into the circumstances of the sabotage on the other. The more evidence testifying to the involvement of Washington and its NATO allies came to surface, the more vocal the Western bloc was getting about alleged inexpediency of an international investigation.

What does this mean? One does not need to be a detective or an analyst to realize that the United States and the allies are covering up the tracks, i.a. by adding more speculations and absurd versions while refusing to comment on the unflattering facts that are revealed. If the United States was interested in establishing the facts and holding the guilty to account, then Washington would act differently.

Colleagues, this vote was a litmus test to show what world each of us is moving toward. Is it a world where international law is upheld and where there is accountability for attacks against international pipeline systems and other infrastructure? Or is it a world where there are states who can do whatever they like, who devise laws for everyone to follow while calling it a “rules-based order”, and who are never held accountable even for most reckless and dangerous actions? Today’s vote confirmed with all certainty that our former Western partners believe they can get away with anything. Also, today we saw a nasty manifestation of Western “silent conspiracy” in the Security Council, which prevents this body from fulfilling its duties.

Of course, we will draw our conclusions. We are convinced that more detailed facts are yet to be discovered, and that everyone who is complicit in the sabotage of the Nord Stream will be identified, as well as all details of this crime. This is inevitable.

Thank you.

Right of reply:

Mr.President,

Before Mr.Hersh published his findings, I cannot recall any Russian officials say that the United States had been guilty of this tragedy. Such speculations started only after the publication by S.Hersh.

I would like to ask my US colleague. How can you comment on the words of his President J.Biden, who said, “We will put an end to these pipes” long before they were really put an end to?

Second reply:

Mr.President,

My question was not about the article by Mr.Hersh that my American colleague has never read, though I strongly recommend that he does. I asked a direct question. How can you comment on the words of your President, who said openly, “We will put an end to Nord Stream”? This question I did not hear an answer to.

Thank you.

PERMANENT MISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS

Remarks to the press by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia following UNSC vote on a draft resolution regarding the acts of sabotage at the Nord Stream pipeline

Q: Are you surprised with the voting on your resolution?

A: I’m not.

Q: Why?

A: We knew the result, but the negative result is also a result. We expected something like that because it betrays and reveals a few things. As I said, uneasy conscience betrays itself. You heard my dialogue with the representative of the United States who simply couldn’t answer a simple question which I asked. He was accusing us of propaganda and what not, like they always do, they try to shift focus on Ukraine. We were talking about a particular subject – an independent investigation. Our resolution doesn’t contain a single reference to a single country. It just called for an independent investigation because investigations that are being conducted nationally by Sweden, Denmark and Germany do not meet the requirements of an objective one since they simply exclude one of the countries that suffered most from the process, which is namely Russia.

Q: So will Russia try to push the draft a resolution again for a vote?

A: I think that was enough. What has happened today, has revealed their real attitude towards the issue.

Q: Ambassador, the US representative did say it’s great that Russia is concerned about international infrastructure. And he did say, what about the infrastructure in Ukraine? What’s your response to that?

A: When they have nothing to answer, they always shift the focus on another issue. That’s their tactics. We learned it long time ago.

Q: Ambassador, do you expect the meeting on Belarus to be coming up in the next few days?

A: The meeting was requested. We are always ready for whatever meetings, if they are scheduled. Of course, we have a few things to say.

Q: Any special guests during Russian UNSC Presidency next month?

A: We are expecting Minister Lavrov to come for a few meetings.

Q: Which ones?

A: That is being decided, but I mean signature events of our Presidency, which are scheduled closer to the end of the month.

Q: Does he have permission to travel and everything. I mean, because of all of the problems that your delegation had in the past with getting speakers here.

A: You saw him here at the UNGA high level week. It will be fun if he is not allowed to come here for the UNSC Presidency.

Q: What are those signature events?

A: One of our signature events will be dedicated to the multipolarity in the emerging world (that’s not the exact title, but that’s the topic). The other will be an open debate on the Middle East. There is one more event, which is scheduled earlier in April, before the Minister comes, regarding the uncontrolled arms export, proliferation of uncontrolled arms supplies around the world. We are not focusing on any particular country. Of course, certain countries will be focusing on certain areas, but that’s a generic problem, not just the problem of the conflict that you are referring to.

Q: On Minister Lavrov’s visit, when was the last time he was here?

A: High level week, last September.

Q: And does he have to apply for special permission since he’s been named.

A: Look, he’s coming for the UN events. They are obliged to issue visas for such visitors.

Q: Is he looking forward to it?

A: I hope so.

Q: Has the visa been granted yet by the US?

A: You’re asking a wrong person. That’s their obligation. They should grant a visa to the delegation.

Q: How big is his delegation? That’s always the question. Will he do a press conference, hopefully?

A: I think yes. As usual.

PERMANENT MISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... eam-probe/

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MSNBC Pundit Goes To Fight In Ukraine, Acts Like A Disruptive Troll And Leaves

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One year ago then-MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance announced he had left the network to join the fight against Russia with the Ukrainian International Legion, telling MSNBC’s Joy Reid “I’m done talking” to much fanfare from the blue-and-yellow-flag-waving crowd.

A year later, The New York Times has published a report which would seem to indicate that Nance was not done talking after all.

In an article titled “Stolen Valor: The U.S. Volunteers in Ukraine Who Lie, Waste and Bicker,” the Times describes how foreign volunteer fighters “who lack the skills or discipline to assist effectively” are hindering the war effort, saying that “people who would not be allowed anywhere near the battlefield in a U.S.-led war are active on the Ukrainian front — often with unchecked access to weapons and military equipment.”

The New York Times’ Justin Scheck and Thomas Gibbons-Neff name several of these problematic volunteers who “lie, waste and bicker,” including well-known American volunteer fighter James Vasquez, whom they confront about lies they’ve discovered he told in order to get himself to the frontline in Ukraine. But like many articles in the mainstream media, the chewiest bits aren’t found until many paragraphs down.

https://twitter.com/kristina_wong/statu ... 5281565697

From the article:

Malcolm Nance, a former Navy cryptologist and MSNBC commentator, arrived in Ukraine last year and made a plan to bring order and discipline to the Legion. Instead, he became enmeshed in the chaos.



Mr. Nance, whose TV appearances have made him one of the most visible Americans supporting Ukraine, was an experienced military operator. He drafted a code of honor for the organization and, by all accounts, donated equipment.



Today, Mr. Nance is involved in a messy, distracting power struggle. Often, that plays out on Twitter, where Mr. Nance taunted one former ally as “fat” and an associate of “a verified con artist.”



He accused a pro-Ukraine fund-raising group of fraud, providing no evidence. After arguing with two Legion administrators, Mr. Nance wrote a “counterintelligence” report trying to get them fired. Central to that report is an accusation that one Legion official, Emese Abigail Fayk, fraudulently tried to buy a house on an Australian reality TV show with money she didn’t have. He labeled her “a potential Russian spy,” offering no evidence. Ms. Fayk denied the accusations and remains with the Legion.



Mr. Nance said that as a member of the Legion with an intelligence background, when he developed concerns, he “felt an obligation to report this to Ukrainian counterintelligence.”


Scheck and Gibbons-Neff report that “Mr. Nance has left Ukraine,” which would make sense if that was how he was behaving. Perhaps he was asked to leave, or perhaps he left on his own because so many people hated him.


In case you’re unaware, Malcolm Nance has an extensive history of telling brazen lies to advance the interests of the US empire, and has suffered no professional consequences as a pundit for doing so. As journalist Glenn Greenwald has documented over the years, these include making the objectively false claim on MSNBC that former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein “has a show on Russia Today,” falsely asserting that the WikiLeaks documents published ahead of the 2016 election were “riddled with obvious forgeries,” and falsely accusing Greenwald himself of being “an agent of Trump and Moscow” who is “deep in the Kremlin pocket.”

It is rare for the mainstream media to push falsehoods made up whole cloth by the media employees themselves; normally mass media propaganda consists of uncritically reporting false claims made by government officials, or using half-truths, distortions and lies-by-omission to give their audiences an inaccurate picture of what’s going on. Malcolm Nance’s media career has been one so brazenly propagandistic that it makes other propagandists cringe due to his lack of subtlety, which is why even the imperial smut rags like The New York Times are spitting on him now.

This gruelling war has had very little about it that draws a smile, but at least we’ll always have the story of an odious imperial spinmeister flying to Ukraine to fight the Russians only to go home in disgrace while being spurned by his fellow propagandists after acting like an infantile troll.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/03/26 ... nd-leaves/
"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 Mar 28, 2023 10:48 pm

Hungarian Parliament Approves Finland's Accession to NATO

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House of Parliament in Budapest, Hungary. | Photo: Twitter/ @hannamabd

Published 27 March 2023 (20 hours 15 minutes ago)

Finland and Sweden dropped their decades-long policies of military non-alignment and applied to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in May 2022.


On Monday, the Hungarian parliament approved legislation allowing Finland to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Besides the far-right party "Our Homeland" (Mi Hazank), all parties voted in favor of Finland's accession. While 11 lawmakers were absent, 182 members of parliament voted in favor and six against.

Last Friday, Mi Hazank Vice President Elod Novak said that his party would veto Finland's accession because "expanding the military alliance on Russia's border would be a provocation, while the neutral zone is an international interest."

The Hungarian parliament originally tabled to vote on the ratification of the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO in the last trimester of 2022, but had since decided to hold two separate votes.

Before Monday's vote, the Hungarian parliament sent a delegation on a "courtesy visit" to Finland and Sweden, to inquire as to why Helsinki and Stockholm had criticized Hungary's democratic institutions.


"We were forced to hold consultations with the speaker, foreign minister, and parliament members of the two countries about whether they see Hungary as an ally, because the political statements in recent years were unduly hostile and did not reflect the reality in Hungary," Hungarian parliament speaker Laszlo Kover said last week after the visit.

Finland and Sweden had criticized the Hungarian government on issues related to corruption, media freedom and the judicial system.

"Hungary has managed to get reassurance from the Finns that these problems will not persist in the future," Balazs Orban, the prime minister's political director, said on Sunday.

Finland and Sweden dropped their decades-long policies of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO in May 2022. Before Monday's vote, Hungary and Türkiye were the last two of NATO's 30 members holding out on ratifying the accession of Sweden and Finland. Türkiye has not yet ratified either of the Nordic nations' accession to NATO.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Hun ... -0010.html

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Moscow Calls Out US’ Rules-Based Order in Europe
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 27, 2023
M. K. Bhadrakumar

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Britain is creating conditions in Europe to base nuclear-armed bombers in Britain at Lakenheath in Suffolk (which were removed in 1991 in line with the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty.)

Baroness Goldie is an experienced Scottish politician and life peer who served as Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party from 2005 to 2011 and as the UK’s Minister of State for Defence since 2019. She is anything but another party girl like Liz Truss who often had to swallow her indiscreet words betraying ignorance.

Certainly, Baroness Goldie understood perfectly well the implications of what she put down in a written statement at the House of Lords on March 20 in her answer to Lord Hylton’s seemingly innocuous question: “To ask His Majesty’s Government whether any of the ammunition currently being supplied to Ukraine contains depleted uranium.” (By the way, Lord Hylton is one of 92 hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords; he is is currently the longest-serving Crossbench member of the House of Lords, since 1968, and is a dynamic campaigner for peace and the interests of the vulnerable and the marginalised.)

It is a fair guess that the UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace kept 10 Downing Street informed — and even more important, had prior consultations and concurrence with his US counterpart, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin — before Baroness Goldie made the statement.

Both Wallace and Austin are military people and understand why ammunition tipped with “depleted uranium” is needed in the current stage of the proxy war in Ukraine if at all Kiev is to launch a “credible counter-offensive” in spring when the tide of the war has distinctly turned in Russia’s favour.

Equally, both must be well aware that the legality of the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia is still an open issue. In response to NATO’s bombing campaign, former Yugoslavia instituted proceedings before the International Court of Justice on April 29, 1999, against the ten NATO members directly involved in the attack — Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the UK, and the US — citing a series of violations of the law of nations (which included the obligation not to use prohibited weapons.)

Although the ICJ rejected Belgrade’s request for provisional measures, it, nonetheless, declared itself profoundly concerned with the use of force in Yugoslavia, which “under the present circumstances … raises very serious issues of international law.” Suffice to say, the cases brought by Yugoslavia against the NATO respondents still remain on the ICJ’s docket although the petitioner got dismembered.

Make no mistake, Washington and London are consciously repeating the war crime in the former Yugoslavia. The Anglo-Saxon clique’s core objective is a calculated escalation of the proxy war that is certain to draw forth a robust reaction by Moscow, as predictable as night follows day.

Indeed, that is precisely what happened when Putin announced on Saturday that Russia will deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Putin linked this to a request from Belarus in reaction to Baroness Goldie’s statement in London a week ago.

More importantly, Putin also drew the analogy of the US placing its tactical nuclear weapons on the territories of the allied NATO countries for decades.

The EU and NATO went ballistic after Putin’s disclosure. EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said on Sunday called out Moscow’s decision as “an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.” He threatened to impose “further sanctions” against Belarus!

A NATO spokeswoman called Moscow’s decision “dangerous and irresponsible.” Interestingly, though, the Biden administration neatly side-stepped the issue, focusing instead that the US has not seen any signs that Russia has moved nuclear weapons to Belarus or anywhere else!

In good measure, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby added, “We’ve in fact seen no indication he (Putin) has any intention to use nuclear weapons, period, inside Ukraine.”

But then, Putin had also made it clear that Russia would first complete construction on a storage facility in Belarus for the tactical nuclear weapons by July 1.

Kirby is fudging. What is the game plan? First, the Anglo-Saxon clique would hope that the issue will create further antagonism in Europe against Russia and Putin personally and would rally European countries behind the Biden administration at a time when fault lines were appearing within the transatlantic alliance over a protracted war in Ukraine that might be catastrophic for European economies.

Washington is hard-pressed to respond to Putin’s remark that Russia is only doing something that the US has been doing for decades. The point is, a mutual commitment not to deploy nuclear weapons in third countries was one of the proposals Moscow made to Washington in December 2021, alongside a commitment that Ukraine would not join NATO. The US ignored it and precipitated the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.

The crux of the matter is, as with the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the Russian decision on tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is retaliatory, drawing attention to the US missiles stationed close to its borders. (An estimated 100 nuclear weapons are stored in vaults in five European countries — Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey.)

Worse still, the US practices a controversial arrangement known as “nuclear sharing”, under which it installs nuclear equipment on fighter jets of select non-nuclear NATO countries and train their pilots to carry out nuclear strike with US nuclear bombs. This is when the US, being a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has promised not to hand over nuclear weapons to other countries, and the non-nuclear countries in the NATO’s sharing arrangement have themselves promised not to receive nuclear weapons from the nuclear weapon states!

The NATO declared last year that seven NATO countries contributed dual-capable aircraft to the nuclear sharing mission. These countries are believed to be the US, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey and Greece. And all are signatories to the NPT!

Welcome to the rules based order! What is perfectly permissible to the “collective West” is anathema when it comes to Russia.

Finally, the diplomatic pirouette has yet another dimension: Britain’s decision to send depleted uranium weaponry to Ukraine is confirming its reputation as the most reckless and unscrupulous state in the whole NATO alliance.

For, there is no question that depleted uranium munitions are radioactive and toxic and their heavy use in the Yugoslavia and Iraq wars has been linked to birth defects and cancers. Together with white phosphorus, it has been tied to “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied” in Fallujah, the city subjected to two brutal US sieges during the invasion of Iraq.

Ironically, the toxicity of depleted uranium munitions has been accepted by many NATO countries, too, and the European Parliament has called for its use to be banned. So, what is Britain up to behaving like an outlier?

The heart of the matter is that Britain is creating conditions in Europe to base nuclear-armed bombers in Britain at Lakenheath in Suffolk (which were removed in 1991 in line with the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty.)

At a time when the peace movement in Britain is moribund, count on the Russian decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus to trigger calls for yet another tit for tat escalation from warmongers and Russophobes. Expect the US bombers to return to Lakenheath in a near future.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... in-europe/

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BELLINGCAT & MOUSE GAME REVEALS ADVANCE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE OF NORDSTREAM ATTACK OPERATION

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

The NATO intelligence publicity department known as Bellingcat has just produced new NATO-sourced evidence of an elaborate cat-and-mouse game which the navies and air forces of Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and the US played against Russian forces in the Baltic Sea off Bornhom Island in the week before the detonation of explosives on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last September 26.

Cat and mouse is also the game the NATO propaganda agencies are now playing.

The aim of the intelligence, published last week by the quasi-state German media platform called T-Online, and in the Danish offshoot of Bellingcat known as Oliver Alexander, is to accuse the Russian Navy of the pipeline attack, using a mini-submarine and deep-sea divers. This is based on NATO and US identification and tracking of a six-vessel Russian flotilla several days before the explosions – an intelligence vessel, a deep-sea operations vessel, two tugs, and heavily armed anti-ship and anti-submarine frigate and corvette.

“It was precisely such mini-submarines that could have placed the explosive charges attaching it to the pipelines, experts suspected from the very start,” T-Online claims, using the hypothetical followed by a conditional plus three more hypotheticals.

“If it was confirmed that the SS-750 was at the scene, the Russian Navy would probably be the prime suspect from then on. ‘It would make absolute sense to use something like the AS-26 for such an attack,” Danish corvette captain and military analyst Johannes Riber told T-Online about this matter. ‘That would be the most plausible explanation so far for what happened to the Nord Stream pipeline.’” T-Online concluded: “In official statements, the activities of the Russian navy in the days before the attacks have so far played no role. Neither the German, Danish or Swedish investigators, nor NATO or the armed forces of the Baltic Sea states wanted to comment on them when asked by T-Online. Thus, the criminal case remains unsolved for the time being, but a chain of evidence has been added. It does not point to the USA or Ukraine. Some tracks now are leading to Moscow.”

Riber, the Danish navy source, has made a career chain of working in NATO staffs, as well as under US commands in Iraq and Bahrain. In addition, T-Online claims its evidence has come from US satellite imagery and “sources in the security community”.

In parallel publication under his own name, Alexander has been less forensically direct, more circumstantial. The Russian vessels were “possibly… in close proximity to the Nord Stream sabotage site”. This is circumstantial guilt by geographical association; Alexander camouflages it by a disclaimer: “In conclusion, OSINT [Open Source Intelligence] alone cannot solve the mystery of the Nord Stream sabotage or what these vessels were doing on September 21st-23rd, a few days before the explosions. It does however seem likely that the unusual events on these dates are somehow a key part of the Nord Stream sabotage mystery.”

The sourcing for Alexander’s claims is “an intelligence source [who] had told [T-Online] the names of six Russian naval vessels that were reportedly spotted in the vicinity of the Nord Stream sabotage site. With this information, I have spent the past week collecting and analyzing any open source information I could find in order to try to corroborate as much of their information as possible.”

Click to follow the new reports: published on March 21; March 25-26; March 26 and the last report.

The Russian Navy vessels identified and tracked at the crime scene off Bornholm Island are:

SS-750 with AS-26 Project Priz deep-diving rescue vehicle (lead image, right)
Syzran intelligence vessel
Rescue tug, SB-123
Rescue tug, Aleksandr Frolov
Neutrashimy-class frigate, Yaroslav Mudry
Steregushchiy-class corvette, Soobrazitelny

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Top: Syzran; below, left. Aleksandr Frolov; right, Yaroslav Mudry.

It is noteworthy that the new NATO-sourced materials say very little about US fleet and air operations in the area at the same time, as reported by Seymour Hersh. They omit and ignore the Norwegian operations which Hersh and other researchers have identified. The Bellingcat papers also fail to detect the British surface navy and submarine operations documented here.

Responding to the new naval and aviation data reporting, an East German source notes it has long been standard operating procedure for the Soviet and Russian fleets to shadow, track, and follow up NATO operations in the Baltic Sea region. He thinks the evidence presented by the Bellingcat group reveals the Russian flotilla was investigating what the multiple NATO navy exercises had been doing as soon as the principal US vessel, the USS Kearsage and its accompanying squadron completed their Polish port calls and exited the Baltic on September 26.

In other words, the evidence Bellingcat is presenting as suspicion of Russian culpability in laying the pipeline charges, should be interpreted as evidence that the Russians had advance intelligence of the pipeline attack operation, and they were investigating what they could at the time — after the charges had been laid, but before they were detonated on September 26.

Viewed in this light, the Bellingcat reports confirm how crowded the crime scene was before the crime was committed – how many naval and air force units were operating, all of them under NATO command coordination – Danish, Swedish, German, Polish, and American. A crime scene full of suspects but empty of the weapon.

Unreported in the new analyses of the crime scene is the evidence which has been removed from the scene in violation of all the customary rules of evidence, such as hearsay, chain of custody, authentication, and admissibility. This is the evidence of the explosive residues at the detonation sites, and the unexploded device which the Danish, Swedish and German governments have recovered from the seabed and analyzed; and which they refuse to disclose.

https://johnhelmer.net/bellingcat-mouse ... more-87734

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ICC Arrest Warrant Issued to Putin is Hypocritical Propaganda Stunt Aimed to Distract from Growing Protests Against Ukraine War
By Sonja Van den Ende - March 23, 2023 1

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[Source: tasnimnews.com]

With large-scale protests against war and austerity engulfing the streets of Western (EU) countries, the political elite, in full-fledged panic mode, launched a propaganda stunt by indicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Lvova-Belova is the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights. She and Putin are accused of kidnapping children from what the West calls Ukraine, but what according to new Russian law, obtained by a referendum, is actually now part of Russia.

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Mary Lvova-Belova posing inside a Russian Orthodox church. [Source: telegraph.co.uk]

In retaliation for the arrests, Russia’s top investigative body has opened a criminal case against the ICC prosecutor and judges who issued the arrest warrant, which Russia claims is illegitimate.

The Kremlin called the issuance of the ICC warrant outrageous and legally void, as Russia is not a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC.

Allegations Moscow Grabs Ukrainian Children

The ICC claims as evidence, regarding the abduction of children, comes from an October 2022 Associated Press (AP) article by Sarah El Deeb, Anastasia Shvets and Elizaveta Tilna titled: “How Moscow grabs Ukrainian children and makes them Russian.”

Filled with photographs of children who had allegedly been abducted, the article begins with the paragraph: “Olga Lopatkina paced around her basement in circles like a trapped animal. For more than a week, the Ukrainian mother had heard nothing from her six adopted children stranded in Mariupol, and she was going out of her mind with worry.”

The article then goes on to claim that many children, like Lopatkina’s kids, were abducted by Russian forces in the Donbas and taken to Russia; Russia points out that it was actually saving the kids since they had been orphaned by the war and subjected to bombing by the Ukrainian army.

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Abducted children featured in the AP story. [Source: apnews.com]

Drawing from interviews with parents, children and officials in both Ukraine and Russia, email and letters, Russian documents and Russian state media, the AP claimed to have found evidence that many of the kids had been taken without their consent, had been lied to by Russian soldiers who said they were not wanted by their parents, had been used for propaganda and were given to Russian families and given Russian citizenship.

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Stephen Rapp [Source: wikipedia.org]

Stephen Rapp, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Obama administration, who is advising Ukraine on prosecutions, is quoted as saying that “it’s not something that happens spur of the moment on the battlefield. And so your ability to attribute responsibility to the highest level is much greater here.” He added: “Even where parents are dead, their children must be sheltered, fostered or adopted in Ukraine rather than deported to Russia.”


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Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Mariupol mayor, is also quoted as saying: “It is absolutely a terrible story. We don’t know if our children have an official parent or [step-parents] or something else because they are forcibly disappeared by Russian troops.”

Maria Lvova-Belova is quoted in the piece saying that more than 1,000 children from Ukraine were in Russia and that these children need Russia’s help to overcome trauma that has left them sleeping badly, crying at night and drawing basements and bomb shelters.

At first, she said, a group of 30 children brought to Russia from the basements of Mariupol defiantly sang the Ukrainian national anthem and shouted “Glory to Ukraine!” But now their criticism has been transformed into a “love for Russia,” and she herself has taken in one, a teenager.

Lvova-Belova’s comments indicate that the children are being used as political pawns. Nevertheless, it is not clear that the majority actually had parents or a home to return to after being displaced by the war.

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Finian Cunningham [Source: wikispooks.com]

Irish journalist Finian Cunningham wrote that “Russia has evacuated thousands of civilians, including children, from the regions formerly of eastern Ukraine that are now part of the Russian Federation for the precise reason of taking them out of harm’s way from the NATO-backed Nazi regime in Kiev, whose forces have been indiscriminately shelling the Donbass and other areas.”

The AP article leaves out that the majority of atrocities in Mariupol were committed by the Ukrainian Army, including especially the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, making the children victims of the Ukrainian and not Russian government.

Many of the children have been taken furthermore from regions that are now actually part of Russia (which has acquired new territory in the war).

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Children from different orphanages from the Democratic People’s Republic (DPR) in Camp Zolotya Kosa, on the Azov Sea, July 8, 2022. [Source: apnews.com]

In the past, Putin and Russia have been accused of stealing children from Lugansk, which is also now part of Russia.

As a journalist, I visited Mariupol several times in 2022, when there was still heavy fighting going on, in the harbor and the city center.

Many people in the city told me that they were forced to live in cellars for weeks because of Ukrainian Army shelling and rampaging of the Azov Battalion, which was engaged in heavy fighting with the Russians and then hid in the Azov Steel plant before surrendering in May 2022 (in June 2022, I was the first Dutch journalist to visit the plant).

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People waiting for food, water and aid, Mariupol city center, April 2022. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

President Putin paid an unexpected visit to Mariupol and the Donbas last weekend after being accused by the ICC, visiting new apartment blocks. Before that, he had visited Crimea, which declared itself in a referendum nine years ago to be part of Russia.

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President Putin visiting Mariupol and speaking with residents of an apartment complex. [Source: vk.com]

The West’s Double Standards Continue

The West calls the ICC arrest warrant a big step in condemning President Putin. However, Finian Cunningham wrote that “if anyone should be facing prosecution for war crimes, it is the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Nazi-adulating commander, as well as their sponsors: American, European and NATO leaders.”

“The Kiev regime,” Cunningham continues, “has been shelling the Donbass for nine years since the CIA coup brought to power this fascist junta. NATO trained the Azov Battalion and other Waffen SS-style paramilitaries, which are firing U.S. supplied HIMARS rockets with the help of American, British, French, German, Canadian and Polish mercenaries. Russia intervened in Ukraine last year to put an end to the genocide that Washington and Europe along with their Western media are complicit in.”

A Kangaroo Court

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Slobodan Milošević being transported to court hearing at The Hague. His arrest was very clearly political, as Croat and Muslim leaders who oversaw major war crimes in the Balkans conflict and fueled the break-up of Yugoslavia with U.S. and German backing were never prosecuted, nor were Clinton administration officials who sanctioned the bombing of Kosovo under fraudulent pretexts, resulting in the deaths of at least 500 civilians. [Source: forum.metropolitico.it]

In the past, we have seen how the ICC has been used as a political tool to bludgeon political opponents of the U.S. and West, like Serbian socialist leader Slobodan Milošević who was falsely accused of genocide right after he had been ousted in a CIA-backed color revolution.

The ICC has also gone after many African leaders who have resisted U.S. imperial designs—like former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, and Hutu leaders in Rwanda allied with France against the U.S./UK-backed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), whose leader, Paul Kagame, has never been prosecuted for his central role in the Rwandan genocide and invasion and plunder of the Congo.

Finian Cunningham noted that the week of the indictment of Putin marked the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. “[This was] a war that killed as many as one million civilians and destroyed a nation, based on outright fabricated lies, lies that Biden as a then-senator helped to promote. The main architects of those crimes, George W. Bush and Tony Blair have never been mentioned even in passing by lawyers at the ICC. Why is that? Because the ICC is a Kangaroo Court and a political plaything that Western imperialism uses to pursue political enemies.”

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Omar al-Bashir [Source: btnrwanda.com]

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Paul Kagame [Source: rwanda24.blogspot.com]

More U.S. Hypocrisy

After the indictment against Vladimir Putin was announced, President Biden said that, while the ICC also held no sway in the U.S., the issuance of the warrant “makes a very strong point.”

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[Source: redbubble.com]

“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” he told reporters.

But if the latter was true, so had the U.S. To avert prosecution, both houses of the U.S. Congress have approved a law that provides for an invasion of a NATO partner country if American citizens are indicted before the ICC in The Hague.

All the illegal wars the U.S. has waged in recent years, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, to name a few, have resulted in the deaths of millions of people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands, some of whom can now be seen wandering around in Europe.

Then there is Guantánamo Bay, the largest modern U.S. concentration camp, in Cuba, and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. And, of course, do not forget Camp Bucca, also in Iraq, where terrorists such as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were trained and educated by the CIA.

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[Source: dailydot.com]

Does President Putin have anything to fear from the ICC, of which the great superpowers of the world, such as the U.S., are not members? No, I don’t think so. The West is awash in hypocritical positions, clinging to a unipolar, neocolonial world.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/0 ... raine-war/

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Child’s play?: Berlin Bulletin 209, March 26 2023
By Victor Grossman (Posted Mar 27, 2023)

I recall a circle game from my childhood; after each round another chair was removed, leaving one more child out. We called it “Going to Jerusalem.” Last week Israeli boss Netanyahu arrived FROM Jerusalem. After two days he was out of the Berlin circle—one day too early.

Since its founding the Federal Republic has supported even the worst Israeli leaders, aiming, by voicing loud regret for Nazi horror and displaying reform efforts, to win an admission ticket back into western society. Under a media blanket, however, all but the worst Nazi big shots crept back into every sphere, above all government and the economy. Age, death and rebellious young anti-fascists gradually removed most of them, but not their influence—or the total official support for every Israeli leader, even former terrorists like Menachim Begin and Yitzhak Shamir. Such types now have total power, yet Chancellor Scholz upheld the formula and gave “Bibi” an honored welcome. Then the state visit was suddenly cut short! Was it because hundreds of thousands in Israel kept up mass protests against the demolition of democracy, even for Jewish Israelis? Or because of world-wide revulsion at the bloodshed against Palestinians, from well-aimed bullets killing Shireen Abu Akleh, a beloved woman journalist, or the torching of hundreds of Palestinian homes in the refugee camp of Huwwara by illegal Israeli settlers, while Israeli soldiers refused to intervene and then joined in, with ministerial approval? Or because of demonstrations in Berlin, by Germans and Palestinians at the Bundestag and, at Brandenburg Gate, by angry Israeli ex-pats living in Berlin (a historic turn-around), waving Israeli flags while denouncing the new government? It is getting tougher for Bibi and his hate-driven ministers to find comfortably secure chairs anywhere. Perhaps, before long, even in Jerusalem?

++

But the featured game in Berlin these days was rather “Who’s King of the Mountain” or, slightly altered, “King of City Hall” (or its queen). In an unprecedented decision, the courts canceled the totally-mismanaged September 2021 elections to the Berlin parliament (Abgeordnetenhaus) and ordered new elections, which were held on February 12th.

Since 2016, the city was run by a coalition: Social Democrats (SPD), with their Franziska Giffey as mayor, the Greens and the LINKE (Left). Most of the media now expected only minor changes.

Then came Surprise No. 1. Those three parties, added together, again won a majority, but a far slimmer one, with the SPD suffering its worst loss in Berlin history, a measly 18.4%, far behind the CDU “Christians” at 28.2%. Too many Berliners were fed up, for both good reasons and bad ones. New Year’s Eve fireworks, with angry attacks on the police and some firemen, were immediately blamed by the “Bild” and other rags (think “Fox” or “NY Post”) on “lazy, unruly and violent immigrants.” The coalition parties were accused of “spoiling” them instead of locking them away or deporting them. And the CDU, heavily racist-tainted, joined in.

Other heartstrings—in the tender breasts of car-drivers—were struck by the Greens‘ efforts to slow auto velocity and limit car traffic, even barring four-wheelers from a downtown shopping street, to increase the number and width of bicycle lanes and stop the extension of a big highway further into the city. Blood pressures behind steering-wheels rose.

Thirdly, Berlin’s less prosperous majority was angry at the ruling trio’s failure, despite its promises, to keep rental costs from soaring, prevent evictions, and build anything near the necessary number of affordable apartments. A referendum demanding the confiscation of all apartment buildings owned by big housing giants (with adequate repayment) had been dramatically approved by over a million voters, 59%, but was sabotaged by SPD-mayor Giffey, given only lukewarm support by the Greens and really backed only by the LINKE—but even then pushed into “mañana“ status by that party’s accommodating, status-quo wing which is dominant in Berlin. So people asked: Where is the promised genuine rent control? Who has really fought for affordable housing! Many, dismayed or disgusted, decided to sit out this repeat election!

But many did vote. And to complicate the messy situation, both SPD and Greens got 18.4%—about 280,000 each! The SPD was ahead—by only 105 votes! Then almost 500 uncounted mail-in votes were found; would they give the Greens first place and a “Green woman mayor”? Suspense was huge, but in the end the SPD was ahead by a just 53 votes, enough to save the status quo.

But the top vote-getter gets first shot at forming a government. The CDU-“Christians” led the field with 28.2%, giving them 52 seats (out of 159), far from a majority. With neither the LINKE (22 seats) nor the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD—17 seats) as possible allies, their right to a first chance seemed a useless formality. But the CDU kept up its usual loud-mouth bragging.

Surprise No. 2, it paid off! In an amazing switch, Franziska Giffey, whose unpopularity as Social Democratic mayor helped cause their losses, announced her decision to dismantle the leftish-sounding trio alliance, abdicate her position and take her party into a junior partnership, giving Berlin its first CDU boss since 2001. The probable new mayor, Kai Wegner, like his party, works hand in glove with the real estate lobby, and it’s a wide-open hand. He once assured these behemoths:

The exchange with you, our cooperation, has always offered me a great deal. As you know, I was often closer to your side than to the other side.

Giffey had never angered that side either; Berlin seemed in for five years of right-wing government. The SPD was trading any remaining left-over principles for a second prize, half the well-rewarded cabinet chairs. The Greens and the LINKE were suddenly relegated to cold opposition seats!

But halt! In Berlin’s SPD, majority approval by the party’s 53,000 members is needed for such major decisions; there is a call for rejection in some boroughs and in the SPD’s Young Socialist organization (Jusos). Will party discipline and pressure prevail in the end? The curtain has not yet descended on this topsy-turvy puppet theater stage.

Similar confusion and controversy abound on the national level, where Social Democrats and Greens share coalition rule not with the LINKE but with the small, pushy pro-big-biz Free Democratic Party. This FDP, now threatened with political bankruptcy, is trying to win back hearts and votes by moving closer to the Christians, now in opposition but drooling at a chance to overturn apple-carts as in Berlin. So the FDP is bucking its Green coalition partner by preserving Germany’s “no speed limit” stretches on its Autobahns, which it tries to extend more than climate-friendlier rail traffic, and further hindering, as much as possible, postponed plans to cut down on carbon-spewing coal and gas heating and close down atomic energy plants. It alienates its SPD partners, now trying to regain lost working-class support, by resisting aid to the financially deprived while resisting taxes on the obscenely wealthy; the well- worn label is again “deficit-cutting”. Chancellor Scholz is trying to please everyone but the cracks widen while the CDU aims at becoming King of the Mountain. Like in Berlin.

One theme unites German coalitions; total support for continuing the Ukraine war. Many citizens base their support on an abhorrence of killing and destruction, on sympathy for Ukrainian refugees, over a million mostly women and children who have arrived in Germany. And for those left behind.

But men like Armin Papperger, the CEO of Rheinmetall, Germany’s main producer of tanks and other big weapons, have hardly been affected by human sympathy alone. His annual pay last year stood at € 4,4 million while his company, happy since 1889 at all weapons orders, raked in $28.22 billion last year. “The war in Europe has ushered in a new era for Rheinmetall,” Papperger said. Nor would a long war require more hankies for executives at Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing and the like, or U.S. coal and gas producers who, after years of pressure, finally succeeded in forcing western Europe to cancel imports from Russia and build new ports for far more expensive liquefied gas from fracking sites in the USA. In the second and third quarter of 2022 alone, American oil producers made $200 billion in profits; explosively capping off such successes, according to master journalist Seymour Hersh, was the blasting of the Russia-to-Germany pipelines on the Baltic sea bottom. German politicians and media could hardly blame this convincingly on Russia, which constructed the pipelines. And they feared the political consequences of blaming either the obvious culprit or Zelensky, Washington’s man in Kyiv, now the most-feted star in Europe, well ahead of King Charles (not to mention Macron). So they tried to just keep quiet and hope people would forget about it. Not enough did, so a Washington-CIA-Berlin legend was hatched about “non-governmental Ukrainians” in a boat so small it could never have carried the weight of explosives and devices. So they became mum again. Or are they now trying to hatch up some more credible alibi?

But not only the city-state Berlin, teetering coalitions or exploded pipes are making news, but their effects. Low-paid working-people, single parents, pensioners, have been hit hard by soaring prices for foodstuffs, higher rent, fears about increasing prices for heating, cooking, commuting to jobs. Many are now fighting back. On Monday, March 27th, a giant one-day warning strike is shutting down rail service, key airports, much of urban public transportation. Kindergarten teachers, garbage collectors, civil servants, university staff; some well-paid pundits are weeping over this “rehearsal for a general strike!” while Britain and France seem closer—as models for action! Some companies (and public institutions) are hoping for public animosity because of the resulting inconveniences but, often surprisingly, there is widespread public support for the strikers by all those who feel the same pains.

Such disputes, difficulties and struggles should be of advantage to a party dedicated to better lives for all the people, with no lobby pressures or dependence on corporate donors. Sadly, however, the LINKE is also split, now mostly on questions involving the Ukraine. Its stronger group, called by some the “reformers,” stands largely in line with the main parties and media, unconditionally condemning Putin and Russia, approving weapons shipments to Zelensky, calling for victory against the aggressor and condemning all doubters. Angrily opposed to them are those who voice (or demand) unconditional support for Russia.

But many—or most (?) “doubters” condemn the Russian invasion but point to the map and the constant, aggressive push by NATO, led by Washington, to surround Russia, strangle its approaches to the world’s oceans by blocking the Baltic and the Black Sea while stepping up dangerous military and naval maneuvers along its borders, coupled with open political interference in Ukraine and thinly-veiled calls to defeat “authoritarian governments”, meaning Russia (and Cuba, N. Korea, etc.), while snuggling up to or installing some of the world‘s worst tyrants. These “doubters” ask what the USA would do if a hostile alliance conducted atomic-armed maneuvers near San Diego, Houston and Detroit, and as an answer they recall the Cuban crisis of 1962— almost atomic war! They also recall the bombing of Belgrade “to defend the rights of oppressed Albanian-speakers in Kosovo” and ask if there was no parallel to the very bloody repression of Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

The split on these questions threatens the existence of the LINKE. When its most prominent member and best orator (or Germany’s), Sahra Wagenknecht, spoke in the Bundestag against a break in trade relations with Russia and called for peace negotiations, some prominent ”reformers” called for her expulsion. But In TV talk-shows, usually attacked four against one, she always ends up a calm, polite, smiling victor. She was the main organizer of the great peace rally of 50,000 in Berlin on Feb. 25th, which outraged the media—and opponents in her own party. But in their total rejection of a peace rally they isolated themselves. Then, in early March, Sahra, 53, stated that she would not again run as a candidate for the Bundestag but “retire from politics and work as publicist and author—unless something new turns up politically.” This hint at a possible new party, further to the left, possibly polling at 14% (and leaving the LINKE with 2%), was seen even by some of her enthusiasts as unfortunately vague, further splitting the party yet without offering any definite plan, thus with her strong voice muffled as if by a covid face mask. Her message is not uncomplicated: she charges a neglect working class rights—and of German workers—with endless attention and bickering about divisive and academic identity and gender questions.

Most recently the two national chairpersons of the LINKE, both opposed to Sahra, though not as angrily as other leaders, formulated a new policy statement for debate which, at first reading, seems to be a move toward bringing together all but the most uncompromisingly opposed party members and leaders. It is perhaps a chance to rescue the party.

It has become so urgent to rally all those who oppose the most bellicose elements now panting for more weapons, more billions, militarization, even the draft and, basically, more war. Foreign Minister Baerbock, the new Defense Minister Pistorius, EU boss von der Leyen and NATO-leader Stoltenberg all seem so close to Washington military policy they deserve a Stars-and-Stripes flag sewed on their pants or at least a USA lapel pin. Others, full of talk of “east flank” and “south flank” and tactics for 2026 or 2067, dream once again of Prussian glory. They want regime change in Moscow, the opening of vast reaches of Eurasia and a springboard toward China.

Till recently China was Germany’s peaceful trade partner, its biggest. Now, with one provocative visit to Taiwan after the other, with a German warship, fighter planes and soldiers back in old German colonial areas, it is joining in with an encirclement of China like that against Russia.

Olaf Scholz just visited Japan to increase trade and cement common policies. “We are united by democratic principles,” the SPD politician made clear, as he does at virtually all state visits. A leading Japanese journalist noted that “in view of the current world situation, our coordination and cooperation with Germany in dealing with Russia and China are very important.” And Premier Kishida stressed that “Japanese-German relations are stronger and closer than ever before!”

He was not quite correct. They were once even closer. If, like the legendary American long-sleeper Rip van Winkel, I had fallen asleep in 1936, I might have read, before drowsing off:

… the following November (1936) saw the ratification of the Anti-Comintern Pact, an anti-communist treaty between Germany and Japan; Italy joined the Pact in 1937… It aimed at “formally integrating the military aims of Germany, Italy, Japan, and later followed by other nations… to stand side by side and cooperate in their endeavours in the Greater East Asian region and the European territories, their primary aim being to establish and maintain a new order of affairs capable of promoting prosperity and welfare for the peoples there.

On awakening today I would have been amazed at some similarities, such as the aspects on Russia and China! To quote Yogi Berra:

It’s like déjà vu all over again.

There was a major difference from 1936; today’ German-Japanese friendship is under the aegis of that other major power, which also likes to promote prosperity and welfare but is more blatant about its goals—and more frightening. It would have been a rude awakening!

“Twentynine Palms, Calif.: “…a half-dozen officers of the Hawaii-based Third Marine Littoral Regiment took a very short break from days of fighting … The war, they said, was going well.

The unit, newly created and innovative in nature, was facing its toughest test yet–a 10-day mock battle across Southern California…developing new tactics to figure out one of the service’s highest priorities: how to fight a war against Chinese forces in their own backyard, and win.

Over the next two years, the new unit will have a relentless schedule, with about four or five times as many exercises as most infantry regiments. Its next big test will be in the Philippines in April. (NY Times, 3.5.23)


+++

The China-Russia-USA tension recalls another game known to kids in many countries: “Rock, scissors, paper.” Which one wins points? During a visit to a Russian children’s home ten years ago I watched two sweet little 9-year-olds playing it and asked if I could join in. They laughed and nodded. Under their rules, the winner touches the loser‘s forehead with a gentle finger. As I followed this rule they roared at a funny foreigner playing along. Of course they could not know (or care) that I was an American.

I reflected later about another possible finger pushing a special button, not gently, and bringing an end to the girls, now adults, that happy home, all such games—and me if I am still around. People have marched to prevent such an ending in recent weeks, fine people, but far, far too few. Despite all differences, all quarrels, all coalitions: such protests and demands must quickly increase, everywhere, with countless worried humans, of all colors, preferences and beliefs. My plea is: Join in!

https://mronline.org/2023/03/27/childs- ... h-26-2023/

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From Cassad's Telegram account:.

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the situation in the Artyomovsky direction at 23.07 Moscow time on March 28, 2023, specially for the channel Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok :

1.
In the city, PMC "Wagner" continued its slow advance in the area of ​​the industrial zone of the AZOM plant . Also, fighting continued in the city center, as well as in the southwestern part in the direction of the monument to the pilots.
The enemy continues to put up stubborn resistance. Talk about breaking the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is premature, which is also confirmed by the sources of the Wagner PMC, which stepped up efforts in the city after the Russian Armed Forces strengthened the flanks to the north and south of the city, preparing for potential attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the area of ​​Chasov Yar and Rai- Aleksandrovka .

2.
To the north-west of the city, as before, battles were going on near Orekhovo-Vasilyevka and Bogdanovka . The settlements have not been taken at the moment, as well as Khromovo .
The enemy still retains the neck of the operational bag in Artemovsk , but at the same time cannot remove the operational encirclement of the city. Day trips west of Artyomovsk turned into Russian roulette.

3.
To the south-west of the city, the fight continues south of Krasnoe , where our assault groups are trying to advance to the outskirts of Krasnoe and start fighting in the village, and the APU, in turn, is to push our forces away from Krasnoeand unblock the road passing through it.
However, if in the near future our attack aircraft reach the monument to the pilots, the value of Red will seriously fall.

4.
Further south, fighting continued west of Kleshcheevka and Kurdyumovka .
There is no major change in the front line here yet.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Why Human Rights Watch Deliberately Only Scratched the Surface in Exploring Ukraine’s Use of Banned ‘Petal’ Mines
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 28, 2023

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[Source: Photo Courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

The American NGO begrudgingly acknowledges one of Kiev’s war crimes, but not without smearing Russia along the way


Since Ukraine dropped hundreds of mines on the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in July, 104 people have fallen victim to the internationally-banned PFM-1 ‘petal’ (otherwise known as ‘butterfly’) devices. Nine of them are children. Of which three died.

Among the most recent civilians to be injured, on March 19, were two 60-year-old men. On February 26, a woman in her sixties was wounded in her neighborhood. On February 14, a teenager stepped on a petal mine near a school. These are just a few documented examples from recent weeks.

The first wave of over 40 victims came within the first few weeks after Ukrainian forces deployed the mines over Donetsk en masse in July 2022, and the number has more than doubled since. Since then I, along with other reporters on the ground, have documented their lingering presence and the civilian victims.

NGO reports… selectively

After signing the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty in 1999, Kiev was obligated to destroy its stockpile of 6 million PFM-1s. It denies using them, but abundant evidence incriminates Kiev in this particular war crime. While the West has yet to turn its attention to the victims of the petal mines in the Donbass, reports of Ukraine using them elsewhere have emerged.

NPR article on HRW finally confirming Ukraine’s use of prohibited “petal mines” which are killing civilians including children – what REAL journalists like @EvaKBartlett have reported for months now. pic.twitter.com/TjyJ6MqewG

— Brian Berletic (@BrianJBerletic) February 3, 2023


In its January 2023 report on banned landmines, the Human Rights Watch NGO notes, “In 2021, Ukraine reported to the UN secretary-general that 3.3 million stockpiled PFM mines still need to be destroyed.” HRW then advised Ukraine to investigate itself for its use of the prohibited mines.

The report is titled “Ukraine: Banned Landmines Harm Civilians. Ukraine Should Investigate Forces’ Apparent Use; Russian Use Continues,” implying that not only is Russia also deploying the petal mines, but that Russia’s use of them is beyond question, while Kiev’s use is open to debate.

Yet, much like in 2020, when the UN accused Russia of war crimes in Syria based on “we say so” and unnamed sources, you won’t find proof of Russia’s use of petal mines in the HRW report. In fact, buried there is a HRW admission that it “has not verified claims of Russian forces using PFM mines in the armed conflict.” This is a standard media tactic: boldly state one thing in a headline and quietly clarify the opposite in the body of the article, which most people won’t bother reading.

On the other hand, HRW claims it interviewed over 100 people, “including witnesses to landmine use, victims of landmines, first responders, doctors, and Ukrainian de-miners,” regarding Ukraine’s use of the objects in Izium (a city in the Kharkov region, north of Donetsk) while it was briefly under Moscow’s control. The HRW team entered the city after Russian forces withdrew in September. Everyone interviewed, the report noted, “said they had seen mines on the ground, knew someone who was injured by one, or had been warned about their presence during Russia’s occupation of Izium.”

The testimony records that the areas were all, “close to where Russian military forces were positioned at the time, suggesting they were the target,” and that residents in Izium said that rocket attacks, “happened frequently during the Russian occupation.”

The report cited 11 civilian mine-casualties, and noted that HRW had seen “physical evidence of PFM antipersonnel mine use,” including, “unexploded mines, remnants of mines, and the metal cassettes that carry the mines in rockets.”

It has to be noted that HRW has been banned in Russia since April 2022, making it impossible for the organization to gather evidence on the ground in areas controlled by Russian forces. However, lack of access to evidence has not stopped it from using its report to carry accusations against Russia, citing Ukraine’s former prosecutor general Irina Venediktova’s claim that “Russian forces used PFM mines in the Kharkivska region as early as February 26”. In contrast, the numerous credible reports of Kiev’s use of petal mines in Donetsk, available through open sources, are absent from the report.

HRW’s history of targeted condemnations

Human Rights Watch is one of many Western-funded NGOs with a history of whitewashing NATO and its allies’ crimes while pretending to be a neutral observer. Over the years, I’ve pointed out the hypocrisy of Ken Roth, who was the George Soros-funded NGO’s executive director from 1993-2022. In March 2021 he pushed Washington’s propaganda about Russia starving Syria. More glaringly, in 2015, Roth used footage from an eastern Gaza neighbourhood (Shuja’iyya) that had been flattened by Israel, to claim the footage depicted Syria’s Aleppo. He went on to likewise push the 2013 Ghouta “chemical” narrative, which had long been widely-discredited by journalists and by the so-called “rebels” themselves.

If dubious claims from HRW or its representatives aren’t indication enough of their allegiances to Western narratives, then their links to the US government should be. The vice chair of its board of directors, Susan Manilow, according to this 2014 article, describes herself as “a longtime friend to Bill Clinton,” who helped manage his campaign finances. Bruce Rabb, also on the board, lists in his biography that he “served as staff assistant to President Richard Nixon” from 1969-70 – the period in which his administration secretly and illegally carpet-bombed Cambodia and Laos.

The article further notes that the advisory committee for HRW’s Americas Division has even boasted the presence of a former Central Intelligence Agency official, Miguel Díaz. According to his State Department biography, Díaz served as a CIA analyst and also provided “oversight of US intelligence activities in Latin America” for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

So, when HRW recently decided to finally discuss Ukraine’s deployment of the insidious petal mines (tens of thousands of which have been fired into the Donbass by Ukraine over the course of the past year), it is not because the body has suddenly become neutral and impartial, but it is rather a grasp at credibility: reporting what is widely known – that, in violation of international law, Ukraine has been deploying Petal mines – but avoid providing the whole story.

By downplaying and ignoring Kiev’s widespread use of petal mines throughout the DPR, HRW is deliberately downplaying war crimes, much like the entirety of Western corporate media.

Kiev’s Western supporters may even have to deal with its use of the petal mines at their own expense down the line – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has recently announced his country would invest $2.2 million into de-mining Ukraine. Of course, no mention was made of the Ottawa Treaty-banned munitions which will have to be cleared.

Kiev’s deadly delivery

In one incident I witnessed first hand, an attack took place just after 9 pm on July 30, 2022. Ukraine fired rockets, each packed with over 300 mines, onto Donetsk, its suburbs, and other cities, including Yasinovataya, Makeevka and Gorlovka. The rockets exploded in the air to ensure greater distribution of devices on the ground. The attack mirrored previous ‘deliveries’ to the hard-hit Donetsk districts of Kievskiy, Kirovsky and Kuibyshevkiy.

The morning after, I walked the central Donetsk streets extremely carefully, wary of every leaf or piece of cardboard which could be obscuring or covering a Petal mine, so difficult are they to pick out from their surroundings. They cannot seriously damage military vehicles, which means that scattering them over Donetsk only has one purpose – to target and maim civilians. Some models of the petal mines have a self-destruct timer. Others, including those used by Kiev, can stay on the ground for years.



The innocent victims of Donbass

Since reporting the initial bombardment in late July, I have been following up on the methodical destruction of these mines by Russian sappers, as well as on civilians harmed by the illegal munitions. One of the more recent victims was 14 year old Nikita. His foot was blown off when in early November, 2022, he stepped on a mine in a playground while on his way to visit his grandmother.

RT journalist Roman Kosarev recently spoke with another recent teenage victim, who stepped on a petal mine when getting into a car.

Kosarev also spoke to the Director of the Donetsk Republic’s Trauma Center, Andrey Boryak, who said: “The injury from such a mine is very severe, and immediately leads to a handicap. It’s almost impossible to save the foot and the lower part of the leg.”

This is what I’ve been reporting since late July when Ukraine fired rockets containing petal mines (300+/rocket) all over Donetsk & other cities: they’re often impossible to see, even if you’ve been warned of their presence. https://t.co/DMab8myVnd

— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) January 24, 2023


HRW has had over 6 months to investigate Ukraine littering the DPR with Petal/PFM-1 mines… but it has not, and will not. It’s once again the case that the lives of Donbass civilians don’t matter when it comes not only to Western media reporting but also to supposedly-neutral human rights bodies. Even worse still is the knowledge that in spite of the valiant efforts of sappers in the DPR, the mines will inevitably claim more innocent civilians as their victims.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... tal-mines/
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Wed Mar 29, 2023 12:33 pm

Kremennaya forests
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 03/29/2023
Original article: Alexander Kots / Komsomolskaya Pravda

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Kremennaya trembles as a result of the continued use of artillery. Heavy weapons rumble the eardrums and hurl projectiles in the direction of Torskoe and Krasny Liman, but the city's population seems oblivious to the cacophony around them. The city in front seems to live in a parallel reality, ignoring the vibration of the cannon fire. "Two Americanos with milk and four apple pies," asks a mobilized soldier in line at the only cafe that is open. The line of those who want to touch the gifts of civilization reaches the street.

I remember at the end of last year I helped the owner pack her coffee machines and the remains of her products in a dilapidated van. Her family and she were leaving Kremennaya because the fighting had already reached the city gates. To be honest, I thought at the time that this coffee shop would never reopen. The enemy was advancing and it seemed unlikely that the modest Kremennaya garrison could stop it. But the paratroopers were deployed to help and, despite everything, they slowed down the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Since mid-January, Ukrainian troops have been pushed to the west. The population of Kremennaya began to return to their homes despite the fact that the battle is still a few kilometers away and there is neither electricity nor running water. But, at the end of the day,

The cafeteria reopened and now the line of colorful customers is endless. Food stores have begun to open and there is always police surveillance around them: they make sure that the mobilized in Kremennaya, who are now the bulk of the front troops, do not buy alcohol. I have to say that they are being closely watched.

Even the gas station and the transport that connects the city with the rear have reopened. They can be seen in traffic mixed with military vehicles, tanks and armored vehicles of all kinds throughout the steppe.

“It carries a 120-mm mine,” my acquaintance, commander of the reconnaissance unit of one of the brigades of the “Osado” group of the Central Military District, boasts about an armored vehicle with an unmemorable name. "I don't think a 152mm shell would penetrate it either." I have not come to the scouts empty-handed. Together with the group of volunteers "Time to help together", I bring our quadcopter soldiers that I deliver together with the drawings of the children of the preschool number 42 in the capital. Surprisingly, in the second year of the war, the desire of citizens to help the soldiers at the front has not waned. And drones have long since ceased to be treated as some kind of miracle to be kept locked away. Now it is a consumable that constantly needs to be replenished.

“Where is it going?” I ask about the reconnaissance group.

"Normally, to the fascist hell on the edge of Torskoe."

“Is there room in the unmemorably named armored car?”

"Goes up".

We rushed to the armored capsule to leave Kremennaya towards Krasny Liman and after that we turned. Something patriotic sounds on the loudspeakers about a wounded sergeant using his machine gun to cover the group's retreat. About his brothers, who have to avenge him, about the N brigade , that he will do what he has to do. Somewhere in faraway Russia, artists who once raised money for the Ukrainian Armed Forces and played for their oligarchs and dumped rubbish on our soldiers, are now trying – without much success – to hold concerts… while here creativity is brewing of ordinary soldiers, which motivates much more than the speeches of the deputies.

We move to the music through the fields, against the forest belt. We are about to fall from the tank, which is spinning sharply, sending out white smoke. Too ambitious a maneuver to pull off here on the front lines. We continue on foot through the already familiar forest, beaten to the roots by artillery.

"When we came here, there was a beautiful green pine forest," say the residents of the shed to which we descend to find out the situation. The Grads treat us well here. Because it is the main point through which we move towards the enemy. “Sergeant Alexander Maltsev (the hero who single-handedly seized a Ukrainian strongpoint, but died three days later) died not far from here,” my partner says, looking at the map. “Those positions are 700 meters away. There is nothing left of the forest on the other side either, it has been loaded down with tanks and infantry vehicles.”

“Have we reached the point where the toy needs to be removed,” says the walkie-talkie.

The boys drag the silent Gall 82mm mortar with them. It is almost impossible to detect during counter-battery fire. But he has a problem: his range is only a little over a kilometer, so you have to work with him on the edge of the front line. From where we are to the enemy there are 700 meters.

“Their electronic warfare blinds our birds , but they take them away so we don't destroy them,” says my comrade. “They keep blinding them and they fall, there aren't enough of them all the time. We try not to fly away, we follow their movements, we put psychological pressure on them. Where Sergeant Maltsev died, he took out a prisoner, he says that they had been without shifts for eight days due to the constant bombardment. By the way, we saw his feat from the drone.

"As was?"

“Ours advanced a little further south. The forest belt was ours on both sides, we had taken it. And it was necessary to align the contract line through the Maltsev trench that he took. That's why we were looking at that position."

“Do you see those things regularly?”

"Depends on the person. There are those who sit in the trenches, shoot and do not move. And there are those who take the initiative, understand what they can do and do it. This is how those feats come about. It is within the person. Unfortunately, a mine ended the life of this man too soon.

We are approaching the end of the wounded forest. Behind him is an equally disfigured field, broken by trenches and sheds. Only those are the enemy's positions. The firing points are known and attacked. Planned fire is systematically carried out on them. One of the explorers raises the drone to human height level and flies directly through the forest along a route he already knows. He reaches a certain height only about 300 meters away and clears the field in a couple of minutes to get into position over the enemy support positions. The operator's task is to find movement and adjust the mortar fire. Suddenly, a sound breaks through the air and pushes us to the ground. Then the exit of a projectile is heard and, a few seconds later, explosions on the other side.

"Our aviation is working," explains the imperturbable commander of the reconnaissance group. “Somehow, they work right on top of us, their sound scarier than bombs. The first few times it gave us a chill, but we have learned to distinguish these sounds from our aviators.”

Meanwhile, the enemy artillery begins to work on our positions in the forest, they are also planned objectives. The blows are to the right and then to the left. Mortar personnel pay no attention to the sound around them. They load the first shell and there is a sound. It doesn't even look like a shot. I remember in Soviet times there was a toy machine that shot tennis balls, that's how it sounds. The special design of the shells not only eliminates sound, but also launches the fire of gunpowder gases. So it turns out to be a silent and invisible cannon.

After fitting a dozen shells, the scouts remove the cannon and the pilot loses his drone on the way back over the forest plantations. They find Marussia (yes, drones have names) about 200 meters away. The diagnosis is that he has lost two screws. He receives assistance on the spot.

"Exit to the evacuation point," orders the commander on the radio. “To me”, I say, “many people write to me wanting to come as volunteers, but they still have doubts. What would you tell them?"

“Here things are difficult. I do not recommend coming to anyone who is weak of nerves. For the rest, you can get used to anything. When there start to be explosions around, of course it's scary. There are those who, instead of lying down in the trench, would run away. Hence, there are deaths and injuries. And when an older comrade explains to you that even if a shell explodes at two meters, the worst that will happen to you is shock, but you will come out alive, something inside you stirs. It has happened to me and I have survived. It's scarier to think about the things you imagine in your head than the ones that actually happen."

The armored car starts, we open the doors, we load and we close them. Half an hour later, we are back in sunny Kremennaya, where the bloody battle at the front seems less scary.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/03/29/los-b ... more-26946

Google Translator

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Achieving the goals of the NWO by political and diplomatic methods is impossible
March 29, 13:00

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Official statements about the goals of the NWO.

Achieving the goals of a special military operation by political and diplomatic methods is impossible in the case of Ukraine (c) Peskov

Despite the steadily increasing military assistance to Ukraine, the goals of the NVO will certainly be achieved (c)

Patrushev formations and completion of arms supplies by Western countries, ensuring the neutral and non-bloc status of Ukraine, confirming the non-nuclear status of Ukraine, recognition by Kiev and the international community of "new territorial realities", demilitarization and "denazification", protection of the rights of Russian-speaking citizens, the Russian language and national minorities, ensuring free cross-border movement with Russia. (c) Galuzin


As you can see, a year later, there was no rejection of the declared goals of the NWO, but an understanding was gained of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the Nazis and their masters.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8259806.html

Google Translator

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The Preparation of a New World War: Reconstituting the Nazi-Nippon Axis
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 28, 2023
Thierry Meyssan

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Japan’s PM Kishida offers support to Kyiv

The United States is pushing its European Union allies to prepare for a Third World War. They have no choice but to fight it if they want to emerge victorious from the “Thucydides trap”. Unless all this commotion is just a staging to “keep” the allies on their side while many states in South America, Africa and Asia declare themselves “neutral”. At the same time, the noise of boots is stirring up the Japanese militarists who, like the “radical nationalists” in Ukraine, are back.


Faced with the progress made by the advocates of a multipolar world, the defenders of the “American imperialist” have not been slow to react. Two operations will be analyzed here: the transformation of the European Common Market into a military structure and the reformation of the World War II Axis. This second aspect brings a new actor into play: Japan.

THE CHANGE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

In 1949, the United States and the United Kingdom created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). They included Canada and the states they had liberated in Western Europe. For them, it was not a question of defending themselves, but of preparing an attack on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union responded by creating the Warsaw Pact.

In 1950, when the Korean War began, the United States planned to extend the conflict to the German Democratic Republic (known as “East Germany”). In order to do this, they had to rearm the Federal Republic of Germany (known as “West Germany”) despite the opposition of France, Belgium and Luxembourg. They therefore proposed the creation of a European Defence Community (EDC), but failed in the face of resistance from the Gaullists and the French Communists.

At the same time, they helped rebuild Western Europe with the Marshall Plan. This plan included many secret clauses, including the construction of a European common market. Washington wanted to dominate Western Europe economically and preserve it politically from communist influence and Soviet imperialism. The European Economic Communities – and later the European Union – form the civilian side of the US token, whose military side is NATO. The European Commission is not an administration of the heads of state and government of the Union, but the interface between them and the Atlantic Alliance. The European standards for not only armaments and construction, but also for equipment, clothing and food, etc., are established by the Nato services, first in Luxembourg, then in Belgium. They are transmitted to the Commission, and today approved by the European Parliament.

In 1989, as the Soviet Union was collapsing in on itself, the French President, François Mitterrand, and the German Chancellor, Helmut Köhl, imagined freeing Western Europe from American tutelage so as to be able to compete with Washington. Negotiations on this treaty took place at the same time as the end of the quadripartite occupation of Germany (12 September 1990), the reunification of the two Germanies (3 October 1990) and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact (1 July 1991). Washington accepted the Maastricht Treaty as long as it recognized their military domination. Western Europeans accepted this principle.

However, Washington distrusted the Mitterrand-Köhl couple and demanded at the last moment that the European Union include all the former members of the Warsaw Pact, and even the new independent states, which had emerged from the former Soviet Union. These states did not share the aspirations of the Maastricht negotiators. In fact, they are rather suspicious of them. They want to free themselves from both German and Russian influence. They rely on the “American umbrella” for their defence.

In 2003, Washington took advantage of the Spanish presidency of the EU (the socialist Felipe González) and of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, to have the “European Security Strategy” adopted, modelled on the National Security Strategy of US President George W. Bush. High Representative Federica Mogherini revised this document in 2016.

In 2022, during the war in Ukraine, the United States, as in the Korean War, once again felt the need to rearm Germany against Russia (successor to the USSR). So they are transforming the EU, carefully this time. During the presidency of the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron, they proposed a “Strategic Compass”. This was adopted only one month after the Russian intervention in Ukraine. The members of the European Union are all the more stunned because they still do not know precisely whether they are together to cooperate or to integrate (the “constructive ambiguity”, as Henry Kissinger put it).

In March 2023, the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, organized the first “Robert Schumann Forum on Security and Defence”. A large number of defense and foreign ministers from the EU member states are participating. In addition to the non-EU European states that are pro-US, many others are represented at ministerial level, such as Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Egypt, Chile, Peru, Georgia, Indonesia and Japan. In addition to NATO, ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the African Union are also represented. Above all, the Arab League is sending its Secretary General.


The explicit aim of this Forum is to defend “multilateralism and a rules-based international order”; an elegant way of denouncing the Russian-Chinese project of a “multipolar world based on international law”.

With the Covid epidemic, the European Union has already invested itself with powers in the field of health that were not foreseen by the Treaties. I explained at the beginning of this epidemic that the measure of confinement of healthy people had no precedent in history. It was devised at the request of the former head of Gilead Sciences and former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, by Dr. Richard Hatchett, who became the director of CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) and, as such, the initiator of this measure worldwide [1]. According to his classified report of 2005, which we unfortunately only know from the reactions it provoked, the confinement of healthy civilians to their homes was supposed to allow the identification of jobs that could be relocated, to close down the consumer goods industries in the West and to concentrate the work force in the defense industry. We are not there yet, but the European Union, having seized public health powers not foreseen by the Treaties, without raising any indignation, is now interpreting the texts to become a military power.

Last week, during the Schuman Forum, Josep Borrell presented his first report on the implementation of the “Strategic Compass”. The idea is to coordinate the pooling of national armies, including intelligence services, in a spirit of integration rather than cooperation. Emmanuel Macron’s project now buries that of Charles De Gaulle and the French Communists. The “Europe of Defence” now appears to be a slogan aimed at placing not only the operational forces of the EU member states under the authority of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), now the US General Christopher G. Cavoli, but also at taking control of all the financing decisions that were previously the responsibility of the national parliaments, and even of the decisions on armaments and organization that were the responsibility of the member states’ executive bodies. Thus, the Union is organizing a common army without knowing who will command it.

THE RECONSTITUTION OF THE NAZI-NIPPON AXIS



When we think of the Second World War, in Europe we think of 1939 and 1945. This is absolutely wrong. The war started in 1931 after Japanese generals attacked Chinese soldiers in Manchuria. This was the first overreach of Japanese civilian power by the militarist faction, which was amplified a few months later with the assassination of the civilian Prime Minister by a group of military men. In a few years, Japan was transformed into a militaristic and expansionist power. This war did not end with the liberation of Manchuria by the Red Army in 1945. In fact, the United States used two atomic bombs to prevent Japan’s surrender to the USSR and to ensure that it would only take place before its own generals. They continued to fight until 1946 because many Japanese refused to surrender to the United States who had not fought much in the Pacific until then. The Second World War lasted from 1931 to 1946. If we make these date errors, it is because it only became globalized with the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis (the “Tripartite Pact”), which Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania soon joined.

The foundation of the Axis was not the disparate interests of its members, but their cult of strength. To reform it today, we must unite those who share this cult.

When the U.S. occupied Japan in 1946, the first thought was to purge all militaristic elements from the country. But when the Korean War broke out, the U.S. decided to use Japan to fight communism. They ended the ongoing trials and rehabilitated 55,000 high officials. They implemented the Dodge Plan, the equivalent of the Marshall Plan in Europe. One of the lucky beneficiaries of this policy change was Hayato Ikeda, who became Prime Minister and restored the country’s economy. With the help of the CIA, he founded the Liberal Democratic Party. It is from this party that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2012-20) and his successor Fumio Kishida (2020-) were born.

The latter has just made a surprise visit to Ukraine. He is the first Asian head of government to visit this country since the beginning of the war. He visited a mass grave in Bucha and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims of “Russian abuses”. Most analysts interpret the trip as preparation for the upcoming G7 summit in Japan. Unless it goes much further.

In their final communiqué, Fumio Kishida and Volodymyr Zelensky emphasize “the inseparability of Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security” and “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. For them, it is not only a matter of defending Ukraine from Russia, but also Japan from China. This communiqué lays the foundation for a new alliance between the successors of the Nazis that are the Ukrainian “integral nationalists” [2] and the successors of Shōwa nationalism. Today’s Ukraine is the only state in the world with an explicitly racist constitution. Adopted in 1996 and revised in 2020, it states in Article 16 that “Preserving the genetic heritage of the Ukrainian people is the responsibility of the state.” The widow of the Ukrainian Nazi Prime Minister, Yaroslav Stetsko, wrote this article.

In contrast, the Japanese Constitution renounces war in its Article 9. But Shinzo Abe and Fumio Kishida have initiated a fight to repeal this provision. Among other things, it makes it impossible to transfer lethal defense equipment, so Mr. Kishima offered about $7.1 billion in humanitarian and financial aid to Kyiv. As for non-lethal military equipment, this week he could only announce the shipment of a stockpile worth $30 million.

This remilitarization of Japan is supported by Washington, which has already switched sides by supporting Ukraine. U.S. Ambassador to Tokyo Rahm Emmanuel tweeted, “Prime Minister Kishida is making a historic visit to Ukraine to protect the Ukrainian people and promote the universal values enshrined in the UN Charter…About 900 kilometers away, a different and more nefarious partnership is taking shape in Moscow,” (referring to the Putin-Xi summit).

For his part, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Weibin, said on the contrary, regarding the Prime Minister’s trip that he “hopes that Japan will press for an appeasement of the situation, not the other way around. For its part, Russia sent two strategic bombers over the Sea of Japan for about seven hours.

Translation by Roger Lagassé

NOTES:

This article is a follow-up to : “The Middle East is breaking free of the West,” March 14, 2023.

[1] “Covid-19 and The Red Dawn Emails”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 28 April 2020.

[2] “Who are the Ukrainian integral nationalists ?”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 15 November 2022.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... ppon-axis/

Why NATO’s Defense Hysteria Warrants Resistance
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 28, 2023
Hannan Hussain

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A wide wave of protests against the West’s arms escalation stands to gather more steam. Particularly because true strategic autonomy means charting a nation’s own path to domestic stability and geopolitical risk reduction, as opposed to following NATO’s dictates.

NATO’s dictation of defense imperatives and glorified conflict contributions brings its military hysteria out into the open, meriting resistance from within.


On March 24, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) chief, Jens Stoltenberg, hailed accelerated financial and military aid to Ukraine from Norway, further compromising the latter’s less hawkish approach to serve zero-sum conflict strategies. Other key voices, such as Sweden, are now being pushed to step-up their counterproductive military cooperation, while Washington uses NATO’s bloc anxieties as a pretext to justify a two-fold increase in its defense budget. This defense hysteria is designed to set up more roadblocks to negotiating peace in conflict hotspots and keep Europe from embracing any semblance of “peace” as arms galore.

Evidence from Norway, Finland and Sweden reflects a broader pattern of conformity to NATO’s arms buildup and sustained expansion at the expense of global security and European unity. Major powers such as France and Germany are already arrested in non-combative tensions spanning economic, nuclear and climate imperatives for their populations, and have sent mixed signals on the extent of their overt assistance to NATO’s Europe-centric defense push. “The pace now, when it comes to increases in defence spending, is not high enough,” complained Stoltenberg in a recent bid to urge defense spending boosts. “My message to allies is that we welcome what they’ve done but they need to speed up, they need to deliver more in a more dangerous world.”

We have seen this movie before. Coercing states into spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense is a recipe for a false sense of security, given that scores of NATO states are already facing growth headwinds, but are told to put the bloc’s hegemonic geopolitical ambitions first. The United States is already hellbent on sidestepping the decision-making autonomy of less hawkish NATO member states, as it tries to market its record-setting defense budget as a dual necessity for China containment and NATO assistance. These are precisely the rationales employed by some of the bloc’s top military spenders in the past to deny a level-playing security field for affected nations the world over.

Take groundless allegations of Beijing’s so-called “bullying” of its neighbors in the East and South China Seas. The toxic assumption of regional conflict led the United States to market its self-defeating Indo-Pacific strategy as a selling point for the military, and by extension, NATO. However, it is Washington’s notorious support for European militarization and its role as an intervening power in the Indo-Pacific that poses the greatest risks to peacebuilding and stability in sovereign waters. Stepped-up defense spending heightens those risks for all other member states that celebrate more arms at the expense of nonalignment.

The United Kingdom’s own prioritization of depleted uranium ammunition supplies to Ukraine is also a wake-up call for NATO apologists. The arrival of the ammunition after rejecting broad-based peace calls has been rightly termed by Russia’s US ambassador as bringing “humanity to a dangerous line, beyond which nuclear Armageddon looms more and more clearly.” Where are the bedrock NATO principles of strategic deliberation that counterproductive defense spending hopes to violate in full?

A wide wave of protests witnessed against the West’s arms and defense escalation stands to gather more steam. Particularly because true strategic autonomy means charting a nation’s own path to domestic stability and geopolitical risk reduction, as opposed to following the dictates of NATO. Proceeding in the latter direction can also translate aimless defense spending into a stronger military status-quo that is maximally favorable to Washington and European elites, keeping others in the dark.

The renewed push for NATO military exercises and defense supplies through Scandinavian proponents comes as no surprise. Unmet assurances of ‘more arms for more stability’ have deepened skepticism within bloc ranks to NATO’s perpetual cycle of violence and interference in conflict hotspots, leading to a flurry of diplomacy in other regional forums. Flashy Western visits to Kiev are also struggling to gain traction with the public, as NATO insists on directing hard-earned money towards bloc objectives that have brought Ukrainian security and European growth aspirations to their knees.

The internal division on supporting NATO’s military spending is striking. As Politico Magazine notes, “not even a war has succeeded in pushing Europe’s biggest powers to reach their defense spending targets,” keeping Europe’s largest economies away from perpetual support. Let’s be clear: NATO is responsible for its own defense hysteria, and the credibility crisis that has emerged on the back of it.

Finally, by playing into the nuclearization card from time to time, NATO has dialed-up leverage for Western defense industrial complexes. These industries have willingly traded away global stability for an arms race before. Now add to it NATO’s insistence that allies have no choice but to respond through more ambitious military spending goals, and the greatest risk to near-term nuclear deterrence is the confrontational posture that comes from within the bloc.

Taken together, NATO’s dictation of defense imperatives and glorified conflict contributions brings its military hysteria out into the open, meriting resistance from within.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... esistance/

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Moscow calls out US’ rules-based order in Europe

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The spectre of tactical nuclear missiles haunts Europe

Baroness Goldie is an experienced Scottish politician and life peer who served as Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party from 2005 to 2011 and as the UK’s Minister of State for Defence since 2019. She is anything but a party girl like Liz Truss who often had to swallow her indiscreet words betraying ignorance.

Certainly, Baroness Goldie understood perfectly well the implications of what she put down in a written statement at the House of Lords on March 20 in her answer to Lord Hylton’s seemingly innocuous question: “To ask His Majesty’s Government whether any of the ammunition currently being supplied to Ukraine contains depleted uranium.” (By the way, Lord Hylton is one of 92 hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords; he is currently the longest-serving Crossbench member of the House of Lords, since 1968, and is a dynamic campaigner for peace and the interests of the vulnerable and the marginalised.)

Baroness Goldie’s answer was: “Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armour piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium. Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles.”

It is a fair guess that the UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace kept 10 Downing Street informed — and even more important, had prior consultations and concurrence with his US counterpart, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin — before the above announcement by the UK Government.

Both Wallace and Austin are military people and understand why ammunition tipped with “depleted uranium” is needed in the current stage of the proxy war in Ukraine if at all Kiev is to mount a credible enough counter-offensive in spring when the tide of the war is distinctly turning in Russia’s favour in Donbass.

Equally, both must be well aware that the legality of the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia is still an open issue. In response to NATO’s bombing campaign, former Yugoslavia instituted proceedings before the International Court of Justice on April 29, 1999, against the ten NATO members directly involved in the attack — Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the UK, and the US — citing a series of violations of the law of nations (which included the obligation not to use prohibited weapons.)

Although the ICJ rejected Belgrade’s request for provisional measures, it, nonetheless, declared itself profoundly concerned with the use of force by Western powers in Yugoslavia, which “under the present circumstances … raises very serious issues of international law.” Suffice to say, the cases brought by Yugoslavia against the NATO respondents still remain on the ICJ’s docket although the petitioner got dismembered.

Make no mistake, Washington and London are consciously repeating the war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The Anglo-Saxon clique’s core objective is a calculated escalation of the proxy war that is certain to draw forth a robust reaction from Moscow, as predictable as night follows day.

Indeed, that is precisely what happened when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday that Russia will deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Putin linked this to a request from Belarus in reaction to Baroness Goldie’s statement in London a week ago.

More importantly, Putin also drew the analogy of the US placing its nuclear weapons on the territories of the allied NATO countries for decades.

The EU and NATO went ballistic after Putin’s disclosure. EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said on Sunday Moscow’s decision was “an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.” He promised to impose “further sanctions” against Belarus!

A NATO spokeswoman called Moscow’s decision “dangerous and irresponsible.” Interestingly, though, the Biden administration neatly side-stepped the issue, focusing instead that the US has not seen any signs that Russia has moved nuclear weapons to Belarus or anywhere else!

In good measure, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby added, “We’ve in fact seen no indication he (Putin) has any intention to use nuclear weapons, period, inside Ukraine.”

But then, Putin also made it clear that Russia would first complete construction on a storage facility in Belarus for the tactical nuclear weapons by July 1.

Kirby was fudging. What is the game plan? First, the Anglo-Saxon clique would hope that the issue will create further disquiet and insecurity in Europe vis-a-vis Russia and would rally European countries behind the Biden administration at a time when fault lines were appearing within the transatlantic alliance over a protracted war in Ukraine that might be catastrophic for European economies.

However, Washington is hard-pressed to respond to Putin’s remark that Russia is only doing something that the US has been doing for decades. The point is, a mutual commitment not to deploy nuclear weapons in third countries was one of the proposals Moscow made to Washington in December 2021, alongside a commitment that Ukraine would not join NATO. The US ignored it and instead precipitated, with great deliberation, the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.

The crux of the matter is, as with the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the Russian decision on tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is retaliatory, drawing attention to the US missiles stationed close to its borders. (An estimated 100 nuclear weapons are stored in vaults in five European countries — Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey.)

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Worse still, the US practices a controversial arrangement known as “nuclear sharing”, under which it installs nuclear equipment on fighter jets of select non-nuclear NATO countries and train their pilots to carry out nuclear strike with US nuclear bombs. This is happening when the US, being a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has promised not to hand over nuclear weapons to other countries, and the non-nuclear countries in the NATO’s sharing arrangement have themselves promised not to receive nuclear weapons from the nuclear weapon states!

The NATO declared last year that seven NATO countries contributed dual-capable aircraft to the nuclear sharing mission. These countries are believed to be the US, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey and Greece. And all are signatories to the NPT!

Welcome to the “rules based order”! What is perfectly permissible to the West is forbidden for Russia!

Finally, the diplomatic pirouette by Baroness Goldie has yet another dimension: Britain’s decision to send depleted uranium weaponry to Ukraine is confirming its reputation as the most reckless and unscrupulous state in the whole NATO alliance.

There is no question that depleted uranium munitions are radioactive and toxic and their heavy use in the Yugoslavia and Iraq wars has been linked to birth defects and cancers. It has been tied to “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied” in Fallujah, the city subjected to two brutal US sieges during the invasion of Iraq.

The toxicity of depleted uranium munitions has been accepted by many NATO countries and the European Parliament has called for its use to be banned. Following the death of 366 Italian soldiers with conditions linked to the substance, Italy legislated in 2019 to make it easier for veterans to sue for damages to exposure.

Why is Britain behaving like an outlier? Britain appears to be creating conditions in Europe to justify the basing of nuclear-armed US bombers at Lakenheath in Suffolk, which were removed in 1991 in line with the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty.

The peace movement in Britain is moribund. Count on the warmongers and Russophobic elites in the UK to seize the Russian retaliation in Belarus to demand yet another tit for tat escalation. Expect the US bombers to return to Lakenheath in a near future.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/moscow- ... in-europe/

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NATO PLANS TO INVESTIGATE RUSSIAN COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
28 Mar 2023 , 10:50 a.m.

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In particular, NATO is interested in Russian information channels to try to counter them (Photo: File)

The NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE) has launched two tenders to conduct research on Russia's communication strategies in the context of the Ukrainian conflict. The organization is interested in studying how information is presented to Russians, as well as to residents of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

"The investigative part will determine how Russia strategically communicated with various contingents of internal audiences to secure and maintain support at various stages of the conflict in Ukraine," the document says .

They plan to analyze Russian television programs, statements by officials, as well as information from the websites of the President of the Russian Federation, the Security Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and the State Duma. Likewise, the content of Telegram channels aimed at the Russian audience and the Baltic countries will be taken into account.

As part of the first tender, the artists must study "Russia's communication strategy aimed at supporting military operations in Ukraine" and its impact on the audience. The second involves the analysis of Russian "information operations" outside of the Western information environment.

The center's specialists consider that countries that are outside Western logic are a very relevant target of Russian disinformation. In any case, one would have to ask how nations like Mali, Kenya, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa are increasingly moving away from their influence and getting closer to other axes of power.

In addition, this deployment highlights the fact that the United States has never stopped playing on the chessboard of the permanent culture war, especially at a time of hegemonic loss for the Americans.

https://misionverdad.com/la-otan-se-pla ... acion-rusa

CENTRAL ASIA IN THE EUROPEAN CROSSHAIRS OF ANTI-RUSSIAN "SECONDARY SANCTIONS"
28 Mar 2023 , 10:32 a.m.

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The EU will restrict access to its market for Asian nations that are considered Russia's traditional allies (Photo: File)

The European Union (EU) could apply trade restrictions on some Central Asian countries because officials believe that assistance to Russia helps to circumvent imposed Western "sanctions", according to RT from a confidential document.

In Brussels, they monitor trade flows to Moscow and have detected an increase of up to 80% in the turnover of consumer goods between the EU member states and the countries of Central Asia.

This increase would be related to the exports of goods from the EU that contain the so-called "dual use" technologies, whose applications can be both military and civil. Items of this kind, including washing machines, used cars and cameras, are among those the EU has banned from exporting to Russia.

According to the Russian media, the block will restrict access to its market for Asian nations that are considered traditional allies of the Slavic giant if evidence is found that the goods are being re-exported to the country affected by the "sanctions".

In the interest of complying with the measures, Kazakhstan plans to monitor goods passing through its borders with a view to demonstrating compliance with Western efforts to isolate Russia's economy. It would do so by using an online system to track all goods entering and leaving the country on or after April 1.

Türkiye, Armenia and the United Arab Emirates are also under G7 scrutiny for possibly helping Russia circumvent "sanctions" by the United States and its allies.

https://misionverdad.com/asia-central-e ... antirrusas

Google Translator

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US Summit for Democracy Sows Ideological Divisions: Russia

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Russian diplomat Maria Zakharova. | Photo: Twitter/ @lvogruppo

Published 28 March 2023

The Kremlin also regretted the UN Security Council's decision to reject Russia's request for an independent investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline explosions.


On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Washington is using the U.S.-hosted Summit for Democracy as an ideological platform to exert control over other states and ultimately divide the world.

"The summit is a clear manifestation of U.S. neo-colonial practices," she said, stressing that the United States "forces everyone to look at the world through the lens of a 'rules-based-order,' which is used to serve Washington's global interests."

"It is both hypocritical and misleading when the United States claims to be a leader in promoting democratic values worldwide, while it doesn't support and practice these values itself," Zakharova pointed out.

"Moscow strongly opposes U.S. efforts to impose its own interpretations of democracy on other countries... The United States has no moral right to lecture others," Zahkarova stated, pointing out that Washington must abandon its binary discourse if it wishes to build serious relations with sovereign states.


On Tuesday, the Kremlin also regretted the decision made by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to reject Russia's request for an independent investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline explosions.

"We believe that everyone should be interested in an objective investigation involving all interested parties, all those, who can shed some light on the commissioners and perpetrators of this terrorist act," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Russia will do anything in its power to initiate such an international investigation.

In September 2022, a series of bombings and subsequent underwater gas leaks occurred on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines. The international community has since attempted to find the perpetrators and initiators of the attack.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US- ... -0014.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 » Wed Mar 29, 2023 12:33 pm

Kremennaya forests
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 03/29/2023
Original article: Alexander Kots / Komsomolskaya Pravda

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Kremennaya trembles as a result of the continued use of artillery. Heavy weapons rumble the eardrums and hurl projectiles in the direction of Torskoe and Krasny Liman, but the city's population seems oblivious to the cacophony around them. The city in front seems to live in a parallel reality, ignoring the vibration of the cannon fire. "Two Americanos with milk and four apple pies," asks a mobilized soldier in line at the only cafe that is open. The line of those who want to touch the gifts of civilization reaches the street.

I remember at the end of last year I helped the owner pack her coffee machines and the remains of her products in a dilapidated van. Her family and she were leaving Kremennaya because the fighting had already reached the city gates. To be honest, I thought at the time that this coffee shop would never reopen. The enemy was advancing and it seemed unlikely that the modest Kremennaya garrison could stop it. But the paratroopers were deployed to help and, despite everything, they slowed down the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Since mid-January, Ukrainian troops have been pushed to the west. The population of Kremennaya began to return to their homes despite the fact that the battle is still a few kilometers away and there is neither electricity nor running water. But, at the end of the day,

The cafeteria reopened and now the line of colorful customers is endless. Food stores have begun to open and there is always police surveillance around them: they make sure that the mobilized in Kremennaya, who are now the bulk of the front troops, do not buy alcohol. I have to say that they are being closely watched.

Even the gas station and the transport that connects the city with the rear have reopened. They can be seen in traffic mixed with military vehicles, tanks and armored vehicles of all kinds throughout the steppe.

“It carries a 120-mm mine,” my acquaintance, commander of the reconnaissance unit of one of the brigades of the “Osado” group of the Central Military District, boasts about an armored vehicle with an unmemorable name. "I don't think a 152mm shell would penetrate it either." I have not come to the scouts empty-handed. Together with the group of volunteers "Time to help together", I bring our quadcopter soldiers that I deliver together with the drawings of the children of the preschool number 42 in the capital. Surprisingly, in the second year of the war, the desire of citizens to help the soldiers at the front has not waned. And drones have long since ceased to be treated as some kind of miracle to be kept locked away. Now it is a consumable that constantly needs to be replenished.

“Where is it going?” I ask about the reconnaissance group.

"Normally, to the fascist hell on the edge of Torskoe."

“Is there room in the unmemorably named armored car?”

"Goes up".

We rushed to the armored capsule to leave Kremennaya towards Krasny Liman and after that we turned. Something patriotic sounds on the loudspeakers about a wounded sergeant using his machine gun to cover the group's retreat. About his brothers, who have to avenge him, about the N brigade , that he will do what he has to do. Somewhere in faraway Russia, artists who once raised money for the Ukrainian Armed Forces and played for their oligarchs and dumped rubbish on our soldiers, are now trying – without much success – to hold concerts… while here creativity is brewing of ordinary soldiers, which motivates much more than the speeches of the deputies.

We move to the music through the fields, against the forest belt. We are about to fall from the tank, which is spinning sharply, sending out white smoke. Too ambitious a maneuver to pull off here on the front lines. We continue on foot through the already familiar forest, beaten to the roots by artillery.

"When we came here, there was a beautiful green pine forest," say the residents of the shed to which we descend to find out the situation. The Grads treat us well here. Because it is the main point through which we move towards the enemy. “Sergeant Alexander Maltsev (the hero who single-handedly seized a Ukrainian strongpoint, but died three days later) died not far from here,” my partner says, looking at the map. “Those positions are 700 meters away. There is nothing left of the forest on the other side either, it has been loaded down with tanks and infantry vehicles.”

“Have we reached the point where the toy needs to be removed,” says the walkie-talkie.

The boys drag the silent Gall 82mm mortar with them. It is almost impossible to detect during counter-battery fire. But he has a problem: his range is only a little over a kilometer, so you have to work with him on the edge of the front line. From where we are to the enemy there are 700 meters.

“Their electronic warfare blinds our birds , but they take them away so we don't destroy them,” says my comrade. “They keep blinding them and they fall, there aren't enough of them all the time. We try not to fly away, we follow their movements, we put psychological pressure on them. Where Sergeant Maltsev died, he took out a prisoner, he says that they had been without shifts for eight days due to the constant bombardment. By the way, we saw his feat from the drone.

"As was?"

“Ours advanced a little further south. The forest belt was ours on both sides, we had taken it. And it was necessary to align the contract line through the Maltsev trench that he took. That's why we were looking at that position."

“Do you see those things regularly?”

"Depends on the person. There are those who sit in the trenches, shoot and do not move. And there are those who take the initiative, understand what they can do and do it. This is how those feats come about. It is within the person. Unfortunately, a mine ended the life of this man too soon.

We are approaching the end of the wounded forest. Behind him is an equally disfigured field, broken by trenches and sheds. Only those are the enemy's positions. The firing points are known and attacked. Planned fire is systematically carried out on them. One of the explorers raises the drone to human height level and flies directly through the forest along a route he already knows. He reaches a certain height only about 300 meters away and clears the field in a couple of minutes to get into position over the enemy support positions. The operator's task is to find movement and adjust the mortar fire. Suddenly, a sound breaks through the air and pushes us to the ground. Then the exit of a projectile is heard and, a few seconds later, explosions on the other side.

"Our aviation is working," explains the imperturbable commander of the reconnaissance group. “Somehow, they work right on top of us, their sound scarier than bombs. The first few times it gave us a chill, but we have learned to distinguish these sounds from our aviators.”

Meanwhile, the enemy artillery begins to work on our positions in the forest, they are also planned objectives. The blows are to the right and then to the left. Mortar personnel pay no attention to the sound around them. They load the first shell and there is a sound. It doesn't even look like a shot. I remember in Soviet times there was a toy machine that shot tennis balls, that's how it sounds. The special design of the shells not only eliminates sound, but also launches the fire of gunpowder gases. So it turns out to be a silent and invisible cannon.

After fitting a dozen shells, the scouts remove the cannon and the pilot loses his drone on the way back over the forest plantations. They find Marussia (yes, drones have names) about 200 meters away. The diagnosis is that he has lost two screws. He receives assistance on the spot.

"Exit to the evacuation point," orders the commander on the radio. “To me”, I say, “many people write to me wanting to come as volunteers, but they still have doubts. What would you tell them?"

“Here things are difficult. I do not recommend coming to anyone who is weak of nerves. For the rest, you can get used to anything. When there start to be explosions around, of course it's scary. There are those who, instead of lying down in the trench, would run away. Hence, there are deaths and injuries. And when an older comrade explains to you that even if a shell explodes at two meters, the worst that will happen to you is shock, but you will come out alive, something inside you stirs. It has happened to me and I have survived. It's scarier to think about the things you imagine in your head than the ones that actually happen."

The armored car starts, we open the doors, we load and we close them. Half an hour later, we are back in sunny Kremennaya, where the bloody battle at the front seems less scary.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/03/29/los-b ... more-26946

Google Translator

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Achieving the goals of the NWO by political and diplomatic methods is impossible
March 29, 13:00

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Official statements about the goals of the NWO.

Achieving the goals of a special military operation by political and diplomatic methods is impossible in the case of Ukraine (c) Peskov

Despite the steadily increasing military assistance to Ukraine, the goals of the NVO will certainly be achieved (c)

Patrushev formations and completion of arms supplies by Western countries, ensuring the neutral and non-bloc status of Ukraine, confirming the non-nuclear status of Ukraine, recognition by Kiev and the international community of "new territorial realities", demilitarization and "denazification", protection of the rights of Russian-speaking citizens, the Russian language and national minorities, ensuring free cross-border movement with Russia. (c) Galuzin


As you can see, a year later, there was no rejection of the declared goals of the NWO, but an understanding was gained of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the Nazis and their masters.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8259806.html

Google Translator

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The Preparation of a New World War: Reconstituting the Nazi-Nippon Axis
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 28, 2023
Thierry Meyssan

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Japan’s PM Kishida offers support to Kyiv

The United States is pushing its European Union allies to prepare for a Third World War. They have no choice but to fight it if they want to emerge victorious from the “Thucydides trap”. Unless all this commotion is just a staging to “keep” the allies on their side while many states in South America, Africa and Asia declare themselves “neutral”. At the same time, the noise of boots is stirring up the Japanese militarists who, like the “radical nationalists” in Ukraine, are back.


Faced with the progress made by the advocates of a multipolar world, the defenders of the “American imperialist” have not been slow to react. Two operations will be analyzed here: the transformation of the European Common Market into a military structure and the reformation of the World War II Axis. This second aspect brings a new actor into play: Japan.

THE CHANGE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

In 1949, the United States and the United Kingdom created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). They included Canada and the states they had liberated in Western Europe. For them, it was not a question of defending themselves, but of preparing an attack on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union responded by creating the Warsaw Pact.

In 1950, when the Korean War began, the United States planned to extend the conflict to the German Democratic Republic (known as “East Germany”). In order to do this, they had to rearm the Federal Republic of Germany (known as “West Germany”) despite the opposition of France, Belgium and Luxembourg. They therefore proposed the creation of a European Defence Community (EDC), but failed in the face of resistance from the Gaullists and the French Communists.

At the same time, they helped rebuild Western Europe with the Marshall Plan. This plan included many secret clauses, including the construction of a European common market. Washington wanted to dominate Western Europe economically and preserve it politically from communist influence and Soviet imperialism. The European Economic Communities – and later the European Union – form the civilian side of the US token, whose military side is NATO. The European Commission is not an administration of the heads of state and government of the Union, but the interface between them and the Atlantic Alliance. The European standards for not only armaments and construction, but also for equipment, clothing and food, etc., are established by the Nato services, first in Luxembourg, then in Belgium. They are transmitted to the Commission, and today approved by the European Parliament.

In 1989, as the Soviet Union was collapsing in on itself, the French President, François Mitterrand, and the German Chancellor, Helmut Köhl, imagined freeing Western Europe from American tutelage so as to be able to compete with Washington. Negotiations on this treaty took place at the same time as the end of the quadripartite occupation of Germany (12 September 1990), the reunification of the two Germanies (3 October 1990) and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact (1 July 1991). Washington accepted the Maastricht Treaty as long as it recognized their military domination. Western Europeans accepted this principle.

However, Washington distrusted the Mitterrand-Köhl couple and demanded at the last moment that the European Union include all the former members of the Warsaw Pact, and even the new independent states, which had emerged from the former Soviet Union. These states did not share the aspirations of the Maastricht negotiators. In fact, they are rather suspicious of them. They want to free themselves from both German and Russian influence. They rely on the “American umbrella” for their defence.

In 2003, Washington took advantage of the Spanish presidency of the EU (the socialist Felipe González) and of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, to have the “European Security Strategy” adopted, modelled on the National Security Strategy of US President George W. Bush. High Representative Federica Mogherini revised this document in 2016.

In 2022, during the war in Ukraine, the United States, as in the Korean War, once again felt the need to rearm Germany against Russia (successor to the USSR). So they are transforming the EU, carefully this time. During the presidency of the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron, they proposed a “Strategic Compass”. This was adopted only one month after the Russian intervention in Ukraine. The members of the European Union are all the more stunned because they still do not know precisely whether they are together to cooperate or to integrate (the “constructive ambiguity”, as Henry Kissinger put it).

In March 2023, the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, organized the first “Robert Schumann Forum on Security and Defence”. A large number of defense and foreign ministers from the EU member states are participating. In addition to the non-EU European states that are pro-US, many others are represented at ministerial level, such as Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Egypt, Chile, Peru, Georgia, Indonesia and Japan. In addition to NATO, ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the African Union are also represented. Above all, the Arab League is sending its Secretary General.


The explicit aim of this Forum is to defend “multilateralism and a rules-based international order”; an elegant way of denouncing the Russian-Chinese project of a “multipolar world based on international law”.

With the Covid epidemic, the European Union has already invested itself with powers in the field of health that were not foreseen by the Treaties. I explained at the beginning of this epidemic that the measure of confinement of healthy people had no precedent in history. It was devised at the request of the former head of Gilead Sciences and former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, by Dr. Richard Hatchett, who became the director of CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) and, as such, the initiator of this measure worldwide [1]. According to his classified report of 2005, which we unfortunately only know from the reactions it provoked, the confinement of healthy civilians to their homes was supposed to allow the identification of jobs that could be relocated, to close down the consumer goods industries in the West and to concentrate the work force in the defense industry. We are not there yet, but the European Union, having seized public health powers not foreseen by the Treaties, without raising any indignation, is now interpreting the texts to become a military power.

Last week, during the Schuman Forum, Josep Borrell presented his first report on the implementation of the “Strategic Compass”. The idea is to coordinate the pooling of national armies, including intelligence services, in a spirit of integration rather than cooperation. Emmanuel Macron’s project now buries that of Charles De Gaulle and the French Communists. The “Europe of Defence” now appears to be a slogan aimed at placing not only the operational forces of the EU member states under the authority of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), now the US General Christopher G. Cavoli, but also at taking control of all the financing decisions that were previously the responsibility of the national parliaments, and even of the decisions on armaments and organization that were the responsibility of the member states’ executive bodies. Thus, the Union is organizing a common army without knowing who will command it.

THE RECONSTITUTION OF THE NAZI-NIPPON AXIS



When we think of the Second World War, in Europe we think of 1939 and 1945. This is absolutely wrong. The war started in 1931 after Japanese generals attacked Chinese soldiers in Manchuria. This was the first overreach of Japanese civilian power by the militarist faction, which was amplified a few months later with the assassination of the civilian Prime Minister by a group of military men. In a few years, Japan was transformed into a militaristic and expansionist power. This war did not end with the liberation of Manchuria by the Red Army in 1945. In fact, the United States used two atomic bombs to prevent Japan’s surrender to the USSR and to ensure that it would only take place before its own generals. They continued to fight until 1946 because many Japanese refused to surrender to the United States who had not fought much in the Pacific until then. The Second World War lasted from 1931 to 1946. If we make these date errors, it is because it only became globalized with the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis (the “Tripartite Pact”), which Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania soon joined.

The foundation of the Axis was not the disparate interests of its members, but their cult of strength. To reform it today, we must unite those who share this cult.

When the U.S. occupied Japan in 1946, the first thought was to purge all militaristic elements from the country. But when the Korean War broke out, the U.S. decided to use Japan to fight communism. They ended the ongoing trials and rehabilitated 55,000 high officials. They implemented the Dodge Plan, the equivalent of the Marshall Plan in Europe. One of the lucky beneficiaries of this policy change was Hayato Ikeda, who became Prime Minister and restored the country’s economy. With the help of the CIA, he founded the Liberal Democratic Party. It is from this party that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2012-20) and his successor Fumio Kishida (2020-) were born.

The latter has just made a surprise visit to Ukraine. He is the first Asian head of government to visit this country since the beginning of the war. He visited a mass grave in Bucha and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims of “Russian abuses”. Most analysts interpret the trip as preparation for the upcoming G7 summit in Japan. Unless it goes much further.

In their final communiqué, Fumio Kishida and Volodymyr Zelensky emphasize “the inseparability of Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security” and “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. For them, it is not only a matter of defending Ukraine from Russia, but also Japan from China. This communiqué lays the foundation for a new alliance between the successors of the Nazis that are the Ukrainian “integral nationalists” [2] and the successors of Shōwa nationalism. Today’s Ukraine is the only state in the world with an explicitly racist constitution. Adopted in 1996 and revised in 2020, it states in Article 16 that “Preserving the genetic heritage of the Ukrainian people is the responsibility of the state.” The widow of the Ukrainian Nazi Prime Minister, Yaroslav Stetsko, wrote this article.

In contrast, the Japanese Constitution renounces war in its Article 9. But Shinzo Abe and Fumio Kishida have initiated a fight to repeal this provision. Among other things, it makes it impossible to transfer lethal defense equipment, so Mr. Kishima offered about $7.1 billion in humanitarian and financial aid to Kyiv. As for non-lethal military equipment, this week he could only announce the shipment of a stockpile worth $30 million.

This remilitarization of Japan is supported by Washington, which has already switched sides by supporting Ukraine. U.S. Ambassador to Tokyo Rahm Emmanuel tweeted, “Prime Minister Kishida is making a historic visit to Ukraine to protect the Ukrainian people and promote the universal values enshrined in the UN Charter…About 900 kilometers away, a different and more nefarious partnership is taking shape in Moscow,” (referring to the Putin-Xi summit).

For his part, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Weibin, said on the contrary, regarding the Prime Minister’s trip that he “hopes that Japan will press for an appeasement of the situation, not the other way around. For its part, Russia sent two strategic bombers over the Sea of Japan for about seven hours.

Translation by Roger Lagassé

NOTES:

This article is a follow-up to : “The Middle East is breaking free of the West,” March 14, 2023.

[1] “Covid-19 and The Red Dawn Emails”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 28 April 2020.

[2] “Who are the Ukrainian integral nationalists ?”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 15 November 2022.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... ppon-axis/

Why NATO’s Defense Hysteria Warrants Resistance
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 28, 2023
Hannan Hussain

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A wide wave of protests against the West’s arms escalation stands to gather more steam. Particularly because true strategic autonomy means charting a nation’s own path to domestic stability and geopolitical risk reduction, as opposed to following NATO’s dictates.

NATO’s dictation of defense imperatives and glorified conflict contributions brings its military hysteria out into the open, meriting resistance from within.


On March 24, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) chief, Jens Stoltenberg, hailed accelerated financial and military aid to Ukraine from Norway, further compromising the latter’s less hawkish approach to serve zero-sum conflict strategies. Other key voices, such as Sweden, are now being pushed to step-up their counterproductive military cooperation, while Washington uses NATO’s bloc anxieties as a pretext to justify a two-fold increase in its defense budget. This defense hysteria is designed to set up more roadblocks to negotiating peace in conflict hotspots and keep Europe from embracing any semblance of “peace” as arms galore.

Evidence from Norway, Finland and Sweden reflects a broader pattern of conformity to NATO’s arms buildup and sustained expansion at the expense of global security and European unity. Major powers such as France and Germany are already arrested in non-combative tensions spanning economic, nuclear and climate imperatives for their populations, and have sent mixed signals on the extent of their overt assistance to NATO’s Europe-centric defense push. “The pace now, when it comes to increases in defence spending, is not high enough,” complained Stoltenberg in a recent bid to urge defense spending boosts. “My message to allies is that we welcome what they’ve done but they need to speed up, they need to deliver more in a more dangerous world.”

We have seen this movie before. Coercing states into spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense is a recipe for a false sense of security, given that scores of NATO states are already facing growth headwinds, but are told to put the bloc’s hegemonic geopolitical ambitions first. The United States is already hellbent on sidestepping the decision-making autonomy of less hawkish NATO member states, as it tries to market its record-setting defense budget as a dual necessity for China containment and NATO assistance. These are precisely the rationales employed by some of the bloc’s top military spenders in the past to deny a level-playing security field for affected nations the world over.

Take groundless allegations of Beijing’s so-called “bullying” of its neighbors in the East and South China Seas. The toxic assumption of regional conflict led the United States to market its self-defeating Indo-Pacific strategy as a selling point for the military, and by extension, NATO. However, it is Washington’s notorious support for European militarization and its role as an intervening power in the Indo-Pacific that poses the greatest risks to peacebuilding and stability in sovereign waters. Stepped-up defense spending heightens those risks for all other member states that celebrate more arms at the expense of nonalignment.

The United Kingdom’s own prioritization of depleted uranium ammunition supplies to Ukraine is also a wake-up call for NATO apologists. The arrival of the ammunition after rejecting broad-based peace calls has been rightly termed by Russia’s US ambassador as bringing “humanity to a dangerous line, beyond which nuclear Armageddon looms more and more clearly.” Where are the bedrock NATO principles of strategic deliberation that counterproductive defense spending hopes to violate in full?

A wide wave of protests witnessed against the West’s arms and defense escalation stands to gather more steam. Particularly because true strategic autonomy means charting a nation’s own path to domestic stability and geopolitical risk reduction, as opposed to following the dictates of NATO. Proceeding in the latter direction can also translate aimless defense spending into a stronger military status-quo that is maximally favorable to Washington and European elites, keeping others in the dark.

The renewed push for NATO military exercises and defense supplies through Scandinavian proponents comes as no surprise. Unmet assurances of ‘more arms for more stability’ have deepened skepticism within bloc ranks to NATO’s perpetual cycle of violence and interference in conflict hotspots, leading to a flurry of diplomacy in other regional forums. Flashy Western visits to Kiev are also struggling to gain traction with the public, as NATO insists on directing hard-earned money towards bloc objectives that have brought Ukrainian security and European growth aspirations to their knees.

The internal division on supporting NATO’s military spending is striking. As Politico Magazine notes, “not even a war has succeeded in pushing Europe’s biggest powers to reach their defense spending targets,” keeping Europe’s largest economies away from perpetual support. Let’s be clear: NATO is responsible for its own defense hysteria, and the credibility crisis that has emerged on the back of it.

Finally, by playing into the nuclearization card from time to time, NATO has dialed-up leverage for Western defense industrial complexes. These industries have willingly traded away global stability for an arms race before. Now add to it NATO’s insistence that allies have no choice but to respond through more ambitious military spending goals, and the greatest risk to near-term nuclear deterrence is the confrontational posture that comes from within the bloc.

Taken together, NATO’s dictation of defense imperatives and glorified conflict contributions brings its military hysteria out into the open, meriting resistance from within.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... esistance/

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Moscow calls out US’ rules-based order in Europe

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The spectre of tactical nuclear missiles haunts Europe

Baroness Goldie is an experienced Scottish politician and life peer who served as Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party from 2005 to 2011 and as the UK’s Minister of State for Defence since 2019. She is anything but a party girl like Liz Truss who often had to swallow her indiscreet words betraying ignorance.

Certainly, Baroness Goldie understood perfectly well the implications of what she put down in a written statement at the House of Lords on March 20 in her answer to Lord Hylton’s seemingly innocuous question: “To ask His Majesty’s Government whether any of the ammunition currently being supplied to Ukraine contains depleted uranium.” (By the way, Lord Hylton is one of 92 hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords; he is currently the longest-serving Crossbench member of the House of Lords, since 1968, and is a dynamic campaigner for peace and the interests of the vulnerable and the marginalised.)

Baroness Goldie’s answer was: “Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armour piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium. Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles.”

It is a fair guess that the UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace kept 10 Downing Street informed — and even more important, had prior consultations and concurrence with his US counterpart, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin — before the above announcement by the UK Government.

Both Wallace and Austin are military people and understand why ammunition tipped with “depleted uranium” is needed in the current stage of the proxy war in Ukraine if at all Kiev is to mount a credible enough counter-offensive in spring when the tide of the war is distinctly turning in Russia’s favour in Donbass.

Equally, both must be well aware that the legality of the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia is still an open issue. In response to NATO’s bombing campaign, former Yugoslavia instituted proceedings before the International Court of Justice on April 29, 1999, against the ten NATO members directly involved in the attack — Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the UK, and the US — citing a series of violations of the law of nations (which included the obligation not to use prohibited weapons.)

Although the ICJ rejected Belgrade’s request for provisional measures, it, nonetheless, declared itself profoundly concerned with the use of force by Western powers in Yugoslavia, which “under the present circumstances … raises very serious issues of international law.” Suffice to say, the cases brought by Yugoslavia against the NATO respondents still remain on the ICJ’s docket although the petitioner got dismembered.

Make no mistake, Washington and London are consciously repeating the war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The Anglo-Saxon clique’s core objective is a calculated escalation of the proxy war that is certain to draw forth a robust reaction from Moscow, as predictable as night follows day.

Indeed, that is precisely what happened when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday that Russia will deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Putin linked this to a request from Belarus in reaction to Baroness Goldie’s statement in London a week ago.

More importantly, Putin also drew the analogy of the US placing its nuclear weapons on the territories of the allied NATO countries for decades.

The EU and NATO went ballistic after Putin’s disclosure. EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said on Sunday Moscow’s decision was “an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.” He promised to impose “further sanctions” against Belarus!

A NATO spokeswoman called Moscow’s decision “dangerous and irresponsible.” Interestingly, though, the Biden administration neatly side-stepped the issue, focusing instead that the US has not seen any signs that Russia has moved nuclear weapons to Belarus or anywhere else!

In good measure, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby added, “We’ve in fact seen no indication he (Putin) has any intention to use nuclear weapons, period, inside Ukraine.”

But then, Putin also made it clear that Russia would first complete construction on a storage facility in Belarus for the tactical nuclear weapons by July 1.

Kirby was fudging. What is the game plan? First, the Anglo-Saxon clique would hope that the issue will create further disquiet and insecurity in Europe vis-a-vis Russia and would rally European countries behind the Biden administration at a time when fault lines were appearing within the transatlantic alliance over a protracted war in Ukraine that might be catastrophic for European economies.

However, Washington is hard-pressed to respond to Putin’s remark that Russia is only doing something that the US has been doing for decades. The point is, a mutual commitment not to deploy nuclear weapons in third countries was one of the proposals Moscow made to Washington in December 2021, alongside a commitment that Ukraine would not join NATO. The US ignored it and instead precipitated, with great deliberation, the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.

The crux of the matter is, as with the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the Russian decision on tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is retaliatory, drawing attention to the US missiles stationed close to its borders. (An estimated 100 nuclear weapons are stored in vaults in five European countries — Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey.)

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Worse still, the US practices a controversial arrangement known as “nuclear sharing”, under which it installs nuclear equipment on fighter jets of select non-nuclear NATO countries and train their pilots to carry out nuclear strike with US nuclear bombs. This is happening when the US, being a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has promised not to hand over nuclear weapons to other countries, and the non-nuclear countries in the NATO’s sharing arrangement have themselves promised not to receive nuclear weapons from the nuclear weapon states!

The NATO declared last year that seven NATO countries contributed dual-capable aircraft to the nuclear sharing mission. These countries are believed to be the US, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey and Greece. And all are signatories to the NPT!

Welcome to the “rules based order”! What is perfectly permissible to the West is forbidden for Russia!

Finally, the diplomatic pirouette by Baroness Goldie has yet another dimension: Britain’s decision to send depleted uranium weaponry to Ukraine is confirming its reputation as the most reckless and unscrupulous state in the whole NATO alliance.

There is no question that depleted uranium munitions are radioactive and toxic and their heavy use in the Yugoslavia and Iraq wars has been linked to birth defects and cancers. It has been tied to “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied” in Fallujah, the city subjected to two brutal US sieges during the invasion of Iraq.

The toxicity of depleted uranium munitions has been accepted by many NATO countries and the European Parliament has called for its use to be banned. Following the death of 366 Italian soldiers with conditions linked to the substance, Italy legislated in 2019 to make it easier for veterans to sue for damages to exposure.

Why is Britain behaving like an outlier? Britain appears to be creating conditions in Europe to justify the basing of nuclear-armed US bombers at Lakenheath in Suffolk, which were removed in 1991 in line with the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty.

The peace movement in Britain is moribund. Count on the warmongers and Russophobic elites in the UK to seize the Russian retaliation in Belarus to demand yet another tit for tat escalation. Expect the US bombers to return to Lakenheath in a near future.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/moscow- ... in-europe/

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NATO PLANS TO INVESTIGATE RUSSIAN COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
28 Mar 2023 , 10:50 a.m.

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In particular, NATO is interested in Russian information channels to try to counter them (Photo: File)

The NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE) has launched two tenders to conduct research on Russia's communication strategies in the context of the Ukrainian conflict. The organization is interested in studying how information is presented to Russians, as well as to residents of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

"The investigative part will determine how Russia strategically communicated with various contingents of internal audiences to secure and maintain support at various stages of the conflict in Ukraine," the document says .

They plan to analyze Russian television programs, statements by officials, as well as information from the websites of the President of the Russian Federation, the Security Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and the State Duma. Likewise, the content of Telegram channels aimed at the Russian audience and the Baltic countries will be taken into account.

As part of the first tender, the artists must study "Russia's communication strategy aimed at supporting military operations in Ukraine" and its impact on the audience. The second involves the analysis of Russian "information operations" outside of the Western information environment.

The center's specialists consider that countries that are outside Western logic are a very relevant target of Russian disinformation. In any case, one would have to ask how nations like Mali, Kenya, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa are increasingly moving away from their influence and getting closer to other axes of power.

In addition, this deployment highlights the fact that the United States has never stopped playing on the chessboard of the permanent culture war, especially at a time of hegemonic loss for the Americans.

https://misionverdad.com/la-otan-se-pla ... acion-rusa

CENTRAL ASIA IN THE EUROPEAN CROSSHAIRS OF ANTI-RUSSIAN "SECONDARY SANCTIONS"
28 Mar 2023 , 10:32 a.m.

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The EU will restrict access to its market for Asian nations that are considered Russia's traditional allies (Photo: File)

The European Union (EU) could apply trade restrictions on some Central Asian countries because officials believe that assistance to Russia helps to circumvent imposed Western "sanctions", according to RT from a confidential document.

In Brussels, they monitor trade flows to Moscow and have detected an increase of up to 80% in the turnover of consumer goods between the EU member states and the countries of Central Asia.

This increase would be related to the exports of goods from the EU that contain the so-called "dual use" technologies, whose applications can be both military and civil. Items of this kind, including washing machines, used cars and cameras, are among those the EU has banned from exporting to Russia.

According to the Russian media, the block will restrict access to its market for Asian nations that are considered traditional allies of the Slavic giant if evidence is found that the goods are being re-exported to the country affected by the "sanctions".

In the interest of complying with the measures, Kazakhstan plans to monitor goods passing through its borders with a view to demonstrating compliance with Western efforts to isolate Russia's economy. It would do so by using an online system to track all goods entering and leaving the country on or after April 1.

Türkiye, Armenia and the United Arab Emirates are also under G7 scrutiny for possibly helping Russia circumvent "sanctions" by the United States and its allies.

https://misionverdad.com/asia-central-e ... antirrusas

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US Summit for Democracy Sows Ideological Divisions: Russia

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Russian diplomat Maria Zakharova. | Photo: Twitter/ @lvogruppo

Published 28 March 2023

The Kremlin also regretted the UN Security Council's decision to reject Russia's request for an independent investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline explosions.


On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Washington is using the U.S.-hosted Summit for Democracy as an ideological platform to exert control over other states and ultimately divide the world.

"The summit is a clear manifestation of U.S. neo-colonial practices," she said, stressing that the United States "forces everyone to look at the world through the lens of a 'rules-based-order,' which is used to serve Washington's global interests."

"It is both hypocritical and misleading when the United States claims to be a leader in promoting democratic values worldwide, while it doesn't support and practice these values itself," Zakharova pointed out.

"Moscow strongly opposes U.S. efforts to impose its own interpretations of democracy on other countries... The United States has no moral right to lecture others," Zahkarova stated, pointing out that Washington must abandon its binary discourse if it wishes to build serious relations with sovereign states.


On Tuesday, the Kremlin also regretted the decision made by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to reject Russia's request for an independent investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline explosions.

"We believe that everyone should be interested in an objective investigation involving all interested parties, all those, who can shed some light on the commissioners and perpetrators of this terrorist act," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Russia will do anything in its power to initiate such an international investigation.

In September 2022, a series of bombings and subsequent underwater gas leaks occurred on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines. The international community has since attempted to find the perpetrators and initiators of the attack.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US- ... -0014.html
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Thu Mar 30, 2023 12:06 pm

The propaganda train
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 03/30/2023

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As usual, Ukraine continues to combine the communication of news that is not excessively positive with moments in which it has a counterweight with which to balance the communication field. This week the arrival of the first Leopard-2 tanks sent by Germany, the main supplier of such precious equipment, and the British equipment with which the UK government wanted to pressure Berlin to supply heavy weapons. Added to the announcements of increased production of projectiles and the delivery of fighters of Russian or Soviet origin by some of the Ukrainian partners, members of the former Warsaw Pact, It seems evident that the offensive that kyiv has been announcing for months is getting closer and closer. This was confirmed again by Minister Reznikov, who pointed to the dates of the end of April or May for its beginning.

Coinciding with this seemingly good news for the Kiev government - though not for those territories where Ukraine intends to use its German tanks and US precision artillery or for the population that remains there - the Associated Press published a lengthy story yesterday about the Follow-up by his journalists on the two-day train trip with which Zelensky has visited various places on the front. The good handling of communication by the Ukrainian government, which is to be expected considering that a large part of the president's circle comes from the world of audiovisual production, gives the text an advertorial tone in which Zelensky wants to show himself as a statesman defending civilization against barbarism and who must not be disappointed.

The main conclusion of the account of the American journalists, who simply repeat without any criticism or qualification the account of the Ukrainian president, is that, despite the unprecedented supply that the proxy army led by Zelensky and Zaluzhny is receiving, no amount of weapons would be never enought. Throughout the text, the expressions of gratitude to the West for sending weapons are repeated, but the disappointments and, above all, the demands are also revealed. “We have big decisions on the Patriots, but we don't really have them,” Zelensky complained, protesting the delay in the delivery of US anti-aircraft systems, a criticism he repeated in relation to aviation. "We still don't have anything when it comes to modern fighters,"

The Ukrainian objective is not only based on guaranteeing itself sufficient material for its next offensive, but also getting rid of its Russian or Soviet weapons to replace it with equipment from NATO countries. In these political and military efforts to get closer to the Alliance and prepare an offensive that they hope will change the course of the war, no announcement of delivery of weapons will ever be enough. The demanding Ukrainian proxy continues to demand more heavy equipment, more long-distance missiles and more ammunition, sometimes with demands that exceed the production capacities of European countries.

Apart from the arms issue, one of the demands repeatedly raised by Ukrainian officers since the war began, the AP reportIt has stood out mainly for Zelensky's words about the battle for Bakhmut. The fight for Artyomovsk continues to be, pending future offensives, the main, although not the only, military focus of the front. Much has already been debated about the strategic importance of this town for the development of the war. The composition of the front makes it clear that the capture of the city is essential for Russia in its attempt to capture the entirety of the Donetsk region, since it is unfeasible to advance without overcoming that barrier. For Ukraine, which has a second line of defense that it has been able to prepare for more than eight months, the real importance of the town is much less in military terms.

During the first months of fighting, the Ukraine claimed not to know why Russia persisted in its failed attempts to advance on the city. The answer was as simple as looking at the map of hostilities and verifying that, once the Izium bridgehead had been lost to the north, the only route for Russian advance on Slavyansk and Kramatorsk was through an attack from the south-southeast: Gorlovka and Artyomovsk. Recently, having verified the cost that the war of melee attrition that is being experienced in the city is assuming for both sides, it has been the partners and defenders of Ukraine who have considered the advisability of continuing with the defense of a town that they they did not attach strategic importance. What's more, even the Ukrainian government has even argued that "nothing would happen" if Russia captured Artyomovsk.

However, the symbolic importance that Zelensky and his entourage have wanted to give to the city, in the middle of the front line since it was the place where Ukrainian soldiers withdrew "in an orderly and organized manner" after their defeat in Debaltsevo in 2015, it has made any option that did not go through the fight to the end unfeasible. In a way, Russia and Ukraine have agreed on an argument: for weeks, Ukraine claimed that the huge Russian casualties meant that the battle was going to defeat Wagner's troops and reduce the fighting capacity of the Russian army, while yesterday Evgeny Prigozhin , owner of the company, stated that the objective of the battle is to destroy the Ukrainian army. Although it is evident that the casualties must necessarily be high, it is questionable that neither party has sent its most precious units to the area. In any case, the doubt will be resolved in the medium term, when the state of the troops can be verified and the reactivation of other sectors of the front takes place.

In this context, Zelensky's words are important, who, in contrast to the rhetoric of a few months ago, seems to have settled on the theory that if Russia captures the city, there will be an "open field" in the rest of the Donetsk region, a expression that contrasts with the reality of Donbass: densely urban and fortified with a second line prepared for defense. However, Volodymyr Zelensky's comments to AP insist on another, more political and informational aspect than a purely military one. Aware that the media front of this war is almost as important for Ukraine as the military, the Ukrainian president openly expressed his fear that Russia has a victory to present to its public and beyond its borders.

Putin could "sell" the victory in Artyomovsk to the international community, explained the Ukrainian president, who may have been able to observe the growing doubts about Ukraine's chances of achieving the complete victory it seeks and which have been reflected in statements such as those of Emmanuel Macron or Rishi Sunak, who have hinted that Kiev may have to settle for taking back the territories excluding Crimea. Despite the fact that they can by no means be considered a majority, the positions favorable to some kind of future negotiation with Russia have increased in recent months, which would not imply the demand for capitulation, only possible with a complete victory in which the partners do not even believe. Ukrainians from the Pentagon.

A defeat at Bakhmut would mean, according to the Ukrainian president, rapid added pressure that would come from both inside and outside. “Our society will feel tired,” said Zelensky, possibly aware that even the most sympathetic Western press is already publishing articles about the increasing recruitment difficulties the Ukrainian Armed Forces are experiencing. And in an idea that refers not only to Ukrainian society but also to its foreign partners, Zelensky fears that "our society will push me to compromise with them." Underlying the argument is the idea that any scenario that does not involve a complete victory for Ukraine will be perceived as a defeat.

In recent months of paralysis on the front, with Ukraine holding out since last autumn against the attempted Russian assault on Artyomovsk, Avdeevka or Ugledar, the rhetoric of complete victory has become the official discourse of the Government of Ukraine, which has not prepared the ground for a possible partial victory and even less for any type of defeat. The fruits of that choice are being seen now, when the Ukrainian president uses arguments that are hardly convincing considering Ukraine's proven ability to turn defeats into partial successes.

With huge amounts of Western weaponry already committed and in the process of being delivered, the situation in Artyomovsk, whatever it is in late April or early May, is not going to change Ukrainian offensive plans. As they have done so far, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will continue to defend, possibly to the last man, the ruins of Bakhmut. Despite the promises of a local counteroffensive, of which even Evgeny Prigozhin has warned, decidedly pro-Ukrainian sources such as the Institute for the Study of War daily reflect Russian advances inside a city that they control by more than 65%. It is unlikely that a defeat at Bakhmut would cause the Donetsk front to collapse, as Ukrainian troops would fall back to nearby Konstantinovka, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. However, a loss

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/03/30/el-tr ... more-26953


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From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad

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The battle for Avdiivka
situation as of 19.00 March 29, 2023

🔻To the north of Avdiivka, servicemen of the 132nd Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of the RF Armed Forces (formerly the 3rd Gorlovskaya Brigade of the NM of the DPR) continue a positional attack on the strongholds of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the forest belt south of Novobakhmutovka . The Armed Forces of Ukraine are indiscriminately shelling areas of the offensive of the RF Armed Forces, trying to hold back their advance.

▪️To the south, Russian troops, after a complete cleansing of Kamenka , are fighting south and southwest of the settlement, expanding the zone of control near the reservoir adjacent to the village.

▪️To the west of Krasnogorovka positional battles are going on. Both Russian servicemen and Ukrainian formations are shelling positions with artillery and aircraft.

🔻South of Avdiivka, the Armed Forces of Ukraine transferred additional units of the 53rd brigade to the Severny area due to the expected offensive of the RF Armed Forces. Shelters are equipped with camouflage nets for personnel and military equipment at advanced strongholds.

🔻In Pervomaisky, the offensive of Russian troops resumed. The fighters of the RF Armed Forces have completely cleared the quarters adjacent to the Izmailovsky Pond and are moving forward.

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Colonelcassad

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Analysis of RT reports on the battles in Marinka

Russia Today published several reports of military commissar Vlad Andritsa @vandrytsa , dedicated to the battles in Marinka , which clearly show the advance of Russian forces in the area of ​​Druzhba Prospekt.

From the night video with the work of artillerymen on the moving equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it becomes clear that the main supply route for the Maryinsky enemy grouping is now under artillery fire control .

The second report tells about the difficulties that had to be faced in the battles for the central part of Maryinka. Armed Forces of Ukraine arranged a fortified point from the templeOur Lady of Kazan and nearby administrative buildings.

It was possible to drive Ukrainian forces out of there during a direct assault only at the cost of high losses.

Therefore, at first the RF Armed Forces occupied the area of ​​school number two on the northern outskirts of the city, after some time the fire department and neighboring high-rise buildings were occupied . The fortified area was in a semi-encirclement , which complicated the supply of the defenders. Based on the words of a Russian serviceman , the territory of Maryinka to the east of Druzhby Avenue has been completely cleared of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

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Colonelcassad
In Ukraine, as part of strengthening "voluntary mobilization", they are going to send out subpoenas to phone numbers directly in instant messengers - in WhatsApp and Viber.

In the light of these plans, a reasonable action for an ordinary resident of Ukraine who does not want to be another "Leopard driver" is to remove WhatsApp and Viber from the phone. It is also best to remove the Diya application, through which they are also going to send out subpoenas.
Through these simple steps, hiding from mobilization in Ukraine will be a little easier if you do not have enough money for a bribe so that smugglers will take you across the border.

Better yet, change the number and the phone itself (better push-button). So there are more chances to shirk when they start sending agendas via instant messengers.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator.

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Western Powers Pressured UNSC Members to Boycott Russia-Proposed Resolution on Nord Stream
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 29, 2023
Lucas Leiroz

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Western countries apparently would have compelled nations not to support the resolution proposed by the Russian delegation at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with the objective of investigating the attacks against the Nord Stream gas pipelines. In fact, pressure and threat have already become the main mechanisms by which NATO countries try to prevent neutral states from supporting measures proposed by Russia and China. As a result, the global diplomatic crisis reaches increasingly high levels.

On March 27, the UN Security Council failed to adopt a draft resolution submitted by the Russian delegation calling for an international committee of investigation into the Nord Stream case to be established under the leadership of the UN itself. China, Russia, and Brazil were the only countries that voted in favor of the measure, with all other permanent and temporary members of the Council opting for abstention. With this, the resolution was rejected.

At first look, it may seem surprising that states are “uninterested” in knowing who really carried out the terrorist attacks against Germany’s energy infrastructure. However, for many experts, this does not come as an actual surprise. Faced with so much evidence that there was direct participation by the US – and possibly the UK – in the destruction of the gas pipelines, it was expected that these two countries would use all possible means to boycott a serious investigation of the matter.

For this reason, when asked by a Russian journalist if he expected the Council’s negative result, American informant Seymour Hersh, who denounced US participation in the attacks, said: “Of course. Why should [the USNC vote for the resolution]? What else did you think they would do? If they did anything else that would be news”.

It is interesting to emphasize that the US and the UK have veto power and could simply block the implementation of the measure, even if approved by the other members. But this would certainly sound very difficult to public opinion and would make the participation of both countries in the crime even more evident. In the same sense, the mere act of voting against the investigation could be interpreted as an open boycott, which is why both states chose to abstain – and apparently influenced other countries to do the same.

According to the Russian Ambassador, Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy, the western powers exerted great pressure for other states to abstain. In a recent interview, he said that “UN states were afraid to support Russia openly”. Polyanskiy mentions that, despite the abstentions, in their justifications, some diplomatic delegations suggested that they would like the investigations to be conducted in some way, which indicates that their abstention would have been the result of some kind of constraint imposed by Western states.

“There was, as usual, big pressure from the part of our western ex-partners (…) They were making it absolutely clear that they are not interested in the voice that would uphold rational position (…) I think that many members who were speaking they made their position absolutely clear in the explanation of the votes, which was that they are in favor of transparent and I’d say swift investigation, so there were a lot of signals to the authorities of Denmark, Sweden and Germany to finish this investigation, to brief the Council about concrete results (…) So there is kind of a pressure from this part of the members of the council who abstained, but still they upheld the necessity of moving forward so more swiftly and clarifying a lot of details. I think that’s also a positive result from our vote”, he said.

Commenting on the next steps to be taken, Ambassador Polyanskiy stated that Moscow will continue to conduct its national investigation since a criminal case has been opened. New measures in the Council are not expected for the near future. Indeed, Moscow will also remain willing to work with international partners interested in finding the truth, even if the UN is not involved in the process.

Western diplomatic pressure on other countries for anti-Russian votes at the UN is well known. With the customary US practice of imposing unilateral coercive measures against countries considered “unfriendly”, nations are coerced to avoid publicly conflicting US interests in order not to become the target of economic boycott campaigns. More than that, the Nord Stream case itself made it clear that Washington is also willing to impose significant material damages on its own allied countries, just to force them to adhere more absolutely to its plans.

Obviously, in this scenario, international cooperation centered on the UN becomes threatened. However, at some point countries will have to overcome their fears of reprisals and take sovereign action in relation to these topics, since the truth about a terrorist attack is a matter of relevance and strategic interests for the entire community of nations.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... rd-stream/

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Mobilization through messengers
March 29, 6:52 p.m

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In Ukraine, as part of strengthening "voluntary mobilization", they are going to send out subpoenas to phone numbers directly in instant messengers - in WhatsApp and Viber.

In the light of these plans, a reasonable action for an ordinary resident of Ukraine who does not want to be another "Leopard driver" is to remove WhatsApp and Viber from the phone. It is also best to remove the Diya application, through which they are also going to send out subpoenas.
Through these simple steps, hiding from mobilization in Ukraine will be a little easier if you do not have enough money for a bribe so that smugglers will take you across the border.

Better yet, change the number and the phone itself (better push-button). So there are more chances to shirk when they start sending agendas via instant messengers. And they will be sent out. Cannon fodder won't pick itself up.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8260765.html

Google Translator

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Chechen Fighters Sign Deal with Ukraine to Form All-Chechen Brigade to Fight Russians
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 30, 2023
Jeremy Kuzmarov

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Foreign soldiers who volunteered to fight for Ukraine participate in training exercises. Kiev is welcoming Chechens to join the war against Russia. Photo: NurPhoto via Getty / Geovien So

Jihadists coming fresh from Syria exemplify yet again that War on Terror is a fraud.


In early March, Asia Times reported that the Ukrainian government under Volodymyr Zelensky had signed a deal with newly arrived Chechen fighters from Syria to establish an all-Chechen brigade reporting directly to the Ministry of Defense.

Many of the Chechens in Syria had been part of ISIS and other al-Qaeda offshoots like Jabhat al-Nusra, with Chechen commander Abu Omar al-Shishani serving as ISIS Minister of War.

The Chechens wanted to directly fight the Russians with whom they have been at war for more than 300 years—and to fight against Chechen forces on the Russian side led by Ramzan Kadyrov, who switched sides after brokering a deal with Russia in 2006.

Asia Times reported that “the influx of Chechen fighters to Ukraine will likely encourage other regional jihadist groups in Syria to follow suit” in traveling to fight the Russians in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s acceptance of these groups marks a new phase of desperation on the part of the Zelensky government since Ukraine has lost tens of thousands of soldiers in the war and is reportedly low on ammunition.

The presence of the Chechens also demonstrates the phoniness of the U.S. War on Terror since the U.S. is the key financier of the Ukrainian government and army, having provided well over $100 billion in aid since February 2022.

Devil’s Game

In his 2005 book, Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, historian Robert Dreyfuss detailed a historical pattern dating to the 1950s in which the U.S. supported Islamists as an antidote to socialism and communism.

Dreyfuss describes a pivotal conference at Princeton University in 1953 funded by a branch of the State Department with roots in the U.S. intelligence community in which Said Ramadan, an ideologue with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, participated with leading Orientalist academics who rallied behind the strategy of supporting Islamists in the Cold War.[1]

The CIA went on to support Muslim resistance to Soviet rule in Central Asia and the Caucasus, putting it on the side of the Chechens in a prelude to today.

U.S. strategy builds on the precedent of the British, which recruited as intelligence assets Islamists like Jamal al-din al-Afghani (1838-1897) and Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) in Egypt and fomented Islamist insurrections when they suited British imperial goals.

A key case study in Devil’s Game is Afghanistan, where the CIA recruited the most hardline Islamic elements in the 1970s to induce a Soviet invasion to give the Soviets their Vietnam and to take the war against the Soviets into Central Asia.

In recent decades, the U.S. has found itself on the side of the Islamists in Libya, which were used to overthrow secular nationalist Muammar Qaddafi, as well as in the Balkans, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Syria and also now Ukraine.

Sheikh Mansur Battalion

In September 2022, National Public Radio (NPR) featured Chechen fighters in Ukraine who formed the Sheikh Mansur Battalion—an all-Chechen brigade.

A member of the battalion named Masour recalled Russians burning Chechen villages during the Chechen War for independence in the 1990s and vowed revenge.

Chechen fighters committed legions of human rights abuses in the Chechen war and in Syria and were known for the use of suicide bombing and other terrorist tactics.

According to the U.S. State Department, the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade (IIPB) is the primary channel for Islamic funding of Chechen guerrillas, in part through links to al-Qaeda-related financiers on the Arabian Peninsula.

In 2003, the Bush administration defined the Chechnya-based Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR) and the Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs as terrorist entities, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Sheikh Mansur Battalion has been active in Ukraine since 2014 and fought in Mariupol and Bakhmut among other places. The battalion is named in honor of Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen military commander and Islamic leader who fought against the expansion of the Russian Empire into the Caucasus during the late 18th century.

For a time, the battalion operated under the command of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, an independent volunteer battalion of the far-right Right Sector party.

Foreign Fighters in Ukraine

The International Studies Association (ISA) conference in Montreal in mid-March featured a panel on foreign fighters in Ukraine, which included discussion of the Wagner Group, Kadyrov forces and Serbs on the Russian side, and the presence of Chechen, Croat and Georgian fighters as well as Muslim Crimean Tatars on the Ukrainian side.

The first speaker on the panel, Helene Olsen of King’s College in London, emphasized that the term mercenary is no longer used because of its negative connotation though that essentially is what the foreign fighters are.

While money, adventure seeking and a desire to run away from personal problems may be a motivating factor, a lot of the foreign fighters on the Ukrainian side especially are motivated by a revenge motive and hatred for the Russians.

Dr. Iva Vukusic of Utrecht University in the Netherlands emphasized that a number of the Croats worked directly with the far-right Azov Battalion. Both came from a Nazi lineage, with Croat fighters having collaborated with the Nazi puppet-state in Croatia during World War II.

Vukusic also emphasized that many of the mercenaries on both sides subscribed to an anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminist and anti-immigrant worldview and were involved in war crimes, some of which have been broadcast on their Telegram channels.

Elena E. Pokalova of the National Defense University pointed to the existence in Ukraine of many foreign fighters from the Caucasus, including the Chechens and members of the Georgian Legion, who wanted an opportunity to fight the Russians after the 2008 war over South Ossetia and Abkhazia that the Russians won.

Brutality of Georgian Legion Exposed

CovertAction Magazine published an important two-part exposé on the Georgian Legion, noting how it carried out ISIS-style executions in Ukraine.

Author Evan Reif wrote that “the Georgian Legion prides itself on never taking prisoners, releasing videos on its social media of ISIS-style executions of bound, tortured POWs that are so brazen even Western intelligence cutouts such as Bellingcat and Western press agencies like CNN and The New York Times have confirmed their authenticity. Despite this, the Georgian Legion finds support…from people at the highest echelons of American power. Congressman Adam Kinzinger, the ‘never Trump’ Republican, is one of their most vocal backers.”

The head of the Georgian Legion, Mamuka Mamulashvili, has had deep ties with far right and neo-Nazi groups and was accused of launching black-flag sniper attacks in Ukraine during the February 2014 Maidan coup that were blamed on the pro-Russian Yanukovych regime.

After Yanukovych was forced to flee, Mamuka’s men trained the infamous Special Tasks Patrol police units, recruited from among the thousands of neo-Nazis (many of them CIA-affiliated) which led the way in crushing the nascent counter-revolution in Donbas.

Reif wrote that the Georgian Legion “carried out their mission [at this time] with extreme brutality, subjugating cities and towns by any means necessary.”

This same brutality was seen in a recent video in which several bound Russian soldiers are depicted lying on the ground with their throats slit in pools of blood as the cameraman brags about Georgian prowess and then shoots a prisoner who starts to gurgle as he fights for air.[2]

Reif concluded that, despite claims by Mamuka to the contrary, the Georgian Legion was rife with neo-Nazis from around the world. Among them was Paul Gray, an Iraq and Afghan war veteran affiliated with at least four known neo-Nazi groups, the Traditionalist Workers Party (TWP), Vanguard America, Patriot Front, and the infamous Atomwaffen.

A New Operation Gladio?

Christopher Helali, in another important article for CAM that profiles foreign mercenary fighters in Ukraine, suggests that the nexus of military personnel, neo-Nazis, and intelligence networks being mobilized is reminiscent of Operation Gladio following the Second World War—a state terrorist operation involving the creation of underground armies to fight the Soviet Union and political left in Europe.

The CIA, as we know, has played an outsized role in the Ukraine conflict—spreading propaganda, overseeing the Ukrainian secret service (Служба безпеки України), and providing paramilitary training to Ukrainian Special Forces engaged in dirty-war tactics in eastern Ukraine.

Thousands of American mercenaries, many with white supremacist backgrounds, have also gone to fight on the frontlines of Ukraine. The New York York Times on March 26 profiled some of them, including James Vasquez, who fought alongside the Da Vince’s Wolves, a Ukrainian far-right battalion.[3]

What the Times did not report is that Vasquez and some of his associates may be working under intelligence cover to coordinate the activities of the Chechens, Croats, Georgians and other foreign fighters that have been unleashed on eastern Ukraine to kill Russians and terrorize the people.

Notes:

Robert Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005). ↑
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, stating,“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.” ↑
Vasquez was a charlatan who lied about being deployed to Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm and to Iraq during Operation Enduring Freedom. ↑

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... -russians/

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US VOLUNTEERS IN UKRAINE COMMIT WAR CRIMES WITH IMPUNITY
Mar 29, 2023 , 2:16 p.m.

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Informal groups and foreign militias make up a significant part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (Photo: Laura Boushnak / The New York Times)

The United States is supplying Ukraine not only with weapons and money but also with large numbers of untrained mercenaries, The New York Times reported in an article .

"[These] people who would not be allowed near the battlefield in a US-led war are active on the Ukrainian front, often with uncontrolled access to weapons and military equipment."

The authors of the article analyzed the internal documentation of foreign "volunteer groups" in Ukraine, interviewed their representatives and came to disappointing conclusions. After Vladimir Zelensky vowed to arm all who were ready to join the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a flood of thousands of foreign fighters with troubled pasts poured into the Slavic country. They fabricated military service documents and records to join military groups like the International Legion. Some simply pretended to be military to participate in real battles.

Most of these people intentionally went to that country to enrich themselves directly by participating in hostilities or organizing charity events to raise funds, the US media reported.

Most disturbing, however, are reports of mercenaries arriving in Ukraine realizing they can commit war crimes there with impunity. Some of them openly wrote on social media that they are not at all concerned with the international rules of war and are just happy to have free access to all kinds of weapons.

This confirms reports that informal groups and militias make up a significant part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. There are many Americans among them whom the authorities in Washington, DC are trying to hide .

These groups lack centralized coordination and control, reflecting internal political divisions in the Slavic country. The militias act at will, which leads to a chaotic situation on the battlefield and prevents the development of a coherent strategy.

https://misionverdad.com/voluntarios-es ... -impunidad

Google Translator

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Swiss Govt. Introduces Exemptions To Sanctions Against Russia

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The tenth package of sanctions against Russia brings the total number of blacklisted entities to 205. Mar. 29, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@swissbusiness

Published 29 March 2023

The EU adopted its tenth package of sanctions against Russia on February 25.



The Federal Council announced Wednesday that Switzerland has joined the EU's tenth package of sanctions against Russia, with a series of exemptions.

"After deciding on March 3 to facilitate humanitarian activities in Syria, the Federal Council has now issued a humanitarian exemption for the provision of certain services to Russian organizations," reads a statement on the Swiss government portal.

This is "the possibility to authorize the transfer of funds or economic resources to sanctioned individuals, companies or organizations, on a case-by-case basis, if deemed necessary to protect Swiss interests."

There are also exemptions from sanctions for the Rossiya Segodnya media group, as Switzerland does not plan to ban it from reporting. However, it will be banned from advertising in the country, Erik Reumann, spokesman for the Swiss Federal Department of Economics, told RIA Novosti.


The decision is due to the need to prevent the shares of two Swiss companies from passing into the hands of sanctioned Russian banks, the statement said.

The tenth package of sanctions against Russia brings the total number of blacklisted entities to 205, while 1 473 individuals face travel bans and asset freezes.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Swi ... -0015.html

Russia Starts Military Training With Nuclear-Capacity Missiles

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A view of a "Yars" ballistic missile, Russia. | Photo: Twitter/ @Linnel15643278

Published 29 March 2023

More than 3,000 troops and some 300 military teams will participate in the maneuvers, which will include camouflage exercises with the missiles and combat trials against drones.


On Wednesday, the Russian army began training in three Siberian regions with the “Yars” new ballistic missiles, which reach targets of up to 12,000 kilometers and can carry up to four nuclear warheads.

"This training is part of the Nuclear Forces Readiness Plan in 2023 and will enable the Army’s Strategic Missile Commission to inspect the combat capacities of the Omsk Force Group,” the Russian Defense Ministry explained.

More than 3,000 troops and some 300 military teams will participate in the maneuvers, which will include camouflage exercises with the missiles and combat trials against drones.

“This strategy will also allow us to determine the capabilities of modern weaponry,” the Defense Ministry pointed out, hoping to replace the old Topol missiles, which only carry a warhead, with the Yars missiles.
Russia Foreign Minister LAVROV: "At this point, we can expect anything on earth from the United States. In a bid to assert their hegemony, they have passed all bounds of diplomatic, ethical or any other kind of decency."
Recently, Nikolai Patrushev, the Russian Security Council Secretary, said that the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is part of the armed conflict in Ukraine, which currently serves as a military camp country for this organization.

“NATO provides more and more weapons, ammunition, and intelligence information, including that obtained with satellites and drones, to Kyv,” Patrushev recalled, condemning that some U.S. politicians believe that Russia will not be able to win the armed conflict or respond to a U.S.-led direct missile attack.

“Russia is patient and does not try to frighten anyone with its military superiority. However, it possesses unique modern weaponry capable of destroying any adversary, including the United States, in case its security is threatened," Patrushev warned.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Rus ... -0008.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 31, 2023 11:47 am

Close the circle
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 03/31/2023

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Since almost nine years ago, when the first protests began and the Donetsk regional administration building was seized, the Donbass militias have been described as mere puppets of Russia for whom different definitions have been used as Russian-backed separatists. or pro-Russian militias. One of these groups, the bulk of what would later become the Vostok battalion, was one of the first to appear on the scene and also to be mistakenly labeled as Russian. In the days after the capture of the oblast regional power buildingfrom Donetsk, various media outlets erroneously claimed that the act had been carried out by a group of Chechen soldiers. The same media had to rectify later when it was found that they were men linked to Alexander Jodakovsky, former commander of one of the units of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry dissolved by the first decrees of the new Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

One of the highest profile commanders Jodakovsky has been one of the most controversial figures, not only because of his clashes with other DPR officials - fundamentally, but not only with Strelkov .– but because of his brutal candor in front of the media. Jodakovsky, in charge of the first government attempt in the DPR even before the referendum on May 11, 2014, claimed then that he did not know what that Republic was in whose management he had to participate. Although in those first moments of the rebellion in Donbass there were many struggles -against the new Ukrainian government, for independence, for utopian solutions or for adhesion to Russia-, the founder of the Vostok battalion made it publicly clear that the militias that were being organized were not they should focus on creating an alternative political entity to Ukraine but on joining Russia. Long before Moscow understood that this trend existed in the Donbass, a part of the rebellion was already fighting for this goal. Now, almost nine years later,

The trajectory of Khodakovsky and the brigade he created is especially significant in looking at the evolution of both the conflict and Russia's treatment of these units. Last week, the founder of the Vostok brigade wrote in the first person about it as reported by Antifashist :

Russia still does not see itself through the eyes of the soldiers who have been fighting for it since 2014. Alexander Jodakovsky, commander of the Vostok brigade, has written about it on his Telegram channel. “By the beginning of 2015, the number of our guys who had died in battles had already reached 500. In August-September 2014 alone, the Vostok brigade lost more than 200 people in heavy battles in the direction of Kharkov and Dnipropetrovsk. Sometimes we joke: it wasn't Russia that joined us, it's us who joined. In Russia, Russians do not see themselves the way those who were willing to give their lives for the Russian world do, meaning the Russian spirit and the Russian soul. Russia, having passed the test that has been found, it is not yet seen as real in our decadent world. This is what the people who came to Vostok fought for and are fighting for, for Russia and for its future and for this they have given their lives,” he wrote.

With the start of the special military operation, units were formed on the basis of the Khodakovsky brigade, which are now going to be incorporated into the Russian army. “From Vostok, I formed the 11th Regiment and three home defense battalions, actually three rifle battalions. Those who have survived are still fighting today. I integrated one of the units into the troops of the DPR Ministry of Internal Affairs, with it I entered the war with the start of the special operation. Now, due to the reorganization of the units, we have to join the Russian system, ”he added.

“Now the brigade units will be incorporated into the Russian Guard, Rosgvardia, becoming a special forces unit. The unit's profile portended a direct path to Rosgvardia, but there were other alternatives. However, we have found our place here. Before the final decision was made, we had many contacts with the Rosgvardia leadership. After all, a unit created by motivated volunteers has its own characteristics compared to existing Russian structures. But we saw people whose goals match our ideas. Now, Vostok will become the base of the Rosgvardia units in the new territorial body that is being created in the Donetsk People's Republic, ”he added.

Jodakovsky's career and his return to the official security structures of the DPR after a troubled departure are, in a way, a way of closing the circle. Yesterday, Vladlen Tatarsky, a member of his closest group, congratulated the commander on his appointment as deputy head of the Main Directorate of the DPR National Guard, a position in the Republic's security apparatus that, unlike in 2014, On this occasion, it means being part of the security structure of the Russian Federation, as demanded in those first months of the Donbass rebellion.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/03/31/cerra ... more-26959

I would be very sad to know that the socialists 'Brain' and 'Batman' were being referred to as 'utopian'. Nonetheless their spirits still live in the units they formed and it ain't over until it's over.

Google Translator

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Alfred de Zayas on the arrest warrant for Putin
Originally published: Defend Democracy Press on March 27, 2023 by D K (more by Defend Democracy Press) | (Posted Mar 30, 2023)

The arrest warrant for the President of Russia, issued by the International Criminal Court is, on one side, a rather ridiculous affair. To be applied the West has to launch a successful nuclear war against Russia and then arrest its President, provided both the ICC and Putin survive. It proves in what universe western political leaders live and why it is so easy for the “Party of War” to manipulate them.

But from another aspect this affair can have serious repercussions and probably, as the NordStream sabotage, is also meant as much against Europe as against Russia. What the “Black International” wants to achieve, among others, is to “forbid” to European leaders to speak peace with Putin. How they will be able to negotiate, or meet, with a “wanted criminal”?

We asked Professor Alfred de Zayas for his comment on the situation. He is a distinguished Professor of International Law in Switzerland, has served as a special rapporteur of the United Nations and he is the author of 10 books. He is respected worldwide for both his scientific strength and for his integrity.

In the past he had advocated the establishment of the International Criminal Court but now he became aware of how the ICC has been politicized and made irrelevant. He believes the ICC would only serve a purpose if it were rigorously independent, objective and professional. The weaponization of the ICC to buttress U.S. imperialism is painful. After 20 years of largely political, not strictly legal activity, the ICC deserves to be abolished, the Swiss jurist believes. Justice means justice for all, not only for privileged countries.

According to the Swiss scholar, the current prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan KC, a British lawyer specializing in international criminal law, who has served in the post since 2021, has blatantly demonstrated his bias by discontinuing investigation of war crimes by the U.S. in Afghanistan, but continuing investigations against Taliban.

No one from the West was ever indicted after the establishment of the ICC in 2002, Alfred de Zayas pointed out. In 20 years it only indicted Africans and for that reason it was rightly called neo-colonial. Now it indicts Putin, revealing its flagrant Western bias. Since the entry into force of the Rome Statute there have been thousands of war crimes under the responsibility of NATO governments. War crimes have been documented in NATO wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Why has no one ever been indicted there?, Professor de Zayas asks. If the ICC indicts Putin, why not Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Joe Biden etc.?

By issuing “warrants of arrest” against two senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has revealed, according to Professor de Zayas its flagrant Western bias, killing its own credibility.

https://mronline.org/2023/03/30/alfred- ... for-putin/

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Joe Biden speak in Oval Office, March 3, 2023. (Photo: AP)

Hersh: Nord Stream explosion decision possibly ‘anger’ or ‘punishment
Originally published: Al Mayadeen on March 25, 2023 by Agencies (more by Al Mayadeen) | (Posted Mar 29, 2023)

Famed journalist Seymour Hersh, who had previously exposed U.S. war crimes in My Lai and Abu Ghraib, and had most recently exposed the U.S.’ role in the Nord Stream explosions, reveals further information in an interview with China Daily.

Hersh argued that the U.S. elites had a “long-standing history” of being “disturbed by the Russian gas and oil sales to Western Europe” which was further confirmed after U.S. President Joe Biden’s public threat to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream pipelines just two weeks prior to the war in Ukraine. This, Hersh said, proved that it “wasn’t much of a secret what we wanted to do.”

Biden’s decision to order the demolition of the Nord Stream pipelines, says Hersh, was motivated by Germany’s projected reluctance to continue arming Ukraine.

Hersh said “the only thing” he can “think and suppose” is that Biden “was afraid of Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz not wanting to put more guns and more arms into Ukraine.”

During the interview, Hersh highlighted that he was not sure whether Biden’s decision was made at a time of “anger” or as a form of “punishment”, adding that “those who were involved [in the bombing] had the same thought.”

Significantly, Hersh explained that the U.S. administration was unhappy with the fact that its proxy war against Moscow was not “going well”, and “decided in late September to trigger the mines.” He said that American foreign policy elites had made it clear, in the past, that they objected to Russian-Europpean cooperation. Based on that, Hersh said he was not “surprised one bit” by the decision to sabotage the Nord Stream Pipelines.

“Because Russia has a nearly ‘inexhaustible’ supply of ‘cheap and very clean’ natural gas, America has a long-standing history… of being very disturbed by the Russian gas and oil sales to Western Europe,” Hersh stated.

To use U.S. mainstream media terminology, Hersh said the Biden administration has “always been bothered by the fact that Russia… was ‘weaponizing’ gas.”

“And that’s the theme of American foreign policy towards Russia,” Hersh argued.

In a nutshell, the journalist explained, the attack on Nord Stream meant that Biden “cut off a major power source through Western Europe,” and thus, consequentially,

Europe is in a crisis now.

However, this crisis will inevitably have a ripple effect that will come to haunt the Biden administration down the road given that energy prices will continue to rise. Ergo, Hersh said “this summer and fall, it’s going to be very difficult for Biden,” and explained that Biden is “going to get a lot of criticism for what he did, that’s for sure.”

U.S. may directly meddle in Ukraine war, Seymour Hersh warns

The U.S. may directly delve into the Ukraine war if Kiev starts showing cracks in its defenses and signs of defeat against Russia, Hersh had said earlier, on March 15.

Addressing a U.S. NGO event, Hersh quoted unnamed sources as saying there would be a NATO “game” against Russia that the U.S. may wind up supporting.

“I’m told the game is going to be: this is NATO, we are supporting NATO in offensive operations against the Russians, which is not going to fool the world… It’s us fighting Russia,” Hersh stressed.

https://mronline.org/2023/03/29/hersh-n ... unishment/

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Cheerleading versus shivers down your spine: what will the coming Ukrainian counter-offensive bring?

To be sure, there are, among readers of my essays, a certain number of cheerleaders for the Russian side in the ongoing war in and over Ukraine. Some are keenly interested in the facts and the risks that each escalation in the conflict brings with it. Others are often quite ignorant about Russia and have no sincere interest in that country, any more than the Washington elites rooting for Ukraine care about the realities or the fate of that country. These folks are playing the Grand Chessboard, and their logic is ‘you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs,’ by which I mean that the losses of the combatant sides are merely collateral damage in a much needed realignment of the World Order that takes America down from its pedestal. Quite apart from the cynicism that underlies such position-taking, it ignores that we may all become ‘collateral damage’ if one or the other combatant side miscalculates and touches off a nuclear war.

Meanwhile, I see that both Scott Ritter and Col. Douglas Macgregor continue their cheerleading of Russian forces with daily predictions of a rout of the Ukrainian army. They are both talking nonsense, and bring their fake news to very large Western audiences. Why do I say nonsense? Because no one really knows what the situation on the ground will be when the Ukrainians launch their counter offensive next month.

Both sides have imposed strictest secrecy on their current operations and plans for the coming couple of months. Though the Russians continue to make progress in their capture of Bakhmut and Avdievka, there is little movement elsewhere on the very long front. Both sides are engaged in minor sorties to find out weak spots in the defenses of the other side for purposes of the big battle to come.

In the past few days, Zelensky has played down the Ukrainian military potential for the purpose of squeezing more and more aid from the West and to make the possible Ukrainian breakthrough during the counter offensive appear all the more remarkable if it indeed occurs.

The Russians have been digging in, literally, with spades to fortify their defensive positions in a series of lines. The Russians are nervous over what the USA and NATO actually have dispatched to Ukraine, which they believe may be much more advanced than what the newspaper accounts are saying. Forget the tanks, which are a side show. The real threat is long range ballistic missiles and other weaponry that can reach into the supply depots, regional command centers and barracks of reservists in Crimea and the Russian oblasts bordering the Donbas.

Should Russian fears, which we hear set out in some detail on the daily talk shows these days, be justified and not merely a message to their own leadership to take maximum precautions and not to be giddy with success, then you and I should be very, very nervous. Why? Because if the United States indeed goes va banque and throws in as a further guarantee of success NATO piloted aircraft and battalions of infantry, then the possibility of Russians resorting to tactical nukes raises its head.

For some time now John Mearsheimer has been warning of the Russians resorting to nuclear weapons if they are too heavily pressed in the Ukraine war. I had been resisting his logic by pointing to the unique new conventional weapons like the hypersonic missiles that the Russians have largely been holding back until now but could throw into the battle if needed. After all, in principle, the Russians are fully capable of decapitating the Ukrainian political and military leadership by precision strikes on Kiev at any time of their choosing. However, that may itself be as risky in terms of relations with the USA and NATO as a nuclear strike in the field would be, and it would leave no one with whom to negotiate an end to the war.

And so, sadly and reluctantly, I take back my words about the impossibility of Russian use of nuclear weapons in the field. I have done this privately in a letter to Professor Mearsheimer. Now I do so publicly.

If US assistance to the Ukrainian counteroffensive goes over the top, we may all become collateral casualties of war, both here in Europe and on the mythically secure shores across the Atlantic.

For all of these reasons, I repeat the argument of the Appeal drafted by European Parliament deputies and published here a week ago: this war must end NOW, and imposing a cease-fire is the most urgent task of international diplomacy.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/03/30/ ... ive-bring/

Yeah, there is 'cheerleading' and sometimes I post an over-enthusiastic piece. And both sides are keeping mum as the dearth of 'sit-reps' displays, though not the propaganda. Nonetheless the Ukes must attack and it seems to me that Russia has been 'holding back', specifically large armor formations and manned tactical air. While the lack of 'air domination' has been cited still those are very large hammers with which to smash an offensive, particularly as the Ukes must advance into Russia's air defenses which will be very dense. The serious defensive preparations in the south are the rock on which the offensive will be ground, and then....Odessa is not out of the question. That would be a fait accompli.

Or they might blow us all to smithereens.

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Useful advice to the mobilized
March 30, 7:35 p.m

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Useful advice to the mobilized

“The post primarily concerns the mobilized and their relatives. There are people who, at least a stake on their heads, will continue to chat, and there are reasonable people, but who just haven’t encountered such things before and don’t know how to behave. Here it is for them.

The chatter in question falls into two categories: open radio communications and cellular communications. With radio communication, everything is simple. Everything that you say in baofeng is known to the enemy in advance. At the same time, do not flatter yourself, the jargon of thirty years ago is perfectly familiar to him and does not mislead him. Therefore, one should not be surprised if, after a phrase like "In 10 small ones, expect a box of pencils" or "Moles work there" (a sore subject), there will be shelling. Moreover, in the second case, moles can also beat, if you're lucky, it can only be with your feet. If you are going to speak openly, then at least assign your own names to objects and landmarks and change them regularly, at least once every two weeks. And do not talk openly about the arrival of superiors, supplies, or cooperating units.

Now about cellular communication. Unfortunately, it is also a valuable source of information for Ukrainian partners. And this applies primarily to the conversations of the military with members of their families. People, for some reason, think that if they don't talk to other military people, then no one is interested, but it's not. It's just that partners usually post conversations of warriors among themselves, and not with families. Maybe they don't want to draw attention to it. But on slabone blurted out a lot. For example: "Farewell, dear, attack aircraft have arrived, tomorrow at 6 am we will attack." The enemy, knowing the approximate location of the phone, manages to take measures to repel the attack. Reverse example: "Honey, we are being taken out to rest the day after tomorrow." For those who do not know yet - the Armed Forces of Ukraine have a strong habit of attacking before the shift change in order to use either the suitcase mood of the departing, or ignorance of the situation by new arrivals. Usually at the end of the night and in bad weather, if they have time to prepare and plan everything. And even seemingly neutral: "Sorry, dear, I'm very tired, I went to the headquarters for twenty kilometers, and the road is broken" can lead to trouble. It is enough to measure the distance on the map, ask the Americans for satellite images, which will show either equipment or its traces, then send local agents for additional reconnaissance and you can wait for Hymars. The examples are based on real events, if anything. It is enough to measure the distance on the map, ask the Americans for satellite images, which will show either equipment or its traces, then send local agents for additional reconnaissance and you can wait for Hymars. The examples are based on real events, if anything. It is enough to measure the distance on the map, ask the Americans for satellite images, which will show either equipment or its traces, then send local agents for additional reconnaissance and you can wait for Hymars. The examples are based on real events, if anything.

The enemy also carefully collects any negative information regarding the supply, cash payments and the implementation of social guarantees by our beloved MO. Lack and absence of something, delays in payments, outright cheating, red tape, etc. etc. Moreover, their TsIPSO is not pressing on this topic yet, perhaps they are still collecting the primary array of information. Well, such a moment, there is also a thorough collection of installation data not only for military personnel, but also for members of their families. Why - I don’t know for sure, but it’s unlikely to congratulate them on the holidays. Maybe then scammers will call. Group phones are of particular interest in this regard. This is when a phone with a SIM card is bought alone for a company or department, and the fighters take turns calling home. So it’s also better not to talk too much even on personal topics,

https://t.me/Ugolok_Sitha/12745 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8263220.html

Lukashenka's message
March 31, 11:47

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Lukashenka is delivering a message today.
Main theses.

1. A fascist terror regime has been established in Ukraine. The reason for what is happening is the Euromaidan organized by the West in Kyiv in 2014.

2. Russia is expanding the production of weapons for a long war.

3. Russia can use nuclear weapons during the conflict if the war threatens the existence of Russia.

4. The Minsk agreements profaned the tasks of achieving peace. Lukashenka's efforts to achieve peace were in vain.

5. Negotiations without preconditions are needed to avoid nuclear war.

6. Poland is discussing the issue of attacking Belarus with the consent of NATO. Poland is rearming to prepare for war. The invasion of Belarus is being prepared to destroy the country.

7. Belarus itself turned to Russia about the deployment of nuclear weapons for protection. Weapons are essential for security.

8. The war against Belarus is already underway. NATO is preparing forces for a coup in Belarus.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8264420.html

Google Translator

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‘Russia Alone Can Already Confront the Entire West…’
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 30, 2023
M. K. Bhadrakumar

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President Vladimir Putin (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of talks in restricted format, Kremlin, Moscow, March 21, 2023

The Russian media reported that President Vladimir Putin made an extraordinary gesture as President Xi Jinping left the Kremlin following the state dinner last week on Tuesday evening by escorting him to the limousine and seeing him off.

And Xi during the goodbye handshake reportedly responded, “Together, we should push forward these changes that have not happened for 100 years. Take care.”

Xi was alluding to the past 100 years of modern history that witnessed the United States transforming from a country to the north of Mexico in the Western Hemisphere to a superpower and global hegemon.

With his profound sense of history and dialectical mind, Xi was recalling the intense talks with Putin that dwelt on the contemporary realities burying the US’ unipolar moment in the dustbin and on the imperatives of China and Russia joining hands to consolidate the transition of the world order toward democratisation and multipolarity.

It was an appropriate finale to a state visit that began the previous evening with Xi expressing confidence that Russians will support Putin at the presidential elections next year. At one stroke, Xi “cancelled” the West’s demonising of Putin, mindful of the absurdity of even arranging an arrest warrant against the Kremlin leader to detract from his talks in Moscow.

China has a scrupulous policy of refraining from commenting on the internal politics of other countries. However, in the case of the situation surrounding Russia, Xi has made a notable exception by signalling his keenness for Putin’s proactive leadership in such tumultuous times. The majority of world opinion, especially in the Global South, will agree.

Won’t the erudite Russian public opinion take cognisance too — with a roar of approval? Yes, Putin’s consistent 80 percent rating is a signpost. Xi may have poured cold water on the last desperate western ploys of instigating a bunch of Russian oligarchs to spearhead a regime change in the Kremlin.

To be sure, the timing of Xi’s state visit in the middle of the war in Ukraine messaged the highest importance that China attaches to the relations with Russia. There is great deliberation in doing so, as both China and Russia are locked in spiralling tensions vis-a-vis the United States.

There has been a dramatic change of mood in Beijing. The nadir was reached with the boorish behaviour by President Biden in his State of the Union address on February 7 when he went off-script and hysterically shouted, “Name me a world leader who’d change places with Xi Jinping.”

In the Eastern culture, such boorishness is taken as unforgivably scandalous behaviour. In the weeks since the US shot down the Chinese weather balloon and maligned China internationally, Beijing has rebuffed several attempts by the White House seeking telephone conversation for Biden with President Xi.

Beijing has had enough of Biden’s hollow promises to mend ties while on the sly strengthening alliances across the Asia-Pacific region, inserting the NATO into the Asia-Pacific power dynamic and sending additional forces and firepower to places like Guam and the Philippines, apart from single-mindedly striving to weakening China’s economy.

Xi’s Moscow visit became a great occasion for Russia and China to reaffirm their “no limit” partnership and scatter the western attempts since the war broke out in Ukraine to create rift in the Sino-Russian relationship.

To quote Professor Graham Allison at Harvard University, “Along every dimension—personal, economic, military and diplomatic—the undeclared alliance that Xi has built with Russian President Vladimir Putin has become much more consequential than most of the United States’ official alliances today.”

However, alliance or not, the fact remains that this “new model of major-country relations featuring mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation” — to quote Xi Jinping — is anything but a hierarchical order.

America’s pundits have a problem comprehending equal relationships between two sovereign and independent nations. And in this case, neither Russia nor China is inclined to declare a formal alliance because, simply put, an alliance inevitably requires assuming obligations and limiting the optimal pursuit of interests in deference to a collective agenda.

What emerges, therefore, is that Putin’s strategic calculus in Ukraine will be shaped much more heavily by events on the battlefield than on any Chinese input. Russia’s reaction to the Chinese “peace plan” regarding Ukraine testifies to that reality.

No sooner than Xi departed from Moscow, Putin in an interview with with Russia 1 TV, set the record straight that Russia is outproducing the West’s ammunition supplies to Kiev. He said, “Russia’s output level and its military-industrial complex are developing at a very fast pace, which was unexpected by many.”

While multiple Western countries will provide Ukraine with munitions, “the Russian production sector on its own will produce three times more ammunition for the same period of time,” Putin added.

He repeated that the West’s arms shipments to Ukraine are of concern to Russia only because they constitute “an attempt to prolong the conflict” and will “only lead to a bigger tragedy and nothing more.”

However, this is not to belittle the great significance of the partnership for both countries in the political, diplomatic and economic spheres. The salience lies in the two countries’ growing interdependency in multiple directions that cannot be quantified yet and keeps “evolving” (Xi) and appears seamless.

The Ukraine war, paradoxically, is turning out to be a wake-up call — a war that can prevent another world war rather than engender one. China understands that Russia has single-handedly taken on the “collective West” and shown it is more than a match.

This assessment in Beijing cannot escape the West’s attention and will impact the western thinking too for the medium and long term — not only for Eurasia but also the Asia-Pacific.

A recent article in the Global Times some weeks ago by Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee daily highlighted the ‘big picture.’

Hu wrote that the war in Ukraine “has evolved into a war of attrition between Russia and the West… While NATO is supposed to be much stronger than Russia, the situation on the ground doesn’t appear so, which is causing anxiety in the West.”

Hu drew some stunning conclusions: “The US and the West have found it much more difficult than expected to defeat Russia. They know that China has not provided military aid to Russia, and the question that haunts them is: if Russia alone is already so difficult to deal with, what if China really starts to provide military aid to Russia, using its massive industrial capabilities for the Russian military? Would the situation on the Ukrainian battlefield fundamentally change? Furthermore, Russia alone can already confront the entire West in Ukraine. If they really force China and Russia to join hands, what changes will there be in the world’s military situation?”

Isn’t the notion prevalent in the US and Europe that the Russia-China alliance is an alliance of unequals is itself a self-serving western fallacy? Hu is spot on: Although China’s comprehensive strength is still short of that of the US, in combination with Russia, there is a paradigm shift in the balance and the US is no longer entitled to act as it pleases.

It is the common concern of Russia and China that the world order must return to an international system with the UN at its core and a world order based on international law. There is no question that the two countries’ strategy is to overturn the “rules-based order” dominated by the US and return to an international order centred on the UN.

In fact, Article 5 is the very soul of the joint statement issued in Moscow: “The two sides reaffirm their commitment to firmly upholding the international system with the United Nations at its core, the international order based on international law and the basic norms governing international relations based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and oppose all forms of hegemonism, unilateralism and power politics, the Cold War mentality, confrontation between camps and the establishment of cliques targeting specific countries.”

Make no mistake that this is not about removing the US as the boss and replacing it with China, but about effectively checking the US from bullying smaller, weaker states, and thereby ushering in a new international order with primacy on peaceful development and political correctness that overrides all ideological differences.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... tire-west/

US Experts Grapple with Ukraine End Game: Admit War of Attrition is Unwinnable
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 30, 2023



Desperation and fantastical thinking take hold of “top US foreign policy experts” as they contemplate an end game in Ukraine…

– CSIS admits crucial weapons and munitions face critical shortages including HIMARS launchers, 155mm artillery rounds, anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles;

– CSIS suggests the US could deplete all of its inventories along with Europe into Ukraine to make up for critical shortages or shift to “substitutes” despite being inadequate for Ukraine’s requirements;

– A recent confab of US foreign policy experts attempted to come to grips with the coming end game in Ukraine in which they see a Russian victory owed to its ability to supply more weapons, munitions, and trained manpower;

– Suggestions to turn the tide include sending 1,000 M1 Abrams tanks, creating (another) foreign legion, and transferring weapons to Ukraine to strike deep within Russia;

– However these “solutions” range from unrealistic to entirely counterproductive;

– Ukraine doesn’t have the manpower or time to assemble crews for 1,000 M1 Abrams tanks, a foreign legion was already created and already failed, and striking deep inside Russia will likely only help Moscow justify further mobilizations;

– Sanctioning China is also considered, with no self-reflection on the flawed reasoning that led to ineffective sanctions already placed on Russia;

– Only a fundamental change in Washington’s premise can a sensible foreign policy be proposed, one that sees the US cooperating constructively with all other nations rather than attempting to subjugate all other nations;

References:

CSIS – Rebuilding U.S. Inventories: Six Critical Systems (January 2023):
https://www.csis.org/analysis/rebuild…
Asia Times – Why Ukraine may embrace China’s peace plan (March 20, 2023):
https://asiatimes.com/2023/03/why-ukr…
Alexander Mercouris – Russia Pushes Central Bakhmut, Ukraine Evacuates Avdeyevka, Zelensky meets Army Chiefs; US Fear (March 28, 2023):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UYS10SOa2E&t=1580s
RAND Corporation – Extending Russia (2019):
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_re…

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/03/ ... nwinnable/

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From Cassad's telegram account:

Colonelcassad

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The battle for Bakhmut
situation as of 18.00 March 30, 2023

🔻In the north of Bakhmut, the assault on the industrial zone of the Artemovsky non-ferrous metal processing plant continues . At the moment, fighting is taking place in the Selishche area near the football stadium near Levanevskogo street , as well as near houses near AZOM.

🔻In the south of the city, the Sobachevsky and Budenovsky districts of Bakhmut have been completely cleared . Assault detachments of the Wagner PMC attack the positions of the Ukrainian army north of Shirokaya and Mariupolskaya streets .

▪️In addition, Russian units have moved north from the central market to Nizhnaya Street , and are also fighting fierce battles near the Bakhmut city administration building .

🔻In the vicinity of Bakhmut near Krasny , Khromovo and Orekhovo-Vasilevka, positional fettering battles continue. "Wagnerites", with fire support from artillery and aviation, keep the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area, do not let the reserves be transferred to other directions.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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

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