Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2022 12:36 pm
Azov: rupture or continuity?
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/17/2022 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENT
Since the beginning of the intervention of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, there have been numerous attempts to rewrite the recent history of the conflict that began with the Maidan regime change in 2014. Perhaps the most striking of these attempts has been the attempt to normalize the role played by the Azov movement. The main purpose has been to try to convince Western public opinion that the conversion of the initial Azov Battalion into a Regiment was a clear attempt to disconnect this military unit from its original ultra-nationalist (or directly Nazi) component.
A brief review of the history of the Azov Regiment shows, however, that until now there has been no solution of continuity in the evolution of this (para)military force whose actions are inspired by a clear far-right nationalism. It is thus a nationalism that believes in the right of the nation to impose its order by force in the territory and that is inspired by an ideology of hatred and revenge against all its opponents, both internal and external.
This is the story of that political-military continuity that Azov means.
PART 1. The origins of Azov: the Men in Black
Introduction
As Azov has used to mention in his commemorative references, both on his own web pages and on those related to his evolution, for example Nackor , Maksim Zhorin ( Mose ) and two other militants ( Buba and Cartman ) formed from May 2014 the basis of what would later constitute the backbone of the Azov movement: the Borodach Division ( bearded in Russian, that is, the Bearded Division ).
However, as Zhorin points out , perhaps Azov's main media reference today, the arrival at the front began for the paramilitary group of which he was a part, the Men in Black (or the Black Corps), before the official date of the start of the war. Thus, as part of the Black Corps, starting in March 2014 they began to carry out those “ business trips ” to the problematic regions of eastern and southern Ukraine referred to by Mosein his reconstruction of the past. As Maksim Zhorin recounts, these actions, as well as the participation in the first battles (among them, most likely, the one that shook the city of Odessa in 2014), are prior to the official creation of Azov. Only after formation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the group of Mose , Buba and Cartman , with all the other Men in Black, move to what Zhorin defines as " official form of warfare ". Or, put another way, to lay the foundations for the Azov movement that is known today.
Although not strictly confused with it, the Men in Black and the Borodach Division constitute the actual founding core of what is now known as Azov. As Buba , one of the main protagonists of the initial moments of the process, points out, “ Azov was built relatively together with us, before our eyes ”. But, despite the juxtaposed history that characterizes them, there is a chronological difference between the creation of the different organizations. In this sense, the first groups to form, or to be formed, are the Men in Black (Черные человечки in Russian, the Black Corps, or the Black Men, in English).
Origin and first performances of the Men in Black
The participation of the Men in Black in the Ukrainian political-military conflict can be followed in the period prior to the creation of Azov on May 5, 2014 and the Borodach Division of Azov on May 14 of that year.
In his study on the origins of Azov , Andreas Umland quotes Stepan Bayda, one of the founders of Azov, to point out that the history of the movement begins in the spring of 2014 in Kiev when several Maidan delegates and their associates from the Patriots of Ukraine, many of them released after the amnesty in March of that year, begin to meet and organize in the old Kozatsky hotel in Kiev. This was a group of about thirty people who would also reoccupy the former headquarters of the radical nationalists in Kharkiv on Rymarskaya Street.
Control of the city of Kharkiv
In the period considered, that of the Maidan coup, Kharkov is one of the key cities in which this paramilitary group intervenes. That is where the true central nucleus of the future Azov is formed, built around the main political leader, Andriy Biletsky. The new government had released the nationalist prisoners on February 25, including Andriy Biletsky, after decreeing a political amnesty. He would soon assume, along with collaborators such as Mykola Kravchenko ( Kruk ), Igor Mikhailenko ( Cherkas ) or Vadim Troyan, the coordination of the group. New recruits would soon join, with Maksim Zhorin at the helm.
According to the story of Mykola Kravchenko , Kruk, -one of the main promoters of the Azov movement, who died in March 2022 during the Russian advance in the Kiev area-, many of these militants were part of the groups that had occupied, from February 27, the House of Trade Unions in Kiev. But the conservative revolution wanted to spread to the resistance zones of the Russian world in the Ukraine. Thus, the group organized two buses to move about two hundred militants from Maidan, in Kiev, to the main city that Ukrainian nationalism considered in danger : Kharkov.
These militants were not yet clearly organized, they did not have the black uniform that would characterize them at that time and the Black Corps itself was still to be formed. In reality, they barely knew each other from a few revolutionary days on the Maidan. But they did organize around nationalist groups, ultra groups of football clubs (such as the kyiv Dynamo or the Kharkov Metallist) and, in particular, the ultra-right group of the Patriots of Ukraine (or the associated Nationalist Social Assembly). ). Through them, these groups were linked to the nascent Praviy Sektor (Right Sector), proposed as a kind of coordinator capable of collecting and giving meaning to all the small ultra groups with a presence in the streets of Ukrainian cities.
According to Kruk , this was one of the first real attempts to organize a true volunteer battalion. The main goal of the militants was to confront the Antimaidan groups in Kharkiv. That was the purpose of both the attack on the night of February 28 against the Oplot club, the main center of the Antimaidan groups, and the subsequent defense, on the following March 1, of the building of the Regional State Administration in Kharkov. According to Biletsky, it was he who proposed to take control of Oplot and retain control over the state building, but also “ to start cleaning the streets of the Russian-communist scourge ”.
Despite the lack of consolidated structures, by then the group's links with the new state structures that emerged from the Maidan coup were evident, as shown by its role in defending control by the coup plotters of the regional Administration structures in Kharkov as the protection received from the new rulers in Ukraine. In fact, after the first clashes with Oplot in Kharkov, given the reaction against the group, it gets back on the buses to retreat in an organized way to the city of Poltava where they are welcomed by the regional Administration and then transferred to a children's colony. in the suburbs. There and then is where Kruk places the true birth of the Men in Black and their Black Body.
And it is also in Poltava where it is decided, despite still having only precarious organizational structures, the return of the group to Kharkov to prepare for the final war. The objective is to retake the old nationalist Rymarskaya headquarters, abandoned between 2011 and 2014, an action that the militants of the new conservative revolution carry out between March 6 and 7. Coordinated by Biletsky, on those dates the group seized the headquarters and fortified themselves there, awaiting a probable resistance action by the Antimaidan groups.
The reaction of the Antimaidan groups finally takes place on the night of March 14-15, with a battle for control of the headquarters of the Ukrainian Patriots group in Rimarskaya 18 . Two of the Antimaidan opponents die that night in Kharkov from a gunshot from the nationalist headquarters.
For Kruk , the first of the true battles of the future Azov group occurred at Rimarskaya and, in that battle, his group made a qualitative leap. In Kravchenko's own words: that night “ we showed that we would kill ” and that, in Kharkov, “ people were being killed for separatism ”. The militants of Biletsky's group revealed, for the first time, their ultimate purpose in the war: a determined willingness to kill any pro-Russian opponent or separatist. According to Kravchenko, in Rymarskaya the Men in Black already function as a unit and show themselves capable of causing the first casualties to the enemy.
A large part of the staff of the National Corpus fought in the first battles for Kharkov, with Biletsky, Kravchenko or Mikhailenko at the head, characters who would be key in the future Azov and its National Corpus. The battle of Rimarskaya gave way, according to Kravchenko, to the consolidation of the Men in Black group, conceived as a pro-Maidan version of the Crimean men in green . A public presentation video of the Men in Black from Kharkov will be dedicated to them a few weeks later.
The consolidation of the structure of the Men in Black accelerates from then on. According to Anton Geraschenko , on April 6, 2014, Andriy Biletsky, Dmitriy Korchinsky, and Igor Mosiychuk met with the new Minister of the Interior, Arsen Avakov, to advance the process of structuring the group. At that meeting, Biletsky expressed that his Patriots of Ukraine group wanted to defend Ukraine by arms, but that they were not willing to integrate into official structures such as the National Guard. After the meeting, Geraschenko agreed with Oleg Odnorozhenko, the ideologue of the Patriots of Ukraine, on the “ coordination of the group's actions to protect public order in Kharkov ”. The police and punitive function of the group was beginning to be clearly defined.
In this context of negotiation between the new state authorities and their illegal squads, Avakov and Stepan Poltorak - at that time commander of the National Guard of Ukraine and from October of that year to August 2019 Minister of Defense of Ukraine - organize the expulsion forced raid of the Anti-Maidan groups from the Kharkov Regional Administration building on 8 April. Subsequently, the participation of several hundred militants of the Patriots of Ukraine is recorded to help “ maintain public order ” in Kharkov on April 13 and 20, in close coordination with the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the SBU, some actions that advance in the progressive liquidation of the anti-coup insurrection in the city. According to Geraschenko, “Andriy Biletsky's boys, dressed in black uniforms, circulated around Kharkiv in those days in a convoy of cars and made it clear with just a look “that Kharkiv would not fall like Donetsk and Lugansk.
Around those dates, an article by Anna Makarenko appears , dated April 28, 2014, in which the presence of a true clandestine army in the Kharkov area, nicknamed "Men in Black", is confirmed. The article continued and delved into the content of a video broadcast by her medium, Segodnya.ua , two days earlier.
Image in Kharkiv Men in Black message in April 2014
In the referenced message, published on YouTube , three fighters from Kharkov, dressed in black uniforms, their faces covered with balaclavas and with weapons in their hands, sent the following message: " We, Eastern Ukrainians, seeing the inaction of authorities and the outright sabotage of law enforcement on the ground, we feel defenseless against the separatists and occupiers. Being aware of this, we take on the mission of liberating the entire Southeast from the occupiers, whether in their form of saboteurs or the so-called “ men in green ” and traitorous separatists ”. It's the debut of Biletsky's Men in Black in Kharkov.
The article of the 26th already anticipated that the activity of the new group would consist of imposing the thesis of the local Maidan in Kharkov and hindering the pro-Russian or separatist activities of the “men in green” in the city. Makarenko mentions in his article the intention of the underground fighters to continue in Kharkov with the hunt for identified " separatists and green occupants ", including Russian Cossacks and members of the militant organization Oplot. According to the then spokesman for the Nationalist Social Assembly and the Praviy Sektor in the East, Igor Mosiychuk, the appearance of the Men in Black actually contributed (through the “ preventive talks of the new armed men ”) to dilute the rallies . in favor of federalization.
Makarenko's article is of interest to know the territorial origin of the men of Azov insofar as it shows that the Men in Black were already training in April 2014 in bases specifically designed for their training. According to Mosiychuk, these two bases were located in the Kharkov and kyiv regions, where pro-Maidan militants periodically gathered and received combat and sports training. According to Mosiychuk, however, the "blacks" are not planning or pursuing any political goal to take shape as an organization. An affirmation that history would soon refute.
Makarenko also referred in his article to the sociopolitical characteristics of the volunteers willing to fight for the integrity of Ukraine: people aged 16 to 30, including ultras from football clubs, members of the Praviy Sektor and the youth wing of the Assembly Biletsky National Social, which includes adolescents or young people between 14 and 18 years old. According to Mosiychuk, there were then up to 500 "black men" in the Donbass and Kharkov regions.
According to this leader of the Right Sector, the Men in Black are not at the service of any oligarch, they do not earn money, nor do they intend to be part of the armed forces. They do not join the ranks of the "legal" defenders of the Fatherland because they are disappointed with the state of the army, the National Guard and the Ministry of the Interior. An affirmation that the facts would also soon be in charge of relativizing.
Of course, when asked by the journalist Makarenko, the Regional Department of the Interior claimed not to have seen any "black men" and did not know where they could be found.
To the southeast and Mariupol
Finishing the "job" in Kharkov, the Black Men would soon look for other places to contribute to the success of the war organized by the new State against its opposing citizens.
In the aforementioned article on the role of the Ministry of the Interior in supporting the Men in Black, Geraschenko recalls that, at the end of April, Biletsky and his ideologue Odnorozhenko met with him again to propose the expulsion of the separatists from the City Hall. from Mariupol. In general, “ it was decided to support the initiative… and try to liberate another city”. The assault was planned for April 24, an action in which Serhiy Taruta, a minor oligarch appointed governor of the Donetsk region after the regime change in February 2014, played a decisive role. Alexander Turchinov, then president of Ukraine in office, and Arsen Avakov also lent their full support to the operation. In this process, Ihor Kolomoisky's men were also going to have an equally decisive role.
Geraschenko had the task of coordinating the admission of paramilitary and illegal personnel to be assigned to Mariupol. The assault on the City Hall, taken by Antimaidan forces, occurred on the night of April 23-24. Although the action was successful, as pro-Ukrainian forces still lacked access to sufficient defensive weapons, the following day the Antimaidan forces retook the City Hall, which led the Ministry of the Interior to believe that it was essential that the Men in Black legally dispose of weapons. Biletsky then agreed to incorporate his men into the police structures of the Ministry of the Interior.
The new state that emerged from the Maidan coup had therefore already decided to organize new structures aimed at integrating the paramilitary groups into “legal” state structures. But not before performing some last completely illegal actions. Thus, Kravchenko still mentions a last “ displacement ” to Kharkov on May 1, two multi-car buses with about a hundred people. Just one day before May 2 in Odessa, the greatest expression of the illegal action of the new coup authorities.
In an article by Mykola Kravchenko published in May 2019 , the last "exit" in a framework of total illegality of the Men in Black to the east is presented in detail before they were integrated by the new Ukraine in its new structures. . It includes 63 members of the illegal Black Corps paramilitary group leaving kyiv between May 3 and 4 to intervene in Mariupol as a "vigilante" force. In the following two days, this illegal paramilitary force clashes again in and around Mariupol with the Antimaidan forces, that is, with the civilian population of Mariupol.
In this period, the paramilitary group is legalized by the Ministry of the Interior of Ukraine, designed as a new formation of police support to the ministry: the Azov Battalion. In the article already mentioned, Geraschenko points out that, on the night of May 4-5, in the Mariupol area, about a hundred "young patriots" join the new Battalion and receive their weapons. Azov is registered as a Patrol Service Battalion of the Donetsk Internal Affairs Department, based in Berdyansk. According to Vgorode, the main objective of the creation of Azov is to give legal cover to volunteers who fight "terrorists" in eastern Ukraine and provide them with "necessary" weapons. Among the main promoters of Azov, Geraschenko points to the radical deputy Oleh Lyashko as another person who, from politics, was decisive in the creation of Azov. In addition to the groups linked to the Praviy Sektor and the Ukraine Patriots, Dmytro Korchinsky's group also contributes men.
Between May 4 and 9, Azov carried out its first "legal" interventions in the Mariupol area, with various skirmishes and changes of position around the control of the local institutions of the city. On the morning of May 5, the new “Azovs” head back to Mariupol in columns of cars, with their black uniforms and new weapons. Through a statement on Facebook on the 6th, Igor Mosiychuk, press officer of the Social-Nationalist Assembly, speaks of the displacement of other forces of the group from kyiv to Mariupol in three buses prepared for it.
In an article published on May 7, 2014, Obozrevatel mentions that, as a result of this action, Mariupol is "liberated" by the Men in Black. However, the situation is not yet under full Ukrainian control, nor does Azov have the capacity to maintain control of the city. In reference to the events that occurred on the night of May 6 to 7, the then advisor to the Ministry of the Interior, Anton Geraschenko, already speaks of the "Azov Special Police Battalion" to mention the confrontation in the Mangush area with Antimaidan groups. when the new Azov Battalion moved from Mariupol to Berdyansk.
Berdiansk becomes the base of the new Battalion and the new military and police training center for its members. Volodymir Shpara, close to Igor Mosiychuk and Oleh Lyashko, is appointed official commander of the only official Azov company, in contrast to the more political company under the control of Biletsky's followers which, like the future Borodach Division, established on 14 May 2014, will initially move within a framework of real formal organizational uncertainty.
Image of the Men in Black, already integrated into Azov, in Obozretavel. May 7, 2014.
In the first half of May 2014, the main Azov intervention in Mariupol occurs on May 9. Battalion forces, supported by infantry troops and several tanks, participate in the violent assault on the local police headquarters in the city, then under the control of Antimaidan forces, supported by members of the police force. Together with the action in the Odessa Trade Union House, it is the intervention with the greatest human consequences in a single day, with around twenty deaths, including a member of the Azov Battalion (Rodion Dobrodomov). During the intervention, which ended with the subsequent withdrawal of pro-Ukrainian forces, the police building ends up burning, with government forces (including masked paramilitary groups) shooting at unarmed civilians protesting against them in the street.
The lack of control of the new Ukrainian authorities over Mariupol will continue in the following days. After several weeks of uncertainty, on June 13, 2014, Ukrainian forces, including the Azov and Dnipro battalions, supported by armor, finally retake Mariupol. It is the first great triumph of the new Azov Battalion.
And Odessa?
If the history of the post-Maidan events would be difficult to understand without the actions of the Men in Black in cities like Kharkov or Mariupol, one main unknown is linked to their participation in the Odessa events of May 2, 2014. These events they represent, in fact, the main manifestation of the Ukrainian regime's will to annihilate all opposition in the months after its victory in the streets of kyiv. But, unlike other "victories", it is an issue on which the leaders of Azov and the National Corpus do not elaborate when claiming their war exploits of the past. But did the Men in Black have anything to do with these events?
It is difficult to answer this question, but there is a thread of interest that should not be stopped in the future. It is linked to the participation in Azov of an Italian militant. Thus, according to the journalist Alexander Kozachenko's chronicle, among the forty new volunteers who joined the Azov Battalion in Kiev on June 3, 2014 is an Italian militant. The militant himself introduces himself to the assembled press as Don or, in Ukrainian, дядя (uncle). According to the Russian media Life , which is based on the investigation of him in Italian sources, in particular in the chronicles of the journalist Fausto Biloslavo, it would be the Italian neo-fascist Francesco Saverio Fontana.
Before swearing allegiance to Ukraine and Azov, these volunteers spent several months training in a training camp near Kiev, probably in one of the two training centers mentioned by Mosiychuk (the other is probably located in the Poltava children's colony) and in which Don may have acted as an instructor. The new volunteers immediately join the ranks of Azov in the Mariupol area and participate in the capture of the city by the Ukrainian forces from June 13 of that year.
He was not, however, the only foreign volunteer in the Azov ranks. According to Igor Mosiychuk, there were around twenty other foreigners in the Battalion at the time. In addition to the Italian neo-fascist, Azov's foreign legion included a dozen Russians (such as Sergey Korotkij, Botsman , a Russian neo-Nazi to whom Petro Poroshenko gave his Ukrainian passport and who remains one of Azov's leading members) and several Scandinavian citizens (among them Mikael Skilt, a Swedish sniper whom some sources place in the actions of the Men in Black in Kharkov). Other sources (such as Panorama) also referred at the time to the presence of Croatian, French or English militants. In that period there is also evidence of the arrival of some Georgian trainers who would have a decisive importance in the military consolidation of Azov.
At the beginning of June 2014, as pointed out in the presentation of the new volunteers by its then main media reference, Andrei Biletsky, the Azov Battalion already had around 250 people.
After the capture of Mariupol, Biloslavo managed to find Don at the battalion's base in Berdyansk. In his report De he Gli Uomini Neri (The Men in Black), published in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale on July 2, 2014, the journalist points out Francesco F.'s involvement in Ukraine. As he recounts in his chronicle, fascinated by the Maidan revolution, Don decided to enlist in the ranks of the Azov International Legion. On June 9, Al Jazeera also found Don at the Azov base in Berdyansk and briefly chatted with him.
Speaking to La Stampa , then referred to as Stan , Fontana acknowledged in September 2014 that at the beginning of May of that year, during the attack on the House of Trade Unions in Odessa and during the subsequent days in which the “ cleansing” of Antimaidan militants, he was in the city.
Links from those years provided complementary information of interest, in particular the one that the popoff.globalist.it website collected at the time on May 7, 2014 and in which it was ensured that Italian volunteers were fighting in Ukraine framed in the ranks of the squads Pravy Sector paramilitaries. The medium also collected the following statements from Stan : “ I have been in Odessa since yesterday where I have recovered Ivan, from the ASN, when they shot us. Now I accompany him at the request of Svaraslog”. The aforementioned Ivan is a relevant character in this story because he was one of the main local leaders of the Nationalist Social Assembly and the Pravy Sektor in Odessa at the time of the attack on the House of Trade Unions on May 2. .
The presence and performance of Saverio Fontana; the intervention of Kharkov Metallist ultra followers and local grassroots movements (Patriots of Ukraine and ASN, Pravy Sektor, etc.) who supply militants to the Men in Black, the kind of violent disorderly methods those used by the attackers of the House of Trade Unions, similar to those observed in the events of March and April in Kharkov and those used by the Black Bloc of the "anarcho-ultranationalist" Gaston Besson , are more than indications of the action of the Men in Black in Odessa in early May 2014.
The reconversion of the Men in Black and Azov: rupture or continuity?
Far from assuming a rupture, the creation of the Azov Battalion and its subsequent (and rapid) conversion into a Regiment will at no time imply a solution of continuity with respect to the Men in Black, that group that was born with the vocation to act as a death squad in the south and east of Ukraine. The history of Maksim Zhorin, and of one of the divisions of the Azov Battalion, the Borodach Division (Azov's first company, as opposed to the second dominated by conscripts from the Misanthropic Division), shows this clearly. The consolidation of this Division within Azov would be linked to the departure towards the professional policy of those initially responsible, in particular Igor Mosiychuk, but also Andriy Biletsky, to give way to the command of Azov to the new generation.
To a large extent, the hierarchical line would be linked to the command of the main company of the Battalion, the one located in the Berdiansk-Mariupol area, symbolically considered as the first Hundred of Azov. Igor Mikhailenko, Maksim Zhorin, Denis Prokopenko and Nikita Nadtochi, commander of the Azov Regiment in the absence of Denis Prokopenko, pass by. It is the company of the Kharkov fighters, the closest to the power base that Biletsky originally established and that leaves in the background the part of command associated with the second original company, linked to Igor Mosiychuk's group, through Volodymir Shpara (this, however, will constitute the official command reference for the State of Ukraine as it is the only company formally recognized in origin by the Ministry of the Interior).
Destined to command due to their links to Biletsky, Kravchenko (head of the personnel service in the initial organizational structure) and Mikhailenko would, however, quickly give way to the new and more efficient generations, organized around the figure of Maksim Zhorin.
The analysis of this process, dominated by continuity, is however another chapter in this unfinished story. In this, there is simply proof of the origin of Azov as a Black Corps, as reflected in the original emblem of the police-military personnel of the Battalion.
https://slavyangrad.es/2022/07/17/azov- ... more-25056
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EU reaping 'reward' of following in US footsteps: China Daily editorial
chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2022-07-17 18:50
This photo taken on March 1, 2022 shows a view of the Pipeline Inspection Gauge (PIG) receiving station, the Nord Stream 2 part of the landfall area, in Lubmin on Germany's Baltic Sea coast, northeastern Germany. [Photo/Agencies]
Now is an important period of the year energy-wise for European countries as they usually store natural gas for winter.
However, the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is undergoing annual maintenance from July 11 to July 21, and European governments are worried that Moscow could extend that in order to restrict the gas supply to Europe.
There are good reasons for Germany and the rest of the European Union to worry that Russia might keep the pipeline turned off after July 21.
A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said that future supply would depend on the gas demand in Europe and Western sanctions against Russia. Obviously, it does not make sense for Russia to provide energy to countries that are sanctioning it and that are providing weapons to a country with which it is engaged in hostilities.
Although that might not be Russia's intention, the 10 days serve as a grace period for the EU to consider the matter rationally and rethink its gains and losses from its gung-ho participation in the United States' strategy to debilitate Russia.
Russia provides 55 percent of the natural gas Germany imported last year, and the construction of the Nord Stream 2 project, which connects Russia and Germany and that is almost finished, indicates that Germany cannot find a more reliable source of natural gas to replace Russia, even if it does not want to put all eggs in one basket.
As the energy shortage has already become almost unbearable in Germany and many other EU countries, it is a big question whether they would be able to stand the consequences of the Nord Stream 1 being shut down for any prolonged period.
A long-time pioneer in green development, Germany's re-embracing of coal power shows the heavy toll the Ukraine crisis is taking on its carbon emissions reduction strategy, which is related to many aspects of its social, economic and industrial policies.
That the euro and the US dollar reached parity last week for the first time in two decades, should awaken the bloc to the fact that it is directly paying for the conflict that Washington has orchestrated between Russia and Ukraine.
Rather than trying to promote talks to end the conflict, the EU has continually increased its sanctions on Russia and its provision of military resources to Ukraine, which has only served to pour oil on the flames.
Unless it negotiates with Russia to establish a lasting, balanced and sustainable security mechanism in Europe, the EU will continue to reap whatever the US sows.
http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 6cc68.html
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German companies dropped out of the top 100 leading companies in the world
July 17, 11:54 am
German companies dropped out of the top 100 leading companies in the world
Germany is no longer represented in the world list of companies with the largest capitalization , according to Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten. This is evidenced by the data of the British audit and consulting company Ernst & Young. The most valuable German concern, software maker SAP, is in 113th place, the telecommunications company Telecom is in 120th place. The chemical industry company Linde is in 74th place, but after merging with the American company Praxair, it moved its head office to Ireland.
At the end of 2007, there were seven German companies in the top 100 leading companies in the world. At the end of 2021 - only two.Thus, the capital market "makes a crushing verdict on the future of the German economy," the publication concludes. And the main reason for what is happening is the energy crisis. Germany is the most energy-intensive industrial site in the world. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the German export model (accounting for approximately 50% of GDP) is very sensitive to the threat of a recession in the world market.
But the problems, of course, are not only in this, the publication continues. The point is also that Germany is leading in what it is not necessary to lead. For many years now, the country has suffered from sky-high electricity prices. And all because of the extremely ambitious plan to switch to alternative energy sources. The demographic situation in a country with an average age of 47.8 years (second place in the world after Japan) is appalling. In terms of income tax, social insurance spending and regulatory spending, no country in the world can compete with Germany.
And all these factors are pushing companies to move their production facilities to other countries, explains the German edition. Productivity has grown very slowly over the past 20 years, and the downward trend in real wages was observed even before the explosion of inflation.
Similar problems are experienced by many other countries in Europe, start-up and to a lesser extent. No European concern is represented in the top 10 companies with the largest capitalization. The most expensive enterprise is the Swiss company Nestle. She is ranked 20th. An important reason for this is that there is not a single major IT player in Europe. In this sector, the United States is leading the way, many of the American companies bring super profits and introduce digital technologies into the economy and all spheres of life. Asian concerns also play an important role in this process, while European ones play practically none.
https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2022-07-17 ... -vipali-iz - zinc
https://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichte ... 0-der-Welt - original in German According to
this logic, the gas crisis is not the cause of the crisis. He only exacerbated the already existing trends that had formed under Merkel.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7742251.html
Google Translator
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The West is Experiencing a Contraction of its Power
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 16, 2022
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
US troops are deployed to Europe amid escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine before the outbreak of war
The strategists of the hegemonic country of the West, the US, without realizing the flagrant contraction, show unlimited ambition.[/i]
What Westerners call the West or Western civilization is a geopolitical space that emerged in the 16th century and expanded continuously until the 20th century. On the eve of World War I, about 90 percent of the globe was Western or Western-dominated: Europe, Russia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and much of Asia (with the partial exceptions of Japan and China). From then on, the West began to contract: first with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the emergence of the Soviet bloc, and then, from mid-century onward, with the decolonization movements. Terrestrial space, and soon after, extraterrestrial space, became fields of intense disputes.
Meanwhile, what Westerners understood by the West was changing. It began as Christianity and colonialism, then changed to capitalism and imperialism, and then metamorphosed into democracy, human rights, decolonization, self-determination, and “rules-based international relations”—it was made clear that the rules would be established by the West and would only be followed when they served its interests—and finally into globalization.
By the middle of the last century, the West had shrunk so much that several newly independent countries made the decision to align themselves neither with the West nor with the bloc that had emerged as its rival, the Soviet bloc. This led to the emergence, from 1955-1961, of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). With the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1991, the West seemed to go through a time of enthusiastic expansion. It was around this time that former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev expressed his desire for Russia to join the “common home” of Europe, with the support of then-US President George H. W. Bush, a desire reaffirmed by Vladimir Putin when he took power in 2000. It was a short historical period, and recent events show that the “size” of the West has since shrunk drastically. In the wake of the Ukraine war, the West decided, on its own initiative, that only those countries applying sanctions against Russia would be considered part of the pro-Western camp. These countries comprise about 21 percent of the UN member countries, which constitute only 16 percent of the world’s population.
Questions
Is contraction decline? One might think that the contraction of the West works in its favor because it allows it to focus on more realistic goals with greater intensity. A careful reading of the strategists of the hegemonic country of the West, the United States, shows, that on the contrary, without apparently realizing the flagrant contraction, they show unlimited ambition. With the same ease with which they foresee being able to reduce Russia (one of the largest nuclear powers in the world) to a vassal state or bring it to ruin, they foresee neutralizing China (which is on its way to becoming the first world economy) and soon provoking a war in Taiwan, (like the one in Ukraine) to achieve that purpose. On the other hand, the history of empires shows that contraction goes hand in hand with decline, and that decline is irreversible and entails much human suffering.
At the current stage, the manifestations of weakness are running parallel to those of strength, which makes analysis very difficult. Two contrasting examples help understand this point more clearly: The United States is the largest military power in the world (even though it has not won any wars since 1945) with military bases in at least 80 countries. An extreme case of domination is its presence in Ghana where, according to agreements made in 2018, the United States uses the Accra airport without any control or inspection, US soldiers do not even need a passport to enter the country, and enjoy extraterritorial immunity, meaning that if they commit any crime, no matter how serious, they cannot be tried by Ghana’s courts. On the other hand, the thousands of sanctions on Russia are, for now, doing more damage in the Western world than in the geopolitical space being defined by the West as the non-Western world. The currencies of those countries that seem to be winning the war are depreciating the most. The looming inflation and recession led JP Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon to say that a “hurricane” is approaching.
Is contraction a loss of internal cohesion? Contraction can mean more cohesion, and this is quite visible. The leadership of the European Union, i.e., the European Commission, has in the last 20 years been much more aligned with the US than the countries that make up the EU. We saw this with the neoliberal shift and with the enthusiastic support shown by former President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, for the invasion of Iraq, and we are seeing it now with the current commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who seems to be operating as the US undersecretary of defense. The truth is that this cohesion, if it is effective in producing policies, can be disastrous in managing their consequences. Europe is a geopolitical space that since the 16th century has lived off the resources of other countries that it directly or indirectly dominates and on whom it imposes unequal exchange. None of this is, however, possible when the United States or its allies are its partners. Moreover, cohesion is made up of inconsistencies, as seen in the conflicting narratives about Russia. After all, is Russia the country with a lower GDP than many countries in Europe? Or is it a force that wants to invade Europe, and serves as a global threat that can only be stopped with the help of investments provided by the United States for arms and security to Ukraine—already around $10 billion—a distant country of which little will remain if the war continues for a long time?
Does the contraction occur for internal or external reasons? The literature on the decline and end of empires shows that, besides a few exceptional cases in which empires were destroyed by external forces—such as the Aztec and Inca empires with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors—internal factors generally dominate in bringing about contraction, even though decline can be precipitated by external factors. It is difficult to distinguish the internal from the external, and the specific identification is always more ideological than anything else. For example, in 1964 the well-known American conservative philosopher James Burnham published a book titled Suicide of the West. According to him, liberalism, then dominant in the United States, was the ideology behind this decline. For the liberals of the time, liberalism was, on the contrary, an ideology that would enable a new, more peaceful, and just world hegemony for the West. Today, liberalism is dead in the United States (neoliberalism dominates, which is its opposite) and even the old-school conservatives have been totally overtaken by the neoconservatives. That is why former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (for many, a war criminal) upset the anti-Russia proselytes by calling for peace negotiations while talking about the Ukraine conflict during a conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos in May. Be that as it may, the Ukraine war is the great accelerator of the West’s contraction. While the West wants to use its power and influence to isolate China, a new generation of nonaligned countries is emerging. Organizations like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Forum are, among others, the new faces of the non-Western states.
What comes next? We don’t know yet. It is as difficult to imagine the West occupying a subordinate space in the world context as it is to imagine it in an equal and peaceful relationship with other geopolitical spaces. We only know that for those leading the Western states, either of these hypotheses is either impossible or, if possible, apocalyptic. Therefore, the number of international meetings has multiplied in recent months—from the World Economic Forum meeting that took place in May in Davos to the most recent Bilderberg Meeting in June. Not surprisingly, in the latter meeting, of the 14 themes discussed, seven were directly related to the West’s rivals.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/07/ ... its-power/
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Cornered West Yields in Turbine-Gate but Conflict Far From Settled, Risks Aplenty for All
JULY 17, 2022
The Nord Stream pipeline carries up to 167 mcm of natural gas to the European Union daily. Photo: Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters.
By Serge Rousskikh – Jul 13, 2022
The West’s “shock and awe” sanctions campaign has done little to deter Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine and is now increasingly pitting members of the bloc against each other. The latest miscalculation in the seemingly ill-planned economic war with Moscow emerged last month when Canada impounded natural gas turbines vital to Germany’s energy consumption. With Canada and the Western Bloc forced to yield in the face of dire prospects for Germany, The Canada Files takes a look back at what transpired and what it means going forward.
The facts:
• As preparation for the fall and winter heating season began, Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom sent a turbine engine from its Nord Stream pipeline for routine service to the manufacturer Siemens Energy. The German engineering giant, in turn, sent the turbine engine to Montreal, where they were manufactured.
• When the time came to return the turbine to Siemens Energy, the service centre refused to release the equipment citing Ottawa’s sanctions against Gazprom, leveled on February 24 in response to Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.
• With the Leningrad Oblast-based Portovaya natural gas terminal down one of eight gas compressors and several others in need of repair or service, Gazprom slashed natural gas deliveries to Germany via the pipeline from 167 million cubic meters to 100 million cubic meters, a reduction of approximately 40 percent.
The big picture:
• Germany is one of the European states most dependent on Russian gas, with imports from Eurasian giant accounting for over 60 percent of the total share as recently as 2020. The share of Russian gas fell to 35% since the start of the military campaign in Ukraine, according to Bloomberg,
• Amid the standoff, Berlin moved one step closer to gas rationing triggering the second level of its emergency gas plan, which sees far more stringent oversight of the industry from the federal authorities.
• Reports of dwindling gas reserves suggest that Germany may not only face energy shortages during the heating season but could see production slow in the near future.
While average German citizens face an uncertain and potentially frosty winter, officials from all sides pointed the finger at each other. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suggested that politics may have played a role in the reduced flow via the Nord Stream pipeline. Scholz’s finance minister was far less diplomatic in his assessment.
“We must not fool ourselves: The cut in gas supplies is an economic attack on us by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck said in a statement as quoted by Reuters.
Gazprom vigorously emphasized that the situation is beyond its control, with top officials taking aim at Canada for the predicament.
“Siemens, which is our partner whereas the Canadian factory is not, brought the engine to the factory and is unable to get it back,” Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller told attendees of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last month. “The only country that has imposed sanctions against Gazprom is Canada. Canada? We do not work in Canada. What does Canada have to do with it? Still, Canada has sanctioned Gazprom.”
Ottawa Yields Despite Tough Rhetoric
Despite tough talk, Canada, ultimately folded in a game of “pipeline poker,” as some observers coined the affair. On Saturday, Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson confirmed Ukrainian reports that Ottawa will return the turbine engines to Siemens and subsequently Gazprom.
“Canada will grant a time-limited and revocable permit for Siemens Canada to allow the return of repaired Nordstream 1 turbines to Germany,” Wilkinson said in a statement, underscoring that the decision was made following consultation with Germany, Ukraine and the European Commission and in support of “Europe’s ability to access reliable and affordable energy as they continue to transition away from Russian oil and gas.”
The decision was accompanied by more rhetoric, with Foreign Minister Melanie Joly issuing a statement vowing to cripple Russia’s oil, gas, chemical and manufacturing sectors. However, the posturing did little to appease several actors, including Kiev and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), who accused the Canadian government of “bowing to Russian blackmail.”
The West Was Left With Few Options
As the impasse dragged on for a over a month and forecasts appeared bleaker by the day, there were ultimately few options left for the West, experts said.
“Either the collective West admits that Russian energy is presently a necessity and cannot be supplanted and deals with the consequences… or Germany has to call Canada – Scholz has to call [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau – and Canada has to ease its sanctions regime,” Stanislav Mitrakhovich, an expert with National Energy Security Fund and the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, said in an interview with The Canada Files.
Alexander Frolov, the Deputy Director General of the Institute of National Energy, on a Geoenergetica Info segment proposed that Germany and other European partners could have alternatively enticed Ukraine to redirect its gas pipeline system to the EU or even launch the Nord Stream II pipeline. However, the expert downplayed both scenarios as improbable given the political implications.
Mitrakhovich explained that the resolution, which came after a very vocal and public outcry by Habeck, required the collective will of the Western Bloc as no one wanted to bear sole responsibility for the decision.
“An agreement seemed to be out of reach without making the issue a collective Western problem… so that no individual officials, Canadian or otherwise, could be held responsible for making the decision,” the expert said.
The United States and the European Commission have backed Ottawa’s decision to return the turbine engines.
Furthermore, the Russian expert believes that the parties involved were caught off guard by Gazprom’s adherence to the maintenance schedule and the company making no effort to unilaterally alleviate the situation.
Conflict Not Over, Sanctions Regime May Need Adjustment
While the acute phase of the conflict is over, there may be sequels to this saga. The Nord Stream pipeline is out of service between July 11 and 21 for routine maintenance and it is unclear where the other damaged turbine engine will be repaired or whether the service schedule will be in any way altered as a result of the standoff.
Gazprom and Siemens Energy did not immediately respond to The Canada Files’ request for comment.
Mitrakhovich did not rule out the possibility of sanctions being tweaked with time, citing Washington’s previous rollbacks on sanctions against Russian fertilizer products.
Plenty of Risks Remain
Aside from the possibility of a repeat, all parties – Gazprom, Canada and Germany – face varying degrees of risk, experts The Canada Files spoke to said.
Mitrakhovich warned that Gazprom will have to slash revenue projections during a volatile period if it is not able to bring its product to market. The Russian energy giant recently opted out of dividend payout for 2021 to the tune of $23.37 billion (1.24 trillion rubles), which some analysists say suggests the company is preparing for a full European embargo on Russian energy products.
Meanwhile, Ottawa faces the risk of incurring reputational damages. The federal government is already facing accusations of folding to Russian demands, meanwhile, the episode could be a cautionary tale for entities conducting or considering conducting business in Canada.
However, it is Europe that stands to lose the most from an extended confrontation.
Not only is Berlin at risk of fielding insufficient energy stockpiles for the winter heating season, the country responsible for a third of European manufacturing could be forced to scale back production in short order, especially if rationing were to become a reality. Furthermore, natural gas deliveries to Germany are used to supply several EU nations, including Italy, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, and the current situation is already reportedly having an impact on gas depositories in those nations.
https://orinocotribune.com/cornered-wes ... y-for-all/
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From Cassad's Telegram account:
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forwarded from
Readovka
Map of hostilities and the situation on the fronts on the evening of July 16, 2022
The situation on the fronts for the past day:
Kharkiv direction is in operational pause mode. There is no significant progress in this direction.
In the Slavic direction, the Seversky garrison was actually destroyed. The 115th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is not able to resist our troops, therefore, civilians from nearby settlements are mobilized for resupply. Also, a message came from the Russian Defense Ministry about the destruction of Ukrainian Su-25 and Mi-24 in the Seversk region. To the south, our troops are advancing on Yakovlevka. Units of the NM LPR entered the battle on the eastern outskirts of Soledar.
There is a battle going on in the Donetsk sector near Maryinka. Also, Russian troops are stepping up their offensive in the Kamenka area with the aim of further advancing to Avdiivka. Due to the concrete positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the development of a rapid offensive is virtually impossible.
In the Zaporozhye direction , a Mi-8 of the Ukrainian Air Force was shot down in the Velyka Novoselka area.
In the southern direction - Russian troops destroyed two MiG-29s in the areas of the settlements of Novopavlovka in the Nikolaev region and Vladimirovka in the Dnepropetrovsk region.
Saturday began with another enemy attack on the village of Tetkino in the Kursk region. Fires were recorded, but there were no casualties.
"Arrivals". The militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine again fired at Kherson Chernobaevka. In the evening, a missile attack on Alchevsk destroyed a trolleybus depot and a dispensary.
Calibration of the Russian Aerospace Forces was carried out this morningon military installations in Odessa. In Dnepropetrovsk, workshops for the production of components and the repair of Tochka-U ballistic missiles and multiple rocket launchers at the defense enterprise Yuzhny Mashinostroitelny Zavod were destroyed. Also, strikes were noted in the Cherkasy, Nikolaev and Kharkov regions.
In the world. The defense ministries of Armenia and Azerbaijan mutually accused each other of shelling the border on the eve of the bilateral meeting of foreign ministers in Georgia.
Of the interesting: RT prepared a two-hour documentary about the liberation of Mariupol - about what the victory cost and what awaits the residents, in whose hearts Russia has always been.
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Сolonelcassad
The Crimean bridge will become an object of attack by Ukraine when the “first technical opportunity” appears, said Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine. Shortly before this, Ukrainian military intelligence did not rule out the use of HIMARS against targets in Crimea .
“ As soon as the first technical opportunity appears, he will immediately become this object for attack. <...> If there is a restriction from partners, in particular, not to hit on the territory of the Russian Federation, because they see the big picture, then we will not hit. So we have enough targets on the territory of Ukraine ,” Arestovich said.
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Сolonelcassad
What weapons and military equipment have been delivered to Poland lately?
This week it became known about the possible transfer of 232 PT-91 Twardy tanks (a modified version of the Soviet T-72M1 tank) from Poland to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The shipment will take place immediately after the start of deliveries of 250 Abrams M1A2 tanks purchased from the United States. The exact date is unknown.
The head of the Polish Ministry of Defense also announced the signing of a contract for another 116 used American Abrams tanks . Some sources claim that the Polish side is ready to transfer its tanks to Ukraine even in exchange for these old Abrams.
On Thursday, the first of five C-130H Hercules military transport aircraft purchased in 2021 under the US Department of Defense's Excess Defense Articles (EDA) military transport aircraft arrived in Poland. The purchase was partly covered by American grants: Warsaw paid only $14.3 million for a total cost of $60 million.
At the same time, all five copies built in 1985 were decommissioned from the US Air Force in 2017.
On Tuesday, during the visit of the head of the Polish Defense Ministry to Kiev, Zelensky announced the transfer of a new batch of AHS Krab howitzers to the Armed Forces of Ukraine . The Ukrainian president did not specify their number. Mariusz Blashak also spoke about the possible training of Ukrainian military personnel in sapper business in Poland.
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Сolonelcassad
In Ukraine, the head of the virtual branch of the SBU in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which had existed on the territory of Ukraine since 2014, was arrested. The main "SBU officer in Crimea" is suspected of treason. It is worth noting that in 2014, most of the SBU personnel in Sevastopol and Crimea successfully transferred to the Russian service, and some of them are still serving after appropriate checks.
In fact, if it were not for the Nazi terror in Ukraine, many Ukrainian officers from various departments could still make such a choice. Hence the executions of the vacillating and the paranoid hunt for internal enemies, because the Ukrainian Nazis are well aware that they cannot control the situation except by terror.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/17/2022 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENT
Since the beginning of the intervention of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, there have been numerous attempts to rewrite the recent history of the conflict that began with the Maidan regime change in 2014. Perhaps the most striking of these attempts has been the attempt to normalize the role played by the Azov movement. The main purpose has been to try to convince Western public opinion that the conversion of the initial Azov Battalion into a Regiment was a clear attempt to disconnect this military unit from its original ultra-nationalist (or directly Nazi) component.
A brief review of the history of the Azov Regiment shows, however, that until now there has been no solution of continuity in the evolution of this (para)military force whose actions are inspired by a clear far-right nationalism. It is thus a nationalism that believes in the right of the nation to impose its order by force in the territory and that is inspired by an ideology of hatred and revenge against all its opponents, both internal and external.
This is the story of that political-military continuity that Azov means.
PART 1. The origins of Azov: the Men in Black
Introduction
As Azov has used to mention in his commemorative references, both on his own web pages and on those related to his evolution, for example Nackor , Maksim Zhorin ( Mose ) and two other militants ( Buba and Cartman ) formed from May 2014 the basis of what would later constitute the backbone of the Azov movement: the Borodach Division ( bearded in Russian, that is, the Bearded Division ).
However, as Zhorin points out , perhaps Azov's main media reference today, the arrival at the front began for the paramilitary group of which he was a part, the Men in Black (or the Black Corps), before the official date of the start of the war. Thus, as part of the Black Corps, starting in March 2014 they began to carry out those “ business trips ” to the problematic regions of eastern and southern Ukraine referred to by Mosein his reconstruction of the past. As Maksim Zhorin recounts, these actions, as well as the participation in the first battles (among them, most likely, the one that shook the city of Odessa in 2014), are prior to the official creation of Azov. Only after formation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the group of Mose , Buba and Cartman , with all the other Men in Black, move to what Zhorin defines as " official form of warfare ". Or, put another way, to lay the foundations for the Azov movement that is known today.
Although not strictly confused with it, the Men in Black and the Borodach Division constitute the actual founding core of what is now known as Azov. As Buba , one of the main protagonists of the initial moments of the process, points out, “ Azov was built relatively together with us, before our eyes ”. But, despite the juxtaposed history that characterizes them, there is a chronological difference between the creation of the different organizations. In this sense, the first groups to form, or to be formed, are the Men in Black (Черные человечки in Russian, the Black Corps, or the Black Men, in English).
Origin and first performances of the Men in Black
The participation of the Men in Black in the Ukrainian political-military conflict can be followed in the period prior to the creation of Azov on May 5, 2014 and the Borodach Division of Azov on May 14 of that year.
In his study on the origins of Azov , Andreas Umland quotes Stepan Bayda, one of the founders of Azov, to point out that the history of the movement begins in the spring of 2014 in Kiev when several Maidan delegates and their associates from the Patriots of Ukraine, many of them released after the amnesty in March of that year, begin to meet and organize in the old Kozatsky hotel in Kiev. This was a group of about thirty people who would also reoccupy the former headquarters of the radical nationalists in Kharkiv on Rymarskaya Street.
Control of the city of Kharkiv
In the period considered, that of the Maidan coup, Kharkov is one of the key cities in which this paramilitary group intervenes. That is where the true central nucleus of the future Azov is formed, built around the main political leader, Andriy Biletsky. The new government had released the nationalist prisoners on February 25, including Andriy Biletsky, after decreeing a political amnesty. He would soon assume, along with collaborators such as Mykola Kravchenko ( Kruk ), Igor Mikhailenko ( Cherkas ) or Vadim Troyan, the coordination of the group. New recruits would soon join, with Maksim Zhorin at the helm.
According to the story of Mykola Kravchenko , Kruk, -one of the main promoters of the Azov movement, who died in March 2022 during the Russian advance in the Kiev area-, many of these militants were part of the groups that had occupied, from February 27, the House of Trade Unions in Kiev. But the conservative revolution wanted to spread to the resistance zones of the Russian world in the Ukraine. Thus, the group organized two buses to move about two hundred militants from Maidan, in Kiev, to the main city that Ukrainian nationalism considered in danger : Kharkov.
These militants were not yet clearly organized, they did not have the black uniform that would characterize them at that time and the Black Corps itself was still to be formed. In reality, they barely knew each other from a few revolutionary days on the Maidan. But they did organize around nationalist groups, ultra groups of football clubs (such as the kyiv Dynamo or the Kharkov Metallist) and, in particular, the ultra-right group of the Patriots of Ukraine (or the associated Nationalist Social Assembly). ). Through them, these groups were linked to the nascent Praviy Sektor (Right Sector), proposed as a kind of coordinator capable of collecting and giving meaning to all the small ultra groups with a presence in the streets of Ukrainian cities.
According to Kruk , this was one of the first real attempts to organize a true volunteer battalion. The main goal of the militants was to confront the Antimaidan groups in Kharkiv. That was the purpose of both the attack on the night of February 28 against the Oplot club, the main center of the Antimaidan groups, and the subsequent defense, on the following March 1, of the building of the Regional State Administration in Kharkov. According to Biletsky, it was he who proposed to take control of Oplot and retain control over the state building, but also “ to start cleaning the streets of the Russian-communist scourge ”.
Despite the lack of consolidated structures, by then the group's links with the new state structures that emerged from the Maidan coup were evident, as shown by its role in defending control by the coup plotters of the regional Administration structures in Kharkov as the protection received from the new rulers in Ukraine. In fact, after the first clashes with Oplot in Kharkov, given the reaction against the group, it gets back on the buses to retreat in an organized way to the city of Poltava where they are welcomed by the regional Administration and then transferred to a children's colony. in the suburbs. There and then is where Kruk places the true birth of the Men in Black and their Black Body.
And it is also in Poltava where it is decided, despite still having only precarious organizational structures, the return of the group to Kharkov to prepare for the final war. The objective is to retake the old nationalist Rymarskaya headquarters, abandoned between 2011 and 2014, an action that the militants of the new conservative revolution carry out between March 6 and 7. Coordinated by Biletsky, on those dates the group seized the headquarters and fortified themselves there, awaiting a probable resistance action by the Antimaidan groups.
The reaction of the Antimaidan groups finally takes place on the night of March 14-15, with a battle for control of the headquarters of the Ukrainian Patriots group in Rimarskaya 18 . Two of the Antimaidan opponents die that night in Kharkov from a gunshot from the nationalist headquarters.
For Kruk , the first of the true battles of the future Azov group occurred at Rimarskaya and, in that battle, his group made a qualitative leap. In Kravchenko's own words: that night “ we showed that we would kill ” and that, in Kharkov, “ people were being killed for separatism ”. The militants of Biletsky's group revealed, for the first time, their ultimate purpose in the war: a determined willingness to kill any pro-Russian opponent or separatist. According to Kravchenko, in Rymarskaya the Men in Black already function as a unit and show themselves capable of causing the first casualties to the enemy.
A large part of the staff of the National Corpus fought in the first battles for Kharkov, with Biletsky, Kravchenko or Mikhailenko at the head, characters who would be key in the future Azov and its National Corpus. The battle of Rimarskaya gave way, according to Kravchenko, to the consolidation of the Men in Black group, conceived as a pro-Maidan version of the Crimean men in green . A public presentation video of the Men in Black from Kharkov will be dedicated to them a few weeks later.
The consolidation of the structure of the Men in Black accelerates from then on. According to Anton Geraschenko , on April 6, 2014, Andriy Biletsky, Dmitriy Korchinsky, and Igor Mosiychuk met with the new Minister of the Interior, Arsen Avakov, to advance the process of structuring the group. At that meeting, Biletsky expressed that his Patriots of Ukraine group wanted to defend Ukraine by arms, but that they were not willing to integrate into official structures such as the National Guard. After the meeting, Geraschenko agreed with Oleg Odnorozhenko, the ideologue of the Patriots of Ukraine, on the “ coordination of the group's actions to protect public order in Kharkov ”. The police and punitive function of the group was beginning to be clearly defined.
In this context of negotiation between the new state authorities and their illegal squads, Avakov and Stepan Poltorak - at that time commander of the National Guard of Ukraine and from October of that year to August 2019 Minister of Defense of Ukraine - organize the expulsion forced raid of the Anti-Maidan groups from the Kharkov Regional Administration building on 8 April. Subsequently, the participation of several hundred militants of the Patriots of Ukraine is recorded to help “ maintain public order ” in Kharkov on April 13 and 20, in close coordination with the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the SBU, some actions that advance in the progressive liquidation of the anti-coup insurrection in the city. According to Geraschenko, “Andriy Biletsky's boys, dressed in black uniforms, circulated around Kharkiv in those days in a convoy of cars and made it clear with just a look “that Kharkiv would not fall like Donetsk and Lugansk.
Around those dates, an article by Anna Makarenko appears , dated April 28, 2014, in which the presence of a true clandestine army in the Kharkov area, nicknamed "Men in Black", is confirmed. The article continued and delved into the content of a video broadcast by her medium, Segodnya.ua , two days earlier.
Image in Kharkiv Men in Black message in April 2014
In the referenced message, published on YouTube , three fighters from Kharkov, dressed in black uniforms, their faces covered with balaclavas and with weapons in their hands, sent the following message: " We, Eastern Ukrainians, seeing the inaction of authorities and the outright sabotage of law enforcement on the ground, we feel defenseless against the separatists and occupiers. Being aware of this, we take on the mission of liberating the entire Southeast from the occupiers, whether in their form of saboteurs or the so-called “ men in green ” and traitorous separatists ”. It's the debut of Biletsky's Men in Black in Kharkov.
The article of the 26th already anticipated that the activity of the new group would consist of imposing the thesis of the local Maidan in Kharkov and hindering the pro-Russian or separatist activities of the “men in green” in the city. Makarenko mentions in his article the intention of the underground fighters to continue in Kharkov with the hunt for identified " separatists and green occupants ", including Russian Cossacks and members of the militant organization Oplot. According to the then spokesman for the Nationalist Social Assembly and the Praviy Sektor in the East, Igor Mosiychuk, the appearance of the Men in Black actually contributed (through the “ preventive talks of the new armed men ”) to dilute the rallies . in favor of federalization.
Makarenko's article is of interest to know the territorial origin of the men of Azov insofar as it shows that the Men in Black were already training in April 2014 in bases specifically designed for their training. According to Mosiychuk, these two bases were located in the Kharkov and kyiv regions, where pro-Maidan militants periodically gathered and received combat and sports training. According to Mosiychuk, however, the "blacks" are not planning or pursuing any political goal to take shape as an organization. An affirmation that history would soon refute.
Makarenko also referred in his article to the sociopolitical characteristics of the volunteers willing to fight for the integrity of Ukraine: people aged 16 to 30, including ultras from football clubs, members of the Praviy Sektor and the youth wing of the Assembly Biletsky National Social, which includes adolescents or young people between 14 and 18 years old. According to Mosiychuk, there were then up to 500 "black men" in the Donbass and Kharkov regions.
According to this leader of the Right Sector, the Men in Black are not at the service of any oligarch, they do not earn money, nor do they intend to be part of the armed forces. They do not join the ranks of the "legal" defenders of the Fatherland because they are disappointed with the state of the army, the National Guard and the Ministry of the Interior. An affirmation that the facts would also soon be in charge of relativizing.
Of course, when asked by the journalist Makarenko, the Regional Department of the Interior claimed not to have seen any "black men" and did not know where they could be found.
To the southeast and Mariupol
Finishing the "job" in Kharkov, the Black Men would soon look for other places to contribute to the success of the war organized by the new State against its opposing citizens.
In the aforementioned article on the role of the Ministry of the Interior in supporting the Men in Black, Geraschenko recalls that, at the end of April, Biletsky and his ideologue Odnorozhenko met with him again to propose the expulsion of the separatists from the City Hall. from Mariupol. In general, “ it was decided to support the initiative… and try to liberate another city”. The assault was planned for April 24, an action in which Serhiy Taruta, a minor oligarch appointed governor of the Donetsk region after the regime change in February 2014, played a decisive role. Alexander Turchinov, then president of Ukraine in office, and Arsen Avakov also lent their full support to the operation. In this process, Ihor Kolomoisky's men were also going to have an equally decisive role.
Geraschenko had the task of coordinating the admission of paramilitary and illegal personnel to be assigned to Mariupol. The assault on the City Hall, taken by Antimaidan forces, occurred on the night of April 23-24. Although the action was successful, as pro-Ukrainian forces still lacked access to sufficient defensive weapons, the following day the Antimaidan forces retook the City Hall, which led the Ministry of the Interior to believe that it was essential that the Men in Black legally dispose of weapons. Biletsky then agreed to incorporate his men into the police structures of the Ministry of the Interior.
The new state that emerged from the Maidan coup had therefore already decided to organize new structures aimed at integrating the paramilitary groups into “legal” state structures. But not before performing some last completely illegal actions. Thus, Kravchenko still mentions a last “ displacement ” to Kharkov on May 1, two multi-car buses with about a hundred people. Just one day before May 2 in Odessa, the greatest expression of the illegal action of the new coup authorities.
In an article by Mykola Kravchenko published in May 2019 , the last "exit" in a framework of total illegality of the Men in Black to the east is presented in detail before they were integrated by the new Ukraine in its new structures. . It includes 63 members of the illegal Black Corps paramilitary group leaving kyiv between May 3 and 4 to intervene in Mariupol as a "vigilante" force. In the following two days, this illegal paramilitary force clashes again in and around Mariupol with the Antimaidan forces, that is, with the civilian population of Mariupol.
In this period, the paramilitary group is legalized by the Ministry of the Interior of Ukraine, designed as a new formation of police support to the ministry: the Azov Battalion. In the article already mentioned, Geraschenko points out that, on the night of May 4-5, in the Mariupol area, about a hundred "young patriots" join the new Battalion and receive their weapons. Azov is registered as a Patrol Service Battalion of the Donetsk Internal Affairs Department, based in Berdyansk. According to Vgorode, the main objective of the creation of Azov is to give legal cover to volunteers who fight "terrorists" in eastern Ukraine and provide them with "necessary" weapons. Among the main promoters of Azov, Geraschenko points to the radical deputy Oleh Lyashko as another person who, from politics, was decisive in the creation of Azov. In addition to the groups linked to the Praviy Sektor and the Ukraine Patriots, Dmytro Korchinsky's group also contributes men.
Between May 4 and 9, Azov carried out its first "legal" interventions in the Mariupol area, with various skirmishes and changes of position around the control of the local institutions of the city. On the morning of May 5, the new “Azovs” head back to Mariupol in columns of cars, with their black uniforms and new weapons. Through a statement on Facebook on the 6th, Igor Mosiychuk, press officer of the Social-Nationalist Assembly, speaks of the displacement of other forces of the group from kyiv to Mariupol in three buses prepared for it.
In an article published on May 7, 2014, Obozrevatel mentions that, as a result of this action, Mariupol is "liberated" by the Men in Black. However, the situation is not yet under full Ukrainian control, nor does Azov have the capacity to maintain control of the city. In reference to the events that occurred on the night of May 6 to 7, the then advisor to the Ministry of the Interior, Anton Geraschenko, already speaks of the "Azov Special Police Battalion" to mention the confrontation in the Mangush area with Antimaidan groups. when the new Azov Battalion moved from Mariupol to Berdyansk.
Berdiansk becomes the base of the new Battalion and the new military and police training center for its members. Volodymir Shpara, close to Igor Mosiychuk and Oleh Lyashko, is appointed official commander of the only official Azov company, in contrast to the more political company under the control of Biletsky's followers which, like the future Borodach Division, established on 14 May 2014, will initially move within a framework of real formal organizational uncertainty.
Image of the Men in Black, already integrated into Azov, in Obozretavel. May 7, 2014.
In the first half of May 2014, the main Azov intervention in Mariupol occurs on May 9. Battalion forces, supported by infantry troops and several tanks, participate in the violent assault on the local police headquarters in the city, then under the control of Antimaidan forces, supported by members of the police force. Together with the action in the Odessa Trade Union House, it is the intervention with the greatest human consequences in a single day, with around twenty deaths, including a member of the Azov Battalion (Rodion Dobrodomov). During the intervention, which ended with the subsequent withdrawal of pro-Ukrainian forces, the police building ends up burning, with government forces (including masked paramilitary groups) shooting at unarmed civilians protesting against them in the street.
The lack of control of the new Ukrainian authorities over Mariupol will continue in the following days. After several weeks of uncertainty, on June 13, 2014, Ukrainian forces, including the Azov and Dnipro battalions, supported by armor, finally retake Mariupol. It is the first great triumph of the new Azov Battalion.
And Odessa?
If the history of the post-Maidan events would be difficult to understand without the actions of the Men in Black in cities like Kharkov or Mariupol, one main unknown is linked to their participation in the Odessa events of May 2, 2014. These events they represent, in fact, the main manifestation of the Ukrainian regime's will to annihilate all opposition in the months after its victory in the streets of kyiv. But, unlike other "victories", it is an issue on which the leaders of Azov and the National Corpus do not elaborate when claiming their war exploits of the past. But did the Men in Black have anything to do with these events?
It is difficult to answer this question, but there is a thread of interest that should not be stopped in the future. It is linked to the participation in Azov of an Italian militant. Thus, according to the journalist Alexander Kozachenko's chronicle, among the forty new volunteers who joined the Azov Battalion in Kiev on June 3, 2014 is an Italian militant. The militant himself introduces himself to the assembled press as Don or, in Ukrainian, дядя (uncle). According to the Russian media Life , which is based on the investigation of him in Italian sources, in particular in the chronicles of the journalist Fausto Biloslavo, it would be the Italian neo-fascist Francesco Saverio Fontana.
Before swearing allegiance to Ukraine and Azov, these volunteers spent several months training in a training camp near Kiev, probably in one of the two training centers mentioned by Mosiychuk (the other is probably located in the Poltava children's colony) and in which Don may have acted as an instructor. The new volunteers immediately join the ranks of Azov in the Mariupol area and participate in the capture of the city by the Ukrainian forces from June 13 of that year.
He was not, however, the only foreign volunteer in the Azov ranks. According to Igor Mosiychuk, there were around twenty other foreigners in the Battalion at the time. In addition to the Italian neo-fascist, Azov's foreign legion included a dozen Russians (such as Sergey Korotkij, Botsman , a Russian neo-Nazi to whom Petro Poroshenko gave his Ukrainian passport and who remains one of Azov's leading members) and several Scandinavian citizens (among them Mikael Skilt, a Swedish sniper whom some sources place in the actions of the Men in Black in Kharkov). Other sources (such as Panorama) also referred at the time to the presence of Croatian, French or English militants. In that period there is also evidence of the arrival of some Georgian trainers who would have a decisive importance in the military consolidation of Azov.
At the beginning of June 2014, as pointed out in the presentation of the new volunteers by its then main media reference, Andrei Biletsky, the Azov Battalion already had around 250 people.
After the capture of Mariupol, Biloslavo managed to find Don at the battalion's base in Berdyansk. In his report De he Gli Uomini Neri (The Men in Black), published in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale on July 2, 2014, the journalist points out Francesco F.'s involvement in Ukraine. As he recounts in his chronicle, fascinated by the Maidan revolution, Don decided to enlist in the ranks of the Azov International Legion. On June 9, Al Jazeera also found Don at the Azov base in Berdyansk and briefly chatted with him.
Speaking to La Stampa , then referred to as Stan , Fontana acknowledged in September 2014 that at the beginning of May of that year, during the attack on the House of Trade Unions in Odessa and during the subsequent days in which the “ cleansing” of Antimaidan militants, he was in the city.
Links from those years provided complementary information of interest, in particular the one that the popoff.globalist.it website collected at the time on May 7, 2014 and in which it was ensured that Italian volunteers were fighting in Ukraine framed in the ranks of the squads Pravy Sector paramilitaries. The medium also collected the following statements from Stan : “ I have been in Odessa since yesterday where I have recovered Ivan, from the ASN, when they shot us. Now I accompany him at the request of Svaraslog”. The aforementioned Ivan is a relevant character in this story because he was one of the main local leaders of the Nationalist Social Assembly and the Pravy Sektor in Odessa at the time of the attack on the House of Trade Unions on May 2. .
The presence and performance of Saverio Fontana; the intervention of Kharkov Metallist ultra followers and local grassroots movements (Patriots of Ukraine and ASN, Pravy Sektor, etc.) who supply militants to the Men in Black, the kind of violent disorderly methods those used by the attackers of the House of Trade Unions, similar to those observed in the events of March and April in Kharkov and those used by the Black Bloc of the "anarcho-ultranationalist" Gaston Besson , are more than indications of the action of the Men in Black in Odessa in early May 2014.
The reconversion of the Men in Black and Azov: rupture or continuity?
Far from assuming a rupture, the creation of the Azov Battalion and its subsequent (and rapid) conversion into a Regiment will at no time imply a solution of continuity with respect to the Men in Black, that group that was born with the vocation to act as a death squad in the south and east of Ukraine. The history of Maksim Zhorin, and of one of the divisions of the Azov Battalion, the Borodach Division (Azov's first company, as opposed to the second dominated by conscripts from the Misanthropic Division), shows this clearly. The consolidation of this Division within Azov would be linked to the departure towards the professional policy of those initially responsible, in particular Igor Mosiychuk, but also Andriy Biletsky, to give way to the command of Azov to the new generation.
To a large extent, the hierarchical line would be linked to the command of the main company of the Battalion, the one located in the Berdiansk-Mariupol area, symbolically considered as the first Hundred of Azov. Igor Mikhailenko, Maksim Zhorin, Denis Prokopenko and Nikita Nadtochi, commander of the Azov Regiment in the absence of Denis Prokopenko, pass by. It is the company of the Kharkov fighters, the closest to the power base that Biletsky originally established and that leaves in the background the part of command associated with the second original company, linked to Igor Mosiychuk's group, through Volodymir Shpara (this, however, will constitute the official command reference for the State of Ukraine as it is the only company formally recognized in origin by the Ministry of the Interior).
Destined to command due to their links to Biletsky, Kravchenko (head of the personnel service in the initial organizational structure) and Mikhailenko would, however, quickly give way to the new and more efficient generations, organized around the figure of Maksim Zhorin.
The analysis of this process, dominated by continuity, is however another chapter in this unfinished story. In this, there is simply proof of the origin of Azov as a Black Corps, as reflected in the original emblem of the police-military personnel of the Battalion.
https://slavyangrad.es/2022/07/17/azov- ... more-25056
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EU reaping 'reward' of following in US footsteps: China Daily editorial
chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2022-07-17 18:50
This photo taken on March 1, 2022 shows a view of the Pipeline Inspection Gauge (PIG) receiving station, the Nord Stream 2 part of the landfall area, in Lubmin on Germany's Baltic Sea coast, northeastern Germany. [Photo/Agencies]
Now is an important period of the year energy-wise for European countries as they usually store natural gas for winter.
However, the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is undergoing annual maintenance from July 11 to July 21, and European governments are worried that Moscow could extend that in order to restrict the gas supply to Europe.
There are good reasons for Germany and the rest of the European Union to worry that Russia might keep the pipeline turned off after July 21.
A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said that future supply would depend on the gas demand in Europe and Western sanctions against Russia. Obviously, it does not make sense for Russia to provide energy to countries that are sanctioning it and that are providing weapons to a country with which it is engaged in hostilities.
Although that might not be Russia's intention, the 10 days serve as a grace period for the EU to consider the matter rationally and rethink its gains and losses from its gung-ho participation in the United States' strategy to debilitate Russia.
Russia provides 55 percent of the natural gas Germany imported last year, and the construction of the Nord Stream 2 project, which connects Russia and Germany and that is almost finished, indicates that Germany cannot find a more reliable source of natural gas to replace Russia, even if it does not want to put all eggs in one basket.
As the energy shortage has already become almost unbearable in Germany and many other EU countries, it is a big question whether they would be able to stand the consequences of the Nord Stream 1 being shut down for any prolonged period.
A long-time pioneer in green development, Germany's re-embracing of coal power shows the heavy toll the Ukraine crisis is taking on its carbon emissions reduction strategy, which is related to many aspects of its social, economic and industrial policies.
That the euro and the US dollar reached parity last week for the first time in two decades, should awaken the bloc to the fact that it is directly paying for the conflict that Washington has orchestrated between Russia and Ukraine.
Rather than trying to promote talks to end the conflict, the EU has continually increased its sanctions on Russia and its provision of military resources to Ukraine, which has only served to pour oil on the flames.
Unless it negotiates with Russia to establish a lasting, balanced and sustainable security mechanism in Europe, the EU will continue to reap whatever the US sows.
http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 6cc68.html
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German companies dropped out of the top 100 leading companies in the world
July 17, 11:54 am
German companies dropped out of the top 100 leading companies in the world
Germany is no longer represented in the world list of companies with the largest capitalization , according to Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten. This is evidenced by the data of the British audit and consulting company Ernst & Young. The most valuable German concern, software maker SAP, is in 113th place, the telecommunications company Telecom is in 120th place. The chemical industry company Linde is in 74th place, but after merging with the American company Praxair, it moved its head office to Ireland.
At the end of 2007, there were seven German companies in the top 100 leading companies in the world. At the end of 2021 - only two.Thus, the capital market "makes a crushing verdict on the future of the German economy," the publication concludes. And the main reason for what is happening is the energy crisis. Germany is the most energy-intensive industrial site in the world. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the German export model (accounting for approximately 50% of GDP) is very sensitive to the threat of a recession in the world market.
But the problems, of course, are not only in this, the publication continues. The point is also that Germany is leading in what it is not necessary to lead. For many years now, the country has suffered from sky-high electricity prices. And all because of the extremely ambitious plan to switch to alternative energy sources. The demographic situation in a country with an average age of 47.8 years (second place in the world after Japan) is appalling. In terms of income tax, social insurance spending and regulatory spending, no country in the world can compete with Germany.
And all these factors are pushing companies to move their production facilities to other countries, explains the German edition. Productivity has grown very slowly over the past 20 years, and the downward trend in real wages was observed even before the explosion of inflation.
Similar problems are experienced by many other countries in Europe, start-up and to a lesser extent. No European concern is represented in the top 10 companies with the largest capitalization. The most expensive enterprise is the Swiss company Nestle. She is ranked 20th. An important reason for this is that there is not a single major IT player in Europe. In this sector, the United States is leading the way, many of the American companies bring super profits and introduce digital technologies into the economy and all spheres of life. Asian concerns also play an important role in this process, while European ones play practically none.
https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2022-07-17 ... -vipali-iz - zinc
https://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichte ... 0-der-Welt - original in German According to
this logic, the gas crisis is not the cause of the crisis. He only exacerbated the already existing trends that had formed under Merkel.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7742251.html
Google Translator
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The West is Experiencing a Contraction of its Power
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 16, 2022
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
US troops are deployed to Europe amid escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine before the outbreak of war
The strategists of the hegemonic country of the West, the US, without realizing the flagrant contraction, show unlimited ambition.[/i]
What Westerners call the West or Western civilization is a geopolitical space that emerged in the 16th century and expanded continuously until the 20th century. On the eve of World War I, about 90 percent of the globe was Western or Western-dominated: Europe, Russia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and much of Asia (with the partial exceptions of Japan and China). From then on, the West began to contract: first with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the emergence of the Soviet bloc, and then, from mid-century onward, with the decolonization movements. Terrestrial space, and soon after, extraterrestrial space, became fields of intense disputes.
Meanwhile, what Westerners understood by the West was changing. It began as Christianity and colonialism, then changed to capitalism and imperialism, and then metamorphosed into democracy, human rights, decolonization, self-determination, and “rules-based international relations”—it was made clear that the rules would be established by the West and would only be followed when they served its interests—and finally into globalization.
By the middle of the last century, the West had shrunk so much that several newly independent countries made the decision to align themselves neither with the West nor with the bloc that had emerged as its rival, the Soviet bloc. This led to the emergence, from 1955-1961, of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). With the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1991, the West seemed to go through a time of enthusiastic expansion. It was around this time that former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev expressed his desire for Russia to join the “common home” of Europe, with the support of then-US President George H. W. Bush, a desire reaffirmed by Vladimir Putin when he took power in 2000. It was a short historical period, and recent events show that the “size” of the West has since shrunk drastically. In the wake of the Ukraine war, the West decided, on its own initiative, that only those countries applying sanctions against Russia would be considered part of the pro-Western camp. These countries comprise about 21 percent of the UN member countries, which constitute only 16 percent of the world’s population.
Questions
Is contraction decline? One might think that the contraction of the West works in its favor because it allows it to focus on more realistic goals with greater intensity. A careful reading of the strategists of the hegemonic country of the West, the United States, shows, that on the contrary, without apparently realizing the flagrant contraction, they show unlimited ambition. With the same ease with which they foresee being able to reduce Russia (one of the largest nuclear powers in the world) to a vassal state or bring it to ruin, they foresee neutralizing China (which is on its way to becoming the first world economy) and soon provoking a war in Taiwan, (like the one in Ukraine) to achieve that purpose. On the other hand, the history of empires shows that contraction goes hand in hand with decline, and that decline is irreversible and entails much human suffering.
At the current stage, the manifestations of weakness are running parallel to those of strength, which makes analysis very difficult. Two contrasting examples help understand this point more clearly: The United States is the largest military power in the world (even though it has not won any wars since 1945) with military bases in at least 80 countries. An extreme case of domination is its presence in Ghana where, according to agreements made in 2018, the United States uses the Accra airport without any control or inspection, US soldiers do not even need a passport to enter the country, and enjoy extraterritorial immunity, meaning that if they commit any crime, no matter how serious, they cannot be tried by Ghana’s courts. On the other hand, the thousands of sanctions on Russia are, for now, doing more damage in the Western world than in the geopolitical space being defined by the West as the non-Western world. The currencies of those countries that seem to be winning the war are depreciating the most. The looming inflation and recession led JP Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon to say that a “hurricane” is approaching.
Is contraction a loss of internal cohesion? Contraction can mean more cohesion, and this is quite visible. The leadership of the European Union, i.e., the European Commission, has in the last 20 years been much more aligned with the US than the countries that make up the EU. We saw this with the neoliberal shift and with the enthusiastic support shown by former President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, for the invasion of Iraq, and we are seeing it now with the current commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who seems to be operating as the US undersecretary of defense. The truth is that this cohesion, if it is effective in producing policies, can be disastrous in managing their consequences. Europe is a geopolitical space that since the 16th century has lived off the resources of other countries that it directly or indirectly dominates and on whom it imposes unequal exchange. None of this is, however, possible when the United States or its allies are its partners. Moreover, cohesion is made up of inconsistencies, as seen in the conflicting narratives about Russia. After all, is Russia the country with a lower GDP than many countries in Europe? Or is it a force that wants to invade Europe, and serves as a global threat that can only be stopped with the help of investments provided by the United States for arms and security to Ukraine—already around $10 billion—a distant country of which little will remain if the war continues for a long time?
Does the contraction occur for internal or external reasons? The literature on the decline and end of empires shows that, besides a few exceptional cases in which empires were destroyed by external forces—such as the Aztec and Inca empires with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors—internal factors generally dominate in bringing about contraction, even though decline can be precipitated by external factors. It is difficult to distinguish the internal from the external, and the specific identification is always more ideological than anything else. For example, in 1964 the well-known American conservative philosopher James Burnham published a book titled Suicide of the West. According to him, liberalism, then dominant in the United States, was the ideology behind this decline. For the liberals of the time, liberalism was, on the contrary, an ideology that would enable a new, more peaceful, and just world hegemony for the West. Today, liberalism is dead in the United States (neoliberalism dominates, which is its opposite) and even the old-school conservatives have been totally overtaken by the neoconservatives. That is why former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (for many, a war criminal) upset the anti-Russia proselytes by calling for peace negotiations while talking about the Ukraine conflict during a conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos in May. Be that as it may, the Ukraine war is the great accelerator of the West’s contraction. While the West wants to use its power and influence to isolate China, a new generation of nonaligned countries is emerging. Organizations like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Forum are, among others, the new faces of the non-Western states.
What comes next? We don’t know yet. It is as difficult to imagine the West occupying a subordinate space in the world context as it is to imagine it in an equal and peaceful relationship with other geopolitical spaces. We only know that for those leading the Western states, either of these hypotheses is either impossible or, if possible, apocalyptic. Therefore, the number of international meetings has multiplied in recent months—from the World Economic Forum meeting that took place in May in Davos to the most recent Bilderberg Meeting in June. Not surprisingly, in the latter meeting, of the 14 themes discussed, seven were directly related to the West’s rivals.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/07/ ... its-power/
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Cornered West Yields in Turbine-Gate but Conflict Far From Settled, Risks Aplenty for All
JULY 17, 2022
The Nord Stream pipeline carries up to 167 mcm of natural gas to the European Union daily. Photo: Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters.
By Serge Rousskikh – Jul 13, 2022
The West’s “shock and awe” sanctions campaign has done little to deter Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine and is now increasingly pitting members of the bloc against each other. The latest miscalculation in the seemingly ill-planned economic war with Moscow emerged last month when Canada impounded natural gas turbines vital to Germany’s energy consumption. With Canada and the Western Bloc forced to yield in the face of dire prospects for Germany, The Canada Files takes a look back at what transpired and what it means going forward.
The facts:
• As preparation for the fall and winter heating season began, Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom sent a turbine engine from its Nord Stream pipeline for routine service to the manufacturer Siemens Energy. The German engineering giant, in turn, sent the turbine engine to Montreal, where they were manufactured.
• When the time came to return the turbine to Siemens Energy, the service centre refused to release the equipment citing Ottawa’s sanctions against Gazprom, leveled on February 24 in response to Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.
• With the Leningrad Oblast-based Portovaya natural gas terminal down one of eight gas compressors and several others in need of repair or service, Gazprom slashed natural gas deliveries to Germany via the pipeline from 167 million cubic meters to 100 million cubic meters, a reduction of approximately 40 percent.
The big picture:
• Germany is one of the European states most dependent on Russian gas, with imports from Eurasian giant accounting for over 60 percent of the total share as recently as 2020. The share of Russian gas fell to 35% since the start of the military campaign in Ukraine, according to Bloomberg,
• Amid the standoff, Berlin moved one step closer to gas rationing triggering the second level of its emergency gas plan, which sees far more stringent oversight of the industry from the federal authorities.
• Reports of dwindling gas reserves suggest that Germany may not only face energy shortages during the heating season but could see production slow in the near future.
While average German citizens face an uncertain and potentially frosty winter, officials from all sides pointed the finger at each other. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suggested that politics may have played a role in the reduced flow via the Nord Stream pipeline. Scholz’s finance minister was far less diplomatic in his assessment.
“We must not fool ourselves: The cut in gas supplies is an economic attack on us by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck said in a statement as quoted by Reuters.
Gazprom vigorously emphasized that the situation is beyond its control, with top officials taking aim at Canada for the predicament.
“Siemens, which is our partner whereas the Canadian factory is not, brought the engine to the factory and is unable to get it back,” Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller told attendees of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last month. “The only country that has imposed sanctions against Gazprom is Canada. Canada? We do not work in Canada. What does Canada have to do with it? Still, Canada has sanctioned Gazprom.”
Ottawa Yields Despite Tough Rhetoric
Despite tough talk, Canada, ultimately folded in a game of “pipeline poker,” as some observers coined the affair. On Saturday, Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson confirmed Ukrainian reports that Ottawa will return the turbine engines to Siemens and subsequently Gazprom.
“Canada will grant a time-limited and revocable permit for Siemens Canada to allow the return of repaired Nordstream 1 turbines to Germany,” Wilkinson said in a statement, underscoring that the decision was made following consultation with Germany, Ukraine and the European Commission and in support of “Europe’s ability to access reliable and affordable energy as they continue to transition away from Russian oil and gas.”
The decision was accompanied by more rhetoric, with Foreign Minister Melanie Joly issuing a statement vowing to cripple Russia’s oil, gas, chemical and manufacturing sectors. However, the posturing did little to appease several actors, including Kiev and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), who accused the Canadian government of “bowing to Russian blackmail.”
The West Was Left With Few Options
As the impasse dragged on for a over a month and forecasts appeared bleaker by the day, there were ultimately few options left for the West, experts said.
“Either the collective West admits that Russian energy is presently a necessity and cannot be supplanted and deals with the consequences… or Germany has to call Canada – Scholz has to call [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau – and Canada has to ease its sanctions regime,” Stanislav Mitrakhovich, an expert with National Energy Security Fund and the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, said in an interview with The Canada Files.
Alexander Frolov, the Deputy Director General of the Institute of National Energy, on a Geoenergetica Info segment proposed that Germany and other European partners could have alternatively enticed Ukraine to redirect its gas pipeline system to the EU or even launch the Nord Stream II pipeline. However, the expert downplayed both scenarios as improbable given the political implications.
Mitrakhovich explained that the resolution, which came after a very vocal and public outcry by Habeck, required the collective will of the Western Bloc as no one wanted to bear sole responsibility for the decision.
“An agreement seemed to be out of reach without making the issue a collective Western problem… so that no individual officials, Canadian or otherwise, could be held responsible for making the decision,” the expert said.
The United States and the European Commission have backed Ottawa’s decision to return the turbine engines.
Furthermore, the Russian expert believes that the parties involved were caught off guard by Gazprom’s adherence to the maintenance schedule and the company making no effort to unilaterally alleviate the situation.
Conflict Not Over, Sanctions Regime May Need Adjustment
While the acute phase of the conflict is over, there may be sequels to this saga. The Nord Stream pipeline is out of service between July 11 and 21 for routine maintenance and it is unclear where the other damaged turbine engine will be repaired or whether the service schedule will be in any way altered as a result of the standoff.
Gazprom and Siemens Energy did not immediately respond to The Canada Files’ request for comment.
Mitrakhovich did not rule out the possibility of sanctions being tweaked with time, citing Washington’s previous rollbacks on sanctions against Russian fertilizer products.
Plenty of Risks Remain
Aside from the possibility of a repeat, all parties – Gazprom, Canada and Germany – face varying degrees of risk, experts The Canada Files spoke to said.
Mitrakhovich warned that Gazprom will have to slash revenue projections during a volatile period if it is not able to bring its product to market. The Russian energy giant recently opted out of dividend payout for 2021 to the tune of $23.37 billion (1.24 trillion rubles), which some analysists say suggests the company is preparing for a full European embargo on Russian energy products.
Meanwhile, Ottawa faces the risk of incurring reputational damages. The federal government is already facing accusations of folding to Russian demands, meanwhile, the episode could be a cautionary tale for entities conducting or considering conducting business in Canada.
However, it is Europe that stands to lose the most from an extended confrontation.
Not only is Berlin at risk of fielding insufficient energy stockpiles for the winter heating season, the country responsible for a third of European manufacturing could be forced to scale back production in short order, especially if rationing were to become a reality. Furthermore, natural gas deliveries to Germany are used to supply several EU nations, including Italy, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, and the current situation is already reportedly having an impact on gas depositories in those nations.
https://orinocotribune.com/cornered-wes ... y-for-all/
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From Cassad's Telegram account:
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forwarded from
Readovka
Map of hostilities and the situation on the fronts on the evening of July 16, 2022
The situation on the fronts for the past day:
Kharkiv direction is in operational pause mode. There is no significant progress in this direction.
In the Slavic direction, the Seversky garrison was actually destroyed. The 115th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is not able to resist our troops, therefore, civilians from nearby settlements are mobilized for resupply. Also, a message came from the Russian Defense Ministry about the destruction of Ukrainian Su-25 and Mi-24 in the Seversk region. To the south, our troops are advancing on Yakovlevka. Units of the NM LPR entered the battle on the eastern outskirts of Soledar.
There is a battle going on in the Donetsk sector near Maryinka. Also, Russian troops are stepping up their offensive in the Kamenka area with the aim of further advancing to Avdiivka. Due to the concrete positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the development of a rapid offensive is virtually impossible.
In the Zaporozhye direction , a Mi-8 of the Ukrainian Air Force was shot down in the Velyka Novoselka area.
In the southern direction - Russian troops destroyed two MiG-29s in the areas of the settlements of Novopavlovka in the Nikolaev region and Vladimirovka in the Dnepropetrovsk region.
Saturday began with another enemy attack on the village of Tetkino in the Kursk region. Fires were recorded, but there were no casualties.
"Arrivals". The militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine again fired at Kherson Chernobaevka. In the evening, a missile attack on Alchevsk destroyed a trolleybus depot and a dispensary.
Calibration of the Russian Aerospace Forces was carried out this morningon military installations in Odessa. In Dnepropetrovsk, workshops for the production of components and the repair of Tochka-U ballistic missiles and multiple rocket launchers at the defense enterprise Yuzhny Mashinostroitelny Zavod were destroyed. Also, strikes were noted in the Cherkasy, Nikolaev and Kharkov regions.
In the world. The defense ministries of Armenia and Azerbaijan mutually accused each other of shelling the border on the eve of the bilateral meeting of foreign ministers in Georgia.
Of the interesting: RT prepared a two-hour documentary about the liberation of Mariupol - about what the victory cost and what awaits the residents, in whose hearts Russia has always been.
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Сolonelcassad
The Crimean bridge will become an object of attack by Ukraine when the “first technical opportunity” appears, said Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine. Shortly before this, Ukrainian military intelligence did not rule out the use of HIMARS against targets in Crimea .
“ As soon as the first technical opportunity appears, he will immediately become this object for attack. <...> If there is a restriction from partners, in particular, not to hit on the territory of the Russian Federation, because they see the big picture, then we will not hit. So we have enough targets on the territory of Ukraine ,” Arestovich said.
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Сolonelcassad
What weapons and military equipment have been delivered to Poland lately?
This week it became known about the possible transfer of 232 PT-91 Twardy tanks (a modified version of the Soviet T-72M1 tank) from Poland to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The shipment will take place immediately after the start of deliveries of 250 Abrams M1A2 tanks purchased from the United States. The exact date is unknown.
The head of the Polish Ministry of Defense also announced the signing of a contract for another 116 used American Abrams tanks . Some sources claim that the Polish side is ready to transfer its tanks to Ukraine even in exchange for these old Abrams.
On Thursday, the first of five C-130H Hercules military transport aircraft purchased in 2021 under the US Department of Defense's Excess Defense Articles (EDA) military transport aircraft arrived in Poland. The purchase was partly covered by American grants: Warsaw paid only $14.3 million for a total cost of $60 million.
At the same time, all five copies built in 1985 were decommissioned from the US Air Force in 2017.
On Tuesday, during the visit of the head of the Polish Defense Ministry to Kiev, Zelensky announced the transfer of a new batch of AHS Krab howitzers to the Armed Forces of Ukraine . The Ukrainian president did not specify their number. Mariusz Blashak also spoke about the possible training of Ukrainian military personnel in sapper business in Poland.
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Сolonelcassad
In Ukraine, the head of the virtual branch of the SBU in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which had existed on the territory of Ukraine since 2014, was arrested. The main "SBU officer in Crimea" is suspected of treason. It is worth noting that in 2014, most of the SBU personnel in Sevastopol and Crimea successfully transferred to the Russian service, and some of them are still serving after appropriate checks.
In fact, if it were not for the Nazi terror in Ukraine, many Ukrainian officers from various departments could still make such a choice. Hence the executions of the vacillating and the paranoid hunt for internal enemies, because the Ukrainian Nazis are well aware that they cannot control the situation except by terror.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
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