Western calls for Ukraine peace talks a ‘tactical ploy’ – Moscow
RT | August 19, 2023
The US and its allies do not want the Ukraine conflict to end and their purported peace initiatives are merely attempts to buy Kiev time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview published on Saturday.
Geopolitical issues need to be discussed “not with [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters,” Lavrov said earlier this year. Negotiating directly with the Americans would make sense, he told the magazine International Affairs when asked about the idea.
“The problem, however, is that the United States has no intention of ending the conflict,” Lavrov explained, noting that “their officially declared objective is to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia.”
Prospects for negotiations between Russia and the West “are non-existent at this stage,” Lavrov said, while Kiev “Western sponsors are constantly pushing them to up the ante.”
Insisting on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘peace formula’ at meetings in Copenhagen and Jeddah – to which Russia was not invited – “hardly demonstrates an intention by the West to negotiate with Russia,” Lavrov said. Moscow has dismissed Zelensky’s ten-point list of demands as an unacceptable ultimatum unrelated to reality.
Russia has repeatedly tried to negotiate, from the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements to the “drastic attempt to convey our concerns to Western capitals” in December 2021, Lavrov noted. The West “arrogantly rejected” Moscow’s initiative and ramped up deliveries of weapons and ammunition to Kiev instead.
“We regard the Westerners’ hypocritical calls for talks as a tactical ploy to buy time once again giving the exhausted Ukrainian troops a respite and the opportunity to regroup, and to send in more weapons and ammunition,” Lavrov said, adding that “this is the path of war, not a peaceful settlement process.”
Angela Merkel, the former chancellor of Germany, admitted last December that the 2015 Franco-German proposal in Minsk was “an attempt to give Ukraine time” to build up its military. This was then confirmed by former French President Francois Hollande.
Lost Cause Is in the Air
By William Schryver – imetatronink – August 18, 2023
Back in February, I wrote what was and will likely remain the longest blog post I have authored. (I solemnly promise not to do such a thing again.)
Among other things, I observed:
“… the milieu of the past several weeks, during which time we have observed a pronounced rhetorical revolution in the popular western narratives regarding the NATO/Russia war in Ukraine.
“Lost cause is in the air. Many who have privately known this to be the case for some time have finally been sufficiently emboldened to publicly embrace the obvious — albeit reluctantly, and often with a good measure of rationalization and lingering misinformation in tow.”
Of course, at that point in time, the pivotal Battle of Bakhmut had not reached its inevitable conclusion, and the dream of a decisively triumphant Ukrainian march to Crimea was still cherished fondly by those partial to that cause.
As per usual, my sense of the trajectory of events anticipated something that would still take some time to be realized in full.
In any case, lost cause is now acrid in the late summer air of August 2023 — cordite, sulphur, and putrefied flesh.
Chagrined accounts of Ukrainian slaughter and woe are now rippling through the mainstream western media, and spilling off the lips of the “credentialed commentariat”.
It has become the pitiless massacre many of us predicted all those months ago.
And, of course, it never had a chance to be anything else.
What were they thinking?!
How did the Imperial Masters of War ever persuade themselves that their money, weapons, several thousand mercenaries, and a large fraction of the male population of Ukraine could defeat Russia in a high-intensity industrial land war on its borders?!
Did they really believe NATO armaments, training, intelligence, surveillance, planning, command, and impotent economic sanctions would be sufficient to defeat a resurgent Russia in 2022 and beyond?
I think they almost certainly did. Hubris and its attendant delusions are staples of end-of-empire epochs.
Of course, they’re going to try to spin this major geostrategic defeat such that its true realities, causes, and consequences are obscured. Already they’ve been working overtime to subtly dismiss the obvious conclusion that Russia is simply too strong and capable to defeat militarily.
I’ve noted the recurring talking point that the repulse of Ukraine’s offensive is being attributed to Russia’s supposedly archaic employment of “minefields and trenches” in a complex array of static defense lines.
Somehow they neglect to mention the overwhelming dominance of Russian artillery, its dizzying array of battlefield attack drones, its air superiority, its first-rate motorized infantry maneuver, and its relentless long-range precision missile strikes on rear-area logistical targets.
The simple fact of the matter is that, not only was defeating Russia beyond the capacity of the Mother of All Proxy Armies NATO built in Ukraine, it would likewise defy the never-yet-demonstrated and effectively fictitious American “mastery” of what the Pentagon has fancifully termed “combined-arms operations”.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the damn fools aren’t still stupid enough to try.
Either way, as I wrote in my previous post:
Matters have reached the point where the imperial masters will be forced to choose between a humiliating disengagement and abandonment of Ukraine to its fate — or otherwise blunder into a calamitous direct military intervention.
I continue to be convinced they won’t go there. And for the sake of the bereaved mothers, widowed wives, and fatherless children of the young American men who would be compelled to act out the catastrophe, I sure hope I’m right.
West has shown its ‘true Russophobic face’ – Lavrov
RT | August 18, 2023
Washington and Brussels have openly unleashed a hybrid war against everything Russian, dropping their masks after decades of pretending to be civilized and adequate international partners, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with International Affairs, published on Saturday.
“Many of our former partners have been concealing their Russophobic nature under the veil of hypocrisy, but have now shown their true face in all its glory,” he said. “However, there is also the flip side of the coin here, since the Global Majority saw the true face of those who went as far as [to] aspire to a monopoly in defining the so-called universal values.”
“Today’s West is steered by people like Josep Borrell who divide the world into a blooming ‘garden’ and ‘the jungle,’ where the latter clearly applies to most of humanity,” Lavrov added.
The West has spent decades cynically transforming neighboring Ukraine into a “hostile military bulwark against Russia by nurturing an entire generation of politicians ready to declare war on our shared past, culture and everything Russian,” according to Lavrov.
Western capitals even openly admitted that reaching a peaceful settlement in Ukraine was never part of their plan, and that the Minsk agreements were originally designed to “buy some time to prepare a military scenario and deliver weapons to Kiev.”
“I think that the essential thing we must understand in this regard is that the West wants to do away with our country as a serious geopolitical rival,” the top Russian diplomat said “They have not hesitated to use subversive methods and perform acts of sabotage, as was the case with the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea.”
Lavrov also accused Washington and its allies of using all possible coercive means to prevent Russia’s partners from engaging in economic and other kinds of cooperation, while also “making outrageous efforts to disconnect Russia from international cooperation mechanisms in culture, education, research, and sports.”
One thing that the West fails to understand, according to Lavrov, is that “Russia will use all means to defend its people and its vital interests,” and thus would be better for the opponents to realize that “confrontation with Russia is futile and switch to more civilized” means for achieving a balance of interests.
The Anglo-American War on Russia – Part Nine (Preparing a Nuclear Attack)
Tales of the American Empire | August 17, 2023
The United States spent over a trillion dollars the past two decades to prepare for a surprise nuclear strike on Russia. The United States withdrew from major arms control treaties and built newer and more accurate nuclear missiles. It built missile bases in Poland and Romania and hundreds of new submarines and destroyers to launch cruise missiles or long-range anti-missile missiles.The United States Army and Navy developed, tested, and deployed mobile missile launchers to Europe while Generals insist they have the right to deploy such systems on Russia’s borders, to include inside Ukraine and Finland. This was barely reported in America’s corporate media, which spews constant propaganda about Russian threats to prepare the public for nuclear war.
_________________________________
Related Tale: “All Nuclear Weapons Are Illegal”; 
• All Nuclear Weapons Are Illegal
“America’s Secret Planned Conquest of Russia”; Washington’s Blog; December 29, 2016; https://archive.ph/TR1qG
“Navy Unveils Truck-Mounted SM-6 Missile Launcher in European Test”; Joseph Trevithick; The War Zone; September 14, 2022; https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone…
“Army Fires Tomahawk Missile From Its New Typhon Battery In Major Milestone”; Joseph Trevithick; The War Zone; July 3, 2023; https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone…
“Dr. Strangelove”; movie clip of a psychopathic American General advocating a massive nuclear attack on Russia; • Dr. Strangelove (1964) – General Turg…
“Putin’s Warning”; plea to reporters at the 2016 International Economic Forum to tell the truth; • Putin’s Warning: FULL SPEECH
Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”; • The Anglo-American War on Russia
“There Is No Climate Crisis”… 1600 Scientists Worldwide, Nobel Prize Laureate Sign Declaration
By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | August 15, 2023
1609 signatories recently signed a declaration that states there is no climate crisis, thus casting doubt over man’s alleged role in climate change and extreme weather.
Their doubt is based on data showing that natural factors are very much at play, the warming is slower than predicted, the models are unreliable, that CO2 has great benefits and weather disasters have not increased. The media hysteria and weather hype are not supported by data.
Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.
Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming
The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.
Warming is far slower than predicted
The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.
Climate policy relies on inadequate models
Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. They do not only exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases, they also ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.
CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth
CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. More CO2 is favorable for nature, greening our planet. Additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also profitable for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.
Global warming has not increased natural disasters
There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.
Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities
There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are.”
Growing skepticism
Nobel Laureate in Physics Dr John F. Clauser also signed the manifesto.
The message is clear: there is no climate crisis. The number of critical scientists who no longer submit to the dogma of the alleged man-made climate catastrophe is growing.
Unexploded device detonates in Donetsk killing three
RT | August 18, 2023
Three utility workers were killed in the Russian city of Donetsk on Friday when a faulty Ukrainian cluster shell exploded, according to local officials. Another worker was injured in the blast.
The workers, who had been repairing water pipes in central Donetsk, were caught in the blast during their lunch break. They were killed on the spot in a “detonation of an explosive device,” Donetsk Mayor Aleksey Kulemzin said. Two others were hospitalized following the blast.
According to media reports and local officials, the explosion was caused by a Ukrainian cluster artillery shell. The unexploded device may have been hanging from a tree or in a trash can, local residents told the media. The shell suddenly detonated and released its sub munitions, which exploded, hitting the civilians.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has ramped up its use of cluster munitions, repeatedly firing them at Donetsk and other locations near the front line. The shells have already caused multiple deaths and injuries among civilians.
The uptick in the use of cluster munitions comes after last month the US sent so-called dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM) for NATO-caliber 155mm howitzers. The controversial delivery, which was criticized even by some of the US’ closest allies, came as a stop-gap measure to compensate for a shortage of conventional artillery shells, as admitted by President Joe Biden.
Over the course of the ongoing conflict, Russia has accused the Ukrainian military of repeatedly using cluster munitions from its domestic stockpiles to target civilian areas. In particular, Kiev’s forces have on many occasions shelled Donetsk and its surroundings with unguided multiple rocket artillery projectiles containing the controversial anti-personnel PFM-1 petal mines.
Iran and Russia Senior Defense Officials Discuss Military Coop
Mehr News Agency | August 17, 2023
Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Aziz Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh and Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin held talks on military-technical cooperation.
According to TASS news agency, the meeting took place on the sidelines of the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security.
“The sides discussed current issues of bilateral military and military-technical cooperation. They exchanged views on issues of regional security and the international situation,” the Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday, adding that the sides reiterated their commitment to close dialogue and development of cooperation in the military sphere.
The 11th Moscow Conference on International Security was held on Tuesday at the Patriot Congress and Exhibition Center. In total, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, more than 800 delegates from 76 countries took part in the conference. Interestingly, this list did not include any Western states.
According to the program, China, India, South Africa, Israel, Turkey, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and North Korea were invited. Representatives of eight international organizations, including the UN, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Arab League and the African Union, took part in the conference.
Iran Commences Construction of Most Advanced-Ever Satellites
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 18.08.2023
A fledgling space power with some of the best-developed space-based capabilities in the Muslim World, Iran’s space program has successfully launched over a dozen civilian and military satellites, created cosmodromes and built a range of homegrown space rockets using knowhow gained in the military sphere.
Iran has formally announced the start of design and construction work on two of its latest generation earth-imaging satellites.
“We had previously made promises regarding the construction of high-precision observation satellites, and today I proudly announce that the Iranian Space Agency has taken a significant step in designing and building domestic high-precision observation satellites. In this regard, the design and construction of two important projects, named Pars 2 and Pars 3, have officially commenced,” Iranian Space Agency chief Hossein Salariyeh told a media event Thursday.
The Pars 2 “is essentially a project to build an observation satellite with 4-meter imaging precision. The process of design and construction has begun for this satellite,” Salariyeh explained. As for the Pars 3, its development will provide Iran with its “most modern and highly accurate” imaging capabilities ever, with “an imaging precision of approximately 2 meters.”
The Pars series (lit. ‘Persia’ or ‘Iran’ in Persian) is one of Iran’s most ambitious satellite projects to date, with the remote-sensing spacecraft to be fitted with high-resolution earth imaging capabilities which can be used in agriculture, natural resource management, environmental and border monitoring, water sciences and mining.
Iran has one of the most advanced home-grown space programs in the Middle East, and in 2009 became the first Muslim nation to independently launch a satellite into orbit. The Iranian Space Agency has also engaged in deep cooperation with Russia and China, engaging in cooperative joint research programs, and piggybacking spacecraft on Soyuz rockets from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Last year, a Russian rocket helped launch the Khayyam, a 600 kg remote sensing satellite which became fully operational and started its remote sensing activities last month.
Speaking at Thursday’s event, Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi hailed the progress reached in Iran’s space endeavors, and said the country, whose peaceful space ambitions were born after the victory of the 1979 Revolution, is already reaping economic benefits from its space program.
Home to one of the world’s oldest continuous major civilizations, Iran has gifted the world with many of its earliest space scholars, including mathematicians and astronomers Omar Khayyam, Al-Khwarizmi, and Ibn al-Haytham. After the Muslim conquest of Persia during the 7th century, Ancient Persian astronomy became intermeshed with that of the wider medieval Islamic World, with Persian scholars contributing heavily to the creation of advanced mathematical formulas to calculate the movement of the Sun and planets in our solar system and the positions of various heavenly bodies. Persian contributions to ancient Islamic astronomical sciences helped spark the broader flourishing of the sciences in the Islamic World from the 8th through 13th centuries.
Modern Iran’s space-based efforts have been subject to derision by some US officials, with now former United States Space Command chief John Raymond once ridiculing the Islamic Republic’s Noor (‘Light’) satellite as a “tumbling webcam in space” unlikely to provide any useful intel. Several months later, the Noor, operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace Command, sent back detailed snapshots of Al-Udeid Airbase, largest US military facility in the Persian Gulf region.
Iran repeated the feat in 2022, with the Noor-2 sending back a panoramic image centered on the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
Russians gained wealth amid war in Ukraine while Western countries lost trillions of dollars: Report
Press TV – August 18, 2023
Russia got richer last year amid the war in Ukraine, while the Western countries that provided funds and weapons to Kiev to fight against Moscow lost trillions of dollars of their wealth.
Russia added $600 billion of total wealth in 2022, the Business Insider (BI) reported this week, citing the latest annual Global Wealth Report of the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) published on Tuesday.
According to the BI, the number of Russian millionaires rose from around 350,000 to about 408,000 last year. However, in 2022, about 1 million of an estimated 23.7 million lost their millionaire status in the United States.
It said 4,500 Russians joined the super-rich people’s club of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNW) — people with more than $50,000,000 — last year.
In the meantime, the collective West, North America and Europe together, lost $10.9 trillion, UBS said, noting that the US alone shed $5.9 trillion of its wealth.
The Swiss bank suggested that Russia’s gains might be attributed to the rising price of oil, a major export commodity and a key economic engine for Russia.
Russia’s added wealth came amid the West’s unprecedented anti-Moscow economic sanctions.
Western officials have admitted that the West’s sanctions on Russia had backfired, hurting Europeans instead.
Amid the West’s planning for anti-Moscow sanctions shortly after the start of war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin warned European buyers of Russian oil and natural gas that punitive measures imposed by the West would backfire, and those Western countries would be hit worse by the bans.
After Western countries banned Russia’s oil, Moscow turned to the East and increased its sales of crude to other countries which in turn re-exported oil to the European countries.
As a result, Mexico, India, and Brazil also gained significant amounts of wealth in 2022, while the US, Japan, Canada, and Australia lost the most, the UBS report suggested.
Diplomacy with Russia necessary for Europe – former French President
By Lucas Leiroz | August 18, 2023
Showing realism and willingness for dialogue, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy strongly criticized the West’s stance on the Ukrainian crisis and demanded more diplomatic efforts. For the former politician, it is necessary for Europeans to live peacefully with Russia, as it is not possible to continue a policy of confrontation and aggression in the long term.
Sarkozy’s criticisms were made during an interview with the French newspaper “Le Figaro”. He spoke with journalists about possible solutions to the current conflict in Ukraine and endorsed the need to pursue peace through diplomacy. Sarkozy condemned the policy of prolonging the war through unlimited military assistance to Kiev, which has been one of the main points of Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy.
For Sarkozy, Macron failed to continue to deal with the reality of the conflict mainly “due to pressure from [some] eastern Europeans”. Last year, Macron was severely slammed by Polish leader Mateusz Morawiecki because he was trying to negotiate with Moscow in the early weeks of the special military operation. In May 2022, Morawiecki compared Macron’s stance to an “attempt to negotiate with Hitler”. Sarkozy sees this event as an important point of international pressure, boosting Macron’s decision to adhere to the policy of unlimited support to Kiev.
The former president also negatively assessed the project of Ukrainian membership in the European Union. For him, these plans are merely “fallacious promises that will not be held”. Sarkozy compared the Ukrainian access to the Turkish one, making it clear that in both cases the projects are unlikely to succeed.
Also, Sarkozy emphasized the importance of maintaining good relations with Russia due to the geographical factor. Considering the proximity between the EU and Russia, it is necessary that both sides are diplomatically close, without friction and conflicts. Sarkozy admits that the confrontation with Russia is only of American interest, not European, and therefore there must be a reformulation of Europe’s Ukraine policy.
“Russia is a neighbor of Europe and will remain so (…) In this regard, European interests are not aligned with American interests. We cannot stick to the strange idea of ’fighting a war without fighting”, he said.
Another subject commented by Sarkozy was the territorial issue. For him, peace negotiations will have to deal rationally with the possibility of recognizing Crimea and Russian historic territories. Sarkozy states that with Ukraine’s impossibility to win the war, there are only two alternatives: freeze the conflict or recognize the territorial loss. The first option seems inadequate because a new war situation would arise in the future, while on the other hand the recognition of territories can be legitimate, if done by referendum with international observers.
“When it comes to this territory (Crimea), which was Russian until 1954 and where a majority of the population has always felt Russian, I think any step back is illusory (…) If the Ukrainians do not completely manage to win them back, then the choice will be between a frozen conflict – which we know will inevitably lead tomorrow to a new hot conflict – or we can come out on top by resorting, again, to referendums strictly supervised by the international community to settle these territorial questions in a definitive way”, he added.
It is necessary to note that Sarkozy does not adopt a “pro-Russian” opinion. He echoes the Western “consensus” of criticizing Russia’s decision to intervene militarily in Ukraine, even referring to the special military operation by the biased word “invasion”. The very proposal to redo the referendums in Crimea and other regions shows Sarkozy’s distrust of Russia, since Moscow has already held referendums that have been widely verified by invited international observers, having no need to redo them. So, the former president’s opinion is undoubtedly aligned only with European interests, with no pro-Russian bias.
The problem is that Europe is now conditioned to believe that American interests are its own. And this is precisely what Sarkozy is criticizing. He reminds how geography is a basic principle of international politics. Neighboring regions must strive to maintain friendship and respect so that there are no conflicts, as they will always be close and have to deal with each other, rationally overcoming disagreements. And this is what Sarkozy advocates for EU-Ukraine-Russia relations – that, despite disagreements, a peaceful [and realistic] solution is found as soon as possible.
Obviously, the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime rejected Sarkozy’s proposal. Zelensky’s aide Mikhail Podoliak accused the former French leader of “deliberately participating” in “genocide and war” by simply advocating diplomacy. For the Ukrainian official, Sarkozy’s ideas are “fantastic” and “criminal”, as Crimea and Donbass are supposedly “unconditional territories of Ukraine”. In fact, this type of position on the part of Kiev is not surprising, since in addition to being one of the sides directly involved in the conflict, the regime works as a proxy for Washington, completely adhering to American anti-Russian narratives.
What really matters is whether French and European politicians will be attentive to Sarkozy. The former president is denouncing an obvious reality: to satisfy American interests, Europe is destroying itself and harming its relations with a neighboring power. Current politicians need to be aware of this scenario and reverse it. However, unfortunately, it seems the current generation of heads of state does not have the same strategic understanding as Sarkozy.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
A Vicious Blame Game Is Breaking Out After The Counteroffensive Predictably Failed
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 17, 2023
Two back-to-back pieces published by Newsweek and Politico confirm that a vicious blame is breaking out after the counteroffensive predictably failed. The first was released on Wednesday and reported how “Zelensky’s Pivotal Counteroffensive Call Threatens to Divide Leadership” between the presidential administration that wants to prepare for a potential Russian offensive and the armed forces that want to continue pushing ahead. An unnamed source also alleged that politicians felt misled by the military.
As for the second, which came out the day later on Thursday, its author observed that “As Ukraine counteroffensive gets bogged down, it’s back to the drawing board”. The problem is that nobody knows what to do next, however, since they can’t agree on what went wrong to begin with. According to their report, everyone is pointing fingers at who’s to blame for getting hopes unrealistically high about this failed campaign.
Here are some analyses of the relevant events leading up to this vicious blame game:
* 24 January: “Deciphering Ukraine’s Destabilizing ‘Deep State’ Dynamics”
* 14 February: “NATO’s Self-Declared ‘Race Of Logistics’ Confirms The Bloc’s Military-Industrial Crisis”
* 14 March: “The Washington Post Finally Told The Full Truth About How Poorly Kiev’s Forces Are Faring”
* 24 April: “US Propaganda Is Responsible For Unrealistically High Hopes About Kiev’s Counteroffensive”
* 29 April: “Poland’s Top Military Official Shared Some Unpopular Truths About The NATO-Russian Proxy War”
* 3 May: “Garry Kasparov’s Cognitive Dissonance Is Typical Of Kiev’s Average Supporters Right Now”
* 13 May: “Ten Critical Observations At The Onset Of Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive”
* 21 May: “What Comes Next After Russia’s Victory In The Battle Of Artyomovsk?”
* 1 June: “Kiev Faces Seven Key Challenges Ahead Of Its Counteroffensive”
* 2 June: “Viktor Orban Is Right: The Counteroffensive Will Be A Bloodbath For Ukraine”
* 11 June: “Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive Is The West’s Most Important Military Campaign Since WWII”
* 12 June: “CNN Admitted That Kiev Lost Around 15% Of Its Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles In A Week”
* 14 June: “How Will The US Respond After The Failure Of Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive?”
* 20 June: “Putin Strongly Suggested That A Political Solution To The Proxy War Is Still Possible”
* 21 June: “Lavrov Sent The Clearest Signal Yet That Russia Is Interested In Freezing The Proxy War”
* 5 July: “Will Zelensky Become The New Saakashvili?”
* 7 July: “Pay Attention To What NATO Chief Stoltenberg Conspicuously Omitted From His Latest Speech”
* 8 July: “Cluster Munitions Are The Latest Wunderwaffe That’s Doomed To Disappoint The West”
* 10 July: “Removing Ukraine’s MAP Requirement For Joining NATO Isn’t As Important As It Seems”
* 17 July: “Kiev’s Latest Attack Against The Crimean Bridge Was A Desperate Distraction”
* 24 July: “The New York Times Finally Told The Truth About The Failure Of Kiev’s Counteroffensive”
* 6 August: “The Jeddah Talks Backfired On Zelensky”
* 11 August: “The Polish President Said Kiev Isn’t Doing The West Any Favors & Its Counteroffensive Failed”
* 16 August: “Bolton’s Criticism Of Biden’s Ukraine Policy Doesn’t Stand Up To Scrutiny”
Simply skimming the headlines reveals that the counteroffensive’s failure was predictable due to Russia’s growing edge in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition”, yet it still went ahead anyhow for ulterior military and political reasons. Regarding the first, these concerned the West’s interest in obtaining invaluable battlefield data for its weapons, while the second involved Kiev’s inability to walk back its maximalist demands for ending the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.
This disaster was therefore entirely avoidable, which the Western public is quickly realizing as it begins to dawn on them that their over $165 billion in taxpayer-provided aid to Kiev failed to break the stalemate that set in last winter. The wisest among them might soon start wondering why a ceasefire wasn’t agreed to back then in order to focus on war-torn Ukraine’s reconstruction, which is why their leaders are now desperately trying to shift the blame to redirect rising public anger away from themselves.
Tens of thousands of Kiev’s troops have been killed since January and tens of billions of dollars spent just for the sake of gaining less than 100 square miles, which wasn’t worth it from the perspective of average Ukrainians or Westerners. The only party that profited was the military-industrial complex that obtained invaluable battlefield data for its weapons, though this was at the expense of further depleting the West’s stockpiles, which makes it more difficult for this New Cold War bloc to respond to sudden crises.
On the Ukrainian front, military-political divisions are reportedly widening per Newsweek’s report, which also claims that Russia is gearing up for its own offensive that’s slated to begin sometime this fall before scaling into a full-fledge one by next spring. Meanwhile, the Western front is less dramatic per Politico’s report as officials mostly try to pin the blame on the expert and media communities, though opposition parties like the Republicans are also of course trying to capitalize on this ahead of coming elections.
These latest observations about how counterproductive the counteroffensive has been for Ukrainian-Western unity, solidarity within their respective ranks, and Ukraine’s human and military resources mean that Russia’s prior interest in a ceasefire can no longer be taken for granted. Russia arguably has more to gain by continuing to fight than freezing the conflict since its enemies’ recent weaknesses raise the chances that all the entirety of those former Ukrainian territories that it claims can finally be liberated.
That’s not to say that there’s no possibility of Russia agreeing to a ceasefire in the unlikely event that the US complies with President Putin’s demand from late June to cut off arms shipments to Ukraine as the prerequisite for resuming related talks, but just that it would be his most surprising “goodwill gesture” yet.
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Neocon Max Boot: Legal and illegal aliens need to enlist in the US army and die for Israel
By Jonas E. Alexis | Veterans Today | October 16, 2107
In 1973 Irving Kristol, the godfather of the Neoconservative movement, made a stunning statement which is still relevant to understanding the Israeli influence in US foreign policy. Kristol said:
“Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel… Jews don’t like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States…
“American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.”
Read the statement again very carefully. A big military budget, said Kristol, is only good for Israel, not America or much of the Western World. In other words, precious American soldiers who go to the Middle East to fight so-called terrorism are just working for Israel, not for America.
So, whenever the Neocons use words such as “democracy” or “freedom,” they are essentially conning decent Americans to support Israel’s perpetual wars. … continue
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- Tucker Carlson interrogated in Israel, has passport seized after interviewing US ambassador
- 6,000 Amputees in Gaza Face Impossible Recovery amid Israeli War Ultimatum
- The Lancet: Gaza death toll far higher than reported – Not a ceasefire Day 132
- Compliant aid: Who are the Israel-approved NGOs scaling up in Gaza?
- Why won’t Trump’s “Board of Peace” bring peace? – Not a ceasefire Day 131
- Help end the injustice against Shadi
- Israel’s Favorite American President
- Israel’s “Yellow Line” Is a Death Trap for Palestinians. We Drove Into It.
- Why Israel’s expanding occupation in Syria presents a critical legal test
- Gaza is not a natural disaster. It is the victim of genocide enabled by global inaction
- No Tricks Zone
- Coal Power Back In Trend As Globe Tries To Keep Pace With Growing Demand For Power
- New Study: A 4°C Warmer Beaufort Sea Had ‘No Sea Ice’ 11,700 – 8200 Years Ago
- Unfudging The Data: Dutch Meteorological Institute Reinstates Early 20th Centruy Heat Waves It Had Erased Earlier
- German Gas Crisis…Chancellor Merz Allegedly Bans Gas Debate Ahead of Elections!
- Pollen Reconstructions Show The Last Glacial’s Warming Events Were Global, 10x Greater Than Modern
- Germany’s Natural Gas Storage Level Dwindles To Just 28%… Increasingly Critical
- New Study Rebuts The Assumption That Anthropogenic CO2 Molecules Have ‘Special’ Properties
- Climate Scientist Who Predicted End Of “Heavy Frost And Snow” Now Refuses Media Inquiries
- Polar Bear Numbers Rising And Health Improving In Areas With The Most Rapid Sea Ice Decline
- One Reason Only For Germany’s Heating Gas Crisis: Its Hardcore-Dumbass Energy Policy
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