RT surges after X (aka Twitter) removes censorship – ‘disinformation’ lobbyist
RT | September 27, 2023
NewsGuard, a self-proclaimed disinformation watchdog, has lamented the rise in popularity of RT and 11 other news outlets after Elon Musk relaxed censorship on X (formerly Twitter).
Among 12 media accounts analyzed, RT experienced the highest engagement growth in the 90 days following Musk’s decision in April to remove ‘government-funded’ and ‘state-affiliated’ labels from certain outlets, NewsGuard said on Tuesday. The number of ‘likes’ and reposts for RT’s account increased to 2.5 million in the period studied, up from 1.3 million.
The analysis focused on Chinese, Iranian, and Russian media outlets, which NewsGuard branded “state-run disinformation sources” and purveyors of “propaganda.”
NewsGuard cited political memes posted by Iranian news accounts as purported examples of disinformation. Another instance was supposedly a link shared by Iran’s PressTV to an article on remarks made by US presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who argued that Americans “created” the Islamic State terrorist group. Kennedy made the claim during an election rally in Boston, where he accused Washington of decades of misguided foreign policy.
The self-described disinformation watchdog advocates imposing strict moderation on online platforms to protect users from supposed foreign influence. NewsGuard’s rating of news outlets generally labels mainstream Western media as trustworthy, while outlets linked with governments opposed by the US are branded deceitful.
Among NewsGuard’s advisers is Michael Hayden, a former head of the CIA and the NSA. He was notably one of the more than 50 former intelligence officials who claimed in 2020 that the factual New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Others include former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former US Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, and former US Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel. The latter stated publicly that his job in the Obama administration was jokingly described as “chief propagandist” by others.
The Pentagon and Microsoft have contracted NewsGuard services.
The report heavily implied that the lack of X labels for the likes of RT was to blame for the rise in engagements, as it is now “impossible for users to know whether an account is government-affiliated” simply by looking at posts.
NewsGuard claimed that the 12 accounts in question are attempting to conceal their associations, such as when RT rebranded from its previous name Russia Today. The report described the move as taking place “several years ago,” although the rebranding was implemented in 2009.
Musk, who formally stepped down as CEO of X (then Twitter) in June, ordered the ‘government-funded’ and ‘state-affiliated’ labels to be removed amid a row with America’s NPR, which exited the platform after being branded. Around the same time, X ended its ‘shadow-ban’ on RT and others, lifting a restriction imposed under the previous executive leadership.
The subsequent publication of the ‘Twitter Files’ has detailed extensive US government oversight and pressure on the social media company to amplify Pentagon talking points over dissenting voices.
NewsGuard conceded that Musk’s move to end restrictions on X, which it described as “pushing” undesirable accounts, may have benefited them.
In August, NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence blamed Musk for a “dramatic rise” in the visibility of Russian government and media accounts.
Cost of Living Crisis to Cause ‘Thousands of Extra Deaths’ in UK – Report
By Chimauchem Nwosu – Sputnik – 27.09.2023
Some UK military personnel and their families have been turning to food banks because of the increasing pressures from the cost of living crisis, a British news network has reported.
The raging cost of living crisis that has had the UK in its stifling grasp is going to cause thousands of extra deaths this year, according to new research, as life expectancy across the UK will plummet by 6.5 percent this year.
The research suggests that untimely mortalities in the United Kingdom are expected to rise from 463 to 493 per 100,000 inhabitants.
The findings have shone a light on critical concern for the populace at large. The unrelenting cost-of-living crisis, combined with a prolonged period of soaring prices, is anticipated to result in a significant 6.5 percent drop in life expectancy throughout the nation this year.
Furthermore, the report highlights a stark disparity: the most economically disadvantaged households are projected to face a four times higher death toll than their wealthier neighbours. This discrepancy arises from the fact that the less affluent must allocate a more significant portion of their income to pay for energy, the cost of which has rocketed.
Recent statistics from the previous month indicate that the UK’s inflation rate stood at 6.7 percent. Despite this reduction from its peak of 11.1 percent, Britain continues to have the worst inflation of all G7 member states.
“The mortality effects of inflation and real-terms income reduction are likely to be large and negative, with marked inequalities in how these are experienced. Implemented public policy responses are not sufficient to protect health and prevent widening inequalities,” researchers noted.
These findings come on the heels of a recent alert from the UK-based consumer association ‘Which’ last month, when it pointed out that rising food prices had left low-income households in the country in dire straits and having to make painful decisions about whether to pay the utility bills or put food on the table.
US meddling in EU state’s election – Russian intelligence
RT | September 28, 2023
The US is willing to go to any lengths, including blackmail and bribery, to ensure the incumbent government wins the upcoming election in Slovakia, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has claimed.
In a press release issued by the SVR on Thursday, director Sergey Naryshkin accused the White House of increasingly meddling in Slovakia’s internal affairs as the Central European country approaches the parliamentary election this weekend.
The opposition in Slovakia has made it abundantly clear that it would not unquestioningly follow the US lead if elected, and according to the SVR, stands a good chance of coming out on top in the vote.
To prevent this from happening, “the US State Department sent instructions to several of its European allies to conduct targeted work with local political and business circles,” the Russian intelligence agency claimed. It further alleged that Washington has sanctioned the use of methods such as blackmail, threats, and bribery.
The SVR also claimed that the US has already instructed the leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, Michal Simecka, who also serves as the European Parliament vice-president, to form a “cabinet completely loyal to Washington,” should his party triumph.
“Taking these realities into consideration, the upcoming election in Slovakia can hardly be viewed as a democratic expressing of the will of the people, and free from external influence,” the SVR concluded.
Citing an anonymous European Commission official, Politico reported in June that Brussels feared a potential victory for former Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Direction – Slovak Social Democracy party would spell “disaster” for the EU’s position on Russia sanctions and continued defense aid for Ukraine.
NATO member Slovakia has supplied Kiev with armored personnel carriers, howitzers, and its entire fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets. However, Fico has made it clear that he will terminate the aid if he returns to power. He has also called into question the need for economic measures against Moscow.
A recent poll commissioned by Slovakia’s TV JOJ 24 broadcaster indicated that Progressive Slovakia and Direction – Slovak Social Democracy are neck and neck, with 18% and 17.7% of support respectively.
House Panel Releases Emails Showing US Attorney Blocked FARA Probe Into Joe Biden
Sputnik – 28.09.2023
WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives Oversight Committee released redacted emails it claims show that Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf blocked federal agents from conducting a FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) investigation into then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in August 2020.
“Newly released emails and documents show that Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf did not allow agents to investigate Joe Biden as part of a FARA probe,” the Oversight Committee said via X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday.
In the email, dated August 7, 2020, it appears Lesley told federal investigators they made a mistake in their search warrant request by including Biden. Lesley purportedly claims Biden falls outside of the scope of their FARA investigation.
The House Oversight Committee will hold the first hearing of the impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden on Thursday to begin further examining alleged criminal activity involving Hunter Biden and his foreign business dealings.
The committee has been investigating alleged foreign bribery and influence peddling involving the Biden family and entities in countries including Ukraine and China. Biden denies ever having discussed foreign business affairs with his son.
Citing bank records, the committee on Tuesday revealed that Hunter Biden in 2019 received two payments wired from China totaling $260,000 with President Joe Biden’s Delaware home listed as the beneficiary address.
McCarthy, in light of the new findings, said the Republican impeachment inquiry against Biden will uncover the whole truth.
Swiss Immunologist’s Request: “Entire mRNA ‘Vaccine’ Platform Must Be Banned”
The long sinister shadow of the mRNA induced spike protein
By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | September 27, 2023
Dr. Thomas Binder wrote a letter to the editor of the Swiss Medical Journal in the response to an interview of Prof Christoph Berger and President of the Federal Commission for Vaccination Issues #EKIF, explaining why the entire mRNA ‘vaccine’ platform must be banned.
Dr. Thomas Binder. Image cropped here.
Firstly, Binder writes, “The effective dose of the expressed foreign protein is unknown and varies greatly between individuals, mRNA ‘vaccines’ should never have been approved.”
Secondly, “The cells that express the protein foreign to the body and then present it on their surface are falsely recognized by the immune system as being foreign or infected by an alien, thus are destroyed in an autoimmune attack similar to transplant rejection.”
He continues: “If it was only expressed by skeletal muscle cells capable of regeneration, this would not be problematic. But the LNPs [lipid nanoparticles] are chosen in such a way that they introduce the mRNA into any body cell, including those of the heart, brain, embryo and fetus. Worse: As physiological doses did not induce a relevant immune response, a horrendous dose of mRNA was chosen, which can lead to the destruction not only of a few, but of so many cells that this can cause serious illness and death. Worse: The chosen antigen and LNPs are themselves toxic.”
He notes: “Kevin McKernan found contamination with up to a third of functional bacterial plasmid DNA from the manufacturing process, which explains the spike expression over years detected by pathologists.” Finally, it has not been ruled out yet that the DNA can be integrated into the genome and even be inherited by offspring.”
Read entire letter here.
Fauci Secretly Met With CIA to ‘Influence’ COVID Origins Investigation, House Republican Alleges
By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | September 27, 2023
Dr. Anthony Fauci visited CIA headquarters to “influence” its COVID-19 origins investigation, according to allegations disclosed Tuesday by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio).
Wenstrup, in a letter to Inspector General Christi Grimm at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said he had information suggesting Fauci was “escorted” into CIA headquarters “without a record of entry.”
Wenstrup is chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. A subcommittee spokesperson told the Daily Mail the committee “has received information from multiple sources across multiple agencies regarding Dr. Fauci’s movements to and from the CIA.”
Neither Wenstrup nor any subcommittee member or spokesperson identified specific date(s) Fauci is alleged to have visited the agency.
Tuesday’s press release from the Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability, which is overseeing the subcommittee’s investigation, called attention to allegations by six CIA whistleblowers that they received “significant financial incentives” to change their stance that the SARS-CoV-2 virus may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China.
In light of evidence uncovered earlier this year establishing Fauci’s involvement in the “Proximal Origin” paper claiming to disprove the lab leak theory, the subcommittee said it found Fauci’s presence at the CIA “questionable,” alleging it “lends credence to heightened concerns about the promotion of a false COVID-19 origins narrative by multiple federal government agencies.”
Wenstrup asked Grimm to send the subcommittee by no later than Oct. 10 any documents and communications related to Fauci’s movements between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2022, into any facilities owned, operated or occupied by the CIA.
Wenstrup also requested the pay and bonus history of all past and current members of HHS’ “COVID Discovery Team(s)” and information about staff and contractors at HHS, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the U.S. Marshals Service who may have been involved.
“Our goal is to ensure the scientific investigative process regarding the origins of COVID-19 was fair, impartial, and free of alternative influence,” Wenstrup stated.
Wenstrup did not reveal the source of the information on Fauci’s CIA visit, but the letter mentioned HHS’ Special Agent Brett Rowland, requesting Grimm make him available for a “voluntary transcribed interview.”
CIA whistleblower and intelligence community reports on COVID origins
A joint letter from the subcommittee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio), sent Sept. 12 to CIA Director William Burns, outlined the testimony of a “multi-decade, senior-level, current agency officer” alleging six of the seven analysts investigating the COVID-19 origins were given a “significant monetary incentive to change their position.”
According to the unidentified whistleblower — a decorated and long-serving CIA officer with expertise in Asia, according to the Substack Public — the six analysts, all with significant scientific expertise, were paid off in order to bury their findings that COVID-19 most likely originated from the Wuhan lab.
The seventh and most senior member of the team was alone in believing the virus had a zoonotic origin, the letter stated.
The CIA whistleblower said, “Fauci’s expert opinions were a significant consideration and were part of our classified assessment … His opinion substantially altered the conclusions that were subsequently drawn,” Public reported today.
“He came multiple times and he was treated like a rockstar by the Weapons and Counter-Proliferation Mission Center. And, he pushed the Kristian Anderson [‘Proximal Origin’] paper,” the whistleblower added.
In a separate letter, the subcommittee also requested Andrew Makridis, former COO at the CIA who was known to have taken part in the investigations, participate in an interview.
Democrats from both committees told ABC News they “were given no prior notice of a whistleblower’s existence, let alone testimony. Without further information regarding this claim from the Majority, we have no ability to assess the allegations at this time.”
CIA Director of Public Affairs Tammy Kupperman Thorp told the New York Post, “At CIA we are committed to the highest standards of analytic rigor, integrity and objectivity. We do not pay analysts to reach specific conclusions. We take these allegations extremely seriously and are looking into them.”
In June, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) declassified a 10-page report on its investigation into the links between the Wuhan lab and COVID-19. In the report, the ODNI admitted the lab performed genetic engineering of coronaviruses, that people working at the lab got sick in December 2019 “consistent with but not diagnostic of COVID-19,” and that they found a lack of “adequate biosafety precautions.”
However, the ODNI report stated the CIA remained “unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic,“ but that “almost all IC [intelligence community] agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered” and that “all IC agencies” determined the virus “was not developed as a biological weapon.”
In February, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a “low confidence” assessment that the virus most likely originated from the leak at the Wuhan lab.
Several days later, FBI Director Christopher Ray, during an interview with Fox News, said the bureau believed the pandemic was likely the result of a lab accident in Wuhan.
‘Proximal Origin’ lab-leak-denying paper linked to Fauci
Fauci’s alleged visit to the CIA is the latest data point in a growing body of evidence gathered by the subcommittee investigating the pandemic showing the former NIAID director played a central role in directing and influencing the official COVID-19 origin narrative, chiefly by suppressing the lab leak theory.
Tuesday’s announcement included a link to the subcommittee’s July report, “The Proximal Origin of a Cover-Up: Did the ‘Bethesda Boys’ Downplay a Lab Leak?”
In the “Proximal Origin” paper, prompted by Fauci in early 2021 and written by Kristian Anderson, Ph.D., professor of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research, Anderson and his co-authors argued the virus was not laboratory-made or purposefully manipulated, and that the lab leak scenario was implausible.
The subcommittee report stated the “Proximal Origin” paper has been accessed 5.84 million times and was “one of the single most impactful and influential scientific papers in history” that was used to “downplay the lab leak hypothesis and call those who believe it may be true conspiracy theorists.”
The report further alleged Fauci was aware of the monetary relationship between NIAID, EcoHealth Alliance, and WIV, and that he funded gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the WIV.
After reviewing more than 8,000 pages of documents and 25 hours of testimony, the subcommittee concluded that “‘Proximal Origin’ employed fatally flawed science to achieve its goal … to kill the lab leak theory.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Children’s Health Defense’s chairman on leave, explores Fauci’s longtime involvement in gain-of-function research in his new book, “The Wuhan Cover-up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race,” due for release Nov. 14.
John-Michael Dumais is a news editor for The Defender. He has been a writer and community organizer on a variety of issues, including the death penalty, war, health freedom and all things related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Iran Boasts of Hybrid Drones’ Capability, Warns of Hair-Trigger Response to Any Aggression
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 25.09.2023
The Islamic Republic has developed dozens of increasingly sophisticated turboprop and rocket-powered unmanned aerial vehicles over the decades, designed for missions ranging from reconnaissance to long-range precision strikes against land and sea targets.
Iran has reportedly developed a new hybrid aerial and sea-based drone capable of landing on and taking off from water, with senior military officials calling on Persian Gulf nations to ensure security collectively, while warning Washington and its allies of the consequences any aggressive moves.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy has built drones that can take off from and land on the water,” IRGC Commander Ali Reza Tangsiri said in an interview with local media over the weekend, pledging that more details about the drone will be provided at a later date.
“The IRGC Navy has also built hybrid drones that fly with one engine, with the second engine serving as a propelling engine,” Tangsiri said. That UAV is said to have the capability to carry out reconnaissance missions lasting up to 15 hours.
The water-landing drones, reportedly designed to be able to carry missiles and bombs, would dramatically enhance the IRGC Navy’s already substantial naval and coastal defense capabilities in the defense of the nation’s vast coastlines in the Persian Gulf, along the crucial world energy transportation chokepoint in the Strait of Hormuz, and in the Gulf of Oman.
Tangsiri reiterated Tehran’s long-standing diplomatic stance that Persian Gulf security can be assured by regional countries, without any interference from non-Gulf countries, and proposed the creation of an eight-nation pact of Persian Gulf-adjacent countries to ensure regional security, including Iran, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The opportunities to forge such a regional security pact shot up dramatically this spring after Iran and Saudi Arabia signed a surprise normalization of relations deal mediated by China. Washington, Riyadh’s longtime traditional partner in the region, was forced to begrudgingly accept the warming of relations between the traditional Gulf foes, while expressing skepticism over the agreement’s ability to last, and leveling new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Separately, at a military ceremony outside Qom, central Iran on Monday, Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Baqeri warned Iran’s potential enemies that the nation’s military is on a hair-trigger alert to respond instantaneously to any aggression.
“The Iranian Armed Forces have set up a unified body to establish security in the country,” Baqeri said. “State of readiness is a familiar concept for our armed personnel. That is, every moment we have our hands on the trigger and our eyes on the radar screen, along with surveillance and intelligence equipment so that no conspiracy is organized against the country and the enemies do not wish to launch aggression and undermine our security,” the top commander added.
Also speaking at the event, Iranian Army Ground Forces Commander Kioumars Heidari warned that “if the enemies put a foot wrong and commit a foolish or mischievous act” against Iran, they “will receive a decisive response from the Army’s ground forces.”
“If the enemies attack Iran from the air, they will have no place to sit on the ground, and if they attack Iran from the ground, we will annihilate them within seconds by God’s grace,” Heidari added.
Iran unveiled a new ultra-long range drone last week at a military parade dedicated to the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, with the UAV, named the Mohajer-10, capable of flying up to 2,000 km with a weapons payload of up to 300 kg, able to stay airborne for up to 24 hours at a time.
Regional tensions flared between the Iran and the US have recent months amid Washington’s decision to dramatically ramp up its naval, air and troop presence in the Persian Gulf following Iran’s crackdown on oil smuggling and maritime navigation violators.
Last month, IRGC Navy Commander Tangsiri stressed that the large US warships traversing Persian Gulf waters have been forced to obey Iran’s maritime rules.
Armed with an impressive and technically advanced military-industrial complex, Iran’s military design philosophy seems aimed at providing the country with David vs. Goliath-type asymmetric warfare capabilities against larger and technically more powerful adversaries, with the country building up mosquito fleets of fast boats armed with machineguns and artillery, hundreds of coastal defense batteries, dozens of drone designs, and maritime power projection capabilities using old tanker ships converted into mobile support platforms to save on costs. Iran’s strategy has enabled it to become one of the top 20 militarily most powerful countries in the world, while spending just a fraction of what the US does on defense ($6.8 billion vs $877 billion in 2022).
Nearly half of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh flee in fear: Armenia
Press TV – September 27, 2023
Nearly half of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have fled the enclave in fear of reprisal from Azerbaijan, Armenia says, as part of an exodus caused by a military operation that brought the mountainous region back under Azerbaijan’s control.
Last week, Azerbaijan launched an operation designed to seize control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked region in the Caucasus that lies within Azerbaijan’s borders, to end a three-decade-old conflict between Baku and Yerevan over the region.
The long-troubled region has always been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan though it is mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, who have resisted Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over the territory.
The operation ended on September 20 and Azerbaijani military routed Armenian forces in 24 hours and made the separatists agree to lay down weapons, under a Russian-mediated ceasefire.
On Wednesday, Yerevan announced that 50,000 ethnic Armenians arrived in Armenia, out of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh, adding that they were “forcibly displaced”, fearing their rights and security will not be protected in Azerbaijan.
The massive exodus from the 4,400 sq km region started after Azerbaijan lifted its nine-month blockade on the enclave on Sunday.
Ethnic Armenians of the region said at least 200 people lost their lives in the fighting, including 10 civilians. Azerbaijan’s ministry of defense, for its part, released, earlier in day, a list with the names of over 150 Azerbaijani soldiers who it said were killed in the military operation.
In recent days, long queues of cars have formed on the road linking the region to Armenia.
On Monday, a fuel depot explosion claimed 68 lives of the refugees, with Armenian officials saying that they are still trying to identify the whereabouts of more than 100 people reported missing in the blast.
Azerbaijan has repeatedly said it will guarantee Armenians’ rights and integrate the region. The Azerbaijani foreign minister in his UN General Assembly address on Saturday said his country wants to integrate ethnic Armenians as “equal citizens” and denied any intention to harm them.
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also said ethnic Armenians in Karabakh should not leave their homes unless it is absolutely necessary.
Russian peacekeepers are helping Azerbaijan disarm the Karabakh separatists.
The European Union and the United States, which have been mediating between Baku and Yerevan in recent months, have struggled to have an impact.
Black felon suspected in murder of ‘anti-racist’ CEO

Jason Billingsley has been charged with the alleged murder of Baltimore entrepreneur Pava LaPere. © Twitter / Baltimore Police Department
RT | September 27, 2023
Police in Baltimore, Maryland, have launched a manhunt for a black suspect who allegedly murdered a local business executive who had railed against “criminalization of black bodies” and described herself as an “anti-racist.”
“This individual will kill, and he will rape,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said on Tuesday at a press briefing regarding the alleged beating to death of 26-year-old Pava LaPere. “He will do anything he can to cause harm.” Worley announced an arrest warrant for 32-year-old Jason Billingsley for first-degree murder and other charges stemming from the alleged attack on LaPere.
The body of LaPere, the CEO of EcoMap Technologies, was found on the roof of her luxury apartment building on Monday. Police said there were signs of blunt-force trauma to her head, which one officer described as “absolutely brutal.”
Billingsley, a registered sex offender who was released from prison last October after serving just nine years of a 30-year sentence, is a suspect in at least one other criminal case. He has a history of violent crimes dating back to at least 2009, and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said he should be considered “extremely dangerous.”
“There is no way in hell that he should have been out on the street,” the mayor told reporters. “When the police go out and do their job, as they did in this case . . . and the state’s attorney goes out and does their work, gets the conviction, the conviction should be the conviction. We are tired of talking about the same people committing the same kind of crimes over and over again.”
LaPere, who employed dozens of people at EcoMap Technologies, was honored this year by Forbes magazine on its “30 Under 30” list of top young executives in terms of social impact. She was a vocal supporter of Black Lives Matter and spoke out against alleged racism in the US criminal justice system.
“EcoMap Technologies stands against systemic racism, bigotry and a police state that criminalizes black bodies,” LaPere reportedly said on her Instagram account. “We stand in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, now and always. We commit to being anti-racist in all aspects of what we do – from the team members we hire to the customers we serve.”
LaPere touted the fact that more than 30% of her employees were black. “We commit to improving diverse representation in our company,” she said. “In addition to donations, we will commit our community service hours to organizations that promote and support black entrepreneurship.”
EcoMap Technologies posted a statement on Tuesday, calling the circumstances surrounding LaPere’s death “deeply distressing.” The company added, “Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader.”
READ MORE:
White supremacy blamed for beating of black man by black police
Disgraced Ukrainian Ex-Army Spox Slams Zelensky’s Theatrics, Complains About Drugged Up Mercs

© AFP 2023 / ROMAN PILIPEY
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 27.09.2023
Ukraine is fighting to protect “Western values” from Russian “slaves” descended from Mongols, but is facing difficulties due to poor morale, corruption, drug-addicted mercs, and a president who seems more focused on theatrics than the conflict itself, disgraced Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces spokesperson Sarah Ashton-Cirillo has revealed.
Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (formerly Michael John Cirillo), the 46-year-old US-born Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesperson who garnered international media attention and scorn earlier this month after calling for Russian journalists and officials to be “hunted down,” was suspended last week as the scandal reached Washington.
Speaking by video on two separate occasions (before and after her suspension) with legendary Russian pranksters Vladimir ‘Vovan’ Kuznetsov and Alexei ‘Lexus’ Stolyarov, who posed as former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Ashton-Cirillo revealed important details on the seedier underbelly of their work for Ukraine, including minutiae they didn’t really get into while acting as a military spokesperson.
Problems With Morale, Corruption and Mercs
“We’re having struggles on the information warfare front, and we have the morale issue,” Ashton-Cirillo revealed, saying they’d spoken to soldiers who are “very frustrated because they didn’t feel like they were being heard in certain areas.”
“And so we are dealing with the reality that until we win the information war, our Western partners won’t feel the pressure. But we must win the information war both here on the streets of Ukraine, and in the newsrooms in New York and London and elsewhere,” the spox said, pointing to their personal efforts to change language surrounding the conflict to smooth over unpleasant realities, like calling foreigners serving in the ranks of Ukraine’s armed forces “foreign fighters” instead of what they actually are – mercenaries.
Commenting on the recent high-profile murder of a British merc in Ukraine by one of his comrades, Ashton-Cirillo admitted that Kiev has a “terrible problem” with “most” of the foreign fighters in the country, “because they are just a step above mercenaries and they come here because all they know is warfare. While I defend them in public, in private I know many of them have very far-right leanings, there’s some Nazi groups.”
“I also know that many of them are doing this because they have no lives in their own countries. And so we have security risks and more importantly we have morale and psychological issues because foreign soldiers are here for the money – most of them. And those people are going to be the ones willing to engage in drugs, willing to engage in fundraising where they’re putting the money in their own pockets. It’s something we have to be very careful about,” they stressed.
Commenting on the state of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Ashton-Cirillo admitted that the situation is “terrible,” and appeared to confirm long-standing speculation about Ukrainian officials pilfering stocks of Western-supplied weapons deliveries.
Ashton-Cirillo also privately accused members of Ukraine’s political and military elite of “trying to profit off of the blood of our lost soldiers,” and “trying to profit off the blood of the men and women who are losing arms and legs.”
They also complained that the unrealistic promises being made to Kiev’s patrons, including about the now-stalled counteroffensive, means that “our partners can’t trust us in negotiations and our partners can’t trust our projection for what’s going to happen in the future. Because all they can judge us on are the results.”
The suspended spox stressed that while it’s okay to spread propagandistic “messaging” about Ukraine’s ‘successes’ on the battlefield in public, “it’s not good when we’re using this in discussions with our partners in Washington, our partners in Brussels, and especially our partners in the Eastern European nations.”
Ashton-Cirillo also took pot shots at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, emphasizing that his theatrics and “populism” are no longer of any value. “It’s been 19 months of this, it’s not about theater anymore. Theater was important in the first days and weeks. It’s not about populism sir. It’s not about populism on the world stage,” the ex-spox stressed, adding that they would be thrilled to join the ballot on Poroshenko’s European Solidarity in elections, if they end up being held.
Russians Should Be ‘Hunted Down’
Ashton-Cirillo doubled down in private to the pranksters on comments she made publicly calling for “Russian propagandists” to be “hunted down,” saying that Russian journalists “should not be able to hind behind” their status as news people, and that Kiev should use “all our weapons,” including attacks targeting Russian media figures and officials.
Recalling, for example, the tributes paid to the late Daria Dugina, who was killed in a car bombing last year, Ashton-Cirillo suggested that “that goes to show that who she was in [Russia’s] eyes. It wasn’t some woman who was accidentally killed. This was an evil creature who died a death they deserved for trying to genocide innocent people.”
Ashton-Cirillo also reiterated that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova should “of course” be targeted for elimination. “The worst part with her is she gets accepted in the same way that a State Department spokesperson would be accepted. To me there’s nobody should be off limits…over the course of being able to carry out our full liberation.”
‘Russians are Not European’
Expanding on comments they have made publicly referring to Russians as inhuman “orcs,” Ashton-Cirillo offered their interlocutor a brief ‘history’ of the Russian people, emphasizing that “the reality is Russians are not European,” but “have a different culture.”
“Russians are Asian, and ultimately they do come from the Mongols, they do come from a grouping… of people who are wanting to be slaves and want to be led just as it was from the days of Genghis Khan. I wish the rest of Europe and the rest of the Western world understood that Europe ends at Ukraine. We are protecting European values and Western values the same way those did hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years ago when the Mongols were coming in,” Ashton-Cirillo said.
“While I don’t know every Russian, I will say that what’s happening in the Kremlin and what’s happening to every Russian that supports Vladimir Putin’s decisions are not human. These people are not human. They are enemies of humanity,” they added.
Post-Suspension Blues
In the second conversation, conducted after her suspension, Ashton-Cirillo called their removal “political,” and said the decision “came from the highest levels.”
“I was told that it came from New York… on the trip that the government is on currently,” the disgraced spox said, referring to Zelensky’s trip to the US last week. “I think I was told that they had to make a big deal and to shut me up in order to possibly get help, so that’s why I understand it. I understand it’s political. I’m still in the army, I’m still speaking to several high-level officers doing my other work, just not as spokesperson.”

