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Israel massacres at least 70 Palestinians in airstrike on Gaza refugee camp

Press TV – December 25, 2023

An Israeli airstrike targeting a refugee camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip has killed at least 70 Palestinians as the regime’s genocidal war across the besieged territory continues unabated.

Gaza’s Health Ministry reported the massacre in a late Sunday statement, saying the fatalities came after the regime’s air raid hit a number of houses at the al-Maghazi refugee camp.

According to the ministry’s spokesman, the strike destroyed a “residential block” and the “toll is likely to rise” given the large number of families residing there and the fact that many people are still under the rubble.

“What is happening at the al-Maghazi camp is the annihilation of an entire residential square,” Ashraf al-Qudra said.

The ministry also noted that another Israeli strike on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has killed 10 members of the same family.

The ministry’s spokesman said the regime’s forces “are bombing the main roads between the [refugee] camps … to impede the arrival of ambulances and civil defense vehicles to the targeted locations.”

“Most of the martyrs who arrived from the Maghazi camp were children, women, and the elderly,” the spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was quoted by the Palestinian media as saying.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said the Israeli strike saw the regime’s military bombing “four inhabited homes” at al-Maghazi.

“We call on all countries of the world to put pressure on the criminal occupation in order to stop the genocidal war … against our Palestinian people and against children, women and civilians,” it added.

The Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas also reacted to the Israeli attack, describing it as a “horrific massacre.”

Hamas called the strike “a new war crime extending the genocide” that the Israeli regime “commits against children and unarmed civilians.”

The movement said Israel perpetrated “this treacherous and cowardly bombing…in an attempt to renovate the image of its defeated army.”

Hamas noted that Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is being “supported by [US] President [Joe] Biden’s administration, [which is] the primary partner of the Zionist entity in its crimes and fascist aggression” against the blockaded territory.

The Israeli war machine launched its military aggression on October 7 following an operation by Gaza’s resistance movements, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm. Over 20,400 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in the Israeli genocide so far.

As the regime’s most dedicated ally, the US has supplied it with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment since the onset of the aggression.

Washington has also cast its veto against all the United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for implementation of an immediate ceasefire across Gaza.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | 1 Comment

Netanyahu Outsmarted by ‘Wily’ Biden? No, Biden Is the One Being Played

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 25, 2023

Biden smirked and responded, “I know”, when told by a guest that Netanyahu is drawing the U.S. into a civilisational conflict – and further that Netanyahu blames him (Biden), complaining that the White House wants to block Israel from getting at the root of the problem, by harping on about Gaza and the ‘day after’.

In practice, what Netanyahu is doing is simply mounting a classic flanking manoeuvre – attempting to circumvent Biden by pointing to the ‘broader conflict’ with Iran: ‘Why are you pestering me about Gaza when there’s a monumental conflict raging’, suggests Bibi in exasperation?

“This is not only ‘our war’ but in many ways your war… This is a battle against the Iranian axis… now threatening to close the maritime strait of Bab Al-Mandeb… It is the interest … of the entire civilized community”, Netanyahu has said – not very subtly.

Biden’s reaction is a smug smile, hinting that he thinks he can outplay Netanyahu (‘the fox’). This is Biden’s approach: He aims to disarm Netanyahu’s allegation of an obstructionist U.S. through a parade of top-level visits that reiterates his unstinting support Israel – and to pre-empt Bibi, through insisting that he (Biden) will take care of the non-Gaza issues (Hizbullah, Yemen etc.).

So, the U.S. is assembling a maritime force to confront AnsarAllah in Yemen; the Biden Admin will act to sanction violent settlers in the West Bank; it is warning Baghdad to rein-in the Hashad al Sha’abi; and his envoys in Beirut are trying to forge a ‘diplomatic agreement’ that will include the withdrawal of Hizbullah’s Radwan Forces to the other side of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, and also deal with the unresolved border disputes between Israel and Lebanon.

Biden prides himself on being a hugely experienced foreign policy actor – and thinks himself too wily for Bibi’s tricks. But maybe, Netanyahu – for all his many faults – better understands the Region?

Biden clearly is being played. Even though he fails to recognize it.

Netanyahu knows that ‘no way’ will Hizbullah disarm, and withdraw to north of the Litani. He knows this, and thus can wait out Biden’s diplomatic failure, before saying that the approximately 70,000 Israeli citizens displaced from the northern towns in the wake of 7 October need to ”go home”, and that if the U.S. cannot remove Hizbullah from the border-fence, then Israel will do it.

Netanyahu is using Biden’s diplomatic Lebanese initiative to build European justification for an Israeli operation in a few weeks’ time to push Hizbullah away from the border with Israel. (An Israeli operation against Hizbullah has been in the works from the outset of the Gaza war).

Netanyahu knows too that control over settler violence in the West Bank lies not with him, but is in the hands of his partners: i.e., Ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Neither he, nor Biden can dictate to them – they have been quietly increasing the squeeze on West Bank Palestinians for months.

And finally, Netanyahu knows the Houthis: They will not be deterred by Biden’s maritime flotilla. They will, rather, relish drawing the West into a Red Sea quagmire.

Like it or not, Biden’s tactic of containing and pre-empting regional escalation through the U.S. itself becoming lead actor – in lieu of Israel – is clearly drawing the U.S. deeper into conflict. Does Biden believe that the Houthis will just quietly ‘roll-over’ because the Gerald Ford is anchored off Bab Al-Mandeb, or that Hizbullah will accept instruction from Amos Hochstein?

The second way that Biden is being outplayed is through him seeing the Israeli problem as ‘just Bibi’ – indulging in personal politics. Of course, it is true that the Israeli PM is moulding Israeli politics to his own survival needs; yet pause a moment to consider what President Herzog said on Tuesday during an interview facilitated by the Atlantic Council, a leading Washington-based think tank.

Herzog has long been viewed as distinctly ‘dovish’ and ‘Leftist’ by the Beltway foreign policy establishment – prior to the war – compared to Netanyahu.

In the interview, Herzog said: “We intend to take over the entire Gaza Strip and change the course of history”. He said that the current conflict is a clash of “a set of civilizational values” and he cast Hamas (in pure Manichaean terms) as a “force of evil”, adding that Israel would no longer tolerate Gaza being a “platform for Iran – driving everyone into the abyss of bloodshed and warfare”.

Not much daylight then between him and the PM then.

The convergence between Herzog and Bibi reflects, perhaps, a more substantive change taking place in Israel – a strategic shift that extends far beyond Biden’s personal obsession with Bibi:

Since 7 October, the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post report that 36% of Israelis have moved decidedly to the right on a number of political issues, including support for settlers in the West Bank, endorsements for far-right politicians, and even settlements again inside the Gaza Strip. And while public opinion of Netanyahu himself is faltering, his government is not expected to fall.

And even were that to occur, the more important point to grasp is that support for the policies upheld by Netanyahu’s radical Rightist government is growing, and rapidly.

Israel’s Right generally believes in Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza, with many right-wing Israelis opposed to the principle of a Palestinian state existing at all alongside Israel. This can be seen in many of the current government’s policies, which have worked toward expanding Israeli settlement of the West Bank and rendering Gaza unlivable for Palestinians.

On the opposite side of the spectrum sits Israel’s Left. The Jerusalem Post notes that the Left largely believe that Israel is ‘occupying’ the West Bank, and that an end to the conflict can only be achieved by ending the occupation and enabling a two-state solution. But no one is explicit on where that second state – a Palestinian state – would be situated. Legally it would be Gaza, the West Bank and part of Jerusalem. But who could enforce that? Who would expel settlers from the West Bank?

For many Israelis, the separation ‘apartheid’ Occupation state of the past 30 years was the workable ‘two-state solution’ – but its pillars (structural separation, military enforcement and deterrence) which had for many Israelis seemed to promise the ‘quiet’ that many hoped for – blew apart on 7 October.

“The trauma of what happened on Oct. 7 shifted Israeli society. It made them question the most basic tenets of whether they were safe in their homes”, said Israeli columnist, Tal Schneider:

“They are calling now for more — more military, more protection, more hard-line policies”.

“Many right-wing people,” Ariella Marsden writes in the Jerusalem Post, “and a minority of left-wingers, saw 7 Oct as proof that peace with the Palestinians is impossible”. Not surprisingly, thinking has turned to population removal which chimes with Netanyahu’s ‘new war of Independence’ theme.

In short, Biden may believe that his ‘long experience’ puts him on the ‘right side’ in judging events. His experience however, is drawn from another era. The political Israel he knew is over: It has reached the end of the road in respect to the old paradigm of its Palestinian modus vivendi. Demography no longer pushes towards ‘giving’ the Palestinians a state, but rather to a clearing of the land of all ‘hostile populations’.

Israelis are rummaging now for their new solution.

And just as Hamas’ resistance has pointed to new ways of conducting warfare, so Biden’s ‘long experience’ exemplified in the sending of 1960s era carriers and vessels to sit offshore, in an age of smart nimble, often untraceable drones and pinpoint missiles, points to something also passé.

The U.S. is directly engaged today in Yemen, Lebanon, the West Bank, Iraq and Syria. And as the war widens, so the U.S. will be held at least partly responsible – You deliberately let Gaza break, and what’s broken, you own. What further gets broke, you own that too.

A destitute 2 million Gazans will be all refugees with no government to provide basic functions and services. Does Netanyahu get it? Of course. Do the vast majority of Israelis care? Nope. But the rest of the world does, and sees a dark stain spreading across the map, and leeching into the West.

And does the U.S. Red Sea flotilla; does the diplomatic effort in Lebanon; do the frantic calls to China to ask for help to rein-in Iran, and the efforts in Baghdad – will this suffice to bring an end to the Axis’ plan?

No – the Resistance must see the U.S. floundering and that Israel – suffused with anger – is positively inviting the next ascent up the escalatory ladder of diffused incremental wider conflict.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Biden’s disregard for truce speaks volumes of US heartless approach to Gaza genocide: CAIR

Press TV – December 25, 2023

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has slammed US President Joe Biden’s administration for “actively supporting” Israel’s ongoing “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip and indifference to the genocide there.

In a statement on Sunday, CAIR national communications director of the US-based Muslim advocacy group said Biden’s actions will “stain” the US “international reputation.”

“The Biden administration’s callous indifference to – and active support for – the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing being carried out by [Israel] will stain our nation’s international reputation for generations to come,” Ibrahim Hooper said.

“The fact that President Biden admits that he did not even ask for a ceasefire in a recent conversation with [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu speaks volumes about the administration’s heartless and immoral approach to the genocide in Gaza,” he added.

On Saturday, Biden told reporters that his conversation with Netanyahu over the war on Gaza was a “long talk,” but he did not ask for a ceasefire in that call.

“Israel has now killed probably more than one in every 100 people in Gaza. That shocking figure alone should be all the evidence that is needed to finally acknowledge the truth of the ‘genocide’ label,” Hooper said.

The statement came as Israel’s deadly air raid on the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 70 people, including pregnant women and children on Monday.

An Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza interviewed eyewitnesses who said Israeli forces killed pregnant women “without mercy.”

“The women were reportedly raising white flags as they were attempting to reach the Al-Awda Hospital when they were shot by Israeli forces,” the reporter said.

On Saturday, CAIR called on Americans of all backgrounds to demand that the Biden administration act to “end the slaughter, starvation and ethnic cleansing.”

The call came after several reports revealed that Israeli forces massacred 76 members of an extended family in Gaza, Israeli-imposed famine is widespread, and that bodies are decaying in the streets and are being dug up by Israeli bulldozers.

The group said more than 110,000 Americans have used CAIR’s action alert to contact their members of Congress and call for an end to the violence and occupation.

Previously, CAIR called on the Biden administration to stop sending what it called “genocide bombs” to Israel after the New York Times revealed that US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs were “routinely” used against Palestinian civilians in so-called “safe areas” in Gaza.

CAIR also said the Biden administration must stop “justifying war crimes” Israel has perpetrated against hospitals after an investigation by the Washington Post debunked claims that Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital had to be attacked because it was a military command center.

Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of death and destruction against Palestinians.

The Israeli attacks have so far killed at least 20,400 Palestinians, including 6,200 women and 8,200 children, and wounded 53,688 others in the besieged territory, where the Zionists cut off fuel, electricity, food, and water to Gaza’s 2.3 million population.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Despite its shortcomings, UNSC vote will tie Israel’s hands

By MK Bhadrakumar | The Cradle | December 25, 2023

The adoption of a resolution by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday with focus on a pause in the fighting in Gaza to allow for the delivery of more humanitarian aid can be seen as a turning point in the tortuous journey toward imposing a sustainable ceasefire.

But a caveat must be added that the ultimate litmus test lies in the implementation of the UNSC resolution, as the past history of such resolutions on Palestine does not give cause for optimism.

In fact, Israel’s defiance was in full view already. As the Security Council passed the resolution, Israeli forces pushed ahead with their offensive into Gaza on Friday and ordered residents in Al Bureij — an area in central Gaza where Israel had not previously focused its offensive — to evacuate. The Israeli military’s chief spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Thursday: “Our forces continue to intensify ground operations in northern and southern Gaza.”

UN Secretary General António Guterres was spot on when he told reporters after the resolution was passed that “a humanitarian ceasefire is the only way to begin to meet the desperate needs of people in Gaza and end their ongoing nightmare.”

The resolution itself is the outcome of week-long intense negotiations between the United States and the Arab countries that sponsored it — the UAE and Egypt, in particular — to settle for the lowest denominator, which meant accepting a Washington-friendly text that enabled the Biden administration to evade responsibility for another veto, for the third time since 7 October.

Unsurprisingly, the US negotiators brazenly resorted to pressure tactics by drawing on their usual diplomatic tool box — blackmail, arm-twisting and ultimatums — to water down the text to the extent that important provisions relating to a ceasefire and a UN mechanism to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and ensure its monitoring were abandoned.

And, yet, the US abstained in the vote at the end of the day, registering its reservations — principally, that the resolution was silent on the attack by Hamas on 7 October.

The unkindest cut of all is that the resolution accommodated the US diktat to replace the language describing an immediate cessation of violence with an ambiguous phrase calling on the parties to “create conditions for a cessation of hostilities.” The wording meets the Israeli requirement to have a free hand to continue with its barbaric military operations.

This anomaly, coupled with the absence of any reference to the condemnation of indiscriminate attacks by the Israeli military against civilians almost delivers the wrong signal that the Security Council is effectively becoming an accomplice to the destruction of Gaza — a misnomer that agitated Russia so much that it proposed a last-minute amendment to replace the phraseology in the resolution: “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” with the unambiguous call “for urgent steps toward a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”

Russia’s demand for an immediate ceasefire was in line with a resolution overwhelmingly passed by the UN General Assembly recently, but the Americans would have nothing of that sort. The unfortunate part is that the Arab sponsors of the resolution caved in to US blackmail to veto the resolution. What transpired between the protagonists behind the scenes is not known.

The paradox is that, in reality, the Americans themselves were desperately keen to avoid casting a veto — the third in as many months — that would have made a mockery of President Joe Biden’s bombastic remark in his September speech at the UN last year that the permanent members of the Security Council should cast vetoes only under “rare, extraordinary situations to ensure the council remains credible and effective.”

All indications are that the US is acutely conscious of finding itself “diplomatically isolated and in a defensive crouch,” as the New York Times put it in an acerbic commentary on the Biden administration’s plight as “an increasingly lonely protector of Israel … (that) puts it at odds with even staunch allies such as France, Canada, Australia, and Japan.”

The commentary says that what rankles most is that first, when the US seems to have green-lit a massive Israeli military response to 7 October “without guardrails,” it:

“painfully confirmed to many in the (global) south this sense that there was a double standard” — and second, even more, “the Russian strategy works, because beyond the United Nations what everyone sees is Russia standing up for international law — and the US standing against it.”

The crux of the matter is that Israel’s Gaza operation is running into a Cornelian dilemma (dilemme cornélien) where sooner rather than later, it is obliged to choose one option from a range of options, all of which reveals a detrimental effect on itself.

Hamas’ top leaders have evaded capture so far, and Gaza’s armed resistance groups have continued to fire rockets into Israel, including two barrages that reached Tel Aviv and its environs last week.

According to another New York Times report,“ political commentators and some military experts have been lowering expectations for a quick and decisive Israeli victory.

“Nobody should imagine that there will be a situation where we put a flag on top of a hill and say: OK, we won, and now Gaza will be peaceful and safe. It will not happen,” said Gabi Siboni, a colonel in the reserves and a fellow at the conservative-leaning Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. “The reality is that we are going to be fighting in Gaza for years to come.”

But is that sustainable — even if Israel controls the US Congress? Conceivably, Israel’s main goal in Gaza was to ethnically cleanse the Strip and drive the Palestinian population to Egypt and Jordan by killing and starving them and making Gaza unlivable.

The real significance of the UNSC resolution, therefore, lies in that such an Israeli game plan will not fly. By not vetoing the resolution, the US may also have signaled that it will not allow the ethnic cleansing. There seems to be an understanding on this score between the US and the Arab protagonists at the political level — Egypt, in particular.

On the other hand, can Israel really destroy Hamas while the Palestinian population remains in Gaza? No, it will not be possible. Now, there is reason to believe that Hamas is inflicting significant damage to the Israeli military. The retreat of the Golani Brigade from the Gaza operation also points in that direction.

The bottom line is that the Israeli operation in Gaza will have to take a different form during the next several weeks — one that is anchored on surgical strikes rather than continuing with the extended ground operation and open-ended Israeli occupation. With warts and all, the Security Council resolution that was passed on Friday paves the way for such a transition.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

IRGC’s veteran military advisor in Syria martyred in Israeli strike

Press TV – December 25, 2023

A veteran member of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), who was serving as a military advisor in Syria, has been martyred in an Israeli airstrike in the Sayyeda Zeinab neighborhood of Damascus.

The senior IRGC commander, Seyyed Razi Mousavi, was martyred by the Israeli regime on Monday while on an advisory mission, Press TV’s correspondent in Damascus reported.

Mousavi was one of the companions of Iran’s top anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the US in Iraq four years ago.

General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the IRGC, and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were martyred along with their companions in a US drone strike on January 3, 2020.

The Israeli regime has for years targeted what it calls Iran-linked positions in Syria.

In a statement, the IRGC said Mousavi was martyred in a criminal missile attack by the “fake and child-killing Zionist regime” adding that the usurping and savage Israeli regime would undoubtedly pay the price for this crime.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , | 1 Comment

Russian Troops Fully Liberate Strategic DPR Settlement of Maryinka

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 25.12.2023

The heavily-fortified settlement, situated on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk, was used by Ukrainian forces to indiscriminately shell the Donetsk People’s Republic’s capital for nearly ten years before finally being liberated by Russian forces.

The Russian Army has completed the liberation of Maryinka, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has announced.

“In the course of offensive operations, assault detachments from the Southern Group of Forces completely liberated the settlement of Maryinka southwest of Donetsk,” Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a briefing on Monday.

“I would like to congratulate you. This is a success. Pass on the words of gratitude to all the staff and fighters who took part at different times and at different stages [in the settlement’s liberation, ed.],” Putin replied.

The president expressed confidence that control of the settlement will allow Russian forces to push Ukrainian positions further back from Donetsk.

Shoigu concurred, saying Maryinka’s liberation will also make it possible to more effectively protect the city of Donetsk from Ukrainian fire.

The defense minister said that troops from the 150th Motorized Rifle Division distinguished themselves in the settlement’s capture. During WWII, it was the 150th Division which famously captured the Reichstag building in Berlin.

“The liberation of this settlement naturally reduces the defense capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and gives us additional opportunities for further actions,” he said.

Maryinka had been turned into a fortress over the past nine years, connected by a network of underground passages, with fortifications on almost every one of its streets, Shoigu said.

Putin asked the defense minister to distribute medals to soldiers who distinguished themselves in the strategic settlement’s liberation, and instructed him to promote the commander overseeing its capture to the rank of major.

“By breaking into this fortification, which the enemy has factually been building up since 2014…our troops have the opportunity to enter a wider operational area. But, of course, this is a matter for local commanders and specialists from the General Staff and the Defense Ministry. This is a separate issue, but in any case, this opportunity arises in this area,” Putin said.

Maryinka was first captured by Donbass militias seeking to break off from Kiev’s control in April 2014, after the Ukrainian government installed in the February 2014 coup launched an ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ against them meant to crush the rebellion by force. Ukrainian forces, including paramilitaries from the infamous neo-Nazi Azov Regiment, recaptured Maryinka in August 2014. From that time on, the strategic town, situated directly on the western outskirts of Donetsk City, was turned into a seemingly impenetrable fortress, and used by Ukrainian forces to launch regular, indiscriminate attacks against the militia-controlled city. Battles for the settlement by Donetsk People’s Republic militias, now backed by the regular Russian military, began immediately after the start of Russia’s special military operation in February 2022. Images of the settlement today show that it has been turned into a pile of ruins, with most civilians living in the town leaving after 2014, and the rest evacuated after 2022.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Russian Forces Wipe Out First French-Donated Crotale NG Missile System in Ukraine

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 25.12.2023

In the course of the ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces have been successfully delivering high-precision strikes targeting foreign equipment and ammunition provided to the Kiev regime by Washington and its NATO allies, obliterating the much-touted sophisticated weaponry.

Russia’s Armed Forces operating in the special military operation zone have destroyed several Norwegian-made NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) and one French Crotale NG short-range air defense system that the Kiev regime received from its Western patrons, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday. The NATO-donated weapons systems were stationed at the Starokonstantinov Airfield in the Khmelnitsky region.

This is believed to be the first recorded instance of a Crotale NG being obliterated in combat, and serves as further proof that NATO’s state-of-the-art equipment is fair game for Russia’s military.

The Russian military carried out a coordinated assault that involved tactical aircraft, missile troops, artillery units, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Besides neutralizing the air defense systems, the attack inflicted damage on the Kiev regime’s aircraft equipment, flight navigation sysems, and aviation ammunition stored at the airfields in Kanatovo, Kirovograd region, and Dnepr, Dnepropetrovsk region. Furthermore, military personnel and equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was destroyed in 127 districts.

The strategic impact of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s air defense capabilities is expected to be significant, Army Recognition, an online Western military outlet, acknowledged, commenting the MoD announcement. It clarified that the destruction of enemy air defense capabilities enables Russia’s military to gain even greater control over the airspace. While reducing the risk to their own aircraft, it boosts their ability to carry out air operations such as strategic bombing, providing close air support to ground forces, and conducting reconnaissance missions.

As part of NATO’s ongoing proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, France has supplied Ukraine with two Crotale NG air defense batteries, the military outlet underscored.

The French Crotale NG (New Generation) missile system is a modernized version of the Crotale air defense system designed for short-to-medium range air defense. Equipped with the VT1 missile with an engagement range of around 11 kilometers (6.8 miles), it is touted as providing effective defense against aircraft, helicopters, various precision-guided weapons, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The system can engage targets at altitudes up to 6,000 meters.

As far as NASAMS are concerned, a number of countries have delivered these systems to Ukraine. Thus, Belgium has purportedly contributed an undisclosed number of AIM-120 NASAMS missiles, Lithuania has delivered two launchers, while Canada has supplied Kiev with one NASAMS air defense battery along with AIM-120 missiles.

The NASAMS utilizes the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), capable of engaging targets at distances of up to 25 kilometers. This renders the NASAMS effective for medium-range air defense scenarios.

The United States reportedly sent eight NASAMS batteries as part of its billions’ worth of military assistance to Ukraine, while the UK has donated NASAMS missiles.

Despite the vast amounts of military aid being provided by the West, Ukraine’s much-hyped 2023 counteroffensive that began in June of this year failed to produce any tangible battlefield results. As the country’s military losses have mounted, public support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also waned in recent months.

Political developments have suggested that support for Ukraine is dwindling in the United States as well, where President Joe Biden’s massive funding package for Kiev has stalled in Congress. Republicans have insisted on incorporating funding for border security. In Europe, “Ukraine fatigue” is also gaining momentum, as EU states face depleted stocks from funneling military aid to Kiev, and repercussions from self-harming anti-Russia sanctions.

Since Western countries ramped up military support for the Kiev regime, Moscow officials have consistently warned that such moves do not bode well for Ukraine, and only prolong the conflict. NATO weaponry, no matter how sophisticated, will eventually be destroyed, the Kremlin underscored, and vehicles carrying supplied weapons are a legitimate target for the Russian army.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

Europe betrayed by US and Ukraine – Minsk talks negotiator

By Lucas Leiroz | December 25, 2023

The current conflict in Ukraine is a direct result of the failure of the Minsk Agreements. Between 2014 and 2015, Russia and the European Union mediated negotiations between the breakaway republics of Donbass and the Kiev government, reaching a mutually beneficial protocol that was expected to guarantee regional peace. However, the terms of the pact were never respected by the Ukrainian regime, which continued to constantly attack the republics and advance its project of “de-Russification” and ethnic cleansing.

According to former German prime minister,  Angela Merkel, the Agreements did not fail, but fulfilled their real objective: to prepare Ukraine for a war against Russia in the near future. Commenting on the beginning of Moscow’s special military operation and the escalation of the conflict in Donbass, the German former official stated that this confrontation was expected from the very beginning, with the ceasefire established in Minsk only working as a way to temporarily alleviate tensions, enabling Kiev to gain time.

However, this does not appear to be the opinion of some other insiders who were also deeply involved in negotiations in the Belarusian capital. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Donbass region as a war correspondent. There I interviewed several local leaders, politicians and state officials, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of Lugansk, Vladislav Deinego, who was one of the negotiators in the Minsk process.

In our conversation, I asked the Minister his opinion on the failure of the Minsk Agreements and heard from him a long explanation about how the situation got out of control and escalated to the current status of war. According to Deinego, Merkel is lying when she claims that the plan has always been to simply prepare Ukraine. For him, Europe had a genuine interest in achieving regional peace and stabilizing its relations with Russia, avoiding a military escalation that would put the entire continental security architecture at risk.

Deinego claims that Kiev wanted total war from the beginning. The Minister explains that, before the Minsk Accords were established, the separatists tried to resolve the situation diplomatically in several ways. After non-military means failed, the republics proposed to Kiev that the fighting be somewhat limited to avoid civilian casualties.

First, a ban on the use of artillery and aviation was proposed, which Kiev quickly denied. Next, Donbass’ leaders attempted to establish security zones, limiting the use of heavy weapons according to their distance to civilian areas. In this model, artillery would be allowed only in regions far from inhabited cities, while in the “zero line” combat would be limited to the regular use of infantry, preventing civilians from being hit by heavy weapons. Even so, Ukraine denied signing such a deal.

This insistence by the neo-Nazi regime on waging all-out war against the separatists, according to the minister, generated real concerns among Europeans. The deeper the Ukrainian incursions were, the closer the attacks would come to Russian borders, worsening the security crisis. In practice, the situation could at any time escalate into a situation of absolute violence in which Moscow would be forced to intervene, generating a major conflict in Europe. This worried EU members, especially Germany, which was very dependent on the partnership with Russia.

Being a major importer of Russian gas and depending on friendship with Moscow to guarantee its economic and social stability, Berlin engaged deeply in the diplomatic process to try to end, or at least freeze, the conflict. For this reason, Germany was the main negotiator on Kiev’s side in Minsk, while Russia negotiated in support for the Donbass’ republics. In this sense, after many negotiations, the pact was finally signed, establishing measures such as ceasefire, release of prisoners and respect for the political autonomy of Russian-speaking regions.

Deinego believes that actual compliance with the Agreements would be the best scenario for Europeans as it would guarantee stability in Russia-EU relations, despite Ukrainian hostility towards Moscow. However, as well known, Kiev never obeyed the Minsk’s terms and continued violence in the region – even though the intensity of the fighting obviously decreased. Deinego thinks that this was never in the European interest and that, in fact, the direction taken by the conflict showed the failure of European diplomacy.

Indeed, at the time Russia-EU relations were prosperous, despite ideological and geopolitical rivalry. There was no reason for Europeans to agree to participate in a war plan in which they would be severely harmed. This leads us to believe that other actors worked to escalate the crisis, without considering European interests. Certainly, the US, which always wanted war with Russia, was responsible for this.

The circumstances show that Washington probably took advantage of the “stability” generated by the Minsk Agreements to prepare Kiev to act as a proxy against Russia. The Europeans never participated in this plan and were betrayed by NATO just like the Russians. Currently, Europe continues to be a victim of NATO’s war plans, being forced by the US to impose suicidal sanctions against Russia, affecting its own economy.

The opinion of an insider of the Minsk process is vital to show the real reasons for the conflict. In practice, Deinego presents proof of how relations between the US and EU are semi-colonial, with Europeans being used by Washington in war plans, without having their interests respected.

Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Militarism | , , , | 2 Comments

THE ART OF MANUFACTURING FEAR

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | December 21, 2023

The fear and panic produced by The War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938 paved the way for media and government predictive programming of an imminent cyberattack. The HighWire takes a deep dive through this historical timeline.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment