Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Searching for War Criminals

They are nearer than you think

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • APRIL 12, 2022

The United States is now insisting that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be put on trial for “war crimes” committed in Ukraine. As Putin is still insisting that he will attend the upcoming G20 summit in November on the island of Bali, Indonesia, it will be a great opportunity to have US Marshalls snatch him from the stage and whisk him off to a federal courthouse in Virginia for justice to be served. Or a form of justice anyway, since the United States has no actual jurisdiction over where Putin’s alleged crimes might have taken place and it will be impossible to prove that he actually ordered anyone to carry out so-called “crimes against humanity.” We’ll see how it all works out.

Indeed, there is no other phrase that has been more misunderstood and generally abused of late than “war crimes” or “war criminals.” It belongs with several other labels, including “weapons of mass destruction” and “crimes against humanity” that are used to indicate an adversary has crossed a red line and is so deplorable that anything that is done to him either during actual fighting or in the aftermath is completely acceptable. Going back to Greek and Roman times it has always been understood that even in wartime there are certain activities that are unacceptable, but the attempted definition and codification of “war crimes” as a concept is largely a twentieth century creation used to inflict additional punishment on the losers after the fighting is over. The Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War punished Germany far beyond what most would consider reasonable, largely because the victorious powers were able to do so without any consequences until the next war began. Likewise, the linked concepts of war crimes and crimes against humanity came largely out of the post-Second World War Nuremberg Trials, which shaped the legal arguments around alleged German behavior, not that of the allies.

The Second World War certainly included atrocities of various kinds on both sides, but the Anglo-American deliberate bombing of German cities has to stand out as particularly disproportionate. Forty-two thousand mostly civilians died in Hamburg in the 1943 firebombing and the bombing of Dresden in 1945, at a point when Germany was on the verge of defeat, was remarkable in that the city was not a military target and was full of refugees from the east. At least 200,000 civilians died. Judge Andrew Napolitano has suggested that the greatest war crime in history, if one makes a case based on unnecessary human suffering, was President Harry Truman’s nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which almost certainly killed more than 200,000 mostly civilians, when Japan was preparing to surrender. As Truman was on the side that won the war and controlled the prosecution process, there were no legal consequences or punishment relating to his decision, though critics since 1945 have sometimes decried the first use of nuclear weapons.

If killing civilians unnecessarily is the standard definition of a war crime, then America’s most recent five presidents have been war criminals. In other words, historically speaking, accusations of war crimes, which have no real meaning in law and are both infinitely elastic and subject to interpretation, have often depended on which side of the fence one is standing on when the war ends. And it gets more complicated than that, given the politics of what is sometimes referred to as the rules based international order, which in theory arose from the ashes of World War Two. The new world order was US-centric from the start, with the United Nations (UN) situated in New York City, the World Bank in Washington, and the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. At the UN, American primacy was reinforced through the creation of a Security Council, which alone has the power to authorize military action against a rogue state. The Security Council had five permanent members, each of whom was armed with a veto, meaning that no effective action against them could ever take place no matter what they had done. And so it has played out, with the US plus China, Russia, Britain and France being effectively immune from censure authorizing military action by the United Nations.

It is of particular interest to observe that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague was set up to deal with “war crimes and crimes against humanity” that were otherwise ignored. Neither the US, nor the Russians nor the Israelis recognize the authority of the court and the US has stated that no ICC investigator will be allowed entry into the United States. Given that, it becomes possible to witness how the whole farce of war crimes and other violations of the new world order have played out in practice.

Currently the US and its allies are waging economic warfare on Russia without an actual declaration of war, to include an avalanche of sanctions plus completely illegal confiscations of the property of Russian citizens. It is also blocking Moscow from the use of the international monetary conventions and systems that it has had access to. The clearly stated intention is to destroy the Russian economy due to Russia having been charged by the US government with the commission of what it is calling war crimes in its invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin argues in turn that Ukraine’s apparent intention to join NATO, which is a hostile military alliance directed against Russia, is a direct threat to his country and is already manifesting itself in military action undertaken against breakaway parts of Ukraine which are largely inhabited by Russian speakers and ethnics.

There are other issues, but those are the most important. It should also be noted that the issues themselves were at least somewhat negotiable prior to the outbreak of fighting, which Putin sought to do but Joe Biden and NATO were not interested. So ultimately the war, from a third-party point of view, is pitting a Russian vital interest against what really amounts to no genuine interest at all for NATO and the US, apart from goading the Russian bear and removing its government as a way to prevent against any change in the international order.

Since objective reality has no place in United States foreign policy, it is interesting to look at how the US sees itself and how it regards other countries that are doing what Russia is doing or worse. When it comes to its own self-perception, America’s so-called leaders believe that their global leadership role is one by right and they can do no wrong by virtue of a quality referred to as “American exceptionalism.” That is of course a mythical attribute created to permit the United States to get away with mass murder and regime change without any consequences.

A principal beneficiary of American financial and political largesse is, of course, Israel, which consists not only of people “chosen” by Yahweh but also by the media, the United States Senate, House of Representatives and the White House. A comparison of what Russia is doing that is being condemned by Washington versus what both what the US and Israel have been able to get away with might be considered to be in order.

Russia has invaded Ukraine after months of warnings that the status quo was untenable in national security terms, largely due to intentionally fruitless negotiations with stonewalling United States representatives and NATO. Israel, widely acknowledged to be an apartheid state, is currently bombing Syria on an almost daily basis, unnoticed by the US media and the Biden Administration. It in the past has attacked all its neighbors, including the renowned Seven Days War in June 1967 which was a surprise attack staged against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Subsequent to that war, Israel occupied nearly all of what had been Palestine. It also seized the Golan Heights belonging to Syria and has recently received consent from Washington to illegally annex Arab East Jerusalem as a part of Israel, making the whole of the city Israel’s capital. The Golan Heights have also recently been annexed with Washington’s approval and there are 700,000 heavily armed and violent Jewish settlers now sitting in 261 settlements on stolen Palestinian land on the West Bank.

And what has the United States and its allies done to dissuade Israel? Well, nothing. One rule for Israel and the US and another quite different Washington dictated “rules based” system for everyone else, most particularly if one is Russian. In fact, the more belligerently Israel behaves, the more it gets in terms of US taxpayer money and made-in-USA weapons. Israel has also been the favored destination for traveling congress-critters of late because it is an election year and Jewish donors are being hotly pursued. Recently, a large group of Democrats was departing just before former Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Tel Aviv on Miriam Adelson’s private jet so he could kiss Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s ring and also spend some quality time with Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ironically, while Joe Biden was turning the screws on Russia, the Congress was showering gifts on Israel above and beyond the billions of dollars in “aid” that the wealthy Jewish state already receives. Alison Weir of IfAmericansKnew has examined the recently signed pork laden 2022 federal government spending bill and has identified numerous line-item instances of money going directly to Israel or in support of causes that benefit Israel in some fashion. She estimates that Israel’s economy, which is able to support both free medical care and higher education, now benefits to the tune of $22 million per day from the United States taxpayer, for a total of $8 billion per year, and the number might actually be much higher. And there are other sources of income indirectly funded by the US Treasury, most notably the ability of Israel-focused charities to contribute tax exempt money to Israeli foundations and groups. Many of the “charities” are essentially fraudulent, funding the illegal settlements, domestic terrorism and other anti-Palestinian activities. Every artifice is used by some Jewish groups and billionaire donors to keep the US dollars flowing to Israel while no one of any significance in the federal government complains about the double standard when one compares Israel to Russia. And the Zionist controlled media are completely silent.

The hypocrisy that pervades United States foreign policy is difficult to ignore, but Washington has successfully manipulated its financial instruments to keep its remaining friends and allies in line. Whether that will survive the inevitable pushback coming from Russia, China and a number of non-aligned nations remains to be seen. At a minimum, the Cold War alignment that was broken in 1991 and which seems to again be taking shape around the Ukraine issue appears to have exceeded its expiry date. Ukraine might indeed wind up doing severe damage to the Russian economy, but it seems plausible that it will also bring with it the long overdue demise of American hegemonistic fantasies and NATO.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

April 12, 2022 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Canada Will Soon Be Offering Doctor-Assisted Death For People Who Are Mentally Ill

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | April 10, 2022

Canada is working to determine who, if anyone, should be offered doctor-assisted death as a result of mental illness. In other words, it’s doctor assisted suicide.

Doctor assisted death is mostly prominent in people who have terminal illnesses like cancer, The National Post reported last week. Moving into doctor assisted death for mental illness raises a whole new host of questions.

Dutch psychiatrist Dr. Sisco van Veen notes that with cancer, something inside the body can be seen, but “in psychiatry, really all you have is the patient’s story, and what you see with your eyes and what you hear and what the family tells you.”

Mental disorders lack “prognostic predictability”, which can make determining suffering near impossible.

As Canada moves closer to legalizing doctor-assisted deaths for people with mental illness whose psychological pain has become unbearable to them, “difficult conversations” are ahead, Veen told the National Post.

In March 2023, Canada will become one of just a few nations that allow medical aid in dying, or MAID, for mental illness like depression, bipolar disorder, personality disorders, schizophrenia, PTSD.

Dr. Grainne Neilson, past president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association and a Halifax forensic psychiatrist said: “I think there’s going to be lots of uncertainty about how to apply this in March 2023. My hope is that psychiatrists will move cautiously and carefully to make sure MAID is not being used as something instead of equitable access to good care.”

The argument developing over MAID for mental illness is robust. Many in the mental health field think that mental illness is never irremediable and there’s always hope for a cure. Others say “there still exists a profound lack of understanding about, and fear of, mental illness, and that the resistance reflects a long history of paternalism and unwillingness to accept that the suffering that can come from mental illness can be as equally tormenting as the suffering from physical pain.”

The Canadian Parliament has moved past whether MAID should be offered to those who are eligible, and is now studying how it should be assessed.

The National Post described how the idea has made its way through Parliament:

That decision formed the impetus for Canada’s MAID law, Bill C-14, which allowed for assisted dying in cases where natural death was “reasonably foreseeable.”

In 2019, a Quebec Superior Court justice ruled the reasonably foreseeable death restriction unconstitutional, and that people who were intolerably suffering but not imminently dying still had a constitutional right to be eligible for euthanasia.

In March 2021, Bill C-7 was passed that made changes to the eligibility criteria. Gone is the “reasonably foreseeable” criterion and, as of March 17, 2023, when a two-year sunset clause expires, MAID will be expanded to competent adults whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness.

April 12, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Pentagon warns India of China threat

Samizdat | April 12, 2022

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosted his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, on Monday, calling for closer military ties between the countries and warning of security threats posed by China and Russia.

“We’re meeting at a critical moment in the US-India defense partnership,” Austin told Singh as Monday’s talks began. He added that Washington and New Delhi both believe in a “free and open Indo-Pacific” underpinned by respect for national sovereignty and the rule of law, but “we’re facing urgent and mounting challenges to this shared vision.”

Beijing is undermining security in the region by building “dual-use infrastructure” along its border with India and making unlawful territorial claims in the South China Sea, Austin said. “The United States stands with India in defending their sovereign interests,” he pledged.

Austin argued that like China, Russia is trying to “change the status quo by force,” adding, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the humanitarian devastation that it has created are blatant attempts to undermine the international order that is grounded in the rules and the principles that we share.”

The US defense chief said that as the world’s largest democracy, India is “central to this rules-based order,” and he called for collaboration with “like-minded partners.” Those ties may include co-development of weapons.

Austin and Singh followed their talks by holding a so-called 2+2 meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. “This is a momentous moment in global affairs, and I think as a result, this partnership is even more consequential and more vital,” Blinken said.

However, the partnership has been strained in recent weeks amid efforts by the US and its Western allies to punish and isolate Russia over the Ukraine conflict. Late last month, a top US national security official warned India that there will be “consequences” for countries that try to “circumvent” Washington’s sanctions campaign against Moscow.

“We are keen for all countries, especially our allies and partners, not to create mechanisms that prop up the ruble and that attempt to undermine the dollar-based financial system,” deputy national security advisor Daleep Singh told reporters during his visit to New Delhi on March 31.

President Joe Biden’s top economic advisor, Brian Deese, reiterated those concerns last week, saying Washington had warned India that it would face significant and long-term costs if it aligned strategically with Russia. “There are certainly areas where we have been disappointed by both China and India’s decisions, in the context of the invasion,” he said.

India has declined to impose sanctions against Russia and has ramped up purchases of Russian oil. Indian and Russian officials also have discussed a ruble-rupee payment mechanism for trade between the countries, bypassing the dollar and the euro.

Another source of tension between Washington and New Delhi is India’s historic reliance on Russian-made weapons. India has ordered five S-400 anti-aircraft systems from Russia – in defiance of a warning from the US against the $5.5 billion deal – and it reportedly has an option to purchase more of the surface-to-air missiles.

Austin told US lawmakers last week that it’s not in India’s best interests to continue buying Russian weaponry, and the Pentagon is working with New Delhi to reduce its reliance on Moscow.

April 12, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO Sanctions and the Coming Global Diesel Fuel Disaster

By F. William Engdahl – New Eastern Outlook – 11.04.2022 

Amid the ongoing global inflation crisis, NATO heads of state and mainstream media repeat a mantra that high energy prices are a direct result of Putin’s actions in Ukraine since end of February.  The reality is that it is the western sanctions that are responsible. Those sanctions including cutting SWIFT interbank access for key Russian banks and some of the most severe sanctions ever imposed, are hardly having an impact on the military actions in Ukraine. What many overlook is the fact that they are increasingly impacting the economies of the West, especially the EU and USA. A closer look at the state of the global supply of diesel fuel is alarming. But Western sanctions planners at the US Treasury and the EU know fully well what they are doing. And it bodes ill for the world economy.

While most of us rarely think about diesel fuel as anything other than a pollutant, in fact it is essential to the entire world economy in a way few energy sources are. The director general of Fuels Europe, part of the European Petroleum Refiners Association, stated recently, “… there is a clear link between diesel and GDP, because almost everything that goes into and out of a factory goes using diesel.”

At the end of the first week of Russia’s military action in Ukraine, with no sanctions yet specific to Russia’s diesel fuel exports, the European diesel price was already at a thirty-year high. It had nothing to do with war. It had to do with the draconian global covid lockdowns since March 2020 and the simultaneous dis-investment by Wall Street and global financial firms in oil and gas companies, so-called Green Agenda or ESG. Almost on day one of Russian troop actions in Ukraine, two of the world’s  largest oil companies, BP and Shell, both British, stopped deliveries of diesel fuel to Germany claiming fear of supply shortages. Russia supplied some 60 to 70% of all EU diesel before the Ukraine war.

In 2020 Russia was the world’s second largest exporter of diesel fuel behind USA, shipping more than 1 million barrels daily. Most of it, some 70%, went to the EU and Turkey. France was the largest importer, followed by Germany and UK. In France some 76% of all road vehicles—cars, trucks—use diesel. The EU diesel demand is far higher than in the US as most cars also use the more economical and efficient diesel fuel. In the first week of April the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proudly announced new sanctions against Russian energy that would begin with a ban on coal. The EU is the largest importer of Russian coal. Oil and gas she said would follow at a later date. That foolish move will merely boost costs of energy, already at record highs, for most of the EU, as it will force oil and gas prices far higher.

At the beginning of the Ukraine crisis global stocks of diesel fuel were already the lowest since 2008 as the covid lockdowns had done major damage to the demand-supply situation of oil and gas production. Now the stage is set for an unprecedented crisis in diesel. The consequences will be staggering for the world economy.

Diesel Moves World Trade

Diesel engines have the highest engine efficiency of conventional motors. They are based on the principle of compression developed in 1897 by Rudolf Diesel. Because of their greater efficiency and greater mileage per gallon, diesel fuels almost all freight truck motors. It fuels most all farm equipment from tractors to harvesting machines. It is widely used in the EU, almost 50% for auto fuel as it is far more fuel efficient than gasoline engines. It is used in most all heavy mining machines such as Caterpillar earth movers. It is used in construction equipment. Diesel engines have replaced steam engines on all non-electrified railroads in the world, especially freight trains. Diesel is used in some electric power generation and in most all heavy military vehicles.

A global shortage in diesel fuel, temporary or longer-term, is therefore a catastrophic event. Goods cannot be moved from container ports to inland destinations. Without diesel fuel trucks cannot deliver food to the supermarket, or anything else for that matter. The entire supply chain is frozen. And there is no possibility to substitute gasoline in a diesel engine without ruining the engine.

Until the ill-conceived global covid lockdowns of industry and transportation that began in March 2020, the demand and supply of diesel fuel was well balanced. The sudden lockdowns however collapsed diesel demand for truck transport, autos, construction, even farming. Unprofitable refineries were closed. Capacity declined. Now as world production returns to a semblance of pre-covid normal, diesel reserve stocks worldwide are dangerously low, especially in the EU which is the world’s largest diesel consumer, but also the USA.

Rationing?

At the start of this year world diesel stocks were already dangerously low and that drove prices sky-high. As of February, 2022 before impact of the Ukraine war, diesel and related stocks in the US were 21% below the pre-covid seasonal average. In the EU stocks were 8% or 35 million barrels below the pre-covid average level. In Singapore, the Asian hub stocks were 32% below normal. Combined all three regions’ diesel stocks were alarmingly low, some 110 million barrels below the same point last year.

Between January 2021 and January 2022 EU diesel fuel prices had almost doubled, and that, before the Ukraine sanctions. There were several reasons, but primary was the soaring price of crude oil and supply disruptions owing to global covid lockdowns and the subsequent resumption of world trade flows. To add to the problem, in early March the Chinese central government imposed a ban on its exports of diesel fuel, to “ensure energy security” amid Western sanctions on Russia. Add to that the recent Biden administration ban on imports of all Russian oil and gas, which in 2021 included an estimated 20% of all Russian heavy oil exports. At the same time the EU in its ever-ideological wisdom, is finalizing a ban on imports of Russian coal with bans on Russian crude oil, diesel fuel and gas reportedly  to follow.

On April 4 average price per liter of diesel in Germany was €2.10. On December 27, 2021 it was €1.50, a rise of 40% in weeks. Following the unprecedented USA and EU sanctions against Russia following the Ukraine military campaign after February 24, more and more Western oil companies and oil traders are refusing to handle Russian crude oil or diesel fuel for fear of reprisals. This is certain to escalate so long as fighting in Ukraine continues.

The CEO of the Rotterdam-based Vitol, the world’s largest independent energy trading company, warned on March 27 that rationing of diesel fuel in the coming months globally was increasingly likely. He noted, “Europe imports about half of its diesel from Russia and about half of its diesel from the Middle East. That systemic shortfall of diesel is there.”

On April 7, David McWilliams, a leading Irish economist formerly with the Irish national bank, sounded an alarming note. “Not only is oil going up, diesel is going up and there’s a real threat diesel will run out in Western Europe over the course of the next two or three weeks, or maybe before that… We import a significant amount of our diesel, it comes from two refineries in the UK where it’s first processed. Those refineries do not have any crude at the moment. So we are basically running the economy on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis.” He added: ‘We have not just an oil crisis, we have an energy crisis the likes of which we haven’t seen in 50 years.” According to him the reason diesel stocks are so low is that the EU countries found it far cheaper to outsource oil and diesel to Russia with its huge supply.

The situation in the USA is not better. For political reasons the true state of the diesel fuel crisis is reportedly being downplayed by the Biden administration and the EU. Inflation is already at 40 year highs in the US. What the unfolding global diesel fuel crisis will mean, barring a major turnaround, is a dramatic impact on all forms of truck and auto transportation, farming, mining and the like. It will spell catastrophe for an already failing world economy. Yet governments like the German “Ampel” (traffic light) coalition, with their insane Zero Carbon agenda, and their plans to phase out oil, coal and gas, or the Biden cabal, privately see the exploding energy prices as further argument to abandon hydrocarbons like oil for unreliable, costly wind and solar. The real industrial interconnected global economy is not like a game of lego toys. It is highly complex and finely tuned.That fine tuning is being systematically destroyed, and all evidence is that it is deliberate. Welcome to the Davos Great Reset eugenics agenda.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , | Leave a comment

UK censorship bill will impact small, independent media outlets while giving large media outlets a pass

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | April 11, 2022

The UK government is currently pushing a sweeping online censorship bill, the Online Safety Bill, which will force tech giants to censor content based on the vague, subjective term “harm.”

One of the government’s main arguments when attempting to defend these controversial censorship requirements has been that “news content will be completely exempt from any regulation under the Bill.” However, the rules that govern these exemptions are written in a way that favors large media outlets and makes it difficult for small, independent outlets to qualify.

For starters, the state-funded media outlets the BBC and Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C) automatically qualify as “recognised news publishers” – the standard that determines whether a publisher is exempt from the bill’s regulations.

Other outlets need to either hold a license under the Broadcasting Act 1990 or 1996 or meet numerous conditions which include “publishing news-related material that is created by different persons,” having a registered office or business address in the UK, making the name and address of the outlet’s owner public, being subject to a standards code and editorial control, and having a complaints procedure.

Obtaining a license under the Broadcasting Act 1990 or 1996 creates additional costs for small outlets, such as the £2,500 ($3,300) license application fee and the minimum annual license fee of £1,000, ($1,320). It also gives Ofcom the power to decide which outlets can get a license.

The provision for news-related materials from non-license holders to be created by “different persons” also prevents individual journalists from qualifying as recognized news publishers. Furthermore, the requirement for non-license holders to make their name and address public shuts out anonymous or pseudonymous publishers from these recognized news publisher exemptions.

Additionally, these non-license holder conditions create additional compliance burdens which disproportionately impact smaller news outlets with fewer staff and resources.

The disproportionate impact this censorship bill has on small, independent media outlets is just one of the many areas of concern. The bill also includes proposals that will jail people whose posts cause “psychological harm” with “no reasonable excuse,” tasks Big Tech with deciding when something is “illegal” or “fraudulent,” and more.

…..

You can get a full overview of all the free speech and privacy threats posed by the Online Safety Bill here.

You can see a full copy of the full Online Safety Bill here.

The bill is currently making its way through Parliament and you can track its progress here.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Twitter is questioned over Hunter Biden laptop story censorship

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | April 11, 2022

In October 2020, just before the election, the New York Post published a story about Hunter Biden’s potentially corrupt dealings when his father, Joe Biden, was vice president. The story was based on damning emails obtained from a laptop Hunter left at a repair shop in Delaware.

Twitter censored the story over the “origins of the material” and suspended the New York Post’s account for two weeks. The online platforms also prevented users from sharing the story.

A few weeks ago, The New York Times confirmed the authenticity of what the New York Post called the “laptop from hell.”

Now, Republican members of the House Election Integrity Caucus, led by Rep. Claudia Tenney, in a letter addressed to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, are asking for answers about the censorship of the story.

“Big Tech oligarchs have grown far too powerful, censoring free speech that challenges their preferred narrative and their handpicked politicians,” Tenney told FOX Business. “In 2020, this reached a new low.”

“Twitter’s actions to silence the New York Post and others undoubtedly swayed the outcome of the presidential election. The free flow of information is key to a healthy democracy and to free and fair elections. Congress must be unequivocal in its response and hold Big Tech accountable.”

The Republicans want Twitter to “provide answers to the American people.” They also want Congress to “break up big tech, take an axe to Section 230, and ensure Silicon Valley elites can no longer interfere in our elections.”

They argue that the laptop contained damning emails that could have worked in President Trump’s favor.

“The laptop reportedly contained damning emails from Hunter Biden, showing how he exploited his connections to his then-vice president father to further his own career interests, leveraged his connections for massive paychecks from foreign entities, and much more,” the lawmakers wrote.

“Twitter then suspended the New York Post’s account for more than two weeks and blocked users from sharing the article because of what it called concerns about the ‘origins of the material.”

They added that the suspension prevented people from “reading a news article that could have had serious consequences for the presidential election.”

The New York Times confirming the authenticity of the laptop has “renewed concern over Twitter’s interference in a presidential election,” according to the lawmakers.

In the letter, the legislators demand answers to several questions from Agrawal, including who “made the decision to censor the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s ‘laptop from hell.’” They also want to know if Twitter collaborated “with any individuals directly or indirectly involved with the Biden campaign” when it censored the story.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

CIA Admits Feeding Americans False Info About Ukraine

By Ron Paul | April 11, 2022

Late last year, a Gallup poll showed that Americans’ trust in the mainstream media has fallen to its second lowest level on record. Only seven percent of Americans responded that they have a “great deal” of trust in the media.

That loss of trust has been well-earned by the mainstream media, and it explains the massive growth of independent media and alternative voices on social media. The response to the rise of independent media voices has been a rush to “cancel” any voice outside the accepted mainstream narrative.

Citizens of the Soviet Union would read manipulated media like Pravda not because the regime reported facts, but because truth was hidden between the lines of what was reported and what was not reported. That seems to be where we are in the US today.

Last week an extraordinary article appeared in, of all places, NBC News, reporting that the US intelligence community is knowingly feeding information it does not believe accurate to the US mainstream media for the American audience to consume.

In other words, the article reports that the US “deep state” admits to being actively engaged in lying to the American people in the hopes that it can manipulate public opinion.

According to the NBC News article, “multiple US officials acknowledged that the US has used information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it has used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect…”

Readers will recall the shocking headlines that Russia was prepared to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, that China would be providing military equipment to Russia, that Russian President Putin was being fed misinformation by his advisors, and more.

All of these were churned out by the CIA to be repeated in the American media even though they were known to be false. It was all about, as one intelligence officer said in the article, “trying to get inside Putin’s head.”

That may have been the goal, but what the CIA actually did was get inside America’s head with false information meant to shape public perception of the conflict. They lied to propagandize us in favor of the Biden Administration’s narrative.

Those pushing the “Russiagate” hoax through the Trump years claimed that the goal of “Russian disinformation” was to undermine Americans’ trust in our government, media, and other institutions. Isn’t it ironic that the CIA itself has done more than the Russians to undermine Americans’ faith in the media by feeding false stories to establish a particular narrative among the American people?

After the Bay of Pigs disaster, President Kennedy has been quoted as wanting “to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” That didn’t work out too well for him. As Senate Majority Chuck Schumer famously told Rachel Maddow in 2020, responding to the-President Trump’s criticism of the CIA, “let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

As more information about the activities of the US Intelligence Community in trying to bring down Trump come out, it appears that, for once, Schumer was right.

It’s time to revisit President Kennedy’s post-Bay of Pigs wish. The CIA using lies to propagandize the American people toward war with Russia is just one of thousands of reasons to scatter a million pieces of that agency to the wind.

Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

SAS and Delta Force part of “secret war”: French intelligence source

Samizdat | April 11, 2022

Elite special forces from the UK and the US have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of hostilities with Russia in late February, a source in the French intelligence community reportedly told a Le Figaro reporter, last week.

The claim was reported by the newspaper’s senior international correspondent Georges Malbrunot on Saturday, the day when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his surprise visit to Kiev. The British leader was reportedly surrounded by guards from the elite SAS force, though this claim was not officially confirmed.

SAS units “have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as did [sic] the American Deltas,” Malbrunot tweeted citing a French intelligence source. He added that according to the source Russia was well aware of the “secret war” waged against its troops by foreign commandos. Le Figaro included his report in their updates on Ukraine.

The UK and the US have been among the most active military supporters of Kiev. Johnson reportedly personally urged his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to keep on fighting against Russia and not settle for peace until better terms are offered.

Western pro-fighting consensus was apparently confirmed last week by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who said on Saturday that the “war will be won on the battlefield” as he too was visiting Kiev.

British media earlier reported that dozens of “retired” SAS soldiers had gone or planned to go to Ukraine to contribute their expertise in reconnaissance and anti-tank warfare to Kiev’s cause. Their services were allegedly paid for by “a country in Europe, still to be named, via a private military company” rather than by the British government, according to the UK tabloid the Daily Mirror.

The Russian military reported action against what it described as “mercenaries” fighting for Ukraine on several occasions. One of the recent instances was on Saturday, just as Johnson and Borell were in Kiev.

The Russian defense ministry said Kiev attempted to use a civilian ship in its latest failed attempt to evacuate high-value personnel from the port city of Mariupol, which saw some of the most intensive fighting during the conflict. The individuals intended for evacuation were identified as leaders of the ultranationalist Azov battalion and foreign mercenaries. There are unconfirmed reports that hundreds of foreign nationals could be blocked in Mariupol along with several thousand Azov troops.

The US and the UK have publicly stated they had no plans to involve their troops in the fighting in Ukraine. Both are major suppliers of arms to Kiev and were training soldiers in Ukraine before the Russian offensive. The experts were reported pulled out of the country in the run-up to the hostilities.

Britain’s Defence Ministry banned active service members from traveling to Ukraine in early March, saying that violating the rule could result in prosecution. Kiev called on volunteers abroad to join the ranks of its newly-created “foreign legion” after the Russian attack.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

The Great Russian Restoration, IX: The Military Establishment Factor

By Rolo Slavski | Occidental Observor | April 11, 2022

I have resisted the urge to write much about the actual war in Ukraine up to this point for several reasons.

First, I am not a military expert, although I have spoken to several retired military men to get their take on the situation since the start of the conflict. This is made easier by the fact that I come from a military family.

Secondly, I saw Russian military dominance and victory a foregone conclusion and still do. This was always a war for the Russian politicians to lose, not for the Ukrainian military to win.

Thirdly, I do not believe that anyone has any real inside information on Russian troop movements and strategic goals. The Ministry of Defense has kept a very tight lid on that sort of thing. Therefore, all we really have to work with is speculation based on Telegram and Twitter videos and reports from embedded journalists. Or, we rely on the reports of Western intelligence agencies, which do not have a good track record.

We should instead consider Putin’s goals going into this war. The most obvious factor to consider is the fact that Putin has no political future should he fail to achieve his objectives in Ukraine. One way or the other, he needs a victory of some sort or another to hang his hat on. This is perhaps the best metric that we have for figuring out what Putin’s intentions are in Ukraine and since this series of essays is focused on internal changes occurring in Russia as a result of the showdown with the West, we should consider what exactly Russian civil society is demanding from Putin.

First and foremost, the so-called “Atlanticist” faction, which seems to be a euphemism for Jews and their puppets as far as I can tell, did NOT want Putin to intervene in Ukraine. He did so anyway. And he did the same in Crimea, Syria and Georgia. Now, many of the most prominent Atlanticists have fled the country. In other words, there is no proof whatsoever that Putin is willing to bend to their demands when it comes to Russia’s security and so, we can safely disregard the opinions and demands of these people and their supporters in Moscow and St. Petersburg because it is quite clear that Putin has already done so.

The largest block in society is what we can broadly call the “Patriots.” They come in all ideological shades and stripes — some are red flag-waving Communist nostalgists, others prefer the black, yellow and white aesthetics of the Russian Empire. Most simply fly the red, white and blue of Russia and have no ideology to speak of other than what we can understand as generic patriotism. They all support the military operation in Ukraine, but they have various goals that they want the intervention to achieve. These people make up 80+% of Russian society and we know this because Putin’s approval rating has soared into the 80s because of the military intervention. The hardliners want an incorporation of the entire territory of Ukraine into the Russian Federation, but are willing to settle for everything east of the Dniepr. The majority of patriotic Russians just want a victory in Ukraine, and have no idea of what exactly that will entail. Liberating the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) and reincorporating them into Russia while giving the Ukrainian army, the “Nats-bats” (mercenary “nationalist” militias), and Zelensky a good thrashing is good enough for them. Russia’s official stated goals in this conflict are just that, simply phrased another way: the “de-nazification” and “de-militarization” of Ukraine and the liberation of Donetsk and Lugansk. To achieve this limited victory, all Putin has left to do is to dislodge the Ukrainian army in the East, where they were massing up to attack the DNR and where they are hunkered down in their fortified positions now.

But let’s examine the military operation in greater detail for a moment. If we’re going to speculate on Russia’s military plans and objectives, we have to focus on the facts and not on the narratives that we can spin based off these facts. For example, we know for a fact that the Russian army reached Kiev within the first three days of the conflict. Now, was this a feint or part of a psychological operation to get Kiev to surrender, or an attempt to prevent a planned Ukrainian offensive on Donbass by splitting the Ukrainian army or the first stage in a preparation to storm the capital and cut the head off the snake? Here, we can only speculate.

We can also add to our speculations that there may have been an attempt to activate Russian assets within the city and take it from within. Russian bloggers are speculating that this was the Russian plan for Kharkiv, which failed to materialize for one reason or another. In fact, there are rumors that Kharkiv’s officials feigned surrender only to lure Russian troops in and then open fire on them, leading to a similar repeat of the Grozny ambush during the Chechen wars. I hesitate to hang my hat on this claim, but it strikes me as having a ring of truth to it. After all, what was the Russian plan for taking the cities if they refuse to bomb and then storm them into submission? Clearly, negotiating with the officials and activating sleeper agents within the cities would be a far more cost-effective method of taking these cities. If that is the case, Russian spooks and diplomats failed spectacularly in Kharkiv, Kiev, and Mariuple.

More facts: the Russian military plowed through the Ukrainian in-field defenses and parked themselves outside these cities or simply went around them. No immediate storming occurred. While they surrounded these cities and continued their targeted destruction of the Ukrainian military, a bloodbath began in these cities targeted at Russia-sympathizers and officials who spoke up about entering negotiations or surrendering ending up being assassinated by the SBU and the “Nats-bats.”

So: were the Russians planning on taking all of these cities but failed because their sleeper cells were poorly prepared/neutralized? Or was the Ministry of Defense and Putin telling the truth when they said that they weren’t interested in taking territory or these cities but simply in knocking out Ukraine’s military potential and liberating the DNR and LNR?

Choose your own narrative as you see fit or wait until the dust settles. Either way, we simply don’t know the answer yet.

Back on the home front, Putin hasn’t even called up Russia’s reserves. Young men are NOT being drafted to go fight in the Ukraine. Again, this is another fact. What does it tell us? That the war is not popular? Hardly. Not only do we have the polls to prove that the war is, in fact, popular, but we have Western media lamenting the fact that this is the case. Why then not call up the reserves? Perhaps because they were deemed unnecessary for the goals of the operation. This indicates that the goals of the operation were limited, does it not?

And now a few words on the Russian Ministry of Defense.

We can start with Anatoly Serdukov, the former minister of defense. Serdukov was probably one of the least qualified ministers of defense in Russian history. He was widely reviled and hated by the officer corps in the military and his replacement with Sergei Shoigu was seen as a much-awaited step in the right direction. In the 90s, Serdukov was a furniture salesmen (fine, a general director) in St. Petersburg and it was widely believed in military circles that he was as corrupt as they came. For example, his significant other got caught with millions of dollars in her bank account. There was also regular run-of-the-mill corruption associated with his five-year reign which ended in 2012, such as the use of military resources to build roads to oligarchs’ villas and the like. I suppose one could make the argument that there was no proof of direct embezzlement, but he ended up getting sacked for involvement in corruption all the same. The silver lining was that no one in the West could take Russia seriously with him at the helm, and so NATO relaxed. It was around this time that President Obama declared Russia a regional power and declared that a pivot to China was the path forward for ensuring US hegemony in the world. Russian patriots believe that Serdukov was partially to blame for this insulting demotion from superpower status. Most notably, the army during this period was drastically cut as part of a money-saving campaign that was branded as an anti-corruption effort.

With Sergei Shoigu taking over in 2012, Russia slowly began reinvesting in the military. Shoigu, like many other Russian public figures, was considered a legacy of the Yeltsin kakistocracy that once ruled the country. That being said, he demonstrated actual competence during his time in political office and his time at the Ministry of Emergencies — a rare trait in the Russian government over the last 30 years, to be sure. All that being said, he is not, strictly speaking what the military circles would consider to be a true-blue military man. There are rumors circulating now that he is about to be sacked, which are largely the result of him having dropped out of the public eye since March 11 of this year. Shoigu is widely known as a media enthusiast who enjoys putting himself in front of the cameras, which also lends credence to the rumors. I was hesitant to bring them up or give them any credence, but these rumors aren’t being promoted solely by the Ukrainians and Russian Liberals, but by Russian military men, who would like to see him replaced with one of their people, and ideally, a man with actual combat experience from either the Afghanistan or Chechen campaigns.

Firing Shoigu would be bad PR for the Kremlin now, but in terms of improving Russia’s military capabilities and continuing Russia’s move away from the legacy of the 90s, it’s really not the worst thing that could happen — in fact, military circles would rejoice at the news. This is also partially why the military experts and veteran officers have been so critical of the war effort so far. Russian military people believe that this war is being fought with political considerations in mind, and not as a strict military operation. Clausewitz once famously said that war is a continuation of politics by other means and that has certainly been the Kremlin’s approach to this operation. But now, having exhausted the possibility of taking Ukraine without any major bloodshed through other, more political methods involving diplomacy or subterfuge, the only way forward is to fall back on old-fashioned military force. The Russian army has abandoned Kiev and several other cities and is concentrating in Donbass to surround and destroy the hunkered down Ukrainian army. This is not exactly good news for Russia’s foreign policy and her political ambitions. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are going to die now. Civilians will die as well. Relations with Ukraine will never be the same.

But, internally, this is not the worst possible outcome by any means because what the politicians bungled, the military men are being called in to fix now. This will translate into an increased share of power and prestige for the Russian military establishment within the country. A deeply conservative, militaristic and “old-school” faction is about to start flexing its muscles in Russian society now. This is not too dissimilar to the situation that existed in Tsarist Russia and the USSR, where the military was very much involved in politics and formed a hardcore conservative bulwark in society. This is simply a part of Russia’s pre-Yeltsin political tradition. In contrast, in much of the West, the military simply doesn’t have much to do with internal politics as an institution. But, in many other nations in the world, the military either significantly influences politics or simply runs the country outright. Remember: Post-Soviet Russia was run by a coalition of the office of the Presidency, the Federal Security Service, and the Oligarchs. If all goes well, the power vacuum caused by the shutdown of many oligarchs in recent months will be filled by the military.

Any genuine Russian restoration will have to involve the restoration of the prestige of the military — its reintegration into political life and it’s re-elevation within civil society. Much depends on the success of the Russian offensive in the Donbass.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Russia seeks to end US-dominated world order – Lavrov

Samizdat | April 11, 2022

Russia’s military action in Ukraine is meant to put an end to the US-dominated world order, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has explained. Washington has been seeking supremacy by imposing ad-hoc rules and violating international law, he claimed, in an interview aired by Russian television on Monday.

He was referring to America’s attempts to impose its own so-called “rules-based international order,” which have met with strong resistance from Moscow and China.

“Our special military operation is meant to put an end to the unabashed expansion [of NATO] and the unabashed drive towards full domination by the US and its Western subjects on the world stage,” Lavrov told Rossiya 24 news channel.

“This domination is built on gross violations of international law and under some rules, which they are now hyping so much and which they make up on a case-by-case basis,” he added.

Russia is among the nations who would not submit to Washington’s will, the Russian diplomat added. It will only be part of an international community of equals and will not allow Western nations to ignore its legitimate security concerns, Lavrov said.

Lavrov blasted EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell for appearing to encourage more fighting in Ukraine. The bloc’s top diplomat said the conflict “will be won on the battlefield” as he announced more military aid to Kiev last Saturday. Lavrov called the statement “outrageous.”

“When a diplomatic chief … says a certain conflict can only be resolved through military action… Well, it must be something personal. He either misspoke or spoke without thinking, making a statement that nobody asked him to make. But it’s an outrageous remark,” Lavrov added.

The EU’s role has shifted during the Ukraine security crisis, the minister believes. Previously it didn’t act as a military organization “fighting collectively against an invented threat.” Lavrov said the change was the result of pressure put on the bloc’s members by Washington, which has pushed it closer to NATO.

For its part, Russia wants to negotiate peace with Ukraine, Lavrov added.

Moscow attacked its neighbor in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Asian fault lines of Biden’s war on Russia

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 11, 2022 

The tremors of the United States’ tensions with Russia playing out in Europe are being felt in different ways already in Asia. The hypothesis of Ukraine being in Europe and the conflict being all about European security is delusional.

From Kazakhstan to Myanmar, from Solomon Islands to the Kuril Islands, from North Korea to Cambodia, from China to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the fault lines are appearing.

To be sure, extra-regional powers had a hand in the failed colour revolution recently to overthrow the established government in Kazakhstan, a hotly contested geopolitical landmass two-thirds the size of India, bordering both China and Russia, Washington’s sworn adversaries. Thanks to swift Russian intervention, supported by China, a regime change was averted. 

Equally, the Anglo-American project to embroil Myanmar, bordering China, in an armed insurgency has floundered for want of a sanctuary in India’s northeastern region and due to the perceived congruence of interests among the surrounding countries in Myanmar’s stability. 

In comparison, the North Korean fault line has aggravated. North Korea moves on its own timetable and has probably decided that the Ukraine crisis offers useful cover while it ramps up its testing program. Pyongyang explicitly supports Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, commenting that “the basic cause of the Ukraine incident lies in the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the United States, which has ignored Russia’s legitimate calls for security guarantees and only sought a global hegemony and military dominance while clinging to its sanctions campaigns.” 

North Korea’s objective is to enhance its security and leverage by increasing the quality and quantity of its deterrent capabilities and strengthening its bargaining position.  

On another plane, the Ukraine crisis injected a new urgency into the US efforts to cultivate new Asian partners. But Washington has run into headwinds and had to indefinitely postpone a special summit with the ten member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that was initially scheduled for end-March. No new date has been proposed, although the US had hyped up the summit as “a top priority.” 

Showing some ire, Washington has since sanctioned Cambodia, currently the ASEAN Chair. Clearly, the southeast Asian countries are chary of taking sides between the US and China or of voicing criticism against Russia.

Perhaps, the most direct fallout of the Ukraine crisis in Asia so far is the sharp deterioration in Japan’s ties with Russia. It is an unwarranted development insofar as Tokyo simply did a cut and paste job, copying all the US sanctions against Russia (including against President Putin). Prime Minister Kishida wantonly destroyed what his predecessor Shinzo Abe had carefully cultivated as a cordial, friendly relationship. 

Japan now openly refers to Russian “occupation” of the Kuril Islands — something it hasn’t been doing in the past. Moscow retaliated by designating Japan as an “unfriendly” country. Yet, analysts were estimating until recently that Russia and Japan had congruent interests in blocking China’s Arctic ambitions and were, therefore, moving toward solving their dispute over the Kurils.

Suffice to say, Kishida’s motivations in an abrupt turnaround to make Kurils a potential flashpoint in relations with Russia are, to say the least, to be traced to the broader US strategy to isolate Russia.

Meanwhile, a contrarian development has also appeared in China’s challenge to the US’ Island Chain strategy in the Western Pacific by negotiating a new security deal with Solomon Islands. This game-changing development may have extensive consequences and is dangerously interwoven with the Taiwan issue. Biden is reportedly dispatching a top White House official to Solomon Islands to scuttle the deal with China. 

The Biden administration is now doubling down on India to roll back its ties with Russia as well. That becomes a fault line in the US-Indian strategic partnership. What must be particularly galling for Washington is the likelihood of India pursuing its trade and economic cooperation with Russia in local currencies. Indeed, China and India have taken a somewhat similar stance on the Ukraine crisis.  

Given the size of the Chinese economy and the high potential of growth for the Indian economy, their inclination to bypass the dollar would be a trend-setter for other countries. Russia, hit by Western sanctions, has called on the BRICS group of emerging economies to extend the use of national currencies and integrate payment systems.

Suffice to say, the “weaponised dollar” and the West’s abrasive move to freeze Russia’s reserves sends a chill down the spine of most developing countries. Nepal caved in to ratify the Millennium Challenge Corporation agreement following threat by a middle ranking US official! 

There is no conceivable reason why the NATO should become the provider of security for the Asian region. That is why Afghanistan’s future is of crucial importance. Without doubt, the regime change in Pakistan is partly at least related to Afghanistan. The Russian Foreign Ministry has disclosed certain details of the US interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs and its pressure on former Prime Minister Imran Khan. 

But time will show how realistic are Washington’s  expectations of inducting Pakistan into the US orbit and making it a surrogate to leverage the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Russia and China are making sure that the door remains closed to NATO’s return to Afghanistan. They have undercut Washington’s recent efforts to co-opt the Taliban leadership in Kabul. (See my blog US pips regional states at race for Kabul.) 

The message out of the recent Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on the Afghan Issue Among the Neighbouring Countries of Afghanistan in Tunxi, China, is that in that country’s transition from chaos to order, the regional states hope to undertake a lead role. Thus, the regional states have incrementally marked their distance from the West’s exceptionalism and are instead adopting a persuasive track through constructive engagement. The joint statement issued at Tunxi reflects this new thinking. 

The developments over Afghanistan provide a signpost that any attempt at imposing Western dominance over Asia will be resisted by the regional states. Most Asian countries have had bitter experiences with colonialism in their history. (See my blog India’s dilemma over West vs. Russia) 

Although the American analysts underplay it, the fact remains that the conflict in Ukraine is bound to impact the “Asian Century” very significantly. The US is determined to transform NATO as the global security organisation that will act beyond the purview of the United Nations to enforce the West’s “rules-based order.” 

The West’s desperate push to weaken Russia and tilt the global strategic balance in the US’ favour aims to clear the pathway leading to a unipolar world order in the 21st century. In a recent interview, Hal Brands, Henry Kissinger distinguished professor of global affairs at Johns Hopkins, put across the US strategy behind the war in Ukraine as very logical: 

“Well, there’s long been a debate in the United States over whether we should prioritise competing with Russia or China or treat them as co-equals. And that debate has flared up again in the context of this war. I think what the war indicates, though, is that the best way of putting pressure on China, which is the more dangerous and the more powerful of the two rivals, is actually to ensure that Russia is defeated, that it does not achieve its objectives in this war, because that will result in a weaker Russia, one that is less capable of putting pressure on the United States and its allies in Europe and thus less useful as a strategic partner for Beijing.

“The United States simply can’t avoid the reality that it has to contain both Russia and China simultaneously.” 

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO member-supplied S-300 launchers obliterated – Russia

Samizdat | April 11, 2022

Russian forces have destroyed foreign-supplied S-300 anti-aircraft launchers in a number of precision strikes on Ukraine, the Defense Ministry, in Moscow, claimed on Monday. Days earlier, Slovakia reported the donation of a battery of old Soviet-made S-300 air defense missiles to Kiev.

In its regular briefing on the ongoing military action in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry reported hitting a hangar “on the southern outskirts of the city of Dnepropetrovsk,” where “equipment from an S-300 battery supplied to the Ukrainian regime by one of the European nations” was hidden.

The barrage of sea-launched Kalibr missiles destroyed four S-300 launchers and as many as 25 Ukrainian troops in the Sunday strike, ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov claimed. He used the old name of the city, which Ukrainian authorities renamed Dnepro in 2016 to distance it from the Soviet period of the country’s history.

The Russian official also reported destroying an S-300 targeting radar in a separate overnight precision airstrike near Uspenovka. The general didn’t specify which of the multiple villages of that name in Ukraine he was referring to, and didn’t say whether the radar was part of the battery supplied by the foreign nation.

Last Friday, Slovakia announced that it had donated its only S-300 battery to Ukraine. The weapon system was part of the NATO member’s legacy from the Warsaw Pact days, when it formed part of Czechoslovakia. It was not clear how many vehicles were sent to Ukraine. A regular S-300 battery can have as few as four and as many as 12 launchers using a single radar to identify targets, and is controlled by a single command post.

Prime Minister Eduard Heger assured citizens that the country’s national security would not be compromised since “allies” agreed to boost its air defense in return. US President Joe Biden said his country would provide an American Patriot missile battery as a replacement and thanked Bratislava for agreeing to give the S-300 to Kiev. Elements of the Patriot system started arriving in Slovakia three weeks ago, according to its defense minister.

Responding to Russian claims on Twitter, Prime Minister Heger called them a “hoax” and “Russian propaganda.” The statement was apparently based on a denial that Slovakia received from Kiev.

Washington reportedly wanted another NATO member, Turkey, to strike a similar deal with Ukraine and send it a Russian-supplied S-400, which is more advanced than the S-300. Ankara rejected the idea, saying the system would remain in its possession. In 2020, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey for buying the S-400s from Russia under a deal signed in 2017.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »