EU Incites Ukrainian Conflict and Stigmatizes Peace Talks – Hungarian Foreign Minister
Sputnik – 03.10.2023
BUDAPEST – The world outside Europe does not share its position on the Ukraine conflict and does not understand European double standards applied to conflicts in other parts of the planet, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said.
“I can say that the world outside Europe is already really looking forward to the end of this war, because they do not understand many things. They do not understand, for example, how it can be that when a war is not in Europe, the European Union, looking down with fantastic moral superiority, calls on the parties to peace, advocates negotiations and an immediate end to violence. However, when there is a war in Europe, the European Union incites the conflict and supplies weapons, and anyone who talks about peace is immediately stigmatized,” Szijjarto said in an interview on Monday.
He also said that other countries do not understand why Europe “has made this conflict global” and why people living in Asia, Africa and Latin America have to pay for it due to growing inflation, energy prices and unstable food supplies.
Szijjarto added that Hungary’s position on the issue is treated with “great respect” outside the EU, which he was witnessing more than once during the UN General Assembly.
Hungary has consistently opposed sanctions on Russian energy resources and sending weapons to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The Hungarian parliament issued a decree banning the supply of weapons to Ukraine from the country’s territory. Szijjarto explained that Budapest seeks to secure the western Ukrainian region of Zakarpatye, where ethnic Hungarians live, since the supply of weapons through its territory would become a military target for Russia. The country’s leadership has repeatedly emphasized that Hungary stands for the earliest possible start of peace negotiations.
Someone Wants ‘the War to Continue’
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | October 3, 2023
At times, Ukraine has been unwilling to negotiate an end to the ongoing war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has gone so far as to issue a decree banning negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At other times, Russia has given up on negotiating. In a press conference at the United Nations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lamented, if you insist “’on the battlefield’—well, let it be on the battlefield.”
And at times, Ukraine and Russia have been willing to negotiate with each other. The United States, though, has at no time been willing to negotiate. Instead, an administration that promised the world “a new era of relentless diplomacy” has delivered an unhappy pattern of obstructing negotiations.
As early as December 17, 2021, months before their invasion, Russia presented the United States with a proposal on mutual security guarantees that demanded NATO not expand into Ukraine. The proposal demanded that “The United States of America shall take measures to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and deny accession to the Alliance to the former USSR republics.” A month later, on January 26, the United States rejected Russia’s central demand and formally declined to negotiate, insisting instead on “the right of other states to choose or change security arrangements.”
Vladimir Putin remarked “that fundamental Russian concerns were ignored.” In the official Russian response on February 17, 2022, Russia said that the United States and NATO offered “no constructive answer” to Russia’s key demands. Four days later, on February 21, Sergey Lavrov said, “The assessment of this response shows that our Western colleagues are not prepared to take up our major proposals, primarily those on NATO’s eastward non-expansion. This demand was rejected with reference to the bloc’s so-called open-door policy and the freedom of each state to choose its own way of ensuring security.” Highlighting American stubbornness about negotiating, the veteran diplomat added the important detail that, “Neither the United States, nor the North Atlantic Alliance proposed an alternative to this key provision.”
On April 8, 2022, Derek Chollet, counselor to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, admited that the United States told Moscow that negotiating NATO expansion into Ukraine was never on the table.
Just last month on September 17, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made the stunning concession that, as Putin had always insisted, Russia “went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders,” and that Putin “sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.” Stoltenberg then repeated, “He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO… We rejected that.”
On February 27, 2022, only a month into the war, Russia and Ukraine announced that they would hold talks in Belarus. At the end of the talks, the two delegations returned home for consultations, having identified priority topics. A second round of talks took place in Belarus on March 3.
At a February 25 press conference, State Department spokesman Ned Price was asked what the U.S. position was on the upcoming “talks between Russia and Ukraine happening in Minsk,” the capital of Belarus. Price rejected negotiations, saying, “Now we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy take place at the barrel of a gun or as Moscow’s rockets, mortars, artillery target the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy. Those are not the conditions for real diplomacy.
Shortly after, on March 6, then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made a surprise visit to Moscow to meet with Putin in an attempt at mediation. Bennett had a series of back and forth conversations with Putin and Zelensky before flying to Germany for meetings with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Bennett also had conversations with French President Emmanuel Macron, followed by then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and U.S. President Joe Biden.
Bennett said that “there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire.” But Bennett also says the West made a different decision. “So, they blocked it?” his interviewer asked. “They blocked it,” Bennett replied.
From March 2022 into April, Turkey mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul. The two sides reached a tentative agreement.
On June 13, Putin confirmed that “we reached an agreement in Istanbul,” and that it had reached the level of having been initialled by both sides. On September 9, Lavrov further confirmed that the agreement had been initialled: “[W]e did hold talks in March and April 2022,” Lavrov said, “We agreed on certain things; everything was already initialled.”
A face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelensky was in the process of being set.
But on April 9, 2022, Boris Johnson rushed to Kiev and insisted to Zelensky that Vladimir Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with” and that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, “the West was not.”
The negotiations came to a sudden stop. On June 13, 2023, Putin said, “We actually did this but they simply threw it away later and that’s it.” On June 17, Putin told an African delegation that “the Kiev authorities… tossed [their commitments] into the dustbin of history. They abandoned everything.” Putin implicitly blamed the United States, saying that that when Ukraine’s interests “are not in sync” with American interests, “ultimately it is about the United States’s interests. We know that they hold the key to solving issues.” On September 23, 2023, Lavrov, too, said, “I think, someone in London or Washington did not want this war to end.”
On April 20, 2022, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, “There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue.”
“Following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting,” Cavusoglu explained, “it was the impression that… there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia get weaker.” On November 18, 2022, Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s ruling party, said. “We know that our President is talking to the leaders of both countries. In certain matters, progress was made, reaching the final point, then suddenly we see that the war is accelerating… Someone is trying not to end the war. The United States sees the prolongation of the war as its interest… There are those who want this war to continue… Putin-Zelensky was going to sign, but someone didn’t want to.”
No talks between Russia and Ukraine have been held since.
EU prepared to give in to Hungarian demands – FT
RT | October 3, 2023
The European Commission is expected to unfreeze about €13 billion ($13.6 billion) in EU funds for Hungary by the end of November, aiming to secure the country’s support for an increase to the bloc’s budget and massive financial assistance to Kiev, according to three officials briefed on the discussions cited by Financial Times.
In December, Brussels froze €22 billion ($23 billion) in cohesion funds allocated to Hungary. The money was blocked over major concerns related to the independence of judges and the country’s failure to comply with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on issues including LGBTQ rights, academic freedom, and asylum.
The funds were supposed to be frozen until Budapest complies with rules protecting human rights and the rule of law. In May, the Hungarian government reached a preliminary deal on key judicial reforms. As a result, Brussels agreed to release more than half of the amount.
By unblocking the funds, EU authorities expect to gain Hungarian support for boosting the bloc’s budget and providing significant financial aid to Ukraine.
The commission had previously proposed a €66 billion increase to the EU’s shared budget to cover increased costs, part of which are expected to contribute to a €50 billion financial package for Kiev to help in covering the country’s expenses for the next four years.
Since the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s line of argument has been broadly different from that of the EU and its allies. The PM has repeatedly criticized sanctions against Russia and refused to send weapons to Ukraine. Orban also urged the EU to persuade Moscow and Kiev to begin peace negotiations.
In retaliation, the Ukrainian National Corruption Prevention Agency (NCPA) designated Hungary’s largest commercial lender OTP Bank an “international sponsor of war” over allegedly providing preferential lending terms to the Russian military.
Budapest responded by blocking the release of funding totaling €500 million earmarked for military aid to Ukraine by means of the European Peace Facility (EPF) mechanism.
War Fatigue Complicates West’s Aid to Ukraine
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 3, 2023
A pall of gloom descended on Europe as the long-feared uncertainty set in over the weekend as to how long would the collective West underwrite the proxy war in Ukraine. To lift their sagging spirit, some European foreign ministers impromptu took the train to Kiev to spend Monday with President Zelensky. It was an extraordinary sight of defiance of the call of destiny, as the war passed the 19-month mark.
A deal in Washington that averted government shutdown for now but cut funding for Kiev; the Polish election campaign in which the ruling Law and Justice party, until recently one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, has toyed with various measures such as questioning more arms deliveries and blocking agri-products from its neighbour in order to court voters; and, the stunning parliamentary election results in Slovakia catapulting a pro-Russian left-wing political party to power and signalling the first true political embodiment of “Ukraine fatigue” — suddenly, the West’s mantra of being by Ukraine’s side “for as long as it takes” feels seriously open to question.
CNN exaggerated, perhaps, while commenting that the above developments “appear to have thrown Ukraine and its war with Russia under the bus” — but only by a bit. The politics of the Ukraine war has crossed an inflection point and is poised for bigger things in the critical months ahead.
The White House has vowed to seek quick passage of a stand-alone Ukraine aid bill totalling $20.6 billion that the Biden administration has said is essential to fight Russia, but it will likely continue to face determined opposition, particularly from Republicans in Congress. At the root of it is the fierce polarisation in US politics, which now threatens to shake the balance of power in the Congress in a no-holds barred election year that looms ahead.
This does not mean stopping the US aid to Ukraine. The administration has enough resources to support Kiev over the next month and a half and, above all, it is too far-fetched to expect any serious changes in the Ukrainian direction of US foreign policy before the 2024 election. But the salience lies somewhere else — namely, the topic of assistance to Ukraine is frothing in the cauldron of disputes between Republicans and Democrats and is becoming inseparable from the tendentious issues of social programmes that tear apart the American society and become fodder for its combative politicians.
The Ukraine war has become a political football in the Beltway just over a year from the US presidential election, with questions mounting over aid approved by Congress that totals $100 billion so far, including $43 billion in weaponry. Simply put, for right–wing Republicans, financing Kiev is becoming a tool of political manipulation of the Biden Administration through which they hope to seize advantages and concessions. And Donald Trump is waiting in the wings.
Meanwhile, there is a vicious sub-plot playing out within the Republican Party itself in a bid to unseat the Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy next week by hardline Republican Matt Gaetz, one of a core of hard-right members of the party implacably opposed to any more aid for Ukraine.
In order to survive, McCarthy has threatened to link aid for Ukraine to funding to stop immigrants crossing the Mexican border, a key Republican demand. “I’m going to make sure that the weapons are provided for Ukraine, but they’re not going to get some big package if the border is not secure,” McCarthy told CBS ominously.
Most important, the wider signal to the world is damaging. European capitals are already nervously eyeing the possibility of a return to the White House by Trump. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and a major US partner in delivering aid to Ukraine, expressed surprise and regretted the US decision “deeply, thoroughly.”
Borrell said, “I have a hope that this will not be a definitive decision and Ukraine will continue having the support of the US.” Indeed, there is a wider problem — war fatigue among inflation-hit American voters.
In many ways, the victory of former Prime Minister Robert Fico’s left-wing populist Smer party in this weekend’s parliamentary election in Slovakia is also to be attributed to war fatigue. Fico has said no more weapons will go to Ukraine; questioned the logic of the EU’s Russia sanctions; praised Moscow; and blamed the NATO for causing the war, which he says, began after “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started to murder Russian citizens in Donbas and Luhansk.” Economic anxieties further compound the societal Ukraine fatigue and the dramatic turn in Slovakian politics, which is likely to impact the West’s relations with Kiev.
Within the EU, Hungary and Austria will now have an ally in Slovakia, a frontline state, advocating an immediate cessation of hostilities in Ukraine and peace negotiations. Fico himself is a close ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — and they could be joined by Poland if the ruling Law and Justice Party secures a fresh mandate, which seems likely, in the parliamentary election on October 15.
All indications are that Poland is veering away from its long-standing pro-Ukraine position. Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki said recently, “we are no longer transferring any weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming ourselves with the most advanced weapons.”
Then, as the CNN wrote, “Beyond EU, within NATO there is an equivalent fear of the consequences of an expanding anti-Ukraine bloc… And both Hungary’s Orban and Slovakia’s Fico have declared themselves adamantly opposed to any move to welcome Ukraine into the alliance… The reality is the Ukraine counteroffensive, which will have to diminish with the advent of winter, has so far achieved little substantive progress on the battlefront. The arrival of newly-empowered anti-Ukraine parties in frontline states, together with waffling by leading Kremlin foes like the United States, all comprise a truly toxic mix.”
Looking ahead, further erosion of support for the Ukraine war can be expected and even a possible collapse of support for Ukraine across the collective West cannot be ruled out in the months ahead, especially if the Kremlin leadership finally decides to give a knockout punch to Ukraine’s military and/or orders the Russian forces to cross the Dnieper and take over Kiev and Odessa.
Even otherwise, the crunch time comes with the elections to the European Parliament on 6-9 June 2024. There is a clear possibility of anti-Ukraine parties winning a substantial bloc of votes in the elections. If and when that happens, the invidious conspiracy mooted by Germany and France to abolish the rule of unanimity required for taking major EU decisions (eg., Russia sanctions and their six-monthly renewal) will flounder.
Both Orban and Fico have declared their opposition to Russian sanctions. Suffice to say, the politics of the Ukraine war and Russia sanctions is entering uncharted waters, as Hungary allied with Slovakia — and potentially with Poland — would be in a position to complicate pro-Ukraine, anti-Russian efforts by the rest of the EU.
In the art of politics, American politicans originally patented “filibuster”, a political procedure in which one or more members of a legislative body prolong debate on proposed legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent decision, and European politicians are now inventing their own variant of it.
Orban has been practising it for a decade already, and with growing dexterity, to push through his nationalistic programme of “sovereign democracy” in Hungary. That is where the weekend’s Slovakian election and Fico’s return to power has the potential to become a defining moment in the politics of Ukraine war.
NATO-trained Ukrainian conscripts surrendering en masse
By Drago Bosnic | October 3, 2023
One of the many peculiarities of the special military operation (SMO) has been the rather small number of POWs (prisoners of war) on both sides (relative to the number of overall casualties). Reasons for this are manifold and include the way the conflict is being waged (the vast majority of casualties are the result of long-range strikes, primarily artillery and drones), widespread use of combat drugs, as well as the rabidly Russophobic propaganda that is being disseminated among the Kiev regime forces. This often results in instances of summary executions of Russian POWs by the Neo-Nazi junta troops or their unwillingness to surrender to the Russian military, as they are being fed propaganda that the Russians will treat them the same, even though evidence suggests otherwise.
However, it seems such trends are changing rapidly, particularly as the number of ideologically charged soldiers among the Kiev regime forces is going down due to the number of KIA/WIA/MIA (killed/wounded/missing in action). They have been increasingly replaced by forcibly conscripted regular Ukrainians who simply don’t see the conflict as their own. The fact that the commanding officers (COs) are effectively treating the soldiers as literal cannon fodder is also contributing to this, further resulting in low morale and even widespread insubordination. There were instances of Ukrainian soldiers even shooting their COs in order to avoid being sent into the meat grinder. Others are simply doing anything they can to leave the country and escape being sent to the frontlines.
In order to reduce the number of casualties on both sides, the Russian military has even set up special communication channels for Ukrainians willing to surrender. This has been giving results for several months already, particularly since the start of the much-touted counteroffensive of the Neo-Nazi junta troops. On October 2, the elite 1st Guards Tank Army of the Russian Battlegroup West captured two units composed of Ukrainian conscripts in the vicinity of Artyomovsk (previously known as Bakhmut) in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The units in question are the 77th Airmobile Brigade and the 56th Separate Motorized Brigade. Surprisingly, reports about the mass surrender of Ukrainian conscripts are also becoming more common in Western media, too.
Retired United States Army Colonel and former senior adviser at the Pentagon Douglas MacGregor has repeatedly reiterated that the number of surrendering Ukrainian conscripts keeps growing, particularly as the embattled Kiev regime is having trouble hiding the catastrophic losses in both manpower and equipment. According to both American and Ukrainian combat veterans, the NATO training they’ve been provided all these years has been proven detrimental to their fighting capabilities, resulting in higher casualties and lesser combat effectiveness. In fact, many Ukrainian soldiers have stated they’d be dead if they followed the much-touted NATO standards. Instead, they’re still largely relying on Soviet-era training, equipment and weapons, as these have been proven as much more effective.
Another reason for the high casualty ratio among the Neo-Nazi junta troops is the very limited training that Ukrainian conscripts have been given before being sent to the frontlines. The primary reason for this is the urgency of replacing previous losses, resulting in a vicious cycle that even the mainstream propaganda machine couldn’t ignore. Back in May, the Wall Street Journal reported that poor men from villages and small towns were sent to the frontlines after just two nights at a base. The report effectively admitted that the COs insisted that “conscripts learned on the battlefield to compensate for the almost total lack of training”. The overall result of this has been that conscript units now have up to 90% KIA/WIA/MIA, as reported by various local and global military sources.
Russian intelligence reports also indicate that Ukrainian conscript units are increasingly “trained” by the much-touted British Special Air Service (SAS), highly popularized in various shooter video games, particularly the Call of Duty series, a major NATO propaganda tool in recent years. The United Kingdom keeps insisting that their forces are supposedly not present in Ukraine, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak even denying the claims of his own cabinet’s Defense Secretary Grant Shapps that British advisors will officially be sent to train the Neo-Nazi junta troops. It’s important to note that high-ranking Russian military intelligence officials (both retired and active) have pointed out the high frequency of the usage of English among military personnel embedded within the Kiev regime forces.
Namely, this is particularly true when it comes to the areas where the abortive counteroffensive is (still) being conducted. Apart from American special forces, this reportedly also includes SAS operatives. And while the mainstream propaganda machine keeps ridiculing Moscow’s claims about the presence of NATO personnel in Ukraine (either as mercenaries or under the direct command of the belligerent alliance) and decrying them as supposed “conspiracy theories” and “Russian disinformation”, battlefield information suggests otherwise. This is also further reinforced by NATO’s standard counterintelligence practice of denying that certain weapons will be delivered and then stating they “might be” delivered only to then announce they will be sent to the Neo-Nazi junta when the process has already been completed.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Kremlin Denies Reports About Russia’s Alleged Missile Tests in Arctic
Sputnik – 03.10.2023
MOSCOW – Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday denied media reports alleging that Russia was planning to test a missile codenamed Burevestnik in the Arctic.
“No, I cannot [confirm this]. I do not know where the New York Times journalists got that idea from … Apparently, [they] need to take a closer look at the satellite images,” Peskov said when asked to comment on the allegations.
Peskov said that Russia remains committed to the international nuclear test ban regime, when asked to comment on remarks that the country should carry out a thermonuclear weapon test over Siberia to demonstrate its determination.
“This has never occurred in the past, so I don’t think that kind of discussion is possible now, from an official point of view,” the spokesman added.
Earlier this week, US media reported that satellite imagery suggested Russia was preparing or might have already carried out tests of the experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile in the Arctic.
Russia charges Ukrainian commanders with terrorism
RT | October 3, 2023
The Russian Investigative Committee has identified four senior Ukrainian military officials as the masterminds of over 100 “terrorist attacks” involving drones targeting civilian infrastructure.
In a statement on Tuesday, the agency said it has collected enough evidence to charge the four commanders in absentia with terrorism-related crimes. Russia will seek the arrests of the suspects, it said.
The committee named Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov, the commanders of the Air Force and the Navy, Nikolay Oleshchuk and Aleksey Neizhapa, as well as the commander of the 383rd drone regiment of the Air Force, Sergey Purdenyuk, as the culprits. Their alleged offenses took place between April 2022 and September 2023.
Russian officials regularly accuse Kiev of launching fixed-wing kamikaze drones at targets inside Russia. Senior Ukrainian officials publicly call those drones “unidentified,” but do little to deny their country’s responsibility for the attacks.
The semi-secret drone program was detailed in August by the British magazine The Economist. It explained how competing drone developers sometimes conduct operations that “appear to be PR projects designed to bring a prototype to the attention of procurement bosses, rather than having military value.”
There is also an aspect of psychological warfare in delivering “headline-making strikes” on civilian targets such as Moscow’s financial center, the article said.
Budanov, who is arguably the most media-engaged official among the four Ukrainians charged, told the same outlet last month that his agency sought to disrupt the Russian economy, including by forcing airports in Moscow and St. Petersburg to close during drone raids. He claimed the strikes caused “zero” civilian casualties in Russia, contrary to local reports.
UK’s former Defense Secretary wants more young Ukrainians on the battlefield
By Lucas Leiroz | October 3, 2023
Apparently, former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is convinced that Ukraine is “winning”. In an opinion article published in The Telegraph, Wallace endorsed the “need” for Ukraine to mobilize even more young people to participate in hostilities, stating that this is the only way to “finish the job”, leading the country to definitively defeat Russian troops.
More than 83,000 Ukrainians died during Kiev’s efforts to launch a “counteroffensive,” but Ben Wallace is still certain that Ukraine is winning, albeit slowly. Wallace highly values the few meters gained by Kiev’s forces close to the Russian defense lines, saying this is a clear example of how the Ukrainians are surprising the West. For Ben, the “victory” of the counteroffensive is a proof that NATO “underestimated” Ukraine’s power.
“Slowly but surely, the Ukrainian armed forces are breaking through the Russian lines. Sometimes yard by yard, sometimes village by village, Ukraine has the momentum and is pressing forward. The men and women of the Ukrainian army are, once again, proving to us in Nato how much we have underestimated them. First, the Establishment doubted their ability to defend their nation from the initial Russian invasion (…) They failed to spot in the Ukrainians the same spirit we possessed in 1939. ” Wallace said.
Obviously, from a strategic point of view, Ben’s assessment is absolutely wrong. Ukraine is making a big mistake by exchanging soldiers’ lives for some small territorial gains. According to the elementary principles of military science, the lives of soldiers must be preserved first, because lost territories can be recovered later if there are troops to continue fighting – while, on the other hand, conquered territories cannot be controlled in the long term if there are no more soldiers to protect them.
With their forces devastated, more than 400 thousand dead and even mobilizing teenagers, women, sick people and the elderly, the Ukrainians do not seem to be acting correctly in trying to make their counteroffensive a “victorious” move. Given the tens of thousands of casualties suffered in recent months, the most correct thing to do would be to retreat, reduce the intensity of the hostilities and try to regain strength to, if possible, launch new offensives in the future – or simply surrender, since it is difficult for Ukraine to recover from its losses. However, Kiev is incapable of thinking about its own strategies, being just a proxy state that obeys orders from the West.
With his words, Ben only emphasizes that the West is really interested in forcing Ukraine to fight until the ultimate consequences. As a “solution” to the enormous human costs of the counteroffensive, the former secretary suggests that Kiev simply recruit even more young people, stopping any government’s concern (if there is any) with the survival of the population and focusing entirely on the war efforts to “win the war” against the Russians.
“Ukraine can also play its part. The average age of the soldiers at the front is over 40. I understand President Zelensky’s desire to preserve the young for the future, but the fact is that Russia is mobilising the whole country by stealth. Putin knows a pause will hand him time to build a new army. So just as Britain did in 1939 and 1941, perhaps it is time to reassess the scale of Ukraine’s mobilisation”, Ben said.
Another “argument” used by Wallace is that young soldiers tend to be more focused on improving their skills and achieving better results on the battlefield. As an example, he mentions, without citing any evidence to prove the allegations, the case of a supposed young Ukrainian who had shot down two Russian helicopters:
“They take UK equipment and achieve success rates far beyond expectations. I remember visiting a secret location abroad, but outside Ukraine, as we prepared Ukrainian soldiers on how to use StarStreak air-defence missiles. They had a week to train on a system we take months to master. A British sergeant pointed to a young Ukrainian, barely out of his teens. ‘He won’t let go of the simulator, and he won’t stop training until he never misses,’ he said. That young man went on to down two Russian attack helicopters.”
As can be seen, Wallace’s rhetoric is fallacious. Russia is not “mobilizing the entire country by stealth”. On the contrary, only a small percentage of the Russian military potential is being used to conduct the special operation in Ukraine, with virtually no effects of the conflict on the country – as can be seen from the fact that the Russian economy is growing significantly. In fact, Ukraine is the only side that is using total mobilization methods, destructively affecting its own population, in addition to facing an unprecedented social, economic and institutional crisis. Ben deliberately reverses the logic of the conflict analysis to mislead his readers.
Furthermore, the argument that young people “train more” and “learn more” is similarly fallacious and unfounded. In practice, young people are the ones who die most on the battlefield, as they are the most inexperienced and incapable of facing high-risk situations. Increasing the mobilization of young people will not bring any advantage to Kiev – it will only result in the extermination of Ukrainian citizens in a new “meat grinder”.
However, Ben Wallace certainly does not believe in his own words. He is known for being a NATO “hardliner” and it was under his administration that the UK took escalatory measures such as sending radioactive weapons and long-range missiles to the neo-Nazi regime. What Ben Wallace wants is simply to see the conflict reach its ultimate consequences – even if that means exterminating all Ukrainian youth.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
Russia raises military budget for 2024 by 70%: what does this mean?
By Gilbert Doctorow | September 30, 2023
It is always a pleasure to have an on-air chat with WION, the premier English-language global broadcaster of India. Yesterday was especially so when their program host posed a series of very relevant questions about the just announced Russian military budget for 2024 showing a 70% increase in spending over the current year. Naturally, one wonders about Russia’s intentions: how will these new funds be spent? On which weapons systems? What kind of message is Russia sending to the West by this increase? How will the increased military spending impact on social spending within Russia or, put another way, are guns and butter a sustainable political course?
In this introduction, I will not telescope my answers. I am hopeful that readers will watch the interview and follow the logic set out therein.
However, I can say here that I set out the key drivers for the increased spending. One is the latest Russian assumptions on when the war in Ukraine will end, on how it may escalate into a general Russia-NATO war as the Biden administration resists admitting defeat in Ukraine, which is possibly imminent, by expanding the conflict and introducing NATO forces on the ground. The second is the expenses related to the near doubling of the size of the Russian army now underway following the induction of 300,000 men one year ago by mobilization of reserves and the sign-up of more than 400,000 volunteers that we have seen since the start of this year.
As regards the other issues, such as the 6% of GDP that the new military budget represents, or the 2% overall budget deficit that Russia is now incurring, I explain in this interview why such figures cannot be commented upon as if in a vacuum but must be compared to what countries in the West are now experiencing, as well as to Russia’s own Soviet past.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
Care homes – The evidence of harms
If you have a weak stomach don’t read this
By Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson | Trust the Evidence | September 30, 2023
We’ve written a lot about the systemic failings in government policy regarding care homes (see here, here and here).
However, a recent study on the transitions between hospitals and care homes caught our eye. The sort of study that bypasses the media: Two care home providers with 20 to 40 care homes each in the South West and the North East of England participated, and 70 participants were interviewed.
The study exemplifies the impact hospital discharge policies had: “… hospitals just wanted patients out, regardless of COVID status. To be brutally honest, they weren’t interested; they just wanted people out. In those early days, you know, it was very traumatic.”
And how hospitals desperately enacted a policy to clear the decks: “… we had a phone call from a nurse from the hospital to say that … this lady was lying beside somebody, less than two meters, who was COVID-positive.”
These instances highlight how thoughtless and reckless the government policies were. Driven by error-strewn modelling along with a chronic lack of capacity in the NHS, panic set in: hospitals would be quickly overwhelmed. Something had to be done to free up capacity – an easy target was found: the elderly and the most vulnerable and brutally the least able to stand up for themselves.
Hospital discharge service requirements were first published on 19 March,. On 2 April, the guidance said, “Some of these patients [admitted from a hospital or a home setting] may have COVID-19, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic. All of these patients can be safely cared for in a care home if this guidance is followed.
This policy, which saw discharges to care homes without testing, has been ruled unlawful by the High Court. In Gardner & Anor, R, Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham found that government policy was “irrational” because it failed to consider the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from asymptomatic transmission.
It took until 15 April to recommend testing and 14 days of isolation for admissions to care homes. Before this, negative tests were not required prior to transfers/admissions into the care home.
The study interviews show that care homes became no-go zones: “GPs or other healthcare professionals or multidisciplinary, like, podiatrists, everyone has difficulty coming to see the residents as of high demand or they can’t come for whatever reason, so COVID-19. They used to come, now they are no longer able to.”
The study also emphasises the inhumane practice of isolating vulnerable people ‘Strong feeling that isolating care home residents went against usual practice and, for some, was very hard to endure, especially when they needed human contact and emotional support from family and friends following a period of hospitalisation.’
We’ve written about “Confinement Disease”, which is likely more harmful than covid in care homes. ‘Among long-term care residents in the Southern Ile-de-France region, more than 24 covid deaths among 140 residents occurred in 5 days. None were due to acute respiratory distress syndrome, and death was mainly due to hypovolemic shock as residents were confined to their rooms for several days without assistance with eating and drinking.’
Confinement leads to feelings of being in prison: “… rather than keeping them in hospital we would send them [to the COVID-19 unit], and then once they’re 14 days clear, I know it’s 10 now, but it was 14, then they would go back to their original care home. But it’s just been carnage, to say the least.”
The study interviews also showed how degrading and impersonal confinement practices were “… so they couldn’t have their belongings until it had been left in a certain place and washed at a certain heat and 72 hours before you can have them back. You go in your room, and you can’t see anybody, and when you do, they’ve got masks and visors, and you cannot hear them, and you’ve got all of that.”
Socially distancing and isolating the most vulnerable comes with costs. The practice of rapidly discharging patients is unlawful, yet is anyone interested at a government level in how to better look after those in care?
Patients were discharged from high-resourced hospital settings – where some had time to do Tik-Tok dances – to low-resourced care homes, which worsened as staff went off in their droves—the opposite of what you need, as less care equates to more deaths. Then you isolate vulnerable people who can’t care for themselves – again, the polar opposite of what these people need, preventing much-needed personal care that can be life-saving. Even worse, at the end of life, were the restrictions on who could share that moment, hold a person’s hand as they drew their last breath, and prevent compassionate care at one of the most important times.
The potential for harm is exceptionally high in care homes; with quarantining, physical and mental deterioration occurs rapidly, and renal failure occurs swiftly in the face of dehydration – the ultimate price to be paid is a lonely death.
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Sam Husseini: The entire US establishment helped lie their way into the Iraq war
By Slava Zilber | American Herald Tribune | October 14, 2019
Sam Husseini is a senior analyst with the Institute for Public Accuracy, independent journalist and contributor to The Nation and FAIR.
Slava Zilber: Sam, three years ago, you appeared on Talk Nation Radio with David Swanson and spoke about the case of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. You pointed out that the people involved in the spying on the UN and the people authorizing the Iraq War were not held accountable:
“Virtually everybody who went along with the war, whether it is Kerry or Clinton, of course, the Bush administration themselves has falsified their own records in terms of why, what they did, when they did, why they did it, to the extent that they’ve been scrutinised at all.”
You also address it in a recent article. And recently, Joe Biden has been lying about his position on the Iraq War. How can such an important issue escape meaningful scrutiny? … continue
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