Chinese ‘Secret Police Stations’… Fact or Fiction?
Canadian Patriot | May 28, 2023
In this first of a series of Canadian Patriot short films debunking anti-China Psyops, we ask the question ‘Is there actual evidence that secret Chinese Police Stations have been set up around the world as part of a Communist subversion of western freedom? This film will evaluate whether the single source used to justify this claim (a Spain-based human rights group called Safeguard Defenders) actually proves its accusations, and what actually controls it?
Stay tuned for future videos in this series which will investigate claims of Chinese election interference in Canada, Russian interference in the USA, Chinese spy balloon attacks, and more.
To pick up a copy of Breaking Free of Anti-China Psyops, click here:
https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/12/03/new-release-breaking-free-of-anti-china-psyops-how-the-cold-war-is-being-revived-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/
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Former CBC reporter says outlet suppressed negative stories about COVID shots, lockdowns
By Anthony Murdoch | LifeSiteNews | May 25, 2023
OTTAWA, Ontario – A former journalist who worked for the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) shockingly revealed that reporters were stopped from being able to cover stories critical of COVID vaccines and lockdowns, and were instead encouraged to push government “propaganda.”
The shocking revelations were made by past CBC Manitoba reporter Marianne Klowak during testimony at the National Citizen’s Inquiry (NCI) on May 18 in Ottawa.
“I know that as a public broadcaster, you’d expect us to be telling you the truth, and we stopped doing that,” said Klowak.
“And it was a number of stories that I have put forward that were blocked, but it seemed to me as a journalist who’d been there 34 years, it’s like the rules had changed overnight. And it changed so quickly that it left me just dizzy.”
Klowak noted that it was her editors who prevented her from doing stories in relation to protests against the COVID mandates, as well as reports of people having adverse events to the COVID shots, as reported by doctors.
She noted she had “witnessed in a very short time the collapse of journalism, news gathering, investigative reporting,” adding that the way she “saw it” is that “we were in fact pushing propaganda.”
“Not only had we shut down one side by silencing and discrediting anyone opposing the narrative, we had elevated and designated ourselves as gatekeepers of the truth. We no longer believed our audience was capable of thinking for themselves,” she told the NCI.
Klowak said a story of hers about a woman who had a COVID vaccine injury was completely neutered, or in effect “sanitized.”
“It should be just a straight story about someone who suffered an adverse reaction and we shouldn’t downplay it,” she noted.
“Instead, the way I saw it, her story was buried in experts and health officials and stats, which sanitized it.”
Klowak admitted that journalists “failed to hold power to account and no one was holding the media to account.”
In July of 2022, Klowak revealed that the CBC deliberately skewed its reporting on COVID-19 inoculations.
She said that CBC was “canceling one whole side of the debate” as the experimental COVID-19 shots became available across the world.
The NCI is a citizen-led and citizen-funded independent initiative investigating the government’s response to the COVID so-called pandemic.
At the inquiry in Ottawa as well, Dr. Christopher Alan Shoemaker, a Canadian doctor with 45 years of experience, testified about the injuries correlated with the COVID-19 mRNA injections, notably the jab’s effects on kids and reproductive health.
Shoemaker had his medical license suspended in January of 2022 by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) because he spoke out against the COVID shots.
As for Klowak, she left the CBC in late 2021. Since then, other CBC reporters have left over what they also see as biased COVID news coverage.
In January 2022, journalist Tara Henley quit for similar reasons, saying, “Those of us on the inside know just how swiftly — and how dramatically — the politics of the public broadcaster have shifted.”
About a month ago, retired Canadian Lt. Col. David Redman testified before the NCI that legacy media outlets such as the CBC are “ministries of propaganda.”
Many have accused the CBC and other media outlets of holding a pro-government bias because of those outlets’ ties to public funds.
In 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that his Liberal government would give legacy media, including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), an extra $595 million in federal assistance over the next four years.
Per its 2020-2021 annual report, the CBC receives about $1.24 billion in public funding every year, which is about 70% of its funding.
Despite these efforts, the Department of Canadian Heritage recently admitted the “bailout” of media has not worked in helping to prop up legacy media outlets.
UKRAINE CLAIM OF ATTACK ON RUSSIAN SHIP, THE IVAN KHURS, DEBUNKED
By Larry Johnson | SONAR | May 26, 2023
Let’s give the Ukrainian Government of Volodomyr Zelensky credit for one thing — they are world class liars. Yesterday I wrote about the attempted attack on the Russian ship, the Ivan Khurs, by three maritime drones and simply acknowledged that there was a video that claimed to show one of the drones hitting a ship. It was implied that the ship was the Ivan Khurs but there was no identifying information to corroborate the claim.
Today we know the truth. Ukraine lied. The Ivan Khurs pulled into port in the Black Sea on its own power with no visible damage.
This is a consistent pattern for Ukraine. Remember the Ghost of Kiev? That intrepid Ukrainian ace that allegedly shot down six Russian combat aircraft during the first month of the Special Military Operation? Turns out that was footage lifted from a video game and most of the Western media, not to mention several gullible politicians, gobbled up the lie and exulted over Ukraine’s faux victory.
Normally a person or institution regularly exposed as a prevaricator would be denounced and ignored. But not Ukraine. Zelensky and company insisted a year ago that Russia had not taken Mariupol despite conclusive video evidence of the remnants of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi AZOV battalion surrendering to the Russian Chechens as they limped out of the Azovstal steel plant.
Rinse and repeat with Bakhmut. Russia’s Wagner Group was busy hoisting victory flags over the fallen city while Ukrainian political and military leaders continued to insist that their boys were still in the fight. Nope, they were dead, captured or retreating. It was only today that a Ukrainian official, ex-Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, finally conceded that Bakhmut was kaput.
The lies and self-delusion are not restricted to Ukraine. In the United States a bi-partisan group of legislators called on Dementia Joe to send Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Ukraine:
Yesterday, members of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Chairman Representative Joe Wilson (SC-02), Ranking Member Representative Steve Cohen (TN-09) and Commissioner Representative Victoria Spartz (IN-05) sent a letter to President Biden, requesting he grants the transfer of MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Ukraine.
In the letter, Commissioners thank the Administration for its beginning steps on getting F-16s to Ukrainian defenders and emphasize the importance of ATACMS on targeting Russian frontlines in occupied Ukraine as well as pushing back Russian supply chain systems which fuel their genocidal war. During the Commissioners’ recent trip to Ukraine and meeting with President Zelensky, ATACMS were requested for an immediate battlefield advantage. These powerful weapons could provide the advantage Ukraine needs to secure its freedom, and the only remaining hurdle to their delivery is the President’s approval.
This should put Russia and China on notice that it is not just Joe Biden and his inept National Security team that are intent on escalating the war in Ukraine. There also is a vocal, bipartisan group of legislators who are pressing to expand the war and are oblivious to the risk inherent in their proposal of Russian retaliation. The Washington Establishment is still willing to bet the lives of Ukrainians on their illusory vision that Russia is teetering towards defeat and their belief that Ukraine is just one Wunderwaffen miracle weapon from total victory.
I am sad to report to those of you who live outside of the Untied States that most Americans are clueless about the implications of the United States apparent strategy of escalation. Most assume that if Russia can bomb Ukrainian cities then fair play dictates that Ukraine should be able to do the same. The point they miss is that Ukraine is incapable of such attacks without the help of the United States and other NATO countries. Increasing Ukraine’s ability to strike further inside Russian territory will inevitably lead Russia to retaliate against those responsible for making those attacks possible. That means an inevitable clash with NATO. I believe that the United States should be doing everything in its power to avoid that. But it is doing the exact opposite and the potential for something terrible looms larger with each passing day.
The Mainstream Media Is Preparing Iran To Be The Scapegoat If Kiev’s Counteroffensive Fails
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 26, 2023
The West has claimed for a while now that Iran is secretly arming Russia despite both countries’ denials, with CNN reviving these accusations in their latest report about how “Iran has a direct route to send Russia weapons – and Western powers can do little to stop the shipments”. They’re furious that the West can’t obstruct this corridor, which could improve Russia’s position in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that the NATO chief declared them to be in a few months back, if it even exists that is.
It makes sense that NATO and Russia would look to third parties for military-industrial support amidst their neck-and-neck race in Ukraine, with the first reportedly relying on Pakistan and South Korea while the second reportedly relies on Iran and North Korea. While there’s nothing new about these four claims apart from the South Korean component, the Mainstream Media’s (MSM) latest reminder of the Russian-Iranian dimension comes at a pivotal moment in the NATO-Russian proxy war.
Russia’s victory in the Battle of Artyomovsk preceded Kiev’s impending NATO-backed counteroffensive, the first of which was symbolic while the second will likely be the West’s “last hurrah” before agreeing to ceasefire and peace talks by year’s end or early next year like many now predict will happen. Unnamed Biden Administration officials told Politico in late April how much they fear the public’s reaction if the counteroffensive doesn’t meet their expectations, however, hence the need for a scapegoat.
Therein lies the implied purpose of the MSM’s latest information warfare campaign fearmongering about Russia and Iran’s reported trans-Caspian arms trade. If Moscow manages to thwart the upcoming counteroffensive, including the potential scenarios of Ukraine invading Belarus and/or Russia’s pre-2014 territory, then NATO will likely blame it on the alleged support that the Kremlin received from Iran instead of acknowledging that their single opponent has military parity with their 31-member bloc.
To be clear, it would be in Russia’s interests to receive some level of support from Iran in order to obtain an edge over NATO in their “race of logistics”, but whatever it might have already gotten or will soon get from there wouldn’t be game-changing since its partner must also ensure its own security interests. It’s unrealistic to expect the Islamic Republic to empty its stockpiles supplying Russia like most NATO members have already done in supplying Ukraine when regional security threats still remain a problem.
While its Chinese-brokered rapprochement with Saudi Arabia relieved Riyadh’s pressure upon it, Israel and the Taliban still pose their own problems to Iran that must be taken seriously. The MSM’s notion that Iran will irresponsibly leave itself defenseless just to arm Russia to the hilt out of New Cold War solidarity is nothing but a political fantasy. While the NATO countries remain under the US’ nuclear umbrella, Iran has nobody to depend on but itself, which is why it would never do what those states did.
The reason why the MSM is preconditioning its targeted Western audience to blame Iran in the event that Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive fails to meet the public’s expectations is to preempt the uncontrollable proliferation of conspiracy theories that could weaken Western unity in that scenario. Former Russian chess champion-turned-pro-Kiev-troll Garry Kasparov already publicly speculated that Kremlin agents infiltrated the White House and sabotaged the counteroffensive before it even began.
The MSM’s prior propaganda was so effective in manipulating a critical mass of minds in society that some of these people will never accept that they were lied to and that Russia is much more resilient than they were told. Instead, they’ll resort to increasingly kooky QAnon-like conspiracy theories such as Kasparov’s wildly speculating their own version of the “stab-in-the-back” myth, which could lead to the most unstable of them becoming radicalized and thus posing a domestic terrorist threat with time.
Western propagandists realized that it’s much better to distract them with the theory that Iran might be responsible for Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive failing to meet the public’s expectations than risk letting these toxic conspiracies uncontrollably circulate in the information ecosystem. As was earlier written, whatever aid Iran might have already sent to Russia or will send would be helpful though in no way game-changing, but it’s a convenient boogeyman and that’s why it would be blamed in that event.
The very fact that the MSM is preconditioning its targeted Western audience to think this speaks to how fearful the elite are that their “last hurrah” in the NATO-Russian proxy war will flounder. In order to avoid the proliferation of kooky conspiracy theories blaming their leaders for being Kremlin agents or whatever like Kasparov and other pro-Kiev trolls are beginning to imagine is the case, they’re preparing the narrative that Iran is to blame instead, which is equally ridiculous but more easily believable for most.
BBC fights ‘fake news’ with fake Twitter accounts
RT | May 23, 2023
A journalist with the British broadcaster’s new fact-checking spinoff BBC Verify has admitted to deploying multiple fake Twitter accounts to combat “disinformation.”
In a segment broadcast on Saturday, BBC “disinformation correspondent” Marianna Spring warned the audience that “mistruths can cause really serious harm to societies and the people in them.” She then revealed she had set up multiple “undercover accounts” on Twitter for the BBC’s Americast broadcast, each one representing different political views so as to better “interrogate” the viewpoints of the network’s target audience.
While the deception was portrayed as an attempt to “understand polarization online” by observing a cross-section of what kind of content social media platforms are recommending to different demographics, all three “characters” were white women. Emma, a 25-year-old atheist graphic designer with a “live-in partner” based in New York City, hails from the “progressive left.” Britney, a recently-divorced 50-year-old mother of three living in Houston, comes from the “populist right” and works as a school secretary. Gabriela, 44, a married mother of three who moonlights as a nanny, is cast as a “stressed sideliner.”
The graphics surrounding the fake profiles suggested a presence across Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, though the network stopped short of revealing its sock-puppets’ usernames. Twitter explicitly forbids using the platform to “artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience or platform manipulation defenses,” and most other social media platforms have similar policies.
According to the BBC, its Verify division consists of a team of 60 “forensic journalists and expert talent” from within the network, tasked with “fact-checking, verifying video, countering disinformation, analyzing data, and – crucially – explaining complex stories in the pursuit of truth.”
The BBC got a £20 million ($24.13 million) shot in the arm from the UK government earlier this year specifically to “counter disinformation,” with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly hailing the network as “the world’s most trusted international broadcaster.”
However, critics have called out the BBC for putting out what they claim are heavily biased and outright fabricated stories, particularly with regard to the conflict in Ukraine, even while the network continues to portray “disinformation” as the exclusive province of Russian media.
The network has nurtured the careers of ‘Russian bot’ hunters like the Atlantic Council alumnus Ben Nimmo, who has made a livelihood out of reclassifying genuine political dissent as “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” and having its practitioners deplatformed as state operatives. The BBC has also hosted government-controlled journalists tasked with waging information warfare against Russia, while its “charitable” arm, BBC Media Action, engaged in covert operations designed to “weaken the Russian state’s influence” in the Balkans.
Poll finds disconnect between US public and media
RT | May 22, 2023
Most Americans believe the ‘Russiagate’ investigation of Donald Trump was based on lies and that President Joe Biden’s family engaged in influence-peddling crimes, a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll has shown, suggesting that legacy media outlets have failed to sway public opinion.
The poll, released on Friday, found that 56% of US voters believe the claim that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election was a “false story.” The same percentage believe the Steele dossier, which was the basis for an FBI investigation of Trump’s campaign, was false.
Nearly seven in ten respondents said they weren’t surprised that the Durham Report, released earlier this month, found that the FBI violated its own standards in starting the Trump-Russia investigation and became a funnel for “disinformation” from Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Likewise, 70% of voters are concerned about interference by the FBI and intelligence agencies in US presidential elections, and 71% believe the federal government needs “wide-ranging reform” to prevent such meddling.
CNN and other US media outlets hyped the Trump-Russia collusion allegations for three years and downplayed last week’s release of the Durham Report, calling the special prosecutor’s findings about the FBI a “whole big nothing.” Just before voters went to the polls in 2020, media outlets amplified claims by former US intelligence officials that a bombshell report on alleged influence-peddling by Biden’s family – sourced to a laptop computer that Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had abandoned at a repair shop – was based on “Russian disinformation.”
The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that 63% of voters believe Hunter Biden engaged in illegal influence-peddling and tax evasion, while 53% think Joe Biden was involved in the alleged criminal operation when he was vice president, according to the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. Most voters (55%) also believe that the FBI and the US Department of Justice aren’t really investigating the Biden family’s alleged corruption, and 59% think the Russian disinformation claim was false.
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald said the poll illustrated how “radically out of touch” liberal corporate media was with the views of Americans. He added that major media outlets were not only pushing narratives that Americans didn’t believe, but also didn’t permit the majority’s views to be heard.
The poll found other troubling opinions on Biden’s 2024 election prospects. Nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) believe Biden is showing signs that he’s too old to be president, while 57% have doubts about his mental fitness, and 61% think he wouldn’t make it through a second term.
Trump is the current frontrunner for the Republican Party’s 2024 nomination and is widening his lead over Biden in a hypothetical rematch. Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that voters favor the former president over his successor by a 47%-40% margin, up from a five-point lead last month. If Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic Party’s nominee, Trump is favored by a 50%-39% margin.
The Western Media Disinformation Campaign: Fall of Bakhmut, a case in point
By Gilbert Doctorow | May 21, 2023
Our language is in constant evolution. Partly this is bottom up, from the inventiveness of creative personalities or writers for commercial advertising. Partly it is top down, from the powers that be as they seek to manipulate and control the thought processes of the broad public.
My brief essay today addresses the latter phenomenon and the introduction of the word “disinformation” into common parlance. There is a charming freshness to it, unlike the stale and repugnant word “propaganda.”
The word “disinformation” has a specific context in time and intent: it is used by the powers that be and by the mainstream media they control to denigrate, marginalize and suppress sources of military, political, economic and other information that might contradict the official government narrative and so dilute the control exercised by those in power over the general population. It is to remove “disinformation” from public life that the United States and EU member states ban RT and other Russian media outlets from the internet, from satellite and cable television channels. The censorship here in Europe varies from country to country and is probably most drastic in France and Germany. One would think that these European states are truly at war with Russia, not just giving a helping hand to Kiev.
In reality, it is these censorious states and the mass media that carry their messages with stenographic precision into print and electronic dissemination who are the ones that day after day feed disinformation to the public. It is cynically composed and consists of a toxic blend of ‘spin,’ by which is meant misleading interpretation of events, and outright lies.
The many months long battle for the provincial Donbas city of Bakhmut, or Artyomovsk as it is known in Russia, has been described variously from on high in Washington, London and Berlin. When the likely outcome was unclear, the defense of Bakhmut was called heroic and demonstrative of the brave fighting spirit of the Ukrainians.
Casualty figures issued by Kiev and then trumpeted from Washington suggested that the Russians were stupidly throwing away the lives of their fighting men by using WWI style human waves of attackers who were decimated by the defenders. Russian lives are cheap was the message. The fact that Russian artillery on site outnumbered and outperformed Ukrainian artillery by a factor of five or seven to one was freely admitted by the Western propagandists as they pleaded for increased supplies to Kiev. They, nonetheless, issued casualty reports for the Russians that inverted the force correlation. It was assumed, obviously with reason, that the public was too lazy or too uninterested to do the arithmetic.
At one moment, the spin doctors in Washington, London and Berlin said that Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut made sense because it was pinning down Russian forces and giving time to the Ukrainians to train and position their men for the heralded “counter offensive” during which they would overrun Russian positions at chosen points in the 600 mile line of combat and drive a wedge through to the Sea of Azov, opening the way for recapture of Crimea. Those were grand words and ambitions to justify continued and ever rising Western military assistance to Kiev.
At another point, the spin doctors said it would be better if Ukraine stopped losing men in Bakhmut and launched instead that much vaunted counter-offensive. Now we were told that Bakhmut is just a Russian fantasy, that it has no strategic value.
In the past couple of weeks, the Russian command has issued daily reports on the progressive capture by Russian forces of Bakhmut, square kilometer after square kilometer. We were told they controlled 75%, then 80% and most recently more than 90% of the city proper while artillery bombardment of the remaining blocks of high rise residential buildings that were being used by Ukrainian defenders for their sniper attacks and intelligence reports on Russian troop movements pulverized everything in their path.
At this point, the attention of Western media defending truth against Russian disinformation was directed at the Ukrainian “successes” in recapturing settlements on the flanks of Bakhmut. Just three days ago The New York Times was telling its readers that these “breakthroughs” by the Ukrainians put in jeopardy the Russian forces holding the city proper: they might be surrounded and compelled to surrender or die. The possibility that the offensives on the flanks were only intended to facilitate withdrawal of remaining Ukrainian soldiers from Bakhmut and were tolerated by the Russians to avoid bloody fights to the death – that possibility crossed no one’s mind at the NYT, it seems.
Midday yesterday, 20 May, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group which did most of the fighting for Bakhmut on the ground, claimed total victory. In the evening, President Vladimir Putin announced to the Russian public that Bakhmut was taken. Joyous messages of congratulations filled the internet message services in Russia as the broad public celebrated a victory as iconic as the Battle for Stalingrad.
Meanwhile, the defenders of the Western public against Russian “disinformation” were hard at work, straining their brains to find what to say. This morning’s New York Times still speaks of the battle for Bakhmut as undecided, pointing yet again to the Ukrainian hold on the flanks.
Given their losses in men and materiel defending Bakhmut, the surrender of the city to the Russians will be a great blow to Ukrainian fighting morale when it is finally admitted. So will the fate of their Commander in Chief General Zaluzhny who, according to Russian sources, has been hospitalized for the past two weeks and remains in critical condition after falling victim to a Russian strike on a provincial command center which killed most of the high officers around him. If nothing else, this speaks to the amazing success of Russian military intelligence directing their firepower.
Meanwhile, Western media attention to Ukraine is conveniently redirected at the nonstop travels of President Zalensky who went from his European tour on to the Middle East, where he attended the meeting of the Arab League, and thence via French military jet to the G7 gathering in Hiroshima where he held talks with fellow heads of state and joined them for the obligatory group photos. All the talk was about when the U.S. will formally give its consent to the dispatch of F16s to Kiev. For the disseminators of Western disinformation this is a wonderful distraction from a war that clearly is going badly for Kiev and in particular a distraction from the counter offensive that looks less likely with each passing day of Russian military strikes on the command centers and weapons stores of the Ukrainian side.
The plume of radioactive smoke and ash that rose from the Khmelnitsky store of British depleted uranium artillery shells in Western Ukraine after a Russian missile strike, just like the extensive damage to the Patriot air defense installation near Kiev by a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile tell us all what will be the fate of future Western arms deliveries to Ukraine. It is an interesting question how much longer the Ukrainian military or politicians will put up with their high flying, good life President while the country is well on its way to hell.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
NATO Is Panicking After Russia’s Kinzhal Hypersonic Missiles Smashed Kiev’s Patriots
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 18, 2023
The fake news that circulated earlier this month alleging that Kiev’s Patriots shot down one of Russia’s Kinzhal hypersonic missiles has become even more ridiculous in the days after since they’re now claiming that another six were supposedly downed during a recent strike. The Mainstream Media’s (MSM) laundering of these lies isn’t just due to them taking everything their Ukrainian proxies say at face value, but even includes their own military experts actively contributing to this disinformation campaign.
The US’ Patriots lack the technical capabilities to track and intercept hypersonic projectiles, but that isn’t anything for them to be embarrassed about since there doesn’t presently exist any air defense system in the world that could do this. The West’s problem is therefore one of perceptions, however, since the MSM hyped up their deployment to Ukraine to the point where the public expected that former Soviet Republic to become invulnerable to any Russian strikes.
The Kremlin was aware of the West’s soft power interests in transferring this equipment there, hence why it cleverly decided to include several hypersonic missiles in its latest spree of strikes against military targets, knowing that there was no way that they’d be intercepted and thus discrediting their opponents. Not only that, but they even managed to destroy five launchers and a multifunctional radar on 16 May according to the Russian Ministry of Defense’s report that was shared the day after.
Footage of that night’s strikes subsequently appeared on social media, after which those who shared such were detained by the Ukrainian secret police on the pretext that this could have helped Russia’s military-intelligence services. In reality, Kiev was left flustered after that same footage showed how many millions of dollars’ worth of air defense missiles were wasted in trying to shoot down the Kinzhals. The US also confirmed that the Patriots were indeed damaged but denied that any of them were destroyed.
Nevertheless, the public was able to see for themselves just how desperate Kiev was to intercept those hypersonic projectiles, and many interpreted America’s confirmation that the Patriots were damaged as a limited hangout to deflect from their suspicions that they were actually destroyed. 16 May will therefore be seen in hindsight as a pivotal turning point in popular perceptions since Russia’s claim that its Kinzhals smashed the Patriots is believed by a growing number of people after watching that footage.
This poses a major reputational problem for the West, which claims to be able to defend its people in the event of any contingency, especially the worst-case one of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine turning into a direct conventional conflict between those two. Nobody who saw Tuesday night’s footage and heard about Russia’s achievement the day after can say with confidence that they still believe in the viability of their side’s air defenses since they’ve now been exposed as worthless by the Kinzhals.
The Kremlin currently wields a monopoly on this game-changing military technology after being the first country in the world to produce these missiles and then use them in battle, which means that it can pierce NATO’s Patriot-centric air defenses with ease in the worst-case scenario described above. The preceding observation about the US’ struggle to compete with Russia in this respect isn’t so-called “propaganda” like skeptics might claim but was confirmed by The Hill two months ago.
In their piece on 14 March explaining “Why the US is going full throttle on hypersonic missiles”, they wrote that “The United States is opening the throttle in its push to develop and procure hypersonic missiles after falling behind key foreign adversaries China and Russia in the race to field a potentially game-changing defense system”, adding that “the Defense Department has not fielded the weapons yet, and there remain challenges in the industrial production base and with testing infrastructure.”
Most damning of all, The Hill also informed their audience that “Not even the U.S. currently has an adequate defense system to take down hypersonic missiles. Air defense systems, such as Patriots and Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, are capable of taking down ballistic missiles that reach hypersonic speeds, but only over small areas.” That “politically inconvenient” fact not only discredits this month’s disinformation campaign, but also reaffirms Russia’s military dominance in the hypersonic domain.
Simply put, the Kremlin has full confidence that its Kinzhals would successfully reach all their targets in the worst-case scenario of a conventional NATO-Russian war, thus meaning that Moscow could in theory destroy the West’s nuclear second-strike capabilities if it carried out a first strike to preempt its enemies’. Its achievement the other day in Kiev where it destroyed five Patriot launchers and a multifunctional radar sent shivers down the spines of NATO’s warmongers and sobered them up to what they’re facing.
Any thoughts they might have had of trying to “Balkanize” Russia by conventional military means as a last resort upon the failure of their Ukrainian-fronted Hybrid War to this end instantly evaporated since they realized that it could provoke the Kremlin into destroying the West out of self-defense. To be sure, some of their second-strike capabilities would likely remain intact and thus be used against Russia, but the point is that Moscow could first inflict unacceptable damage to them if it’s pushed to do so.
Despite popular claims to the contrary from many of the Alt-Media Community’s top influencers, NATO isn’t “insane” in the sense of its leaders being willing to sacrifice themselves as long as their deaths resulted in dismembering Russia. Like all elites, they want to live as long as possible, hence why they’ll now think twice about indulging in the neoconservative fantasy of resorting to conventional means to “Balkanize” that targeted Great Power upon the failure of their proxy war on it through Ukraine to that end.
In practical terms, this suggests that they might be more amenable to a ceasefire once Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive ends by this winter, thus raising the prospects that the upcoming African-led peace mission to Russia and Ukraine could earn their approval and lead to Kiev agreeing to these terms. The leading Anglo-American Axis within NATO could never endorse the parallel Chinese-led initiative so it therefore follows that the African-led one could give them a “face-saving” way to support a ceasefire.
It’s premature to predict this latest initiative’s success or lack therefore, but the relevance of this development to the present piece is that it can help give NATO an “exit strategy” from this proxy war after its leaders just realized how suicidal it would be to escalate it to a conventional one. Russia’s Kinzhals smashed their Patriots in Kiev, which proved that the Kremlin can pierce the West’s air defenses with ease, thus representing both a military game-changer and possibly even a diplomatic one soon too.
Kiev’s air defense capability threatened
By Lucas Leiroz | May 18, 2023
The recent successful Russian attacks against strategic Ukrainian targets made clear the reality that was already reported by many military experts: the Ukrainian air defense is vulnerable. Despite all the Western aid and the incessant delivery of weapons, Kiev seems unable to improve its defense system, continuing to be an easy target for Russia’s incisive combat actions. Tracking and shooting down Russian missiles and drones has become difficult work for Ukrainian forces, which are still failing to stop Russian weapons from reaching their targets.
However, this news coexists with Western-Ukrainian propaganda that Russian hypersonic missiles are being shot down by Kiev. Although mainstream media outlets support the Ukrainian narrative, in recent months these same newspapers have reported the weakness of the regime’s armed forces on several occasions, therefore there is a contradiction in data.
For example, in March, experts pointed out in an article published in The Washington Post that Kiev was suffering from a severe shortage of ammunition for its air defense systems. At the time, analysts said that Ukrainian forces could become absolutely unable to protect their airspace against Russian missiles and UAVs, leaving military facilities “open” to enemy attacks. Experts also warned at the time of the serious lack of qualified military personnel, stating that most of the experienced Ukrainian military had already been neutralized in the first year of the operation, leaving now few able soldiers to manage the country’s defense systems.
Even more pessimistic forecasts were exposed by the Financial Times, which also commented on the critical situation of the Ukrainian air defense. Experts have warned that the number of anti-missiles launched to intercept a Russian attack is usually double the number of Russian missiles or drones, in order to increase the chances of success. A side effect of this is to overspend artillery ammunition, accelerating depletion.
“[…] Officials said the continuing need to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks had systematically depleted Ukraine’s stockpiles — a warning backed up by US intelligence documents leaked online this spring that suggested Kyiv might run out of ammunition for five critical air defence systems. According to documents reviewed by the Financial Times, the US assessed in late February that Ukraine’s ability to protect its troops on the front lines would be ‘completely reduced’ by May 23″, the Financial Times article reads.
Forbes also reported on the Ukrainian situation. In an article published on the site in April, experts said the imminent shortage of missiles was the main problem for Ukraine’s air defense. At the time, it was warned that, in addition to having dozens of their systems destroyed by Russian attacks, the Ukrainians would also be suffering from the absence of 9M38 Buk missiles. This equipment is produced in Russia, with Ukrainian stocks remaining from Soviet times. The depletion of these missiles, therefore, becomes an even more worrying issue because Kiev’s sponsors do not manufacture this weapon, which is compatible with the Soviet-era Buk systems that Ukraine has.
One solution found was the American supply of Raytheon RIM-7 Sea Sparrows, which, although different, use the same radar guidance as the 9M38. With proper technical adaptations, these American weapons could be launched using Soviet Buk systems. However, despite promises started in January, so far Washington has not been able to organize a program of constant supply of Raytheon RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missiles, thus preventing Kiev’s air defense from being re-established. Furthermore, the need for technical handling and adaptation of these weapons to Soviet systems could be a problem, considering the lack of qualified military personnel, as pointed out by the Post. With that, Ukraine’s hopes for recovery become even more complicated.
Another big outlet commenting on this problem was Deutsche Welle, which in an article published on April 22 made it clear that Ukraine is not capable of shooting down Russian guided bombs, being vulnerable to the air operations of Moscow’s forces. The newspaper at the time interviewed the representative of the Air Force of Ukraine, Yuri Ignat, who said that the systems used by his troops were not able to shoot down Russian equipment, with the need to receive new, more modern and efficient systems from the West.
As is well known, most of the Western media is extremely biased and propagandistic in its narrative of the conflict, always trying to make it seem like Kiev has the advantage over the Russians. When something negative for the regime is communicated, it is because there really is no way to ignore the situation and it becomes more convenient to report it in order to seek improvements – perhaps trying to pressure western authorities to send more help to change the scenario. This seems to have been the case in recent months regarding the Ukrainian air defense.
However, now the media work has again been “optimistic” about the Ukrainian defense. Media outlets repeated the regime’s propaganda that several Russian “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles were shot down by Ukrainian troops. In addition to no evidence of this being given, the narrative also contradicts everything that had been reported by the Western media (citing Ukrainian sources) in recent months, that the country’s air defenses were close to being disabled.
This contradictory information shows once again how the western media has been spreading lies about the conflict. Either the Ukrainian air defense is close to collapse, or it is able to shoot down “Kinzhal” missiles – there is no way to join both narratives. And the recent successful Russian air strikes across the conflict zone, neutralizing several strategic targets, already makes clear what is the correct information.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
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