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Russian Foreign Ministry statement on measures in response to hostile US actions

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation | April 16, 2021

The latest attack by the Biden administration against our country cannot go unanswered. It seems Washington is unwilling to accept that there is no room for unilateral dictates in the new geopolitical reality. Meanwhile, the bankrupt scenarios for deterring Moscow that the US myopically continues to pursue only promise to further degrade Russian-US relations.

In this context, the appeals from across the ocean to refrain from escalation and essentially accept this attempt to talk to us from a position of strength sound hypocritical. We have repeatedly warned and demonstrated in practice that sanctions and any other pressure will never succeed and will only have dire consequences for those who dare attempt such provocations.

We will introduce the following countermeasures in response to anti-Russian sanctions in the near future:

  •  Employees of US diplomatic missions will be expelled on a reciprocal basis in numbers proportional to the actions taken by the US authorities against Russian diplomats.
  • Incidentally, we noted how quickly Warsaw played up to the US administration by demanding the departure of three Russian diplomats from Poland. In turn, five Polish diplomats will be expelled from Russia.
  •  The US Embassy’s practice of using short-term trips by State Department staff to support the functioning of diplomatic missions will be restricted. The issuance of visas to them will be reduced to a minimum: up to 10 people per year on a reciprocal basis.
  •  In strict conformity with the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations and Russian law, including the Labour Code, measures will be taken to discontinue completely the practice of US diplomatic missions employing citizens of the Russian Federation and third countries as administrative and technical staff.
  •  The bilateral 1992 memorandum of understanding on open ground is declared invalid due to systematic violations of rules for trips in the Russian Federation by employees of US diplomatic missions.
  •  Plans are in place to halt the activities in the Russian Federation of American foundations and NGOs controlled by the Department of State and other US government agencies. These consistent, long-term efforts will be brought to an end, all the more so since the United States shows no intention of scaling back its systematic subversive efforts underpinned by a wide array of laws.
  •  Obviously, this very tense situation objectively requires the ambassadors of our countries to be in their respective capitals to analyse developments and hold consultations.

These steps represent just a fraction of the capabilities at our disposal. Unfortunately, US statements threatening to introduce new forms of punishment show that Washington is not willing to listen and does not appreciate the restraint that we have displayed despite the tensions that have been purposefully fuelled since the presidency of Barack Obama.

Recall that after a large-scale expulsion of Russian diplomats in December 2016 and the seizure of Russian diplomatic property in the US, we did not take any response measures for seven months. We responded only when Russia was declared a US adversary legislatively in August 2017.

In general, compared to the Russian diplomatic missions in the United States, the US Embassy in Moscow operates in better conditions, enjoying a numerical advantage and actively benefitting from the work of Russian citizens hired in-country. This form of disparity frees up “titular” diplomats to interfere in our domestic affairs, which is one of the main tenets of Washington’s foreign policy doctrine.

Incidentally, soon the Foreign Ministry will publish on its website the names of eight incumbent and former high-ranking US officials and other figures involved in drafting and implementing anti-Russia policy. They will be permanently banned from entering the Russian Federation. This is our equivalent response to the sanctions against Russian officials that the US blacklisted last month.

Now is the time for the United States to show common sense and pull back from this confrontational course. Otherwise, the US will face a host of painful decisions, for instance, an order for US diplomatic missions to reduce personnel in Russia to 300 people. This will establish real parity at bilateral foreign offices because the US quota of 455 employees still includes the 155 people sent to the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN in New York. However, this has nothing to do with our bilateral mission.

There are also other options. Of course, we realise that we are limited in our ability to squeeze the Americans economically as they have us. However, we have some resources in this respect and they will also be used if Washington chooses to follow the path of spiraling sanctions.

None of this is our choice. We would like to avoid further escalation with the US. We are ready to engage in calm and professional dialogue with the US in order to find ways of normalising bilateral ties. However, the reality is that we hear one thing from Washington but see something completely different in practice. There must be no doubt – not a single round of sanctions will go unanswered.

We have obviously heard President Joe Biden express interest in stable, constructive and predictable relations with Russia, including a proposed Russian-US summit. When this offer was made, it was received positively and is now being considered in the context of concrete developments.

Press release on a ban on entry of certain US citizens into the Russian Federation

In response to the sanctions against Russian officials imposed by the US administration on March 2 of this year, the following incumbent and former US high-ranking officials and figures complicit in pursuing the anti-Russia policy, are denied entry to the Russian Federation:

  1. Merrick Brian Garland, United States Attorney General;
  2. Michael D. Carvajal, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons;
  3. Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, United States Secretary of Homeland Security;
  4. Susan Elizabeth Rice, Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council, former US Permanent Representative to the United Nations and National Security Advisor;
  5. Christopher Asher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation;
  6. Avril Danica Haines, Director of US National Intelligence.

In addition, entry is denied to John Robert Bolton, former National Security Advisor to the United States President, former US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and Robert James Woolsey Jr., former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

In view of the unprecedented complications in Russia-US relations provoked by Washington, it was decided to deviate from the usual practice of not making public the response measures taken by the Russian side.

April 17, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Fake news all along: Confidence game with ‘Russian bounties’ story shows one shouldn’t trust spies & self-serving media

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | April 16, 2021

Even when admitting a lie, the US establishment seeks to weaponize it further. Saying that US spies now have “low to moderate” confidence the infamous ‘Russian bounties’ story may be true is a perfect example.

So convoluted was the phrasing of the not-quite-admission of wrongdoing on Thursday, that some media outlets – looking at you, The Hill – actually took it as proof the claim Russia had offered Taliban money to kill US troops was true!

“The US intelligence community assesses with low to moderate confidence that Russian intelligence officers sought to encourage Taliban attacks against US coalition personnel in Afghanistan in 2019, including through financial incentives and compensation,” is how an anonymous official put it on a background call with the press.

From the White House podium, Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki insisted Russia still had to explain itself, and dodged questions about congressional Democrats and their presidential candidate acting as if the claim had been 100% proven fact, back during the 2020 campaign.

Yet even the most hyper-partisan press had to concede that Thursday’s revelation amounted to “walking back” the original claim, used incessantly to accuse former President Donald Trump of insufficient patriotism or inappropriate ties to Moscow.

Biden used it repeatedly to accuse Trump of “betraying” the troops. This was later amplified by the unsourced Atlantic story accusing Trump of insulting the fallen, just to be 100% sure. The “bounties” claim also gave the neocons and hawks within the GOP a pretext to side with Democrats and block Trump’s efforts to withdraw from Afghanistan.

It didn’t matter than the director of national intelligence himself told Congress the allegation was unconfirmed, or that the top US general in Afghanistan said the military had found nothing to corroborate it. The claim was politically useful, so the corporate media intended on seeing Trump ousted from the White House went all in on it.

Yet one didn’t have to be especially clever to realize the original story was nonsense – merely sufficiently observant. First of all, it cited no sources, only phantom “officials briefed on the matter.” Secondly, it relied on an all-too-familiar set of weasel words and phrases, such as “linked to,” or “closely associated with” or “believed to have.” Buried deep inside the story was the admission that the whole thing was based on US-backed Afghan police interrogation of criminals, who spun a tale of Taliban and Russians under torture.

Like a shawarma, the whole thing was then wrapped in the already established body of lies – that Russia was conducting a “hybrid war” against the US through fake news, hacking attacks and secret spy operations, even bringing in the “highly likely” alleged poisoning of ex-spy Sergey Skripal in Salisbury with a chemical agent – for which no evidence has been presented to this day.

A “spy fantasy,” I called it at the time. Except it was something worse: a literal con game, perpetrated upon the American public by con artists in the intelligence community, the media and political establishment circles. No doubt for the purpose of “fortifying” the election, we may find out some day.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” famous American astronomer Carl Sagan used to say. So what is one to make of the “party of science” – as Democrats have styled themselves – offering no evidence whatsoever for any of their outlandish claims, and treating the assertions as proof enough? Perhaps that one ought to be far more skeptical of spies, politicians and the media peddling such self-serving accusations going forward.

Thing is, they believe their lies have worked – for them, and in the short run, at least – so that’s not highly likely to happen, is it?

Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Telegram @TheNebulator

April 16, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Biden’s Russia policy ludicrous, unbelievable, contradictory & unprecedented: First offers Putin summit & then imposes sanctions

By Paul Robinson | RT |  April 15, 2021

Just a month ago, US President Joe Biden indicated he believes his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin is a “killer.” But on Tuesday, he spoke to the ‘killer’ by phone and proposed that the pair meet for a face-to-face summit.

A few weeks is clearly a long time in politics.

So too, it seems, is a couple of days.

For on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared that a summit between Biden and Putin would not go ahead in the near future. That does not mean that Moscow has definitively rejected a meeting at some point later, but it is clear that the Kremlin is not inclined to indulge Biden for now.

Peskov’s statement followed news that the United States was about to unveil a new set of economic sanctions against Russia, including measures to prevent American financial institutions from buying Moscow’s sovereign debt. The US also expelled ten Russian diplomats.

Consistency is generally a good thing. Sadly, US policy toward Russia appears to be decidedly inconsistent, offering an olive branch one day and then hitting with a big stick the next. From a Russian point of view, it must look two-faced, and consequently perhaps even worse than if it was straightforwardly hostile. What explains the mixed signals coming from Washington?

The basic starting point is that the US government views Russia as an aggressive challenger to the US-dominated world order. In addition, the Democratic party, which now holds both the presidency and Congress, is convinced that Russia, and Vladimir Putin specifically, was responsible for the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Domestic American politics do not allow for anything other than a hostile policy towards Russia. This is the new default position.

Thus the US intelligence community’s latest Annual Threat Assessment devotes an entire chapter to “Russian provocative actions”. This declares that, “Moscow will employ an array of tools – especially influence campaigns, intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation, military aid and combined exercises, mercenary operations, and arms sales – to advance its interests or undermine the interests of the United States and its allies.”

It follows from this that the US must hit back against Russia in order to punish it for its aggression, and to deter it from further actions.

In this context, Biden’s phone call and offer to normalize relations is rather out of place. One possible explanation for it is Ukraine. The war in Donbass between the Ukrainian government and the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics has gotten substantially hotter since the start of the year, with both sides breaking the ceasefire on a regular basis. Ukraine is alleged to have moved additional heavy equipment close to the front lines. Meanwhile, Moscow has been holding military exercises close to the Ukrainian border, possibly to deter Ukraine from launching an all-out assault on the rebels.

As a result, Western media and politicians have suggested that Russia might launch a surprise attack on Ukraine, while commentators on the Russian side have instead pointed the finger of blame at the USA, accusing it of egging the Ukrainians on. Tuesday’s phone call might suggest that Biden has blinked. Having allegedly pushed the Ukrainians to take a hard line against Russia, the United States has faced the reality of a tough Russian response, and decided to back off and calm things down.

In other words, Biden views Russia as an enemy, and is determined to push a hard line against it. But he doesn’t want war. Nor is there any evidence that he ever wanted to push Ukraine into a war with Russia – this is more of a fantasy of Russian TV talk show pundits than any sort of reality. The phone call and summit offer may be seen as a form of crisis management, walking the world back from the brink, but not as an indication of any significant change in overall policy.

The Kremlin’s unwillingness to immediately accept the summit offer is understandable. Moscow will no doubt be pleased that Biden appears to be trying to de-escalate the situation, but it is probably also deeply sceptical about the prospects of a summit meeting producing concrete results. If Biden can convince the Kremlin that he is serious about reaching agreement on specific issues, then its attitude will no doubt change. But for now there is little to be gained by the prospect of being lectured at and faced with threats and demands.

In any case, although the Russian government would no doubt favour a real dialogue, it’s not desperate for it. The United States appears not to fully appreciate how the world has changed in recent years, and the extent to which its former levers of power no longer work. The proposed sanctions on Russian sovereign debt are a case in point. There was a time when Russia would have been frightened by losing the prospect of accessing American money. Now, though, it no longer needs it. Not only does it hardly have any debt, but it also has access to other lenders, including both international and domestic ones.

Russia’s response to the summit offer suggests that Russia is willing to talk, but only on terms of equality. America, however, seems to think that it can force Russia to the negotiating table on its own terms. This is a profound mistake. The only question is how long it will take the Americans to realize it.

Paul Robinson is a professor at the University of Ottawa. He writes about Russian and Soviet history, military history, and military ethics, and is the author of the Irrussianality blog.

April 16, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

US Lawmakers Reintroduce Bill Barring Any American President From Leaving NATO Alliance

By Gaby Arancibia – Sputnik – 16.04.2021

Under the Trump administration, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a measure in an effort to prevent a sitting US president from withdrawing the nation from a military alliance, specifically NATO. However, the December 2020 initiative was never taken up for a vote by the full US Senate, which was then under Republican control.

A bipartisan group of US senators reintroduced a measure on Thursday that would effectively prevent any sitting American president from removing the Land of the Free from the decades-old NATO military alliance.

The bill was reintroduced into the Democrat-controlled Senate chamber by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), congressional members who both serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The legislation has been sponsored by several Republicans, Democrats and an independent.

The measure’s stipulations indicate that should a president want to withdraw from the alliance, they would need to get at least two-thirds approval from the US Senate.

However, in the event that the commander-in-chief attempts to jump ship without said approval, the bill would then prohibit funding for the withdrawal and authorize the Congressional Legal Counsel to challenge the matter in court.

“NATO has been a critical alliance for nearly 75 years,” Kaine remarked in a statement. “It has ably served the US, our NATO allies, and the world. This bill expresses clear congressional support for the continuing value of NATO and clarifies that no president acting alone can sever the bonds of the alliance.”

In an accompanying statement of his own, Rubio highlighted the importance of the alliance, noting that the military partnership “is more important than ever” in light of “Moscow’s growing subversive aggressions.”

“We must ensure no US president withdraws from NATO without the advice and consent of the Senate,” the lawmaker stressed.

Most recently, Russia’s military build-up along the Ukrainian border has remained under the spotlight, with the troop deployments being labeled a “provocation.” Moscow has rejected claims that the development is an incitement, explaining that the movements are meant to ensure the nation’s national security as NATO has undertaken its own build-up in the region.

A similar measure regarding a potential pullout from the NATO partnership was introduced in December 2019 as a response to former US President Donald Trump’s repeated criticism of the NATO alliance. At the time, Trump blasted NATO allies for not contributing enough funding to the organization, vowing to part ways from the defense block. However, Trump never delivered on the promise and instead referred to the potential withdrawal as “unnecessary.”

At present, any NATO member seeking to withdraw from the group must give a one-year “notice of denunciation” before being able to exit the treaty.

April 16, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

White House admits lack of confidence in DEBUNKED story about Russian bounties – after Biden repeatedly used it to attack Trump

RT | April 15, 2021

With Donald Trump safely ousted, US intelligence agencies now admit they have only “low to moderate confidence” that Russia offered bounties on US troops in Afghanistan – yet still demand that the Kremlin answer for the crimes.

“The US intelligence community assesses with low to moderate confidence that Russian intelligence officers sought to encourage Taliban attacks against US coalition personnel in Afghanistan in 2019, including through financial incentives and compensation,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters on Thursday.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the new assessment in a press briefing, saying reports on the bounties “were enough of a cause of concern that we wanted our intelligence community to look into” the matter. That assessment found “low to moderate confidence” that the allegations were true, she said.

The latest official view marks a sharp contrast to last June, when the New York Times reported as fact – based on anonymous sourcing – that Russia had offered such bounties for Taliban-linked militants to attack US forces. Other outlets “confirmed” the report – which in mainstream-media-speak means that anonymous sources reiterated the allegations to them, not that anything was verified to be true.

With election season heating up, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and other politicians used the issue to bludgeon President Trump for failing to punish Russia. “His entire presidency has been a gift to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, but this is beyond the pale,” Biden said in September. “It’s a betrayal of the most sacred duty we bear as a nation, to protect and equip our troops when we send them into harm’s way.”

Asked on Thursday whether President Biden – in light of the current doubts over the allegations against Russia – regretted using the bounty story to attack Trump, Psaki said, “I’m not going to speak to the previous administration.”

Trump and members of his administration had repeatedly pointed out that the bounty allegations were unverified. While the media reporting on the issue cited unidentified “intelligence” officials, the nation’s top intelligence and military chiefs said on the record that the claims were unverified. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, among other officials, told members of Congress in July that the allegations were unconfirmed.

Months of investigation by the US military failed to yield a different answer. Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, the commander who oversees US troops in Afghanistan, said in September that the military had found nothing to corroborate the bounty allegations. At that point, the probe included a review of every attack on US troops in Afghanistan in the past several years, none of which were linked to Russian incentive payments.

And yet, even as the White House walked back the intelligence community’s assessment of the alleged bounties on Thursday, partly blaming “challenging operating environments,” Psaki suggested that Russia should still be forced to explain its conduct.

“This information really puts the burden on Russia and the Russian government to explain their engagement here,” she said. The unidentified senior official who briefed reporters added that Russia must “take steps to address this disturbing pattern of behavior,” although allegations of that behavior remain in doubt.

The new assessment was offered on the same day that Biden imposed new sanctions against Russian individuals and organizations, as well as expelling 10 Moscow diplomats. The unidentified senior official told reporters that the sanctions were for election interference and the SolarWinds hacking incident – the Kremlin has denied being involved in either case – and added that US concerns over the bounties have been conveyed to Russia in “strong direct messages” through diplomatic, intelligence, and military channels.

Observers on social media noted that the reassessment of the bounty story should further discredit MSM outlets for attacks on Trump that later proved to be false or dubious. Journalist Aaron Mate said today’s White House statements mark “another blockbuster humiliation” for “Russia-gate disinformation outlet” the Daily Beast.

CNN host Jake Tapper was another target of ridicule. “No one should be surprised that Jake Tapper was leading the charge on yet another nonsensical story fabricated by him and other resistance clowns in the media,” journalist Arthur Schwartz said on Twitter.

Schwartz also took a shot at the original purveyor of the story, tweeting: “Hey New York Times PR, you going to let the public know who lied to these reporters? Or did they make it up themselves.”

April 16, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

US Rationale Behind New Russia Sanctions ‘Shockingly Shallow’, Think Tank Says

Sputnik – 16.04.2021

The latest round of sanctions against Russia casts doubt on both the competence and judgment of US President Joe Biden with the rationale behind the measures being so astonishingly shallow, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Director Daniel McAdams told Sputnik.

“The rationale behind the sanctions is shockingly shallow,” McAdams said. “Crimea was seven years ago. The US intelligence community itself says it cannot find proof for claims that Russia put bounties on the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan. There has been no evidence provided to back the claims about the SolarWinds breach or the claims that Russia was interfering in the 2020 election. The whole thing is a farce and, worryingly, it seems they know it and just don’t care.”

Earlier on Thursday, the US expelled 10 Russian diplomats and slapped new sanctions on dozens of Russian nationals and companies. It also moved to raise Russia’s borrowing costs by barring US entities from buying bonds directly from Russia.

McAdams said the problem is that there are no good answers to describe this “level of incompetence.”

“We became used to the president saying one thing and his staff doing something different during the Trump Administration, but this is taking that disconnect to a whole new level,” he stated.McAdams also expressed doubt that the planned meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden will take place following Washington’s decision to slap sanctions against Moscow.

“The meeting will be off. At least for the near future,” he said. “There is no way Putin could ignore the hostility of a new round of sanctions and the launching of economic warfare against the ruble.”

He also said that there is no “imaginable rational goal coming out of Washington’s foreign policy circles regarding Russia.”

“This is a time when everyone believes their own propaganda,” he noted. “It is a closed loop with no original thinking. Keep doing the same thing and expect different results next time. It is testimony to the intellectual and creative bankruptcy among who call themselves the ‘experts.'”

McAdams said that severing diplomatic relations is an extreme move but “not far off at the rate we are going.”

“I also wonder whether these snap sanctions do not have something to do with Ukraine’s recent back-down from its collision course with Russia,” McAdams added. “Are there factions in the US Administration who are pushing for a Russia/Ukraine open conflict – perhaps the neocons – and other factions seeking to calm the crisis? Are the new sanctions a form of US lashing out at Russia over the latter seemingly prevailing in this round of the Moscow/Kiev face-off?”

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the US government’s actions are contrary to its declared intention to build pragmatic relations with Russia. The Foreign Ministry has notified US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan that Moscow’s retaliatory measures will be announced soon.

April 16, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Kremlin Reveals Details About Putin-Biden Phone Call

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 14.04.2021

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden held a telephone conversation on Tuesday. According to the White House account of the discussion, issues raised included strategic stability, Russia’s alleged ‘cyber intrusions’ and election meddling, and America’s “unwavering commitment” to Ukraine. A summit meeting was proposed.

Tuesday’s phone call between Presidents Putin and Biden was “businesslike” and of considerable duration, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Peskov said the two men had agreed that the possibility of their meeting would be discussed through diplomatic channels. Moscow, he said, is only now starting to receive information about organisational and other aspects related to a possible summit.

“Before now there was simply a dearth of information about how it would take place, in what order, who would speak, who would chair it, what the outcome is expected to be, whether a final document would be issued, etc. We are just starting to get answers to all these questions; we are still studying them,” the presidential spokesman said. He added that it was “too early” to discuss the proposed meeting’s possible place and time.

Earlier Wednesday, Finnish media reported that Finland had offered to facilitate the meeting of the Russian and US presidents, and that Austria and Iceland had similarly offered their diplomatic services.

Commenting on the escalation of Russia-US tensions surrounding Ukraine, Peskov stressed that a de-escalation of the situation in the civil war-torn Eastern European nation would only be possible if the Ukrainian army indicated that it wouldn’t engage in any provocative behaviour.

“We consider the ‘expression of any concerns’ from any side, including the United States, in connection with the movements of Russia’s armed forces inside Russia, to be groundless. On the territory of Ukraine, de-escalation can only occur if the Ukrainian armed forces reject provocative actions,” he said.

Earlier, the White House readout of Tuesday’s telephone conversation between Putin and Biden said that the US president had “voiced” Washington’s “concerns over the sudden Russian military buildup in occupied Crimea and on Ukraine’s borders, and called on Russia to de-escalate tensions”.

Recent weeks have seen a major deterioration of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, with officials from the breakaway Donbass republics accusing Kiev of preparing for a new military offensive. Moscow has urged both sides to stick to the terms of the Minsk ceasefire. Washington, its NATO allies and Kiev have instead accused Russia of “aggression”.

In his remarks Wednesday, Peskov also indicated that he would not comment on whether the Russian side would ask Biden to apologise over last month’s remarks, in which he agreed with a journalist’s characterisation of the Russian president as a “killer” and threatened to make him “pay a price” over alleged meddling in America’s elections.

“I will leave this issue without comment,” the spokesman said.

Finally, asked to comment on whether Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition vlogger whom the US and its allies accused Moscow of poisoning, was brought up in the Putin-Biden telephone talks, Peskov said his name was not mentioned.

The United States and the European Union slapped Russia with new sanctions last month over the Navalny case. The opposition vlogger and anti-corruption activist collapsed on a domestic flight in Siberia last August, and was rushed for emergency treatment in the Siberian city of Omsk. At the request of his family, he was then transferred out of the country for further treatment at a hospital in Germany. German authorities then claimed that doctors had found traces of a deadly nerve agent in his system, going on to accuse the Kremlin of poisoning him. Moscow denied the allegations, saying no toxic substances had been found in his system at the time of his treatment in Russia. Washington sought to use the Navalny situation to poison Russian-European relations, and called on Western European nations to cancel construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Navalny returned to Russia in January and was jailed over multiple breaches of his probation in a 2014 fraud case.

April 14, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

RUSSIA, THE ARCTIC, AND THE HEALTHY NATURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER

By Paul Robinson | IRRUSSIANALITY | April 13, 2021

The Arctic tends not to get a lot of headlines. But here in Canada, it’s a big deal. Or at least it is rhetorically speaking. Canadians like to think of themselves as a wintery, northern people – as Gilles Vigneault sang: ‘Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver.’ We get all emotional about the north, and pump ourselves up with stirring speeches about defending our sovereignty. After which, we then do nothing – at least until the next time somebody else does something we don’t like in the Arctic. At that point, we make some more stirring speeches, before slinking off back to our local Timmy’s in Toronto or some other place as far from the Arctic as we can get without actually ending up in the United States.

And so it is that the Canadian press was none too happy this week when the Russian Federation deposited its latest submission to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to advance its claim to a large portion of the Arctic Ocean seabed. ‘That’s our Arctic Ocean seabed, you wretched Russians! How dare you?”

The Commission in question is a product of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), that gives states the right to exclusive exploitation of the seabed up to 200 nautical miles from their continental shelf. To claim such a right, however, states have to provide the Commission with scientific evidence of where the continental shelf extends under the sea. If they can satisfactorily show where the shelf goes, then the UN will approve the claim. If they can’t, then the UN won’t.

This is a well-recognized procedure under UNCLOS, and Arctic nations have been spending the past few years busily surveying the Arctic seabed in order to promote the case that their own continental shelf extends outwards far from the coastline – the further the better, because the further the shelf goes, the more of the seabed can be claimed.

Particularly important is the status of the Lomonosov Ridge, a massive formation that stretches across the Arctic from Russian waters to Canadian ones. Russia, Canada, and Denmark (Greenland) are all seeking to prove that the Ridge is an extension of their own continental shelf. Whoever wins the argument gets the grand prize – control over a huge chunk of the Arctic Ocean.

Russia submitted its first claim to the UN Commission back in 2001, but was told to go away and do more research. Having done so, it submitted its new evidence in 2015, and has now further updated its submission, all backed up with new scientific evidence. The latest Russian bid has some Canadians fuming, as it expands Russia’s claim over Arctic waters by about 750,000 square kilometers compared to the original submission.

“This is a maximalist submission. You cannot claim any more,” complains Robert Huebert, an Arctic expert at the University of Calgary. “In effect, they’re claiming the entire Arctic Ocean as their continental shelf … they’re claiming the entire Canadian and Danish continental shelf as their continental shelf,” adds Huebert.

This is true in the sense that Russia is clearly pushing its claim as far as it thinks the science will allow. But it’s hardly alone in doing so. In 2014, for instance, Denmark submitted a claim to the UN Commission that has been described as “an unexpectedly massive demand … [that] stretch the demand as much as legally possible all to the way to Russia’s exclusive economic zone.”

Canada in turn presented its submission to the UN in 2019. Adam Lajeunesse of St Francis Xavier University noted in response that, “There was [some conjecture] that we would sort of do a quid pro quo and stop our claim at about the pole as a means of facilitating a political settlement. But like the Danes, we’ve gone well over the North Pole and are claiming an enormous chunk of the Arctic continental shelf.”

Russia, therefore, is only following where others have already gone. Furthermore, it seems pretty confident in the validity of the scientific evidence it has amassed. That, though, will be a matter for the Commission to determine. In the meantime, what’s interesting about all this is the manner in which Russia has operated.

For as Whitney Lackenbauer, a circumpolar expert at Trent University, notes, ‘Russia is playing by the rules. And for those of us who are concerned about Russia’s flouting of the rules-based order, I actually take a great deal of comfort in seeking Russia go through the established process in this particular case. … I’m not worried about Russia’s action as an Arctic coastal state seeking to determine the outermost limits of its extended continental shelf.”

Lackenbauer hits the nail on the head. Western leaders regularly accuse Russia of wanting to destroy the international order. But reality is rather different. On occasion, when vital interests are at stake, the Russian Federation flouts the rules, just as other powers do. But most of the time, it operates within them. The Arctic is a case in point. Google ‘Russia, Arctic, aggression’, and you get all sorts of headlines, such as ‘What is behind Russia’s aggressive Arctic strategy?’, ‘Meeting Russia’s Arctic aggression’, ‘Arctic aggression: Russia is better prepared for a North Pole conflict than America is’, and so on. Yet, in practice, the Russian Federation has entirely respected the ‘rules-based international order’ as far as the Arctic is concerned. It’s an example that should give pundits pause to thought.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has declared that Arctic territorial issues ‘can be tackled solely on the basis of international law, the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, and in the framework of the mechanisms that have in accordance with it been created for determining the borders of states which have a continental shelf.’ This is what is happening. It’s an illustration that, for all the talk of the collapse of the international order, international law continues to operate and most states respect it most of the time. Instead of focusing on the few cases when the opposite happens, international affairs analysts might usefully pay a bit more attention to the instances when things work the way they should. If they did, their analyses might be less alarmist, and also rather more realistic.

April 14, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Sunbeams From Cucumbers: The View From the Khanate of Kaganstan

By Patrick Armstrong | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 10, 2021

We now have the complete set, so to speak. The Khans of the Khanate of Kaganstan have both spoken. The husband in A Superpower, Like It or Not and the wife in Pinning Down Putin: How a Confident America Should Deal With Russia; he, so to speak, is the theorist and she the practitioner. She, Victoria Nuland, is back in power as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. She is, of course, infamous for the leaked phonecall during the Maidan putsch. He, Robert Kagan, is one of the founders of the – what now has to be seen as ill-named – Project for the New American Century.

I mentioned Kagan’s piece in an earlier essay and found it remarkable for two things – the flat learning curve it displays and its atmosphere of desperation. PNAC was started in a time of optimism about American power: it was the hyperpower and nothing was impossible for it. Its role in the world should be, Kagan confidently wrote in 1996, “Benevolent global hegemony”. Washington should be the world HQ:

superpower, love it!

A quarter century later his message is:

superpower, endure it.

Quite a difference. Today “there is no escape from global responsibility… the task of maintaining a world order is unending and fraught with costs but preferable to the alternative”.

Kagan is at a loss to explain his difference in tone, or, more likely, he’s unaware of it. The reason, however, is quite easy to understand – failure. Washington followed the neocons’ advice into disaster: it’s been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for two decades and it’s losing. The forever wars have come home: its economy is fading, its politics are shattered, its debt load is stunning, its social harmony is eroding. It’s not at the top of the hill any more. Brzezinski warned that a Russia-China alliance would be the greatest threat to U.S. predominance but thought it could be averted by skilful diplomacy. Well, as it turned out, U.S. actions (the word “diplomacy” is hardly applicable) drove Moscow and Beijing together and the strong domestic base that they all took for granted is crumbling. And, to a large extent, it has been the neocons, the wars they encouraged, the exceptionalism they displayed, the arrogance they embodied, that has created this state of affairs. Kagan should look in the mirror if he wants to know why Americans’ perception of superpower status changed from exultant opportunity to dreary duty.

With this background, we turn our attention to Nuland’s views about what should be done about Russia (“Putin’s Russia” of course – these people personalise everything). Her piece entertainingly marries stunning ignorance about Russia to stunning naïvety about prescriptions. There is no point in boring the reader by trudging through her nonsense, so I will just pick a few things.

Those three are enough – Victoria Nuland, for all that she pretends to superior knowledge, is absurdly unaware of the real situation in Russia. And it’s not as if it’s all that hidden, either: all the sources I mention above are in English and easy to find. In her world, Russia is guilty of everything Rachel Maddow says it is, including using cyberweapons against electrical grids.

What are her prescriptions? And, again, for someone who poses as an expert on Russia, they’re laughable. Her general theme is that Washington and its allies have let Putin get away with too much for too long and it’s time to take back control:

Washington and its allies have forgotten the statecraft that won the Cold War and continued to yield results for many years after. That strategy required consistent U.S. leadership at the presidential level, unity with democratic allies and partners, and a shared resolve to deter and roll back dangerous behavior by the Kremlin. It also included incentives for Moscow to cooperate and, at times, direct appeals to the Russian people about the benefits of a better relationship. Yet that approach has fallen into disuse, even as Russia’s threat to the liberal world has grown.

Whoever wins the U.S. presidential election this coming fall will—and should—try again with Putin. The first order of business, however, must be to mount a more unified and robust defense of U.S. and allied security interests wherever Moscow challenges them. From that position of strength, Washington and its allies can offer Moscow cooperation when it is possible. They should also resist Putin’s attempts to cut off his population from the outside world and speak directly to the Russian people about the benefits of working together and the price they have paid for Putin’s hard turn away from liberalism.

In short: reassert “leadership”, “resolve”, “position of strength”; the now familiar PNAC “strategy” that has failed for twenty-five years.

A few gems stick out.

  • “No matter how hard Washington and its allies tried to persuade Moscow that NATO was a purely defensive alliance that posed no threat to Russia, it continued to serve Putin’s agenda to see Europe in zero-sum terms.” No comment necessary or possible: this is just as solipsistic as describing a Russian military exercise in Russia as “Russia’s Military Drills Near NATO Border Raise Fears of Aggression“.
  • The U.S. and its allies should continue “maintaining robust defense budgets”. As if they weren’t already hugely outspending Moscow. She knows they aren’t keeping up because she goes on to say they must spend more to “protect against Russia’s new weapons systems”. Perhaps the West’s behaviour has something to do with this? Perhaps a lot of the Western spending is a waste? No, too much for her: she can sometimes glimpse reality but her exceptionalism prevents her from seeing it.
  • “The one lesson Putin appears to have learned from the Cold War is that U.S. President Ronald Reagan successfully bankrupted the Soviet Union by forcing a nuclear arms race”. No, the lesson that Putin learned is that enough is enough and too much is too much. Brezhnev & Co didn’t get that. It’s the S. that will bankrupt itself chasing down “full-spectrum dominance”.

But the most ridiculous suggestion is surely this:

With appropriate security screening, the United States and others could permit visa-free travel for Russians between the ages of 16 and 22, allowing them to form their own opinions before their life paths are set. Western states should also consider doubling the number of government-supported educational programs at the college and graduate levels for Russians to study abroad and granting more flexible work visas to those who graduate.

She seems to think that its 1990-something. But, in the real world it’s 2021. Russians have been to the West; Russians know about it; they travel; all over the place. If Nuland ever left her bubble she would see that every European tourist spot has Russian-language guidebooks. I read through her screed with growing contempt but that really sealed it for me: Victoria Nuland hasn’t got a clue. The truth is, that the more Russians see of the West, the less impressed they are. Just ask Mariya Butina.

Again a bit of reality leaks through, from time to time, but she is incapable of reflection:

The first order of business is to restore the unity and confidence of U.S. alliances in Europe and Asia and end the fratricidal rhetoric, punitive trade policies, and unilateralism of recent years. The United States can set a global example for democratic renewal by investing in public health, innovation, infrastructure, green technologies, and job retraining while reducing barriers to trade.

Actually, doing all this is quite a big job; a very big job; too big a job in fact. And, even if Washington were to seriously start “investing in public health, innovation, infrastructure, green technologies, and job retraining while reducing barriers to trade”, remedying the numerous deficiencies would take many years.

Another thing that she dimly perceives is the gap between Russian and American weapons capabilities. Of course she can’t see any connection between that and U.S./NATO behaviour or Washington’s forever wars: it’s just another nasty thing done by that nasty man in the Kremlin. However, it is actually encouraging that she knows, however dimly; it creates the possibility that she understands that an actual war with Russia would be a bad idea. So that’s something, anyway.

* * *

However, enough consideration of this ill-informed, complacent, unrealistic sunbeam. If this were a comparative treatise on the American extraction of sunbeams from cucumbers as contrasted with the failed attempts of the so-called savants of Laputa it would be amusing, but the author of this footling effort is a few arm’s lengths away from The Nuclear Button. It is not a joke.

The fading Imperium Americanum is influenced by dangerous ignoramuses like Nuland and her husband. Everything they have suggested has failed: they start in complacency, add to it ignorance and learn nothing; but they’re still there. It’s very frightening.

* * *

Speaking of “Putin’s information stranglehold”, Nuland’s essay is available at INOSMI translated into Russian and so is her husband’s. Russians can read this stuff and form their own opinions. “Putin’s disinformation campaigns” are so clever that they use real information.

We won’t tell you that they’re dangerous idiots;
we’ll let them tell you that they’re dangerous idiots.

April 11, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Inventing Pretexts to Bash Russia

By Stephen Lendman | April 9, 2021

Establishment media provide press agent services for US imperial interests.

Russia bashing again surfaced in support of political nobody, convicted embezzler Navalny.

Along with grand theft of millions of dollars for self-enrichment, he’s unindicted but guilty of sedition, serving as a CIA/NED asset, and operating as an unregistered US foreign agent — a nation waging war on Russia by other means that could turn hot by accident or intent.

Navalny got off easily. Instead of longterm imprisonment for betraying his country and grand theft, he was sentenced to 2.8 years imprisonment.

He’s interned in central Russia about 80 miles from Moscow.

According to the lying machine NYT, his imprisonment “poses a lethal risk to his health (sic).”

Calling him Putin’s “preeminent political opponent” reinvented reality, a Times specialty.

So is serial lying. Last summer en route to Moscow, he fell ill from a metabolic disorder, what Russian doctors diagnosed when treating and stabilizing him.

No “poisoning with a military nerve agent” occurred, no “assassination attempt,” no attempt to harm him in any way.

Just the opposite! Russian doctors saved him from what may have been severe hypoglycemia, or insulin shock, a serious health risk for anyone with diabetes like Navalny.

Nearly a week ago, he began hunger-striking over alleged failure by prison authorities to provide medical treatment sought.

On Monday, prison doctors diagnosed a respiratory ailment. In response, he was moved to an infirmary for treatment.

If poisoned by a military grade nerve agent, he’d have died in minutes.

If Russia wanted him dead, he’d have been eliminated long ago.

Despite his criminality and overall unacceptable action, Moscow respects the rule of law — polar opposite how the US-dominated West operates, waging endless wars on humanity at home and abroad.

Navalny fully recovered, returned to Moscow voluntarily, was arrested for violating terms of his suspended sentence, and is paying the price.

He warrants no leniency, sympathy, or support for his criminality.

Establishment media backing is all about inventing any pretext to bash Russia and Vladimir Putin personally — a preeminent world leader in stark contract to his unindicted Western counterparts for crimes of war, against humanity, and other criminality too serious to ignore.

Turning reality on its head like the Times, WaPo falsely claimed Navalny is being “slowly killed” by Russia (sic).

His temperature is slightly elevated at 100.5. He’s coughing, and may be suffering from a respiratory illness.

Saying he’ll continue hunger-striking despite being ill makes him responsible if his condition worsens.

Former US political prisoner Maria Butina visited Navalny’s prison ward with an RT camera crew, saying the following:

“I’m tired of the complaining. He is in one of the best penal colonies in Russia.”

His treatment is polar opposite Butina’s horrific ordeal — imprisoned and brutally mistreated for being a Russian national in police state USA at the wrong time.

US dirty war on Russia by other means takes many forms — including politicized arrests, imprisonments, and brutal mistreatment under harsh gulag conditions.

Arrested by the FBI in July 2018, Butina was detained without bond and falsely charged with operating as an unregistered Russian agent — a bald-faced Big Lie.

At the time, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced her arrest, detention, and mistreatment, calling it part of (a US) campaign to “stoke Russophobic hysteria.”

Despite innocent of bogus charges against her and posing no flight risk, she was denied bail, largely held in suffocating solitary confinement, and given no proper medical care – aiming to break her will by gross mistreatment.

Numerous other Russian nationals languish unjustly in Washington’s gulag longterm — guilty of nothing but their “wrong” nationality.

A Final Comment

Last October, Russia’s OPCW representative Alexander Shuglin said the following:

Despite unjustifiable demands by Russophobic Western officials, Moscow “does not owe anything to anybody” in response to groundless accusations of poisoning Navalny, adding:

“We do not need to explain ourselves to (Western officials) and we are not going to.”

“Until we receive documents, materials, samples, physical evidence that – as alleged by those accusing us – proving that a toxic agent was found in Alexei Navalny’s tests, until they sit down at the negotiating table with us for an engaged expert-level dialogue, we will treat everything that is going on in the context of this incident as a vociferous propaganda campaign of lies, or, simply, a low-grade provocation.”

To the present day, Russia never received information it requested from Berlin where Navalny was treated —nothing in cahoots with US dark forces to unacceptably bash Russia, part of their long war by other means.

April 9, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Biden Regime Pushing for War on Russia?

By Stephen Lendman | April 8, 2021

What interventionist Blinken calls “reckless…adversarial actions” by Russia is how the US operates at home and abroad, not Moscow.

What his spokesman Price calls “profound (Biden regime) disagreements with the Russian Federation” were made-in-the-USA, not at the Kremlin.

No “Russian attempts to destabilize the West” exist, no military threat against any country.

Hostile Biden regime actions against Russia risks turning escalated Cold War hot.

More illegal US sanctions on Russia are coming for invented/illegitimate reasons.

According to unnamed Biden regime officials, Russian diplomats in Washington may be expelled, others close to Vladimir Putin sanctioned.

Biden regime hardliners falsely accused Moscow of US election meddling (sic), offering the Taliban bounties to kill Pentagon troops in Afghanistan (sic), cyber-attacking SolarWinds (sic), poisoning Navalny (sic), and likely more illegitimate accusations to come.

Illegal Biden regime sanctions on Russia in March were prelude for likely stiffer unlawful ones in the works.

When Biden — or his impersonator — called Putin a “killer,” warning that he’ll “pay a price,” US Cold War on Russia escalated a step closer to possibly turning hot by accident or design.

On Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Psaki said Biden regime hardliners intend “hold(ing) Russia to account for its reckless and adversarial actions (sic).”

It’s how the US operates, notably when undemocratic Dems control things in Washington like now.

Russia under Vladimir Putin operates by higher standards — notably by waging peace, not war, respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other nations, and observing international law — polar opposite US war on humanity at home and abroad.

US-orchestrated war by Kiev on Donbass along Russia’s border has its forces mobilized to respond defensively if necessary.

Earlier this week, Russia’s Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said Moscow has no intention of intervening cross-border, adding:

“(W)e are closely watching the situation. Concrete measures will be taken depending on how it develops” — to protect Russian Federation security.

Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “Russia’s armed forces are (in its own) territory in places it considers necessary and appropriate.”

“(T)hey will stay there for as long as our military leadership and supreme commander consider it appropriate.”

Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) leader (in Donbass) Denis Pushilin said the following in response to escalated Kiev aggression:

“The situation on the line of contact remains, alas, extremely unpeaceful.”

“The situation is escalating and changing for the worse. The amount of (preemptive) shelling (by Kiev forces) is increasing.”

Military spokesman for the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) in Donbass Yakov Osadchy said the following:

“Throughout the past day, militants of (Kiev’s) 59th brigade have been shelling Logvinovo from the direction of Luganskoye by order of the military criminal Gennady Shapovalov, with the use of a 120mm mortar (rounds) banned by the Minsk agreements.”

At the same time, US-controlled Ukraine abandoned Minsk peace talks — agreements its ruling regimes never observed.

According to Peskov, US-installed puppet Zelensky never advanced peace along the Contact Line between Ukraine and Donbass “one iota” — in deference to his imperial master in Washington.

The 2014 Minsk Protocol peace deal — agreed to by Kiev, Moscow, the OSCE, the DPR and LPR — is “dead,” Peskov explained — because US hardliners want endless war along Russia’s borders.

“(R)eaching new agreements (with US-controlled Kiev) is impossible, because how can one resolve a conflict if one side (won’t) communicate with the other” and rejects peace, Peskov added.

On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said his government held emergency talks with Biden regime officials in an attempt to prevent full-scale war by Kiev on Donbass, adding:

US-dominated Western rhetoric is “increasingly belligerent.”

Hardliners in “Washington should be concerned about the consequences of this coordinated policy” for escalated war along Russia’s borders.

Defying reality, the Biden regime “call(ed) on Russia to refrain from escalatory actions (sic)” — engaged in by the US and puppet regime in Kiev, not Moscow.

Days earlier, Ukrainian official Aleksey Arestovich said ongoing large-scale (US-controlled) DefenderEurope 2021 military exercises in European Baltic states are all-about preparing for possible war with Russia, adding:

Drills focus on areas “from the waters of the Baltic to the Black Sea, to put it bluntly, armed confrontation with Russia.”

Cognitively and physically impaired figurehead Biden is uninvolved and perhaps unaware of reckless actions by his regime’s hardline/interventionist geopolitical team.

In short order after replacing Trump — illegitimately by brazen election rigging — escalated US Cold War it’s waging on Russia risks turning things hot.

April 8, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Alex Salmond declines to blame Russia for Salisbury incident

Press TV – April 7, 2021

The leader of the pro-independence Alba Party, Alex Salmond, has steadfastly refused to toe the British government’s line on the alleged poisoning of a Russian double agent in England in 2018.

Former Russian military intelligence officer, Segei Skripal, who betrayed his country by working for the UK’s MI6, was allegedly poisoned, alongside his daughter Yulia, with what the British government says was the Novichok nerve agent.

The alleged attack took place in the medieval cathedral city of Salisbury on March 04, 2018. Both Skripal and his daughter survived the alleged attack.

Speaking to BBC Good Morning Scotland on April 07, Salmond refused no less than four times to blame Russia for the alleged attack.

Faced by Salmond’s defiance, the show’s presenter, Gary Robertson, tried to undermine the former First Minister’s position by pointing out that he produces a show for the Russian TV network RT.

But Salmond hit back by saying: “I produce, along with Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, a program for Slainte Media which is then broadcast on the RT platform, as they’re perfectly entitled to do”.

“I can tell you from personal experience – I don’t know what your experience at the BBC is – not a single word of editorial instruction or even suggestion has been made to me from anyone at RT and the program stands on its own merits”, the former leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) added.

Salmond and fellow Alba Party candidate Ahmed -Sheikh (who is a former SNP MP), host “The Alex Salmond Show” each week on RT.

On another subject, Salmond suggested that evidence of Russian interference in recent US elections was “very slight”.

Salmond’s position on these sensitive issues will alarm the British establishment which has identified Russia as an “active threat” to UK national security in its newly-released Integrated Review of Security, Defense, Development and Foreign Policy.

Both the Alba Party and the SNP are committed to closing down the headquarters of the Royal Navy in Scotland.

The Faslane naval base, formally called Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Clyde, hosts the UK’s nuclear weapons capability.

April 7, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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