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Leak shows UK attempt to “derussify” former Soviet bloc

By Johanna Ross | February 24, 2021

Back in 2018, the Anonymous hacker group unveiled documents detailing the UK’s global anti-Russian propaganda campaign, otherwise known as the Integrity Initiative. A covert operation, funded by the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, it involved academics like Mark Galeotti, security analysts such as Ben Nimmo and journalists like Deborah Haynes of Sky News, who were all paid to provide negative coverage of Russia in various media settings. In true James Bond fashion, they were all part of a giant global syndicate, instructed to counter the Russian government narrative wherever possible, whether it be in articles, or on social media.

It was a shocking revelation for a country constantly accusing Russia of pushing propaganda and spreading disinformation; it turned out that the UK’s Integrity Initiative was doing exactly that. (Some of the claims made in the documents were nothing less than Russophobic. For example: “The Russian Federation is not a normal country in any sense of the word” (!)) After pressure from independent journalists, such as myself, who covered the scheme, the organization shut down its website. It did not disappear altogether however, and instead quietly rebranded itself with a different name – the Open Information Partnership, and with partners including Bellingcat and Zinc Network, it seems the unit has carried on from where the Integrity Initiative left off.

In the latest twist to the story, a new batch of documents were published last week which appear to show that the UK has now set its sights on manipulating Russian speakers in the former Soviet republics. One project, using the British Council is to promote English language in various Russian satellite states – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The cost of this project alone is £1.5million. It describes how through English language lessons, debating competitions and community events it will challenge the “one-sided, unbalanced information” citizens of these countries get from Russian media.

In another scheme, which it describes as “Independent Media Interventions in the Baltic States Aimed at Promoting Plurality and Balance in the Russian Language Media” it is said how BBC Media Action will work together with three public service broadcasters – ETV+ in Estonia, LSM in Latvia and LRT in Lithuania and their digital and social media platforms in all three countries, to produce Russian language content. It also mentions working with the biggest Russian language portal “Delfi” in the region, to target the Russian-speaking youth. It states that Russian speakers in the Baltic States will be targeted differently according to age: the over 40s through traditional media and the under 40s primarily through social media.

The agenda of working with local media in Baltic States is described as being to promote ‘the values of objectivity, impartiality and trust’. But given the fact that this is a UK Foreign Office project, promoting the English-language world view, how can it possibly be described as ‘objective and impartial’? If any of the authors had ever studied cognitive linguistics, then they would understand that every language speaker has his/her own world view, intrinsically associated with the language he/she speaks. English speakers have their own view of the world which is not “objective” or “impartial” but a product of their own historical and cultural experience.

Therefore it is clear that this is a British soft-power propaganda campaign under the guise of aiding independent media in Eastern Europe. It is reminiscent of the Christian missionaries of the 19th century, who set out to “change the ways” of people they thought as uncouth and “savage” in parts of Africa and Asia. Although this time, it’s not Christianity but liberal or “western” values.  It’s Britain projecting its imperial power, just as it did in the past.

Let’s not beat about the bush here. This is a Foreign Office project; it is about information warfare and soft power manipulation to achieve geopolitical goals. It’s essentially about de-russifying the Baltic States and Eastern Europe, to ensure that these populations will fall under the spell of the western liberalism, and reduce any Russian influence lingering from the Soviet era. Fundamentally, it’s to ensure that Russia’s sphere of influence is reduced and the West’s/Nato’s is increased – important if at a future date one needs these populations on side if war was to break out.

In another document it is detailed how the organisation helped Russian Youtubers (unnamed) “creating content promoting media integrity and democratic values” – otherwise known as anti-government bloggers – to hide any foreign funding they were receiving, to manage their online profiles, connect them with legal advice if required and to support “them to develop editorial strategies to deliver key messages”.  It has already been suggested on one site that opposition blogger Alexei Navalny could have been helped in this way, as his aide Vladimir Ashurkov was not only mentioned in previous Integrity Initiative leaks, but was recently exposed as having met up with a British diplomat whom he asked for financial assistance for Navalny’s campaign.

If all this doesn’t constitute meddling in Russia’s affairs, I don’t know what does. It would be interesting to know what the British taxpayer would think of all these millions of pounds being spent on interference in an entirely different part of the world, which is Russia’s sphere of influence. Such imperialist behaviour belongs in the 19th century, and doesn’t accept the reality of the multipolar world which is emerging. It shows complete disregard for the ethnic Russians living in the post-Soviet bloc, who should be allowed to live freely as they wish, and not be persecuted for their language and cultural values. Quite frankly, the UK has no business involving weighing in on Eastern Europe; its imperialist ambitions belong in the past.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

February 24, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Biden adviser threatens to punish Russia with ‘tools seen & unseen’ for SolarWinds hack

RT | February 21, 2021

The Biden administration will soon deliver a sweeping response to SolarWinds breach, so that the usual suspect, Russia, understands where Washington draws the line on cyberattacks, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

During his appearance on CBS’s Face The Nation program on Sunday, Sullivan was asked about what the team of new US President Joe Biden was going to do about the SolarWinds hack, given that sanctions have proven to be ineffective against Moscow.

The adviser replied by saying that the American “response will include a mix of tools seen and unseen.” He didn’t specify what those ‘tools’ might be.

And it will not simply be sanctions because, as you say, a response to a set of activities like this require a more comprehensive set of tools, and that is what the administration intends to do.

“It will be weeks, not months” before the US prepares retaliatory measures against Russia, Sullivan stated.

We will ensure that Russia understands where the US draws the line on this kind of activity.

SolarWinds breach was reported in December, becoming one of the largest and most sophisticated cyberattacks to date. The hackers were able to insert software backdoors into a widely used network-management program, distributed by Texas-based SolarWinds company. This allowed them to compromise the systems of more than a hundred commercial firms globally, as well as nine US government agencies, with the breach only discovered eight or nine months later.

Washington insists that such an operation could not have possibly been carried out without a foreign government support, while US intelligence and security agencies declared that the hack was ‘likely Russian in origin,’ echoing evidence-free mainstream media claims as well as their own language in the ‘assessments’ about the 2016 election. Moscow has denied any involvement in the SolarWinds breach, calling it “yet another unsubstantiated attempt” by the US to scapegoat Russia.

February 21, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

After ban on Russian TV news Latvia now will criminalize watching ‘illegal’ cross border channels

RT | February 18, 2021

Tens of thousands of Russian-speaking Latvians will be turning down the volume and listening out for neighborhood snoopers after a new law came into force that will see viewers of unlicensed satellite TV fined just for tuning in.

Earlier this month, local media reported that the Seimas, the Baltic nation’s parliament, had adopted a bill in its final reading that will criminalize people for watching unauthorized broadcasts.

The networks that will be affected are said to include dozens of Russian television channels for which signals can be picked up from across the border. More than one in three Latvians speaks Russian at home, but dozens of broadcasters showing programs in the language have had their licenses revoked and been banned from the country’s airwaves since earlier this month.

Ivars Abolins, the chairman of Latvia’s National Council for Electronic Media (NEPLP), issued a statement backing the ban. “We have protected, are protecting, and will protect our information space,” he said. Regulators claim that talk show guests on the Russian-speaking channels have incited hatred and called for war in Europe.

The Russian Embassy in Riga issued a stern protest in response. In a post to its Facebook page it said that the policy was “in the best traditions of dictatorship.”

Riga’s move has likely been inspired by the fact that “Harmony,” the country’s main opposition party, is led by Russian speakers and has close links to the leftist Russian grouping, “Fair Russia.” Harmony won 23 of the 100 seats in the Seimas in the 2018 election.

“Violation of free speech? That’s just the start of it,” it added. “Apparently, in a free market environment, Latvian television channels cannot compete, even in the information space of their own country.”

However, under the old rules, while the channels themselves were prohibited, plucky viewers intent on getting a fix of their favorite shows in their native language did not fall foul of the law. Now though, consumers themselves are likely to face financial penalties if they are caught watching illicit programming. Lawmakers note that 62,000 households tuned into illegal satellite broadcasts in 2018, the most recent year for which figures were given.

The Reporters Without Borders NGO issued a warning last summer after a number of Baltic nations moved to ban several separate RT channels. The free speech watchdog said that “While it is legitimate to defend and promote independent and reliable news reporting,” it “regards these closures as a misuse of the EU sanctions policy.”

“Rather than banning media outlets on loose grounds and on a flimsy legal basis,” it argued, “countries can require all media to guarantee editorial independence and can then impose legitimate sanctions, subject to judicial control, when it is established that media outlets have not complied with their obligations.”

Ukraine has also recently come under fire from both Russian and European politicians for its decision to block and ban a series of Russian-language outlets, run and produced by Russian-speaking Ukrainians from within the country. One in three Ukrainians speaks Russian at home as a first language, but Kiev has claimed the channels amount to pro-Kremlin propaganda.

February 18, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Navalny and Treason

By Patrick Armstrong | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 8, 2021

Collaborating with foreign intelligence structures to create a poisoning narrative would appear to fit the definition of treason. How about writing a letter to a foreign head of state asking him to sanction your country?

(Thanks to John Helmer who, as far as I know, was the first to suggest that Moscow is preparing a treason accusation against him.)

On 1 February RT published a video taken by the FSB of a meeting between Second Secretary Ford of the British Embassy in Moscow, identified by the FSB as an SIS officer, and Vladimir Ashurkov at a restaurant in Moscow. The video was filmed some time in 2012. Ashurkov is the Executive Director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation; he is presently living in the UK where he sought refuge after being charged with embezzlement. In the video he is making a pitch for financial support to the tune of “10, 20 million dollars a year” not, he assures Ford, “a big amount of money for people who have billions at stake”. In short, invest in us us and, when we take over, we’ll pay you back. With interest. Big interest. In the meantime, perhaps Ford could get him some kompromat for use inside Russia. In a word, he’s trying to sell Russia to a foreign power. Which, by any standards, is treason. Ford is non-committal and merely suggests that Ashurkov look to one of the foreign NGOs that the British fund. (It should be understood that the “N” in “NGO”, is silent like the “p” in “pseudo”.). But, given that the video was made six or seven years ago, we don’t know whether the British or others took up Ashurkov on his offer. But we can be reasonably sure that the FSB knows the answer to the question.

I believe that the publication of this video marks a major step towards the Russian government charging Navalny and his organisation with treason. Note that RT attached to its report a discussion of the famous “spy rock”. Utter nonsense: “alleged… allegedly… allegations”, a “fabrication”, more “pressure against Russian NGOs” RFE/RL assured us in 2006; “they had us bang to rights” admitted a British official in 2012. The FSB has cleverly disarmed the expected cries of fake! setup! lies! and other denials from the West by reminding everyone that it was the FSB that told the truth that time.

Security services hate revealing anything. Their unvarying intention is to hang onto information because a little bit of information can be nursed into a lot of information: a seed revealed is just a seed, but a seed kept and nurtured can grow into a forest. I recommend Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America to show how the ancestors of Russia’s security organisations nurtured every little seed until they grew so big a network in the American government that they were probably better informed than the White House. So, to get them to give up a seed is a big step. It doesn’t happen, as they say, by accident.

Consider what seeds and seedlings the FSB gave up with this video.

The video exposed a man the FSB had identified as British intelligence. They could have marked him, followed his career, noticed with whom he associated, where he went, whom he met. Fed him false information, exposed his network, found others, followed them and, who knows, turned or compromised some. Now, he’s blown and probably won’t go anywhere near the Russian world again. The British will be back-checking his contacts and network and making a damage assessment and probably shutting things down. So, the FSB gave up years of exposure and mapping of networks.

The video also reveals the degree to which the FSB is following Navalny’s organisation. Everyone assumed that it was, of course, but it appears that the surveillance team was waiting in the restaurant. So that gives away another part of the FSB’s modus operandi. For all we know, the restaurant was a favourite place of the Navalny organisation; not any more: they won’t be going there again.

Note how good the sound recording is. That would presumably reveal something about the technology and trade-craft the FSB possesses. I’m sure that, to those who know these things, other details of trade-craft and equipment were revealed as well.

It is an easy deduction that the FSB has more information that it has not revealed: for example whether Ashurkov’s pitch resulted in a sale. (Note that Navalny’s organisation receives a certain amount of funds via the anonymous Bitcoin). Neither has it revealed any other videos of similar sales pitches that one must assume it has. One can only assume that the FSB already has a good case and can trace the money.

As everyone knows, Navalny fell sick on a flight inside Russia and a few days later, wound up in a hospital in Germany saying he had been poisoned with novichok. While the ever-changing story requires the reader to completely suspend disbelief, as usual in the information war against Russia, new variants are rolled out, confident that its targets aren’t paying attention past the headlines that Putin has poisoned someone again. Thanks to John Helmer’s reporting, we know that the doctors at the Charité Hospital found many health problems when it examined Navalny but no evidence of novichok. The novichok “evidence” comes from German and Swedish military facilities which have declined to publish their findings. Navalny, for his part, has several times asserted that Putin attempted to kill him with novichok. So, we have evidence from two civilian hospitals that show no novichok; there are assertions that it was novichok, but they’re secret and come from military sources; Navalny says it was novichok. Does this look like prima facie evidence that Navalny collaborated with foreign intelligence agencies against his country?

Where did Navalny get the illustrations for his video on Putin’s supposed palace? We know that the building is very far from finished because people went to see it. So somebody supplied the faked-up interiors (complete with Putin himself). A Germany-USA production? “in early December, the [German] studio received a request from the United States about whether it had free production capacity. In strict secrecy, work began on Navalny’s film”. Perhaps there’s another charge here, given the expected importance of this “proof” of Putin’s supposed corruption for Navalny’s campaign. (Another silly story for the gullible, by the way: where would he keep his loot and when does he have time to enjoy it?)

The entire Western propaganda structure leapt on the story. I’ll just quote this one thing from the NYT’s resident sage, Thomas Friedman, because of its amusement value:

Putin is not very important to us at all. He’s a Moscow mafia don who had his agents try to kill an anti-corruption activist, Aleksei Navalny, by sprinkling a Soviet-era nerve agent, Novichok, in the crotch of his underwear. I’m not making that up! Russia once gave the world Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Dostoyevsky, Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn. Putin’s Russia will be remembered for giving the world poisoned underwear.

“Poisoned underwear”, “mafia don”, “he keeps stalking us”. Plenty more where that came from: if it’s Putin or Russia, the accusation is the proof. Vide Biden’s demand that “He should be released immediately and without condition“. Suspiciously like a coordinated operation; perhaps the FSB can actually show connections.

Navalny is the latest in a long line of Western anti-Putin heroes. I’ve been in this business for three decades and I’ve forgotten half of them. Reports on protests that carefully avoid mentioning people who would spoil the narritive. Putin is a “moral idiot“. Lots of poisonings of opponents (is the absence from that list of the long-recovered and now-discarded Yushchenko significant?) and even non-poisonings; but no explanations for why the (almost invariably ineffective) poisons change: dioxin, thallium polonium and now novichok. Protests are always about to bring him down. Endless endless nonsense about Putin himself – too much to catalogue. Russophrenia. And so on and on; the people change – Browder and Khodorkovskiy fade to the background, Berezovskiy gives up, begs to be allowed home, kills himself (they say) – but the story never changes. Pussy Riot was huge until it wasn’t. Pavlenskiy does something in Russia, he’s a hero, same thing in France, he’s arrested. Always a fraudulent election in Russia (Moscow should take a leaf out of Washington’s book and call all such claims “conspiracy theories” and block discussion.) Washington says it had the MH17 shootdown on film, but you can’t see it. Nothing is ever proven but it never stops. The audience is assumed to have the IQ and attention span of gnats: Moscow hacked the U.S. election system in 2016 but in 2020 the system was watertight while Russia was hacking everything else. It’s information war; most of it nonsense from proven liars. Maybe Moscow has had enough. The Biden Administration is full of Russia-baiters all fully invested in the Trump/Putin conspiracy theory; there will be no change; it’s time for Moscow to give up expecting anything else.

Maybe Moscow is going to make an example of the latest Western favourite and charge him with treason and prove it. Maybe that’s why this video was released. It would appear to be a case of “providing financial, technical, advisory or other assistance to a foreign state or international organization . . . directed at harming Russia’s security” as the treason law puts it. A revision of the law that came into effect, as it happens, in the year the video was recorded. Collaborating with foreign intelligence structures to create a poisoning narrative would appear to fit the definition too. How about writing a letter to a foreign head of state asking him to sanction your country?

And more hints of evaporated patience: Moscow handed over to the OSCE videos of Western police beating up protesters – Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, the USA, Finland, France and the Czech Republic – helpfully pointing out “For doubters, we have shown a contrasting model. How they do it and how we do it. Feel the difference”. The message is clear: motes and beams; or, as they like to say in the West, “whataboutism“. Moscow then expelled diplomats from three countries, accusing them of participating in protests.

Washington, London et alia will protest in the usual way with all the usual statements about human rights that they themselves are pretty casual about at home (“Почувствуйте разницу”), but I suspect that Moscow doesn’t care much what its enemies say. In this matter it may well be that the idiotic Navalny poisoning story, coming after all the other evidence-free accusations, was the last straw. And perhaps Beijing’s success in shutting down the equally foreign-inspired troubles in Hong Kong was an encouraging example.

We will see, but it’s another indication that Moscow has had enough. After all, there’s an audience out there that isn’t glued to CNN and the NYT. There’s no chance of changing minds in Washington or London; it might still be possible in Berlin and Paris – Nord Stream II is probably the test – but there are hundreds of millions out there who are listening. Zone B, the Saker calls it.

February 18, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Washington’s Energetic Generals and the Emphasis on Preparation for Nuclear War

By Brian Cloughley | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 16, 2021

Some senior generals and admirals in and around Washington have been very busy recently, and their activities, while aggressive, have not been associated with directing current combat operations. Rather, they have been directed at attempting to influence the Administration of newly-elected President Joe Biden to restructure military forces, expand the nuclear arsenal and magnify specific warfighting capabilities. All of this is what might be expected of those whose business and dispositions are aimed at organising destruction and death, but the manner in which their aspirations are expressed are not consistent with what is expected of military personnel in a democracy.

The U.S. Department of Defence is now headed by a Biden-appointed retired general who has not voided the directive concerning “Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces” which notes that “members on active duty should not engage in partisan political activity.”

This long-standing instruction was last reiterated in 2008 but it cannot be said that generals and admirals have followed its letter or spirit, and the present echelons of senior officers appear determined to flout it by wide publication of their personal points of view concerning the military posture of their country. This, by any interpretation, is “partisan political activity.” No government should tolerate meddling by the military.

On February 2 the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, General Charles Q Brown, and the Commandant of the Marines Corps, General David H Berger, had an opinion piece published in the Washington Post in which they expressed overall support for the 2018 National Defense Strategy but complained that “it has not changed defence investment priorities at the scale or scope necessary to prepare the U.S. military for great power competition.” In other words, they consider their enormous armed forces, on which some 740 billion dollars are to be spent this year, are not ready for war in spite of that allocation of taxpayers’ money being 11 times that of Russia and three times that of China.

Not to be outdone in public pronouncements, the following day the commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe and Africa, General Christopher Cavoli gave a speech in which he said that “the U.S. military needs more long-range artillery and other advanced weaponry in Europe to be able to take on enemy forces . . .”, and it is reasonable to ask if this sort of policy indicator is approved by the new President.

Then the head of Strategic Command, the element responsible, among other things, for “strategic deterrence; nuclear operations and space operations”, Admiral Charles Richard, published his personal take on the future use of nuclear weapons. In the February edition of the Naval Institute’s magazine Admiral Richard wrote that Russia and China “have begun to aggressively challenge international norms and global peace using instruments of power and threats of force in ways not seen since the height of the Cold War.” This person accountable for employment of nuclear weapons holds that “There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state…”

It could hardly have been a coincidence that in early February the Pentagon ordered two U.S. carrier strike groups, led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Nimitz, to conduct manoeuvres in the South China Sea.

Navy Times reported that “the Roosevelt’s carrier strike group includes Carrier Air Wing 11, guided-missile cruiser Bunker Hill, Destroyer Squadron 23 [six ships], and guided-missile destroyers Russell and John Finn. The Nimitz’s carrier strike group includes Carrier Air Wing 17, guided-missile cruiser Princeton, guided-missile destroyer Sterett, and staff from Destroyer Squadron 9 and Carrier Strike Group 11.”

The mission of this enormous force (which has a total of 120 attack aircraft), according to Admiral James Kirk, commanding the Nimitz Strike Group, was to ensure “the lawful use of the sea that all nations enjoy under international law,” and he was echoed by his colleague, Admiral Douglas Verissimo of the Roosevelt Strike Group, saying “we are committed to promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific.” Obviously neither of them is aware that the United States refuses to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which is considered “the ‘constitution of the oceans’ and represents the result of an unprecedented, and so far never replicated, effort at codification and progressive development of international law.” But this does not prevent Strike Group admirals holding forth about their missions of provocation in the South China Sea that appear intended to push China to react.

In this context it is disturbing that the head of U.S. Strategic Command declared “There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state…”

U.S. forces are threatening China in the South China Sea and confronting Russia all round its borders — and most recently in the Black Sea where the U.S. Navy deployed two guided missile destroyers in January. According to U.S. European Command, these ships are from the Sixth Fleet which is based in the Mediterranean “in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa.” These same interests are being furthered by the Pentagon’s “China Task Force” whose establishment President Biden announced on 10 February. The mission of this war-planning body is to conduct a review of U.S. “strategy and operational concepts, technology, and force posture” in line with Biden’s declaration that “That’s how we’ll meet the China challenge and ensure the American people win the competition of the future.”

So Uncle Joe has apparently joined the generals in their never-ending pursuit of global military ascendancy. Further, it seems he has accepted the new “Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent” or GBSD, which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists described on 8 February as “a new weapon of mass destruction, a nuclear missile the length of a bowling lane. It will be able to travel some 6,000 miles, carrying a warhead more than 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It will be able to kill hundreds of thousands of people in a single shot. The U.S. Air Force plans to order more than 600 of them.”

This imminent leap towards global catastrophe is consistent with the declaration of Strategic Command’s Admiral Richard that “the U.S. military must shift its principal assumption from ‘nuclear employment is not possible’ to ‘nuclear employment is a very real possibility,’ and act to meet and deter that reality.”

The country’s senior military officers are preparing citizens for a terminal nuclear holocaust — for there can be no such thing as a limited nuclear war — and Uncle Joe Biden is permitting them to convey their personal policies directly to the people. This is endorsement of “partisan political activity”, because there are many millions of Americans who, for example, disagree with the GBSD programme and, indeed, a very large number who support their elimination of all nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon’s energetic generals are beating their war drums and the President has as yet done nothing to rein them in. Will he take action to stop this relentless drive towards nuclear war?

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

Twitter suspends account of Russian arms control delegation, head diplomat wonders about censorship

RT | February 13, 2021

The Twitter account of the Russian delegation that represents the country at OSCE-hosted arms control talks in Vienna has been suspended by the US platform. The head of the team suggested it was an act of Big Tech censorship.

The unexplained ban of the account was reported on Saturday by Russia’s chief negotiator, Konstantin Gavrilov. He pondered what the reason for the decision might have been, suggesting it could have been retaliation for voicing Russia’s “alternative position … on the trends of the current [political-military] situation in Europe”.

The frozen account carried the standard Twitter notice, stating that the platform “suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules” at the time of posting.

Various arms control talks in Vienna are hosted by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). This week, the body hosted a key forum called the High-Level Military Doctrine Seminar, which is gathered once every five years. The Russian military, surprisingly, snubbed the event, citing “unfriendly” Western policies, but the Gavrilov-led delegation participated.

The Russian official said he would be asking OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid to join Russia’s demand for clarification from Twitter, which he otherwise expected to be unanswered. Meanwhile, his own account would be used to publish relevant content, he added.

February 13, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Canada to fund opposition in Belarus and names Russia and China its main enemies

By Lucas Leiroz | February 10, 2021

Canada is changing its geopolitical intentions. Apparently, this country, which has always been passive in the face of American decisions, wants to take more aggressive positions on the international stage. The Canadian government recently announced that it will finance opponents against Lukashenko in Belarus and now the Canadian intelligence director has made a note regarding Moscow and Beijing as “the biggest threats to Canada”. Ottawa visibly wants to take more incisive actions in the international scenario, perhaps because it doubts Washington’s ability to guarantee its interests at the moment. However, the country has no material conditions to carry out its plans and may be taking positions which are complicated to maintain in the long term.

Canadian positioning on the international arena has always been previously determined by its largest partner, the US. Washington has historically held a leadership role in bilateral relations, and this has always been accepted peacefully by Ottawa’s officials. Certainly, nothing will change in this regard and a rupture of interests between Americans and Canadians seems very unlikely in the near future. However, due to a number of issues, it is possible to say that Washington has become increasingly unable to maintain a foreign policy as broad as in the past, which has motivated Canada to make some decisions that in the past would have been taken first by the US.

Examples of this type of more aggressive attitude on the part of Canada can be seen in some recent events. Earlier this week, Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau announced in a note the donation of 2.25 million Canadian dollars to political opponents of Lukashenko in Belarus. The money will go to all organizations working to “promote democracy” in Belarus. The note also observes that the country had already sent 600,000 Canadian dollars to help opposition organizations, in particular women and representatives of the “independent media”. In fact, oppositionists receiving foreign funding tend to increase their activities, which tends to generate more violence on the streets and social instability in the country. By promoting open funding for these organizations, Ottawa creates a strong diplomatic crisis, not only with Belarus, but also with Russia, which maintains good ties with Lukashenko and condemns Western interventionism.

Another fact worth mentioning is a recent statement by the Canadian intelligence director on Russia and China. During a conference, David Vigneault, director of the Canadian secret service (CSIS), singled out Moscow and particularly Beijing as the states most involved in “human and cyber threats” against Ottawa. The Chinese role in the alleged “cyber-attacks” suffered by Canada was emphasized, with China being considered the main threat to Canadian national security – although no evidence of the existence of such cyber-attacks has been presented. This speech, however, does not come about by chance. Previously, in November 2020, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) had previously claimed in a report that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are Canada’s biggest threats to cybersecurity. China and Russia vehemently deny that they pose any kind of threat to Western countries, responding that such claims are devoid of any evidence, being nothing more than justifications for geopolitical maneuvers and international sanctions.

Biden’s election represented a resurgence of old American foreign policy, with a focus on preserving global hegemony. The Trump administration, marked by a huge geopolitical decline, had caused great discontent among Washington’s international allies because it had supposedly “decreased security” in these countries in the face of their common geopolitical rivals. However, even though the West celebrated Biden’s victory, there is still a collective distrust of the new president’s real ability to comply with his bold geopolitical plans. In other words, Biden undoubtedly wants to regain American global dominance, but it may be too hard for any American government to do so.

A recovery of American hegemony benefits Canada because, being a country that is geographically close and historically allied to the US, this guarantees security and stability. However, amid the decline of recent years and uncertainty about the future, the Canadian government may have to make its own decisions and seek a balance between a constantly changing world and an advanced process of geopolitical multipolarisation. What Justin Trudeau seems to want to do in his country is not very different from what Macron has been doing in France and Merkel in Germany: he is looking for a Westernist alternative to the American decline. To this end, these politicians anticipate decisions that historically were up to Washington.

If Biden keeps his promises, Canada will be in an extremely comfortable position due to its ties to the US. If Biden fails, Ottawa will have to seek European support. But in any case, getting ahead on some issues can be a serious strategic mistake for Canadians. Canada’s material apparatus, military capabilities and international influence are exceedingly small compared to the countries that Ottawa has chosen as its main enemies. The cyber-attacks that Canadian intelligence agencies accuse Russia and China of carrying out are unlikely to be real, however, it is undeniable that Moscow and Beijing have sufficient power to carry out such attacks and will not hesitate to do so if necessary.

If Canada really intends to guarantee its survival in a world of constant change, choosing much more powerful enemies and financing riots in the zone of influence of other powers seems to be a terrible strategy, even more considering that Canada also has its areas of instability and its foci of tensions, with separatist movements that are gradually growing, such as Quebec and Alberta, and that can at any moment evolve into deeper unrest if they receive foreign money from countries interested in responding to Ottawa’s affront.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

February 10, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

US poised for Russia sanctions as Washington claims ‘millions’ support jailed Navalny, hope for regime change

RT | February 9, 2021

America’s top diplomat says the US is mulling how to best penalize Russia over the alleged poisoning of opposition figure Alexey Navalny, but he simultaneously claims Washington is not seeking to influence the situation.

Speaking to CNN on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told viewers “it seems apparent that a chemical weapon was used to try to kill Mr Navalny.”

“That violates the chemical weapons convention and other obligations that Russia has,” he said. “We’re looking at the situation very carefully and when we have the results we’ll look at that in the appropriate way.”

Blinken added that “the fact that Russia feels compelled – that Mr Putin feels compelled – to try to silence one voice, speaks volumes about how important that voice is and how it is representative of so many millions of Russians who want to be heard and who are fed up with the corruption and the kleptocracy.”

Thousands took to the streets of cities across the country to demonstrate for the release of the jailed anti-corruption campaigner over the past fortnight. However, further rallies that had been expected were called off amid lower numbers and an insistence from organizers that the movement should “end on a high note.” Unexpectedly, on Tuesday, Navalny associate Leonid Volkov, who is based in Lithuania, announced a new form of protest for the coming days, asking people to shine flashlights in their neighborhood gardens.

Research published last week found that only one in 20 of 1,600 Russians surveyed came up with Navalny’s name as a political figure that they trust. The fieldwork was conducted by the Levada Center, which is registered as a ‘foreign agent’ by the Ministry of Justice over links to funding from abroad.

While former President Donald Trump was said to have been ambivalent about international blocs like NATO and organizations like the UN, analysts have said that Biden’s team is far more preoccupied with seeing the US play a leading role in them. Blinken appeared to confirm that view, claiming that “the world doesn’t organize itself. If we’re not in there every day helping to do some of that organizing – to write the rules and shape the norms that sort of govern the ways that countries relate to each other, then either someone else is going to do it in our place or maybe, just as bad, nobody does it and then you have chaos.”

However, while he expressed hope that the momentum from previous protests would have a profound effect on the country, Blinken denied that the US was stoking tensions. “I think the Russian government would make a mistake in attributing to outside actors, whether it is the United States, European partners or others, responsibility for what is happening,” he said. “This is fundamentally about Russia, about Russia’s future and hopefully about a more democratic system going forward.”

Navalny was educated in the US and was appointed to Yale University’s World Fellow’s program, set up to “create a global network of emerging leaders.” This has led some in the country to suggest that he is more closely aligned to Western governments than many other domestic opposition figures.

Moscow has expressed cynicism over the nature of the US’ interest in the Navalny case. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week that Washington didn’t need a genuine reason for sanctions. “They will always find one or make one up,” she said.

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

For Josep Borrell, Russia will remain a ‘mystery inside an enigma’

By Johanna Ross | February 9, 2021

It’s been a quotation cited repeatedly to describe the difficulties faced by western policy-makers towards Russia. Winston Churchill famously said the country was ‘a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’.  Back in 1939, when he broadcast this speech, just as Britain had declared war on Germany, Churchill said that he thought he had the ‘key’ to unlocking the secret of Russian foreign policy and that was, he said, ‘Russian national interest’.

I assume that Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, who visited Moscow last Friday, is familiar with this quotation. And it seems that for him, Russia has remained something of a mystery. For upon his return to Brussels, after what his European colleagues have termed a ‘humiliating’ trip (they are now demanding his resignation), Borrell wrote a blog post outlining what was essentially his complete failure to engage with his Russian counterpart. “My meeting with Minister Lavrov highlighted that Europe and Russia are drifting apart”, he wrote in a piece published on Sunday evening. “It seems that Russia is progressively disconnecting itself from Europe.”

What is surprising for the Russians, is the absolute inability of these European policy-makers to read and comprehend the Russian position. Western diplomats in this regard seem to be diplomatically autistic. And far from taking tips from Russian political analysts and think-tanks, they turn to the same pseudo ‘Russia-experts’ and western academics, the majority of whom churn out age-old anti-Russian rhetoric like a broken record. As Professor Stephen Cohen once told me:

‘The idea that we have to fight Russian disinformation is now very profitable in the US; everybody will give you money. And if you don’t have a particularly big brain, it’s a good way to pretend you’re an intellectual and get paid for it.’

As a consequence, we are sadly no further in unravelling the ‘mystery inside the enigma’.

Churchill was close to the truth when he said that ‘Russian national interest’ was a key factor in understanding Russia – but that’s hardly a secret. Every country acts according to its national interest. What is lacking, particularly at the moment from western policy makers, is the ability to treat Russia according to how they themselves expect to be treated. Like a naughty schoolboy, Russia and its leader are constantly being lectured on how to behave. The problem is, the ‘adults’ – in this case the West – are guilty of the same offences that Russia is being accused of. As Vladimir Putin noted during his speech at the Munich security conference in 2007:

‘Incidentally, Russia – we – are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves.’

Unfortunately, nothing has changed, and the hypocrisy still stinks.

Borrell’s visit is also a classic example of Europeans saying one thing to Russia’s face and another behind its back. For the statements Borrell made after his return to Brussels, as Russian Foreign spokesperson Maria Zakharova remarked on Monday, do not correspond with comments he made when in Moscow. Zakharova expressed surprise at the diplomat’s negative summary of the trip and suggested that his colleagues had influenced him on arrival. But I would add that it is a regular occurrence that western politicians are two-faced when it comes to dialogue with Russia, and that they often place less emphasis on the value of verbal agreements. Take for example the promise of US Secretary of State James Baker to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev back in the 1980s that NATO would not expand eastward. For the Russians that assurance meant something, as it is frequently quoted by them to this day; for the Americans it clearly didn’t. Since then NATO has proceeded to encircle Russia to the east.

The reality is that Russia is not going to be dictated to on human rights and freedoms when they are currently being curtailed in the West. It’s not going to be told that opposition protesters are being mal-treated when demonstrators in the US and Europe are regularly manhandled by police. It’s not going to be bullied into releasing Alexei Navalny – a politician with a criminal conviction – when the US and Europe have their own political prisoners, the most famous being Julian Assange. And it’s not going to be harassed about press freedoms when the majority of the western mainstream corporate media play the role of government mouthpieces. Russia is a sovereign nation and won’t be told what to do.

For Borrell et al. this is a problem.  Therefore a stalemate has been reached in EU-Russian relations. Borrell seems resigned to the fact that there will be little improvement in relations in the near future.  This is unfortunate, because it is not something that Russia has wanted. Even as recently as last month, when speaking at the Davos Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin said that Europe and Russia were ‘practically one civilisation’. And yet there is a fundamental difference in mentality which proves impossible to overcome.

It is in Europe’s and the West’s interest, however, to try better to engage with Russia on a level playing field, without taking the moral high ground. Global security and stability are at stake. In addition, Europe currently depends on Russian gas, and will likely always be reliant to some degree on Russia’s vast expanse of natural resources. As renowned academic Andrei Tsygankov has aptly summarised in his book ‘Russia’s Foreign Policy’:

‘Russia is sufficiently big and powerful, and that limits Western ability to influence its developments. Vast territory, enormous natural resources and military capabilities, and a significant political and diplomatic weight in the world have allowed and will continue to allow Russians considerable room for foreign policy maneuvering. It is hard to believe that the West will ever possess enough power to fully determine the shape and direction of Russia’s developments.’

If only Josep Borrell had read this book before he went to Moscow…

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

February 9, 2021 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The establishment wants a Reality Czar in order to crush dissent, not unite us around objective truth

By Michael McCaffrey | RT | February 3, 2021

The mainstream media and ruling elite really hate conspiracy theories and misinformation – except when they don’t.

On February 2, which ironically enough is Groundhog Day here in the US, the New York Times published an article titled ‘How The Biden Administration Can Help Solve Our Reality Crisis’.

It seems a very bad sign that America is now relying on a geriatric Washington insider whose own perception of reality has been called in to question numerous times to solve a “reality crisis”.

One of the suggestions was that Biden should create a “Reality Czar” to oversee the dismantling of “disinformation” and the surveillance of “conspiracy theorists”.

In the article, writer Kevin Roose spoke with ‘experts’ who offered suggestions about how to unify Americans around “reality” by stamping out “conspiracy theories” and “misinformation”.

That sounds like a great idea – I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

The problem with a ‘reality czar’ is that America is a post-reality nation. Our culture has gone so far to the extreme with regard to embracing subjective experience over objective reality that some blowhard bureaucrat is not going to be able to tip the scales back towards the rational.

And, of course, that is the point. The Biden administration doesn’t want to return America to objective reality, they want Americans to embrace the establishment’s reality – and those are two very different things.

The establishment reality is the neo-liberal, corporate controlled, military-industrial-complex reality that loathes being held to account for its continuous misdeeds and misinformation.

The establishment reality demands we accept the absurdly incomplete official story regarding the spate of assassinations in the ’60s (JFK, MLK, RFK) while refusing to declassify and un-redact the millions of government files on those topics it won’t let us see.

The establishment reality lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and gave us the hell of the Vietnam War.

The establishment reality lied to us about Iran-Contra and the death squads in Latin America. It also lied about its complicity in the drug trade while it manufactured a War on Drugs.

The establishment reality refused to declassify documents about 9/11 and to investigate the funding for that attack. It also unleashed George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s ‘Dark Side’, which included the War on Terror, torture, massive surveillance, Gitmo, rendition and the Patriot Act.

The establishment reality was the one that told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and gave us the Iraq War, and continues to give us the war in Yemen and the carnage in Libya and across the globe.

It is often said that daylight is the best disinfectant, but we are continuously kept in the dark, and the establishment, regardless of which party is in power, is a gangrenous limb whose lies and disinformation are much more toxic to America and the world than anything some QAnon clowns can conjure in their fever dreams.

It is pretty rich that the New York Times is running this article calling for a reality czar and bemoaning disinformation, as it has long aided and abetted the establishment in its concealing of truth and distorting of objective reality.

Whether it be Walter Duranty and his lies for Stalin, or Judith Miller and her lies for Bush, the Times has proven over and over again that it isn’t a news organisation, but a praetorian guard meant to protect the tyrants, oligarchs and aristocrats from the masses.

Am I the only one who remembers the Russiagate hysteria? Stories of dastardly Rooskies hacking into power grids and voting booths, and using microwave weapons to attack Americans have been commonplace in the Times and across the mainstream media, and yet those ‘conspiracy theories’ were not only accepted but embraced. The establishment’s hatred of conspiracy theories is particularly amusing in light of what transpired over the past four years.

Would the new Reality Czar hold the Times accountable for those idiotic stories? Would MSNBC be chastised for Rachel Maddow’s conspiratorial ramblings? Would CNN be reprimanded for its “mostly peaceful protests” disinformation?

Would the Reality Czar target the scientists and medical experts who publicly proclaimed that it was OK to gather in large groups during the pandemic to protest for Black Lives Matter but not to protest against lockdown?

How about those radical trans activists who distort and contort both science and reality?

Would the Reality Czar target the new White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, especially considering her laughably ridiculous press conference from 2015, at which, with a straight face, she stated that the US had a “long-standing” policy against backing coups?

Of course not.

Like a paranoid schizophrenic, our political and media elite is constantly trying to convince people that its own devious delusions are the one true reality.

The Reality Czar would not be required to actually quash misinformation and conspiracy theories – only the misinformation and conspiracy theories the establishment doesn’t like.

As Orwell told us, “Who controls the past, controls the future, who controls the present, controls the past.” The establishment wants to control the present, the past, the future and, most of all, you. And a Reality Czar is just the beginning.

The ‘reality is that the ruling elite are pushing the notion of rampant right-wing domestic terrorists and the danger of conspiracy theories in an attempt to conceal their crimes and stifle dissent, not to help objective “reality” flourish.

February 4, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Navalny will remain the West’s darling, but not Russia’s

By Johanna Ross | February 4, 2021

In case you missed it, Russian blogger/politician/investigative journalist Alexei Navalny was sentenced on Tuesday in a Moscow court to 2 years 8 months in prison for breaking the terms of a suspended sentence.

The western media is, of course, outraged. The leaders of the US, UK and France have all joined in unison to demand his release. Michael McFaul continues with his Navalny/Mandela comparisons on Twitter until we finally accept it. He’s clearly following the old adage of ‘if you say something often enough, it becomes the truth’.

What seemed like overnight, Alexei Navalny has gone from being an obscure opposition activist to the saviour of Russia and the human race itself (or as the western media would have us believe). Opposition journalists, of whom several are not even based in Russia, but prefer to egg-on their activist colleagues from the safety of the US and Europe, have been tweeting their profanities and scolding the Russian authorities for not immediately releasing their media darling.

While the western world has become caught up in the drama of this ‘one man against the world story’, few are able to scratch beneath the surface, to see past the golden gates of ‘Putin’s palace’ and the condemned man kissing his wife goodbye in the airport as he meets his fate. Navalny is an expert in PR, something which his opponents are only just catching up with.

Alexei Navalny has quite deliberately set about becoming a political martyr. His very existence depends on the mythology surrounding his plight. His existence, his financial support (which I shall touch on later) depends on him being a ‘victim’ of the Russian state. He has to continue his anti-Putin programme to sustain himself and his family. For what other job/career does he have? No other would pay as well.

How many of those protestors who responded to his ‘call to arms’ in January and ventured out into the bitter cold to demonstrate, could actually name any of his policies? Could they even say what he stood for? Navalny himself isn’t sure. He has flipped and flopped between right-wing nationalism and left-wing policies for the last two decades. The only consistent policy is he wants to bring down Putin and replace him (if you can call that a policy).

As renowned academic Anatol Lieven has noted, we have to put aside the emotion in this case and deal primarily with the facts. Navalny has played with our emotions as much as possible; emphasising the romantic attachment to his wife with footage of him signing love hearts on the glass box in the courtroom; and performing the role of the underdog in the case to the letter. But over the last few months, the world, including the Kremlin, has been dancing to his tune, not the other way around.

In Germany Navalny was treated like a diplomat, escorted around by the security services, visited by Chancellor Merkel. He decided when he would arrive back to Russia, and knew he would be arrested. The release of his ‘Putin’s Palace’ video, which he clearly worked on in collaboration with German intelligence while he stayed there, was perfectly timed to be published just after his arrest, and it was hoped this would trigger mass protests, which in turn would pressurise the authorities to let him go. Protests certainly took place, but much to his supporters’ dismay, the authorities had no plans to override the law and release him.

And it’s worth here touching on that infamous palace video – which we now know, thanks to a video produced by ‘Mash’ – to be a complete misrepresentation of the truth. There are no golden gates. There is no baroque furniture. The ‘palace’ at the moment is a concrete shell, and there is no direct evidence linking it to the Russian President – instead it has been claimed by businessman Arkady Rotenberg as an aparthotel complex. That in itself is offensive, that Navalny would have the Russian people believe that there is a luxurious ‘dvorets’ on their doorstep, photoshopping the whole building to dupe people into buying his ‘golden toilet brush’ story. It shows extreme contempt for the general public he is addressing.

Indeed, Navalny would have us believe that he is acting on behalf of the Russian people. From his prison cell, he is demanding people go out on the streets in the middle of the Russian winter, during a pandemic, to take part in unsanctioned demonstrations, for which they are likely to be arrested, and as is often the case during such mass protests, injured. Is this thinking about the Russian people? Of course not. Navalny is thinking about Navalny.

Returning to the subject of who finances him, there have been suspicions for some time as to the extent to which he is being subsidised by western governments. Then, earlier this week, an explosive FSB video was released detailing a conversation between Navalny’s ally Vladimir Ashurkov and a British embassy official back in 2012. Unbelievably candid, Ashurkov asks the diplomat for ‘millions of dollars a year’ to help Navalny with his campaign, reminding him that foreign businesses have ‘billions at stake’. Literally asking a foreign power to meddle in the affairs of a sovereign state with a view to toppling the current government. If that doesn’t constitute treason, I don’t know what does.

For his part, we know that Ashurkov, who remains the Executive Director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund, has links to UK intelligence operations. Granted political asylum in the UK in 2015 after being wanted on embezzlement charges in Russia, Ashurkov was named in the documents of the Integrity Initiative – the UK’s covert anti-Russia propaganda campaign funded by the Foreign Office – leaked back in 2019. All this simply confirms the Kremlin’s assertions that Navalny is being aided and abetted by countries that have declared Russia their sworn enemy.

The western involvement in and support for Navalny’s campaign vastly reduces his chances of being taken seriously in Russia. For the vast majority of Russians he is the anti-hero, not Russia’s saviour as he is being portrayed in the West. Therefore while he may remain the West’s darling, he won’t be Russia’s.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

February 4, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

NATO Secretary General sounds alarm over ‘Russian aggression’, encourages members to increase military spending

RT | January 28, 2021

NATO’s top official has warned that its member states face existential threats to their safety, democracy and way of life from both terrorism and nations like Russia and China.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made the remarks at a meeting of the bosses of the bloc’s armed forces on Wednesday. His comments were reported in a statement by Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, the British chairman of NATO’s military committee.

According to the communique, Stoltenberg “urged Allies to continue to increase defense spending, invest in modern capabilities and to ensure our military remains ready to deal with challenges such as Russia’s aggressive actions, terrorism and the risks posed by the rise of China.”

He also stressed that “our democracies, our values, and the rules-based order are being challenged.” Stoltenberg’s rhetoric, however, failed to account for the fact its members include five nations that the US government-funded Freedom House says are not democratic states: Albania, Hungary, Montenegro, Macedonia and Turkey.

As well as rival states in the East, the missive also pointed to the evolving threat of terrorism as evidenced by the rise of IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS), as well as conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. It urged its members to step up the funding for their armed forces, adding that “NATO is the world’s most successful military alliance because we adapt.”

Russia has previously warned that NATO activity near its borders has increased in recent months. In December, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin told local media that there had been a number of close calls when vessels and warplanes came close to the country’s borders.

“In 2020, the activity of [NATO’s] air and naval forces has increased significantly, and situations that can lead to serious incidents are increasingly emerging,” Fomin said. “These actions were openly provocative. The incidents were avoided only thanks to the high level of professional training of Russian pilots and sailors.”

The month before, a US-led exercise in Romania that saw missiles land in the Black Sea caused alarm on the Crimean Peninsula. American troops airlifted in M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket (HIMARS) launchers from their bases in Germany specifically for the drills. The deputy speaker of the Crimean parliament claimed at the time that it had created an impression that NATO was preparing for “an armed invasion of the territory of the Russian Federation.”

Late last year, the bloc said that it had set its sights firmly on Russia. An analysis published by Stoltenberg’s office argued that Moscow engages in “assertive policies and aggressive action,” which has “negatively impacted the security of the Euro-Atlantic area.”

“In the long term until 2030, Russia is likely to remain the main military threat to the North Atlantic Alliance,” the authors of the report said.

January 28, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

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