By Lucas Leiroz | December 2, 2024
The West is increasingly intervening in Georgia’s internal affairs. In an attempt to prevent progress of the Parliament’s diplomatic, pro-peace agenda, Western countries are funding extremely violent protests, which have resulted in a serious social crisis. There is clearly an intention on the part of the West to overthrow the legitimate government in the country and establish a pro-NATO junta, as happened in Ukraine in 2014.
The Georgian capital Tbilisi is gradually looking like an actual civil war scenario. Radical militants are attacking the police and trying to destroy government buildings in protest against the policies of the Georgia Dream party – which won the parliamentary elections and has implemented a series of conservative and nationalist reforms.
Georgian Dream has been unfairly accused of being “pro-Russian” simply because it has prioritized Georgian national interests over Western interventionist agendas. Among the main measures of the Georgian Dream are the imposition of restrictions on the work of foreign NGOs, the freezing of negotiations for accession to the EU until 2028 and the banning of Western-backed anti-Russian sanctions. Obviously, the EU and NATO are disappointed with the Georgian political administration, doing everything possible to allow a regime change.
The West has a special interest in Georgia because the country has a recent history of military conflict with the Russian Federation. The West is lobbying for Tbilisi to resume hostilities in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in an attempt to “regain” the breakaway republics – which would allow a second front to be opened in NATO’s proxy war against Russia, facilitating the Western strategy. Despite international pressure, the Parliament has resisted and avoided engaging in any conflict, then being strongly condemned by the pro-Western lobbyists behind the Georgian political opposition.
“To summarize, Georgian Dream refused to open a “second front” against Russia in summer 2023 to assist Ukraine’s doomed counteroffensive, which was unforgiveable from the West’s perspective. Georgia’s geostrategic importance also spiked after the West “poached” Armenia from Russia’s “sphere of influence” since it then became indispensable for furthering their plans there [in the Caucasus]. Georgian Dream is too patriotic to become their puppet, however, and that’s why they now consider it to be their enemy,” American political analyst Andrew Korybko commented on the case.
As a result of this process, the Western project of a color revolution in Georgia is intensifying. Mass protests have been called by special agitators at the service of foreign intelligence, leading to violent demonstrations. Ukrainian and NATO flags and symbols are common on the streets, and protesters often sing Ukrainian nationalist anthems and songs – which shows clearly the real ideology of the Georgian dissidents, as well as who their international supporters are.
As well known, the main leader of the Georgian opposition is the country’s French-born president, Salome Zourabishvili. A former French ambassador to Tbilisi, Zourabishvili became a Georgian citizen after the 2003 Color Revolution, later becoming the president and the country’s leading pro-EU lobbyist. Zourabishvili now refuses to recognize the results of the recent Georgian elections and says she will not retire after her term ends.
There is a serious polarization in Georgia between Zourabishvili and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakzhidze. While the head of parliament advocates a sovereigntist and conservative policy, the French-born president is the main representative of Western interests in Georgia and is currently the main public figure behind the riots that threaten the country’s national security.
“I am so proud of you! I am proud of Georgia! A national accord has been reached on the most critical matter: no one can take away Georgia’s independence, no one can return Georgia to Russia, and no one can deprive Georgia of its will and its European future (…) I remain your President – there is no legitimate parliament and thus no legitimate election or inauguration. My mandate continues. I stand with you and will remain with you!,” she published on her social media, praising criminal “protesters” attacking the police.
In the end, the West wants a “Maidan for Georgia.” The goal is to “Ukrainize” the Caucasus’ country, making it an ally in NATO’s proxy war with Moscow. It is too early to say whether the legitimate government will have enough strength to resist the pressure for long, but regardless of the final outcome of this crisis, the situation is likely to escalate significantly in the near future.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram
December 2, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | European Union, Georgia, NATO |
Leave a comment
New EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said that sanctions are one of several “options” being considered by the bloc after Georgia froze accession talks with Brussels and cracked down on subsequent pro-EU protests.
Protests have been raging in Tbilisi since Thursday, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that he would freeze EU accession talks until 2028, due to Brussels’ “constant blackmail and manipulation” of Georgia’s domestic politics. At Saturday’s demonstration, demonstrators shot fireworks and lobbed molotov cocktails at riot police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons and arrested scores of people.
Speaking to reporters in Ukraine on Sunday, Kallas took the protesters’ side. “It is clear that using violence against peaceful protesters is not acceptable, and the Georgian government should respect the will of the Georgian people,” she declared.
“When it comes to the European Union, then this clearly has consequences on our relationship with Georgia,” she continued.
Kallas said that she had presented EU member states with a list of “options” for dealing with the situation in Georgia, including economic sanctions.
“We have different options,” she said. “But of course, we need to come to agreement.”
Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream party, which won nearly 54% of the vote in parliamentary elections last month, favors stable relations with both the EU and Russia. Pro-Western opposition parties, as well as Georgia’s French-born president, Salome Zourabichvili, have refused to recognize the results of the vote.
Zourabichvili’s mandate ends this month, but she has refused to leave office until the elections are re-run.
Kobakhidze has blamed the latest bout of civil unrest on “EU politicians and their agents,” accusing the West of trying to orchestrate a coup like the US-engineered Maidan revolution that toppled Ukraine’s democratically elected president in 2014. Earlier this year, Kobakhidze accused the European Commission of threatening him with assassination over the passing of a law forcing NGOs that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as foreign agents.
Kallas assumed office on Sunday, replacing veteran EU diplomat Josep Borrell. Previously the prime minister of Estonia, Kallas is known for her ardent anti-Russian policies and rhetoric, and has repeatedly called for more sanctions on Moscow and military aid to Kiev. Under her leadership, Estonia became the first EU country to approve a mechanism to confiscate frozen Russian assets and use them as “compensation” for Ukraine.
Russia issued an arrest warrant for Kallas earlier this year due to her efforts to destroy Soviet WWII memorials in Estonia.
December 1, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | European Union, Georgia |
Leave a comment
One would think that having suffered two world wars only decades apart, European politicians might be more cautious about starting another one. Incredibly, however, the countries of Europe are being plunged into another conflagration.
Not much has changed over a century, it seems. War is still the result of imperialist intrigue and no accountability to the masses of citizens by arrogant politicians aided by relentless media propaganda lies.
European elitist rulers are a treasonous clique who are destroying Europe because of their abject servility to U.S.-led Western imperialism.
To put it crudely, Europe is being abused like a bondage plaything for the Washington and European elites. Shudder the thought of Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas in dominatrix garb or Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz as the gimps. But sometimes, the truth can be stranger than fiction.
Russian President Vladimir Putin nailed it this week when he slammed European political heads who are “dancing to the tune of the Americans.” In an address to the Collective Security Treaty Organization summit in Kazakhstan, Putin said the crisis over Ukraine showed that European so-called leaders have no independence or autonomy. They are non-entities as far as serving the democratic interests of their nations is concerned.
Instead of pushing for a diplomatic solution to the worst conflict on the European continent since World War Two, European political elites are slavishly going along with Washington’s criminal proxy war against Russia, which is in danger of spiraling into a nuclear Armageddon.
This week the buffoonish former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson openly admitted that the conflict in Ukraine was a proxy war against Russia. But that didn’t give Johnson pause for thought or shame. He urged the Europeans to send more weapons to Ukraine. Nor did his crass candidness elicit any outcry or condemnation. Johnson, the imbecile, was, in effect, confirming what Russia has been warning is the essence of the conflict in Ukraine – a U.S.-led war using Ukrainian cannon fodder.
Then, we had the chief of Britain’s intelligence agency MI6, “Sir” Richard Moore, holding forth to an audience in Paris that Russia’s Putin was causing “staggeringly reckless sabotage” across Europe. The British spymaster claimed that Russia was threatening the continent with nuclear weapons to weaken NATO support for Ukraine. He omitted the glaring fact that the U.S., Britain, and France have dramatically escalated the conflict by supplying a NeoNazi regime in Ukraine with long-range missiles to strike Russia.
Meanwhile, the governments in Germany and Nordic countries are issuing dire public warnings for people to “get ready for war” by building bomb shelters in their homes and stocking up on non-perishable foods.
You could hardly make this insanity up except in the dystopian novels of George Orwell. The continent is being led by the nose to disaster by politicians and corporate-controlled media who have lost their minds. They long ago lost any self-respect or independence and are simply acting as the most pathetic surrogates for U.S.-led imperialism.
Even without the ultimate catastrophe of war, Europe has been brought to ruination by elitist politicians who have unquestioningly followed the American agenda of trying to strategically defeat Russia through a proxy war.
Central to this U.S. strategic objective is vanquishing decades of mutually beneficial energy trade between Europe and Russia. The sanctions imposed on the Nord Stream gas pipelines by Trump during his first administration, followed by the blowing up of the pipes by the Biden administration in September 2022, are testimony to that bigger picture. None of the European governments or their news media properly investigated that huge crime of state-sponsored terrorism.
The proxy war and sanctions on Russian energy that the European leaders happily went along with have caused the European economies to implode. Critical commentators talk about the deindustrialization of Europe.
Even the Financial Times, in a recent in-depth report on Germany’s “broken economy”, sounded aghast at “the most pronounced downturn in Germany’s postwar history.” The report surveys auto, chemical and engineering sectors crucial to the German economy and cites “high energy costs” as the detrimental factor.
However, the Western media, even in supposed “in-depth reports” like the Financial Times, are careful not to spell out the obvious cause of Europe’s economic collapse: the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine and the consequent damage in Europe’s relations with Russia.
Media reports deplore a “jobs massacre” in Germany’s industrial giants like Volkswagen and Thyssenkrupp without explaining the cause as if the calamity is somehow random misfortune.
As if that is not bad enough, the incoming Trump administration is lining up heavy tariffs on exports from Europe as well as China, Canada, and Mexico. That will be a coup de grâce for the European economies delivered by its American ally.
Europe is in this appalling predicament – facing economic ruin amid a potential military conflagration – all because it has been misled by people like Ursula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, France’s Macron, Germany’s Scholz (and Angela Merkel before him), and Netherlands former premier Mark Rutte, who is now the gung-ho head of NATO calling for more European weapons to Ukraine. Many others can be named from the Nordic countries, Poland, and the Baltic states. Rather fittingly, the European elitist political class has a long and vile history of Russophobia, going back to collaboration with Nazi Germany in its genocidal aggression against the Soviet Union.
The tragedy of Europe is not something mysterious or ill-fated. It is the direct result of elitist rulers who have assiduously conducted policies that harm European citizens. These charlatan leaders are shameless in their Russophobia and surrogacy for U.S.-led Western imperialism – even to the point of killing their own people through economic devastation or worse – world war.
The conflict in Ukraine is solvable through negotiations and dialogue that acknowledges the historical causes. From Russia’s point of view that pertains to NATO’s treacherous expansionism since the end of the Cold War.
But this is the deep dilemma facing Europe. Not one of the politicians (apart from a few honorable exceptions) is capable of thinking or acting independently because they are ideological slaves.
Rational diplomacy and respect for democracy and peace are beyond these political degenerates. Their complicity in a bankrupt system of Western imperialism makes them incapable of doing the right thing for humanity. That’s why the vile history of wars keeps repeating. They and their corrupt, warmongering system must be swept aside.
November 30, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | European Union, NATO, Russia, UK, Ukraine, United States |
Leave a comment
Accusations of Russian meddling in Romania’s presidential election are “absolutely groundless,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
On Thursday, Romania’s top security body, the Supreme Defense Council, claimed that it has evidence of cyberattacks being carried out to influence voting in the first round of the election on November 24. The EU and NATO member became a target of “hostile actions by state and non-state actors, especially Russia,” it alleged.
On the same day, the country’s Constitutional Court ordered a recount of the ballots from the vote, which was surprisingly won by nationalist independent candidate Calin Georgescu, who is a critic of NATO and a staunch opponent of arming Ukraine.
When addressed on the issue by journalists on Friday, Peskov said that “we are not in the habit of interfering in elections in other countries, in particular in Romania, and we do not intend to do so now.”
By pointing the finger at Moscow, the authorities in Bucharest are “mimicking the basic trend that exists in the West in this regard,” he said.
The trend is “if something happens, one should blame Russia first,” the spokesman explained, referring to unsubstantiated accusations of election meddling previously made against Moscow in the US and elsewhere.
Georgescu clinched 22.94% of the ballots in the vote on Saturday and is scheduled to take on liberal leftist candidate Elena Lasconi, who got 19.18%, in the runoff on December 8.
Following the decision to recount ballots, Georgescu issued a statement saying that “an attempt is being made, in the harshest form, to deprive the Romanian people of the ability to think and choose in accordance with their own moral, Christian and democratic principles.”
“The state institutions create instability out of balance and anger out of peace. We cannot allow our people to be forever enslaved by the manipulations of the institutions that lead the people, but which are, in fact, not led by the people,” he insisted.
Lasconi also condemned the ruling by the Constitutional Court and said that the judicial body “is interfering in the democratic process for the second time,” referring to the court banning right-wing candidate Diana Iovanovici-Sosoaca from taking part in the election. “One combats extremism through votes, not backstage games,” she insisted.
November 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | European Union, NATO, Romania, Russia |
Leave a comment
On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump tapped retired General Keith Kellogg as his envoy to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Kellogg advocated for the Joe Biden administration strategy in Ukraine and even called for implementing a no-fly zone over the war-torn country.
“I am very pleased to nominate General Keith Kellogg to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration,” Trump posted on TruthSocial, adding, “Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!”
While Kellogg served in the first Trump administration, his views on Ukraine are starkly different from what Trump said on the campaign trail. As a candidate, Trump promised, on day one, to end the Ukraine war. Though, he never explained how he would accomplish that ambitious goal.
In March of 2022, in an interview on Fox News, Kellogg suggested that Biden and NATO leadership were wrong to dismiss the idea of a no-fly zone over Ukraine. If implemented, that policy would have required the US to shoot down Russian planes over Ukraine, a major escalation that would have meant direct war with Russia.
A year later, in March of 2023, Kellogg endorsed Biden’s Ukraine policy to Congress. “I believe that if you can defeat a strategic adversary without using any US troops, you are at the acme of professionalism.” He continued, “Because letting Ukraine defeat [Russia] it takes a strategic adversary off the table. And we can focus where we should be focusing against, our primary adversary, which is China.”
In a paper published by the America First Policy Institute in April, Kellogg and coauthor Fred Flietz argue that Putin invaded Ukraine because Biden was not aggressive enough in his approach towards Moscow. Kellogg highlighted Trump’s willingness to kill Russian mercenary troops in Syria in 2018, that he “revitalized the NATO alliance,” and sanctioned the Nord Stream 2 Pipelines as examples of his aggressive policies.
“Trump also had a Russia policy that demonstrated American strength. For example, in 2018, after the Russian mercenary Wagner Group advanced on U.S. bases in Syria, they were met with immediate and decisive action when President Trump authorized punitive airstrikes against them,” they wrote. “Russia never retaliated against the United States over that attack—which reportedly killed hundreds of Russian mercenaries—likely because Putin did not know how Trump would respond.”
Kellogg and Fleitz go on to explain that Biden’s crucial failure in the war was not giving enough support to Kiev at the start of the conflict. “Nevertheless, Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia ran out of steam by the fall of 2022 because the United States and its allies failed to provide the country with the weapons it needed to continue the fight to reclaim its territory.” They add, “Biden failed to recognize until it was too late, however, that it was in America’s interests and the interests of global security for the United States to do everything possible short of direct US military involvement to help Ukraine.”
The authors propose no workable plan to end the war as they are only willing to offer the Kremlin a postponement regarding Kiev’s prospective NATO membership. Putin was opposed to Washington’s plans seeking Ukraine’s NATO membership when they were announced in 2008, and it is unlikely that taking the issue off the table for a few decades will appease the Kremlin.
November 27, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | Ukraine, United States |
Leave a comment
New polling conducted this month by the Pew Research Center indicates that only 30 percent of Americans believe that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a “major threat to U.S. interests.” That perception was at its highest of 50 percent of Americans shortly after the invasion. It has in successive polling consistently come in much lower, until reaching this new low.
Nevertheless, the United States government over the past nearly three years has kept ramping up its support for Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia — including via money, intelligence, and weapons. So involved in the war has the US become that it is seems a stretch to claim that the US is not at war directly with Russia. Thus we reach the point where nuclear war between the US and Russia has become a possible outgrowth of the ongoing conflict.
When Russian troops entered Ukraine on February 24, 2022, US President Joe Biden rushed to present a speech to stir up public support for the US government helping Ukraine and punishing Russia. He presented the US as acting to advance democracy in these endeavors. However, even at the height of stirred up war fever, an American majority did not see Russia’s action as a major threat to US interests. Now, that view is held by less than a third of Americans. Yet, the US government remains relentless in its war effort. In reality, it is all about power to the politicians, not power to the people.
Biden’s appeal to democracy was intended to stir up an overwhelming support among Americans for the US going all in on aiding Ukraine and harming Russia. He largely failed in the effort. Democracy in America has said “no” to war. Nonetheless, Biden, along with many other politicians, have continued pursuing war anyway. And now it seems they may keep doing so to the point of nuclear annihilation.
November 27, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | United States |
Leave a comment
Businesses in NATO countries should prepare themselves for a “wartime scenario” and adjust their production lines and supply chains to be less vulnerable to blackmail by nations such as Russia and China, the outgoing chief of the US-led bloc’s military committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, said on Monday.
Speaking at a European Policy Center think-tank event in Brussels, he urged Western industries and businesses to implement deterrence measures.
“If we can make sure that all crucial services and goods can be delivered no matter what, then that is a key part of our deterrence,” Bauer argued.
“Businesses need to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly. Because while it may be the military who wins battles, it’s the economies that win wars,” the NATO official said. He mentioned China and Russia in the context of how he believes wars are waged in the economic sphere.
“We thought we had a deal with Gazprom, but we actually had a deal with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” he stated, apparently referring to the drop in Russian gas supplies to the EU, which took place after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.
At the time, the EU declared that ending its reliance on Russian energy was a key priority, and many members voluntarily halted their imports, while supplies also plunged due to the sabotage of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines.
American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh blamed the sabotage on the CIA, alleging that the agency had carried out the attack under the direct orders of the White House – an allegation it has denied.
Bauer then extended his warning to China, claiming that Beijing could use its exports to NATO states and the infrastructure that it owns in Europe as leverage in the event of a conflict.
“We are naive if we think the [Chinese] Communist Party will never use that power. Business leaders in Europe and America need to realize that the commercial decisions they make have strategic consequences for the security of their nation,” the official claimed.
It is unclear what “wartime” Bauer is predicting in his statements.
NATO has long declared Russia to be a direct threat, and Western officials have repeatedly claimed that if Moscow is allowed to win the conflict in Ukraine, it could then attack other European countries. Russia has dismissed these claims as nonsense. Restrictions that Moscow introduced in trade with the West have largely come in response to unprecedented economic sanctions placed on the country in connection with the Ukraine conflict.
Beijing has also faced its share of trade barriers and restrictions introduced by Western states, and introduced similar measures in response. According to most experts, including many in the West, the sanctions policy has backfired on Western economies, leading to supply shortages and inflation.
November 25, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia, Sinophobia | China, European Union, NATO, Russia, United States |
Leave a comment
When the Soviet Union dissolved in late 1991, the world seemed poised for a new, more peaceful era no longer haunted by the fear of a nuclear Armageddon. The principal successor state from the wreckage of the USSR was a noncommunist Russia that was intent on becoming part of the democratic, capitalist West. President George H. W. Bush and his top advisers exercised considerable diplomatic skill in managing the twilight years and ultimate demise of the Soviet Union. Their core achievement was to gain Moscow’s assent to Germany’s reunification and membership in NATO. The implicit tradeoff (unfortunately, never put in writing) was that NATO would not expand beyond the eastern border of a newly united Germany.
The contrast between the benign end to the original Cold War and the current status of relations between the West (especially the United States) and Russia could not be greater or more alarming. NATO’s meddling in the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia has reached the point of being an outright proxy war for the alliance. As NATO’s leader, the United States has pushed a series of extremely dangerous escalatory steps. The latest provocation is the decision by President Joe Biden’s administration authorizing Ukraine to use long-range U.S. Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that are capable of striking at least 190 miles inside Russia. Moscow has responded by adopting a new nuclear doctrine warning that the use of such missiles by NATO’s Ukrainian proxy would mean that Moscow is officially at war with the U.S.-led alliance. Perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin is bluffing, but the risk of a nuclear collision between NATO and Moscow now appears to be at unprecedented levels.
It is bitterly ironic that the decision to let Ukraine use American missiles that might trigger World War III has been made by the lamest of lame duck U.S. presidents. At the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour, the leaders of the Democratic Party pressured Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. They did so because the evidence of his cognitive decline had become undeniable. However, his hand-picked successor, Kamala Harris, then proceeded to lose the presidential election to Republican nominee Donald Trump.
To say that the Biden administration has no mandate to make such a crucial decision involving war and peace would be a monumental understatement. In fairness, though, the current foreign policy crew is not solely responsible for fouling-up relations with Russia and provoking a new cold war with nuclear implications. That “achievement” has been a bipartisan effort taking place over a span of more than three decades.
Toward the end of George H. W. Bush’s administration, public opinion polls in Russia showed that nearly 80% of Russians held positive views of the United States. In the late stages of the Bill Clinton administration, nearly the same percentage held negative opinions.
It was hardly a surprising development. During his years in office, Clinton and his Russian-hating advisers (especially UN ambassador and later Secretary of State Madeleine Albright) antagonized Moscow on multiple occasions. Washington went out of its way to attack Russia’s long-standing religious and political clients, the Serbs, as the Yugoslav federation disintegrated. However, the Clinton administration’s decision to expand NATO to include Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary struck the biggest blow to East-West relations.
Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, continued and intensified the policy of provoking and antagonizing Russia. Subsequent rounds of NATO expansion brought U.S. military power to Russia’s immediate neighborhood by adding such new members as the three Baltic republics, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Most provocative of all, Bush pushed to add Ukraine to the alliance. Although Germany and France temporarily blocked immediate moves to make Ukraine a member, Washington’s ultimate goal was quite clear.
A rising number and volume of warnings against making Ukraine a NATO asset also came from Putin and other officials. Washington and its key European allies ignored those warnings but it became clear in 2014 that the Kremlin was not bluffing. When President Barack Obama and key European leaders helped overthrow Ukraine’s generally pro-Russia president and install a regime subservient to NATO, Moscow struck back emphatically, seizing Ukraine’s strategic, but majority Russian populated, Crimean peninsula.
Relations between the West and Russia continued to deteriorate thereafter. In the autumn of 2021, the Kremlin proposed a new relationship with the West that amounted to Russia’s minimum demands. Those demands included a guaranteed neutral status for Ukraine—thus foreclosing the prospect of Kiev’s eventual membership in NATO. The Kremlin also sought the withdrawal of advanced U.S. weaponry from the easternmost members of NATO. It amounted to an ultimatum, and when the Biden administration treated Moscow’s demands with contempt, the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That offensive, combined with the decision by the United States and its allies to impose severe economic sanctions against Russia, ignited an ever-escalating military crisis.
It is uncertain whether President-elect Donald Trump intends to end the dangerous impasse with Moscow. Contrary to the partisan myth that Trump has been Putin’s puppet, his actual policies during his first term were consistently hardline. One can hope, though, that he has fully absorbed the lesson of what a disaster Washington’s love affair with Ukraine has become for both countries. Restoring cooperative bilateral relations with Russia is essential for global peace.
There is an alarming possibility, however, that Trump won’t get the opportunity, even if he wishes to back away from the beckoning abyss. The lame-duck Biden administration still holds power for nearly another two months, and that is more than enough time to plunge the country into nuclear war, if administration leaders are so inclined. The departing president’s conduct in recent weeks, especially authorizing Ukraine to attack Russia with U.S.-supplied, long-range missiles, is beyond reckless. Biden’s legacy is already bad, but it could become even worse.
November 25, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | NATO, Russia, United States |
Leave a comment
Washington’s decision to blacklist Russia’s Gazprombank, a key conduit for gas purchases from Russia, is aimed at undermining energy security in the Central European region, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has claimed.
Earlier this week, the US Treasury Department imposed blocking sanctions on more than 50 Russian financial institutions, including Gazprombank, linked to the eponymous Russian gas giant, and six of its international subsidiaries.
The newly introduced restrictions effectively cut off Russia’s primary bank for energy-related transactions from the SWIFT interbank messaging system, meaning it can no longer conduct dollar-based transactions.
“Including Gazprombank to the sanctions list is a decision that deliberately puts some Central European countries in a difficult situation, and deliberately jeopardizes the security of energy supplies” to several nations in the region, Szijjarto wrote on Facebook on Friday.
The Hungarian diplomat stated that any attempts to jeopardize energy supplies to Hungary “either by imposing sanctions or by cutting off transit supplies are considered as an offence against our sovereignty.”
“We reject all the attacks of the kind against our sovereignty, resist the pressure, and pursue our national interests,” he said.
Szijjarto added that he discussed the issue of gas supplies to Hungary with the first deputy head of the Russian Energy Ministry, Pavel Sorokin, on the sidelines of the Istanbul Energy Forum, which convened in Türkiye on November 22.
“We reviewed the situation in the field of gas transportation and confirmed that we will support necessary cooperation for secure energy supplies to Hungary,” he stated.
Budapest is also discussing the situation with the energy ministers of Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, and Serbia, and consulting with Slovakia to find a solution for securing energy supplies, Szijjarto added.
EU nations are still purchasing record volumes of liquified natural gas (LNG) from Russia. Despite the bloc’s plans to eliminate its dependence Russian energy, it remains one of the world’s major importers of Russian fossil fuels.
In August, pipeline gas comprised the largest share of the EU’s purchases of Russian fossil fuels (54%), followed by LNG (25%), according to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
November 23, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | European Union, Hungary, Russia, Slovakia, United States |
Leave a comment
Part 2 of our series on how Barack Obama undermined U.S. democracy
One of the least known aspects of the Russiagate affair is the central role that Barack Obama played in it. For years, the focus has been on individuals such as James Comey, Peter Strzok, the infamous dossier author Christopher Steele, and, of course, Hillary Clinton. And those names are indeed central to the plot, with Clinton being the one who devised the nefarious scheme to portray her opponent as a Russian agent. However, there was someone in the background, pulling many strings, who was even more crucial to the entire scheme: the then-sitting president, Barack Obama.
In this installment of our series on how Obama undermined U.S. democracy, we take a closer look at his role in both promoting and weaponizing the Russiagate hoax, which fraudulently linked Trump to Russia.
July 28 disclosure
We know from emails released by WikiLeaks that early discussions regarding the Clinton campaign’s dirty trick to associate Trump with Russia—what Clinton called the Swiftboat plan—were in full swing by February 2016. Over the following months, various components of this nefarious project came together. These included the hiring of campaign operatives Fusion GPS, commissioning the dirty dossier from Christopher Steele, and enlisting a group of IT specialists tasked with creating a false data trail linking Putin and Trump. We do not know whether Obama was privy to these early efforts. The earliest documented date we have for Obama’s involvement in the scheme is July 28, 2016. On this day, Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, came to the Oval Office and briefed Obama on Clinton’s Swiftboat project. Thus, we can say with certainty that, at the very latest, it was on this day that Obama became aware that the allegations of Russian collusion were nothing more than a fraudulent scheme concocted by Hillary Clinton.
As president, voters had entrusted Obama with the solemn responsibility of keeping the United States safe and secure. For this reason, Obama had a critical duty on July 28, 2016, to promptly put an end to the fraudulent allegations of collusion with Russia. The nominee of a major political party for president being falsely portrayed as a Russian agent posed numerous national security concerns. The fact that the entire scheme had been orchestrated by his opponent, arguably constituted an even more significant national security threat. In simple terms, of the two individuals who could become president, one was falsely accused of being a Russian agent while the other was the one who had cooked up the scam.
However, consistent with the theme throughout our series on Obama, he opted for treachery instead of truth. He wanted the country to tear itself apart, which is why, instead of telling Clinton to put an end to her devious scheme or, better yet, asking his Justice Department officials to investigate her campaign for creating a national security nightmare, Obama went full steam ahead in helping to perpetuate the hoax. Within 72 hours of the Oval Office meeting, the FBI launched its fraudulent Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump.
No peaceful transfer of power
It was a terrible betrayal of the American public who voted Obama into office, and the situation would only worsen. Over the coming months, the fraudulent Russia collusion investigation intensified. Numerous members of Trump’s campaign team were surveilled and monitored by the FBI. When an FBI analyst raised alarm bells about the fabricated Alfa Bank story—a tale concocted by Clinton’s IT operatives to link Putin to Trump—the analyst was promptly sidelined, and the matter was handed over to more pliant agents. However, it was all to no avail. Clinton lost, and Trump was suddenly the president-elect. At this point, it was once again Obama who intervened to undermine Trump and, consequently, American democracy.
The media incessantly discusses the so-called peaceful transfer of power, lamenting that Trump refused to hand over the reins in January 2021. Leaving aside that this assertion is demonstrably false—he did transfer power and retreated to his Mar-a-Lago estate—it is often overlooked in the debate about the peaceful handover of power that it was Obama who did not peacefully hand over power in 2017. Instead, he weaponized the Russia collusion hoax to undermine the incoming Trump administration. He did so fully aware that it would jeopardize Trump’s presidency, and in many ways, it indeed did. It is remarkable how much Trump accomplished despite the persistent cloud of Russia collusion allegations that loomed over him daily.
The specifics of Obama’s actions are relatively straightforward, yet they are seldom discussed. Immediately after Trump won the election, Obama, in collaboration with the intelligence community, initiated an effort to publish an official report, the Intelligence Community Assessment, that would claim that Trump had only won because of Putin’s help. This strategy served two purposes. First, it absolved Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party of accountability for a humiliating defeat. Second, and far more significantly, it created a huge roadblock for the incoming Trump administration. In addition to the persistent inquiries regarding Trump’s alleged connections to Putin, which hindered the administration’s ability to focus on other matters, Obama understood that his plan would effectively criminalize diplomatic relations with Russia. It was sabotage.
Trump’s hands were tied. He could not engage with Russia without provoking an immediate and loud outcry from Democrats, the intelligence community, and the media. Even something as mundane as meeting the Russian ambassador—an event that would ordinarily never make the news—was immediately portrayed as an act of treason. When Trump met Putin in person, the media had a massive meltdown, even accusing Putin of secretly bugging a soccer ball that had been gifted to Trump’s son, Barron. The hysteria knew no bounds, and this was catastrophic, especially given that all of this was occurring against the backdrop of escalating hostilities in Ukraine and the warming of relations between Russia and China—something that the United States should have done everything possible to prevent.
Secret meeting with journalists
And if all of that wasn’t enough, on January 17, 2017, Obama invited a group of journalists to a secret White House meeting. A 21-page transcript, which was only recently released, reveals that Obama used this meeting to carefully plant the fraudulent Russia collusion narrative in the minds of the attending journalists. He did this despite knowing that the entire situation was a hoax. But Obama ensured that the media perceived things otherwise, providing not only the presidential seal of approval to the Russia collusion hoax but also the impression of confirmation from someone with access to all the relevant secret intelligence. In other words, Obama abused the presidency to ensure that his successor would be burdened with the incessant Russia collusion narrative.
Obama’s central role in promoting the Russia collusion hoax was partially revealed by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who in 2020 disclosed details of the July 2016 meeting between Obama and Brennan. Other intelligence officials within the Trump administration, including his first Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, had access to the same information as Ratcliffe. However, instead of speaking out, they actively sought to undermine the president they were supposed to serve. Ratcliffe’s recent nomination as CIA Director represents not only a significant step toward reforming the intelligence community but also suggests that accountability for Obama may finally be on the horizon.
November 23, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Russophobia | CIA, Democratic Party, FBI, Hillary Clinton, Obama, United States |
Leave a comment
The latest round of US sanctions against Russian financial institutions, which specifically target Gazprombank, is an attempt to block Russia’s gas supplies to the EU, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Friday. The lender is Russia’s primary bank for energy-related transactions.
Peskov warned that Moscow would respond to restrictions with countermeasures, though he did not specify what they would entail.
The Kremlin spokesman’s remarks follow an announcement by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Thursday, which said Gazprombank and six of its international subsidiaries had been added to its sanctions blacklist. Gazprombank had already been sanctioned by the UK and Canada shortly after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. However, the US had previously avoided placing restrictions on the lender as it was used by EU states to pay for Russian gas.
When asked whether the Kremlin viewed sanctions on Gazprombank as an attempt to jeopardize supplies of Russian gas to Europe, and whether Moscow planned any response, Peskov replied: “The answer is ‘Yes’ to both questions.”
He noted that Russian authorities were already working on ways to alleviate the problems that the new restrictions could cause Russia and its foreign gas buyers.
“Of course, we’ll find options. It is impossible to introduce completely blocking measures against a country like Russia. It may take some time, but a solution will still be found,” Peskov said.
The new measures mean Gazprombank can no longer carry out transactions that involve the dollar-based financial system. Gazprombank earlier said that sanctions would not affect its operations within Russia, but warned that its UnionPay cards may stop working outside the country.
Apart from Gazprombank, the new US restrictions also targeted more than 50 small-to-medium Russian lenders, some 40 securities registrars, and 15 financial officials.
After the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the EU declared the elimination of its reliance on Russian energy to be its top priority. Many member states, including Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, the Netherlands, and Denmark, voluntarily halted their imports. However, several EU nations, including Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Italy continue to rely on Russian gas to meet their energy needs, and have not stopped buying the commodity despite pressure from peers within the bloc.
Moscow has slammed Western sanctions as illegal, and noted that they keep backfiring on the countries that impose them. Russia has also been gradually moving away from the dollar in trade, switching to transactions using national currencies with most of its international partners.
The newly imposed US sanctions against Russia’s Gazprombank are expected to send energy costs surging in parts of Europe, Finam Financial Group analyst Aleksandr Potavin told TASS on Friday. The risk of secondary restrictions will force buyers of Russian oil and gas to seek new payment tools, he predicted.
On Thursday, the US Treasury Department introduced blocking sanctions against more than 50 Russian lenders, including Gazprombank and six of its international subsidiaries. The new penalties effectively cut one of Russia’s largest banks off from the SWIFT interbank messaging system, meaning it can no longer carry out transactions that involve the dollar-based financial system. Gazprombank’s assets in the US have also been frozen.
“Due to the new sanctions against Gazprombank, foreign buyers of Russian gas and oil will be faced with the need to look for alternative payment routes that are likely to complicate the entire process, increase risks, and make the payment procedure more expensive,” Potavin said.
He specified that European buyers could use accounts in other banks or pay for energy supplies via other world currencies as an alternative.
“The new sanctions will lead to an increase in prices for Russian hydrocarbons in Europe, and supply disruptions can’t be ruled out as well, since all this creates new risks for foreign companies working with Russia,” he explained.
According to Alexander Frolov, expert at the InfoTek energy news center, the latest restrictions won’t have a direct impact on buyers of Russian gas who previously agreed to adopt the “gas for rubles” scheme to pay for their energy purchases. They will only apply to individuals and legal entities subject to US jurisdiction, he said, as quoted by TASS.
The analyst admitted, however, that companies using rubles for Russian energy supplies are at risk of secondary sanctions, “so gas buyers from Europe will turn to the US Treasury for clarification.”
Supplies of Russian pipeline gas to Europe have substantially declined due to Ukraine-related restrictions and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, although EU nations are still importing record volumes of LNG from the sanctions-hit state. Despite the bloc’s vows to drop purchases of Russian energy, it remains one of the world’s major buyers of Russian fossil fuels. In August, pipeline gas comprised the largest share of the EU’s purchases of Russia’s fossil fuels (54%), followed by LNG (25%), according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
November 22, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | European Union, Russia, United States |
Leave a comment
The war in Ukraine is an American war for which the United States government should be ashamed and blamed.
It was initiated by President Joe Biden and then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, both of whom advised Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that if he rejected a peace treaty that his own government had freely negotiated and agreed to in 2022 with Russian negotiators, Ukraine could join NATO. The treaty was more than 100 pages in length, each page of which had been initialed by both sides, and its essence accepted by the Kremlin and by Kyiv — until Biden and Johnson advised against it.
Their advice was essentially to trust their military support, as it would be strong enough to resist any Russian incursion into eastern Ukraine and relieve Kyiv of the need to make concessions to the Kremlin. They used Zelensky as a puppet, since their purpose was not motivated by peace or empathy or justice, rather by hatred for all things Russian.
So, the U.S. and the U.K. encouraged bloodshed instead of peace, confrontation instead of communication, and Congress began paying for a war without declaring one. Motivated by years of anti-Russian jingoism, heedless of its duties under the Constitution, thumbing its nose at at least three treaties ratified by the Senate that permit war only when the U.S. or an ally is gravely threatened, Congress permitted Biden to start an undeclared war against a country that poses no threat whatsoever to the national security of the United States.
Here is the backstory.
The war began in 2014 when the U.S. State Department and the CIA engineered a coup against the popularly elected and neutral-leaning government of Ukraine. Much of Russian-speaking and Russian culturally oriented Ukraine in the east was unhappy with the coup. The American and British plotters then installed a puppet regime that actually began attacking Russian Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine.
The area of eastern Ukraine in which this government-orchestrated violence was taking place has been Russian in culture, religion and language since before the American Revolution. The American and British plotters of the 2014 coup did not expect the resistance that their coup generated. Yet, they looked the other way when the Ukraine government attacked its own people for demonstrating a decided affinity for Moscow over Kyiv; so decided, that the province of Crimea actually voted overwhelmingly to return to Russia.
One person who did not look the other way was Russian President Vladimir Putin. Who could blame him? The U.S. has known since the early 1990s that Russia will not accept an eastward expansion of NATO. The George H.W. Bush administration promised the late Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev as much in return for the peaceful liberation of eastern Europe and especially the reunification of Germany. Nevertheless, with Poland’s entry into NATO, the western perfidy became apparent, as NATO — and its heavy weaponry — moved toward Moscow.
Angry that his predecessor had permitted this, fearful of the same mentality that engineered the 2014 coup now managing NATO, Putin came to the rescue of Russian Ukrainians. When the U.S. and U.K. succeeded in busting the Russia/Ukraine treaty tentatively agreed to in Istanbul, and tempted Zelensky with Ukrainian membership in NATO, Putin’s only alternative was to resist NATO expansion and the Ukrainian military by the use of Russian force.
Who can blame Putin? How would American presidents react to the threat of Chinese offensive weaponry in Mexico?
I know this is not a popular history in the U.S., as mainstream media as well as popular culture and government schools have demonized Russia since the end of the Cold War. That demonization gave Biden cover to promise Zelensky “whatever he needs for as long as it takes.” In his nearly four years in the White House, Biden has declined to articulate as long as it takes to do what.
Biden’s war has cost the American taxpayers nearly $240 billion and Ukraine 600,000 dead troops. It was not declared by Congress. It was facilitated by many Americans on the ground in Ukraine — military in uniform and out, intelligence personnel, and defense contractors. Much of the military equipment that the U.S. has sent to Ukraine — most from America’s substance, not surplus — required U.S. troops and other personnel to train Ukrainian troops in the use of it.
But last weekend, Biden — whose presidency has been thoroughly repudiated by American voters — authorized the use of offensive weaponry that can reach 190 miles into Russia and which can only be manned by U.S. personnel. At this writing, the U.S. equipment has attacked and destroyed a warehouse holding artillery ammunition some 70 miles inside the Russian border.
Who is firing U.S. offensive weaponry?
There is no dispute but that the U.S. is waging war on Russia — without a congressional declaration, without the consent of the United Nations (as the U.S. is obliged to do under a treaty that the U.S. wrote) and solely on its own. I say solely on its own because the weaponry that destroyed the Russian military warehouse requires secret U.S. satellite technology to operate, and U.S. personnel with top-secret security clearances to aim and trigger. It would be an act of espionage to permit Ukrainians to do this.
War is politics by other means. But it is the most deadly, destructive and irreversible means — and must always be a last resort. The Constitution intentionally separated the war-declaring power from the war-waging power. Its author, James Madison, poignantly argued that if presidents could both choose the enemy and fight it, such a person would be a prince and not a president.
Joe Biden’s presidency has been an abysmal failure, and he doesn’t know it. He must perversely hope that history will reward him if he keeps the killing coming to the last Ukrainian and even risks a wider war. Can a presidency of peace come soon enough?
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
November 21, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | NATO, UK, Ukraine, United States |
Leave a comment
Aletho News 