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NATO openly preparing for conflict with Russia – Moscow

RT | October 8, 2024

NATO is no longer hiding that it is gearing up for a potential military conflict with Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko has said, pointing to this year’s Steadfast Defender drills, the bloc’s largest maneuvers since the end of the Cold War.

The US-led military bloc has been expanding eastward for decades, despite assurances given to the Soviet Union in the run-up to German reunification in 1990 that it would not do so. Russia has repeatedly described the expansion toward its borders as a threat to its security.

Speaking to RIA Novosti on Tuesday, Grushko said that “now NATO representatives have stopped hiding that they are preparing for a potential armed clash with Russia.”

“Regional defense plans have been approved, concrete tasks for all of the bloc’s military command structures have been formulated. Possible options for military action against Russia are being continuously worked out,” the diplomat added.

He cited the Steadfast Defender exercise that ran from January through late May, saying that “for the first time, the enemy was not a fictitious state, but Russia.”

While NATO did not specifically name Russia in its announcement of the drills, it called the exercises preparation for a conflict with a “near-peer” adversary. NATO’s main security document identifies Russia as the bloc’s largest threat.

The drills, which were conducted near Russia’s western border, featured some 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO member states.

According to Grushko, “military budgets are being pumped [with money] and [Western] economies are being militarized.”

The deputy foreign minister insisted that “it was not Russia, but the North-Atlantic alliance that took the path of confrontation,” by refusing to engage in dialogue with Moscow. He concluded that NATO bears responsibility for a “major European security crisis.”

On Saturday, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper, citing a confidential NATO planning document, reported that in preparation for a potential conflict with Russia, the military bloc is planning to dramatically increase the number of combat and air defense units.

Over the past few months, several NATO member states have claimed that Russia could be harboring plans to attack the bloc.

Speaking on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed as “nonsense” and “bulls**t” allegations that Moscow plans to attack NATO.

In September, the Russian leader warned, however, that should Ukraine’s Western backers allow Kiev to use their missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia, “it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the US and European countries, in the conflict in Ukraine.”

October 8, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

EU airline’s boss wants Chinese to pay for flying over Russia

RT | October 8, 2024

Brussels should establish financial measures to curb competition from Chinese airlines that can freely cross Russian airspace, according to Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) CEO Marjan Rintel.

Western countries closed their airspace to Russian airlines as part of sanctions imposed after the onset of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. In response, Moscow banned aircraft from “unfriendly nations,” forcing EU planes to reroute, resulting in higher fuel consumption and increased costs.

“Russia’s airspace is closed to European airlines, while Chinese carriers fly over it, which can save two to four hours. You see that reflected in pricing, and consequently, our costs are higher,” Rintel said in an interview with Dutch broadcaster WNL on Sunday.

Rintel suggested that Brussels should intervene to address this competitive imbalance. “Europe can at least explore how we can level the playing field by adjusting pricing or examining other alternatives,” she stated.

In response to rising costs, KLM plans austerity measures aimed at saving €450 million ($494 million) annually, including €100 million ($110 million) by “adjusting” in-flight catering, Rintel noted.

“In the Netherlands, we are facing a tight labor market and rising wage costs, which differs from the situation in France,” she added, referring to KLM’s parent company, Air France-KLM. “Due to a shortage of pilots and technicians, roster changes will occur, and maintenance may need to be outsourced,” she explained.

Last month, Germany announced it was considering halting its daily Frankfurt-Beijing flights due to similar pressures from rising costs and competition from Chinese and Gulf airlines that can fly over Russia. The previous month, British Airways announced it would suspend London-Beijing flights starting in October. Additionally, Virgin Atlantic recently terminated its only China route to Shanghai.

October 8, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

China Asks US Not to Interfere With Its Right to Develop Ties With Hungary – Embassy

Sputnik – 07.10.2024

WASHINGTON – The United States should not interfere with China’s right to develop relations with the government of Hungary, the Chinese Embassy in Washington told Sputnik after US lawmakers lambasted Budapest for growing ties with Beijing.

A group of US senators was in Hungary last week to meet with government officials. Following the visit, the senators issued a joint statement criticizing Hungarian officials for developing ties with Russia and China, adding that Budapest has ignored allies’ concerns regarding its deepening cooperation with Beijing.

“China’s right to develop bilateral relations and conduct normal exchanges with other countries in the world should not be interfered with or disrupted,” the Chinese Embassy spokesperson said.

The Chinese Embassy added that the remarks by the US senators advocate bloc confrontation and are full of Cold War thinking and zero-sum game concepts, coercing other countries to choose sides.

The US senators did not go into detail about their concerns in the joint statement but urged Hungary to work closely with its allies, and listen to their concerns and act on them.

The delegation of US senators that visited Hungary included senators Jerry Moran, Susan Collins, John Cornyn, John Boozman and John Hoeven.

October 7, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Chinese airlines grab market share from US and European carriers who have to fly around Russia

Inside China Business | August 15, 2024

US and European airlines are banned from Russian airspace, and so must route around the world’s largest country. This is causing much longer and costlier flights between North America and Europe, and destinations in Southeast Asia. Chinese, Korean, and Indian airlines still enjoy Russian overflight privileges, however, and can thereby offer shorter and less expensive fares. As a result, Chinese carriers are gobbling up markets and gates across international markets. Chinese airlines already operate with 30% lower costs on a passenger-mile basis compared to US- and European-flagged carriers, and their cost advantages only multiply after adjusting for the issues involving Russian airspace.

Resources and links:

Flight maps from Great Circle Maps http://www.greatcirclemap.com) and Reuters, Unfriendly skies:

How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is redrawing air routes https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRA…

A year into Russian airspace ban, flight costs and lengths are rising https://globalnews.ca/news/9645165/ru…

Flight Radar, Which major airlines are still flying over Russian airspace? https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wh…

British Airways axes one of its ‘most important’ routes amid Russian airspace ban https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/…

Reuters, British Airways to halt flights to Beijing from Oct. 26 https://www.reuters.com/business/aero…

Reuters, Foreign airlines lose interest in China as domestic carriers expand abroad https://www.reuters.com/business/aero…

Bloomberg, US Airlines Urge Officials to Block Additional China Flights https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl…

Europe buying Russian oil via India at record rates in 2023 despite Ukraine war https://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo…

Reuters, Airbus wins reprieve from Canadian sanctions on Russian titanium https://www.reuters.com/business/aero…

Closing scene, Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center and Lighthouse, Qingdao, Shandong

October 6, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia, Video | , | Leave a comment

NATO Plans to Create Extra 49 Brigades With About 5,000 Soldiers in Each – Reports

Sputnik – 05.10.2024

NATO is planning to create an extra 49 combat-ready brigades with about 5,000 servicepeople in each that would bring a total number to 131 units, reported a German broadcaster on Saturday, citing the alliance’s unpublished documents.

The number of combat corps should be expanded from six to 15, and division headquarters from 24 to 38 to manage and support the extra brigades, the Minimum Capability Requirements, presented by NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Christopher Cavoli and French Adm. Pierre Vandier, read, as cited by the broadcaster.

The alliance is also planning to boost the capabilities of ground anti-aircraft units five-fold to 1,467, the report said.

The necessity to build up military power is stipulated by the threat that allegedly comes from Russia, the report added.

October 5, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Russia Boosts Gas Deliveries to Europe, Outpacing US as Energy Crisis Deepens

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 04.10.2024

Disruption of Russian gas supplies due to Western sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine have left Europe grappling with spiraling inflation and surging energy bills.

Russia has once again overtaken the US in terms of gas supplies to the EU in the third quarter, while taking the highest market share in nine quarters, according to Sputnik’s analysis of data from the Bruegel think tank that specializes in economics.

Over the past three months, Russia has delivered 13.3 billion cubic meters of gas to the European market, compared to 13 billion the country supplied there in the second quarter and 11.5 billion, delivered in 2023 within the same period.

As a result, the share of Russian companies in the EU’s energy imports increased to 19.4% from 17.2% in April-June, reaching a maximum since the second quarter of 2022, the analysis showed.

Russia’s quarterly and annual pipeline gas deliveries to Europe grew by 8% and almost 13%, respectively, while the volume of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports in the last quarter stood at 4.7 billion cubic meters, a 21% increase as compared to the third quarter of 2023.

The US has reduced its LNG deliveries to Europe to 9.5 billion cubic meters, becoming the third-largest LNG supplier after Russia.

Sputnik’s previous review of Eurostat data discovered that EU countries had to pay some €185 billion ($204 billion) extra on natural gas over the past 20 months after cutting themselves off from cheap, Russian pipeline gas amid Western sanctions that were introduced shortly after Moscow began a special military operation in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the EU’s “suicidal” and “absolutely political” decision to halt the purchase of Russian energy supplies would come back to bite the bloc.

October 4, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

A New Challenge for Teflon Mark

By Hans Vogel | Arktos Journal | October 3, 2024

Just a fews days ago, on October 1, Mark Rutte was sworn in as NATO’s new General Secretary. He is the fourth Dutch office holder, after Dirk Stikker (1961-1964), Joseph Luns (1971-1984) and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (2004-2009).

So, who is Mark Rutte? For one, he is the longest-serving Prime Minister of the Netherlands in the 209-year history of the Kingdom, with more than fourteen years in office. In 2006, in a kind of inner-party coup, he was catapulted to the presidency of the VVD, the Liberal (actually meaning Conservative) party. Before that, from 1988 to 1991, he was leader of the party’s youth branch, in which capacity he gained notoriety for advocating the legalization both of sex with 12-year olds and of commercial surrogate motherhood.

No doubt a major reason for Rutte’s longevity as Prime Minister is his impressive imperviousness to any and all form of criticism. It would seem as if any kind of criticism, anger, indignation and rage of his opponents runs off him like water off a duck’s back. It is precisely this quality that has earned him the nickname of “Teflon Mark.” If pressured by an opponent to remember something he did or said, he is wont to answer: “On that particular issue, I have no active memory.” Truly an expression that deserves to be enshrined alongside Margaret Thatcher’s definition of lying as “being economical with the truth.”

Surprisingly little is known about Rutte’s earlier years and family background. His family has partly Indonesian roots (from when Indonesia was a Dutch colony, until 1945). There are also indications he is part Jewish. Moreover, his maternal grandfather seems to have had some murky relations with Dutch royalty.

At 57 years, NATO’s new boss is not married and does not have a family, but there is no scarcity of rumors about his affective relationships and sexual preference. More details are known even about the secretive Dutch royal family. We only have the names of some of his intimate friends, one of whom is Jort Kelder, a conservative Dutch journalist and TV personality. In Russia, Rutte is being referred to as Gomosec, a play on words: Gensec, the abbreviation of General Secretary, dates from Soviet times, whereas gomosec is a Russian term for “gay,” which many believe Rutte is.

Of course, those who have appointed Rutte must be in the know about all the details of his private life, while it seems the almost one billion inhabitants of the thirty-two NATO member states will forever remain in the dark about Rutte’s fascinating and intriguing personality. Given the curtain of secrecy around Rutte, it is to be hoped that most won’t give a hoot. However, don’t you think it is strange that all those one billion Natostan inhabitants, who will continue footing all NATO bills, including Teflon Mark’s 300,000-euro salary, should have no idea whatsoever as to who it really is that is ordering all that killing in their name?

Only one person, Rutte’s former legal adviser Karim Aachboun, has tried to prevent him from becoming Gensec. Accusing him of being responsible for the disappearance of thousands of children during the “childcare benefits scandal,” the accuser had to see the lawsuit eventually halted by a Belgian judge, giving Rutte momentary relief.

With only such sketchy details on Rutte, what do we know about NATO? As a matter of fact, what is NATO?

In the first place, it is an organization created in 1949 by the United States, in the words of its first Gensec Lord Ismay, “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.” Ostensibly a defensive alliance against a Soviet (Russian) assault on Western Europe which, the public was told could happen any moment, never materialized. However, NATO was not dissolved when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. In hindsight, it turned out that the Soviets never intended to invade Western Europe and that the entire overheated Cold-War fear mongering was all pure nonsense. Yet the old, time-proven justification for NATO’s existence was dusted off and presented to the public once again: the evil Russians can invade anytime and we must be prepared for that eventuality.

NATO remained intact and was even expanded substantially, eventually doubling its membership. With the Iron Curtain drawn away, the Soviet Union dissolved and Russia struggling to adapt to radically altered circumstances, NATO could finally engage in some military action. Boy, was it eager! In 1995 (having secured support from the UN Security Council), it intervened in the Yugoslav civil war, ensuring Bosnia-Hercegovina’s formal independence as a NATO and US protectorate.

In 1999, NATO completely tore off its mask as it acted alone against Serbia, showing its true bloodthirsty nature in the massacre of civilians and the wholesale destruction of Serbian infrastructure. Needless to say, all of this was done through aerial bombardments. Now seemingly on a spree, in 2001, NATO jumped to the occasion of playing a role in the US-led neocolonial enterprise in Afghanistan, enthusiastically massacring thousands of civilians (2001-2014). In the meantime, NATO destroyed Libya, killing at least 60,000 civilians. Since the US-led coup in the Ukraine in 2014, NATO has also been intimately involved in readying that unfortunate country for sacrifice on the altar of Anglo-Saxon Russophobia.

So what is NATO? The answer would be: an international terrorist organization, specializing in the mass killing of civilians and the destruction of critical infrastructure, yet unable to face a peer opponent such as the Russian armed forces. Indeed, killing and setting up others to be killed is what NATO does best. Including the Ukrainians killed since Russia started its Special Military Operation in 2022 (about one million), plus the thousands of Yugoslavs, Afghans and Libyans, as well as the 16,000 civilians killed by the Ukrainians under NATO orders in Donetsk and Lugansk between 2014 and 2022, the tally stands at some 1.25 million. Quite impressive indeed!

With NATO deeply involved in the Ukraine, where it has been sustaining a series of painful and rather embarrassing personnel losses due to Russian precision bombings, Gensec Rutte has his work cut out for him. So far he seems equal to the task, emitting proper belligerent sounds. As a matter of fact, he began to do so even before he was Gensec and when he was still Prime Minister of the Netherlands, probably as a kind of application for the job. Ukraine’s war against Russia, he said, “is also our war.” Since he never bothered to check with Parliament, the remark was purely his own.

Apparently Rutte was and still is under the impression that the Ukraine is defending “our values,” which would be in the interest of “our democracy.” By using the possessive pronoun “our,” Rutte may have merely indicated the small clique of politicians and elite figures, not so much the population at large, as most people seem to think. In this respect, Rutte may be right!

What might be the values of the Ukraine? Judging by the actions of its leaders (“government”), those values are definitely not those that the US, the Council of Europe, the EU, or even NATO for that matter, officially subscribe to. As a matter of fact the values of today’s Ukrainian leaders do not seem to differ that much from those embraced by their predecessors who collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War. Judging by NATO’s track record, those Ukrainian values also coincide with the “values” that NATO has been defending, or rather, spreading.

Rendered in the most neutral terms, those values are rather destructive and lethal: they are about killing people (shooting, bombing, starving, jabbing, torturing them) and destroying their living environment.

Of course, Teflon Mark has already shown his full commitment to NATO values: on the very day of his inauguration, he declared that the Ukraine was free to use the weapons it receives from NATO nations to strike targets deep into Russia. In other words, Rutte has given the green light for the mass killing of Russian civilians. Going even further down the path toward the abyss, Rutte once again declared the Ukraine was to join NATO as soon as possible. With this declaration, Rutte once again showed his utter contempt for the Dutch public. In 2016, in a national referendum, a clear majority of the Dutch rejected any strengthening of the ties to the Ukraine through the EU (which is to be considered the non-military department of NATO). In other words, Rutte does not respect “our” values, but only “his” or “theirs”!

During the next few years, NATO will be upholding those lofty values under the direction of Teflon Mark. Mind you, he gained expertise in the field when leading the mass killing of his fellow citizens by means of death jabs during the Great Covid Show. Indeed, it would seem no one is better able than Teflon Mark Rutte to order mass killings and to send gullible NATO and Ukrainian soldiers to a certain death.

October 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Reporters Without Borders’ Attack on Sputnik and RT Highlights NGO’s Status as ‘Media Wing of NATO’

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 30.09.2024

Reporters Without Borders has published a sensationalist report on Russian media’s work in the Balkans as part of a new project known as ‘The Propaganda Monitor’, accusing Sputnik and RT of spreading “disinformation” and demanding a crackdown by the EU. Balkan affairs expert Stevan Gajic tells Sputnik why such fearmongering doesn’t work on Serbs.

Reporters Without Borders’ (French acronym RSF) new ‘Propaganda Monitoring’ multimedia minisite promises to “promote reliable journalism” by exposing “the many faces and tactics behind propaganda worldwide, bolstering the public’s understanding of the information space and helping them navigate it more safely.”

Russian media, including Sputnik and RT, have become the self-anointed Paris-headquartered media watchdog’s first target, with RSF rolling out a series of articles on Russian media’s ability to find evade censorship, custom-tailor content, and in Serbia’s case, transmit so-called “Kremlin propaganda in the Balkans despite EU sanctions.”

RSF wants the European Union and its members to “hold Serbia accountable for hosting Vladimir Putin’s factory of lies,” spending much of its investigation complaining about Russian media’s refusal to answer its loaded questions, whining about its successes captivating local audiences, and crying about Serbia’s receptiveness to hosting Russian outlets.

“Reporters Without Borders cannot be regarded as a reliable source because every line in this report is soaked with biased language,” Belgrade-based Balkan affairs expert and Institute of European Studies research associate Stevan Gajic told Sputnik, commenting on RSF’s report.

“The motivation” behind RSF’s demands for a crackdown comes down to its status as “a media wing of NATO, a media wing of the collective West. This is a pure Freudian projection. They are accusing others of what they are doing themselves,” Gajic stressed.

“Where were Reporters Without Borders when Radio Television of Serbia was bombed in 1999 and when 16 TV staff were murdered in cold blood?” the observer asked, referencing the 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. There is no credibility from people like this who did not act when they should have,” the observer recalled.

Narratives by RSF and others about Sputnik and RT being threats that need to be silenced have a clear end goal: “to nullify any kind of information coming from the other side to hush, to silence everybody who is not playing along NATO’s narrative. And this is especially a problem for NATO and for these puppet organizations, such as journalists with Reporters Without Borders, during times of war,” Gajic said.

As for RSF claims about RT’s spreading of “Kremlin narratives” in Serbia, Gajic emphasized that “pro-Russian sentiment amongst the Serbs has nothing to with the Kremlin, and everything to do with Washington and NATO.”

“Serbs are now more militantly pro-Russian because we were in a war against NATO and actually NATO was conducting and still is conducting hybrid aggression against us. I think that this speaks volumes about the falsehood of the presumptions and of the conclusions [made by RSF, ed.]. You can see how unrealistic and completely detached these people are from the reality, and how they are not really conducting deep research to see what is going on and how come,” Gajic said.

RSF’s conclusions are patently ridiculous, the observer suggested, highlighting the absurdity of “the presumption… that if it weren’t for RT and Sputnik, everybody, I guess in the Balkans and in Serbia and amongst the Serbs especially would be thrilled with the EU and NATO and so forth.”

“The new wave of the pro-Russian sentiment in Serbia was primarily created by the West. It was created by the West systematically targeting the Serbs for the last 30 years, since the moment of the breakdown of the bipolar global system” in place during the Cold War. Serbs became “the prime target,” a “Voodoo doll” for the West to “sting the Serbs in order for the Russians to feel pain,” according to Gajic.

“They were always demonstrating on us what they would like to do with Russia. That’s why many Serbs in the past said that all the wars we had with NATO and their proxies in the Balkans were actually just a preparation for a war that we are now seeing against Russia. That’s why I think the conclusion [of the RSF’s report, ed.] is false, because it comes from the presumption that if there were no ‘Russian propaganda’, quote-unquote, somehow people would feel different toward NATO.”

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | Leave a comment

As the West tries to silence RT, the Global South speaks out

The US-led “diplomatic campaign” to suppress RT worldwide is not getting the warm reception Washington hoped for

By Anna Belkina | RT | September 28, 2024

The United States government has recently issued new sanctions against RT, with the State Department announcing a new “diplomatic campaign” whereby – via US, Canadian, and UK diplomats – they promise to “rally allies and partners around the world to join us in addressing the threat posed by RT.”

In other words, the plan is to bully countries outside of the Collective West into shutting off their populations’ access to RT content in order to restore the West’s almost global monopoly on information. Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa appear to be of particular concern to the State Department’s James Rubin, as it is in those regions where US foreign policy has failed to find universal purchase.

As Rubin said during a press conference, “one of the reasons… why so much of the world has not been as fully supportive of Ukraine as you would think they would be… is because of the broad scope and reach of RT.”

Clearly not trusting anyone outside of the Western elite circles to think and decide for themselves which news sources people should or should not have access to, Rubin promised that the US will be “helping other governments come to their own decisions about how to treat” RT.

The statement reeks of patronizing and neo-colonialist attitudes, especially when you consider the countries that are being targeted.

Therefore, it has been reassuring to observe over the past couple of weeks the diversity of voices that have spoken out against this latest US-led crusade.

The Hindu, one of India’s newspapers of record, was among the first, reporting that while “US officials have spoken to [India’s] Ministry of External Affairs about joining their actions” against RT, “government officials said that the debate on sanctions is not relevant to India, while a former diplomat said that banning media organizations showed ‘double standards’ by Western countries.”

This position was seconded by Indian business newspaper Financial Express : “India is unlikely to act on this request [to ban RT], given its longstanding friendly relations with Russia and its own position on media censorship… In India, RT enjoys significant viewership, with its content reaching a large number of English-speaking audiences and also expanding its reach through a Hindi-language social media platform. RT has grown in popularity in India and other parts of the world, claiming that its main mission is to counter the Western narrative and offer Russia’s perspective on global affairs.”

In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s Okaz paper said, “it is paradoxical, that when [free] speech becomes a threat to the US and the West, they impose restrictions on it, as it happened with the ban on RT under the pretext of lack of transparency, spreading false information, interfering in internal affairs and inciting hatred – something that Washington and the West themselves do in relation to other countries.”

Leading Lebanese daily Al Akhbar wrote: “despite all the attempts to ban it… RT continues to broadcast and causes concern among supporters of imperial wars. These efforts also demonstrate the hypocrisy of their authors and their false claims about ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of the press,’ among their other loud proclamations. They claim that RT is a ‘mouthpiece of disinformation,’ but if this is so, then why is there such fear of it? If the channel really is spreading lies, won’t the viewers be able to notice? [This only works] if Western rulers view their citizens as simple-minded and easily deceived, which in turn explains the misinformation coming from every side of the Western media.”

It is safe to say that “Western rulers” view with such disregard and distrust not only their own citizens, but most of the world’s population… But I digress.

In Latin America, Uruguay-based current affairs magazine Caras y Caretas praised RT for “maintain[ing] a truthful editorial line, beyond being a state media outlet, and [it] has increased its popularity and credibility by exposing a perspective that makes it creative, original and authentic… RT has helped open the eyes of a very large part of the world’s population and of increasingly numerous governments and countries. That is the reason for the sanctions that the US and hegemonic media conglomerates such as Meta and Facebook have imposed on RT and its directors, adjudicating against them with the charges that are not believable, and are ridiculous. The statements of top US administration officials claiming to be defenders of press freedom and accusing RT of being a front for Russian intelligence is only an expression of impotence in the face of an alternative narrative to the hegemonic imperialist story.”

Rosario Murillo, the vice president of Nicaragua, sent RT a letter of support. In it, she berated the US authorities for their actions against the network, asking when they will “learn that the aggressions that they shamelessly call Sanctions, (as if they had divine powers to dispense punishments)… have no more sense than establishing their claims to the position [of] dictators of the World.” She praised RT’s “work and the creative, thoughtful, illustrative, sensitive and moving way” that RT “manage[s] to communicate.”

A number of African outlets have also spoken out about the hypocrisy of America’s global censorship. Nigerian newspaper The Whistler summarized the latest Western media diktat and its colonialist undertones thusly: “The Americans got into some quarrel with Russia and then shut down this Russian news channel. An order signed by some American politician in Washington got the European company supplying Multichoice to stop streaming RT… The result? We in Nigeria woke up one day to find we could no longer watch RT on TV or stream them on Facebook because of some drama happening in Washington and Moscow. Imagine the audacity! It was a decision made by Americans and Europeans without asking anybody here in Africa how we felt about it. They decided what we could and could not watch on our own TVs.”

It is heartening to see that so many different countries, with incredibly varied politics, societies, and cultures, speaking out against Washington’s imposing its world order on them. They prove that RT’s voice continues to be not just necessary, but welcomed and sought after.

Last night, as part of RT’s response to the actions of the US government, the bright green RT logo lit up the facade of the US Embassy building in Moscow with the message: “We’re not going away.”

Not in the US, not in the West at large, not in other parts of the world.

See you around!

September 28, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Nord Stream Anniversary & Europe’s Stockholm Syndrome

Defending the narrative from reality

By Glenn Diesen | September 27, 2024

Two years ago, the Nord Stream gas pipelines were destroyed in an economic and environmental terrorist attack. The attack severed a key economic connection between Europe and Russia, contributing to the de-industrialisation of Europe and intensifying Russia’s economic reorientation towards China and India. The geopolitical ramifications are immense, yet we know very little about the attack. How is this possible?

The US and its NATO allies initially insisted that Russia was certainly the perpetrator, and their stenographers in the media reported confidently that “everything is pointing to Russia”.[1] No evidence was presented, yet NATO even suggested the attack on its critical infrastructure could trigger collective defence under Article 5. Besides indirectly threatening the world’s largest nuclear power with war, NATO also used the attack on Nord Stream to justify escalating the war in Ukraine and to further militarise the Baltic Sea and other seas. Strengthening NATO’s ability to protect undersea infrastructure was also an important argument for why Finland and Sweden should join NATO.

The story of Russia blowing up its own pipeline could rely on a strong consensus as all dissent to the narrative could be dismissed as repeating the Kremlin’s talking points. Similar stories such as Russia’s continued bombing of a nuclear power plant under its own control or Russia attacking the Kremlin with drones did not make any sense either, yet in the absence of common sense the political-media elites could explain that this was straight out of the “Russian playbook”.

However, reality eventually asserted itself around the time of Seymour Hersh’s article that blamed the US for the attack, and thereafter the US began to shift the blame to Ukraine. In one of the latest developments, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US knew about the Ukrainian attack in advance and “the CIA warned Zelensky’s office to stop the operation”.[2]

It seems highly unlikely that the US was not involved in the attack on Nord Stream, yet the new and updated narrative is nonetheless interesting as it is an admission that the US knew about the attack on Nord Stream before it happened. This is an admission that the US and NATO lied to their public and the entire world when they blamed Russia for the attack, and then used that lie to escalate the war in Ukraine, militarise the Baltic Sea, and push for further NATO expansionism.

Our lack of knowledge about what happened to the Nord Stream gas pipelines is the result of defending the narrative from reality. Blissful ignorance has become the foundation for NATO unity, and facts are thus treated as our great enemy. Yet, as the demand for unity also upholds what can only be described as the Stockholm Syndrome, let’s review how the Nord Stream narrative has been defended from reality:

The US announces its objective to destroy Nord Stream

Preventing the economic integration and cooperation between Russia and Germany as two key centres of power has been a centuries-old hegemonic objective of the US and Britain. The RAND Corporation, a think tank linked to the intelligence community, wrote a report in 2019 sponsored by the Army Quadrennial Defense Review Office about how to extend and weaken Russia. Besides destabilising Russian borders and bleeding Russia in Ukraine, the report outlined the objective of cutting Russia’s energy ties to Europe: “A first step would involve stopping Nord Stream 2”.[3]

The US opposition to Nord Stream 2 included political pressure and economic sanctions against the companies of European allies who participated in the project, a hegemonic ambition sold to the public as defending Europe. In July 2020, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proclaimed: “We will do everything we can to make sure that that pipeline doesn’t threaten Europe”.[4] US Senator Tom Cotton announced in May 2021 that ‘there is still time to stop it. … Kill Nord Stream 2 now, and let it rust beneath the waves of the Baltic’.[5] On 14 January 2022, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also threatened the pipeline: ‘We have made clear to the Russians that pipeline is at risk if they move further into Ukraine’.[6] Senator Ted Cruz similarly used very direct language calling for stopping Nord Stream: ‘This pipeline must be stopped and the only way to prevent its completion is to use all the tools available to do that’.[7]

On 7 February 2022, President Biden stood next to German Chancellor Scholz at a press briefing, warning that if Russia invades Ukraine, then “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it”. When asked by a journalist how he would end a project under German control, Biden responded: “I promise you, we will be able to do that”.[8] US spokesperson, Ned Price, was explicit: “I want to be very clear: if Russia invades Ukraine one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward”.[9] Undersecretary of State for Policy, Victoria Nuland, used the exact same words: “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward”.[10]

The attack on Nord Stream and the subsequent victory lap

On 26 September 2022, the German-Russian Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed. The former Foreign Minister of Poland, Radek Sikorski, tweeted “Thank you, USA” accompanied by a picture of the destroyed pipeline. The day after the attack, on 27 September 2022, leaders from Poland, Norway, and Denmark attended a ceremony in Poland to mark the opening of the new Norway-Poland Baltic Pipe that was constructed to reduce Europe’s dependence on Nord Stream.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken argued that the destruction of Nord Stream presented “a tremendous opportunity. It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy”. Blinken offered to “help” Europe to replace Russian gas with much more expensive American gas. Victoria Nuland joined in on celebrating the attack: “I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea”.[11]

Washington could take a brief pause in rejoicing over the destruction of Europe’s critical energy infrastructure to reassure the world that it must have been the Russians who attacked their own pipelines. Russia had first invested billions into its evil plan of making Europe dependent on Russian energy and then transitioned into its new evil plan of blowing up these pipelines to deny gas to Europe.  Russia could alternatively have turned off the valves and saved billion dollars worth of infrastructure, but the Russian playbook works in mysterious ways. European politicians entrusted with protecting their national interests and the media entrusted with reporting on reality, insisted that only Russia would have carried out such a horrendous attack. Anyone suggesting the US could have been the perpetrator was smeared by the political-media elites as spreading “Russian propaganda”.

 Blaming Ukraine

Seymour Hersh then reported that the US had coordinated the attacks with the use of a US Navy diving team. This report was largely ignored and ridiculed by the media, with many journalists instead undermining the credibility of Hersh. The legendary investigative journalist who exposed the cover up of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and detailed the US military’s torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq, was suddenly sold to the public as an old senile discredited conspiracy theorist carrying water for Putin.

Yet, the US began to shift the blame to Ukraine. The Washington Post reported in June 2023 about leaked CIA documents revealing that US intelligence and the Biden administration knew at least three months before the attack on Nord Stream that the “Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces”.[12] How could the media report on the US lying about Russia being behind the attack, and what kind of narrative could be constructed when the only two suspects are the US and Ukraine? When the narrative-driven media did not have a narrative, the solution was simply a media blackout. The German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, committed to making excuses for his attackers and instead blaming Russia, suggested that it was too soon to blame Ukraine as the attack on Nord Stream could have been a “false flag” attack to blame Ukraine. Other European politicians simply concluded that it was best to stop digging as they would not like what they would find. The same EU officials who had for years spoken about the objective of “European sovereignty” now displayed complete subordination to Washington.

The US was nonetheless cautious not to delegitimise the Ukrainian government, by blaming some rogue Ukrainian elements who acquired a sailboat of diving equipment. This story was uncritically presented to the public after explaining for months that only a state actor could be behind such a complicated attack. Yet, the media was urged not to engage in speculations until European countries had completed their investigations and shared their findings with the world. Yet, Sweden announced in October 2022 that it would not establish a joint investigation team with allies such as Germany due to national security. By February 2024, Sweden announced it had closed the investigations into the attack on Nord Stream as the case did not fall under their jurisdiction.

As Russia was blocked from participating in the investigations, Russia put forward a resolution to the UN Security Council calling for establishing an international independent investigative commission into the attack on the Nord Steam pipelines. The Western countries rejected an independent international investigation and blocked the UN resolution. After all, an independent fact-finding mission could threaten the narrative that NATO unity rests upon.

By August 2024, the Nord Stream narrative evolved yet again as the Wall Street Journal reported that Zelensky had been involved in the attack which the CIA had allegedly attempted to stop.[13] The German government reassured its partners that the alleged Ukrainian attack on Nord Stream and Germany’s weapon supplies to Ukraine are two separate issues, and the Nord Stream investigation would not have any bearing on Germany’s support for Ukraine.

Reality threatens the unifying narrative

Without a Russian perpetrator as the foundation for solidarity, the Europeans have begun to turn on each other. Narrative control has subsequently become difficult. A German official claimed that Poland sabotaged investigations into the Nord Stream attack as they did not arrest a suspected Ukrainian diver named “Volodymyr Z”, and instead allowed him to escape back to Ukraine. August Hanning, the former head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, accused both Poland and Ukraine of being involved in the attack on Nord Stream. Hanning also questioned the sailboat narrative as: “Operations of such dimensions are inconceivable without the approval of the political leaders of the countries involved”.[14]

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded to the Germans: “To all the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and 2. The only thing you should do today about it is apologise and keep quiet”.[15] The president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, argued that if Ukraine was behind the attack on Nord Stream, then it was a legitimate target. The narrative is thus shifting from denial to justification of the terrorist attack. Germany’s continues to be humiliated by its key partners and allies, some that were behind the attack and others that are justifying the attack on its critical infrastructure. This is all happening while Germany’s energy-intensive industries collapse and its economy subsequently falters.

However, the Stockholm Syndrome phenomenon should not be underestimated, as the Europeans will memory-hole these uncomfortable facts and continue to ignore national interests. There will soon be a new script to be followed diligently and a swift return to the simple and comfortable world view of good versus evil, in which liberal democracies stand united under the leadership of the benign leadership of the US against the evil Russians.

[1] Z. Colman and B Lefebvre, ‘Everything is pointing to Russia’: U.S., EU officials on edge over pipeline explosions, Politico, 28 September 2022.

[2] B. Pancevski, A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage, The Wall Street Journal, 14 August 2024.

[3] RAND, ‘Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground’, RAND Corporation, 24 April 2019, p.62.

[4] RFE/RL, ‘Pompeo Says U.S. Will ‘Do Everything’ To Stop Nord Stream 2 Project’, RFE/RL, 30 July 2020.

[5] T. Cotton, ‘Kill Russia’s Nord Stream 2, Let it Ruse in the Baltic’, Tom Cotton official website, 19 May 2021.

[6] CNN, ‘At this hour with Kate Bolduan’, CNN, 14 January 2022.

[7] T. Cruz, ‘President Biden and the Democrats have Imperilled Ukraine and put Europe on the Brink of War’, Ted Cruz official website, 7 February 2022.

[8] S. Sarkar, ‘‘There Will No Longer Be a Nord Stream 2’: Fingers Pointed Towards Biden after Gas Pipeline Blasts’, News18, 30 September 2022.

[9] DW, ‘Nord Stream 2 won’t happen if Russia invades Ukraine: US’, Deutsche Welle, 27 January 2022.

[10] Wion, ‘If Russia invades Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 pipeline will not move forward: US’, Wion, 28 January 2022.

[11] I. Van Brugen, ‘Sergei Lavrov Accuses U.S. of Nord Stream Pipeline Attack’, Newsweek, 2 February 2023.

[12] S. Harris and S Mekhennet, U.S. had intelligence of detailed Ukrainian plan to attack Nord Stream pipeline, The Washington Post, 6 June 2023.

[13] B. Pancevski, A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage, The Wall Street Journal, 14 August 2024.

[14] Welt Report, German officials claim Poland sabotaged investigation into Nord Stream explosions, Politico, 7 September 2024.

[15] D. Bellamy, Polish PM Donald Tusk suggests Nord Stream patrons should ‘keep quiet’, Euronews, 18 August 2024.

September 27, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Open Letter to Dr. Jill Stein

Dear Dr. Stein,

Up to last week, you graciously provided US voters with a clear, viable, electoral alternative to the twin war parties, namely, Democrats and Republicans. Regrettably, last Thursday, September 19th, your campaign issued a statement undermining your status as the “peace candidate.”

The statement called Russian President Putin and Syrian President Assad “war criminals” for their roles resisting a US-orchestrated regime-change operation, begun in 2011 and continuing to this day, in Syria. That operation, illegal under international law, was initiated under the Obama Administration and led by his Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton. Under Clinton, the US created a government-in-waiting, called the Syrian National Council, which it recognized as the legitimate government of Syria, and marshalled its allies in Europe and among Arab countries, to recruit, finance, train, arm, insert, and coordinate armies of terrorist mercenaries (from Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and, later, ISIS) into Syria where they illegally invaded and occupied large swaths of Syrian territory. Through their barbaric war crimes, those de facto US foot soldiers caused terror among the Syrian population, causing millions to flee their homeland as refugees and even more to be displaced within Syria.

The US end game was to destroy an enemy of Israel and a state that opposed US hegemonic initiatives in the region.  The US strategy was to balkanize the country of Syria into tiny, warring, confessional statelets and leave the country as a failed state, in the same manner that the US and NATO destroyed the Libyan government at precisely the same time and left it as a failed state.

Presidents Putin and Assad were and are not the problem. Russia was and is an ally of Syria. It long maintained a naval base in Syria at Tartus. At the official request of the Syrian government, Russia was invited to help Syria, in accordance with international law, to defend the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria. With Russian help, along with support from Iran and Hezbollah (likewise allies of Syria), the Syrian Arab Army was able to liberate most of the country from terrorist control.

During his Administration, following the strategic defeat of ISIS, Trump decided to leave US troops (who were never invited into Syria in the first place) in occupation of the eastern third of Syria, where, to this day, they (along with their Kurdish militia) continue to steal Syria’s oil and wheat resources, thus preventing the legitimate government in Damascus from using these funds for reconstruction.

And, in addition to all these flagrant violations of international law, the US, its NATO partners, and various Arab countries joined the US in imposing extremely brutal coercive economic measures against Syria, devaluing the country’s currency and destroying its economy. These economic sanctions are unilateral and illegal (not having the approval of the UN Security Council). But they reduced 80% of the Syrian population today to food insecurity and to reliance on a meager hour or two of electricity per day.

Dr. Stein, your September 19th statement has disappointed many people in the USA and around the world. You cannot be the “peace candidate” on the one hand, and support criminal enterprises, (waged by both Democrats and Republicans) such as the war which continues today in Syria, on the other. We hope you will do the right thing, which would be for you to call for the US to end its unlawful occupation of eastern Syria and to drop its brutal sanctions regime against the country. Finally, you have certainly noted that Syria has been readmitted to the Arab League and that many countries of the world have re-established diplomatic relations as well as trade and communication links with the country. We hope that you, too, will champion the ending of US hostilities against Syria and call for the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations.

Suggested Resources:

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Germany’s BfV intelligence agency includes Remix News on list of websites tied to Russian propaganda campaign

Remix News | September 25, 2024

Remix News has been included on a list of websites accused of being used in a Russian propaganda operations, according to a controversial report from the powerful Office of the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), although Remix News has no ties to Russia.

The report, labeled “Doppelgänger,” made headlines across Germany due to its claims that certain media outlets were pushing Russian narratives or producing news reports that the Russians could use to promote propaganda campaigns. As a result, many of these media outlets, including Der Freitag, Junge Freiheit, and Berliner Zeitung successfully sued the BfV concerning a passage in the report which stated that “from the perspective of the actor, the content in question supports the Russian narrative.” The Bavarian BfV further wrote, “For this purpose, some of the articles were deliberately taken out of context.”

The report describes how Russia was allegedly using a number of news websites to promote its own narrative on social media platforms, and even in some cases, created duplicate news websites that appeared to be authentic to end users.

The lawsuit was successful and the secret service was forced to change part of the report, which then was updated to read: The BayLfV does not explicitly assume that those responsible for the websites listed here are spreading Russian propaganda or are aware of it or approve of their content being disseminated as part of the ‘doppelgänger’ campaign. Furthermore, the BayLfV does not make any assessment of the content of the websites in question.”

While Remix News is not among the websites mentioned in the actual main body of the report, it is instead included in a table at the end of the report along with about 350 news websites. Many of the news website are smaller, but Reuters, Zerohedge, Newsweek, and top German news outlets, such as Welt, Berliner Zeitung, and Junge Freiheit, are also included.

Many of these websites may not even be aware they are included in this report, as they are too large to be concerned about what a German intelligence agency operating from a single German state is publishing. However, the inclusion of Remix News on this list is problematic. For one, malicious journalists or activists may attempt to smear Remix News for being included on such a list from the German intelligence services, as the list tangentially ties our site to so-called Russian propaganda efforts. Without the proper context, such a list could be deemed extremely harmful to Remix News.

Second, there are no examples given of how Remix News was used by the Russians in their campaign. We are simply left to speculate how our website may have been allegedly used by these “Russian actors.”

For the record, Remix News has no ties to Russia in any form whatsoever.

The entire report appears to be somewhat of a debacle for the German intelligence services and has been heaped with criticism.

Speaking to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Vice President of the Bundestag and FDP politician Wolfgang Kubicki said it was a good thing that the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution had been forced to correct its report.

“This correction should also give food for thought to all those who believe that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s assessments are sacrosanct per se. We must continue to be careful that authorities do not restrict the right to freedom of expression for political reasons — not just in Bavaria, but throughout Germany,” he stated.

Media lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel criticized the Bavarian BfV’s failure to act without the threat of a lawsuit, which he said was “certainly one of the most blatant examples of how state bodies try to disparage the media.”

Notably, many of the media outlets listed in the report are seen as critical of the German government. It is unclear how Remix News landed on this list, but it is concerning that we were included with no context whatsoever. Our publication does not have the resources at this time to take legal action against the BfV, and the report remains part of the public record, albeit with an updated correction thanks to the legal battle waged by German media outlets.

Some commentary pieces Remix has published from Poland are strongly critical of Russia and the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, some content we have published that conveys arguments from a Hungarian perspective, simply state the official position, which has never condoned Russia’s invasion. These pieces have simply stated Hungary will not send weapons to Ukraine and has consistently called for a ceasefire. However, in both media markets, there is a broad range of opinions, and Remix News has endeavored to publish a wide range of perspectives on this complex issue.

The report is also concerning due to the fact that Remix News has reported a number of times in a critical manner in relation to the BfV. As Remix News has previously reported, the BfV is a highly politicized agency, with a special focus on targeting critics of the government, perhaps most notably the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The BfV is focused on Germany’s domestic sphere and is tasked with ensuring Germany’s constitution is protected. This role has increasingly morphed into fighting parties deemed outside the mainstream, with many analysts viewing the agency as a growing threat to democracy.

It features incredible spying powers, which enable it to monitor political activists and even people who have done nothing wrong besides being members of political parties deemed a threat by the ruling class. The AfD, for instance, is labeled in some states as a “suspected threat” to democracy and a “confirmed right-wing extremist” party, which enables security forces in the BfV to monitor all communications, including email, phone and text messages of all its members.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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