The CIA in Ukraine — The NY Times Gets a Guided Tour
By Patrick Lawrence | ScheerPost | February 29, 2024
If you have paid attention to what various polls and officials in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West have been doing and saying about Ukraine lately, you know the look and sound of desperation. You would be desperate, too, if you were making a case for a war Ukrainians are on the brink of losing and will never, brink or back-from-the-brink, have any chance of winning. Atop this, you want people who know better, including 70 percent of Americans according to a recent poll, to keep investing extravagant sums in this ruinous folly.
And here is what seems to me the true source of angst among these desperados: Having painted this war as a cosmic confrontation between the world’s democrats and the world’s authoritarians, the people who started it and want to prolong it have painted themselves into a corner. They cannot lose it. They cannot afford to lose a war they cannot win: This is what you see and hear from all those good-money-after-bad people still trying to persuade you that a bad war is a good war and that it is right that more lives and money should be pointlessly lost to it.
Everyone must act for the cause in these dire times. You have Chuck Schumer in Kyiv last week trying to show House Republicans that they should truly, really authorize the Biden regime to spend an additional $61 billion on its proxy war with Russia. “Everyone we saw, from Zelensky on down made this very point clear,” the Democratic senator from New York asserted in an interview with The New York Times. “If Ukraine gets the aid, they will win the war and beat Russia.”
Even at this late hour people still have the nerve to say such things.
You have European leaders gathering in Paris Monday to reassure one another of their unity behind the Kyiv regime—and where Emmanuel Macron refused to rule out sending NATO ground troops to the Ukrainian front. “Russia cannot and must not win this war,” the French president declared to his guests at the Elysée Palace.
Except that it can and, barring an act of God, it will.
Then you have Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s war-mongering sec-gen, telling Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty last week that it will be fine if Kyiv uses F–16s to attack Russian cities once they are operational this summer. The U.S.–made fighter jets, the munitions, the money—all of it is essential “to ensure Russia doesn’t make further gains.” Stephen Bryen, formerly a deputy undersecretary at the Defense Department, offered an excellent response to this over the weekend in his Weapons and Strategy newsletter: “Fire Jens Stoltenberg before it is too late.”
Good thought, but Stoltenberg, Washington’s longtime water-carrier in Brussels, is merely doing his job as assigned: Keep up the illusions as to Kyiv’s potency and along with it the Russophobia, the more primitive the better. You do not get fired for irresponsible rhetoric that risks something that might look a lot like World War III.
What would a propaganda blitz of this breadth and stupidity be without an entry from The New York Times ? Given the extent to which the Times has abandoned all professional principle in the service of the power it is supposed to report upon, you just knew it would have to get in on this one.
The Times has published very numerous pieces in recent weeks on the necessity of keeping the war going and the urgency of a House vote authorizing that $61 billion Biden’s national security people want to send Ukraine. But never mind all those daily stories. Last Sunday it came out with its big banana. “The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin” sprawls—lengthy text, numerous photographs. The latter show the usual wreckage—cars, apartment buildings, farmhouses, a snowy dirt road lined with landmines. But the story that goes with it is other than usual.
Somewhere in Washington, someone appears to have decided it was time to let the Central Intelligence Agency’s presence and programs in Ukraine be known. And someone in Langley, the CIA’s headquarters, seems to have decided this will be O.K., a useful thing to do. When I say the agency’s presence and programs, I mean some : We get a very partial picture of the CIA’s doings in Ukraine, as the lies of omission—not to mention the lies of commission—are numerous in this piece. But what the Times published last weekend, all 5,500 words of it, tells us more than had been previously made public.
Let us consider this unusually long takeout carefully for what it is and how it came to make page one of last Sunday’s editions.
In a recent commentary I reflected on the mess the Times landed in when it published a thoroughly discredited p.o.s.—and I leave readers to understand this newsroom expression—on the sexual violence Hamas militias allegedly committed last Oct. 7. I described a corrupt but routinized relationship between the organs of official power and the journalists charged with reporting on official power, likening it to a foie gras farmer feeding his geese: The Times’s journalists opened wide and swallowed. For appearances’ sake, they then set about dressing up what they ingested as independently reported work. This is the routine.
It is the same, yet more obviously, with this extended piece on the CIA’s activities in Ukraine. Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz tell the story of—this the subhead—“a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia.” They set the scene in a below-ground monitoring and communications center the CIA showed Ukrainian intel how to build beneath the wreckage of an army outpost destroyed in a Russian missile attack. They report on the archipelago of such places the agency paid for, designed, equipped, and now helps operate. Twelve of these, please note, are along Ukraine’s border with Russia.
Entous and Schwirtz, it is time to mention, are not based in Ukraine. They operate from Washington and New York respectively. This indicates clearly enough the genesis of “The Spy War.” There was no breaking down of doors involved here, no intrepid correspondents digging, no tramping around in Ukraine’s mud and cold, unguided. The CIA handed these two material according to what it wanted and did not want disclosed, and various officials associated with it made themselves available as “sources”—none of the American sources named, per usual.
Are we supposed to think these reporters found the underground bunker and all the other such installations by dint of their “investigation”—a term they have the gall to use as they describe what they did? And then they developed some kind of grand exposé of all the agency wanted to keep hidden? Is this it?
Sheer pretense, nothing more. Entous and Schwirtz opened wide and got fed. There appears to be nothing in what they wrote that was not effectively authorized, and we can probably do without “effectively.”
There is also the question of sources. Entous and Schwirtz say they conducted 200 interviews to get this piece done. If they did, and I will stay with my “if,” they do not seem to have been very good interviews to go by the published piece. And however many interviews they did, this must still be counted a one-source story, given that everyone quoted in it reflects the same perspective and so reinforces, more or less, what everyone else quoted has to say. The sources appear to have been handed to Entous and Schwirtz as was access to the underground bunker.
The narrative thread woven through the piece is interesting. It is all about the two-way, can’t-do-without-it cooperation between the CIA and Ukraine’s main intel services—the SBU (the domestic spy agency) and military intelligence, which goes by HUR. In this the piece reads like a difficult courtship that leads to a happy-at-last consummation. It took a long time for the Americans to trust the Ukrainians, we read, as they, the Americans, assumed the SBU was thick with Russian double agents. But the Ukrainian spooks enticed them with stacks and stacks of intelligence that seems to have astonished the CIA people on the ground and back in Langley.
So, a tale with two moving parts: The Americans helped the Ukrainians get their technology, methods, and all-around spookery up to snuff, and the Ukrainians made themselves indispensable to the Americans by providing wads of raw intel. Entous and Schwirtz describe this symbiosis as “one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.” Here is how a former American official put it, as the Times quotes him or her:
The relationships only got stronger and stronger because both sides saw value in it, and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv—our station there, the operation out of Ukraine—became the best source of information, signals and everything else, on Russia. We couldn’t get enough of it.
As to omissions and commissions, there are things left out in this piece, events that are blurred, assertions that are simply untrue and proven to be so. What amazes me is how far back Entous and Schwirtz reach to dredge up all this stuff—even to the point they make fools of themselves and remind us of the Times’s dramatic loss of credibility since the current round of Russophobia took hold a decade ago.
Entous and Schwirtz begin their account of the CIA–SBU/HUR alliance in 2014, when the U.S. cultivated the coup in Kyiv that brought the present regime to power and ultimately led to Russia’s military intervention. But no mention of the U.S. role in it. They write, “The CIA’s partnership in Ukraine can be traced back to two phone calls on the night of Feb. 24, 2014, eight years to the day before Russia’s full-scale invasion.” Neat, granular, but absolutely false. The coup began three days earlier, on Feb. 21, and as Vladimir Putin reminded Tucker Carlson during the latter’s Feb. 6 interview with the Russian president, it was the CIA that did the groundwork.
I confess a special affection for this one: “The Ukrainians also helped the Americans go after the Russian operatives who meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” Entous and Schwirtz write. And later in the piece, this:
In one joint operation, a[n] HUR team duped an officer from Russia’s military intelligence service into providing information that allowed the C.I.A. to connect Russia’s government to the so-called Fancy Bear hacking group, which had been linked to election interference efforts in a number of countries.
Wonderful. Extravagantly nostalgic for that twilight interim that began eight years ago, when nothing had to be true so long as it explained why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, and why Donald Trump is No. 1 among America’s “deplorables.”
I have never seen evidence of Russian government interference in another nation’s elections, including America’s in 2016, and I will say with confidence you haven’t, either. All that came to be associated with the Russiagate fable, starting with the never-happened hack of the Democratic Party’s mail, was long ago revealed to be concocted junk. As to “Fancy Bear,” and its cousin “Cozy Bear”—monikers almost certainly cooked up over a long, fun lunch in Langley—for the umpteenth time these are not groups of hackers or any other sort of human being: They are sets of digital tools available to anyone who wants to use them.
Sloppy, tiresome. But to a purpose. Why, then? What is the Times’s purpose in publishing this piece?
We can start, logically enough, with that desperation evident among those dedicated to prolonging the war. The outcome of the war, in my read and in the view of various military analysts, does not depend on the $61 billion in aid that now hangs in the balance. But the Biden regime seems to think it does, or pretends to think it does. The Times’s most immediate intent, so far as one can make out from the piece, is to add what degree of urgency it can to this question.
Entous and Schwirtz report that the people running Ukrainian intelligence are nervous that without a House vote releasing new funds “the CIA will abandon them.” Good enough that it boosts the case to cite nervous Ukrainians, but we should recognize that this is a misapprehension. The CIA has a very large budget entirely independent of what Congress votes one way or another. William Burns, the CIA director, traveled to Kyiv two weeks ago to reassure his counterparts that “the U.S. commitment will continue,” as Entous and Schwirtz quote him saying. This is perfectly true, assuming Burns referred to the agency’s commitment.
More broadly, the Times piece appears amid flagging enthusiasm for the Ukraine project. And it is in this circumstance that Entous and Schwirtz went long on the benefits accruing to the CIA in consequence of its presence on the ground in Ukraine. But read these two reporters carefully: They, or whoever put their piece in its final shape, make it clear that the agency’s operations on Ukrainian soil count first and most as a contribution to Washington’s long campaign to undermine the Russian Federation. This is not about Ukrainian democracy, that figment of neoliberal propagandists. It is about Cold War II, plain and simple. It is time to reinvigorate the old Russophobia, thus—and hence all the baloney about Russians corrupting elections and so on. It is all there for a reason.
To gather these thoughts and summarize, This piece is not journalism and should not be read as such. Neither do Entous and Schwirtz serve as journalists. They are clerks of the governing class pretending to be journalists while they post notices on a bulletin board that pretends to be a newspaper.
■
Let’s dolly out to put this piece in its historical context and consider the implications of its appearance in the once-but-fallen newspaper of record. Let’s think about the early 1970s, when it first began to emerge that the CIA had compromised the American media and broadcasters.
Jack Anderson, the admirably iconoclastic columnist, lifted the lid on the agency’s infiltration of the media by way of a passing mention of a corrupted correspondent in 1973. A year later a former Los Angeles Times correspondent named Stuart Loory published the first extensive exploration of relations between the CIA and the media in the Columbia Journalism Review. Then, in 1976, the Church Committee opened its famous hearings in the Senate. It took up all sorts of agency malfeasance—assassinations, coups, illegal covert ops. Its intent was also to disrupt the agency’s misuse of American media and restore the latter to their independence and integrity.
The Church Committee is still widely remembered for getting its job done. But it never did. A year after Church produced its six-volume report, Rolling Stone published “The CIA and the Media,” Carl Bernstein’s well-known piece. Bernstein went considerably beyond the Church Committee, demonstrating that it pulled its punches rather than pull the plug on the CIA’s intrusions in the media. Faced with the prospect of forcing the CIA to sever all covert ties with the media, a senator Bernstein did not name remarked, “We just weren’t ready to take that step.”
We should read the Times’s piece on the righteousness of the CIA’s activities in Ukraine—bearing in mind the self-evident cooperation between the agency and the newspaper—with this history in mind.
America was just emerging from the disgraces of the McCarthyist period when Stuart Loory opened the door on this question, the Church Committee convened, and Carl Bernstein filled in the blanks. In and out of the profession there was disgust at the covert relationship between media and the spooks. Now look. What was then viewed as top-to-bottom objectionable is now routinized. It is “as usual.” In my read this is one consequence among many of the Russiagate years: They again plunged Americans and their mainstream media into the same paranoia that produced the corruptions of the 1950s and 1960s.
Alas, the scars of the swoon we call Russiagate are many and run deep.
Who’s Brain-Dead Now, Macron?
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 28, 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron wants to send NATO ground troops into Ukraine to defeat Russia.
Only a delusional fool could make such a crass proposal which goes to show that Macron is brain-dead. NATO troops deployed to fight Russian forces would mean an all-out war, which most likely would spiral into a nuclear conflagration.
Ironically, the French leader made headlines a while back when he labeled the US-led NATO alliance as being “brain-dead”. He’s now competing for the same epithet.
When Macron made those harsh remarks about NATO in an interview with the Economist in November 2019, some observers thought that he was being intelligently critical of the transatlantic military organization and how it was no longer fit for purpose in the modern age.
But, no, Macron wasn’t offering constructive criticism of NATO or American leadership. He was simply being a conceited charlatan, trying to promote himself as the “strong leader” of Europe and peddling his hobby horse of building up a European army by appearing to bad mouth NATO.
This week, the former Rothschild banker was at it again, indulging in his grandiose fantasies of leading the rest of Europe.
Macron hosted 25 European heads of state or government at the Conference in Support of Ukraine. In the grandeur of the Elysee Palace, he warned that Russia “must not win the war in Ukraine” otherwise, he claimed, the whole of Europe would succumb to Russian aggression.
This is reckless and dangerous fantasy by the French president indulging in the most unhinged Russophobia. Moscow has categorically stated that it has no interest in anything beyond denazifying the NATO-sponsored regime in Kiev and protecting its national security.
To offset such a purported nightmarish outcome of Russian tanks rolling over Europe, Macron told European leaders that they should not rule out deploying NATO ground troops to assist the Kiev regime.
“Nothing should be excluded. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war,” the French president said in front of approving European leaders.
Among the conference attendees were German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Foreign Minister David Cameron. Germany and France earlier this month signed bilateral security pacts with Ukraine, which could be invoked for sending military forces officially to prosecute the U.S.-led proxy war against Russia.
NATO officers in the guise of private mercenaries are already heavily participating in the Ukraine conflict against Russia. Last month, more than 60 French servicemen were killed in a Russian missile strike near the Ukrainian city of Kharkov.
French media reported of the event in Paris this week: “The conference [in Paris] signaled Macron’s eagerness to present himself as a European champion of Ukraine’s cause, amid growing fears that American support could wane in the coming months.”
As well as calling for the deployment of NATO troops, Macron also pledged to send more long-range missiles to the Kiev regime for “deep strikes” in Russia.
French cruise missiles have already been used to strike the Russian territory of Crimea. Now the French leader wants a NeoNazi regime to have the capability to hit deep into Russia. How much longer can Moscow tolerate this outrageous provocation without reciprocal strikes?
No doubt the French president sees an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. Macron is obsessed with notions of his self-importance and restoring France’s international image to some imaginary glorious past.
With the Americans squabbling in Congress about whether to send Ukraine another $60 billion in military aid and with the possible election of NATO-skeptic Donald Trump to the White House later this year, Macron sees an opening to show Western leadership by stepping up Europe’s support for Ukraine.
Macron’s egotism and delusions of grandeur are liable to start World War Three.
He is doing all this by telling blatant lies about the conflict in Ukraine.
Macron is indulging the Kiev puppet president Vladimir Zelensky in pretending that Ukraine has a chance of defeating Russia. Zelensky also addressed the conference in Paris via video link and made his tiresome appeal for more weapons. He asserted with barefaced lies that Ukrainian military deaths amounted to 31,000 troops since the conflict erupted two years ago. The most realistic figure is that over 400,000 and perhaps as many as 500,000 Ukrainian military have been killed by far superior Russian forces.
That’s the implicit admission made by Macron. Why would NATO troops be required in Ukraine if it was not for replacing Ukrainian ranks that have been devastated?
Macron justifies his lies by compounding the more outrageous lie that Russia is intent on invading other European nations once it defeats the Ukrainian army.
This bogeyman version of geopolitics ignores the reality that the United States and NATO fomented a proxy war against Russia using a NeoNazi regime.
Macron wants to start World War Three based on sheer lies and vanity. He’s not only brain-dead. He’s soul-dead too.
NATO’s Debate Over Whether To Conventionally Intervene In Ukraine Shows Its Desperation
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | FEBRUARY 27, 2024
French President Macron hosted over 20 fellow European leaders in Paris on Monday to discuss their next moves in Ukraine, including the possibility of a conventional NATO intervention, which he said they hadn’t ruled out for reasons of “strategic ambiguity” despite not reaching a consensus on this. His Polish counterpart Duda also confirmed that this subject was the most heated part of their discussions. The very fact that this scenario is being officially considered shows how desperate NATO has become.
Russia’s victory in Avdeevka, which was the natural result of it winning the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with NATO, prompted policymakers to contemplate what they’ll do in the event that it achieves a breakthrough across the Line of Contact (LOC) and starts steamrolling through the rest of Ukraine. They hadn’t previously considered this to be a serious possibility until last summer’s failed counteroffensive exposed the weakness of their military-industrial complex and tactical-strategic planning.
It’s now a credible scenario that’s reviving speculation about a Polish-led intervention aimed at drawing a red line in the sand for halting any potential Russian breakthrough before it gets too far. This would preserve the G7’s “sphere of (economic) influence” in Ukraine while preventing that former Soviet Republic’s collapse and thus averting another Afghan-like foreign policy disaster for the West. The problem, however, is that Poland also doesn’t want to be put up to this only to be hung out to dry.
Although Poland has comprehensively subordinated itself to Germany after the return of Berlin-backed Prime Minister Tusk to power late last year and envisages carving out its own “sphere of influence” in Western Ukraine, this doesn’t mean that it wants to lead a Western intervention there. The risk of World War III breaking out with Russia by miscalculation is much too high and Poland might fear that NATO won’t activate Article 5 if it clashes with Russia inside Ukraine in order to prevent that from happening.
These concerns could explain why there wasn’t any consensus during Monday’s meeting on this issue since other members wisely won’t want to take the chance of catalyzing an apocalyptic scenario, ergo the reason why the West might be plotting a false flag in Poland to blame on Russia and Belarus. President Lukashenko warned about that in late February, and if it comes to pass, then it could serve as the trigger for pushing Poland into leading a Western intervention in Ukraine without full NATO backing.
Warsaw could be misled to believe without any written guarantees that it has the bloc’s support and Article 5 would be activated if its forces clash with Russia’s there, but only to be hung out to dry if that happens so as to stave off World War III by miscalculation for the greater good. Nevertheless, it would still serve the purpose of drawing a red line in the sand that could halt Russia’s advance since NATO might escalate via brinksmanship afterwards by promising to activate Article 5 if the clashes continue.
Poland would also be left to pick up the tab in that event by having to pay the financial and physical costs of this de facto NATO intervention, thus representing an amoral form of “burden-sharing” that would fall solely on its taxpayers instead of the rest of the bloc’s. The farmers’ protests that are rocking that country right now could lead to a full-blown rebellion if that happens since others could join in, however, which the ruling liberal-globalists would prefer not to unfold since they fear that they’d risk losing power.
That’s why they’re reluctant to lead a Western intervention in Ukraine since there’s a high chance that it’ll backfire on them in particular and Poland’s national interests in general despite being to the benefit of Western hegemony as a whole. Whatever ends up happening, the takeaway from Monday’s meeting in Paris and the details that were revealed about their discussions is that NATO is planning for a possible Russian breakthrough across the LOC later this year but isn’t yet sure how to react if that happens.
Poland could either be pushed to preempt that voluntarily or after being manipulated by the false flag that President Lukashenko warned last week is being plotted, with the second option also potentially being employed right after any breakthrough. If this occurs before NATO’s “Steadfast Defender 2024” drills wrap up in June, then those of the bloc’s forces that are presently training in Poland for its largest continental exercises since the Old Cold War could play a pivotal support role or possibly join in as well.
Should a breakthrough occur after those war games end as part of the Russian offensive that Zelensky claimed is being planned for as early as May, however, then Poland probably couldn’t count on as much NATO support and would likely be pressured to go it alone (at least at first) with only vague promises. Another possibility is that the exercises are extended, whether in whole or in part, including through the semi-permanent stationing of some other NATO forces like Germany’s there until the offensive ends.
That might give Poland enough reassurance to take a leap of faith in plunging head-first into Ukraine with the expectation that the rest of NATO will follow even if they purposely lag behind in order to avoid World War III with Russia by miscalculation as was previously explained. It remains to be seen what’ll happen, but as Macron himself said, “we will do everything needed so Russia cannot win the war” and this therefore means that NATO will certainly intervene to some extent if Russia breaks through the LOC.
The bloc can’t afford another Afghan-like disaster, let alone on European soil in the most geostrategically significant conflict since World War II, which is why it won’t sit idly on the sidelines as Ukraine collapses if there’s a credible chance of that happening and Russia steamrolling through the ruins. The only reason why they’re now planning for this is because Russia’s victory in the “race of logistics”/“war of logistics” makes it conceivable sometime later this year, though it of course can’t be taken for granted either.
Tucker Carlson makes shocking revelation about Moscow trip
RT | February 27, 2024
Tucker Carlson said on Tuesday that US spies had monitored him while he was in Russia earlier this month, and leaked to a ‘friendly’ outlet that he had met with Edward Snowden. This is despite the American journalist’s claim that he had tried to keep his meeting with the NSA whistleblower a secret.
Carlson went to Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin. During his eight days in Moscow, he also met with Snowden – and US spies found out about it, he told podcaser Lex Fridman in the course of a three-hour conversation.
“I was being intensely surveilled by the US government,” Carlson told Fridman, noting that US spies had thwarted his plans to interview Putin in 2021 and that he received confirmation that he was being intensely monitored ahead of his Moscow trip. “Then, I’m over there, and of course I want to see Snowden, whom I admire.”
Snowden allegedly accepted Carlson’s invitation to have dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel, but declined the interview as well as a photo request, saying that it would be better to tell no one.
“I didn’t tell anybody,” Carlson told Fridman, however the meeting was leaked. “Semafor runs this piece – reporting information they got from the US intel agencies, leaking against me, using my money, in my name, in a supposedly free country – they run this piece saying I met with Snowden, like it was a crime or something.”
“If you have a media establishment that acts as employees of the national security state, you don’t have a free country. And that’s where we are,” Carlson added.
Carlson revealed that he did not fear getting arrested in Russia at any point, but was warned by his lawyers that the US might arrest him depending on the content of the Putin interview.
“I felt not one twinge of concern for the 8 days that I was there,” he told Fridman about being in Moscow.
Before he left for Russia, his team of attorneys counseled him to “not do this… A lot will depend on the questions you ask of Putin. If you’re seen as too nice to him you could be arrested when you come back,” Carlson quoted the lead lawyer as saying, to which he said he replied, “You’re describing a fascist country, OK?”
In 2013, Snowden revealed that the NSA was systematically engaged in mass illegal spying on American citizens. Fearing for his safety, he fled to Hong Kong with the intent to reach Ecuador, which did not have an extradition treaty with the US, but was stopped during a layover in Moscow after Washington canceled his passport. Russia ended up granting him asylum and reportedly, eventual citizenship.
One of the founders of Semafor, the outlet to which Carlson claims US spies leaked his dinner with Snowden, is Ben Smith, a former editor-in-chief of the now defunct BuzzFeed newsroom. In 2017, Smith notoriously published the ‘Steele Dossier,’ a sham document leaked by US spies to discredit incoming President Donald Trump.
EU’s Russia sanctions ‘massively circumvented’ – study
RT | February 27, 2024
The EU’s sanctions on Russia are being “massively circumvented” via third countries, Euractiv reported on Monday, citing a study by the IESEG School of Management. The bloc has introduced 13 rounds of restrictive measures against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.
The research found statistical evidence that the sanctions have been hugely dodged for so-called “high priority items,” which are subject to EU export restrictions and include manufacturing equipment and electrical components with potential military applications.
According to the report, EU exports of such items to Türkiye, the UAE, Kazakhstan, and other “Kremlin-friendly” countries skyrocketed by €2.9 billion ($3.2 billion), or over 80%, in the period from October 2022 through September 2023 compared to the previous twelve-month span. The data shows that at the same time EU exports of such goods to Russia decreased by $3.5 billion, or more than 95%.
The decline in EU sales of advanced technology and dual-use items to Moscow was seen as almost entirely compensated for by a sharp increase in exports of the same goods to countries in West and Central Asia, according to Euractiv.
“The surge of these purchases by third countries is too huge to be entirely caused by an increase in local demand, so that it can be suspected that a big part was thereafter exported to Russia,” the IESEG report claimed.
A senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Janis Kluge, told Euractiv that “Russia’s economy is resilient because it is, for the most part, still a market economy.”
The country adjusted to the sanctions through a “decentralized effort” by “thousands of [businesses] managers” to find their ways around the restrictions and “keep things working” – thus proving to be one of the key factors behind Russia’s relative “resilience” to Western sanctions, according to Kluge.
“There were new traders popping up who specialized in importing these goods through third countries. There’s a whole industry that has appeared, which is dedicated to the circumvention of sanctions – because it’s a billion-dollar business,” he stated.
The EU adopted its 13th package of sanctions against Russia last week ahead of the second anniversary of the start of the Ukraine conflict. The measures target 106 individuals and 88 entities and also further restrict trade in technologies and components that could be used by Russia’s defense industry. Components for the development and production of unmanned aerial vehicles have also been added to the blacklist. Some of the sanctioned entities are located in third countries, such as India, China, and Türkiye.
US Army calls Russia ‘the enemy’
RT | February 27, 2024
The US Army has branded Moscow the “enemy” while promoting a newly-published manual on the Russian military on social media.
The Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate’s (CADD) new 280-page manual gives a detailed overview of Russian military strategy and tactics, and tries to predict how the country would conduct itself in future conflicts. The CADD promoted the manual in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, asking, “Do you know your enemy?”
The primary focus is on Moscow’s ground forces, which would be pitted against the US Army in a hypothetical direct war.
The document, known as ATP 7-100.1 and released last week, is part of a series that the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) has been developing for years. Previous publications provided similar studies of the militaries of other potential near-peer and peer opponents: North Korea, China, and Iran. The materials are not classified and intended for professional US and allied military officers.
With Russia currently involved in the Ukraine conflict, US military researchers stressed that they are still examining data gathered there and would revise their instructions accordingly. They said it was “too early to assess the structure and equipping of any Russian unit for the next 5 to 10 years” with hostilities still ongoing.
Discussing Russia’s relations with the US and its NATO allies, the manual says they are defined “by a perpetual state of competition and self interest.” The country seeks recognition as a world power and it is “highly likely” that future Russian leaders will pursue policies similar to that of the current government “for the foreseeable future,” it said; Russia will “challenge the relative position of US influence in the global order while avoiding direct confrontation with the US military.”
The Russian leadership views NATO as an instrument of American geopolitical hegemony and has called its expansion in Europe a threat to national security. The Ukraine conflict, according to Moscow, is part of a wider US-led proxy war against Russia, in which Ukrainian troops are sacrificed in the name of containment.
”The core of the problem is not in Ukraine but in those who are trying to destroy Russia with Ukrainian hands,” President Vladimir Putin said last month while visiting a military hospital. “Even though they have been pursuing this goal of tackling Russia for ages, we will sooner tackle them.”
Kremlin reacts to Macron’s remarks on NATO troops in Ukraine
RT | February 27, 2024
A direct conflict between Russia and NATO will likely become inevitable if member states of the US-led military bloc send troops to Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, after French President Emmanuel Macron raised the possibility.
Macron, whose government hosted a high-profile meeting of Ukraine backers on Monday, said EU members “will do everything necessary to prevent Russia from winning” – including deploying forces on the ground to support Kiev. Several governments have since ruled out sending troops to the front line.
Opponents of the proposal “have a sober assessment of the potential risks” of having NATO forces in Ukraine, Peskov told the media on Tuesday. That would be “absolutely against the interests of those nations” and their people, he warned.
Asked about the probability of a direct conflict with NATO if Western troops are sent to Ukraine, the Kremlin spokesman said, “in this case, we have to talk not about the probability, but rather the inevitability.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has spoken out against the idea. Participants of the meeting in Paris came to an agreement against it, he told a news conference on Tuesday.
At a joint press conference in Prague on Tuesday, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, ruled out sending their citizens to fight in Ukraine. Senior officials in Hungary and Slovakia issued similar statements.
Macron said Western leaders could end up changing their minds in the future, similarly to how they did with military assistance – which in some cases initially involved items such as helmets to eventually donating lethal weaponry including tanks and fighter jets.
While there was no consensus over the proposal, the participants agreed to create a coalition to supply medium and long-range missiles to Kiev, the French president said.
Moscow considers the Ukraine conflict to be a US-orchestrated proxy war against Russia, and has repeatedly warned that by supplying increasingly sophisticated weapons to Kiev, NATO members are drawing closer to a direct confrontation.
Talks With US on Space Weapons ‘Completely Unproductive’ – Moscow
Sputnik – 24.02.2024
MOSCOW – The recent contact between Russia and the US over claims Moscow alleged plans to deploy anti-satellite nuclear weapons in space turned out to be unproductive, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergey Ryabkov said.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing US officials, that Washington had privately warned Moscow not to deploy a new nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon which would allegedly violate the Outer Space Treaty and threaten US national security interests.
“There is no and cannot be any progress on this issue,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters. “The reason is clear – the absurdity of US’ accusations against us of allegedly intending to deploy some systems with weapons-grade nuclear components in space.”
“As it has been continuously said recently, and as [Russian] President [Vladimir Putin] said, we have no such intentions,” Ryabkov added. “The Americans pursue the goal of demonizing Russia by making accusations of this kind. Therefore, the contact on this issue is completely unproductive.”
The deputy minister stressed that Russia had no intention of withdrawing from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that bans the deployment of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in space.
“No, we do not consider [the possibility of withdrawal from the treaty],” Ryabkov said.
He also called it unacceptable that the US side had leaked details of the talks held between US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Russian Presidential Foreign Policy Advisor Yury Ushakov, which Moscow and Washington agreed to keep confidential.
Russia has repeatedly warned against an arms race in space, and advocated for its use for purely peaceful purposes. President Vladimir Putin reiterated on February 20 that Moscow has always opposed the deployment of nuclear weapons in space.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has noted that that the United States and its allies are taking steps to place weapons in space and use outer space for combat operations, not only for defensive purposes.
The West continues to regard space as a new arena of rivalry and conflicts between countries, in which Russia and China are identified as the main opponents, the ministry said.
The US created its first foreign space force under its command in the Indo-Pacific region in 2022, following the establishment of the space force in 2019 under the pretext of threats from Russia and China. According to estimates, the United States has 4,723 satellites in orbit, while China has 647, Russia has 199, and the rest of the world has 1,527 combined.
Wikileaks Reveals Alexei Navalny’s US Funding as Washington Exploits His Death
By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – 24.02.2024
News of the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison very quickly spread across the Western media, while condemnation of Russia over his death emanated from behind the podiums of Western leaders. Before any investigation could possibly be mounted, the collective West concluded that the Russian state was responsible for Navalny’s death.
The disproportionate concern US President Joe Biden showed for a Russian citizen dying in a Russian prison versus President Biden’s silence over the death of American citizen Gonzalo Lira in a Ukrainian prison, raises questions over the motivation behind this “concern.”
Far beyond hypocrisy, the US and its allies are less concerned about Navalny’s death than they are about how it can be leveraged to advance their foreign policy objectives vis-à-vis Russia.
The New York Times, in an article titled, “Navalny’s Death Raises Tensions Between U.S. and Russia,” would claim:
President Biden blamed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia personally on Friday for the reported death of the imprisoned Russian dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, and cited the case in pressing House Republicans to approve military aid to Ukraine in its war with Moscow.
As part of the process of exploiting Navalny’s death, not only are the circumstances surrounding it being distorted, so too are the events of Navalny’s life.
Many news articles ran with headlines like CNN’s article, “Putin saw an existential threat in Navalny, the opposition leader whose name he dared not mention,” the BBC’s article, “Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most vociferous Putin critic,” or Al Jazeera’s article, “Alexey Navalny: An archenemy Putin wouldn’t name and Kremlin couldn’t scare.” These articles all contain different variations of virtually the same narrative that Navalny was a prominent opposition figure, a successful politician, and an “existential” threat to the current Russian administration.
Yet, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Despite being active in Russia, Navalny’s largest support base was actually located in Washington, D.C. And it is the Western media itself that has revealed this.
Even with Al Jazeera’s recent article attempting to convince readers Navalny was the “archenemy” of the Russian government, further down in the article it admits:
Only 19 percent of Russians approved of Navalny’s work and 56 percent disapproved of what he did, according to a February 2021 survey by the Moscow-based Levada Center polling organisation.
How does an opposition figure with only a 19% approval rating in any way threaten a government whose leader, President Vladimir Putin, enjoys an approval rating over 80%?
Some may question the polling data, after all, the Levada Center producing both numbers is based in Moscow. However, the Levada Center is actually funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), according to the NED’s own website.
The US NED funds political opposition groups around the globe with the ultimate objective of achieving regime change in targeted countries and producing resulting client regimes that pursue US interests, even at the cost of the targeted country’s own interests.
We know this because the Western media admitted this as well.
The Guardian in a 2004 article titled, “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” in regard to street protests in Ukraine admitted:
… the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.
Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milošević at the ballot box.
Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.
Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in Central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.
The article admits that the US government used the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, both subsidiaries of the NED, to organize this political interference.
If the US government was funding organizations all along Russia’s borders, the next question is: Who was the US government funding inside Russia itself?
The answer is Alexei Navalny and the network of political opposition surrounding him. The many obituaries published recently across the Western media list the names of political organizations Navalny founded, including “Democratic Alternative” or “DA!”
US diplomatic cables, made available by Julian Assange and his Wikileaks project, revealed “Democratic Alternative” was being funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy.
In a November 2006 cable titled, “A Guide to Russian Political Youth Groups: Part 1 of 2,” it’s admitted that:
Mariya Gaydar, daughter of former Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar, leads DA! (Democratic Alternative). She is ardent in her promotion of democracy, but realistic about the obstacles she faces. Gaydar said that DA! is focused on non-partisan activities designed to raise political awareness. She has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a fact she does not publicize for fear of appearing compromised by an American connection.
“Democratic Alternative,” founded by Navalny, headed by Gaydar, was funded by the US government through the NED, and was part of opposition networks the US was setting up to do in Russia what the Western media admits the US already did in neighboring Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia.
“Part 2 of 2” of the US diplomatic cable would even mention Russian government efforts to “hasten to irrelevancy” opposition groups, including NED-funded “Democratic Alternative,” because Moscow was “intent on avoiding the orange- and rose-colored revolutions of its neighbors,” in reference to the US government regime change operations in Ukraine and Georgia.
The Western media itself admits that Alexei Navalny founded “Democratic Alternative.” US cables admit “Democratic Alternative” was being funded by the US government through the NED. The Western media itself admits the US government funded organizations like this to implement regime change inside targeted countries – in this case Russia.
Alexei Navalny was aiding in Russia what the US government had already done in Georgia in 2003, leading eventually to NATO-trained troops attacking Russia in 2008, and did again in Ukraine in 2014, leading to NATO-armed and trained forces killing Russian-speaking Ukrainians along Russia’s borders and threatening to attack Crimea following a 2014 referendum resulting in its return to Russia.
Another key element of the West’s attempts to exploit Navalny’s death is an effort to depict him as a pro-democracy, progressive liberal activist, when in reality – and again – according to the Western media itself – he was nothing of the sort.
In fact, this is admitted even by US government-funded media like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In their 2021 article, “Navalny’s Failure To Renounce His Nationalist Past May Be Straining His Support,” they admit:
On February 23, the prominent NGO Amnesty International withdrew Navalny from its list of “prisoners of conscience,” a designation reserved for people imprisoned for who they are or what they believe. Amnesty said Navalny, who is in prison on what he and his supporters call trumped-up charges aimed at silencing him, fell short of its criteria because of past statements the rights watchdog perceived as reaching the “threshold of advocacy of hatred.”
Much of the attention focuses on Navalny’s unabashed endorsement of nationalist causes in the late 2000s, including his appearances at the Russian March, an annual event that gathers ultranationalists of all stripes in Moscow but has dwindled in size in recent years. In response, the liberal Yabloko party expelled Navalny from its ranks, but under the banner of a new group called the National Russian Liberation Movement in 2007 he released YouTube videos describing himself as a “certified nationalist” and advancing thinly veiled xenophobia.
And by “ultranationalists,” the US government-funded media organization means Neo-Nazis.
This is the very unflattering reality of Navalny’s politics and “activism,” a reality the Western media previously admitted, and a reality the same Western media is now trying to paper over.
The true story of Navalny’s political life was one of unpopular and unsuccessful foreign-funded sedition using toxic ideologies incompatible to the values the West claims it represents. Following Navalny’s death, his US sponsors are attempting to wring out any remaining value Navalny might serve in advancing the US policy of encroaching upon, encircling, and eventually overthrowing the current Russian government – a policy not of “freedom and democracy,” but one of violence, interference, and subjugation.
Only by papering over the truth, can the collective West hope to successfully use Navalny’s death to depict Russia as a threat to the civilized world. By exposing who Navalny really was in life, the West’s attempts to exploit him in death can instead serve as a warning against US foreign policy as the real threat to the civilized world.
Space Nukes & Washing Machines: Western Media Prints ‘Anything’ to Paint Russia as Threat
Sputnik – 23.02.2024
Last week, House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) released a document with a cryptic warning that called on US President Joe Biden to declassify information on a “serious national security threat.” Within hours, the story spread like wildfire.
The recent media craze stemming from unfounded claims of a Russian nuclear space weapon exploded and stole headlines for days because “the media” will print anything it is told about Russia, Mark Sleboda, a foreign relations and security expert told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.
“Russia’s the gift that keeps on giving, propaganda-wise, because you can accuse Russia of anything, no matter what you said about them [before], about shovels, and microchips or washing machines. And, generally, people will believe it. Or at least the media will print it,” he said, referring to previous Western propaganda claims that Russian soldiers were fighting armed only with shovels and that their missiles used microchips from stolen Ukrainian washing machines.
“Then you accuse Russia of having space weapons, space nuclear weapons, or having plans to put nuclear weapons in space, or someone in Russia once thought technically about the contingency of putting weapons in space,” Sleboda scoffed.
As the story made the rounds on the media circuit, US National Security Council John Kirby told reporters that the threat US Rep. Mike Turner raised was related to “an anti-satellite weapon that Russia is developing.” Soon after that, US media outlets began reporting that the mysterious weapon was nuclear.
Russia vehemently denied the accusation, saying it is only developing the same space capabilities that the US has. “Firstly, there are no such projects – nuclear weapons in space. Secondly, the United States knows that this does not exist,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said during a televised discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Sleboda noted that for mainstream media, “the details aren’t important as much as the scaremongering factor.”
“It’s the same thing with this continual octogenarian fantasy about linking Trump and Russia… all the powers of the US investigative bodies were unable to prove any connection… but that doesn’t stop an enormous number of the American people from believing in it because they want to, and [US Rep.] Nancy Pelosi certainly knows that.”
The analyst further admitted that the latest anti-Russia rhetoric is part of a larger effort in preparation for the November presidential election in the US but that it also “does the double job of, you know, buttressing arguments for providing more US taxpayer dollars for weapons for the regime in Kiev.”
German Vice Chancellor accuses journalist of doing Moscow’s bidding after probing question
RT | February 22, 2024
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who is also the country’s minister for economic affairs and climate action, accused “Russian journalists” of “discrediting liberal democracy” after a German reporter asked him about allegations that he had turned to unusual methods of dealing with dissent among his subordinates.
The Green politician was presenting a Federal Economy Report at a press conference on Wednesday when journalist Florian Warweg questioned him about allegations that he used Germany’s domestic security service – the BfV – to run checks on ministerial officials whose opinions were “far from the political course” of the government.
The reporter was referring to a case dating back to August 2022, when two high-ranking officials within the Economy Ministry were suspected of spying for Russia over internal documents that showed “understanding for the Russian point of view” and used arguments that “did not fit the official line of the federal government.”
According to the Die Zeit report, background checks on the two suspects revealed an “emotional closeness to Russia” but no solid evidence of espionage activity. The investigation itself was reportedly prompted by Habeck’s “confidants,” who allegedly alerted the domestic security agency.
“Was it an isolated case or do you still resort to the [services] of the [BfV] when encountering inconvenient opinions among your civil servants?” Warweg asked. Instead of answering the question, Habeck immediately struck back by questioning the reporter’s credentials. “Are you from Russia Today?” the minister asked, referring to RT.
When told that Warweg was working for the German political blog NachDenkSeiten, Habeck still maintained that the journalist’s question was “full of false allegations” the minister “rejects.” He then went on to say that “security checks” for employees working in sensitive areas were a new “normal standard” amid the current circumstances.
The journalist had worked as an editor for RT’s German-language branch, RT DE, but quit in mid-2022 and has been working at NachDenkSeiten since June of that year.
The NachDenkSeiten blog was co-founded and run by Albrecht Mueller, a former Social Democrat MP and aide to two German chancellors. The media outlet positions itself as a “critical website,” although some German media increasingly have sought to portray it as a “pro-Russian” news outlet that had supposedly fallen under Moscow’s influence.
When further pressed by Warweg about the internal climate in his ministry, which allegedly leaves little room for dissenting opinions, particularly if they are seen as favorable to Russia, Habeck alleged that Moscow was attempting to assault democracy in Germany.
“It is difficult to bear, just a few days after Navalny was murdered, that Russia’s reporters here… discredit Germany’s liberal democracy in such a way,” he said, referring to the death of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny in a Russian prison.
The cause of the 47-year-old’s death remains unclear, but the incident has sparked an uproar in the West and was immediately blamed on Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier said it was “completely unacceptable” for Western politicians to make “outrageous statements” regarding Navalny’s death while the investigation into the case is still ongoing.
Featured Video
Col Doug Macgregor: US Strategy in Iran NEVER ADMIT DEFEAT
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Fact File : Civilian Internment 1939 – 1945
BBC – Compiled in 2003
Internment of civilian nationals belonging to opposing sides was carried out in varying degrees by all belligerent powers in World War Two. It was also the fate of those servicemen who found themselves in a neutral country.
At the outbreak of war there were around 80,000 potential enemy aliens in Britain who, it was feared, could be spies, or willing to assist Britain’s enemies in the event of an invasion. All Germans and Austrians over the age of 16 were called before special tribunals and were divided into one of three groups… continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Col Doug Macgregor: US Strategy in Iran NEVER ADMIT DEFEAT
- IRNA denies 2nd round of negotiations: reports
- Israel attacks three nations for alleged backing of Iran
- Ex-intel officer questions Israeli strategy in Lebanon as losses mount
- Netanyahu’s ‘total victory’ to total flop
- REPORT: United States Now Global Outlier Ignoring Vaccine Injured as UK Inquiry Acknowledges Harms
- The Gratitude of the Captured
- Hezbollah denies involvement in deadly attack on UNIFIL in south Lebanon
- The prospect of an expanded and far more violent war
- Canada’s Carney Revives Online Censorship Bill
- If Americans Knew
- Israel employs ‘Gaza tactics’ in Lebanon, destroying 1,000 homes per day – Daily Update
- Israel relegates another population to life in tents – Daily Update
- Senate again fails to block weapons to Israel
- Think the Iran war is a disaster? Blame these DC think tanks first.
- Number of Palestinian Prisoners Rises By 83% Since October 2023
- With multiple “ceasefires” in place, Israel keeps on killing in Gaza and Lebanon – Daily Update
- Mearsheimer: Israel Owns Trump
- Mark Levin and Jonathan Pollard Push for Nuking Iran
- TCN: America Enables Israel’s Crimes
- Israel’s Next Leader Will Be Just Like Bibi – but Without the Corruption
- No Tricks Zone
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
Aletho News 