EU Leaders Squander Another €50 Billion on Propping up Kiev Regime… and Self-Destruction
Strategic Culture Foundation | February 2, 2024
Finally, the European Union’s threats, blackmail, and arm-twisting have paid off to push through a giant €50 billion aid package to the hopelessly corrupt Kiev regime. This is while European farmers revolt against the EU leadership over higher energy costs and cheap imports from Ukraine that are putting them out of business and wiping out their livelihoods.
The EU leaders are committing the entire bloc of 500 million people to political suicide. The reckless cavalier attitude is something to behold. Bring on the pitchforks, Merci!
The 27 leaders of the European Union met in an emergency summit this week not to deal with the bloc’s mounting internal political, economic, and social problems but rather to lavish mountains of more aid on non-member Ukraine.
When the leaders held their last summit in December, it was a spectacle of back-biting and sordid wrangling. At that gathering, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban vetoed the allocation of more funds to the Ukrainian regime amid bitter recrimination and bickering. This time around, however, Hungary caved in to the intense pressure to agree on the package.
Days before the summit in Brussels this week, it was reported by the Financial Times that the European Council had drawn up plans to sabotage the Hungarian economy if Budapest persisted in not signing up for the massive aid plan. That speaks volumes about the perverse mindset at the apex of the EU bureaucracy. It demonstrates the undemocratic character of the bloc despite pretentious claims to the contrary.
Brussels had already frozen up to €10 billion in central funding for Hungary and there were reported threats to remove Budapest’s voting rights in the bloc’s decision-making which would have been a blatant violation of the EU’s declared principle of unanimity.
The allocation of €50 billion to a non-member state is astounding. Even more bewildering is that the latest largesse is only a fraction of the total aid that the EU leadership has pumped into Ukraine since the proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022. Over the past two years, the European Union has given the Kiev regime an estimated €100 billion.
The United States and other Western allies have also plied Ukraine with another €100 billion. About half of this goes on weapons, while the other half pays for state financing.
As we have noted here previously, the cumulative funding by the West to Ukraine has far exceeded the historic Marshall Fund that the U.S. allocated to all of Europe for reconstruction following World War Two (about €170 billion in today’s money).
There is simply no precedent or justifiable rationale for this mobilization of financial support for Ukraine. This has all been done as a fait accompli by an elite class with no democratic mandate. No referenda have been conducted to consult the public about the inordinate expenditure. Indeed, polls indicate that the European public – like the American public – is opposed to their governments supporting Ukraine.
The Biden administration is vying with growing resistance in Congress to send Ukraine an additional $60 billion.
To boot, the Kiev regime under the puppet president Vladimir Zelensky is a byword for rampant corruption and repression. It is admitted by Pentagon sources that something like $400 million of military spending has been siphoned off by the Kiev junta. The real figure is plausibly even greater.
The grotesque allocation of financial resources to Ukraine has nothing to do with supporting democracy or defending the country from alleged Russian aggression.
EU leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen keep repeating a mantra about defending Ukraine because, they say, if it is defeated then all of Europe is in danger of Russian invasion. This is the most preposterous scaremongering by politicians who are ideologically blinded by Russophobia and slaves to propagating Western hegemony.
The latest €50 billion injection to a war-addicted Ukrainian regime is openly said to be for sustaining its government and paying for salaries and services. In other words, Ukraine is a failed state, and yet European citizens, workers, and farmers – who themselves are subsisting in hard economic times – are expected to bankroll a corrupt cabal.
Furthermore, the hardship that tens of millions of European citizens are enduring is a direct result of their political leaders and the Brussels bureaucratic elite pandering to the United States’ agenda of hostility towards Russia.
That U.S.-led aggression, which can be traced back to the CIA-instigated coup in Kiev in 2014 to bring a NeoNazi regime to power, has sabotaged Europe’s economy. European leaders have treasonously served Washington’s geopolitical interests and not those of ordinary Europeans. The insane imposition of sanctions on Russia has led to huge hikes in energy prices which has decimated European businesses and the living standards of consumers, workers, and farmers.
The higher costs of production are a major factor in the surging protests across Europe by farmers. Another factor is the EU’s undemocratic import of cheaper agricultural produce from Ukraine as a sop to the Kiev regime. Those imports have undermined farmers all across Europe, in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and the Baltic countries.
The scandalous abuse of European funds to prop up a corrupt fascist regime that violently suppresses political opponents, media, and the Orthodox Church, and glorifies Nazi collaborators, has one fundamental purpose – to prolong a proxy war against Russia. That war’s objective is for eventual strategic subjugation.
The Western regimes are so bankrupt and impotent in the face of their broken capitalist economies that they are seeking to exploit Russia’s vast natural wealth. This is the continuation of the Lebensraum policy of Nazi Germany by Western imperialists.
Ukraine has lost the proxy war against Russia. It is a shameful, criminal debacle. Up to 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed over the past two years by superior Russian forces. The vile Kiev regime, of course, wants to keep the war racket going for its insatiable grifting. Washington and its European vassals in high office want to keep the war going out of elitist imperial ambition, an ambition that is ultimately futile in the new emerging multipolar global order.
While European leaders were ensconced in the European Council in Brussels, the parliament was blockaded by angry farmers from all over Europe. Protesters were calling out politicians by name. The contempt is palpable. Paris and other capitals across Europe are being besieged by motorway chokepoints. National economies are on the brink as a result.
One might even perceive that European farmers in France, Germany, Belgium, and elsewhere, are implementing tactics similar to the Yemenis in the Red Sea. Squeeze the chokepoints and watch the empire writhe.
You couldn’t make this farce up. European elitist regimes are waging war in Europe against nuclear-powered Russia by wasting the public’s money to lavish a Neo-Nazi mafia in Kiev and by doing so making the lives of European citizens even harder. The upshot is political and economic suicide for the European Union.
The EU is holding parliamentary elections in June amid the dramatic rise of anti-EU or Eurosceptic parties. Two years of senseless war in Ukraine is fomenting popular disgust with the elite class. The anger out there may not even be contained by voting in elections. The fury seems to be beyond making little Xs in a box. A collapse is coming and heads are going to roll.
INTERVIEW: OMALI YESHITELA, FACING 15-YEARS FOR “PRO-RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA”
Glenn Greenwald | January 31, 2024
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German “Fact Checker” That Received Funding From Government, Facebook, Omidyar Network, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, Dismisses German Farmers As “Conspiracy Theorists”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | January 31, 2024
The expression is, “you can’t make that up” – to signal the level of the absurdity of a situation.
Meanwhile, groups calling themselves “fact checkers” and those bankrolling them keep making things up. And becoming used to it aside, their work still feels as if – “you can’t make that up.”
When names like the Omidyar Network, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and Meta start cropping up in the same sentence, you start believing anything could come out of an “alliance” of the sort.
Here we have yet another supposedly “fact-checking” effort that turned into a smear campaign against people engaged in lawful protest regarding economic, social, and political issues.
In this instance, in Germany. There the economy, and with it the government, has been in serious trouble ever since Germany, for political reasons, cut itself off from affordable gas. Those with the most to lose, such as farmers, have been hit the hardest.
One of the recent consequences, though you may not hear much about it in legacy media, have been mass and ongoing farmer protests. At the same time, efforts are under way to ban one of the country’s most popular parties, AfD. Both have been labeled as right-wing conspiracy theorists, Covid “misinformationists,” and even Russia supporters.
And this labeling work is being done by something called “Correctiv” – a group that says it is a news and fact-checking site. Correctiv gets its money from Omidyar, Soros, Meta, but also the current German government.
In a report on Public, US-based author Gregor Baszak goes into the weeds of the situation, that shows a beleaguered government resorting to decidedly undemocratic moves and pondering shockingly undemocratic ideas, such as banning political opposition.
Baszak talks about a Correctiv article that goes after the farmers as some sort of right wing menace, supposedly spreading not only Russian propaganda and Covid disinformation – just because of expressing anger over their business becoming unsustainable with the government’s fuel and vehicle subsidy cuts.
“The (Correctiv) article does not specify what ‘Covid disinformation’ the farmers spread,” Baszak writes. “Nor does it offer any evidence of ties between the farmers and the Russian government, only that ‘some X accounts’ that support the farmers wrote posts that ‘coincided with the methods of a pro-Russian propaganda network.’”
However, at least for the time being, what left-leaning German politician Sahra Wagenknecht has described as “the stupidest government in Europe” is succeeding in keeping its opponents divided by throwing damning, even false, accusations their way.
EU pledges to spend billions on trade route bypassing Russia
RT | January 30, 2024
The EU plans to raise up to €10 billion ($10.8 billion) in investment to create a transport corridor to Central Asia through the South Caucasus and Türkiye that bypasses Russia, the European Commission announced on Monday at a forum devoted to developing the route.
According a statement released by the European Commission, Brussels is currently ready to allocate €2.97 billion for the purpose.
For additional funding, the European Investment Bank has reportedly signed memorandums of understanding totaling €1.47 billion with the governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, as well as the Development Bank of Kazakhstan.
Meanwhile, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan regarding an investment pipeline worth €1.5 billion for projects already being prepared to develop transport connectivity in Central Asia.
The two-day Investors Forum for EU-Central Asia Transport Connectivity, which began in Brussels on Monday, is expected to address the investment that will be necessary to transform the Trans-Caspian transport corridor into “a cutting-edge, multimodal, and efficient route, connecting Europe and Central Asia.”
According to the statement, the bloc is urgently trying to find alternative trade routes between Europe and Asia that could bypass Russia.
Hungary responds to reported EU threat to destroy its economy
RT | January 29, 2024
Hungary’s minister for European affairs, Janos Boka, has said that Budapest will not give in to “blackmail” by Brussels, following a report that claimed the EU would seek to sabotage the country’s economy if it does not unblock an aid package for Ukraine.
Ahead of a summit of EU leaders on Thursday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban pledged to oppose the use of the bloc’s collective budget to funnel €50 billion ($54 billion) in aid to Ukraine.
Should Orban not lift the veto, Brussels could seek to sabotage Hungary’s economy by pulling funding to the EU member state, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing confidential plans drawn up by European leaders seen by the newspaper.
The strategy, the FT noted, could impact Hungary’s currency and incite a downturn in investment, which would affect “jobs and growth.” Boka has insisted however that Hungary will not be dictated to by European bureaucrats.
“Hungary does not allow blackmail,” he wrote on social media late on Sunday. “The agreement confirms what the Hungarian government has been saying for a long time: Brussels is using access to EU resources as a means of political pressure.”
He added: “Hungary makes no link between supporting Ukraine and access to EU resources and refuses to let others do so. Hungary so far will continue to participate constructively in the negotiations, but it does not allow blackmail.”
The document, which the FT said was produced by an official in the Council of the EU, highlights what it says are Hungary’s economic vulnerabilities. These include “very high public deficit,” “very high inflation,” a weak currency, and problems with debt repayment.
It added that Hungarian economic growth heavily depends on overseas investment, which, in turn, is driven by “high levels of EU funding.” A spokesperson for the Council of the EU told the FT that it has a policy of not commenting on leaks.
Orban insisted last month that the EU must meet certain conditions before Budapest would lift its veto, including making the package modest in size and scheduling it over one year rather than the proposed four. Hungary must also be exempted from any new joint EU borrowing over the matter, the PM added.
Another tactic reportedly being considered within the EU bloc is to invoke Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union, which would allow Brussels to strip Budapest of its voting rights. However, this would require unanimity among the other 26 member states – a step many European countries appear unwilling to take.
EU Uses Lure of Infrastructure Investments to Entice Central Asian States to Turn on Russia
Sputnik – 29.01.2024
The European Union’s offer to help improve infrastructure in Central Asia ultimately serves a “political purpose,” EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell declared.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has admitted that the EU efforts to invest in the transport infrastructure of the Central Asian states are aimed at enforcing anti-Russian sanctions.
In his speech at the Investors Forum for EU-Central Asia Transport Connectivity, Borrell noted that the European Union needs “full cooperation” from its partners in order for the sanctions imposed on Russia to be effective.
“We are following closely the trade between us, between Central Asia countries, with them and Russia. We try to analyze which are the mechanisms that make sanctions being circumvented. We have to increase our cooperation on that,” he stated.
“Yes, we have to build infrastructures. Yes, we have to increase the connectivity of our space,” he added. “But all that is at the service of a political purpose, which is [to] increase our partnership and to share a better future by increasing economic ties and also defending the same values.”
Meanwhile, the European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis has announced the intent of European and international institutions who attended the forum to commit some €10 billion “in support and investments towards sustainable transport connectivity in Central Asia,” according to a statement shared via the EC website.
Germans expected to make their own bomb shelters – Bild
RT | January 28, 2024
Germans will be expected to turn their homes into bomb shelters in case a major war breaks out in Europe, newspaper Bild reported on Saturday, citing a draft document from the country’s Defense Ministry.
According to the report, the ministry is set to complete the work on the classified ‘Operational Plan’ (OPLAN) by April. The draft envisions Germany as a “transit country” crucial for the delivery of weapons and equipment rather than a state with an active frontline. For that reason soldiers would be tasked with securing key highways, railway stations and ports, Bild said.
At the same time, the state would have to rely on civilians to step in and cover some duties typically assigned to the military and police, including the protection of power plants.
There are only 579 functional bomb shelters in Germany, so the plan reportedly sees citizens setting up their own shelters in places such as basements and garages. Bild quoted the head of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, Ralph Tiesler, as saying that building new shelters is “no longer feasible” due to time constraints.
Germany has been looking for ways to boost its army, citing the threats stemming from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The government set the goal of increasing the size of the Bundeswehr from 183,000 soldiers to 203,000 by 2031.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated this month that Russia could attack a NATO country “within five to eight years.” He later somewhat adjusted his assessment, telling Bild on Friday, “At the moment, I don’t see any danger of a Russian attack on NATO territory or on any NATO partner-country.”
Russia has repeatedly accused NATO of fearmongering and stoking tensions in Europe. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, recently dismissed the claims that Moscow is planning an attack on NATO as “informational warfare.”
US to redeploy nuclear weapons in UK – Telegraph
RT | January 27, 2024
The United States is planning to deploy nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years, the Telegraph reported Friday, citing Pentagon documents.
The report comes amid continuing standoff between Russia and NATO over the conflict in Ukraine, as some Western politicians are calling to prepare for a potential armed clash with Moscow.
The British newspaper cited procurement contracts for a new facility at the Royal Air Force station at Lakenheath in Suffolk that point to Washington’s intention to bring nuclear weapons to the base. RAF Lakenheath is expected to house B61-12 bombs that are three times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, the Telegraph said. The US sent F-35 nuclear-capable fighters to the base last year.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last year that Moscow would be compelled to enact “compensatory countermeasures” if American nuclear warheads return to Britain. Russia has accused the West of stoking tensions in Europe and maintains that the continuing expansion of NATO eastward is one of the root causes of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
High-ranking European officials, including German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, have spoken about the need to brace for a potential full-blown war with Russia. Last week, Chair of the NATO Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer urged the bloc to be “readier across the whole spectrum” for direct confrontation.
The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, dismissed the claims that Moscow is planning an offensive against NATO as “information warfare” aimed at justifying the ongoing “hybrid aggression.”
Public panic in Sweden over war with Russia as Turkey ratifies Stockholm’s bid to join NATO
Press TV – January 24, 2024
Turkey’s parliament has passed a bill on ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership after months of blocking accession, putting the Scandinavian country a “step closer” to becoming a full member of the US-led Western military alliance.
“Today we are one step closer to becoming a full member of NATO,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday.
The Turkish parliament’s decision will come into force after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signs a corresponding decree, which will be published in the government’s official journal.
Hungary, whose prime minister Viktor Orban has friendly relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, remains the only NATO country that has not ratified Sweden’s bid to join.
Last week, the high levels of the Swedish government and defense forces issued a warning to prepare people for the possibility of a Russian attack on the country and asked citizens to be on alert for the possibility of a war, causing Swedes to panic and criticize the country’s leaders.
Taking notice of the call from officials, a multitude of people heeded this caution seriously, causing mass panic, and flocked their way to the market in order to procure fuel and bundles of indispensable and crucial provisions “crisis kit.”
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no problems with Finland and Sweden and that their accession to NATO did not pose an immediate threat, but cautioned against the expansion of the Western military infrastructure in these territories.
“As for the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance: yes, this is a problem that is being created, in my opinion, quite artificially in the foreign policy interests of the United States,” Putin was quoted as saying.
“Russia has no problems (with Sweden and Finland), but the expansion of military infrastructure on the territory of this region will certainly cause our response,” he said, stressing that the actions of the Scandinavian states could aggravate “an already difficult situation in the sphere of international security.”
Norway’s Top General Urges Defense Spending Hike Amid NATO Fearmongering
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 24.01.2024
The specter of a “Russian threat” ostensibly looming is being invoked in the West increasingly loudly as justification for ramping up military spending, with Norway’s top brass the latest to lap up this tenuous narrative.
Norway has only a small window of opportunity to ramp up its defense spending in the face of a “looming threat” of military conflict with Russia, the head of the Norwegian Armed Forces has warned.
Jumping on the bandwagon driving the cynical “Russian bogeyman” narrative, General Eirik Kristoffersen claimed in a recent interview that Norway needs to build up its defenses before it is too late.
“The current window of opportunity will remain open for a year or two, perhaps three, which is when we will have to invest even more in our defense,” General Kristoffersen said in an interview with the local outlet Dagbladet. He added:
“We do not know what will become of Russia in three years. We need to prepare a strong national defense to be able to meet an uncertain and unpredictable world.”
The Norwegian general lamented the fact that Moscow was reportedly building up its weapons stockpiles at a greater speed and efficiency than NATO allies had expected.
Currently, NATO member Norway lags behind the alliance’s defense spending requirement of two percent of GDP per year. While originally setting itself the timeline of achieving that goal by 2026, apparently the raucous peddling of the concocted “Russia threat” is forcing Norway’s generals to lose sleep over the ominous forebodings.
“This is a calculated risk. If the danger was imminent right now, then we could not have given so many weapons [to Ukraine]. But that is not the case,” Kristoffersen said, while adding that Ukraine needs to be supported for as long as it takes.
Norway’s chief of defense also went as far as to urge Norwegians to begin stockpiling food, saying that “What the Norwegian population should think about is their own preparedness.”
These remarks by Kristoffersen echo those of his Swedish colleague. Commander-in-Chief Mikael Byden told Swedes to “prepare themselves mentally” for an open conflict with Russia. Another warmonger, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the NATO Military Committee chief, stated in Brussels last Thursday:
“We have to realize it’s not a given that we are in peace. And that’s why we [NATO forces] are preparing for a conflict with Russia.”
Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, claimed earlier that Russia may choose to attack a NATO country within “five to eight years.”
While pumping Ukraine with billions’ worth of weapons for its proxy conflict with Russia, the US-dominated alliance has upped the Russia threat narrative in recent months. The rants have been particularly timed to the growing “Ukraine fatigue” and dwindling support for continuing to aid the Kiev regime. Pistorius’ comments echoed a report in the German daily newspaper Bild. Quoting a “confidential Bundeswehr document,” it claimed that a conflict between NATO and Russia could erupt as soon as the summer of 2025.
The Kremlin has dismissed the report as “fake news,” with spokesman Dmitry Peskov doubting Bild’s credibility. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova compared the leaked plan to a “powerful horoscope,” saying she wouldn’t be surprised if the scenario was provided to the German military by the Foreign Ministry and its notoriously Russophobic chief, Annalena Baerbock.
German steel production plunges to 15-year low
The home of the largest steel industry in Europe, Germany is facing a continuous crisis over sky-high electricity prices
By John Cody | Remix News | January 24, 2024
Steel production in Germany is cratering, reaching a low point last seen during the 2008 global economic crisis. Steel production dropped to 35.4 million tons in 2022, a decrease of 3.9 percent from 2021.
The hardest hit segment of steelworks was the electrical steel industry, which saw its production sink by almost 9 percent to 9.8 million tons, a figure even lower than the 2009 low. Overall, all segments of the steelworks industry in Germany saw declines.
Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, there has seen a continuous downward trend in the German steel sector, in large part due to soaring electricity prices.
Kerstin Maria Rippel, managing director of the German Steel Federation, cited “weak demand” and “intentionally uncompetitive” electricity prices as being factors behind the crisis.
“The annual balance of steel production in Germany clearly shows that the situation for the steel industry (…) is very serious,” she added.
In what appears to be a shot at the ruling left-liberal government, Rippel says that her association notes an “urgent need for political action” regarding transmission grid fees, which have doubled since the beginning of 2023.
She is calling for state subsidies from the “Climate Transformation Fund” to help the sector finance a turnaround.
“We need a clear political concept on how the path to climate neutrality is to be sustainably financed,” said Rippel.
Soaring energy and material costs have hit German industry particularly hard, and the role of the Christian Democrats (CDU) in pushing for the phasing out of nuclear power — a move also supported by the Greens — has also played a role.
The Alternative for Germany party has pointed to the current left-liberal government, along with the previous CDU-led government, as being behind the long-term decline in Germany’s industrial sectors. However, the situation has grown especially dire under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“Only on Monday, the pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer announced a ‘significant workforce reduction’ by the end of 2025. The tire manufacturer Continental is terminating the 40-hour contracts of thousands of employees, and the gear factory Friedrichshafen (ZF) apparently wants to cut 12,000 jobs. However, the traffic light government doesn’t care about any of this,” wrote the AfD in a statement.
The AfD says it will reverse the green “energy transition” and repair the Nord Stream pipelines in order to return cheap Russian energy to German industry. The party also promises to reduce the tax burden and bureaucracy to jumpstart the German economy.
