French Politician Calls for NATO’s Destruction ‘For World Peace’
Sputnik – 06.01.2024
While many NATO member states continue antagonizing Russia by massing troops on its borders and prolonging the Ukrainian conflict through arms supplies to the Kiev regime, calls to disband the military bloc begin to come from the NATO countries themselves.
French politician and The Patriots party founder Florian Philippot has called for the NATO alliance to by disbanded for the sake of peace.
Phillipot accused “NATO hawks” and their “puppet” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of trying to “impoverish us and send hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to certain and unnecessary death.”
Voicing his grievances in a post on social media network X (formerly Twitter), Philippot urged the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict through “peace negotiations” as soon as possible and called for the “destruction of NATO for world peace.”
He also pointed to the recent revelations of retired French Air Force General Bruno Clermont, who admitted that Russia commands “considerable” air superiority in the Ukrainian conflict. Philippot noted that those who had made similar remarks over the past two years were ridiculed.
Philippot has long been a critic of his country’s support to the regime in Kiev, arguing in November that “France must not allow itself to be duped by being the last country ‘at war’ against Russia.”
The politician’s remarks came amid media speculation that Ukraine’s Western sponsors are growing weary of Kiev’s military blunders and inability to meet the goals of NATO’s proxy war against Russia.
More discomfort awaits the West in 2024 if it doesn’t adapt to new reality
Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
Global Times | January 1, 2024
What kind of experience did 2023 bring to Western countries? According to mainstream Western media, the most apt term to encapsulate the Western sentiment is “uncomfortable.”
An article from the BBC suggests that the past 12 months have seen a number of setbacks for the US, Europe and other major democracies on the international politics stage. Although none has been disastrous for now, they point to a shifting balance of power away from the US-dominated, Western values that have held sway for years, the article claimed. The mentioned setbacks include regional conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Challenges posed by countries perceived as adversarial by the US and the West, such as China, Iran, and North Korea, were also highlighted.
The Ukraine crisis has continued on, and the Israel-Palestine conflict has reignited, while the responses from the international community don’t align with the preferences of the US and its Western allies. All of this has made them feel “uncomfortable.”
When it comes to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, despite receiving support from the West, Ukraine has faced difficulties and failed to progress as expected in its conflict with Russia. This has led to Western fatigue and frustration. Due to partisan divisions in the US, providing aid to Ukraine has become problematic. In contrast, Russia has managed to stabilize its frontlines and handle the prolonged war effectively, Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. He noted that sanctions against Russia, with only around 30 countries participating in condemning Russia’s actions, have failed to significantly impact the Russian economy, instead, Russia has demonstrated remarkable resilience, contrary to Western expectations.
In the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict, most developing countries held positions inconsistent with those of the US. Many countries expressed disappointment and regret over the US veto of the Gaza-related drafts demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, distancing themselves from the US pro-Israel stance.
The BBC states that Arab ministers believe there are double standards in Western approaches to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Palestine conflict, accusing the Western governments of hypocrisy. This reflects a growing opposition from Global South and developing countries against the values advocated by the US and the West in various events, and the Western influence is diminishing, said Yang Xiyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies.
Issues such as the Ukraine crisis and the Israel-Palestine conflict increasingly demonstrate that the West, particularly Europe and the US, can no longer bring positive values to the world. More and more countries and their people in the Global South have become aware of this and refuse to accept Western double standards.
Today, an increasing number of developing countries are expressing clear opposition to irresponsible actions by the US and Europe. The major demand of these countries is to have a peaceful and stable international environment for national development. However, Western countries, the US in particular, are acting as the world’s largest disruptor of peace and creator of conflicts. In the cases of the Ukraine crisis and the Israel-Palestine conflict, the US not only fuels the flames but also opposes proposals for peace talks raised by other countries. In pursuit of its selfish interests, the US has caused suffering to the people of Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, hindering the resolution of other urgent global issues. In such circumstances, more and more developing countries are becoming courageous enough to say no to the US and the West.
In 2024, the influence and dominance of the West, whether in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or the Israel-Palestine conflict, will continue to decline. If 2023 did not unfold according to their expectations, 2024 is likely to deviate even further. This will bring more discomfort for them. Washington now has to adapt to a new reality: Global South countries are becoming more mature and gaining more decision-making autonomy. US politicians, who are used to dictating terms to countries worldwide and expecting developments to revolve around US interests, must reflect on and adapt to this new change. Otherwise, when the media summarizes 2024, it may not be as simple as just feeling uncomfortable; the experience might be more agonizing.
Putin names Russia’s real enemies
Ukraine itself is not an enemy, the Western elites backing it are, the Russian president has said
RT | January 1, 2024
Ukraine is a mere tool in the hands of the collective West, which has been using it to fight Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He made the remarks at a military hospital in Moscow where he was meeting Russian servicemen wounded during the Ukraine military operation.
Asked about the enduring Western support for Kiev, the president said the elites of the collective West were actually the true enemy of Russia, rather than Ukraine itself.
“The point is not that they are helping our enemy, but that they are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with [Ukraine’s] hands, that’s what it’s all about,” Putin stated.
The conflict between Moscow and Kiev was orchestrated by Western elites, who seek to defeat Russia, he suggested. However, the collective West has been unable to achieve its goals, with the failure already showing in the change of its rhetoric on the conflict, the president explained.
“Those who only yesterday were talking about the need to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia are now looking for words on how to quickly end the conflict.”
“We want to end the conflict too, and as quickly as possible, but only on our terms. We have no desire to fight forever, but we are not going to give up our positions either,” Putin said.
The battlefield situation is now changing despite all the aid Kiev has been receiving from the West, the president observed. Russia has been effectively outproducing the whole West militarily, he suggested, with the country’s output destined to grow even further.
“Despite the fact that from time immemorial [the West] has had such a goal – to deal with Russia, it looks like we will deal with them first,” Putin stated.
“You probably see it on the battlefield that they are gradually ‘deflating’. When a shell flies, it is probably difficult to tell whether they are ‘deflated’ or not, but in general you probably know: the situation on the battlefield is changing. And this is happening despite the fact that the entire so-called civilized West is fighting against us,” he told the servicemen.
According to Russia’s latest estimates, over 380,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded during the conflict. Ukraine has also sustained heavy materiel losses, with an estimated 14,000 tanks and other armored vehicles destroyed. Nearly 160,000 of the troop losses were during Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, launched in early June last year, Moscow says.
US Efforts to ‘Kill’ Arctic LNG 2 Could Sow Distrust Amidst Allies
By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 27.12.2023
Several prominent companies from France, China and Japan have suspended their participation in Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project after it was targeted by US sanctions.
US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt openly stated earlier this year that the United States’ goal is to “kill” the Arctic LNG 2 project, and that the US is “doing that through our sanctions, working with our partners in the Group of Seven and beyond.”
In response, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said this week that “The situation around Arctic LNG 2 once again confirms the destructive role of Washington for global economic security.”
US sanctions against Arctic LNG 2 may be an attempt by the Biden administration to garner support, argued Thomas W. Pauken II, a geopolitical commentator and consultant on Asia-Pacific affairs. Biden’s approval ratings in the US have been sagging amid the prospects of the American economy heading for a “downturn.”
“If he can get the energy exporters, the producers from the US to somehow support Biden, this could prove helpful. So it’s just politics more than anything else,” Pauken elaborated. “The US is headed in the direction of more trade protectionist measures. And this is just yet another example of that.”
According to Pauken, the Arctic LNG 2’s foreign stakeholders apparently participated in the project under the impression that their involvement would not incur repercussions in the form of US sanctions.
Now that the US imposed such sanctions, this is going to sow “mistrust” between the United States and the parties involved in the project, and this situation is going to “harm the US image.”
“This is a big story, that you have friends of America who are losing out big money in this deal,” Pauken observed.
He also suggested that as Russia realizes that it cannot rely on Europe and Japan for business partnership in light of the US sanctions pressure, it will likely forge closer economic relations with other countries such as India, Mongolia and Central Asian states, not to mention deepening its already close ties with China.
“I think the problem is Washington keeps thinking that they can do these things and sets sanctions and pushes these measures and thinks that everything’s going to have good results from them in the long run. But in reality, it just forces other countries to adapt to these circumstances in order to make new solutions. And Washington is very slow to figure it out,” Pauken mused.
Meanwhile, Nikita Lipunov, an analyst at the Institute for International Studies, pointed out that Arctic LNG 2 foreign stakeholders have so far only suspended their participation in the project and are now mulling the associated risks. US sanctions are expected to come into effect on January 31.
“Foreign participants of Arctic LNG 2 [deem] there will be losses either way: if they give up their share in the venture and future LNG shipments or if they ignore the US’ secondary sanctions and suffer the consequences,” he said.
Lipunov also deemed as “unlikely” the odds of the US destroying the Arctic LNG 2 project, considering Russia’s “vast experience in running large international economic projects while under sanction pressure.”
He noted that, while the French and Japanese participants of the project may end up pulling out of the venture under pressure from the US, there is still a chance that the Chinese companies involved may not follow suit.
“In light of the 12th package of the EU sanctions that, among other things, include a ban on liquefied petroleum gas imports from Russia, Moscow should reorient shipments to the east where the demand is growing, and to seek new markets in other regions. That will take time, but Russian commodities will definitely find their buyers,” Lipunov added.
US must protect Ukraine from ‘communist’ Russia – congressman
Republican Congressman from Georgia, Rich McCormick © Getty Images / Tom Williams; CQ-Roll Call, Inc
RT | December 20, 2023
The US must ensure Russia does not defeat Ukraine in order to preserve America’s global hegemony, Republican Congressman Rich McCormick has said in an interview with C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
The comments come as US lawmakers remain deadlocked over continued financial assistance to Kiev. Republicans have refused to support President Joe Biden’s latest military aid package, including an additional $60 billion for Ukraine, unless a deal is reached on domestic border security and significant immigration reforms.
Georgia Congressman McCormick was asked to comment on concerns that the US could end up “betraying Ukraine” if it delays further assistance, spelling defeat for Kiev’s forces. The lawmaker stressed that he supports Ukraine, while claiming that “every single former [US] secretary of defense” that he has talked to also believes that Washington must prevent a Russian victory.
“First of all, we made a promise. To support a country that was invaded by a communist country,” McCormick said. The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, and Russia has not been a communist nation ever since.
The congressman further insisted that the Russia-Ukraine conflict was a “fight between democracy and autocracy.”
Kiev’s defeat, McCormick continued, would not only affect all of Europe, but also the Far East, where he suggested China would invade Taiwan and threaten US microchip supplies. It would also mean that Ukraine’s vast amounts of grain, steel, titanium, and other resources “would make Russia stronger” and “support China,” which would “break up the US global leadership,” he claimed.
“This is a very important battle we need to have,” McCormick insisted, adding that “we can’t continue to slow roll this” and that the US and Europe must do their part to “end this quickly.”
Moscow has repeatedly described the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war being waged against Russia by the US. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Washington is willing to fight Moscow “until the last Ukrainian.”
Putin also claimed last week that Kiev’s desperation over its failed counteroffensive had caused it to send troops on suicide missions in an attempt to breach Russian positions. “I don’t even know why they do that,” the Russian leader said, adding that Ukrainian soldiers themselves describe some operations as a “one-way trip.”
No Russia at Davos – ambassador
RT | December 19, 2023
Russia will again be absent from the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos early next year, Russian Ambassador to Switzerland Sergey Garmonin has confirmed.
The high-profile gathering of international business and political figures is scheduled to take place at the Swiss Alpine resort between January 15 and 19.
“Russia will not be represented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, since the organizers didn’t send invitations to the Russians last year and this year,” Garmonin told TASS news agency on Tuesday.
Russia skipped Davos 2023 after the organizers said its participation at the event would be “unwelcome” due to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. According to the WEF, its relations with Russian firms sanctioned due to conflict were frozen.
The ambassador said he didn’t think Russia would lose anything by missing out on the WEF again in 2024. “In my opinion, only the forum itself loses from such a decision,” he said. According to Garmonin, Moscow “will continue to solve… problems in other formats and on other platforms.”
The diplomat also criticized plans by the Swiss organizers to hold a meeting dedicated to discussions about Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s ten-point peace plan to settle the conflict with Russia. Meetings like this “are divorced from reality and lack any added value. They will not bring peace any closer,” he argued.
Zelensky’s “peace formula” calls for Russia’s withdrawal from all territories claimed by Kiev, reparations from Moscow, and a war crimes tribunal.
Ukraine “is in no position to put forward any ultimatums to Russia, and everyone understands this perfectly well,” Garmonin insisted. “The Kiev regime, which has no hopes of achieving even the slightest success on the battlefield, is denying the obvious and feeding the West with unfeasible projects in its attempts to solicit yet another military assistance package.”
Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said last week that Kiev had squandered its chances of a “favorable” agreement with Moscow. “Any possible deal now will be reflecting its capitulation,” he wrote on X.
During his Q&A session on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that “there will be peace [in Ukraine] when we achieve our goals.” The aims of the Russian military operation “are not changing,” and include the “denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine, its neutral status,” Putin reiterated.
Fresh anti-Russia sanctions to cause more damage to EU: Moscow
Press TV – December 17, 2023
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Saturday that the latest European Union sanctions against Russia will cause more harm to the EU than Russia.
Zakharova added that the EU’s “dictatorial” behavior reveals how Brussels is “denying” member states of their right to “protect their interests.”
She also warned the EU of the “heavy price” the Europeans must pay for the accession of Ukraine and Moldova to the bloc.
“It goes as far as absurdity, when through some unscrupulous manipulations – when certain heads of state and government are not present at the table, – some legally questionable and obviously politicized decisions are made, which are as follows: on the start of pre-accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, which not only fail to meet the EU’s elementary criteria but directly run counter to them, as well as on another ‘package’ of unilateral restrictive measures against Russia, which, like all the previous ones, will cause bigger harm to the European Union itself,” the diplomat said.
“This dictatorial behavior of Brussels reveals in all its magnitude that the member states are denied their democratic right to a dissenting opinion and the protection of their own interests.”
She went on to add that the EU’s confrontational “policy and the consequences of its opportunistic decisions regarding Ukraine and Moldova will have to be paid by the population of European countries.”
EU members agreed on a 12th package of sanctions against Russia, the European Council said on Thursday, meaning that a phased ban on Russian diamond imports among other measures will come into effect from January 1, 2024.
Moreover, after the summit, European Council President Charles Michel also announced that the EU members had decided to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, which may start in March 2024 or later.
The accession talks regarding Ukraine and Moldova started after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban left the summit in protest to the move. Budapest had earlier threatened to veto the accession of Ukraine into the European Union. “Hungary does not want to be part of this bad decision!” Orban said in a statement on Facebook.
Russia started the “special military operation” in its eastern neighbor in late February 2022 to defend the pro-Russian population in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk against persecution by Kiev.
Ever since the beginning of the war, Kiev’s Western allies, led by the United States, have been pumping Ukraine with advanced weapons and slapping Russia with a slew of sanctions, steps that Moscow says would only prolong the hostilities.
Zakharova also said that the EU is continuing to “swiftly lose both political and economic weight around the world” under the pressure of the United States’ missteps.
“The EU’s resources, so much needed for its domestic growth, are not funneled into resolving multiple problems and asserting its own place in the emerging multipolar world order, but into serving the US interests, including into the enrichment of the US military-industrial complex,” she said.
Zakharova added that it looks quite natural that against this backdrop, “the most responsible politicians in European countries are more and more frequently prioritizing national interests over some mantras of ‘European solidarity,’ which are out of touch with real needs.”
Joe Biden’s World War III Fantasy
By Scott Ritter – Sputnik – 16.12.2023
On July 13, 2023, US President Joe Biden confidently announced to the world that “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has already lost the war.”
The “war” Biden spoke of was Russia’s Special Military Operation against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022.
Biden’s bold statement was made during a press conference with Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto, following a meeting with Nordic leaders that came on the heels of the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Biden declared that the US and its NATO allies had, through their decision to commit to the military victory of Ukraine over Russia, reached “an inflection point in history,” adding that “This fight is not only a fight for the future of Ukraine, it is about sovereignty, security and freedom itself.”
The American president’s pronouncements followed similarly themed rhetoric spoken in Vilnius a day prior, where he announced to his NATO colleagues, “Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken,” adding that “We will stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes.”
“As long as it takes,” it turns out, isn’t the same as “long as needed.”
Confronted with a trifecta of bad news—the calamitous defeat of the NATO-trained and equipped Ukrainian military in the much-hyped summer counteroffensive, a Russian Army that is growing stronger by the day, and the collapse of political will and fiscal ability on the part of Ukraine’s erstwhile allies in the US and Europe to continue funding Ukraine’s flagging war effort—Joe Biden was compelled to alter his pledge to the cause of Ukrainian and European liberty and freedom to “as long as we can,” with the modifier contingent upon the US Congress’ willingness to throw another $60 billion into the $120 billion in aid the US has provided Ukraine since May 2022.
To intimidate Congress into yielding to his demands regarding money for Ukraine, Biden undertook a campaign of terror. “Frankly,” Biden said in a statement delivered at the White House in early December, “I think it’s stunning we have gotten to this point in the first place. Republicans in Congress are willing to give Putin the greatest gift he could hope for and abandon our global leadership.”
While many Republicans support continued funding of the Ukraine war effort, the issue has become politicized in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election, where domestic issues tend to trump foreign affairs. And, currently, there is no more high-profile domestic policy issue than border security and immigration reform. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina who has been a vociferous supporter of Ukraine, noted that while he would support continued funding of Ukraine’s war effort, he could not return to his home state of South Carolina to “try to explain why I helped Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel and did nothing to secure our own border. I will help all of our allies, but we have got to help ourselves first.”
Mike Johnson, the new Republican speaker of the House and a hardline conservative, indicated that the objection to continued funding for Ukraine went beyond simply funding issues. “What is the objective?” Johnson said to reporters after meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky earlier this month. “What is the endgame in Ukraine? How are we going to have proper oversight of the funds?”
Russian servicemen fire a BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher towards Ukrainian positions in the course of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, at the unknown location in the
Both Graham and Johnson had been subjected to a full-court press by Joe Biden and the White House in an effort for the recalcitrant Republicans to reverse course on their objections. “We can’t let Putin win,” Biden pleaded. “If Putin takes Ukraine,” Biden noted, “he won’t stop there.” The US president said an emboldened Putin would move on to threaten his NATO neighbors. And then, Biden stated, “We’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops.”
If the threat of a Third World War in the face of Congressional inaction wasn’t enough, Biden authorized the Pentagon to declassify and release to CNN an intelligence report that claimed that Russia had suffered enormous casualties in its war with Ukraine, with some 315,000 of an estimated 360,000 troops that made up Russia’s pre-conflict ground force, having been killed or wounded. The declassified intelligence report also claimed that 2,200 of Russia’s 3,500 tanks have been lost, along with 4,400 of 13,600 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers.
The release of the declassified report was clearly timed to influence the US Congress by emphasizing the very talking points that have been repeatedly made by Senator Graham and others that the US aid was “Best money we’ve ever spent” because “the Russians are dying.”
Given the history of the US intelligence community of declassifying intelligence reports for the specific purpose of releasing the information to mainstream media outlets to shape public opinion—even if the intelligence community knows the information contained in the report is wrong—one must take the report regarding Russian casualties with a heavy grain of salt. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia currently has some 617,000 troops deployed in the Special Military Operation zone. These forces are on the offensive, actively advancing on several fronts against a Ukrainian Army which is rapidly losing its ability to sustain large-scale ground combat operations. This doesn’t sound like the performance of an organization that suffered some 87% casualties, a figure which would make the survivors combat ineffective.
The fact is, US and European support for Ukraine is flagging, and Ukraine is facing an existential crisis in the coming weeks and months that it most likely will not be able to resolve in its favor.
While Russian troops are taking casualties, it is far more likely than not that the real Russian casualty figures are significantly less than the number reported in the declassified US intelligence report, spread out over the original force and the hundreds of thousands of mobilized reservists and volunteers who have entered the fighting since. These losses pale in comparison to the more than 400,000 dead and nearly one million wounded Ukraine has suffered.
Russia’s combat power grows every day, with fresh troops and equipment being made available for the war effort. Ukraine, on the other hand, has exhausted its reserves, and is left scraping the bottom of its human resources barrel to man whatever units it is able to organize from what is left of Ukraine’s diminished, and diminishing, arsenal.
While the Russian Army is indeed large, and growing, and its capabilities expanding as it becomes more combat experienced, it is an army with a very specific mission—the defeat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Russian force structure is currently more than sufficient to defeat the Ukrainians on a frontage that stretches some 2,000 kilometers in length. It is even large enough to secure some additional Ukrainian territory, in addition to liberating the newly absorbed Russian territories of the Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk, and Lugansk regions still held by Ukraine. But there are physical limitations as to what one can accomplish with 617,000 troops and occupying all of Ukraine before invading Poland and/or the Baltics is well beyond the capacity of the Russian forces currently deployed in the Special Military Operation.
Moreover, Russian President Vladimir Putin has never intimated that Russia had any intention to either occupy all of Ukraine or seek to attack NATO — just the opposite. The Russian goals and objectives of the Special Military Operation are spelled out very clearly — demilitarization (the destruction of the Ukrainian Armed Forces), de-Nazification (the elimination of the regime of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the pro-Nazi political element inside Ukraine), and permanent neutrality for Ukraine (i.e., Ukraine will never join NATO). There is no intent to take the war to NATO. Such thinking is a fear-based construct of the Biden administration that is inaccurate and far removed from reality, little more than a fantasy which the sober-minded Russian government, ever mindful of the need to carefully manage escalation because of the Special Military Operation, will pay scant attention to.
Joe Biden and his national security team are scrambling to manage the consequences of policy failure. Putin, it seems, has not lost the war with Ukraine. Russia is winning, something no amount of funding by either the US, the Europeans, or both, can reverse. The best thing that could happen to Ukraine is for the congressional Republicans to hold steadfast to their objections and allow Ukraine to be taken off the life support that US funding provides. Ukraine is a terminal case. Continuing to underwrite its failed war effort simply prolongs the agony of its people.
Zelensky’s Global Begging Tour Is an Obscene Fiasco
Strategic Culture Foundation | December 15, 2023
The United States’ proxy war in Ukraine against Russia has cost the lives of up to 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers. In the last six months alone, it is estimated that over 120,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed in a failed counteroffensive.
Even Western media are coyly admitting the grim reality of failure after much-vaunted predictions last year of imminent victory against Russia.
Yet nearly two years after the conflict erupted, the leader of the puppet regime in Kiev persists in begging for billions more in funds from his Western sponsors to continue the bloodbath – the biggest armed confrontation in Europe since the Second World War.
The hostilities can be traced back to the 2014 coup in Kiev orchestrated by the CIA and precipitated by the European Union and Washington trying to cleave traditional Ukrainian relations with Russia. Those hostilities culminated in February 2022 in what can be seen as a U.S.-led proxy war against Russia. A war that has failed for the Western powers and needs to be peacefully negotiated to spare further death and destruction.
This week, however, saw Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky going to Washington to plead for $60 billion in additional funds. His begging mission failed. The U.S. Congress refused to pass the supplemental bill requested on his behalf by President Joe Biden for Ukraine.
After that humiliation, Zelensky then turned his solicitation to the European Union. The EU, by turn, failed to agree on a requested fund for $54 billion for Ukraine.
As a sort of consolation prize, the EU leaders at their two-day summit in Brussels declared that Ukraine could start negotiations for eventually gaining access to the 27-member bloc. That decision was bombastically hailed as “historic” but it seemed more theatre than substance given that the negotiations will take several years to conduct and there is no guarantee at the end of the tedious process that Ukraine will actually gain EU membership. Will Ukraine even exist as a state in a few years, as our columnist Stephen Karganovic ponders in an article this week?
The EU membership talks were granted no doubt as a way to distract from the fact that the EU funds were not forthcoming and especially following the miserable response from U.S. lawmakers.
The whole sorry saga indicates that the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine has become a deplorable black hole for Western public money. Given the military debacle and the futile bloodshed, it is becoming politically untenable for Washington and Brussels to keep shovelling billions of taxpayer money into this abyss.
Up for the asking this week was a total of nearly $100 billion between the U.S. and Europe for Ukraine. How many badly needed public services in Western states could do with – and are denied – that kind of financial sustenance?
The spectacle of Zelensky touring the world scrounging for more money is as shameful as it is sordid.
Official figures show that the Western governments have already donated a combined total of $200 billion to Ukraine since the conflict escalated in February 2022.
To put that largesse into perspective, it is estimated that the U.S. Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of the whole of Europe following World War Two was equivalent to $173 billion in today’s money.
Think about that. The Western funding to Ukraine already exceeds this historic salvage package by some $30 billion. And yet Western governments are trying to muster another $100 billion on top of that.
There are several conclusions to be made. First of all, the U.S.-led proxy war against Russia is indisputably a calamitous failure. Despite the unprecedented financing of weapons and other support to the Kiev regime, the war is a dead-end for the Western powers. The 30-member NATO military alliance is staring at a defeat unparalleled in its 75-year history.
Secondly, it is patent that the Kiev regime is only being propped up by the transfer of colossal flows of aid from the West. Without those transfusions of weapons and capital, the regime is finished. It has already lost grievous numbers of troops on the battlefield. Conscription drives are scraping the barrel. Without the lifeline of aid, the regime is finished. The Kiel Institute for World Economy reported last week that Western capital pledges to the Kiev regime have fallen off a cliff since the summer.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week in his annual marathon televised Q&A with the public and journalists that Russia will push on with its objectives of eradicating the NATO-backed Nazi forces in Ukraine. There seems little doubt that the objective will be achieved given the parlous state of the Kiev regime.
Another conclusion to draw is the scale of corruption that Ukraine is mired in. For all the funds pumped into this regime so much of it has been siphoned off from the stated purposes.
The obscenity of this war racket is the inordinate corruption, deaths and destruction of economies across Europe while Western weapons corporations have raked in mega-profits.
Zelensky’s global begging tour is a desperate attempt to keep the war racket going for a while longer. He and his wife Olena have enriched themselves with overseas properties and shopping trips to Paris and New York. Zelensky and his cronies have been paid off with blood money for their role in peddling the biggest war scam in modern history. A scam that is funded by hard-pressed and hoodwinked Western taxpayers who have been gaslighted by their politicians and media about “defending democracy and freedom”.
To keep this grotesque charade going, Western politicians in the pay of arms companies and NATO think tanks are resorting to desperate scaremongering and blackmail.
President Biden has repeatedly warned that if extra funds were not released to Ukraine to “defend against Russian aggression” the rest of Europe will be overrun by Moscow.
In Washington this week, U.S. lawmakers who refused to pass the supplemental funding bill for Ukraine were, in effect, accused of being traitors by helping Russia.
Zelensky appealed to European leaders by saying that Putin would exploit any negativity towards Ukraine, and he pleaded with the EU to not “betray” Ukrainians.
On the eve of the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, the European Commission declared that it was finally releasing €10 billion in withheld funds to Hungary. That was a bribe to Hungarian premier Viktor Orban to concede to the proposed €50 billion in extra aid for the Kiev regime. In the end, Orban did not concede to the multi-billion-euro handout, however, he gave way to his objection to talks for Ukraine’s membership of the EU. Such is the shoddy business of propping up the Kiev regime that arm-twisting and bribery are the order of business in Brussels.
The horrendous waste of lives and financial resources in Ukraine by the Western elite – instead of pursuing diplomacy and peace – is the hallmark that these regimes are terminally corrupt and doomed to failure.
The conflict in Ukraine has recklessly stoked tensions between nuclear powers and has condemned generations of Americans and Europeans to debt. The war in Ukraine is a historic dead-end for the U.S. and its European vassals. Zelensky’s begging bowl is a death rattle.
Poland to Retract Theories About Russian Responsibility for Tu-154 Plane Crash in 2010
Sputnik – 15.12.2023
A Tupolev Tu-154 plane, which was carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and other top public and military members of a Polish delegation, crashed while approaching Smolensk Airport in Russia on April 10, 2010.
Polish authorities will abandon versions about Russia’s responsibility for the 2010 crash of a Tu-154 plane near Smolensk that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Polish Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration Marcin Kerwinski told reporters.
“There are no binding versions here. It is a matter of the state honestly finding out what happened. The report of [former minister] Jerzy Miller explained in detail the causes of that terrible disaster in an honest, comprehensive and profound way. This is an official document,” Kierwinski told reporters.
The plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 other high-ranking Polish officials occurred on April 10, 2010, in Smolensk, Russia.
A year after the tragedy, the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) announced after an investigation that the immediate cause of the crash was the crew’s decision not to seek an alternate airfield in fog conditions, and that the systemic causes were shortcomings in the training of the pilots of the presidential squadron.
The Polish commission headed by former interior minister Jerzy Miller came to similar conclusions at the time, citing the cause of the crash as the aircraft descending below the minimum altitude allowed in foggy conditions. Polish authorities later disagreed with the IAC report and the conclusions of Miller’s commission and decided to establish a second commission, which has been unable to complete its work for several years.
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Because no animal reservoir has been found for SARS-CoV-2, it cannot properly be termed a zoonosis.* Should we call it a labnosis? And what does that mean?
By Meryl Nass, MD | July 12, 2021
After a year and a half of seeking but not finding SARS-2 in any wildlife anywhere (apart from domesticated or zoo animals that appear to have caught it from humans) is it time to say, yes, it didn’t just escape from a lab. It was created, built, assembled in a lab. Or many labs
Coronavirus scientists have been constructing new viruses out of bits and pieces of other viruses for a long time.
Why did they do it? … continue
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