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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.

February 28, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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.

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

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.”

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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.

February 24, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

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.

February 24, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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.”

February 22, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

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.

February 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Scholz and Lackeys Dig Grave for Germany

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 21, 2024

They say a picture paints a thousand words, and the one showing Chancellor Olaf Scholz with a shovel in hand merrily digging at the earth speaks volumes about the way he is burying Germany’s economy.

Not just Scholz. The entire coalition government in Berlin is betraying the German people, like satraps for a foreign colonial power. That colonial power is the United States which has occupied Germany with its troops and nuclear weapons for eight decades.

How can the German political class be so abjectly servile and treacherous? Simple. They don’t see it like that. They are so brainwashed by Russophobia and Western imperial arrogance, their pathetic actions are “natural”.

Dressed like an undertaker, Scholz was photographed ceremonially laying the foundations for a new armament factory in Lower Saxony belonging to Rheinmetall, the second German military manufacturer.

Accompanying him was Defense Minister Boris Pistorius who last weekend told the Munich Security Conference that Germany’s military spending should double over the next decade.

This is while the German economy is mired in recession and German workers and their families are struggling to make ends meet. The once mighty German economy, the engine for the whole European Union, is now referred to as “the sick man of Europe”. The way things are going under Scholz’s coalition government, the sick man will soon be dead and buried.

It’s astounding to fathom the self-harm being inflicted by Scholz and his administration. Polls show huge popular dissatisfaction. His Social Democrat Party is hemorrhaging votes as the recent Berlin federal election re-run attested.

The German economy is tanking in large part due to spiking energy costs that have resulted from Berlin toeing the United States’ line of cutting off Russian oil and gas supplies.

German farmers like farmers all across Europe are in uproar over crippling energy bills. They are also incensed by the influx of cheap agricultural produce from Ukraine that the Scholz government has permitted the EU to oversee out of pro-war support for the Ukrainian regime.

Scholz and his ministers are turning Germany into a war-time economy. All sectors of the economy are being cut except military production.

At the foundation-laying ceremony for the new Rheinmetall production plant, the event was televised for the German public. Scholz and Pistorius seem to think they are performing heroic service for the good of the nation. Their delusional disconnect with reality and ordinary Germans’ hardships is truly shocking. The insanity is frightening.

Pistorius and German military commanders have been warning the public that the country might be at war against Russia in the next five to eight years. Such unhinged war rhetoric is the height of irresponsibility. It is criminal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders have repeatedly stated that they do not want conflict or war with Europe. The Ukraine conflict is a specific problem of a U.S.-led NATO proxy war.

Still, the febrile warmongering that has taken hold of the German political class and the rest of Europe is awesome. Entire national economies are being organized on a war footing.

The notion that Russia is preparing to attack Germany or some other NATO member after it knocks out the NeoNazi regime in Ukraine is wild fantasy to most rational people. But to brainwashed, Russophobic politicians in Berlin (and across the EU generally) such fear-mongering is entertained as reality.

Last week, Scholz hosted the money-grubbing Ukrainian conman president Vladimir Zelensky in Berlin. Zelensky’s regime has lost the NATO proxy war against Russia despite some €200 billion in support and weapons funneled to his corrupt regime over the past two years.

Yet Scholz just signed a bilateral national security pact between Germany and Ukraine. (Britain and France have also signed such pacts.)

As reported on the German pact: “The deal also says that should Ukraine ever be attacked again by Russia, Germany would support the country with swift and sustained security assistance including modern military equipment across all domains.”

What does it mean “should Ukraine ever be attacked again by Russia”? How ridiculous. Russia is at war in Ukraine. The German leaders are foolishly or recklessly signing a warrant for their open entry to war.

How rapidly Berlin has descended into madness. Recall two years ago when Russian forces intervened in Ukraine to quell the NATO proxy war in that country, Berlin was mocked for its caution in only sending “helmets” to aid the Ukraine regime. Two years later, Berlin is sending Leopard tanks, howitzers, and Iris-T missiles. It is now planning to supply long-range Taurus cruise missiles to a regime that has no qualms about bombing Russian civilian centers.

In announcing the latest security pact (war pact) with Ukraine, Scholz bragged that Germany is Europe’s biggest supporter of the Kiev regime.

Berlin has committed to €28 billion in military support for Ukraine, far outstripping the aid from Britain and France. Germany is second only to the United States in the amount of military and financial support it has funneled to Zelensky and his NeoNazi junta.

So much for German prudence and technical efficiency. Berlin is throwing good money down the drain on a war that is being lost badly to Russia with Ukrainian military deaths exceeding 500,000. And yet the wasting of public money keeps on going under Scholz and his loser administration.

The United States covertly sabotaged Germany’s economy by blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia. And Berlin says nothing.

Germany’s industrial base and export-led revenues are decimated by following the U.S. and NATO long-time mission statement of “keeping the Germans down, the Russians out and the Americans in”. And Berlin says nothing.

Scholz and his fellow vassals in government are betraying German national well-being and driving the country to another disastrous war against the Russian people – only 80 years after the last one in which tens of millions were slaughtered.

This betrayal is not just happening in Germany. The entire European Union under the appalling misdirection of former German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen (a scion of a Nazi family) is sacrificing generations of civilians to a dead-end war economy – all driven by Russophobia and total subservience to U.S.-led Western imperialism.

All these pathetic lackeys are digging a grave for Europe – unless citizens rise up against the audacious betrayal by their elites.

February 22, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Euromaidan Was Part of West’s Proxy War Against Russia – CIA Veteran

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 21.02.2024

Exactly ten years ago, former President Viktor Yanukovych signed an agreement with the Euromaidan opposition to resolve the political crisis in Ukraine. The very next day, the opposition tore up the agreement and seized power by force.

Months of Euromaidan riots ended with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych agreeing to reform the constitution, form a “government of national unity,” and hold early elections in December 2014. The then-Ukrainian president also agreed to pardon rioters and launch investigations into violent acts by law enforcement officials.

Although the agreement guaranteed by the EU powers appeared to be solid, it barely lasted 24 hours: on February 22, 2014, the buildings of the presidential administration, the Verkhovna Rada, and the Cabinet of Ministers were seized by violent protesters. The Maidan leaders appointed Oleksandr Turchynov as head of the Verkhovna Rada in violation of the country’s constitution, effectively ousting Yanukovych.

Speaking to US journalist Tucker Carlson on February 9, 2024, President Putin insisted that the coup was “unnecessary” because Yanukovych had agreed to meet the demands of the Maidan leaders.

Yanukovych went on the air from Kharkiv on February 22, 2014, and insisted that he would not resign: “I am a legally elected president. What is happening is fragrant vandalism and banditry and a coup d’etat,” he said.

Nonetheless, EU leaders openly signaled that they would work with the “new government” of Ukraine, thus destroying the agreements they had previously supported.

Real Puppeteers Were American Policy-Makers

“Officially the opposition was backed primarily by Europeans,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview for a documentary “Crimea: Way Back Home” in March 2015. “But we knew perfectly well that the real puppeteers pulling the strings were our American partners and friends.”

In early February 2014, a conversation between individuals believed to be then-US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt discussing the future composition of the Ukrainian government was leaked online. They talked about bringing opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk to power, while keeping Tyahnybok and Klitchko “outside”. In a passage that caused embarrassment to Washington, Nuland was heard to dismiss European partners with the phrase “F**k the EU.”

The scenario described in the leaked conversation came to fruition the same month: on February 27, 2014, Yatsenyuk was appointed as the Ukrainian prime minister. Klitschko was sworn in as mayor of Kiev on June 5, 2014. Tyahnybok stayed out of the de facto Ukrainian government but nonetheless visited the White House and met with then Vice President Joe Biden.

Russia Was the Target

In the wake of the coup, the Ukrainian junta resorted to brutal persecution of their political opponents, promoting an openly Russophobic agenda, and launched nothing short of a war on Donbass civilians who did not accept the illegitimate ouster of Yanukovych.

However, the real target of the US-backed regime change in Kiev was Russia, according to Larry Johnson, a retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official.

“What I think really, what it boils down to is that the West had simply decided that they wanted to take Russia,” Johnson told Sputnik. “At the core of it, they were looking for a long term strategy to isolate Russia. And the key to this was to get Ukraine into the western camp, to bring Ukraine into NATO, to bring Ukraine into the EU, and therefore to completely isolate, at least they thought they could isolate Russia. Because I think at least there was some recognition in some of the government circles that Russia has enormous wealth, natural resources. And it’s better for us to have it than for Russia to have it. I think it was the attitude.”

How Euromaidan Triggered Ukraine’s Nine-Year War on Donbass

The CIA veteran drew attention to the fact that the Euromaidan coup d’etat “ignited a civil war in Ukraine” and “ended up elevating Ukraine into a frontline priority” for the West.

“So prior to 2014, you didn’t get a lot of NATO exercises, featuring Ukraine. After 2014 Ukraine, even though it was not a formal member of NATO, was regularly featured in these joint annual exercises and that meant that Ukraine then became a proxy for a Cold War,” Johnson said.

“It became a proxy for the West to fight against Russia. And I think that’s why they were slowly building up Ukraine. The annual training was one thing, but also there was the desire, you know, persistent request to send more weapons to Ukraine. Again with nobody sitting back and saying, why? What are we trying to do? They tried to create the myth that it’s Russia that’s trying to attack Ukraine,” the former CIA veteran continued.

For its part, Russia made efforts to stop the bloodshed in Donbass through the 2014 and 2015 Minsk Agreements. The accords envisaged cessation of hostilities, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of prisoners of war, and a constitutional reform in Ukraine to grant self-governance to breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

However, in 2022 former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and ex-French President Francois Hollande admitted that the Minsk Agreements were seen by the West as an opportunity to arm and train the Ukrainian Army.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged in an interview with Spiegel in February 2023 that he actually had not been intended to observe the Minsk accords and informed his European counterparts about that. So, the accords were thrown down the drain in the same manner the Ukrainian opposition and the West shredded agreements with Yanukovych on February 22, 2014.

Hostilities Could be Stopped Many Times, West Just Didn’t Want to Do It

There were plenty of opportunities to avoid armed conflicts in Ukraine, highlighted Johnson.

“I mean, all the United States had to do is to say look, we’re not going to expand NATO into Ukraine,” the CIA veteran said. “We will cease conducting annual military exercises with Ukraine. And let’s reopen talks about reigniting the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, the INF. And let’s begin looking at ways that we can cooperate and work together. But no, it was you know, the threats about the Nord Stream pipeline, for example, that had evolved.”

Russia has always been open to negotiations, President Vladimir Putin told the press on February 20, during a meeting with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.

Moscow maintained dialogue with the governments of Poroshenko and Zelensky to implement the Minsk Agreements in order to respect the rights of Ukraine’s Russian-speakers while at the same time preserving the nation’s territorial integrity.

It remains neglected by the Western mainstream press that before launching the special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine Moscow sought to conclude agreements with the US and NATO to ensure common European security. The draft agreements which envisaged NATO’s guarantees of eastward non-expansion and Ukraine’s neutral status were snubbed by Washington, Brussels and NATO leadership.

Just a month after the beginning of the special military operation, Russian and Ukrainian representatives inked preliminary peace agreements in Istanbul in March 2022. Davyd Arakhamia, who headed the Ukrainian delegation during the March 2022 Istanbul talks with Russia, told Ukrainian broadcaster 1+1 in November 2023 that Moscow was ready to end the conflict if Ukraine committed to neutrality and refused to join NATO. However, it was then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson who encouraged President Volodymyr Zelensky to pick the battle and fight to the bitter end, the Ukrainian politician said.

“When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said: ‘We won’t sign anything with them at all, and let’s just fight’,” Arakhamia recalled.

However, ex-PM Johnson was not alone in derailing the deal. “This war will be won on the battlefield,” European Union top diplomat Josep Borrell tweeted in April 2022, pledging hundreds of millions of euros for Kiev.

The same month, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin claimed that Washington wanted to see “Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done” in launching the special military operation. The US has spent over $100 billion in support for Ukraine’s military effort since then.

“The Western governments don’t want anything good to happen to Russia. They’re not willing to do anything to improve the lives of the Russian people. In my view, it’s genuine evil. And I’m watching this horrific policy that’s implemented by my government and there’s going to be an accounting someday. This is wrong,” the CIA veteran said.

“You know, I could understand it if this had happened 40 years ago when the Soviet Union with the ideology of communism, of Marx and Lenin was dominant. And the attempt to, you know, destroy churches and exclude religion, if that was the case, so, okay, I can understand religious people wanting to rise up and throw that off, but that’s not the case. It’s just the opposite. What we’ve got going on in Ukraine is almost, it’s demonic. It’s satanic. They literally embrace anti-Christian views under the guise of being Christian,” Larry Johnson concluded.

February 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

An Opportune Death Hypocritically Mourned

By Stephen Karganovic | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 21, 2024

If Western media are to be believed, after the countless failures of their poisonous preparations clumsy Russian chemists seem now to have finally gotten it right. Alexey Navalny is reported to be dead and the Kremlin Borgias can now say: Gotcha!

However, unfortunately for the orchestrators of the new media stunt that after February 16 plunged the Western political class and MSM into a hysterical frenzy, the carefully crafted delusion began to unravel as soon as it was launched.

First off, it turned out that the politicians and media began to react as if on cue literally just a quarter hour after the obscure website of the Russian penitentiary system posted the news of Navalny’s death.

Observe the highly indicative chronological sequence of events and draw your own conclusions about the plausibility of their indignation.

Аt approximately 2:19 p.m. on February 18, 2024, the website operated by the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area (surely not in the favourites section of most people’s computers) reported the death of convict Alexey Navalny in Prison Colony No. 3.

Literally, 15 minutes later, a flurry of cut and paste commentary and accusations from Western political hacks began to pour in:

– 2:35 pm, Tobias Billström (Sweden): ‘Terrible news about Navalny. If the information about his death in a Russian prison is confirmed, it will be another heinous crime by Putin’s regime.’

–  2:35 pm, Barth Eide (Norway): ‘I’m deeply saddened by the news of Navalny’s death. The Russian government bears a heavy burden of responsibility for this.’

– 2:41 pm, Edgars Rinkevics (Lithuania): ‘Whatever your thoughts about Alexei Navalny as a politician, he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin. That’s a fact and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia’s current regime.’

– 2:50 pm, Jan Lipavsky (Czech Republic): ‘Russia still treats foreign policy issues the same way it treats its citizens. It has turned into a violent state that kills people who dream of a beautiful, better future, such as Nemtsov and now Navalny, who was imprisoned and tortured to death.’

– 2:51 pm, Stéphane Séjourné (France): ‘Navalny paid with his life to fight against a system of oppression. His death in a penal colony reminds us of the realities of Vladimir Putin’s regime.’

– 3:02 pm, Charles Michel (EU): ‘The EU holds the Russian regime solely responsible for this tragic death.’

– 3:10 pm Kiev regime kingpin Zelensky: ‘Clearly, he was killed by Putin, like thousands of others who were tortured to death.’ (And just as clearly Gonzalo Lira was murdered by you, one would be inclined to respond to Zelensky in his face.)

– 3:16 pm (media), 4:50 pm (social media), Jens Stoltenberg (NATO): ‘We need to establish all the facts, and Russia needs to answer all the questions.’ (How about waiting for the facts to be established first and then asking questions?)

– 3:20 pm, Mark Rutte (Netherlands): ‘Navalny’s death once again bears witness to the immense brutality of the Russian regime’;

– 3:30 pm, Maia Sandu (Moldova): ‘Navalny’s death in a Russian prison is a reminder of the regime’s egregious suppression of dissent.’

– 3:35 pm, Annalena Baerbock (Germany): ‘Like no one else, Alexei Navalny was a symbol for a free and democratic Russia. That is precisely the reason he had to die.’

– 3:43 pm, Ursula von der Leyen (EU): ‘A grim reminder of what Putin and his regime are all about.’

– 3:49 pm, Ulf Kristersson (Sweden): ‘The Russian authorities, and President Putin personally, are responsible for Alexei Navalny no longer being alive.’

– 3:14 pm, Olaf Scholz (Germany): ‘He has now paid for this courage with his life. This terrible news demonstrates once again how Russia has changed and what kind of regime is in power in Moscow.’

– 3:25 pm, Antony Blinken (USA): ‘Beyond that, his death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia bears responsibility for this.’

– 5:28 pm, Emmanuel Macron (France): ‘In today’s Russia, free spirits are put in the Gulag and sentenced to death.’

Are we expected to believe that these ministers and officials have nothing better to do than to unceasingly monitor the website of the Russian Penitentiary service, in the hope of finding bits of information to which they might publicly react?

Note should be taken that within fifteen minutes to two hours following the 2:19 p.m. announcement of Navalny’s death no autopsy had or could have been performed. There was no forensic evidence whatsoever on which any conclusions about the causes and circumstances of Navalny’s demise could have been based. The only factual data that could have been known to these hacks at the time when they made their comments was that Navalny was exercising in the prison courtyard when he suddenly collapsed. A blood clot was suspected according to prison medical staff. What might that indicate?

It suggests, as Paul Craig Roberts has cogently argued, that outwardly at least Navalny’s observable manner of death was identical to that of numerous victims of the mRNA “vaccine.” Thousands of vaccinated young athletes and even airline pilots are dying in exactly the same way.

Where could Navalny possibly have received the fatal “vaccine,” which as former British Prime Minister Teresa May was fond of saying, “highly likely” was a shot manufactured by Pfizer, statistically the deadliest of them all? Not just by Teresa’s but in Navalny’s case more importantly by any reasonable person’s evidentiary standards, the answer is very simple. After his botched “Novichok poisoning” in Russia in 2020, Navalny was flown to Berlin where he received treatment at the top of the line Charité hospital. That was at the height of the Covid commotion. The hospital communique on his condition may have been redacted by Western intelligence agencies, but it is inconceivable that patient Navalny would have been hospitalised there without first being injected with the vaccine. In Germany, rigorous hospital protocol made that obligatory. We have no direct evidence that while in Germany Navalny did receive the jab, but under the circumstances that appears to be the logical and natural conclusion. The leading authority in such matters, Teresa May, would be simply obliged to agree that this would be a scenario that was “highly likely.” Unless she were prepared to contradict herself, of course.

So there you have it, as Andrey Martyanov would put it.

None of the West’s sock puppet politicians took that into consideration before issuing hackneyed carbon copy statements all of which appear to have been redacted by the same propaganda spin bureau.

Navalny’s death, whatever may have been its direct cause, could not have been better timed from the standpoint of his Western masters. For them, it came as a godsend, serving as a double distraction. Firstly, to turn attention away from the collapse of the Ukrainian front, not just in Avdeevka but along the entire line of contact. Secondly, to reframe perception and neutralise the impact of the truth bombs which exploded in the course of Tucker Carson’s interview.

It is – to reverse Teresa’s now famous dictum – highly unlikely that the reach of Western agencies extends to the remote prison camp in Magadan. The outcomes that from the standpoint of Navalny’s psychopathic controllers would be “good,” amongst which Navalny’s exploitable death would be a conspicuous benefit, easily could have happened fortuitously.

Even Freud was obliged to admit that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

The psychopaths that Navalny foolishly agreed to serve probably got lucky. By dropping dead when he did Navalny performed his last and perhaps most valuable service to at least partially offset the huge investment they had made in him.

February 21, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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