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Czechs rally against ‘warmonger’ government

RT | April 17, 2023

Thousands protested in downtown Prague on Sunday, arguing that the Czech government is devoting too many resources to helping Ukraine fight Russia rather than tackling the energy crisis and high inflation at home. Many are calling on Prime Minister Petr Fiala to resign.

The ‘Czechia Against Poverty’ rally was spearheaded by the opposition party Law, Respect, Expertise (PRO 2022). Protesters gathered at Wenceslas Square, condemning what one called “the lying government” and carrying banners that said “No to war” and “Get out of NATO.”

Addressing the crowd, Jaroslav Foldyna, an MP from the Freedom and Direct Democracy party, said that “the government needs to go before it destroys the country.”

A protester named Renata Urbanova told AFP that the government is “full of warmongers” who “are making us suffer economically.”

A group of people with Ukrainian flags rallied in support of Kiev in the center of the capital at around the same time. Members of opposing camps shouted at each other, but were ultimately separated by police.

A similar anti-government demonstration was held last month. More than a dozen people were arrested and scuffles with police broke out at that event.

The monthly cost of living has increased for most Czechs and up to 70% of households were forced to resort to austerity measures, according to a survey released by pollster Median in January.

At the same time, Prague has supplied heavy weapons to Ukraine, including 89 tanks, and has backed economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU. More than 460,000 Ukrainian refugees arrived in the Czech Republic after February 2022, and around 300,000 of them are still in the country, according to Euronews.

Last year, the Czech parliament adopted a law aimed at providing assistance to refugees, which was recently extended until April 2024.

April 17, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

US and UK to blame for EU weakness – Moscow

RT | April 17, 2023

A senior Russian diplomat has accused the EU of falling victim to a US-UK ploy in Ukraine, and losing the chance to become an independent player in a multipolar world. Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin claimed that preventing Germany, France and Russia from banding together has long been a goal of Washington and its closest allies

“Due to political machinations of the US and Britain, the opportunity for constructive cooperation involving Russia, aimed at creating an independent center of power on the European continent, has been lost for decades,” the official said on Monday during an event in Moscow.

Galuzin referred to the 2014 armed coup in Kiev, and the ensuing escalation of Russia-Ukraine tensions, leading up to the military conflict last year. The diplomat said Ukraine is being used by Washington as “a tool, even a consumable” in its attempt to cling on to its world hegemony.

The sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines last autumn “vividly demonstrated the lengths to which those who are not interested in mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and … European states would go,” the deputy foreign minister added.

The pipelines, built under the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian fuel directly to Germany, were ruptured by powerful explosions on September 26. American journalist Seymour Hersh claimed the operation was ordered by US President Joe Biden, in an effort to lock Germany into a campaign to defeat Russia in Ukraine. The US has denied the allegation, and European nations investigating the incident have so far failed to identify a culprit.

Regarding the standoff with Russia, the EU “has been forced to leave behind all pretence at independence and unconditionally comply with the US course,” Galuzin stated. This decision has resulted in a “rapid decrease of the EU’s economic and political clout in the world and worsened the crisis trends in the EU.”

The deputy minister was delivering opening remarks during a Ukraine-themed event hosted by the Russian Historical Society. He claimed Western influence in Ukraine has included distorting the truth about the nation’s past.

“The current Ukrainian authorities are destroying everything that connected our nations in any way,” he claimed, expressing hope that historians can help to eventually find a way towards reconciliation.

April 17, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Inter-EU relations plummeting over Macron’s apparent China tilt

By Drago Bosnic | April 17, 2023

It’s hardly breaking news that the European Union is essentially a giant collection of vassals of the United States. Ironically enough, as the bloc effectively doubled in size since the (First) Cold War, its sovereignty has proportionately gone down. Washington DC largely accomplished this by propping up staunchly pro-US EU members. One such country is certainly Poland, as Warsaw consistently supports American interests in the EU. And while it could be argued that this is largely thanks to Poland’s virtually endemic Russophobia, the most recent episode with French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China clearly indicates that Warsaw’s foreign policy framework is as American as it could possibly be.

Late last week, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki slammed Macron’s “controversial” comments on Beijing, made just after he met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Morawiecki openly mocked the French President’s call for “strategic autonomy”, which also included follow-up comments about the EU “not being a direct US vassal”. Such rhetoric isn’t unheard of, particularly from France, but the question remains how exactly honest and straightforward it is. However, even a semblance of anything that could remotely be seen as “anti-American” is virtual “heresy” in Warsaw, which explains its harsh reaction to this. Morawiecki equated even just cordial EU-China ties with “cutting off relations with the US”. His exact words were:

“European autonomy sounds fancy, doesn’t it? But it means shifting the center of European gravity towards China and severing the ties with the US. Short-sightedly they look to China to be able to sell more EU products there at huge geopolitical costs, making us more dependent on China and not less. Some European countries are trying to make with China the same mistake which was made with Russia – this dramatic mistake.”

According to AFP’s reporting, Morawiecki also (implicitly) slammed both France and Germany for their allegedly “lukewarm” support for the Kiev regime and “warned” about China’s breakaway island province of Taiwan:

“You cannot protect Ukraine today and tomorrow by saying Taiwan is not your business. I think that, God forbid, if Ukraine falls, if Ukraine gets conquered, the next day China may attack – can attack – Taiwan… … I do not quite understand the concept of strategic autonomy if it means de facto shooting into our own knee. Western European nations have grown accustomed to a model based on cheap energy from Russia, high-margin trade with China, low-cost labor from Eastern Europe and security for free from the United States. Now their modus vivendi collapsed in ruins so what do they do? They want a quick ceasefire, armistice, in Ukraine, almost at any price. Some politicians in Western Europe are thinking, ‘Ukraine, why are you fighting so bravely?'”

Somewhat surprisingly, despite increased NATO pressure, Macron has not only refused to take back his statements, but has even reiterated them, openly declaring that “being an ally does not mean being a vassal … [or] mean that we don’t have the right to think for ourselves.” Macron’s recent “controversial” statements have sent shockwaves across the political West. And while they’re hardly a clear indicator of a major strategic shift in French foreign policy, as the country still supports the Kiev regime through weapons shipments that are killing the people of Donbass, they are quite an unpleasant surprise for Washington DC planners hopeful of sustaining their strategic siege of China in the Asia-Pacific, an effort that requires pan-Western support.

“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers. The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction… … If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” Macron said at the time.

This and the fact that the French President said “the great risk facing Europe right now is that it gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy” is quite indicative of so-called “old” Europe’s desire to maintain at least some degree of strategic relevance. However, it’s quite difficult to take the “old” EU seriously in the matter of Taiwan when it’s been so religiously following Washington DC’s diktat on Ukraine for well over a decade. Despite clear and open frustrations with the US profiteering that has been “bleeding dry” the increasingly cash-strapped EU for over a year now, the bloc still continues its self-defeating subservience. As long as the EU participates in Washington DC’s crawling aggression against Russia, the desire to stop being US vassals will be nothing but that.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

April 17, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO to launch biggest Air Forces drill in its history

A German-led exercise involving hundreds of aircraft is scheduled for June and will coincide with a massive US troop deployment

RT | April 9, 2023

NATO is planning to hold the largest Air Force exercise this summer, the German Armed Forces – the Bundeswehr – announced in a statement. Dubbed ‘Air Defender 23,’ the drills are scheduled to take place between June 12 and June 24 and are expected to involve hundreds of aircraft from dozens of nations.

A total of 10,000 soldiers and 220 aircraft are to be involved in the exercise, the Bundeswehr said, adding that they are to train “in the European airspace.” The US is to supply 100 of the aircraft out of its stocks, the statement said. According to Berlin, the drills are to be held mostly over German territory, although a map published by the Bundeswehr shows that the airspace of Estonia, which borders Russia, and of Romania, which borders Ukraine, could be used as well.

The plan of the drills “is modeled after an Article 5 Assistance scenario,” the Bundeswehr said, calling it “challenging air operations training” for the participating troops. The exercise is aimed at “optimizing” the cooperation between the participating nations and demonstrating the “strength” of the military bloc.

A total of 24 nations are to take part in the drills, including Finland, which only joined NATO earlier in April. Sweden, which has yet to join the bloc, will participate in the exercise too.

The US Air National Guard will provide around half the aircraft used in the German-led exercise in June. Its commander, Lieutenant General Michael Loh, maintained that there is no set scenario pitting the NATO forces against a particular adversary during the drills. Yet, he still did mention Moscow during a briefing on the matter earlier this week.

“This is now putting the alliance together quickly, with a credible force, to make sure that if Russia ever lines up on the NATO border, that we’re ready to go,” he said on Wednesday. “We’re going to defend every inch.”

A similar tone was struck by the German Air Force. “We won’t write [Russia] a letter,” its commander, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz said, adding that he thinks “they get the message.”

The drills coincide with a separate US-led exercise called Defender Europe 23. “This annual, nearly two-month-long exercise is focused on the strategic deployment of US-based forces, the employment of Army pre-positioned stocks and interoperability with European allies and partners,” the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, Sabrina Singh, told journalists earlier this week.

A total of 9,000 US soldiers, together with 17,000 troops from 26 other nations, are to participate in the drills, which would take place across ten European nations, Singh said. Washington had already started shipping the equipment needed for the exercise to Europe, she added. According to the Pentagon, the first pieces of equipment have already arrived in Spain.

Some 7,000 pieces of equipment are to be transported to Europe as part of the drills. Around 13,000 other pieces of equipment are to be drawn from pre-positioned stocks, the Pentagon said. The US-led exercise is to kick off on April 22.

April 9, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Chad Expelled The German Ambassador A Month After The US Claimed Russia Was Meddling

By Andrew Korybko | April 9, 2023

Chad’s expulsion of the German Ambassador for his “impolite attitude and the non-respect of diplomatic customs”, which reports suggested was a euphemism for his meddling in its internal affairs, wasn’t what the US expected when it reportedly passed along intelligence about Russia in late February. The Wall Street Journal wrote at the time that American officials informed their Chadian counterparts about Moscow’s alleged plots to arm anti-government rebels and even assassinate the president.

There were reasons to be skeptical of this at the time, not least because the Russian Embassy in N’Djamena warned in January about Western efforts to divide these two states, especially after Moscow shared its expectation that the Chadian President will attend summer’s second Russia-Africa Summit. To be sure, bilateral relations have come a long way since their low point in September 2021 when the Chadian Foreign Minister claimed that Wagner posed a threat to his country’s interests.

Its presence in the neighboring countries of the Central African Republic (CAR) and Libya was allegedly being exploited to arm anti-government rebels, according to him, hence why US spies probably thought that Chad would fall for a remixed version of this narrative. His words led to the conclusion that “Chad Wants To Lead The Charge Against Russia’s Inroads In Françafrique” for several self-interested reasons, not least of which was to ensure Paris’ continued support for the authorities amidst rising discontent.

Everything radically changed in Africa over the last 18 months since then, however. France’s “sphere of influence” in the Central and Western parts of the continent has been shattered as a result of Russia’s successful “Democratic Security” policies in the CAR and Mali, with Paris now needing N’Djamena much more than the inverse. Furthermore, not a single African country complied with the West’s demands to sanction Moscow for its special operation in Ukraine, thus exposing the limits of its influence nowadays.

These interconnected developments contributed to changing Chad’s perceptions of Russia’s rising role in Africa, hence the possibility of its president attending summer’s second Russia-Africa Summit. It also accounts for why this country didn’t fall for the US’ claims that Moscow is meddling in its affairs, instead choosing to expel the German Ambassador a little over a month later instead of the Russian one like Washington likely expected would happen after sharing its so-called “intelligence”.

To be clear, there’s still a chance that some influential forces in Chad could do the geopolitical bidding of their country’s traditional French patron by lobbying for decisionmakers to authorize an anti-Russian provocation of some sort, but it’s important to point out that this hasn’t yet happened. The preceding observation extends credence to the conclusion that Chad’s perceptions of Russia are changing for the better, so much so that it didn’t fall for the US’ latest attempt to divide-and-rule them.

This is admittedly impressive since Chad is a bastion of French influence in Africa, but as was earlier written, it’s nowadays the case that France needs Chad more than the inverse after Paris’ “sphere of influence” in the Central and Western parts of the continent was shattered over the last 18 months. N’Djamena can now at least in theory consider demanding more aid and other sorts of benefits from France in exchange for continuing to host its forces without having to do its regional bidding like before.

Chadian officials can also more confidently confront the West since the scenario of the latter initiating any serious deterioration in their ties is no longer all that troubling because their country could just shift towards Russia in that event like the CAR, Mali, and a growing number of others are presently doing. In fact, this pivot could be held above their heads as a Damocles’ sword for squeezing more benefits from that de facto New Cold War bloc, which fears the consequences of pushing Chad into Russia’s arms.

Expelling an ambassador is a major move, however, let alone a traditionally Western-aligned African country doing this to one who represents the EU’s de facto leader. For that reason, this  development probably wasn’t the result of a failed effort by Chad to get more money from Germany. Rather, it’s most likely the case that reports about that official’s meddling in his host state’s internal affairs are accurate, hence why N’Djamena took this unprecedented step.

The authorities want to avoid a repeat of last October’s deadly unrest that was officially driven by discontent over them delaying their country’s democratic transition but was exploited by certain forces to carry out a spree of violence across the capital. The West specializes in organizing Color Revolutions so it might have been the case that the recently expelled German Ambassador was trying to initiate another round of similar unrest to pressure the Chadian President against possibly visiting Russia in July.

His attendance at the second Russia-Africa Summit would be a coup de grace for Moscow by proving that its pragmatic engagement with the continent has succeeded in turning the leaders of traditionally Western-aligned countries like Chad into important partners who refuse to do third parties’ bidding. It would be Russia’s top diplomatic victory over the West since NATO began waging its proxy war in Ukraine to have him and other such leaders all meet with President Putin in the latter’s hometown.

Moscow has no reason to meddle in any of these countries’ affairs and thus risk spoiling this opportunity, especially not with Chad, which previously positioned itself as France’s vanguard force for pushing back against Russia all across Paris’ “sphere of influence”. The West, however, has every reason to meddle via disinformation disguised as “intelligence” and the cultivation of Color Revolution pressure in a desperate attempt to preemptively avert its rival’s impending diplomatic victory.

That’s why it was ultimately the German Ambassador that was expelled from Chad and not the Russian one despite the US claiming a little over a month ago that Moscow was plotting to kill its president. He didn’t extend credence to those reports otherwise Russia’s representative would have already been kicked out of the country. By ordering the German Ambassador’s expulsion, however, Chad just signaled that it now fears that its traditional Western partners are the ones who are truly conspiring against it.

April 9, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Great ‘Disinformation’ Hoax

BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | APRIL 7, 2023

Writer Jacob Siegel has talked to UnHerd‘s Freddie Sayers about America’s new censorship complex. In a 13,000 word essay for Tablet, Siegel explains how ‘disinformation’ is an invention that has morphed into a tool of governance. He told Sayers:

Disinformation is a means by which the Government in cooperation with private tech companies and civil society, NGO groups, censors, uses extra-legal means to censor political discourse around issues like Covid vaccinations, lockdowns, the elections. And in the U.S., it’s a free-for-all. It’s a blank cheque to censor anything. So on one level, disinformation is ostensibly censorship in order to protect national security. In a larger sense, that machinery of censorship is not opportunistically looking to erase certain things from the public record that are unflattering to political elites. It’s actually rather more than that. It is a means of governance. It is a system of power. It is its own system of power, outside of the formal, official — in the U.S., constitutional — means by which the Government is supposed to operate.

How did this ‘tool of governance’ become so mainstream, asks Sayers? The U.S. Government, Siegel points out, has long engaged in promoting disinformation of its own, but the ‘war on disinformation’ was begun by Barack Obama. One of the last things the former President did while in office was sign into law the ‘Countering Foreign Disinformation Act’, which fully committed the U.S. to a counter-disinformation campaign, which according to Siegel “was really always in spirit, and very quickly in practice as well, an information war directed against the American people”.

Siegel continues:

There was originally this foreign dimension… But from the very beginning, ‘foreign’ is a kind of ruse that’s setting up what is actually a much larger, effectively omni-directional structure, because the internet is global, that can censor anywhere but which is, in practice, focused on the domestic political environment inside the U.S. and specifically on this populist surge, which is taken as an existential threat by the ruling party officials in the U.S. who see populism in truly apocalyptic terms.

Siegel argues that the consequences of this censorship for American society should not to be minimised:

The system of secrecy and the Government’s own promotion of conspiracies, like the idea that Donald Trump was an agent of Vladimir Putin or a Russian stooge, which the U.S. intelligence agencies promoted. It’s not simply that they are wrong or pernicious, or that this reflects corruption. They actually drive people crazy. They deranged the political system. They ruin the ability for people to engage sanely and transparently in their own politics.

Worth reading (and watching) in full.

April 7, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Estonia cracks down on Russian media

RT | April 5, 2023

Estonia has blocked access to 53 websites that were used to watch banned Russian TV channels, the Baltic country’s Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA) said on Wednesday.

The regulator added that the crackdown was conducted in accordance with the EU sanctions on Russian media.

TTJA Director General Kristi Talving cited a poll commissioned by the Estonian government, which found that the trust of Russian channels has fallen from 40% to 18%. “Based on these numbers, we can say that the work to protect the Estonian information space has been effective,” Talving said.

Nearly 40% of people living in Estonia speak Russian, according to the official census. The country has had a sizable Russian minority from the time that it was part of the Soviet Union.

The EU banned the broadcasting of content from multiple Russian news organizations, including RT, in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, which was launched in February 2022. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, accused the news outlets of spreading disinformation.

Estonia separately banned six Russian TV channels in February 2022. The next month, the TTJA blacklisted seven outlets, including Channel One and news agency TASS.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has described the ban on the country’s news organizations in the EU as an act of censorship aimed at “purging the information space of the presence of any media that is an alternative to Western [media].”

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

France prepares to take militarization measures

By Lucas Leiroz | April 6, 2023

France is preparing for a conflict in the near future. The country is about to implement a new measure to raise the age of military reservists. The expansion of the number of active troops is also supposed to be announced at any moment. The declarations come amid a serious moment of internal crisis in France, with protests and police violence being reported every day due to the unpopular and authoritarian policies of the Macron government. At the same time that Paris could be seeking to improve its defense capacity in the midst of a world in tensions, the action could also be aimed at resolving the effects of the critical domestic scenario.

According to Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, Paris will raise the maximum age for military reservists to 70 years. He also told an important French media outlet that “certain specialists” will be allowed to remain as reservists until the age of 72 – without, however, specifying in detail which would be such particular cases. The measure represents a radical change, since more than ten years are added to the current age limits. Lecornu believes that the current law is an unnecessary limit and that it prevents qualified professionals from contributing to the French forces for a longer time.

“A lot of people of quality find themselves ejected because of this age limit, which makes no sense (…) We will increase the age limits (…) People will be able to be a reservist in the French military until they are 70 years old and until they are 72 years old for certain specialists”, he told RTL during an interview.

Currently, professionals up to 60 years old can be reservists, with some special authorizations for people up to 65 years old. As we can see, it is therefore a large-scale reform, which will have a wide impact, as ten years are added to the age limit. It is estimated that with this it will be possible to double the number of reservists, jumping from 40 thousand soldiers to more than 80 thousand ones. However, this is just one of the militarization measures involved in an apparent interest on the part of Paris to focus on military matters at the current time.

New substantial defense spending is expected for the future. As previously announced by President Emmanuel Macron himself, the government plans to raise the military fund to 69 billion euros a year by 2030 – currently such spending is estimated at an amount of 43 billion euros a year. Lecornu believes that these actions are essential for his country to deal efficiently and effectively with the “threats” and “challenges” of the contemporary world.

“There are several objectives with this unprecedented budget package: to continue to repair what has been damaged, a certain number of budget cuts have affected our army model (…) and we have a succession of threats that are all adding up,” he told media.

In fact, there are a series of factors to be analyzed in order to understand the decisions being taken by the French government. First, the measure meets NATO’s recent demands for combat readiness in the entire alliance. France is one of the most relevant military powers of the bloc and its combat strength is extremely important for the alliance to have its objectives achieved in a conflict scenario. So, in a way, it is possible to say that Paris is fulfilling Western war plans when it implements militarization measures.

But this is certainly insufficient to entirely understand the case. On the domestic scenario, France is absolutely chaotic. Recently, a social security reform that increases the retirement age in the country was illegally implemented, which generated a serious crisis of legitimacy. By ordinary procedure, the reform should not have taken place, as it did not receive sufficient legislative support, however it was adopted with the government resorting to legal maneuvers and distorted interpretations of the national constitution in what appeared to be a kind of “internal lawfare”.

The popular reaction to these maneuvers is being manifest through mass protests in main French cities. The country’s chaos can be easily seen in the newspapers as well as with videos circulating on the internet showing clashes between demonstrators and police. Law enforcement forces have acted repressively and abusively against ordinary citizens, who are simply protesting against the government’s illegal actions.

What few analysts seem to understand is that these measures also serve NATO’s war interests. France has already sent large sums of money and arms packages to Kiev since the beginning of the special military operation, both on its own initiative and through the European fund, to which the country actively contributes. Obviously, the more money that is used to support NATO’s war machine, the more money the public reserves will lack to pay its own pensioners, which create the demands for reforms. Hence, not just in France but throughout the entire West, the trend is for neoliberal reforms against pension systems to become even more common.

The case thus reflects the contemporary Western inclination of neoliberal militarization. The aim is to reduce labor and social guarantees and increase military spending to make the Atlantic alliance an anti-Russian war machine, prepared for a world conflict, while ignoring the necessities of ordinary citizens. Specifically with regard to France, there is also the rhetorical use of the narrative about the security “threats” to try to distract the population and convince citizens to accept that their rights are diminished.

It remains to be seen whether the French will really adhere to the official rhetoric and abdicate their claims for social rights, or whether they will continue to protest in the streets.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist and researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Trump Is Being Politically Persecuted To Prevent Him From Brokering Peace With Russia

By Andrew Korybko | April 5, 2023

Former US President and leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is facing 34 felony charges related to allegedly falsifying business records, which ordinarily would have just been a slew of misdemeanors had the prosecutor not “bumped them up” on a shadowy pretext. The domestic political context extends credence to criticisms that this is actually a persecution that’s also partially being carried out to galvanize the Democrats’ base, but there’s a crucial international dimension to all this too.

The argument can be made that the real reason why this witch hunt and all prior ones were commenced against him is due to his envisaged policy of brokering peace with Russia through a series of mutual compromises that can be referred to as a “New Détente”. It was this grand strategy that he campaigned on in 2016 and which prompted his opponent Hillary Clinton to concoct the Russiagate conspiracy theory falsely misportraying him as “Putin’s puppet”.

What Trump and his team had in mind wasn’t treasonous but pragmatic from the perspective of the US’ objective interests in that there’s a reasonable logic to de-escalating tensions with Russia in Europe so as to more effectively “contain” China in the Asia-Pacific. To that end, he sincerely wanted to compel Kiev into implementing the Minsk Accords but ultimately failed because influential figures in his country’s military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) were opposed to this.

These individuals and their European counterparts are unofficial members of the cult known as liberal–globalism, which preaches that their Western way of life – particularly its radical liberal variant thereof – must be imposed onto the rest of the world “for their own good”. Due to a combination of ideological and strategic reasons, they believed that the US should prioritize “containing” Russia over China, hence why they united to sabotage Trump’s well-intended plans that were explained above.

The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine that began last February when Moscow was forced to resort to military means for protecting the integrity of its national security red lines after this US-led bloc clandestinely crossed them there could in theory have been prevented had Trump still been in office. At the same time, however, his prior capitulation to the “deep state’s” demands to impose more sanctions on Moscow challenges this prediction, but it’s still worth considering in any case.

Despite the aforesaid skepticism, Trump recently doubled down on his envisaged pragmatic approach towards Russia by proclaiming that he’d broker peace with it and Kiev through a deal that he hinted would recognize the ground realities by legitimizing Moscow’s control over former Ukrainian territory. While the felony charges against him were already being pursued behind the scenes before this, there’s no doubt that his policy reaffirmation gave his opponents an urgent impetus to derail his re-election bid.

The former leader’s socio-economic and domestic political platform undoubtedly goes against the interests of the US elite, but they likely wouldn’t have discredited themselves by so openly persecuting him in the way that they’ve since done had he not so powerfully challenged their international interests. The reader should be remembered that ideological and strategic drivers are behind their obsession with “containing” Russia over China since the influential military-industrial complex still benefits either way.

The indisputable desperation with which his opponents are trying to derail his re-election bid exposes their true intentions in politically crucifying him all these years. They regard him as the greatest threat to their liberal-globalist cult not just because of his polar opposite socio-cultural policies at home, but because his grand strategy prioritizes reaching a “New Détente” with Russia, which the “deep state” considers to be the embodiment of everything that their belief system is against.

By hook or by crook, whether in the open or in the shadows, they’ll stop at nothing to prevent Trump from regaining the presidency during next year’s elections and fulfilling his vision. The stakes have never been higher for the liberal-globalist cult since that outcome could discredit their fellow travelers in the EU and thus possibly bring about the unraveling of their transatlantic ideological project with time. Trump must therefore be stopped at all costs, which explains his present political persecution.

April 5, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Zelensky regime leads request for social media platforms to censor “disinformation”

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | April 1, 2023

 has spearheaded a collective call to action, joining forces with seven other Central and Eastern European nations to combat “disinformation” on social media platforms.

In an open letter, the prime ministers of these nations urge prominent tech companies, such as , to implement effective measures that curb the spread of misleading content and foreign interference, which threatens peace, stability, and democracy.

The letter, signed by the leaders of Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, alleges a danger of disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing their countries and undermining the ‘s support for Ukraine amidst Russia’s aggression.

Tech giants are implored to remain vigilant and avoid inadvertently advancing hostile goals.

Specific steps recommended in the letter include refusing payments from sanctioned individuals, increasing algorithmic transparency, and adjusting algorithms to prioritize accuracy over user engagement.

Furthermore, the leaders insist that platforms dedicate adequate resources to content “moderation” and address the growing challenges posed by deep fakes and AI-generated disinformation.

In response, Meta has stated that it has expanded its fact-checking capabilities in Eastern Europe and implemented measures to combat alleged misinformation related to the conflict in Ukraine.

The company has also restricted access to Russian state-controlled media and added labels to related posts, informing users of the source before they click or share.

April 1, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Facebook ‘disappears’ RT Arabic

RT | March 30, 2023

Mark Zuckerberg’s flagship social network has deleted the page for RT Arabic, rejecting all appeals and handing the address to another user, the channel’s head Maya Manna said on Thursday.

“Two weeks we fought with Facebook to restore the suspended page of RT Arabic, with 17 million subscribers,” Manna said on her Telegram channel. “We tried to get an explanation of what triggered the shutdown, because we never got any strikes or comments.”

After several awkward non-explanations, Facebook’s customer service “simply wished us luck, closed our case, and turned over the URL to another user,” Manna wrote. “Internet democracy in all its glory!”

Facebook blocked the page on March 15, without any explanation or advance warning. Attempts to access the page resulted in the message, “this content isn’t available right now.”

Manna protested the move, calling it proof that the West doesn’t believe in free speech, only “total censorship and blocking.” By way of example, she brought up the EU ban on all “Russian state media” after the military operation in Ukraine began in February 2022, including all of RT’s channels.

“Apparently, this is not enough – the very fact that we exist does not allow them to sleep peacefully,” Manna added.

YouTube was quick to apply the EU ban globally, but continued operating in Russia, its CEO at the time, Susan Wojcicki, told the World Economic Forum in Davos last May. The Ukraine conflict showed that information had “a key role” and “can be weaponized,” said Wojcicki, so YouTube wanted to “help [Russian] citizens know what’s going on and have perspectives from the outside world.”

In November last year, after Facebook’s parent company Meta amended its “violent speech” rules to allow calls of “death to Russians” in the West, the Russian Justice Ministry added it to the register of extremist organizations. The decision affected Facebook and Instagram, but not the messaging platform WhatsApp, because it fell under a different legal category.

March 30, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

NATO militarizes civilian structures in Europe with €1 billion fund

By Ahmed Adel | March 27, 2023

NATO is launching a new investment fund worth €1 billion, which is expected to be officially activated at NATO’s annual summit in July. The fund aims to militarize the civil sector by using the knowledge and skills of manufacturers, scientific institutions, and start-ups to develop technology with military and defence applications.

The fund, described by NATO as the “world’s first multi-sovereign venture capital fund”, will invest €1 billion into developing dual-use (civilian and military) emerging and disruptive technologies over a 15-year time frame. However, it demonstrates that NATO wants to permanently employ the European economy to the Russian border so they can collectively focus on the Ukrainian crisis.

It will also serve as preparation for any future war against Russia, something that is at great risk of eventuating considering Western efforts to deter Moscow from its special military operation in Ukraine have failed.

In the Ukrainian crisis, the material needs of the Ukrainian military are evident, and especially in preparation for any potential scenario of using NATO forces against Russia. This primarily refers to artillery, ammunition, rockets, bombs, air defence systems and drones. Due to these shortages, projects like this are being developed under the auspices of the NATO pact and are now becoming an investment fund for the economies of member states, depending on the ability of those countries to produce equipment needed for combat needs.

NATO approaches this project by effectively purchasing knowledge and engaging civil institutions, but also by opening various civil-military programs and projects. In addition, there are also investments in the so-called information war, which is part of the intelligence-reconnaissance activity, which is very important for modern warfare.

One NATO official told EURACTIV that the Alliance is looking to have a “competitive edge over strategic competitors”, an obvious reference to Russia.

The Netherlands already announced that it will house the fund. The country also announced that it will facilitate innovative startup companies by helping them find capital.

“We expect that housing this fund in the Netherlands will make it easier for innovative Dutch startups to find their way to capital, stimulating solutions for both societal and military problems,” the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement.

For this reason, the specific technologies invested will include artificial intelligence, big-data processing, biotechnology and human enhancement, novel materials, quantum-enabled technologies as well as propulsion and space. Although the headquarters will likely be in Amsterdam, regional offices will also be established “across the Alliance […] given the wide geographic remit of the Fund”, according to a NATO press release.

It is recalled that the new fund was first announced last year, meaning that the latest announcement made by the Dutch government is a demonstration of a laid-out plan by NATO to bring European civilian structures to operate as if it were in a war time economic climate. This could suggest that NATO is preparing Europe for a much larger conflict with Russia.

However, these provocative actions by the Dutch government comes as the country has been gripped by a wave of strikes in the public and private sectors since the beginning of 2023, something unseen in such a manner for many years. Every week since January, Dutch workers have protested for better wages and living conditions.

On March 16, around 200,000 healthcare workers at 64 Dutch hospitals were on strike for a day, including at the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital in Amsterdam, a leading facility for treating cancer patients. Doctors and healthcare workers in 48 departments of the facility went on strike for the first time ever.

Although the Dutch economy will not shrink this year, its growth will slow down, according to ABN Amro. The bank expects the economy to grow 1.2% this year and 1.3% in 2024, a miniscule amount compared to the 4% growth the Dutch economy enjoyed in the previous years. Persistent inflation will ensure that growth will remain low this year, with ABN Amro expecting consumer prices to rise by 4.4% this year and 4% in 2024.

The higher interest rates, keeping in mind the central banks are trying to curb inflation, also slow the Dutch economy. It costs more to borrow money, which has repercussions for the housing market and investments, ABN Amro said.

Yet, with the Netherlands having no security issues to contend with given its geography, it is voluntarily deepening its involvement in NATO structures aimed against Russia, and all at a time when citizens are protesting weekly and suffering from the Western-wide economic crisis.

Ahmed Adel is an Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

March 27, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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