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CIA Vet: Durham Report Exposes US Deep State Corruption

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 16.05.2023

Special Counsel John Durham’s report helped expose the FBI’s corruption, thus curtailing the intelligence community’s ability to interfere in US politics, according to Larry Johnson, a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism.

Special Counsel John Durham’s much-anticipated report about the origins of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the 2016 Donald Trump campaign’s alleged ties to “Russia” was released on Monday. The special counsel concluded that the bureau had no factual evidence to open a probe on Trump. The probe lasted from July 31, 2016, when Trump was the Republican nominee, to May 17, 2017, after he had taken presidential office.

“The FBI is totally corrupt,” Johnson told Sputnik. “It’s a totally politicized organization. It really has completely discredited itself. This report confirms that very top officials at the FBI were nothing but liars, liars and engaged in a coup to try to overthrow a democratically-elected president. (…) Trump represented a threat to the deep state policies that wanted to expand NATO, to provoke conflicts around the world. And to basically destroy Russia was one of the objectives. And because Trump was seen as someone who was not going to go along with those objectives, they had to destroy him, or try to destroy him.”

According to Johnson, the FBI and the CIA will not be able to engage in the kind of corrupt acts in 2024 that they did for 2020 and 2016; at least not to the same degree. The newly-released report exposes “everything that they said that Donald Trump was doing with respect to Russia was a complete and utter fabrication,” the CIA veteran underscored.

“[The FBI and CIA] credibility has now certainly been called into question,” Johnson continued. “Just the fact that they can no longer be trusted, that the CIA was so prominently damaged by the admission that the 51 people who signed that letter claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, that they were making it up, that they were lying, so none of these people have the credibility now that will allow them to be taken seriously going forward.”

The years-long probe resulted in the conviction of just one FBI operative, Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted to doctoring an email to state that Trump aide Carter Page had never been a CIA asset, despite the evidence to the contrary. However, it’s unlikely that James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and a whole host of FBI personnel allegedly responsible for violations of the bureau’s rules and politically-motivated persecution of Team Trump would ever be brought to justice, according to the CIA veteran.

“The way to understand this, their motive in doing this in 2016, was they fully expected Hillary Clinton to be the president,” Johnson said. “And they felt that if they made any attempts to investigate and prosecute her, that she would punish them. So, therefore, they dropped that investigation and then fabricated the warning against Donald Trump in order to distract, to take away all attention from the substantive allegations against Hillary Clinton. (…) I think there are certainly grounds for a civil lawsuit by Donald Trump and others who are injured, damaged by these lies. Unfortunately, it does not look like the Department of Justice will undertake any prosecutions of these people. So that said, this complete exposure of their corruption, I think, does make it more difficult for them to be as active in 2024.”

May 17, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Japan to open NATO liaison office in new provocation against China and Russia

By Ahmed Adel | May 15, 2023

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi announced that his country is considering opening a NATO liaison office, demonstrating that Tokyo is deepening its ties with the US and becoming more hostile to China and Russia. Tokyo’s rapprochement with NATO would strengthen the anti-China/Russia alliance and advance the US plans to create a NATO-styled organisation in the Far East.

“We are already in discussions, but no details (have been) finalised yet,” Hayashi said on May 10.

He specifically referenced Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine as something with repercussions far beyond Europe’s borders that made Japan rethink regional security.

“The reason why we are discussing about this is that since the aggression by Russia to Ukraine, the world (has) become more unstable,” he claimed. “Something happening in East Europe is not only confined to the issue in East Europe, and that affects directly the situation here in the Pacific. That’s why a cooperation between us in East Asia and NATO (is) becoming … increasingly important.”

However, the foreign minister failed to explain how events in Ukraine affect those in East Asia. Rather, Hayashi is using this as a weak justification for why Japan is militarising, which directly relates to Tokyo’s claims against sovereign seas and territories belonging to China and Russia.

The opening of a NATO office in Japan does not mean that the country will join the Alliance, but it does open a path for Japan to become a member of an expanded AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-United States). This, in turn, will require Tokyo to strengthen its contacts with NATO.

It is recalled that NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, went to Japan and South Korea in January 2023 to lay the groundwork for strengthened ties. This is one of the reasons why Tokyo is already involved in conflicts that are not directly related to the region, despite some of the mental gymnastics it procures to create a justification.

The Japanese government is also providing $5.5 billion in aid to Ukraine, which can be seen as a step forward for the country to join AUKUS and confirms Tokyo’s intentions to strengthen its relationship with NATO. However, NATO will not officially expand to include Japan because members of the Alliance, such as Hungary, do not always align their position for the sake of serving US interests.

At the same time, France, at least in rhetoric, is seeking a degree of autonomy from the US. French President Emmanuel Macron said on April 9 that Europe needs to limit its dependence on the US.

In this way, the expansion of NATO to Asia is not likely since this initiative could lead to a further weakening of unity within the military alliance. The Americans are aware of this, and for this reason, they are working on a separate Eastern bloc to strengthen relations between NATO and Japan, most likely through the AUKUS format.

Suppose the AUKUS bloc includes Japan and intends to become the equivalent of NATO in Asia, with which the Western military alliance will cooperate closely; it would be a significant step in pressuring China and Russia since Japan’s technological and military potential exceeds that of many European countries.

It must be borne in mind that Tokyo’s rapprochement with NATO would reinforce the anti-Chinese/Russian ideology prevailing in the West. However, Tokyo’s actions come at a time when many countries in Asia and even some in Europe do not fully agree with this course of action.

The opening of the NATO office in Japan clearly indicates that the US plans to create a so-called “NATO of the Far East” and is making concrete steps towards this goal.

It cannot be overlooked that Japan’s reestablishment of overly friendly relations with South Korea attests to these plans, mainly as they have unexpectedly gone to a new qualitative level in a single leap. The President of South Korea has already visited Japan, and there are plans for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to visit South Korea soon, as well as their impending G7 summit meeting in Hiroshima. This has occurred in recent times despite Tokyo and Seoul being embroiled for many years in mutual accusations on various historical occasions.

The leaders of both East Asian countries now hold a distinctly pro-American stance. If the opening of a NATO liaison office in Tokyo is successful, it can be expected that one will open in Seoul too, especially since the country’s leadership has taken on a provocative position against Beijing and Moscow, including the drawing of red lines concerning the war in Ukraine.

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

May 15, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Russia issues warning over Arctic Council

RT | May 14, 2023

Russia could terminate its membership in the Arctic Council if Western member states discriminate against it, the country’s Foreign Ministry has warned. Nikolay Korchunov, ambassador-at-large and Moscow’s senior representative in the organization, noted that the group’s role and effectiveness have diminished of late due to the policies being pursued by the Western powers.

In an interview with Russia’s TASS media outlet published on Sunday, Korchunov said that should Norway, which became the Council’s chair on Thursday, choose not to invite Russia to take part in its activities, this would constitute a violation of Russia’s rights.

“In this case, the continuation of our country’s participation in this organization’s activities will hardly be possible,” the diplomat clarified.

Following the start of Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine last February, the other members of the intergovernmental body, which includes Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and the US, effectively cut all contact with Moscow and froze over a hundred joint projects.

In his interview, Korchunov warned that Western countries’ growing insistence on confrontation and the pursuit of their own interests at the expense of the interests of other nations in the Arctic could potentially lead to escalation.

He cited NATO’s “expansion” in the region, which has seen ever more military drills held there recently.

The official also noted the Council’s weakening role and waning effectiveness, adding that Russia is engaging “in active dialogue in various formats with other countries and organizations.” Korchunov pointed out that Moscow would be working with constructive partners.

He also revealed Moscow’s plans to put Arctic issues on the agenda of other international entities, citing interest among members of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Among Russia’s priorities in the region is the development of the northern shipping routes connecting Asian economic powerhouses with European markets, Korchunov stressed.

Speaking to RT in early April, Russia’s minister responsible for developing the Arctic, Aleksey Chekunkov lamented that “one-sided unfriendly actions” by the other members of the Arctic Council and lack of cooperation could “destabilize the Arctic” and lead to chaos.

May 14, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Erdogan scolds rival over ‘Russian interference’ claim

RT | May 12, 2023

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu for claiming without evidence that Moscow is interfering in Türkiye’s upcoming elections. Erdogan claimed that the West, and not Russia, is “manipulating the elections in Türkiye.”

“[Kilicdaroglu said that] Russia is manipulating the elections in Türkiye. Shame on you!” Erdogan told a crowd of supporters in Istanbul on Friday.

In a Twitter post a day earlier, Kilicdaroglu accused the country’s “Russian friends” of being “behind the montages, conspiracies, deep fakes and tapes that were exposed in this country yesterday.”

“Get your hands off the Turkish state,” Kilicdaroglu warned the supposed Russian meddlers.

Kilicdaroglu was likely referring to the publication of a video showing another presidential candidate, Muharrem Ince, allegedly engaging in an extramarital affair. Ince dropped out of the race on Thursday, blaming followers of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose political movement Ankara claims orchestrated a failed coup in 2016.

There is zero evidence linking Russia with the publication or production of the tape, and the Kremlin said that it “firmly rejects” Kilicdaroglu’s claims.

“If I say ‘America is manipulating the elections in Türkiye, Germany is manipulating it, France is manipulating it, England is manipulating it’, what would you say?” Erdogan continued, addressing his remarks to Kilicdaroglu.

While Erdogan did not attempt to tie the leak of Ince’s sex tape with any of the Western countries he mentioned, his interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, did. “It is clear who produced it,” he told CNN Turk earlier on Friday. “The perpetrator is the Gulen movement and the US.”

Soylu claimed that “America has been interfering in this election from the very beginning,” and produced the tape to force Ince out of the race and move his voters to Kilicdaroglu.

Erdogan did, however, accuse Western media outlets of trying to shift public opinion in Türkiye against him.

“What do all the magazines say on their covers? ‘Erdogan must go.’ [Those published] in Germany, France and England say so,” he said at Friday’s rally. “How do you put these words on the covers of these magazines? It’s not you, the West! It’s my nation that will decide!”

This week’s edition of The Economist features the slogans “Erdogan must go” and “save democracy” on its cover, while France’s Le Point and L’Express magazines also featured anti-Erdogan covers.

Türkiye’s presidential and parliamentary elections will take place on Sunday. Recent polling shows Erdogan – a social conservative who steered his country away from integration with the EU – and Kilicdaroglu – a centrist who favors realignment with the West – within single digits of each other.

May 12, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | | Leave a comment

America faces major hurdles trying to form ‘Asia-Pacific NATO’

By Drago Bosnic | May 11, 2023

While serving as the UK Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss pompously announced that so-called “Global NATO” was in the making, while also calling for the United Nations to be reformed to the political West’s liking (although quite the opposite is sorely needed). However, the ever-belligerent power pole seems to be having trouble forming even the “Asia-Pacific NATO”, let alone a global organization that would gather virtually all of Washington DC’s vassals and satellite states. The main issue seems to be stemming from the unresolved historical disputes of the Second World War and the way it affected the Asia-Pacific region.

It should be noted that attempts to create a NATO equivalent in the region are hardly new. The United States has been trying to accomplish this for decades during the (First) Cold War. However, the deals would usually fall apart faster than it took them to be signed by all parties involved. Such disunity greatly contributed to the humiliating defeat of US aggression in Vietnam/Indochina half a century ago. Nowadays, similar disunity is once again emerging among America’s East Asian satellite states, specifically between South Korea and Japan. The US insists that the two countries should set their differences aside and go for a historical push that would lead to complete reconciliation.

However, numerous Japanese war crimes during WWII (as well as in the decades prior) are deeply ingrained in the minds of the Korean people, on both sides of the 38th parallel. In fact, it’s one of the few things both Seoul and Pyongyang actually agree on, albeit tacitly. A recent South Korean court case was supposed to resolve the issue of several major Japanese companies using forced labor in Korea during WWII, but Tokyo was still left unscathed by the process, which angered many Koreans. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol dubbed the court decision “a step towards trilateral cooperation to defend freedom, peace and prosperity not only in our two countries, but also around the world”.

The “trilateral cooperation” he was referring to is between the US, Japan and South Korea. However, only a third of South Korean citizens support the deal, as they consider it didn’t truly address Japanese war crimes. Worse yet, this isn’t the first time such deals have fallen through. In 2015, a similar arrangement regarding the so-called “comfort women battalions”, another Japanese war crime that went largely unpunished, collapsed shortly after it was announced, as the vast majority of South Koreans rejected the deal. On the other hand, Japan considers this to be a “case closed”, further antagonizing the (rightfully) angered Korean people who suffered tremendously during decades of Japanese occupation.

To add insult to injury, South Korea is doing all this so it could firmly join an explicitly anti-Chinese coalition (and also implicitly anti-Russian), becoming the first country in the line to get quite literally obliterated in a possible superpower confrontation, as if the US inability to deal with North Korea wasn’t enough already. And while Seoul might feel “motivated” by incessant US pressure, the people of South Korea are wholly unmoved. They see China as an important trade partner, as well as a virtually endless market for South Korean pop culture. Thus, they have no interest in an open confrontation (or any other kind) with their giant neighbor. On the contrary, they prefer the current status quo.

The US is worried this could greatly weaken their ability to form a wider and more compliant anti-Chinese coalition. For years, Washington DC has been trying to enlist Beijing’s neighbors in a “freedom and democracy alliance”, the bulk of which would be composed of Japanese and South Korean forces. Precisely this is the reason why Tokyo started a massive rearmament program last year, while Seoul engaged its fast-growing domestic military-industrial complex to arm several key US vassals around the world (particularly Poland). However, the question remains, how ready this anti-Chinese/anti-Russian coalition would be to deal with powers that make North Korea’s nuclear program look like a footnote?

America’s usual warmongering doesn’t only bring instability to the region that enjoyed decades of relative peace, prosperity and economic cooperation, but it also risks leading to the complete fracturing of US-imposed alliances, which itself could backfire and cause Washington DC to lose influence in the region. Naturally, this would be fantastic for the advancement of actual peace, but it makes America’s foreign policy framework look completely self-defeating and even suicidal. Similar efforts have already led to such results, with the Quad (Japan, UK, US, India) effectively dead as New Delhi has outright rejected anti-Russian rhetoric. The only exception to this is the AUKUS (Australia, UK and US), but even this alliance has created issues with other US partners.

Apart from being virtually redundant, as the so-called Five Eyes (UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) covers its functions, AUKUS created a lot of controversies after Australia backed out of the extremely lucrative submarine deal with France and opted for an arrangement with its Anglo-American overlords. This didn’t only make Canberra look like an outright satellite state, but also made Paris deeply frustrated, which might have contributed to its (for now only apparent) tilt towards Beijing, the very superpower AUKUS is aimed against. Such dictatorial US moves are creating multilayered problems in other geopolitical theaters as America is effectively forcing others to prioritize its national interests over their own.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

US developed AI tool to battle ‘Russian disinformation’ – Blinken

RT | May 10, 2023

Washington has developed an artificial intelligence-based system to detect and gather ‘Russian’ disinformation online, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed on Tuesday at the Freedom House 2023 Annual Awards Ceremony.

The State Department has created “an AI-enabled online Ukraine Content Aggregator to collect verifiable Russian disinformation and then to share that with partners around the world,” the US top diplomat said.

The government is cooperating with scholars to be able to “reliably detect fake text generated by Russian chatbots,” he added.

Last year, social media analytics company Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory said hundreds of accounts disseminating pro-Western narratives over the past five were likely being run by the Pentagon’s Centcom unit. In March, news website The Intercept reported on federal contract documents, which suggest that the US Special Operations Command is planning to conduct propaganda and deception campaigns online using deepfake technology.

Last month, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the US of waging “an unprecedented information campaign” against Russia since the start of the conflict in Ukraine. Washington and its allies “need war at any cost, and their favorite method of solving their own problems is provocations, disinformation and threats,” Zakharova argued.

Speaking about artificial intelligence in general, Blinken warned that the technology can backfire and “amplify discrimination and enable abuses.”

“It also runs the risk of strengthening autocratic governments, including by enabling them to exploit social media even more effectively to manipulate their people and sow division among and within their adversaries,” he said.

Since the release of the artificial intelligence bot ChatGPT last November, the debate over the dangers posed by AI has intensified in the industry and in academic circles. Geoffrey Hinton, who is known as one of the ‘godfathers’ of AI, warned last week that the technology could present a “more urgent” threat than climate change.

In March, several tech industry leaders, including Elon Musk, co-signed an open letter, urging a six-month pause in the development of AI technology more powerful than ChatGPT, and the appointment of an independent regulator to provide oversight in the field.

May 10, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Bloomberg Wants The West To Punish African States Over Their Preferred Security Partners

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 8, 2023

Bloomberg’s demand for the West to punish African states over their preferred security partners is extremely condescending. Opinion columnist Bobby Ghosh published a piece about this over the weekend urging to “Make Russia’s Wagner Group a Pariah in Africa”, to which end he’s lobbying for the US and EU to designate it as a terrorist organization so that its clients there can then be sanctioned. This suggests that the West knows what’s better for African states’ security than their own governments do.

According to Ghosh, Wagner is only useful for “reinforc[ing] military rule” in “despot[ic]” states and “disproportionately targeting civilians” in its anti-terrorist operations. In exchange, it supposedly bleeds local partners dry by extracting their resources. He thus predicts that “The arrival of fresh legions of Wagner mercenaries in Africa will make it harder for the West to nudge military governments back toward democracy, and to prevent democratic governments from going in the other direction.”

The reality is altogether different as could have been expected considering how often Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets like Ghosh’s publish the exact opposite of the truth in pursuit of the West’s interests. “Russia’s Newfound Appeal To African Countries Is Actually Quite Easy To Explain” since it simply boils down to Wagner’s “Democratic Security” expertise. This refers to its counter-Hybrid Warfare tactics and strategies that ensure its partners’ sovereignty in the face of related threats from the West.

Its earlier success in the Central African Republic (CAR) inspired Mali’s revolutionary anti-imperialist government to follow in that nearby country’s footsteps. Just last week, neighboring Burkina Faso’s interim leader declared that his state is in a “strategic alliance” with Russia too despite denying that Wagner is on the ground helping the national forces fight terrorism. In all three cases, these Russian-friendly governments enjoy genuine grassroots support for striving to restore their sovereignty.

This means that Ghosh’s demand for the West to designate the CAR and Mali’s Wagner partners as terrorists in order to then punish them with sanctions is anti-democratic, as is the potential deterrent effect that this could have on that group’s cooperation with Burkina Faso and other countries. So long as any given security relationship doesn’t occur at the expense of a third party’s legitimate interests, then there shouldn’t be any pressure put upon either side for their ties with one another.

Wagner is always invited by African authorities to assist their armed forces and hasn’t ever intervened without their permission. Allegations of it committing war crimes are part of the US’ Hybrid War against that group, which was detailed at length by Politico a few days after Ghosh’s piece and analyzed here. Whether by coincidence or collusion, his article advances America’s information warfare interests, with its timing being extra curious since it in hindsight preconditions his audience to accept the US’ narratives.

Regardless of his speculative ties with its military-intelligence services, there’s no denying that the condescending way in which he addresses Africans is very offensive. It’s up to their countries as equal members of the international community to decide for themselves how best to ensure their security and who to partner with to that end, not any third parties like the US, let alone MSM figures like Ghosh. Meddling of the sort that Bloomberg just attempted only further discredits the West in Africans’ eyes.

May 8, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Odessa Massacre 9 Years On… West’s Shameful Silence

Strategic Culture Foundation | May 5, 2023

This week saw the ninth anniversary of a shocking massacre of 42 civilians in Odessa by Ukrainian fascists. Only weeks prior to that, the fascists’ political leaders had carried out a violent coup in Kiev.

The barbarity of the Odessa atrocity was unspeakable but emblematic of the NATO-backed fascist regime that seized power illegally in February 2014.

Significantly, and shamefully, the Western media and governments hardly mention that horror, or if they do, they tend to distort the incident and typically, yet baselessly, accuse Russia of disinformation.

On May 2, 2014, hundreds of protesters in Odessa against the fascist Kiev regime became embroiled in violent clashes with supporters of the regime. Thousands of far-right paramilitaries belonging to the NeoNazi Right Sector had been transported from the north to the southern port city of Odessa on the Black Sea under the guise of attending a football match.

Street battles ensued all day with cobblestones, Molotov cocktails and gunfire exchanged by both factions. By evening, the more numerous pro-regime crowds turned their focus on a tent encampment of anti-regime protesters near the Soviet-era Trade Unions building in the center of Odessa. The encampment was a peaceful gathering which included women and children. It had been set up for several weeks to demonstrate opposition to the Maidan events in Kiev.

The anti-regime protesters were opposed to the coup that had taken place in Kiev weeks earlier by the so-called EuroMaidan movement. On February 20, a gruesome sniper massacre in Kiev (later found to have been carried out by CIA-backed fascists) led to the overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych. The latter had maintained friendly relations with Russia which far-right Ukrainian factions abhorred. Yanukovych’s government was strongly supported by Ukrainians of ethnic Russian heritage mainly in the south and eastern parts of the country.

The fascist regime that came to power in Kiev in February 2014 and which prevails till this day – albeit with a president, Vladimir Zelensky, who is nominally of Jewish ancestry – was opposed from the outset by many Ukrainians. They viewed the new rulers as unelected and illegitimate. They were also fearful of the NeoNazi factions that openly glorified Ukrainian figures like Stepan Bandera who had collaborated with Nazi Germany during the Second World War in the mass murder of their own compatriots.

That is why the people of the Crimea peninsula voted in a referendum in March 2014 to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. In other parts of Ukraine, the southeast Donbass region also repudiated the Kiev regime and its “anti-Russian” hostility. In May, 2014, the Kiev regime proceeded to launch its so-called Anti-Terror Operation on the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Lugansk with the backing of then CIA chief John Brennan on a visit to the country. The U.S. vice president at the time was Joe Biden who served as Washington’s point man for the new regime. That aggression marked the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine which culminated in the present conflict with Russia, and the joining last year of the Donbass and neighboring regions with the Russian Federation.

This was the context in Ukraine in May, 2014. The country was in turmoil and splitting into ethnic and political divides. Cities like Odessa had strong historical and cultural connections with Russia. The city known as the Pearl on the Black Sea owing to its storied trading economy was founded in 1795 by Catherine the Great, the empress of Russia.

When the NATO-backed putschists seized power in Kiev in a bloody coup and began organizing Nazi-style torchlit processions, many ethnic Russian people in Ukraine and others were horrified. Odessa was one such city with a large Russian population. The city had suffered mass killings by Nazi Einsatzgruppen SS death squads and their local henchmen.

When the Kiev regime fascists targeted the protest camp in Odessa on the evening of May 2, some 300 of the protesters took refuge inside the Trade Unions building. The mob outside bombarded the historic building with incendiary devices setting it ablaze. The deliberate intention was to incinerate all those inside. The hatred shown by the Right Sector attackers towards the trapped victims was appalling. Several of the people in the building tried to escape the flames by jumping out of high-rise windows. As their bodies smashed the ground below, frenzied crowds clubbed them to death.

In all, 42 people were murdered in the Trade Unions building massacre. Not one attacker was ever prosecuted. The Kiev regime refused to carry out any adequate investigation.

However, the horror of that day was a turning point for many Ukrainians and Russians. It revealed the hideous nature of the regime that had seized power over the country and its vile fascist hostility toward Russia.

This is the regime that was brought to power by Washington and its NATO partners. Since 2014, it has been armed and built up to be a war machine to aggress Russia and obliterate all cultural connections with Russia.

The massacre in Odessa should be remembered for the sake of the victims that day. But also remembered because it helps explain the background of how the present U.S.-led NATO proxy conflict in Ukraine with Russia has come about.

For that reason, Western news media and their governments chose to studiously ignore the Odessa massacre. Their shameful silence is necessary in order to conceal the criminal complicity of the West in Ukraine’s deadly turmoil.

May 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The Galician genocide: How Russian identity was wiped out in what is now Western Ukraine

By Dmitry Plotnikov | RT | March 15, 2023

Galicia, a historical region in the West of Ukraine, is currently the center of the country’s nationalist movement. However, things were once very different. A little over a hundred years ago, representatives of opposing Russophile and pro-Ukrainian political movements competed for the loyalty of the local Ruthenian population, also known as Rusyns. Galicia’s Russophiles welcomed the beginning of the First World War as a step toward an anticipated reunion with Russia. However the Ukrainian movement remained loyal to Austria-Hungary. With the help of the latter, Vienna killed off the Rusyn intelligentsia, which it considered a “fifth column”. To accomplish this, the Hapsburgs set up concentration camps.

What happened next amounted to a genocide.

Ukraine’s most nationalist region was once a hotbed of pro-Russian sentiment – how and why did it change?

The beginning of the tragedy  

By the start of the First World War, the Russophile movement in Galicia was experiencing tough times. As a result of the “divide and rule” policy implemented by the Austrians, the movement suffered a split. The oldest and most respected organizations ended up in the hands of pro-Austrian leaders who advocated Ukrainian, not Rusyn, identity.

After the army of the Russian Empire crossed the border on August 18, 1914, and launched an offensive in Galicia, mass repressions swept through the region. People fell victim to the rage of the Austrian authorities over trifling matters – like possessing Russian literature, being a member of a Russian society, having a Russian education, or just sympathizing with Saint Petersburg. In some cases, people were arrested just for calling themselves Russians. Prisons were full of “enemies of the state” and “dangerous Moscow agents”, and the streets were lined with gallows.

“Those suspected of ‘Russophilia’ were hung on these trees in front of the windows. People were hung right on the trees. They would hang there for a day, then would be taken off and others would take their place… ” recounted one of the peasants in the Gorodetsky district. The repressions primarily affected the intelligentsia and Orthodox priests, most of whom completed spiritual studies in the Russian Empire.

RT

Austro-Hungarian servicemen pose against the background of three hanged men executed on August 30, 1914 in Mukachevo. ©  Wikipedia

Repressions against the intelligentsia were followed by those against the general public. Anyone who was thought to sympathize with Russia or Russian culture became a suspect. This included people who had once visited Russia, read Russian newspapers, or were just known as “Russophiles.” Military courts worked around the clock and a simplified procedure of legal proceedings was introduced for cases of suspected treason.

Members of Galicia’s Rusyn movement who chose the “Ukrainian way” actively participated in the repressions. Pro-Austrian politicians prepared lists of “unreliable” suspects and based on mere accusations, and arrested anyone who sympathized with Russia. As Russophile public figure Ilya Terekh described, “At the beginning of the war, the Austrian authorities arrested almost the entire Russian intelligentsia of Galicia and thousands of peasants, based on the lists handed over to the administrative and military authorities by the Ukrainophiles.”

“People who recognized themselves as Russian or simply had a Russian name were seized indiscriminately.

Anyone who possessed a Russian newspaper, book, sacred image, or even a postcard from Russia was grabbed, abused, and taken away. And then, there were gallows and executions without end – thousands of innocent victims, seas of martyr blood and orphan tears,” said another Russophile, Julian Yavorsky.

RT

Talerhof in 1917, the place where the camp executions were carried out. ©  Wikipedia

In October 1914, the Russian writer Mikhail Prishvin, who served as a medical assistant at the front, wrote in his diary: “When I got to Galicia … I felt and saw the living images of the times of the Inquisition.” Prishvin described the feelings of the Galician Rusyns toward Russia as follows: “Galicians dream of a great, pure, and beautiful Russia. A seventeen-year-old schoolboy walked with me around Lvov [now Lviv, then Lemberg] and spoke Russian without an accent. He told me about the persecution of the Russian language. Students were not even allowed to have a map of Russia, and before the war he was forced to burn books by Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky.”

As casualties mount, why there’s a growing backlash against the methods used to conscript Ukrainian men for war

Hell on earth

The prisons of Galicia were not big enough to accommodate all the repressed.  On August 28, 1914, there were two thousand prisoners in Lviv alone. It was then that the Austrian authorities decided to establish concentration camps. In September 1914, the huge Thalerhof place of incarceration was set up in Styria. The first prisoners were delivered on September 4. According to the testimony of one of the survivors, priest Theodor Merena, prisoners were “people of different class and age”. They included clergy, lawyers, doctors, teachers, officials, peasants, writers, and students. The age of the prisoners ranged from infants to 100-year-olds.

Occasionally, Ukrainian activists who were loyal to the Austrian regime were accidentally placed into Thalerhof. Most of them were removed quickly. One later recalled that all prisoners had a chance to escape by giving up their Russian name and registering as “Ukrainians” in the “Ukrainian list.” 

Up to the winter of 1915, there were no barracks in Thalerhof. People slept on the ground in the open air despite the rain and frost. The camp’s sanitary conditions were awful. The latrines were uncovered and used by twenty people at a time. When the barracks were built, they were overcrowded, housing 500 people instead of the intended 200. The prisoners slept on straw beds which were rarely replaced. Naturally, epidemics were widespread. In just two months following November 1914, over three thousand prisoners died of typhus.

“In Thalerhof, death rarely came naturally – it was injected through the poison of infectious diseases. Violent death was commonplace in Thalerhof.

There was no question of any treatment of the sick. Even doctors were hostile toward the prisoners,” wrote imprisoned Rusyn writer Vasily Vavrik.

The prisoners weren’t provided with any adequate medical care. In the beginning, Thalerhof didn’t even have a hospital. People died on the damp ground. However, when the hospital barracks were finally built, the doctors gave almost no medicine to the patients.

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Talerhof. Cemetery “under the pines” in 1917. ©  Wikipedia

To instill fear, prison authorities constructed poles throughout the camp and regularly hung “violators” on these poles. The violation could be a mere trifle, like catching someone smoking in the barrack at night. Iron shackles were also used as punishment, even on women. Moreover, the camp was supplied with barbed wire, observation towers with sentries, barking dogs, posters with slogans, propaganda, torture facilities, a moat for executions, gallows, and a cemetery.

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The camp operated for nearly three years and was closed down in May 1917 on the order of Charles I of Austria. The barracks stood on the site until 1936, when they were finally demolished. 1,767 corpses were then exhumed and reburied in a common grave in the nearby village of Feldkirchen.

The exact number of victims in Thalerhof is still disputed. The official report by Field Marshal Schleer dated November 9, 1914, stated that 5,700 Russophiles were imprisoned there at the time. According to one of the survivors, in the autumn of the same year there were about 8,000 prisoners. Twenty to thirty thousand Russian Galicians and Bukovinians passed through Thalerhof in total. In the first year and a half alone, about 3,000 prisoners died. According to other sources, 3,800 people were executed in the first half of 1915. Overall, in the course of the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian authorities killed at least 60,000 Rusyns.

Remembering the forgotten

In the period between the two world wars, the former prisoners strived to preserve the memory of the tragedy that affected Galicia’s Ruthenians and to perpetuate the memory of the victims of Thalerhof. The first monument was erected in 1934, and soon similar memorials appeared in other parts of the region. In the years 1924-1932, the Thalerhof Almanac was published.  It provided documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts of the genocide. In 1928 and 1934, Thalerhof congresses, which gathered over 15 thousand participants, were held in Lviv.

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The procession of the participants of the Talerhof Congress on the occasion of the opening of the monument to the victims of Talerhof, 1934. ©  Wikipedia

Galicia became part of the USSR in 1939. Even before Soviet times, there was an unspoken ban on the topic Thalerhof, because the very fact of Russian existence in Galicia was seen as an impediment to Ukrainization, which was actively cultivated in Western Ukraine following World War Two. After Galicia and Volhynia became part of the USSR, most Russophile organizations in Lviv were closed. However, memorial services by the monuments continued. As the eyewitnesses and contemporaries of the events grew older and died, a new generation of Galicians was brought up in the spirit of atheism and took on a Ukrainian national identity. As a result, fewer and fewer people came to the memorials.

In modern Ukraine, the Rusyn genocide isn’t publicly discussed. Thalerhof is not mentioned in any school textbooks on the history of the country. The idea that Russians once lived in Galicia – the proud center of “Ukrainian culture” – does not fit the nationalistic ideology of contemporary Ukraine. Most young people have never even heard of Thalerhof.

The tragedy marked the end of the Russophile movement in Galicia. All those who did not submit and did not take on a Ukrainian identity were physically annihilated. Just a few years after the tragic events, public views changed. The region came under the influence of other movements and politicians. When Austria-Hungary fell apart after the First World War, Galicia turned into a powerful center of the Ukrainian nationalist movement.

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Bird’s-eye view of the Talerhof concentration camp. ©  Wikipedia

Dmitry Plotnikov is a political journalist exploring the history and current events of ex-Soviet states.

May 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Who Stole the 2020 US Presidential Election?

Antony Blinken and others have much to answer for

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MAY 2, 2023

The corruption engaged in by the Democratic Party leadership appears to be never-ending and no one is ever held accountable. A recent report described how Michael Morell, the former acting Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, colluded with Antony Blinken, who was then a senior official in the 2020 Joe Biden presidential campaign, to prepare and find signatories to a letter to discredit those seeking to exploit the emerging Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which was threatening to do real damage to the Biden electoral prospects. Following in the footsteps of the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign, which sought to use fabricated information from the Steele dossier to smear Donald Trump and some of his advisors, Blinken suggested that Morell promote the argument that the laptop story involved Russia and should be dismissed as little more than a disinformation operation ordered by President Vladimir Putin. At the time, there was no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Russia had had anything to do with spreading fabricated information regarding Hunter Biden or his laptop, but that was regarded as immaterial.

The conspiracy to use a false narrative to corruptly influence the outcome of the election, for that is what it was, was recently revealed in testimony by Morell to the House Judiciary Committee, led by Republican Representative Jim Jordan. Morell described how he had been instrumental in convincing 50 other former colleagues in the intelligence and national security community to sign on to the letter that he had drafted. Morell told the committee that Blinken acting for the Biden campaign helped to strategize about the timing and distribution for the public release of the letter and he described how his two objectives in drafting and releasing the statement was “to help then-Vice President Biden in the upcoming presidential debate and assist him in winning the election.”

Presumably Morell, known for his ambition and ruthlessness, may have expected Biden to appoint him head of the CIA when it came time to hand out rewards after the election was over. Concerning his own political ambitions and inclinations, one recalls how in 2016 Morell wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that was picked up nationally which headlined “I ran the CIA: now I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton.”

By virtue of exploiting his own top level connections inside the Agency, five of Morell’s letter’s signatories were former Directors of the CIA. The letter included the assertion by the signatories that they were “deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case… If we are right this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.” It concluded that the laptop allegations exhibited “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

After the letter was prepared, Blinken advised Morell on its most advantageous timing, selecting a date close to the election so it would have maximum impact. The laptop story itself had appeared in the New York Post on October 14th, revealing emails demonstrating how the Vice President Joe Biden appeared to have pressured Ukrainian officials into firing a prosecutor who was investigating corruption in the energy company Burisma. Joe met with a top company official, which led to the granting of a sinecure position on the Burisma board to his influence peddling son Hunter, which paid him $50,000 per month. Material also included on the laptop revealed Hunter’s moral turpitude and drug use.

The Morell rebuttal appeared in Politico five days later, two weeks before the election, on October 19th, and was picked up by the mainstream media all over the United States. Joe Biden also used the material in his debate with Trump on October 22nd, accusing Moscow of targeting his son in an elaborate propaganda operation, claiming that the laptop story was “garbage” and part of a “Russian plan.” Biden referred to the many signatures on the intelligence community letter to declare that “nobody believes” that the laptop is real. And the denial did have a genuine impact on the campaign. After the Morell letter appeared, nearly all major social and news media platforms that had allowed linking to or discussion of the Hunter laptop story either censored the material completely or limited access to it while also posting warnings that the tale had been debunked by knowledgeable experts. Also to be considered is how the Blinken-Morell letter fueled the false perception that Russia and Putin were supporting Trump through clandestine and underhanded means.

Investigative journalist Jim Bovard, writing in the New York Post, reports ironically how Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the closing speech at last month’s Summit for Democracy “piously proclaimed” that “As President Biden has said, democracy doesn’t happen by accident. ‘It requires constant effort.’” And shortly after he became Secretary of State, Blinken had had the nerve to claim that the US government doesn’t sweep problems “under the rug… We deal with them in the daylight, with full transparency.” Indeed, Blinken may have been rewarded by Biden with his cabinet position after his successful plausibly illegal intervention. Also apparently rewarded was a signatory on the Morell letter – Avril Haines who is now Director of National Intelligence.

To be sure, the “honorable” Secretary of State Antony Blinken should now be instead offering his resignation over the exposure of his blatant and possibly successful attempt to change the outcome of an election by conspiring to corrupt the electoral process with false information to sway voters. Bovard opines how the Morell letter defused what had become “the biggest threat to the Biden presidential campaign … Polls show that Biden would have lost the election if the media had accurately reported the contents of that laptop.”

And there’s more to the Hunter Biden story and the corrupt hand of government. An IRS employee has recently turned whistleblower and stated that his Agency has been moving sluggishly on an investigation of Hunter regarding tax evasion relating to foreign income derived largely from Ukraine and China. And he claims that another senior Biden appointed official is involved in the politically motivated foot dragging. No less than Attorney General Merrick Garland has been identified as the unnamed senior official whose sworn testimony to a congressional committee is being challenged in a letter from the whistleblower’s attorney alleging a cover-up of the Hunter Biden criminal investigation. Attorney Mark Lytle wrote that the longtime IRS employee would like to provide information to congressional leaders to “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee” — now identified as Garland — and also to provide details of claimed “preferential treatment” in the criminal probe of Hunter.

One more tale just might illustrate where this country is going under Joe Biden and company, where party and personal interests are all that matter to a leadership which regards “integrity” as a dirty word. In fact, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech or writing that in any way challenges its power, exposes its corruption, reveals its lies, and encourages the citizenry to resist government overreach. The Biden Administration has recently indicted four Americans and charged them with conspiracy to spread Russian propaganda and acting as unregistered Russian agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938. The four are members of the African People’s Socialist Party, which has criticized and opposed US foreign policy since 1971 and currently is against Washington’s promotion of the war against Russia in Ukraine. They potentially face 15 years in prison. This exploitation of quite plausibly unconstitutional “lawfare” is nothing new, as in my own experience the Justice (sic) Department has been moving to silence Americans who write for Russian news sites by threatening them with huge fines or even imprisonment. It is a tendency that is unfortunately not unique to any particular presidential administration which has been building since 9/11, though it has become far worse under Joe Biden and Merrick Garland. In no cases that I know of have any of those pressured or accused actually been receiving direction or secret benefits from the Russian government.

That all means that the definition of illegal speech or writing has been considerably broadened of late. The Biden Administration has been actively waging a campaign to eradicate what it chooses to call “disinformation,” to include those who allegedly share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” with terrorists. It is, in fact, the United States government that is the world’s largest purveyor of disinformation, to include adopting the Israeli practice of defining anyone who resists US hegemony as a terrorist. For example, that is how the Justice Department labels white so-called supremacists as “domestic terrorists.”

And, of course, the government is being assisted and protected due to the fact that nearly all the negative stories about Biden and his crew have predictably been suppressed by the mainstream media, which has become a de facto a partner of the White House disinformation program. Consider, for example, the Seymour Hersh revelations about the hideous “act of war” Nord Stream pipeline destruction and the corruption in Ukraine, or the revelation of disinformation regarding the war in Ukraine itself exposed by leaker Jack Teixeira, or the biolabs in Ukraine, or the incessant lies denigrating Russia and its leadership. And where does one go to for any legitimate criticism of the reckless White House driven direct engagement in Ukraine that could go nuclear even though it is in support of no real national interest? Or the thoughtless threatening of China over Taiwan? And how about the State Department using overseas Embassies to promote “woke-ism” rather than protecting American travelers and interests? All these stories are targeted and diminished deliberately, gone or going, never to be seen again.

So it should surprise no one that the White House and media are right now trying to kill the exposure of how Blinken and Morell turned around the story of the Hunter laptop because that would confirm suspicions that Joe Biden may have actually stolen the 2020 election. And the back story is that the fabricated material planted by the Clinton and Biden campaigns in 2016 and 2020 only succeeded because of the media’s surrender of its traditional role as an exposer of government crimes and evasions. The phony Morell intelligence letter and its possible consequences is a scandal of huge proportions that would once upon a time have ended in resignations, impeachment, and plenty of jail time for all of those involved but Michael Morell and Antony Blinken have not even been touched or even interviewed by the FBI. Nor have the other fifty national security puppets who signed off onto claims made in a document that they must have known to be fabricated for political reasons experienced any discomfort. They have no shame and are all disgraces to the oath of loyalty to the Constitution that they once swore. And the real danger is that if the clueless government and media continue to be able to bury stories they do not approve of, the United States will cease to be a functioning democracy and every election will be little more than a farce.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

May 2, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Is the US about to conduct a nuclear false flag in Ukraine and blame Russia for it?

By Drago Bosnic | May 2, 2023

The United States is the only country in history to have used all three types of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological, chemical), starting with the atomic bombings of Japan in the closing months of the Second World War to mass usage of chemical and biological weapons against numerous other countries it has attacked ever since (particularly Vietnam). And yet, the belligerent thalassocracy just adores chest-thumping about its supposed “morality” and even “warns” that its geopolitical adversaries are about to use such weapons (naturally, without ever providing any evidence). This is precisely what’s been happening in Ukraine in recent weeks.

On April 28, one of the most prominent neoliberal mouthpieces, the New York Times, ran a story about America setting up numerous radiation sensors across Ukraine in order to detect nuclear blasts. The NYT claims that “such sensors can detect‌‌ bursts of radiation from a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb and can confirm the identity of the attacker”. It adds that “the goal is to make sure that if Russia detonates a radioactive weapon on Ukrainian soil, its atomic signature and Moscow’s culpability could be verified”, further claiming that “…experts have worried about whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would use nuclear arms in combat for the first time since the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945″.

Firstly, it should be noted that Russia has a very clear doctrine about the usage of WMDs in an armed conflict, one that has even been updated recently and that states in what sort of situations Moscow would use such weapons. The Ukrainian conflict is still nowhere near a point where Russian WMDs could be used. Secondly, the Russian military dominates the battlefield, inflicting enormous losses on the Kiev regime forces. Even in the case of the much-touted offensive against newly integrated Russian regions in the Donbass and former southern Ukraine, Russia wouldn’t use nuclear weapons. However, the NYT claims precisely that is the case, supposedly because Russia is “desperate” to stop the attack.

Expectedly, “experts” the NYT allegedly spoke to are anonymous and they claim that the goal is to “prevent Russia from conducting a possible dirty bomb false flag in Ukraine”. The operation is officially run by the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST), part of the Nation Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Interestingly, the NYT notes, citing a 2009 book “Defusing Armageddon” by Jeffrey T. Richelson, that “the NEST often teamed up with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), an elite military unit so secretive that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence”. It should be noted that JSOC is being used to conduct covert operations of all kinds across the world, including false flags.

So, according to these so-called “experts”, we are supposed to believe that US agencies and military units involved in actual false flag operations around the globe will prevent an alleged “Russian false flag” and not use the opportunity to conduct yet another covert op to fake such an event and then blame Russia for it? The NYT itself claims that “Moscow could falsely claim that Kyiv set off a nuclear blast on the battlefield to try to draw the West into deeper war assistance” and that “…in theory, with the sensor network in place, Washington would be able to point to its own nuclear attribution analyses to reveal that Moscow was in fact the attacker”.

The NYT then parrots the usual about Russia’s supposed “battlefield failures” that are “making Mr. Putin, if anything, more dependent on his nuclear arsenal” and how this “could increase his willingness to pull the nuclear trigger”. Even though such claims are laughable to anyone familiar with the actual situation on the battlefield, in the minds of rabid Russophobes this makes “perfect sense”. In addition, recent weeks have seen a dramatic surge in the Kiev regime’s attacks on civilians not only in the Donbass and other newly integrated Russian regions, but also in areas such as Bryansk and Belgorod oblasts (regions), with dozens of civilian casualties.

All this would be used to push the narrative that Russia could indeed be the alleged culprit behind a dirty bomb false flag. On the other hand, back in October last year, when Moscow warned that the Kiev regime might use a dirty bomb and then blame Russia for it, the political West rejected it all as a “conspiracy theory”. According to their “logic”, it’s only Russia that could do such a thing, because the Neo-Nazi junta, as a “true beacon of freedom and democracy”, certainly has the “moral high ground”. Additionally, the mainstream propaganda machine usually claims that the Kiev regime doesn’t have the capacity to create dirty bombs, so it allegedly couldn’t do it even if it wanted to.

However, recent reports about “sensitive US nuclear technologies” in (former) Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs) show such claims are patently false. Russia controls one of such NPPs, but still hasn’t disclosed what sort of covert US support the Neo-Nazi junta got. Washington DC itself has “demanded” Moscow to return these “sensitive US nuclear technologies”, meaning they are worried about what might be revealed to the world. It’s not unlikely Russia is keeping the evidence secret for the time being as a possible deterrent to US and Kiev regime’s plan on detonating such a device and then blaming Moscow, which could simply reveal the evidence in case a dirty bomb is used.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

May 2, 2023 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Poland Wants To Provoke Russia Into Being The First To Formally Cut Off Bilateral Relations

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 29, 2023

Poland’s ruling “Law & Justice” (PiS) party is hellbent on provoking Russia into being the first to formally cut off bilateral relations as proven by Warsaw’s earlier seizing of its embassy’s bank account on ridiculous “anti-terrorist” pretexts and Saturday’s police raid against an embassy-run school in the capital. The Kremlin is therefore under immense pressure to respond to these developments, though it’s unclear at the time of this analysis’ publication whether it’ll do what Poland expects.

The purpose behind provoking Russia into this course of action is threefold: 1) PiS hopes to manipulate and subsequently exploit optics of this scandal in order to cultivate more support ahead of this fall’s elections; 2) Poland then plans to pressure the rest of the EU to formally cut off ties with Russia “out of solidarity”; and finally, 3) Warsaw wants to present itself to Washington as its most reliable anti-Russian ally. Each of these interconnected goals will now be briefly expanded upon.

Regarding the first, PiS fears that genuinely conservative-patriotic forces will flock to the anti-establishment Confederation party as an act of protest against the ruling one’s support for mass immigration from Ukraine over the past year. That could compel it to enter into a coalition government after this fall’s elections, which might reduce the intensity of Poland’s anti-Russian policies. Accordingly, they hope to exploit voters’ Russophobia to scare them into supporting the incumbents no matter what.

As for the second, Germany and Poland are fiercely competing for leadership over Central & Eastern Europe (CEE), but Warsaw has an edge when it comes to winning hearts and minds since it’s always one step ahead of Berlin in appealing to the region’s Russophobia. If Poland can successfully pressure Germany to follow its lead in formally cutting off ties with Russia if the latter is coerced into cutting them off first after this weekend’s incident, then it would be a major soft power victory.

Concerning the third, Poland’s envisaged restoration of its former “sphere of influence” is dependent on the US’ support, which can only be assured if it convinces American policymakers that their successfully reasserted hegemony over the EU is symbiotically dependent on these plans. To that end, Warsaw must show Washington that it’s more capable of leading the latter’s anti-Russian crusade in the EU during the New Cold War than Berlin is, hence the importance of provoking crises and getting Germany to follow.

These goals are all interconnected since the abovementioned grand strategy is purely PiS’ own creation. It therefore naturally follows that their potential loss of power after this fall’s elections – whether in whole if it’s replaced by the German-backed “Civic Platform” (PO) opposition or in part via a coalition with Confederation – could impede its regional plans and thus also the US’ to an extent as well. That’s why the latest diplomatic crisis with Russia was cooked up in order to help PiS stay in power.

Everything else proceeds from that scenario since their continued leadership of Poland would keep Warsaw in the race with Berlin for hearts and minds across CEE, thus giving Washington the option of choosing between them (or even cynically playing those two against each other) as its top EU partner. PiS’ potential removal from this geopolitical calculation in the event that voters punish it at the polls this fall could therefore have far-reaching consequences for the region and even for the New Cold War.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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