The European Parliament’s insistence that Serbia censor RT Balkans and Sputnik in order to “harmonize” with the EU is absurd, evil, and a manifestation of imperialism and colonialism, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed.
On Wednesday, the parliament’s foreign affairs committee adopted the report by Slovakian MEP Vladimir Bilcik, criticizing Serbia for not joining the EU sanctions against Russia and demanding Belgrade shut down Russian “disinformation” outlets just as the bloc has done. The US State Department has also called for a ban on RT Balkans.
“It’s an absurd situation,” Zakharova told reporters at the daily briefing in Moscow on Thursday. “These statements speak for themselves. The West isn’t even hiding, but saying the quiet part out loud.”
The US and the EU are now openly saying that Russia, Russian culture and language, or Russian media and journalists, simply shouldn’t exist, Zakharova noted. She compared the European Parliament’s demands to calls by Ukrainian officials to “exterminate” the Russian population in Crimea and Donbass, saying they can only be described as “evil.”
“The only possible thing to say is that this is an imperialist point of view, a manifestation of neo-colonialism. Some countries, without any moral grounds, illegally arrogate to themselves the right to model the world and its development at their own discretion: who can live, speak, trade, produce, have children, and who cannot,” Zakharova told reporters. “This is a modern version of slavery, in which the colonial powers claim the right to be considered masters, and others – their slaves.”
“Those who like these rules of the game have the right to play by them. We don’t. This is what we rebelled against.”
The US and its allies, Zakharova argued, want Russia to have no opportunity to speak, because the very existence of Russian media threatens the Western plans for narrative manipulation.
“Our media, journalists and outlets report from the epicenters of world events, based on facts, encourage people to critically evaluate reality (as they should),” the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said. “Apparently, this goes against the plans that the American rulers have to ‘zombify’ their own population.”
American television, Zakharova noted, presents a “a one-sided, practically sterilized, filtered and adjusted picture of the world,” having reached an “ideological dead end.” Any airing of alternative viewpoints threatens to expose this media ecosystem as biased and contradictory.
RT Balkans began operations in November 2022. The EU reportedly plans to blacklist the outlet as part of its 11th package of sanctions against Russia. The bloc had banned all broadcasting activities by RT and Sputnik in March 2022, calling them “Russian propaganda” that endangered Ukraine. Major social media platforms have blocked RT accounts in the bloc, while YouTube extended the ban globally.
April 28, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | European Union, Human rights, Serbia, United States |
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Vice President of the European Commission, Věra Jourová, said that she is “more and more uncomfortable on Twitter” because of what she said was the rise in Russian propaganda.
She added that Twitter was likely going to violate the upcoming censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), once enforcement begins later this year, because of the “unregulated Russian aggressive propaganda”
The DSA requires platforms to remove “harmful” content or risk heavy fines.
Jourová said that the employees who were fired when Elon Musk took over last October meant staff responsible for content moderation were fired.
“We were already disappointed by the data they delivered in January and of course, we are also watching what they are doing with the capacities left,” Jourová told reporters on Wednesday.
Earlier, she tweeted that she felt “Twitter is falling short of its commitments to the anti-disinformation code,” a currently voluntary rulebook for online platforms that will become a firm benchmark when the DSA comes into force.
“I would compare the situation with driving on the highway.
“You drive on the highway and overstepping that speed, you get a penalty, and one day you might be deprived of your driving license.”
She insisted that platforms should, “intensify their work against Russian propaganda.”
“There is still space for dialog. And I would really do wish to explain to Mr. Musk our philosophy that we are protectors of freedom of speech, protectors of freedom of expression… But freedom of speech in the EU is not unlimited.”
April 28, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | Digital Services Act, European Union, Human rights, Twitter |
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By Lucas Leiroz | April 28, 2023
The current crisis in Georgia has been news on media outlets around the world. However, few analysts have paid attention to the real reason why so much instability is being fomented in the country. Indeed, Tbilisi seems to be the new focus for western warmongers. NATO plans to bring Georgia into a conflict with Russia. This will allow the West to open a new flank and distract Moscow by forcing it to send troops to yet another battlefield.
While the wave of violent protests has decreased its strength the crisis in Georgia appears far from over. Destabilizing forces are boosting the social and institutional chaos in order for the government to make decisions in favor of foreign interests. This is becoming increasingly clear as domestic players are formally calling on Western countries to impose sanctions on Georgia to advance pro-NATO and anti-Russian agendas.
In April, former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili formally requested that the Collective West sanction his own country. According to Saakashvili, currently imprisoned on serious charges of abuse of power and other crimes, with Western coercive measures, Georgia would be forced to release him and thus increase civil and political freedoms. On the occasion, he emphasized that the US and Europe would be the global defenders of democracy, decency and justice, and should therefore react to the supposedly “pro-Russian” tendencies of the current Georgian government – which he accuses of complying with “orders” from Moscow.
The case is particularly curious as it echoes the current Georgian domestic political situation. The opposition to the government uses as its main rhetoric a supposed connection of the Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili with Russia. No evidence of his alleged connection with Moscow is presented, other than his resistance to being actively involved in the Ukrainian conflict – in addition to his wise attitude to avoid fomenting new security crises in the separatist regions on the border with Russia.
When anti-government protests began in March, the signs of foreign interference to promote anti-Russian policies were already obvious. In the streets of Tbilisi, protesters held Ukrainian flags and sang the Ukrainian national anthem, as well as war songs of the neo-Nazi regime. President Vladimir Zelensky himself went public to thank the protesters for their support and said that “there is no Ukrainian who would not want the success of our friendly Georgia”, in addition to calling the demonstrations a “democratic success. European success”.
It is important to remember that at the height of the protests, these pro-instability actions were supported by the country’s own president, the native Frenchwoman Salome Zurabishvili, who expressed strong opposition to the government and parliament for the approval of a law against foreign espionage. Being a foreign agent on Georgian soil herself, Zurabishvili echoed Western rhetoric demanding special registration for NGOs funded by international groups would be a kind of abusive or dictatorial attitude.
In fact, these attitudes on the part of the opposition to the current Prime Minister are not by chance – these moves indicate a coordinated action to pressure Georgia to act incisively in favor of Western interests. Zurabishvili, before becoming the country’s president, had served as foreign minister, standing out for her extremely pro-NATO work. In the same vein, former President Saakashvili, who is now demanding Western sanctions to pressure the government to release him, was recognizably a US-backed head of state, largely responsible for provocations against pro-Russian border regions during the 2008 conflict. He also gained asylum in post-Maidan Ukraine, even being governor of Odessa during the Poroshenko era.
The fact that politicians like Zurabishvili and Saakashvili are acting incisively to foment polarization and protests within Georgia, in addition to sanctions and external pressure at the international level, shows that there is indeed a Western plan for Tbilisi to take an openly anti-Russian position in the current NATO proxy war with Moscow. This scenario reflects the current strategy of the Atlantic alliance, which seems focused on the multiplication of battlefields. The more conflict zones, the better for the Western powers, which want to harm Russia as much as possible, causing it to lose troops and weapons.
Many analysts believe that the West is currently about to “admit” its failure in Ukraine, which is why, in order to safeguard its global hegemony, NATO’s new focus would be to fight against China, which is seen by the US as a weaker adversary and against which there are more chances of victory in direct military confrontation. But for a war against China to be viable, it would be necessary to prevent Moscow from helping Beijing on the battlefield, which would explain the attempt to distract the Russians with multiple conflicts in the Eurasian space.
In this military context, forcing Georgia to assume a fully pro-NATO and anti-Russian foreign policy would be a great victory for the West. As long as the Georgian government continues to avoid involvement in the conflict, international pressure and the foment of internal color revolution will remain. Certainly, chaos in the country will continue to be stimulated by foreign agents until the government agrees to send troops to provoke the Russians in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, opening a new front in NATO’s war of aggression.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
April 28, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | Georgia, NATO, United States |
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Washington is resorting to various forms of coercion as it pushes to create regional alliances aimed against its geopolitical rivals, including Moscow and Beijing, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has claimed.
He was speaking to his counterparts representing other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at a meeting in New Delhi. The group, which was established by Russia and China, has six other members, including India.
“Unprecedented pressure is being applied to independent nations through the use of open blackmail, threats, ‘color revolutions,’ coups, and dissemination of blatant disinformation. All those tools long ago became the Western calling card,” the minister said on Friday.
The goal of the US and its allies is to undermine the emerging multipolar world and preserve their dominance, according to Shoigu. Washington chose to dismantle the system of global security in pursuit of its ambition and withdrew from multiple treaties with Russia, the minister told his audience.
Shoigu said that Moscow had attempted to defuse tensions with NATO through diplomacy in 2021, but its proposals were rejected by the West, proving that it is unwilling to have a partnership of equals with Russia.
“Today, Washington and its accomplices are executing a strategic plan to provoke other nations into military confrontation with the states they don’t like, primarily Russia and China.”
The minister interpreted the Ukraine conflict as a vivid example of American “criminal policy.” The US goal in it is to “inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, create a threat to China and preserve its [hegemonic] position,” said Shoigu.
The official blasted Western supplies of weapons to Kiev, stating that they only prolong hostilities and create additional risks to Europe and the entire world. He said the arms “make their way to the black market and further into the hands of terrorist organizations.”
The SCO, a Eurasian intergovernmental organization, includes China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan among its members.
April 28, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | United States |
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By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 26, 2023
Last week, before he left Fox News, Tucker Carlson delivered a commentary on corrupt media, corrupt politicians and “truth-telling.”
According to Carlson, the question to ask when assessing public figures isn’t, “Who is corrupt?” — because there are “too many to count.”
“The question is, Who is telling the truth?” Carlson said. “There are not many of those.”
Carlson singled out Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Children Health Defense’s chairman-on-leave who is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. president, as one of the few truth-telling public figures.
“It’s nice to have a truth-teller around,” Carlson said. “It’s helpful because suddenly the stakes are very high.” He added:
“Kennedy knew early that the COVID vaccines were both ineffective and potentially dangerous, and he said so in public to the extent he was allowed.
“Science has since proven Robert F. Kennedy Jr. right — unequivocally right. But Kennedy was not rewarded for this. He was vilified. He was censored.”
Carlson — who later on his show interviewed Kennedy — said mainstream media channels other than Fox News “maligned” Kennedy for his skepticism of the COVID-19 products.
“The other channels took hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies and then they shilled for their sketchy products on the air — and as they did that, they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products,” he said.
Carlson pointed out that Kennedy and his father, Robert F. Kennedy — who sought the U.S. presidency 55 years ago — said things “you weren’t supposed to say” and were “hated” by some for their honesty.
For instance, Kennedy Sr. spoke out against the Vietnam War because “he believed — with a lot of evidence — that it was not helping the United States in any way,” Carlson said.
Similarly, Carlson showed his viewers a clip from Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 Democratic presidential campaign announcement speech, in which Kennedy said the U.S. government’s involvement in Ukraine appears to be “prolonging” the war rather than “shortening” it.
Carlson also showed clips from mainstream media outlets’ coverage of Kennedy’s April 19 announcement, in which news commentators called him “extreme” and “dangerous.”
“Notice,” Carlson said, “not there, not anywhere is a point-by-point rebuttal of his [Kennedy’s] actual points.”
“They never engage him on the actual facts. They can’t — they would lose. Instead, they impugn his character,” he said.
Now that Kennedy is Biden’s leading primary opponent, Carlson said, the media’s message to him is, “shut up — you’re not allowed to talk.”
Carlson said he did not find Kennedy to be “extreme,” but instead “rational and calm and well deliberated.”
“He [Kennedy Jr.] is deeply insightful and — above all else — he is honest, no matter what you think of the substance of what he says,” Carlson added.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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Having formally joined NATO earlier this month, Finland has recorded its highest year-on-year spike in defense spending since 1962, the height of the Cold War.
Finland, which shares the longest border with Russia in Europe at 1,300 kilometers, recorded the most drastic spending boost in the EU (36 percent), underpinned by a number of costly purchases, such as a new fleet of 64 F-35 fighter jets from US weapons company Lockheed Martin. The 10-billion-euro procurement was billed as the single largest splurge in the Nordic country’s history.
During the late Cold War-era, Finland spent approximately 1.9 percent of its GDP on defense, yet saw its spending plummet in the subsequent years and reach its lowest in 2001 at 1.1 percent of GDP. Barely two years earlier, the defense expenditure still stood at a meager 1.3 percent of GDP. However, last year alone, Finland’s outgoing five-party government led by the Social Democrats agreed to add more than 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in defense spending, citing hostilities in Ukraine as a pretext.
In doing so, Finland notably eclipsed its fellow European nations, such as Lithuania, Sweden and Poland, which saw the next biggest spikes in their defense budgets at 27 percent, 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
As a new-fledged NATO member, Finland has emerged as one of the top military spenders in the alliance, spending about 2 percent of GDP. In 2022, only the US (3.5 percent of GDP), Poland (2.4 percent), Estonia (2.3 percent) and the UK (2.1 percent) spent more on defense per capita than Finland. Despite NATO’s spending goal of 2 percent, many nations fall well below this target. For instance, Finland’s neighbor Norway had a spending level of just 1.55 percent. Its neighbor Sweden, with which it filed a joint NATO bid only to part ways later on, has pledged to reach the bloc’s target of military spending “as soon as possible,” whereas Denmark seeks to reach NATO’s target within a decade, by 2033.
Meanwhile, global military expenditure rose to a record high last year amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which spurred European nations and, broadly, the West, into reaching spending levels unseen since the Cold War. European military spending alone shot up 13 percent last year.
According to an estimate by researchers from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), last year’s total global military spending rose by 3.7 percent in real terms to $2.24 trillion. SIPRI stressed that the hike rests on multi-year plans to boost spending from several governments, which is why it is reasonable to expect military expenditure in Central and Western Europe to keep rising in the years to come.
April 25, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | NATO |
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In the closing address at last month’s Summit for Democracy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken piously proclaimed, “As President Biden has said, democracy doesn’t happen by accident.
“It requires constant effort.”
Or in the case of the 2020 election, it required deceiving American voters.
The House Judiciary Committee revealed that Blinken, then a top Biden adviser, orchestrated the letter from 51 top intelligence officials claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop was nothing but a Russian disinformation campaign.
Blinken contacted former acting CIA chief Mike Morell, who swayed scores of other former top officials — including three ex-CIA chiefs — to sign that letter to debunk the biggest threat to the Biden presidential campaign.
In the final presidential debate on Oct. 22, Joe Biden invoked that letter from former intelligence officials to deflect Donald Trump’s attacks on Biden family corruption.
Polls show that Biden would have lost the election if the media had accurately reported the contents of that laptop.
Biden pretended that letter arose spontaneously from the patriotic sentiments of former officials.
But the letter was “triggered” by Blinken’s call to Morell, who then contacted his former colleagues.
Blinken’s ploy may have swayed Biden to appoint him secretary of state.
The media are mostly ignoring or downplaying the revelations of Blinken’s machinations.
If the roles were reversed, cable news and front-page headlines would be screaming about a villainous Trump operative pulling official strings to whitewash the Donald.
MSNBC would be howling about the death of democracy, and CNN hosts would be sobbing hysterically about the dirty deal.
But when Team Biden does it: nothing to see here, move along.
How many presidential elections can Democrats seek to dishonestly rig without suffering any penalty flags from media scorekeepers?
Shortly before the 2016 election, senior Hillary Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan peddled false claims linking the Trump Organization to Russia.
The Federal Election Commission last month levied a $113,000 fine on the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for their deceptive funding to cover up their role in the Steele dossier.
The FBI, which was apparently willing to pay any price to defeat Trump, offered former British spy Christopher Steele $1 million in cash if he could prove the charges in that dossier before the 2016 election.
There was no proof — but that didn’t stop the FBI from using the dossier to get warrants to spy on Trump campaign officials from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Jake Sullivan is now Biden’s national security adviser.
Did he get that gig in part because of his willingness to lie for Democratic kingpins?
Avril Haines is Biden’s director of national intelligence.
Did signing the Hunter laptop letter help her snare that plum job?
The letter Blinken finagled would not have been so influential if journalists were not shamelessly docile to federal job titles.
Inside the Beltway, former intelligence kingpins are viewed like royalty or at least second-tier aristocracy.
But the CIA has a long record of secretly intervening in dozens of foreign elections.
In 2019, former CIA director Mike Pompeo summarized his agency’s motif: “We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses.”
Former CIA chief James Woolsey insisted in 2018 that the CIA intervenes in elections “only for a very good cause in the interests of democracy.”
Yet the letter from former spooks was instantly revered by journalists as if it were handed down from Mt. Sinai.
For the Washington political elite, defeating Donald Trump was the ultimate good cause to save democracy.
Biden talks as if his 2020 election victory was the result of practically a divine incarnation of the “will of the people.”
Unfortunately, presidential elections are irrevocable regardless of how many voters were conned.
How much official deceit can democracy survive?
Any notion of “informed consent” by voters is a mirage if federal agencies and former officials have the power to endlessly distort the news.
Shortly after he became secretary of state, Blinken boasted that the US government doesn’t sweep problems “under the rug. . . . We deal with them in the daylight, with full transparency.”
That pledge apparently did not extend to Blinken’s own tampering with the 2020 election.
What else is Blinken hiding, and when will the next shoe fall?
April 24, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | CIA, FBI, Joe Biden, United States |
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By Ahmed Adel | April 24, 2023
According to a Japanese government source, the Group of Seven (G7) members are considering an almost complete ban on exports to Russia. However, such a move only demonstrates the desperate position that the G7 finds itself in because its already existing sanctions regime has not only failed to deter Moscow from its military operation in Ukraine, but has boomeranged and hit the economies of the Group much more severely than Russia.
Although G7 countries have stopped exporting luxury goods and equipment related to the military sector to Russia, the source said the latest plan could expand the trade embargo to used cars, tires, cosmetic items, and clothing. Again, these are non-essential items that can very easily be sourced from other markets.
There is credence to this source when considering that Japan will host the G7 summit on May 19-21 in Hiroshima. The centre of discussions will primarily focus on expanding support to Ukraine and strengthening sanctions on Russia, something that Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US will approve.
The problem for G7 member countries is that if they decide to introduce a complete embargo on the export of products to Russia, they will end up hurting their own industries more as they cut out a major market and allow rivals from China, India and elsewhere to fill the void. For this reason, many Western politicians still fear that a move by the G7 will lead to a harsh reaction from companies that continue to trade with Russia, and more alarmingly, retaliatory sanctions by Moscow.
In addition, from a technical point of view, it is very complicated to implement a total ban on exports to Russia. Russia’s bilateral trade with the European Union in 2021 reached €257 billion, with €158 billion of those being Russian exports to the bloc. Although this has obviously dropped since the Russian military operation began, many problems will still emerge. Despite billions of dollars being slashed from bilateral trade, we are still speaking about tens of billions of dollars, something that is not abstract but is backed by jobs and livelihoods.
It is also unlikely that large economies outside of the G7, such as China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, would join the embargo. This means that it is impossible to impose a global embargo on Russia. In addition, the G7 cannot expect Russia to continue selling its oil and other export goods without receiving payment.
Finally, from a legal perspective, the decision needs to be ratified at the UN level, where Russia and China will vote down such an idea. Therefore, the G7 member countries are just making a cynical attempt to weaken and destroy the Russian economy to supplant a competitor and preserve the unipolar world order.
Importantly, if the G7 imposes a near complete embargo, it will be Europe that will suffer the most and not the US since it is the least dependent on trade relations with Russia. In general, Moscow and Washington do not have deep economic ties, unlike Europe. Western European countries are already in a bad economic situation, and since the introduction of sanctions, they have experienced more damage and inconvenience.
For example, high-tech European products intended for Russia will now lose a major client and they will not so easily find a new one. This situation will lead to European companies having to reduce production, thus leading to lower profits and workers being laid off. Even worse for the West, as already said, is that Russia will not be left without necessary products because they can be purchased from many other countries.
For his part though, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Yasutoshi Nishimura, refused to comment on the possibility of a complete ban on the export of products to Russia at a press conference in Tokyo. He noted that this issue concerns “diplomatic negotiations.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to join the G7 summit via online stream. In a communique released on April 18, the G7 foreign ministers committed their countries to intensifying sanctions imposed on Russia since the military operation began last year. The foreign ministers demanded Russian forces to immediately and unconditionally withdraw, something which obviously will not happen since it is Moscow, and not the West, in a position of strength.
They also vowed to counter sanctions by Moscow and warned of the “severe costs” that third parties could face if they do not stop providing assistance for Russia’s war effort. However, this is an empty threat as it will be impossible for the G7 to impose a “severe cost” on the likes of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and many others, particularly since their own cooperation is deepening.
Therefore, the G7’s desire to embargo Russia even further will not only humiliatingly fail as all the previous sanction packages have, but is also a demonstration on the desperation they are experiencing in face of Russia’s success in the military operation and rebounding the West’s economic war.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
April 24, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | Russia |
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The relentless criticism by the Biden administration towards the incumbent Hungarian government is entirely disproportionate and unjustified, and does little to separate the current U.S. regime from the malign superpowers it seeks to distance itself from. Hungary’s leader recognizes this and is putting his own country’s interests ahead of those of the United States, a stance that Europe would be wise to follow.
Despite pressure from the U.S., Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said his country cannot be pushed into joining the war on the side of Ukraine.
“The United States has not given up its plan to squeeze everyone, including Hungary, into a war alliance, to go with the crowd,” Orbán told a press conference last week.
“But I have made it clear several times, and Hungarian diplomacy has also expressed this, that the will of the Hungarian people is clear, and our knowledge of history is quite solid, so we will not allow this.
“We will not allow them to squeeze us into a war. We will not send any weapons, and we will not be involved in a conflict that is not our war,” the Hungarian premier added.
Orbán made the remarks amid growing tension with the U.S. Recent disparaging remarks by David Pressman, Biden’s top diplomat in Budapest, have been dismissive of a country which, whilst remaining on many issues a conforming ally to the United States, has had the audacity to form its own view on matters unfolding on its doorstep, and opted not to become entirely subservient to U.S. interests when the two countries have vastly different worldviews and face inherently different geopolitical threats
“We have concerns about the continued eagerness of Hungarian leaders to expand and deepen ties with the Russian Federation, despite Russia’s ongoing brutal aggression against Ukraine and threat to transatlantic security,” Pressman told a news conference in Budapest last week after criticizing the Hungarian government for retaining its stake in Russia’s International Investment Bank (IBB) upon which the U.S. government imposed sanctions last week.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán berated the shortsightedness of the U.S. decision on state radio, explaining that the Russian-controlled financial institution based in Budapest “could have played a serious role in developing Central European economies,” and expressed concern that the United States simply doesn’t understand the geopolitical climate and should stop acting like it does.
US Ambassador Pressman would push Hungary into war
The intention of Joe Biden’s man in Budapest is to drag Hungary into the conflict in Ukraine, writes József K. Horváth for the Magyar Hírlap newspaper
The Hungarian government withdrew its membership of the IBB the day after the sanctions were imposed, with Orbán stating the U.S. action had rendered the bank’s operations impossible.
“It can’t serve its function,” Orbán said. “We decided that under these circumstances, Hungary’s participation in the bank’s further work has become pointless.”
It’s not the first time the Hungarian government has been frustrated by decisions made in far-away Washington without an understanding of the nuanced consequences for the region.
U.S. government officials have regularly criticized the Hungarian administration for not following suit with the U.S. approach to the conflict in Ukraine, criticism which the Hungarian premier considers to be misguided.
“When I hear about nuclear weapons, or that a Western European country is taking depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine, I think of Chernobyl,” Orbán said while referring to Britain’s decision to send depleted uranium tank ammunition to Ukrainian forces.
“An American would never think of this, but we know that if something happens in Ukraine it’s best if people don’t go out into the streets, so we know what happened then.
“Or if in America they hear that someone died on the Ukrainian-Russian front, they obviously sympathize because it’s a loss, but it is not the same feeling as ours, because I immediately think that the person who died could be a Hungarian person from Transcarpathia.
“Everything that happens there becomes a part of our lives that very day.
“The dimension of the Americans is quite different, so I say that we rightly expect the United States to take note of Hungary’s special situation, its proximity to Ukraine, and to understand that we are therefore on the side of peace and want to stay there.”
Given the continued animosity from the U.S. towards the Orbán administration, it could be assumed that Hungary was an active belligerent nation in the conflict, and yet Budapest has complied with every anti-Russian sanction approved by the European Union, despite voicing its opposition to these actions.
“We have never agreed with sanctions, but we do not dispute anyone’s right, including the United States to impose sanctions if they see fit. We acknowledge these sanctions and roll with them,” Orbán said recently.
Hungary has welcomed tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees and provided humanitarian aid to Kyiv and the affected areas, and it has denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine from day one.
As is its right, Budapest has maintained its neutrality with regard to military intervention and assistance, and has refused to change its stance despite U.S. protestations.
Orbán added that his administration is mature enough to retain the longstanding Hungarian-U.S. alliance despite a difference in approach to the conflict in Ukraine.
“The American-Hungarian friendship must endure this difference of opinion,” he stated last week.
Whether Joe Biden and his politically-appointed diplomat in Budapest is willing to accept a difference of opinion and move on remains to be seen.
However, if the recent anti-Russian poster campaigns dotted across Hungary with the support of the U.S. embassy are anything to go by, it is difficult to see a reconciliation in the immediate future between the two countries, at least not while Joe Biden’s Democrats remain in the White House.
April 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | Hungary, United States |
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Greger Mannswerk, head of Norwegian shipyard Kimek located in the town of Kirkenes, which borders Russia, said on Friday that the shipyard’s employees did not find any spy equipment on board Russian trawlers, commenting on recent reports from Norwegian media.
“We have a pretty good understanding of what’s on board and we have never found anything to indicate that they [Russian seamen] are engaged in intelligence gathering. We cannot know if there are any [Russian] intelligence officers on board today, but no fisherman enters a Norwegian harbor without the [Norwegian] police and armed forces having a full idea of who is on board,” Mannswerk was quoted as saying by the broadcaster.
This week, the media published the results of an investigation, which said that up to 50 civilian Russian ships could be involved in intelligence operations against Norway.
April 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Norway |
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The Washington Post says it has obtained secret Russian documents detailing a plan to bring anti-establishment political parties together in Germany in an effort to sow discord in the West. The Kremlin has responded that it does not interfere in the domestic affairs of other nations.
The purported Russian documents, largely dated from July to November last year, were obtained by an unidentified European intelligence service, the US news outlet said on Friday. It did not explain how it gained access, but it also interviewed some German politicians for the story.
The article said Moscow’s plan was “part of a hidden front in Russia’s war against Ukraine” and an attempt “to undermine Western unity.” The Soviet Union harnessed anti-war sentiment in the same way, an anonymous German security official told the Post.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the alleged Russian plan “100% fake.” He told the Post : “We never interfered before and now we really don’t have time for this.”
The strategy, as described in the article, involves “marrying” Germany’s far-left Die Linke with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Sahra Wagenknecht, an MP from Die Linke, would have a chance of winning the chancellorship with such backing, the plan suggests.
The Post spoke to Wagenknecht’s former husband, Ralph Niemeyer, who assessed her electoral chances as high. He claimed that Russian officials told him that such an outcome would be in Moscow’s interest.
But Wagenknecht would never accept any support from Moscow, Niemeyer added, and the idea of a union with AfD did not sit well with her either. The politician herself told the Post that there would not be “any cooperation or alliance” between her “and elements of the AfD in any form.”
The Post claimed that the effort was led by Sergey Kirienko, the deputy head of the Russian presidential administration, along with unnamed “political strategists” tasked with executing it. The documents do not show any attempts by the Russian government to communicate the strategy to German politicians or potential allies, the report said.
The article cited instances of Die Linke and AfD holding protests against Berlin’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict and the damage caused by anti-Russian sanctions to the national economy. Members of AfD interviewed by the newspaper said being on the same side of the issue was the result of an intersection of values rather than any Russian influence campaign.
April 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Washington Post |
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The Russian Embassy in Finland has demanded an explanation after restrictions were placed on Russian state property in Helsinki.
“A demand has been lodged to the Finnish Foreign Ministry to explain how the actions of the bailiffs are compatible with the norms of international law about the immunity of the property of a (foreign) state,” the embassy said in a statement on Wednesday.
According to Russian officials, the Finnish authorities cited EU sanctions when they imposed restrictions on the Russian Science and Culture Center building, the surrounding plot of land, and the apartments of diplomats who work there.
The Helsingin Sanomat newspaper reported on Tuesday that Finland’s debt recovery agency placed temporary restrictions on the Russian building a week ago at the request of the Finnish Foreign Ministry. Officials now have three weeks to determine if the property can be linked to blacklisted individuals or entities. The injunction forbids the owner from making deals involving the real estate.
The newspaper added that the seven apartments in question are owned by Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian federal agency for foreign cooperation which was blacklisted by the EU last year.
Last month, the Finnish authorities froze the Russian Science and Culture Center’s account at national bank Nordea, TV channel YLE said.
The EU, together with the US and Britain, has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. The Kremlin has argued that the sanctions are illegal, while the Russian Foreign Ministry has likened the freezing of assets abroad to theft.
April 19, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | Finland |
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