DID THE CIA SET UP NSA LEAKER REALITY WINNER?
By Kit Klarenberg | MintPress News | February 2, 2023
Throughout January, a deluge of previously concealed evidence exposing how journalists, spies and social media platforms perpetuated and maintained the RussiaGate fraud has entered the public domain at long last, via the Elon Musk-approved “#TwitterFiles” series.
While Twitter’s Pentagon-connected owner evidently has a partisan agenda in releasing this material, the at-times explosive disclosures amply confirm what many independent journalists and researchers had long argued. Namely, false claims of Kremlin-directed bot and troll operations online were duplicitously weaponized by an alphabet soup of U.S. intelligence agencies to bring major social networks to heel, and enduringly enshrine their status as subservient wings of the national security state.
Yet, while RussiaGate only becomes ever-more dead and buried over time, and the true purposes it served becomes increasingly stark, a central component of the conspiracy theory stubbornly clings to life. In June 2017, The Intercept published a leaked N.S.A. document, which it claimed revealed “a months-long Russian hacking effort against the U.S. election infrastructure.”
Ever since, it has been an article of faith in the mainstream media and among Democratic politicians that Russian G.R.U. cyberwarriors “hacked” the 2016 election, if not others too, by malevolently attempting to alter vote tallies to skew results. Moreover, Reality Winner, the N.S.A. analyst who leaked the document and ended up in jail as a result, has been elevated to the status of a heroic whistleblower on a par with Edward Snowden.
These outcomes, or at least something like them, may well have been the specific objectives of the individual and/or entity that furnished the N.S.A. with the information contained in the leaked report. For as we shall see, there are strong grounds to believe Winner unwittingly walked into a trap laid by the C.I.A.
G.R.U. “HACKING OPERATIONS”
Before The Intercept had even published its scoop on the leaked file, Reality Winner was in jail, pending trial for breaches of the Espionage Act. Her arrest, announced by the Department of Justice on the same day the story was published, only added to the mainstream frenzy that erupted in the wake of its publication.
Overnight, the hitherto unknown Winner, a United States Air Force Intelligence Squadron veteran who’d received a medal for aiding the identification, capture, and assassination of hundreds of “high-value targets,” became a major cause célèbre for Western liberals, and campaigns calling for her release backed by major press freedom and digital rights groups sprouted in profusion.
Winner’s incarceration, and the failure of the N.S.A. to take action on the report’s findings publicly or privately, also furthered suspicions that proof of Donald Trump’s ties to the Kremlin being subject to a politicized coverup at the highest levels, in which the ostensibly independent U.S. intelligence community itself was implicated.
It is perhaps due to Winner becoming the main focal point of the scandal, combined with desperation among liberal politicians and journalists to substantiate the RussiaGate narrative, that the leaked report’s details were never subject to serious mainstream scrutiny.
While The Intercept declared the document “displays no doubt” that a wide-ranging cyberattack in which spear-phishing emails were dispatched to over 100 local election officials mere days before the 2016 election “was carried out by the G.R.U.,” its contents suggest nothing of the kind.
The report, authored by an N.S.A. intelligence analyst, does attribute this activity to the G.R.U. But the underlying “raw intelligence” – evidence upon which that conclusion is based – is not contained in the file. It is abundantly clear, though, the finding was far from concrete anyway.
For one, the report states, “it is unknown if the G.R.U. was able to compromise any of the entities targeted successfully.” Still, more significantly, the agency is said only to be “probably” responsible – an “analyst judgment” based on the purported hacking campaign having “utilized some techniques that were similar to other G.R.U. operations.” The analyst is nonetheless forced to concede “this activity demonstrated several characteristics that distinguish it [emphasis added]” from known prior G.R.U. hacking operations.
Yet further cause for doubt about the report’s clearly unsupported headline claim is provided by the extremely unsophisticated methods employed by who or what was behind the spear-phishing efforts, which included the use of a blatantly fraudulent Gmail account. Evidently, this was not a professional operation and had very little chance of succeeding. Why would an elite intelligence agency stoop to such rudimentary tactics, particularly if its operatives were seriously determined to compromise U.S. election integrity?
Even more dubiously, among the named recipients of a purported G.R.U. spear-phishing email is the election office of American Samoa, an unincorporated U.S. territory located in the South Pacific, southeast of Samoa itself. Its population is just 56,000, and they cannot vote in mainland elections.
While a criminal hacker might have an interest in personal data held by such an entity, it is difficult to conceive what possible grounds a military intelligence agency would have for seeking access to such a trove. This interpretation is furthered by a chart in the N.S.A. report referring to how the same hacker also attempted spear-phishing campaigns targeting other email addresses, including those registered with Mail.ru, a Russian company.
These shortcomings, rather than a concerted coverup, may account for why the report was not publicized or acted upon by the N.S.A. The Intercept, however, bombastically dubbed the document “the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.”
“SPEED AND RECKLESSNESS”
When asked by journalist Aaron Maté in a September 2018 interview about “the possibility that the significance of this document has been inflated,” Jim Risen, senior national security correspondent at The Intercept and director of First Look Media’s Press Freedom Defense Fund (which supported Winner’s legal defense) was at a total loss.
Audibly flustered and irritated by this repeated line of questioning, Risen then terminated the interview abruptly when Maté sought to probe him over “criticism” of how The Intercept handled the document, which all but ensured Winner’s identification and imprisonment.
Now departed co-founder of The Intercept Glenn Greenwald rightly branded Winner’s exposure “deeply embarrassing,” claiming it resulted from “speed and recklessness.” A New York Times post-mortem of the debacle confirmed the two reporters who took the lead on the story, Matthew Cole and Richard Esposito – whose sloppiness and dishonesty landed C.I.A. whistleblower John Kiriakou in jail in 2012 for disclosing secrets about the Agency’s torture program – were “pushed to rush the story to publication.”
It would be entirely unsurprising if this pressure emanated from Betsy Reed, then editor-in-chief of The Intercept, a committed RussiaGate advocate who in 2018 slammed left-wing skeptics of the narrative as “pale imitations” of Glenn Greenwald, lacking his “intelligence [and] nuance.” When former FBI director Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation conclusively found no indication of a secret relationship between Trump and the Kremlin the next year, she claimed the failed probe, in fact, identified “plenty” of “soft loose” collusion.
The outlet’s haste to publicize the leaked N.S.A. report meant in-house digital security specialists at The Intercept were not consulted, leading Cole and Esposito to make a number of shocking blunders in attempting to verify the document pre-publication. First, they contacted a U.S. government contractor via unsecured text message, informing them they had received a printed copy of the document in the mail, postmarked Augusta, Georgia, where Winner then lived. This contractor subsequently informed the N.S.A.
Then, The Intercept approached the N.S.A. directly with a copy of the report. As Winner’s arrest warrant attests, examination of the material showed pages within it were creased, “suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space.”
While all color printers embed borderline invisible patterns on each page, allowing for individual devices to be identified via serial number, the N.S.A. simply checked which of its staffers had printed the document. Six had, and Winner was among them. Further checks of the sextet’s desk computers showed she, and only she had used hers to contact The Intercept.
The outlet’s failure to undertake even the most basic measures to protect their source terminally damaged its reputation and remains a stain upon it and its senior staff to this day. Nonetheless, there has never been any acknowledgment of how inept and incautious Winner’s own actions were.
Even if The Intercept had not readily handed over distinguishing clues to the N.S.A, her highly self-incriminating use of a work computer to email the outlet, along with identifying the specific area where she resided, were in themselves smoking guns that almost inevitably would have led to her exposure.
“IGNORE DISSENTING DATA”
Winner has always claimed she acted alone, and there is no reason to doubt that she felt it was her patriotic duty to release the document. But her clumsiness, naivety and incompetence suggest she may well be easily manipulable, and a great many individuals and organizations had an interest in the dud intelligence report’s release. Foremost among them, elements of the C.I.A. loyal to John Brennan, Agency director between 2013 and January 2017.
Two weeks before Donald Trump took office, Brennan presented an Intelligence Community Assessment (I.C.A.) on “Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.” It declared American spooks had “high confidence” that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election to help the upstart outsider seize power. While the document contained nothing to substantiate that charge, its dubious assertions were eagerly seized upon by the media.
It was not revealed until four years later that this “confidence” wasn’t shared by the U.S. intelligence community. Instead, Brennan personally authored the report’s incendiary conclusions, then selected a clique of his own confidantes to sign off on them. This subterfuge irked many analysts within and without the C.I.A. who assessed Russia, in fact, favored a Hillary Clinton victory, given Trump was an unpredictable “wild card” calling for much-increased U.S. military spending.
“Brennan took a thesis and decided he was going to ignore dissenting data and exaggerate the importance of that conclusion, even though they said it didn’t have any real substance behind it,” stated a senior U.S. intelligence official.
The only trace of dissent to be found in the I.C.A. is a reference to the N.S.A. not sharing the “confidence” of the C.I.A. in its findings. While wholly overlooked at the time, this deviation was massively consequential, given the N.S.A. closely monitors the communications of Russian officials. Its operatives would therefore be well-placed to know if high-level figures in Moscow had discussed plans to assist Trump’s campaign or even viewed him positively.
Brennan fudged the I.C.A. findings to keep the F.B.I. Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation alive. Launched by the Bureau in 2016, it found no evidence Trump or members of his campaign were conspiring with Moscow. The N.S.A. publicly breaking ranks would have inevitably been poorly received by Brennan and his allies in Langley, given it undermined their malign objectives.
As such, it is an obvious question whether Winner’s leak – in addition to furthering the RussiaGate fiction and damaging Trump – also served to discredit the N.S.A. by creating the illusion it had been asleep at the wheel over Kremlin meddling, if not actively suppressing evidence of this activity from the public.
Winner need not have been a willing or conscious collaborator in this scenario; the introduction of the report she leaked notes opaquely that information about the purported G.R.U. hacking effort became available in April 2017. The nature of this information and its source is unstated; could it have been the C.I.A. or operatives thereof?
“EXPOSING A WHITE HOUSE COVERUP”
Winner was convicted in August 2018 and jailed for 63 months, the longest sentence ever imposed for the unauthorized release of classified information to the media in U.S. history. Her appallingly harsh sentence was accordingly framed as politically motivated, yet further proof then-President Donald Trump had been compromised by and/or owed his upset election victory to the Kremlin and was desperate for this to be swept under the rug.
Released in June 2021, Winner remains under probation until November 2024, is not allowed to leave southern Texas, has to obey a strict curfew, and must report any interaction with the media in advance, a shocking coda to her time behind bars. Still, while allegedly facing imprisonment for discussing the document she leaked publicly, a documentary on her case is in production, and she has conducted multiple interviews with both mainstream and independent journalists.
In Winner’s most prominent media appearance to date, in July 2022, CBS aired a highly sympathetic, lengthy sit-down discussion with her, likely watched by millions. Apparently unconcerned about legal ramifications, she made a number of bold claims and statements throughout, at total odds with comments at her sentencing, when she told the judge, “my actions were a cruel betrayal of my nation’s trust in me.”
For its part, CBS rather unbelievably declared, based on the word of “two former officials,” that her leak “helped secure the 2018 midterm election,” as it revealed the “top secret emails” used by the hackers. Quite what threat those addresses could have posed, or why they would continue to be used a year-and-a-half after the report became publicly available, is not clear.
The program’s framing of Winner, in her own words, “exposing a White House coverup” as “the public was being lied to” was even more curious. A clip of Trump being interviewed by John Dickerson – “typical of the time,” according to CBS – was inserted, in which the President stated, “if you don’t catch a hacker in the act, it’s very hard to say who did the hacking.”
“I’ll go along with Russia, could’ve been China, could’ve been a lot of different groups,” he added before a CBS narrator stated dramatically, “but it was Russia, and the NSA knew it,” as Winner “had seen proof in a top-secret report on an in-house newsfeed.” The program then cut back to the former N.S.A. analyst: “I just kept thinking, ‘My God, somebody needs to step forward and put this right. Somebody.’”
In that clip, Trump was, in fact, discussing which party was responsible for purported cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee servers (D.N.C.), not the spear-phishing attack on election officials detailed in the leaked N.S.A. report. This dishonest sleight of hand by the program’s producers is nonetheless illuminating, for it highlights another potential utility of that report’s leak from the perspective of the C.I.A. – obfuscating its own role in the hack-and-leak of Democratic Party emails.
That the D.N.C. servers were hacked by Russian intelligence is widely accepted, a conclusion based primarily on the findings of D.N.C. contractor CrowdStrike. Yet, when grilled under oath by the Senate Intelligence Committee on the matter in December 2017, the company’s chief, Shawn Henry, revealed he, in fact, possessed no “concrete evidence” the files were “actually exfiltrated” by anyone – dynamite testimony that was hidden from public view for over two years.
CrowdStrike’s case for Russian culpability was predicated on a number of seemingly injudicious errors on the part of the hackers, such as their computer username referencing the founder of the Soviet Union’s secret police, Russian text in their malware’s source code, and ham-fisted attempts to use the Romanian language. However, WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 disclosures show the CIA’s “Marble Framework” deliberately inserts these apparent failings precisely into a cyberattack’s digital footprint to falsely attribute its own hacking to other countries.
The Agency would have had good reason for falsely attributing the emails’ source. For one, at this time, the C.I.A. was tearing its proverbial hair out attempting to link WikiLeaks – the organization that published them – and its founder Julian Assange with a foreign actor, preferably Russia, to secure legal justification for engaging in hostile counterintelligence operations against the organization and its members.
By framing the emails as Russian-hacked, media and public attention were also diverted from the communications’ contents, which revealed corruption by the Clinton Foundation and meddling in the Democratic Party primaries to prevent Bernie Sanders from securing the Presidential nomination. Meanwhile, concerns about whether D.N.C. staffer Seth Rich’s still-unsolved July 2016 murder was in any way related to his potential role in leaking the material were very effectively silenced.
The fate of Assange (and perhaps Rich, too) is a palpable demonstration of what can so often befall those who publish damaging information powerful people and organizations do not want in the public domain. Winner’s veneration by the U.S. liberal establishment, and post-release promotion by the mainstream media, should, at the very least, raise serious questions about who or what ultimately benefited from her well-meaning, personally destructive actions.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPresss News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.
US announces first transfer of seized Russian assets to Kiev
RT | February 4, 2023
US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday the first transfer of assets, confiscated as part of anti-Russia sanctions, to Ukraine to pay for the country’s reconstruction.
The measure affects $5.4 million expropriated from Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev on charges of sanctions evasion, according to the top official.
“With my authorization today, forfeited funds will next be transferred to the State Department to support the people of Ukraine,” Garland said, adding that the funds were confiscated following an indictment against Malofeyev, issued last April.
Earlier this week, a federal court in New York allowed prosecutors to confiscate $5.4 million belonging to Malofeyev, paving the way for the funds to be used to help rebuild Ukraine.
In June, millions were seized from a US bank account belonging to Malofeyev, against whom the US Treasury Department announced sanctions in April “for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly” the Russian government.
The businessman, who owns Russian Orthodox Christian channel Tsargrad TV, has been on the US sanctions list since 2014. Malofeyev previously claimed that he had no holdings in the West since then.
In December, US President Joe Biden signed legislation allowing the Department of Justice to transfer some forfeited assets to the State Department to aid Ukraine. US law restricts how the government can use such assets.
Poland’s Pipedream, Redux
By Thane Angus | The Postil Magazine | February 1, 2023
It is a curious thing… the chief claims of feminism used to be that women can run the world better than men, in which peace will abound and everyone will be nice to each other—gone will be toxic masculinity, the root of all evil.
But glancing at the women who have clawed their way to power does not bode well for Pax Feminarum.
Of course, this article is really going out on a limb, because it is recklessly assuming that we all know what a “woman” is. Given recent manifestations of feminine grace and “feminine beauty,” one may well be hard-pressed to hold one’s tongue, as it now appears that men make better women.
But regardless, the now-infamous honesty of Annalena Baerbock caught the righteous off-guard who quickly had to declare that shipping untold weapons and money to the Ukraine, to allow that pitiful country to kill some Russians while also getting itself slaughtered—does not mean that anyone actually wants war. Heavens, no! What insanity. Supplying weapons and cash is one thing. War is, well, quite another! Ms. Baerbock is simply “insane,” everyone happily concluded. Of course, what Ms. Baerbock said was all Russian propaganda. (Here, one can only stand in awe-struck wonder of Russian bots that can now hack into a politician’s brain and force out words that can then be used for “propaganda”).
Not to be outdone, of course, Poland launched its own secret weapon, one Anna Fotyga, who helpfully penned an op-ed, in which she laid out her own brilliant master-plan of dismantling Russia and dividing it up into tiny bits and owning all the natural resources, which can only be best managed by the likes of Ms. Fotyga and her various cronies. To help along this endeavor, Ms. Fortyga has set up proper “team” to get the job done good and right. Premeditated crimes, premeditated war, anyone?
You might be wondering, why should Russia be dismantled by those that know better? Let’s just quote Ms. Fotyga (and please hold back Polish jokes until later):
There are no such things as Russian gas, oil, aluminium, coal, uranium, diamonds, grain, forests, gold, etc. All such resources are Tatar, Bashkir, Siberian, Karelian, Oirat, Circassian, Buryat, Sakha, Ural, Kuban, Nogai, etc. For most of the inhabitants of the regions — be they ethnic Russians or indigenous people — Moscow represents only war, repression, exploitation and hopelessness. Harassment and discrimination against ethnic minorities in Russia is commonplace. Hyper-centralisation has exposed the country’s multiple weaknesses, but foremost, subjugated theoretically autonomous regions and republics to the will of the Kremlin. Moreover, with its odious war of aggression, Moscow is sending ethnic minorities to the meat grinder, implementing a real ethnic policy by further harming both the Ukrainian and already conquered nations of the Far East.
In other words, Ms. Fotyga wants to do exactly what she says are “Russian crimes”—taking other people’s stuff. The rationale for all this, you might wonder? Well, here’s the headline to the article: “The dissolution of the Russian Federation is a far less dangerous than leaving it ruled by criminals.”
What she herself is planning are not crimes, because only Russians can be dangerous criminals. Polish politicians… not so much.
And wonder what does she really mean by “dangerous?” And how does she really understand “criminality?” “Dissolution”—the Final Solution? But among her cronies, saying “Russians” is explanation enough. You see, in Ms. Fotyga’s version of the world, the Russians by nature are beastly criminals and don’t deserve to have a country, let alone live, since they took it all from other people anyway. Dissolution!
One might want to ask Ms. Fotyga whether she’s considering returning any of the “wealth” stolen by Poles from the indigenous people that once lived on the real estate that she and her ilk so presumptuously call “Poland?” As an example, why not first break up Poland and give it back to the Vlachs, the Avars, the Scythians, the Balts, the Sarmatians, the Celts, and heck, even the Germans, all of whom lived in this area long before the Polans, a tribe of Slavs, decided to show up in the 7th century AD. And true to form, the Polans went ballistic and killed everyone, so they could steal their land. Thus, the ancestors of Ms. Fotyga were busy being horrible colonialists, using genocide and conquest to their advantage. Yes, “dangerous” “criminals.” The dissolution of Poland is far less dangerous than leaving it ruled by criminals.
Given the “moral” outrage at Russia, it is high time that Poland led by example. For starters, the worthy team, “European Conservatives and Reformists,” might want to put together a working group that will trace the descendants of the aforesaid indigenous peoples of Poland and start making reparations. It’s high time for a Polish version of Truth and Reconciliation, to pay for the crimes of the Polans. By the way, lots of cash is always a good way to begin. (By the way, how the heck can you be a “conservative” and a “reformist?”)
While all that is taking shape, these Polish politicians might also wish to explain why in a poll conducted in 2011, a lot of people living in Poland decided that they were not going to identify as “Polish.” Wonder why that is? Truth and Reconciliation.
Here, it is necessary to say that this is not about ordinary Polish people, who are being ruled over by warmongers—just as in every other Western country, where politicians are a tribe all their own, who rule against the people that they supposedly work for. But let’s not digress.
Now, we all know the real reason for Ms. Fotyga’s dreams of conquest and plunder. Her fellow countryman, one Mr. Brzezinski, also had the same dream, and he imagined that he could convince America to be the hacksaw that would hack apart Russia and let Poland be the Gauleiter-in-chief of the “eastern lands.” In other words, Poland wants to get its hands on all those resources that Russia has via the USA. See “criminality” above.
And so, Poland wants to transform the war in the Ukraine into pure banditry aimed further East—yes, exactly what the Polans did to the area now known as “Poland.” The apple does not fall far from the tree.
The only problem with this pipedream is that Ms. Fotyga and her band of self-righteous looters are relying on old Uncle Joe who, granted, has a lot to bury in the Ukraine. But as he just outplayed Scholz of Germany with tanks, let’s not get too carried away, would be sane advice to Poland. Joe isn’t as foolish as he appears, that is, his handlers aren’t.
By the way, why is everyone dutifully calling the tanks the Germans will be sending to the Ukraine “Leopards?” And why are the earlier versions of these tanks that went into the same region, back in the day, in the 1940s, always called “Panzers?” Remember the Panzerlied? In 2023, Panzers are not “Panzers,” because they’re “Leopards,” which in German is Panzers. Got that? Yes, because gender is fluid.
But why does the current crop of female politicians love war so much? Keep in mind, the entire Ukraine mess is the creation of one Victoria Nuland, of “F*** the EU!” fame, and who also could not help but gloat recently, when she remembered what happened to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline…
So, the rumors are true—Poles got the go-ahead from her to blow up the pipelines, and dutifully did?
There was another woman, with thwarted presidential ambitions, who gloated and cackled at the horrendous murder of Muamar Kaddafi, she of the “We came, we saw, he died” fame. But let’s go down that rabbit hole.
Polish politicians actually thinks such people are their friends? How deluded do you have to be?
But let’s go back to where we began. Whatever happened to that feminist claim that women will manage the world far better than men? There is an old trope in folktales the world over—of the evil step-mother. That is who these women politicians are — our evil step-mothers.
As for Poland, back in the day, the Poles assumed that they had finally found the perfect friend in this world. Old Adolf Hitler himself and they were going to pal up to him and use the Germans to destroy the Russians. We all know how that turned out. Well, it’s the same pipe dream again; and to show Uncle Joe that this time Poland means business, they are arming themselves to the hilt, because you know, Russians—and all that loot, just yours for the taking. Just replace Adolf with Joe Biden. And the conniving strategy is to draw America in so deep into the Ukraine that withdrawal will become impossible and then the fun can really begin. How quickly people forget Afghanistan…
Ok, break out the Polish jokes.
And, please God, deliver us all from evil step-mothers.
Thane Angus writes from a small northern Canadian town.
Content production company for RT’s sister channel ceases operations, citing crackdown on media freedom
RT | February 3, 2023
RT DE Productions – a German-based company that produces content for the RT DE TV channel and website in Moscow – has announced that it’s halting all its operations in the country. The company cited “the repressive state of media freedoms within the EU.”
The latest round of sanctions adopted by Brussels has made any further activities of the company in Germany impossible, RT DE Productions said in a statement on Friday.
The ninth sanctions package introduced in December 2022 amounted to “effectively cutting off oxygen for staff,” the firm said, adding that the EU had “betrayed the reliance on the fundamental rights and freedoms recognized in the Charter of Fundamental Rights” of the bloc itself.
“The EU, in permitting the imposition of sanctions on media freedoms, has shown that the very values claimed to define the core of its existence are without any substance,” the statement read, adding that the freedom of the press “does not exist in Germany today.”
The production company also said it was “happy and proud” to be able to provide German-speaking audiences in multiple countries with “essential stories and opinions, often side-lined or overlooked by the mainstream media outlets.”
The sanctions package announced in December blacklisted RT’s parent company, TV-Novosti, as well as revoking the EU broadcasting licenses of Russian media outlets including NTV, NTV Mir, Rossiya 1, REN TV and Perviy Channel. Following the introduction of these new restrictions, Paris froze the accounts of RT France, citing the need to comply with the new regulations. The move forced RT’s French subsidiary to cease broadcasting.
Even before the conflict in Ukraine, RT had faced multiple obstacles to launching a live TV channel for a German audience back in 2021. German banks abruptly refused to work with the broadcaster, and Luxembourg shot down its licensing bid.
When the channel was eventually launched in December 2021, its YouTube page was immediately banned and European satellite TV operator Eutelsat took it off air shortly after, giving in to pressure from the German media regulator, MAAB. The regulator then demanded a broadcast ban on the RT DE channel, accusing RT DE Productions of broadcasting without a valid German license.
RT DE Productions is not a broadcaster, but a production company, while the RT DE channel was broadcast from Moscow under a valid EU-wide Serbian license. However, a German court sided with the media regulator in March 2022.
Attempts by France & Germany to Negotiate With Russia Should Be Prevented, Bolton Tells Pranksters
By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 02.02.2023
John Bolton shared his thoughts on topics such as the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the West and the prospects of Ukraine’s NATO membership with Vovan and Lexus.
Former US presidential advisor John Bolton has made some rather frank admissions during a phone conversation with whom he thought was the ex-president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.
Alas, his interlocutor turned out to be the well-known Russian prankster duo known as Vovan and Lexus, who promptly spilled the beans online.
During the chat, Bolton apparently insisted that all attempts by Germany or France to hold negotiations with Russia amid the current crisis in Ukraine should be disrupted, and claimed that the sooner Ukraine and Georgia become members of NATO, the better.
Regarding the sanctions imposed by western powers against Russia, Bolton complained that they weren’t enough and that Moscow continues to bypass these punitive measures.
He also commented on the promise made over three decades ago by former US Secretary of State James Baker to the former leader of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev regarding NATO not expanding to the east, claiming that Baker merely “launched into arguments and looked for ways to avoid confrontation,” as the pranksters put it.
‘Türkiye and UAE told to cut trade ties with Russia’
RT | February 3, 2023
US officials have warned Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates against maintaining economic and financial ties with Russia because trade is undermining sanctions, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
The warnings were reportedly voiced by the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US Treasury, Brian Nelson, during meetings with Turkish officials on Thursday and Friday.
Nelson’s visit to Türkiye comes as part of a regional tour that included the UAE earlier this week, and is said to be aimed at discussing Washington’s concerns over rising exports to Russia that include US goods.
US officials have called on the two countries to clamp down on the flow of goods to Russia, the sources told the news agency, adding that millions of dollars’ worth of export-controlled items were reaching the sanctions-hit country, and could be used by the defense industry to extend the conflict in Ukraine.
Scores of Turkish exporters shipped over $800 million worth of goods to Russia, including $300 million in machinery and another $80 million in electronics in the eight months through October 2022, according to people who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Other areas of concern reportedly include Russian vessels either sanctioned or subject to export controls making port calls in Turkey.
Meanwhile, the UAE has maintained ties with both Ukraine and Russia. The Gulf state’s ruler, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, traveled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in October amid the continuing conflict in Ukraine. The leaders expressed Moscow and Abu Dhabi’s willingness to develop cooperation on all levels.
‘Nobody can tell us how to live’: Hungary slams US envoy for meddlesome remarks
“We welcome non-governors and non-regents”
Press TV – February 3 2023
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has lashed out at the US ambassador to Budapest for meddling in the country’s internal affairs over its support for Russia, saying, “Nobody can tell us from the outside how to live.”
Szijjarto issued the scathing rebuke on Thursday after David Pressman, who has represented Washington in Budapest since September last year, censured Hungary’s push for the continuation of policies endorsed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country’s opposition to Western-led anti-Russia sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine.
“Nobody can tell us from the outside how to live, so it is of no interest what a citizen of another country – be it an ambassador – thinks about the domestic political processes in Hungary,” Szijjarto said at a press conference. “We ask for more respect for the Hungarians, even from the ambassador.”
Stressing that it is not Pressman’s “job to interfere in the internal affairs of Hungary,” the Hungarian foreign minister said, “If he wants to use his stay in Hungary to qualify the activities of the government elected by the Hungarian people with a fairly clear majority… then he will have a very difficult time.”
Szijjarto said when Hungary receives foreign ambassadors, it expects them to behave appropriately and work to improve bilateral relations, emphasizing that the era of foreign envoys telling Hungarians how to live in their own country “is over.”
Hungary has on numerous occasions voiced opposition to Western sanctions against Moscow in response to Russia’s protracted military operation in Ukraine, arguing that the restrictions have wreaked havoc on the EU economy.
Last month, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also slammed Germany’s decision to support Ukraine by supplying 14 Leopard 2 tanks, warning that such steps would make Western countries active participants in the conflict. Orban stressed that, instead of arming Kiev, the West should pursue “a ceasefire and peace talks” in Ukraine.
Russia launched what it calls a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, over the perceived threat of the ex-Soviet republic joining NATO and to “de-Nazify” Kiev. Since then, the United States and Ukraine’s other allies have sent Kiev tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, including rocket systems, drones, armored vehicles, tanks, and communication systems.
Western countries have also imposed a slew of economic sanctions on Moscow. The Kremlin has said the sanctions and the Western military assistance will only prolong the war.
Latest IMF data shows Russia outperforming Germany and UK
By Drago Bosnic | February 3, 2023
After the US-led political West imposed the most comprehensive sanctions in recorded history in an attempt to destroy the Russian economy, the most sanctioned country on the planet was expected to be isolated, economically devastated, with no access to high technologies of any kind and, most preferably, with an extremely angry populace, potentially causing protests and eventually a coup that would bring down the Russian government and bring about the “free and democratic” (i.e. compliant) Yeltsin-style puppet regime. And yet, despite nearly a year of this unprecedented economic siege, the Russian economy isn’t only still standing, but it’s even growing.
Russia’s trade exchange with the world is surging (by dozens of times in some cases) and, according to the latest data by the International Monetary Fund, it’s now expected to outperform both the United Kingdom and Germany, two of the leading European economies. The goal of making the Russian people quite angry was accomplished however – the Russians are furious at the political West and stand united in a way not seen since the Second World War, making the idea of a pro-Western coup in Moscow a perpetual pipe dream of the political elites in Washington DC and Brussels. Worse yet, if a coup ever happens, it would only bring more anti-Western political parties to power.
At first, the effects indeed seemed catastrophic for the Russian economy, with the ruble apparently in free fall and the stock market effectively shut down. However, after initially losing over 40% of its value, the embattled Russian currency didn’t just rebound, but also gained momentum and reached values higher than those before the start of Russia’s counteroffensive. And now, the latest IMF forecast predicts that Russian economic growth will outperform that of Germany, while the UK will go through a recession, as its economy was at its worst in over 300 years and is expected to perform even worse this year.
The prediction would have been nearly impossible to imagine less than a year ago and would have surely caused a roar of laughter in the mainstream media. In early March last year, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen boasted that “the Russian economy will be devastated.” The Russian government itself also expected a dramatic GDP contraction, with the finance ministry reportedly gearing up for at least a 10% decline. Even in December, many leading economists expected the GDP fall in 2023 to be 2.5%. And yet, the Russian economy fell by 2.2% in 2022 and is expected to grow at least 0.3% this year and 2.1% in 2024. The numbers indicate that the UK is in a recession and is expected to have a 0.6% GDP fall, while Germany will barely stay afloat with a 0.1% growth.
The sanctions were designed to cut off Russia from the international financial system by essentially stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of its foreign exchange assets, making it virtually impossible for Moscow to do business with basically anyone. Or so it seemed. However, what eventually happened was nearly a complete dedollarization of Russia’s trade exchange, as the Eurasian giant simply switched to trading in the domestic currencies of its international partners, including China and India. This made it possible for Russia’s industry to not only maintain its existing production level in the first 10 months of last year (officially it was down by a paltry 0.1%), but to even start growing in November and December. It’s expected to grow even more in 2023.
Additionally, Russia is home to many of the world’s most essential commodities, such as oil and natural gas. Moscow continues to hold dominant positions in global markets, including being the leading exporter of fertilizer and food. The world simply cannot afford to ignore Russia and there’s no indicator that it even wants to, despite the political West’s frenzied attempts to portray Moscow as the supposed “international pariah”. More than 80% of the planet not only continues to work with Russia, but is actively expanding its cooperation with the superpower. And while the political West is effectively trying to impose an oil and gas embargo on itself by sanctioning Moscow, giants such as China and India are increasing their Russian energy imports.
According to Bloomberg, India was importing 1.2 million barrels of Russian oil per day in 2022, an increase of 33 times in comparison to 2021. This is also expected to grow in 2023. Turkey, one of NATO’s leading members, also continues to expand its trade relations with Russia. In December, it imported 213,000 barrels of Russian diesel per day, a record amount in the last 7 years. Ankara also used the opportunity that many Western companies were forced by their governments to leave, so its export to Russia doubled, surpassing $1.3 billion. Imports from China increased substantially as their companies also filled the gaps left by their Western counterparts.
Despite all of its Russophobic posturing, the European Union also spent more than $150 billion on buying Russian fossil fuels in 2022. The EU’s suicidal anti-Russian sanctions caused a surge in energy costs, which hit both Germany and the UK, causing an exponential increase in inflation and severely undermining the purchasing power of hundreds of millions of regular Europeans. The latest data shows that retail sales in Germany fell sharply in the last two months of 2022, despite expectations of a slight increase due to Christmas and New Year. While economists expected sales to increase by at least 0.2%, what actually happened was a dramatic 5.3% fall.
The UK has been hit the hardest as inflation, mostly fueled by food and energy price spikes, has a detrimental effect on the cost of living. This also caused unprecedented political instability in London, with two prime ministers resigning in mere months, all with starkly different economic and fiscal policies, resulting in near complete chaos in the UK markets.
In contrast to this, Russia not only withstood the hammer of the political West’s sanctions war, but it’s now hitting back and Western economies are certainly feeling the bite. All the while, the Eurasian giant also continues to conduct its counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe and is now in the midst of preparations for a final push that could end the Ukraine crisis.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
George Soros is either prophetic or pulls a lot of strings
By Tony Cox | RT | February 2, 2023
George Soros is either stunningly prescient or frighteningly influential when it comes to determining who will need to do all the bleeding and dying that he deems necessary to bring about a desirable “new world order.”
Consider the Hungarian-born billionaire’s essay on the future of NATO: “The United States would not be called upon to act as the policeman of the world. When it acts, it would act in conjunction with others. Incidentally, the combination of manpower from Eastern Europe with the technical capabilities of NATO would greatly enhance the military potential of the partnership because it would reduce the risk of body bags for NATO countries, which is the main constraint on their willingness to act. This is a viable alternative to the looming world disorder.”
Soros deserves credit for neatly describing the US and NATO strategy for bringing about and exploiting the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Ukrainians are providing the manpower – in other words, the cannon fodder – and the Western puppeteers can endeavor to weaken Russia and enforce their vision of a favorable world order. They also can do this without having to make the case to their citizens that this is a fight for which it is worth tolerating body bags coming home from the front.
Additionally, by sharing the burden of providing military and economic aid to Kiev, the Western powers achieve the dual benefits of prolonging their proxy war and creating the impression that the whole world is steadfastly standing with the blue and yellow. That helps underpin the narrative frame that there is no moral basis for criticizing Ukraine policy and anyone who does so is probably a Kremlin agent.
The thing is, Soros didn’t write his take on the situation this week, this month or even in the past year. He didn’t even write it back in 2014, when he was allegedly backing the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government and might have reasonably anticipated a coming conflict with Russia. No, Soros wrote this assessment in 1993, nearly 30 years ago.
Back then, in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Soros wanted to prevent former Soviet states and Warsaw Pact nations from becoming nationalist countries that would be governed according to their own interests and oppose the global order that he was promoting.
Western leaders had made assurances that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward, but Soros saw the military bloc as “the basis of a new world order.” He conceded that the group would need “some profound new thinking,” given that its original mission was “obsolete,” and he insisted that the alliance must be free to invite any country to join.
In fact, he saw a great opportunity for NATO to take advantage of the security void created by the Soviet collapse if it could act quickly. “If NATO has any mission at all, it is to project its power and influence into the region, and the mission is best defined in terms of open and closed societies.”
“The countries of Central Europe are clamoring for full membership of NATO as soon as possible, preferably before Russia recovers. Russia objects, not because it harbors any designs on its former empire but because it sees no advantage in consenting. Its national pride has been hurt and it is sick and tired of making concessions without corresponding benefits.”
Soros saw NATO as both a viable platform to develop into the anti-Russia enforcer for his new world order and the bright and shiny object to lure Europe’s former Eastern Bloc states into the fold. “NATO has a unified command structure which brings together the United States and Western Europe,” he said.
“There are great advantages in having such a strong Western pillar: It leads to a lopsided structure firmly rooted in the West. This is as it should be, since the goal is to reinforce and gratify the desire of the region for joining the open society of the West.”
The goal became reality. For example, Soros noted that there was nothing to prevent countries such as Poland, Czechia and Hungary from joining NATO. The three nations became the first wave of NATO’s post-Cold War expansion, joining the bloc in 1999. In fact, the bloc has since nearly doubled in size, adding 14 members by 2020 and teeing up Ukraine and Georgia as future prospects.
NATO moved right along the Russian frontier, placing strategic weapons and security guarantees on Moscow’s doorstep and helping to trigger the current crisis. As Soros acknowledged in 1993, Russia had no desire to restore the empire of Peter the Great – contrary to a popular CNN talking point. However, as the Kremlin warned repeatedly in the years leading up to the current conflict, Moscow couldn’t stand idly by while its national security interests were trampled.
It’s easy to see why Soros was and is so worried about nationalism: His vision could never sell with a government that served the interests of its own people.
NATO’s expansion binge didn’t make anyone safer. We know the little brothers, like the people of Ukraine, aren’t better off. They have the privilege of bleeding and dying as they provide the “manpower” for NATO’s proxy fight with Russia. As for the big brothers, they undermine their own security. Americans and Western Europeans are suffering the economic effects of the US-NATO sanctions war against Russia, and their governments are pushing them ever closer to a planet-ending nuclear Armageddon.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced last week that its Doomsday Clock had advanced to within 90 seconds of midnight, the latest ever, indicating that humanity stands at “a time of unprecedented danger.” The group cited the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has “challenged the nuclear order – the system of agreements and understandings that have been constructed over six decades to limit the dangers of nuclear weapons.”
Not to worry if you’re George Soros, 92 years old, and watching your geopolitical dreams come true. He and others like him can keep marching onward to perfect their world order as they see fit.
If we wonder whether NATO works on behalf of that order, we need look only at what has transpired and the framing of the current conflict. When Russian forces began their offensive against Ukraine last February, Western leaders and pundits condemned President Vladimir Putin for undermining the “rules-based international order.”
So NATO has emerged as the enforcer of the rules-based international order – the new world order, if you will – just as Soros called for three decades ago. The results of that “profound new thinking” are much the same as the political activist envisioned in 1993. He also called for expanding NATO to Asia, which hasn’t yet happened, but the bloc’s 2022 summit was enlarged to include representatives from Asia-Pacific “sentinel states” – Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Was Soros so much of a visionary that the hedge-fund investor could foresee how geopolitics would play out several decades ahead of time, or does his accuracy reflect the fact that he and his allies tend to get their way? Rather than prescience, is this situation more like the cook being a good predictor of what we’re going to have for dinner?
Soros himself offered a hint on that theory in his essay: “We have to act without full knowledge of the facts because the facts are created by our decisions.”
Anyone who suggests that Soros calls a lot of the policy shots is immediately condemned by the Western media as anti-Semitic because, after all, he has Jewish heritage. Never mind that he’s an avowed atheist who has been accused of undermining Israel’s democratically elected government and funding groups that defame the Jewish state.
So when Moldovan President Maia Sandu returns from a recent trip to Davos and promptly starts hinting about joining NATO – in violation of her country’s constitutional commitment to neutrality – we shouldn’t point out that she met with Alexander Soros, son of George Soros, during the summit. Revealing or trying to connect such dots would be anti-Semitic, according to the Western media.
It couldn’t be that George Soros wields an inordinate amount of influence over world affairs. It couldn’t be that some of his critics have legitimate and unbigoted disagreements with his ideas. It couldn’t be that his immunity to criticism is further evidence of his power.
And shut your eyes when a US watchdog group reveals that Soros has financial ties to at least 253 media organizations worldwide and funding links to 54 prominent media figures, including such names as Christiane Amanpour of CNN, Lester Holt of NBC News and Washington Post executive editor Sally Buzbee.
So Soros gets to wield his influence with impunity, apparently achieving what he wants in many cases. He gets to serve the interests of billionaires, defense contractors, power-mongering politicians and social engineers. But what about the rest of us, the other 8 billion people in the world? What about those who just want to be able to support our families, pursue happiness and live in peace – without worrying that iodine pills are sold out and there might not be time to build a nuclear fallout shelter?
Soros himself might prescribe us more bread and circuses, to keep the masses distracted – as well as tribalism, to keep the people divided – at least until we’re needed to serve as “manpower” for the cause.
Tony Cox is a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers.
EU sanctions blocked Nord Stream repairs – company
RT | February 1, 2023
Norway’s Equinor on Wednesday revealed that it was the government in Oslo and EU sanctions that blocked it from responding to a request for assistance in dealing with the damage to Nord Stream pipelines. The Baltic Sea pipelines delivering Russian natural gas to Germany were damaged by sabotage in September, which Moscow blamed on the West.
“The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that work on the pipelines would be in breach of the Norwegian sanction regulations – and by extension the EU sanction regulations,” Equinor said a statement emailed to Reuters.
Equinor is the Norwegian oil company that administers the Pipeline Repair and Subsea Intervention (PRSI) Pool, established by Oslo to deal with leaks and ruptures. The Swiss-based operators for Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 are among the 72 members of PRSI, and sent requests for assistance in October, shortly after both pipelines were damaged by undersea explosions.
Because PRSI “adheres to current legislation related to sanctions,” it “notified NS1 and NS2 (operators) that we were not able to do work as requested,” Equinor said in the statement.
Nord Stream 2 AG told Reuters that it had filed a request for support to inspect the damage, “as a full member of the PRSI Pool,” but was turned down. Its sister company, which operates the original Nord Stream, said in early October that the survey vessel it attempted to charter was waiting for permission from the Norwegian government.
The original Nord Stream was inaugurated in 2011, and supplied Russian natural gas to Germany and the rest of the EU while bypassing Ukraine and Poland. The second pipeline, which would have doubled the volume of gas deliveries, was finished in 2021 but Berlin refused to certify it for operations even before the conflict in Ukraine escalated. The US had sought to block the second pipeline’s construction with sanctions and vowed it would prevent it from becoming operational.
On September 26, 2022 both strings of NS1 and one string of NS2 were damaged in a series of powerful undersea explosions. As NS1 was pressurized at the time, a large quantity of gas was released into the Baltic Sea.
Washington insinuated that Moscow was behind the blasts, while Russia pointed the finger at the West for the “act of terrorism.” Sweden, Denmark and Germany launched an investigation into the explosion, but refused to share the results with Russia. Anonymous EU officials have since leaked to the US media that there was “no evidence” to suggest Moscow was behind the sabotage. Russia’s energy company Gazprom was allowed access to the site only once, in late October.
While the German gas company Uniper has estimated it would take 6-12 months to repair the pipelines, it is unclear whether Berlin even wants to do so.
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Mossad ‘in contact from very beginning’ with killers of Italian PM, reporter reveals
By Kit Klarenberg and Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | October 5, 2025
A roving reporter who covered Italy’s top politicians explains to The Grayzone how his country was reduced to a joint US-Israeli “aircraft carrier,” and raises troubling questions about an Israeli role in the killing of Prime Minister Aldo Moro.
For years, Israel’s Mossad monitored and secretly influenced a violent communist faction that carried out the March 16, 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italian statesman Aldo Moro, veteran investigative journalist Eric Salerno has documented.
Having worked closely alongside multiple Italian heads of state during his 30-year career as a correspondent, Salerno published an expose of their secret relationship with Israeli intelligence in 2010 called Mossad Base Italy. … continue
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