The EU, the USSR, and the architecture of collective security in Eurasia
By Alexander Tuboltsev | Al Mayadeen | March 31, 2025
In July 1966, an important event took place in the Romanian city of Bucharest. The Warsaw Pact countries (USSR, GDR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania) adopted a Declaration on Strengthening Peace and Security in Europe. This document, signed by the leaders of the listed countries, stipulated the following:
1. The Warsaw Pact participants officially declared that they have no territorial claims to any European state.
2. The signatories of the Declaration proposed the simultaneous dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and NATO in order to ease tensions.
3. The Declaration proposed the withdrawal of all foreign troops from European countries.
4. The Warsaw Pact countries proposed to develop mutually beneficial cooperation between all countries of the continent based on the principles of equality and non-interference in internal affairs.
And so, it was 1966. It had been less than five years since the Berlin crisis of 1961, when Soviet and American tanks faced each other in a standoff near the checkpoint (between West and East Berlin).
At the height of the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact countries proposed their own project for a collective, common, mutually beneficial security architecture in Europe.
10 years later, in November 1976, a new meeting of the Warsaw Pact Political Advisory Committee was held in Bucharest. As a result, a new Declaration was adopted. In my opinion, it can be called the prototype of the modern concept of a multipolar world. In the Declaration of 1976, the Warsaw Pact countries published the following program for the collective security system:
1. Ending the arms race.
2. Development of interstate relations with respect for the principles of sovereignty and mutual assistance.
3. Emphasis on the development of mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation between different states.
4. Support the struggle against neocolonialism in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
5. Support for the rights of the Palestinian people.
6. Restructuring of international economic relations based on the principles of justice and equality.
A few months later, in October 1976, the Soviet government sent a detailed Statement to the UN Secretary General on the topic of restructuring world economic relations. The Statement proposed to support the economic interests of Asian, Latin American, and African countries, to fight against neocolonial economic practices, and to limit the activities of global financial monopolies.
What do these historical facts tell us? In the 60s and 70s of the last century, the Warsaw Pact countries proposed to Europe to create a system of collective security and make a choice in favor of cooperation rather than confrontation. At the same time, they proposed to make world trade, economic ties, and political relations more pluralistic and more equal. These projects, outlined in the two Bucharest Declarations of 1966 and 1976, could once have significantly changed the geopolitical situation. But that didn’t happen, because there was one problem.
The military and political establishment of Western Europe and the United States had no intention of building a joint security architecture in Europe with the Warsaw Treaty Organization. The situation was quite the opposite: after 1991, NATO began its waves of expansion to the east. Since the Brussels summit in January 1994, an active process has begun to involve the countries of the former Warsaw Pact in NATO: in 1999 Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary joined the alliance. In the following years, the process of NATO expansion in Europe became continuous, spreading to the post-Soviet space (Baltic countries). The United States used this expansion as a tool to realize its hegemonic ambitions and to maintain the American unipolar dictatorship.
As the years passed, the EU countries continued to turn into a platform for NATO bases, which appeared closer to the borders of Russia. At the same time, the Russian Federation has always expressed its readiness for constructive dialogue, including on the architecture of collective security in Europe. Let’s recall 2008, when Russia took the initiative to create a Treaty on European security. In 2009, a draft of this agreement was presented, which mentioned, among other things, the following aspects:
1. Mutual cooperation between countries based on the principles of indivisible and equal security.
2. An agreement that the countries participating in the Treaty will not carry out actions affecting the security of other participants.
3. The openness of the Treaty for the accession of participants from all over the Eurasian and Euro-Atlantic area.
Western countries did not support this initiative. Moreover, they continued to expand the NATO military infrastructure in Europe, building new bases and accepting new countries into the alliance (Albania, Croatia).
The historical review I have given shows that for decades (since the 20th century), the EU countries have rejected all Soviet and Russian initiatives to create a European collective security architecture. The European Union did not want to enter into a dialogue on this topic and turned the idea of an equal security system into ruins.
Here is a typical example illustrated by Finland. Since 1948, when the Soviet-Finnish Friendship Treaty was signed, the USSR has been one of Helsinki’s most important economic partners. Finland actively bought oil from the Soviet Union at relatively low prices and then re-exported it to other European countries at a higher price. Due to its neutral position during the Cold War, Finland maintained political and economic relations with both the European Economic Community and the Warsaw Pact countries.
And what is happening now? In 2023, Finland joined NATO, becoming another springboard for the alliance’s military expansion. The country closed its border with Russia and began to massively reduce bilateral trade ties, which negatively affected the Finnish economy itself (especially the Finnish border settlements, many of which received most of their income through trade relations with the Russian Federation).
In the 2010s, many EU countries (Italy, Germany, and others that previously had active trade relations with Russia) began to break off bilateral contacts and impose sanctions, thereby undermining the very essence of the idea of free trade. What is the reason for this?
First, the EU countries have been actively using Russia’s resources for decades, buying oil and natural gas at favorable prices. But at the same time, Western European countries showed disrespect for Russia’s national interests and ignored its constructive proposals on the subject of collective security architecture. Instead of an equal dialogue, the EU showed arrogance.
Secondly, since the 90s, the EU has considered the former Warsaw Pact countries and the post-Soviet space as a market for its products and businesses. The EU imposed strict requirements and interfered in the economic processes in the states of Eastern and Central Europe, which began to join it. For example, in Latvia in 2006-2007, due to the agrarian reforms of the EU, the sugar industry of the republic was actually disbanded. This was unprofitable for the Latvian economy, but it was in line with the interests of the larger European sugar producers. Similar reductions in the sugar industry occurred at that time in Bulgaria, the former socialist country. And this is just one example of such EU interference in the economy of former Warsaw Pact members.
Also, the EU, within the framework of the “Eastern Partnership”, began its active economic expansion in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the 2000s. The EU’s political and economic interference in the affairs of the CIS countries, along with NATO’s eastward expansion, posed a direct threat to Russia’s security. In turn, Russia has responded to this threat by strengthening its security and sovereignty, including in the economic sphere.
Thirdly, back in the 1990s, the EU countries became one of the main springboards of the Western hegemonic unipolar dictatorship led by the United States. The so-called “Western world” tried in every way to prevent the emergence of multipolarity, combining sanctions threats with neocolonial practices in the Global South. The number of international political contradictions grew every year, and the EU constantly refused equal dialogue.
Now, the year is 2025, and the EU has become a clone of NATO in its essence and actions. Like the North Atlantic Alliance, the EU is a vestige of the Cold War era. Instead of solving internal problems (for example, the inequality of economic development in Northern and Southern Europe, rising unemployment, and the European energy crisis), EU leaders are using aggressive Russophobic rhetoric, provoking new escalation stages, and imposing new sanctions packages. They are increasing military spending, sponsoring the militarization of Poland, Finland, and the Baltic States, and continuing their neo-colonialist expansion in Africa. Berlin, Brussels, Paris, and Warsaw are now the instigators of conflicts that are pushing the whole of Europe into the abyss in the name of globalism and destructive neoliberalism.
This tendency of the EU establishment to escalate once again confirms that the situation on the continent is tense to the limit. The idea of a collective security architecture is once again becoming relevant to prevent larger and more numerous conflicts. However, this can no longer be a concept of European collective security. Similar projects are a thing of the past. The world has changed, and in recent decades, the role of Asian countries has increased significantly. Countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam are showing high rates of economic development, and their regional and international influence is growing. Therefore, in my opinion, the collective security architecture should be considered as a possible future project for the whole of Eurasia, built on the basis of equality and mutual respect. It is especially important to take into account the national interests of the countries of the Global South, which have suffered from Western European colonialism and interference for centuries.
To prevent further confrontation, it is necessary to eliminate the root causes that eventually led to the escalation. One of the main security problems in Europe is the expansion of NATO to the east and the concentration of NATO military bases near the borders of Russia and Belarus. Brussels, Paris, and Berlin should clearly understand that such actions (along with the bellicose rhetoric and policies of the current EU leadership) lead to an even more serious confrontation. Moscow and Minsk have repeatedly stressed that they will defend their territory and sovereignty in the event of a direct threat from the West.
It seems to me that, in the future, the most favorable option for reducing tensions in Europe and starting a dialogue on a new Eurasian collective security architecture could be the complete withdrawal of NATO troops from the EU countries bordering Russia (Finland, the Baltic states). If EU countries want to restore relations with Russia in the future, they should stop their hostile anti-Russian actions.
In the emerging multipolar world, there will be neither metropolises nor unipolar hegemonies. Europe is not the center of the world, but a political and geographical region like Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America. Therefore, future global security can only be based on an equal and mutually respectful relationship between countries and continents, that is, between all poles of a multipolar world order. And there is no place in this system for such destructive practices as the neocolonial paradigm of thinking and Western arrogance towards other peoples.
March 31, 2025 Posted by aletho | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | European Union, NATO, Russia, United States | Leave a comment
DR. SUZANNE HUMPHRIES ON MEASLES MYTHS AND MANIPULATED DATA
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | March 27, 2025
Internist and Co-Author of “Dissolving Illusions”, Suzanne Humphries, MD discusses her awakening to the catastrophic dangers of vaccination and walks Del through the data of how severe illness and death from disease declined rapidly across the board years before the introduction of vaccines. Hear how data continues to be manipulated and cherry picked even today to strike public fear in outbreaks from diseases that were once commonplace. She joins The HighWire on the heels of her interview with Joe Rogan, and dispels the myth that measles can erase your immune system’s memory.
March 30, 2025 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | United States | Leave a comment
Science Magazine Unfairly Attacks the Journal of the Academy of Public Health
By Peter C. Gøtzsche | RealClear Science | March 25, 2025
Only two days after the Journal of the Academy of Public Health‘s official launch, Science Magazine criticised it in a news item. A scientist I had recommended as a member of our Academy wrote to me that the fact that Science feared our new journal suggested that we were on the right track.
Indeed. Science scored an own goal by illustrating so clearly what is wrong with the legacy media and traditional scientific journals. It started out with denigrating remarks about the journal being the brainchild of President Donald Trump’s pick to direct the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff “who became known for his opposition to lockdowns, child vaccination, and other public health measures during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its editorial board also includes Trump’s pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration, Johns Hopkins University surgeon Marty [wrongly spelled as Martin] Makary, who also opposed vaccine mandates.”
Why did Science mention that Trump picked Jay and Marty? This is irrelevant for any scientific judgments about these people. And what was wrong with their positions during the pandemic? Nothing.
Sweden did not lock down and yet had one of the lowest mortalities in the world. To vaccinate children against Covid-19 down to 6 months of age as in the US is highly likely harmful, and we have not recommended this in Europe. Many people, me included, have argued against vaccine mandates and it was never a requirement in Denmark to become vaccinated against Covid-19. Such mandates are ethically and scientifically indefensible and can increase vaccine hesitancy for vaccines in general.
Science’s denigration continued: “The journal, which has already published eight articles on topics including COVID-19 vaccine trials and mask mandates, eschews several aspects of traditional publishing. It lacks a subscription paywall.”
“Lacks” a paywall? This is a negative statement, although it is positive not to have a paywall like Science has. And mask mandates? There is no need to mandate whole populations to dress as bank robbers given masking’s tenuous – and potentially nonexistent – benefits on a population level.
Since only members of the Academy of Public Health can submit articles, Science is worried that the journal will be used “to sow doubt about scientific consensus on matters such as vaccine efficacy and safety.”
Scientific consensus is rare, and even when it exists, it has often been proven wrong by later research. Science is the opposite of consensus. The status quo should be challenged, and free scientific debate – that so many traditional journals have suppressed – moves science forward. There are many good reasons why some top scientists have abandoned publishing in top scientific journals, and they include censorship, and financial and other conflicts of interest among anonymous peer reviewers, editors, and journal owners.
All my life, I have produced numerous scientific results that went against the so-called scientific consensus, and when my opponents had no valid counterarguments, they called me controversial. I realised that this denigrating term always meant that my results threatened financial or other conflicts of interest, not least guild interests. When my statistician and I demonstrated in 1999 that mammography screening might do more harm than good, which I have confirmed many times ever since, a journalist wrote that there is nothing that hurts like the truth about healthcare.
It is not enough for Science to cast doubt about our new journal by referring to Trump: “JAPH is a nonprofit subsidiary of the Real Clear Foundation, itself a donor-financed nonprofit that has attracted support from major funders of conservative causes, according to The New York Times. Kulldorff and many other members of the 21-person editorial board have attracted criticism for their views and research during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Ah well, I am one of these 21 people and I know many of the others. We are anything but conservative. We try to keep an open mind and are not easily fooled by fraudsters. In 2023, I explained that the origin of Covid-19 is the biggest coverup in medical history. And on 31 January 2025, I tweeted: “The CIA said Saturday that it’s more likely a lab leak caused the Covid-19 pandemic than an infected animal that spread the virus to people. They are very slow at the CIA. I have known this for five years and have written a lot about it incl a whole book.”
Science lamented that Jay, Martin, and Sunetra Gupta, also an editorial board member, authored the Great Barrington Declaration that opposed lockdowns. But yet again, they were right and Science and most other journals were wrong.
Science said that Jay and John Ioannidis, the most cited medical scientist, and another board member, “drew fire in 2020 for a study that claimed SARS-CoV-2 had infected far more people than currently thought, and was therefore far less dangerous than assumed.” This was totally misleading. Jay has explained how they were exposed to inappropriate attacks and censorship from Stanford where they worked. Their initial results, that the infection fatality rate was only 0.2%, were reproduced in other studies.
They first published their results as a preprint, in April 2020. If their results had been accepted at the time, instead of being roundly condemned, also in the media, the draconian lockdowns could have been avoided, as they showed that the virus spread very rapidly.
Science and the Covid-19 Pandemic
Since Science criticised us so heavily for our Covid research and views, even though we were correct, we should look at what Science’s own role has been. It claimed that the Covid-19 vaccines are 100% effective against severe disease, which wasn’t even correct when Science made the claim because we knew that respiratory viruses mutate fast.
I wrote in my book, The Chinese Virus, that Beijing’s useful idiots included Science, which was overly friendly with Peter Daszak – whose EcoHealth Alliance channelled an NIH grant to Wuhan to fund the highly dangerous gain-of-function research, which he denied.
In February 2020, Science reported that scientists “strongly condemn” rumours and conspiracy theories about the origin of the pandemic. If you have no arguments, you raise your voice. This sentence does not belong in a scientific journal but in a tabloid, and it cannot be a conspiracy theory to suggest that the virus escaped from a lab and was likely manufactured there. In the same article, Daszak said that “We’re in the midst of the social media misinformation age,” but forgot to say he was the main driver of it.
In 2020, researchers sent a modelling study to Science arguing that herd immunity would be achieved earlier than the usual estimates of an infection rate of 60-80% of the population. Science admitted that the paper was rejected for political reasons: “Given the implications for public health, it is appropriate to hold claims around the herd immunity threshold to a very high evidence bar, as these would be interpreted to justify relaxation of interventions, potentially placing people at risk.” Science was concerned that opponents of lockdown would use the paper to undermine the policy. The lead author said she might leave the field because every paper she had written on this issue had been rejected with the claim that it was not useful or new.
In November 2021, Science published an almost 5,000-word article about Daszak that told nothing new. A reporter had spent seven hours with Daszak to put a nice gloss on him. A photo of Daszak appeared on Science’s front page with the title of the article: Prophet in purgatory: Peter Daszak is fighting accusations that his work on the pandemic prevention helped spark Covid-19.
Science published this when the death toll was about 6 million and depicted Daszak as a hero who works on preventing pandemics when it is extremely likely that he and “the bat lady,” Shi Zhengli in Wuhan, created one, which he had covered up for in two years.
Science didn’t care much about conflicts of interest either. When NIH’s David Morens praised Daszak, they didn’t tell the readers that he was Daszak’s funder, colleague, and co-author. Science mentioned that Freedom of Information Act requests by the US Right to Know and others had uncovered inconvenient truths, but it used Angela Rasmussen to dismiss this as “weaponized FOIA requests.” She was the one who, in Nature Medicine, called it a worldwide conspiracy when people discussed a possible lab leak. It is still the case that there is not a thread of good evidence that the virus has a natural origin but a lot that tells us it was produced in a laboratory in Wuhan.
Wait and See
In the Science article, Kulldorff said that people had a right to be worried about what might happen and added that our journal should be judged on its output a year or more from now, once it’s more established. I agree. I am very enthusiastic about the journal. And this is not because I cannot publish in traditional journals. I am the only Dane who has over 100 publications in “the big five” (BMJ, the Lancet, JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, and Annals of Internal Medicine).
Disclosures, Funding & Conflicts of Interest
None.
Affiliations:
Peter C Gøtzsche, Professor emeritus, Institute for Scientific Freedom, Copenhagen, DK
Correspondence:
March 29, 2025 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, United States | Leave a comment
Joe Rogan Experience – Dr. Suzanne Humphries
The Joe Rogan Experience | March 26, 2025
Dr Humphries is a conventionally educated medical doctor who was a participant in conventional hospital systems from 1989 until 2011 as an internist and nephrologist. She left her conventional hospital position in good standing, of her own volition in 2011. Since then, she’s been furthering her research into the medical literature on vaccines, immunity, history, and functional medicine. She is the author of “Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History.”
March 29, 2025 Posted by aletho | Book Review, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment
The 1993 FBI Bombing in New York
Tales of the American Empire | March 27, 2025
The FBI often allows violent attacks on Americans “to keep fear alive” like the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York. A truck bomb exploded in the underground parking garage killing 6 Americans and injuring over a thousand. In this case, the FBI and its CIA ally had allowed known terrorists to enter the United States and provided them the explosive material to construct a massive bomb.
Emad Salem, a former Egyptian military officer, was recruited by the FBI to infiltrate an extremist Muslim group in New York. He helped them plan the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and provided them with bomb material from the FBI. Salem suggested that fake bomb material be used in case things got out of control, but the FBI ignored his suggestion. After Salem reported the bomb was loaded on a rented van and was on its way to the World Trade center, the FBI did nothing!
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“What’s the Story of WTC 1993?”; Corbett Report; Bitchute; December 16, 2024; https://www.bitchute.com/video/cPv6kX…
March 28, 2025 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Video | CIA, FBI, United States | Leave a comment
From JFK to Donald Trump: How the USA Became Wedded to Zionist Israel
By Rick Sterling | Global Research | March 28, 2025
There are many contrasts between the 35th president, John F. Kennedy, and the 45th and 47th president, Donald J. Trump. One extreme example is regarding U.S. policy toward Israel.
JFK and Israel/Palestine
Unknown to many people today, JFK supported Palestinian rights and sought a sustainable peace in the region.
In 1960, when JFK was campaigning to be president, he spoke at the convention of the Zionists of America. In his speech, Kennedy was complimentary about Israel but frankly said,
“I cannot believe that Israel has any real desire to remain indefinitely a garrison state surrounded by fear and hate.”
That warning, issued when Israel had only existed for 12 years, was ignored. Israel continued to act in an aggressive zionist fashion.
Kennedy did not just issue warnings. To the chagrin of the Israelis, JFK established friendly relations with Egypt’s President Nasser. The Kennedy administration provided loans and aid to Egypt.
The JFK administration supported UN resolution 194 which called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees driven out of their homeland. Although Israel committed to abide by UN resolutions when it was admitted to the United Nations in 1949, the Israelis reneged on this commitment and were hostile to the resolution. The day before JFK was assassinated, the New York Times reported (p 19), “Israel Dissents as U.N. Group Backs U.S. on Arab Refugees” and “U.S. Stand Angers Israel.” The second item begins, “Premier Levi Eshkol expressed extreme distaste today for the United States’ position in the Palestinian-refugee debate.”
John Kennedy’s brother Robert was Attorney General and headed the Department of Justice. For two years, up until the end of 1963, the DOJ made increasingly strict demands that the American Zionist Council (AZC) register as agents of a foreign country. In response, the AZC stalled, delayed, and created the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The most intense disagreement between Tel Aviv and Washington was regarding the nuclear site under construction at Dimona. JFK was intent on stopping the expansion of countries which possessed nuclear weapons. Although IsraeliPrime Minister Ben-Gurion said the nuclear site was for peaceful purposes, JFK insisted that the US needed to inspect and confirm this. The inspection deadline was December 1963.
In each of these four areas of contention, US policy changed dramatically after JFK was assassinated and Lyndon Johnson became president. Dimona was never properly inspected, and LBJ did not object to Israeli acquisition of nuclear weapons. The demand that the American Zionist Council register as an agent of a foreign country was dropped. Over time, the US withdrew their support of UN resolution 194, and LBJ was hostile to Nasser and ended US loans and support. Details of this process are described in this article and this book.
Israel Policy Since JFK and Today
With few exceptions, US policy has been subservient to Israel’s wants ever since JFK. An extreme low point was the treachery of President Johnson in covering up the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty during the June 1967 “Six Day War”. News about the Israeli killing and injuring of over 200 US sailors was suppressed for decades.
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Damaged USS Liberty on 9 June 1967, one day after attack (Public Domain)
Now we are in a new extreme low point. In his first presidency, Trump flouted international law and longstanding US policy by moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The significant move was driven by mega donor Sheldon Adelson who wanted it announced on Trump’s first day in office. Another prime concern of Adelson was to torpedo the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. Trump responded as expected and withdrew the US from the agreement, effectively killing it.
Now President Trump’s administration is trampling on the right to free speech and aggressively suppressing critics of Israel. This repression on behalf of Israel was taking place under Biden but has escalated dramatically. Authorities have imprisoned a perfectly legal resident, Mahmoud Khalil. They have forced Columbia University to punish students without just cause and to impose obvious restrictions and prohibitions on speech and opinion. Why did they do this? It appears to follow the wishes of megadonor Miriam Adelson. She is president and chief funder of the Maccabee Task Force, which has campaigned on these issues for months.
As reported at Responsible Statecraft,
“Adelson’s support for the administration’s campaign to stifle criticism of Israel on college campuses isn’t a new focus but her alignment with the levers of state powers to implement her vision are unprecedented. In fact, tax documents reveal that she is directly overseeing a social media campaign targeting Khalil and Columbia University.”
In addition to suppressing free speech and punishing critics of Israel, the Trump administration has bombed and attacked an independent country (Yemen) in the service of Israel. They are doing this despite the fact that Yemen did NOT threaten U.S. ships in the region. The Houthi government only threatened Israeli ships after Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire and prevented food and other necessary humanitarian aid getting into Gaza. Israel, with U.S. support, is blatantly defying the International Court of Justice which ordered Israel to “maintain open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” and “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Israel is in violation of this order and the US is complicit by providing most of the weapons.
President Trump, who campaigned and won election on the pledge to STOP needless wars, has started a new war with Yemen which is of no benefit to the US but serves the interests of Netanyahu’s Israel. Will he authorize attacks on Iran, in further subservience to Bibi?
Corruption of the Political Process
When Jewish donors to JFK’s 1960 campaign suggested they should determine his Mideast policy, JFK was shocked and definitively said NO. As reported by Seymour Hersh in “The Samson Option”, Kennedy talked with a friend who described what happened: “As an American citizen he (JFK) was outraged to have a zionist group come to him and say, ‘We know your campaign is in trouble. We’re willing to pay your bills if you’ll let us have control of your Middle East policy.” At that time, JFK vowed to change the US electoral system to prevent this corruption if he got elected. As president, he tried, but faced big hurdles and did not succeed.
Ever since JFK’s death, pro-Israel forces have had undue influence on U.S. policy. If the International Court of Justice decides that Israel is committing genocide, as seems likely, the U.S. will be the primary collaborator in the war crimes. The US is increasingly alone in supporting the zionist state as it practices apartheid within Israel, theft of land in the West Bank, and massacres in Gaza including attacks on hospitals, schools, and UN facilities. Fourteen countries now support South Africa’s charges of genocide against Israel.
Under Democratic President Joe Biden, U.S. policy to Israel was unwaveringly obsequious. Despite 70% of Democratic Party voters wanting the U.S. to get a ceasefire in Gaza, the Biden/Blinken team refused to do this. The Democratic Party leaders’ zionist ideology combined with zionist financial influence superseded their party members’ wishes. Netanyahu ignored Biden’s “red lines” with impunity.
Republican President Trump has taken this to a new level. His zionist donors determine his Israel policy. To protect Israel, Trump issued an executive order which weaponizes antisemitism. Universities are being compelled to implement a new definition of antisemitism which conflates criticism of Israel with ethnic discrimination. Trump’s campaign to “Make America Great Again” has evolved into “Miriam Adelson Gets All”.
It is a remarkable descent from the days when JFK did what was best for the U.S. as well as being best for Palestinians and non-zionist Jews.
Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com.
March 28, 2025 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Palestine, United States, Yemen, Zionism | Leave a comment
JFK files: CIA contaminated sugar destined for USSR
RT | March 24, 2025
American spies contaminated 800 bags of sugar sent on a cargo ship from Cuba to the USSR in the 1960s, the newly released files on the assassination of John F. Kennedy have revealed.
One of the files analyzed by journalist and blogger Ben Norton and the Washington Post documents a “clandestine operation” by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) just months before the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
In August of that year, the CIA learned about a cargo vessel transporting 80,000 200-pound (90 kilograms) bags of brown sugar to the USSR, according to a declassified paper sent to General Edward Lansdale, who was the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary for special operations at that time and had a long history of working with the CIA.
The American spies then decided to launch a special operation to contaminate the shipment. They learned that the ship in question would briefly dock at Puerto Rico for minor hull repairs and would have to offload a part of its cargo.
“Through a clandestine operation, which was not detected and is not traceable, we were able to contaminate 800 of these bags of sugar,” the paper reported. According to the CIA, the contaminated bags would then spoil the entire shipment, making it “unfit for human or animal consumption in any form.”
The plan, however, was not to poison the Soviet people but merely to sour their taste for life.
“The contaminate we used will give the sugar an ineradicable sickly bitter taste, which no process will remove,” the spies said, maintaining that it was “not in any sense dangerous to health.” Those behind the operation still believed that it would “ruin the taste of the consumer for any food or drink for a considerable time.”
If successful, the operation was expected to inflict financial losses upon the Soviet Union amounting to between $350,000 and $400,000 at that time, according to the document. The fate of the shipment remains unclear as RT could not find any relevant Soviet data related to the case.
In 1960, the US imposed its first serious embargo against Cuba, halting all sugar purchases from the country among other measures. The move came in response to the Cuban Revolution, which put an end to the rule of the US-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista.
Washington also made its NATO allies abandon Cuban sugar imports as well. The USSR then stepped in, becoming one of Cuba’s major sugar importers.
March 24, 2025 Posted by aletho | Deception, Timeless or most popular | CIA, Cuba, United States, USSR | Leave a comment
DIDIER RAOULT UNCENSORED
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | March 20, 2025
Renowned French physician, microbiologist, and infectious disease expert Didier Raoult, M.D., sits down with Del to revisit the injustices of the COVID-19 pandemic. As one of the most controversial figures of the pandemic, Raoult was among the first to advocate for a cheap, repurposed drug that he claimed showed promise in treating COVID. But what followed was a storm of censorship, scientific suppression, and personal attacks.
In this explosive interview, Raoult reveals what really happened, the global forces that worked to discredit his findings, and why the scientific community turned against him. Plus, hear his startling position on the origins of COVID-19, including his unexpected take on the Chinese lab leak theory.
Guest: Didier Raoult, M.D.
March 24, 2025 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, France, United States | Leave a comment
Stepan Bandera’s Sinister MI6 Alliance Exposed

[Source: ar.inspiredpencil.com]
By Kit Klarenberg | Covert Action Magazine | March 20, 2025
October 15, 2024, marked the 65th anniversary of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) founder Stepan Bandera’s assassination by the KGB in Munich, in then-West Germany.
The date passed without mention anywhere. This may reflect how prior public commemorations of the life and death of Nazi collaborator Bandera—widely credited as the father of Ukrainian nationalism—in Kyiv sparked significant controversy and condemnation across Central and Eastern Europe, particularly neighboring Poland.
The complicity of Bandera and the fascist movements he birthed during World War II is well-documented. His influence over modern-day ultranationalist and Neo-Nazi factions in Ukraine, such as the Azov Regiment, has also been acknowledged in the mainstream media.
Yet, Bandera’s secret Cold War bond with British intelligence has never been seriously explored by Western news outlets. Now, examination of little-known declassified CIA records by CovertAction Magazine exposes the malign contours of a long-running, ruthless conspiracy between Bandera and MI6 to destabilize the Soviet Union.
This dark handshake only expired because MI6’s fascist asset was resistant to joining forces with other Ukrainian anti-Communist forces, therefore jeopardizing plans by Washington and London for all-out war with the Soviets in Donbas. That plot, intended to ultimately collapse the entire USSR, has eerie, direct echoes of the current Ukraine proxy war. So too Britain’s willingness, then and now, to go even further than the U.S. in building alliances with the most reactionary, dangerous Ukrainian ultranationalist elements, in service of balkanizing Russia.
“Bandit Type”
MI6 first contacted Bandera while he was exiled in post-war West Germany in 1948, via Gerhard von Mende. An ethnic German hailing from Riga, Latvia, von Mende has been described as the “enthusiastic Nazi” who headed Berlin’s Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territory, or Ostministerium. Among other connivances, von Mende was charged with recruiting fifth columnists from the USSR’s Central Asian republics, to undermine and attack Communist authorities. He has been credited with influencing subsequent British and American support for Islamic extremists.

Per a declassified CIA biography, after Nazi Germany’s defeat, von Mende was “interned as a ‘guest’” at the Agency’s Camp King, where Nazi officials and soldiers were interrogated and tortured. In some cases, inmates were unwittingly dosed with LSD under PROJECT BLUEBIRD, a forerunner to the CIA’s notorious MK-ULTRA mind-control program. Subsequently, von Mende became an asset for West Germany’s Nazi-riddled BND, the CIA, and MI6, continuing his spy recruitment in the USSR via a front company.
Through this position, von Mende was kept abreast of UPA activities and capabilities, and maintained an intimate personal relationship with Bandera. The Ukrainian fascist ideologue’s thuggish West German network was by then hard at work killing hundreds of local citizens suspected by the CIA and MI6 of harboring Communist sympathies. While the OUN-B chief’s “ask” of British intelligence was initially judged too high, that perspective rapidly changed. By 1949, MI6 was helping Bandera airdrop his chaos agents into Ukraine.
A year later, Britain’s foreign spy agency began formally training these operatives to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage and assassinations on Soviet soil. This sinister compact was established despite stern CIA and State Department opposition. At this point, the Agency had identified a comparatively moderate alternative to Bandera’s murderous ultranationalist mob, the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR). The group was led by Ukrainian-Greek Catholic priest Ivan Hrinioch, a “longtime CIA asset” and former high-ranking OUN-B operative Mykola Lebed.
During World War II, Lebed oversaw the UPA’s massacre of tens of thousands of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. However, he subsequently disavowed this genocidal carnage, and led UHVR’s push to unite Ukrainian émigrés, who had fractured due to bloody, internecine squabbles toward the conflict’s end. Under the auspices of Operation AERODYNAMIC, for decades the Agency exploited the UHVR to foment “nationalist flare-ups” throughout the Soviet Union, “particularly” in Ukraine, and “encourage divisive manifestations among” the population, to “exert pressure on the Soviet regime.”
By this time, Bandera had fallen out of favor with many Ukrainian nationalists, and was even renounced by what remained of OUN-B’s Kiev-based leadership. This, his genocidal past, and overt anti-U.S. actions and statements due to Washington’s refusal to publicly advocate for Ukrainian independence, all deterred the CIA from employing him. However, MI6 was unperturbed and pushed ahead with its Bandera operations. This created a ludicrous situation, with London and Washington supporting bitterly antagonistic Ukrainian nationalist factions, which frequently undermined and attacked each other.
As a British intelligence memorandum on “the crisis over Bandera” noted, by 1950 Ukrainian nationalist leaders had “become aware of the fact that the British and Americans were backing rival groups,” putting the agencies’ joint anti-Soviet project at risk. It was decided to dispatch a co-signed message to UPA headquarters via Ukrainian CIA and MI6 agents parachuted into Lviv, calling for an end to “present disagreements” between opposing nationalist factions, which London and Washington professed to “deplore and earnestly hope may be resolved.”
It signed off with the now-infamous, Bandera-coined nationalist slogan, “Glory to Ukraine” (“Slava Ukraini”). The memo’s MI6 author, moreover, recalled an in-person meeting they had with Bandera in London. The spy described him thusly:
“Convincing and sincere… a professional underground worker with a terrorist background and ruthless notions about the rules of the game, acquired by hard experience, along with a thorough knowledge of the Ukrainian people… a bandit type if you like, with a burning patriotism which provides an ethical background and a justification for his banditry.”
The MI6 operative cheerfully added that genocidal mass murderer Bandera was “no better and no worse than others of his kind I have had dealings with in the past,” and “genuinely grateful for the help given to him” by British intelligence, “but at the same time is certainly trying to get all he can out of it.” The CIA begged to differ, however, commissioning a study of London and Washington’s conflicting positions on the “Ukrainian underground” and Bandera, and how to resolve this divergence.

UPA poster from the 1940s. OUN/UPA’s formal greeting is written on two of the horizontal lines “Glory to Ukraine!” “Glory to the Heroes!” The soldier is standing on the banners of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. [Source: euromaidanpress.com]
“Political Overtones”
A subsequent appraisal repeatedly declared Bandera and OUN-B to be “completely unacceptable” to the CIA, “both from the political and the operational standpoints.” It proposed the Agency and MI6 take joint ownership of the UHVR and its anti-Soviet wrecking project in Ukraine, and “exchange political, operational and intelligence data resulting from these operations.” Meanwhile, the CIA would “take independent action to neutralize” OUN-B’s “present leadership,” including Bandera himself. It is unknown if this was pitched to MI6, although London’s steadfast opposition was inevitable.
The “British position,” as described in the study, was Bandera’s “importance” had been perennially “underestimated by the Americans, as a rallying symbol in the Ukraine, as leader of a large émigré group [and] as a leader favored by the homeland headquarters.” This did not conform to the reality on the ground as detected by the CIA, but MI6 had a vested interest in maintaining the fascist demagogue as an agent. An April 1951 Agency memo summarizing recent “talks” with British intelligence “on operations against the USSR” noted:
“[MI6 is] seeking progressively to assume control of Bandera’s lines… [MI6 argues] Bandera’s name still carried considerable weight in the Ukraine… [and OUN-B is] the strongest Ukrainian organization abroad, is deemed competent to train party cadres, [and] build a morally and politically healthy organization.”
By contrast, the CIA observed Soviet authorities “had been successful to a remarkable degree in transforming the mentality of the younger generation” of Ukrainians, resulting in them vehemently rejecting Bandera and his brand of rabid nationalism. While the Agency, therefore, favored “political neutralization of Bandera as an individual,” MI6 balked, as this “would lead to a drying up of recruits” and “disrupt British operations.” However, the declassified paper trail shows London eventually tired of their fascist asset.
In February 1954, a senior MI6 official who led liaison with OUN-B for two decades made a “final attempt to bring Bandera to reason” in London, due to the genocidaire’s refusal to reconcile and unite with opposing Ukrainian nationalist elements. The high-ranking British spook offered him “one last chance” to make amends with émigré leaders. Bandera “refused this suggestion with arrogant finality,” thus making “the break” between Bandera and MI6 “complete.”
All British intelligence-run Ukrainian agents who remained loyal to Bandera were duly jettisoned. MI6 informed other nationalist leaders the agency “would not resume” its relationship with him “under any circumstances.” Bandera remained exiled in Munich, West Germany, and continued to run belligerent cloak-and-dagger operations against the Soviet Union, while ratcheting up his anti-Western rhetoric. The CIA and MI6 viewed these activities as a significant problem, with no obvious solution.
As CIA records of a January 1955 “joint U.S.-UK conference” put it, despite the “unanimous desire” of British and American intelligence to “‘quiet’ Bandera,” it was equally vital the KGB was “not allowed to kidnap or kill him.” This could make Bandera “a martyr” among Ukrainian ultranationalists, a prospect to be avoided if at all possible. Hence, London and Washington kept him alive and well, while permitting West Germany’s BND to run him as an agent. Their old friend Gerhard von Mende was his handler.
West German authorities wished to punish Bandera and his in-country network for crimes including kidnapping, but von Mende consistently intervened to insulate his compatriot from prosecution. A July 1959 CIA report noted the BND’s use of Bandera was such a “closely held” secret within the agency, it was not even formally cleared with the West German government “due to political overtones.” Despite this omertà (code of silence), the BND moved to secure Bandera a U.S. visa.
It was hoped he would connect with Ukrainian émigrés Stateside, while ingratiating himself with the CIA and State Department. Per an October 5, 1959, Agency memo, the BND believed “it should be a simple matter” for the CIA “to influence the issuing of a visa” for Bandera, as “many less desirable and less ‘exploitable’ individuals” had already visited the country via Agency assistance. A formal request was submitted to Washington. Just ten days later, though, the KGB finally caught up with him.
Despite their mutual wish that Bandera not be “martyred” by Soviet intelligence, it is likely that the CIA and MI6 breathed a collective sigh of relief upon hearing of his death. The OUN-B and UPA founder’s destabilizing, disruptive influence within the Ukrainian anti-Communist underground was a significant impediment to Anglo-American spying agencies’ implementation of a far grander plan than has hitherto been tried. Namely, fomenting all-out war against the Soviet Union, using Ukrainian ultranationalists as foot soldiers.
This is the first instalment of a two-part investigation. Stay tuned.
March 21, 2025 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | CIA, MI6, UK, Ukraine | Leave a comment
American Efforts to Separate Russia from China are Doomed to Fail
By José Niño | The Libertarian Institute | March 20, 2025
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20, 2025, there was an initial sense of hope that he would wind down the conflict in Ukraine. However, continued flows of military aid to Ukraine and slow progress in the negotiations still make a lasting peace settlement a distant prospect.
The Trump administration’s preference would be to conclude the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine and shift its geopolitical gaze to Asia to contain China. The icing on the cake would be for the United States to have Russia break its “no limits partnership” with China to isolate the East Asian giant. In effect, Trump is attempting to pull a “reverse Nixon” strategy in its foreign policy approach. This strategy aims to improve relations with Russia to balance against China, in contrast to then-President Richard Nixon’s original approach of engaging with Communist China to counter the Soviet Union.
U.S. foreign policy, idealistic grandstanding notwithstanding, is suffused with cynical geopolitical plays. The Trump administration looks to use this sleight of hand against China by playing Russia off against it, even to the point of tricking both Eurasian heavyweights into protracted conflicts. Such a scenario would be every DC strategist’s dream—a Eurasian plane mired in conflict while the United States sits on the sidelines waiting for the moment to waltz in as the dominant power in the Eurasian domain. All of this done without firing a shot.
Heading back to reality: U.S. foreign policy strategists will find that prying Russia from China, much less baiting it into an open conflict with China, will be a tall order. The numerous factors that led to Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972, wherein Sino-American relations were subsequently normalized and exploited to serve as a counterweight against the Soviet Union, are simply not there in the present.
For one, relations between the Soviets and Chinese were already fraught prior to Nixon and his trusty sidekick Henry Kissinger using clever statecraft to woo over the Chinese. Enter the Sino-Soviet split, in which relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union (USSR) deteriorated, starting in the late 1950s and intensifying throughout the 1960s.
This rupture in Sino-Soviet relations was brought about by a combination of factors. Following the death of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev initiated a de-Stalinization agenda and moved towards peaceful coexistence with the capitalist West, which Chinese leader Mao Zedong perceived as an ideological betrayal and “revisionism.” On Mao’s end, his Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution polices clashed with Khrushchev’s more moderate approach to communism.
The twentieth century split between the two Eurasian giants was not exclusively ideological; it had a geopolitical component as well. China’s growing assertiveness under Mao led to tensions over leadership in the communist world. The USSR’s decision to cut aid to Maoist China in 1960, coupled with the Soviet’s support for India during the Sino-Indian War of 1962, further strained Sino-Soviet relations. Border clashes between the Soviets and Chinese in 1969 underscored their rivalry, as U.S. foreign policy strategists looked from afar with great interest.
Internally, China was also reeling from the disastrous effects of the Great Leap Forward—economic collapse and famine—and growing political intrigue brought about by the Cultural Revolution’s numerous purges of the Chinese political structure. Against this backdrop of heightened tension on the domestic and international fronts, prominent leaders such as Minister of National Defense Lin Biao insisted that China maintain hawkish relations toward both the Soviets and the United States. Lin perceived both the United States and Soviet Union as imperial powers that threatened Chinese interests, standing in contrast to Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai’s efforts to pursue diplomatic ties with the United States to counterbalance Soviet hostility.
However, Lin’s death in 1971 in a suspicious plane crash cleared the way for China’s leadership class to pursue a rapprochement with the United States. Shortly thereafter, China’s positive overtures to the United States culminated in President Richard Nixon’s historic visit in 1972. In turn, the “Chimerica” project was forged with China as the workshop of the world in the liberal economic order.
However, this arrangement in the international order would begin to disintegrate after the United States prosecuted unpopular nation-building ventures in the Middle East and was at the center of the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. This series of events discredited the U.S.-led liberal order among many of the resurging actors on the world stage such as China and Russia. The United States’ penchant for being “agreement incapable” on issues regarding NATO expansion and the Iran nuclear deal lent further credence to the idea that Washington is an erratic diplomatic actor that can’t be trusted to abide by international norms.
As the forces of nationalism and great power competition returned, the very notion of the preeminent powers of the Eurasian plane submitting to the whims of DC seemed fantastical at best. The previously mentioned intricacies of Cold War geopolitics and the United States’ bungled economic and foreign policies of the past three decades makes the realization of a “reverse Nixon” strategy a pipe dream at best. Dialing down tensions with Russia is fine but it should be done without ulterior motives.
Perhaps the United States should start treating countries like Russia as normal political entities as opposed to geopolitical playthings for American strategists to exploit to their heart’s content.
March 20, 2025 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | China, Russia, United States | Leave a comment
Trump’s Latest Statements on Ukraine ‘MOSTLY TRUE’ – The Hill
Sputnik – 19.03.2025
POTUS’ remarks come amid a “steady diet of disinformation” about Ukraine that Western audiences have been fed for more than a decade, The Hill’s contributor, Alan Kuperman, underscores.
He points to an array of Ukraine-related facts that the Western public should have known:
- Right-wing Ukrainian militants were the ones who triggered the 2014 Maidan violence which led to resignation of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych
- Zelensky added fuel to the fire of “a wider war” by violating the Minsk peace agreements and seeking NATO military aid and membership
- Zelensky campaigned in 2019 on a pledge to prevent further war, but reneged after winning the elections, “apparently less concerned about risking war than looking weak on Russia.”
- The subsequent increase in weapons imports from NATO countries by the Zelensky regime proved the last straw for Russian President Vladimir Putin
- Former US President Joe Biden “contributed crucially” to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict by failing to force Zelensky to comply with Putin’s request to implement the Minsk accords
- If Trump had been the US president at the time, he wouldn’t have provided Zelensky with “such a blank check”, which emboldened Ukraine and further sparked the standoff.
March 19, 2025 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment
European Court of Human Rights finds Ukraine guilty of the Odessa massacre
By Uriel Araujo | March 18, 2025
On March 13, 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) delivered a landmark ruling, finding Ukraine guilty of violating the right to life in the May 2, 2014, Odessa massacre. The court determined that Ukrainian authorities failed to prevent the violence that killed 48 people—mostly anti-Maidan activists trapped in the Trade Unions House fire—and neglected to conduct a proper investigation. The decision awarded €114,700 in compensation to victims’ families and survivors, spotlighting a decade of impunity.
One will have a hard time finding anything about the ECHR ruling if one looks at Western media right now; and this in itself speaks volumes about the nature of Western propaganda (yes, such is a thing).
Let us imagine for the sake of comparison, the following scenario: after a coup followed by an ultra-nationalist revolution, Russia starts rewriting History, and enforcing Russian chauvinism through a number of policies pertaining to minority ethnic groups. Russian far-right paramilitary groups grow increasingly violent while Moscow turns a blind eye to them, as reported by the Freedom House.
Then, one day, a group of far-right hooligans and activists clashed with protesters and things turned ugly, with fighting ensuing. Around 400 such activists retreated and barricaded themselves inside the nearby Trade Unions House, only to find themselves surrounded by the ultra-nationalists, who threw Molotov cocktails. The building then caught fire, flames spread rapidly, trapping those inside. Some desperately jumped from upper floors to escape, only to be beaten by the nationalist crowd below; others suffocated or burned.
Emergency response was slow—firefighters, albeit stationed just 400 meters away, took around 30 minutes to arrive despite frantic calls. By nightfall, 42 people inside the building were dead, bringing the day’s total to 48. The Russian government failed to properly investigate, as denounced by European councils and human rights groups, and, 10 years later, there was still no justice for the victims of nationalist brutality.
Can you imagine the international outrage if such scenario I just imagined were real? Well, this is pretty much what happened in Odessa—just replace “Russian nationalists” with “Ukrainian nationalists”, “Moscow” with “Kyiv”, “Russian government” with “Ukrainian government”, and there you have it.
During my PhD, when I was conducting fieldwork and research in the Rostov-on-Don area in southern Russia, I also visited Luhansk (Donbas) at a time when the Donbas war (which started in 2014 and has not ended) was being described as yet another “frozen conflict”. One of the events I attended, on May 2, was a tribute in memory of the victims of Odessa Massacre, which was also attended by MP Oleg Akimov (with the local “rebel” government) and Anna Soroka, who led an initiative to report Ukrainian state terrorism crimes to international courts.
That day, in 2019, marked the fifth anniversary of the Odessa tragedy, and the location chosen, in Luhansk, to hold the event in honor of the victims was in front of the place, on a road, where Donbas residents, mostly civilians, who perished during a Ukrainian offensive in 2015, are buried.
At that time in 2015, the city was without electricity for several days, so that keeping the bodies in the morgue was impossible (and access to other places was blocked by Kyiv’s attacks), so many of the decomposing bodies, already unrecognizable, were, in that chaotic scenario, buried in a kind of mass grave. Next to it, a chapel was later built in memory of the tragedy. By honoring the dead of Odessa in that particular place, they linked both tragedies, symbolically uniting the relatives of the victims. Some residents held portraits of their deceased relatives, possibly buried there without identification, and, somewhat confusingly, one of the residents who was in Odessa on the day of the massacre gave his emotional account. For them, in a way, Luhansk was Odessa—and Donetsk was Odessa.
One should thus never underestimate the tremendous symbolic and emotional importance that the events in Odessa hold for many in Eastern Ukraine, including the disputed region of Donbas. The Odessa massacre unfolded amid post-Maidan chaos, as pro-Ukrainian nationalists (including football ultras and Right Sector members) clashed with anti-Maidan demonstrators. The former besieged the Trade Unions House, and burned it with Molotov cocktails thereby killing dozens, as mentioned. Police stood by, with evidence of complicity, and subsequent investigations stalled.
Since 2014, Ukraine’s nationalist surge has repeatedly marginalized Russian and pro-Russian communities. The Maidan uprising, while often described as a broad-based revolt against corruption (which it also was), in fact empowered far-right groups like Right Sector and Svoboda, whose fascistic anti-Russian rhetoric and actions gained tacit state tolerance—not to mention the Azov Regiment.
Language laws, such as the 2019 bill mandating Ukrainian in public life, sidelined Russian speakers (about a third of the population), thereby fueling further alienation. It is no wonder the massacre quickly became a grim symbol. Pro-Russian victims were vilified as separatists by post-Maidan Ukrainian media and government, their deaths downplayed, and perpetrators shielded.
This pattern, once again, extends beyond Odessa. Far-right militias like the Azov Battalion, once fringe vigilantes, were folded into the National Guard, their neo-Nazi roots overlooked as they fought “pro-Russia rebels” in Donbas. Public glorification of WWII-era nationalist Stepan Bandera, whose forces collaborated with Nazis and massacred minorities, has surged, with statues and street names proliferating, despite protests from Jewish, Greek, Hungarian, Romanian, and Polish groups, and from Warsaw.
Attacks on Russian cultural sites, harassment of Orthodox Church parishes tied to the Moscow Patriarchate (founded over a thousand years ago, in 988) as well as other religious organizations, and unchecked hate crimes against minorities—often by ultranationalist gangs—signal in all a state unwilling to curb extremism when it aligns with anti-Russian aims.
Kyiv’s blind eye isn’t just strategic; it’s structural. Post-Maidan governments reliant on nationalist support and their military and paramilitary muscle have not just avoided alienating these factions, but have rather embraced and empowered them, in the most cynical and hypocritical way.
The ECHR ruling thus exposes this Faustian bargain: justice for Odessa’s victims was sacrificed to preserve a fragile unity rooted in chauvinism. As Ukraine touts its European aspirations, the verdict demands reckoning—not just with one day’s horrors, but with a decade of pandering to far-right forces at the expense of its own people, Russian-speaking or otherwise.
Until that happens, Odessa remains a wound unhealed, and a warning unheeded. Whatever one’s stance on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is, any fair and balanced assessment of the issue must include topics such as the Donbass war, the Odessa massacre, and the neo-Nazism problem, including but not limited to the Azov Regiment. Those are part of the blind spot within the Western narrative on the matter. With the latest ECHR ruling (largely underreported), a small part of it is finally coming to light.
Uriel Araujo, PhD is an anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
March 18, 2025 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Ukraine | Leave a comment
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Fact File : Civilian Internment 1939 – 1945
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Internment of civilian nationals belonging to opposing sides was carried out in varying degrees by all belligerent powers in World War Two. It was also the fate of those servicemen who found themselves in a neutral country.
At the outbreak of war there were around 80,000 potential enemy aliens in Britain who, it was feared, could be spies, or willing to assist Britain’s enemies in the event of an invasion. All Germans and Austrians over the age of 16 were called before special tribunals and were divided into one of three groups… continue
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