Russian envoy slams Die Welt over ‘kill Putin’ quote
RT | April 18, 2023
Germany’s Die Welt daily “hit rock bottom” in its anti-Russian zeal last week, the Russian ambassador to Berlin, Sergey Nechaev, said on Monday, in response to an interview with American columnist Fred Kaplan in which he said the “easiest way” to end the Ukraine conflict is for someone to “kill Putin.”
Die Welt has left “this de facto call for murder” unredacted and uncommented on and even used it as a headline, Nechaev wrote in a damning post published on the embassy’s Telegram account. The envoy was apparently referring to Die Welt’s Twitter account, which used the “killing” quote to draw attention to the interview with Kaplan on its social media.
“It is unfortunate that some German media keep crossing all the lines and hitting rock bottom,” the ambassador said, adding that “although this is outrageous, it is no longer surprising.”
Kaplan made the statement in response to Die Welt’s question about the “most plausible scenarios” of ending the military conflict between Moscow and Kiev, which has now been ongoing for morethan a year.
“The easiest way for this to end is for someone to kill Putin,” Kaplan stated, adding that a “new leader” could then come to power, who would declare Russia’s military operation in Ukraine “a folly” and gain the support of the Russian elites to end the conflict. The American journalist and political scientist said he does not believe that Moscow will prevail, adding that otherwise the conflict could last “for years” and potentially end with an agreement that would involve the US and China as “guarantors.”
The US columnist also admitted that Kiev is fully dependent on US aid and that a halt to this assistance might force the Ukrainian government to “strike a deal” with Moscow. “Without the US assistance, it [Ukraine] would not last long,” he said.
Die Welt’s choice of a quote has also been met with criticism on social media. One person accused the outlet of being “no longer above … an incitement to murder.” “Is it a call for murder?” another person asked, warning that killing the Russian president could also bring “hardliners” to power in Russia, potentially putting the world on the brink of a nuclear war.
The German media outlet has not commented on the criticism so far. Neither the text of the interview nor the Twitter post has been altered in any way as of the time of this writing.
Israel drops case against soldiers who killed Palestinian doctor
MEMO | April 14, 2023
Israel’s State Prosecutor yesterday closed the case into two Israeli soldiers who shot dead a Palestinian man at one of the entrances to Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied city earlier this month.
According to Haaretz, the State Prosecutor, Amit Aisman, accepted the claims of the Israeli Justice Ministry’s police misconduct unit and the deputy state prosecutor for criminal affairs. Following “solid and clear evidence,” the State Prosecutor’s Office announced that the victim, Mohammad Al-Osaibi, shot two bullets while attempting to grab the weapon of one of the officers before he was shot dead and therefore, no offence was imposed by the Israeli forces.
Moreover, further investigation, according to Aisman, concluded that the area where the attack took place was not recorded by the cameras in the area and the Israeli officers failed to switch on their body cameras due to lack of time.
Rights groups have, however, questioned the lack of video footage of the event.
Al-Osaibi’s family deny the police’s version of events, saying the 26-year-old doctor from Houra, a Bedouin Arab village in southern Israel, was shot when he intervened to help a Palestinian girl.
His uncle, Ahmed Alasibi, told Haaretz : “From what we understand, he encountered the police who were harassing a young Palestinian woman, and apparently there was an argument. They shot him to death for no reason, the whole talk about an attack and taking their weapon is a lie.”
Tensions have been running high across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in recent months amid repeated Israeli raids into Palestinian towns and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Over 90 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of the year, according to Palestinian figures. Fourteen Israelis have also been killed over the same period.
Pentagon Leak: Disinfo Op to Expand Control of Internet & Get Rid of Biden
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 14.04.2023
The Pentagon “leak” could have been deliberately orchestrated to force the removal of US President Joe Biden and/or to expand the power of the US government to regulate anything posted on the Internet, Larry Johnson, retired CIA intelligence officer and ex-State Department official, told Sputnik.
Twenty-one-year-old Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira was arrested on Thursday over the much-discussed Pentagon “leaks”. He was charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents.
In an affidavit accompanying the charges, an FBI special agent revealed that Teixeira had security clearance for the highest level of classification, “top secret/sensitive compartmented information” (TS/SCI).
“It’s not normal. It’s not typical. It’s not easy, particularly for a member of the National Guard [to gain this level of clearance],” Larry Johnson, a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, who provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations task force for 24 years, told Sputnik. “So, this is very unusual and strange. The thing that captures my attention is that the individual was part of the Air Force unit that’s involved with information warfare. At that age and at that low rank the possibilities that he would have unlimited access to highly classified material is just extremely unlikely.”
The trove of documents was initially released on the Discord platform, popular with gamers, weeks ago. Later, the alleged Pentagon files found their way to major social media platforms and eventually were picked by the US mainstream media.
A Deliberate Leak and Here’s Why
Johnson believes that it was a controlled leak, even though initially the former CIA analyst had been inclined to think that the leaked documents were the work of a frustrated whistleblower. What struck Johnson was a document labeled “CIA Operations Center Intelligence Update” in the trove.
“The one document that did capture my attention as far as being highly unlikely that he would ever have access to it was the report from the CIA Operations Center,” Johnson explained. “That document is prepared for internal use only within the CIA. It’s not the kind of document that’s prepared and circulated within the other agencies that are considered part of the intelligence community.”
One might ask why the leak was needed. According to the CIA veteran, those who he claimed tricked Teixeira may have sought to kill several birds with one stone: to smear MAGA conservatives, justify new Internet restrictions and remove Joe Biden from the Oval Office. Thus, Teixeira was immediately described as a right winger, as an anti-Semite, as a racist, a gun lover and a religious extremist: he “checks all the boxes” routinely smeared by the US mainstream press. As Johnson wittingly remarked in his blog earlier in the day, “the only thing lacking is that the fellow, Jack Texeira, was not wearing a MAGA cap.”
“There’s current legislation being proposed that would not only ban Tik-Tok, but would expand the power of the US government to regulate anything posted on the Internet,” So this could be an act designed to help create political support for that kind of authoritarian crackdown on information, a complete violation of the First Amendment.”
“Another possibility is that disclosure of these documents is designed to embarrass the Biden administration, ultimately forcing the removal of Joe Biden,” the CIA veteran suggested.
Another thing that set alarm bells ringing for Johnson was Bellingcat, which is characterized by the former State Department official as “an Open Source Intelligence outfit that has been funded by US and British intelligence.” It was Bellingcat that allegedly managed to trace the “leak” to a Discord server called “WowMao,” which seemed to have been sourced from the Thug Shaker Central channel.
The story about “leaked Pentagon files” was also picked up by the New York Times and the Washington Post which are largely criticized for being in cahoots with the US federal government and its intelligence agencies.
“That’s why I think it’s a disinformation operation,” Johnson said. “Bellingcat has been funded by both MI6 and the CIA and has worked really as what they call an open source intelligence operation. And it has been used as an intelligence entity. And several of the reporters who were involved, both writing for The New York Times, had previously worked with Bellingcat. The timing of this is just very unusual, that all of a sudden it’s just discovered and the documents that are being leaked are very precisely focused on Ukraine, the conflict with Ukraine and Russia’s activities in Ukraine.”
Convenient Scapegoat
The 21-year old appears to be more of a convenient scapegoat rather than a “hero”, according to Johnson. The former CIA analyst does not rule out that Teixeira will be punished alone – akin to William Calley in the My Lai Massacre case – while his chain of command will be let off the hook.
“I don’t think he had any clear purpose for what he was doing,” said the CIA veteran. “And it’s not clear why he started doing this. And these things are getting posted to this gamer board. Ostensibly, again, that’s the story we’re being told. I don’t know what to believe anymore from the US government. The lies that have been told are so extensive and so massive. I just don’t know what to believe.”
If convicted, Teixeira faces up to 15 years in prison. And if it was indeed a controlled leak, it would send an alarming signal about the extent to which the US government agencies are eager to violate Constitutional rights of a US citizen to reach their objectives. Remarkably, the US mainstream press has not raised the question if Teixeira should be treated as a “whistleblower.”
“The government violating constitutional rights wouldn’t shock me at all,” remarked Johnson. “That’s why I said he’s a convenient scapegoat. They’re using him in this way. He was not working for some foreign intelligence service. He would not have been able just on his own to get access to those documents. I know how really difficult it is, even electronically, when you log into these systems to find some of that information and then to turn it off, then take it out and then decide to photograph and then post it. The story doesn’t add up.”
Touching upon the timing of the “leak” the CIA veteran suggested that “elements in the intelligence community” have eventually “recognized that the prospects for Ukraine in the war with Russia are bleak and hurting and getting more dismal by the day so that Russia is going to prevail and Ukraine is going to lose.”
“And that has really created some great consternation within elements of the intelligence community,” he concluded.
Guantanamo: Yemeni man will remain in prison despite US court ruling he is no threat
MEMO | April 13, 2023
A Yemeni man held in Guantanamo Bay for over 20 years without charge or trial will remain in detention despite a US court ruling that he does not pose a threat to the country. In an opinion yesterday over the ongoing case of Abdulsalam Al-Hela, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that the authorities may not be allowed to keep a man imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay after he is no longer deemed a threat.
According to the Washington Post, Al-Hela, a businessman and tribal sheikh from Yemen, was captured in Egypt in 2002. He was held overseas for two years before being taken to Guantánamo. He has been contesting his detention in court since 2005 and was cleared for release two years ago.
Reporting on Al-Hela’s legal battle, the New York Times said that a Periodic Review Board in June 2021 approved the 55-year-old prisoner for transfer if the receiving country could fulfil security conditions. However, just like 10 other Yemenis at Guantanamo who have been approved for transfer, he cannot be repatriated because the US considers Yemen, which is in the middle of a civil war, to be too unstable to monitor his activities.
Since the latest ruling by the Periodic Review Board, major steps have been taken to end the war in Yemen. Delegations from Saudi Arabia and Oman have achieved “tangible progress” during peace talks with Yemen’s Houthi leaders currently taking place in the capital Sanaa.
The DC Circuit returned Al-Hela’s case to a lower court to decide whether he should be released because the US no longer considers him a security threat. However, it was determined that the fact Al-Hela can be released is irrelevant.
“The Biden administration continues to fight in court to detain an individual, who the government says it doesn’t want to detain, in a prison the president says should be closed,” a senior staff attorney at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, J Wells Dixon, is reported as saying in the Post.
The ruling raised “a significant legal question… does the Constitution allow the government to continue to hold someone without foreseeable end simply because it hasn’t made sufficient efforts to transfer them?” Dixon added.
Any future appeals court ruling on that issue could have an impact on 16 other detainees who are being held at Guantanamo despite being approved for transfer. Some have been in such limbo for over a decade.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Calls on US to Explain Military-Biological Activities Abroad

Sputnik – 12.04.2023
BEIJING – China has called on the United States to explain its military-biological activities abroad and observe its international obligations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Russia’s upper house approved the final report of a parliamentary commission on the US biological program in Ukraine. The lower house approved the document on Tuesday. The paper is a result of the commission’s one-year investigation.
“We reiterate our calls on the United States to faithfully observe their international obligations and provide comprehensive explanations on its military-biological activity within the country and abroad,” Wang told a press conference.
According to Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, there are at least 30 US biological laboratories in Ukraine. The official also said that that the Pentagon was the main commissioner of studies at such laboratories, which may be used for military purposes, including against Russia.
The war, the separation of the world, or the end of an Empire?
By Thierry Meyssan | Voltaire Network | April 11, 2023
Many are those who predict a World War. Indeed, some groups are preparing for it. But the States are reasonable and, in fact, consider rather an amicable separation, a division of the world into two different worlds, one unipolar and the other multipolar. Perhaps we are actually witnessing a third scenario: the “American Empire” is not struggling in the trap of Thucydides; it is collapsing like its former Soviet rival died.
The American “Straussians,” the Ukrainian “integral nationalists,” the Israeli “revisionist Zionists” and the Japanese “militarists” are calling for a generalized war. They are alone and they are not mass movements. No state has yet committed itself to this course.
Germany with 100 billion euros and Poland with much less money are rearming massively. But neither of them seems eager to take on Russia.
Australia and Japan are also investing in armaments, but neither of them has an autonomous army.
The United States is no longer able to replenish its military and is no longer able to create new weapons. They are content to reproduce the weapons of the 1980s in an assembly line fashion. However, they maintain their nuclear weapons.
Russia has already modernized its armies and is organizing itself to renew the ammunition it uses in Ukraine and to mass produce its new weapons, which no one can compete with. China, for its part, is rearming to control the Far East and, in the long term, to protect its trade routes. India thinks of itself as a maritime power.
It is therefore difficult to see who would and could start a World War.
Contrary to their speeches, French leaders are not at all preparing for a high-intensity war [1]. The military programming law, established for ten years, plans to build a nuclear aircraft carrier, but reduces the size of the army. It is a question of giving ourselves the means of projection, but not of defending our territory. Paris continues to reason as a colonial power while the world is becoming multipolar. It is a classic: the generals prepare for the previous war and ignore the reality of tomorrow.
The European Union is implementing its “Strategic Compass”. The Commission coordinates the military investments of its member states. In practice, they all play the game, but pursue different goals. The Commission, on the other hand, is trying to take control of decisions on the financing of armies, which until now have depended on their national parliaments. This would make it possible to build an empire, but not to declare a generalized war.
Clearly everyone is playing a game, but apart from Russia and China, none is preparing for a high-intensity war. Rather, we are witnessing a redistribution of the cards. This month, Washington is sending Liz Rosenberg and Brian Nelson, two specialists in unilateral coercive measures [2], to Europe with the mission of forcing the Allies to comply. In the words of former President George Bush Jr. during the war “against terrorism”: “Whoever is not with us is against us”.
Liz Rosenberg is efficient and unscrupulous. She is the one who brought the Syrian economy to its knees, condemning millions of people to poverty because they dared to resist and defeat the Empire’s surrogates.
The Hollywood western discourse a la George Bush Jr. of good guys and bad guys has failed with Türkiye, which has already experienced the 2016 coup attempt and the 2023 earthquake. Ankara knows that it has nothing good to expect from Washington and is already looking to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Yet the same discourse should succeed with the Europeans, who remain fascinated by the power of the United States. Of course this power is in decline, but so are the Europeans. No one has learned any lessons from the sabotage of the Russian-German-French-Dutch gas pipelines, North Stream. Not only did the victims take the blame without saying anything, but they are about to receive further punishment for crimes they did not commit.
The world should therefore be divided into two blocs, on the one hand the US hyperpower and its vassals, on the other the multipolar world. In terms of the number of states, this should be half and half, but in terms of population, only 13% for the Western bloc against 87% for the multipolar world.
The international institutions can no longer function. They should either fall into lethargy or be dissolved. The first examples that come to mind are the effective exit of Russia from the Council of Europe and the empty seats of Western Europeans in the Arctic Council during the year of the Russian presidency. Other institutions are no longer relevant, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which was supposed to organize East-West dialogue. Only the attachment of Russia and China to the United Nations should preserve them in the short term, as the United States is already thinking of transforming the Organization into a structure reserved exclusively for the Allied Nations.
The Western bloc should also reorganize itself. Until now, the European continent was dominated economically by Germany. In order to be certain that Germany would never get closer to Russia, the United States wanted Berlin to be content with the western part of the continent and leave the center in the hands of Warsaw. So Germany and Poland armed themselves to impose themselves in their respective zones of influence, but when the American star faded, they would fight against each other.
When the Soviet Empire fell, it abandoned its allies and vassals. Having seen its inability to solve the problems, the USSR first stopped supporting Cuba economically, then dropped its vassals of the Warsaw Pact, and finally collapsed on itself. The same process is beginning today.
The first U.S. Gulf War, the 9/11 attacks and their host of wars in the broader Middle East, the expansion of Nato and the Ukrainian conflict will have offered only three decades of survival to the American Empire. It was backed by its former Soviet rival. It has lost its raison d’être with its dissolution. It is time for it to disappear too.
Translation: Roger Lagassé
Seymour Hersh: Nord Stream Sabotage Led to ‘Total Breakdown’ Between White House, Intel Community
Sputnik – 12.04.2023
WASHINGTON- The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines and lack of strategic planning with regard to Ukraine have caused a growing rift between the White House and the US intelligence community, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said in a new article on Wednesday, citing an intelligence official.
“There is a total breakdown between the White House leadership and the intelligence community,” the intelligence official was quoted by Hersh as saying.
The alleged rift dates back to the covert operation last fall to blow up Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines, a move that was purportedly ordered by President Joe Biden.
“Destroying the Nord Stream pipelines was never discussed, or even known in advance, by the community,” the official said.
Another issue dividing the Biden administration and the intelligence community is the lack of planning on Ukraine. The official highlighted Biden’s decision to deploy two brigades a few miles from the Ukrainian border in response to Russia’s special military operation.
The actual manpower of the 101st and 82nd airborne divisions could total more than 20,000, but there is still “no evidence that any senior official in the White House really knows what’s going on in” the brigades, the intelligence officials told Hersh.
“Are they there as part of a NATO exercise or to serve with NATO combat units if the West decides to engage Russians units inside Ukraine? Are they there to train or to be a trigger? The rules of engagement say they can’t attack Russians unless our boys are getting attacked,” the official said.
The official said that while the White House lacks clarity on its policy in Ukraine, the Pentagon is somewhat optimistically preparing for an end to the conflict. Two months ago, the US Joint Chiefs tasked members of the staff with drafting an end-of-war treaty to present to the Russians “after their defeat on the Ukraine battlefield,” Hersh said, citing a source.
But it remains unclear what will happen if the Pentagon’s scenario goes wrong and Ukrainian forces fail on the battlefield: Will the two American brigades deployed close to the war zone “join forces with NATO troops and face off with the Russian army inside Ukraine?” Hersh asks.
Russia didn’t blow up Nord Stream – Trump
RT | April 12, 2023
Former US President Donald Trump has dismissed claims that Russia was behind the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, but said that speculating on the true perpetrator might “get our country in trouble.”
Speaking to Fox’s Tucker Carlson in an interview set to air in full this week, Trump was asked for his thoughts about “who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline,” which was hit by multiple blasts under mysterious circumstances last September.
“I don’t want to get our country in trouble so I won’t answer it. But I can tell you who it wasn’t, was Russia. How about when they blamed Russia. They said ‘Russia blew up their own pipeline.’ You got a kick out of that one, too. It wasn’t Russia,” he told the Fox News pundit.
While the US and other Western governments have so far offered few details about ongoing investigations into the sabotage, a February report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh stated that US President Joe Biden had personally ordered the bombing as a way to persuade Germany to ramp up support for Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia.
Washington has vocally denied the report, which relied on anonymous sources, and insisted it had no role in the bombings. “It’s a completely false story. There’s no truth to it. Not a shred of it,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told Fox in February.
Ukrainian officials have similarly denied any involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage, and subsequent reporting by the New York Times has claimed that an unnamed “pro-Ukrainian group” was behind the attack. It is unclear how the group could have accomplished the bombing from a small pleasure yacht as reported, however, as the operation would have required military-grade explosives and experienced divers, among other things.
Hersh has rejected the Times’ account as part of a “cover-up” staged by US intelligence agencies, as the outlet has largely cited unnamed intelligence officials to support its story.
Moscow has also voiced skepticism about the “pro-Ukrainian group,” with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov arguing the story was deliberately circulated by Western media outlets to distract from the revelations purportedly uncovered by Hersh.
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