RT | March 15, 2023
Pfizer has offered to extend its Covid-19 vaccine contract with the European Union while scaling back deliveries, but still expects the bloc to pay billions of euros for unused doses amid a major supply glut in some countries, the Financial Times has reported. The offer prompted outrage from a handful of member states, who say the deal would serve the interests of Big Pharma over their own citizens.
The contract extension would push the vaccine agreement out to 2026, with a proposed 40% reduction in the number of doses supplied as well as delays to deliveries, the newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing two unnamed officials.
However, despite the suggested cuts, the US pharma giant still insists that it be paid for the full number of doses originally agreed upon, many of which would never be produced under the new terms.
The amendments to the deal – the full text of which has never been made public – were presented by European health commissioner Stella Kyriakides during a closed-door meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, but faced objections from some EU members.
In a joint statement issued following the meeting, officials from Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland said they would not sign the agreement with the proposed changes, as they “do not present a final and fair solution to the problems of the Covid-19 vaccine surplus and do not meet the needs of the healthcare systems, the needs of citizens and the financial interests of the member states.”
Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski argued that the current Pfizer proposal would favor Big Pharma, and has called for the secretive contract to be published, questioning the role European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen played in the negotiations for the massive vaccine deal.
An EU watchdog launched a probe into the negotiation and procurement process late last year, after von der Leyen’s office failed to produce personal text messages sent to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during the talks for nearly 2 billion vaccine doses, prompting accusations of corruption.
The 27-member bloc originally signed a joint contract with Pfizer in 2020, but since the pandemic receded, demand for vaccines has steadily dropped, leaving an overabundance across the continent. Some countries have been forced to throw away vaccines, with Germany alone tossing out some 36.6 million doses, according to public broadcaster BR24, while others are sitting on large stocks of unused shots, such as Austria, which has reported around 17.5 million in its supply.
However, Czech Health Minister Vlastimil Valek pushed back on the criticisms, arguing that the “majority of countries” had agreed to the deal and that “the contract is not bad.” He added that the large stock of doses would not pose a problem as “Covid is still here” and “It will be necessary to repeat vaccination each year for a particular group of patients.”
By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | March 12, 2023
Defense ministers of the 27 EU countries, meeting in Stockholm, approved the plan – presented by Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – for “joint procurement of large caliber munitions.”
The meeting was attended by the Ukrainian Defense Minister (despite the fact that Ukraine is not part of the EU), who “explained what Ukraine’s military needs are.” Borrell stated “We are in times of war and we have to have a war mentality.” He then outlined the Plan, which includes three steps:
1) Draw from the stockpiles of EU member states artillery shells, particularly 155 mm, and supply them immediately to Ukraine. The money comes from the European Peace Fund (EPF), which has already earmarked 3.6 billion euros (paid for by EU citizens) for this purpose.
2) Realize an Agreement among the 27 EU member states for the joint purchase of 155 mm projectiles from the side, signing the first seven-year contracts as early as next month. This is a “massive order” both to restore and increase national stockpiles and to secure supplies to Ukraine
3) Ensuring the long-term increase of ammunition production in Europe by supporting Defense industries to secure supplies to Ukraine in the long run. (The EU plans to supply it with about one million artillery shells).
Borrell also reported that “by the end of March, our Military Assistance Mission will have trained more than 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers. By the end of the year, we expect to have trained 30,000 soldiers.”
For support to Ukraine, the EU has allocated 18 billion euros (again paid for by European citizens).
Josep Borrell summed up the purpose of the Plan in these words,
“To win the peace, Ukraine must win the war. And that is why we must continue to support Ukraine to win the peace.”
The European Union thus openly descends into war with Russia as part of the increasingly dangerous U.S.-NATO strategy.
The assassination of Konstantin Malofeev, CEO of the Tsargrad Group, was foiled in Moscow.
This is the same type of bomb attack with a bomb placed under the car as the one by which journalist Daria Dugina was killed in August 2022. It is part of a series of terrorist attacks against Russian journalists and media managers carried out by Ukrainian intelligence services under U.S.-NATO direction.
RT | March 11, 2023
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has accused the ethnic Albanian authorities in the breakaway province of Kosovo of attempting to provoke a war in which NATO would once again take their side.
“They want to drag Serbia into a conflict with NATO. Kurti wants to be like [Vladimir] Zelensky, and I would be some kind of [Vladimir] Putin,” Vucic said on Friday, referring to Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and the presidents of Ukraine and Russia.
“It’s what they’re after, what they’ve been doing all along. And in this, they have the support of a significant part of the international community, because [Kosovo] is their child,” he added.
Vucic was commenting on the recent arrest of an ethnic Serb on charges of “war crimes” dating back to the 1998-99 conflict, which ended with NATO bombing Serbia on behalf of ethnic Albanian separatists. The provisional government in Pristina declared independence in 2008, with Western support, which Belgrade has refused to recognize.
“They don’t want normalization, they want to humiliate Serbia,” argued Vucic. “But I’m telling you, that won’t happen. There will be no humiliation, no capitulation.”
The proposal for “normalization of relations” between Pristina and Belgrade, made public last month by the EU, amounts to a de facto recognition of the breakaway province, which would have the right to join NATO, the EU, and the UN. Vucic insists he did not sign anything and will never agree to those terms.
“We are preparing for talks on Monday or Tuesday,” he said, referring to the EU-sponsored talks in neighboring North Macedonia. “But it’s not clear to me why. They said they wouldn’t agree to a deal. Well, why are you coming then? For us to recognize Kosovo?”
Vucic insists that before anything else can happen, the EU needs to enforce the 2013 Brussels Agreement, which among other things envisioned political autonomy for ethnic Serbs in the province. The ethnic Albanian authorities have refused to implement that part of the deal for ten years now, insisting it clashes with the ‘constitution’ of Kosovo. Neither the EU nor the US has done anything to influence Pristina to change its mind, Vucic noted.
Instead, the EU has just granted Kosovo visa-free travel to the bloc, while threatening an economic boycott against Serbia unless it joins the Western sanctions against Russia.
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 09.03.2023
Protesters spilled into the streets of Tbilisi this week to protest a draft law requiring NGOs to register as “agents of foreign influence” if 20% or more of their funds come from foreign sources. What are the protesters looking to achieve? How have Georgia’s Western “partners” responded? What role, if any, has Russia played? Sputnik investigates.
Georgia’s governing coalition “unconditionally” withdrew its foreign agents law from parliament on Thursday morning, folding to protesters after two nights of violent confrontations with police in the Caucasus nation’s capital, and growing pressure from the European Union and the United States to scrap the draft legislation.
“As a party of government responsible to every member of society, we have decided to unconditionally withdraw this bill that we supported,” the Georgian Dream Party, which has 74 of 150 seats in the republic’s parliament, said in a statement Thursday morning.
Giga Lemonjala, a member of the opposition Droa party, responded to the government’s announcement by demanding that the bill be formally denounced, and that all protesters detained over the past two nights be released.
Georgia’s opposition and Western media covering the protests have characterized the foreign agents legislation as a “Russian,” “Russia-stylem” or “Putin-style” law, citing the 2012 Russian law requiring media, non-governmental organizations, and others to register as foreign agents and make their funding sources known to the public if they include contributions from foreign entities. Some media went so far as to claim the Georgian legislation signaled Tbilisi’s drift away from the European Union and toward Russia, with one article going so far as to call the social democratic, pro-EU Georgian ruling party “Putin’s Georgian Dream.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price characterized the draft law as “Kremlin-inspired” and said Washington was “deeply troubled” by it, with the legislation deemed to be “incompatible with the people of Georgia’s clear desire for European integration and its democratic development.”
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed these sentiments, calling the bill a “very bad development” and saying it is “incompatible with EU values and standards,” and “goes against Georgia’s stated objective of joining the European Union.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also waded in to commenting on the crisis, praising Ukrainian flag-wielding protesters and saying Kiev expects Georgia and Moldova to join Ukraine in the EU.
Moscow has for the most part stayed out of commenting on the Georgian unrest, absent Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s remarks Wednesday pointing out that the draft law looked similar to US legislation passed in 1938 known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s statement Thursday encouraging Russian nationals in Georgia to stay out of the streets.
Rules for Me But Not For Thee
Russia’s role has effectively been that of a boogieman, designed to discredit the Georgian government and foment discontent, both in Georgia and among Tbilisi’s Western partners, says Shota Apkhaidze, a political scientist serving as director of the Caucasus Center of Islamic Studies. The reality, the Tbilisi-based observer points out, is that the now-scrapped legislation bears much more resemblance to FARA than it does to Russian legislation.
“This is literally double standards, a mockery. The US brazenly adopted this same law 80 years ago, in 1938, and tightened it up repeatedly. Similar laws are in force in several countries in Europe. They tell us this law is ‘Russian,’ even though it has nothing to do with Russia. These are absolutely different things. In other words, we adopted a draft law modeled on American legislation, that’s in accordance with the Georgian Constitution and the law on non-governmental organizations. What does Russia have to do with it? What does Putin have to do with anything?” Apkhaidze asked. “This is just another reason to completely undermine the political system and bring the country to a change of power. That’s what the Americans are after,” the observer said.
Inconvenient Law
International affairs expert Viktoria Fedosova says US and EU consternation over the Georgian draft law is understandable, since it threatens to undermine their immense political power in the Caucasus nation.
“The passage of such a law in Georgia was risky for the US and the EU, since they’ve become used to engaging in their own financing, introducing their own leaders of public opinion, and working [in the country] through non-governmental organizations. This is their typical umbrella-like scheme of operations familiar to them,” Fedosova, the deputy director of the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts at the Russian People’s Friendship University, told Sputnik in an interview.
“The Americans have spent about $1 billion on our non-governmental organizations since 1993, with the US declaring that these funds were spent on developing civil society, human rights, etc.” Apkhaidze pointed out. “That’s not the case. On the contrary, these funds have consistently been spent on fomenting a coup d’état, on the financing of some destructive elements in Georgia,” he said.
US and European “democracy promotion” assistance to Georgia has come in various forms over the decades, from the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Democratic Institute to US hedge fund billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Each of these groups provide millions or tens of millions of dollars to Georgian NGOs annually, and wield tremendous power beyond the realm of traditional party politics, Apkhaidze says.
“The NGO sector is the strongest structure of civil institutions in Georgia, because they have massive funding. Everyone, even the current leadership of Georgia, comes from precisely these kinds of organizations and foundations,” he said. “They have immense influence.”
Cynical Approach
The US and EU’s record and history of violating Georgia’s sovereignty is no secret to anyone, but their behavior and response to this week’s violence constitutes outright “mockery” of Tbilisi, Apkhaidze says.
“Why is it that in Georgia, a person who throws a Molotov cocktail at a police officer and sets a police car on fire, hits a special forces agent in the head with a rebar and smashes the parliament building, why is he deemed ‘peaceful’ – and his protest a ‘peaceful protest’?” the observer asked, alluding to the dozens of police officers who have been injured, some hospitalized, over the past two days in clashes with demonstrators.
Fedosova thinks the answer is obvious – while the US is able to pass laws like FARA and use them liberally to monitor their media, politics, and social groups for signs of foreign influence and meddling, the same luxury is not afforded to countries like Georgia.
“The United States cannot allow this kind of sovereignty be enjoyed by tiny Georgia, which, moreover, has already been used as a destabilizing factor against Russia (we remember the situation in 2008),” she said.
‘Second Front’
The irony of the crisis over the foreign agents draft law is that the Georgian Dream government is broadly pro-European, with stated aims including entry into both the EU and NATO. Accordingly, both Apkhaidze and Fedosova believe that the crisis is related to the pragmatic foreign policy approach that Tbilisi has taken in relation to its northern neighbor, especially after the escalation of the Ukraine crisis last year.
“The Americans have spent a whole year now since the start of Russia’s ‘special operation’ in Ukraine destabilizing the situation,” trying to get Georgia to join anti-Russian sanctions and “open a second front” against Moscow, Apkhaidze said.
“The Americans know that if they manage to quickly remove Georgian Dream, a second front would be opened immediately, because those flakes who came out to protest want this war, many of them unconsciously, of course; they have no idea what such a conflict would bring. But they are so short-sighted (I mean the majority of young people involved) that they don’t understand what a war with Russia would bring. Others have the concrete goal of opening a second front. The Americans are leading the country precisely in this direction,” he said.
The Georgian government and lawmakers’ attempts to prevent Tbilisi from being pulled into a direct conflict against Russia, notwithstanding the not always rosy relations with Moscow, is precisely the reason the foreign agents law was put together in the first place, Fedosova believes, citing the fact that a handful of NGOs have garnered more financial support over the past year than all the country’s political parties combined.
“The main thing [for the government] is the guarantee of peace, some kind of fair compromise-based dialogue with Russia, without attempts to include the country in a new conflict on Russia’s borders. The main thing for them is to convey this idea of preserving sovereignty and not losing new territories, and to communicate this to their citizens,” the observer said.
Maidan Danger
Fedosova observed parallels between the footage coming out of Tbilisi this week and the Euromaidan in Kiev before the 2014 coup. “We are watching footage now from Tbilisi where young people jump and dance, where the [psychological] mechanisms for creating this kind of emotional bond of the crowd are used. We’re seeing everything we saw on the Maidan. But here the presence of external forces hasn’t yet reached the point where the American ambassador comes out and distributes cookies, for example. So far, we are seeing the manifestation of the Americans in this conflict only in the form of their official statements.”
If the situation heats up, more parallels to the Ukrainian coup could appear, she noted, including radicals in crowds, agent provocateurs, mysterious snipers, culminating in a coup and the appointment of a new puppet government and “the installation of an authoritarian president who will be called a liberal.”
“We see how this happened with Zelensky – how ‘liberal’ his regime turned out to be, and what laws were adopted when everything goes according to the American scenario, and the country is integrated into a full-fledged military confrontation with Russia…They need Georgia as another means to prick Russia, just from another flank,” Fedosova said.
President vs Parliament
In the course of her official visit to the US this week, Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili appeared against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty to express support for the protesters. “I am by your side. Today you represent free Georgia. Georgia, which sees its future in Europe, will not allow anyone to take away this future,” Zourabichvili said.
Apkhaidze doesn’t find anything surprising about the Georgian president’s behavior, saying the French-born politician is simply serving the interests of her masters, and that her sympathies for the opposition have long been evident.
“Georgia is a parliamentary republic. I don’t think that will change. This is not the first time she has opposed various decisions of the Georgian leadership and parliament… As far as Zourabichvili is concerned, she, of course serves the interests, first of fall, of her masters. I can’t figure out whether she’s the president of Georgia or the governor of some American state. But it is a fact that she wants more power, and sees herself in the place of [Georgian Prime Minister Irakli] Garibashvili,” Apkhaidze summed up.
RT | March 8, 2023
Kiev had nothing to do with the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, the Ukrainian defense minister has said in response to media reports blaming last September’s explosions in the Baltic Sea on a “pro-Ukraine” group.
“For me, it’s a little bit strange story,” Aleksey Reznikov replied when asked about the issue after his arrival at an informal meeting of EU defense ministers in Stockholm on Wednesday.
“This story has nothing [to do] with us,” he said, expressing confidence that “the investigation [by] the official authorities will describe every detail” of what had happened.
The claims of Ukrainian involvement in the sabotage are “like a complement for our special forces, but this is not our activity,” the minister added.
Journalists asked Reznikov if he was concerned that the latest media reports could lead to a reduction in EU support for Kiev amid the conflict with Moscow. “No, I’m not concerned. Everything would be OK,” he said.
On Tuesday, the New York Times reported, citing US officials and unspecified new intelligence, that a “pro-Ukrainian group” may have been behind the September attack that disabled the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian gas to Europe via Germany. The US paper’s anonymous sources stressed that “no American or British nationals were involved” in the sabotage.
A few hours later, several German outlets claimed the country’s investigators looking into the Nord Stream blasts had found that a yacht reportedly used in the attack belonged to a Polish-based firm, owned by two Ukrainians.
Kremlin press-secretary Dmitry Peskov described the reports in the US and German media as “a coordinated media hoax campaign,” aimed at diverting attention from the actual “masterminds” of the sabotage.
Last month, veteran American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh released a bombshell report blaming Washington for destroying the Nord Stream pipelines. According to an informed source who talked to Hersh, explosives were planted on the pipelines in the Baltic Sea back in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the guise of a NATO exercise, and detonated remotely two months later. The White House has denied the report by the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, calling it “utterly false and complete fiction.”
RT | March 6, 2023
The first step in bringing peace to Ukraine should be to stop people from being killed and establish a ceasefire as soon as possible, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Sunday, during an interview with Sweden’s SVT.
The diplomat dismissed the idea of supplying Ukraine with weapons, currently being done by a number of NATO countries, as a viable method to achieve peace. Asked why Hungary refuses to send weapons to Kiev, Szijjarto pointed to the devastating consequences of the war, and how Western arms have only exacerbated the conflict.
“Look at the infrastructure, look at the people, look at the number of people leaving the country, look at their former houses, look at the damage, the energy infrastructure. This country is being demolished, destroyed. I don’t think that would be of interest to anyone,” he said.
Szijjarto stated that Hungary, as opposed to other European countries, sees the first priority in the Ukrainian conflict as being to “stop killing people,” and suggested that the only way to achieve that is to enter discussions that would hopefully lead to a sustainable peace agreement.
He also noted that the solutions that were being offered in Europe “simply did not work” because everyone is too invested into the “war psyche.” As for sanctions, the minister pointed out that they have also failed to achieve an effect.
“We have introduced packages of sanctions already. Did it bring us any closer to a solution? No. Did it make the war less brutal? No. Did it put Russia on its knees? No. Did it hurt us? Yes.”
Szijjarto’s comments come after NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated last month that “the only way” to guarantee a “lasting and just peace” in Ukraine was to continue to provide Kiev with military support.
Moscow, however, has repeatedly blasted Western arms shipments to Ukraine, arguing that it only serves to prolong the conflict and is essentially making NATO countries participants in the now one-year-long conflict. Last month, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu warned that if Kiev receives long-range weapons from the West, Moscow will be forced to “push the threat away” from Russia’s borders even further.
By Lucas Leiroz | March 6, 2023
Despite all the recent humiliation against Germany and reports from credible sources that the US indeed bombed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, the German government seems willing to continue maintaining a policy of absolute submission to Washington. In the first week of March, German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz traveled to the US. First, analysts suggested that he was trying to negotiate new economically interesting deals for Berlin. However, conversations with Biden were restricted to the Ukrainian topic, and revealed the submission of the German leader to the American.
The visit of the head of the German government seems to have had the intention of negotiating with President Biden the position to be occupied by Berlin in the current European context. In the midst of the economic, energy and social crisis that affects the country, the leadership position that Germany previously maintained on the continent (in partnership with France) has been strongly shaken in recent times – which motivates the German government to seek agreements that enable it to recover its status.
Commenting on the matter, Alexander Rahr, German political scientist and head of Eurasian Society, said: “Germany wants, anyway, to restore its leadership in Europe, and this can be done only with the assistance, support and blessing of America”.
As expected, in order to obtain such a “blessing” the tactic used by Scholz was to show himself even more willing to help the US in its proxy war against Russia. The German Chancellor proposed discussions on his country’s role in the conflict and emphasized his commitment to help Kiev. Biden thanked his counterpart for the effort to help Ukraine and both reinforced their votes of friendship.
“You (Olaf Scholz) stepped up to provide critical military support. And I would argue, beyond the military support, the moral support you’ve given Ukrainians has been profound. Profound”, US President Joe Biden said.
However, Scholz does not seem to have heard anything very special from Biden regarding the German role in Europe. Significant agreements were not signed and topics of great strategic interest do not seem to have been included in the conversations. To summarize, the meeting did not have content worthy of a summit between two leaders of world powers. This was more like a meeting that could have been held by telephone or online, since the central issue was to discuss the situation of another country – Ukraine. If Scholz expected Biden to be “pleased” with the German willingness to help Kiev and propose to “bless” German projects in return, the objective definitely failed.
Rahr considers that Scholz received “a slap in the face from the US”, and that the Prime Minister “can do nothing but obey”. The expert recalled that Biden made several tours in Europe, visiting countries like Ukraine and Poland, but ignoring Germany. Clearly, Scholz is not seen as “an equal” by Biden, not being “worth visiting.” This seems to have led to much criticism within Germany over the prime minister’s visit to Washington.
“There is a lot of talk in Germany about why Scholz really needs to go to Washington now. Many believe that he and Biden are discussing everything on the phone, so what could have prompted Biden to allegedly call Scholz on the carpet in Washington? I think a lot has to do with the fact that Biden himself was recently in Europe, but did not visit Germany. He has not visited Germany as a president, so far. He was twice in Poland and by this he clearly emphasized that Poland is the main ally in Europe for him today. I think it’s a slap in the face for Germany,” Rahr said.
As if it were not enough to assume a passive posture and visit Washington after being repeatedly ignored by Biden, there is still the aggravating factor related to Nord Stream. Lately, the discussion on the gas pipeline has been a trending topic on social media. Thousands of people inside and outside Germany have been absolutely shocked by reports that American intelligence has destroyed the gas pipelines. And Scholz simply ignored this situation and visited the accused country.
Rhar claims that German officials already know the truth about the case and that the Scholz government is aware that the country was attacked by the US, but adds that Scholz seems to have no choice but to accept, ignore and continue trying to appear even more like a “good friend ” for Washington, since Germany has no military protection other than NATO.
“It seems to me that everything is already clear to Scholz. I do not believe that German intelligence or the military structures of Europe, which should have known what happened, have any doubts about the US role in [destroying Nord Stream pipelines]. And there were publications and investigations into this in the US. But Scholz also clearly understands that it is impossible to act against America, because today America provides Europe, including Germany, with that security, that nuclear umbrella that Europe itself does not have”, he added.
In fact, the failure of the Scholz government shows how the US has proved to be a terrible ally for its partner countries. American international conduct has simply consisted of demanding weapons for its proxy war against Russia while illegal coercive measures (such as sanctions) and even terrorist sabotage (such as the Nord Stream case) are simultaneously taken to harm these same allies.
The case is simple to understand: subjugating its partners and making them more submissive and dependent, Washington consolidates a zone of influence in the midst of the current process of geopolitical transition to multipolarity. It was not by chance that many sovereigntist projects in Europe, such as Nord Stream itself, the EU-China agreement and the plan for a “European army, have been abandoned or sabotaged since last year.
However, as difficult as it is to face the US, this is a step that will become inevitable for the Germans. If Scholz remains submissive to Washington even after recent sabotage, the government will enter an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
RT | March 5, 2023
Massive deliveries of military aid to Ukraine have made multiple NATO and EU nations parties to the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev, according to Laszlo Kover, the speaker of Hungary’s National Assembly.
Speaking to Hir TV late on Friday, Kover said certain members of the two blocs are already participants in the conflict, despite not “yet” actually engaging in the fighting themselves. He did not identify the countries to which he was referring.
“Members of NATO and the EU have already sent almost $60 billion worth of lethal military equipment to Ukraine, one of the warring parties. This means that individual countries – members of the European Union and NATO – are participants of this war, although not yet fighting,” he said.
The speaker also shared his opinion on the potential accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO.
While the move has already been approved by the vast majority of member states in the US-led military alliance, it has been opposed by Hungary and Türkiye. Budapest is expected to dispatch a delegation to the two Nordic nations shortly in an effort to resolve differences regarding the accession bid, Kover noted.
Both Finland and Sweden have caused “damage” to Hungary, repeatedly making hostile moves against Budapest within the EU, he continued.
“They cause specific, measurable damage to Hungary’s national interests. These people are putting pressure on the European institutions so that they do not allocate the EU funds due to Hungary. This is about specific damage, not just that our souls are sensitive,” Kover explained.
He also claimed that their potential accession to NATO would not increase the “sense of security” within the bloc, but rather yield the opposite result, greatly extending the alliance’s border with Russia.
Earlier this week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called for the creation of a “European NATO,” arguing that America’s desire for the further expansion of its influence has led to the current tensions between the West and Russia. The EU needs to create a military bloc of its own to become free of American influence and stop doing Washington’s bidding, Orban suggested.
Hungary has repeatedly called for peace since the outbreak of conflict between Moscow and Kiev, criticizing both the Western sanctions imposed on Russia and the continuous flow of arms to Ukraine. Budapest has also been the only NATO nation to voice support for China’s recently unveiled peace plan for Ukraine.
Free West Media | March 5, 2023
More than 2,500 farmers from Belgium’s Dutch-speaking Flanders region gathered at Brussels’ central Arts-Loi street and blocked roads with tractors toward Brussels to protest the regional government’s plan to limit nitrogen emissions.
The European Commission did not release funds to farmers in the region under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy because it did not find the regional government’s reduction measures sufficient.
The angry farmers protested against the Flanders regional government’s plan to limit nitrogen emissions by 2025, carrying banners that read: “No farmers, no food and no future.”
Repeating the nitrogen hoax
If Flemish environment minister Zuhal Demir (N-VA) gets her green-extremist way, hundreds of farms will have to close down.
Last year, 44 per cent more farmers already reported being in trouble. Minister Demir currently refuses as many as 9 out of 10 licences for farmers.
Farmers have been investing in solutions for years and are now faced with a government that says “it’s never enough!”. They therefore want the nitrogen agreement to be immediately consigned to the dustbin.
Nobel Laureate Dr. Kary Mullis’ assessment of the current state of climate science was that it’s a “joke”. There is no published empirical scientific evidence that any CO2, whether natural or man-made, causes warming in the troposphere. Yet nitrogen emissions are linked to this.
Politicians from the Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang joined in the demonstration.
RT | March 4, 2023
The European Union’s industry chief has said the bloc will have to shift to a “wartime” economic model if it hopes to meet Kiev’s battlefield needs, with senior Ukrainian officials voicing hopes for a massive influx of shells from their foreign sponsors.
Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton discussed plans to bolster arms and ammo shipments to Ukraine during a sit-down with the Financial Times, saying he is working with the EU’s foreign policy head Josep Borrell to expand industrial capacity in Europe, slash supply bottlenecks and pressure banks to boost their lending to facilitate military transfers to Kiev.
“I believe it is time that the European defense industry moves to a wartime economy model to cater for our defense production needs,” he told the outlet on Friday, adding that he and Borrell are “fully determined to support the production ramp-up of the European defense industry to face the realities of a high-intensity conflict – starting with the question of ammunition.”
Though unnamed diplomats voiced their doubts to FT – with one asking “How are we going to pay for this?” – the efforts to speed deliveries to Kiev and replenish Europe’s own domestic stocks come after Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov pleaded with the bloc for 250,000 artillery shells per month, vastly outpacing any existing EU plan.
In a letter to European defense chiefs on Friday, Reznikov spoke of the “crucial role” played by artillery on the battlefield, claiming Ukrainian troops burn through 110,000 155mm shells every few weeks.
Ukrainian troops are “limited by the amount of available artillery shells” and need at least 356,400 rounds per month to “successfully execute” their tasks – or a whopping 594,000 shells monthly to use their artillery power to full capacity, Reznikov claimed.
According to the Times, Borrell is aiming at a “less ambitious” scheme, instead hoping to disperse €1 billion over “the next few months” to partially cover the bill for donated shells from allies.
With costs soaring amid growing shortages on the continent, 155mm shells produced in Europe could run as much as €3,300 for a single round, a recent weapons contract inked between EU members suggests. Based on that estimate, the ammunition sought by Kiev could cost the bloc some €825,000,000 for just one month, though officials have yet to confirm any specific figures.
It is hard to trace how many shells Ukraine has been getting from the armories of its European backers, but over the past year the United States alone sent “over 1,000,000 155mm artillery rounds,” according to the Pentagon’s latest data.
RT | March 2, 2023
The Black Sea “grain deal” arranged last August is not working as intended, because the grain from Ukraine is not going to the needy countries of Africa and Asia, while the West continues to block all Russian food and fertilizer exports, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday.
The arrangement, negotiated by the UN and signed on July 22, 2022 in Istanbul, established a safe corridor for ships bringing corn and wheat from Odessa to countries facing food insecurity. It was also supposed to re-establish the export of grain and fertilizer from Russia, the ministry noted in a statement.
Eight months later, only the first part of the deal has been implemented, and in a way “far from the declared humanitarian goals,” the ministry said. Since August 1 last year, Ukraine has exported over 23 million tons of grain, of which 70% was animal feed. Of that, the EU accounted for 47% and “upper-middle income countries” for another 34%, Moscow said, while only 2.6% is currently going to countries needing food the most.
Meanwhile, there has been “close to zero” progress in unblocking the delivery of Russian grain or fertilizer, badly needed elsewhere. Kiev has continued to block the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline “for purely political reasons,” resulting in a shortage of 2.5 million tons of raw material that could produce seven million tons of fertilizer and feed 200 million people, the ministry said.
The US and its allies have said their sanctions do not include Russian food and fertilizer – but they have banned all Russian ships from docking in their ports or accessing insurance and brokerage service, imposing a total blockade on commercial shipping in effect, if not in name.
“It’s time to stop playing the food card. The lion’s share of grain from Ukraine goes to the European Union as fodder at dumping prices, and not to the poorest countries,” the ministry noted. “Russian agricultural exports are being blatantly hindered, no matter how much the Europeans and Americans, who are used to telling lies, try to convince everyone otherwise.”
As an example, the ministry said that 262,000 tons of Russian fertilizer has been blocked in the Dutch and Baltic state ports for months. Moscow has offered the fertilizer to African countries absolutely free of charge, yet only one shipment of 20,000 tons, destined for Malawi, has managed to depart so far.
Russia is working on its own to organize deliveries to Africa, since the UN process is plagued by such difficulties and delays, the ministry added.
Moscow is therefore forced to conclude that the grain deal “does not work,” identifying the main problem as “sabotage by Western countries” of the Russia-UN memorandum.
“It is obvious that Americans and Europeans do not care about the needs of countries in need, nor about the efforts of the UN, which they have long and persistently tried to turn into a tool for serving their political goals,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
RT | March 1, 2023
Sanctions against Russian aviation have led to mixed results but have failed to cause the significant pain to the sector that was expected by Western countries, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing industry analysts.
The Ukraine-related sanctions forced two of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, to stop doing business in Russia. Meanwhile, over 40% of the aircraft operating in Russia were owned by foreign lessors that demanded their property back shortly after the restrictions were introduced.
However, Russian air carriers are still operating 467 Airbus and Boeing jets versus the 544 a year ago, according to data from researcher Cirium, as cited by the news agency.
The country’s airlines reportedly keep flying the jets without software updates and other forms of support from Boeing and Airbus. Both manufacturers told the agency that they had stopped providing parts, maintenance or technical support to airlines or maintenance companies in Russia.
In February, Russian Federal Air Transport Agency head Alexander Neradko said that Boeing and Airbus planes operated by Russian airlines will be able to fly safely until 2030 if properly maintained.
In an attempt to isolate Russia, the US, EU, and a number of other countries closed their airspace to Russian airlines. However, despite losing many destinations, Russian carriers have reportedly increased the number of flights to Thailand, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
According to Cirium estimates, Russian airports are now served by some 270 international flights daily compared to 300 a year ago.
At the same time, Russia’s retaliatory measures forced EU and US carriers to make long and expensive detours on flights to Asia. Russian airspace is still open to airlines from nations that opted not to support the sanctions, such as the UAE, which has ramped up service.
“Clearly the sanctions didn’t work as the West thought they would, and the global aviation industry is a lot leakier than anyone thought,” industry consultant Richard Aboulafia told Bloomberg. “Yes, safety will deteriorate the longer these sanctions go on, but it’s clearly not going to bring connectivity within Russia and from Russia to a grinding halt.”
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By Lisa Pease | Consortium News | September 16, 2013
More than a half century ago, just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others went down in a plane crash over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All 16 died, but the facts of the crash were provocatively mysterious. … continue
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