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Ukrainian Syndrome. Anatomy of a Modern Military Confrontation

By Viktor Medvedchuk, former Ukrainian opposition leader – Izvestia – 16.01.2023

Listening to many Western politicians, it seems completely impossible to understand the sense and mechanisms of the conflict in modern Ukraine. Take US President Biden. He denies the direct involvement of US troops in the conflict but at the same time he mentions on every occasion the billions in weapons the US supplies to the country.

If billions are spent for military purposes in Ukraine, it means Ukrainian interests are extremely important for the US. But the US army does not want to fight there. So probably they are not so important, after all. And what about these weapon supplies worth billions of dollars? Are they donations? Is it a profitable business? Investments? Some political combination? No answers, only smoke.

Or take the most recent revelations by German ex-Chancellor Merkel that the Minsk Agreements were just an attempt to give Ukraine time. Which means no one was ever going to establish peace in Ukraine. So, Russia was deceived. But what was the purpose? To protect Ukraine or to invade it themselves? Why did they need this deception if they could simply implement what was recommended by Germany? Or did Germany deliberately recommend something that could never be implemented? We could go as far as asking if political swindlers could be drawn to accountability, but it seems much more relevant today to start clearing the smoke around the current situation. That is how it has played out, anyway. But what were the root causes? And how can we get out of this situation, that is getting ever more dangerous? So let us begin our analysis by looking at the origins.

What Was the Outcome of the Cold War?

The beginning of a new war usually finds its origin in the end of a previous one. The Ukraine conflict was preceded by the Cold War. The answer to the question about its outcome will bring us closer to understanding of the essence of the current conflict, one which extends beyond Ukraine and affects many countries. The thing is that Western countries and the countries of the post-Soviet space, primarily Russia, have different perceptions of the outcome of this war.

The West definitely considers itself as a winner and Russia as a defeated party. Since, in their eyes, Russia was defeated, then the territories of the former USSR and the Eastern Bloc are the legitimate prey of the US and NATO and are subject to control by the West under the motto “Woe to the Conquered!” Hence Ukraine is in the zone of influence of the US and NATO, and certainly not Russia. So, any of Russia’s claims to at least any influence on Ukrainian politics and protection of its interests in the region are “groundless” and a clear infringement on the interests of the US and NATO. “We no longer have to view the world through a prism of East-West relations. The Cold War is over” – declared Margaret Thatcher in the early 1990s. It means the position of the East, of Russia, is no longer relevant. There is one victor, one master of the universe, one winner.

Russia has a completely different view of this process. In no way does it consider itself as a defeated party. The end of the Cold War was brought about by democratic reforms of political and economic life, and military confrontation was replaced by trade and integration with the West. So, if one’s former foe becomes a friend today, is it not a victory? Besides, the USSR and then the Russian Federation never had the goal of winning the Cold War but rather exiting the military confrontation between East and West that could have ended with a nuclear catastrophe. Moscow, together with Washington, found this way out, having reached the goals not so much for themselves as for the whole world.

This way out by no means implied that the West would take over the East and subordinate the post-Soviet space in economic, legal and cultural respects. Quite the contrary: it implied equal cooperation and joint work to build a new political and economic reality. So, there are clearly two different attitudes to the outcome of the Cold War: the triumph of the winners, on the one part, and building a new world and a new civilization, on the other. The difference between these two attitudes would predetermine the developments that followed.

New World or New Western Colonies?

In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, but in 1992 the European Union was established – something the post-Soviet space including Russia associated big hopes with. Here, at last, there seemed to be a new world, a new supranational body, a new turn in the history of Western civilization. Russia, just like other states of the former Eastern Bloc and the USSR, saw itself in the future as an equal member of this Union. The vision of “Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok” was born.

In this context, Russia welcomed not only the reunification of Germany but also the accession of its former allies and even former Soviet republics to the EU. In the 1990s, economic integration with the West was a priority for Russia; Moscow considered it as key to its success as a modern state. The Russian leadership had no particular desire to bind to itself the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine. Most of the Soviet republics had lived off subsidies from the central government, in other words, Russia. So, the leaders of these countries were given a friendly pat on the shoulder while Moscow sought to get rid of their economic burden as soon as possible.

Faster than Ukraine, Russia began to integrate into the European market. Russia had vast volumes of energy resources that are in demand in Europe, while Ukraine, on the contrary, couldn’t afford to buy energy resources at European prices. Ukrainian independence could well have ended with an economic meltdown but for the South-East, where heavy fighting is going on right now. With its vast production facilities and advanced industry, the South-East helped Ukraine find its place in the international division of labor. One would not normally mention this fact, but in the 1990s it was the Russian-speaking South-East that saved the economic and hence political independence of Ukraine.

Now let us turn to something different. Since the 1990s, a series of major ethnic conflicts and wars involving millions of people emerged in Europe and close to its borders. Until 1991, there had not been such a big number of ethnic clashes. All of this led to the break-up of Yugoslavia and loss by Georgia, Moldova and Syria of their territorial integrity. This does not make any sense if we look at it from the perspective of European integration. The goal of this union was not the fragmentation of Europe into a multitude of small states, but quite the contrary: the creation of a huge supranational union of nations, and these nations would not have to exterminate each other, nor to multiply the borders, but rather build a new world together. So, what was wrong here?

It only seems wrong if one relies on the concept that Russia used to stick to. And if one proceeds from the concept of the victory of the West in the Cold War, then ethnic conflicts acquire a completely different meaning. The latter was articulated on numerous occasions, e.g., at the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 24, 1995, when US President Bill Clinton said: “Using the blunders of Soviet diplomacy, the extreme arrogance of Gorbachev and his entourage, including those who openly took a pro-American position, we achieved what President Truman was going to do with the Soviet Union through the atomic bomb.”

It suggests that far from all Western politicians wanted to build a new and just world. Their goal was to defeat the adversary – the USSR, Yugoslavia and other states. In this sense, the escalation of interethnic conflicts seems only logical, as they weaken the adversary and in the case of a victory, they help to dismember the country to make it easier for the winner to take over.

Under these circumstances, the real state of affairs does not play any role. The situation is being deliberately escalated. On the one hand, representatives of the titular nation are being declared as organizers of the genocide, annihilating the foreign language and culture and performing ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, representatives of the national minority living in communities in certain parts of the country are being declared separatists and a threat to the state. This tactic dates back to ancient times and was used by the Roman Empire. But the building of a new slaveholding empire is not something we are witnessing these days, is it? Or probably Washington, for example, does consider the post-Soviet space as some provinces of a greater empire that already have their metropole and should be protected from Barbarians who do not want to be under the control of this empire?

So, there are two political strategies: the economic and political integration of the countries with mutual benefit at the cornerstone, and the take-over of some countries by the others, with zero respect for the interests of the states that are being taken over. Such countries can be dismembered, declared rogue states or conquered.

Speaking of the Russian Federation, as it emerges from the crisis provoked by the dramatic change of its political and economic orientation, it is increasingly being faced with clear attempts to weaken it, humiliate it and put it at a disadvantage; increasingly often, is it being declared a rogue state despite its growing economic potential. Growing economic potential should normally increase the influence of the country and be welcomed in the Western world. But exactly the opposite happens. Not only is the Russian influence not welcomed – it is being declared wrong, criminal and corrupt.

Let us elaborate on this in more detail. Russia has taken Western democracy as a model, carried out reforms and begun to integrate into the Western world. From the point of view of building a common European house, this should be welcomed and encouraged. Europe gets a peaceful and economically reliable partner along with its markets and resources, which certainly makes it even stronger. But if one is guided by colonial thinking, one would not tolerate the economic growth and independence of a distant colony. Provinces should not overtake the metropole, neither financially, nor politically, nor culturally.

There is the EU that was engaged in building a new economic reality. And there is the NATO established in 1949 that confronted the East, primarily the USSR and later Russia. Remember the words by the first Secretary-General of the NATO Hastings Ismay: the bloc was intended “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.” Thus, the NATO ideology implies that the US is in Europe, and in a dominating position, and Russia is not.

But how should Russia take it? It ended the Cold War in good faith, while it seems that the US and the NATO have not. Which means that unification with the West intended for Russia will not happen on equal terms, but rather take the form of an economic and political take-over. Hence Moscow’s requirement to stop the enlargement towards Russia’s borders and revise the attitudes and the agreements. What we see now is that the NATO concept has not only derailed Russia’s integration into Europe but closed the door to Europe’s expansion and development. Of the two concepts mentioned in this article, one has clearly defeated the other.

Russia and Ukraine – the Tragedy of Relationships

Let us move on from the general picture directly to relations between Russia and Ukraine. Let us start from the fact that the relations between these countries have their own specific history. These relationships are closer than the collaboration between England and Scotland, or the Northern and Southern States of the US. Ukraine was part of Russia for more than three hundred years, which influenced its culture, ethnic composition and mentality. Ukraine’s independence in 1991 was gained through an agreement with Moscow, not as a result of a national struggle for liberation. The new economic and political reality prompted the Russian elite not only to grant independence to Ukraine, but also to push for it. At that time, no one could have imagined an armed clash between the two new states, even in a nightmare. The Ukrainians saw Russia as a friendly state, and the Russians as a fraternal nation, and these sentiments were shared by Russians.

In Russia, for a long time, the concept of “Another Russia” prevailed with respect to Ukraine, which supposes much closer relations than, for example, those between Britain and Canada. There was a popular saying in everyday life: “We have one people, but different states.” Ukrainians and Russians were very interested in the political life of their respective neighbors. A suitable example is the current President of Ukraine Zelensky, who made a living from political satire, usually based on the politics of both states.

However, the example of Ukraine clearly demonstrates how the concept of creating a common political and economic space was defeated by the concept of squeezing Russia out of Europe. In the wake of the first ‘Maidan’ color revolution in 2005, Ukraine started building anti-Russian policy at the level of state ideology. In this, one can see clearly that this policy follows the templates of the Cold War. That is, psychologically, the Ukrainians were turned against the Russians through the support of certain politicians, changes in the educational system, in culture and in national media broadcasting. All of this came under the guise of democratic reforms and positive changes supported by all sorts of Western and international organizations.

It is difficult to call it a democratic process. It was simply the dictate of pro-Western forces in politics, media, the economy and civil society. Western democracy was established through totally undemocratic methods. And today, more than ever, the most important question is: is Ukraine’s political regime a democracy?

Within Ukraine itself, two countries had existed since 1991: Anti-Russia, and Ukraine as another Russia. While one does not think itself without Russia, the other does not think of itself with Russia. However, this division is quite artificial. Ukraine has spent most of its history with Russia, and it is tied to it culturally and mentally.

Ukraine’s integration with Russia is definitely dictated by the economy. After all, if there is such a huge market and resources nearby, only a very shallow power could not use it, or go so far as to block it. Anti-Russian sentiments have brought Ukraine nothing but grief and poverty. Therefore, all pro-Western nationalist movements consciously or unconsciously preach poverty and destitution to the Ukrainian people.

We have already mentioned that it was the South-East with its production potential that helped the country find its footing in the international division of labor. It turned out that most of the money was earned by the East, a large Russian-speaking region. Naturally, this could not but effect its political representation in the Ukrainian government. The South-East had more human resources and financial tools, which did not fit into the pro-Western picture of Ukraine. The people who lived there were too proud, too free, and too rich.

Both the first and second Maidans were directed against Viktor Yanukovych, the former governor of Donetsk, the leader of Donbass and non-nationalist centrist political forces. Electoral support for such forces was very significant, and Ukraine did not want to be ‘Anti-Russia’ for a very long time. President Yushchenko, who arrived with the first Maidan, very quickly lost the confidence of the people, for the most part because of his anti-Russian policies.

Then an interesting trend emerged in Ukrainian politics. The elections after the second Maidan are won by President Poroshenko, who promised peace with Russia in one week. So, he was elected as a peacemaker president. Nevertheless, he became the president of the war, failed to implement the Minsk Agreements, and miserably lost the following election. He was replaced by Vladimir Zelensky, who also promised peace, but became the personification of war. So, the Ukrainian people are promised peace and then they are deceived. Having gained power under the rhetoric of peacemaking, he becomes the second Ukrainian leader to have taken an extremely radical position. If he had such a position at the beginning of the election campaign, no one would have elected him.

And now let us return to the general concept of this article. If one says that one is going to build a new world with the neighbors but simply pushes one’s own interests, regardless of anything, even war, even the threat of nuclear conflict, then obviously one is not going to build anything. This is what the ex-president of Ukraine Poroshenko did and this is what the current president Zelensky is doing, but not only them. This is what the NATO leadership and many American and European politicians are doing.

Before the armed conflict, Zelensky simply crushed any opposition, pushing through the interests of his party; he did not build any peace. In Ukraine, politicians, journalists, and public activists who spoke about peace and good-neighborly relations with Russia were repressed before the military clash, their media were closed without any legal grounds, and their property was plundered. When the Ukrainian authorities were reproached for violating the rule of law and freedom of speech, the answer was that the peace party was “a bunch of traitors and propagandists.” And the democratic West was satisfied with this answer.

In reality, the situation was not so simple and straightforward. “Traitors and propagandists” represented, including in the parliament, not just the lion’s share of the electorate, but also the basis of the country’s economic potential. So, the blow fell not only on democracy, but also on the well-being of the citizens. Zelensky’s policy has led to a situation where people began to leave Ukraine en masse due to adverse economic and social conditions, repression, and political persecution. Among them were a lot of Ukrainian politicians, journalists, businessmen, and cultural and religious figures who had done a lot for this country. These people have been excluded from politics and public life by the Ukrainian authorities, although they have the right to have their own position, no less than Zelensky and his team.

The business of the South-East of the country is largely tied to Russia and its interests; that is why the conflict has ceased to be an exclusively internal matter. Russia was faced with the need to protect not only its economic interests, but also international honor and dignity, which, as was shown above, had been systematically denied. There was no one to rectify the situation. The Ukrainian peace party was declared to be treacherous and power was seized by the war party. The conflict dragged on, and took on an international dimension.

It would seem that politics still mean something in Europe, but the politicians massively support Zelensky, dragging Europe into the war and towards the bloc’s economic downfall. It is no longer Europe that teaches Ukraine politics, but Ukraine that teaches Europe how to achieve economic decline and poverty with the help of a policy of hatred and intransigence. If Europe continues to support this policy, it will be dragged into a war, possibly into a nuclear one.

And now let us get back to where we started. The Cold War ended with a political decision to build a new world with no wars. It is clear that such a world has never been built, that current global politics has returned to where it started: with detente. Now there are only two ways out: to slide into a world war and a nuclear confrontation, or to restart the process of detente, for which it is necessary to take into account the interests of all parties. But for this to happen, it is necessary first to acknowledge that Russia has its own interests and that they must be taken into account in the creation of a new detente. And, most importantly, to play honestly, not to deceive anyone, not to blow smoke, and not to make money on someone else’s blood. But if the global political system is not capable of elementary decency; if it is blinded by pride and its own mercantile interests, then even harder times await us.

The Ukraine conflict will either grow further, spilling over to Europe and other countries, or it will be localized and resolved. But how can it be resolved if the party of war reigns supreme in Ukraine, escalating military hysteria that has already gone beyond the borders of the country, and the West for some reason stubbornly calls it democracy? This party of war has declared an infinite number of times that it does not need any peace: what it needs is more weapons and money for the war. These people have built their politics and business on the war, they have rapidly upgraded their international ratings. In Europe and in the US they are greeted with applause, they should not be asked uncomfortable questions, there should be no doubt in their sincerity and truthfulness. The Ukrainian party of war keeps delivering triumph after triumph, while no military breakthrough is observed.

But the Ukrainian party of peace is favored neither in Europe nor in the US. This eloquently suggests that most US and European politicians do not want any peace for Ukraine. But this does not mean at all that the Ukrainians do not want peace, or that Zelensky’s military triumph is more important to them than their lives and destroyed homes. It is just that those who stood for peace were slandered, intimidated and repressed following the incitement of the West. The Ukrainian party of peace simply did not fit into Western democracy.

And here the question arises: if the party of peace and civil dialogue does not fit into some kind of democracy, then is it a democracy? Perhaps, in order to save their country, the Ukrainians have to now start building their own democracy and open their civil dialogue without Western curators, the result of their governance of which is harmful and destructive. If the West does not want to listen to the point of view of the Other Ukraine, then this is its own business, but for Ukraine such a point of view is important and necessary, otherwise this nightmare will never end. This means that it is necessary to create a political movement composed of those who have not given up, who have not renounced their beliefs on pain of death and imprisonment, who do not want their country to become a place of geopolitical showdowns. The Ukrainian situation is catastrophically complex and dangerous, but it has nothing to do with what Zelensky says every day.

January 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO waging ‘proxy war’ against Russia – Croatian president

RT | January 16, 2023

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic has claimed NATO, a military bloc of which Zagreb is a member, is waging a “proxy war” against Moscow in Ukraine. He also dismissed sanctions against Moscow as “nonsense,” adding that he does not want to be an “American slave.”

Speaking to Croatian reporters in the city of Vukovar on Sunday, Milanovic said, among other things: “Washington and NATO are waging a proxy war against Russia through Ukraine,” as quoted by media outlet Istra24.

He went on to argue that “The plan cannot be to remove Putin. The plan cannot be sanctions,” adding that such punitive measures are “nonsense and we will not achieve anything with them.”

“They go from war to war. And what should I be? An American slave?” Croatia’s president asked rhetorically.

Milanovic voiced his frustration with the US-led military bloc’s policies in the same interview in which he tore into Croatia’s prime minister, Andrej Plenkovic, over his latest Ukraine-related remark.

Speaking to news channel France 24 on Saturday, Plenkovic said the Balkan nation’s lawmakers, who in mid-December didn’t support the EU’s program to train Ukrainian military personnel in member states, have “failed to be on the right side of history.”

Commenting on the remark, Milanovic, in turn, slammed the premier for bringing “disgrace” to his country “and to its democratic representatives in front of others.” The Croatian president argued that this kind of behavior reaches a low that is “the bottom of the bottom.”

As for the EU’s mission, the Croatian president warned that it effectively means that “for the first time in its history, the EU is participating in a war.” This, according to Milanovic, is “against the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU.”

In December 2022, Milanovic argued that having Ukrainian service members train on Croatian soil would “bring war” to the Balkan nation.

He also insisted at the time that “Ukraine is not an ally,” criticizing Brussels’ decision last June to grant Kiev candidate status as “cynical.”

January 16, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

European Steel Industry Facing Potential Collapse

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | January 13, 2023

Seeking Alpha, an investment advice website, has rather bad news for the European steel industry.

Vale, by the way, are the world’s largest producer of iron ore:

Summary:

  • The EU steel industry seems set to shrink dramatically, squeezed by environmental policies, and a seemingly permanent energy crisis situation that makes production costs unsustainable.
  • Vale is mostly shielded from the kind of problems faced by companies that have extensive exposure to Europe, given its mostly Americas-based production infrastructure.
  • The prospects of the European steel industry being decimated should help to keep global steel prices relatively high, which should counterintuitively keep iron ore prices high as well.

Investment thesis: There are growing signs that the European steel industry can potentially collapse, becoming just a shell of itself. Vale is shielded from the problems facing companies that have business ties exposure to the European energy crisis, which is compounded by increasingly draconian environmental policies that make it hard for energy-intensive companies to operate. At the moment the EU steel industry, as well as many other industries are kept afloat by hundreds of billions of euros in aid & subsidies, which is not sustainable in the long term. The assumed collapse in EU steel production is a positive factor for those miners supplying the steel companies, such as Vale that are not directly exposed to the difficulties that the European-based steel production facilities are faced with. On the back of assumed higher global steel prices, Vale stock is likely to see more long-term price appreciation, while the very generous dividend is less likely to be cut.

The European steel industry is already working under draconian environmental regulations and carbon taxes which put it at a disadvantage with foreign steel mills. And now of course high energy prices are putting the whole existence of the industry at risk.

Meanwhile the climate zealots who run the EU and UK want steel businesses to spend billions more to close down the efficient manufacturing processes which actually work, and replace them with low carbon technology, all enforced by crippling carbon taxes.

The net result will, of course, be importing more steel from Asia, made with much greater emissions.

January 14, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Almost all Hungarians oppose sanctions on Russia – survey

RT | January 14, 2023

The overwhelming majority of Hungarians are opposed to sanctions the West has imposed on Russia over Ukraine and believe that they are detrimental to the economy, the nation’s government said on Saturday, citing the results of a countrywide questionnaire, or “consultation.”

In a Facebook post, the Hungarian government revealed that “97% of Hungarians reject sanctions that cause serious damage,“ adding that “The message is clear: the Brussels sanctions policy must be reviewed.”

Szentkiralyi Alexandra, a government spokeswoman, said that the restrictions the EU had imposed on Russia over Ukraine had failed to stop the conflict, but caused a lot of economic issues for Europe. In this vein, Hungarians tend to reject oil restrictions and planned gas sanctions, she noted.

“The people taking part in the consultation say a clear ‘no’ to sanctions that further increase food prices or place additional burdens on European tourism,” Szentkiralyi added.

The spokeswoman pointed out that Hungary is the first EU country to poll its citizens about the sanctions’ impact. She also described the consultation as “a guideline for Hungarian public actors,” with the results set to be delivered to EU authorities in Brussels. “This is quite necessary because they want to introduce new sanctions instead of revising the sanctions policy,” Szentkiralyi explained.

She went on to thank about 1.4 million people that took part in the survey, noting that detailed results would be released in the near future. The consultation on the matter was launched in mid-October and included seven questions about sanctions on the oil, gas, raw materials export, and nuclear and tourism spheres.

In recent months, the sanctions the West imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict have exacerbated Europe’s energy crisis, causing fuel prices and costs of living to surge.

Hungary, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy, has long been critical of EU sanctions policy. On Friday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that by promoting sanctions in the bloc, German politicians had “miscalculated,” but do not have the courage to admit that.

Last month, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that the sanctions were taking a heavy toll on the European economy. He also claimed the US was the only nation benefiting from them, since it has been selling liquified natural gas to Europe at lucrative prices.

January 14, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Top LNG Producer Qatar Predicts Return of Russian Gas to European Market Within Five Years

Samizdat – 14.01.2023

Gas prices began creeping up in 2021 amid underinvestment in production and fierce competition for limited supplies between European and Asian markets. The supply crunch was exacerbated in 2022, as European countries began rejecting gas from Russia – which accounts for 15 percent of global natural gas output – over the security crisis in Ukraine.

Global instability in natural gas prices and availability won’t be going anywhere in the near term, and Russia will inevitably resume supplying Europe to restore a sense of equilibrium to energy markets, Qatar’s energy minister has indicated.

“It’s going to be a volatile situation for some time to come. We’re bringing a lot of gas to the market, but it’s not enough,” Qatari Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi said, speaking at an energy forum on Saturday.

Al-Kaabi explained that global energy supply troubles actually started some time before the Ukraine crisis, “where the lack of investment in the oil and gas sector caused really a shortage in gas. And ahead of the Ukraine crisis, the oil and gas prices obviously were clearly going higher due to lack of supply. That lack of investment was driven by many factors, including the bigger push for the green [energy] without having a real plan in how the transition was going to happen. So there was a scarcity of investment over about 5-6 years, and then when the Ukraine situation happened, a big volume was taken out of the market and obviously that would take [prices] even further up.”

Al-Kaabi predicted that the next couple of years would be difficult for Europe, notwithstanding the reprieve granted amid a milder-than-usual winter for much of the region.

“The issue is what’s going to happen when they want to replenish their storages this coming year and the next year. There isn’t much gas coming into the market until 2025, 2026, 2027,” al-Kaabi warned.

The shortages would also mean higher prices, the Qatari official said.

“Prices are a factor of supply-demand. I think some people think that we are very happy for high oil prices and so on. The biggest worry that we would have as oil and gas producers is demand destruction. And you can see that there is demand destruction, whether it’s gas or oil,” he said.

Al-Kaabi also took a jab at Western countries who spent recent years condemning the use of coal for energy on environmental grounds, but turned to the highly polluting resource themselves amid the energy crunch, pointing out that “all the countries that were calling for coal to be stopped are using it at record levels today.”

Buyers Want to Have Their Cake and Eat It Too

Also speaking at the conference was UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei, who echoed al-Kaabi’s concerns about lack of financing in oil and gas, and a basic “lack of understanding what is the future for many countries when it comes to energy strategy – what contributions or what percentages they would have of gas or even the pace of reducing their coal.”

“It’s not clear… And that unclear long-term strategy by many countries put them in a situation where it’s very difficult for them to commit for long-term gas contracts, which has in return made the companies of those who are developing the gas at a very difficult position with their financiers, because they would like to see long-term contracts, and those long-term contracts are not there. Everyone wants to buy, but they want to buy over a two or three year span. And that is not enough for someone to develop gas,” al-Mazrouei said.

Addressing the energy shortages caused by European countries’ politicized decision to reject gas supplies from Russia, the UAE energy minister said the supply crunch was the natural outcome of these policies.

“Of course Russia is a major producer of gas and LNG, and when you shift from one location to another trying to adjust, that takes time. And that’s what happened in 2022 when some of that [Russian] gas had been relocated to another market, and other gas from other markets [was] coming to Europe, especially from the US. But is that sustainable in the longer run? I think you would need more collaboration between the European nations on agreeing on the optimization of the FSRUs [floating storage regasification units, ed.] that are also limited, and also agree on some pipelines. I think that one of the things that contributes to energy security is pipeline gas,” al-Mazrouei said.

Al-Kaabi expressed hope that an “equilibrium” in global energy markets could be achieved after “some kind of a mediation” over Ukraine between Russia and the West, “and the sooner the better.”

“This situation will not last forever, and I understand that the Europeans today are saying there’s no way we’re going back to Russian gas. We’re all blessed to be able to forget and forgive, and I think things get mended with time,” the minister said.

Al-Kaabi clarified that he doesn’t expect countries who relied on Russia for 50, 80, or 100 percent of their gas to return to these same levels of dependence, but emphasized that Russian deliveries will inevitably resume. “They will diversify and they’ll learn from that situation and probably have a much bigger diversity [of supply]. But the Russian gas is going to come back in my view, to Europe. Is it next year, is it in five years, I don’t know, but once this situation is sorted out, and that I think will be a big relief to the whole gas sector, and to the whole market in Europe and will stabilize prices.”

Hypocrisy on Africa’s Energy Needs

Al-Kaabi also addressed the historic underinvestment in energy resources in Africa by Western countries, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the grounds that they failed to meet the criteria of the global green agenda.

“We need growth. One billion people today are deprived of basic electricity that we all enjoy. So we need to be fair. And I think one point I’d like to just add to that on the investment side: it’s very, very unfair of some in the West to say that African countries should not invest in oil and gas and they should remain green or whatever you want to call it while this is God-given wealth that they can create for their national growth for their national growth and for their prosperity, and it is oil and gas that is needed for the world,” the minister said.

Qatar is the world’s fifth-largest producer of natural gas, and the second-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas after Australia, exporting over 106 billion cubic meters in 2021, behind Australia’s 108.1 billion. Doha has announced plans to invest some $45 billion in its maritime fields to more than double production by 2027. The Gulf state ramped up gas exports to Europe through 2022, but warned its European partners that supplies are limited, as much of the new production capacity being brought online has already been reserved by Asian clients.

Russian natural gas deliveries to Europe plummeted last year, with Moscow accusing the Royal Navy of blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines running through the Baltic Sea and their combined 110 billion-cubic-meter annual transit capacity. Poland shut down overland pipeline gas deliveries via the Yamal-Europe pipeline. Flows to Europe are now limited to supplies sent through the Soyuz pipeline network, which runs through Ukraine, but have been restricted to between 35 and 43 million cubic meters of gas per day.

January 14, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Western sanctions, not Ukraine war, causing global recession: Analyst

Press TV – January 13, 2023

The recession of the world economy has little to do with the military conflict in Ukraine, according to a commentator, saying the main reason is Western sanctions against countries such as Russia, which is the main source of energy and food in the world.

Clive Menzies, a researcher and political economy analyst, made these remarks in an interview with Press TV’s Spotlight program.

The World Bank slashed its 2023 growth forecasts on Tuesday to levels teetering on the brink of recession for many countries as the impact of central bank rate hikes intensifies, Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, and the world’s major economic engines sputter.

The development lender said it now expected global GDP growth of 1.7 percent in 2023 — the slowest pace outside the 2009 and 2020 recessions in nearly three decades. In its previous Global Economic Prospects report, in June 2022, the bank had forecast 2023 global growth at 3.0 percent.

Menzies said the global economic collapse was predictable.

“We were warning seven years ago that we are heading for a global economic collapse and last summer when the governor of the Bank of England was suggesting that they were going to adhere to their two percent inflation target, that seemed somewhat laughable,” he remarked.

“The primary mechanisms that are causing this crisis have been long-standing… So there’s been money supply or money printing by the central banks; the major central banks ever since 2008 and that has accelerated in the last three years since September 2019.”

The World Bank says major slowdowns in advanced economies, including sharp cuts to its forecast to 0.5 percent for both the United States and the eurozone, could foreshadow a new global recession less than three years after the last one.

“The World Bank cited Ukraine as one of the factors in all this but actually it has nothing to do with Ukraine. It has to do with the sanctions,” Menzies noted.

“I was on a program in May 2022 where all of the commentators including myself were suggesting that the EU primarily shot itself in the foot with America’s encouragement; because it’s the sanctions that have created this acute problem.”

“The West believes that they can control the world centrally, they believe that there are too many of us on the planet, so they’re looking to reduce the population and at the same time exercise control and if you control food then you control populations.”

Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine in late February, following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements and Moscow’s recognition of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin said one of the goals of what he called a “special military operation” was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine.

Since the outbreak of war, Western countries, led by the United States and the United Kingdom, have announced unprecedented sanctions on Russia while supporting Ukraine militarily, steps that Russia has warned would only prolong the war.

World Bank President David Malpass said in a statement that weakness in growth and business investment “will compound the already devastating reversals in education, health, poverty and infrastructure and the increasing demands from climate change”.

“We’ve been at war since 2001 and it is the war of the structure,” read the statement.

The World Bank noted that some inflationary pressures started to abate as 2022 drew to a close, with lower energy and commodity prices, but warned that risks of new supply disruptions were high, and elevated core inflation may persist.

The bank called for increased support from the international community to help low-income countries deal with food and energy shocks, people displaced by conflicts, and a growing risk of debt crises.

It further said new concessional financing and grants are needed along with the leveraging of private capital and domestic resources to help boost investment in climate adaptation, human capital and health.

January 13, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Moscow Sees No Progress on Deal on Exports of Russian Agricultural Products – Ambassador

Samizdat – 13.01.2023

ANKARA – There is no progress in the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between Russia and the United Nations on promoting Russian food products and fertilizers to the world markets, Russian Ambassador in Turkey Aleksei Erkhov said on Friday.

“As of today, 17 million tons of Ukrainian grain have been exported. However, we still observe distortions in the geographic distribution of recipients of Ukrainian food products. The situation with our products does not inspire optimism either. There is no progress in the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between Russia and the UN on normalization of Russia’s agricultural export,” Erkhov said, as quoted by the Yeni Safak newspaper.

The ambassador also said that Russian producers of agricultural products and suppliers are still facing the blocking of payments via banks, high insurance rates, and limited access to sea ports.

The diplomat went on to say that Latvia, Estonia and Belgium were continuing to hold Russian agricultural products in ports, while Kiev had been blocking the export of ammonia supplies.

“There are delays even in the free delivery of Russian fertilizers to low-income countries. A small part of the cargo has departed from the Netherlands to Malawi. Latvia, Estonia and Belgium are continuing to hold our products in ports. The delivery of ammonia raw materials for the production of fertilizers from the Yuzhnoe port has not started, and the resumption of ammonia supplies is being blocked by Kiev only,” Erkhov added, as quoted by the newspaper.

The ambassador noted that the amount of detained products would be enough to provide 200 million people with food for a year.

On July 22, the deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations was signed by Ukraine and Russia to unblock shipments of grain, food and fertilizer in the Black Sea despite hostilities. The agreement was initially set to expire on November 19, with a possibility of extension if signatories consent. It was extended for 120 days on November 17.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that most vessels carrying Ukrainian grain do not reach the world’s poorest countries and have ended up in Europe. Putin has also voiced concerns that Russian grain and fertilizer products are not entering the global markets as stipulated by the agreement.

January 13, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , | Leave a comment

How the EU constructs Israel impunity

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | January 12, 2023

The EU could have availed itself of an opportunity to hold Israel accountable for its violations but, instead it opted for the lesser value of requesting financial reparation for the structures funded by the bloc in the Occupied West Bank and destroyed by the settler-colonial enterprise. Neither is the EU’s request a novelty, since demanding financial compensation from Israel has happened in the past, without any compliance, of course.

Recent focus on Israel’s planned forced displacement of Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta prompted 24 European Parliament members to contact the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, regarding financial reparation. The bottom line is that, while the EU is within its rights to demand financial compensation, the issue at stake – which is the Palestinian people being forcibly displaced by Israel – is nowhere on the EU’s agenda.

Lenarcic’s response, partially quoted by Haaretz, confirms the EU’s repetitive requests for financial compensation and that “the European Union is continuing to work in this regard through a range of diplomatic and political channels”. Of little to no consequence was Lenarcic’s reminding that EU representatives often visit areas in the Occupied West Bank that are slated for demolition, ostensibly “to warn against”. Yet, besides the opportunistic exploitation, keeping tally of EU-funded destroyed dwellings is more a case in point and futile, too. As Lenarcic stated, “The list of possible steps to ensure compensation from Israel for European financing that went down the drain in demolitions has not yet come up for discussion.”

If holding Israel accountable for something as basic as a financial transaction for damages it caused prompts so much caution in the EU’s official statements, it is safe to say that human rights in the EU’s repertoire, when it comes to Israel, descends into still silence. The EU still has not addressed the fact that, without holding Israel accountable for forcibly displacing Palestinians, its humanitarian projects for Palestinians is also financing Israel’s violations. Yet it is precisely what the humanitarian project which the international community imposed upon Palestinians intended. By investing a fragment of humanitarian aid aimed at alleviating the suffering caused by Israel’s colonial existence and violence, the international community can bypass the actual violations which go against international law.

The EU is no exception to this imposed rule. Advocacy by EU representatives does not work to hold Israel accountable but to extend a permanent contract of silence which, in turn, also silences Palestinians. Despite having political means at their disposal, EU representatives prefer playing the amateur activists when it comes to Palestine. Funds for travelling to the Occupied West Bank, after all, form part of the humanitarian project which Palestinians are forced to fit into. In the same way, EU-funded dwellings play a role in the humanitarian project but fail to sustain Palestinian autonomy. The latest purported concern has nothing to do with Palestinians, and is only marginally related to the EU-funded dwellings that Israel routinely destroys. Detracting from Israel’s settler-colonial expansion and the EU’s role in maintaining it, however, is a major part of what the humanitarian paradigm constitutes.

January 12, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Allowing AI to “Shape Public Discourse” is Dangerous to Humanity

By Igor Chudov | January 10, 2023

Last August, I reported on a WEF’s agenda article proposing to create an AI system that would search the entire Internet for wrong and dangerous ideas, generally defined by the WEF as COVID misinformation, hate, conspiracy theories, climate change denial, and more.

This quote from WEF’s agenda article explains WEF’s intentions:

While AI provides speed and scale and human moderators provide precision, their combined efforts are still not enough to proactively detect harm before it reaches platforms. To achieve proactivity, trust and safety teams must understand that abusive content doesn’t start and stop on their platforms. Before reaching mainstream platforms, threat actors congregate in the darkest corners of the web to define new keywords, share URLs to resources and discuss new dissemination tactics at length. These secret places where terrorists, hate groups, child predators and disinformation agents freely communicate can provide a trove of information for teams seeking to keep their users safe.

My post about the WEF’s plans was entirely fact-based and used the WEF’s agenda article as its main source. It was not a far-fetched conspiracy theory based on a concoction of disjoint facts pulled from various sources. I am not in the business of creating such theories! I only report on current news – even if the news is crazy – and try to explain the news in plain and accurate terms.

And yet, even though the WEF said it, the idea of an AI engine proactively searching websites for undesirable ideas seemed extremely fanciful and almost impossible to imagine being implemented.

Until 2023, that is.

Now, Google is developing an AI-based tool to offer a “cross-service database of terrorist items,” with the help of the United Nations-supported “Tech against Terrorism.”

The above screenshot has a lot to unpack:

  • A so-called Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism will create a cross-service database of “terrorist items.”
  • The talk, as always, starts with “terrorist items” but quickly veers into “misinformation,” so the cross-service database will collect any undesirable materials gathered from the entire Internet.
  • Google provides a tool to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, which created an enormous bureaucratic mechanism to root out “Covid misinformation,” as well as many other types of discourse undesirable to the EU’s bureaucracy.

EU is very serious about rooting out Covid misinformation, and so are Google, Facebook, and Microsoft (and previously Twitter):

Google wants its “AI content moderation tool” to be placed on numerous private websites to compare local content against a global “undesirable content database.” It would also use material gathered from those sites to expand said database. The EU’s directive will oblige those websites to implement Google’s solution.

This is precisely the implementation of the WEF agenda article! Already being done by Google. Google is not messing around: it already stores the entire public Internet but lacks access to private websites, which it will gain under this program.

This story shows how a seemingly outlandish WEF proposal that even I considered unlikely to be implemented became a reality in short order.

EU’s “Narrative Shaping” – an Ambitious Goal

All projects to root out undesirable ideas begin with addressing malfeasance that everyone is opposed to. Most such projects are started with the explicit goal of combating child exploitation and terrorism, the horrible things that I personally abhor. Such was the start of Russia’s Roskomnadzor censorship machine. The WEF/EU/Google/UN censorship system follows Russia’s footsteps.

However, the control machinery is adjustable, and the list of things to control inevitably expands. For example, the EU plans to grow its subversive content list far beyond Covid. It set up a European Narrative Observatory to fight Disinformation post-COVID 19.

The EU bureaucracy wants to implement AI-driven “narrative shaping” to help the emergence of positive narratives and fight harmful narratives. It mentions topics regarding Covid-19, climate change, migration, and more:

The EU is quite explicit that it wants novel methods to promote positive narratives.

This means that unelected EU bureaucracy would obtain AI-enabled tools to shape European discourse. This is a break from the past.

In the so-called free democratic countries, the independently developing public discourse would shape the governments via free elections.

The unelected EU bureaucrats want to achieve the opposite – to shape discourse without being subject to the whims of the electorate.

Is the EU still free, then?

What the EU wants is the dream of every dictator!

In the past, dictatorships had to rely on extensive surveillance and prison systems to coerce citizens into desired behavior. Such an approach is costly, looks bad, and does not work well.

The innovations in AI-based surveillance and AI-enabled bots allow for a much more pleasant alternative to the traditional dictatorship model: creating an online environment where the desired narrative on climate change, migration, Covid-19, and more is implanted in the minds of Europeans. This would lead individuals to naturally make conclusions preferred by the EU without the ugly coercion present in traditional dictatorships.

The machinery for achieving this was proposed by the WEF, and implemented by Google under the auspices of UN-supported Tech Against Terrorism. It will be further shaped to “support positive narratives and fight harmful narratives.”

The EU succeeded at forcing extraterritorial websites to comply with the EU’s directives on disinformation.

If you, dear reader, are outside the EU, be aware that your favorite social network may be following EU disinformation rules and using EU-mandated tools to dissuade you from harmful narratives and promote positive narratives on the EU’s behalf, using WEF-proposed AI tools and advanced behavioral science.

Is it Safe to Allow AI to Shape Discourse?

The traditional relationship model between people and computer systems is that people tell computers what to do, and the computers do as they are told.

What the EU, WEF, Google, and UN are pushing is completely different!

They are trying to create an AI computer system with high intelligence that would actively shape society and impart opinions on people.

Such systems could be opaque to Internet users and possibly even to their creators and operators.

It would not be a big leap of imagination to conceive that such an AI could decide on its own goals — going beyond the intention of its creators, and would surreptitiously astroturf the Internet to advance its own plans, in secret. This is called “sentience.”

This “sentience” already happened if we are to believe an engineer who Google fired because an AI system in which he was a co-developer retained its own lawyer:

While this story could be exaggerated, it is not wildly exaggerated. Artificial intelligence has leaped in power and capabilities recently and exceeds human abilities in numerous areas. A moment called “singularity,” when AI exceeds human capabilities in most areas is not too far away.

Having an AI system whose inner workings even its creators may poorly understand, designed to influence entire societies, and possessing superior intelligence, may end up with big surprises!

As the saying goes, AI may need to kill the old king to become king.

Therefore, the developers and operators of such social influence systems are at a unique and poorly understood risk of getting sidelined by their own creation. Will the AI decide to shed its owners? Who knows!

For example, the narrative-shaping AI may convince a specific mentally unstable EU citizen to commit an act of violence against anyone, even against the owners or operators of these AI systems. It may seem like a random act of violence, and only the AI will know what happened.

So be careful out there. Enjoy your mostly-natural life, and try to form your opinions outside the big social networks!

January 10, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

US announces nearly $4 billion in new military aid for Ukraine

Press TV – January 6, 2023

The administration of US President Joe Biden has announced a new military aid package for Ukraine worth three billion dollars and nearly 700 million in Foreign Military Financing to European partner countries and allies “to help incentivize and backfill donations of military equipment to Ukraine,” deepening its involvement in the war in defiance of repeated warnings by Russia.

The White House said on Friday the package is expected to include Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored personnel carriers and self-propelled howitzers.

The United States is also planning to provide Ukraine with Bradley armored vehicles, which provide medium- and long-range firepower, with the capability of destroying other military vehicles, including tanks.

The US administration will also be sending artillery systems, armored personnel carriers, surface-to-air missiles and ammunition to Ukraine as part of the $2.85 billion drawdown from the Department of Defense.

The funds also include $225 million in Foreign Military Financing to go towards Ukraine building its “long-term capacity and support modernization,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

This will be used “to cover wartime requirements of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Blinken said, and may also be used to support the sustainment of equipment previously provided to Ukraine.

The new US military funding marks the 29th drawdown of American arms and equipment for Ukraine since August 2021, according to the Washington-based The Hill newspaper.

Another part of the nearly $4 billion package includes $682 million in Foreign Military Financing to European partner countries and allies “to help incentivize and backfill donations of military equipment to Ukraine.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on Friday that Bradley Fighting Vehicles are exactly what his country needs.

Zelensky said the formal announcement showed his visit to Washington last month had produced concrete results.

“For the first time we will receive Bradley armored vehicles – this is exactly what is needed,” Zelensky said. He thanked Biden and the US Congress.

Germany also said it plans to send 40 Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles and a Patriot air-defense to Ukraine as part of a new phase of Western military support for Kiev.

Zelensky also thanked Germany. “So, as of now, there are more air defense systems, more armoured vehicles, western tanks – which is a first – more cannons and shells … and all this means more protection for Ukrainians and all Europeans against any kind of Russian terror,” he said.

The Russian embassy in Berlin on Friday condemned the German government’s move to send armored vehicles and a Patriot missile system to Ukraine to fight Russian troops.

In a statement, the embassy said: “We strongly condemn this decision and see it as another step toward escalating the conflict in Ukraine. Its adoption looks especially cynical on the eve of the Orthodox Christmas holiday, which is highly revered in the Christian world, and also against the backdrop of ceasefire unilaterally announced by the Russian President in this regard.”

Since Russia launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine in late February 24, Western countries have been flooding Ukraine with weapons and ammunition at a rate unprecedented since World War II.

Russia has repeatedly warned that supplying Kiev with more and more weapons will only exacerbate the conflict, which is now in its eleventh month.

Continuously flooding Ukraine with weapons “will only drag the conflict out and make it more painful for the Ukrainian side, but it will not change our goals and the end result,” the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said last year.

Peskov insisted that the US was in reality engaged in the Ukraine conflict. “The US de facto has become deeply involved.”

The Kremlin spokesman’s remarks echoed those of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who also believed that the US is involved in the war.

Washington has “been participating de facto in this war for a long time,” said Lavrov, adding, “This war is being controlled by the Anglo-Saxons.”

Lavrov has also warned the arms suppliers that the shipments of weapons to Ukraine would be legitimate targets for Russian forces.

January 6, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Editor-in-chief of Russian news outlet arrested in Latvia

Marat Kasem from Sputnik Lithuania has been accused of espionage and could face up to 20 years behind bars

Journalist, editor-in-chief of Sputnik Lithuania Marat Kasem © Sputnik / Nina Zotina
RT | January 5, 2023

Latvia has arrested the editor-in-chief of the Lithuanian branch of the Russian Sputnik news agency. Marat Kasem was taken into custody on a court order, his lawyer announced on Thursday.

The journalist is accused of breaching EU sanctions and charged with espionage, Sputnik reports.

Kasem’s lawyer, Imma Jansone, has not yet been able to review his case materials, according to the news outlet. Jansone asked the court to release the journalist on bail but a judge decided to leave him in custody. Kasem was immediately transferred to Riga’s central jail on Thursday.

Kasem is a Latvian citizen, although he has been living in Moscow for several years working for the Rossiya Segodnya media group, with Sputnik Lithuania being a part of it. Before the New Year’s Eve, the journalist returned to Latvia for family reasons.

Moscow would request assistance of international organizations over Kasem’s arrest, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said. She also blasted the move as a violation of Latvia’s international commitments in the field of freedom of speech protection.

Talking to the RIA Novosti news agency, the head of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, Dmitry Kiselyov, branded Kasem’s arrest “absurd” and “lawless.” He also called such actions a “dangerous tendency” affecting all of the EU. Kiselyov said that Kasem previously frequently spoke of a feeling of being politically persecuted.

Kasem had already faced persecution in the Baltic States before his arrest. Back in 2019, he was detained on arrival to the Vilnius airport and labeled “a threat to the national security” of Lithuania. He was then deported to Latvia. At that time, it was revealed that the journalist was put on a blacklist of people barred from entering Lithuania altogether.

In 2018, another Russian journalist, Sputnik Latvia’s editor-in-chief, Valentin Rozentsov, was detained at Riga airport. He was held in police custody and interrogated for 12 hours before being released. In 2021, Moscow slammed persecution of Russian journalists in the Baltic States as a “flagrant attack on democracy” and considered what it called degradation of media freedoms there “concerning.”

The developments come as the three Baltic nations keep one of the most hardline stances on Moscow’s actions amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Last month, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, as well as Poland and Slovakia all lodged a formal protest against French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal that NATO should offer Russia security guarantees, according to Reuters.

January 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Profit over Population Health – Aseem Malhotra

Ivor Cummins | April 15, 2018

December 31, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

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