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US House speaker rules out more Ukraine aid

RT | December 4, 2024

The US House of Representatives will not consider President Joe Biden’s request to include $24 billion in additional aid to Ukraine in a continuing government funding bill, Speaker Mike Johnson has said.

In the absence of a formal budget, the US government has been funded through “continuing resolutions” that Congress needs to approve periodically. The White House has requested the $24 billion as part of the last such piece of legislation the House would need to adopt before adjourning for Christmas holidays.

“I’m not planning to that,” Johnson said on Wednesday, at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now.”

The Louisiana Republican reminded reporters that he had predicted Donald Trump’s election would change the dynamics of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and make further US funding unnecessary, adding that this is precisely what’s been happening in recent weeks.

“We have a newly-elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander-in-chief’s direction on all of that,” Johnson said. “So I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now.”

Since February 2022, the US Congress has approved more than $174 billion to prop up Ukraine in its ongoing military conflict with Russia. The latest batch of funding, amounting to $61 billion, was held up for several months amid a battle between Johnson and the White House.

The previous speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted last October because a group of Republicans was outraged he had secretly negotiated with Democrats to get the Ukraine funding approved. The funding ended up stuck in Congress for almost six months, before it was approved in both the Senate and the House in April, with no concessions to the GOP.

December 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US embassy in Kiev blocking Zelensky interview – Tucker Carlson

RT | December 4, 2024

American journalist Tucker Carlson has said the US government has been blocking his attempts to organize an interview with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky for more than a year.

On Wednesday, Carlson published a video on X in which he previewed the upcoming release of an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The journalist said the conversation with Russia’s top diplomat was aimed at providing a perspective on how close Washington and Moscow could be to a direct clash, after the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden granted Ukraine permission to fire American-made long-range weapons deep into Russian territory.

In the same clip, filmed on Manezhnaya Square in the heart of Moscow, the former Fox News host revealed that “we have also tried for over a year to get an interview with Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.”

According to Carlson, his team “have attacked that from a bunch of different angles. We have spoken to a lot of different people around him, had dinner with them. We have been in talks continuously.”

“And those efforts have been thwarted by the US government. The American Embassy in Kiev, which our tax dollars pay for, told the Zelensky government: No, you may not do the interview. You can talk to CNN. You cannot talk to us,” Carlson said.

In June, the journalist said he had agreed an interview with the Ukrainian leader. However, Zelensky’s press-secretary, Sergey Nikiforov, swiftly rejected the claim, saying that “Tucker Carlson should check his sources in the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) more carefully.” Zelensky “has a completely different schedule, and Tucker Carlson is not on it,” Nikiforov stressed.

Carlson’s latest trip to Moscow is his second since the escalation between Russia and Ukraine in early 2022. In February, he interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the recording of their two-hour conversation getting 14 million views on YouTube and 185 million views on X in the first three days after its release.

December 4, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

The Pardoning of Hunter Biden’s Crimes in Ukraine

By Professor Glenn Diesen | December 3, 2024

Joe Biden promised not to pardon his son Hunter Biden, and was subsequently celebrated by the media for being principled and standing up for the rule of law. However, in a not-so-surprising move, Joe Biden reversed his position and issued a sweeping pardon with an incredible legal breadth. The pardon protects Hunter Biden from any crimes he may have committed over the past decade, since January 2014. This date is no accident, as it marks the beginning of the Biden family’s seedy and likely criminal activities in Ukraine.

Joe Biden was the Vice President when the West backed a coup in Ukraine in February 2014. The US sought to cement its control over Ukrainian resources for economic interests and as an instrument for political influence. Joe Biden involved his son to personally enrich himself and his family.

Three months after the coup, Hunter Biden and a close family friend of US Secretary of State, John Kerry, became board members of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The job paid $50.000 a month despite Hunter Biden having no experience or competencies in the gas industry or Ukraine. In 2017, the NATO think tank Atlantic Council and Burisma signed a cooperative agreement, with a focus on “energy security”.

Ukrainian General Prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, opened a corruption case against the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Joe Biden subsequently intervened by having Ukraine’s General Prosecutor fired with the threat of withholding a $1 billion US loan guarantee. Shokin, complained that since 2014, “the most shocking thing is that all the [government] appointments were made in agreement with the United States”. Washington’s behaviour, according to Shokin, indicated that they “believed that Ukraine was their fiefdom”.

Vice President Joe Biden insisted that the decision was not related to Burisma or his son, as he falsely alleged that he has “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealing”. However, Hunter Biden’s business partner in Burisma, Devon Archer, confirmed in July 2023 that Joe Biden was deeply involved in Hunter Biden’s business.

Scandals threatened Joe Biden’s campaign during the 2020 presidential election as the content of Hunter Biden’s communications was leaked. The criminal activities of Hunter Biden, which seemingly could implicate his father, could likely result in Trump winning the election.

The intelligence community intervened in the election as more than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter, published in Politico, supporting the narrative that the Biden laptop scandal was a Russian disinformation campaign and did not prove the crime of the Biden family. Twitter and Facebook immediately censured the story, while tensions with Russia escalated.

One year later, in September 2021, Politico acknowledged the authenticity of the Hunter Biden emails and that Russia was not involved in any way. Mark Zuckerberg also admitted that Facebook had been pressured to censor Hunter Biden laptop story, which was direct election interference in favour of Joe Biden.

Joe Biden’s pardon of his son’s decade-long involvement in Ukraine implicitly entails pardoning Joe Biden himself. It is very unlikely that anyone will be held accountable for the Biden crimes in Ukraine, and there will be continued loss of trust in both the legal system and the media.

December 4, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

ICC says facing threats over arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant

Press TV – December 2, 2024

The International Criminal Court (ICC) says it has faced coercion and intimidation after judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ousted war minister over war crimes in Gaza.

Addressing the ICC members in The Hague, ICC President Tomoko Akane said the court faced “coercive measures, threats, pressure, and acts of sabotage.”

“We are at a turning point in history… International law and international justice are under threat. So is the future of humanity.”

“The International Criminal Court will continue to carry out its lawful mandate, independently and impartially, without giving in to any outside interference.”

The ICC issued the arrest warrants on November 21.

The court determined there were “reasonable grounds” that Israel’s siege and assault on Gaza “created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population.”

Following the issuance of the warrants, the United States, Israel’s great benefactor and an accomplice in the Gaza genocide, swiftly rejected the ICC decision.

Some US Republicans called on the Senate to sanction the ICC. President Joe Biden said the warrants were “outrageous.”

“Several elected officials are being severely threatened and are subjected to arrest warrants from a permanent member of the UN Security Council,” the ICC president stated.

“The court is being threatened with draconian economic sanctions from institutions of another permanent member of the Security Council as if it was a terrorist organization,” she said.

It is “appalling” that countries appear “scandalized” when the ICC hands down arrest warrants based on international law, Akane added.

“If the court collapses, this will inevitably imply the collapse of all situations and cases… The danger for the court is existential.”

DAWN, a US-based rights group that has welcomed the arrest warrants, has warned Biden administration officials – including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin – that they could be next.

December 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Washington elites want to saddle Trump with world war – Tucker Carlson

RT | November 26, 2024

Donald Trump’s enemies in Washington, DC are trying to prevent the incoming president from exposing their crimes by landing a world war on his lap when he is inaugurated in January, political commentator Tucker Carlson has claimed.

Carlson is a supporter of the agenda that helped Trump secure a second presidential term earlier this month. The Republican leader has promised to fix America’s problems and disengage the country from foreign conflicts.

“Permanent Washington doesn’t care about domestic policy,” the former Fox News host told the online political talk show Redacted on Monday. “What they care about is exercising power abroad: killing people, because it makes them feel like God, and making money. And that’s where the money is, trillions of dollars.”

The group he was referring to “is basically everyone in DC in both parties,” he added. Carlson claimed those people want Trump “to take the country to war either against Russia, or, far more likely, Iran.” The pro-war clique in the US capital perceives this scenario as “the only way to stop Trump and the disclosure that a Trump administration will bring,” he said.

An attack on Iran would result in a world war just as certainly as an escalation of tensions with Russia, Carlson added.

“This is not 2002. Iran is now part of a coalition that includes the biggest economies in the world and the largest militaries in the world,” he pointed out, naming Russia, China and Türkiye as likely backers of Tehran.

Anyone supporting the continuation of the Ukraine conflict lacks “the requisite wisdom to lead my country,” Carlson said.

“Anybody who would even consider having a war with Russia or Iran should not be in any position of power at all, in this administration or any other administration,” he added, describing the test as “super simple.”

Trump claimed during his campaign that he could end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours. After his electoral victory, outgoing President Joe Biden authorized strikes with long-range Western missiles deep inside Russia, which Moscow warned in advance would cross a red line.

Moscow reacted by firing a new hypersonic missile at a military plant in Ukraine. The Oreshnik is understood to be nuclear-capable and have sufficient range to strike any target in Europe. President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Western anti-ballistic missile systems cannot intercept it.

November 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | 3 Comments

West Nudges Ukraine to Dirty Bomb and Nuclear Terrorism – Russian Security Service

Sputnik – 26.11.2024

“The collective West, led by the US, aiming to preserve its dominance and continue its predatory colonial policies, can only respond to these processes with the ‘stoking’ of general tension,” Director of Russia’s FSB Security Service Alexander Bortnikov said during a CIS meeting in Moscow.

The West is secretly pushing Kiev to engage in nuclear terrorist activities, as well as to create a “dirty bomb,” the Director of Russia’s FSB Security Service Alexander Bortnikov said at a meeting of heads of security and intelligence services of CIS countries in Moscow.

“The Anglo-Saxons are covertly urging Kiev toward dangerous escalation: engaging in nuclear terrorism and creating a ‘dirty bomb,'” he said.

Kiev is capable of provoking an incident with a “dirty bomb” to counter Russia and its goals in the special military operation, as existing capabilities allow Ukraine to create such a device, said Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Troops of the Russian Armed Forces, earlier in November. Ukrainian Security Service employees are being trained in the use, manufacture, and detonation of a “dirty bomb” in crowded places, the general reported.

A “dirty bomb” is a container filled with radioactive isotopes and an explosive charge. When detonated, the container breaks apart and the radioactive material is scattered by the shockwave, causing widespread contamination over large areas.

Ukraine Turned Into Testing Ground For Instability Tools

The West has turned Ukraine into a laboratory for methods to undermine the security of not just Russia but the entire post-Soviet space, stated Bortnikov.

“Threats to the security of the CIS countries are mostly linked to the aggressive and cynical course of the collective West and the Kiev regime it has nurtured,” Bortnikov said at the same meeting in Moscow.

“Through their efforts, Ukraine has been transformed into a testing ground for experimenting with methods to undermine the security of not only Russia but the entire post-Soviet space,” the FSB director noted.

US Foreign Policy To Remain Unchanged

It is unlikely that President-elect Donald Trump’s victory will lead to a fundamental change in Washington’s foreign policy, stated Bortnikov.

“The collective West, led by the US, aiming to preserve its dominance and continue its predatory colonial policies, can only respond to these processes with the ‘stoking’ of general tension,” Bortnikov said during the meeting.

“It is unlikely that the election of a new US president will lead to a radical change in Washington’s foreign policy,” he added.

Biden May Try to Escalate As Farewell Gift

It is possible that the outgoing team of US President Joe Biden will try to exacerbate the situation in Eurasia to complicate political decision-making for the incoming administration, Bortnikov added.

“Moreover, it is possible that the outgoing Biden administration, within the framework of domestic political struggles, will try to escalate the situation in key regions of Eurasia — primarily in the post-Soviet space, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The main goal is to complicate the new administration’s ability to politically resolve accumulated problems,” Bortnikov explained.

“The first step has already been taken: the Kiev regime has been allowed to launch long-range missile strikes deep into Russian territory, which will inevitably lead to an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and its surrounding regions,” he explained.

Ukraine Became Shadow Arms Market

A global shadow arms market has been created in Ukraine, with weapons constantly being transferred to other unstable regions, stated Bortnikov.

“The consciousness of the Ukrainian population has been restructured with an anti-Russian agenda. Land, natural resources, and industrial enterprises are being bought up by transnational corporations. The territory has become a magnet for mercenaries and terrorists from all over the world,” Bortnikov said at the same meeting in Moscow.

November 26, 2024 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine receiving nukes would be ‘insane’ – US lawmaker

RT | November 26, 2024

Any move by outgoing US President Joe Biden to help Ukraine obtain nuclear weapons would be “insane” and would amount to treason, Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed.

The House representative from Georgia was reacting to a post on Tuesday by entrepreneur Mario Nawfal, who weighed in on a New York Times article, bylined by four of its journalists, claiming that US and EU officials are “discussing deterrence as a security guarantee” for Ukraine, including giving Kiev nuclear weapons.

Nawfal described the purported talks as a “desperate” move “to tip the scales against Russia” before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, which would mark an “unprecedented escalation” in the conflict.

Responding to the post, Greene wondered whether Biden administration is “trying to start a nuclear war and use it as the reason to stop the transfer of power to Trump.”

“This is insane and completely unconstitutional, possibly an act of treason,” she wrote on X.

The White House is resorting to more aggressive measures in aiding Kiev ahead of Trump’s return. The Republican has repeatedly vowed to end the Ukraine conflict swiftly, and is expected to try to push Moscow and Kiev toward peace talks.

With two months left in office, Biden last week reportedly gave in to one of Ukraine’s long-standing demands and authorized the use of American-supplied ATACMS missiles on targets deep within Russian territory. The missiles had already been used in strikes on Russia’s Crimea, Donetsk, and Lugansk regions, which Washington considers Ukrainian.

Last week, the New York Times reported that certain US officials have suggested that Biden might provide Kiev with nuclear weapons as a deterrent against Russia. “That would be an instant and enormous deterrent,” the paper argued, noting however that such a step would be “complicated and have serious implications.”

Russia recently updated its nuclear doctrine, allowing for a nuclear response to a conventional attack by a non-nuclear state that is supported by a nuclear power, such as a missile strike on Russian territory. Moscow also used a new medium-range hypersonic missile against Ukraine in response to Kiev’s use of foreign-made long-range weapons for strikes deep into Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the attacks have moved the Ukraine conflict to a global level. He has repeatedly warned that Moscow will consider an attack by Western long-range weapons on Russian soil as directly involving the countries that donated the arms.

November 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

They’re at it again… the U.S. and Britain, inciting global war, must be defeated for good

Strategic Culture Foundation | November 22, 2024

This week marks a fateful threshold for the world. In a grave announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the three-year proxy war in Ukraine has now reached a global dimension.

The responsibility for this abysmal moment lies fully with the United States’ elitist rulers and their British accomplices. They are inciting global catastrophe in a desperate bid to save their hegemonic empire.

Putin’s announcement on November 21 came only hours after Russia launched a retaliatory strike against Anglo-American aggression. Russia’s new hypersonic ballistic missile destroyed a munitions center in Dnepropetrovsk in central Ukraine. The conventionally armed missile – called Oreshnik – was deployed in combat for the first time. It delivered several warheads at Mach-10 speed. There is no air defense against such a unique weapon.

The Oreshnik attack was in response to the firing of long-range missiles by the United States and Britain on November 19 and 21 against the pre-conflict territory of the Russian Federation. There is no doubt that the U.S. and British forces were directly involved because, as Moscow has noted, the Ukrainian regime does not have the personnel or logistics capability to operate these advanced NATO weapon systems.

The conclusion is stark. The world is on the cusp of World War Three, a war that would inevitably become a nuclear conflagration and precipitate the end of life on Earth. The evil facing humanity is staggering.

Western barefaced lies to the public

Ludicrously, or perhaps more accurately, fiendishly, Western politicians and media are condemning Russia for the escalation. Their accusations are in flagrant contradiction with the facts. The Western public is being lied to about the sequence and causes of war.

In a move beyond reckless, the United States and Britain attacked Russia with long-range missiles from the territory of Ukraine. The ATACMS and Storm Shadow weapons were aimed at Bryansk and Kursk Oblasts in Western Russia. The American missiles were shot down by Russian air defense, while the British Storm Shadow cruise projectile caused deaths in Kursk.

That barrage marked an open act of war against Russia by the United States and Britain. Hence, the Russian leader commented that the proxy war in Ukraine had now taken on a global dimension.

The American and British leadership went ahead with this aggression even after Russia had explicitly warned several weeks ago that the deployment of such weapons against Russian territory would be seen by Moscow as an act of war. It also followed only hours after Russia revised its nuclear defense doctrine on November 19, defining that the use of long-range conventional weapons from the territory of a non-nuclear state (Ukraine) supplied by nuclear states (the U.S. and Britain) would constitute a joint attack, thereby giving Russia the right to retaliate with nuclear force.

The situation has thus entered the realm of nuclear world war.

Given the aggression initiated by the U.S. and Britain with their ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, Russia has the legal right to hit those territories and any other territory of the NATO alliance. Russia chose not to do so – for now – limiting its Oreshnik’s target to the territory of Ukraine.

What happens next over the coming days depends on the U.S. and its NATO partners. So far, the White House and Pentagon have sought to (irrationally) blame Moscow for escalation and are saying that the United States will continue to deploy long-range missiles from Ukraine against Russian territory. That remains to be seen if the insanity prevails.

Russia has shown incredible restraint

Far from escalating conduct, Russia has shown incredible restraint, given the relentless provocations by the U.S. and NATO over many months and, indeed, years.

The U.S. and its allies have continually weaponized their corrupt, NeoNazi Ukrainian proxy regime – whose pretend-president and former cross-dressing comedian Vladimir Zelensky was given a standing ovation in the European Parliament this week – despite repeated warnings from Moscow that the dynamic is leading to a world war.

The insanity is compounded by Zelensky’s insatiable demands for more weapons and Western taxpayer handouts worth hundreds of billions of dollars, along with hubristic Western notions that “Russia is bluffing.”

How delusional! The Western leaders are playing Russian Roulette. The United States and its NATO partners are now legitimate targets for Russian strikes. Russia demonstrated this week that it has the capability to breach any Western defense, and it is warning that any further aggression on its territory will be responded to.

President Putin admonished Western ruling elites to think carefully about the choices they are going to make. They can pull back from the abyss and negotiate a diplomatic end to the proxy war. Or they can choose to keep escalating to inevitable disaster.

Western ruling class beyond reason

However, of acute concern is that the Western ruling class seems to be beyond reason and sanity. The U.S. hegemon is facing an existential crisis from its terminal collapse as a global power and loss of imperial supremacy. Starting a war with Russia – even to the point of catastrophe – seems to be the only way the Western imperialist system led by the U.S. can respond.

Significantly, the Biden administration is only a matter of weeks from exiting in disgrace. Incoming President Donald Trump has vowed to end the conflict in Ukraine through prompt negotiations. The U.S. deep state is in a quandary.

The American people voted for Trump on November 5 in large part out of repudiation of the Biden administration, the Democrat Party and its servile adherence to the deep state’s endemic warmongering.

Before Trump’s inauguration on January 20, the American ruling class is desperately pushing the proxy war in Ukraine to prevent a negotiated settlement.

Biden’s approval for using ATACMS – followed by the British lackey Prime Minister Keir Starmer – was a brazen U-turn. Only a month ago, they refused such a move. The election of Trump and the prospect of diplomacy with Russia has caused the Western establishment to ramp up the proxy war.

This week saw the 1,000th day of conflict in Ukraine since Russia launched its special military operation to stop NATO aggression on February 24, 2022. The conflict has reached its most dangerous point.

Russia again this week repeated that it is open to a diplomatic settlement, just as it was in late 2021 when it presented far-reaching security proposals to prevent hostilities. The Western elites dismissed that opportunity, choosing the path of war instead. They also sabotaged the Minsk Accords in 2014 and 2015, and the Istanbul peace deal in March 2022. Millions of casualties later, they still want more war, slaughter, and global war, with their grotesque masks of “defending democracy and rules-based order.”

The American people want to end the conflict. The incoming Trump administration appears to be willing to honor the popular demand.

But sanity, morality and democracy are not qualities shared by the imperialist ruling class in the U.S. and its NATO accomplices.

An American deep state coup, then and now

A couple of observations are notable. November 22 marks the date 61 years ago when an American president, JFK, was murdered by the U.S. deep state. A coup d’état was executed very much for the objective of keeping the Cold War going with the Soviet Union because of the vested economic interests of U.S. militarism and the military-industrial complex.

All these years later, the U.S. deep state is attempting another coup against the democratic wishes of the American people for a peaceful end to the proxy war in Ukraine. The U.S. ruling elite want the war against Russia to persist in maintaining their lucrative profits and for existential reasons of empire. Joe Biden is a brain-dead president who is signing orders pushed in front of him by deep-state operatives like Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan just before he wanders off to a retirement home – or into the Amazon jungle à la the hilarious photo-op at the G20 summit in Brazil this week.

Ukraine proxy war back to Nazi Germany

This long perspective also puts the Ukraine proxy war into a proper, wider historical context. The conflict in Ukraine did not start in February 2022. It did not even start with the CIA-backed coup in Kiev against an elected president in February 2014. It did not even start with the U.S.-financed Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. This conflict goes back at least to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 when the United States and its imperialist allies immediately responded by creating the Cold War with its newly forged imperialist instrument known as NATO, in part by deploying Ukrainian fascist collaborators to covertly attack Russia. After World War Two, the CIA and Nazi remnants like spymaster Major General Reinhard Gehlen were united in purpose along with the British MI6 to defeat the Soviet Union. What is transpiring today in Ukraine is the culmination of a systematic conflict, essentially about projecting and maintaining Western imperial power.

The emergence of Russia, China, the BRICS, and the Global South has amplified Western imperial angst and diehard hostility to preserve global power and privilege. The latter hegemonic Western system is the epitome of fascism and neocolonialism.

Historical nemesis

There is a profound historical nemesis at this juncture. Will the U.S. imperial aggressor and its NATO front go down in defeat, or will it push the world to a final global war?

Russia is not bluffing. It won’t back down because of the historical sacrifices it has made already to defeat fascist tyranny – 27 to 30 million dead in World War Two alone. The Russian nation’s pain and suffering from imperialist aggression make it defiant and resolute in a way that the Western regimes could never comprehend or emulate.

Will sanity prevail? The American and European people have onerous obligations to hold their criminal elite rulers accountable.

November 23, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Ukrainians have stolen up to half of US aid – ex-Polish deputy minister

RT | November 22, 2024

Ukraine did not receive as much foreign aid as claimed by the administration of US President Joe Biden, and whatever help it did get was largely embezzled, a former Polish deputy minister has claimed. Up to a half of the funds that reached Kiev was stolen by Ukrainian officials, Piotr Kulpa has alleged.

The political commentator previously held several posts in the Polish government, serving as deputy labor minister in the mid-2000s, and is currently a regular contributor on Ukrainian online shows. Kulpa is a vocal supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump, as evidenced by his remarks to Ukrainian journalist Lana Shevchuk on Thursday.

“Everyone understands that war-related corruption is linked not only with Ukraine, but also the supplier nation,” he said. “Who would ever believe that the US burned through $2 trillion in Afghanistan? It’s delusional!”

US aid programs are a mechanism to “write off large sums of money that finance shady systems under the Democratic Party’s control,” he alleged. The incoming Trump administration could review government finances and discover the truth that “Ukraine got very little” compared to the amounts mentioned in public statements, Kulpa claimed.

“But they will also find something else: that a huge portion of the funds was stolen in Ukraine. From 30% to 50%, regardless of the nature of the aid,” he added.

If Kiev were to recover all the embezzled money for the Ukrainian budget, the country would have enough for a year, Kulpa said. He denounced senior Ukrainian officials, whose regular salaries and bonuses he believes are outrageously high.

“It’s a spit in the face of every Ukrainian,” the former minister asserted. “To every European and American taxpayer. This system is criminal from start to finish.”

Trump and his allies have been highly critical of the amount of assistance that the Biden administration has sent to Kiev. The president-elect has argued that EU nations should assume the burden of propping up Ukraine, while the American government should focus on its own priorities.

US concerns about graft in Kiev have been reflected in some government documents, such as a report that Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch’s office released last week. It said corruption “continues to complicate Ukraine’s efforts to achieve its EU and NATO aspirations.”

November 22, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

US a fascist state – Tucker Carlson

RT | November 21, 2024

The US has become a fascist state under the administration of President Joe Biden, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has claimed in an interview with American journalist Glenn Greenwald which was published on his YouTube channel on Wednesday.

Carlson stated that Washington’s decision to allow Ukraine to use US-supplied ATACMS missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia is “the most evil thing I’ve ever seen in my lifetime” and accused the outgoing government, which he described as a “lame duck administration” of trying to “leave the next administration with a world war.”

“In fact, it is our government that is the fascist state, not Russia,” Carlson said.

The journalist argued that Biden’s reported decision to lift restrictions for Ukraine, “a proxy state of the US,” to strike Russian territory using Western long-range missiles could provoke a nuclear war.

Carlson also suggested that the “reckless” moves by Washington, which have led to casualties among Russia’s civilian population, could leave Russian President Vladimir Putin with “no choice but to launch a serious response against Ukraine or some of NATO’s countries or possibly the United States.”

While Washington has not officially commented on the reports about Kiev being authorized to use Western long-range weapons against Russia, Moscow’s Defense Ministry has since claimed that ATACMS missiles have already been used in an attack on Bryansk Region.

On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that six US-made missiles were launched at Russian territory on Tuesday. Two days later, the Ukrainian military also fired British-produced Storm Shadow missiles and American HIMARS at targets located in Bryansk and Kursk Regions, he added. Following the attacks, the Ukraine conflict has “acquired elements of a global nature.”

Moscow has warned that the move is a “clear sign” that the West wants to escalate the conflict, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov calling on Western leaders to closely examine Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine.

On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin officially introduced several changes to the country’s rules for using nuclear weapons, which give Moscow the right to consider the use of weapons of mass destruction in response to aggression being carried out by a non-nuclear state with the support of a nuclear one. The new doctrine may also be triggered if Russia or Belarus are attacked using conventional weapons in a way that threatens their sovereignty or territorial integrity.

November 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

All Risk, Little Gain: U.S. Authorizes Long-Range Strikes into Russia

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | November 21, 2024

On November 17, the United States told the world what they told Ukraine three days earlier: Ukriane had permission to fire American supplied long-range missiles deeper into Russian territory.

Not much needs to be said about the risks involved in the decision. They are the same risks that have caused the Joe Biden administration to hesitate green lighting the strikes for months. Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly said in September that because long-range strikes into Russia “are impossible to employ without intelligence data from… NATO satellites,” that “mean[s] that NATO countries… are at war with Russia.” And that, Putin says, “will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.”

The calculation whether or not to take a risk can only be made by weighing it against the benefits. But the benefits of green lighting the long-range strikes are illusory.

The Biden administration has not given Ukraine carte blanche to launch missiles into Russia. The license comes with boundaries; the missiles can only be fired into the Kursk region of Russia that Ukrainian troops invaded in August.

The United States has given two reasons for their permission to use their missiles to strike the Kursk region. The Biden administration seems to have been tipped in favor of allowing the strikes by the introduction of North Korean troops into Kursk. The hoped for benefit would be deterring North Korea from sending more troops.

The presence of 10,000 elite North Korean troops who are currently in combat in Kursk has not been proven. And deterring their arrival cannot come close to balancing the risk of direct U.S. involvement in firing missiles into Russia. North Korean troops, even if present, do not alter the balance on the battlefield. The Russian armed forces are growing by 30,000 volunteers a month. 10,000 North Koreans represents only about ten days worth of soldiers. Russia is neither desperate for troops in the Donbas, where they are rapidly advancing, nor in Kursk, where U.S. officials say they have amassed a force of tens of thousands of soldiers without having to pull a single soldier out of Ukraine.

The second hoped for benefit is helping the Ukrainian armed forces hold onto Kursk until the arrival of the inevitable negotiations, at which time Kursk can be bartered for Ukrainian territory held by Russia.

That benefit is as illusory as the first. Ukraine seems to be throwing everything into holding onto the territory it has seized in Kursk. There are reports that Kiev has made the hard to understand decision to prioritize holding onto Kursk over defending its own territory in Donbas. According to these reports, the best military equipment and the best troops are being sent into Kursk to hold onto land instead of into Donbas to reinforce the crumbling front lines. Now, the risk is being taken to throw in the long-range missiles.

Russia, though, is not likely to negotiate until they reclaim Kursk, which they likely eventually will, even faced with long-range missiles. And even if Russia failed to reclaim Kursk, it is not at all clear that Putin would trade that frontier land for the large ethnic Russian Donbas territory.

In the face of the unrealistic benefits, one other possible motive remains. Granting Ukraine permission to fire U.S.-supplied missiles into Kursk is the trump card in the Biden administration’s policy of “Trump-proofing” the war in Ukraine. Freeing Ukraine to escalate and provoking Russia to respond creates a terrain that is much more difficult for Donald Trump to keep his campaign promise of ending the war in Ukraine. As Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, suggested to me, the legacy of Biden as the “fearless defender of Ukraine” also makes it easier for Democrats to “attack Trump for ‘surrender’ over a future peace deal.”

But “Trump-proofing” the war can only serve to prolong the fighting, pile on the dead, and contribute to a greater loss of Ukrainian territory. The likely ending, even if Ukraine holds Kursk for a while, is a negotiated settlement that looks much like the one on the table in the first weeks of the war, but with the additional costs the past three years has brought to Ukraine.

Ironically, “Trump-proofing” can also have an opposite, unintended effect. The policy, and the long-range missile decision, were meant to make it harder for Trump to end the war. Putin knows that too. The New York Times reports that Russian commentators are already framing it that way. Seeing the long-range missile decision in that light gives Putin a motive for patience. He can resist the provocation, not retaliate in a way that escalates the war, and wait for Trump.

The hoped for benefits do not justify the real potential of the risk. And there are longer term risks too.

Geoffrey Roberts, professor emeritus of history at University College Cork and a specialist in Soviet military policy, told me that he “doubts the decision will make much difference militarily.” He called it “another publicity stunt by the Ukrainian-Western side.” He said that he “expects Russia will act with restraint and continue to focus on winning on the battlefield ahead of a ceasefire and peace negotiations when Trump takes power.”

Not only will long-range missiles not significantly change the larger battlefield, Alexander Hill, professor of military history at the University of Calgary, told me that “this decision is unlikely to have a dramatic impact [even] on the fighting at the frontline in the Kursk region.” Though there may be some initial tactical successes, he says that the Russian armed forces will quickly make “the sorts of restrictions on troop and supply concentrations that they did in the Donbass that have minimized the consequences of ATACMS” and other Western missile systems for Russia.

On Monday, November 19, Ukraine fired American-made ATACMS long-range missiles into Russia for the first time. Ukrainian officials say the missiles struck an ammunition depot in the Bryansk region of southwest Russia, which borders on, but is not in, Kursk. The Russian Ministry of Defense, though, says that, of the six ATACMS that were fired, five were shot down and the other was damaged. They say that falling fragments from the damaged missile caused a fire at the munition depot but no damage or casualties.

The long-range missile decision won’t significantly impact troop numbers, North Korean or otherwise, and it won’t enhance the Kursk card in negotiations. But the decision “escalates tensions to a qualitatively new level,” as Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said. And it continues to poison trust and relations between Russia and the West. The escalation in arming Ukraine against Russia could even contribute to a belief in Moscow, Richard Sakwa, professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, told me, that “Ukraine has to be destroyed to remove a permanent threat to the Russian Federation’s security.”

Though Putin could demonstrate patience and wait out the sunset of the Biden administration and the start of the Trump administration, the crossing of a Russian redline could also lead to further escalation. Hill told me that Russia could “supply allies such as Iran and North Korea with capabilities that they currently do not possess: that is, after all, what the U.S. and its allies did for Ukraine.” They could intensify attacks on military sites or energy infrastructure in Ukraine. They could strike distribution hubs in Poland or Romania through which ballistic missiles and other weapons transit on their way to Ukraine (something Russia has refrained from doing). They could even, Ian Proud, former British diplomat at the British Embassy in Moscow, suggests, “make a limited and pre-signaled strike on a US military facility in Europe or elsewhere.”

Almost simultaneously with the first ATACMS missile strike, Putin signed a revised nuclear doctrine that had been formulated in September. The revised doctrine specifies that a conventional attack on Russia by a country that is supported by a nuclear power will be treated as a joint attack on Russia. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, reminded the West on the sidelines of the G20 meeting that, “If the long-range missiles are used from the territory of Ukraine against the Russian territory, it will mean that they are controlled by American military experts and we will view that as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia and respond accordingly.” He also, however, said, “Russia is strictly committed to a position of avoiding nuclear war, and that the weapons act as a deterrent.”

Each of these risks outweighs the dubious hoped for benefits of direct U.S. participation in missile strikes deep into Russia. Instead of holding onto Kursk with its unlikely prospect of improving negotiations, the United States should be pushing for negotiations now. Instead of Trump-proofing and prolonging the war, the Biden administration should be facilitating a transition to diplomacy. Sooner, as Trump promises, or later, as Biden is supporting, the war in Ukraine will end at the negotiating table. And the result will likely be the same, minus all the deaths that are yet to come.

November 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

Why Putin should ignore Biden’s pathetic ATACMS provocation

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 18, 2024

As provocations go, the latest by President Joe Biden to permit the use of long-range missile strikes on Russia is certainly audacious. But, ultimately, in practice, it is a pathetic gesture by a lame-duck president that will have no impact on Russia’s anticipated military victory against the NATO-armed Kiev regime.

Biden’s reported decision is a desperate last-bid gamble to incite an escalation with Russia and to sabotage incoming plans by President-elect Trump to end the conflict in Ukraine. Biden’s move is reckless, reprehensible, and odious. But it should not be given any credibility as a serious threat.

Russia would be best to ignore it. Of course, Russia has to defend itself against any increased potential threat to its territory that such weapons may pose. Nevertheless, Moscow should continue exercising the strategic restraint that President Putin is renowned for, and not retaliate over the provocation.

Understandably, Russian politicians and media have reacted furiously to U.S. media reports that Biden gave the Ukrainian military the green light to deploy American-made ATACMS for striking deep into Russian territory. The ground-launched Mach-3 supersonic missiles have a range of up to 300 kilometers.

The audacity and arrogance of the American ruling class knows no bounds. It has sanctioned Russia to the hilt (to no avail mind you), it has weaponized a NeoNazi regime in Kiev, it has killed civilians in the Russian territory of Crimea already with ATACMS, and so on. Now Biden is ramping up the assault capability deep into Russia.

Two months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that if the U.S. took such a move, then it would dramatically alter the very essence of the conflict in Ukraine, one where Moscow would see the United States and its NATO partners as “direct participants” in a war against Russia.

Putin’s reasoning was correct. The deployment of ATACMS and other sophisticated long-range missiles against Russia would inescapably mean that American and NATO personnel were manning these systems. The Ukrainian military – riven with desertion, in disarray, and suffering from poor morale – would not be capable of targeting and operating such munitions. The use of ATACMS, or air-launched JASSMs, and the British and French Storm Shadow and Scalp cruise missiles to hit Russia is tantamount to NATO’s direct involvement in a war against Russia.

The implication of what Putin said was grave and potentially catastrophic. If the Western states took that step, the result could mean an all-out war between nuclear powers.

When Putin issued his stark warning in September, Biden and other Western leaders, including Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, appeared at the time to heed it and back down from considerations to permit the Ukrainian regime to use long-range missiles against Russia.

Now, however, Biden has flipped to finally give his approval, according to reports. The style of anonymous U.S. officials briefing the New York Times, Washington Post, and Associated Press has all the hallmarks of an orchestrated psychological operation.

What has changed?

Simple. Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election on November 5 with a resounding victory in defiance of the political establishment that wanted Kamala Harris to win. The Republican president-elect takes over in two months when he is inaugurated on January 20. Trump has repeatedly said he will negotiate an end to the nearly three-year conflict in Ukraine, which has seen the U.S. and NATO allies bankroll a corrupt regime in Ukraine to the tune of $200 billion.

And yet after all that obscene wasting of Western public money to bloat the war machine, Russia is going to defeat the NATO proxy. The stakes for NATO’s future and the Western imperialist war machine could not be higher.

The impressive electoral mandate for Trump suggests that the American public wants the U.S. warmongering to stop and for their mounting economic and social needs to be taken care of as a priority.

Under Trump, the war racket could well be over. His nomination last week of Tulsi Gabbard – an outspoken critic of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine – as his Director of National Intelligence is a major sign of his bold intentions of negotiating a diplomatic settlement to the conflict. That means the end of the blood money flowing into the coffers of the Western military-industrial complex and Wall Street. Biden and the Democrat candidate Kamala Harris were the puppets of the war racket. To perform well, they mouthed endless Russophobia, making negotiations impossible with Moscow, and they swore to keep the conflict in Ukraine going “for as long as it takes.” European leaders like Starmer, Macron, and Scholz are equally contemptible.

As Biden packs his bags for his overdue retirement, he is rendering desperate last-minute services to the war racket that lies at the putrid heart of American capitalism. Last week, his Secretary of State Antony Blinken (another non-entity puppet) said the Biden administration would release a further $9 billion in military aid to Ukraine so that it could keep fighting the war well into next year.

Likewise, the reported green light from Biden on the use of long-range missiles is another ploy to keep the war racket going. Trump could reverse the decision when he enters the White House, but over the next two months, the Biden administration seems to be trying to sabotage Trump’s peace intentions by escalating the conflict to a dangerous point of no return.

Russia should not take the bait. For a start, the United States does not have a large supply of ATACMS to give to Ukraine. Any use of these missiles will be limited. The Kiev regime’s so-called president Vladimir Zelensky – he canceled elections months ago and rules by decree – has no chance of stopping the rapidly advancing victory of Russian forces, even with a few ATACMS.

No, this is not about defending Ukraine or enabling Zelensky’s ridiculous “victory plan”. It’s all about the American-led Western imperialist deep state wanting to provoke Russia into a dreadful escalation to keep the war profits churning.

Biden’s gesture is reckless, but it is something that should be treated with contempt. As he wanders off to the oblivion of his retirement dementia, people will soon forget about this failed politician. His 50-year career was one long shift of prostituting for U.S. imperialism.

Legally, Russia could respond to Biden’s provocation with reciprocal attacks on U.S. and NATO sites. But such an escalation is exactly what the imperialist deep state of the U.S. and its NATO lackeys are betting on.

The provocative gesture is more symbolic than a substantive threat. Russia should ignore it and focus on demolishing the NATO proxy regime in Kiev, and with that, thereby deal a fatal blow to U.S. and NATO credibility.

November 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

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