Macron Unveils Massive Military Expansion Plan Amid Nationwide Strike Over Neoliberal Budget Cuts
Samizdat – 20.01.2023
French President Emmanuel Macron revealed his plans to dramatically increase military and intelligence spending on Friday, saying French forces need to “reform and transform” amid the conflict in Ukraine, where NATO forces are supporting the Ukrainians. The announcement comes as 1 million people march against de facto budget cuts.
Macron’s proposed new defense budget size for the 2024-2030 period, €413 billion, is 40% larger than the previous 2019-2025 period budget of €295 billion.
“The law on military programming (LPM) for 2024-2030 reflects the efforts made by the state to strengthen its army. They are proportionate to current dangers, which are significant. In 2024-2030, the government will allocate €400 billion to the defense ministry,” Macron said in an address to the army at the Mont-de-Marsan airbase in southwestern France.
“France has and will have armies ready for the challenges of the century,” he added.
He explained that part of the spending will go toward doubling the power of French air defense systems, and that the French intelligence budget would increase by 60% by 2030.
He added that Paris would continue to modernize its nuclear forces, spending €5.6 billion on that effort in 2023 alone.
The French leader said the changes were necessary because of the conflict in Ukraine, which is nearly 11 months old. The NATO nations have backed Kiev, which seeks to join the alliance, funneling them vast amounts of money and military equipment to support their fight against Russian forces.
“It is necessary to pay special attention to the speed of response and build up the power of our army, because we do not choose the conflicts in which we might have to participate,” Macron said.
Indeed, Macron’s words came just hours after US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urged American allies to “dig even deeper” and put up more funding for Ukraine.
Paris has thrown much of its weight behind supporting Kiev’s war effort, including sending rockets, AMX-10 infantry fighting vehicles, and other weapons. In October, Macron unveiled a special €200 million fund from which Kiev would be able to buy military equipment from French defense contractors.
Most recently, Paris has publicly weighed sending Leclerc main battle tanks to Ukraine as other NATO allies make similar considerations.
Russia began its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 in response to a dramatic escalation of violence in the Donbass region, where since 2014, Russian-speaking minorities have resisted attacks by neo-Nazi groups integrated into the Ukrainian military. Its goals include promises Ukraine will never join NATO or allow NATO to position military equipment on Russia’s borders.
Budget Hikes Amid Budget Cuts
Macron’s announcement comes amid a new wave of mass demonstrations in France, where 1 million marched on strike on Friday against a proposed plan to increase the retirement age to 64.
According to French media, eight of the country’s largest unions took part in the strike, which included 40% of primary school teachers and one-third of high school teachers. Transportation networks also shut down as workers walked out on strike.
Macron has said the de facto budget cut is necessary because of a deficit in the pension fund. However, in October, his government used a special mechanism to shut down debate and ram a new budget through parliament, blocking attempts by opposition parties to add new taxes targeting corporations profiting massively off rising inflation and energy costs.
A former banker, Macron has been in office since 2017, and most of his tenure has been wracked by mass protests against his neoliberal budget plans, including the massive “Yellow Vest” demonstrations by working-class French people.
US and allies must address Russia’s security concerns and their past deceptions on Donbass, the Kremlin says
RT | January 20, 2023
US-Russia relations are at their lowest point ever amid the crisis in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. As the conflict deteriorates, the only way to reverse it is for Western nations to acknowledge their mistakes and change their policies, he added.
Despite initial hopes that under President Joe Biden the US would engage Russia diplomatically, the last two years “have been very bad for our bilateral relations,” the official told journalists. They are now “probably at their lowest point, historically” he added, and “there is no hope for improvement anytime soon.”
The Ukraine hostilities – the focus of the confrontation between Russia and Western nations – are in “an upward spiral” according to Peskov.
“We can see a growing indirect, and sometimes direct involvement of NATO nations in this conflict,” he stated. The nations that back Kiev are acting under “a delusion that Ukraine has any chance to win on the battlefield,” he explained.
Asked how the vicious circle could be broken, Peskov suggested that the US and its allies had to mentally turn the clock back to the end of 2021, “when Russia was suggesting a discussion of its concerns at the negotiations table” only to be dismissed.
Western repentance for its “cynicism” was also in order, he added.
“Germany, France and Ukraine were playing a swindle game with the Minsk agreements. Now is payback time,” he said, referring to the roadmap for Ukraine reconciliation, which the three nations signed with Russia in 2015.
Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Pyotr Poroshenko, the leaders at the time of Germany, France and Ukraine respectively, have since stated that the deal they negotiated with Russia was meant to give Kiev time to rebuild its military.
Moscow considers these admissions to be evidence that the negotiations were conducted in bad faith and that the Ukrainian government and its backers had always intended for the Minsk agreements to fail and for the Donbass standoff to be resolved by military means. Russia claimed that its military campaign in Ukraine launched last February preempted an offensive planned by Kiev with NATO’s help.
Ukraine, Germany, and France “lied to the people of Donbass, as they had a terrible fate planned for them, which Russia prevented,” Peskov explained.
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.
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.”
Ukraine Humiliated Western Propagandists After Its Defense Minister Admitted It’s A NATO Proxy
By Andrew Korybko | January 7, 2023
Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov’s description of the Ukrainian-NATO relationship perfectly aligns with Merriam-Webster’s definition of a proxy. Their official website informs readers that “A proxy may refer to a person who is authorized to act for another or it may designate the function or authority of serving in another’s stead.” The objectively existing military-strategic dynamics of the Ukrainian Conflict coupled with Reznikov’s candid admission therefore leave no doubt about the fact that Ukraine is a NATO proxy by definition.
The US-led West’s Mainstream Media (MSM) has insisted over the past 10,5 months that President Putin is supposedly insane for considering Ukraine a NATO proxy whose close military ties with that explicitly anti-Russian bloc pose a serious threat to his country’s national security red lines. Their perception managers subsequently expanded upon their gaslighting operation to discredit Russia’s special operation on the false basis that it’s driven by so-called “imperialism” and not self-defense.
Every single one of the countless information warfare products that they’ve since created was just exposed as fraudulent by none other than Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov, who admitted during an appearance on national TV on Thursday that their country is indeed a NATO proxy. In his own words, “Today, Ukraine is addressing [the] threat (of Russia). We’re carrying out NATO’s mission today, without shedding their blood. We shed our blood, so we expect them to provide weapons.”
Reznikov’s description of the Ukrainian-NATO relationship perfectly aligns with Merriam-Webster’s definition of a proxy. Their official website informs readers that “A proxy may refer to a person who is authorized to act for another or it may designate the function or authority of serving in another’s stead.” The objectively existing military-strategic dynamics of the Ukrainian Conflict coupled with Reznikov’s candid admission therefore leave no doubt about the fact that Ukraine is a NATO proxy by definition.
This senior official likely didn’t intend to discredit his patrons’ “official narrative” for redistributing approximately $100 billion of their taxpayer-provided wealth to Ukraine and thus vindicate everything that President Putin said about why he commenced Russia’s special operation. What appears to have happened is that Reznikov lost his cool after becoming frustrated that NATO isn’t giving Kiev all the weapons that it demands, hence why he spilled the beans in an attempt to put pressure on them.
This emotional reaction to the pressure that’s being put upon his side by NATO’s military-industrial limitations, which the New York Times reported upon in late November and therefore can no longer be denied by the MSM, caused him to finally crack. Had he remained calm like senior officials are supposed to do, especially those leading their country’s military like he does, then he would never have admitted that Ukraine is a NATO proxy out of desperation to guilt it into giving Kiev all that it demands.
The average person in the US-led West’s Golden Billion probably won’t ever be informed of what he said since it’s in the MSM’s obvious interests to suppress all reporting about this embarrassing incident, but those who rely on Alternative Media will almost certainly come across it sooner or later. What they should then do is pass this “politically inconvenient” news along to as many people as possible in order to prove to them that they’ve been lied to by their government and media this entire time.
Approximately $100 billion worth of their hard-earned tax dollars weren’t diverted from domestic socio-economic projects to “protect Ukraine from Russian aggression”, but for NATO to aggressively exploit Ukraine as a literal proxy for waging Hybrid War on Russia. Its Defense Minister, who can’t realistically be described as a so-called “Russian agent/propagandist” or even “Russian-friendly”, wouldn’t have admitted that Ukraine is a NATO proxy if this truly wasn’t the case.
With that in mind, everything that everyone’s been told about this conflict by the MSM is built upon the “Big Lie” that Ukraine is a “fiercely independent state” that was “randomly victimized” by “Russian aggression”. The reality is that it’s Russia that’s the fiercely independent state that was victimized by NATO’s proxy war aggression via Ukraine, though this wasn’t done randomly, but as punishment for its leading role in accelerating the global systemic transition to multiplexity away from US-led unipolarity.
The New Cold War isn’t between “democracies and dictatorships” like Western propagandists falsely claim, but between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the jointly BRICS– & SCO-led Global South of which Russia is a part over the direction of that aforesaid systemic transition. The top proxy war between these de facto blocs is the Ukrainian Conflict, the outcome of which will determine whether the US can reverse its declining unipolar hegemony or if the Multipolar World Order is inevitable.
These unprecedented stakes explain why such an astronomical sum of taxpayer funds has already been expended on perpetuating this proxy war that otherwise would have ended sometime last spring had NATO not rushed to its proxy’s rescue. The approximately $100 billion spent so far obviously hasn’t been sufficient for dislodging Russia from the territory that Ukraine claims as its own, which suggests that the West might accept the fait accompli of Moscow’s victory and thus explains why Reznikov is panicking.
He and his ilk from that US-installed fascist regime know that they probably won’t politically survive the scenario of Kiev de facto acknowledging Russia’s control over its former regions, hence why he desperately sought to put maximum pressure on NATO to finally give them all that they’ve demanded. To that end, he publicly admitted that Ukraine is a NATO proxy in the hopes of guilting his patrons into complying, but he also unwittingly humiliated its propagandists and discredited their “official narrative”.
NATO’s Ominous Tank Orders for Ukraine… The Historic Spots of a Leopard
Strategic Culture Foundation | January 13, 2023
German-made tanks, the Panzer Leopard 2, are to be deployed in Ukraine in a war that is increasingly becoming an open confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO alliance and Russia.
Germany’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has given approval for the move following the announcement on Wednesday by Polish President Andrzej Duda that a “company” of Leopards was being supplied from Poland to Ukraine.
There are a reported 2,000 German-made Leopards in service across 13 European countries. Officially, Berlin has to give its approval for countries to re-export the tank, which is seen as one of the world’s best in its class of main battlefield armored vehicles. That approval was swiftly forthcoming in Habeck’s affirmative response.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is now under intense pressure to authorize the additional supply of Leopards directly from Germany to Ukraine. For months, Scholz has been refusing to provide the heavy armor out of concern not to provoke Moscow which would perceive it as a definitive escalation. Figures within the Berlin government, especially Habeck’s Green Party, have been cajoling the chancellor to increase the supply of weapons. It is a foregone conclusion that Scholz will cave in and give the green light, as he has done on several previous occasions concerning prohibitions on other categories of weaponry.
What is abundantly clear is that the United States and its NATO allies are coordinating a larger-scale involvement in the war in Ukraine against Russia. They are marching in lockstep.
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an agreement with Germany to supply “light tanks” in the form of Bradley and Marder fighting vehicles. That move was coupled with an unprecedented decision by France to send AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine. This week, Britain upped the ante by trumpeting that it was ready to supply Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine.
Polish President Duda was in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Wednesday accompanied by Lithuanian counterpart Gitanas Nauseda and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. The day before, on Tuesday, the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock (another warmongering Green member), made a surprise visit to Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv where she hinted that Leopard tanks would be forthcoming.
Speaking alongside Germany’s top diplomat, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said cryptically: “I have no doubt Germany will send Leopard tanks to Ukraine… The German government somewhere deep down understands that the decision will be made and the tanks will be transferred to Ukraine.”
The implied fait accompli echoed the words of Joe Biden who warned just before the eruption of conflict in Ukraine in February last year that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia would never become operational regardless of Berlin’s position.
In Lviv, the Polish leader also spoke about the deployment of Leopard tanks as part of an “international coalition” for sending such weaponry.
“A company of Leopard tanks will be handed over as part of a coalition that is being built because, as you know, a large number of formal requirements, agreements, and so on must be met, but primarily we want this to be an international coalition,” said Duda.
What that means is the German-made tanks are going to be sent to Ukraine as part of a much larger, coordinated NATO effort. There is an air of inevitability that the Leopards will be joined by U.S.-made M1 Abrams as well as British Challengers.
The narrative that is being propounded is that the heavy weapons must be ramped up to Ukraine in order to prevent an alleged Russian offensive from taking the capital Kiev and also to consolidate supposed gains made by Ukrainian military. This narrative is obviously contradictory and belies the Western disinformation peddled by its news media and governments which swivels between imminent defeat or imminent victory for the Kiev regime.
The significant military victory by Russian forces this week in taking control of Soledar, the salt mining town in Donbass, is being cited by NATO figures as evidence that heavier weapons and tanks must be urgently supplied to Ukraine.
What is astounding is the dearth of public debate in the Western states about the relentless supply of weaponry to Ukraine. Hundreds of billions of dollars and euros are given away to a corrupt cabal in Kiev without the slightest oversight. Despite unprecedented economic and social hardships for their general populations, the ruling elites of Western states are pumping more and more weaponry into a conflict that has got nothing to do with alleged “freedom and democracy” in Ukraine.
Western nations are being dragged deeper into a war against Russia with no public knowledge let alone democratic consent about the real reasons for the war. Those reasons are to do with promoting U.S.-led Western imperialist interests, which are profoundly at odds with those of ordinary citizens.
The move to supply main battle tanks by NATO powers is typical of the stealth that has driven the build-up to this war. Typically, the decision has been made in secret and everything else is all about delivering on the decision. Shameless lies about “defending democracy and freedom” are spouted, even though the regime being supported in Kiev by Western taxpayers’ money is one infested with NeoNazis.
Nations are being swept towards an all-out war between the U.S./NATO and Russia by elite rulers in hock to corporate interests and unaccountable deep-state planners.
Despicably and criminally, there is no call among Western governments or media for diplomatic initiatives to end the conflict in Ukraine and to address the deeper geopolitical causes. All elite discourse is about the imperative of “defeating Russia” and “regime change” in Moscow as if it is a doctrinal ordinance.
The conflict in Ukraine was sown in 2014 by the U.S. and NATO-backed coup against democracy and the subsequent weaponizing of a NeoNazi regime. But the seeds for that were borne from a more evil fruit that goes all the way back to the Second World War and Nazi Germany’s failed conquest of the Soviet Union.
The imperial designs of the Third Reich and its expansionist “lebensraum” have been inherited by the U.S.-led NATO axis. The deployment of Leopard tanks – in place of Panzer Tigers – trundling towards Russia is a visceral sign of antecedent and of who stands on the right side of history.
Russian MoD Announces Liberation of Soledar
Samizdat – 13.01.2023
The area around the strategic town, situated in the Donetsk People’s Republic’s northeast, has seen heavy fighting in recent days. The Soledar Salt Mine – opened in the 19th century and featuring a vast 201 km network of tunnels dug up to 288 meters underground, is the largest salt mine in Europe.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense has announced the complete liberation of the town of Soledar, saying the capture of the strategic settlement will make it possible to cut off supply routes used by Ukrainian forces in nearby Artemovsk (which was renamed Bakhmut by Ukraine’s post-coup government in 2016).
According to the MoD’s figures, over 700 Ukrainian troops were killed and 300 pieces of weaponry, including three planes and a helicopter, were destroyed in fighting for Soledar over the past three days. Russian air defenses were said to have shot down nine HIMARS, Olha and Uragan rockets in the course of fighting.
“The liberation of the settlement of Soledar, important for the continuation of successful offensive operations in the Donetsk region, was completed on the evening of January 12,” MoD spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a briefing on Friday.
The Russian military said the capture of Soledar was made possible thanks to constant strikes by army aviation, rocket and artillery units, which pinned down Ukrainian forces and prevented the transfer of reserves and the delivery of ammunition, and blocked attempts to withdraw to new defensive lines. At the same time, Konashenkov said, Russian Airborne Forces occupied dominant heights and blockaded the town from the north and south.
According to Konashenkov, the liberation of Soledar will allow Russian forces to block Ukrainian forces in the region and pocket them in a cauldron.
The first days of 2023 witnessed heavy fighting for Soledar between Russian and Ukrainian forces, with DPR head Denis Pushilin announcing Tuesday that the city center was under the control of fighters from Wagner Group, a Russian private military company.
DPR lawmaker Vladislav Berdichevsky told Sputnik Thursday that the victory at Soledar opened the door for the liberation of the remainder of the Donbass, and that the battle for the town itself had created a mini-cauldron containing Ukrainian troops.
Ukrainian forces aided by US and NATO advisors spent years building up a complex network of fortifications and entrenchments in the Donbass, and have used these positions to launch indiscriminate artillery and rocket attacks into the areas of the region controlled by the Donbass People’s Militias and Russian forces. Donetsk’s major settlements, including the city of Donetsk itself, continue to experience severe shelling, often using US-made artillery and HIMARS rounds, on almost a daily basis, with the intensity of fire becoming the worst in 2022 since 2014-2015.
Russia kicked off a military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 amid concerns that Kiev was preparing to launch an all-out offensive against the Donbass. In the weeks leading up to the escalation, the Donbass republics experienced a dramatic increase in Ukrainian shelling and sabotage attacks and attempted assassinations, and the regions’ leaders ordered the evacuation of the civilian population to Russia. The crisis in the Donbass was complemented by heightened tensions between Moscow and NATO in late 2021 and early 2022, with the alliance rejecting a pair of comprehensive security proposals tabled by Russia to dramatically ease the strain – on the condition that the US-led military bloc give up its ambition to expand further east toward Russia’s borders, including into Ukraine.
NATO ramps up presence in Ukraine’s neighbor
RT | January 13, 2023
NATO will send a deployment of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) surveillance planes to Romania to “monitor Russian military activity” amid the Ukraine conflict, the US-led military bloc announced on Thursday.
In a statement, NATO said its “eyes in the sky” are expected to arrive in the Bucharest area on January 17, to strengthen the bloc’s presence in the region. Romania, which borders Ukraine, already hosts a number of NATO units, including the American 101st elite Airborne division.
The bloc did not specify how many planes will be stationed in Romania. However, the German press agency DPA reported that NATO plans to deploy three AWACS there.
The AWACS planes will begin reconnaissance flights, which will take place only over the alliance’s territory, in the coming days, with their mission scheduled to last “several weeks.” In addition, the surveillance mission will be supported by about 180 service members, who will be deployed at the Otopeni air force base near the Romanian capital, some 200km (124 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
The planes themselves are part of a fleet of 14 NATO surveillance aircraft usually based in Geilenkirchen in western Germany. These aircraft are equipped with long-range radar and passive sensors capable of detecting targets over large distances while staying in the air for hours.
The US-led military bloc has been conducting regular surveillance operations on its eastern flank, monitoring the conflict in Ukraine ever since Russia launched its military offensive against the neighboring state in February 2022.
The deployment of AWACS planes comes as a large number of US armor and military vehicles started to arrive in the Netherlands on Wednesday before heading out to NATO’s eastern flank, according to Reuters. In total, about 1,250 pieces of military equipment are said to be disembarking from the Dutch port of Vlissingen, US officials said.
On Monday, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s national security council, stated that the ongoing Ukraine conflict “is not a confrontation between Moscow and Kiev, but rather a military stand-off with NATO.”
‘No place’ for independent Russia in Western mindset – Moscow
RT | January 10, 2023
The secretary of Russia’s national security council has lashed out at the West, pointing to their habit of creating global threats, including numerous terrorist groups, in pursuit of their interests.
Nikolay Patrushev also claimed, in an interview published by news outlet Argumenti i Fakti, that Washington’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was a prelude to NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
“The events in Ukraine are not a confrontation between Moscow and Kiev. It’s a military confrontation of NATO – the US and England first and foremost – with Russia,” the top security official said in a newspaper interview. “They fear a direct standoff, so NATO instructors push Ukrainian guys toward their certain deaths.”
Patrushev argued that, while Western nations claim to be “defending civilization against barbarism” in Ukraine, they are actually motivated by selfish interests and won’t “save any lives at the expense of their enrichment and ambitions.”
He said there is an established pattern of the US creating threats that it later ostensibly fights against, he continued, citing terrorist organizations Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) as examples. Washington may occasionally show off the killing of individual terrorist leaders like Osama Bin Laden, but continue “training and arming a hundred others” at the same time, he added.
NATO’s mission in Afghanistan resulted “in the creation of multibillion-dollar corruption schemes” and a surge in illegal drug production, Patrushev claimed. And the US withdrawal from the country in 2019 was to a large degree about “focusing on Ukraine” and confrontation with Russia, he said.
The security official cited remarks made last month by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who admitted that, with the country’s military presence in Afghanistan finally ended, the administration of President Joe Biden had more opportunities to funnel arms to Kiev.
Patrushev believes that, in the wider picture, the interests of the US as a nation state are subservient to the interests of transnational corporations, which ultimately dictate the policies of many governments. Those unaccountable forces have inherited the colonialist approach that allowed Western nations to become wealthy and powerful, but they are no longer vested in national interests, he said.
Russia “has no place” in their schemes, since it “irritates the handful of world masters because of its natural riches, vast territories, and smart, self-sufficient people who love their country, its traditions and history,” he added.
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The Scofield Bible—The Book That Made Zionists of Evangelical Christians
By Maidhc Ó Cathail – Washington Report on Middle East Affairs – October 2015
“For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgement.” —The New Scofield Study Bible
Since it was first published in 1909, the Scofield Reference Bible has made uncompromising Zionists out of tens of millions of Americans. When John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), said that “50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel,” it was the Scofield Bible that he was talking about.
Although the Scofield Reference Bible contains the text of the King James Authorized Version, it is not the traditional Protestant bible but Cyrus I. Scofield’s annotated commentary that is problematic. More than any other factor, it is Scofield’s notes that have induced generations of American evangelicals to believe that God demands their uncritical support for the modern State of Israel. … continue
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