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Russia’s Kherson withdrawal is tactical

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | NOVEMBER 12, 2022

General Mark Milley, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States assessed that it would take several weeks for Moscow to complete the evacuation of some 30,000 Russian troops deployed in Kherson city in southern Ukraine. But Russians have announced that the evacuation was successfully completed in 2 days — both soldiers and over 5000 pieces of heavy equipment.  

Evidently, much advance planning went into the execution of the evacuation order. The Russian military command began working on the evacuation weeks ahead of the actual announcement earlier this week. 

In retrospect, General Sergei Surovikin’s extraordinary interview on October 18 soon after his appointment as the first theatre commander for Ukraine operations only eight days earlier was probably choreographed to sensitise the public opinion about the criticality of the military situation in the Kherson region. 

The following excerpts from the interview are relevant here: 

“A difficult situation has arisen. The enemy deliberately bombards infrastructure and residential buildings in Kherson. The Antonovsky Bridge and the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station were damaged by HIMARS missiles, traffic there was stopped. 

“As a result, the supply of food in the city is difficult, there are certain problems with the water and electricity supply. All this greatly complicates the lives of citizens, but also poses a direct threat to their lives. 

“The NATO leadership of the Ukrainian armed forces has long been demanding offensive operations against Kherson from the Kiev regime, regardless of casualties – both among the armed forces themselves and among the civilian population.  

“We have data on the possibility that the regime in Kiev will use prohibited methods of war in the area of the city of Kherson, on Kiev’s preparation for a massive missile attack on the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam, the conduct of massive missile and artillery attacks on the city without distinction.

“These actions can lead to the destruction of the infrastructure of a major industrial centre and to civilian casualties. 

“In these circumstances, our top priority is to preserve the life and health of citizens. Therefore, the Russian army will first of all ensure the safe, already announced departure of the population according to the resettlement program being prepared by the Russian government.

“Our further plans and actions regarding the city of Kherson itself will depend on the current military-tactical situation. I repeat, it is already very difficult today. 

“In any case, as I said, we will start from the need to protect the lives of civilians and our military as much as possible. 

“We will act consciously and in a timely manner, without excluding difficult decisions.” [Emphasis added.] 

Three things can be said. First, the retreat from Kherson was decided for operational reasons. Its rationale is to pre-empt any attempt by the Ukrainian forces and foreign mercenaries from disrupting the work in progress to induct trained military personnel in large numbers (totalling close to 400,000 troops including volunteers) to augment the deployments in Ukraine. 

Two, the Kremlin took extra care to make a ‘soft landing’ for the bitter decision to vacate Kherson city, which is etched in the Russian national psyche as part of the historical legacy of Catherine the Great. Interestingly, the historical relics of Imperial Russia in Kherson city have been meticulously mothballed and taken away for safe storage. 

The Russian public has largely accepted the decision by the military command, including the ‘hardliners’ in the establishment such as the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and the Wagner Group of Russian military contractors. This wasn’t the case in the withdrawal in Kharkov in September. 

Three, most important, the intention is to forestall any threat to Crimea in terms of its security, communication, water, etc. The retreating Russian forces have destroyed two big segments of the Antonivka bridge connecting Kherson city with the east bank of Dnieper. Dnieper de facto becomes the ‘buffer zone’ in the Kherson region with 60% of the oblast’s territory under Russian control. 

Antonovka Bridge across the Dnieper River, Kherson

Going forward, first and foremost, this is a tactical withdrawal. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has asserted that Kherson remains a part of Russia. That implies an obligation to recover Kherson city, as the special military operations continue. 

Second, the Russian military command is not contemplating any operation toward Odessa in a near term. The priority will be to complete the operation to establish full control of the Donbass region (which was the initial objective of the special operation) as well as Zaporozhye region (which is important for the security of the land bridge connecting Crimea with the Russian hinterland.) Intense fighting is continuing in Donetsk.

Third, to be sure, there are incipient signs of a shift in the thinking within the Biden Administration towards dialogue and negotiations. How authentic they are remains unclear. (See my blogs No end in view for Ukraine war, November 10, and Biden nods to compromise in Ukraine, November 11.) 

According to the CNN and New York Times, the Biden Administration is a divided house. The indications suggest that the Pentagon is pushing for negotiations. According to CNN, Gen. Milley, chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff holds the view that the time is ripe for a diplomatic solution as fighting heads toward a winter lull, while secretary of state Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, both ardent neocons, remain sceptical. 

Russians largely keep their thoughts to themselves but some signalling is also going on. Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with Izvestia, published on Friday that “I find it naive to assume, judging from media leaks only, that any transformation in approaches toward putting Russian-US relations on a new track is underway. Our relationship is facing a deep crisis, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel yet.” 

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Friday no meetings are planned at the foreign minister level between Russia and the US on the sidelines of the G20 at Bali. Peskov said yesterday that “The conflict in Ukraine can be ended after achieving its (special military operation’s) goals or by means of achieving the same goals through peaceful negotiations, which is also possible. Kiev does not want negotiations. The special military operation continues.” 

In the Russian eyes, how far the Biden Administration is willing to pressure Kiev is the moot point. Ryabkov addressed this crucial aspect in comments yesterday:

“I can reiterate that we are open to dialogue without any preconditions. And we have been ready for some time. On instructions from its Western patrons, Kiev broke off the dialogue which in general was progressing, and a certain document was in the works. Now these are things of the past. And what comes next no longer depends on us.

“I can certainly share my opinion here that if Kiev is given an order from certain capitals, there would perhaps be a better chance for such dialogue. But then again, we do not have any obstacles over here and there should be no preconditions for dialogue.” 

The big question is whether the Russian offensive, which is expected to begin in November – December, will go ahead or not. As a CNN analysis concluded, “Success in Kherson may also allow exhausted Ukrainian units some respite… But Russia has plenty of weaponry and tens of thousands of newly mobilised troops to send into battle, and its campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure has left power and water supplies hanging by a thread in many regions. Ukraine is slowly receiving advanced air defences from Western donors but has a huge area to defend.” 

November 12, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Political West using Ukraine to probe, discredit Russian military

By Drago Bosnic | November 11, 2022

After Moscow was forced to intervene in Ukraine and launch its counteroffensive against NATO aggression, the political West got an unprecedented opportunity to probe the Russian military, test and observe its capabilities. All of this provides invaluable insight into the doctrine of the Eurasian giant’s armed forces, which would help NATO optimize its military power to match Russian capabilities. Naturally, this is nothing out of the ordinary in comparison to any other conflict in known history. However, both sides are working on misleading the other by either concealing their actual military strategy and doctrine or providing false information which could give them both tactical and strategic advantages in the future.

For its part, NATO is providing the Kiev regime with unprecedented ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) capabilities, which has been of prime importance for its forces. Without them, the Neo-Nazi junta troops would’ve had a much harder time against the Russian military. What’s more, NATO expected Russia to play all its cards (short of direct confrontation with the belligerent alliance) in tackling this issue, particularly by using its extensive experience and capabilities in electronic warfare. In doing so, Moscow would’ve gotten several months of key advantages over the Kiev regime forces, but it would also provide NATO with crucial data on how this spectrum of its battlefield capabilities worked. This would then be used by the belligerent alliance to gain an important insight and create counters, possibly tipping the strategic balance of power to its advantage.

It’s precisely this scenario that Russia is trying to avoid, which is why it decided to show only a fraction of its capabilities. This is certainly affecting the performance of the Russian military, but since the High Command sees the intervention against the Kiev regime forces as a local operation, this is considered a fair trade-off. Simply, letting NATO gain too much knowledge of the Russian military strategy and doctrine would be a much bigger problem in the long-term. What’s more, NATO’s overreliance on its ISR advantage might as well create a false sense of security and push its military planners into thinking that Russia doesn’t have counters to these capabilities. However, in a possible confrontation, Russia would certainly destroy much of NATO’s ISR assets, leaving the belligerent alliance with much less battlefield information to work with than it currently has access to.

Still, the present situation is providing NATO with a better opportunity to hurt Russia than engaging in a direct clash ever could. Apart from using the Kiev regime forces as cannon fodder, the political West is also conducting a full-spectrum war against Moscow, involving economic and financial sanctions, incessant information warfare, cyber operations, etc. The aim is to make Russia’s life as hard as it could possibly be, with hopes of eventually turning it into a giant North Korea. The end goal is clear – a coup which would bring a more “cooperative” government to power in Moscow. And this prospect isn’t even in the realm of conspiracy theories anymore as several high-ranking US officials said so themselves, including the US President Joe Biden.

At present, the Ukraine crisis is slowly entering a new phase. While the mainstream propaganda machine is portraying the Kiev regime forces as “making spectacular advances, liberating many towns and villages, and forcing Russian forces to retreat,” the political West is trying to bring the Kiev regime to the negotiating table and buy some more time before the winter season gets worse, giving Russia a significant strategic advantage as the European Union struggles with energy prices and supplies.

By maintaining the image of Neo-Nazi junta troops supposedly “winning” against the Russian military, the political West is trying to convince its populace that financing the Kiev regime is justified, despite the economic and financial fallout. For its part, Brussels is doing everything it can to reduce gas consumption as it can neither afford additional US LNG shipments, nor does it have the necessary storage capacity. The alternative – buying more Russian natural gas – is considered “geopolitically sensitive”.

In addition to conducting the economic siege of Russia, the political West also needs to find ways to continue supporting the ever-cash-hungry Kiev regime. The fallout of these policies has been affecting Western and other global economies for months, resulting in ever-growing unrest and frustration among hundreds of millions around the world, particularly in the EU, whose member states are now bearing the brunt of the suicidal anti-Russian policies.

The detached policymakers in the political West think that this strategy is working, while ignoring the consequences for their own citizens. Dissent is being suppressed by accusing anyone who questions these policies of being “pro-Russian”. Worse yet, refusing to openly support the Neo-Nazi junta in Kiev is now a mortal sin, regardless if the person in question is a public figure or a regular citizen.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

November 11, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

US admits provoking Russia in the Arctic

By Lucas Leiroz | November 11, 2022

A US special forces’ representative admitted that the US actions in the Arctic are a kind of provocation against Russia, revealing how Washington deliberately poses international security risks with its anti-Russian plans.

The irresponsible US attempts to “dissuade” Moscow and stop the alleged Russian “expansionist behavior” would be some of the reasons why Washington is deliberately initiating provocative military maneuvers in the Arctic Circle, according to Lawrence Melnicoff, commander of the European Special Operations Command. Melnicoff commented on NATO’s initiatives in Europe and the sending of troops to Norway, where military units are currently being trained for combat in arctic weather and conditions.

For him, this is part of a strategy focused on “provocation without escalation”, which Washington would be using against Russia. The commander believes that Russia has expansionist ambitions in the European space and that it may even already be planning attacks against targets in the US allied countries, which supposedly “justifies” NATO’s actions in the region to “complicate” Russian plans.

“We are intentionally trying to be provocative without being escalatory (…) We’re trying to deter Russian aggression, expansionist behavior, by showing enhanced capabilities of the allies (…) It complicates Russian decision-making because we know that they’re targeting very, very large specific aggregations of allied power, [such as] Ramstein Air Base, RAF Lakenheath, things like that (…) If worse comes to worst and somebody takes out these power hubs, we can forward-project precision artillery fire across the alliance with our partners”, he said during a recent interview to US media.

As expected, the officer did not mention any evidence of his claims about such Russian “expansionist” intentions. Arguing the existence of Russian plans to hit European targets is something particularly serious and that could never be said in the absence of clear and concrete evidence. In fact, Melnicoff’s statements appear to be just an attempt to make the destabilizing American action “acceptable” in the eyes of the public opinion, considering that the aggressiveness of NATO’s maneuvers has significantly intensified.

On 9 November, NATO forces carried out a military drill in northern Norway about 500km from Russia’s Murmansk region. A long-range missile was launched in mid-air from a C-130 strategic transport aircraft. The test was the first successful one of the so-called “Rapid Dragon”, a modern weapons system developed for C-130 and C-17 aircraft, making them capable of launching Lockheed Martin AGM-158 JASSM cruise missiles against targets in long distance.

Apparently, this new missile system is NATO’s current bet to improve its tactical capability in Arctic warfare. In recent years, the US intensification of activities in the North Pole has taken place alongside a real race by the military industrial complex to modernize US forces in that region. Historically, Russia is the military power with the greatest presence in the Arctic. China has also shown growing interest in the zone and has developed special forces to operate there. And it is precisely in this scenario that NATO tries at all costs to enhance its maneuvers.

In this regard, in October, the US government published its “National Strategy for the Arctic Region”, which sets out the terms for the next 10 years of US military policy for the North Pole. The document urges an even more significant boost in US maneuvers in the Arctic, with Washington definitely seeking a position of military dominance in the Arctic similar to that of Russia and China. For this, the US counts on the strong support of NATO partners – and it is precisely to encourage these partners to support US plans that it is “interesting” to spread unfounded alarmist narratives about the “Russian threat”, as Melnicoff is doing.

In fact, acting provocatively against Moscow only tends to make the American plans more difficult. In the midst of the global security crisis, Russia is unwilling to tolerate more threats in its strategic surroundings. If American provocations increase, the Russians, who already have military hegemony in the Arctic, will respond by intensifying activities in the north, which will make the American plans to elevate its relevance in the Arctic more complicated, leading the recently announced National Strategy to failure.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in social sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

November 11, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

5 Warning Signs You May Be a Party to the Ukrainian Conflict

Samizdat – 09.11.2022

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated last month that the alliance “is not [a] party to the conflict” in Ukraine, echoing similar claims made by US and European leaders in recent months. But can one ever be sure about their involvement in a security crisis threatening to escalate into a global inferno? Here are a few warning signs.

The “NATO is not a party” in Ukraine talking point has been repeated ad nauseam over the past eight months, with Moscow catching the military bloc tripping up in its own lies last month after Mr. Stoltenberg warned that a Russian victory in Ukraine would constitute a “defeat” for NATO that would “make the world more dangerous.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the NATO chief’s comments were direct confirmation of the Western military bloc’s involvement in the crisis.

$100 Billion Worth of ‘Non-Involvement’

According to this handy Ukraine aid funding tracker, Washington and its allies have already poured more than $100 billion worth of military and economic support to Kiev since February, with the Kiel Institute of World Economy’s “Ukraine Support Tracker” estimating that some $27.5 billion of that constitutes US military aid alone. The UK, Poland, Germany, Canada, and other NATO allies have contributed more than $9 billion in additional weapons assistance.

What’s Ukraine getting for this? The list is quite comprehensive, and includes stuff you’d expect in a Cold War-style proxy conflict, from Stinger and Javelin missiles and precision rocket artillery to troop transporters, drones, radars, night vision, helmets, and body armor. There’s also some unusual “assistance,” like a CIA slush fund (size unknown), $900 million for non-profits, and even $54 million in COVID aid (after all, gotta keep troops safe from the virus as bombs and bullets literally rain down all around them).

Intelligence, Fire Support, and Planning Assistance

NATO’s “non-involvement” isn’t limited to weapons and cash. According to the US Congressional Research Service, Washington has gifted Kiev a broad range of “security assistance” going back to the 2014 Euromaidan coup, including intelligence support, “electronic warfare detection and secure communications,” and “satellite imagery and analysis capability.” This includes a continuous stream of access to images obtained by commercial satellites for use by Ukrainian military planners.

What does the latter mean in practice? Put simply, it gives the Ukrainian Armed Forces access to the Western bloc’s spy satellites – which are the most advanced in the world thanks to bottomless funding and three decades of US and NATO wars of aggression across the Middle East, Yugoslavia, Asia, and North Africa.

In September, French media reported that the Pentagon has even been directly involved in planning Ukrainian military operations, complementing Sputnik’s reporting from the summer revealing that Ukraine’s HIMARS were being manned by outstaffed NATO military personnel. How’s that for “non-involvement”?

Boots on the Ground, Boots in the Ground?

Late last month, the Pentagon confirmed that “small teams” of US military personnel have been dispatched to Ukraine, ostensibly to inspect weapons deliveries to ensure that Western military aid is going where it needs to after a series of reports that much of the military aid was being smuggled out of the warzone by arms dealers.

The story has gone heavily underreported, drowned out by the US midterms and celebrity gossip. However, a few outlets have sounded the alarm about this development, pointing out that the repercussions of US troops potentially getting injured or killed in a Russian military strike on a Ukrainian arms cache have not been sufficiently mapped out.

Diplomatic Doldrums

NATO’s fingerprints are all over Ukraine even on the diplomatic front. This week, Volodymyr Zelensky expressed openness to “genuine peace talks” with Russia, walking back a decree signed just last month ruling out any negotiations with President Vladimir Putin altogether.

US security officials were quick to take credit for the Ukrainian president’s apparent change of heart, telling media that it was made possible “due to soft nudging by the Biden administration.” One security official explained that Zelensky’s new stance came following a visit to Kiev by Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who reportedly “relayed” to Kiev that Washington considers it essential for Ukraine to show willingness to put an end to the crisis in a “reasonable” and “peaceful” manner.

Washington’s direct influence on Kiev has not escaped the eyes of Russian officials, who have spent the past eight-and-a-half years blasting the US, the EU, and NATO for starting the Ukrainian crisis in the first place. On Wednesday, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov reiterated in an interview with Sputnik that “the decision-making center” determining Ukraine’s fate is not even located in Kiev.

“Everyone could see this in March, when one cry from Washington was enough for the Zelensky regime to nullify the agreements reached during intensive contacts” between Kiev and Moscow, Antonov said, recalling the reports that now-former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was speedily dispatched to Kiev at Washington’s behest to sabotage Russian-Ukrainian peace talks.

‘iStand With Ukraine’

All this costly and exhausting non-involvement by NATO in the Ukraine crisis has been accompanied by wartime footing against Russia not just by Western governments and militaries, but by corporations as well. Since February, over 1,000 companies have cut, partially curtailed, or dramatically downsized operations in Russia in a bid to “punish” Moscow and demonstrate that they “Stand With Ukraine.” The campaign has been accompanied by a massive ad campaign targeting Russian IPs informing the hip urban youth and yuppie masses that Putin had robbed them of their beloved symbols of Western consumerism, from Coca-Cola and McDonald’s to iPhones and Mercedes. So far, though, the Russian people seem to have been able to cope with these terrible losses somehow, replacing Coke with Chernogolovka and CoolCola, swapping Mickey D’s for Vkusno I tochka, and ramping up the production of domestic brand vehicles while negotiating the import of more cars from countries like Iran, China, and Turkey.

Exercise in Political Sophistry

NATO’s “non-involvement” rhetoric is little more than an act of political “sophistry,” according to Global Policy Institute senior research fellow George Szamuely.

“According to Stoltenberg, unless you have troops of your own on the ground you are not a combatant. This is the very acme of sophistry. There is nothing in international law to support his contention,” Szamuely said in a recent op-ed.

The observer pointed out that under the Hague Convention Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Cases of War on Land, “a neutral power is not permitted to use its territory for purposes of moving troops or munitions to a combatant.” The analogous convention concerning naval warfare is even more explicit, stating that “the supply in any manner, directly or indirectly, by a neutral power to a belligerent power of ammunition or war material of any kind is forbidden.”

“There’s nothing here to suggest that it’s okay to do so as long as you don’t have forces of your own taking part in armed combat. The NATO powers in fact are doing much more than providing Ukraine with weaponry. They are also providing training on their own and on Ukrainian territory. NATO powers are also involved in targeting decisions,” Szamuely said. “Multiple sources have revealed that the US is directly involved in Ukrainian tactical and operational decisions… NATO’s assertion that it’s not a combatant is as plausible as its claim that it’s a defensive alliance,” the observer emphasized.

November 9, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Media identifies major beneficiary of Ukraine crisis

RT | November 5, 2022

Yahoo News has identified a major beneficiary of the Russia-Ukraine slugfest: the US military industrial complex, which is reaping a windfall even as the bloody conflict causes economic havoc, energy shortages and a looming food crisis around the world.

As the media outlet reported on Saturday, EU nations have committed to about $230 billion in new weapons purchases since the Russian military offensive against Kiev started in February. US defense contractors are poised to land the lion’s share of those orders, given their dominance as suppliers to European militaries, Yahoo added.

Many European nations turn to US arms makers for more than half of all their weapons purchases. Yahoo cited data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) to show examples of US dominance in European arsenals. For instance, US-made arms accounted for 95% of the weapons purchases by the Netherlands from 2017 to 2021. The ratios were 83% US weaponry for Norway, 77% for the UK, and 72% for Italy.

European weapons imports jumped 19% during the five-year period as then-President Donald Trump prodded his NATO allies to meet their obligations for defense spending. The Ukraine crisis is set to create an even bigger windfall, as President Joe Biden leads an international campaign to flood Ukraine with weapons and the conflict triggers accelerated steps by European nations to bolster their own defenses.

“This is certainly the biggest increase in defense spending in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Center for European Reform, told Yahoo. The crisis in Eastern Europe dispelled the notion that war on the continent is no longer possible, he added. “They’re waking up to the fact that not only is it very possible, but it is happening, and it’s happening not that many miles away from them.”

Since Biden took office in January 2021, European countries entered at least the initial stage of negotiations for $33 billion in arms purchases, including $21 billion since February, Yahoo said, citing figures from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

US defense contractors will also benefit from Washington’s massive military aid to Kiev, as the Pentagon races to replenish stocks of artillery pieces, rocket launchers and other weapons. Biden has set aside more than $65 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine since the conflict began.

Russia has warned that the influx of Western weapons will prolong the crisis while making the US and other NATO members de facto participants.

READ MORE:

Pentagon’s bonanza for US missile makers

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Walking Wide Awake into World War III

By John Weeks | The Libertarian Institute | November 5, 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with rising tensions between NATO and Russia, have drawn comparisons to the outbreak of World War I.

In 2014, back when the open hostilities in Ukraine really began, the journalist Eric Margolis said “We can stumble into a war with Russia. This reminds me of 1914 all over again.”

This “stumbling” of course refers to the “sleepwalking thesis of war” that is part of both popular and scholarly narratives of World War I.

The International Relations realist Stephen Walt warned “the West is sleepwalking into war in Ukraine” the day before Russia invaded. The World Health Organization (yes, that one) has warned the world could be sleepwalking into a nuclear war. And the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network is concerned the world might be “sleepwalking into nuclear Armageddon.”

Unfortunately, it’s much worse than that. The United States is marching wide awake toward general nuclear war.

Princeton University historian Stephen Kotkin has criticized the sleepwalking thesis of war as a comforting myth that remains “close to people’s hearts” to this day.

“Nobody ever sleepwalks into war,” he says.

Kotkin points out that the government and military archives of the Great Powers contain thousands of orders to move horses, hay, and weapons systems into place to prosecute the war years before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. The Great Powers also imposed military conscription to ensure they would have a wealth of young men to feed into the slaughter.

Kotkin says:

You go into the archives, and you see nothing but decisions being made towards war. And somehow this is known as sleepwalking towards war. There was no sleepwalking to World War I. There was only preparation for war. There was nothing but incessant preparation to war.

Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton agrees; “You call it sleepwalking but everybody’s wide awake. It’s just, they’re stupid.”

The stupidity continues. This time it isn’t horses and Maxim machine guns being ordered into Europe, it’s “highly accurate guided tactical nuclear weapons.” That’s right, the United States is sending B61-12 tactical, air-dropped gravity bombs to NATO bases. According to Bryan Bender, Paul McLeary, and Erin Banco in Politico, the nuclear arsenal upgrade was originally planned for Spring 2023, but is being accelerated. The new bombs should arrive in time for Christmas.

According to the Politico piece:

Asked for comment, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder responded via email that “while we aren’t going to discuss details of our nuclear arsenal, modernization of US B61 nuclear weapons has been underway for years and plans to safely and responsibly swap out older weapons for the upgraded B61-12 versions is part of a long-planned and scheduled modernization effort. It is in no way linked to current events in Ukraine and was not sped up in any way.” [emphasis added]

Should we believe him? Sure, why not? The United States has been incessantly preparing for nuclear war for years. That sounds about right.

Here are some other American made decisions that have been marching us toward Armageddon:

  • Expanding/enlarging the NATO military alliance
  • Placing anti-ballistic missile systems that can also fire nuclear tipped cruise missiles in NATO countries
  • Backing an anti-Russian coup in Ukraine in 2004
  • Backing an anti-Russian coup in Ukraine in 2014
  • Integrating the Ukrainian military into the NATO alliance structure
  • Shipping hi-tech weapons systems to the Ukrainian military
  • Sabotaging peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia
  • Assisting the Ukrainian military with war strategy and enemy targeting

War is a massive production. It doesn’t just happen like a bar fight (bar fights don’t just happen either). In the French film Pierrot le Fou, an American director compares film to a battleground. We can reverse the idea and compare war to a film production. There are the financial backers: the taxpayers. There are the producers and directors: the politicians, generals and spy masters. And there are the extras: the soldiers.

There are also all the people who make the costumes and the weapons and the vehicles. The people who build the military bases and cook the meals and provide security and do the laundry and run the logistics.

As the American historian Daniel Immerwahr described the U.S. military during World War II:

Think of a GI, and you’re more likely to imagine a soldier on the front lines than a construction worker. But in the case of the United States, the construction worker is the better mental image. During the war, fewer than one in ten U.S. service members ever saw a shot fired in anger. For most who served, the war wasn’t about combat. It was about logistics.

This is true today. Sadly, there are no stars in war. Unless of course we count the fictions generated by the war propaganda.

Are all these people sleepwalking? Of course not. They are awake and they are working hard to make war possible. From a certain level of analysis, it is a tremendous feat of human cooperation and ingenuity. Hot biscuits! But since they are preparing for the annihilation of the human species, it is a truly horrific spectacle.

The American people are the ones who are asleep. We must wake up and push for peace.

John Weeks is a member of the Society for Consciousness Studies, where he researches literary theory.

November 5, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Western Russophobia increasing even in UNESCO

By Lucas Leiroz | November 4, 2022

The irrational hatred incited by the pro-NATO media against the Russian people in reaction to the special military operation in Ukraine continues to gain strength around the world. Russian citizens in the diaspora who have nothing to do with the government or the military are often affected by anti-Russian animosity. However, the main target today seems to be Russian culture, which is increasingly fought and “canceled” by Westerners.

In a recent statement during a UNESCO’s conference in Mexico, Sergei Obryvalin, First Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, commented on the issue of Russophobia and expressed deep concern about the current global rejection of Russian culture. He said he considers the way the West deals with cultural matters an “unnecessary and harmful politicization”. More than that, Obryvalin even denounced the existence of Russophobic tendencies in UNESCO’s forum itself, where discriminatory speeches and untrue narratives about an alleged “destruction” of other cultures by Russia proliferate.

“Egregious cases of cultural discrimination against Russia and Russian citizens are happening everywhere in Western countries (…) False accusations [against] Russia of alleged destruction of cultural heritage are nothing but a manifestation of the policy of cultural genocide against Russia and Russians (…) Such facts, of course, cause us grief and serious concern (…) [Russia] consistently maintains a careful attitude to cultural heritage, historical memory, freedom of literary, artistic and other forms of creativity, [as well as] ensures pluralism of opinions and openness of the cultural sphere (…) No one is able to cancel the unique Russian civilization and rich culture, to destroy or shake Russia”, he said during the speech.

There was no response from UNESCO’s officials regarding the allegations that the organization acts in complicity with the anti-Russian discourse. Representatives from 193 countries attended the event and spoke at different times, but this topic was not mentioned by any of them. The case reflected in the field of culture something that has become increasingly common on the international scene: the silence on the part of organizations when Moscow denounces something wrong. In recent months, international organizations only make pronouncements if it is aimed at condemning Russia, while always ignoring when Russian officials file complaints.

However, the evident reality of cultural Russophobia cannot be ignored. Since February, irrational reactions to the anti-Nazi operation initiated by Moscow have been promoted around the world, mainly in Western countries, including the banning of Russian or Russian-translated books, cancellation of Russian musical concerts and even boycotting Russian-made food and drink. Classical authors of Russian literature have also been removed from Western academic courses as a way of “protesting” against military moves in Ukraine, which is something that undoubtedly causes great cultural damage, considering Russia’s importance in world literary history.

This cultural intolerance is just one of the many faces of the Russophobic racism that has become vital to Western “responses” against Russia. Cases of physical violence against Russian citizens have also occurred all over the world. Orthodox churches have been vandalized. Social networks have encouraged racism and pro-aggression speech against Russian citizens. In fact, there are attempts to “anathematize” the Russian people in every way possible. And, in this sense, cultural cancellation seems to be a fundamental strategy to be followed by Westerners.

In fact, with these attitudes the West becomes more and more like its Ukrainian proxy in the way it deals with the Russians. For the past eight years, Kiev has been promoting direct and explicit persecution of Russian people and culture. Not by chance, one of the first laws passed by the Maidan government was the abolition of the co-official language policy in ethnically Russian zones, which allowed the use of Russian language in official documents.

With the beginning of Russian participation in the conflict, Kiev has further radicalized its racist policies, with the Ukrainian parliament in June this year passing a bill to ban books and songs written by Russian authors. Ukrainian forces have also frequently performed public exhibitions of burning books in Russian language, which resembles the practices of Nazi Germany (a major inspiration for the Ukrainian government).

The West, albeit under the guise of liberal “democracy”, is moving in the same direction. Russian culture is gradually criminalized and violence against Russian citizens takes place without any restrictions, in absolute impunity. This only tends to further exacerbate international tensions and diplomatic frictions. The West’s Nazification process can in no way be tolerated by Moscow, which tends to move away from international organizations that tolerate racism and form new axes of international decision-making, in partnership with emerging countries that also historically struggle against discriminatory practices.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

November 4, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Who’s afraid of US troops in Ukraine?

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | NOVEMBER 2, 2022 

Very innocuously, the Biden Administration has ‘sensitised’ the world opinion that American troops are indeed present on Ukrainian soil in Russia’s immediate neighbourhood. Washington made a “soft landing” with an unnamed senior Pentagon official making the disclosure to the Associated Press and the Washington Post. 

The official gave an ingenious explanation that the US troops “have recently begun doing onsite inspections to ensure” that Ukraine is “properly accounting” for the Western weapons it received. He claimed that this was part of a broader US campaign, announced last week by the State Department, “meant to make sure that weapons provided to Ukraine don’t end up in the hands of Russian troops, their proxies or other extremist groups.” 

In effect, though, President Biden is eating his own word not to have ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine under any circumstances. There is always the real danger that the clutch of Americans on tour in Ukraine may come under fire from the Russian forces. In fact, the US deployment comes against the backdrop of intense Russian missile and drone attacks currently on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. 

Plainly put, wittingly or unwittingly, the US is going up the escalation ladder. So far, the US intervention involved deployment of military advisors to the Ukrainian military command, supply of intelligence in real time, planning and execution of operations against Russian forces and allowing American mercenaries to do the fighting, apart from steady supply of tens of billions of dollars worth weaponry. 

The qualitative difference now is that the proxy war may turn into a hot war between the NATO and Russia. The Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated today at a joint board meeting of the Russian and Belarusian defence ministries that the number of NATO forces in Eastern and Central Europe had risen by two and a half times since February and might increase further in the near future.

Shoigu underscored that Moscow understands fully well that the West is pursuing a concerted strategy to destroy Russia’s economy and military potential, making it impossible for the country to pursue an independent foreign policy. 

He flagged that NATO’s new strategic concept suggested moving from containing Russia “through forward presence” to creating “a full-scale system of collective defence on the eastern flank,” with the bloc’s non-regional members deploying troops to the Baltic countries, Eastern and Central Europe, and new multinational battalion tactical groups being formed in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. 

It may not be a coincidence that Washington acknowledged the presence of its military personnel in Ukraine at a point when the Russians have alleged the participation of British intelligence in the recent sabotage act on the Nord Stream pipelines and the drone strikes on Saturday at the base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol. There are grey areas in the so-called special relationship between the US and the UK.

The US-UK calculus has been to get the Russians bogged down in a quagmire in Ukraine and to incite an insurrection within Russia opposing ‘Putin’s war.’ But it has miserably failed. The US sees that over 300,000 trained ex-military personnel from Russia are being deployed to Ukraine for launching a major offensive to end the war in the coming 3-4 months. 

That is to say, the roof is coming down on the entire edifice of lies and deceptive propaganda that formed the western narrative on Ukraine. The defeat in Ukraine could have disastrous consequences for the US’ image and credibility as a superpower not only in Europe but on the global stage, undermine its leadership of the transatlantic  alliance and even disable NATO. 

The Biden Administration made a terrible mistake in assuming that the war would lead to a regime change in Russia ensuing from the collapse of the Russian economy under the weight of western sanctions. On the contrary, even the IMF admits that the Russian economy has stabilised. 

The indicators show that the Russian economy will be registering growth by next year. The comparison with the western economies that are sinking into high inflation and recession is far too glaring to be missed by the world audience. 

Suffice to say, the US and its allies have run out of sanctions to hit Russia. The Russian leadership, on the other hand, is consolidating by pushing ahead with the shift to a multipolar world order and a de-dollarised international financial system. If these processes proceed further, it will dent the status of the American dollar as “world currency.” 

Fundamentally, it is the capitalist system itself which is responsible for this crisis. We are currently suffering under the effect of the longest and deepest crisis the system has known since the redivision of the world that took place in World War II. The imperialist western powers are once again preparing for war to redivide the world in the hopes of getting out of their crisis, much as they prepared prior to World War II. 

The big question is what Russia’s response is going to be. It is all but certain that Moscow hasn’t been caught by surprise at the revelation in Washington regarding the presence of US troops in Ukraine. It is highly unlikely that Russia will resort to knee-jerk reaction. 

The so-called ‘counter-offensive’ by Ukraine has fizzled out. It made no significant territorial gains or gained any breakthrough. But it suffered heavy casualties in the thousands and huge losses in military equipment. Russia has gained the upper hand and it is conscious of that. All along the frontline, that is becoming evident.  

On the other hand, the fact remains that neither the US and Britain nor their NATO allies are in a position to fight a continental war. Therefore, it will be entirely up to the American troops moving around in the steppes of Ukraine to stay out of trouble and keep their body and soul together in such harsh winter conditions without electricity, heating or a decent body wash. Who knows, the Pentagon may even work out a ‘deconfliction’ mechanism with Moscow!  

That said, seriously, the auditing of US weaponry on Ukrainian soil per se is not a bad thing at all. Ukraine is a notoriously corrupt country, after all. There is real danger that the weapons supplied by the US may reach Europe and turn that beautiful manicured garden into a jungle (like Ukraine or America) — to borrow the colourful metaphor used recently by Josep Borrell, EU’s foreign policy chief.  

November 2, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia comments on NATO troop deployment near its border

Samizdat – November 2, 2022

The number of NATO forces stationed close to Russia’s western borders has reached more than 30,000, the country’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Wednesday.

He stated that the US-led military bloc had augmented units in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Balkans and Baltic states.

“The contingent has grown in size by two and a half times to more than 30,000 people since February, and may grow more in the nearest future,” Shoigu said during a joint ministerial session with military officials from Belarus.

He said that such a concentration of Western forces poses a threat not only to Moscow, but to Belarus, Russia’s ally.

The defense of both countries is a “priority task” of the Union State of the Russian Federation and Belarus, he stated.

The West’s ultimate goal in its confrontation with Russia is to “destroy its economy, military potential, and to deprive it of the ability to conduct independent foreign policy,” Shoigu said.

In response to Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, NATO enhanced military units and weapon stockpiles in the east as a “deterrence” measure. The bloc described Russia as “the most significant and direct threat” to peace and security in its chief strategic document, which was updated in June.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the time that the bloc’s rapid-response force would increase sevenfold to over 300,000. The bloc also agreed to establish four new battalion-size battlegroups in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, in addition to those in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Russia and Belarus announced the creation of a joint military force last month, which was said to include several thousand Russian troops. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko linked the move to tensions with the West. The first trains carrying Russian soldiers arrived in Belarus on October 15.

According to the Belarusian Defense Ministry, up to 9,000 Russian soldiers and around 170 tanks will be deployed in the country. The first trains carrying Russian soldiers arrived in Belarus on October 15.

In his speech on Wednesday, Shoigu said that the alliance with Minsk is especially important amid the “growing tensions across the world,” and the standoff with the West. He added that Russian and Belarusian units are training together, while the two states are conducting joint military planning as part of the new force.

November 2, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

How the West Brought War to Ukraine: A Review

By C.B. Forde | The Postil Magazine | November 1, 2022

It can be rather effectively argued that the greatest export commodity of the USA is war, commonly known as the Military Industrial Complex, which has spent the bloody decades after WWII bringing “democracy” to the benighted of the world—by bombs and sanctions, if necessary.

The latest such grand crusade is the war in Ukraine, which we have all been told to think of as “us” defending a fragile “democracy,” invaded out of the blue by the latest manifestation of Attila the Hun. Here was Ukraine happily minding its own business, until one day Putin woke up and decided that he needed to be a world-conqueror and off he went to “invade” Ukraine. The simplistic narrative of the “innocent” and the “criminal” has deep appeal in the Western psyche, conditioned no doubt by Hollywood. Thus, all the media had to do was point out the “criminal,” and the rest took care of itself. Out came all the virtue-signaling that the West is now so good at mustering. Now, there is not a shred of doubt in the minds of the majority in the West that this is a war between the “good guys” and the “Great Villain,” with the likes of Biden, Justin Trudeau, Britain and all the other cheerleaders for “democracy” constantly handing David’s loaded sling-shot to Ukraine to get the job done—but which the likes of Zelensky keep dropping. This is what fighting villainy to the last Ukrainian actually looks like.

But there is a far worse invasion that was completed a long time ago—that of the Western mind, addled by what is euphemistically known as “the mainstream media,” which knows that spin is the most effective form of victory in any war.

This is why Benjamin Abelow’s book, How the West brought War to Ukraine is a must-read, for it shows that this war is not about Ukraine, but about Russia, which needs to be brought to heel and become “democratic”: “…the vaunted goal of ‘regime change,’ which in the United States is sought by an informal alliance of Republican neoconservatives and Democratic liberal interventionists” (p. 5).

Abelow is careful in his analysis and gives a thorough and balanced account of what led Russia to undertake an attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Despite mainstream narratives, the attack was carefully provoked (orchestrated comes to mind). So, unlike “settled history,” which would have us believe that Ukraine is the “innocent bystander” in all this, Abelow undertakes a meticulous unpacking of the various provocations (Ukrainian and Western), which began in 1990 and finally came to a head on February 24, 2022. Wars don’t just happen; they are the result of a long series of failures and outrages. In the words of Professor Richard Sakwa: “In the end, NATO’s existence became justified by the need to manage the security threats provoked by its enlargement. The former Warsaw Pact and Baltic states joined NATO to enhance their security, but the very act of doing so created a security dilemma for Russia that undermined the security of all” (p. 51).

Given that Russia is a nation-state, it must look after its geopolitical interests and defend what is crucial to what it deems necessary to continue, as Jacques Baud has so often pointed out in this magazine. Not to recognize these interests is to be blind to reality: “The underlying cause of the war lies not in an unbridled expansionism of Mr. Putin, or in paranoid delusions of military planners in the Kremlin, but in a 30-year history of Western provocations, directed at Russia, that began during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and continued to the start of the war. These provocations placed Russia in an untenable situation, for which war seemed, to Mr. Putin and his military staff, the only workable solution” (p. 7).

These provocations are now well-known, and thus rigorously ignored, denied or glossed over as “Russian propaganda.” These include bringing arms as close to the Russian border as possible; the expansion of NATO, despite promises given to Russia that that would never happen; the withdrawal of the US from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (which now gives the US first-strike capability); the ousting of a democratically elected Ukrainian government and installing neo-Nazis into power in 2014; NATO military exercises along the Russian border; pushing Ukraine to join NATO, despite warnings from Russia that that would mean war; since 2014, training and arming the Ukrainian military, in which many of the units are openly neo-Nazi; actively nurturing Russophobia in Ukraine; encouraging the bloody war in the Eastern portions of Ukraine, which were seen as “pro-Russian” and therefore hostile. There are many others that can be listed.

Of course, the last provocation was telling Zelensky not to negotiate when Russia attacked on February 24. He was ready to do so, and a war would have easily have been avoided, and many helpless lives saved. But Boris Johnson flew out, met the Ukrainian president, and negotiation was off the table.

And this is the most baffling thing—the West does not want peace at all. It wants a war of total annihilation for Russia, which will never happen, of course, but which the West so far seems not to understand (perhaps because it is now governed by leaders who have little understanding of warcraft). No Western politician bravely calls for negotiations, for a ceasefire, for peace, for even a little breather. It’s war and more war, and the billions and arms keep pouring in: “To my knowledge, Zelensky never received any substantial American support to pursue his peace agenda. Instead, he was subjected to repeated visits by leading American politicians and State Department officials, all of whom spouted a theoretical principle of absolute Ukrainian freedom, defined as the “right” to join NATO and to establish a U.S. military outpost on Russia’s border. In the end, this “freedom” was worse than a pipe dream. Although it advanced the aims of the United States—or, more accurately, the interests of certain American political, military, and financial factions—it destroyed Ukraine” (p. 60).

The military historian Bernard Wicht, whose interview appears elsewhere in this magazine, very astutely observes that the West no longer has the ability to wage conventional war—not even the United States; this is why armed conflict in the 21st century is now “farmed” out to modern-day condottieri, who bring their private armies wherever their paymasters tell them to go. Is this is why billions are being sent to Ukraine, to pay for all the mercenaries? The war machine chugs along, indeed.

The strength of Abelow’s book is that it makes complexity accessible. Wars have so many moving parts, and Abelow with a deft hand guides the reader along. As is true of all good writers, this book is filled with clarity and insight, with an eye for the bigger picture, and all the while letting facts lead where they will. This is a rare talent nowadays.

Given the much-mentioned threat of nuclear war, the book ends with a prescient warning: “Policy makers in Washington and the European capitals—along with the captured, craven media that uncritically amplify their nonsense—are now standing up to their hips in a barrel of viscous mud. How those who were foolish enough to step into that barrel will find the wisdom to extricate themselves before they tip the barrel and take the rest of us down with them is hard to imagine” (p. 62).

Finally, as professor Sakwa pointed out, this entire tragedy would have been easily avoided if Zelensky had been encouraged to say just five little words: “Ukraine will not join NATO.” Why he could not say that lays the entire blood-guilt upon the collective leadership of the West.

How the West brought War to Ukraine is satisfying to read because it brings truth to light—and that is the highest calling any worthy writer can pursue. Rush out and buy it; and after you’ve read it, you will be both amazed and infuriated. The condottieri now run the show—but perhaps we the decent folk of this world will learn once again how to get rid of them. Perhaps this will be this war’s silver lining.

November 2, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Prague protests: local occurrence or indicator of coming unrest across Europe?

By Drago Bosnic | October 31, 2022

As if the political unraveling across the European Union, United Kingdom and other powers of the political West wasn’t bad enough, the people who have become fed up with the disastrous policies of their failing governments are finally taking to the streets. Pushed to the brink of (or beyond) poverty, with soaring food, energy and housing costs, tens of thousands of protesters railed against the policies of the Czech government. Starting on Friday, the residents of Prague took to the streets, demanding the resignation of the Czech government under Prime Minister Petr Fiala, withdrawal from NATO, as well as direct talks and an agreement on future natural gas supplies from Russia.

“This is a new national revival and its goal is for the Czech Republic to be independent,” organizer Ladislav Vrabel stated. “When I see a full square, no one can stop this.”

Demonstrations were not only limited to Prague, but occurred both in the capital city, as well as the second-largest Czech city of Brno. Organized under the slogan of “Czech Republic First,” the protests drew large-scale support from both sides of the political spectrum, as left-wing and right-wing parties joined forces to protest the subservient policies of the government in Prague.

“Russia’s not our enemy, the government of warmongers is the enemy,” one speaker said, according to a report by the Associated Press. Prague has sent munitions, armored vehicles, tanks, artillery systems and other heavy weapons to the Kiev regime and provided approximately 500,000 visas to Ukrainian citizens, along with full benefits. This has caused frustration among millions of Czechs, many of whom are now struggling to afford basic necessities, as their government is wasting increasingly scant resources by sending them to the corrupt Neo-Nazi junta in Kiev. Among the aforementioned requests such as the halt of anti-Russian policies, protest organizers are also demanding that Ukrainian citizens in Czechia not be granted permanent residency status.

This protest was the third in a series of demonstrations organized by a Czech group demanding Prague’s withdrawal from NATO and the establishment of normal ties with Moscow. According to Bloomberg, Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s government has attempted to dismiss the protests as supposedly “inspired by pro-Kremlin propagandist narratives.” The Czech government has been woefully unprepared for the economic fallout of anti-Russian sanctions and policies it was ordered to implement, resulting in the ever-rising costs which have not been tackled despite aid to businesses and household electricity price caps. On the contrary, price controls only backfired, causing shortages and resulting in even greater price hikes.

Despite attempts by the Western mainstream propaganda machine to present the Prague protests as “merely a local occurrence”, the truth is that they are just a relatively small part of a rising wave of discontent across not just the EU, but Europe as a whole. On October 27, just a day before the demonstrations in Prague erupted, tens of thousands protested in France, demanding higher wages to offset the rising costs of living. The strike also included teachers, healthcare providers and railway workers, among thousands of other French citizens. In recent months and weeks, similar protests have been organized in Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria.

“This is merely the silence before the storm — the discontent is great, and people do not have any sense that the government has a plausible strategy to master the crisis,” German pollster Manfred Güllner told The Wall Street Journal.

At a time when approximately 75% of German families are forced to cut back on energy consumption, a mere 9% of Germans support Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his policies to tackle the escalating energy crisis threatening to destroy the EU’s largest industrial power. Although the protesters in France didn’t put anti-Russian sanctions at the forefront of their demands, German demonstrators have called for an end to these self-harming policies. The massive discontent in Europe will certainly spread all over the world, as hundreds of millions now realize that there is a direct connection between Western sanctions against Russia and their ever-growing economic and financial issues.

It does not take an expert in geopolitical matters to connect the dots and understand how the latest proxy war against Russia is affecting the well-being of the world. The situation in the EU has become so bad now that millions of Ukrainian citizens who have fled to Europe are returning to their (unfortunately) Neo-Nazi junta-run country. According to the latest figures by the International Organization for Migration (IMO), over six million people have gone back, despite the still ongoing conflict. The Kiev regime is now struggling to accommodate everyone and the Neo-Nazi junta officials are urging citizens not to return this winter. Blackouts have become the norm in multiple cities and with the coming sub-zero temperatures heating will be a major concern in the next several months.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

October 31, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Massive Protest By Czechs Targets Russia Sanctions, High Prices

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | October 29, 2022

Fed up with soaring food, energy and housing costs, tens of thousands of Czech protestors railed against their government on Friday, demanding the resignation of conservative Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s government, withdrawal from NATO and the negotiation of gas purchases from Russia.

“This is a new national revival and its goal is for the Czech Republic to be independent,” said organizer Ladislav Vrabel. “When I see a full square, no one can stop this.”

The protests occurred both in the capital city of Prague as well as the second-largest Czech city of Brno. Organized under the slogan of “Czech Republic First,” the demonstrations drew their strength from both the left and right wings of Czech politics.

“Russia’s not our enemy, the government of warmongers is the enemy,” one speaker said, according to the Associated Press. Czechia has donated tanks and other heavy weapons to Ukraine, and provided nearly a half million visas to Ukrainian refugees, along with benefits. Protest organizers are also demanding that the refugees not be granted permanent residency.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/BWh1rYqHPGcl/

The protest was the third in a series organized by a group demanding Czechia’s withdrawal from NATO and better relations with Russia. As observed in the United States, the Czech government has attempted to marginalize them by calling them “pro-Kremlin propagandist narratives.”

The Czech government has tried to battle the rising prices with aid to businesses and household electricity price caps.

Friday’s protests were part of a rising wave of discontent throughout Europe. On Thursday, thousands protested in France, demanding higher wages to offset the rising cost of living — among them, striking teachers, healthcare providers and railway workers. Recent weeks have seen similar protests in Germany, Austria and Belgium too.

“This is merely the silence before the storm—the discontent is great, and people do not have any sense that the government has a plausible strategy to master the crisis,” German pollster Manfred Güllner tells The Wall Street Journal.

At a time when three quarters of German households are cutting back on energy consumption, just 9% say Chancellor Olaf Scholz has a sound strategy for surmounting the energy crisis. While the French protests didn’t target the Western sanctions regime against Russia, German protestors have called for an end to them.

The discontent is certain to rise all over the world, as more people connect the dots between Western sanctions and their personal misery… all for the latest proxy war over strategically irrelevant territory.

October 29, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

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