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Turkey reaches NATO deal with Finland and Sweden

Samizdat | June 28, 2022

Turkey will support inviting Finland and Sweden into NATO at the alliance’s upcoming summit in Spain, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto announced on Tuesday after a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson.

The three countries signed a memorandum of understanding at the meeting, organized with the support of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

“The concrete steps for our accession to NATO will be agreed among NATO allies over the next two days, but that decision is now imminent,” said Niinisto. “I am pleased that this stage on Finland’s journey towards NATO membership has been completed.”

According to Turkey, Finland and Sweden pledged to “condemn terrorism in all its forms” and end their support for organizations Ankara has designated as terrorist – including the Kurdish groups PKK and YPG, as well as the movement led by the exiled cleric Fetullah Gulen, which the Turkish government refers to as “FETO.”

“Turkey got what it wanted,” Erdogan said in a statement after the deal was announced.

Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Stoltenberg said that Finland and Sweden will become observers in NATO at the upcoming summit. He added that the memorandum includes provisions on fighting terrorism and arms exports, including adopting stricter national legislation.

Finland and Sweden imposed an arms embargo against Turkey in 2019, over Ankara’s intervention in Syria. Turkey also reportedly demanded that Stockholm and Helsinki shut down the offices and ban the publications belonging to FETO, freeze the assets related to groups it has designated as terrorists, and even ban them from demonstrating in public.

Ankara’s opposition threatened to derail NATO’s plan to invite Sweden and Finland at the summit in Madrid which began on Tuesday. The two traditionally neutral Scandinavian countries declared their desire to join the US-led alliance in April, citing the current conflict in Ukraine.

June 28, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

A pivotal moment in eastern Ukraine

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JUNE 26, 2022 

The retreat of Ukrainian troops from Severodonetsk city in the Luhansk Oblast of the country is a pivotal moment in the ongoing conflict. The Russian forces are now almost in total control over the Luhansk region. The latest reports from front lines say Russian forces entered the last remaining city of Lysychansk in Luhansk on June 25.

In a briefing today, the Russian Ministry of Defence announced in Moscow: “On June 25, the cities of Severodonetsk and Borovskoye, the settlements of Voronovo and Sirotino passed under control of the Lugansk People’s Republic. The localities liberated… are inhabited by about 108,000 people. Total area of the liberated territory is about 145 square kilometres.

“Success of the Russian army… considerably diminishes the morale and psychological condition of the Ukrainian army personnel. In 30th Mechanised Brigade deployed near Artyomovsk, there are mass cases of alcohol abuse, drug use and unauthorised abandonment of combat positions.”

However, peace is a long way off — several months away, perhaps. In the speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin last week at the SPIEF in St. Petersburg, he made no references to peace negotiations. Putin hardly referred to the fighting. 

Meanwhile, three highly provocative moves by the opposing side within the past week are significant markers indicating that the conflict may aggravate. If the missile strike at a Russian oil rig in the Black Sea has been an act of provocation, the US supply of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), a powerful long-range weapon system is intended as a potential game changer that can help Kiev turn the tide of the conflict, and, third, the bizarre move by Lithuania to block Russia’s rail transit to Kaliningrad is a reckless escalation of tensions. 

On the arrival of the HIMARS, Ukraine Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov ecstatically wrote wrote on Twitter on Thursday, “HIMARS have arrived to Ukraine. Thank you to my colleague and friend @SecDef Lloyd J. Austin III for these powerful tools! Summer will be hot for russian occupiers. And the last one for some of them.”

Washington claims it has received assurances from Kiev that HIMARS would not be used to attack Russian territory. Moscow has warned it will attack targets in Ukraine that it has “not yet been hitting” if the West supplies longer-range missiles to Ukraine for use in high-precision mobile rocket systems.

The Lithuanian move is a blatant violation of international law and Vilnius would only have acted on the basis of prior consultation with the US and NATO to test the Russian reaction. Kaliningrad is a major Russian base with nuclear missiles, where its Baltic Fleet is headquartered, apart being the only Russian port on the Baltic that is ice-free throughout the year. Evidently, there are some insane fellows in the NATO camp who are itching to climb the escalatory ladder.

For Russia too, there is “unfinished business” ahead insofar as it holds roughly the same amount of territory in Donetsk only as the separatists controlled in February before the special military operation began. Now, seizing the administrative territories of the Donbass is only Moscow’s minimal goal. There is going to be a sprawling battlefield in the next phase, stretching from Kharkiv in the northeast to Mykolaiv and Odessa in the southwest. Much fighting lies ahead.

The New York Times reported that “Pentagon officials expect that the arrival of more long-range artillery systems will change the battlefield in Donetsk.” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters recently, “If they (Kiev) use it properly, practically, then they’re going to have very, very good effects on the battlefield.” 

The Russian military approach doctrinally is centred on attrition warfare, which aims to grind the way toward incremental territorial gains. Therefore, the advantage goes to the side which has greater staying power on the battlefield. In a sustained war of attrition, one military is ultimately going to be depleting the capability of the other. This is where the fault lines in the western unity come into play if the current traces of “war fatigue” in Europe turns into “solidarity fatigue.” 

Ukraine’s ability to shift the military balance depends critically on sustained military support from the US and other European countries. That, of course, hinges on political will and cohesiveness of the western allies. As for Russia, it is not only committed to a protracted war but also has the capacity to sustain it. 

Unlike the case with Ukraine, Russia is not dependent on any other country for boosting its military capability or training and advising its military. Also, historically speaking, a defining characteristic of the Russian military is its incredible endurance and ability to sustain prolonged attrition. 

The US is still betting that the Russian economy cannot hold out for a long time, since the full impact of sanctions and export controls is yet to be felt. In this calculus, the rebound of the ruble currency is seen as largely due to the strict government controls on capital flows and plummeting imports into Russia. Equally, the US has convinced itself that the restrictions on technology exports to Russia will gradually stunt the growth of its industries. Thus, the focus of the G7 summit in Germany currently under way (June 26-28) is on new plans to further “tighten the screws” on Russia’s economy.

But not much Russian budget data is available to make such daring assumptions and it is even harder to quantify how much Moscow is spending on the war in Ukraine. Certainly, there is no evidence to suggest that the Kremlin’s ability to finance the war effort is coming under pressure from sanctions. 

While President Biden boasted in March that sanctions were “crushing the Russian economy” and that “the ruble is reduced to rubble,” the exact opposite has happened. Russian oil revenues have set new records and the ruble hit a 7-year high this week against the dollar. Expert opinion is also that Russia’s financial system is back to business as usual after a few weeks of severe bank runs. 

Going forward, Biden must retain control over the Congress in the midterm elections in which Republicans are sure to capitalise on the rising cost of living. As for Europe, cooler temperatures in the coming months will raise alarms about energy shortages as Moscow has cut  down natural gas supplies to Europe, which would aggravate the economic pressure they now are experiencing. 

Therefore, the big question is, whether the desire to resist Russia will be sustainable as the war itself grinds away. The matrix has changed. After all, Biden uttered the following about Putin as recently as in end-March: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” But in 3 months’ time, today, Biden only says he is striving to help Ukraine negotiate optimally with Russia for a settlement. Here too, Biden needs to make sure Russia is losing ground, while also constantly weighing that new weapons do not escalate the conflict too fast.   

Admittedly, Biden is under little political pressure at home to back away. And the crack in western unity is, arguably, not to be construed as amounting to anything like a rift in the fundamental strategy towards Russia and the Ukraine conflict. That said, the bottom line is that this is also a perilous moment for the global economy. 

Post-pandemic economic recovery, supply-chain disruptions, rapid price increases, infrastructure investment, trade practices, global oil prices, world’s food supply, recession — these issues surely impact the western leaders’ standing in the polls. It means economic and political pain is coalescing.

June 26, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

The Fantasy of Fanaticism

Despite what some “defense analysts” may be telling Western media, the longer the war continues, the more Ukrainians will die and the weaker NATO will become.

By Scott Ritter | Consortium News | June 25, 2022

For a moment in time, it looked as if reality had managed to finally carve its way through the dense fog of propaganda-driven misinformation that had dominated Western media coverage of Russia’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.

In a stunning admission, Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former senior adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and Intelligence Services, noted that the optimism that existed in Ukraine following Russia’s decision to terminate “Phase One” of the SMO (a major military feint toward Kiev), and begin “Phase Two” (the liberation of the Donbass), was no longer warranted. “The strategies and tactics of the Russians are completely different right now,” Danylyuk noted. “They are being much more successful. They have more resources than us and they are not in a rush.”

“There’s much less space for optimism right now,” Danylyuk concluded.

In short, Russia was winning.

Danylyuk’s conclusions were not derived from some esoteric analysis drawn from Sun Tzu or Clausewitz, but rather basic military math. In a war that had become increasingly dominated by the role of artillery, Russia simply was able to bring to bear on the battlefield more firepower than Ukraine.

Oleksandr Danylyuk in 2015. (CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Ukraine started the current conflict with an artillery inventory that included 540 122mm self-propelled artillery guns, 200 towed 122mm howitzers, 200 122mm multiple-rocket launch systems, 53 152mm self-propelled guns, 310 towed 152mm howitzers, and 96 203mm self-propelled guns, for approximately 1,200 artillery and 200 MLRS systems.

For the past 100-plus days, Russia has been relentlessly targeting both Ukraine’s artillery pieces and their associated ammunition storage facilities. By June 14, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that it had destroyed “521 installation of multiple launch rocket systems” and “1947 field artillery guns and mortars.”

Even if the Russian numbers are inflated (as is usually the case when it comes to wartime battle damage assessments), the bottom line is that Ukraine has suffered significant losses among the very weapons systems — artillery — which are needed most in countering the Russian invasion.

But even if Ukraine’s arsenal of Soviet-era 122mm and 152mm artillery pieces were still combat-worthy, the reality is that, according to Danylyuk, Ukraine has almost completely run out of ammunition for these systems and the stocks of ammunition sourced from the former Soviet-bloc Eastern European countries that used the same family of weapons have been depleted.

Ukraine is left doling out what is left of its former Soviet ammunition while trying to absorb modern Western 155mm artillery systems, such as the Caesar self-propelled gun from France and the U.S.-made M777 howitzer.

But the reduced capability means that Ukraine is only able to fire some 4,000-to-5,000 artillery rounds per day, while Russia responds with more than 50,000. This 10-fold disparity in firepower has proven to be one of the most decisive factors when it comes to the war in Ukraine, enabling Russia to destroy Ukrainian defensive positions with minimal risk to its own ground forces.

Casualties

This has led to a second level of military math imbalances, that being casualties.

Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior aid to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, recently estimated that Ukraine was losing between 100 and 200 soldiers a day on the frontlines with Russia, and another 500 or so wounded. These are unsustainable losses, brought on by the ongoing disparity in combat capability between Russia and Ukraine symbolized, but not limited to, artillery.

In recognition of this reality, NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg announced that Ukraine will more than likely have to make territorial concessions to Russia as part of any potential peace agreement, asking,

“what price are you willing to pay for peace? How much territory, how much independence, how much sovereignty… are you willing to sacrifice for peace?”

Stoltenberg, speaking in Finland, noted that similar territorial concessions made by Finland to the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War was “one of the reasons Finland was able to come out of the Second World War as an independent sovereign nation.”

To recap — the secretary general of the trans-Atlantic alliance responsible for pushing Ukraine into its current conflict with Russia is now proposing that Ukraine be willing to accept the permanent loss of sovereign territory because NATO miscalculated and Russia —instead of being humiliated on the field of battle and crushed economically — is winning on both fronts.

Decisively.

That the secretary general of NATO would make such an announcement is telling for several reasons.

Stunning Request

First, Ukraine is requesting 1,000 artillery pieces and 300 multiple-launch rocket systems, more than the entire active-duty inventory of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps combined. Ukraine is also requesting 500 main battle tanks — more than the combined inventories of Germany and the United Kingdom.

In short, to keep Ukraine competitive on the battlefield, NATO is being asked to strip its own defenses down to literally zero.

More telling, however, is what the numbers say about NATO’s combat strength versus Russia. If NATO is being asked to empty its armory to keep Ukraine in the game, one must consider the losses suffered by Ukraine up to that point and that Russia appears able to sustain its current level of combat activity indefinitely. That’s right — Russia just destroyed the equivalent of NATO’s main active-duty combat power and hasn’t blinked.

One can only imagine the calculations underway in Brussels as NATO military strategists ponder the fact that their alliance is incapable of defeating Russia in a large-scale European conventional land war.

But there is another conclusion that these numbers reveal — that no matter what the U.S. and NATO do in terms of serving as Ukraine’s arsenal, Russia is going to win the war. The question now is how much time the West can buy Ukraine, and at what cost, in a futile effort to discover Russia’s pain threshold in order to bring the conflict to an end in a manner that reflects anything but the current path toward unconditional surrender.

The only questions that need to be answered in Brussels, apparently, are how long can the West keep the Ukrainian Army in the field, and at what cost? Any rational actor would quickly realize that any answer is an unacceptable answer, given the certainty of a Russian victory, and that the West needs to stop feeding Ukraine’s suicidal fantasy of rearming itself to victory.

Enter The New York Times, stage right. While trying to completely reshape the narrative regarding the fighting in the Donbass after the damning reality check would be a bridge too far for even the creative minds at the Gray Lady — the writing equivalent of trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. But the editors were able to interview a pair of erstwhile “military analysts” who cobbled together a scenario that transformed Ukraine’s battlefield humiliation.

‘Military Analysts’

They described a crafty strategy designed to lure Russia into an urban warfare nightmare where, stripped of its advantages in artillery, it was forced to sacrifice soldiers in an effort to dig the resolute Ukrainian defenders from their hardened positions located amongst the rubble of a “dead” city — Severodonetsk. [Ukraine forces withdrew from the city  Friday.]

Gustav Gressel in Berlin in February 2020

According to Gustav Gressel, a former Austrian military officer turned military analyst, “If the Ukrainians succeed in trying to drag them [the Russians] into house-to-house combat, there is a higher chance of inducing casualties on the Russians they cannot afford.”

According to Mykhailo Samus, a former Ukrainian naval officer turned think-tanks analyst, the Ukrainian strategy of dragging Russia into an urban combat nightmare is to buy time for rearming with the heavy weapons provided by the West, to “exhaust, or reduce, the enemy’s [Russia’s] offensive capabilities.”

The Ukrainian operational concepts in play in Severodonetsk, these analysts claim, have their roots in past Russian urban warfare experiences in Aleppo, Syria and Mariupol. What escapes the attention of these so-called military experts, is that both Aleppo and Mariupol were decisive Russian victories; there were no “excessive casualties,” no “strategic defeat.”

Had The New York Times bothered to check the resumes of the “military exerts” it consulted, it would have found two men so deeply entrenched into the Ukrainian propaganda mill as to make their respective opinions all but useless to any journalistic outlet possessing a modicum of impartiality. But this was The New York Times.

Gressel is the source of such wisdom as:

“If we stay tough, if the war ends in defeat for Russia, if the defeat is clear and internally painful, then next time he will think twice about invading a country. That is why Russia must lose this war.”

And:

“We in the West… all of us, must now turn over every stone and see what can be done to make Ukraine win this war.”

Apparently, the Gressel playbook for Ukrainian victory includes fabricating a Ukrainian strategy from whole cloth to influence perceptions regarding the possibility of a Ukrainian military victory.

Samus likewise seeks to transform the narrative of the Ukrainian frontline forces fighting in Severodonetsk. In a recent interview with the Russian-language journal Meduza, Samus declares that:

“Russia has concentrated a lot of forces [in the Donbass]. The Ukrainian armed forces are gradually withdrawing to prevent encirclement. They understand that the capture of Severodonetsk doesn’t change anything for the Russian or the Ukrainian army from a practical point of view. Now, the Russian army is wasting tremendous resources to achieve political objectives and I think they will be very difficult to replenish… [f]or the Ukrainian army, defending Severodonetsk isn’t advantageous. But if they retreat to Lysychansk they’ll be in more favorable tactical conditions. Therefore, the Ukrainian army is gradually withdrawing or leaving Severodonetsk, and upholding the combat mission. The combat mission is to destroy enemy troops and carry out offensive operations.”

Mykhailo Samus on March 27. (YouTube still)

The truth is, there is nothing deliberate about the Ukrainian defense of Severodonetsk. It is the byproduct of an army in full retreat, desperately trying to claw out some defensive space, only to be crushed by the brutal onslaught of superior Russian artillery-based firepower.

To the extent Ukraine is seeking to delay the Russian advance, it is being done by the full-scale sacrifice of the soldiers at the front, thousands of people thrown into battle with little or no preparation, training, or equipment, trading their lives for time so that Ukrainian negotiators can try to convince NATO countries to mortgage their military viability on the false promise of a Ukrainian military victory.

This is the ugly truth about Ukraine today — the longer the war continues, the more Ukrainians will die, and the weaker NATO will become. If left to people like Samus and Gressel, the result would be hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians, the destruction of Ukraine as a viable nation-state, and the gutting of NATO’s front-line combat capability, all sacrificed without meaningfully altering the inevitability of a strategic Russian victory.

Hopefully sanity will prevail, and the West will wean Ukraine off the addiction of heavy weaponry, and push it to accept a peace settlement which, although bitter to the taste, will leave something of Ukraine for future generations to rebuild.

June 26, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Belarus’ Lukashenko Calls Lithuania’s Blockade of Kaliningrad ‘De Facto Declaration of War’

Samizdat – 25.06.2022

Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko has condemned Lithuania’s move to block all ground communications between Russia and its exclave of Kaliningrad, calling it a “de facto declaration of war”.

“Recently, there has been increasingly more information emerging about [Lithuania’s] plan to stop transit from Russia through Belarus to Kaliningrad. It’s like declaring some kind of war. This is unacceptable in today’s environment,” Lukashenko said.

He added that he had grown concerned with the confrontational rhetoric of some of Belarus’ neighbors, namely Poland and Lithuania, as well as NATO nuclear-capable aircraft flights near the Belarussian borders. Lukashenko stated that Belarus should be ready for anything, including to use the “most serious weapons” available to defend the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

In light of this, the Belarus president asked his Russian counterpart to help modernize the country’s aircraft to be able to carry nuclear bombs. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in turn, notified Lukashenko that Russia decided to ship several 9M723 Iskander-M (NATO reporting name SS-26 Stone) mobile short-range ballistic missile systems.

Iskander launchers can handle both conventional and nuclear short-range missiles. However, Putin did not specify which ammunition will be supplied with the Iskander-M’s shipped to Belarus.

Russia earlier harshly condemned Lithuania’s announcement of plans to cut all goods transit from Russia to Kaliningrad in reported accordance with EU sanctions. The move leaves Russia with a maritime route to reach its exclave.

The Kremlin slammed the decision as a “blockade” and vowed to respond in kind and decisively, but has not elaborated on the measures yet. Moscow also reminded Lithuania that it was bound by an agreement with Russia that mandates that it must allow Russian goods to flow unimpeded to Kaliningrad.

June 25, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine won’t pursue NATO membership – Zelensky adviser

Samizdat | June 25, 2022

Ukraine has accepted that NATO membership is off the table, and will not take any further steps toward joining the US-led military alliance, Igor Zhovkva, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, told the Financial Times on Saturday. Nevertheless, Kiev wants a say in NATO’s policies.

NATO leaders are set to meet in the Spanish capital of Madrid next week, and during two days of meetings and consultations, the alliance will unveil its Strategic Concept – a document that outlines the alliance’s mission and stance toward non-members, including China and Russia.

Zhovkva told the Financial Times that Zelensky’s government wants the alliance to acknowledge that Ukraine is “a cornerstone of European security,” and to reaffirm its partnership with Kiev, first established in 1997.

However, he said that Ukraine will not push to become a member of NATO.

“Nato members have declined our aspirations. We will not do anything else in this regard,” he said.

Ukraine’s prospective membership in the alliance was a key factor behind the current conflict with Russia. Ukraine wrote its goal of becoming a NATO member into its constitution in 2019, despite Moscow’s warnings that having the alliance’s forces and weapons on its border would constitute an unacceptable security threat.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has insisted that the alliance’s membership books remain open for interested nations, but has not promised or ruled out membership for Ukraine in the near term. Under the 2008 Bucharest Declaration, NATO’s official position is that Georgia and Ukraine “will become members of NATO” at an unspecified future date.

NATO’s Strategic Concept has not been updated since 2010, with that version of the document stating that the alliance seeks “a true strategic partnership” with Russia.

Zhovkva wants NATO to purge any mention of Russia as a “partner” from the coming update.

“We expect in the Nato strategic concept . . . there will be more strict and severe warnings to the Russian aggressor,” he said, urging the alliance “Don’t be shy” in inserting anti-Russian text.

Furthermore, Zhovkva said that he wants the Ukrainian conflict to be described in the strategy document, arguing “it’s not enough just to cross out the word ‘partner.’”

June 25, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Kaliningrad Provocation & Ukraine’s EU Candidacy… Desperate Diversions From NATO Propaganda Lies

Strategic Culture Foundation | June 24, 2022

The Western propaganda narrative on the conflict in Ukraine is in big trouble. Months of lying by governments and dutiful news media are falling apart as Russia makes major advances to safeguard the Russian-speaking populations in Crimea and Donbass, the formerly eastern Ukrainian region, and to neutralize Nazi military forces under the control of the Kiev regime and backed to the hilt by NATO.

Recall how only a few weeks ago Russia was being pilloried in Western media for making a “strategic blunder” from its military intervention in Ukraine that began on February 24. Western leaders were gung-ho in predicting military defeat for Moscow. After four months of conflict not only are Russian forces decimating NATO-backed Ukrainian flanks, the wider repercussions that the Western powers could have avoided if they had engaged diplomatically with Russia to resolve long-held security concerns are rebounding with devastating economic impact. The U.S.-led NATO and European Union axis is digging a giant hole for itself. If not a grave.

To divert from the NATO-fuelled disaster, the U.S.-led military alliance is recklessly provoking Russia with a blockade on the Russian exclave territory of Kaliningrad. The Russian territory is sandwiched between NATO members Poland and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This week Lithuania moved to block rail and road transport to Kaliningrad. It is clear that the Baltic state is not acting alone. It is enforcing a policy ordained by the NATO and EU leadership. The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell made the absurd excuse that Lithuania was merely applying sanctions against Russian goods. He denied the blatant reality that the move was a hostile economic blockade on sovereign Russian territory and its internal affairs. Laughably, Borrell has the brass neck to accuse Russia of blockading Ukrainian ports.

Moscow has warned that if the blockade of its territory is not lifted it would be seen as aggression to which it will respond. In other words, the NATO and EU axis has decided to gratuitously escalate tensions with Russia to the point of provoking acts of war which a blockade certainly deems.

The insane move by the Western powers has to be seen as nothing other than desperate diversionary tactics to distract from their fiasco of failing propaganda lies over Ukraine. Rather than admitting (even tacitly) that its policies have created a monumental mess in Europe and indeed the wider world, the Western powers are digging an even deeper hole by ratcheting up even more tensions with Russia.

This would also explain the farcical move this week by the European Council to grant official candidate status to Ukraine for joining the 27-member bloc. In practice, it may take decades for Ukraine to gain membership. Turkey has had the same status for 22 years without moving into the European fold. Serbia and other Balkan states have been waiting up to 10 years as candidates for joining the EU club. So, the fanfare of the EU leadership granting Ukraine application is largely empty theater. All the declarations about “solidarity” with Ukraine are typical Brussels bombast.

No wonder other candidate states are exasperated by what they rightly see as the EU playing politics without an iota of principle. The Kiev regime is hailed as “sharing European values” as it bans opposition political parties and outlaws the Russian language, literature, and music. The European Union is impaling itself with its own unscrupulous contradictions by granting candidate status to Ukraine.

But in the futile short term, what it is designed to do is, again, distract from the public embarrassment of the EU and NATO overseeing a total debacle in Ukraine. Billions of dollars and euros bilked from European and American citizens to fuel a Nazi regime have achieved nothing militarily except to prolong the war in Ukraine and escalate the danger of an all-out confrontation with Russia. A war that would in all likelihood lead to a nuclear catastrophe for the planet.

The U.S. and European political establishments have lost all moral authority to govern. At a time of historic collapse in Western capitalist economies, they have decided to make hardship and misery all the more acute for their societies by provoking global energy and inflation crises. Their insane irresponsibility is driven by Western ideological interests, kowtowing to the transatlantic elite and the military-industrial complex as well as by an inveterate mentality of Russophobia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out this week that the current climate and dynamics of the EU and NATO are forming a war bloc against Russia, one that has a vile echo of how Nazi Germany and European fascists armed up against the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

The morally bankrupt Western ruling class has always found war to be an expedient escape route from internal calamity. Their lies and misrule can be covered up with the blood of millions, so it is heinously calculated. They did this in the First and Second World Wars. They are willing to do it again with a Third World War.

It is truly shocking that the NATO and EU axis is moving week-by-week towards open war against Russia. The scenario has already moved from a proxy war to a direct one.

The provocation of blockading Kaliningrad is a direct assault on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Likewise, the scandalous flirting with Ukraine over EU membership as well as the delivery of missile systems to the Kiev regime by the United States, Germany, Britain, and others, are all madcap maneuvers to evade accountability and condemnation for their own inherent failure.

It is highly notable that this week saw massive protests on the streets of Brussels in which public anger was explicitly directed at deteriorating economic conditions for citizens in concert with denunciations of NATO warmongering in Ukraine against Russia.

The cat is out of the bag. The warmongering policies of Western misrulers are being connected and comprehended by the general populace. The effete elites know they are being exposed. The emperor has no clothes. And the Western public is getting angrier with millions of workers going on strike and demanding their rights from a callous establishment.

In a wide-ranging speech last week to the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Western misrulers are facing increasing populist revolt and eventual downfall from their own egregious incompetence and mismanagement.

Such democratic uprisings in the West can’t come soon enough because the grave danger is that its corrupt elite is rushing to provoke war as a diversion. Again.

June 25, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Twitter hires ‘alarming number’ of ex-spies – investigation

Samizdat | June 24, 2022

Twitter is hiring “an alarming number” of ex-FBI agents and other former “feds and spies,” independent outlet MintPress News is reporting, after conducting an analysis of employment and recruitment websites.

According to the research, in recent years the company employed “dozens of individuals from the national security state to work in the fields of security, trust, safety and content.”

“Chief amongst these is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI is generally known as a domestic security and intelligence force. However, it has recently expanded its remit into cyberspace,” MintPress wrote.

It provides several examples of such appointments. FBI veteran Karen Walsh who, according to her Twitter profile, served as a special agent for 21 years, has become a director of corporate resilience at the Silicon Valley-based company. Mark Jaroszewski, Twitter director of corporate security and risk, joined the Twitter team after 20+ years at the FBI.

Central Intelligence Agency and NATO think-tank Atlantic Council have also been named by MintPress as key incubators of personnel for Twitter.

“Twitter also directly employs active army officers. In 2019, Gordon Macmillan, the head of editorial for the entire Europe, Middle East and Africa region was revealed to be an officer in the British Army’s notorious 77th Brigade – a unit dedicated to online warfare and psychological operations. This bombshell news was steadfastly ignored across the media,” the outlet stressed.

RT has checked open-access social media accounts of Twitter’s top managers and also discovered some former employees of the security services among them – in addition to the ones mentioned in the MintPress investigation.

MintPress News stresses that while Twitter’s HR policy might appear logical – the company hires specialists in the areas it needs – it creates some serious problems, not only for the company, but also for the security agencies and organizations. According to former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley, who is quoted by MintPress, many agents have one eye on post-retirement jobs.

“The truth is that at the FBI 50% of all the normal conversations that people had were about how you were going to make money after retirement,” Rowley said.

MintPress claimed that the fact that Twitter recruits largely from the US national security organizations undermines the company’s claims about its neutrality, as the US government “is the source of some of the largest and most extensive influence operations in the world.”

Another risk is that “the company will start to view every problem in the same manner as the U.S. government does – and act accordingly,” the outlet states. To prove this claim, the website analyzed a list – compiled by Twitter – of the countries allegedly conducting disinformation campaigns.

“One cannot help noticing that this list correlates quite closely to a hit list of U.S. government adversaries. All countries carry out disinfo campaigns to a certain extent. But these ‘former’ spooks and feds are unlikely to point the finger at their former colleagues or sister organizations or investigate their operations,” MintPress explained.

Twitter adds warning messages to the tweets and accounts of the state-affiliated media of Russia, China, Iran and Cuba, thus mirroring “US hostility” towards these countries, but does not add any warnings to the pages of state-affiliated media of US and its allies, the outlet highlighted.

Ultimately, MintPress found that Twitter is not the only social media platform that’s “cultivating such an intimate relationship with the FBI and other groups belonging to the secret state.”

“Facebook, for example, has entered into a formal partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, whereby the latter holds significant influence over 2.9 billion users’ news feeds, helping to decide what content to promote and what content to suppress,” it said, adding that the company has also employed former NATO Press Secretary Ben Nimmo as its head of intelligence.

TikTok, according to the outlet, has been “filling its organization with alumni of the Atlantic Council, NATO, the CIA and the State Department.”

Reddit and various media, including Thomson Reuters and multiple US TV channels have also been actively employing former spies, MintPress News claims.

“One of media’s primary functions is to serve as a fourth estate; a force that works to hold the government and its agencies to account. Yet instead of doing that, increasingly it is collaborating with them. Such are these increasing interlocking connections that it is becoming increasingly difficult to see where big government ends and big media begins,” it pointed out.

June 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington supports blockade of Russian exclave by NATO member Lithuania

Samizdat | June 22, 2022

The US says that it “appreciates” anti-Russian sanctions imposed by EU nations and that its military is committed to the defense of Lithuania, after the country banned some Russian goods from passing through its territory to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

Ned Price, the spokesman for the US state department, dismissed Moscow’s displeasure with the Lithuanian blockade of its territory as “saber-rattling” and “bluster.” Speaking at a daily briefing, he said he didn’t want to “give it additional time.”

“We, of course, appreciate the unprecedented economic measures that many countries around the world… including in this case Lithuania, have joined us in taking against Russia for its unprovoked war in Ukraine,” he said.

Price said that the US would protect Lithuania from any military attack, as is due under its NATO obligations.

“Lithuania has been a stalwart partner in this. We stand by NATO. We stand by our NATO Allies, and we stand by Lithuania,” he said.

The row between Russia and its Baltic neighbor erupted last week after Lithuania started blocking the transit of goods between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad region. The partial restrictions came into force last Saturday, with Vilnius claiming it was a natural part of enforcing EU sanctions against Russian trade. Roughly half of the traffic is estimated to be affected. The banned items include coal, metals, and construction materials.

Moscow said the restrictions were crossing every line and warned that there would be serious consequences for what it described as a Lithuanian blockade of its exclave. The decision clearly violated international law, the Russian government noted. Some experts suggested that it could even amount to a casus belli – a cause to start a war over.

Kaliningrad region is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania and has access to the Baltic Sea, which technically allows Russia to ferry goods to it. The relatively small exclave also hosts a significant number of Russian troops and weapon systems, making it a key component in the country’s national security.

June 22, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Lithuania illegally blocking Kaliningrad

By Lucas Leiroz | June 21, 2022

European authorities are stopping the transit of Russian goods in the Kaliningrad region, which is officially a part of the Russian territory. Such a measure tends to significantly increase tensions on the European continent and contribute negatively at a time of major concerns about international peace and security.

On June 18, the governor of Kaliningrad Anton Alikhanov reported to media agencies that the Lithuanian state-owned company “Lithuania Railways” has banned the rail transport in the Russia’s Kaliningrad territory regarding all ​​ sanctioned goods, entirely isolating the Russian exclave in Europe. Apparently, the reason for such a radical measure would have been the international pressure exerted by the rest of Europe for Lithuania to comply with the “EU’s restrictions”.

Commenting on the case, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said that “this is not a Lithuanian decision. These are European sanctions that came into force on June 17, and the railways are now applying the sanctions”.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell confirmed the Lithuanian minister’s words and tried to “defuse” the situation, saying that there is no blockade, as only goods that have received sanctions are being barred from transit:

“There is no blockade. The land transit between Kaliningrad and other parts of Russia has not been banned. Second, transit of people and goods that are not sanctioned continues. Third, Lithuania has not taken any unilateral national restrictions. (…) We are in a precautionary mood. We will double-check the legal aspects in order to verify that we are completely aligned with any kind of rule. (…) But Lithuania is not guilty. It is not implementing national sanctions. It is not implementing their will. Whatever they are doing has been the consequence of previous consultation with the commission, which has provided guidelines”.

What seems unacceptable, however, is the fact that such pressure is aimed at blocking the transit of products inside the Russian sovereign space, preventing them from leaving Kaliningrad and reaching the rest of Russian territory. No country has the right to prevent another from transporting its goods to other parts of its own territory. In this case, it is not just about “sanctions against Russia”, but about an illegal attitude that violates all elementary norms and principles of public international law.

Stating that there is simply “no blockade” as the restrictions are only being applied to sanctioned products sounds also totally inappropriate. In addition to obstructing Russian intra-territorial traffic, the products sanctioned by the West are precisely those of greater strategic value, which directly affect Moscow’s national interests. Kaliningrad is undoubtedly isolated at this time and the consequences of this isolation strongly affect both the rest of the Russian territory and the one million Russian citizens who inhabit the exclave.

The Russian government expressed its concern about the case, as can be seen in the words of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov: “This decision is truly unprecedented. It is a violation of everything. We understand it to be connected to the relevant decision made by the European Union – to extend sanctions to transit. We also consider it illegal (…) We need a serious, in-depth analysis to work out our response decisions”.

In the same vein, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov made it clear that Moscow reserves the right to respond to illegal attitudes on the part of the Lithuanian State, stating that Russia will defend its interests in the face of the European attempt to prevent the transit of goods between Kaliningrad and the rest of the national territory.

“If the transit of goods between Kaliningrad and the rest of the territory of the Russian Federation through Lithuania is not fully restored soon, then Russia reserves the right to take measures in defense of its national interests”, he said.

It is also necessary to remember that Western think tanks have long suggested that NATO “seize” Kaliningrad. The matter has come to light more recently, after the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, with US and European experts suggesting this type of attitude to be considered as a response to a possible escalation of tensions. Obviously, the current blockade further intensifies Moscow’s concerns about this possible scenario.

There are two possible scenarios for the near future in the face of this new escalation of the European security crisis: either Lithuania immediately breaks the blockade or Russia will respond in some way, probably through the intensification of military naval activities using the Baltic Fleet. Vilnius must act in some way, either sovereignly, refusing to comply with abusive and hostile EU impositions or through diplomatic mediation with the rest of the bloc so that sanctions are eased so that the end of the rail blockade is achieved.

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

June 21, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

‘Stop NATO,’ protesters chant at massive rally in heart of EU

Samizdat | June 20, 2022

A trade union-organized protest numbering 70,000 to 80,000 demonstrators packed the streets of Brussels on Monday, bringing the city to a standstill. In addition to expressing anger at the rising cost of living in Belgium, many condemned the US-led NATO alliance and its involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.

Trade unions said that 80,000 people attended the protest, while police said that the turnout was closer to 70,000, Reuters reported. In addition to packing the streets, the protest led to mass cancellations of flights at Brussels Airport, as unions representing security personnel went on strike. Public transit routes around the city were also operating at drastically reduced capacity.

Inflation hit 9% in Belgium in June, a four-decade high. With spending power declining, protesters demanded salary hikes and tax cuts.

However, many linked their dire economic straits to the EU’s sanctions regime on Russia and with the NATO alliance’s rush to arm Ukraine.

Protesters demanded that their leaders “spend money on salaries, not on weapons,” and chanted “stop NATO.”

While similar protests against rising costs have taken place across Europe as of late – thousands of trade unionists marched in London on Saturday – few have linked the soaring prices with the actions of NATO and its members.

Just three months ago, some protesters in Brussels waved Ukrainian flags and demanded that the EU cut itself off from “Putin’s Oil.” Weeks before that, there was a demonstration outside European Parliament buildings calling for “sanctions for Russia.”

Brussels is home to headquarters of both the EU and NATO. It was also the city from where US President Joe Biden chose to announce a round of sanctions on Moscow in March, before immediately telling a reporter that “sanctions never deter” those targeted by them.

Despite predicting in April that these measures would “wipe out the last 15 years of Russia’s economic gains,” Russia’s energy earnings have hit record levels since February, and the Russian ruble is currently at a seven-year high against the euro.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused European countries of committing economic “suicide” via sanctions, and predicted last week that the EU’s “direct losses” from this sanctions policy “could exceed $400 billion in a year.”

June 20, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Analysis of the French legislative election

By Gilbert Doctorow | Irrussianality | June 20, 2022

It was a delight to participate yesterday evening in a featured news program on Press TV just as the results of the voting were coming in.  It is quite remarkable that the news room and their correspondent in Paris took a line of commentary that would fit perfectly within the reportage of the French mainstream news Establishment, Figaro or Le Monde. Their top question was whether Macron’s movement, which now had lost its absolute majority, could regain control of Parliament by forming a coalition with the traditional centrist party, the Republicans. Their top concern was whether this would enable Macron to proceed with his neo-Liberal domestic reform policies, such as raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 65.

It was my pleasure to throw a spanner in the works and redirect attention to Macron’s foreign policy, namely his support for Ukraine in the ongoing military conflict with Russia, a policy which the nominally Leftist Opposition coalition of Mélenchon shares fully. Indeed, judging by foreign policy issues, there was only one true Opposition in this election, Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement national, which seeks good relations with Russia and distances itself from NATO. Note that Le Pen’s party did better in yesterday’s elections than ever before and will capture as many as 10 times the number of seats it held before the elections.

As I argued in yesterday’s mini-debate, continuation of the war thanks to French and other European and American military and financial assistance to Kiev, and the continued imposition of draconian sanctions on Russia particularly in the energy sphere, are feeding an inflationary cycle that will overwhelm political and economic life in France in the coming months, especially when the home heating season begins.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

June 20, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

West at inflection point in Ukraine war

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JUNE 19, 2022

Henry Kissinger predicted some three weeks ago that the Ukraine war was dangerously close to becoming a war against Russia. That was a prescient remark. The NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in a weekend interview told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper that in the alliance’s estimation, the Ukraine war could wage for years. 

“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine. Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices,” Stoltenberg said. He added that the supply of state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukrainian troops would increase the chance of liberating the Donbass region from Russian control.

The remark signifies a deeper NATO involvement in the war based on the belief not only that Russia can be defeated in Ukraine  (“erase Russia”) but the cost shouldn’t matter. The NATO chiefs traditionally take the cue from  Washington, and Stoltenberg was speaking just a fortnight before the alliance’s Madrid summit. 

Curiously, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in an op-ed for London’s Sunday Times after a surprise visit to Kiev on Friday virtually complemented Stoltenberg’s words, stressing the need to avoid “Ukraine fatigue.” Johnson noted that with Russian forces gaining ground “inch by inch” it was vital for Ukraine’s friends to demonstrate their long-term support, which meant ensuring “Ukraine receives weapons, equipment, ammunition and training more rapidly than the invader”. 

Johnson outlined “four vital steps to recruit time to Ukraine’s cause.” First, he said, “we must ensure that Ukraine receives weapons, equipment, ammunition and training more rapidly than the invader, and build up its capacity to use our help.” Second, “we must help preserve the viability of the Ukrainian state.”

Third, “We need a long-term effort to develop the alternative overland routes” for Ukraine so that its economy “continues to function.” Fourth, crucially, the Russian blockade of Odessa and other Ukrainian ports must be lifted and “we will keep supplying the weapons needed to protect them.” 

Johnson admitted that all this requires “a determined effort … lasting for months and years.” But the imperative to strengthen President Zelensky’s capacity to wage the war is also vital for “protecting our own security as much as Ukraine’s.” Stoltenberg and Johnson spoke up after the EU executive recommended that Ukraine should be officially recognised as a candidate to join the bloc (which is expected to be endorsed at a summit set for June 23-24.) 

Meanwhile, Russian forces are steadily marking tactical successes in the region of Donbass and in the stabilisation of the frontline in other sectors. The most intense fighting is ongoing in the Severodonetsk-Lysichansk area and around Slavyansk, but the situation is also tense in the Kharkiv region and in Mykolaiv and Kherson Regions in the south.

The Russian forces are pounding the military infrastructure and equipment gatherings of Ukrainian forces. As per Russian MOD, in the five-day period between June 13-17 alone, according to the Russian version, it appears that 1800 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 291 pieces of military equipment and 69 objects of military infrastructure were destroyed.

A defeat in Donbass will be catastrophic for Zelensky, as the destruction of its best military units deployed there virtually leaves the southern regions as low-hanging fruit for Russian forces. For NATO too, its international standing will be seriously eroded. On Friday, two US war veterans detained on Donetsk frontline were put on display on Russian TV appealing to their families for help. More such visuals can be expected in the coming days.

Johnson wrote alarmingly that the Putin Doctrine arrogates to Russia an eternal right to “take back” any territory ever inhabited by Slavs and this “would permit the conquest of vast expanses of Europe, including Nato allies.” This is hyperbole. To take their eastern and southern territories back, the Ukrainians will indeed have to wage a long war but they also will critically depend on enormous military, financial and economic assistance from Europe. On the other hand, European unity is fragile and there is “fatigue” setting in. 

There is no coherent vision about the ultimate NATO objective, either. Ukraine is a black hole unworthy of a Marshall Plan. Unsurprisingly, there is great circumspection on the part of Germany to waste its resources over Ukraine. 

Finally, the deepening economic crisis in the West — high inflation and cost of living and growing likelihood of recession — is at the gates like wolves howling in a winter wonderland. The European public no longer becomes sentimental at the sight of Ukrainian refugees. The alibi that Putin is responsible for all this  won’t fly. 

Fundamentally, the Western economies are facing a systemic crisis. The complacency that the reserve-currency-based US economy is impervious to ballooning debt; that the petrodollar system compels the entire world to purchase dollars to finance their needs; that the flood of cheap Chinese consumer goods and cheap energy from Russia and Gulf States would keep inflation at bay; that interest rate hikes will cure structural inflation; and, above all, that the consequences of taking a trade-war hammer to a complex network system in the world economy can be managed — these notions stand exposed. 

When the money printing presses whirred in Europe and America, no one felt uneasy about the structural flaws in the system. In a haze of ideological bluster, the Biden Administration and its junior partner in Brussels didn’t pay any due diligence before sanctioning Russia and its energy and resources. Europe is much worse off than America. Inflation in Europe is well into double digits. A European sovereign debt crisis may already have begun.

The accelerating inflationary crisis threatens the standing of western politicians, as they will encounter real popular anger once inflation eats away at the middle class and high energy prices gut business profits.

How to arrest the unfolding slow burn political debacle for both Europe and the US? The logical way is to force Zelensky to go to the negotiating table and discuss a settlement. The narrative of continuing the attrition against Russian forces for the coming months, to inflict hurt on Russia, does not help European politicians. Mariupol, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have fallen. Donbass might also, soon. What’s the next red line? Odessa? 

Paradoxically, the long war in Ukraine could only work to Russia’s advantage. President Putin’s speech at the SPIEF at St. Petersburg on Friday shows how thoroughly Moscow studied the western financial and economic system and identified its structural contradictions. Putin is adept at using the weight and strength of his opponents to his own advantage rather than opposing blow directly to blow. The West’s overextension can ultimately be its undoing. 

That’s where the actual inflection point lies today — whether the structural contradictions in the western economies have matured into disorder. Putin sees the West’s future as bleak, hit simultaneously by the blowback from its own imposition of sanctions, and the resultant spike in commodity prices, but lacking agility to deflect the blows due to institutional rigidities. 

The big question today is at what point Russia retaliates against the countries who are involved in the gun-running business in Ukraine if they accelerate on that path. The air strikes by Russian jets last Thursday on the militant terror groups harboured in the US garrison at Al-Tanf on the Syrian-Iraqi border may well have carried a message. 

June 19, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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