NATO discussing ceasefire move for Ukraine – Bloomberg
RT | December 5, 2024
Ukraine’s Western backers are shifting from attempting to push for a military victory against Russia towards trying to help Kiev achieve the best position to negotiate a ceasefire, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The report comes as Russian forces advance in Donbass at a rate unseen since 2022, while recapturing ground from Ukrainian forces entrenched in Russia’s Kursk Region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “has shown no willingness to discuss a ceasefire,” and with US President-elect Donald Trump less than two months away from taking office, Kiev’s NATO allies are attempting to steel themselves “as morale starts to fade,” Bloomberg wrote.
While Trump’s plan for Ukraine is unclear, he was elected on promises of curtailing American spending on the conflict and focusing on internal US issues.
Gathering in Brussels this week, foreign ministers from NATO nations discussed how to supply Kiev with more weapons, anonymous sources told Bloomberg, noting that any plans are still private and incomplete. They have also reportedly begun to look at different ways to end the conflict, including discussing which security guarantees could protect Ukraine without antagonizing Putin.
“Those discussions come amid recognition that the situation in Ukraine is unsustainable and negotiations should begin soon,” Bloomberg reported, citing a senior Western diplomat.
One idea floated was to create a demilitarized zone, with European troops responsible for its security, the outlet cited a senior NATO diplomat as saying.
Additionally, even if the US maintains course on future military aid, contrary to Trump’s reelection campaign rhetoric, mounting losses will force Ukraine into talks by next year, Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at Rand, told Bloomberg.
“Ukraine lacks the manpower to stop the Russian offensive, and the West has little left to give in terms of existing stocks of weapons,” he said.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky previously insisted that Kiev is not interested in joining NATO if it excludes Russian territories that were part of Ukraine before 2014.
However, Zelensky told Kyodo News on Monday that Kiev could agree to a ceasefire with Moscow without these territories if NATO membership is guaranteed.
Ukraine’s aim of joining the US-led military bloc has been underscored by Putin as one of the core reasons for the conflict. Russia’s terms are that Ukraine adopt a neutral, non-bloc status, remain free of nuclear weapons, demilitarize and undergo denazification, the Russian leader has said.
Why Ukrainian Soldiers Are Deserting
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 4, 2024
A November 29 article in the Los Angeles Times stated that the Ukrainian military is facing a big problem with desertions:
Desertion is starving the Ukrainian army of desperately needed manpower and crippling its battle plans at a crucial time in its war against Russia’s invasion, which could put Ukraine at a clear disadvantage in any future cease-fire talks… Tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops, tired and bereft, have walked away from combat and front-line positions to slide into anonymity, according to soldiers, lawyers and Ukrainian officials. Entire units have abandoned their posts, leaving defensive lines vulnerable and accelerating territorial losses, according to military commanders and soldiers. Some take medical leave and never return, haunted by the traumas of war and demoralized by bleak prospects for victory. Others clash with commanders and refuse to carry out orders, sometimes in the middle of firefights.
The explanation for the desertions turns on what Ukrainian soldiers have been fighting, killing, and dying for ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ever since the start of the war, U.S. officials, the U.S. mainstream press, and Ukrainian officials have steadfastly maintained that the war is about “freedom.” They say that Russia engaged in an “unprovoked” attack on Ukraine with the aim of conquering and subjugating the country and enslaving the Ukrainian people. From there, we’ve been told, Russia’s aim is to head west, conquer Europe, cross the English Channel and take England, cross the Atlantic and conquer South America, Central America, and Mexico, and then, ultimately, invade and conquer the United States.
The scenario is essentially a replay of the old Cold War racket, where Americans were told that there was an international communist conspiracy to take over the world, one that was centered in Moscow, Russia — yes, that Russia — the same one that is now supposedly doing the same thing today except for the communist part.
The big problem is that the official narrative of why Russia invaded Ukraine was a lie from the get-go. The war between Russia and Ukraine has never been about freedom. It was always about NATO, the military alliance that played a central role in the old Cold War racket. Specifically, it was about the Ukrainian government’s wish to join this old Cold War dinosaur at the behest of the U.S. government.
Is joining NATO worth dying for? Not for me — and obviously not for the large number of Ukrainian soldiers who are now deserting.
For a while, the Ukrainian people bought into the lie that was being fed to them by their own government and by U.S. officials. In the early days of the war, Ukrainians were rushing to join the military to fight for their “freedom.” But over time, many Ukrainians have come to the realization that the war never had anything to do with freedom. It was always about the “right” of the Ukrainian government to join NATO, which is something that is very different from freedom.
There is another important aspect to this phenomenon: the central responsibility that the U.S. government has for this massive disaster. It was the U.S. government, especially the Pentagon, that led the way toward the expansion of NATO eastward, with the aim of ultimately absorbing Ukraine, which would enable the Pentagon to install its bases, tanks, troops, and nuclear missiles along Russia’s border. Throughout that move eastward, Russia continued beseeching U.S. officials to stop and instead to comply with their repeated promises to not expand NATO an inch eastward after the ostensible end of the Cold War.
But the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — i.e., the U.S. national-security establishment — insisted on breaking those repeated promises. Ending the Cold War was the last thing they wanted to do. It had been too big a cash cow for them. They were not about to let it go without a fight. They knew that by expanding eastward toward Russia, in violation of their repeated promises they had made to Russia not to do that, they could succeed in provoking Russia into invading Ukraine. It was an ingenious — and diabolical — strategy, one that got them what they wanted — a renewed Cold War plus a hot war in which the U.S. government is using the Ukrainian people as its sacrificial puppets — and getting Russia and the United States ever closer to the prospect of all-out nuclear war.
We also mustn’t ignore the role of the U.S. mainstream press has played in this deadly, destructive, or sordid affair. Whenever critics point out the U.S. scheme that successfully provoked Russia into invading Ukraine, the U.S. mainstream press dutifully describes the criticism as repeating “Russian talking points,” implying that the criticisms cannot possibly be true.
While Ukrainians are now deserting the military, U.S. officials are exhorting their Ukrainian counterparts to crack down on their people. According to that L.A. Times article, “The U.S. urges Ukraine to draft more troops, and allow for conscription of those as young as 18.” Undoubtedly, U.S. officials are advocating the adoption of such coercive measures in the name of “freedom.”
War and peace, NATO troops, sanctions & more | Hungarian FM’s interview
Sanctioning RT is ‘double standards and hypocrisy’
RT | December 3, 2024
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto gave an exclusive interview to RT on Monday. Here’s the full text of the conversation:
Host Saskia Taylor:
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary – it is a great honor to be able to sit down with you. Thank you so much for your time. I know that you are a very, very busy man. The first thing, let’s jump right in. I mean, in a recent interview, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he said that Russia’s deployment of the missile Oreshnik, should be quote, “something to make us all think.” What was Budapest thinking that night, and do you think it will indeed compel your European counterparts to reassess their strategies when it comes to the war in Ukraine?
Hungarian FM Peter Szijjarto:
There has been a feeling with us for more than 1000 days now. And this feeling of ours becomes stronger and stronger every day. Especially when we experience such kind of events like launching that missile or when we experience decisions from others, which decisions should be considered as irresponsible. So day by day, our feeling that peace must be made is getting stronger and stronger. We understand that with every other day spent in this war, there are more people dying, more destruction taking place and more serious threat of escalation comes forward. So all these events show to us that the peace mission of ours must be strengthened, must be more and more active, and we have to do our best in order to help peace to come as soon as possible. Most likely starting with a ceasefire, which would give the chance to those who are involved to sit around the negotiating table and discuss about an agreement leading towards sustainable peace in our region.
Host:
I mean, one other soon-to-be leader, again, who has campaigned for peace in the way that the Hungarian prime minister has, is of course incoming US President Donald Trump. He’s beginning to pick his team, and Keith Kellogg has been tapped to be special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
Now, I wonder, do you think that his appointment and his mediation could help bring a resolution to the conflict closer? And do you think that there will be sensitivity under a Trump administration to Moscow’s position? I only ask that because Keith Kellogg specifically has said on a number of occasions we need to, quote, “help Ukraine win.”
Szijjarto:
First of all, I think that it has to be put into consideration that a democracy must be built on the will of the people. And what happened on the presidential elections in the United States? There were two candidates with totally differing positions on many issues. But if I have to name the issue where the opinion of the two have totally been different, then I would name, of course, migration, but then the issue of the war in Ukraine. Donald Trump had a totally different vision compared to this war than Kamala Harris, because Kamala Harris was speaking about the continuation of the strategy of the American administration, impacts of which we are quite aware of, unfortunately. But President Trump represented a different approach, because he was speaking about making peace. And at the end of the day, the American citizens have made a very clear decision. So, to make peace in Ukraine, is basically a will of the American people as well. So what we have seen so far since the elections in the form of decisions of the still incumbent American administration is basically neglecting the will of the people, going against the will of the people. So in order to give the respect to the American citizens who made a clear decision in order to ensure safety, stability, and security in the central or eastern part of Europe, the only way to move forward is making peace. In this regard, the fact that the incoming president nominates a person, an experienced one, a respected one, with the aim of resolving the conflict, the war – I think it’s a good news on its own.
On the other hand, I have had the honor to accompany my prime minister on a number of meetings with President Trump, even after the war has broken out. And what I experienced during these meetings is that President Trump really believes in the necessity of making peace. And knowing him, because politics is a job of experience, so knowing him from his first term, whatever he would like to do, he makes his best in order to deliver.
I think that since the presidential election of the United States has taken place, we have the best hope for this war to come to an end since it had broken up. I would say that now we are faced with the most serious risk of escalation ever since this war has broken out, because the decisions made by the incumbent American administration and some Western European administrations since the US elections are very dangerous. We are living in the neighborhood, I don’t have the luxury to speak on behalf of a country an ocean away. I’m speaking on behalf of a country which is next door, and those measures which are bringing the danger of escalation are putting danger on us as well. We don’t want others to put danger on us. Therefore, we have now been strengthening our efforts when it comes to the peace mission. That’s why I came to Moscow today and I hope that my visit, my discussions today will contribute to peace to come as soon as possible.
Host:
Very interesting. You mentioned, of course, I don’t want someone else to put me at risk. But of course, when you’re part of a bloc like the European Union, it is a bit all for one and one for all – at least that’s the view from Brussels.
And I do want to get your take on something because President Putin believes, and actually, you know, I hear this from a number of guests on our programs – and what I am struck by is that they’re mainly actually from Germany – is that they say that Europe has lost its independence and has ceased to be a politically sovereign entity when it comes to international affairs specifically. And I just wondered, do you think that’s a reasonable assessment? And kind of just on a personal level, not just as a minister, but as an EU citizen, how that makes you feel?
Szijjarto:
Since this war has broken out it is obvious that most of the European leaders have lost their own voice in this regard. On many occasions I hear European leaders including my colleagues, foreign ministers or the high representative, speaking about speaking in a way that we always compare our contribution to the American one. I think it’s a very, very bad and harmful approach from the European perspective. Why? Because the war does take place here in Europe. There are European people dying, there is destruction taking place in Europe, and the European economy is faced with the impacts and the consequences of this war. Therefore, following the US policies without any kind of criticism, that’s a big mistake. I do believe that the strategy the European Union has been following in the recent 1000 days is a failed one, because Europe weakened a lot in the last almost three years.
I do believe that instead of globalizing the conflict, the right strategy would have been to localize it and to do everything in order to resolve it, to make peace, instead of pouring oil on the fire, which has been the case.
We are the only country in Europe or European Union which has not delivered weapons to Ukraine. We are the only country in NATO, almost the only one, which speaks openly about the red lines which must be kept seriously. We are the ones who speak openly about our assessment that NATO is a defense alliance and not an attack alliance.
In the upcoming days, we will have many debates in Europe, because we have OSCE ministerial coming, we have NATO ministerial coming. There will be tough debates and we are praying really hard that until the 20th of January nothing happens which would make things irreversible.
Host:
Well, you obviously talked there about how Budapest has become almost a lone voice in Europe and amongst many Western nations. When it comes to the Ukraine issue, I mean, Viktor Orban, he’s vehemently opposed to pumping Kiev with weapons. He’s also very, very critical of any idea of sending foreign troops to the country either as, quote, peacekeepers or actual combat units.
But then, like you all said, on the other hand, we do have players – and you didn’t say that, but I’ll say it – Baltic states, for example, or the UK, which they’ve gone down a different path.
They seem to be beating the drums of war, and they’ve even advocated for sending NATO troops there. When you’re in these meetings, what do you make of their arguments? And as we speak now, how great do you think the danger is of Europe being dragged into a full war with Russia? And I say full quite specifically because obviously many would argue that Russia is already at war with the West. I mean, Boris Johnson admitted it himself just a few days ago.
Szijjarto:
You might remember when our prime minister has visited Moscow during the summer, I was honored to accompany him on his meeting with President Putin and you might remember that huge attack on him. Huge attack on him, on his government, on our country for visiting Moscow and completing or trying to complete a peace mission. You see that there are many pro-war politicians in Europe. When I sit on the meetings of the Foreign Affairs Council with other foreign ministers and listen to some, I’m so sad that such kind of extreme pro-war positions are present that’s why we paid a lot of attention on what would be happening in the United States, because if President Trump had not won, now we might be involved in something which we would never want to be involved in. But with President Trump entering office, I think we have a good hope that peace will come instead of Europe would be dragged into a full-scale war. I think that even speaking about sending troops is extremely dangerous, because we have seen in the recent days, weeks and months, that even a piece of miscommunication or misunderstanding can be extremely dangerous. Therefore, the words of politicians have a weight even under peaceful circumstances, but in case of a war, it’s not just to wait, but it’s a risk as well. Everybody should be aware of that, and sometimes I have the feeling that it is not everybody who is aware of that, or even worse, they are aware, but they say this deliberately. That’s why I think that now everybody who is in favor of peace must increase the volume.
Host:
I mean, Hungary has become a bit of a rogue actor in Brussels, if you don’t mind me saying that.
Szijjarto:
Black sheep!
Host:
Black sheep. No, well, we love black sheep here, so we’re very happy about that. But advocating for economic neutrality, like you’re coming here, business is business, but also against bloc confrontation, whether that’s against Russia, whether that’s against China, for example, as well.
How difficult has it been to resist the pressure? And just from an insider’s perspective, I understand you can’t give us all the secrets of what goes on, but just a sense of really how much people demand that one toes the line?
Szijjarto:
It’s a huge hypocrisy there, because those who are advocating against us with those who usually compete for those investments which are coming from China to Europe. Currently, 44% of all Chinese investments targeting Europe are now targeting Hungary, and that makes a lot of other countries very, very jealous. Why? Because these investments are very modern ones, these investments are investments into the future, these are state-of-the-art, creating thousands of new jobs, offering good salaries. Other countries want that as well, so while the German foreign minister speaks about decoupling, de-risking, of Western and Eastern economies. If you come to Hungary, you see the Chinese and the German factories being constructed next to each other. You see the Chinese companies supplying the Germans, making them successful, vice versa, this is how it works normally on the field of everyday life. For us, economy and energy must not be a matter of political ideology, this is physical and mathematical reality. We don’t let ourselves to be dragged into a debate on philosophical basis, because, for example, energy.
I mean whether you can heat your house or flat, whether you can run your economy with a press conference, with a philosophical debate, with a press statement? It’s impossible. With gas, with oil, with nuclear fuel? Well, that’s the way. Therefore, for us, economic neutrality is common sense. Don’t confuse things which have nothing to do with ideology and political approach.
Host:
And of course, it’s usually the average person who pays the price of ideology. Look at Germany’s industrial…
Szijjarto:
Look at the sanctions, look at the sanction regimes. The sanction regimes of the European Union ended up in extremely high inflation, extremely high energy prices, food prices, and these are all paid by the citizens, by the people.
Host:
…Volkswagen shuttering three factories, laying off potentially tens of thousands, Ford moving some of its production facilities outside of the EU…
Szijjarto:
While Mercedes is building its second factory in Hungary, while BMW is constructing its new factory in Hungary, while the biggest electric battery manufacturers are constructing their factories in Hungary. It might make sense to think about why.
Host:
I’m sold on Hungary – I’m moving to Hungary. Turning now to another big story that I think I really would like to touch upon. Quite a violent one too, the events that are unfolding in Georgia, in Tbilisi. Four nights, four or five nights of terrible protests. What’s the view from Budapest on all of that?
Szijjarto:
Very simple. If it had been the opposition to win that election, there would be no protests, there would be no external pressure, and everybody would praise the fantastic shape of the Georgian democracy. But it’s not Brussels, it’s not Washington, it’s not Berlin, it’s not Paris to decide, but the Georgian people. The Georgian people made a very clear decision. High turnout, more than 50% support to the ruling party, that should be respected.
My problem is, that this is very general in Europe. In the case it is not the liberals to win an election, the democratic nature of the whole country and the whole political system is being questioned immediately. If it is liberals to win, everything’s fine. If it’s patriots to win, if it is conservatives to win, if it is right-wing to win, the nature of democracy is immediately questioned, and this is totally unacceptable. Look at our case, we have been under attack for the last 15 years in the European Union, we have been under financial sanctions. Why? Because we are not ready to speak according to the liberal mainstream, to act according to the liberal mainstream. We are conservative, patriotic, for us national interest is number one. For us, family consists of a mother and the father and the children, where father is a man, mother is a woman.
Host:
And now you’re in EU court because of it.
Szijjarto:
We protect our children, we protect our country, we protect our border, and we are under financial sanctions. If the opposition had won in Georgia, everybody would be so happy with the fantastic shape of the Georgian democracy. That’s the case.
Host:
And of course, with your eastern neighbor, Romania, an interesting situation there is also developing. It’s kind of election season. Parliamentary elections seem to have gone to the pro-EU, pro-Atlantic direction party, but the presidential vote is already a bit scandalous, the first round, because an anti-war NATO critic won and immediately we heard calls, “foreign interference, he’s pro-Russia,” a vote recount was ordered and we’re expecting a decision from the top Romanian court about whether the vote should be annulled at all.
I mean, what does that say about the state of democracy, but also, of course, the mood amongst Romanians?
Szijjarto:
First of all, for us Hungarians, the parliamentary elections were more important in this regard, and the party of the Hungarians has achieved fantastic results, above 6% of the votes, making a very strong representation and a strong voice of the Hungarians in the Bucharest parliament. That’s very, very important. I think we should leave it to the Romanians to decide in the second round whom they want. I think that mutual respect should come back to international political life, and I usually refrain from making comments on domestic issues of other countries because, they are their citizens. They have to make decisions, as there are Hungarian citizens making decisions about the future of Hungary, which should not be questioned and challenged by anyone. For us, the great news is that the Hungarians made a good performance on the parliament elections and the Romanians will decide soon on the second round of the presidential election.
Host:
And closer to home for you, something that’s kind of developing at the moment. Hungarian media citing intelligence services, they’ve reported that they’re in touch with their Slovak counterparts discussing possible threats of attacks to energy infrastructure. Of course, we saw on Sunday that a part of the Druzhba pipeline – very important of course for Hungarian energy security – but a part in Poland was damaged. I mean, who… I mean I know, I understand you don’t want to hypothesize, but fine, then I’ll ask you, what could possibly be the goal behind actors who are concocting these kinds of plots?
EU country investigating ‘sabotage plot’ targeting Russian oil supplies – media
Read more EU country investigating ‘sabotage plot’ targeting Russian oil supplies – media
Szijjarto:
Since the Nord Stream was blown up, we have to take the issue of protection of critical energy infrastructure extremely seriously, and it’s really outrageous, that even until the very day it was not investigated seriously who has committed a terrorist attack against critical European infrastructure.
Since then, we have to be aware of the risk being put on the energy infrastructure in our neighborhood, we have to be attentive, we have to be aware, we have to take care of this. And yes, Druzhba pipeline is vital from our perspective, no question. And I do hope that all countries where this pipeline runs through, do their best in order to prevent any such attacks.
Host:
And finally, I’m sure many would consider you a very brave man, Mr. Szijjarto, because here you are in Russia, the most sanctioned country on Earth, not just in the winter, which is always a brave move, but also of course at a time of war. And you’re talking to me, you’re talking to RT, which apparently is the global media pariah, so much so that the British Ministry of Defence apparently has got a special unit dedicated to trying to silence us. We’ve been banned, we’ve been blocked, we’ve been smeared. What was your reaction when Europe took RT off of the airwaves? And how did it tally with, of course, the principles of free speech, which Brussels claims at least to champion?
Szijjarto:
Of course, this is double standards and hypocrisy because those Europeans who love to teach everyone. They love to refer certain values, among them freedom of speech and freedom of media. And they usually attack others based on those principles. But when they look at themselves, they cannot be too self-confident either.
So for us sanctioning church, sports, media, energy always raises serious question marks. And I do hope that soon we will get rid of all these sanction measures because they have caused more harm to the European Union than to Russia, I guess.
The Long War to reaffirm Western and Israeli primacy undergoes a shape-shift
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 2, 2024
The long war to reaffirm western and Israeli primacy is undergoing a shape-shift. On one front, the calculus in respect to Russia and the Ukraine war has shifted. And in the Middle East, the locus and shape of the war is shifting in a distinct way.
Georges Kennan’s famed Soviet doctrine has long formed the baseline to U.S. policy, firstly directed toward the Soviet Union, and latterly, towards Russia. Kennan’s thesis from 1946 was that the United States needed to work patiently and resolutely to thwart the Soviet threat, and to enhance and aggravate the internal fissures in the Soviet system, until its contradictions triggered the collapse from within.
More recently, the Atlantic Council has drawn on the Kennan doctrine to suggest that his broad outline should serve as the basis of U.S. policy towards Iran. “The threat that Iran poses to the U.S. resembles the one faced from the Soviet Union after World War II. In this regard, the policy that George Kennan outlined for dealing with the Soviet Union has some applications for Iran”, the Atlantic report states.
Over the years, that doctrine has ossified into an entire network of security understandings, based on the archetypal conviction that America is strong, and that Russia was weak. Russia must ‘know that’, and thus, it was argued, there could be no logic for Russian strategists to imagine they had any other option but to submit to the overmatch represented by the combined military strength of NATO versus a ‘weak’ Russia. And should Russian strategists unwisely persevere with challenging the West, it was said, the inherent contrariety simply would cause Russia to fracture.
American neocons and western intelligence have not listened to any other view, because they were (and largely still are) convinced by Kennan’s formulation. The American foreign policy class simply could not accept the possibility that such a core thesis was wrong. The entire approach reflected more a deep-seated culture, rather than any rational analysis – even when visible facts on the ground pointed them to a different reality.
So, America has piled the pressure on Russia through the incremental delivery of additional weapons systems to Ukraine; through stationing intermediate range nuclear-capable missiles ever-closer to Russia’s borders; and most recently, by shooting ATACMS into ‘old Russia’.
The aim has been to pressure Russia into a situation where it would feel obliged to make concessions to Ukraine, such as to accept a freezing of the conflict, and to be obliged to negotiate against Ukrainian bargaining ‘cards’ devised to yield a solution acceptable to the U.S. Or, alternatively, for Russia to be cornered into the ‘nuclear corner’.
American strategy ultimately rests on the conviction that the U.S. could engage in a nuclear war with Russia – and prevail; that Russia understands that were it to go nuclear, it would ‘lose the world’. Or, pressured by NATO, the anger amongst Russians likely would sweep Putin from office were he to make significant concessions to Ukraine. It was a ‘win-win’ outcome – from the U.S. perspective.
Unexpectedly however, a new weapon appeared on the scene which precisely unshackles President Putin from the ‘all-or-nothing’ choice of having to concede a bargaining ‘hand’ to Ukraine, or resort to nuclear deterrence. Instead, the war can be settled by facts on the ground. Effectively, the George Kennan ‘trap’ imploded.
The Oreshnik missile (that was used to attack the Yuzhmash complex at Dnietropetrovsk) provides Russia with a weapon, such as never before witnessed: An intermediate range missile system that effectively checkmates the western nuclear threat.
Russia can now manage western escalation with a credible threat of retaliation that is both hugely destructive – yet conventional. It inverts the paradigm. It is now the West’s escalation that either has to go nuclear, or be limited to providing Ukraine with weapons such as ATACMS or Storm Shadow that will not alter the course of the war. Were NATO to escalate further, it risks an Oreshnik strike in retaliation, either in Ukraine or on some target in Europe, leaving the West with the dilemma of what to do next.
Putin has warned: ‘If you strike again in Russia, we will respond with an Oreshnik hit on a military facility in another nation. We will provide warning, so that civilians can evacuate. There is nothing that you can do to prevent this; you do not have an anti-missile system that can stop an attack coming in at Mach 10’.
The tables are turned.
Of course, there are other reasons beyond the permanent security cadre’s wish to Gulliverise Trump into continuing the war in Ukraine, in order to taint him with a war that he promised immediately to end.
Particularly the British, and others in Europe, want the war to continue, because they are on the financial hook from their holdings of some $20 billion Ukrainian bonds which are in a ‘default-like status’, or from their guarantees to the IMF for loans to Ukraine. Europe simply cannot afford the costs of a full default. Neither can Europe afford to pick up the burden, were the Trump Administration to walk away from supporting Ukraine financially. So they collude with the U.S. interagency structure to make the continuation of the war proofed against a Trump policy reversal: Europe for financial motives, and the Deep State because it wants to disrupt Trump, and his domestic agenda.
The other wing to the ‘global war’ reflects a mirror paradox: That is, ‘Israel is strong and Iran is weak’. The central point is not only its cultural underpinning, but that the entire Israeli and U.S. apparatus is party to the narrative that Iran is a weak and technically backward country.
The most significant aspect is the multi-year failure as regards factors such as the skill to understand strategies, and recognize changes in the other sides’ capabilities, views and understandings.
Russia seems to have solved some of the general physical problems of objects flying at hypersonic speed. The use of new composite materials has made it possible to enable the gliding cruise bloc to make a long-distance guided flight practically in conditions of plasma formation. It flies to its target like a meteorite; like a ball of fire. The temperature on its surface reaches 1,600–2,000 degrees Celsius but the cruise bloc is reliably guided.
And Iran seems to have solved the problems associated with an adversary enjoying air dominance. Iran has created a deterrence fashioned from the evolution of cheap swarms drones matched up with Ballistic missiles carrying precision hypersonic warheads. It puts $1,000 drones and cheap, precision missiles up and against hugely expensive piloted airframes – An inversion of warfare that has been twenty years in the making.
The Israeli war however, is metamorphosing in other ways. The war in Gaza and Lebanon has strained Israeli manpower; the IDF have sustained heavy losses; its troops are exhausted; and the reservists are losing commitment to Israel’s wars, and are failing to show up for duty.
Israel has reached the limits of its capacity to put boots on the ground (short of conscripting the Orthodox Haredi Yeshiva students – an act that could bring down the Coalition).
In short, the Israeli army’s troop levels have fallen below present command ordered military commitments. The economy is imploding and internal divisions are raw and bruising. This is especially so due to the inequity of secular Israelis dying, whilst others stay exempt from military service – a destiny reserved for some but not others.
This tension played a major part in Netanyahu’s decision to agree to a ceasefire in Lebanon. The growing animus about Orthodox Haredi exemption risked bringing down the Coalition.
There are – metaphorically speaking – now two Israels: The Kingdom of Judea versus the State of Israel. In view of such deep antagonisms, many Israelis now see war with Iran as the catharsis that will bind a fractured people together again, and – if victorious – end all of Israel’s wars.
Outside, the war widens and shape-shifts: Lebanon, for now, is put on a low flame burner, but Turkey has triggered a major military operation (reportedly some 15,000 strong) in an attack on Aleppo, using U.S. and Turkish trained jihadists and militia from Idlib. Turkish Intelligence no doubt has its own distinct objectives, but the U.S. and Israel have a particular interest to disrupt weapons supply routes to Hizbullah in Lebanon.
The Israeli wanton onslaught on non-combatants, women and children – and its explicit ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population – has left the region (and the Global South) seething and radicalised. Israel, through its actions, is disrupting the old ethos. The region is ‘conservative’ no more. Rather, a very different ‘Awakening’ is gestating.
NATO begins major war drills near Russian border
RT | December 2, 2024
NATO countries are set to kick off major war games in northeast Estonia near the border with Russia on Monday, focusing on the rapid deployment of the bloc’s forces and increasing their interoperability.
Some 2,000 troops from Estonia, Latvia, the US, France, and the UK are set to take part in the two-week Pikne (‘Lightning’) exercise, which is part of NATO’s broader Brilliant Eagle program dedicated to increasing the bloc’s deployment and cooperation capabilities in the Baltic Sea region.
According to the commander of the Estonian Division, Major General Indrek Sirel, who is leading the exercises, the war games will focus on “rapid deployment of reinforcements and cooperation between French, British and Estonian forces.” Units of the French Armed Forces will carry out a rapid deployment operation to Estonia by air, followed by joint multinational maneuvers on land, air and sea, Sirel said in a press release.
The first week of the exercises will be dedicated to the movement of units and practicing cooperation in various regions of north and northeast Estonia as well as the Gulf of Finland, and will focus on conducting operations as a “multinational force to counter an emerging threat on land, in the air, and at the sea.” The second week will involve live-fire exercises with heavy combat equipment and military aircraft.
Estonian residents have been warned that low-altitude flights will be taking place over parts of the country as part of the exercises, and that loud noises will likely be heard due to the use of simulation ammunition.
The exercise comes as tensions between Russia and NATO have continued to escalate. Moscow has repeatedly stressed that the expansion of the US-led bloc towards its borders represents a threat to its security.
In October, Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko also claimed that NATO is no longer hiding the fact that it is gearing up for a potential military conflict with Russia by continuing to hold increasingly larger military exercises near its borders, such as the Steadfast Defender drills, which were the bloc’s largest maneuvers since the end of the Cold War.
“Regional defense plans have been approved, concrete tasks for all of the bloc’s military command structures have been formulated. Possible options for military action against Russia are being continuously worked out,” the diplomat said.
Western powers trying to ‘Ukrainize’ Georgia
By Lucas Leiroz | December 2, 2024
The West is increasingly intervening in Georgia’s internal affairs. In an attempt to prevent progress of the Parliament’s diplomatic, pro-peace agenda, Western countries are funding extremely violent protests, which have resulted in a serious social crisis. There is clearly an intention on the part of the West to overthrow the legitimate government in the country and establish a pro-NATO junta, as happened in Ukraine in 2014.
The Georgian capital Tbilisi is gradually looking like an actual civil war scenario. Radical militants are attacking the police and trying to destroy government buildings in protest against the policies of the Georgia Dream party – which won the parliamentary elections and has implemented a series of conservative and nationalist reforms.
Georgian Dream has been unfairly accused of being “pro-Russian” simply because it has prioritized Georgian national interests over Western interventionist agendas. Among the main measures of the Georgian Dream are the imposition of restrictions on the work of foreign NGOs, the freezing of negotiations for accession to the EU until 2028 and the banning of Western-backed anti-Russian sanctions. Obviously, the EU and NATO are disappointed with the Georgian political administration, doing everything possible to allow a regime change.
The West has a special interest in Georgia because the country has a recent history of military conflict with the Russian Federation. The West is lobbying for Tbilisi to resume hostilities in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in an attempt to “regain” the breakaway republics – which would allow a second front to be opened in NATO’s proxy war against Russia, facilitating the Western strategy. Despite international pressure, the Parliament has resisted and avoided engaging in any conflict, then being strongly condemned by the pro-Western lobbyists behind the Georgian political opposition.
“To summarize, Georgian Dream refused to open a “second front” against Russia in summer 2023 to assist Ukraine’s doomed counteroffensive, which was unforgiveable from the West’s perspective. Georgia’s geostrategic importance also spiked after the West “poached” Armenia from Russia’s “sphere of influence” since it then became indispensable for furthering their plans there [in the Caucasus]. Georgian Dream is too patriotic to become their puppet, however, and that’s why they now consider it to be their enemy,” American political analyst Andrew Korybko commented on the case.
As a result of this process, the Western project of a color revolution in Georgia is intensifying. Mass protests have been called by special agitators at the service of foreign intelligence, leading to violent demonstrations. Ukrainian and NATO flags and symbols are common on the streets, and protesters often sing Ukrainian nationalist anthems and songs – which shows clearly the real ideology of the Georgian dissidents, as well as who their international supporters are.
As well known, the main leader of the Georgian opposition is the country’s French-born president, Salome Zourabishvili. A former French ambassador to Tbilisi, Zourabishvili became a Georgian citizen after the 2003 Color Revolution, later becoming the president and the country’s leading pro-EU lobbyist. Zourabishvili now refuses to recognize the results of the recent Georgian elections and says she will not retire after her term ends.
There is a serious polarization in Georgia between Zourabishvili and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakzhidze. While the head of parliament advocates a sovereigntist and conservative policy, the French-born president is the main representative of Western interests in Georgia and is currently the main public figure behind the riots that threaten the country’s national security.
“I am so proud of you! I am proud of Georgia! A national accord has been reached on the most critical matter: no one can take away Georgia’s independence, no one can return Georgia to Russia, and no one can deprive Georgia of its will and its European future (…) I remain your President – there is no legitimate parliament and thus no legitimate election or inauguration. My mandate continues. I stand with you and will remain with you!,” she published on her social media, praising criminal “protesters” attacking the police.
In the end, the West wants a “Maidan for Georgia.” The goal is to “Ukrainize” the Caucasus’ country, making it an ally in NATO’s proxy war with Moscow. It is too early to say whether the legitimate government will have enough strength to resist the pressure for long, but regardless of the final outcome of this crisis, the situation is likely to escalate significantly in the near future.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
Desperate Escalations in Middle East & Ukraine
Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
Glenn Diesen | December 1, 2024
I had a conversation with Alastair Crooke about the escalating situation in the Middle East and Ukraine. Thousands of Turkish-backed jihadists invade Aleppo immediately after the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Russia’s Oreshnik missiles change NATO’s calculations. The commitment to deeply flawed narratives in the Middle East and Ukraine results in miscalculations and failure to pursue course correction.
Watch at Odysee
The first-round “surprise” in Romania’s elections: What does the Georgescu-Lasconi race mean?
By Erkin Oncan | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 30, 2024
Romania held its presidential elections last Sunday, with 13 candidates competing in a race where most polling predictions were proven wrong. Among these candidates, the most notable was Calin Georgescu, who ran as an independent.
Georgescu emerged victorious in the first round, where voter turnout was recorded at 52%. He secured over 22% of the vote, making him the frontrunner of the elections.
Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union Party (USR), representing liberal conservatives, came in second place. Meanwhile, current Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu narrowly fell to third place behind Lasconi.
One of the notable candidates, former NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană, announced his retirement from politics after his defeat. Geoană expressed concerns in an interview with Romanian media, stating:
“The level of disappointment and anger is pushing society toward a more radical choice.”
A shocking win in Western Media
Georgescu’s victory was described in Western media with terms like “surprise,” “shock,” and “earthquake.” This sentiment stems from Georgescu’s reputation as a relatively unpopular politician known for his anti-NATO and anti-Ukraine statements.
As he highlighted in one of his interviews, Georgescu conducted his entire campaign on TikTok. This unconventional strategy led many Romanian analysts to dub him a “product of TikTok.”
Who is Calin Georgescu?
Calin Georgescu, a 62-year-old right-wing populist, holds degrees from the University of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences and the National Defense College in Bucharest.
Starting his career as a university lecturer, he later worked at the Ministry of Environment and served as Romania’s representative for the UN Environment Program.
This election is not Georgescu’s first political endeavor. In 2020 and 2021, the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) nominated him for the position of Prime Minister. However, his candidacy was revoked following his praise for controversial historical figures, including pro-Nazi dictator Ion Antonescu and Zelea Codreanu, founder of the anti-Semitic Iron Guard. Georgescu even faced a criminal investigation for glorifying war criminals.
In a 2022 interview with Antena 3, Georgescu referred to these figures as “heroes” and claimed that “the Romanian nation lives through these heroes.”
“NATO base is a diplomatic disgrace”
Georgescu is also known for his anti-NATO rhetoric. He has labeled NATO’s ballistic missile defense system in Deveselu, Romania, as a “diplomatic disgrace” and argued that the alliance would not protect its members in the event of a Russian attack.
Speaking to Romanian journalist Mihai Tatulici, Georgescu advocated for Romania’s neutrality in the Ukraine war, saying:
“It is clear that the situation in Ukraine is being manipulated. The conflict is being orchestrated to serve the interests of the U.S. military-industrial complex. As a nation, our priority should be to remain neutral in any conflict. What happens there is not our concern.”
A vision for a sovereign Romania
Georgescu has openly criticized the European Union (EU), calling it a failed project that seeks to enslave Romania. He outlined his vision for the country as follows:
“The peace strategy must take precedence. This includes both external and internal peace. Everything begins here. Nobody has ever built anything through war. I can summarize my vision with three clear principles: First, our people’s genius lies in remaining 100% neutral in any conflict. Second, I want a sovereign state, one that is independent and uninvolved. Third, we must learn how to utilize our national resources independently.”
In another interview with Antena 3, Georgescu stated:
“We do not have a state. Without a state, people are nothing more than a herd, and the only entity capable of serving the nation is a state. Yet, this has nearly disappeared.”
Liberal-conservative candidate Lasconi
Elena Lasconi, Georgescu’s opponent in the second round, is a former journalist and mayor. She strongly supports Romania’s alliance with Ukraine. On the 1,000th day of the war in Ukraine, she posted on Facebook:
“1,000 days of courage, sacrifice, and the fight for freedom. Romania must continue to stand by Ukraine. I promise to ensure this steadfast support as President. This is not just Ukraine’s fight; it is a struggle for the stability and democracy of the entire region.”
Lasconi also expressed her strong support for NATO. In an interview with Radio Free Europe’s Romanian service, she emphasized the deterrent power of NATO troops:
“I believe it would be wonderful if we had more foreign troops in Romania because countries with well-trained NATO forces have never been attacked.”
A clash of ideologies
Georgescu’s arguments reflect a broader European trend among right-wing populists: emphasizing strong state authority, national revival, and economic self-sufficiency, alongside an anti-war stance. This approach has led many to label him as “Kremlin’s man.”
In contrast, Lasconi embodies a pro-European leader aligned with the current needs of NATO and the EU.
The political polarization in Romania mirrors that of other nations like Moldova, pre-war Ukraine, Serbia, and Georgia. On one side stands a Europe-skeptic right advocating for national sovereignty and strong state policies; on the other, a liberal-conservative faction deeply tied to Atlanticist structures.
While accusations of “Russian influence” often dominate these elections, it’s clear that the economic challenges, political instability, and heightened militarization driving voter concerns are far more tangible than alleged Kremlin meddling.
The roughly 350,000-vote difference between Georgescu and his closest competitor underscores the growing appeal of right-wing populist skepticism toward Europe, marking it as the West’s rising trend. However, Western analysts will need more than just “Kremlin narratives” to fully understand this shift.
European elites are destroying Europe – again
Strategic Culture Foundation | November 29, 2024
One would think that having suffered two world wars only decades apart, European politicians might be more cautious about starting another one. Incredibly, however, the countries of Europe are being plunged into another conflagration.
Not much has changed over a century, it seems. War is still the result of imperialist intrigue and no accountability to the masses of citizens by arrogant politicians aided by relentless media propaganda lies.
European elitist rulers are a treasonous clique who are destroying Europe because of their abject servility to U.S.-led Western imperialism.
To put it crudely, Europe is being abused like a bondage plaything for the Washington and European elites. Shudder the thought of Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas in dominatrix garb or Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz as the gimps. But sometimes, the truth can be stranger than fiction.
Russian President Vladimir Putin nailed it this week when he slammed European political heads who are “dancing to the tune of the Americans.” In an address to the Collective Security Treaty Organization summit in Kazakhstan, Putin said the crisis over Ukraine showed that European so-called leaders have no independence or autonomy. They are non-entities as far as serving the democratic interests of their nations is concerned.
Instead of pushing for a diplomatic solution to the worst conflict on the European continent since World War Two, European political elites are slavishly going along with Washington’s criminal proxy war against Russia, which is in danger of spiraling into a nuclear Armageddon.
This week the buffoonish former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson openly admitted that the conflict in Ukraine was a proxy war against Russia. But that didn’t give Johnson pause for thought or shame. He urged the Europeans to send more weapons to Ukraine. Nor did his crass candidness elicit any outcry or condemnation. Johnson, the imbecile, was, in effect, confirming what Russia has been warning is the essence of the conflict in Ukraine – a U.S.-led war using Ukrainian cannon fodder.
Then, we had the chief of Britain’s intelligence agency MI6, “Sir” Richard Moore, holding forth to an audience in Paris that Russia’s Putin was causing “staggeringly reckless sabotage” across Europe. The British spymaster claimed that Russia was threatening the continent with nuclear weapons to weaken NATO support for Ukraine. He omitted the glaring fact that the U.S., Britain, and France have dramatically escalated the conflict by supplying a NeoNazi regime in Ukraine with long-range missiles to strike Russia.
Meanwhile, the governments in Germany and Nordic countries are issuing dire public warnings for people to “get ready for war” by building bomb shelters in their homes and stocking up on non-perishable foods.
You could hardly make this insanity up except in the dystopian novels of George Orwell. The continent is being led by the nose to disaster by politicians and corporate-controlled media who have lost their minds. They long ago lost any self-respect or independence and are simply acting as the most pathetic surrogates for U.S.-led imperialism.
Even without the ultimate catastrophe of war, Europe has been brought to ruination by elitist politicians who have unquestioningly followed the American agenda of trying to strategically defeat Russia through a proxy war.
Central to this U.S. strategic objective is vanquishing decades of mutually beneficial energy trade between Europe and Russia. The sanctions imposed on the Nord Stream gas pipelines by Trump during his first administration, followed by the blowing up of the pipes by the Biden administration in September 2022, are testimony to that bigger picture. None of the European governments or their news media properly investigated that huge crime of state-sponsored terrorism.
The proxy war and sanctions on Russian energy that the European leaders happily went along with have caused the European economies to implode. Critical commentators talk about the deindustrialization of Europe.
Even the Financial Times, in a recent in-depth report on Germany’s “broken economy”, sounded aghast at “the most pronounced downturn in Germany’s postwar history.” The report surveys auto, chemical and engineering sectors crucial to the German economy and cites “high energy costs” as the detrimental factor.
However, the Western media, even in supposed “in-depth reports” like the Financial Times, are careful not to spell out the obvious cause of Europe’s economic collapse: the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine and the consequent damage in Europe’s relations with Russia.
Media reports deplore a “jobs massacre” in Germany’s industrial giants like Volkswagen and Thyssenkrupp without explaining the cause as if the calamity is somehow random misfortune.
As if that is not bad enough, the incoming Trump administration is lining up heavy tariffs on exports from Europe as well as China, Canada, and Mexico. That will be a coup de grâce for the European economies delivered by its American ally.
Europe is in this appalling predicament – facing economic ruin amid a potential military conflagration – all because it has been misled by people like Ursula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, France’s Macron, Germany’s Scholz (and Angela Merkel before him), and Netherlands former premier Mark Rutte, who is now the gung-ho head of NATO calling for more European weapons to Ukraine. Many others can be named from the Nordic countries, Poland, and the Baltic states. Rather fittingly, the European elitist political class has a long and vile history of Russophobia, going back to collaboration with Nazi Germany in its genocidal aggression against the Soviet Union.
The tragedy of Europe is not something mysterious or ill-fated. It is the direct result of elitist rulers who have assiduously conducted policies that harm European citizens. These charlatan leaders are shameless in their Russophobia and surrogacy for U.S.-led Western imperialism – even to the point of killing their own people through economic devastation or worse – world war.
The conflict in Ukraine is solvable through negotiations and dialogue that acknowledges the historical causes. From Russia’s point of view that pertains to NATO’s treacherous expansionism since the end of the Cold War.
But this is the deep dilemma facing Europe. Not one of the politicians (apart from a few honorable exceptions) is capable of thinking or acting independently because they are ideological slaves.
Rational diplomacy and respect for democracy and peace are beyond these political degenerates. Their complicity in a bankrupt system of Western imperialism makes them incapable of doing the right thing for humanity. That’s why the vile history of wars keeps repeating. They and their corrupt, warmongering system must be swept aside.
Kremlin rejects accusations of meddling in EU state’s election
RT | November 29, 2024
Accusations of Russian meddling in Romania’s presidential election are “absolutely groundless,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
On Thursday, Romania’s top security body, the Supreme Defense Council, claimed that it has evidence of cyberattacks being carried out to influence voting in the first round of the election on November 24. The EU and NATO member became a target of “hostile actions by state and non-state actors, especially Russia,” it alleged.
On the same day, the country’s Constitutional Court ordered a recount of the ballots from the vote, which was surprisingly won by nationalist independent candidate Calin Georgescu, who is a critic of NATO and a staunch opponent of arming Ukraine.
When addressed on the issue by journalists on Friday, Peskov said that “we are not in the habit of interfering in elections in other countries, in particular in Romania, and we do not intend to do so now.”
By pointing the finger at Moscow, the authorities in Bucharest are “mimicking the basic trend that exists in the West in this regard,” he said.
The trend is “if something happens, one should blame Russia first,” the spokesman explained, referring to unsubstantiated accusations of election meddling previously made against Moscow in the US and elsewhere.
Georgescu clinched 22.94% of the ballots in the vote on Saturday and is scheduled to take on liberal leftist candidate Elena Lasconi, who got 19.18%, in the runoff on December 8.
Following the decision to recount ballots, Georgescu issued a statement saying that “an attempt is being made, in the harshest form, to deprive the Romanian people of the ability to think and choose in accordance with their own moral, Christian and democratic principles.”
“The state institutions create instability out of balance and anger out of peace. We cannot allow our people to be forever enslaved by the manipulations of the institutions that lead the people, but which are, in fact, not led by the people,” he insisted.
Lasconi also condemned the ruling by the Constitutional Court and said that the judicial body “is interfering in the democratic process for the second time,” referring to the court banning right-wing candidate Diana Iovanovici-Sosoaca from taking part in the election. “One combats extremism through votes, not backstage games,” she insisted.
Washington’s War in Ukraine: Narrowing Options, Growing Consequences
By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – November 29, 2024
Russia’s use of its Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile in eastern Ukraine represents an unprecedented escalation in what began as a US proxy war against Russia in 2014.
The missile’s capabilities represent a serious non-nuclear means of striking targets anywhere in Europe without the collective West’s ability to sufficiently defend against it.
The possibility of the West now facing direct consequences for what has so far been a proxy war, may reintroduce rational thought across the West otherwise not required when spending the lives of others. It may, however, cause Western policymakers to double down, confident in the belief that they remain decoupled from any possible consequences despite unprecedented escalation.
The missile’s use is only the latest demonstration of Russia’s military and escalatory dominance amid the ongoing proxy war. It alone would be unable to significantly impact the fighting, but because the Russian Federation over the last two decades has invested deeply in the fundamentals of national defense, it compliments a range of other capabilities serving as a deterrence against continued Western encroachment.
Before the deployment of the Oreshnik, the progress of Russian forces along the line of contact in Ukraine had been accelerating, triggering panic across the capitals of Western nations. This was not achieved through any single “wonder weapon,” but through Russia’s post-Cold War strategy of preparing its military forces and its military industrial capacity to wage a large-scale, prolonged, and intense conflict against Western-backed forces building up along Russia’s borders.
This included the development and large-scale production of both simple and advanced weapons ranging from main battle tanks and other armored vehicles, to drones, cruise missiles, air defense systems, and electronic warfare capabilities.
Because Russia’s arms industry operates under state-owned enterprises prioritizing state needs over generating profit, the systems required in terms of both quality and quantity were made available. This was possible because surplus production capacity had been maintained across a large number of Russian arms production facilities. Excess labor and equipment that would have been slashed by private enterprise across the West to maximize profits was maintained if and when needed. Come February 2022, this excess capacity was utilized and has since been the central factor contributing to Russia’s growing success against NATO-backed forces in Ukraine.
The West, on the other hand, is suffering a growing military industrial crisis. Excess production capacity needs to be built from scratch, taking years or longer. Across the collective West, skilled labor shortages prevent assembly lines from being expanded significantly, even if the will and resources exist to do so. In all areas of production, from air defense missiles to artillery shells, the collective West is struggling to meet even the most meager production targets.
Washington, determined to prevail in Ukraine either outright or through severely overextending Russia amid this proxy war, has steadily escalated the conflict from 2014 when the US overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, to 2019 when the US began arming Ukrainian forces already being trained by NATO, to full-spectrum sanctions on Russia from 2022 onward, to the transfer of artillery, tanks, aircraft, and long-range missiles the US has now finally authorized strikes into Russia itself with.
Each escalation represents an attempt by Washington and its European proxies to inflict prohibitive costs on Russia. As each escalation falls far short of doing so, additional escalations are devised.
Recently, France and the UK have discussed the possibility of sending their own troops into Ukraine as yet another serious escalation of a war the collective West is already all but fighting against Russia directly.
It should be remembered that the US is also engineering crises elsewhere along Russia’s periphery, including Georgia as well as Syria, to similarly overextend Russia. Recent military operations carried out by US-backed extremists in Syria were likely prepared months in advance and launched as a substitute for the Westn’s own inability to overpower Russia in Ukraine.
Narrowing Options, Growing Consequences
Even without the Oreshnik’s appearance amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, it is clear that the West’s attempts to escalate versus Russia have fallen far short of extending Russia in the manner many Western analysts, politicians, and military leaders have hoped.
The wider geopolitical effect appears to be bolstering rather than undermining the shift from US-led unipolarism toward multipolarism.
Options for escalating are narrowing for the West. The deployment of Western forces in Ukraine would lead to the same problems Ukrainian troops themselves face – a lack of artillery shells, armored vehicles, and air defense systems to protect their forces from the 4,000+ missiles Russia has fired on Ukraine each year.
The Oreshnik itself represents a non-nuclear means of striking at any target either in Ukraine or across the rest of Europe. It would be a means by which to inflict serious damage on European and American military targets in the region, further reducing the West’s already dwindling military power. The missile, like many others in Russia’s growing arsenal, would be able to overcome Western air and missile defenses both because of fundamental flaws in their performance and because Western stockpiles of interceptors have been exhausted with no means of readily replenishing them.
Because the collective West’s military industrial capacity is so limited versus its overreaching pursuit of global primacy, the use of its military aviation, cruise missiles, and other existing capabilities can only be committed in one of at least three primary regions of focus – Europe, the Middle East, or the Asia-Pacific.
Were the US and Europe to commit significant forces to a direct conflict with Russia in Ukraine, even if it fell short of nuclear war, it would exhaust military power the West sought to preserve for potential war with either Iran and/or China. While there would be no guarantee that these capabilities would tilt the conflict in Ukraine back in their favor, it would guarantee that US-European ambitions in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific would be forfeited indefinitely.
It could be that the US seeks to extend its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine across the rest of Europe, with the US itself preserving its military capabilities for its continued involvement in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific. But the conflict in Ukraine has exposed fundamental flaws in the collective West’s system overall. A system incapable of collectively overpowering Russia, having exhausted itself in the process of trying, will have less fortune still overpowering a much larger and more capable China.
While the US may believe it improves its chances by shifting the burden of intervention in Ukraine to its European proxies, the US still suffers from a fundamental inability itself to produce the number of arms and ammunition required to fight a similar conflict in the Asia-Pacific.
The introduction of the Oreshnik, a capability China will also almost certainly be capable of producing if it does not already possess it – represents a further means of deterring the US and its proxies – a promise of non-nuclear consequences in a missile exchange the US and Europe would enter at a disadvantage. This, on top of a large and growing disparity in terms of military industrial capacity, confines US and European options to resorting to nuclear weapons or reformulating a more realistic and constructive foreign policy in the first place.
Because Russia and China possess their own large and growing stockpiles of nuclear weapons – the West’s use of such weapons really isn’t an option. But because the current circles of power in the West lack the military strength, intelligence, and moral fortitude to reformulate their foreign policy, from their point of view, they may believe in the possibility of a limited nuclear war they could emerge from with an advantage, believing this may be their only option. Thus, the notion of mutually assured destruction must be fully impressed upon the West now as it was during the Cold War, reintroducing the fear of personal consequences for policymakers so rational thought unnecessary when spending the lives of others can be reintroduced into the equation.
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.
A ‘position of strength’ for the West and Ukraine doesn’t exist anymore
As long as Kiev’s backers keep deluding themselves that Russia can be defeated or forced to accept unfavorable terms, the war will not end
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | November 28, 2024
“To negotiate from a position of strength” is a favorite cliché of the West. And understandably so, as that short phrase is quite handy: It serves to cover up the opposite of a genuine negotiation, namely vulgar blackmail and crude imposition of fait-accompli terms, backed up by force and threats of force.
The expansion of NATO after the end of the Cold War, for instance, was handled in that manner: “Oh, but we are willing to talk,” the West kept saying to Russia, “and, meanwhile, we will do exactly as we please, and your objections, interests, and security be damned.”
This approach seemed to “work” – very much for want of a better term – as long as Russia was weakened by the unusually deep political, economic, social, military, and, indeed, spiritual crisis that accompanied the end of the Soviet Union and outlasted it for roughly a decade.
When, finally, Moscow tried to put the West on notice that Russia had recovered sufficiently to demand a healthier style of interaction, Western media informed their publics only in a biased and superficial manner. And Western elites reacted with irritation, while also failing to at least take seriously what irritated them. That is what happened, for instance, after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s now famous speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. Yes, that long ago already.
In other words, Western elites obstinately kept insisting on believing in their own rhetoric, even while it was quickly losing whatever tenuous link to reality it had, for a short moment that was historically anomalous. While Russia’s (and not only Russia’s) “strength” was clearly increasing and that of the West decreasing, non-”negotiating” by force and fait accompli remained a Western addiction. That, obviously, is a large part of the very sad story of how Ukraine was turned into rubble.
Which brings us to the present. At this point, it takes clinical-grade delusion not to notice that “strength” is on Moscow’s side in the war in and over Ukraine. Russian troops are “advancing at the fastest rate” since early 2022, the gung-ho, pro-NATO British Telegraph admits. Ukraine’s forces remain over-aged, over-matched, over-burdened, and stretched thin. Units designed to hold a 5-kilometer line are frequently assigned to 10 or 15 kilometers. Russia has clear, even crushing superiority in artillery and sheer manpower as well: ordinary soldiers, NCOs, and officers – all are scarce on the Ukrainian side. Ukraine’s predictably wasteful August incursion into the Kursk Region of Russia, meanwhile, faces an intense Russian counterattack that, as the Wall Street Journal admits coyly, “appears to be working.” Russia’s pressure in an air war waged with various missiles and drones is relentless.
Unsurprisingly, the mood of Ukraine’s population is reflecting these difficulties. The Economist – only slightly more refined than the Telegraph in its stoutly Russophobic bellicosity – reports Gallup polls showing that a majority of Ukrainians want negotiations to end the war. Within a year, their share has risen from 27% to 52%, while those claiming that they would prefer to go on to the bitter end (misnaming that option as “victory” ) has declined from 63% to 38%. If those false “friends of Ukraine,” who apparently believe friendship consists in burning up your buddies in a proxy war, were serious about their once so fashionable rhetoric about Ukrainians’ “agency,” they would now be helping the Ukrainians to make peace by concessions.
All the more as Ukrainian pollsters confirm the Gallup data, according to Ukrainian semi-dissident news site Strana.ua. They found that almost two thirds of Ukrainians (64%) are ready for “freezing” the war along the current front lines, that is by giving up on all territories under de facto Russian control. Well over half (56%) think that “victory” should not be defined as retaking all territories within Ukraine’s 1991 borders. Meaning they, too, explicitly disagree with the long-held, if now perhaps quietly eroding, official position of the Zelensky regime and are prepared to concede territory for peace. And while reading such poll figures, always keep in mind that Ukraine is now a de facto authoritarian, media-streamlined, and oppressive country where voicing doubt takes special courage – or despair.
And then, there is Trump. Despite his campaign promises to rapidly shut down the proxy war, it remains impossible to predict what exactly president-elect Donald Trump will do once he is inaugurated in January. It would be imprudent to simply assume that he will force the Zelensky regime into a peace Moscow can agree to. Trump has chosen retired General Keith Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine. Kellogg, at this stage, represents the ambiguity of the Trumpist approach: He is the co-author of a think-tank paper published before the elections under the title “America First, Russia, & Ukraine.” While its policy proposals provide more reasons to worry for Kiev than Moscow, the paper also displays unrealistic assumptions, such as that Russia can still be coerced by threats of further escalation or will settle for a mere postponing – instead of complete elimination – of Ukraine’s NATO perspective.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for one, has just articulated a certain skepticism, declaring that a settlement is still far off, in essence, because the West is not yet ready to face reality. This, again, is all the more likely as Moscow insists not only on territorial changes but also real neutrality for Ukraine, taking NATO membership – whether official or by stealth – off the table forever.
And yet, there can be no doubt that from Kiev’s perspective, Trump and at least part of his team look and very well could be dangerous. Not, really, for Ukraine and ordinary Ukrainians, who need this initially avoidable war to end, but for the Zelensky regime and the often corrupt, war-profiteering elites tied to it. In addition, reports are emerging that Trump’s team is also considering opening direct contact with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. That as well could be a sign that Trump’s inauguration may really be followed by a political turn against continuing the proxy war, insofar as claims that North Korean combat troops have entered the war on Russia’s side have served to justify the Western escalation of helping Ukraine fire Western missiles into Russia.
In short, the West and Ukraine’s Zelensky regime are on the back foot, militarily, geopolitically, and in terms of popular support inside Ukraine as well. And what is their reaction? This is where there’s another perverse twist as only Western elites can come up with: With its proxy war project of using Ukraine to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in tatters, instead of signaling a willingness to change course, the West – whether sincerely or as a bluff – is outdoing itself in militant rhetoric and some serious escalatory action, too.
In Washington, the outgoing Biden administration’s decision not simply to permit but to assist in the launching of Western missiles into Russia is only the tip of the iceberg. Crushingly defeated in the elections and clearly without a real mandate, the Democrats are doing everything they can to heap up more combustible material between the West and Russia: Moscow is facing yet more sanctions affecting its banking and energy sector, the delivery of US land mines to Ukraine, and Washington’s official lifting of restrictions on US mercenaries getting active in Ukraine (not that that makes much of a real-life difference; they are, of course, already there). US secretary of state Antony Blinken has been explicit that the aim is to release a maximum amount of aid before Trump comes into office with the intention – unrealistic yet destructive – of making Ukraine fit to fight next year.
In Europe, the UK has already rapidly followed the US lead – as is its wont – and also helped Ukraine fire missiles into Russia. With France, things seem a little murkier in that regard, but that may only be due to Paris preferring to do things a little more quietly. In any case, London and Paris have come together, if in a haphazard way, in once again publicly toying with the harebrained notion of bringing Western ground forces – including officially, not black-ops/mercenary style as of now – into the war. The ideas reported are vague and contradictory, it is true: the spectrum of potential deployment seems to reach from sending NATO-Europeans – for instance, French, British, or Polish troops – to die on the frontlines in a direct clash with a battle-hardened, well-equipped, and highly motivated Russian army to much more modest schemes, involving stationing them in what will be left of Ukraine after the fighting ends.
It is also unclear whether the reports of such plans – if that is the word – first surfacing in the French newspaper Le Monde are to be taken seriously at all. We may be looking at another hapless attempt to produce “strategic ambiguity,” i.e. to try to impress Moscow with things Moscow knows the West cannot really do. If so, the West can’t even keep up a poker face: British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has already come out to reassure the British public that his country will not send ground troops. Even tiny Estonia felt a need to chime in: Its defense minister Hanno Pevkur has publicly argued against sending ground troops, too. Instead, he suggested, the West should ramp up its financial and military-industrial support for Ukraine.
And that, it seems, may be where things are really going. Or, at least, where the West’s most stubborn bellicists want to take them. In the case of the UK and France as well, not all discussions have focused on troops. Instead, the military enterprises DCI (in France) and Babcock (in Britain) are a key part of the debates. In addition, there are, of course, ongoing training efforts. The UK has by now pre-processed over 40,000 Ukrainian troops for the proxy war meat grinder. France is setting up a whole brigade.
It is a wide-open question if European NATO members, economically squeezed and soon to be at least semi-abandoned by the US, will be able to afford such a strategy. Most likely, not. And yet, what matters for now are elite illusions that it could. Trying alone will be extremely destructive, for the people of Europe as well as of Ukraine.
If I were Ukrainian, I would look at all of this with dread, because if that is the NATO-European approach to keeping the war going – boosting equipment and training – then it, of course, means that even more Ukrainians will have to be mobilized and sacrificed. Indeed, the Biden desperados have just put fresh pressure on Kiev to lower the conscription age to 18 and sacrifice even more Ukrainians in a lost war. Their prospects are grim, and by now, they are openly told so, by no one less than Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief. Speaking to Ukrainian troops training in Britain, Valery Zaluzhny has just stressed that dying is their most likely fate. The West and its Ukrainian servants have reached the “Banzai!” charge stage of the war. But then, Zaluzhny also believes that World War Three has already started. So, nothing to lose, it seems.
Yet here is the final irony of this bleak picture: In the US, Joe Biden is the lamest of ducks, discredited in every way conceivable, including his de facto participation in Israel’s Gaza genocide. Emmanuel Macron in France must be the least popular president since the Fifth Republic started in the late 1950s, kept in office by constitutional mis-design and manipulation; Britain’s Keir Starmer has alienated his people to such an extent that an unprecedented de facto plebiscite is on its way to get rid of him. It won’t be able to actually push him out, but it certainly signals the depth of the public’s contempt. And Valery Zaluzhny, from Ukraine, but currently a misfit of an ambassador in London? He may actually have quite a future in Ukrainian politics, which is precisely why he was exiled to Britain. But for now, he, too, is a marginalized, sometimes slightly comical figure.
Acting “from a position of strength”? It is striking: Not only is the West in general no longer in that position. The most belligerent figures in the West now often are the ones with the weakest popular mandates at home. Compensatory behavior? A desperate attempt to distract from or to overcome that weakness? Sheer arrogance reaching delusional loss-of-reality level? Who knows? What is certain is that as long as the West is under this kind of management, Lavrov will be right and peace will remain remote.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
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From the Archives
Nuking Itself… How Russophobia Led the U.S. to Bomb its Own Citizens
By Finian Cunningham – Strategic Culture Foundation – October 26, 2020
Generations of countless Americans have been contaminated and sickened by the first-ever atomic bomb test. The Trinity explosion on July 16, 1945, was carried out in the New Mexico desert. Three weeks later, two A-bombs were dropped on Japan, killing up to 200,000 people.
But the number of American victims caused by radiation fallout from the Trinity test is reckoned to be also imponderably high. The American government conducted the explosion in secret, unbeknownst to the population of New Mexico. That was in spite of warnings from Manhattan Project scientists of a high risk to public health from the extreme radiation. Without a warning to the public and because of a cover-up about the event, countless Americans were exposed to carcinogenic radiation.
In a recent interview with Karl Grossman, New Mexican resident Tina Cordova tells how her community has been campaigning for decades to find out the truth behind the Trinity test and to seek reparations from the federal government. Incredibly, there has never been a federal investigation into establishing the human health impact from that atomic test explosion. But Cordova and her community estimate that the number is huge. She is the fourth generation in her family to have suffered from cancer. Countless others tell of high numbers of infant mortality over the decades and other morbidities that stretch across the entire state of New Mexico. … continue
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