Sputnik – 06.06.2024
ALMATY – Sergei Shoigu, a former Russian defense minister who now chairs the national security council, accused NATO on Thursday of increasing the number of military drills along the western and northern flank of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in what he said was a preparation for invasion.
“The alliance has been building up military presence and deploying new weapons along the northern and western flanks of the collective security zone. The number of airspace provocations is on the rise, and numerous military exercises are being conducted to train, among other things, for an invasion of CSTO countries’ territories,” Shoigu told fellow secretaries of CSTO member states’ security councils.
He called “NATO’s continuous expansion” a direct threat for CSTO allies. The Russian official said the West was using the conflict in Ukraine as a weapon against Russia in the hope of inflicting as much damage as possible.
“The West is pursuing the obvious goal of using Ukraine as a weapon against Russia in order to inflict as much damage as possible on our country. It has become absolutely clear that the attempt to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia has failed,” Shoigu said.
Turning to the CSTO’s eastern flank, Shoigu said Russia was concerned about new militant training camps cropping up across Afghanistan and jihadists flocking to the Central Asian country from Syria and Iraq. He said the risk of terrorist spillovers was increasing.
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 5, 2024
Is NATO planning something big in Ukraine? Are we on the cusp now of WWIII really breaking out since the U.S. has now backed the idea that Ukraine can fire missiles beyond its borders into Russia?
The news that President Joe Biden has given the go-ahead for long-range missiles to be fired into Russia should be worrying for a number of reasons. The dangerous game of escalation that the West is playing will have a breaking point in the not too distant future. The question is whether the West really understands how Putin thinks as it is presently betting on no retaliation from Russia, which is not only erroneous but very, very dangerous. Recent missile strikes into Russian territory destroyed two radar installations which western press refuse to report. The significance of this strike is important as the more Ukraine loses on the battlefield, the more desperate its tactics, egged on by western leaders who still think that their stake in the war is minimal. Although just recently Germany’s leader Scholz did a U-turn at a conference in Berlin with French President Macron — in backing the missile strikes into Russia plan — the truth is that officially NATO does not support the plan, which is why the UK is doing it independently using Storm Shadows operated by SAS soldiers.
This has been going on for months and so in many respects the news that the U.S. has authorised the practice could be taken lightly. What’s new? Or, more to the point, is Ukraine going to use longer-range U.S. missiles to keep up with such strikes like the radar stations? Does it have enough missiles in stock is also an important question.
With this strategy in play, we are looking in all scenarios at the slow demise of NATO as the more that such strikes occur, the more it is evident that NATO is a defunct organisation and only really a talk shop at best. NATO members are divided on an overall strategy with Ukraine and so member states do their own thing. If we see more of these strikes, the pressure on Putin to react will be overwhelming but when that time comes, he will practice an eye-for-an-eye strategy and strike the equivalent military installations within Europe or at least Ukraine’s drones operating in the Black Sea. This will be a shock for the West. It will take some days for such a strike to be seen for what it is: a warning. The message will be the escalation game has its limits and you’ve gone over a line.
But are the recent reports of a new offensive in the planning from NATO genuine? Probably not. Just like the reports of Putin wanting to negotiate a peace deal now. Both fake news reports are part of a strategy of panic from the Biden administration which really needs some sort of victory in Ukraine to present to the American people. Yet all of the aces are with Putin and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of falling into these traps. Putin has been pretty consistent in how he sees any kind of peace deal. Denazification, demilitarisation and no deal on NATO membership. The reasons why peace talks are a mere figment of the imagination of western journalists who sink to new lows is that the West cannot entertain any of these requests and has taken so much control of the media that its leaders are starting to believe their own BS. The fourth requirement also of Putin’s is that he can’t negotiate peace with a leader in the Ukraine who no longer has legitimacy as a president. One wonders how long the West can continue to kick up a fuss about that one.
RT | June 5, 2024
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has argued that the assassination attempt that nearly killed him last month emanated from foreign-backed politicians who refuse to accept foreign policies that prioritize Bratislava’s interests over the agendas of major Western powers.
Fico posted a video statement on Wednesday, marking his first public appearance since the May 15 shooting in which he was critically wounded. He credited medical workers with saving his life and said he expects to resume at least some of his work duties by around the end of this month or in early July.
The PM condemned efforts to downplay the assassination attempt and blame it entirely on a deranged gunman. “I forgive him and let him sort out what he did and why he did it, in his own head,” Fico said. “In the end, it is evident that he was only a messenger of evil and political hatred, which the politically unsuccessful and frustrated opposition developed in Slovakia to unmanageable proportions.”
Fico returned to power for a fourth term as prime minister after his Slovak Social Democracy (SMER-SD) party won the country’s parliamentary election last September. He said his wounds from last month’s shooting were so severe that it would be a “minor miracle” for him to resume his work duties within a few weeks. He warned against efforts by political adversaries – including media outlets bankrolled by billionaire political activist George Soros – to shrug off the implications of the attempted assassination.
“I want to ask the anti-government media, especially those co-owned by the financial structure of George Soros, not to go down this path and to respect not only the gravity of reasons for the attempted murder, but also the consequences of this attempt,” Fico said.
The long-time leader added that he had been warning for several months of likely political violence because of the “hatred and aggressiveness” of Slovakia’s opposition parties. He lamented that major Western democracies stood silent as those parties attacked political opponents and stoked hatred.
He warned that more political violence is to be expected if opposition forces continue on their present course. “The horror of May 15th, which you all had the opportunity to see practically live, will continue, and there will be more victims.”
“Violent and hateful excesses against legitimate governmental power are tolerated at the international level without any comment,” Fico added. “The opposition was unable to assess, because no one forced them to do so, where their aggressive and hateful politics had led sections of the society, and it was only a matter of time before a tragedy would occur.”
Fico claimed the parties that ruled Slovakia from 2020 to 2023 did whatever larger Western democracies demanded, including treating Russia and China as “mortal enemies.” The previous Bratislava regime also “looted” Slovak military stockpiles to provide weapons to Ukraine, he added. After returning to power in October, Fico’s government halted such aid, raising the ire of NATO powers.
“It is precisely the conflict in Ukraine that the EU and NATO have elevated even more, literally sanctifying the concept of the single correct opinion – namely that the war in Ukraine must continue at any cost in order to weaken the Russian Federation,” Fico said. “Anyone who does not identify with this single mandatory opinion is immediately labeled as a Russian agent and politically marginalized internationally. It is a cruel observation, but the right to a different opinion has ceased to exist in the EU.”
RT | June 5, 2024
Russia is considering “asymmetric” measures against Kiev’s sponsors due to Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied weapons against its territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
The Russian leader’s remarks came at a meeting with heads of international news agencies on Wednesday, on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
“We have no illusions in this regard,” Putin added, repeating his prior comments that Ukrainian troops might be pulling the trigger but the US and its allies are providing the intelligence and targeting information.
Russia will respond by boosting air defenses and destroying these missiles, Putin said.
“Secondly, if someone deems it possible to supply such weapons to the war zone, to strike our territory… why shouldn’t we supply similar weapons to those regions of the world, where they will be used against sensitive sites of these countries?” the Russian president added. “We can respond asymmetrically. We will give it a thought.”
If the West continues to escalate, such actions “will completely destroy international relations and undermine international security,” Putin noted.
“If we see that these countries are being drawn into a war against us, and this is their direct participation in the war against Russia, then we reserve the right to act in a similar way. This is a recipe for very serious problems,” he warned.
The Russian president also brought up the fact that some military instructors and advisers from NATO countries have already been deployed to Ukraine, and that a number of them were killed in Russian strikes.
The US and its allies have insisted that providing weapons and equipment to Ukraine does not make them party to the conflict with Russia, and maintained certain restrictions on their use to preserve that perception. Last month, however, as Russian troops began advancing towards Kharkov, Ukraine began to demand the relaxation of those rules. A British-led pressure campaign eventually resulted in Washington complying with Kiev’s wishes.
RT | June 4, 2024
US President Joe Biden’s vision of peace for Ukraine does not mean having that country as part of the US-led military bloc, according to his interview with Time magazine, published on Tuesday.
Biden sat down with Time’s editor in chief and Washington bureau chief at the White House on May 28, speaking about his policy on Ukraine, China, Israel and election-related matters.
“Peace looks like making sure Russia never, never, never, never occupies Ukraine. That’s what peace looks like. And it doesn’t mean NATO, they are part of NATO,” Biden said, when asked about the endgame in Ukraine.
“It means we have a relationship with them like we do with other countries, where we supply weapons so they can defend themselves in the future,” he added. “But it is not, if you notice, I was the one when – and you guys did report it at TIME – the one that I was saying that I am not prepared to support the NATOization of Ukraine.”
Biden then argued that the West is “on a slippery slope for war if we don’t do something about Ukraine,” and that if Kiev falls then “you’ll see Poland go, and you’ll see all those nations along the actual border of Russia, from the Balkans and Belarus, all those, they’re going to make their own accommodations.”
According to Biden, he approved the release of intelligence about the Russian “invasion” of Ukraine “to let the world know we were still in charge. We still know what’s going on.”
“We are, we are the world power,” the 81-year-old Democrat told Time. As proof, he pointed to the June 2021 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland, where the Russian leader allegedly said he wanted to see “the Finlandization of NATO.”
“I told him, he’s gonna get not the Finlandization [of NATO but], the NATOization of Finland. And everybody thought, including you guys, thought I was crazy,” Biden said. “And guess what? I did it. I did it. And we’re now the strongest nation.”
In December 2021, Russia sent the US and NATO two draft security treaties, seeking a pledge that Ukraine would never join the US-led bloc, among other things. In January 2022, Washington and Brussels snubbed Moscow’s proposal, insisting that NATO has an “open door” policy not subject to outside veto. The Russian military operation in Ukraine began a month later.
By Gilbert Doctorow | June 4, 2024
Having committed to an outlay of 60 euros for a social club luncheon which was to be addressed by the Belgian minister of defense, Admiral Michel Hofman, speaking on how the ministry is preparing for what it calls ‘geopolitical evolution,’ meaning World War III, I was more than a little disappointed to learn, as we were standing by our seats awaiting our ‘at ease’ orders, that our speaker would be a no-show. Apparently he was called away to confer with colleagues in the government, and since this government has only one week to enjoy its perquisites before it is swept away by the June 9th parliamentary elections, the minister’s priorities are understandable if unforgivable from our perspective as paying guests.
Happily, however, at the initiative of the club’s president and of some attendees who have military standing, a chap from the ministry who is responsible for human resources was rushed in, had a quick bite to eat now that we all had advanced to the main course while awaiting his arrival, and then provided us all with what I am about to present below.
For obvious reasons, HR is in the spotlight now that the number one question facing this and other member states of NATO and of the EU is whether they can and will rise to the challenge of a Russian ‘imperialist menace’ and do the right thing, namely impose mandatory military service on the young and swell the ranks of their military forces. At my table, there was already a lively discussion of the socializing benefits of national service for the young, as if this issue were entirely separate from its context of a coming war that will utterly destroy the Continent.
If I may telegraph my punches, the key learning from the talk of our stand-in speaker is that there is no money to pay for masses of conscripts. Indeed, the Ministry is already struggling to cope with personnel costs that eat up between 80 and 85% of the defense budget. Belgium may have just 18,000 men in the services, but it would appear that keeping them in clothes, food and pensions is already a great burden. Moreover, given the professionalization of the armed forces in recent decades, it is estimated that it takes 18 months to bring a new recruit up to speed on the equipment he is supposed to be using on the missions of his units. Six months or even a year in uniform will not do much to make the recruits net contributors to the nation’s defense.
Yes, the Belgian military is tiny. Our admiral has under him a total of 5 mine sweepers, 2 frigates and 2 patrol boats (source: Wikipedia). For that reason the principal concern is the first from among what our speaker called the three ‘coups’ of war making – solidarity with fellow NATO members, self-defense, and facilitating the ‘arrival of the cavalry’ which means giving logistical support through the port of Antwerp to arriving forces and equipment from North America.
After all, in Belgium the second ‘coup,’ defending itself, comes down to air defense, for which it is today utterly unprepared, like all other EU member states, as we know not just from the hints of today’s speaker but from full-blown articles these past several days in The Financial Times. And as for the ‘cavalry,’ it seems that this ministry does not count on the reliability of Washington any longer.
There you have it in a nutshell: Belgium cannot and will not increase its armed forces; and Belgium is wholly committed to solidarity with its NATO confrères for the simple reason that it has no independent military capabilities. Indeed, as our speaker noted, one of the most positive consequences of the Ukraine-Russia war has been to drive solidarity among NATO members to new heights. This can only be to Belgium’s benefit.
Or can it?
Usually in luncheons like this, we have a fairly generous time allotted to Q&A, but today we were running late by the time we reached desert and the microphone was given to only one person. By the luck of being seated close to the dais and of being quickest to raise my hand, that person was me.
And so I posed my question: is solidarity really so fine when the policy of NATO is to issue ever more provocations to the Russians, to pose what they consider to be existential threats, including the shipment of F16s to Ukraine and the latest decision to ‘free the hands of Kiev’ to use the long range missiles being provided to it by the US, by the UK, by France to strike deep into the Russian heartland. If NATO member states are not prepared today physically and morally to enter into a direct, frontal war with Russia then why are we doing this?
Dear readers, you will not be surprised to hear that I got no answer to my question worth repeating.
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 03.06.2024
In an interview with UK media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made the claim that if former US President Trump gets reelected and cuts off aid to his country, he will become a “loser president” responsible for the US losing its spot as the World’s leader, but that has already happened and it was the US support of Ukraine that hastened it.
Since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, the United States and NATO bet hundreds of billions of dollars that they could propel the Kiev regime to victory by outfitting it with some of the best weapons in NATO’s arsenal.
Despite Russia’s larger economy, population size and military, Ukraine could win, the thinking went, by using the vastly superior NATO weaponry and training. Of course, the US and NATO didn’t hand over their very best weapons right away, but it would surely be enough to defeat the Russian army that was portrayed as ill-equipped and untrained in Western media outlets.
When that didn’t work, NATO and the US upped the stakes, giving newer and ostensibly even more invincible weapons to Ukraine, they too failed.
Now, armed with the best weapons NATO could afford to give away, and full permission to strike inside Russia despite the risk of escalation, Ukraine is still being defeated on the battlefield. The whole world has seen for itself that NATO weapons are not equipped with force fields; they can be destroyed and are being destroyed at an alarming rate.
Last year, Trump claimed that he would end the conflict in Ukraine “within 24 hours” though he did not specify how he intended to accomplish that. When asked who he wants to win, Trump would only say that he wants “everyone to stop dying.”
In his interview with the Guardian, Zelensky admitted that he had not developed a strategy to deal with Trump should he become elected, and seemingly admitted that his country would collapse without US support.
“Ukraine, barehanded, without weapons, will not be able to fight a multimillion army,” he said.
“Does he [Trump] want to become a loser President? Do you understand what can happen?” he added, then saying that if Ukraine loses, it means the US will lose its power in the world as well.
“This is not about him as a person, but about the institutions of the United States. They will become very weak. The US will not be the leader of the world anymore. Yes, it will be powerful, first of all, in the domestic economy because it has a powerful economy without a doubt. But in terms of international influence it will be equal to zero,” the Ukrainian President who has utilized Martial Law to stay in office past his term said.
Of course, the opposite is true. The longer NATO and the US remain involved in Ukraine, the more thoroughly the veneer of NATO invincibility will be shattered. If they continue to increase their involvement and escalate things against Russia, it will only expedite the fall of Western hegemony.
“This is a decisive defeat of NATO, the European Union and the United States” former UN weapon inspector Scott Ritter told Sputnik’s Fault Lines last month. “It’s as decisive as you can get without them being directly involved, and they can’t become directly involved because that is a suicide pill.”
Over the last few weeks, NATO nations started giving the Kiev regime permission to strike inside Russia, culminating in the United States agreeing to it last week, but that too has failed to result in any meaningful change of the battle lines.
“But [Kremlin spokesman Dmitry] Peskov pointed out, you start using long-range missiles against Russia, we’re just going to have to take more of Ukraine [to build a bufferzone]. That’s what he said and he specifically mentioned Kiev,” international relations and security expert Mark Sleboda told Fault Lines.
Peskov also told reporters that the United States is already involved in targeting and aiming their weapons at Russia. “[The weapons] are directly controlled by military personnel of NATO countries,” adding that constituted not just military assistance but “participation in a war against us.”
While Ukraine is not the only factor eating away at Western hegemony, it has played a large role, along with the US support of Israel and general economic trends.
“The world is changing indeed, not only because of the war on Russia in Ukraine but also the war in Gaza… the development of BRICS countries [and] the increase of the Shanghai Cooperation,” explained war correspondent Elijah Magnier on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour. “All these indicators lead to one reality, the beginning of the end of US hegemony.”
While Russia has shown that NATO’s weapons are not superior, it’s the Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, who proved they are ill-equipped for modern war.
“The US and UK are failing in front of non-state actors in the Red Sea… So how can we understand that the Americans are ready to start a war against Russia and then against China?” Magnier added.
Still, with no other hopes or lifelines, Zelensky wants the US to embarrass themselves further by continuing to fund his government, saying that the US losing will encourage other countries to act aggressively. However, Russia and Ukraine were close to signing a peace deal in Istanbul at the start of the conflict. According to Ukrainian officials close to the negotiations, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was sent to Ukraine to sabotage the deal at the behest of the United States.
Ironically, Zelensky says he recently asked Johnson to speak to Trump on his behalf.
Zelensky said he wanted to bring Trump to Ukraine to “see the results of what he brought to Ukraine.” Although Zelensky was referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin “he”, it would have been more accurate if he were referring to US President Joe Biden and/or Johnson, who really brought that destruction to Ukraine and Western hegemony.
“Fifty nations gathered to defeat Russia and they failed… Ukraine has been defeated and Europe is defeated,” Magnier concluded.
By Patrick Poppel | June 3, 2024
Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine in 2014, there has been repeated talk of NATO’s expansion to the east and the advance of Western strategic missile systems.
At that time, the head of the Russian Institute for Strategic Research, General Leonid Reshetnikov, also mentioned this when he gave an interview for Austrian media.He spoke of the possibility that one day there could be American missiles in Kharkov. He also mentioned Ukraine’s possible accession to NATO.
We are currently seeing how Ukraine is successfully attacking several targets in Russia, which are located far behind the front, using Western weapon systems. This increases the radius of the zone that can be assessed as a conflict area. More and more new weapons with longer ranges are now being used. This development is very dangerous because Russia must respond to this situation. Russia cannot possibly accept this.
The deployment of long-range weapons in Ukraine reminds us of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in the Cold War. At that time, the USA also could not accept the stationing of soviet nuclear weapons on Cuba. There are red lines in matters of national security interests and these must be observed by all participants in a conflict.
At that time, the crisis was resolved through the clear and deliberate actions of statesmen from the United States and the Soviet Union. Today, with the Biden administration, we have a completely different prerequisite. Since Obama and the Maidan coup, the flag has been pointing to escalation and President Biden is continuing this course.
It can be assumed that the West will supply all weapons to Ukraine that are requested. Now it is clear to everyone that Ukraine is being used as a battering ram against Russia. The attacks of the last few weeks have clearly shown that it is also about destroying strategic targets in Russia. The attack on the early warning system is the best example of this. Such an attack is unacceptable in the age of nuclear weapons.
Of course, the legitimate question arises as to whether this specific attack was carried out on Ukraine’s own initiative or on the orders of someone else. And if it was really Ukraine’s initiative, there should be clear consequences from the West, as this created a very dangerous situation.
It is always important to monitor the Western media, as political wishes and ideas are always discussed there. There has been repeated talk of the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, especially since 2022. The Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin also called for the delivery of nuclear weapons to Ukraine. This was, of course, an absurd request, but it was discussed for a long time in the media. So you can say that the smell of nuclear war has been in the air for at least 2 years. Since then, many reports on the topic of nuclear conflict have been produced in the German media. This is how Western societies are preparing for the possible use of these weapons.
The situation is really dangerous and, at the latest after the attack on the Russian early warning system, one should really consider ending this conflict as quickly as possible. Let’s think about what the next level of escalation is. If things continue to develop like this, we will be very quick to use tactical nuclear weapons. This point gets closer and closer with each passing week.
By continuing to support Ukraine and, above all, by supplying weapons with a longer range, it cannot be ruled out in the long term that the conflict could also affect other states in Europe.
There is currently discussion as to whether Russian military targets in Belarus should be attacked. This would of course also clearly drag Belarus into this conflict.
Particularly due to the threat to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, an extension of the conflict to the Baltics can no longer be ruled out. But then there would be a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.
The greatest danger at the moment is that there is less and less inhibition to use larger and more far-reaching weapons. This spiral of escalation must be stopped by the West, otherwise the nuclear component of this conflict will become increasingly likely.
This development and the fact that we have already reached such a point also shows the inability of European politicians, who have not been able to freeze this conflict or find another solution since 2014.
It started with an uprising in Kiev and now we are on the brink of nuclear war.
Patrick Poppel, Center for Geostrategic Studies, Belgrade.
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 31.05.2024
The new “foreign agents” law will help Georgians tell right from wrong and real friends from fake ones, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik, arguing that the legislation should be called the “transparency law.”
Georgia’s “foreign agents bill,” which designates non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power,” became law on May 28. The US immediately announced sanctions against Georgian politicians backing the legislation, while the EU threatened to freeze the country’s candidate status.
One might wonder as to why the law, which resembles the US’ Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), has been received with such animosity in the West. The crux of the matter is that the legislation is aimed at exposing the West’s deep disrespect of Georgia’s sovereignty, according to former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter.
“In Georgia today, as we speak, there are 27,000 Western-funded NGOs. What are these non-governmental organizations doing? It’s about buying a generation of Georgian citizens, a young generation, a generation that has lost touch with who they are and what they are as Georgians, a generation that is out of touch with the reality of what happened to Georgia in the 1990s,” Ritter told Sputnik.
Over the past several decades, Georgians have experienced what the “European choice” really entails, Ritter continued, referring to US-backed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s aggression against South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers in August 2008, which was quickly repelled by Moscow. Following Saakashvili’s botched invasion, Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which had declared their independence from Tbilisi in the early 1990s.
Putting Georgia First
Currently, the Western-backed Georgian opposition wants to create a “second front” against Russia, something that would be nothing short of suicidal, according to Ritter. This policy of confronting Russia is part and parcel of an overall package that includes Georgia becoming a member of the European Union and member of NATO, which would also mean ceding Georgia’s sovereignty to the West, the military expert warned.
“Georgian Dream has the best interests of Georgia in mind,” said Ritter. “The EU wants Georgia to participate in the economic sanctioning of Russia. The Georgian Dream Party so far has said no. Look what happened to Europe when they sanctioned Russia, it boomeranged, backfired. What about Georgia? By not participating in the economic sanction of Russia, the Georgian economy has grown more than 10% over the course of the last two years and is on pace to continue this level of growth. That’s called looking out for Georgia first.”
When it comes to Georgian NATO membership, many of the nation’s seasoned military officers, who participated in NATO’s Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo campaigns and brought home the dead bodies of Georgian soldiers, are no longer enthusiastic about joining the alliance, the expert remarked.
Ritter explained that territorial disputes with South Ossetia and Abkhazia will not allow Georgia to join NATO any time soon, adding that the irony is that the two breakaway republics will not start settling their disagreements with Tbilisi until the latter gives up its NATO aspirations.
New Law to Prevent West From Meddling in Georgia’s Elections
Unlike Georgia’s former pro-Western leaders and opposition, the Georgian Dream Party has taken a middle path of steering the nation away from economic and political crises, according to the pundit. In light of this, the upcoming October elections will become a litmus test for Georgians, and the governing party doesn’t want the West to decide the nation’s fate by meddling in the vote via thousands of US and EU-funded non-governmental organizations. Hence, the adoption of the law, which will help separate the wheat from the chaff, he said.
“One of the goals in passing this legislation was to prevent the EU and the US from taking control of the political opposition, directly and indirectly, by pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars through these 27,000 non-governmental organizations. By stopping this, by exposing this foreign money, the reality of this foreign money, the Georgian Dream Party is betting that the Georgian people will be shocked by the depths to which ostensible friends, the US, the EU, have gone to buy Georgia, not respecting Georgia as a sovereign state, not respecting the Georgian people as a sovereign people.”
Georgian Dream lawmakers want to prevent external forces from dragging the nation into another debacle, according to the expert. They want Georgians to choose their own way on the world arena, not as “Europeans,” but as “Georgians.”
“The Georgian Dream Party is betting that the Georgian people at the end of the day will recognize that they are not European – that they are Georgian. They are Eurasian. They are unique. That they don’t belong in a continent that doesn’t want them. They belong in the homeland, in the South Caucasus, from which they come. And that their closest big neighbor, Russia, has been the best friend of Georgia over time than any other nation on the planet. This is the Georgian dream. This is the dream of the Georgian people. And this should be the dream of anybody who claims to be a friend of the Georgian nation,” Ritter concluded.
RT | May 31, 2024
Tbilisi needs to “reconsider” its relationship with Washington, given that American-funded NGOs were behind at least two attempts at overthrowing the government, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has said.
The US has threatened sanctions against senior Georgian officials after the former Soviet republic passed a ‘foreign agents’ law which was denounced by the West as a threat to democracy.
“I don’t know why there were two attempts at revolution in 2020-2021, and then in 2022. I don’t know why there were these attempts, but the fact is that the previous [US] ambassador spoiled a lot of things, a lot of things were ruined in those years, and this needs to be corrected,” Kobakhidze told reporters on Friday.
“This includes American-funded NGOs that stood on the revolutionary stage, calling for the resignation of the government, and the formation of a government with their participation. Therefore, Georgian-American relations need to be reconsidered,” the prime minister added.
Georgia will do everything it can to improve relations with the US, Kobakhidze said, as this is in the interests of both countries.
The government in Tbilisi has been under intense pressure from the US and EU to drop the proposed Transparency of Foreign Influence Act, to the point that Washington and Brussels have threatened sanctions and a halt to Georgia’s EU and NATO integration.
The law would require NGOs, media outlets, and individuals receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as entities “promoting the interests of a foreign power” and to disclose their donors, or be fined up to $9,500 for noncompliance. The law sparked protests, during which activists clashed with police and tried to storm the country’s parliament building last month.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Washington would introduce visa restrictions on “individuals who are responsible for or complicit in undermining democracy in Georgia, as well as their family members.”
Meanwhile, EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi suggested to Kobakhidze that he could meet the same fate as Slovak PM Robert Fico, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt last month. Varhelyi later said his warning about the dangers of “polarization in society” was misunderstood.
Georgian NGOs, which are primarily funded by the West, have denounced the proposed law as “Russian” and attempted to replicate their 2023 success in forcing the government to back down. This time, however, the parliament passed the law and overrode President Salome Zourabichvili’s veto earlier this week. The government has denied that the law will be used to crack down on the opposition and insisted that the legislation is compatible with EU norms.
BY KIT KLARENBERG · THE GRAYZONE · MAY 31, 2024
Slovak PM Robert Fico’s independent stance earned him the wrath of NATO and the EU. Did a Western-directed plot to remove his troublesome government from office trigger his assassination attempt?
On May 15, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was almost murdered in broad daylight. While shaking hands with supporters during a public appearance, a gunman shot him twice in the abdomen and once in the shoulder. The attack left him fighting for his life while authorities raced for clues, and many observers at home and abroad puzzled about the would-be assassin’s motives and whether foreign actors were in some way responsible for the attack. And despite the shooter’s instantaneous arrest, those questions still linger weeks later.
Fico, a veteran Slovak political figure, was re-elected in September 2023 amid a wave of public resentment over the proxy war in Ukraine, pledging to end arms supplies to Kiev and anti-Russian sanctions. On the campaign trail, Western leaders, journalists and pundits aggressively stoked fears of the “pro-Putin,” “populist” candidate returning to office. Ukraine’s Western-backed “Center for Countering Disinformation” publicly accused him of spreading “infoterror” back in April 2022.
But many Slovakians see it differently. They say Fico is merely committed to defending Slovakia’s sovereignty, and governing in his nation’s interests, not those of Brussels, Kiev, London, and Washington. For Western politicians, his victory came at a highly inopportune time, with public and political consensus on the proxy war in Ukraine rapidly fraying across Europe.
Since Fico’s election, media outlets like Germany’s state broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, have branded him a “threat” to the EU and NATO. His declaration that Kiev must cede territory to Russia to end the war was not well-received in Western capitals. In April, the premier seemingly predicted his own shooting, warning that the virulent political climate in Bratislava could result in politicians getting killed.
Domestically, a number of foreign-funded media assets and NGOs have relentlessly targeted Fico for pursuing neutrality in the conflict. But over two years after Russia’s intervention, local polling indicates just 40% of the population blame Moscow for the proxy war, and 50% consider the US to be a threat to national security. Meanwhile, 69% of Slovakians believe by continuing to arm Ukraine, the West is “provoking Russia and bringing itself closer to the war” and 66% agreed that “the US is dragging [their] country into a war with Russia because it is profiting from it.”
When Fico was re-elected in September 2023, this journalist speculated that a color revolution could soon be impending in Slovakia. We are now left to ponder whether the Prime Minister’s attempted assassination was a Western-directed plot to remove his troublesome government from office. Even though he is finally on the road to recovery, the threat of an overseas-orchestrated coup remains. A vast US-sponsored opposition political and media infrastructure is causing havoc in Bratislava, and this could easily escalate further.
Slovakia has since the end of the Cold War stood apart from its neighbors. Folding the country into the EU and NATO and neutralizing its rebellious politics and population has required an enormous investment in time and money by Brussels and Washington, and relentless meddling in the country’s internal affairs by foreign-funded organizations and actors. Fico’s return to power threatened to not only derail that project, but create a regional contagion effect. Disinfecting the country therefore became of the utmost urgency for the West.
Facebook purge suggests shooter was no ‘lone wolf’
Fico’s shooter, 71-year-old Juraj Cintula, is among the Slovaks who do not support Fico’s positions. A discrepant picture of the man has emerged since his arrest. Some acquaintances describe him as “weird and angry,” and “against everything.” Others report he was meek and mild-mannered, a far from obvious candidate to attempt a high-level political assassination. Cintula, an avowed Kiev ultra, claims he acted alone, his actions motivated by a desire to replace Fico’s government with a pro-Ukrainian administration. Slovakian court documents state that Cintula “wants military aid to be provided to Ukraine and considers the current government to be Judas towards the European Union,” and say this perception is why the would-be assassin “decided to act.”
The mainstream media has made much of Cintula’s background as a dissident poet and writer, in a seeming effort to humanize the would-be killer. By contrast, Aaron Bushnell, who in February self-immolated in protest of Washington’s facilitation of the Gaza genocide, was widely tarred by journalists as a maladjusted, mentally unwell outcast. Unmentioned by any Western outlet is that during the 1980s, Cintula was under surveillance by Czechoslovak security services.
The reason for the Czechs’ interest is unclear, although it may have been due to anti-Communist actions, or foreign contacts. Whether Cintula had seditious confederates within or without Slovakia is a key line of inquiry for police. That all traces of the shooter’s Facebook profile were comprehensively scrubbed from the internet two hours after the shooting, before investigators could access the information, is also source of intense suspicion.
While it is customary for the social network to purge the profiles of “dangerous individuals” – a fate this journalist has suffered for investigative reporting – following such incidents, in Bratislava Facebook relies on cooperating local individuals and organizations to police content. Apparently, Cintula’s profile was wiped before his identity had been reported in local media. Slovak authorities must now rely on the FBI to secure and provide the deleted information. Whether whatever is turned over will be unexpurgated is an open question.
Another disturbing feature of mainstream reporting on the shooting is ubiquitous, persistent reference to Slovakia’s unstable politics. According to this narrative, Fico’s anti-Western policies have fueled the chaotic state of affairs, provoking the assassination attempt and making him ultimately responsible for the attempt on his life. In the days following the shooting, the BBC, Financial Times, New York Times and Germany’s esteemed Der Spiegel pinned the blame on Slovakia’s alleged “toxic” political culture. The latter revised its wording after significant public backlash.
One could be forgiven for concluding Western journalists take it as self-evident that defying EU/US will provide legitimate grounds for getting shot. Western politicians clearly do. On May 23rd, Georgian prime minister Irakli Kobakhidze revealed that EU commissioner Oliver Varhelyi warned him he could suffer the same fate as Fico, if his government didn’t drop a highly controversial “foreign influence transparency” law, which would compel local NGOs to disclose their sources of income.
After listing the various ways the EU could retaliate against Georgia in a phone call with Kobakhidze, Varhelyi allegedly stated: “Look what happened to Fico, you should be very careful.”
Varhelyi has since confirmed that he cited Fico’s fate in private conversations with Kobakhidze, but claimed he was merely concerned with “dissuading the Georgian political leadership” from adopting restrictions on foreign-funded NGOs. Varhelyi insisted in a written statement that he simply “felt the need” to caution the Prime Minister “not to enflame [sic] further the already fragile situation,” arguing that he only mentioned “the latest tragic event in Slovakia… as an example and as a reference to where such high levels of polarisation can lead in a society.”
Public records show the US government regime change specialists at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) have pumped millions into NGOs and media outlets in Slovakia under the aegis of mundane-sounding initiatives such as “strengthening civil society” and “promoting democratic values among youth.” Similar language is used to describe the purpose of Endowment grants in Georgia, financing groups at the forefront of recent violent unrest on the streets of Tbilisi, as The Grayzone has documented. Perhaps unsurprisingly, NED grantees are unanimous in their opposition to Fico.
Anyone searching for the source of Slovakia’s “toxic” politics need not look further than these US-backed organizations. Washington has stirred this cauldron for almost three decades, and with all sides of the Slovakian political class blaming one another the rising tide of hatred, it is hoping the pot will finally boil over.
Regime change blueprint honed in Slovakia
The NED-organized overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia in 2000 established an insurrectionary blueprint which was subsequently exported in the form of color revolutions. But throughout the 1990s, Slovakian activists honed the tactics which would eventually be deployed by US regime change operatives across the Soviet sphere.
At the time, Bratislava was one of the only post-Communist countries that neither adopted ruinous neoliberal political and economic reforms, nor pursued EU or NATO membership. Slovakia’s then-Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar paid a harsh price for his independent stance. Relentlessly slandered by US and European leaders as a Russian pawn, he quickly became a target for regime change.
In 1997, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publicly described Slovakia as “a black hole in the heart of Europe,” formally marking him for removal. So it was that NED funded the creation of Civic Campaign 98 (OK’98), a coalition of 11 anti-government NGOs.
Explicitly modeled on an earlier NED-funded effort in Bulgaria, concerned with “creating chaos” after the Socialist Party won the 1990 election, many of the individuals involved had been part of Cold War-era Czechoslovak anti-Communist dissident groups. OK’98 was publicly framed as a non-partisan get-out-the-vote campaign, but its vast resources were explicitly deployed for anti-government purposes. Its activities included rock concerts, short films, and TV infomercials in which Slovak celebrities urged young people to vote.
Meciar emerged with the most votes in the 1998 election, but the opposition gained enough seats to form a government. The NED assets who powered them to victory went on to give practical training to NED-supported pro-Western agitators like Pora, which ignited Kiev’s 2004 “Orange Revolution.” The insurrectionist youth group successfully overturned the re-election of President Viktor Yanukovych that year, installing the US-backed neoliberal Viktor Yushchenko in his place.
The return of Robert Fico represented a significant broadside against ongoing US “democratization” of the former Soviet sphere. It opened up the prospect of further anti-NATO candidates and governments gaining office elsewhere in Europe, at the most inconvenient juncture imaginable for Brussels and Washington.
Not coincidentally, it was at this time that polling for Germany’s upstart Alternative für Deutschland became turbocharged. The Euroskeptic party’s standing has soared in recent months, eliciting mainstream calls to ban it outright. And in North Macedonia just one week prior to Fico’s shooting, the anti-establishment VMRO-DPMNE party returned to power, overturning a NATO-fuelled color revolution that removed the party from office almost a decade earlier.
As the anti-Western backlash gained steam, a decision may have been made to draw a bloody red line in Slovakia.
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