How Biden Showed the World the US & NATO Are Paper Tigers
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 30.04.2024
On April 13, Iran responded to an Israeli attack on its embassy in Syria by striking Israel with more than 300 drones and missiles. While most were shot down by Israeli and US air defenses, hypersonic missiles fired by Iran hit their targets, showcasing the limits of Western defenses.
US President Joe Biden revealed to the world that the US military is no longer the giant that woke up on December 7, 1941, but a paper tiger unable to exert the power it once held. Both former Chinese leader Mao Zedong and Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden described the United States in this way. Though it may have taken several decades, they are finally being proven correct.
The United States showed in the 1990s and through the start of this century that it was capable of dominating the battlefield when facing opponents with significantly less sophisticated equipment.
But, as American hegemony has slipped, other countries have caught up and in some aspects surpassed the so-called world’s only remaining superpower.
This is evident in the United States’ inability to halt the Yemen Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement’s blockade against ships traveling to Israeli ports and the United States’ failure to prevent Iran’s attack on Israeli military targets.
With the Houthis, the United States has resorted to attempting to bribe the group into stopping their attacks, a tactic that has failed. But the attack by Iran was worse for the perception of American-dominance, because the failure of its weapons were on full display.
While most if not all of the drones sent by Iran were taken out by a combination of Israeli and US air defense systems, the drones were intended to distract and exhaust the defenses and allow Iran’s hypersonic missiles to hit their targets, which most reports say they did.
The attack from Iran showed the world “that US defense capabilities” are “not there,” retired senior security policy analyst Michael Maloof told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Monday.
“The ability to have a strong missile defense is not there, and the Russians [also] have these hypersonic capabilities,” Maloof explained. “[Iran] did hit their targets, and they did it with hypersonics and there was no defense.”
In Ukraine, the situation would be comical were it not so dark. As the Kiev regime hyped what became its failed counteroffensive last year, a succession of NATO equipment was touted as the game changer that would send the Russians into retreat.
First, it was the Bradley Fighting Vehicles, then Leopard tanks, then Challenger tanks, then a growing list of air defense systems and long-range artillery. Russia systematically destroyed them all, proving that NATO weapons are not the pinnacle of modern warfare and in many cases are relics of 20th-century warfare that will act as a gilded millstone around the neck of any army that relies on them in the 21st century.
There was another tank the US provided to Ukraine last summer, but it was not seen on the battlefield until very recently: the Abrams M1 tank. It too was touted as a game changer, but despite Ukraine’s desperate need for armor, they were not used until the battle for Avdeyevka in February of this year.
In September, Sputnik wrote an article highlighting the weaknesses of the Abrams tank, which was responded to by Popular Mechanics. The outlet asserted the Abrams would represent a “huge leap in the capabilities” of Ukrainian armor formations and accused Sputnik of exaggerating “not only the threat to Abrams tanks, but the tank’s vulnerabilities.”
The article concluded that Russian forces “will have to work very hard to kill an Abrams tank.” But when it finally arrived, five tanks were quickly destroyed and at least one tank was captured. Last week, US military officials confirmed to US media that Ukraine had removed the Abrams tanks from the front lines, saying that they are too easily destroyed by Russian drones.
“We saw, as with pretty much every type of tank we’ve seen in this combat that relatively cheap, $500, $1,000 a pop, Kamikaze drones can seriously damage a tank fairly easily,” security and international relations expert Mark Sleboda told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Monday.
The Abrams tank costs roughly $10 million a piece.
The shattering of NATO’s veneer of invincibility will have geopolitical implications, Maloof argued. “Are we going to … convince the Saudis now that we’re going to defend them, when they saw with their own eyes that whatever layering we performed for the Israelis didn’t work. Are they going to buy into that? No, they’re going to start going their own way, increasingly more so.”
On Tuesday, Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi described his talks with the Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia, Faisal F. Alibrahim as “productive.”
“Faisal F. Alibrahim agreed with all [of] Iran’s [economic] proposals,” Khandouzi noted.
“The days of US dominance [are] over, and we’re seeing this now as some 40 countries want to join BRICS and get out from under the dollar,” Maloof explained. “So, all of this is interrelated. It’s all playing [out] in real-time, before our very eyes, and it’s happening very rapidly.”
Opposition parties slam Macron’s idea to boost European defence with French nuclear weapons
By Ahmed Adel | April 30, 2024
Several opposition parties have attacked the proposal by French President Emmanuel Macron to share French nuclear weapons with the European Union. Macron’s controversy follows another recent one in which the erosion of France’s sovereignty and the legacy of Charles de Gaulle were highlighted in the most ironic way.
During a speech on April 28, Macron stated that the EU needs a common defence strategy and that French nuclear weapons could be a key component. According to him, this would provide the security guarantees that Europe expects and would also allow for neighbourly relations with Russia.
Macron stressed that a “credible European defence” needs to go beyond NATO, which “may mean deploying anti-missile shields” that will “block all missiles and deter the use of nuclear weapons.”
The French president said he was open to giving a more “European dimension” to vital interests, even if France’s doctrine has been to only use nuclear weapons when their own vital interests are threatened.
“I’m in favour of opening this debate, which must therefore include missile defence, long-range weapons and nuclear weapons for those who have them or who have American nuclear weapons on their soil,” he said.
However, his statements were criticised by all political parties.
“It is not appropriate for the head of state to say such things. Macron says he wants to start discussions on sharing nuclear weapons with European countries. This is extremely serious because it touches on the issue of French sovereignty,” said François-Xavier Bellamy, leader of the Republican Party list for the European Parliament elections, to the French channel CNews on April 28.
Thierry Mariani, an MEP from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (Rassemblement National) party, said on April 28 that Macron had become a “threat to the nation.”
“Nuclear weapons will be followed by France’s place as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which will also be given to the European Union […] Macron is becoming a threat to the nation!” the MEP wrote on X.
Meanwhile, the left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI) party pointed out that “the head of state has dealt another blow to the credibility of French nuclear weapons. He is lumping everything into a single pile. Share nuclear weapons? Lose our sovereignty. This decision does not belong to the president but to the people.”
Mathilde Panot, leader of the LFI faction in the French National Assembly, said on RTL radio that she “does not believe in a common EU nuclear umbrella.”
“We will not resort to the use of nuclear weapons because of another country,” she said, calling Macron’s proposal madness and irresponsibility as it increases the risk of nuclear war in Europe.
LFI MP Bastien Lachaud also noted on X that Macron “wants to abandon the French nuclear deterrence doctrine.”
In turn, Florian Philippot, the head of the Patriots party, accused Macron of being a “traitor” on X, recalling on April 28 the words of General Charles de Gaulle, who argued in 1959: “The defence of France must be French. […] It is essential that the defence is ours, that France defends itself, for itself and in its own way. If it were otherwise, if it were admitted for a long time that the defence of France stopped being part of the national framework and became confused or merged with something else, it would not be possible for us to maintain a State in our country.”
As Philippot points out, Macron is challenging the legacy of one of France’s most respected statesmen, which very well could lead to the French president’s demise considering his people’s fiercely independent spirit, something he has been eroding, especially after Russia launched its special military operation against Ukraine.
In fact, Moscow described the deployment of the French nuclear aircraft carrier, ironically called Charles de Gaulle, to Souda Bay on the Greek island of Crete for the largest NATO naval exercise in recent times as an “erosion of French sovereignty.”
According to Reuters, placing the Charles de Gaulle under the operational control of the Atlantic Alliance is “highly symbolic, not least because the warship is named after the former president who took France out of the alliance’s US-led command structure in 1966.”
Agreeing with Moscow’s position, “the decision to put the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier under NATO command drew criticism from the French far left and far right, who said it represented a loss of sovereign power,” Reuters reported.
Macron has consistently promoted pan-European defence, but the conversation has never reached the point of compromising French sovereignty. It is likely that this proposal will have negative effects on Macron’s popularity as the fiercely sovereign policies and spirit of Charles de Gaulle are being challenged in an unprecedented manner by the French president.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
The Anglo-American War on Russia – Part XV (Russia Defeats NATO)
Tales of the American Empire | April 25, 2024
Russia has won the war in Ukraine, but is in no hurry to end it as much of its army remains in reserve. It enjoys the friction in NATO whose members suffer from the resulting high energy costs and mass Ukrainian immigration. Russia prefers to slowly destroy Ukraine’s army in the open farmland of the Donbas rather than chase it into major cities where fighting would prove horrible. At some point, Ukraine’s army will collapse and the Russians will roll forth and take all of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed four peace agreements to end this conflict. Each time Ukraine never complied after pressure from NATO leaders to fight on. Russia will not agree to yet another ceasefire so NATO can rebuild Ukraine’s army and restart the war.
Europeans know the United States caused the conflict in Ukraine, profits from banning Russian oil and gas, and remain uneasy about the mysterious destruction of the Nordstream pipelines. The Americans promoted a mindless NATO expansion strategy that caused a disastrous war in Ukraine and weakened NATO nations, who were pressured to donate billions of dollars and much of their military equipment to Ukraine, even though it isn’t a member of this “defensive” alliance. An American refusal to make peace after Russia conquers Ukraine to reestablish trade will further agitate some NATO members, who may leave the EU and possibly NATO to join the winning side for a huge discount in Russian energy imports.
For anyone surprised that Russia may take all of Ukraine, note this April 12, 2024 news item: Russia Expects ‘Unconditional Capitulation’ Of Kiev Regime
During yesterday’s UN Security Council meeting Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, said:
“This is how it will go down in history – as an inhuman and hateful regime of terrorists and Nazis who betrayed the interest of their people and sacrificed it for Western money and for Zelensky and his closest circle. In these conditions, attempts by the head of the Kiev regime to promote his formula and convene summits in support of the Kiev regime cause only confusion. Very soon the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional capitulation of the Kiev regime. I advise you all to prepare for this in advance.”
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“UKRAINE WILL WIN” | No Amount of Propaganda Can Hide the Fact that Ukraine is Winning this War”; Matt Orfalea; February 22, 2024; a series of short clips of pundits, experts, and political leaders saying Ukraine will win; 
• “UKRAINE WILL WIN” | No Amount of Pro…
“Orwellian Morning Joe ‘Redefines Success’ in Ukraine—Erasing Their Warmongering”; System Update; Glenn Greenwald; November 22, 2023; • Orwellian Morning Joe “Redefines Succ…
“The Duran and Brian Berletic: Russia is DESTROYING NATO as Putin Rejects Europe for Global South”; Danny Haiphong; November 28, 2023; • The Duran and Brian Berletic: Russia …
“Neocons Still Can’t Believe Russia Defeated Them”; Nicolai Petro; Neutrality Studies; November 27, 2023; • Neocons Still Can’t Believe Russia De…
Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”; • The Anglo-American War on Russia
US created Ukraine conflict – Shoigu
RT | April 26, 2024
The Ukraine conflict is Washington’s doing and the US is deliberately trying to prolong the fighting, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Friday during a meeting with his counterparts from Asian nations.
Shoigu is taking part in a gathering of military chiefs from members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a nine-strong mutual defense organization. The Russian minister used the forum hosted by Kazakhstan to reiterate Moscow’s position on the origins of its conflict with Ukraine.
He identified Washington as a major source of global instability, citing its record of military interventions abroad, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The US also uses less direct financial and diplomatic tools to damage its opponents, including by fueling chaos in different parts of the world, Shoigu alleged.
“The US had first created, and now is deliberately prolonging the Ukraine conflict,” the minister stated. “As it signals purported intention to de-escalate, the West keeps pumping Kiev with weapons.”
Ukraine cannot properly control the donations, meaning there is the risk that they could end up with terrorist groups, Shoigu warned.
“They provide real-time intelligence, train Ukrainian troops, deploy Western military specialists and mercenaries on the battlefield,” he added, describing the involvement by various NATO members.
The US and its allies claim that Russia launched an “unprovoked” attack on Ukraine in February 2022, and they have since sent tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Kiev.
Shoigu accused the US of double standards regarding a nation’s right to self-defense. He cited Washington’s blocking of a UN Security Council resolution which would have condemned Israel for attacking an Iranian consulate in Damascus in early April. Tehran’s eventual retaliatory attack was the result of this obstruction, the Russian minister said.
Iran joined the SCO last year and was also taking part in the meeting in Kazakhstan.
Russia Never Threatened NATO, Has No Interests in Attacking Member States – Shoigu
Sputnik – 26.04.2024
ASTANA – Russia has never threatened NATO and has neither geopolitical nor military interests to attack the states of the alliance, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday.
“Russia has never threatened NATO. We have neither geopolitical nor military interests to attack the states of the bloc. We are simply protecting our people in our historical territories,” Shoigu said during a meeting of defense ministers of the SCO member countries in Astana.
Russia has always made maximum efforts to maintain strategic stability and balance of power in the world, the minister added.
The SCO was founded in 2001. India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan are its full members. Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia are observer states; Azerbaijan, Armenia, Egypt, Cambodia, Nepal, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar, Bahrain, and Kuwait are dialogue partners.
US Plans on Military Infrastructure in Central Asia Threatens SCO Space Stability
The US intention to deploy military infrastructure in the Central and South Asia is direct a threat to stability in the SCO space, the minister noted.
“I believe that all those present share the opinion that the deployment of military infrastructure in the region by the United States and its allies is unacceptable. Such intentions must be regarded as a direct threat to stability in the SCO space,” Shoigu said.
Commenting on the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, Shoigu said that US-oriented military and political structures are trying to remake security system in the region to dominate this part of the planet.
Additionally, the minister added that the return of radical Islamists from the Middle East and North Africa to Southeast Asia creates prerequisites for new hot spots.
The United States uses the tactics of inciting hotbeds of instability in the world, generating security threats, while it simultaneously offers military assistance, Shoigu pointed out.
On Tuesday, the US Senate passed the $95 billion legislation with approximately $61 billion in Ukraine-related funding, $26 billion in Israel-related funding and $8 billion for Indo-Pacific security initiatives in a vote of 79-18. The Biden administration is reportedly readying a $1 billion military aid package for Ukraine sourced from the legislation.
“[The US] uses a technique that has been proven many times — inciting and maintaining hotbeds of instability in various regions of the world, generating security threats while simultaneously offering military assistance to neutralize them,” he said.
Continued Strikes by Ukraine on Zaporozhye NPP Can Lead to Catastrophic Consequences
Shoigu also touched upon potential catastrophic consequences caused by the ongoing Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (NPP).
“The ongoing strikes of the Ukrainian armed forces on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which could lead to catastrophic consequences, are of particular concern,” Shoigu emphasized.
The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant is located on the left bank of the Dnepr River and is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. It came under the control of Russian forces in early March 2022 and has since been repeatedly shelled by Ukrainian forces, raising international fears of a possible nuclear accident.
As Ukraine’s Defeat Looms, Imaginary War Unravels
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | April 24, 2024
On April 11th, US General Christopher Gerard Cavoli, chief of Washington’s European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, addressed US lawmakers on Ukraine’s dire battlefield situation, warning Kiev “could lose” without further Wunderwaffe. Along the way, he made a number of startling disclosures about the size of Russia’s military, and losses, which detonated numerous narratives universally and unquestioningly perpetuated by the mainstream media from the very start of the proxy war to this day.
“We do not see significant losses in the air domain, especially their (Russian) long-range and strategic aviation fleets…Russia’s strategic forces, long-range aviation, cyber capabilities, space capabilities, and capabilities in the electromagnetic spectrum have lost no capacity at all,” Cavoli said. In all, while the Russian air force had lost “some aircraft”, this represented “only about 10% of their fleet”:
“The overall message I would give you is [Russia’s military has] grown back to what they were before… their overall capacity is very significant still, and they intend to make it go higher… Russia is reconstituting [its forces] far faster than our initial estimates suggested. The army is actually now larger — by 15% — than it was when it invaded Ukraine… Russia launches very large-scale attacks every few days keeping with their production rate… They produce, they save up, they launch a big attack.”
Such is the pace at which events move these days, many may have forgotten that in December 2023 a US intelligence report, conveniently declassified right when Volodymyr Zelensky was touring Washington desperately attempting to drum up support for yet more “aid”, suggested Russia had lost 90% of its prewar army, with combat deaths in excess of 300,000. The report claimed Moscow’s personnel and vehicle losses were so severe, it would take 18 years to replenish what was hemorrhaged over the invasion to date.
Independent analyst Will Schryver has coined the term “Imaginary War” in respect of the proxy conflict. It is a battle primarily concerned with convincing Western citizens that free, democratic Kiev is making a heroic stand against Russian barbarism, which it can and will win. Ukraine, with NATO’s backing, was until recently excelling in this effort. Every step of the way though, they’ve been losing the real war – and badly.
‘Intelligence Updates’
Social media is a core component of the Imaginary War. Academic research shows Twitter is home to a massive pro-Ukraine bot army, endlessly pumping out pro-Kiev, anti-Russian messaging. The same is no doubt true of every social media platform. This helps create the illusion of nigh-universal support for Ukraine globally, when outside the West, populations and governments are either neutral, or outright supportive of Russia, perceiving the conflict to be a strike against NATO, and Western imperialism.
Furthermore, over the first 18 months of the conflict, mainstream journalists, pundits, and politicians heavily depended on the unsubstantiated pronouncements of “Oryx”, an anonymous Twitter account analysing on-the-ground imagery, for loss figures on both sides. Its posts suggested from day one, destruction of Russian tanks, jets, armoured vehicles and more was many orders of magnitude higher than that suffered by Ukraine, indicative generally of the war being an unmitigated disaster for the invaders.
A representative March 17th 2022 Washington Post investigation boldly declared Russia had to date “lost thousands of soldiers and thousands of vehicles while failing to make significant progress,” based almost entirely on Oryx’s findings. Similarly, a BBC article the next month prominently touted figures produced by Oryx suggesting Ukraine had “destroyed, damaged or captured at least 82 Russian aircraft, including jets, helicopters and drones,” while only sacrificing 33 of its own.
A nameless Western intelligence official told the BBC Kiev desperately required “long and mid-range air defences”, in “large quantities.” UAF Captain Vasyl Kravchuk, reportedly possessed of a “surprisingly ready smile” when he spoke to Britain’s state broadcaster, signed off by stating, “past wars have shown, whoever dominates the air wins the war.” The underlying propaganda message, that Ukraine was so far comfortably prevailing in the skies, but needed Western help to keep it up – and therefore emerge victorious overall – couldn’t have been clearer.
Oryx’s findings were even routinely cited by Britain’s Ministry of Defence in daily Twitter “intelligence updates”, which were widely shared, and subsequently featured in and informed the content and headlines of many news reports. For example, in April 2023 an update asserted, “Russia has lost 10,000+ military vehicles since its illegal invasion of Ukraine began, according to tracker Oryx.” The post was viewed over one million times. Parliament’s 2023 Intelligence and Security Committee report boasted that “the impact” of these “unprecedented” updates was “substantial”.
The report went on to note how the Ministry of Defence intelligence estimates “informed decisions made by [government] ministers and Armed Forces chiefs” on London’s “posture towards Russia.” One can only hope Oryx’s output did not formally influence Britain’s proxy war strategy in Ukraine. Audits by eagle-eyed internet sleuths have demonstrated the account consistently perpetuated wildly inaccurate, inflated figures, by counting photos and footage of the same damaged vehicles shot from different angles as individual, separate Russian losses, while misrepresenting Ukraine’s destroyed Soviet-era vehicles as Russian.
Conspicuously, Oryx abruptly ceased its work when Ukraine’s much-vaunted, long-delayed “Spring” counteroffensive began in June 2023. A cynic might suggest, given Kiev was equipped with heavily hyped Western Wunderwaffe for the effort, whoever was running the operation – and/or the individuals and entities ultimately managing them – concluded the same dishonest tactics couldn’t work this time round. In October 2023, the account was deleted outright without warning or explanation, meaning its bogus archive can no longer be critically scrutinised at all.
‘Classic Hero’
Coincidentally, that same month, a number of anonymous, high profile “OSINT” accounts similarly focused on Ukraine likewise abruptly shuttered, or announced their intention to do so. This included Calibre Obscura. Beloved by NAFO, the account similarly emphasised Russian embarrassment and failure. A video Calibre Obscura published in September 2022 of a fleeing Russian tank crashing into a tree set to farcical music went viral, generated much mainstream coverage, and was presented by Zelensky at a press conference celebrating that month’s successful counteroffensive in Kharkiv.
With the Imaginary War nearing over, and the Zionist genocide in Gaza beginning, it was of course necessary to wind down “OSINT” operations entirely, or focus them elsewhere. The silence of Bellingcat, a British and US government-funded validator of NATO narratives, on Israel’s crimes, despite a wealth of photo and video footage attesting to the monstrousness, is palpable, and illuminating.
In December 2023, novelist Lionel Shriver authored a lament for The Spectator, on how she “got caught up” in the proxy conflict’s “story”, which “had a spectacular opening chapter, a classic hero… and as wicked a villain as Shakespeare could have contrived.” However, Kiev’s catastrophic counteroffensive – which saw over 100,000 Ukrainians die to recover 0.25% of lost territory – meant she was now “quietly losing interest in this conflict,” along with many others in Europe and the US:
“This is supposed to be a David and Goliath story. But David and Goliath is a crap story if the giant wins… Predictable, a bit disheartening and not really a story at all, just the way the world works. Besides, a Western audience wants to see the good guy win, both to mete out justice and to enjoy victory by proxy. Ukraine’s anguishing self-defence is not a novel. But it’s not satisfying our fictional appetites.”
Shriver concluded that it was “time to urge the Zelensky government to enter talks to bring this depressing war to its depressing conclusion,” as “dragging out an entrenched stalemate merely racks up a higher body count and destroys more Ukrainian homes and infrastructure to no purpose.” She added, “sitting back and giving Ukrainians just enough weaponry to keep fighting to the last man and woman, only for the country to finally end up where we always knew it would, is not just immoral. It’s murder.”
It is indeed immoral, and murder, to keep the unwinnable, real war Ukraine has been fighting since February 2022 grinding on, as anti-imperialist, anti-war activists and journalists have been intoning every step of the way. That confirming this self-evident fact came at the expense of so many lives, marking it as a criminal tragedy. Unhappily for Shriver and many others, with the total collapse of the frontline impending any day now, and Russia seeking Kiev’s “unconditional surrender”, the “story” may not end with Ukraine electively entering talks.
NATO Pressuring Greece and Spain to Give Remaining Air Defense Systems Away to Ukraine
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 22.04.2024
Russia dramatically ramped up its air and missile strikes inside Ukraine in March in the wake of a coordinated campaign by Ukraine’s military targeting Russian infrastructure using drone warfare. The strikes created large holes in Ukraine’s air defenses which Kiev’s NATO patrons are now hoping to patch up.
Officials in the European Union and NATO have launched a pressure campaign targeting Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to give their advanced air defense systems away to Ukraine.
“We all know who has them, we all know where they are, and we all know who really needs them,” a person briefed on the campaign told London-based business media in an article published Monday.
The campaign mirrors increasingly loud appeals by Ukrainian President Zelensky asking NATO allies to donate their air defenses to Kiev amid Russia’s strikes. “Patriots can only be called air defense systems if they work and save lives rather than standing immobile somewhere in storage bases,” Zelensky wrote in an X post Sunday.
Germany agreed to give one additional Patriot to Kiev, but other countries, among them Greece and Spain, have hesitated, reportedly sharing more than a dozen Patriots and a handful of S-300 launchers between them (the latter bought by Greece in the 1990s). Greece previously ruled out handing off its S-300s to Ukraine, citing the need to keep its forces balanced with the capabilities of Turkiye – which possesses Russian-made S-400s.
Mitsotakis and Sanchez were reportedly asked to give up their air defense systems to Ukraine at a summit in Brussels last week, and pressure was expected to “intensify” at a Monday meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers, according to officials.
“There are countries that are not in an immediate need of their air defense systems, to be very honest. Each country is being asked to decide what it can spare,” an EU diplomat involved in Monday’s negotiations said. “The most important discussion will be to identify what member states can do to support Ukraine’s air defense. That’s the most important thing,” a senior EU official said.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell confirmed to reporters on Monday that Brussels has been “asking all member states to do whatever they can in order to increase the air defense capacity of Ukraine.”
NATO has engaged in its own push lobbying members to surrender their air defense systems, with alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg announcing Friday at a defense ministers meeting attended by Zelensky that allies had agreed to provide additional air defense support.
“NATO has mapped out existing capabilities across the alliance and there are systems that could be made available to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said, elaborating that “this mapping confirms that there are systems including Patriot systems available to be provided to Ukraine.”
Weeks of Russian strikes targeting Ukrainian military positions, defense factories, ammunition depots and electricity-generating infrastructure have left Ukraine’s air defense network in a shambles, with the national air defense system disintegrating and forces reduced to operating on a local level. “Their [unified] radar field has been completely lost, and the automated control system has been lost. Their air defenses act locally: what they see, they shoot down. That is, there is no centralized leadership there, like we have with a central command post,” former Commonwealth of Independent States’ Integrated Air Defense System deputy commander Aytech Bizhev told Sputnik last week.
Russia’s defense ministry says it has destroyed over 508 pieces of Ukrainian air defense equipment since February 2022, including 63 systems destroyed since the start of the current year. Along with Patriots and S-300s, Russia has targeted an array of other systems, from mobile tracked Flakpanzer Gepard anti-air artillery to SAMP-T extended range air defense systems, IRIS-T short-range SAMs, NASAMS short-to-medium-range air defense systems, AN/MPQ-64F1 Sentinel radars and other equipment.
The NATO and EU pressure campaign asking members to throw even more pricy air defense equipment into the Ukrainian crisis contrasts sharply with claims by bloc officials that Russia may be preparing to attack European countries, and warnings by military officials in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and other countries that the depletion of weapons and ammo stocks has left allies with enough supplies to last just days in case of a full-scale conflict.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed Monday that the risk of a direct clash between Russia and the West exists, but said this was the result of NATO’s continued sponsorship of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
PM Orbán’s warning to Europe: ‘World wars are never called world wars in the beginning’
“This vortex of war could drag Europe down”
BY DÉNES ALBERT | REMIX NEWS | APRIL 22, 2024
Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán has issued a new warning about rising tensions in Europe, saying that world wars are never called world wars in the beginning, noting that the First and Second World Wars were initiated by a series of smaller conflicts.
“Brussels is playing with fire. What it is doing is an act of temptation. World wars are never called world wars in the beginning. The Third Balkan War, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the partition of Poland, and the end was a world war twice over,” he warned.
Tensions are rising in Europe, Orbán said in a post on his Facebook page on Sunday, pointing out that the mood on the continent is one of war, and that politics is dominated by the logic of war.
“The NATO secretary-general wants to set up a NATO-Ukraine mission. European leaders have already fallen into war, they see this war as their own war and are fighting it as their own war,” he said.
“At first, it was only about sending helmets. Then sanctions, but not on energy producers! Then, yes, on those too. Then, came the arms shipments. First firearms, then tanks, then planes, and then financial aid. More and more, tens of billions. Now, we’re somewhere around a 100 billion — in euros. Money, supplies, weapons, but the situation is not getting better, it’s getting worse,” the prime minister said.
Orbán reiterated a warning he has now issued a number of times, saying that Europe is one step away from the West sending troops to Ukraine. He said that Brussels is promoting a “war vortex” that could drag Europe into the abyss.
At the end of his post, Orbán stressed that Hungarians know what war is like, referring to the devastating period of destruction Hungary faced during the Second World War and the subsequent decades-long occupation of Hungary by Soviet forces, including a crushed uprising against communist rule in 1956.
At the same time, Orbán stated Hungary’s position: “This is not our war. We do not want war, and we do not want Hungary to become the plaything of great powers again.”
“That is why we have to stand up for peace — at home, in Brussels, in Washington, in the UN and in NATO,” Orbán concluded his post.
West mired in Ukraine crisis due to unwillingness or inability to confront reality
By Eusebio Filopatro | Global Times | April 21, 2024
As the Russia-Ukraine war drags on, a peace conference is to be held in Switzerland this summer. But Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said that Russia hadn’t been invited to participate in June’s talks. “It would have been funny if it weren’t so sad,” he commented.
Practically all Russian commentators, and even some prominent Western ones, trace the roots of the conflict in Ukraine to NATO’s attempts at incorporating Russia’s neighbor – as officially stated since at least as far back as 2008. A disregard for Russia’s status as an equal and sovereign partner was evident in the contempt for the Minsk agreements, which both former German chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Francois Hollande described as gimmicks to buy time for the only option that was seriously pursued, military confrontation. Later on, Vladimir Putin’s vocal request for security guarantees was dismissed yet again.
Fast forward a few years, and this historical tragedy has snowballed to its extreme conclusions. Politico recently reported Ukrainian officials’ concerns about a collapse of the frontlines. As Elon Musk calls for a negotiated settlement to come soon, he warns that the longer the war drags on, the larger the territory Russia will seek to annex. Even CNN is now explaining how Russia’s guided bombs are wreaking havoc on Ukrainian defenses. Meanwhile, the IMF has raised Russia’s growth outlook. In short, and irrespective of whether this will take weeks, months or years, Russia is well placed politically, economically and militarily to inflict the final blow.
The conditions of Ukraine’s sponsors are remarkably less favorable. Europe’s economic problems are “far bigger than a shallow recession.” The Union faces a dilemma over restricting imports from Ukraine or throwing its own agriculture under the bus. It is also split on the use of frozen Russian assets to finance the war. The Union will renew its Parliament in June and it is unclear whether Ursula von der Leyen will be re-elected. Even though the US House of Representatives on Saturday passed a $95 billion legislative package, including $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, the US’ presidential elections in November still cast another shadow of uncertainty, to the point that NATO is considering setting aside “Trump-proof” funds.
Europe’s public opinion has also made up its mind on the matter. Only one in ten Europeans believe Ukraine can defeat Russia. The Pope has literally invited Ukraine to raise a white flag. Wolfgang Streeck, the Director of the Max Planck Institute, said, “The war is lost but our governments refuse to admit it.” A crushing military defeat would be the worst possible background for European and American elections, and erode confidence in the respective leaderships: The West should not fall prey to a sunk cost fallacy of catastrophic proportions. What would then be the way forward?
The rational course of action would be for the West to turn to diplomacy to correct such a disastrous trajectory, much like Musk and the Pope suggested. Even if Russia refused, or the attempt failed, the West would at least claim the moral high ground on this occasion. A comprehensive peace conference with the involvement of representative guarantors from the Global South could offer a lifeline to Ukraine, and a model for ironing out geopolitical tensions that are dangerously multiplying all over the world. Chinese diplomacy is going out of its way to make this possible, and the African Union, Brazil, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and many others have also stepped forward with constructive proposals.
Yet leaders on both shores of the Atlantic are headed elsewhere. US Vice President Kamala Harris and European Council President Charles Michel are adamant that “There is only plan A”: military support for Ukraine. Along this path, some risky decisions appear increasingly likely. And pressure is mounting to use seized Russian assets to finance Ukraine. Of this move, in 2022, US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said “would not be legal.” But, apparently, a green light could come at the G7 summit in June.
If a botched peace conference would exact high reputational costs for Western diplomacy, the seizing of Russian assets could turn into a kamikaze attack, and unsettle the very domain wherein the West retains relative dominance, the international financial system. Neither initiative is likely to end the conflict in Ukraine.
If all such workarounds are really only dead ends, a reckoning with reality should be hastened rather than delayed. Yet, it is precisely the unwillingness or inability to confront the reality of the situation that got us here in the first place.
The author is a foreign policy analyst for Italy and the EU.
Macron’s Olympic truce call takes gold for western cynicism
Strategic Culture Foundation | April 19, 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron wants a truce in Ukraine and Gaza for the duration of the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.
Macron said this week that his proposal is consistent with the ancient concept of an Olympic Truce when, historically, hostilities would be put to the side to showcase higher ideals of human fraternity and peaceful aspiration. In short, demonstration of the edifying notion that sport is above politics.
Russia responded that it was not against the idea in principle. However, Moscow pointed out that Macron’s Olympic peace idea lacks any practical details to vouchsafe a genuine initiative.
To put it more bluntly, the French leader has no credibility to proffer such a potentially important accord. His vague proposal is riddled with contradictions.
Only a few weeks ago, Macron was airing the idea of sending NATO troops to fight in Ukraine against Russia. He has not retracted that reckless provocation, which could escalate the conflict to a world war between nuclear powers.
Now we are to believe that Monsieur President is a tribune for world peace.
Paris and other NATO capitals are desperately pushing for more weapons to be sent to the NeoNazi regime in Kiev. The NATO proxy war against Russia is in its third year and is increasingly looking like a lost cause for Washington and its Western allies. Not one Western leader is prepared to give up the ghost of this bloody debacle to strategically defeat Russia by exploring a diplomatic solution to the war.
How then can Macron’s supposed concern for an Olympic Truce be taken seriously?
As for Gaza, France and its NATO partners have been complicit in sponsoring a genocide over the past six and half months. The Israeli regime’s massacre of over 34,000 Palestinians – a death toll that mounts every week – and its continuing starvation siege on the Gaza Strip are crucially enabled by the military and political support of the United States and the European Union.
As if that is not bad enough, France, the United States and Britain are de facto supporting Israel’s aggression towards Iran, as well as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. The Western trio are helping Israel’s air defenses while at the same time condemning Iran and imposing economic sanctions. Their tacit involvement is green-lighting more Israeli belligerence and violation of international laws which is corroding the entire fabric of global security.
Given the appalling culpability of the Western powers in fueling these explosive conflicts, it is the height of duplicity for Macron to turn around and make his pompous proposal for a truce during the Summer Games being held in Paris from July 26 to August 11.
The real concern for Macron is to showcase France in all its presumed greatness in a worldwide spectacle.
The narcissistic Macron is driven by self-aggrandizing ambition and delusions of grandeur as a world statesman and the president who restored France’s international prestige. It is this same megalomania that drives his recent calls for greater NATO involvement in the proxy war in Ukraine. The former Rothschild banker and now Napoleon wannabe is a charlatan who is completely bereft of any principles.
Significantly, the opening ceremony for the Summer Games is planned to take place along the Seine River in the form of an extravagant regatta. This arrangement breaks with the modern tradition of all Olympics being opened in the main stadium that hosts the sporting events. The Stade de France is located outside the French capital. One gets the distinct impression that Macron wants the grand opening to be televised in the center of Paris simply for the purpose of showing off the capital and its renowned cultural landmarks.
For Macron, the quadrennial games are first and foremost all about displaying France in the best possible light to the world for political and commercial exhibition. The games themselves are a vehicle for his vainglorious ambitions.
The truth is the Olympic Games and other international sporting events have long been hijacked by Western politics for their imperialist agenda.
When the U.S. and its NATO allies were waging illegal wars in countless countries in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, there were never calls for an Olympic Truce. There were never calls for banning the U.S. and its allies from participating in games even though there were substantial grounds for such calls.
Russian athletes have for several years now been banned from sporting events based solely on trumped-up claims about drug abuse and other alleged infringements. As our columnist Declan Hayes has pointed out in several articles, Russia’s figure-skating champion Kamila Valieva and its other world-class athletes have been subjected to relentless Western efforts to destroy their reputations and participation in “NATO sporting circuses”.
Shamefully, the Western powers and their toxic mass media have done everything to ensure that politics are above sports. Sporting events have become just another adjunct of Western propaganda.
If Macron had any genuine motive for international peace, he would be calling for an end to arming the NeoNazi regime in Ukraine and advocating a credible diplomatic engagement with Russia.
If Macron earnestly wanted the Olympic Games to serve as an overture for peace and humanity, he would be calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and full respect for Palestinian national and human rights.
The Western-controlled International Olympic Committee has banned Russian athletes from participating in the games in Paris under their national flag. Their “concession” is that 40 Russian sportspeople may take part as long as they do so under a “neutral flag” and that they do not display any signs of supporting Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. Why were such strictures not imposed on Americans or Britons during their criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Russia is banned yet Israel is allowed to send a full team in national colors while it conducts the worst genocide in modern times. The Western hypocrisy here is absolutely revolting and self-indicting.
Like a Greek tragedy, the rampant cynicism and abuse by Western powers are destroying the Olympic Games, the very event that they are trying to monopolize for their nauseating virtue signaling.
In a crowded Western field competing for the dubious title, Macron takes gold for cynicism.
NATO ‘one step away’ from sending troops to Ukraine – Orban
RT | April 19, 2024
The leaders of the EU and NATO are potentially ready to deploy forces to Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed on Friday. Brussels sees the conflict between Moscow and Kiev as its “own” and is failing to consider the risks arising from its ever-deeper involvement, he warned.
The mood of EU leaders is “one of war,” Orban told a gathering of his Fidesz Party ahead of the EU Parliament elections. “There is a pro-war majority in Brussels today,” he said, adding that the bloc’s politics “are dominated by the logic of war.” EU politicians are already so invested in the conflict that they fail to see the flaws in their strategy, the prime minister argued.
Despite all the “money and weapons, the situation is not improving [for Kiev], in fact, it is getting worse… We are one step away from the West sending troops to Ukraine,” Orban warned. “This is a vortex of war that can drag Europe into its depths. Brussels is playing with fire.”
Budapest will not let itself be dragged into the hostilities, and “will not enter… the war on either side,” the prime minister pledged, adding that his country “must stand for peace” everywhere, including in “Brussels, Washington, the UN and NATO.”
“We don’t want war, and we don’t want Hungary to become a toy of great powers again,” Orban stated.
The idea of sending NATO troops to Ukraine has been repeatedly floated by Western leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron first raised it in February, saying “all options are possible.”
Macron has since doubled down, stating that there are “no limits” to support for Kiev. His words initially alarmed some NATO allies, who quickly denied having such plans. However, the French leader did receive backing from certain members of the US-led military bloc.
In March, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Russia’s military operation in Ukraine requires an “asymmetric escalation” on the part of the West. Warsaw’s top diplomat also called the idea of a NATO presence in Ukraine “not unthinkable.”
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said earlier in April that every NATO member already has military personnel in Ukraine operating as advisers or instructors. Last week, former British minister of state for the armed forces James Heappey told Sky News that sending NATO forces to Ukraine did “deserve consideration.”
Moscow has repeatedly warned that deploying NATO troops in Ukraine would bring the US-led bloc to the brink of a full-blown conflict with Russia. President Vladimir Putin stated in March that it would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”
US to Allocate $40Mln in Defense Aid to Argentina Wishing to Be NATO’s Partner – Embassy
Sputnik – 19.04.2024
The United States will allocate $40 million to support defense modernization of Argentina, which has declared its intention to become NATO’s global partner, the US Embassy in Buenos Aires said.
On Thursday, Argentine Defense Minister Luis Alfonso Petri said that Buenos Aires wanted to become NATO’s global partner and had already submitted a corresponding request. NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana welcomed the request, saying that closer political and practical cooperation could benefit both parties.
“The United States is proud to announce that it is providing $40 million in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to support Argentina’s defense modernization,” the embassy said in a statement released on Thursday.
The diplomatic mission noted that such support is provided only to the US’s important partners.
Argentina will be able to purchase defense products, training services, and improve interaction thanks to US military aid. The funds will also contribute to Argentina’s purchase of F-16 fighter jets, the statement read.
In November 2023, Javier Milei won the runoff presidential election in Argentina. During the presidential campaign, Milei spoke against joining BRICS and cooperating with China, Brazil and Russia, and advocated a foreign policy oriented toward Israel and the United States.
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Villains of Judea
Abe Foxman
Foxman left a legacy of surveillance scandals, political vendettas, and selective outrage.
José Niño Unfiltered | May 24, 2026
When Abraham Foxman died on May 10, 2026, tributes poured in from presidents, prime ministers, and Jewish leaders worldwide, yet his legacy remains defined as much by controversy as by accomplishment.
Foxman described himself as “a passionate supporter of the State of Israel” and spent his career building the ADL into a roughly $60 million per year organization that defined mainstream American Jewish advocacy on antisemitism, civil rights, and the Jewish state. … continue
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