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NATO Mulls ‘Shooting Down’ Missiles Straying Close to Its Borders – Report

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 27.03.2024

On March 24, the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command claimed that a Russian cruise missile had breached the country’s airspace overnight near the village of Oserdow, close to the Ukraine border, remaining in Polish airspace for 39 seconds.

NATO members are reportedly considering the possibility of shooting down missiles that fly in close proximity to the alliance’s borders.

“Various concepts are being analyzed within NATO, including for such missiles to be shot down when they are very close to a NATO member’s border,” Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna stated, speaking on the radio station RMF24.

He noted, however, that this would have to happen with the consent of the Ukrainian side, and taking into account the international consequences, as then NATO missiles would be targeting Russian missiles outside the territory of the alliance.

On Sunday, the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command in a statement said that there was a violation of Polish airspace at 4:23 a.m. (03:23 GMT) by “a Russian cruise missile.” The missile was said to have breached the country’s airspace near the village of Oserdow, close to the Ukraine border, and remained in flight there for 39 seconds.

However, there was no evidence offered in the text to support these claims.

According to Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, the missile would have been shot down had there been “any signs that this object was heading for a certain target located on the territory of the Republic (of Poland).” Poland scrambled its fighter jets over the incident.

Oserdow is located in Lublin province in the southeastern part of the country, which borders the Volyn and Lvov regions of Ukraine.

Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreev later told Sputnik that he skipped a meeting at the Polish Foreign Ministry over the “missile incident” because Warsaw had failed to present any evidence on the issue.

After being summoned to the Polish Foreign Ministry to meet with one of the deputy ministers, Andreev asked if the Polish side intended to provide Russia with any evidence of the allegations. However, as he did not receive an answer from the Polish side, Andreev decided not to attend the meeting.

At the end of last year, Poland announced a similar incident. The Polish military claimed that a missile belonging to Russia performed a maneuver in Polish airspace and then returned to Ukraine. While Chief of the Polish General Staff Wieslaw Kukula told reporters that according to Polish radar control systems the missile belonged to Russia, Moscow’s Ambassador to Warsaw Sergey Andreev said that Poland had not provided evidence to substantiate the claims.

After a missile crashed on Polish territory in an incident on November 15, 2022, Polish investigators later came to the conclusion that it was a stray Ukrainian anti-air projectile.

Meanwhile, it is worth noting that ever since the Ukraine conflict intensified, there has also been a surge in incidents involving NATO aircraft flying near Russia’s maritime borders. Warships from the United States and other NATO countries have also increased provocative forays into the Black Sea.

The alleged Sunday incident came as Russia was carrying out strikes targeting Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, energy facilities, railway junctions, and ammunition depots between March 16 and 22 in response to the shelling of its territory and attempts to break through and seize Russian border settlements, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

The Russian Aerospace Forces subsequently carried out high-precision missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian power facilities on March 24. The combined strike with long-range airborne precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles targeted “electric power facilities, gas production facilities, and assembly and testing sites for unmanned boats,” the MoD said.

At the same time, Russian air defenses destroyed 172 Ukrainian drones, 11 Storm Shadow cruise missiles, and three Neptun anti-ship missiles, as well as 22 multiple launch rocket system shells and other targets, the military said.

March 27, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, Poland, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Kosovo War at 25: Blair’s secret invasion plot to ‘topple Milosevic’ revealed

By Kit Klarenberg | The Grayzone | March 24, 2024

Declassified British Ministry of Defence (MOD) files reviewed by The Grayzone reveal that officials in London conspired to embroil US troops in a secret plan to occupy Yugoslavia and “topple” President Slobodan Milosevic during NATO’s 1999 war on the country. Though the crazed scheme was never implemented, details of the plot reveal precisely how British officials successfully shaped Washington into a blunt force instrument of their vanquished empire in years to come.

March 24 marks the 25th anniversary of Operation Allied Force, NATO’s 78-day-long bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. Still venerated in Western mainstream as a successful “humanitarian intervention” conducted to prevent an impending “genocide” of Kosovo’s Albanian population, the war was in fact a wantonly destructive, illegal assault on a sovereign, multiethnic country, based on lies and atrocity propaganda. Belgrade had in fact been engaged in a counterinsurgency battle against the CIA and MI6-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an Al Qaeda-linked extremist group.

The KLA—funded by the narcotics trade and organ harvesting—explicitly sought to maximize civilian casualties, in order to precipitate Western intervention. In May 2000, a British parliamentary committee concluded all purported abuses of Albanian citizens by Yugoslav authorities occurred after NATO’s bombing began, finding that the alliance’s intervention had actually encouraged Belgrade to aggressively neutralize the KLA. Meanwhile, in September 2001, a UN court in Pristina determined that Belgrade’s actions in Kosovo were not genocidal in nature, or intent.

These findings are largely overlooked today. A February Politico investigation into the West’s post-war pillage of Kosovo axiomatically asserted that NATO intervened in Yugoslavia “to halt an unfolding genocide against the ethnic-Albanian population.” Similarly forgotten is just how close leading NATO states came to invading Belgrade during that chaotic spring.

British proposals for US invasion of Yugoslavia

By April 29, 1999, NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia had entered its fifth week. On that date, Richard Hatfield, then-Policy Director of Britain’s Ministry of Defence, dispatched a “Strategic Planning Group discussion paper on Kosovo ground force options” to London’s military, security, and intelligence apparatus. In a document marked “Secret – UK eyes only,” Hatfield demanded an “immediate” decision on whether to formally invade Yugoslavia:

“If we are to influence US thinking on ground force options, we need to pass the paper to them very quickly… Our planning is ahead of the US, other allies and [NATO HQ]… We believe the US may be developing its initial thinking on ground force options this week. Our paper could exercise significant influence on their conclusions. The [Chiefs of Staff] therefore agreed we should pass it to the US privately (through military and policy channels) as quickly as possible.”

According to Hatfield, London had to “overcome” a “great deal of reluctance and scepticism” in Washington regarding a formal ground invasion, so “decisions need to be taken quickly if we are to launch an operation before Winter.” Evidently, a firm timeline for action had germinated in London. It was simultaneously vital to “make clear” to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair that “although we can influence planning for a possible ground campaign, we cannot expect the US or NATO to accept British views easily or unreservedly.”

Therefore, an “early agreement in principle to a ground campaign” was considered “more important than the details,” the document states. In other words, securing US commitment to putting boots on the ground trumped all basic technical concerns. After all, Blair’s invasion fantasy hinged entirely on Washington dispatching hundreds of thousands of US soldiers to Yugoslavia. London would by contrast deploy just 50,000—most of the available British Army at the time. This disparity was likely a key source of American “reluctance and scepticism.”

London therefore drafted four separate scenarios for the war. This included invading Kosovo alone and “liberating” the province from Belgrade’s control. This option would limit “overspill into other areas of Serbia”, while guaranteeing “no permanent military presence elsewhere” in the country. Another proposal, dubbed “wider opposed,” would see NATO invade Yugoslavia outright, with the aim of “defeating the Serb armed forces and if necessary toppling Milosevic.” The latter forecast an “organised Serb resistance” at every level in response.

Another source of US “reluctance and scepticism,” no doubt, was the fact that every country bordering Yugoslavia—even NATO members and aspirants—were either on the record as having rejected, or being expected to reject, the use of their territory for ground invasion. For example, two of London’s war proposals depended “fundamentally on Greek agreement to use their port facilities and airspace.” Without Greece’s acquiescence, NATO “would have no choice but to mount a wider opposed operation from Hungary, Romania and/or Bulgaria, which would be even more difficult politically.”

Coupled with deep historic and cultural ties, the longstanding record of warm relations between Athens and Belgrade effectively ruled out both plans that were dependent on Greece. An invasion conducted via the latter countries, on the other hand, meant that “it would be impossible to constrain the scope of war with Serbia.” Meanwhile, Albania, which supported the KLA while serving as NATO’s effective headquarters throughout the bombing of Yugoslavia, and Macedonia, “where [NATO] troop levels [were] already causing problems,” were said to fear becoming formal belligerents in any conflict due to likely “Serb retaliation.”

Blair calls for ‘coalition of the willing’

Despite the apparent infeasibility of a ground invasion, British officials—Blair in particular—were completely determined to push ahead in Yugoslavia. Their bombing campaign was a failure. Limited to the skies, NATO jets relentlessly blitzed Serbian civilian, government, and industrial infrastructure, killing over a thousand innocent people—including children—and violently disrupting daily life for millions. But Yugoslav forces cunningly deployed decoy vehicles to divert the military alliance, while concealing their anti-KLA operations under adverse weather and deception tactics.

In public, NATO military apparatchiks, political pawns, and media minions exalted their stunning success and inevitable victory on the battlefield. But the declassified files show Ministry of Defence officials spent much of their time bemoaning the fact that their bombs were neither intimidating Milosevic, nor hindering the Yugoslav army’s war on the KLA. Belgrade’s forces were said to have consistently deceived NATO “very successfully” via extensive use of “camouflage, dummy targets, concealment and bunkers.”

British officials repeatedly expressed concern that the Yugoslav army could actually succeed in expelling the KLA from Kosovo entirely, allowing Milosevic to declare victory and dictate peace terms to NATO. Blair was reportedly determined to reject any such offer. Moreover, it was well-understood that NATO’s bombing had rallied citizens to support their leader. As one paper conceded, alliance airstrikes on Yugoslavia’s Interior Ministry “demonstrated to Belgrade citizens just how vulnerable their city is, but achieved little else.”

“Forewarned by a target list posted on CNN’s website last week, the Serbs had already moved out of the building. Kosovo has been swept clean in less than a week and in the US, a climbdown may be on the cards, as the costs and dangers of escalation hit home,” the April 4 missive asserted.

The following day, Blair dispatched a personal “note for the record” to senior British government, intelligence and military officials. He lambasted the bombing campaign’s lack of “vigour,” suggesting the British public “does not have the confidence we know what to do,” before concluding: “we appear not to have a grip.”

Blair then proposed the formation of a “coalition of the willing” to counteract opposition to escalation within NATO and “prosecute this to the end.” In an apparent fit of bloodlust, the Prime Minister proceeded to outline a series of demands:

“We must strengthen the targets. Media and communication are utterly essential. [Attacking] Oil, infrastructure, all the things Milosevic values… is clearly justified.”

“What is holding this back?” Blair fumed. “I have little doubt we are moving towards a situation where our aim will become removing Milosevic. We will not want to say so now, but autonomy for Kosovo inside Serbia is becoming absurd. And plainly Milosevic will threaten the stability of the region as long as he remains.”

The Ministry of Defence subsequently circulated a memo on “targeting,” which warranted “immediate attention,” that noted London had “offered the US three significant targets” identified by MI6: Belgrade’s iconic Hotel Jugoslavia; a Cold War-era Bunker; and the Yugoslav capital’s Central Post Office. While conceding that a strike on Hotel Jugoslavia would mean “some civilian casualties,” the memo insisted that their lives were “worth the cost.”

NATO subsequently hit Hotel Jugoslavia on May 7 and 8 in 1999, damaging its bars, boutiques, and dining halls while killing a refugee who sought shelter inside. The Washington Post promptly justified the strike by claiming it may have targeted a notorious Serbian paramilitary leader, who allegedly owned a casino housed within the hotel. Asked by the newspaper if he took the bombing personally, the fighter, known as “Arkan,” replied:

“When they hit civilians, I take it personally. You don’t change minds with Tomahawks. If they want to bring me to justice, why do they want to kill me? If they want to get Arkan, send ground troops so I can see their faces. I want to die in a fair fight. Bill Clinton is in deep you-know-what. He bombs what he can. He says ‘God bless America’ and the rest of the world dies.”

NATO bombing stokes Chinese and Russian fears

Later that April, as per Blair’s personal order to target “media,” NATO bombed the Belgrade headquarters of the Yugoslav TV network RTS. The strike killed 16 journalists and wounded 16 more, with many trapped under rubble for days. The Prime Minister personally defended the criminal assault, claiming the station was a core component of Milosevic’s “apparatus of dictatorship and power”.

The NATO-funded International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia later investigated the RTS bombing. It concluded that while the site wasn’t a military target, the action aimed to disrupt Belgrade’s communications network, and was therefore legitimate. Amnesty International branded the ruling a miscarriage of justice. Then-NATO General Wesley Clark, who oversaw the bombing campaign, admitted it was understood that the attack would only interrupt RTS broadcasts for a brief period. Indeed, RTS was back on-air after just three hours.

The RTS strike represented one of several egregious war crimes NATO committed throughout the Yugoslavia campaign with total impunity. Officially, the 78-day-long aerial onslaught destroyed just 14 Yugoslav tanks, while devastating 372 industrial facilities, leaving hundreds of thousands jobless. The military alliance allegedly took directions on what to target from US corporations, including Philip Morris. NATO’s deliberate obliteration of chemical plants polluted soil, air, and water across the Balkans with over 100 toxic substances. Not coincidentally, Serbia today is a world leader in cancer rates.

On the first night that Hotel Jugoslavia was bombed, NATO carried out a simultaneous strike against Beijing’s embassy in Belgrade, killing three journalists, wounding dozens sheltering inside, and outraging Chinese and Serb citizens alike. NATO declared that this was merely an accident, caused by erroneous CIA targeting data. While the declassified Ministry of Defence files conspicuously contain no reference to this highly controversial international incident, they do mention grave Chinese concerns over the wider campaign. Namely, that it would “constitute a precedent for intervention elsewhere.”

British officials sought to allay these fears not only in Beijing, but Moscow. Then-Russian premier Yevgeny Primakov learned NATO had launched its campaign against Yugoslavia while he was literally mid-air, en route to the US for an official meeting. He immediately ordered the pilot to return to Russia. Despite his protest, the Kremlin thereafter attempted to compel Milosevic to cease hostilities in Kosovo via diplomatic channels.

Once it became clear that Russia would not intervene on his side, Milosevic folded and pledged to withdraw all Yugoslav forces from Kosovo on June 3, 1999. In turn, NATO would occupy the province. That same month, a cable dispatched from the British Embassy in Moscow observed the bombing was widely viewed locally “as a blow to [the] UN Security Council and threat to Russian interests… setting an unacceptable precedent for action out of area, circumventing the Security Council if necessary”:

“[Moscow’s Ministry of Defense] has used NATO’s resort to force to argue Russia’s new military doctrine should take more serious account of a potential threat from NATO, with all that that means in terms of force levels, procurement and the future of arms control… The UK’s forward position on the use of force has not gone unnoticed… The Kosovo campaign has reinforced the perception here of an expanding NATO as a powerful tool for the imposition of US will in Europe.”

Blair reportedly walked away from his destruction of Yugoslavia with newfound confidence. According to veteran British journalist Andrew Marr, the Prime Minister realized “he had tried to bounce [Clinton] too obviously over Kosovo,” thus concluding that “American Presidents need tactful handling” to achieve desired results. Blair also “learned to cope with giving orders which resulted in much loss of life.” Directing Yugoslavia’s collapse furthermore “convinced him of his ability to lead in war, to take big gambles, and to get them right.”

It was this arrogant attitude that guided Blair into the quagmire of Iraq, and to further interventions which wreaked havoc on the globe.

Blair fulfills ‘Britain’s destiny’

With the Yugoslav army fully withdrawn from Kosovo, the province began to resemble post-World War II Germany, carved into Western occupation zones. As a November 1999 OSCE report documented in sickening detail, a very real genocide immediately commenced. KLA fighters proceeded to not only purge Kosovo’s Roma and Serb population, but also clear out their Albanian political and criminal rivals via intimidation, torture, and murder—all under the watchful eye of NATO and UN “peacekeepers.”

The Independent reported that month that the KLA’s post-war campaign of “murder and kidnap” in NATO-occupied Kosovo—officially described as an effort “to ensure public safety and order”—reduced Pristina’s Serb population from 40,000 to just 400. A local European human rights worker told the newspaper that over the prior six months, “every single Serb” they knew had “been intimidated—verbally in the street, on the telephone, [or] physically” by the Al Qaeda-tied KLA.

In December 2010, a British “peacekeeper” posted to Kosovo during this time attributed Pristina’s modern day status as “an impoverished, corrupt and ethnically polarised backwater” to NATO’s “unwillingness to control KLA gangsters.” He recalled how London under his watch consistently “emboldened the KLA to greater brutality.” Whenever he captured the terror group’s fighters on the streets, heavily armed and “intent on murder and intimidation,” his superiors ordered them freed:

“I witnessed… the KLA rampaging like a victorious mob intent on retribution,” he explained, adding that “systematic murder of Serbs, often shot in front of their families, was commonplace.” Given that “KLA thugs wielding AK47s, knuckledusters and knives terrified residents of Serbian apartment blocks, Many Serbs fled,” the former soldier noted.

“The Blair government’s spin machine wanted moral simplicity. The Serbs were the ‘bad guys’, so that must make Kosovo Albanians the ‘good guys’… Prostitution and drug and people trafficking increased as the KLA’s grip on Pristina tightened.”

However, KLA fighters were shielded from ICTY prosecution for their innumerable horrific crimes by direct NATO decree. Only today is justice being vaguely served, to almost total Western indifference. In many cases, American politicians continue to sing the praises of brutal KLA leaders. In 2010, then-Vice President Joe Biden referred to later-indicted war criminal Hashim Thaci as Pristina’s “George Washington.” Thaci’s 2018 autobiography proudly features fawning promotional quotes from the current Oval Office occupant on its sleeve.

Since 1945, British officials have been overwhelmingly preoccupied with maintaining the bigger, richer, more powerful US Empire’s global dominance, so as to surreptitiously guide it in direction of their choosing. Rarely is this sinister mission so candidly articulated as in the documents presented here. While Blair’s reverie of “toppling” Milosevic via US force was unrequited, Washington’s calamitous post-9/11 “Global War on Terror” was explicitly British-inspired.

Not long after planes hit the World Trade Center that fateful day, Blair dispatched a bust of Winston Churchill to the White House, evoking the wartime leader’s famed December 1941 address to Congress, which heralded Washington’s entry into World War II. At the same time, the British premier privately wrote to President George W. Bush, urging him to exploit “maximum” global sympathy produced by 9/11 to launch military interventions across West Asia. This wave of belligerence was foreshadowed during Blair’s 1997 election campaign:

“Century upon century it has been the destiny of Britain to lead other nations. That should not be a destiny that is part of our history. It should be part of our future… We are a leader of nations, or we are nothing.”

A British-steered global Pax Americana was forged in Yugoslavia 25 years ago, in an incendiary baptism of airstrikes and atrocity propaganda, which subsequently inflicted death, destruction, and misery throughout the Global South. Today, untold millions across the world grapple with the painful legacy of Blair’s determination to fulfill London’s “destiny.”

March 26, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Kosovo, NATO, UK, United States, Yugoslavia | Leave a comment

Macron’s Psycho-Play to Keep Aloft the Punctured Balloon of a ‘Geo-Political EU’

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 25, 2024

Charles Michel, the European Council President, has called on Europe to switch to a ‘war economy’. He justifies this call partly as urgent support for Ukraine, but more pertinently, as the need for relaunching the (beached) European economy by focussing on the defence industry.

Calls ring out across Europe: ‘We are in a pre-war era’, Polish PM Donald Tusk says. Macron, after mooting the possibility ambiguously several times, says, “Maybe at some point – I don’t want it – we will have to have operations [French troops in Ukraine], on the ground, to counter the Russian forces”.

What has spooked the Europeans so? We know the French Intelligence briefing reaching Macron in recent days was dire; it seems to have triggered his initial sally into direct French military intervention in Ukraine. French classified Intelligence warned that the collapse of the Contact Line, and the disintegration of the AFU as a functioning military force, might be imminent.

Macron played coy: Might he send troops? At one time seemingly ‘yes’; but then frustratingly the prospect was uncertain, yet still possibly on the table. Confusion reigned. Nobody knew for sure, as the President is nothing if not volatile, and General De Gaulle bequeathed to his successors, quasi-regal powers. So yes, constitutionally he could do it.

The general view in Europe was that Macron was playing complex mind-games, firstly with the French people, and secondly with Russia. Nevertheless, it seems that there could be some substance to Macron’s sabre-rattling: The French Chief of Army Staff said he has 20,000 troops ready to be inserted in 30 days. And the Head of Russia’s SVR Intelligence Agency, Naryshkin, more modestly assessed that France seemingly is preparing a military contingent for sending to Ukraine, which at the initial stage, will be about two thousand people.

Just to be clear however, even a 20,000-man division by standards of classical military theory is supposed to be able to hold at maximum, a 10km-front. An insertion of two or twenty thousand French troops would change nothing strategically; it would not halt the vastly larger Russian steamroller, grinding on westwards. So what is Macron playing at?

Is this all bluff, then?

Likely, it is part ‘grandstanding’ by Macron, pre-occupied to present himself as ‘Mr Strongman Europe’ – particularly toward his French constituency.

His posturing comes however, at a more significant conjunction of events for the so-called ‘Geo-political EU’:

Clarity: Light has pierced, and has illuminated a space hitherto occupied by shadows. It is now as clear as it can be – after Putin’s overwhelming win in elections on a record turnout – that President Putin is here to stay. All the western shadow-play of ‘régime change’ in Moscow simply shrunk to naught in the bright light of events.

Snorts of anger can be heard from some quarters in Europe. Yet they will subside. There is no choice. The reality, as Marianne newspaper, quoting a senior French officer, derisively noting in respect to Macron’s Ukraine’s posturing: “We must make no mistake, facing the Russians; we are an army of cheerleaders” and sending French troops to the Ukrainian front would simply be “not reasonable”.

At the Élysée, an unnamed advisor argued that Macron “wanted to send a strong signal … (in) milli-metered and calibrated words”.

What pains the EU ‘neocon ever-hopefuls’ more is that Putin’s clear electoral victory coincides, almost precisely, with an EU (and NATO) humiliation in Ukraine. It is not just that the AFU appears to be in a cascading implosion, but that the retreat is accelerating, as Ukraine tries to retreat into unprepared and near indefensible terrain.

Into this grim EU prospect is that second shaft of clarifying light: The U.S. is slowly but surely turning its back on the financing and arming of Kiev, leaving Europe’s impotence exposed for all the world to see.

The EU simply cannot substitute for the U.S. pivot. Yet more hurtful for some is that a U.S. retreat represents a ‘punch in the guts’ for much of the Brussels leadership, who had fallen on the Biden Administration with almost indecent glee, upon Trump’s leaving of office. They used the moment to proclaim the cementing of a pro-Atlanticist, pro-NATO EU.

Now, as former Indian diplomat MK Bhadrakumar perfectly defines it, “France [is] all dressed up – with nowhere to go”:

“Ever since its ignominious defeat in the Napoleonic wars, France is entrapped in the predicament of countries that get sandwiched between great powers. Following World War II, France addressed this predicament by forging an axis with Germany in Europe”.

“Caught up in a similar predicament, Britain adapted itself to a subaltern role tapping into the American power globally but France never gave up its quest to regain glory as a global power. And it continues to be a work in progress”.

“The angst in the French mind is understandable as the five centuries of western dominance of the world order is drawing to a close. This predicament condemns France to a diplomacy that is constantly in a state of suspended animation, interspersed with sudden bouts of activism”.

The problems here for the exalted aspiration for the EU qua global power are three-fold: Firstly, the Franco-German Axis has dissolved, as Germany swerved towards the U.S. as its new foreign-policy dogma. Secondly, France’s clout is diminished further in European affairs as Scholtz has embraced Poland (not France) as its like-minded, ‘best friend forever’; and thirdly, Macron’s personal relations with Chancellor Scholz are on a dive.

The other plane to the EU geo-political project is that the embrace of Washington’s financial wars on Russia and China has resulted in “the U.S. has dramatically outgrowing the EU and the United Kingdom combined – over the last 15 years. In 2008, the EU’s economy was somewhat larger than America’s … America’s economy is now however, nearly one-third bigger. [And] it is more than 50 per cent larger than the EU without the UK”.

In other words, being America’s ally, in its ill-judged Ukraine-proxy war, has – and is – costing Europe dearly. Eurointelligence reports that a survey amongst small and medium-sized companies in Germany has registered an extreme shift in sentiment against the EU. Of the sample of 1,000 small and medium sized companies, 90% were unhappy with the EU to varying degrees, driving many to re-locate from Europe to the U.S.

Put plainly, the effort to inflate and hold aloft the notion of a ‘geo-political Europe’ is ending in débacle. Living standards are sinking and Brussel’s regulatory promiscuity and high energy costs are resulting in the de-industrialisation and impoverishment of Europe.

Macron, in a blunt interview in late 2019 with The Economist magazine, declared that Europe stood on “the edge of a precipice” and needed to start thinking of itself strategically as a geo-political power, lest we will “no longer be in control of our destiny.” (Macron’s remark preceded the war in Ukraine by 3 years).

Today, Macron’s fears are reality.

So, to turn to what the EU plans to do about this crisis, EC President Michel says he wants to buy twice as many weapons from European producers by 2030; to use the profits from Russian frozen assets to finance weapons purchases for Ukraine; to facilitate financial access for the European defence industry, including by issuing a European defence bond and getting the European Investment Bank to add defence purposes to its lending criteria.

Michel sells it to the public as a way to create jobs and growth. In reality, however, the EU is looking to create a new slush fund to replace the QE purchases by the ECB of EU states’ sovereign bonds, which the interest rate spike in the U.S. effectively killed.

The defence industry ploy is a means to create more cash flows: The EU’s various mooted ‘transitions’ (Climate, Greening and Tech) clearly required mammoth money-printing. This was just about manageable when the project could be financed at zero cost interest rates. Now the EU states’ debt explosion to fund the pandemic and ‘transitions’ threatens to take the entire geo-political ‘revolution’ into financial crisis. There is a financing crisis underway.

Defence, Michael hopes, may be saleable to the public as the new ‘transition’ to be financed by unorthodox means. Wolfgang Münchau at EuroIntellignce however, writes on ‘Michel’s rosy war economy’ – that he wants a geo-political Europe, and so concludes his letter with the familiar cold war adage – that ‘if you want peace you need to prepare for war’”.

“Are those weapons in Michel’s war economy to speak for our failures in diplomacy? What is our historic contribution to this conflict? Should we not start from there?”

“The language Michel uses is dramatic and dangerous. Some of our older citizens still remember what it means to live in a war economy. Michel’s loose talk is disrespectful”.

Eurointelligence is not alone in its criticism. Macron’s gambit has divided Europe, with a majority firmly opposed to inserting troops into Ukraine – sleep-walking into war. Marianne’s editor Natacha Polony has written:

“It is no longer about Emmanuel Macron or his postures as a virile little leader. It is no longer even about France or its weakening by blind and irresponsible élites. It is a question of whether we will collectively agree to sleepwalk into war. A war that no one can claim will be controlled or contained. It’s a question of whether we agree to send our children to die because the United States insisted on setting up bases on Russia’s borders”.

The bigger question concerns the whole ‘Von der Leyen-Macron’ geo-political gambit of the EU needing to think of itself as a geo-political power. It is the pursuit of this geo-political ‘chimaera’ (in no little part, an ego-project) that paradoxically, has brought the EU exactly to the brink of crisis.

Do a majority of Europeans truly wish to be a geo-political power, if that requires relinquishing what remains of their national sovereignty and autonomy (and parliamentary oversight) to the supra-national plane; to the Brussels technocrats? Maybe Europeans are content for the EU to remain as a trade bloc.

So why is Macron nonetheless doing this? No one is sure, but it seems that he imagines he is playing some complicated game of psycho-deterrence with Moscow – one characterised by radical ambiguity.

His is just another psy-ops, in other words.

It is possible nonetheless, that he thinks his ambiguous on/off threat of an European deployment into Ukraine might just give Kiev enough negotiating ‘leverage’ to bluff Russia into agreeing to ‘rump Ukraine’ remaining in the western (and even NATO) sphere, in which case Macron will claim have been Ukraine’s ‘saviour’.

If this is the case, it is pie in the sky. President Putin, armed with his recent electoral victory, simply swept Macron’s psy-op off the table: ‘Any insertion of French troops would be ‘invaders’ and a legitimate target for our forces’, Putin made explicit.

March 25, 2024 Posted by aletho | Economics, Militarism | European Union, France, NATO, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment

The French Road to Nuclear War

Consortium News | March 24, 2024

ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: On the Brink of Nuclear War

Mr. President:

France is reportedly preparing to dispatch a force of some 2,000 troops — roughly a reinforced brigade built around an armored battalion and two mechanized battalions, with supporting logistical, engineering, and artillery troops attached — into Ukraine sometime in the not-so-distant future.

This force is purely symbolic, inasmuch as it would have zero survivability in a modern high-intensity conflict of the scope and scale of what is transpiring in Ukraine today. It would not be deployed directly in a conflict zone, but would serve either as (1) a screening force/tripwire to stop Russia’s advance; or (2) a replacement force deployed to a non-active zone to free up Ukrainian soldiers for combat duty. The French Brigade reportedly will be supplemented by smaller units from the Baltic states.

This would be introducing combat troops of a NATO country into a theater of war, making them “lawful targets” under the Law of War.

Such units would apparently lack a NATO mandate. In Russia’s view, however, this may be a distinction without a difference. France appears to be betting – naively – that its membership in NATO would prevent Russia from attacking French troops. Rather, it is highly likely that Russia would attack any French/Baltic contingent in Ukraine and quickly destroy/degrade its combat viability.

In that case, French President Macron may calculate that, after Russian attacks on the troops of NATO members – NATO mandate or not – he could invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter and get the NATO alliance to intervene. Such intervention would likely take the form of aircraft operating from NATO nations – and perhaps include interdiction missions against tactical targets inside Russia.

On Precipice of Nuclear War?

Doctrinally, and by legal right, Russia’s response would be to launch retaliatory strikes also against targets in NATO countries. If NATO then attacks strategic targets inside Russia, at that point Russia’s nuclear doctrine takes over, and NATO decision-making centers would be hit with nuclear weapons.

We do not believe Russia will initiate a nuclear attack against the U.S., but rather would leave it up to the United States to decide if it wants to risk destruction by preparing to launch a nuclear strike on Russia. That said, Russian strategic forces have improved to the point that, in some areas – hypersonic missiles, for example – its capability surpasses that of the U.S. and NATO.

In other words, the Russian temptation to strike first may be a bit stronger than during past crises, and we are somewhat less confident that Russia would want to “go second”. Another disquieting factor is that the Russians are likely to believe that Macron’s folly has the tacit approval of some key U.S. and other Western officials, who seem desperate to find some way to alter the trajectory of the war in Ukraine – the more so, as elections draw near.

What Needs to Be Done

Europe needs to understand that France is leading it down a path of inevitable self-destruction.

The American people need to understand that Europe is leading them to the cusp of nuclear annihilation.

Since Russian leaders may suspect that Macron is working hand in glove with Washington, the U.S. needs to make its position publicly and unambiguously clear.

And if France and the Baltics insist on sending troops into Ukraine, it must also be made clear that such action has no NATO mandate; that Article 5 will not be triggered by any Russian retaliation; and that the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including those nuclear weapons that are part of the NATO deterrent force, will not be employed as a result of any Russian military action against French or Baltic troops.

Void of such clarity, France would be leading the American people down a path toward a nuclear conflict decidedly not in the interests of the American people – or of humanity itself.

FOR THE STEERING GROUP,

VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Richard Black, former Virginia State Senator; Colonel, USA (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division, Judge Advocate General (associate VIPS)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret) and former Office Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Philip Giraldi, C.I.A., Operations Officer (ret.)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq and Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
James George Jatras, former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate leadership (Associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson, former C.I.A. and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
John Kiriakou, former C.I.A. Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Douglas Macgregor, Colonel, USA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army infantry/intelligence officer & C.I.A. analyst; C.I.A. Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & C.I.A. political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, U.S. Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Pedro Israel Orta, former C.I.A. and Intelligence Community (Inspector General) officer
Scott Ritter, former MAJ, USMC; former U.N. Weapons Inspector, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War

Background: Earlier VIPS Memos for President Biden on Ukraine

May 1, 2022

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Nuclear Weapons Cannot Be Un-invented, Thus …

“The growing possibility that nuclear weapons might be used, as hostilities in Ukraine continue to escalate, merits your full attention.”

++++++++++++++++++++++

Sept. 5, 2022

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: VIPS
SUBJECT: Ukraine Decision Time & Secretary of Defense

“If Austin tells you Kyiv is beating back the Russians, kick the tires”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jan. 26, 2023

ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: VIPS
SUBJECT: Leopards to Ukraine: Decisions in an Intelligence Vacuum

“None of the newly promised weaponry will stop Russia from defeating what’s left of the Ukrainian army. If you have been told otherwise, replace your intelligence and military advisers with competent professionals – the sooner the better.”

“There is a large conceptual – and exceptionally dangerous – disconnect. Simply stated, it is not possible to “win the war against Russia” AND avoid WWIII. It is downright scary that Defense Secretary Austin may think it possible. In any case, the Kremlin has to assume he thinks so. It is a very dangerous delusion.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++

January 25, 2024

ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: VIPS

SUBJECT: Throwing Good Money After Bad

“On Jan. 26, 2023, we reminded you that National Intelligence Director Avril Haines had said Russia was using up ammunition extraordinarily quickly and could not indigenously produce what it was expending.”

“On July 13, you said Putin “has already lost the war”. You may have gotten that from C.I.A. Director William Burns who, a week before, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post saying: “Putin’s war has already been a strategic failure for Russia – its military weaknesses laid bare.” Both statements are incorrect. Nor is the war a “stalemate”, as Jake Sullivan has claimed more recently.”

March 25, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | France, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment

Italy’s Salvini says ‘warmonger’ Macron ‘danger’ for Europe as Ukraine tension rises

Press TV – March 24, 2024

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini says French President Emmanuel Macron is a “warmonger” and represents a “danger” for Europe by refusing to rule out sending Western ground troops to Ukraine.

Salvini’s remarks came on Saturday during a gathering in Rome of right-wing and nationalist European leaders to rally support ahead of EU parliamentary elections in June.

Salvini whose far-right League party is a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition government, said that Macron’s suggestion last month that Western ground troops could be sent to Ukraine was “extremely dangerous, excessive and out of balance.”

“I think that President Macron, with his words, represents a danger for our country and our continent,” he said during his speech.

“The problem isn’t mums and dads but the warmongers like Macron who talk about war as if there were no problem now,” he added. “I don’t want to leave our children a continent ready to enter World War Three.”

In similar remarks, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani also said in mid-March that his country does not support deploying NATO troops in Ukraine, warning that the move could spark World War III.

The French president told a press conference he did not rule out sending troops last month, after a high-level meeting in Paris of mainly European partners to discuss what urgent steps could be taken to shore up Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s recent frontline advances.

Following his remarks he faced criticism from France’s Nato and EU partners and a warning of conflict from Russia.

Last week, Sergey Naryshkin, Russia’s foreign intelligence (SVR) top brass said any French military unit sent to Ukraine to help it fight Russia would be a “priority” target for the Russian army.

This warning came after Kremlin received information that Paris is preparing to dispatch a contingent of 2,000 troops to Ukraine to fight against Russia.

Naryshkin said that Macron is concealing the actual number of French soldiers who have lost their lives in Ukraine due to concerns over potential widespread demonstrations in France.

In response, the French army chief of staff, Pierre Schill has said France is ready to face whatever developments unfold internationally and is prepared for the “toughest engagements” to protect itself.

Ties between France and Russia have further deteriorated in recent weeks after Paris signed a bilateral security accord with Ukraine and vowed to send more long-range cruise missiles.

Earlier this month, Macron also said there are “no limits” to French support for Ukraine. He added that France “would be ready to make sure that Russia never wins that war.”

Russia launched what it calls “a special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, over the perceived threat of the ex-Soviet republic joining NATO.

Since then, the United States and Ukraine’s other Western allies have sent Kiev tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including rocket systems, drones, armored vehicles, tanks, and communication systems.

Western countries have also imposed a slew of economic sanctions on Moscow. The Kremlin has said the sanctions and the Western military assistance will only prolong the war.

March 24, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Russophobia | Emmanuel Macron, France, Italy, NATO, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Full-Spectrum Psyop: US Whips Up Fear of Russian Bugaboo to ‘Subjugate Europe’

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 23.03.2024

From the French president’s threats to send troops to Ukraine to a series of media reports on alleged Russian plans to invade NATO, anti-Russian hysteria has reached a fever pitch in European capitals. Meanwhile, one world power has been able to sit back and quietly collect the dividends, says veteran foreign affairs observer Gilbert Doctorow.

European politicians are doing their best to continue ratcheting up tensions with Moscow, with French President Emmanuel Macron reiterating that he may send thousands of troops to Ukraine, Baltic politicians allying with Paris on the issue, and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski saying it’s an “open secret” that NATO soldiers are already in the country.

British and German media have done their part to add fuel the hysteria, citing a recent briefing to Bundestag lawmakers on purported plans by Russia to kick off a “full-scale ‘land, sea and air’ war” with NATO.

“We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day… so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned in an interview earlier this year.

This week, Polish President Andrzej Duda claimed it was a matter “of common sense” that “Putin, by putting his economy on a war footing, will have such military might that he will be able to attack NATO.” Meanwhile, his top general, Polish Armed Forces Chief of Staff Wieslaw Kukula, has alleged that Russia is actively “preparing for a conflict,” and urging Europe to do the same.

Europe’s defenses are in an unenviable state. Facing a major economic downturn and a $61 billion spending shortfall after giving roughly the same amount away to Kiev for NATO’s proxy war against Russia, European military leaders have warned that they could be left “throwing stones” within hours of a major conflict breaking out as arms and ammo stocks round dry.

But the question no Western officials or media have been able to answer is why Russia – which has over the past three decades expressed a preference for economic cooperation with Europe, rather than fighting its western neighbors, would be interested in invading NATO and almost certainly triggering World War III.

“The whole of NATO cannot fail to understand that Russia has no reason, no interest – neither geopolitical, nor economic, nor political, nor military – to fight with NATO countries,” President Putin said in an interview in December, emphasizing that Moscow and the bloc “have no territorial claims against each other” and could live peacefully.

Puppet Hands at Play

The problem may just be that Russia is taking the hysterical outbursts by NATO officials and Western media at face value, instead of searching for the ‘man behind the curtain’ seeking desperately to keep tensions in place.

“For the United States, the war in Ukraine has failed as a means of weakening Russia so that they can proceed with preparations to fight China. But it has succeeded spectacularly as a means of subjugating Europe. Washington now firmly has its knees on the neck of Europe,” veteran international relations and Russian affairs expert Dr. Gilbert Doctorow told Sputnik.

Economically and politically, the US has been able to extract major concessions from the Europeans over the past two years, plucking hundreds of manufacturers from the continent thanks to an energy crisis sparked by the bloc’s “suicidal” decision to cut off Russian energy supplies, forcing the EU to purchase American LNG at four times the cost, and even trying to saddle Brussels with economic and military aid to Ukraine as Congress remains deadlocked over a $61 billion aid package.

“Here in Europe, the war is now being used to whip up popular enthusiasm for war mobilization of the domestic economies and subjugation of the populace to authoritarian and unlimited powers of the ruling elite,” Doctorow said.

“What remains of free speech and other freedoms can be snuffed out in war hysteria. Moreover, the war fever is being used by [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen and the EU Commission in a bid to draw more power into Brussels at the expense of the national governments,” Doctorow warned.

“Some countries are resisting, for example Prime Minister [Mark] Rutte of the Netherlands and even the mealy-mouthed German Chancellor [Olaf Scholz, ed.] are publicly opposed to the proposal of a European debt issuance to finance subsidies to the military production companies, all in spite of van der Leyen. Meanwhile, Macron is on the other side, pushing for greater European centralization for which is the proposed common investment in defense is a nice instrument,” the observer added.

Poking the Bear

Russia’s military buildup “has been reactive to new challenges from the West,” Doctorow stressed, pointing out, for example, that “until the decision of Finland and Sweden to join NATO, Russia had almost no troops on its northwest border. Now, in response to new threats from the northern neighbors, that is being rectified by a big military build-up on the Russian side.”

Something similar can be said of defense budgets, with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute recently estimating that Russia’s defense budget amounted to $65.9 billion in 2021 – a fraction of NATO spending of $1.16 trillion ($753.5 billion of that by the US alone) the same year. Even in 2024, with the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine raging and intensifying, Russia plans to spend the equivalent of $140 billion, still just a fraction of the Western bloc, which has again accounted for more than half of all military spending worldwide this year.

Ultimately, Dr. Doctorow emphasized, Western governments are following an old playbook.

“An aggressive foreign policy stand is almost always a convenient way of distracting attention away from domestic failures. And thanks to the boomerang of Western sanctions, European economies are doing very poorly as we go into the June elections” to the European Parliament, the observer summed up.

March 23, 2024 Posted by aletho | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | European Union, NATO, Russia, United States | Leave a comment

What caused the US to fall?

By Vladimir Mashin – New Eastern Outlook – 22.03.2024

Europeans and Americans alike are tired of the war in Ukraine. Clear-headed people in the West realise that Russia cannot be defeated: the bravura statements of some officials can hardly hide the obvious truth that the Kiev regime is doomed. More and more observers are coming to the conclusion that the American elite is waging war to “fend off the challenge to its own hegemony”.

In these circumstances, the new book “Defeat of the West” by Emmanuel Todd, a well-known French political scientist and anthropologist, is attracting a lot of attention in the West. According to the historian, the West made a fatal miscalculation when it decided to expand NATO under Presidents B. Clinton and G. Bush: the American elite was drugged by the ideology of “democracy promotion and official demonisation of Russia”. The American ruling elites not only endangered the whole world, but also created great dangers for America’s existence as a single state.

By imposing unprecedented sanctions on Moscow, the United States overestimated its capabilities and failed to rally the major states of the global South to its side. Moreover, the manufacturing base of the United States and its European allies has proved insufficient to supply Ukraine with the equipment (especially artillery) needed to stabilise, let alone win, the war. The United States no longer has the means to fulfil its foreign policy promises.

The United States makes fewer cars than it did in the 1980s and grows less wheat.

But the most important factor explaining today’s problems is the moral and cultural decline of the West – according to Todd, “Too many people want to run things and boss them around. They want to be politicians, artists, managers. And that doesn’t always require learning intellectually challenging things: ultimately, educational progress has led to educational decline because it has led to the disappearance of the values that favour education”.

The US produces fewer engineers than Russia, not only per capita, but also in absolute numbers: the country is experiencing an “internal brain drain” as its young people move from demanding, high-skill, high-value-added professions to law, finance and various occupations that betray the value of the economy and, in some cases, may even destroy it.

According to Todd, the West’s decision to outsource its industrial base is more than bad policy; it is evidence of a project to exploit the rest of the world.

Nor have the Americans succeeded in spreading the federal values they proclaim to be universal. As the United States has modernised, it has come to espouse a model of sex and gender that does not fit well with the models of traditional cultures such as Indian, Islamic and Russian.

Todd believes that many of these values are “deeply negative”. The West does not value the lives of its young. (In 1976, Todd used infant mortality statistics to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union).

Today, Biden’s America has a higher infant mortality rate (5.4 per 1,000) than today’s Russia, and three times that of Japan.

Todd is struck by the inability of the Western elite to distinguish facts from wishes. Newspapers constantly report that President Putin is a threat to the Western order, but the greater threat to the Western order is the arrogance of those who run it.

According to the historian, it sometimes seems that in the United States there are no national principles, only partisan ones, and “each side is convinced that the other is trying not just to run the government but to take over the state”.

Similar assessments can often be heard in the American press. For example, in a commentary on Biden’s speech to the US Congress on 7 March, the well-known columnist Robin Givhan said: “The real audience is not in the parliament, but in the cheap seats outside: in cities where homeless encampments and busloads of desperate migrants are at once enraging and heartbreaking; in towns where fear and confusion drive people to try to rewrite history or hide it from future generations; and in picturesque communities where people want to hold back change because the unknown future seems far more frightening than the sclerotic present. The American people are confused. After all, they elected this dysfunctional Congress.

March 23, 2024 Posted by aletho | Book Review, Economics | NATO, United States | Leave a comment

Ukraine Brought Upon Itself Russia’s Retaliatory Strikes & ‘More Will Follow’

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 22.03.2024

Russia carried out strikes that paralyzed Ukraine’s power grid, targeted decision-making centers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, logistics bases, railway junctions and ammunition depots, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Friday. The MoD added that the attacks left Ukraine’s military production and repair facilities in disarray.

The Kiev regime brought upon itself Russia’s massive retaliatory strikes disrupting Ukraine’s energy facilities, the functioning of military-industrial enterprises.

Evgeny Mikhailov, political scientist, director of the Center for Strategic Studies of the South Caucasus, told Sputnik that “They forced us to take such serious preventive measures,” stressing that “this is not the last such strike, and more will follow.”

Two explosions were heard in the morning at the Dnepr Hydroelectric Power Plant in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporozhye, Vladimir Rogov, head of the regional public movement “We Are Together with Russia,” told Sputnik.

Russia has carried out massive drone and rocket attacks targeting electrical power facilities across much of Ukraine.

The country’s Dnepr Hydroelectric Power Plant was knocked out of action due to significant damage after being hit eight times, Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said. The overnight strikes were “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy sector in recent times.”

Between March 16 and 22, Russia carried out “49 retaliatory strikes using high-precision long-range air-launched weapons, including Kinzhal aeroballistic hypersonic missiles, other missile systems and unmanned aerial vehicles,” the Russian Ministry of Defense in a statement on Friday. Strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities, military-industrial complex, railway junctions and ammunition depots were in response to the shelling of Russian territory, and “attempts to break through and seize Russian border settlements.”

“It is already clear now that after Dnepr Hydroelectric Power Plant was targeted, Kharkov is virtually without electricity, internet traffic has sharply decreased throughout Ukraine, internet communications have suffered, and there are power outages in many cities,” Mikhailov noted.

“Everything is interconnected. Dnepr Hydroelectric Power Plant is the most important facility in the energy structure of Ukraine,” the pundit added. “Our strike effectively put out of operation manufacturers of weapons and other goods necessary to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the fight against the Russian military. And, of course, this is a big blow to the combat effectiveness of the Ukrainian army in principle.”

Russia has demonstrated that it is capable of inflicting hefty blows on Ukraine’s infrastructure that cause significant losses and damage, said the expert.

“This was actually a response to the attack on our infrastructure facilities in the interior of the country, oil refineries, and shelling of peaceful cities,” Mikhailov explained. “The Ukrainian Armed Forces have crossed all ‘red lines,’ especially in recent months. Accordingly, nothing limits Russia from striking Kiev’s critical infrastructure facilities.”

The Russian strikes are part of the overall logical strategy of the national Armed Forces, agreed veteran Russian military expert Ivan Konovalov. The attacks are of a ‘combined’ nature, he noted: Russian forces are acting on the front line and targeting Ukraine’s energy systems deep in the rear.

“Strikes on the energy system and critical infrastructure always immediately affect the situation at the front,” Konovalov said.

The Ukrainian military-industrial complex has long ceased to exist, Konovalov noted, as it “was destroyed long before the start of Russia’s special military operation, when Kiev broke off cooperation ties with Russia in the field of military-technical cooperation.”

He stressed that any military-industrial enterprise on the territory of Ukraine is a legitimate target for Russia’s Armed Forces. And since some of Kiev’s Western patrons floated ideas of building weapons factories on Ukrainian soil, these strikes carried out by Russia could be seen as “a warning” that “they will all come under attack.”

“These blows will affect three main factors: the economy of Ukraine, the situation at the front, and the overall terrorist policy of Kiev,” Konovalov said.

Russia’s strikes came after a series of attempts by Ukrainian forces to break into the Russian border regions of Belgorod and Kursk were repulsed “thanks to the coordinated actions of the forces guarding the state border of the Russian Federation,” the Defense Ministry said.

A spate of Ukrainian drone attacks also targeted Russian oil refineries. Those acts triggered a flurry of concerns in Washington, Mikhailov believes, where they see that “Russia’s hands are no longer tied.”

March 22, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | European Union, NATO, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment

France ‘Prepares for War’ and Threatens European Security Architecture

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 22, 2024

France continues to take steps towards militarization and escalating tensions with Russia. Amid discussions about whether or not to send French troops to Ukrainian territory, officials in Paris have made controversial statements about a supposed “preparation for war”, leading many analysts to believe that relations between France and Russia are close to a point-of-no-return — which could obviously have catastrophic consequences for the European continent and the entire world.

In a recent statement, Pierre Schill, commander of the French Army, stated that his troops are in combat readiness, capable of engaging in war at any time — if necessary. He believes that today’s France is severely threatened. In this sense, the country must be prepared to go to war against states that pose a danger to Paris.

At the same time, the government’s official speech continues to become increasingly aggressive towards the Russian Federation. French President Emmanuel Macron has advanced plans to increase his country’s interventionism in the Ukrainian conflict — and continues to refuse to rule out the hypothesis of direct intervention by French troops on the battlefield. In practice, France is simply advancing a plan that would certainly lead to direct war against Russia, which obviously means a high-risk global situation considering France’s NATO membership.

More than that, Russian intelligence recently discovered that around two thousand French soldiers are mobilized to be sent to Ukraine at any time. They are believed to be deployed in critical regions such as Odessa and the northern border, where the West fears the Russians will consolidate positions. Although it denies the information set out in the Russian report, the French government remains publicly willing to, “if necessary”, send troops to Ukraine, which is why tensions remain high.

Interestingly, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmitry Kuleba, stated that Russia misunderstood French plans. According to him, Macron ’s real intention is not to enter directly into the conflict, but only, “if necessary”, to allocate French instructors on Ukrainian soil so that they can train Kiev’s troops on the ground. In a scenario of military escalation and with logistical difficulties for Ukraine, some believe that this would be the best way to continue the current cooperation projects and training of Kiev’s forces by the West.

However, it is necessary to remember that at no point did Macron suggest that he was actually planning a mere sending of instructors. In his statements, the president actually said that he did not rule out the possibility of direct intervention in the war, making it clear that Paris could send troops to fight on the Ukrainian front line in the future. Furthermore, even if Macron said this incorrectly and his intention is only to send military trainers, this does not change the fact that Paris would, in practice, be going to war against Russia.

Western troops on Ukrainian soil are and will always be legitimate targets for Russian military forces. More than that, they are priority targets, as Moscow understands that these adversaries are the true strategists behind Ukrainian crimes. Several Western troops have already died in Ukraine — some of them acting as mercenaries, others as instructors or decision-makers. However, so far there is no official presence of these troops, which somehow still keeps tensions reasonably controlled.

From the moment a NATO country starts sending regular soldiers to Ukraine, even for mere instructional purposes, the crisis will escalate to an extremely serious, possibly irreversible, level. The official presence of Western troops in Ukraine would be a point of no return in ties between NATO and Russia, leading to an open WWIII — the consequences of which could be catastrophic.

There is also the risk that France and Europeans will simply be “abandoned” in this process. So far, the US, which is the leading country in NATO, has not shown any interest in direct intervention. For Washington, the most profitable scenario is the involvement of proxy agents in attritional conflicts that “wear down” Russia, without openly involving American troops. In this sense, it is very likely that, if France engages in an open war with Russia, there will be no direct American support for Paris and its European allies — after all, NATO’s collective defense obligations are not applicable when an alliance country begins hostilities against another state.

Indeed, Macron is acting in a totally risky and irresponsible way. In his selfish attempt to gain “leadership” among Europeans, the French president is leading the entire continent into an unprecedented security crisis.

March 22, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | France, NATO, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Why Slovak Wildcard Robert Fico Could Bring EU House of Cards Crashing Down

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 21.03.2024

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has found himself in the crosshairs of Eurocrats worried that he may become the next Viktor Orban -a thorn in Brussels’ backside rejecting EU directives on everything from Ukraine to criminal justice reform. Sputnik asked Slovak politician Peter Marcek what it is about Fico that’s so unnerving to the establishment.

Slovaks will go to the polls Saturday for the first round of a highly anticipated presidential election, six months after a snap parliamentary vote in September saw veteran Direction – Social Democracy leader Robert Fico’s return to the prime minister’s chair.

While Slovakia’s presidency carries a largely symbolic function, the president does have the power to appoint key figures, including the prosecutor general, and can help the government in times of crisis, making the post an important one.

The latest polling shows Peter Pellegrini, a Fico ally from the offshoot Voice – Social Democracy party, and independent former ambassador to the United States Ivan Korcok running neck and neck with between 34 and 38 percent support each, guaranteeing a runoff between them in the second round of voting April 6.

Thelooming vote has spawned a spate of articles in European legacy media bashing Fico and his party, attacking him as a left wing populist analogue of Hungarian right wing populist Viktor Orban and the Fidesz party, and fearmongering about Slovak “democracy’s future,” Pellegrini’s supposed “Russia tilt,” and Bratislava’s alleged “democratic backsliding.”

All these reports have one thing in common: dread at the prospect that Fico and his allies will pursue an independent foreign and domestic policy which threatens the interests of Brussels and the United States.

Headache for Brussels

From Ukraine arms aid (which Fico halted last October) to Kiev’s NATO membership bid (which he has promised to block), to Bratislava’s defense pact with Washington (whose terms Fico has expressed dissatisfaction with) to the launch of an independent inquiry into the EU’s authoritarian pandemic policy, to criminal code reforms slammed by Brussels, Fico has already proven a major “headache” for the West. And that’s just for openers.

“Robert Fico has been in office for only four months, but he has begun to implement the right policies. He has begun to pursue policies for his people, for his country,” Peter Marcek, a former Slovak lawmaker, businessman and the chairman of the Slavic Unity party, told Sputnik.

“He refused to support Ukraine, stopped the supply of weapons to Ukraine, agreeing only to humanitarian assistance and saying that Slovakia would only provide such aid. Fico also doesn’t agree with many of the economic laws adopted by the European Union – which are adopted to benefit the EU itself, rather than its members,” the politician said.

Fico has already managed to get into trouble with the bloc in the course of his short time in office, Marcek said, pointing to Brussels’ threats to cancel the transfer of €1 billion in funds to Bratislava over the prime minister’s legal reform agenda. “They must give this money to Slovakia because it belongs to us. If they don’t… they will make people even more against the European Union. Fico has said that if they behave like this, the result can be only one thing – that Slovakia will exit the European Union, because economically our standard of living is getting worse and worse.”

“When sanctions were introduced against Russia, it did not kill the Russian economy, maybe only creating problems at the very start, but Russia was able to find other markets. We bought oil and gas from Russia at reasonable prices, now we pay the Americans four times more. Our standard of living has dropped significantly,” Marcek explained.

“If the European Union continues its current policy, we will soon leave it. Things simply cannot continue like this, and I think everyone sees it. For example, we have to pay €22,000 for each migrant that we did not accept into our country. What if they tell us that our quota for migrants is 300,000 people? Do the math: that’s 300,000 x €22,000. Instead of allocating this money to pensioners, children, families, will we give it to migrants? Why should we accept immigrants from Africa when we were never colonizers?” the politician asked.

Brussels’ self-serving policies have people from across the EU up in arms, Marcek said, pointing to the rising popularity of both right and left populist, Eurosceptic forces across Europe, and the “major farmer protests” in Austria, France, Germany and even Spain.

Amid the chaos, the EU will have to change its policy, “or the EU will collapse.” It’s as simple as that, the observer believes.

Marcek expects elections to the European Parliament in June to bring a new crop of leaders who seek greater national autonomy against EU institutions which don’t benefit their countries.

As for Slovakia’s upcoming presidential vote, Marceck says Pellegrini will be likely to defeat “pro-American Korcok,” and replace the current president, Zuzana Caputova, who “has created many problems for the government” and prevented its normal functioning. “She is a president that was installed by the US embassy,” the politician summed up.

March 21, 2024 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | European Union, NATO, Slovakia, United States | Leave a comment

Ukraine Talks Haven’t Started Because of US Threats to Zelensky, Seymour Hersh Says

Sputnik – 22.03.2024

Negotiations on resolving the conflict in Ukraine could have started months ago, but US authorities threatened Vladimir Zelensky with withdrawal of non-military funding, US journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh said in an article on Substack.

“We were on the verge of a reasonable negotiation several months ago before Putin’s re-election and Zelensky’s military degradation. The US leaders got wind of the possibility and gave Zelensky the ultimatum-‘No negotiations or settlement or we won’t support your government with the $45 billion in non-military funds [that Ukraine is now receiving annually],'” the source told the journalist.

According to Hersh’s information, US intelligence community recognises that “Ukraine has little chance of winning…”

Hersh’s interlocutor also added that US President Joe Biden has staked on confronting the “Russian threat to NATO” and will not change his course under any circumstances, while the end is inevitable.

“There is no road to victory for Ukraine, and it will end with Putin as an historical icon in Russia…,” the source concluded.

In autumn 2022, Zelensky signed a decree according to which his country will not negotiate with Russia as long as it is led by Vladimir Putin. Russia, for its part, has repeatedly noted its readiness to discuss the settlement of the conflict through diplomatic means.

As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasised, the Russia does not see any prerequisites for a peaceful transition of the situation, and sovereignty over the new Russian regions and Crimea is not up for discussion.

March 21, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, United States | Leave a comment

Western media ‘coverage’ of Russia is incredibly dangerous, and it’s getting worse

By Glenn Diesen | RT | March 20, 2024

Western media coverage of every Russian election is bad. But this time it was even worse than usual.

Instead of lashing out at the incompetence on display, it’s more constructive to explore why rational discussions about the country continue to appear impossible.

Not to mention the dire consequences of the ongoing self-delusion.

Reason versus conformity to the group

One of the first things we learn in sociology is that humans are in a constant battle between instincts and reason. Over tens of thousands of years, we have developed the instinct to organise in groups as a source of security. This is the result of evolutionary biology as survival demands that we organise into “us” versus “them”. In-group loyalty is augmented by assigning contrasting identities of the virtuous “us” versus the evil “other”, which helps stop an individual from straying too far from the pack.

Yet, human beings are also equipped with reason and thus the ability to assess objective reality independent of their immediate circle. In international relations, it’s imperative to place yourself in the shoes of the opponent. The rationality required to see the world through the perspective of the “other” is vital for reaching mutual understanding, reducing tensions, and pursuing a workable peace.

Every successful peace process and reconciliation in history – from Northern Ireland to negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa – has been based on this.

We expect journalists to be objective in their reporting of reality, which is especially important during war. But this seems to be almost impossible, especially during conflicts. When human beings experience external threats, their herd instincts are triggered as society demands group loyalty and we punish those who deviate. The political obedience demanded during war time usually results in the weakening of freedom of speech, the role of journalism, and democracy.

Why did Russians vote for Putin?

So, how can we understand the reasons for President Vladimir Putin’s immense popularity in Russia and his landslide victory?

If we use our reason and resist our tribal instincts, it should not be difficult to understand the popularity of Putin. While the 1990s was a golden period for the West, it was a nightmare for Russians. The economy collapsed and society disintegrated with truly horrific consequences.

The country’s security also collapsed, as NATO expansion meant there was no chance to agree an inclusive European security architecture. This had been outlined in the Charter of Paris for a New Europe in 1990 and the OSCE founding documents.

A weakened Russia meant that its interests could be ignored, and NATO was able to invade Moscow’s ally Yugoslavia, in violation of international law.

When Putin took over the presidency on 31 December 1999, it was commonplace in the West to predict that Russia would share the fate of the Soviet Union. That is eventual collapse.

However, Russia has instead become the largest economy in Europe (by PPP), its society has healed from the disastrous 1990s, its military might has been restored, and new international partners have been found in the East and Global South, as evidenced by the growing role of BRICS.

Furthermore, most Russians believe it’s not a good idea to have major disruptions to leadership in the middle of a NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine that is deemed an existential threat. Don’t change horses in midstream as the American proverb, often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, advises.

Speaking of the US, the late Mikhail Gorbachev – who was immensely popular there – did not shy away from criticising Putin, when he was still with us. However, he nevertheless argued that Putin “saved Russia from the beginning of a collapse”.

Today, any Western journalist repeating this would be immediately branded as a “Putinist” – implying a betrayal of the “us”. Western journalists cannot acknowledge the immense achievements of Russia since 1999 as it could be interpreted as lending legitimacy and signalling support for the “bad” side.

The price of self-delusion

Arguments are not judged by the extent they reflect an objective reality, rather they are assessed by how they are seen to express support or condemnation of Russia. Conformity to a narrative signals in-group loyalty, and the desire to deprive opponents of legitimacy limits what is allowed to be discussed.

Acknowledging Putin’s achievements over the past 25 years is treated as expressing support for him, which is tantamount to treason.

Meanwhile, journalists hardly ever discuss Moscow’s security concerns and the extent to which our competing interests can be harmonised. Instead, Russian policies are conveyed by referring to derogatory descriptions of Putin’s character.

As in our other wars, conflicts are explained by the presence of a bad man and if we could just make him go away, then the natural order of peace would be restored. Putin, the narrative contends, is our most recent reincarnation of Hitler and we constantly live in the 1940s where an adversary must be defeated and not appeased.

How can journalists then explain to their audience Putin’s popularity and the reasons for his huge personal vote when it is not allowed to say anything positive about the Russian president? Unable to live in reality and unable to place ourselves in the shoes of the opponent – how are we supposed to have sensible analysis and policies? As I always warned my students of international relations: Do not hate your rivals, it produces poor and dangerous analysis!

Making self-delusion virtuous comes at a high price. How can the West pursue diplomacy and work with Putin when he is presented as the embodiment of evil and an illegitimate leader? Even explaining Russian policies is condemned as legitimising Russian policies, which is deemed to be propaganda that must not be given a platform. People conform to the good versus evil mantra as it feels virtuous and patriotic to signal that they support the in-group and loathe the out-group. But how can we pursue our interests when we have committed ourselves to self-delusion and have banned reality from our analysis?

I have attempted to explain for two years why the anti-Russian sanctions were doomed to fail and why Russia will win the war, only to be told that it is Russian propaganda to undermine support for sanctions and to challenge the narrative of a pending Ukrainian victory. Reality be damned! Ignoring reality results in a distorted picture of Russia which predictably leads to miscalculations. How could Russia as a “gas station masquerading as a country” defeat the most draconian Western sanctions and see its economy not only survive, but by some measures even thrive? Why would Russians unite under an existential threat when we cannot acknowledge the role played by NATO in that regard?

Sigmund Freud explored the extent to which instinctive group psychology could diminish the rationality of the individual. Freud’s ideas were further developed by his nephew, Edward Bernays, who became the father of modern political propaganda. Over a century ago, Walter Lippman cautioned group psychology, managed with propaganda, as it came with a heavy price. Yielding to the instinct of viewing conflict as a struggle between the virtuous “us” versus the evil “other” implies that peace requires defeating the adversary, while a workable solution becomes tantamount to appeasement.

What better explains the current failure of rational analysis and the resulting collapse of diplomacy?

Glenn Diesen is a Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal.

March 20, 2024 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia | NATO, Russia, United States | Leave a comment

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Mossad ‘in contact from very beginning’ with killers of Italian PM, reporter reveals

By Kit Klarenberg and Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | October 5, 2025

A roving reporter who covered Italy’s top politicians explains to The Grayzone how his country was reduced to a joint US-Israeli “aircraft carrier,” and raises troubling questions about an Israeli role in the killing of Prime Minister Aldo Moro.

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Having worked closely alongside multiple Italian heads of state during his 30-year career as a correspondent, Salerno published an expose of their secret relationship with Israeli intelligence in 2010 called Mossad Base Italy. … continue

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