Europe worried that US support for Ukraine waning
By Ahmed Adel | October 6, 2023
Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren made a shocking statement at the Warsaw Security Forum by emphasising the strategic importance of arming Ukraine as a cost-effective means of containing Russia when responding to questions about the sustainability of US and allied support for Kiev given the political turbulence in Washington.
“Of course, supporting Ukraine is a very cheap way to make sure that Russia with this regime is not a threat to the NATO alliance. And it’s vital to continue that support,” she said. “It is very much in our interest to support Ukraine, because they are fighting this war, we are not fighting it.”
Responding to the shocking admittance that NATO only views Ukraine as a “very cheap way” to contain Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on October 5 that Ukrainians would soon “stop liking” how they are seen and used by the West.
“[The West does not hide its intention to fight to the last Ukrainian and continues to use Ukraine] as cheap soldiers,” the spokesman said when commenting on Ollongren’s recent statement that it was vital to continue to support Ukraine. “[Soon, Ukrainians will begin to hear such statements] in a different light for themselves” and “they will stop liking it.”
Mentioning developments “overseas,” referring to the US, Ollongren said it is “worrying and also I think we have to address that worry.”
“We cannot pretend that we’ll just wait and see how the American elections are going,” she said before highlighting that if Washington’s support for Ukraine falls, that would be “substantial.”
Her concern about the situation in the US comes as a survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, published on October 4, found that 47% of Americans believe the US should support Ukraine for as long as necessary, a drop from 58% in July 2022; support for providing economic and military assistance to Ukraine has dropped from 78% in March 2022 to 61% in September 2023; and, support for sending US troops to Ukraine dropped from 36% in March 2022 to 26% in September 2023.
According to the survey, “There have been dips in support, which is not surprising given that both the length of the conflict and the extent of the US financial contribution have likely exceeded Americans’ initial expectations.”
“Americans express less confidence now than in previous surveys that Ukraine is doing better than Russia on the battlefield. Now only 14 percent of Americans say Ukraine has the advantage in the war, compared with 26 percent in November 2022,” the Chicago Council on Global Affairs report added.
US President Joe Biden has long been confident that Congress would continue to provide billions of dollars in support to Ukraine, even as the situation becomes increasingly tense in a divided Washington. The last agreement was only to avoid a collapse of the American government. However, it should not last long as it became clear how unpredictable Washington can be in its negotiations to support Ukraine as it continues encountering serious difficulties.
To avoid the collapse of the government, on September 30, a decision to leave Ukraine out of the budget was made, demonstrating that the situation is not only delicate but there is also great pressure from critics of the support given by Biden to Kiev. The challenge now, especially for the Europeans, is that a politically polarised America extends to foreign policy.
Despite all the domestic financial problems, the US continues to allocate huge funds to Ukraine. Since February 2022, Kiev has received more than $110 billion from Washington. This means that the “very cheap way” to fight Russia is turning out to be very expensive, as demonstrated by the fact that the government of the world’s greatest superpower almost shut down.
The removal of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from the US Congress only worsens the already troubled process of Washington’s military and financial aid for Ukraine as its counteroffensive against Russia grinds on with little change to the frontlines. This is significant because, without a Speaker, the House cannot pass legislation, throwing Washington’s military backing for Kiev into doubt since it could be another week or more before a successor is elected.
Although Ukraine is not a “very cheap way” for NATO to fight Russia, the statement by Ollongren provides a fascinating insight into how the Atlantic bloc views the beleaguered Eastern European country – nothing more than an expendable proxy weaponised against its far larger and more powerful neighbour.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Ukraine’s backers blinded by Russia hate – top analyst
RT | October 5, 2023
Kiev’s globalist and neo-conservative supporters in the West are so driven by their hatred of Russia that they completely disregard the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are dying in a futile effort to defeat Moscow’s forces, US public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs has argued.
Sachs, an award-winning economist who advised the Russian and Ukrainian governments following the breakup of the Soviet Union, made his comments in an interview posted on Thursday by US podcast host Andrew Napolitano. Asked how the US and its NATO allies can ignore the catastrophic destruction of Ukraine while prolonging the conflict and making false claims of battlefield successes, Sachs said they are “blinded” by their hatred of Russia.
“They are not counting the Ukrainian dead,” the analyst said. “They have lied to the public all along about the military situation . . . . They want so much to fight Russia and have someone else do the fighting and the dying that they want another massive recruitment of the remaining Ukrainian young men that can be grabbed off the streets and be thrown into the killing fields.”
More than 83,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed during a Donbass counteroffensive that began in June, according to an estimate released by the Russian Defense Ministry last month. Despite knowing that the Ukrainians have no chance of making major gains on the battlefield amid Russia’s air superiority and artillery dominance, Kiev’s benefactors have shown a “grotesque” disregard for the heavy casualties, Sachs said. He argued that the UK, in particular, has championed the counteroffensive because of London’s centuries-long and deeply embedded desire to crush Russia.
Sachs, now a UN adviser and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, has argued that NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe helped trigger the current crisis. He said Washington and its allies missed many opportunities to avoid the current conflict, then kept it going by discouraging Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky from finalizing a peace deal with Russia in March 2022.
Responding to claims by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that critics of Washington’s Ukraine policy are “siding with” Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sachs argued that he’s showing concern for the Ukrainian people. “I don’t want Ukraine to be completely destroyed by these neocons, by their fantasy world, by their desire to throw Ukrainians by the hundreds of thousands to their deaths,” he said. He added, “This isn’t siding with Putin or siding with anybody. This is trying to protect Ukraine from American zealots.”
Sachs claimed that US President Joe Biden must reach out to Putin to negotiate an end to the bloodshed, which would involve ruling out adding Ukraine to NATO, as well as addressing Russia’s legitimate security concerns. “We have stoked so much provocation in this, so much anxiety, overthrowing governments, starting multiple wars, pushing NATO enlargement, abandoning nuclear agreements, and then saying, ‘Oh, he doesn’t want to negotiate,’” the analyst said.
Ukraine Fatigue Is Worrying NATO Elites – and So They Should Be
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 4, 2023
On both sides of the Atlantic, there is now discernible fatigue and anger among citizens over the bottomless money pit that is NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
The only wonder is that it has taken so long for the Western public to get wise to the scam.
The disgraceful adulation of a Nazi war criminal by the whole Canadian parliament in a perverse show of solidarity with Ukraine against Russia has helped focus public attention on the obscenity of the NATO proxy war.
All told, since the NATO-induced conflict blew up in February last year, the American and European establishments have thrown up to €200 billion into Ukraine to prop up an odious Nazi-infested regime.
All that largesse that is billed to U.S. and European taxpayers has resulted in a slaughter in Europe not seen since the Second World War – and a failed Ukrainian state. And of course huge profits for the NATO military-industrial complex that bankrolls the elite politicians.
Times are changing though. In the United States, the financially conservative Republicans have had enough of the blank checks to the Kiev regime. The U.S. Congress finally showed a modicum of sanity to prevent a government financial shutdown – by dropping military aid to Ukraine. That shows how twisted Washington’s priorities have become when national self-interest has to wrestle with funding for a Nazi regime.
And then following the Congressional vote to temporarily end funding for Ukraine, the Kiev regime’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba dared to reprimand American lawmakers: “We are now working with both sides of Congress to make sure that it does not (get) repeated under any circumstances.”
Meanwhile in Europe, Slovakian citizens have voted for a new government to end the military fueling of war in Ukraine. The Smer-SD party led by Robert Fico won the parliamentary elections primarily on the vow to shut off any further weapons supply to the Kiev regime.
This week also saw massive protests in Germany against Olaf Scholz’s coalition government over the latter’s abject pro-war policies in Ukraine. German Unity Day on October 3 prompted a mass rally in Berlin denouncing the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and calling for peace negotiations to end the conflict.
There were also unprecedented protests across Poland in Warsaw, Lodz and other cities against the PiS government’s slavish implementation of the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine. Faced with millions of Ukrainian refugees and neglect of social needs for Poles, the PiS ruling party has recently threatened to end weapons supply to Kiev – a move less about principle and more about trying to buy votes in the forthcoming election on October 15. Nevertheless, the belated move by the Polish government illustrates the concern among European leaders about growing public disdain over the seemingly endless financial aid allocated to Ukraine.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, says it is a “worrying” sign that Washington for the first time closed the coffers for Ukraine.
The EU foreign ministers held a summit in Kiev on Monday. It was the first time that their summit was convened in a non-EU country. The agenda was a little too self-conscious, slated as a show of “solidarity” with Ukraine.
Borrell and the other EU diplomats said the summit was a warning to Russia to not count on “weariness” among Europeans over support for Ukraine. Who is he trying to convince? Russia or Europeans?
The unelected European elites described the war in Ukraine as an “existential crisis” which requires never-ending support for the Nazi regime against Russia.
Such melodrama needs serious qualification. The conflict is only “existential” for certain people: the NATO ideologues, the elitist leaders, the military-industrial complex, and the corrupt Nazi regime in Kiev. But it’s not existential for most other people who want to end this insane slaughter, grotesque wasting of public finances, and perilous flirting with nuclear war.
Significantly, the contrived EU summit in Kiev was not attended by Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto. In highly critical comments on the EU’s misplaced priorities, he said that other countries do not understand why Europe “has made this conflict global” and why people living in Asia, Africa and Latin America have to pay for it due to growing inflation, energy prices and unstable food supplies.
The Hungarian diplomat slammed the EU leaders for their double standards and hypocrisy, adding: “I can say that the world outside Europe is already really looking forward to the end of this war because they do not understand many things. They do not understand, for example, how it can be that when a war is not in Europe, the European Union, looking down with fantastic moral superiority, calls on the parties to peace, advocates negotiations and an immediate end to violence. However, when there is a war in Europe, the European Union incites the conflict and supplies weapons, and anyone who talks about peace is immediately stigmatized.”
At least two members of the EU and the NATO alliance – Hungary and Slovakia’s new government – are opposed to the absurd military and financial support fueling the war in Ukraine. Both countries want peace negotiations with Russia to be prioritized. There is an unavoidable sense that this common sense dissent will grow into a domino effect because it is the truth and has an unassailable moral force.
What the conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated clearly to the Western public is just how morally bankrupt their governments and media have become. American and European elitist leaders may kid themselves a little longer by pretending there is no weariness and fatigue over their proxy war against Russia. The more they pretend the greater the eventual crash and downfall from public anger.
Biden Tells Allied Leaders ‘Ukraine Aid Cannot Be Interrupted Under Any Circumstances
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 3, 2023
President Joe Biden held a call with the leaders of several allied nations to stress that weapon shipments to Ukraine cannot end for any reason. Some members of NATO recently expressed an unwillingness or inability to provide further arms to Kiev.
National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby stated Biden spoke with the leaders of Canada, Italy, Japan, the UK, Poland, Romania, Germany, the European Commission, the European Council, and NATO on Tuesday. Kirby said the president expressed that “we cannot under any circumstances allow America’s support [for] Ukraine to be interrupted. Time is not our friend.”
Biden added that he was confident Congress would authorize an additional $24 billion in aid that the White House requested. While a majority of representatives in both houses continue to support aiding Ukraine, recent polling shows that 71% of Republicans, and 55% of Americans, do not want Congress to pass another multibillion-dollar bill to support Kiev.
A press release from UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said London was committed to supporting Kiev. It stated that he “outlined the UK’s ongoing military, humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine and stressed that this support will continue for as long as it takes.”
However, the Telegraph reported that London had depleted its available stockpile of weapons it can ship to Kiev. “We’ve given away just about as much as we can afford,” the unnamed source “We will continue to source equipment to provide for Ukraine, but what they need now is things like air defense assets and artillery ammunition, and we’ve run dry on all that.”
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Poland at the United Nations General Assembly, tensions between Kiev and Warsaw boiled over. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that arms shipments to Ukraine would end.
On Monday, Slovak Social Democracy, running on a platform of ending arms transfers to Ukraine, won a plurality in Bratislava’s legislature. The party leader, Robert Fico, doubled down on the pledge after Monday’s election victory.
Washington has also struggled to transfer Kiev the weapons the Ukrainian military needs. The White House resorted to sending Ukraine the cluster variants of 155MM artillery shells and long-range rockets because the Department of Defense lacked enough conventional munitions to transfer to Kiev.
Someone Wants ‘the War to Continue’
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | October 3, 2023
At times, Ukraine has been unwilling to negotiate an end to the ongoing war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has gone so far as to issue a decree banning negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At other times, Russia has given up on negotiating. In a press conference at the United Nations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lamented, if you insist “’on the battlefield’—well, let it be on the battlefield.”
And at times, Ukraine and Russia have been willing to negotiate with each other. The United States, though, has at no time been willing to negotiate. Instead, an administration that promised the world “a new era of relentless diplomacy” has delivered an unhappy pattern of obstructing negotiations.
As early as December 17, 2021, months before their invasion, Russia presented the United States with a proposal on mutual security guarantees that demanded NATO not expand into Ukraine. The proposal demanded that “The United States of America shall take measures to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and deny accession to the Alliance to the former USSR republics.” A month later, on January 26, the United States rejected Russia’s central demand and formally declined to negotiate, insisting instead on “the right of other states to choose or change security arrangements.”
Vladimir Putin remarked “that fundamental Russian concerns were ignored.” In the official Russian response on February 17, 2022, Russia said that the United States and NATO offered “no constructive answer” to Russia’s key demands. Four days later, on February 21, Sergey Lavrov said, “The assessment of this response shows that our Western colleagues are not prepared to take up our major proposals, primarily those on NATO’s eastward non-expansion. This demand was rejected with reference to the bloc’s so-called open-door policy and the freedom of each state to choose its own way of ensuring security.” Highlighting American stubbornness about negotiating, the veteran diplomat added the important detail that, “Neither the United States, nor the North Atlantic Alliance proposed an alternative to this key provision.”
On April 8, 2022, Derek Chollet, counselor to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, admited that the United States told Moscow that negotiating NATO expansion into Ukraine was never on the table.
Just last month on September 17, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made the stunning concession that, as Putin had always insisted, Russia “went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders,” and that Putin “sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.” Stoltenberg then repeated, “He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO… We rejected that.”
On February 27, 2022, only a month into the war, Russia and Ukraine announced that they would hold talks in Belarus. At the end of the talks, the two delegations returned home for consultations, having identified priority topics. A second round of talks took place in Belarus on March 3.
At a February 25 press conference, State Department spokesman Ned Price was asked what the U.S. position was on the upcoming “talks between Russia and Ukraine happening in Minsk,” the capital of Belarus. Price rejected negotiations, saying, “Now we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy take place at the barrel of a gun or as Moscow’s rockets, mortars, artillery target the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy. Those are not the conditions for real diplomacy.
Shortly after, on March 6, then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made a surprise visit to Moscow to meet with Putin in an attempt at mediation. Bennett had a series of back and forth conversations with Putin and Zelensky before flying to Germany for meetings with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Bennett also had conversations with French President Emmanuel Macron, followed by then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and U.S. President Joe Biden.
Bennett said that “there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire.” But Bennett also says the West made a different decision. “So, they blocked it?” his interviewer asked. “They blocked it,” Bennett replied.
From March 2022 into April, Turkey mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul. The two sides reached a tentative agreement.
On June 13, Putin confirmed that “we reached an agreement in Istanbul,” and that it had reached the level of having been initialled by both sides. On September 9, Lavrov further confirmed that the agreement had been initialled: “[W]e did hold talks in March and April 2022,” Lavrov said, “We agreed on certain things; everything was already initialled.”
A face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelensky was in the process of being set.
But on April 9, 2022, Boris Johnson rushed to Kiev and insisted to Zelensky that Vladimir Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with” and that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, “the West was not.”
The negotiations came to a sudden stop. On June 13, 2023, Putin said, “We actually did this but they simply threw it away later and that’s it.” On June 17, Putin told an African delegation that “the Kiev authorities… tossed [their commitments] into the dustbin of history. They abandoned everything.” Putin implicitly blamed the United States, saying that that when Ukraine’s interests “are not in sync” with American interests, “ultimately it is about the United States’s interests. We know that they hold the key to solving issues.” On September 23, 2023, Lavrov, too, said, “I think, someone in London or Washington did not want this war to end.”
On April 20, 2022, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, “There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue.”
“Following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting,” Cavusoglu explained, “it was the impression that… there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia get weaker.” On November 18, 2022, Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s ruling party, said. “We know that our President is talking to the leaders of both countries. In certain matters, progress was made, reaching the final point, then suddenly we see that the war is accelerating… Someone is trying not to end the war. The United States sees the prolongation of the war as its interest… There are those who want this war to continue… Putin-Zelensky was going to sign, but someone didn’t want to.”
No talks between Russia and Ukraine have been held since.
NATO-trained Ukrainian conscripts surrendering en masse
By Drago Bosnic | October 3, 2023
One of the many peculiarities of the special military operation (SMO) has been the rather small number of POWs (prisoners of war) on both sides (relative to the number of overall casualties). Reasons for this are manifold and include the way the conflict is being waged (the vast majority of casualties are the result of long-range strikes, primarily artillery and drones), widespread use of combat drugs, as well as the rabidly Russophobic propaganda that is being disseminated among the Kiev regime forces. This often results in instances of summary executions of Russian POWs by the Neo-Nazi junta troops or their unwillingness to surrender to the Russian military, as they are being fed propaganda that the Russians will treat them the same, even though evidence suggests otherwise.
However, it seems such trends are changing rapidly, particularly as the number of ideologically charged soldiers among the Kiev regime forces is going down due to the number of KIA/WIA/MIA (killed/wounded/missing in action). They have been increasingly replaced by forcibly conscripted regular Ukrainians who simply don’t see the conflict as their own. The fact that the commanding officers (COs) are effectively treating the soldiers as literal cannon fodder is also contributing to this, further resulting in low morale and even widespread insubordination. There were instances of Ukrainian soldiers even shooting their COs in order to avoid being sent into the meat grinder. Others are simply doing anything they can to leave the country and escape being sent to the frontlines.
In order to reduce the number of casualties on both sides, the Russian military has even set up special communication channels for Ukrainians willing to surrender. This has been giving results for several months already, particularly since the start of the much-touted counteroffensive of the Neo-Nazi junta troops. On October 2, the elite 1st Guards Tank Army of the Russian Battlegroup West captured two units composed of Ukrainian conscripts in the vicinity of Artyomovsk (previously known as Bakhmut) in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The units in question are the 77th Airmobile Brigade and the 56th Separate Motorized Brigade. Surprisingly, reports about the mass surrender of Ukrainian conscripts are also becoming more common in Western media, too.
Retired United States Army Colonel and former senior adviser at the Pentagon Douglas MacGregor has repeatedly reiterated that the number of surrendering Ukrainian conscripts keeps growing, particularly as the embattled Kiev regime is having trouble hiding the catastrophic losses in both manpower and equipment. According to both American and Ukrainian combat veterans, the NATO training they’ve been provided all these years has been proven detrimental to their fighting capabilities, resulting in higher casualties and lesser combat effectiveness. In fact, many Ukrainian soldiers have stated they’d be dead if they followed the much-touted NATO standards. Instead, they’re still largely relying on Soviet-era training, equipment and weapons, as these have been proven as much more effective.
Another reason for the high casualty ratio among the Neo-Nazi junta troops is the very limited training that Ukrainian conscripts have been given before being sent to the frontlines. The primary reason for this is the urgency of replacing previous losses, resulting in a vicious cycle that even the mainstream propaganda machine couldn’t ignore. Back in May, the Wall Street Journal reported that poor men from villages and small towns were sent to the frontlines after just two nights at a base. The report effectively admitted that the COs insisted that “conscripts learned on the battlefield to compensate for the almost total lack of training”. The overall result of this has been that conscript units now have up to 90% KIA/WIA/MIA, as reported by various local and global military sources.
Russian intelligence reports also indicate that Ukrainian conscript units are increasingly “trained” by the much-touted British Special Air Service (SAS), highly popularized in various shooter video games, particularly the Call of Duty series, a major NATO propaganda tool in recent years. The United Kingdom keeps insisting that their forces are supposedly not present in Ukraine, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak even denying the claims of his own cabinet’s Defense Secretary Grant Shapps that British advisors will officially be sent to train the Neo-Nazi junta troops. It’s important to note that high-ranking Russian military intelligence officials (both retired and active) have pointed out the high frequency of the usage of English among military personnel embedded within the Kiev regime forces.
Namely, this is particularly true when it comes to the areas where the abortive counteroffensive is (still) being conducted. Apart from American special forces, this reportedly also includes SAS operatives. And while the mainstream propaganda machine keeps ridiculing Moscow’s claims about the presence of NATO personnel in Ukraine (either as mercenaries or under the direct command of the belligerent alliance) and decrying them as supposed “conspiracy theories” and “Russian disinformation”, battlefield information suggests otherwise. This is also further reinforced by NATO’s standard counterintelligence practice of denying that certain weapons will be delivered and then stating they “might be” delivered only to then announce they will be sent to the Neo-Nazi junta when the process has already been completed.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Russia raises military budget for 2024 by 70%: what does this mean?
By Gilbert Doctorow | September 30, 2023
It is always a pleasure to have an on-air chat with WION, the premier English-language global broadcaster of India. Yesterday was especially so when their program host posed a series of very relevant questions about the just announced Russian military budget for 2024 showing a 70% increase in spending over the current year. Naturally, one wonders about Russia’s intentions: how will these new funds be spent? On which weapons systems? What kind of message is Russia sending to the West by this increase? How will the increased military spending impact on social spending within Russia or, put another way, are guns and butter a sustainable political course?
In this introduction, I will not telescope my answers. I am hopeful that readers will watch the interview and follow the logic set out therein.
However, I can say here that I set out the key drivers for the increased spending. One is the latest Russian assumptions on when the war in Ukraine will end, on how it may escalate into a general Russia-NATO war as the Biden administration resists admitting defeat in Ukraine, which is possibly imminent, by expanding the conflict and introducing NATO forces on the ground. The second is the expenses related to the near doubling of the size of the Russian army now underway following the induction of 300,000 men one year ago by mobilization of reserves and the sign-up of more than 400,000 volunteers that we have seen since the start of this year.
As regards the other issues, such as the 6% of GDP that the new military budget represents, or the 2% overall budget deficit that Russia is now incurring, I explain in this interview why such figures cannot be commented upon as if in a vacuum but must be compared to what countries in the West are now experiencing, as well as to Russia’s own Soviet past.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
American Meddling Failed To Prevent Robert Fico’s Victory In The Latest Slovak Elections
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | OCTOBER 1, 2023
The “Direction-Social Democracy” (SMER) party of former Prime Minister Robert Fico emerged victorious after Slovakia’s latest elections on Saturday in spite of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warning before the vote that the US will go to any lengths to prevent that outcome. Nobody should have been surprised by that since CNN’s reporting made it obvious that Washington wanted him to lose. Here are three of their articles fearmongering about his democratically driven return to office:
* “A NATO country could soon have a pro-Russian leader”
* “With Kremlin apologist leading the polls, Slovakia vote threatens country’s support for Ukraine”
* “Pro-Russian politician wins Slovakia’s parliamentary election”
The reason why America meddled in this election is because it fears both the substance and symbolism of a hitherto stalwart NATO vassal defecting from the bloc’s anti-Russian proxy war coalition. Fico previously condemned the West’s role in provoking and perpetuating this conflict exactly as neighboring Hungarian leader Viktor Orban has done since the get-go. Just like him, Fico is also against arming Ukraine and could prevent others’ weapons from transiting across his country as well.
He’ll still need to form a governing coalition in order to make good on his promises, but few doubt that he’ll be able to. Assuming that’ll happen, then Slovakia will join Hungary in creating a center of anti-war gravity in the heart of both the EU and NATO, which complements Poland’s newly cautious stance towards this proxy conflict brought about by its dispute with Ukraine. These three could then form an influential force if the latter’s ruling “Law & Justice” (PiS) party wins re-election on 15 October.
Poland remains much more committed to this conflict than Hungary and post-election Slovakia, but there’s also no denying that the Polish people are incredibly offended at Ukraine’s ungratefulness. A critical mass of them might therefore vote for the anti-establishment Confederation party to protest PiS’ prior appeasement of Kiev up until recently despite that regime’s glorification of those who genocided Poles. If enough do so, then PiS might be compelled to form a coalition government with Confederation.
In that case, Poland might move closer towards Hungary and Slovakia’s position, which could inspire average Europeans to follow these countries’ lead during their own upcoming elections. The demonstration effect that was set into motion by Slovakia and which might soon manifest itself in Poland is therefore regarded by the US as a strategic challenge for good reason. That doesn’t justify its failed meddling in the latest Slovak elections, but simply places its motives into the appropriate context.
The fact that the CIA still failed to prevent Fico’s re-election dispels three popular myths, first and foremost that agency’s omnipotence. The second is foreign voters’ alleged inability to defy the American government’s will, the false perception of which has been exploited to suppress anti-establishment turnout. And finally, the Ukrainian Conflict is truly unpopular in some countries despite the media’s claims to the contrary and its crazed efforts to artificially manufacture support for this proxy war there.
With these symbolic outcomes in mind as well as the substantive changes to Slovak policy that are likely to follow its latest election, not to mention their possible impact on Poland in the coming future and the rest of Europe after that, the failure of America’s meddling campaign is a major development. It’s premature to describe it as a game-changer, but it still suggests a potentially impending inflection point in the Ukrainian Conflict, provided of course that the CIA doesn’t successfully sabotage related trends.
US bent on creating insecurity for Afghanistan’s neighbors: Iran envoy
Press TV – October 1, 2023
Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan says the United States’ main policy on Afghanistan is to create insecurity for the country’s neighbors.
Hassan Kazemi Qomi said on Sunday that the US is continuing to make troubles in Afghanistan two years after it was forced to withdraw its troops after the Taliban group took control of the country.
“(The US) is after creating anxiety and disturbance for countries in the region, including for Afghanistan’s neighbors,” Qomi was quoted as saying in an interview with the IRIB News.
The ambassador made the remarks in Kazan, in southwest Russia, where he attended a fifth regional consultation meeting on Afghanistan known as the Moscow Format.
He said the 13 countries attending the meeting were almost unanimous in their position that the security and economic challenges in Afghanistan are mainly the result of 20 years of occupation by the US and allied countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
He accused the US of providing indirect support to the so-called Daesh of Khorasan, which is the regional offshoot of the ISIS terrorist group, to create insecurity in Central Asia and to pave the way for setting up a military base in the region with the pretext of fighting terrorism.
“Neighboring countries (of Afghanistan) reached the conclusion that they should change the conditions in Afghanistan through a collective move and a regional initiative and with cooperation with the rulers in Kabul,” said Kazemi Qomi.
The long-serving Iranian diplomat said countries attending the Moscow Format meeting in Kazan also decided to form a regional contact group to coordinate their actions and policies on Afghanistan.
“With the formation of the contact group we can put into operation (the outcomes of) talks on Kabul and the economic and security cooperation around the borders and inside the Afghan territory,” he said.
The Anglo-American War on Russia – Part Ten (NATO Lies at Minsk)
Tales of the American Empire | September 28, 2023
The United States CIA organized a coup to overthrow the neutral government of Ukraine and installed a Russian hating regime in 2014 that wanted to drive millions of ethnic Russians out of Ukraine. This led to a rebellion in eastern Ukraine where the Russian majority took up arms to protect themselves. This led to a small civil war that was quickly settled with a peace agreement. These 2015 Minsk agreements were brokered by France and Germany, agreed to by Ukraine and Russia, and accepted by the United States. Ukraine would retain official ownership of this rebellious region called the Donbas that would be granted full autonomy for internal rule. The Minsk agreements were endorsed unanimously with United Nation’s Security Council Resolution 2202, see the link in the description.
Ukraine never complied by withdrawing its heavy weapons from the Donbas region and continued random artillery and tank fire into Donbas cities. The Donbas rebel’s ability to retaliate was limited because the Ukrainians fired from urban areas mostly inhabited by ethnic Russians. Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed to the United Nations, United States, France, and Germany to apply economic and diplomatic pressure on Ukraine to abide by Minsk. They promised to help and the occasional terror bombardments into Donbas cities lessened, but never stopped as they killed thousands of civilians, mostly ethnic Russians.
NATO refused to pressure Ukraine to adhere to the Minsk agreements and continued massive economic and military assistance. Ukraine possessed only 6000 combat-ready soldiers in April 2014 but NATO help allowed it to build its military into the second largest in Europe comprising about 250,000 active-duty troops and 80,000 reservists who were trained at the billion dollar American built base at Yavoriv where hundreds of American soldiers were based. Ukraine soon had more tanks than France, the United Kingdom, and Germany combined.
President Putin began to understand that NATO had no interest in peace. He correctly concluded that the United States planned for war on Russia. We now know this for certain because in 2022, Minsk agreement signers, former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and former French President François Hollande, admitted that the Minsk agreements were a deception to trick Russia into a ceasefire with the promise of a peaceful settlement to buy Ukraine and NATO time to build up its military to attack Russia.
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“Unanimously Adopting Resolution 2202 (2015); Security Council Calls on Parties to Implement Accords Aimed at Peaceful Settlement in Eastern Ukraine”; United Nations; February 17, 2015; https://press.un.org/en/2015/sc11785….
“Children Living in Bombshelters Entire Lives”; Patrick Lancaster; YouTube; March 10, 2022; 
• Children Living In Bombshelters Entir…
“Ukrainian/NATO Training Centre”; NATO; October 20, 2003; https://www.nato.int/structur/nmlo/li…
Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”; • The Anglo-American War on Russia
RT surges after X (aka Twitter) removes censorship – ‘disinformation’ lobbyist
RT | September 27, 2023
NewsGuard, a self-proclaimed disinformation watchdog, has lamented the rise in popularity of RT and 11 other news outlets after Elon Musk relaxed censorship on X (formerly Twitter).
Among 12 media accounts analyzed, RT experienced the highest engagement growth in the 90 days following Musk’s decision in April to remove ‘government-funded’ and ‘state-affiliated’ labels from certain outlets, NewsGuard said on Tuesday. The number of ‘likes’ and reposts for RT’s account increased to 2.5 million in the period studied, up from 1.3 million.
The analysis focused on Chinese, Iranian, and Russian media outlets, which NewsGuard branded “state-run disinformation sources” and purveyors of “propaganda.”
NewsGuard cited political memes posted by Iranian news accounts as purported examples of disinformation. Another instance was supposedly a link shared by Iran’s PressTV to an article on remarks made by US presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who argued that Americans “created” the Islamic State terrorist group. Kennedy made the claim during an election rally in Boston, where he accused Washington of decades of misguided foreign policy.
The self-described disinformation watchdog advocates imposing strict moderation on online platforms to protect users from supposed foreign influence. NewsGuard’s rating of news outlets generally labels mainstream Western media as trustworthy, while outlets linked with governments opposed by the US are branded deceitful.
Among NewsGuard’s advisers is Michael Hayden, a former head of the CIA and the NSA. He was notably one of the more than 50 former intelligence officials who claimed in 2020 that the factual New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Others include former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former US Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, and former US Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel. The latter stated publicly that his job in the Obama administration was jokingly described as “chief propagandist” by others.
The Pentagon and Microsoft have contracted NewsGuard services.
The report heavily implied that the lack of X labels for the likes of RT was to blame for the rise in engagements, as it is now “impossible for users to know whether an account is government-affiliated” simply by looking at posts.
NewsGuard claimed that the 12 accounts in question are attempting to conceal their associations, such as when RT rebranded from its previous name Russia Today. The report described the move as taking place “several years ago,” although the rebranding was implemented in 2009.
Musk, who formally stepped down as CEO of X (then Twitter) in June, ordered the ‘government-funded’ and ‘state-affiliated’ labels to be removed amid a row with America’s NPR, which exited the platform after being branded. Around the same time, X ended its ‘shadow-ban’ on RT and others, lifting a restriction imposed under the previous executive leadership.
The subsequent publication of the ‘Twitter Files’ has detailed extensive US government oversight and pressure on the social media company to amplify Pentagon talking points over dissenting voices.
NewsGuard conceded that Musk’s move to end restrictions on X, which it described as “pushing” undesirable accounts, may have benefited them.
In August, NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence blamed Musk for a “dramatic rise” in the visibility of Russian government and media accounts.
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NATO Sanctions and the Coming Global Diesel Fuel Disaster
By F. William Engdahl – New Eastern Outlook – 11.04.2022
Amid the ongoing global inflation crisis, NATO heads of state and mainstream media repeat a mantra that high energy prices are a direct result of Putin’s actions in Ukraine since end of February. The reality is that it is the western sanctions that are responsible. Those sanctions including cutting SWIFT interbank access for key Russian banks and some of the most severe sanctions ever imposed, are hardly having an impact on the military actions in Ukraine. What many overlook is the fact that they are increasingly impacting the economies of the West, especially the EU and USA. A closer look at the state of the global supply of diesel fuel is alarming. But Western sanctions planners at the US Treasury and the EU know fully well what they are doing. And it bodes ill for the world economy.
While most of us rarely think about diesel fuel as anything other than a pollutant, in fact it is essential to the entire world economy in a way few energy sources are. The director general of Fuels Europe, part of the European Petroleum Refiners Association, stated recently, “… there is a clear link between diesel and GDP, because almost everything that goes into and out of a factory goes using diesel.” … continue
Blog Roll
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- US lawmaker admits American people footing bill for Trump’s failed aggression against Iran
- If Americans Knew
- Sanctions are collective punishment: immoral and self-defeating
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- Israel Carries Out New Ceasefire Violations Across Gaza
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- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
- Fear Of Debate: Alarmist German Climate Scientist Calls On Mainstream Media To Discredit Skeptic Voices
