Ukrainian victory is ‘impossible’ – Orban
RT | June 27, 2023
The idea that Western military aid would enable Ukraine to defeat Russia on the battlefield is wrong, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
“I stand on the grounds of reality. The reality is that the nature of cooperation between Ukraine and the West is a failure,” Orban said in an interview with German tabloid Bild on Tuesday.
Suggesting that the weapons, funding and intelligence being provided to Kiev by the US and its EU allies would allow Ukraine to win “is a misunderstanding of the situation. That’s impossible,” he argued.
“The problem is that the Ukrainians will run out of soldiers earlier than the Russians, and this will be the deciding factor eventually,” the prime minister said.
He rejected the interviewer’s contention that all of Ukraine would have been captured by Russia without NATO aid, describing this as “a hypothesis to which there’s no evidence.”
According to Orban, a ceasefire must be reached in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev as soon as possible or Ukraine will “lose a huge amount of wealth and many lives, and unimaginable destruction will happen. That’s why peace is the only solution at this moment.”
However, he said fighting would not stop until Kiev’s main backer, Washington, decides that there should be peace.
“What really matters is what Americans want to do. Ukraine is no longer a sovereign country. They don’t have any money. They have no weapons. They can only fight because we in the West support them,” the Hungarian leader explained.
He criticized EU sanctions imposed on Moscow over the conflict, saying they failed in both “bringing Russia to its knees” and in achieving peace in Ukraine. “Sanctions have not worked. I am surprised that we turned out to be incapable of formulating them appropriately,” he said.
Budapest has been one of the few EU capitals to maintain business relations with Moscow because it was “good for the Hungarian people,” Orban said. “I’m fighting for Hungary. I don’t care about [Russia’s President Vladimir] Putin. I don’t care about Russia. I take care of Hungary.”
He also commented on the failed revolt by the Wagner private military company, which occurred in Russia last week. “I don’t see much significance in this event” because it has no effect on “the most important thing,” which is the prospect of achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine, he stated.
Why are NATO intelligence assets and heavy weapons in South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant?
By Drago Bosnic | June 26, 2023
Amid numerous disturbing reports about possible false flag operations involving nuclear devices and weapons, the Kiev regime seems to be escalating its actions in this regard. According to various local sources, the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), located in the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk in the Nikolayev region (oblast), has been effectively taken over by the Neo-Nazi junta forces. Although troops have been stationed in and around the NPP since the start of the special military operation (SMO), in recent weeks this has escalated. Apparently, mysterious “guards” have appeared at the NPP and have even restricted access to the reactor facilities, including to the staff responsible for the critically important maintenance of the reactor and the NPP’s key systems and subsystems.
Worse yet, the “guards” are offering no explanation for their behavior, nor does anyone else, be it the military or civilian authorities. In essence, nobody really knows for sure, but many people are skeptical (to say the least). The “guards” have even placed what can only be described as ammunition crates inside the NPP. And it doesn’t seem to be small arms ammunition, but something much bigger, such as shells or even rockets, all of which have foreign markings. For over a year, there have been numerous reports about the Kiev regime hiding NATO-sourced weapons there, obviously in an attempt to prevent their destruction. Needless to say, having any sort of weapons at a nuclear facility of any kind is suicidal in and of itself, but having shells and rockets stored there is simply criminal.
This is particularly dangerous as the political West and the Neo-Nazi junta have been insisting that Russia is supposedly planning to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, supposedly due to mythical “battlefield losses”. On the other hand, Moscow has repeatedly issued warnings about the Kiev regime’s plans to build a so-called “dirty bomb”, for which it has more than enough enriched uranium stored in several Soviet-era NPPs across Ukraine. The previous scenario is extremely unlikely, as it’s not in Russia’s interest to use nuclear weapons. However, Moscow’s “dirty bomb” warnings are certainly not to be dismissed, as the Neo-Nazi junta has been threatening to acquire nuclear weapons for years. This includes threats by the Kiev regime frontman Volodymyr Zelensky himself.
Latest intelligence data suggests that the South Ukraine NPP is also being used as an ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) command and control center for most NATO forces covertly stationed in Ukraine. This is hardly unexpected and is in line with the previous message Russia sent to the belligerent alliance after it hit an underground bunker where hundreds of NATO officers were deployed to command and coordinate their favorite puppet regime’s troops. According to varying estimates, up to 400 officers and other staff were neutralized in a hypersonic missile strike (presumably involving a single 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal”). Obviously, in order to ensure such high casualties among high-value assets are avoided, NATO most likely decided to deploy its higher-ranking personnel in NPPs, knowing that Russia will not target those.
This could also explain why the United States and NATO are suddenly parroting about invoking Article 5 in case of a supposed Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons or if an attack on an NPP causes radiation spikes. Both scenarios clearly imply that a false flag is in the works, as this is precisely how the political West operates during its countless aggressions against the world. The belligerent power pole first threatens to attack in case the side they are targeting does something, and then, all of a sudden, the targeted country supposedly does “exactly that”, even though it’s clearly not in its interest. Obviously, such a scenario is virtually impossible to implement against a country like Russia without leading to a world-ending thermonuclear confrontation.
It has now become clear that the political West is aware of just how much of a failure the Neo-Nazi junta’s much-touted counteroffensive has been, leading to attempts to thwart any possible Russian counterattack that might have devastating consequences for the Kiev regime. This might be attempted through direct intervention by NATO, as the political West probably believes that such escalation could be controlled. And a possible false flag operation simulating a Russian attack on the South Ukraine NPP (or even the Zaporozhye NPP) might be used as an excuse for that. Still, considering how risky such a scenario is, the belligerent power pole might even contemplate the delivery of nuclear weapons to the Neo-Nazi junta in an attempt to cause a localized nuclear confrontation with Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has already hinted at this possibility, warning that the delivery of nuclear-capable F-16 fighter jets might be the way for the political West to achieve such a scenario. However, for its part, Moscow has warned that this would certainly not be a localized confrontation, as the Kiev regime’s puppet masters would also suffer the consequences of their rabidly Russophobic actions in Ukraine. The already thin line between global peace and thermonuclear annihilation is getting thinner by the day due to the US-led belligerent power pole’s unrelenting aggression against Russia. The political West has a clear choice of considering an off-ramp solution that might avert a catastrophe of global proportions. Still, it’s pushing for further escalation.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Declassified files expose British role in NATO’s Gladio terror armies
By Kit KLARENBERG | THE GRAYZONE | JUNE 19, 2023
Newly declassified British Foreign Office files have added disturbing details to the history of Operation Gladio. The covert operation was uncovered in 1990, when the public learned that the CIA, MI6 and NATO trained and directed an underground army of fascist paramilitary units across Europe, deploying its assets to undermine political opponents, including through false flag terror attacks.
Among them was a young Silvio Berlusconi, the media oligarch who served as Italian Prime Minister in four separate governments between 1994 and 2011. Listed as a member of the P2, the secret Cold War-era cabal of political elites devoted to Gladio’s aims, Berlusconi undoubtedly took some weighty secrets to the grave when he died this June 12th.
It is almost impossible to believe that inconvenient truths were not weeded from Britain’s documentary record on Operation Gladio prior to declassification. Nonetheless, the recently released material is highly illuminating. Covering a fraught twelve month period after the first public disclosure of Gladio’s existence, the papers illustrate how London’s foreign intelligence apparatus kept a keen eye on the continent as events unfolded.
The papers not only shed fresh light on the conspiracy, they underline Gladio’s relevance as British intelligence joins its America counterparts in contemporary plots involving secret partisan forces from Syria to Ukraine.
Various passages dotted across the tranche strongly suggest the British knew much more than they publicly admitted about egregious criminal deeds, including the attempted overthrow of an allied Italian government and the kidnap and murder of its leader.
A ‘clandestine resistance network’ goes to work
Gladio consisted of a constellation of “stay behind” anti-communist partisan armies whose ostensible mission was to fend off the Red Army in the event of Soviet invasion. In reality, these forces committed countless violent and criminal acts as part of a “strategy of tension” designed to discredit the left and justify a security state clampdown.
As Vincenzo Vinciguerra, a Gladio operative jailed for life in 1984 for a car bombing in Italy that killed three police officers and injured two, explained:
“You were supposed to attack civilians, women, children, innocent people from outside the political arena. The reason was simple, force the public to turn to the state and ask for greater security… People would willingly trade their freedom for the security of being able to walk the streets, go on trains or enter a bank. This was the political logic behind the bombings. They remain unpunished because the state cannot condemn itself.”
The scandal triggered in Western capitals by the exposure of Gladio dominated mainstream headlines for months. The European parliament responded by passing a resolution condemning the existence of a “clandestine parallel intelligence and armed operations organization [which] escaped all democratic controls, may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of member states [and] have at their disposal independent arsenals and military resources… thereby jeopardizing the democratic structures of the countries in which they are operating.”
The resolution called for independent judicial and parliamentary investigations into Gladio in every European state. But aside from inquiries in Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, nothing of substance materialized. What’s more, investigators heavily redacted their findings while avoiding having them translated them into English. This may help explain why the historic scandal has been largely forgotten.
In this context, the newly declassified documents may be one of the most valuable primary sources to date offering new insights into the origins and internal workings of NATO’s secret terror militias in Italy.
Take for example an aide-mémoire (see it here) prepared by Francesco Fulci, Italy’s permanent representative to the UN, which was shared at a “super-restricted” November 6th 1990 meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s principal political decision-making body, then forwarded to senior British officials at home and abroad.
Based on a note provided by Rome’s then-premier Giulio Andreotti to “the Head of the Italian Parliamentary Commission investigating terrorist incidents,” the aide-mémoire begins by noting that following World War II, Western intelligence agencies devised “unconventional means of defence, by creating in their territories a hidden network of resistance aimed at operating, in case of enemy occupation, through information gathering, sabotage, propaganda and guerrilla warfare.”
According to the aide-mémoire, authorities in Rome began laying the foundations of such an organization in 1951. Four years later, Italian Military Intelligence (SIFAR) and “a corresponding allied service” – a reference to the CIA – then formally agreed on the organization and the activities of a “post-occupation clandestine network”:
“[Gladio] was; formed by agents active in the territory who, by virtue of their age, sex and activities, could reasonably avoid eventual deportation and-imprisonment by the foreign occupiers; easy to manage even from a command structure outside the occupied territory; at a top secret level and hence subdivided into ‘cells’ so as to minimize any possible damage caused by defections, accidents or network penetration.”
The “clandestine resistance network” was subdivided into separate branches, covering information operations, sabotage, propaganda, radio communications, cypher, reception and evacuation of people and equipment. Each of these structures was to operate autonomously, “with liaison and coordination ensured by an external base.”
SIFAR established a dedicated, secret section to recruit and train Gladio operatives. Meanwhile, it maintained five “ready deployment guerrilla units in areas of special interest” across Italy which awaited activation on a continuous basis.
“Operational materials”, including a wide variety of explosives, weapons – such as mortars, hand grenades, guns and knives – and ammunition were stashed in 139 secret underground caches across the country. In April 1972, “to improve security,” these arsenals were exhumed, and moved to offices of the Carabinieri, Rome’s military police, near the original sites.
Only 127 of the weapons storehouses were officially recovered. The aide-mémoir states that at least two “were very likely taken away by unknown persons” at the time they were buried, in October 1964. Who these operatives were and what they did with their stolen arms is left to the imagination.
British involvement in the coup effort
Fulci was eventually quizzed by attendees of the North Atlantic Council summit “as to whether Gladio had deviated from its proper objectives.” In other words, beyond operating strictly as a “stay behind” force, to be activated in the event of Soviet invasion. While “he could not add to what was in the aide-mémoire,” Fulci confirmed “weapons used in some terrorist incidents had come from stores established by Gladio.”
This may reflect the fact that political violence was one of Gladio’s “proper objectives.” A June 1959 SIFAR report unearthed by historian Daniele Ganser confirms guerrilla action against “domestic threats” was hardwired into the operation from its inception. In the Italian context, this entailed systematically terrorizing the left.
As the Italian Communist party surged in polls ahead of the country’s 1948 election, the CIA pumped money into the coffers of the Christian Democrats and an attendant anti-communist propaganda campaign. The cloak-and-dagger effort was so successful in preventing the outbreak of a left-wing government in Rome that Langley secretly intervened in every one of Rome’s elections for at least the next 24 years.
Yet the covert CIA operations were insufficient to prevent Italians from occasionally electing the wrong governments. The 1963 general election saw the Christian Democrats prevail again, this time under the leadership of left-leaning politician Aldo Moro, who sought to construct a coalition with the Socialists and Democratic Socialists. Over the next year, protracted disputes erupted between these parties over what form their administration would take.
In the meantime, SIFAR and CIA black ops specialists such as William Harvey, known as “America’s James Bond,” cooked up a plot to prevent that government from taking office. Known as “Piano Solo,” it dispatched Gladio operatives for a false flag assassination attempt on Moro that would deliberately fail.
According to the plan, the kidnapper was expected to claim they were ordered to kill Moro by communists, thereby justifying the violent seizure of multiple political party and newspaper headquarters, along with the imprisonment of troublesome leftists at the Gladio chapter’s secret headquarters in Sardinia. The plan was ultimately aborted, though it remained on the table throughout 1964.
Moro became Prime Minister without incident and governed until June 1968. Piano Solo fell under official investigation four years later, yet the results were not published until the public first learned of Gladio’s existence. Though the findings omitted any reference to Britain’s role in the planned coup, the newly released documents strongly suggest London’s involvement. (Read them here).
Italy’s then-President Francesco Cossiga requested the ministry hand over “details of UK stay behind measures in 1964,” according to a detailed February 1991 Foreign Office memo on recent developments in the scandal.
Cossiga apparently made this enquiry as a result of a judge “whose investigations into unsolved terrorist attacks first brought Operation Gladio to light,” and who took the “unprecedented step” of demanding the president testify about the conspiracy under oath. By this point, Cossiga had admitted learning of the “stay behind” force while serving as a junior Defense Minister in 1966.
His Foreign Office query strongly suggests British intelligence played a role in Piano Solo, and that the Italian President was well-aware of the plot.
Doomed Italian PM Aldo Moro’s photo while in captivity of the Red Brigades
“One or more of Moro’s kidnappers was secretly in touch with the security apparatus”
On March 16th 1978, a unit of the leftist militant Red Brigades kidnapped Moro. He was on his way to a high-level meeting where he planned to give his blessing there to a new coalition government that relied on communist support, when the kidnappers violently extracted him from his convoy. Five of Moro’s bodyguards were murdered in the process.
After almost two months in captivity, when it became clear the government would neither negotiate with the Red Brigades nor release any of its jailed members in return for Moro, the kidnappers executed the former Italian Prime Minister. His bullet-riddled corpse was left in a car trunk to rot, and for authorities to find.
Moro’s murder has inspired widespread and well-founded suspicions that Gladio operatives infiltrated the Red Brigades to push the group to commit excessively violent acts in order to foment popular demand for a right-wing law-and-order regime. More than perhaps any other incident, his killing fulfilled the objectives of the security state’s strategy of tension.
Whether or not Moro was a casualty of Gladio, a declassified November 5th 1990 Foreign Office memo authored by Britain’s then-ambassador to Rome, John Ashton, makes it clear that London knew much more about the case than has ever been disclosed publicly by any official source. (Read the full Ashton note here).
“There is circumstantial evidence one or more of Moro’s kidnappers was secretly in touch with the security apparatus at the time; and that the latter deliberately neglected to follow up leads which might have led to the kidnappers and saved Moro’s life,” Ashton declared.
What’s more, according to the British diplomat, the presidential crisis committee responsible for attempting to rescue Moro was part of the notorious P2 – the “subversive Masonic lodge” composed of political elites loyal to Gladio.
According to Ashton, P2 was just one of many “mysterious right wing forces” striving “by terrorism and street violence to provoke a repressive backlash against Italy’s democratic institutions” under the “strategy of tension.” And President Cossiga was completely unaware it had infiltrated his crisis committee.
In April 1981, magistrates in Milan raided the villa of Licio Gelli, an Italian financier and self-identified fascist who founded P2. There, they uncovered a list of 2,500 members which read like a “Who’s Who” of Italian politicians, bankers, spooks, financiers, industrialists, and senior law enforcement and military officials. Among the cabal’s most prominent members was Silvio Berlusconi.
Future Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s P2 file
Moro’s “historic compromise,” under which the communists “made possible Andreotti’s government”, would be the party’s “final step before their own entry into government.” Ashton stated that this development “was anathema to P2,” which was “then in virtual control of [Italy’s] security apparatus,” and also to many non-P2 establishment politicians, and also to the US,” and sought to “eliminate once and for all any possibility that the Communist Party… might achieve national power.”
Ashton acknowledged “circumstantial evidence” of “US support for P2.” In reality, P2 founder Gelli was so well-connected to Washington’s national security and intelligence apparatus, the CIA’s Rome station had explicitly charged him with establishing an anti-communist parallel government in Rome.
Subsequent investigations showed how Henry Kissinger helped oversee the recruitment of 400 high-ranking Italian and NATO officers as P2 operatives in 1969. The US was so grateful for Gelli’s anti-communist purge that it made him a guest of honor at the inauguration ceremonies of US Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
Ashton concluded his revealing note by noting the truth about Washington’s involvement in Rome’s bloodspattered “Years of Lead” would “probably never be known.” The full extent of Britain’s involvement in terrorist attacks, government overthrows, destabilization campaigns and other heinous skullduggery under the aegis of Operation Gladio, not merely in Italy but throughout Europe, will almost certainly remain a secret as well, and by design.
It was not until 1993 that the public learned how the US and British gifted munitions to Gladio operatives to foment bloody acts of terror across Italy. As Francesco Fulci told his NATO friends at the “super-restricted” meeting, Washington and London supplied the perpetrators of mass casualty attacks including the 1980 bombing of Bologna Centrale railway station, which killed 85 people and wounded over 200.
Those responsible for these hideous crimes have eluded justice in almost every case. Several of the Bologna massacre’s chief suspects, including committed fascist and confirmed MI6 asset Robert Fiore, escaped to London. Britain refused to extradite him and his co-conspirators despite their convictions in absentia for violent crimes.
The extensive experience British intelligence obtained in Operation Gladio raises questions about the lessons the MI6 has applied to current covert operations in theaters of conflict. As The Grayzone revealed in November 2022, British military and intelligence veterans have trained and sponsored a secret partisan terror army in eastern Ukraine to carry out acts of sabotage in Crimea and other majority-Russian areas. The plan called for the training of cells of ideologically dedicated Ukrainians to “shoot, move, communicate, survive.”
Kiev ‘Politically Pushed’ by NATO to Launch Counteroffensive Despite Being Unprepared
By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 19.06.2023
The long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, touted both by the regime in Kiev and its Western backers for months, finally began this month, although it seems that it has so far failed to produce the results its masterminds desired.
While Ukrainian forces demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for losing manpower and military hardware by charging across minefields into fortified positions held by Russian forces, they haven’t managed to get close to, let alone breach, the first line of Russian defense.
Retired USAF Lt.Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik that Western media “has reported very little concrete information about the counteroffensive,” with much of the information on the subject coming straight from Ukrainian media and thus being “difficult to verify.”
According to Kwiatkowski, Kiev was “politically pushed” into launching this counteroffensive by “its NATO sponsors,” despite the fact that, as it turned out, Ukrainian forces simply weren’t prepared for it.
“The results are an increasingly desperate battlefield for Ukraine, and increasingly desperate measures being taken by Ukraine and its political leadership,” she said. “When I say desperate, I’m suggesting that the Ukrainian leadership has decided to write off regaining the eastern lands including Crimea and now are ready to do what they can to simply increase costs for Russia in the future – by destroying civilian and energy infrastructure, and the ability of that part of Ukraine to become productive as easily as they might.”
Rather than an actual counteroffensive meant to allow Kiev to seize control over Donbass and Crimea, Kwiatkowski argued, we are witnessing what she described as “dog in the manger” military scenario.
It also remains unclear whether NATO leaders and the Kiev regime are even in agreement about what the “end goal” of this “strangely-designed counteroffensive” actually is, the ex-DoD analyst mused.
“When US policymakers are asked about this ‘goal’ they say simply, ‘no peace, no freeze, keep fighting until the last Ukrainian,'” she added.
As Kwiatkowski explained, the Kiev regime and its NATO backers are unlikely to achieve any “serious progress” if they “continue solely with what they have been doing.”
Theoretically, Ukrainian forces might achieve success if their “ground and limited sea capability” could be “refreshed, well-led, focused on a specific mission, AND a specific counter-offensive coordinated with a temporary destruction of air command and control, or a major destruction of Russian airfields or aircraft,” she said.
However, “the very imaginative consideration of how many ducks would need to be in a row for this to succeed is mind-blowing, and certainly unsustainable by current Ukrainian capabilities,” Kwiatkowski remarked.
“In a sense, this has been the story of the Ukraine war — and fantasies that have fed Ukrainian political strategy since 2014. These fantasies are based in trust in American politicians and diplomats – who know very little about actual war-fighting, actual democracy, and economy,” she continued. “The same people who promised cakewalks and flowers in Iraq and new energy pipelines across Afghanistan, also promised Zelensky things that cannot be delivered.”
Kwiatkowski did warn, however, that this does not mean that the “neocons in the West, who have insisted upon this war, are not dangerous to Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the planet.”
Ukrainian Counteroffensive’s Second Week Ends in Failure
By Scott Ritter – Sputnik – 17.06.2023
Operation enters the second week of Ukraine’s long-awaited and highly touted counteroffensive, some basic conclusions can be drawn even though the fighting continues, and will continue to rage, for some time to come.
First and foremost, the counteroffensive gambit has failed. While there is still considerable combat strength left in the Ukrainian military, including more than 75% of the NATO-trained and -equipped 60,000-strong cohort Ukraine had assembled in the past eight months, fundamentally flawed assumptions about the quality of the force on which Ukraine and its NATO allies had placed their collective hopes for victory over Russia have been exposed. In short, Ukraine lacks the military capacity to overcome Russian defenses.
Ukraine’s most elite assault brigades, equipped with the latest Western military technology, failed to advance out of what Russian defensive doctrine calls the “cover” line of defense—the buffer that is designed to channel and disrupt an attacking force prior to reaching the “main” line of defense. Ukrainian casualties were extremely heavy, with Russia achieving a 10:1 kill ratio in terms of manpower, which is unsustainable from the Ukrainian perspective. The reasons for the Ukrainian failure are fundamental in nature, meaning that they cannot be overcome as things currently stand and, as such, the Ukrainian military has zero chance of success, no matter how hard they press subsequent attacks.
First and foremost is the quality of the Russian defenses, especially in terms of the barrier network (minefields, obstacles, and trenches) which, when combined with the tenacity of the Russian defender and the overwhelming superiority Russia enjoys in terms of fire support (both artillery and air-delivered), is the reason the Ukrainians are unable to advance beyond the “cover” layer of the Russian defenses. Ukrainian equipment and tactics are insufficient to the task of breaching the Russian obstacle barriers in any meaningful manner, dooming the attacking forces to be destroyed piecemeal by Russian artillery and air strikes, as well as local counterattacks mounted by Russian special forces.
Besides the poor tactics and equipment deficiencies (yes, the Leopard tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles were not the miracle weapons Ukraine and its Western supporters had hyped them up to be), the Ukrainians are paying the price for Russia’s impressive suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) campaign that has been ongoing for many weeks now.
Russian fixed-wing aircraft have been able to deliver precision-guided munitions with deadly effect to the assembly areas used by Ukraine to gather their attacking forces prior to committing them to the battlefield. It is estimated that between 25-30% of Ukraine’s casualties occur from these strikes. Russian helicopters can use their anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) with lethal effect on Ukrainian forces operating in the zone of contact, and Russian loitering munitions (i.e., “kamikaze drones”) have taken a heavy toll of Ukrainian forces as well. Unless Ukraine can reassert some semblance of air defense onto the battlefield, both in the rear areas as well as the frontlines, and sortie its own air power capable of challenging Russian air superiority over the battlefield, then no amount of courage and tactical innovation on the part of the Ukrainian ground forces will alter the deadly calculus of war that currently prevails today.
One of the many tragedies of the ongoing Ukrainian-Russian conflict is the fact that much of what Ukraine does on the battlefield is dictated not by military necessity, but rather political imperative. The recently concluded months-long Battle for Artemovsk (Bakhmut) is a case in point, where Ukrainian President Zelensky insisted on pouring manpower and equipment into a battle for a town that most military experts believed to hold minimal strategic military value. The geography, however, did not dictate the scope and scale of the battle, but rather the perception of Ukrainian defensive tenacity, and as a result between 60-75.000 Ukrainian soldiers lost their lives in what was a losing effort. Similarly, the Ukrainian army is being asked to make what amounts to a suicide attack against well-prepared Russian defenses under conditions which, as detailed earlier, can only result in a decisive Ukrainian defeat. This time, the culprit is Ukraine’s NATO allies who, on the eve of their annual summit, are desperate for any sign that the multi-billion-dollar investment they have collectively made in the Ukrainian military can pay even the most rudimentary dividends. For this reason, NATO will continue to pressure Ukraine to double down on defeat, pressing the Russians offensively even though any gains, if in fact any can be had, would be pyrrhic in nature and unsustainable over the long run.
The reality is that when NATO gathers in Vilnius on July 11, the Russians will be well into the process of destroying the third Ukrainian army built by NATO. The first was assembled during the buffer provided by the diplomatic “sham” of the Minsk Accords, from 2015-2022. Some 260,000 strong, this force was largely destroyed by June of 2022. The second army, consisting of some 80,000 newly trained and equipped Ukrainian soldiers backed by thousands of foreign mercenaries, the direct result of tens of billions of dollars of military aid provided by NATO, was able to launch the successful Ukrainian counterattack in the fall of 2022, before being decimated in the positional war that followed (including the Bakhmut slaughter).
The 60,000-strong 12-brigade Ukrainian counterattack force currently operating against the Russians, again the result of tens of billions of dollars in military equipment (including modern Western tanks, artillery, and infantry fighting vehicles), will most probably be destroyed, or facing imminent destruction, by the time the NATO summit convenes. The primary question facing NATO is does it have the political, economic, and military capacity to raise a fourth Ukrainian army, and after its demise, a fifth, sixth, and more?
NATO is politically committed to waging a proxy conflict with Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” This tragic reality means that, regardless of the battlefield reality that exists in Ukraine, NATO will continue to push Ukraine to sacrifice its manpower in a fruitless struggle against Russia for the simple fact that NATO is unwilling to willingly lose political face at home and abroad.
However, this political will does not automatically mean that NATO will be able to sustain this objective either economically or militarily.
While recent statements made by US General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicate that there are tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the US/NATO training “pipeline”, and that the US/NATO is assembling equipment sufficient to equip these soldiers, they will not be ready for combat for several months yet—long after the third Ukrainian army has met its fate on the field of battle.
Milley spoke of new air defense systems for Ukraine, and other NATO officials speak of the possibility of providing Ukraine with (old) F-16 aircraft. New air defense systems, however, cannot in and of themselves alter a military reality imposed by Russia on Ukraine through its strategic SEAD victory. Ukraine will simply continue a losing struggle against Russian air power. The same holds true of any F-16 fighters that might be provided to Ukraine—too little, too late, and in any event incapable of achieving a meaningful battlefield result.
In Vilnius, NATO will be confronted with the reality of its impotency as a military alliance when it comes to countering Russia in Ukraine. Any military analyst of any competence will know that, as things currently stand, Ukraine simply cannot prevail over Russia. NATO illusions of a “frozen conflict” that seem to drive their insane desire to arm Ukraine to infinity and beyond, moreover, are driven by fundamentally flawed assessments regarding Russian economic competence and capacity, Russian military proficiency, and the will of the Russian people to sustain this conflict.
Here is the root cause of NATO’s strategic failure in Ukraine—a complete lack of understanding about the reality of Russia today. Russia will be able to out-produce NATO from a standpoint of military technology until which time NATO nations fully transition into a wartime economy, something NATO nations neither have the political will nor economic means to accomplish.
The Russian military has largely overcome the deficiencies which plagued it in the initial phases of the Special Military Operation, and the Russia armed forces assembled in the Special Military Operation zone are highly trained, well-equipped, and properly trained for the tasks they have been assigned. Moreover, the Russian nation has rallied around the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin in an overwhelming fashion, united in the belief that the proxy war NATO is waging against Russia in Ukraine is existential in nature and, as such, one that Russia cannot lose.
NATO will not alter course in the immediate period following the Vilnius summit—there is simply too much political momentum in place to bring about any meaningful alteration of the current trajectory in Ukraine. But neither will NATO produce a winning formula in Ukraine. Rather, NATO will continue to pursue little more than a variation of an existing theme—to arm Ukraine so that it can fight as long as it is capable of sustaining the fight.
This short-sighted posture will result in the inevitable military collapse of Ukraine, probably sometime between late summer/early fall of this year. When this happens, NATO will be left scrambling to construct some sort of face-saving mechanism to salvage its weakened geopolitical position vis-à-vis Russia. What that will look like is unknown at this time. But one thing is for certain—because NATO refuses to consider an off-ramp from the Ukrainian conflict today, there will be no future for Ukraine tomorrow. NATO political pride will be the downfall and destruction of the Ukrainian nation, its military, and its people.
Russia won’t let Ukraine be bleeding wound
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JUNE 17, 2023
With the Ukrainian offensive under way for a fortnight, all eyes are on the battlefields, and, crucially, Russia’s options ahead. In a little over three weeks from now, the NATO will be holding a summit in Vilnius and the West has choices to make too. We are arriving at a fork in the road.
The NATO expected the Ukrainian forces to punch through key Russian fortifications by now. In reality, they are struggling to get anywhere near the sprawling layered fortifications and in that desperate attempt, are taking massive losses, entrapped in minefields and taken to pieces by Russian artillery and missiles and the dreaded multi-role attack helicopters known as Alligator.
The signposts are best seen in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin press conference on Tuesday, lasting over three hours, with war correspondents. In just a week’s time after Ukraine’s offensive began, “25–30 percent of the supplied equipment (from NATO) has been destroyed,” Putin said.
Putin underscored three things. First, the goals set for the special military operations are “fundamental for us” because “Ukraine is part of the effort to destabilise Russia.” What does that mean?
It means Russian operations will not end without realising the twin objectives of “demilitarising” Ukraine and uprooting the present neo-Nazi regime in Kiev. The security and welfare of the Russian population also remains a cardinal objective — no more pogroms. Putin said Russia is going about realising these objectives “gradually, methodically.”
Second, Putin flagged: “The Ukrainian defence industry will soon cease to exist altogether. What do they produce? Ammunition is delivered, equipment is delivered and weapons are delivered – everything is delivered. You won’t live long like that, you won’t last. So, the issue of demilitarisation is realised in very practical terms.”
Third, the Kremlin’s preference so far has been to continue to grind down the Ukrainian military, whilst giving “selective responses” whenever any red lines were crossed — eg., Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy system, the destruction of the headquarters of the Ukrainian military intelligence. By the way, in that Kiev strike, Russia claims to have seriously injured Ukraine’s spy chief Kyrylo Budanov, the poster boy of western media.
Going forward, Putin said “everything will depend on the potential that is left at the end of this so-called counter-offensive. This is the key question.” After taking such “catastrophic losses,” it is up to the leadership in Kiev to rationally think about “what to do next,” Putin said.
He added, “We will wait and see what the situation is like and take further steps based on this understanding. Our plans may vary depending on the situation when we deem it necessary to move. That includes NATO equipment.”
Putin ridiculed the West’s grandiose talk about matching Russia’s vastly superior defence industrial capacity. He said: “And when they say they will start producing this or that: well, please go ahead. Things are not so simple during a recession… They are not as decisive as we are here in Russia. There is no passion there, these are fading nations; that’s the whole problem. But we have it. We will fight for our interests, and we will achieve our goals.”
Given these stark realities, Kiev should roll back the offensive. But that is not going to happen. Kiev is under immense pressure from Washington to claim some dramatic success. That said, the Ukrainian reserves are not infinite, either. Around 35,000 to 40,000 strong Ukrainian reserves are facing a massive Russian deployment manifold stronger in numbers (in hundreds of thousands) and advanced weaponry, and enjoying air superiority. There is a distinct possibility that at some point, the Russian forces may go on the offensive too.
Against this backdrop, the West claims that the NATO Allies are “looking at an array of options to signal that Ukraine is advancing in its relationship” with the alliance, to borrow the words of the US ambassador in Brussels Julianne Smith. Andres Rasmussen, former NATO chief and presently official advisor to Ukrainian President Zelensky, has threatened that a group of NATO countries may be willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine if member states including the US do not provide tangible security guarantees to Kiev at the Vilnius summit.
Specifically, Rasmussen claimed that “Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius. We shouldn’t underestimate the Polish feelings, the Poles feel that for too long western Europe did not listen to their warnings.” The rhetoric took a heightened tone lately at the meeting of Heads of State and Government in the format “Weimar Triangle” (France-Poland-Germany) on June 12 in Paris where a consensus emerged that Ukraine should receive some security guarantees.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared, “It is evident that we need something like this, and we need it in a very concrete form.” French President Emmanuel Macron also called for a rapid agreement on “tangible and credible security guarantees.”
Indeed, this is all bluster. The idea of Poland “putting boots on the ground” is so patently absurd. The Polish military it will wither away in a confrontation with Russia. But what such theatrics show is that nerves are on edge as the spectre of defeat in Ukraine is endangering NATO’s unity.
So, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general, stepped in to inject some realism into the discussion, pointing out that for the present what matters most is that Ukraine survives as a nation. Stoltenberg stated: “I believe it’s not possible to give precise dates (for Ukraine’s admission as NATO member) when we are in the midst of a war… the most urgent task now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation… because, unless Ukraine prevails, then there’s no membership to be discussed at all, because it’s only a sovereign, independent, democratic Ukraine that can become a NATO member.”
Stoltenberg took the cue from Washington. In fact, he was speaking while on a visit to Washington, in an interview with PBS.
Russia is not taking the eyes off the battlefield. In reality, Moscow is shoving down the western throat a historic strategic defeat. The choice for the West narrows down to negotiating with Russia on its terms, or to expect a military solution, which might mean the obliteration of Ukraine as a nation and the eviction of NATO.
Make no mistake, Russian offensive plans have been drawn up. There is talk among opinion makers in Moscow about creating new facts on the ground — a De-Militarised Zone along the Polish border. Now, that entails Russian forces crossing the Dnieper and liberating Kiev as well as liberate Kharkov and Odessa, two other Russian cities historically. Russia has no interest in annexing the western regions of Ukraine, which is hostile territory that Stalin annexed.
But western Ukraine has other neighbours — Poland included — who would have unfinished business of partition of their historical lands to settle. The unresolved nationality question is explosive, as Poles still remember the killings by the Ukrainian nationalists aligned with the Nazis. Historians say that more than 100,000 Poles, including women and even the smallest children, perished at the hands of their Ukrainian neighbours in a nationalist drive in areas that were then in southeastern Poland and are mostly in Ukraine now. To put it mildly, what remains of Ukraine under the weight of a crushing military defeat no one can predict.
The Kremlin will exercise its options depending on the exigencies of the situation. Moscow seems to have concluded that there is no real alternative to a military solution. It will not allow Ukraine to remain a chronic wound infected by the microbial species from the transatlantic universe. Cauterisation of the wound is necessary, albeit with potential risks.
Anglo-Saxons control collective West – Moscow
The US and the UK strong-arm their own followers, Russian FM Lavrov has said.
RT | June 16, 2023
London and Washington run the show in the “rules-based world order,” trying to dictate policy to their own allies as well as countries outside the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told RT on Friday.
Russia fully understands that building relations with other countries needs to be based on mutual benefits and equal partnerships, Lavrov said in an interview with RT at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
“This is not what we see in the West these days. The Anglo-Saxons are basically running the show, controlling the rest of the collective West. They are using the current situation, which they created through Ukraine – this war against Russia – to remove competition,” Lavrov elaborated.
“They see us as a competitor, they see China as a competitor. Their doctrinal documents clearly state that. But they are also removing their competition in continental Europe. It’s obvious. The economic and social processes in Germany are grim. Other countries are not much better off,” the Russian foreign minister added.
The only Western state benefiting from the current situation is the US, Lavrov said, “and the UK is always somewhere around, helping America reach its selfish goals.”
According to Lavrov, the “Anglo-Saxons and their allies” are currently trying to pressure countries around the world to side with them against Russia, including the Arab world, using methods he can only describe as “rude.”
“You see, when they talk about these ‘rules’ on which the international order must be based, what they really mean is their diktat,” Lavrov told RT. “Colonial instincts – live at the expense of others. Nothing else.”
Lavrov took particular exception to Western proclamations that their support for Kiev is “defending democracy” and that Ukraine is fighting for “Western values” in the conflict with Russia.
“First of all, if they really see it that way, I cannot but be convinced that they are holding on to Nazi views. Because saying that Western values are being protected in Ukraine is the same as saying that Nazism is your mode of existence,” the diplomat told RT. As for democracy, he added, “they only speak about democracy when they teach others how to live,” but not when it comes to respecting the sovereign equality of other states, per the UN Charter.
Putin: Kiev Has Lost 186 Tanks, 418 Armored Vehicles, Losses Mounting
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 16.06.2023
Ukrainian forces launched a long-awaited counteroffensive earlier this month after stocking up on NATO weapons, including Leopard heavy tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. The offensive has stalled after running into well-prepared Russian defensive lines, with even Kiev’s Western backers expressing concerns about Ukraine’s heavy losses.
Ukraine has failed to reach any strategic objectives amid its ongoing counteroffensive, losing 186 tanks and 418 armored vehicles to date as losses continue to mount, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
“In some places Ukrainian forces manage to reach the first line of defense, in some places not. That’s not the question,” Putin said, speaking to reporters during the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.
“The question revolves around the fact that they are using their so-called strategic reserves, which consist of several components. The first is meant to be used to break [Russian] defenses, the second to use forces to entrench their foothold over territory. They have not reached their goals at a single section of the front. This is what is important,” he said.
“Their losses are indeed very large, even more than ten to one compared to the Russian army. This is a fact. In terms of equipment, losses are mounting daily. As of today, this includes 186 tanks lost and 418 armored vehicles of various classes,” Putin said.
Russia’s defense enterprises are working round-the-clock to supply the military with weapons, working double or even triple shifts, Putin said. “We have increased the output of military production by 2.7 times, and when it comes to the most needed equipment – by 10 times.”
As for Ukrainian forces, Putin predicted that “soon they will stop using its own equipment” entirely because it’s being systematically destroyed. “Everything they’re using to do battle, and everything they’re using is coming from abroad. One can’t fight that way for long,” he said.
Origins of Conflict
Putin also once again took the opportunity to delve into the root causes of the present crisis, saying “the war in Ukraine, in southeastern Ukraine, was started by the Kiev regime with the support of their Western sponsors in 2014. But everyone in the West tries not to speak about this. I am forced to remind them that aviation, tanks, artillery were used used against the Donbass [back then]. What is this if not a war?”
Kiev “refused” to entertain an end to the Donbass crisis using peaceful means, Putin said, “forcing us to use our armed forces to attempt to put an end to this war.”
It wasn’t Russia that led its Western partners “by the nose” between 2015 and 2022 by signing the Minsk peace deal for Donbass, “without any plans to implement it, as they publicly admitted recently,” he added, referring to recent revelations by the former Ukrainian, German and French leaders that they only signed the Minsk deal to give Kiev time to rearm and prepare for war with Russia.
America At War – Provoking The Consequences
By Christopher Black – New Eastern Outlook – 15.06.2023
The United States of America is at war with Russia. There is not much point in using terms such as “proxy war” to describe the situation. If a belligerent in a war is acting as a proxy for another power and that power is not engaged directly in the war, the term can be useful. But when the power, for which the “proxy” engages in the war, is directly involved in the war itself, then it is a co-belligerent, a party to the war directly, not simply by proxy.
The issue is whether each state is pursuing its own interests and has its own independent means of doing so, or whether the interests and forces of the allied powers are subordinate to the interests and forces of a leader. In such a case, the enemy being attacked can regard all its opponents as a single entity.
In this regard, Clausewitz said that, “if you can vanquish all your enemies by defeating one of them, that defeat must be the main objective of the war. In this one enemy, we strike at the centre of gravity of the entire conflict.”
If we analyse the war in the Ukraine theatre of operations in these terms, it becomes clear that the Ukrainian military forces are in fact forces of the United States of America. They have been created, armed, trained, supplied, financed, and are directed and commanded by the Americans, for American interests. The government for whom they nominally fight is a puppet state, installed in power by the United States and its NATO allies in a coup d’etat in 2014. It has no independent interests outside of American ones, and no control over the war or the forces nominally under its command.
The United States of America is the leader of a hostile military alliance, the purpose of which, since its inception, has been to isolate, threaten, attack and destroy Russia, has conspired with its alliance for years to achieve this end, has spent vast resources to prepare the attack, and has, with malice and determination, sabotaged any proposals for peace. It insists on war. It is the centre of gravity of the entire conflict.
The American government claims that it is not engaged even in a proxy war with Russia, that they are merely assisting an independent nation suffering aggression from another, that this does not put them at war with Russia, a war which, they claim, they are trying to avoid despite their actions and daily propaganda.
But, like the British, and the rest, the truth is the United States of America is a party to the war directly, according to all accepted criteria under international law. It supplies money to conduct the war, tanks, armoured vehicles, aircraft, arms, ammunition, military provisions and other war materials, engages its own military forces-military advisors and combatants, provides military intelligence, obtained on a real-time basis from its spy networks, satellite observations and electronic data collection, engages in an intense propaganda war against Russia, has attempted, through “sanctions,” to impose a blockade on Russia and its economy and people, blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline, sends, on a regular basis, senior government and military officials, including the American President, Congressional bigwigs and the leaders of other members of the military alliance, to meet with and direct the actions of their lieutenant Zelensky, and conducts constant military exercises further threatening attacks against Russia. The NATO Air Defender military exercises begin in Europe on June 12, the day I write this, involving hundreds of NATO aircraft.
Make no mistake. The United States of America is at war with Russia. No amount of rhetoric can hide that fact and what the consequences for the United States will be. To quote Clausewitz again,
“Danger is part of the friction of war. Without an accurate conception of danger, we cannot understand war.”
The problem is that the neither the Americans nor the other members of its unholy alliance, seem to realise the danger they are in, neither their leaders nor their citizens. Like the British, they suffer from the delusion that they are insulated from the consequences of their war, that they are invulnerable, that Russia will not dare to respond to the attacks upon its territory and people by attacking their territories. This shared delusion makes them ever more dangerous, since they think they can keep escalating their actions in the war without any limits. They cannot-not without consequences.
On June 8th Tass reported, following the statement by the former head of NATO, Fogh Rasmussen, that NATO countries may send their forces into the conflict directly, that Dmitry Medvedev stated,
“Fogh Rasmussen wasn’t a very smart man before. And now he has sunk into a doctrinaire’s dementia. In an interview with The Guardian, he stated that even if Banderavite Ukraine doesn’t receive an invitation to join NATO in Vilnius, the countries of the alliance will be able to send their troops there. Sort of on their own.”
“Well, have the people of these countries been asked? Who among them wants war with Russia? Do they really want hypersonic strikes on Europe? And what does Uncle Sam think about this? It would affect him too, wouldn’t it?”
Again, on June 1, TASS reported that Dmitry Medvedev stated, in connection with the attack on Russians in the Belgorod region by NATO-Ukrainian forces,
“The aim was simple – to cause damage, to harm to the civilian population somehow, And the fact that our enemy is already behaving as a terrorist characterizes in a very specific way both the Ukrainian regime and those who are behind it – first of all the Americans and the Europeans, who, in fact, have got on the warpath with us. Terrorist acts must entail the harshest retaliation possible.”
Medvedev’s views have been stated by other members of the government, by members of the Duma and by President Putin when he referred to Russian strikes on command and decision centres wherever they may be.
The Americans can whistle in the dark, lie to their people, try to fool the world, but what matters is what the Russian government thinks and knows, and it thinks, because it knows, that the United States of America is at war with Russia and seeks Russia’s complete defeat and subjugation. The campaign in Ukraine is just a phase of this war, is the current geographical space for this war, so for the United States and its allies to assume that they can carry out attacks on Russia and not suffer being dealt with in kind or worse, that war cannot be waged on their territories, is a serious mistake.
Indeed, on May 31, Dmitry Medvedev stated with respect to Britain,
“London is, in fact, waging an undeclared war on Moscow, which means that any British official can be viewed as a legitimate military target.
“Today, Great Britain is acting as an ally of Ukraine, by providing it with equipment and personnel as military assistance, that is de facto waging an undeclared war against Russia. Therefore, any of its officials, both military and civilian ones, who are making a contribution to the war effort, can be viewed as a legitimate military target,”
Medvedev was commenting on a remark by British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly who had justified the drone attacks on Moscow, saying that Ukraine had the right to attack targets on Russian territory for self-defense.
He added,
“Foolish officials in the UK, our eternal enemy, should remember that under universally recognized international law governing the conduct of war in modern conditions, including the Hague and Geneva Conventions with their additional protocols, their situation can also be qualified as being at war.”
The same analysis applies in spades to the United States of America.
An interesting comment in this regard was made by the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on June 3rd when, according to Tass, he stated in an interview on the Rossiya-1 TV channel, that,
“Ukraine has simply become a tool of the West’s ‘hybrid war’ against Russia, and therefore it is futile to deal with it in resolving the conflict. Now, Ukraine is actually a tool of conflict. The conflict has indeed become broader, as the collective West is waging a hybrid war against our country. It is futile to deal with this tool in order to resolve the conflict, and this must be understood too.”
All the rhetoric from NATO about whether or not Ukraine can become a member of NATO is just a smokescreen to hide from their people the fact that Ukraine is already de facto part of NATO. Whether or not the formalities of signing pieces of paper, of getting the approval of NATO states is followed through, is irrelevant.
Remember that on March 26, 2022, in Warsaw, President Biden stated,
“We have a sacred obligation under Article 5 to defend each and every inch of NATO territory with the full force of our collective power.”
He was referring not only to Poland but to Ukraine as well. What Russia feared is now the reality. Ukraine is de facto a NATO state. And all the rhetoric from the West and commentators about whether or not NATO will invoke Article 5 is another smokescreen designed to mask what is really happening, for NATO has already activated Article 5 of the NATO Treaty.
The talk about invoking it in the future is an attempt to hide NATO’s weakness, its defeats on the military, economic and political fronts, even as they throw one weapon system after another at Russia, and inject NATO forces into the fighting only to have their equipment and forces destroyed.
They have nothing left to throw at Russia that can defeat it. So, they pretend NATO is not yet really engaged. But these facts make the USA even more dangerous as it becomes clear that the combined West cannot defeat Russia, a nuclear power, using conventional means.
Remember also that the United States has a first strike nuclear arms policy, and they have already placed, in Romania and Poland, land-based versions of the Aegis Air Defence System, which can be used to launch nuclear-armed missiles at Russia. These systems have been tested. The one in Poland is reported to be fully operational as of June 30. The danger to Russia is immediate and existential. Those systems are one of the reasons Russia activated its military operations. Russia has further responded to this, and to the attacks on Russia, clearly planned and ordered by the US and UK, by placing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus which are to be made operational after July 7, when the facilities to store and use them will be completed.
Those tactical nuclear weapons are designed for battlefield use. We hope it never comes to that, but Russia faces a direct threat from people bent on its destruction that think they are untouchable. So, Russia faces very difficult choices on what to do and how to prevent an escalation to all our nuclear war while ensuring its own security.
On May 23, during his visit to Laos, Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev issued a warning on the day Russian security forces destroyed the Ukrainian raiding force that attacked civilians in the Belgorod region.
“The North Atlantic alliance does not take the threat of nuclear war seriously enough, thus making a big mistake. NATO is not serious about this scenario. Otherwise, NATO would not have supplied such dangerous weapons to the Ukrainian regime. Apparently, they think that a nuclear conflict, or a nuclear apocalypse, is never ever possible. NATO is wrong, and at some point, events may take a completely unpredictable turn. The responsibility will be placed squarely on the North Atlantic Alliance,”
Medvedev pointed out that no one knows whether the point of no return has been passed,
“No one knows this. This is the main danger. Because as soon as they provide something, they say: let’s supply this, too. Long-range missiles or planes. Everything will be all right. But nothing will be fine. We will be able to cope with it. But only more and more serious types of weapons will be used. That’s what the current trend is.”
So, we come back to Clausewitz. The American government and people cannot understand the war they are engaged in unless they understand the danger, they are in. They have to understand their country is the centre of gravity in this war, whose defeat will mean the defeat of all its minions in NATO. The Russian people know the danger they are in. The Americans, through NATO, through their NATO puppets in Ukraine, have attacked Russians in Russia. It is logical to expect that Russia will decide to bring home to the Americans what war means, what danger they are in, and they do not need to use nuclear weapons to achieve this.
Russia can strike using its conventional hypersonic weapons as well, against which the USA has no defence whatsoever, as has been established with the destruction of the Patriot Air defence complexes in Ukraine which could not stop Russian missiles. They have no other air defence systems operational in the United States territory or on its naval forces that can stop them either. Russia has not decided to take this step yet. But it can and the Americans can do nothing about it except bluster about using nuclear weapons against Russia. But Russia took that possibility into account when the special military operation began.
The American people have not directly experienced war in their own territory for a long time. They have no idea what it is. They have no idea of the danger they are in so long as their government continues its aggressive policies, not only against Russia, but China as well. The American people, misled and misinformed, have no conception of the dangers of this war anymore than the British people and the peoples of the other NATO countries do. The American people must be warned. The United States of America is at war, and no amount of bluffing and lying can protect them from the consequences their government is provoking. To repeat what I said in my warning to the people of Britain, the consequences are predictable and they will be catastrophic.
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events.
US involvement prevents Ukraine peace – Hungary
RT | June 14, 2023
Near-term prospects for ending the Ukraine conflict are not looking good, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told the Turkish Anadolu agency on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, all developments are showing a totally different direction. The weapons deliveries, the very open reference to nuclear capacities, the offensives against each other from the two sides, the Ukrainian soldiers being trained in European countries, the very deep involvement of the Americans. So these are not heading toward peace for sure,” he said, during an interview in New York.
Szijjarto also pointed out that Ukraine is only able to fight Russia because of weapons supplied by the US, and that a long-term peace deal would depend on an agreement between Moscow and Washington.
Hungary has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and urged a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Budapest has also refused to allow the transit of Ukraine-bound NATO weapons across its territory, or training of Ukrainian soldiers on its soil.
Late on Tuesday, US Senator Jim Risch of Idaho blocked the sale of HIMARS rocket artillery to Hungary, citing Budapest’s delay in approving Sweden’s membership in the US-led military bloc. As the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Risch is able to hold up the weapons deal, worth an estimated $735 million and involving 24 HIMARS launchers and the ammunition for them.
Hungary is not opposed to Stockholm’s membership in principle, Szijjarto told Anadolu, but the parliament in Budapest is taking into consideration the “insults” and interference into the country’s internal affairs coming from Stockholm.
Multiple Swedish officials have accused Hungary of “backsliding” on democracy and the rule of law and accused PM Viktor Orban of acting like a “dictator,” as part of an EU campaign to compel obedience from Budapest.
“We never interfere in the domestic issues of other countries,” Szijjarto said. “Such accusations give a reason to put this issue on hold for a while.”
NATO is hoping to finalize Sweden’s membership ahead of next month’s summit in Vilnius, but even if Hungary succumbs to US pressure, that would still leave Türkiye as a holdout. Ankara has repeatedly said that Stockholm needs to do more to implement the agreement reached last year, involving the extradition of Kurdish activists accused of terrorism.
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Book Review
The Greatest Threat to World Peace? A Review of Daniele Ganser’s ‘USA: The Ruthless Empire’
Review by Marilyn Langlois | November 10, 2023
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book. … continue
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