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Netherlands signs $305m deal for arms from Israel’s Elbit Systems

Tested on Palestinians

MEMO | May 18, 2023

Israel and the Netherlands signed a five-year arms’ deal worth $305 million, Israel’s Defence Ministry announced yesterday.

Israel’s Elbit Systems, a company which sells weapons to the Israeli military used in attacks on Palestinians, will supply 20 PULS artillery systems, including ammunition as well as training and support services.

The deal was signed by the International Defence Cooperation Directorate at Israel’s Ministry of Defence (SIBAT) General Yair Kulas in the Netherlands with his Dutch counterpart, Commander of the Royal Netherlands Army General Martin Wijnen.

“It is an honour for me to lead the first government-to-government defence contract with the Netherlands for the PULS long-range precise rocket artillery system,” said Kulas. “This significant event symbolises the strategic relationship between our countries and constitutes an opportunity to strengthen our partnership based on mutual values and morals.”

According to the Times of Israel, there have been previous Israeli arms and defence equipment sales to the Dutch nation, but those were considered to be private deals by various companies and not government-to-government contracts.

Moreover, the arms deal is one of the largest agreements signed between Israel and a European country in recent years.

Bezhalel Machlis, president and CEO of Elbit, added in a statement: “The acquisition of Elbit Systems’ PULS solution will enhance the Royal Netherlands Army’s ability to provide effective indirect fire support. It will also provide interoperability with NATO customers that have acquired these systems.”

May 18, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The End of Bakhmut

The Ukrainians are organizing to pull out

By Stephan Bryen | Weapons and Strategy | May 16, 2023

Ukraine is close to retreating from Bakhmut. This could happen anytime now, but it has to happen fast enough before exit routes are closed down. Predictions on a timetable vary, but the Ukrainians should evacuate Bakhmut no later than the weekend, provided they can.

There are still a couple of roads open to exit the city, secured in part by Ukrainian army attacks on the flanks of the city. But these roadways and fields will not stay available if the Wagner forces pour in fast.

In the last night the Wagner forces stormed and took the two most fortified and defensible parts of the Citadel area of the city, pushing the Ukrainians back into the last part of the Citadel which is mainly low rise buildings. These will be hard to hold. There is also fighting around a portion of the city’s northwestern sector where the Ukrainians are holding out at the Children’s Hospital (long since evacuated of patients). The purpose of the Ukrainian force is to hold this area to keep the road open out of the city in that direction and to divert Wagner forces from taking over the entire Citadel too quickly.

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Commander in Chief Valery Zaluzhny with Colonel General Aleksandr Syrskyi (left)

The Ukrainians could negotiate a safe withdrawal with the Russians, but it is unlikely that Zelensky will allow that to happen. Furthermore, the so-called leaks about Prigozhin’s communications with Ukrainian intelligence, which he has heatedly denied, makes it almost impossible for the Wagner’s to make any deals with their Ukrainian enemies.

The battle for Bakhmut is Zelensky’s battle, because he demanded that his army stay there and fight, even after his commanders told him it was too costly and not worth taking needless losses. The battle has raged for eight or nine months and, to a degree, has caused big losses on both sides. Recently his top commanders have put out statements that the fight was worth it. It is likely Zelensky demanded these statements of support.

The big question is, what is next.  The Russians could use their forces to move toward Chasiv Yar and push the Ukrainian army back toward the Dnieper river. The Dnieper is absolutely strategic for Ukraine, and if the Russians can reach its banks, Ukraine will be cut in half. The Ukrainians have to be careful in mounting their planned but not yet executed great offensive, because if they leave their back door open, the Russians have sufficient forces to handle an offensive and to move on toward Chasiv Yar and beyond. There is a danger the Ukrainian army could be trapped from the north and the south and be unable to gain a breakthrough that could justify trying an offensive aimed at the Kherson region, or the Zaporizhzhia region, or even Crimea.

The US and NATO response is to stuff Ukraine with tons of modern weapons, some of which the Russians are blowing up before they ever get near a battlefield. But manpower remains Ukraine’s Achilles’s heel. It is becoming more and more difficult for Ukraine to recruit soldiers, or dragoon young men into service. This will only multiply when the full impact of the Bakhmut defeat is known to the Ukrainian public.

The Ukrainian army leadership also is in doubt. Its top leader. General Valery Zaluzhny seemingly has disappeared, and so too has General Alexander Syrskyi, Commander of the Ukrainian ground forces. There are plenty of rumors and no answers. One of them is that Zelensky went on his European tour while the military opposition was eliminated.  Another is that these two generals were involved in corruption and were caught. A third rumor is that both were killed in a missile strike. If the planned offensive is delayed because the army’s leaders have been killed, for whatever reason, then Zelensky will face overbearing problems.

A key problem understanding the war in Ukraine is the reliability of sources of information and the fact that both sides specialize in disinformation and fake news. Having said that, the information coming from Bakhmut so far is confirmed. The rumors about the fate of Ukraine’s generals are not confirmed.

May 17, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Japan to open NATO liaison office in new provocation against China and Russia

By Ahmed Adel | May 15, 2023

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi announced that his country is considering opening a NATO liaison office, demonstrating that Tokyo is deepening its ties with the US and becoming more hostile to China and Russia. Tokyo’s rapprochement with NATO would strengthen the anti-China/Russia alliance and advance the US plans to create a NATO-styled organisation in the Far East.

“We are already in discussions, but no details (have been) finalised yet,” Hayashi said on May 10.

He specifically referenced Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine as something with repercussions far beyond Europe’s borders that made Japan rethink regional security.

“The reason why we are discussing about this is that since the aggression by Russia to Ukraine, the world (has) become more unstable,” he claimed. “Something happening in East Europe is not only confined to the issue in East Europe, and that affects directly the situation here in the Pacific. That’s why a cooperation between us in East Asia and NATO (is) becoming … increasingly important.”

However, the foreign minister failed to explain how events in Ukraine affect those in East Asia. Rather, Hayashi is using this as a weak justification for why Japan is militarising, which directly relates to Tokyo’s claims against sovereign seas and territories belonging to China and Russia.

The opening of a NATO office in Japan does not mean that the country will join the Alliance, but it does open a path for Japan to become a member of an expanded AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-United States). This, in turn, will require Tokyo to strengthen its contacts with NATO.

It is recalled that NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, went to Japan and South Korea in January 2023 to lay the groundwork for strengthened ties. This is one of the reasons why Tokyo is already involved in conflicts that are not directly related to the region, despite some of the mental gymnastics it procures to create a justification.

The Japanese government is also providing $5.5 billion in aid to Ukraine, which can be seen as a step forward for the country to join AUKUS and confirms Tokyo’s intentions to strengthen its relationship with NATO. However, NATO will not officially expand to include Japan because members of the Alliance, such as Hungary, do not always align their position for the sake of serving US interests.

At the same time, France, at least in rhetoric, is seeking a degree of autonomy from the US. French President Emmanuel Macron said on April 9 that Europe needs to limit its dependence on the US.

In this way, the expansion of NATO to Asia is not likely since this initiative could lead to a further weakening of unity within the military alliance. The Americans are aware of this, and for this reason, they are working on a separate Eastern bloc to strengthen relations between NATO and Japan, most likely through the AUKUS format.

Suppose the AUKUS bloc includes Japan and intends to become the equivalent of NATO in Asia, with which the Western military alliance will cooperate closely; it would be a significant step in pressuring China and Russia since Japan’s technological and military potential exceeds that of many European countries.

It must be borne in mind that Tokyo’s rapprochement with NATO would reinforce the anti-Chinese/Russian ideology prevailing in the West. However, Tokyo’s actions come at a time when many countries in Asia and even some in Europe do not fully agree with this course of action.

The opening of the NATO office in Japan clearly indicates that the US plans to create a so-called “NATO of the Far East” and is making concrete steps towards this goal.

It cannot be overlooked that Japan’s reestablishment of overly friendly relations with South Korea attests to these plans, mainly as they have unexpectedly gone to a new qualitative level in a single leap. The President of South Korea has already visited Japan, and there are plans for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to visit South Korea soon, as well as their impending G7 summit meeting in Hiroshima. This has occurred in recent times despite Tokyo and Seoul being embroiled for many years in mutual accusations on various historical occasions.

The leaders of both East Asian countries now hold a distinctly pro-American stance. If the opening of a NATO liaison office in Tokyo is successful, it can be expected that one will open in Seoul too, especially since the country’s leadership has taken on a provocative position against Beijing and Moscow, including the drawing of red lines concerning the war in Ukraine.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

May 15, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Russia issues warning over Arctic Council

RT | May 14, 2023

Russia could terminate its membership in the Arctic Council if Western member states discriminate against it, the country’s Foreign Ministry has warned. Nikolay Korchunov, ambassador-at-large and Moscow’s senior representative in the organization, noted that the group’s role and effectiveness have diminished of late due to the policies being pursued by the Western powers.

In an interview with Russia’s TASS media outlet published on Sunday, Korchunov said that should Norway, which became the Council’s chair on Thursday, choose not to invite Russia to take part in its activities, this would constitute a violation of Russia’s rights.

“In this case, the continuation of our country’s participation in this organization’s activities will hardly be possible,” the diplomat clarified.

Following the start of Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine last February, the other members of the intergovernmental body, which includes Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and the US, effectively cut all contact with Moscow and froze over a hundred joint projects.

In his interview, Korchunov warned that Western countries’ growing insistence on confrontation and the pursuit of their own interests at the expense of the interests of other nations in the Arctic could potentially lead to escalation.

He cited NATO’s “expansion” in the region, which has seen ever more military drills held there recently.

The official also noted the Council’s weakening role and waning effectiveness, adding that Russia is engaging “in active dialogue in various formats with other countries and organizations.” Korchunov pointed out that Moscow would be working with constructive partners.

He also revealed Moscow’s plans to put Arctic issues on the agenda of other international entities, citing interest among members of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Among Russia’s priorities in the region is the development of the northern shipping routes connecting Asian economic powerhouses with European markets, Korchunov stressed.

Speaking to RT in early April, Russia’s minister responsible for developing the Arctic, Aleksey Chekunkov lamented that “one-sided unfriendly actions” by the other members of the Arctic Council and lack of cooperation could “destabilize the Arctic” and lead to chaos.

May 14, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Berlin offers Kiev largest-yet military package

RT | May 13, 2023

Germany announced a further €2.7 billion ($3 billion) in military aid to Kiev on Saturday, its largest weapons donation since Russia began its military operation in Ukraine last year.

The gift is meant to show “that Germany is serious in its support” for Ukraine, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters. “Germany will provide all the help it can, as long as it takes,” he vowed.

The package includes 30 Leopard 1 A5 tanks, 20 Marder armored personnel carriers, over 100 combat vehicles, 18 self-propelled Howitzers, 200 reconnaissance drones, four IRIS-T SLM anti-aircraft systems, and ammunition. Germany’s own military is not yet equipped with the IRIS-T systems.

Berlin’s move comes as Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is expected to visit for the first time since hostilities began last February. Germany reportedly wants to make a good impression after its initial reluctance to join fellow NATO members in supplying the Ukrainian military with lethal weapons out of concern it would be drawn into the conflict ruffled feathers in Kiev.

Zelensky’s visit takes place amid growing public discontent with the status quo. A YouGov poll published on Friday revealed more than half of Germans opposed NATO membership for Ukraine, while 55% want Kiev and Moscow to negotiate a peace deal as soon as possible. Several German celebrities have recently addressed Chancellor Olaf Scholz with open letters urging his government to stop sending weapons to Ukraine and instead push for a ceasefire.

While Germany and its NATO allies have long pledged to support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” the bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has admitted they are running out of weapons and ammo with which to show that support. In October it was revealed that Germany’s ammunition stockpiles would last for just two days of combat, far below the 30-day threshold theoretically required for NATO countries, though Berlin is far from alone in running on empty.

May 13, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

UK Shipment of Long Range Cruise Missiles to Ukraine Radically Changes the Conflict

By Gilbert Doctorow | May 12, 2023

Americans have taken umbrage at the now commonplace habit of Russian media personalities to speak of “Anglo-Saxons” as the principal opponents, or enemies if you will, of their country. In Russia the term is meant to include the USA. Given the high percentage of Blacks, Hispanics and Orientals in the U.S. population, there is some substance to American objections. However, as regards the British, they have not a leg to stand on: they are Anglo-Saxons like it or not. And by their behavior towards Russia right to the present day, they have well earned the intense dislike bordering on hatred that a large swathe of influential Russians feel towards them.

First you had Boris Johnson, who ruined the nearly agreed peace accord between Russia and Ukraine back in March 2022. Boris threatened to put a stop to Western assistance to Kiev if Zalensky took the draft treaty through to signature. Zelensky then backed out of the negotiations and went all out for war.

Now we have Prime Minister Sunak sending long range cruise missiles to Ukraine supposedly to help them succeed with their counteroffensive and recapture lost territory from the Russians. The missiles are to be fitted onto existing Ukrainian Soviet era jets and have a 250 km range. This will theoretically enable Ukrainian forces based in Kharkov or Zaporozhie to deliver highly destructive warheads to anywhere in Crimea, for example.

Yes, you may say, but the Ukrainians already have been making daily drone attacks on Sevastopol. However, the new missiles will be far more deadly and less easy for air defense to bring down because of the inherent advantages of their speed, very low altitude and variable flight paths.

The new weapons are potentially a game changer in a way that the Leopard or Abrams tanks that have attracted so much public attention over recent months are not.

Why a game changer? Because with each incrementally more powerful artillery or tank delivered to Ukraine the Russians could say they only meant that Russia would have to push the Ukrainian border back that much further to keep Russian territories safe from attack. But there is no way for the Russians to push back the line of confrontation with Ukraine 250 km in the short term. That might be possible in a matter of months if not years. But in the meantime the missiles could do vast damage in purely Russian territories and create enormous numbers of casualties among both civilians and military.

I can easily imagine the popular reaction in Russia of a Ukrainian rocket attack on Sevastopol that killed, say 400 civilians. There would be a great public uproar and it is hard to see how the Kremlin could avoid responding with its own devastating counter blow. But counter blow against whom? Against the Ukrainians or against those truly responsible for the atrocity, namely the British? Here is where the current strong dislike for “Anglo-Saxons” in Russia may come into play. It comes on top of the recent Russian outrage over delivery of depleted uranium artillery shells to Ukraine by Britain.

In effect, by delivering these weapons to Ukraine Britain is wrecking the hitherto generally accepted notion that the war between Russia and Ukraine will be decided on the battlefield. That is precisely how the EU’s foreign policy and security chief Borrell put it more than half a year ago. Instead the outcome in Ukraine may now be decided by a war between Russia and Britain. This is a war that Britain is as likely to lose as the ongoing war being fought by Ukraine. And what comes after that? A full NATO-Russia war? A nuclear war?

The dangers have now been vastly raised by Mr. Sunak’s ill-conceived decision on arms shipments to Ukraine. It would be a positive step towards their own survival if EU authorities took cognizance of this British idiocy and brought their British colleagues to their senses.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

May 12, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO’s Planned Liaison Office In Japan Will Accelerate The Expansion Of AUKUS+

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 11, 2023

“The US Is Rounding Up Allies Ahead Of A Possible War With China”, which the former plans to fight via the emerging alliance system that can be described as AUKUS+ if it unfolds. This refers to that regional group’s function as the core of a larger anti-Chinese network that informally includes Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Korea. NATO will also obviously play a role too, with that bloc building upon its Secretary-General’s related statement of intent by opening a liaison office in Japan.

Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told CNN that this development is supposedly due to the Ukrainian Conflict making the entire world less stable, but the reality is that this is part of a preplanned move to more effectively coordinate the containment of China. It would have happened on a different pretext had that aforementioned conflict’s latest phase not broken out last year, but that event provided a convenient excuse for speeding up their plans and disguising them as anti-Russian instead.

NATO’s liaison office in Japan will serve as that alliance’s first official outpost in the Asia-Pacific, thus enabling it to more directly organize AUKUS+’s expansion. Assembling that regional dimension of this emerging system is important in and of itself, but the European one is indispensable for maximally pressuring China. It’s therefore expected that more countries from the continent will soon dispatch vessels to the region as part of the joint operations that the liaison office will organize.

This is precisely what EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell had in mind when suggesting late last month that member states should patrol the Taiwan Strait. Since practically every EU member is also part of NATO, this de facto amounts to that alliance doing this, which is dangerous due to the risk of this provoking an incident with China that could prompt the implementation of Article 5. That’s probably the point though, namely to create a crisis that can justify the further acceleration of AUKUS+’s expansion.

Nothing good is therefore expected to come from the opening of NATO’s planned liaison office in Japan. This development will only destabilize the Asia-Pacific, put additional pressure on China, and thus take the chance that whatever incident transpires as a result is incapable of being contained. It’s an irresponsible risk, but NATO has convinced itself that it’s worth taking in order to speed up its regional hegemonic plans.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO Airborne Units Arrive in Estonia for Swift Response-23 Drill

Sputnik – 09.05.2023

The US-led Swift Response military exercise has been launched in Estonia to increase interoperability and practice deployment of local and NATO armed forces in the country, the Estonian Defense Forces said on Tuesday.

“Almost 1,500 soldiers from Poland, the US, Czech Republic, the UK, Latvia and Estonia are taking part in the drills. Nearly 600 paratroopers from Poland, the UK and the Czech Republic will parachute to Nurmsi airfield as part of a large-scale airborne operation. The active stage of the drills will end in Estonia on May 14,” the military said.

The troops will stage various airborne operations to practice fast deployment and immediate task performance during the drills, Estonian Staff Commander at the exercise Colonel Viktor Kalnitski said.

“For the Estonian Defense Forces’ part, it is important for us to perfect comprehensive support of allies reception and to coordinate and arrange various aerial and land operations,” Kalnitski said in the statement.

Swift Response-23 is comprised of three airborne operations, held by the European and US armed forces in Estonia, Spain and Greece.

On Monday, US Air Force command in Europe said that a squadron of tactical stealth fighters F-22 Raptor had been deployed from Poland to Estonia’s Amari air base to “deter aggression over Baltic skies.”

May 9, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

NATO ‘s Great New Idea: ‘Let’s Start A War With China!’

By Ron Paul | May 8, 2023

NATO’s post-Cold War history is that of an organization far past its “sell-by” date. Desperate for a mission after the end of the Warsaw Pact, NATO in the late 1990s decided that it would become the muscle behind the militarization of “human rights” under the Clinton Administration.

Gone was the “threat of global communism” which was used to justify NATO’s 40-year run, so NATO re-imagined itself as a band of armed Atlanticist superheroes. Wherever there was an “injustice” (as defined by Washington’s neocons), NATO was ready with guns and bombs.

The US military-industrial complex could not have been happier. All the Beltway think tanks they lavishly fund finally hit on a sure winner to keep the money pipeline flowing. It was always about money, not security.

The test run for NATO as human rights superheroes was Yugoslavia in 1999. To everybody but NATO and its neocon handlers in DC and many European capitals, it was a horrific, unjustified disaster. Seventy-eight days of bombing a country that did not threaten NATO left many hundreds of civilians dead, the infrastructure destroyed, and a legacy of uranium-tipped ammunition to poison the landscape for generations to come.

Just last week tennis legend Novak Djokovic recalled what it felt like to flee his grandfather’s home in the middle of the night as NATO bombs fell and destroyed it. What a horror!

Then NATO got behind the overthrow of the Gaddafi government in Libya. The corporate press regurgitated the neocon lies that bombing the country, killing its people, and overthrowing its government would solve all of Libya’s human rights problems. As could be predicted, NATO bombs did not solve Libya’s problems but made everything worse. Chaos, civil war, terrorism, slave markets, crushing poverty – no wonder Hillary Clinton, Obama, and the neocons don’t want to talk about Libya these days.

After a series of failures longer than we have space for here, DC-controlled NATO in 2014 decided to go all-in and target Russia itself for “regime change.” First step was overthrowing the democratically elected Ukrainian government, which Victoria Nuland and the rest of the neocons took care of. Next was the eight years of massive NATO military assistance to Ukraine’s coup government with the intent of fighting Russia. Finally, it was the 2022 rejection of Russia’s request to negotiate a European security agreement that would prevent NATO armies circling its border.

Despite the mainstream media and US government propaganda, NATO has been about as successful in Ukraine as it was in Libya. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been flushed away, with massive corruption documented by journalists like Seymour Hersh and others.

The only difference this time is that NATO’s target – Russia – has nuclear weapons and views this proxy war as vital to its very existence.

So now despite its legacy of failure, NATO has decided to start a conflict with China, perhaps to take attention off its disaster in Ukraine. Last week NATO announced that it will open its first-ever Asia office in Japan. What next, NATO membership for Taiwan? Will Taiwan willingly serve as NATO’s newest “Ukraine” – sacrificing itself to China in the name of blundering NATO’s seemingly endless appetite for conflict?

We can only hope that America will elect a president in 2024 who will finally end NATO’s deadly world tour.

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute.

May 8, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

China won’t forget NATO’s ‘barbaric’ actions in Yugoslavia

RT | May 8, 2023

Beijing has neither forgotten nor forgiven the May 1999 bombing of its embassy in Belgrade, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Monday. Wang condemned the US-led bloc for creating conflict while posing as a defensive alliance, urging it to “seriously reflect” on its crimes.

Wang noted that May 7 was the anniversary of the embassy attack, in which three Chinese journalists were killed and 20 diplomatic staff members were injured. “The Chinese people will never forget what they sacrificed to uphold the truth, fairness and justice. Nor will we ever forget this barbaric atrocity committed by US-led NATO,” he told reporters.

While claiming to be a regional defense bloc, NATO has “repeatedly lit the fuse and brought conflicts to places all over the world,” Wang noted, “from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Kosovo, from Iraq to Afghanistan, and from Libya to Syria.”

Having participated in wars that have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced tens of millions, NATO is now “making forays eastward into the Asia-Pacific, instigating bloc confrontation and undermining peace and stability in the region,” the spokesman added. “The US-led NATO needs to seriously reflect on the crimes they’ve committed, abandon the outdated Cold War mentality, stop inciting tensions in the region, and stop sowing division and instability.”

The embassy strike happened six weeks into the NATO air war against Yugoslavia, waged on behalf of ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo. Five bombs struck the compound, killing Shao Yunhuan, Xu Xinghu and his wife Zhu Ying. Beijing condemned the bombing as a “barbaric act.”

The US claimed it had struck the embassy by accident, using an “old map” of the Serbian capital. The real target, Washington said, had been the Yugoslav government agency for military procurement, which was almost 500 meters (1,640 feet) away. The strike was carried out by a B-2 stealth bomber, using JDAM bombs that are accurate to within 14 meters (46 feet) of the target. It was the first and only mission during the 78-day campaign that had been planned by the CIA, the agency’s director George Tenet later testified before the US Congress. One CIA agent was reportedly fired and six were reprimanded over the incident.

US President Bill Clinton offered a public apology. Washington later paid a compensation of $28 million to the Chinese government and $4.5 million to the families of the victims.

The NATO-backed war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia cited this, as well as the CIA disciplinary measures, among the reasons for not opening an investigation into the bombing, much less pressing charges.

May 8, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Odessa Massacre 9 Years On… West’s Shameful Silence

Strategic Culture Foundation | May 5, 2023

This week saw the ninth anniversary of a shocking massacre of 42 civilians in Odessa by Ukrainian fascists. Only weeks prior to that, the fascists’ political leaders had carried out a violent coup in Kiev.

The barbarity of the Odessa atrocity was unspeakable but emblematic of the NATO-backed fascist regime that seized power illegally in February 2014.

Significantly, and shamefully, the Western media and governments hardly mention that horror, or if they do, they tend to distort the incident and typically, yet baselessly, accuse Russia of disinformation.

On May 2, 2014, hundreds of protesters in Odessa against the fascist Kiev regime became embroiled in violent clashes with supporters of the regime. Thousands of far-right paramilitaries belonging to the NeoNazi Right Sector had been transported from the north to the southern port city of Odessa on the Black Sea under the guise of attending a football match.

Street battles ensued all day with cobblestones, Molotov cocktails and gunfire exchanged by both factions. By evening, the more numerous pro-regime crowds turned their focus on a tent encampment of anti-regime protesters near the Soviet-era Trade Unions building in the center of Odessa. The encampment was a peaceful gathering which included women and children. It had been set up for several weeks to demonstrate opposition to the Maidan events in Kiev.

The anti-regime protesters were opposed to the coup that had taken place in Kiev weeks earlier by the so-called EuroMaidan movement. On February 20, a gruesome sniper massacre in Kiev (later found to have been carried out by CIA-backed fascists) led to the overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych. The latter had maintained friendly relations with Russia which far-right Ukrainian factions abhorred. Yanukovych’s government was strongly supported by Ukrainians of ethnic Russian heritage mainly in the south and eastern parts of the country.

The fascist regime that came to power in Kiev in February 2014 and which prevails till this day – albeit with a president, Vladimir Zelensky, who is nominally of Jewish ancestry – was opposed from the outset by many Ukrainians. They viewed the new rulers as unelected and illegitimate. They were also fearful of the NeoNazi factions that openly glorified Ukrainian figures like Stepan Bandera who had collaborated with Nazi Germany during the Second World War in the mass murder of their own compatriots.

That is why the people of the Crimea peninsula voted in a referendum in March 2014 to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. In other parts of Ukraine, the southeast Donbass region also repudiated the Kiev regime and its “anti-Russian” hostility. In May, 2014, the Kiev regime proceeded to launch its so-called Anti-Terror Operation on the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Lugansk with the backing of then CIA chief John Brennan on a visit to the country. The U.S. vice president at the time was Joe Biden who served as Washington’s point man for the new regime. That aggression marked the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine which culminated in the present conflict with Russia, and the joining last year of the Donbass and neighboring regions with the Russian Federation.

This was the context in Ukraine in May, 2014. The country was in turmoil and splitting into ethnic and political divides. Cities like Odessa had strong historical and cultural connections with Russia. The city known as the Pearl on the Black Sea owing to its storied trading economy was founded in 1795 by Catherine the Great, the empress of Russia.

When the NATO-backed putschists seized power in Kiev in a bloody coup and began organizing Nazi-style torchlit processions, many ethnic Russian people in Ukraine and others were horrified. Odessa was one such city with a large Russian population. The city had suffered mass killings by Nazi Einsatzgruppen SS death squads and their local henchmen.

When the Kiev regime fascists targeted the protest camp in Odessa on the evening of May 2, some 300 of the protesters took refuge inside the Trade Unions building. The mob outside bombarded the historic building with incendiary devices setting it ablaze. The deliberate intention was to incinerate all those inside. The hatred shown by the Right Sector attackers towards the trapped victims was appalling. Several of the people in the building tried to escape the flames by jumping out of high-rise windows. As their bodies smashed the ground below, frenzied crowds clubbed them to death.

In all, 42 people were murdered in the Trade Unions building massacre. Not one attacker was ever prosecuted. The Kiev regime refused to carry out any adequate investigation.

However, the horror of that day was a turning point for many Ukrainians and Russians. It revealed the hideous nature of the regime that had seized power over the country and its vile fascist hostility toward Russia.

This is the regime that was brought to power by Washington and its NATO partners. Since 2014, it has been armed and built up to be a war machine to aggress Russia and obliterate all cultural connections with Russia.

The massacre in Odessa should be remembered for the sake of the victims that day. But also remembered because it helps explain the background of how the present U.S.-led NATO proxy conflict in Ukraine with Russia has come about.

For that reason, Western news media and their governments chose to studiously ignore the Odessa massacre. Their shameful silence is necessary in order to conceal the criminal complicity of the West in Ukraine’s deadly turmoil.

May 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

US to set up military bases in Finland

By Drago Bosnic | May 5, 2023

The formal admission of Finland on April 4 was the latest move in the process of “globalizing” NATO. At the time, the belligerent alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg insisted that Helsinki’s membership “will be good for [its] security, for Nordic security, and for NATO as a whole.” Nobody ever explained how exactly this is “good for Finland’s security”. Russia and Finland share a border over 1300 km long, meaning its ascension has nearly tripled the line of direct contact between NATO and Russia, as the combined border between them has previously been approximately 700 km. Now being well over 2000 km long, the border could be a major source of tensions.

Precisely this is happening now, as the United States and Finland are finalizing a deal that would allow the Pentagon to establish a permanent military presence in the Scandinavian country. According to a report by Newsweek, published on May 2, a senior official of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mikael Antell, confirmed that Helsinki and Washington DC are negotiating a so-called “Defense Cooperation Agreement” (DCA) that would allow for the construction of significant military infrastructure on Finnish soil. Apparently, the aforementioned agreement doesn’t include the deployment of US nuclear weapons, yet. However, the Finnish government and military officials are yet to specifically rule out the possibility of hosting nukes.

Considering the fact that, for months, Helsinki has been refusing to give any guarantees such weapons will not be deployed on its territory, this is quite telling and concerning. While the US already has nuclear weapons stationed in five NATO countries under several bilateral nuclear sharing programs with each, specifically Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey, these are relatively far away from core Russian regions. On the other hand, Finland is not. Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second most important city, is less than 200 km away from the Finnish border, putting it well within the range of tactical ballistic, cruise and, most alarmingly, prospective hypersonic missiles (provided the US deals with its technological shortcomings).

If Helsinki and Washington DC were to go ahead with such plans, it would be the first case that a country has hosted American nuclear weapons after the end of the (First) Cold War. The same goes for Poland, whose insistence on having nuclear weapons deployed on its territory has already pushed Russia to deploy its own tactical warheads in Belarus. Finnish Foreign Ministry official Mikael Antell stated that the DCA “enables troops to enter the country, stay on the ground, the pre-storage of material and possible infrastructure investments through the funds granted by the US Congress to the Pentagon”. The US and Finland have allegedly been in talks on the DCA since last fall, with the latest round of discussions on the deal taking place in Helsinki last week.

“The agreement also defines the facilities and areas where the cooperation would be focused,” Antell said, adding: “They are basically military areas and garrisons. In principle, there can be more than one, but the discussions are still open in this regard.”

Commenting on the aggressive military buildup, Russian military expert Yuri Knutov told Sputnik: “The Northern Sea Route – a shipping lane that runs along Russia’s Arctic Sea coast – has become a prominent transport artery of late, and Moscow now seeks to increase maritime traffic and cargo flow along that lane. Therefore, the emergence of NATO military bases at the entrance to the Northern Sea Route would require us to boost security measures, to bolster our Northern Fleet and maybe even to deploy our warships to escort cargo vessels in order to protect the latter from any provocations or from some restrictions concocted by Western countries.”

The exact nature of permanent US military presence in Finland is not officially disclosed, although Knutov pointed out that “Helsinki did not attempt to negotiate issues such as the maximum number of foreign NATO troops that could be deployed on its soil, which appears to suggest that Finland is willing to let NATO use its territory without any limitations”. This notion is particularly worrying when counting the strong possibility of nuclear weapons being deployed so close to core Russian regions. Moscow previously never saw Finland as a direct threat, but its membership in NATO, a hostile and extremely aggressive military alliance that openly declared and targeted Russia as its primary enemy, completely changes the geopolitical calculus, a move that Helsinki chose to do unilaterally.

After Finland joined NATO, several high-ranking Russian officials stated that Moscow will respond in kind in case of further escalation and NATO military buildup, but insisted that Helsinki is still not seen as a primary military threat. However, from a purely strategic standpoint, the situation can hardly be considered optimistic. Finland directly broke from its apparent neutrality after it decided to acquire F-35 fighter jets in late 2021. The Pentagon has direct access to everything the F-35’s sensors can detect, meaning that Finland would be sharing key military data with the US regardless of whether it was a NATO member or not. Still, as previously mentioned, Helsinki being a member also means that it’s more likely to see the deployment of US offensive weapons in close proximity to St. Petersburg.

In this regard, when Stoltenberg stated that the ascension of Finland was truly historic, he was right. However, this was only in the sense that Helsinki is essentially repeating the same mistake as over 80 years ago when it joined the Axis led by Nazi Germany. Worse yet, just like Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich established military bases in Finland and deployed the Wehrmacht there just before launching “Barbarossa”, the US is doing exactly the same. Now that Finland is among “old friends” once again, maybe it should dust off the history books and pay very close attention to how such military and geopolitical adventurism ended the last time. The belligerent thalassocracy in Washington DC should be even more concerned, as Finland at least continued to exist in the postwar period. On the other hand, Nazi Germany didn’t.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

May 5, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

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