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Zaluzhny Talking Peace With Russia Behind Zelensky and Biden’s Backs: Sy Hersh

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 01.12.2023

President Zelensky admitted this week that Ukraine’s counteroffensive failed to “achieve the desired results” and that Kiev is now in “a new phase” of the conflict with Russia. Meanwhile, Valery Zaluzhny, the general who enraged Zelensky by calling the crisis a “stalemate,” was absent from a Thursday meeting between the president and his generals.

Russia and Ukraine’s top generals have been holding secret discussions aimed at putting the Ukrainian crisis to bed, with Ukraine’s president, and the Biden administration, left out. That’s according to a new report by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh citing informed US sources.

The negotiations, said to be spearheaded by Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, still have “a lot of questions” left to be ironed out, one source, a US businessman with years of experience dealing with high-level Ukrainian diplomatic and military issues in the government, told Hersh. These include what to do about war criminals, matters of citizenship, ordnance disposal, and cross border economics, as well wrangling to assure “peace with honor,” according to a second source.

Russian officials have made no official statements on the matter, and Sputnik could not independently confirm the veracity of this information at the time of writing. Moscow has repeatedly said throughout the crisis that Ukrainian membership in NATO would constitute crossing its security “red lines.”

Hersh’s sources also told him that Zaluzhny’s bombshell interview in a British business magazine last month in which he admitted that Ukraine’s counteroffensive had reached a “stalemate” and that there would be no “deep and beautiful breakthrough” was “arranged” after Zaluzhny and Gerasimov had spoken several times.

The interview and accompanying op-ed written by Zaluzhny were “carefully orchestrated” by the Ukrainian commander to send a message to the Ukrainian government and the “madman who staked his life upon winning politically and militarily” at the helm that “the war is over and we want out,” according to a US official Hersh says was involved in the early stages of the general-to-general discussions.

“So the message that was sent to Zelensky is that we are going to have talks with the Russians with or without you and they are going to be military-to-military. Your neighbors are fed up with you, especially Poland and Hungary, and they want their Ukrainian refugees to go back to a peaceful country,” the official said. The state of Ukraine’s collapsed economy and the question of “how do you operate a country with no GNP?” was also driven home, the source added.

The US president and his foreign policy team have been left out of the talks, and “the White House is totally against the proposed agreement,” according to the US official who spoke to Hersh. “But it will happen. Putin has not disagreed,” the source said.

Zelensky has reportedly been told that “this is a military-to-military problem to solve and the talks will go on with or without you,” if need be. “We can finance his voyage to the Caribbean,” the official added.

Zelensky-Zaluzhny Spat

Hersh’s story comes after a month of escalating tensions between Zaluzhny and Zelensky after the publication of Zaluzhny’s interview and article in Western media on November 1, with Ukraine’s president first adamantly insisting that the conflict with Russia was “not a stalemate,” and emphasizing emphatically to US media that he would never negotiate with Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin under any circumstances.

The behind-the-scenes battle has come to include sackings of Zaluzhny allies, the mysterious bombing death attack of one of his aides, and a poisoning attack against Marianna Budanova, the wife of the Ukrainian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate chief.

On Thursday, Zelensky appeared to change his tune regarding the fate of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, saying it “did not achieve the desired results” as quickly as expected, that Kiev will be shifting to “a new phase of war” as winter sets in, and mobilize resources to build fortifications in Zaporozhye, Ukrainian-occupied areas of Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkov, Sumy, Chernigov, Kiev, Rovno and Volyn.

Meanwhile, Commander Zaluzhny was conspicuously absent from a meeting between Zelensky and his generals during a visit to a command post in Kharkov region.

One factor that the Hersh story did not account for is Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem. Veteran international relations expert Gilbert Doctorow told Sputnik this week that notwithstanding the political rivalries or conflicts in Kiev, they are just “a tempest in a teapot” given the power of the neo-Nazi street thug “grey cardinals” mobilized during the 2014 coup, who can and will do everything in their power to block any peace deal.

December 1, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Pfizer sues Poland over Covid-19 vaccine

RT | November 23, 2023

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has escalated its feud with Poland over excess Covid-19 vaccine doses that were ordered under a massive contract with the European Union. The company is suing the country over what it claims is an unfulfilled contract for Covid-19 vaccines.

Warsaw was locked into buying tens of millions of doses under a controversial contract the European Commission had signed with Pfizer in 2021 on behalf of EU nations. Pfizer is demanding 6 billion zloty ($1.5 billion) in compensation for 60 million doses that Poland’s government declined, after it stopped taking delivery of the jabs in April 2022.

The entire bloc wound up ordering 1.1 billion doses under the contract, saddling EU states with a vaccine glut as the Covid-19 pandemic waned. The EU prosecutor’s office has already announced an investigation into the procurement process amid allegations of corruption and secret backroom deals while Polish Health Minister Katarzyna Sojka has warned other EU states could be next to face prosecution.

Warsaw has questioned the controversial role of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the Pfizer deal after it emerged she had for weeks privately communicated with the company’s CEO Albert Bourla during the contract negotiations. However, the European Commission claimed last year that her text messages with the big pharma boss on deals worth multiple billions of dollars executive could not be found.

The first hearing in Pfizer’s lawsuit is scheduled to take place in Brussels on December 6. Earlier this year the pharma giant offered to give the EU more time to complete its minimum vaccine purchases under the binding contract, but insisted that the bloc must pay in full for the contractually specified number of doses. Poland since refused to sign a revised EU agreement with the drugmaker.

Sojka told broadcaster TVN24 on Wednesday that there is some hope of resolving the Pfizer lawsuit “in a positive way.”

A Pfizer company spokesman told Politico however that the company decided to go forward with the lawsuit “following a prolonged contract breach and a period of discussions in good faith between the parties”.

Millions of Poles refused to receive Covid-19 vaccines, and Warsaw halted deliveries of the jabs as an influx of Ukrainian refugees in early 2022 strained the government’s finances.

November 24, 2023 Posted by | Corruption | , , , | 1 Comment

Pfizer Sues Poland, Demanding Money for Undelivered and Unwanted COVID Vaccines.

BY IGOR CHUDOV | NOVEMBER 24, 2023

After achieving a modest 57% COVID vaccination rate and seeing the vaccines not live up to the promise, Poles refused additional Pfizer COVID vaccine doses around April 2022.

“At the end of last week, we used the force majeure clause and informed both the European Commission and the main vaccine producer that we are refusing to take these vaccines at the moment and we are also refusing to pay,” health minister Adam Niedzielski told private broadcaster TVN24.

“Indeed, the consequence of this will be a legal conflict, which is already taking place,” he said.

Poland cannot directly terminate the contract for the supply of vaccines as the parties to the contracts are the European Commission and manufacturers, he said.

The value of the contract for vaccine supplies to Poland up to the end of 2023 with one producer alone was worth over 6 billion zlotys ($1.4 billion), with over 2 billion zlotys of that for supply in 2022.

Pfizer said its agreement over the supply of its COVID-19 vaccine to European Union member states was with the EU Commission.

“Our discussions with Governments and the details of vaccine deliveries are confidential,” it added.

Somehow, Poland is a party to the EU/Pfizer contract that was kept confidential from the country but still obligates it to pay.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and EU’s Ursula von der Leyen negotiated the contract in secret. (see picture below)

Anyway, now in 2023, Pfizer filed a suit, suing Poland for the monies due under the contract that was confidential and unavailable for Poland to even look at.

How a party can be obligated to pay under a contract that could not ever be assented to due to secrecy is a mystery to me, but I guess the legal minds in Europe see it differently.

Pfizer is suing in Brussels because Polish courts cannot see the contract and are unlikely to be very receptive to enforcing a contract that the court can review.

According to Polish newspaper Gazeta Prawa, Pfizer brought the civil case before a Brussels court because the doses were purchased through EU joint procurement contracts, drawn up under Belgian law.

Can Poland, perhaps, bring forth some novel defenses?

Infertility in Poland

Perhaps Poland can ask Pfizer to comment on the dramatic fall in fertility that Poland is experiencing.

Polish COVID Vaccine Victims

Poland may ask its local courts to make Pfizer compensate Polish COVID vaccine victims. (fortunately, there are fewer of them compared to the vax-crazy countries).

Pictures of some of the Polish victims of Covid vaccines, beautiful healthy humans who never needed the “vaccine” and yet died from it, are displayed by their bereaved relatives:

ht tps://twitter.com/DominateREALITY/ status/1488214087259459584/photo/3

Can Pfizer explain, for example, why Sweden’s deaths continued to go up as the country was vaccinated, while Poland’s deaths went down after Poland refused COVID vaccines?

I am not an international lawyer, and I do not specialize in the enforceability of secret contracts that cannot even be seen by the parties which they obligate.

But I expect that Pfizer will lose.

November 24, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Where are yesterday’s experts on the Crimea conquest?

BY PAWEŁ LISICKI | DORZECZY.PL | NOVEMBER 14, 2023

As reports of a stalemate in Ukraine emerge, Paweł Lisicki, the editor of the conservative weekly Do Rzeczy, asks where all the experts are who had predicted a swift Ukrainian victory and a Russian retreat.

I am reminding everyone, without naming names since I already have many adversaries, of the propaganda that saturated Poland and all media after February 2022. The narrative then seemed convinced that Ukraine would imminently crush a hapless and incompetently managed Russia. The Russians were portrayed as incapable of combat, with widespread desertion, malfunctioning rockets, and crumbling tanks, and their finest weapons humorously were said to originate from modified refrigerators or lawnmowers.

A sense of demoralization was said to pervade their army, and Putin was depicted as perpetually dying. Moreover, a fear of an impending military coup was rumored to haunt him. American and British generals, whose wisdom was parroted by Polish experts, forecasted the swift capture of Crimea, the total encirclement of Russian forces, and a great victory. Poland was promised greatness and a leading role in Eastern affairs.

We were to be America’s hub, a key ally, instantly replacing Germany. Analysts didn’t stop there. The boldest spoke of an emerging grand Polish-Ukrainian alliance, even hinting at a new joint statehood, a confederation that would reverse the historical curse of the 18th century and elevate Poland to superpower status.

Ukraine was to be forgiven for past grievances, having shed enough blood defending us from eastern hordes. Instead, Kyiv was seen as the West’s defender, a bastion of democracy, and its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, was embraced by Polish leaders, including President Andrzej Duda, as a sage and flawless hero.

Now, it turns out these stories were worth less than nothing.

Despite hundreds of billions of dollars and euros and massive NATO military support, Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military commander, admitted as much recently. He stated in The Economist magazine that the war with Russia is at a stalemate and breaking it would require a significant technological breakthrough, which is unlikely. Zaluzhny also acknowledged that speculations about retaking Crimea, annexed in 2014, were a mistake.

These sober comments incited Zelensky’s anger, who retorted that without victory, the country wouldn’t exist, while his circle suggested that Zaluzhny’s statements serve only Russia. In mysterious circumstances, the general’s personal aide was recently found dead. Soon after, Zelensky dismissed another general, Viktor Khorenko, from the command of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces.

All this points to a growing internal conflict, including comments from Zelensky’s former advisor, Oleksiy Arestovych, who speaks openly of the current president as a dictator and criticizes the ongoing war. President Zelensky has announced that due to the war with Russia, the 2024 presidential elections in Ukraine will not take place. It is undeniable that he is undertaking actions that can be seen as violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, such as harassment and now a ban on the activity of the church that recognizes the canonical authority of Moscow.

What’s happening is precisely what could have been assumed by anyone with reason and not swayed by the fanciful propaganda eagerly served by Western lobbyists.

The outbreak of conflict in the Middle East has decisively turned U.S. attention to that region. It’s also clear that Americans are tired of supporting Kyiv, evidenced by the rising support for Donald Trump, the main opponent of Joe Biden’s policies. The Americans have grown weary of Ukraine. The costs of aid are mounting, and the anticipated collapse of Russia has not occurred.

If a coup is to happen, it is likely to be in Kyiv rather than Moscow.

Worse, after an initial period of weakness and chaos, Russia has regained the initiative and is now more dangerous than at the conflict’s start. Back in March and April 2022, a beneficial truce for Ukraine was possible. However, as former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett indicated, talks were halted by the West. Americans and Britons encouraged Ukraine to continue the war, promising the crushing of Russia. Polish experts, predictably, echoed this. Today, it’s apparent what a grave mistake this was. The immense human costs borne by Ukraine may yield no results, and it now risks not only losing territory but also plunging into chaos.

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Dispute over history may block Ukraine’s EU accession, says Polish official

WPOLITYCE.PL | November 09, 2023

Ukraine will not join the EU if there is no resolution with Poland regarding a dispute over the exhumation of Polish victims of a wartime massacre by Ukrainians, said Deputy Polish Foreign Minister Paweł Jabłoński.

Between 1943 and 1944, around 100,000 Poles were slaughtered by the ultra-nationalist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia regions of pre-war eastern Poland (today part of western Ukraine).

The killings still cast a shadow over Ukrainian-Polish relations despite the close bonds between the two countries forged by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Although there were many killings across several villages, the slaughter is collectively referred to as the Volhynia Massacre.

Pawel Jablonski said that a “significant dispute” over Polish demands to exhume victims of the massacre must be settled if Poland is to be an advocate for Ukrainian membership in the bloc.

Speaking to commercial radio station Radio Zet on Tuesday, Jabłonski defended the government’s record on exhumations.

“Exhumations in the first location, which have been the subject of talks with Ukraine, have already started (…) This is not actually Volhynia, it is another part, but they are also victims of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army,” Jabłonski said.

In response to the observation that this involved only a search operation with no consent yet for exhumations, the deputy minister replied: “We will work further on this so that it occurs as quickly as possible.”

“In our opinion, without a solution to this issue – and many Ukrainians already realize this – Ukraine cannot dream of joining the European Union,” Jabłoński added.

He warned that without a solution to the issue, “long-term reconciliation with Ukraine” cannot be achieved.

November 11, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Fallout From Catastrophic Ukraine Depleted Uranium Explosion Reached England

Sputnik – 10.11.2023

In May 2023, a powerful blast rocked the city of Khmelnitsky located in Ukraine about 200km away from the border with Poland when a Russian strike wiped out a Ukrainian ammunition depot where British-supplied depleted uranium was stored.

Dr. Christopher Busby, a physical chemist and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, has stepped forward to address the naysayers who tried to discredit his warnings about the potentially dangerous consequences of the depleted uranium munitions depot explosion.

On May 19th I wrote an article for Sputnik about the Khmelnitsky explosion. I had examined gamma radiation data from detectors to the North West of the attack site, which showed increases in radiation from points in Poland near the Ukraine border, and through Germany. I concluded that the belief that a warehouse containing Uranium weapons supplied by the UK had been hit and that the Uranium had exploded in a huge fireball, and that the particles produced by the explosion had drifted with the wind at the time across Europe.

The article produced considerable argument on the internet, with a large number of self-described fact-checkers and “experts” weighing it to say that my conclusions were nonsense. This is how the internet is controlled these days. It was written off as a “Russian Fake” (e.g. fakenews.pl)

The fact is, that although Uranium is a weak gamma emitter, through its daughter Thorium-234, there are other situations where the gamma signal will increase at detectors, principally the natural radioactive gas, radon, which can increase during rainfall and low pressure systems. A Polish lab claimed that the increased signal was from Radon, reporting the presence of the Radon daughter Bismuth 214, as if to write off the claim of a Uranium cloud passing across Poland. But, I pointed out that there were no low pressure systems at the time that would explain the sudden increase in gamma. This is where the matter was left.

Uranium in air is not measured in Europe as far as I know, and the only data that is obtainable is the Uranium in air data from the High Volume Air Samplers (HVAS) at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston in Berkshire. These were set up in the early 1990s following a public enquiry into a child leukemia cluster near the site. The law requires AWE to measure Uranium (and Plutonium and Tritium) at regular intervals at positions near the factory but also far from the weapons factory. I have used these data before to identify Depleted Uranium from the Iraq wars that drifted to England.

So, to follow up the Khmelnitsky argument, I have just obtained Uranium data from the AWE using a Freedom of Information request. They sent me the data in an Excel File, and I used the graphical function if Excel to plot the data they sent. Fig 1 plots the filter levels for three of the offsite locations. The results show that I was right. In the May15th -June 15th Offsite Filters operating at the time, there is a very clear signal for the month following the explosion. I have also obtained data for the onsite locations, and these also all show the same footprint increase.

It may interest those who believe that the media is controlled, that the same thing happens with the scientific peer-review literature. I sent my paper on the increases in Uranium in air from the Ukraine war to two journals which have published my papers before, papers about the effects of Uranium. The first, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health totally refused to consider it. I then sent it to Conflict and Health, which sent it to a reviewer, but refused to publish it. This is astonishing, given that I supplied the raw data to both journals. I put the paper up on a preprints site where it received attention.

The graph in Fig 1 shows that the Uranium in air in South East England went up by about 600ng/cubic metre from particles released by the Khmelnitsky explosion. What does this mean? The mean size of a Uranium particle is below 1 micron. An individual inhales about 24 cubic metre a day. So, if the particles were there for a month, or 30 days we can average the lung intake as 0.432mg. Doesn’t sound much, does it? But it converts into 200 million particles per person in the area, and of course in the track of the plume in the UK. Not good, given the effects we found in Fallujah.

My study of Fallujah, published in 2010, showed that there was a huge increase in cancer and congenital malformation in babies, and general horrifying signal of genetic damage in the population after the use of Uranium weapons there in the second 2003 Iraq war. We later identified excess Uranium in the mothers of the birth defect children using hair samples and mass spectrometry, tracking the increases back to the 2003 exposures by cutting the long hair samples into sections, a kind of historic ice core way of interrogating the past.

Clearly from our studies in Iraq, the genetic and cancer health effects of Uranium particles are significant. Indeed, they are arguably the main cause of the cancer in the Hiroshima victims who were exposed to Uranium particles in the “black rain”.

Levels in Poland, Germany, and everywhere else on its journey to England, will have been much higher. But there are no measurements available.

Fig 1. 4-weekly air filter results for Uranium, offsite samplers at Aldermaston, Tadley, and Reading. Khmelnitsky Ukraine explosion was on 14thMay 2023 (1805-1506) s Normal background is 200.

November 10, 2023 Posted by | Environmentalism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Tracking device found on Poland’s presidential car after its recent return from Ukraine

BY GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK | TVN24 via: BUSINESSINSIDER.COM.PL | October 25, 2023

A tracking device has been found by state protection officers on a vehicle used by the Polish Presidential Office, Polish news outlet TVN 24 reported on Tuesday.

State Protection Service (SOP) officers made the discovery shortly after the vehicle had returned from a trip to Ukraine.

According to the news outlet, the device allowed for real-time tracking of the vehicle’s location based on its GPS coordinates, and preliminary investigations suggested the vehicle could have been being tracked for several months.

The discovery was made by bomb technicians of the SOP, who, in line with procedures, were checking cars set to be included in the presidential motorcade for any explosive devices.

It is understood that the vehicle had not been recently used by Polish President Andrzej Duda but by members of his entourage; however, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that he could have used the compromised car in the future.

“There was an uproar, as it wasn’t clear who installed the device,” an SOP officer told TVN24. “It turned out that this car might have been driving with this device for several months and was often included in the president’s motorcade, including during his trips to Ukraine,” they added.

The incident has sparked a mass check of all vehicles assigned to the presidential office that may be integrated into convoys with protected individuals. Previously, the frequency of such checks varied.

Typically, the presidential motorcade consists of three cars: one primary vehicle carrying the president and two protective vehicles. Additional cars can be added with SOP approval.

The press office of the Polish Presidential Office did not comment on the revelation, nor did the press spokesperson for SOP or the ABW (Agency of Internal Security) press services.

October 25, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Zelensky’s newfound hostility toward Warsaw is as short-sighted as it is self-destructive

By Péter G. Fehér | Magyar Hírlap | October 3, 2023

A famous Hungarian proverb warns people against “cutting the branch beneath you.” The proverb is uttered when a person refuses to acknowledge that he is acting against himself.

As things stand now, that is exactly what Zelensky is doing — everything he can to get Ukraine from a bad situation to an even worse one. In practice, the situation in the neighboring country can now be described as catastrophic, and the Ukrainian president — although he did not originally imagine it — has done a lot to make it so.

Zelensky’s most self-harming act was to spectacularly break ties with Poland. Warsaw has spent a huge amount of money on helping Kyiv, about the same as it spends annually on upgrading its own army. In return, it has received nothing, not even a gesture. For example, in July this year, when a joint commemoration was held to mark the 80th anniversary of the Volhynia massacre — the mass murder of Poles by Ukrainian fascists during World War II — Zelensky refused to allow the victims buried in unmarked mass graves to be exhumed and given a proper final resting place.

However, the Ukrainian president has denounced Poland to various international organizations for imposing a ban on the sale of Ukrainian grain on the Polish internal market. Zelensky has not shown the slightest understanding of the Polish government’s position, which is facing elections in mid-October and is opposing the same foreign interference that Hungary faced last April.

But perhaps it is unfair to Zelensky to blame him alone for this ingratitude. According to the latest news, France and Germany have promised the Ukrainian president a facilitated and speedy EU accession if he succeeds in toppling the current conservative national government in Warsaw in the elections that are due to take place.

If Zelensky had any sense, he would realize that he is being led by the nose by the two major European powers. Membership of the EU requires the agreement of all the member states, and Poland, after what has happened, is hardly going to go along with that.

It does not seem that Zelensky understands the situation or is even slightly aware that the West is using him as a tool to interfere in the internal affairs of neighboring countries, or even to provoke them. We have now reached the point where it is safe to say that Ukraine has been pursuing an increasingly extremist policy since 2014, with the result that the country is raging with hatred of Hungarians, which reached its peak, at least so far, under Zelensky’s presidency.

All of this is a textbook example of the self-destructive behavior exemplified by the Hungarian proverb.

October 3, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

American Meddling Failed To Prevent Robert Fico’s Victory In The Latest Slovak Elections

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | OCTOBER 1, 2023

The “Direction-Social Democracy” (SMER) party of former Prime Minister Robert Fico emerged victorious after Slovakia’s latest elections on Saturday in spite of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warning before the vote that the US will go to any lengths to prevent that outcome. Nobody should have been surprised by that since CNN’s reporting made it obvious that Washington wanted him to lose. Here are three of their articles fearmongering about his democratically driven return to office:

* “A NATO country could soon have a pro-Russian leader”

* “With Kremlin apologist leading the polls, Slovakia vote threatens country’s support for Ukraine”

* “Pro-Russian politician wins Slovakia’s parliamentary election”

The reason why America meddled in this election is because it fears both the substance and symbolism of a hitherto stalwart NATO vassal defecting from the bloc’s anti-Russian proxy war coalition. Fico previously condemned the West’s role in provoking and perpetuating this conflict exactly as neighboring Hungarian leader Viktor Orban has done since the get-go. Just like him, Fico is also against arming Ukraine and could prevent others’ weapons from transiting across his country as well.

He’ll still need to form a governing coalition in order to make good on his promises, but few doubt that he’ll be able to. Assuming that’ll happen, then Slovakia will join Hungary in creating a center of anti-war gravity in the heart of both the EU and NATO, which complements Poland’s newly cautious stance towards this proxy conflict brought about by its dispute with Ukraine. These three could then form an influential force if the latter’s ruling “Law & Justice” (PiS) party wins re-election on 15 October.

Poland remains much more committed to this conflict than Hungary and post-election Slovakia, but there’s also no denying that the Polish people are incredibly offended at Ukraine’s ungratefulness. A critical mass of them might therefore vote for the anti-establishment Confederation party to protest PiS’ prior appeasement of Kiev up until recently despite that regime’s glorification of those who genocided Poles. If enough do so, then PiS might be compelled to form a coalition government with Confederation.

In that case, Poland might move closer towards Hungary and Slovakia’s position, which could inspire average Europeans to follow these countries’ lead during their own upcoming elections. The demonstration effect that was set into motion by Slovakia and which might soon manifest itself in Poland is therefore regarded by the US as a strategic challenge for good reason. That doesn’t justify its failed meddling in the latest Slovak elections, but simply places its motives into the appropriate context.

The fact that the CIA still failed to prevent Fico’s re-election dispels three popular myths, first and foremost that agency’s omnipotence. The second is foreign voters’ alleged inability to defy the American government’s will, the false perception of which has been exploited to suppress anti-establishment turnout. And finally, the Ukrainian Conflict is truly unpopular in some countries despite the media’s claims to the contrary and its crazed efforts to artificially manufacture support for this proxy war there.

With these symbolic outcomes in mind as well as the substantive changes to Slovak policy that are likely to follow its latest election, not to mention their possible impact on Poland in the coming future and the rest of Europe after that, the failure of America’s meddling campaign is a major development. It’s premature to describe it as a game-changer, but it still suggests a potentially impending inflection point in the Ukrainian Conflict, provided of course that the CIA doesn’t successfully sabotage related trends.

October 2, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , , | 1 Comment

Poland rejects Ukraine’s proposal to end grain embargo crisis

BY GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK | DZIENNIK.PL | SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

On Sept. 27, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Trade Taras Kachka said that if Poland, Hungary and Slovakia guarantee that they will not impose unilateral limits on Ukrainian products in the future, Ukraine will be able to withdraw its complaint from the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Piotr Muller, the Polish government’s spokesman, told the conservative TV station Republika on Sept. 28 that the Ukrainian proposal for withdrawing the WTO complaint is unacceptable because “Ukraine is in fact proposing that its food products should be able to enter without any limits being set.”

He added that “the embargo will continue until we are satisfied that the import of Ukrainian products will not negatively impact our agricultural markets, and that is not likely in the near future.”

Muller also said that Poland was ready to discuss the matter with Ukraine but that “for the time being the embargo remains in force.” However, he felt that Ukraine withdrawing the complaint it filed with the WTO would be a positive development, “showing that Ukraine wants to negotiate with partners rather than confront them with lawsuits.”

On Sept. 26, the agriculture ministers from the Visegrád Four states — Poland, Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia — held a meeting in Znojmo, Czechia, at which they held a teleconference with the Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky.

The four ministers agreed that the withdrawal of the complaint made to the WTO would facilitate better relations, but the Ukrainian minister did not answer Polish Deputy Agriculture Minister Robert Bartosik’s question about whether Ukraine would cancel its lawsuit.

On Sept. 18, Kyiv filed a complaint with the WTO against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia for the imposition of unilateral embargoes on Ukrainian grain, which the three EU member states imposed in defiance of the European Commission’s decision to lift the grain embargo that was in place between May and Sept. 15 of this year.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

A Rough Diplomatic Week for Ukraine

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | September 27, 2023

In the early weeks of the war, a peace was still possible that would have seen Ukraine lose few lives and little to no land. Even the Donbas would have remained in Ukraine with autonomy under a still possible Minsk agreement. Only Crimea would have remained lost.

A year and a half later, Ukraine’s daily loss of life is horrific and Russia is determined to hold not only Crimea and the Donbas, but Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

But while Ukraine has struggled on the battlefield, it has sustained its diplomatic support. But this week, that too showed strains. Ukraine had a difficult week with both the aligned and the nonaligned.

A year ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed an enthusiastically supportive U.S. Congress live and a warm General Assembly via video. A year later, perhaps for fear of a different tone, Zelensky will meet privately with U.S. officials instead of publicly with a televised address to Congress.

In a perhaps even more worrisome sign for Ukraine, when Zelensky’s turn came to speak to the General Assembly on September 19, “he delivered his address,” The Washington Post reported, “to a half-full house, with many delegations declining to appear and listen to what he had to say.” Many countries have refused to condemn Russia or join the U.S.-led sanctions on Russia, but refusing to attend the General Assembly session and listen to Zelensky may be sending a strong signal.

And that was not the only signal. The Post further reports that “leaders from some developing nations are increasingly frustrated that the effort to support Ukraine is taking away, they say, from their own struggles to drum up enough money to adapt to a warming world, confront poverty and ensure a more secure life for their citizens.” The nonaligned global majority has all along seen the war as yet another proxy war between NATO and Russia that distracts from the problems that are most urgent to the world.

But Ukraine’s diplomatic worries come not just from the nonaligned countries but from the aligned ones. Poland has been, perhaps, Ukraine’s strongest supporter. It has been one of the biggest suppliers of weapons—and the central hub through which other NATO countries have sent their weapons to Ukraine—and the spearhead for sending tanks and more advanced weaponry. It has given Ukraine about a third of its own weapons valued at over $4 billion. And it has been a force behind the push for NATO membership for Ukraine.

But disagreement over the export of Ukrainian grain has shown how fragile that fraternity really is. Though united over a common animosity toward Russia, there are old strains in the Polish-Ukrainian relationship. Poland has been bothered by what they perceive as Ukraine’s continued glorification of their anti-Polish nationalist past. In January, a Polish official reminded Ukraine that they “continue to glorify” Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, who was “responsible for the genocide of Poles in 1943-44, when UPA troops horribly killed about 100,000 Polish citizens.” The Polish parliament has adopted a resolution that includes “recognition of guilt” by Ukraine for the genocide as a condition for “Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation.”

But the strain has recently torn over the issue of grain imports. Ukraine has complained about the betrayal of Polish restrictions on the import of Ukrainian grain to protect Polish farmers and markets. In August, echoing recent U.S. and U.K. statements, Marcin Przydacz, head of the Polish President’s Office of International Affairs, said that Ukraine should be “more grateful.” He took to Polish television to harshly scold that Kiev “should start to appreciate the role that Poland has played for Ukraine in the past months and years.” In angry response, Kiev called the Polish ambassador to Ukraine into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Furiously, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki shot back that, “The summoning of the Polish ambassador to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry—the representative of the only country that remained in Kiev the day Russia invaded Ukraine—should not have happened.” Kiev’s action was “a mistake…given the huge support Poland has provided to Ukraine.”

And there the disagreement simmered until Zelensky’s speech to the General Assembly. There Zelensky lashed out at “how some in Europe play out solidarity in a political theatre—making thriller from the grain. They may seem to play their own role but in fact, they are helping set the stage to a Moscow actor.”

The accusation that Ukraine’s greatest supporter is betraying Ukraine and helping Russia, coupled with Ukraine filing a complaint against Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia with the World Trade Organization over their import ban on Ukrainian grain, proved too much for Poland. Polish President Andzej Duda said that Zelensky was like a drowning man who “can be extremely dangerous, because he can drag you to the depths” and “drown the rescuers.” He scolded that “It would be good for Ukraine to remember that it receives help from us and to remember that we are also a transit country to Ukraine.”

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki then announced that Poland is “no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons.” He clarified that Poland would still permit other countries to ship their arms to Ukraine through Poland.

Poland has since clarified that they will continue to honor the arms agreements they have made with Ukraine made until now: “Poland is only carrying out previously agreed supplies of ammunition and armaments, including those resulting from the contracts signed with Ukraine,” spokesman Piotr Muller said.

Poland has also now said that, at a later date, it may send Ukraine more of its older weapons. “We cannot transfer our new weapons that we buy to strengthen Poland’s security or modernize the Polish army,” Duda said. “We’ve signed agreements with Ukraine regarding, among others, ammunition and special vehicles, and we are implementing them.”

And Poland is not alone. The three Eastern European nations that Ukraine has brought files against at the World Trade Organization form a triumvirate of trouble for Ukraine. Poland is the most threatening because it is the most important. Hungary is the least surprising because they have been an outlier in NATO unity on the war since the beginning. And Slovakia is becoming worrisome.

Polls show that former Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico is leading heading into the September 30 election. Slovakia has, up until now, been a strong supporter of Ukraine and a supplier of arms. But Fico has promised that, if he is elected, Slovakia “will not send a single round to Ukraine.” Fico has also criticized the sanctions on Russia and called for improving relations with Russia when the war ends.

Zelensky’s speech at the General Assembly has revealed underlying tensions with the nonaligned world and heightened tensions with nations previously aligned with Ukraine.

September 27, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Poland warns German chancellor about interfering in Polish elections after Scholz’s controversial remarks

RADIOSZCZECIN.PL | September 25, 2023

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau has called on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz “to respect Poland’s sovereignty” and refrain from making statements “that could harm mutual relations.” Scholz chose illegal immigration of all things to criticize Poland about, a topic his government is currently facing a crisis over due to his inability to control Germany’s borders.

Rau, who posted the comment on platform X, emphasized that recent remarks from the German politician hint at potential interference in Poland’s internal matters and its ongoing election campaign.

The comments in question were made by Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a rally for his SPD party in Nuremberg. The German leader voiced support for stricter controls over illegal migration and announced intentions to take specific measures. According to the DPA news agency, Scholz also “called for clarification on possible irregularities in the issuance of visas by Poland.”

Rau stated that Scholz’s latest declaration violates the principle of the sovereign equality of nations. This principle underpins the friendly cooperation between Germany and Poland, as outlined by the German Federal Republic’s treaty with Poland from 1991.

“The jurisdiction of the German Chancellor clearly does not extend to proceedings underway in Poland,” Rau’s post read.

Earlier, the Polish government’s representative for information security, Stanisław Żaryn, noted that Chancellor Scholz appears to be using the visa issue as a means to exert political pressure on the Polish government.

Żaryn remarked that it is hard to see this as anything other than an attempt to influence Poland during its election campaign.

Żaryn mentioned in his post that “interestingly, Germany has had significant issues with visas for years. Every few years, scandals regarding visa purchases emerge there. Perhaps they should focus on that?”

Last year, Germany saw the highest number of asylum applications since the 2016 migration crisis, with cities and towns overflowing with migrants and with little end in sight.

Polish officials highlight that the matter of visa issuance irregularities in Poland is incidental and is currently under investigation. The Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) has arrested seven individuals in connection with this probe, including one Polish minister who attempted suicide after the investigation was launched.

September 25, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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