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Fact Check: Is Russia Really Getting Ready to Invade NATO?

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 15.01.2024

NATO is getting ready for Russian aggression against the alliance’s eastern flank, Bild says, citing a “secret Bundeswehr document” about preparations for the possible flashpoint. But what’s the actual chance of a Russian attack on NATO, and which side, historically, has dreamt about and planned for a World War III scenario in Eastern Europe?

The German military is reportedly getting ready for a hot war between Russia and NATO, with a conflict scenario imagined in a classified Bundeswehr document envisioning a gradual escalation of tensions from February onwards, culminating in the buildup of hundreds of thousands of Russian and NATO troops around the Baltics and potential clashes by the summer of 2025.

The document lays out a scenario in which Russia, emboldened by Ukraine fatigue among NATO countries, kicks off a successful spring offensive over the coming months, chipping away at the Ukrainian army, and then – for reasons known apparently only to Bundeswehr planners, starting a campaign of “cyber attacks and other forms of hybrid warfare” against the Baltic states to stir up unrest among the ethnic Russian minority there.

The so-called ‘Suwalki Gap’ – the 100 km long Polish strip of land separating Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, is deemed by the Bundeswehr to be the focal point of a possible Russia-NATO clash, with the scenario envisioning the transfer of some 300,000 NATO troops to Eastern Europe to “deter” Moscow from aggression. The scenario ends ambiguously, with its authors leaving open whether the tensions and troop buildup ends in a potentially world-ending shooting war.

Russian officials scoffed at Bundeswehr planners’ rich imagination, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova comparing the leaked plan to a “powerful horoscope” on Monday and saying she wouldn’t be surprised if the scenario was provided to the German military by the Foreign Ministry and its notoriously Russophobic chief, Annalena Baerbock.

The German Defense Ministry attempted to walk back the report, with a spokesperson assuring Bild that “considering various scenarios, even if they are extremely unlikely, is part of everyday military practice, especially during army training” while nevertheless emphasizing that it takes “threats” from Russia seriously.

‘Various Scenarios’

The German MoD wasn’t wrong in mentioning the military’s propensity to plan for “various scenarios” when it comes to the idea of an all-out conflagration between Russia and NATO. What it left out, however, is that historically, many of the most outlandish declassified conflict scenarios seem to involve the idea of a preemptive attack against Russia by Western powers, not the other way around.

In the spring of 1945, for example, just weeks after the end of WWII in Europe, and while the war against Japan was still raging, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill commissioned a secret plan for an invasion of the Soviet Union by the Western Allies, including the combined forces of the US and the UK, plus 10-12 German divisions created from the remnants of the Wehrmacht – the same force tens of thousands of American and British troops died fighting to liberate Western Europe from the Nazis.

The plan, dubbed “Operation Unthinkable,” had the objective of imposing “upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire,” and included “the occupation of such areas of metropolitan Russia” to “render further resistance impossible.” Fortunately, the contingency was never realized, with its existence revealed to the public in 1998 after many decades under wraps. Some historians believe the Soviet leadership learned about the plan ahead of time, with Red Army forces in Eastern Europe inexplicably reorganizing in late June of 1945, just before the July 1 hypothetical attack date.

From 1945 until 1949, the US enjoyed a global monopoly in the possession of nuclear weapons as Soviet scientists scrambled to catch up. During this brief window of time, the Pentagon developed at least nine separate plans to target its erstwhile WWII Soviet allies using nukes. Most famous among them was Operation Dropshot – a 1949 proposal calling for the bombardment of some 100 Soviet cities with 300 nuclear bombs and 250,000 tons of conventional munitions, plus chemical and bacteriological weapons, followed by a ground campaign to ensure “complete victory” over the USSR and its allies across Eurasia. The plan, which signed off on by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on December 19, 1949, was declassified in 1977, sparking disbelief among many ordinary Americans owing to its brutality.

In 1988, at the twilight of the Cold War, while President Reagan was visiting Moscow to schmooze with General Secretary Gorbachev and to announce that he no longer saw the USSR as an “evil empire,” the US Naval War College was playing out a strategic wargame modeling surprise offensive operations against Soviet air defenses, military-industrial complex, and naval assets in Asia.

After the Cold War ended and the USSR broke apart, the Pentagon continued to plan for scenarios of unprovoked aggression against Moscow – even as US leaders spoke of Russia as their ‘partners’ in the “new world order” announced by President George H.W. Bush in his State of the Union address in January 1991. In the early 2000s, while Bush’s son George W. Bush gushed about looking into President Putin’s eyes to “get a sense of his soul,” Pentagon planners were busy coming up with Prompt Global Strike – a scenario proposing the massed launch of precision-guided conventional missiles to decapitate the Russian leadership and declaw its nuclear forces.

The concept, still around and now called ‘Conventional Prompt Strike’, proposes the use of thousands of conventional ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as air and space assets, either in place of or in coordination with nuclear weapons. The US began to develop the Prompt Global Strike idea at the same time that the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, with that move, combined with NATO encroachment on Russia’s western borders from 1999 onward, forcing Moscow to invest significant resources into the development of fundamentally new strategic weapons, including hypersonic missiles.

The above examples serve to demonstrate that whatever the geopolitical climate at the time – and whether Moscow is an erstwhile ally in the fight against German Nazism and Japanese militarism, an adversary at the start of the Cold War, a newfound friend at its end, or a trusted ‘partner’ at the dawn of the 21st century, US and allied military planners will find cause to come up with scenarios for a war of aggression against Russia. The historical detour adds a dose of context to reporting on purported Russian plans to attack NATO without provocation, with such plans seemingly being more the alliance’s forte.

Tactical Blindspots

The Bundeswehr’s fearmongering about the potential for “Russian aggression against NATO” in the Suwalki Gap isn’t new. In fact, Sputnik has been reporting on and poking holes in similar claims since at least 2015, when Pentagon officials first began warning that Russia might attempt to close the gap, thus cutting off the Baltics from Poland and the West. Then, as now, the US and its allies never bothered to explain what on Earth would motivate Russia to attack NATO.

In 2017, following another dose of fearmongering related to Russia and the Suwalki Gap in the Wall Street Journal, political observer Yevgeny Krutikov said that NATO’s fears were nothing short of “stupidity,” pointing out that most of the Suwalki Gap area consists of woodland, lakes and swamps, including a national park, and that the region lacks any major roads. “It does not even cross anyone’s mind that tanks can’t pass through the Suwalki woods,” Krutikov stressed at the time.

Strategic Fallacies in Logic

Seven years later, the Suwalki Gap has reemerged in the minds of Western military planners as the place where Russia-NATO tensions could go hot. Leaving aside tactical considerations, the question Sputnik and others have asked, and which NATO have never been able to answer, is why Moscow would launch what amounts to an unprovoked invasion of Poland – a NATO member, and proceed to attack three more NATO allies (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), thus triggering World War III in the process.

Russia’s military demonstrated its capabilities against Ukraine in the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine, with the country’s troops, equipment and military production capabilities more than a match for an army trained, armed and funded by the Western bloc, and even earning the ranking of number one in the world militarily – above the United States, in a recent US report.

That said, a direct confrontation with NATO could very quickly turn against Russia’s favor, with the alliance having more than four times the total military personnel and active duty troops, three times the number of paramilitary reserves, nearly five times as many aircraft, six times as many armored vehicles, 3.5 times more warships, and over six times the population.

Russian Foreign Ministry graphic of NATO defence spending compared to that of Russia and the rest of the world.

Under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, members are required to come to the defense of members in the event of enemy aggression, and at least in theory, are under obligation to deploy weapons up to and including nuclear weapons, if necessary. That, combined with Washington’s carefree approach to nukes (including allowing their use on a first strike basis and even against non-nuclear-armed adversaries), means a Russian attack on the Baltics would very likely put the planet on a rapid ride to a world-ending World War – something Russian political and military leaders have repeatedly demonstrated they are not interested in.

“The whole of NATO cannot fail to understand that Russia no reason, no interest – neither geopolitical interest, nor economic, nor political, nor military – to fight with NATO countries,” President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Russian media last month. Moscow and the bloc “have no territorial claims against each other,” Putin stressed, adding that Moscow would prefer peaceful coexistence to confrontation with bloc members.

Perhaps if the alliance spent more time listening to what the Russian president has been saying and living up to decades-old promises to Moscow not to expand eastward instead of antagonizing the country by fueling a proxy war against it in Ukraine, Bundeswehr planners wouldn’t have to worry about paranoid scenarios involving having to fight the Russian army hundreds of kilometers east of Germany.

January 16, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

More Disregard for International Law: Moscow Hits Out at US-UK Attack on Yemen

Sputnik – 12.01.2024

MOSCOW – Strikes by the US and the UK on Yemen are another example of the distortion of UN Security Council resolutions and complete disregard for international law in the name of escalation in the region, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

The US and the UK carried out overnight airstrikes against Houthi positions in four governorates of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and the cities of Al Hudaydah, Saada and Taiz, provincial government officials told Sputnik. The US and UK officials confirmed the airstrikes, saying these were targeting Houthi military facilities and positions in Yemen in response to attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea and not civilian population centers.

“US airstrikes on Yemen are another example of the Anglo-Saxons’ distortion of UN Security Council resolutions and complete disregard for international law in the name of escalating the situation in the region for their own destructive purposes,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow mocks US claims it used North Korean missiles

RT | January 11, 2024

The US is peddling false information when claiming that Russia used North Korean missiles to attack Ukrainian targets, Russian envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia told a Security Council meeting on Wednesday.

Washington has accused Russia of buying North Korean ballistic missiles and using them during mass strikes on Ukrainian targets on December 13, and also last week. US national security spokesperson John Kirby described it as “significant and concerning escalation” in remarks last Thursday. Washington’s allies brought up the issue at the UNSC briefing on Ukraine.

Nebenzia brushed off the allegations, citing statements by a Ukrainian official. Yury Ignat, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said on national television that no forensic evidence to confirm the US claims was available to Kiev.

“It turns out that the United States replicates deliberately false information without even bothering to give a heads-up to its direct subjects,” the Russian diplomat remarked during the briefing.

North Korea is under UN sanctions, which include an arms embargo, for developing nuclear weapons and ICBMs. Moscow and Pyongyang have stated that while the two have a good relationship, their cooperation does not violate this restriction, contrary to Western claims.

South Korean ambassador Hwang Joon-kook accused Russia of testing North Korean weapons as part of its military action against Ukraine, and providing “valuable technical and military insights” to the producer nation. He cited unspecified experts as identifying the weapons as KN-23s, which North Korea claims to be nuclear-capable.

Ignat, the military spokesman, said that positively identifying a ballistic missile as North Korean would be challenging due to their similarity to Russian equivalents, and significant fragmentation on impact. Both nations’ designs stem from Soviet technology.

Another Ukrainian official, Oleg Sinegubov, head of the administration of Kharkov Region, claimed that some of the fragments recovered from Russian missile strike sites had had their markings erased, which he suggested indicated their foreign origin.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov previously rejected allegations that Moscow was procuring North Korean arms. In an interview in October, he said he does not comment on “rumors”, adding that “the Americans are always accusing everyone of all sorts of things”.

January 11, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Wall Street Journal Sets Standard for Irresponsible Journalism in Ukraine

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | January 10, 2024

Recently, The Wall Street Journal joined the flood of American mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, Politico and several others, in preparing the American public for a Russian victory.

After nearly two years, over $113 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money spent at horrendous cost in life and limb has put Ukraine in a worse bargaining position than they were at the start of the war. As many as 50,000 Ukrainians are now amputees. And though statistics on Ukrainian casualties are a tightly sealed state secret, the most plausible sources suggest casualties and fatalities as staggering as 400,000-500,000. These numbers fit with internal Ukrainian communications that suggest that maintaining their numbers on the field would require replacing 20,000 soldiers a month. The same figure has been given in a New York Times article that quoted a former battalion commander who “estimated that Ukraine will need to enlist 20,000 soldiers a month through next year to sustain its army, both replacing the dead and wounded.” 20,000 over an approximately two year war puts the figure well over 400,000. Most recently, Yuriy Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general and ex-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, has said that 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded. Interestingly, it is Moscow that provides the most conservative figures. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu recently said that Ukraine has lost over 215,000 soldiers in 2023 with over 383,000 killed or wounded since the war began.

The 400,000-500,000 figure for Ukrainian soldiers lost to the battlefield by casualties and deaths also matches the 450,000-500,000 number that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the military has requested in a new mobilization. In another sign of a battle between Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny, after Zelensky assigned responsibility to the military for requesting the unpopular draft, Zaluzhny placed the responsibility back on the government, denying that the military had ever formally requested the mobilization or provided the number.

The Wall Street Journal laid the psychological groundwork preparing the American public for defeat in Ukraine, despite the loss of Ukrainian lives and American dollars, with the line “Even if aid for Ukraine is renewed, it is essential to consider a realistic ending for the war.” It goes on to say that, though “Ukraine’s insistence on regaining all the territory Russia has seized since 2014 is understandable…events over the past year have made it clear that this goal can’t be achieved anytime soon.” The article concludes with the prescription that “Western leaders should explore” negotiations to end the fighting, calling it “a bitter pill” but “the only realistic path to a lasting peace in Europe.”

But it is in two short paragraphs near the end of the article that The Wall Street Journal does its readers a disservice by leaving out more information than it gives them, challenging the standards for responsible journalism.

The first of the two paragraphs state, “Recent reports, which Mr. Putin hasn’t denied, suggest that he is ready to agree to a cease-fire along the current battle lines. Although he is unwilling to retreat, these reports indicate that he had shelved his aim to dominate all of Ukraine.”

Though The Wall Street Journal is free to speculate that Vladimir Putin aimed to “dominate all of Ukraine,” it is also obliged to clarify that there is nothing on the documented historical record to indicate that Putin ever had dominating all of Ukraine as an objective. Scholar John Mearsheimer has pointed out, “There is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine on February 24th.” That has also never been one of Putin’s stated goals of the military operation. His list of goals has consistently been that Ukraine cannot join NATO, that NATO won’t turn Ukraine into a heavily armed anti-Russian country on its border, and that the rights of ethnic Russian Ukrainians be protected. Russia has clearly stated that it “support[s] Ukraine’s territorial integrity” if Ukraine returns to the promise of permanent neutrality upon which Russia first recognized Ukrainian independence in 1991.

In the next paragraph, the article insists that “there are good reasons to be skeptical” that Putin is serious about negotiating a peace that would abandon his ambition to dominate Ukraine. But, though the author has the right to be skeptical, he needs to set out what those “good reasons” are because, once again, they ignore the historical record.

An overwhelming host of people who were present at the Istanbul talks have testified to just how close Russia and Ukraine came to a negotiated peace in the early days of the war. But in questioning Putin’s seriousness about negotiating a peace, The Wall Street Journal ignores reporting that came out several days before its own reporting that former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleksandr Chalyi, who was a member of the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul, says that Putin was very serious about negotiating.

After reminding his audience at a debate in Geneva that he was actually there, Chalyi says that during the Istanbul talks “in March and April,” they “concluded [the] so called Istanbul Communique. And we were very close in the middle of April, in the end of April to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement.” Chalyi reports that Putin personally decided to accept the text of the Communique and that Putin “demonstrated a genuine effort to find a realistic compromise and achieve peace.”

The Journal article then goes to claim that Putin’s Ukraine ambitions are merely part of a larger “plan to reconstitute the Soviet empire.” As evidence, the writer cites Putin’s 2005 statement that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”

Putin did say that. But like other quotations made by Putin, it is employed misleadingly by omitting its context. First of all, he did not call it “the greatest” catastrophe but “a major” disaster. But the catastrophe after the fall he is referring to is not the absence of the Soviet Union but, primarily, the economic hardship that followed in the wake of its break up. He bemoaned that “individual savings were depreciated” and oligarchs “served exclusively their own corporate interests.” He remembered that “mass poverty began to be seen as the norm.”

The misleading strategy employed here is similar to the one frequently employed when Putin is quoted as having said, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart,” without adding that his next words were, “Whoever wants it back has no brain.” The first part refers to the same events Putin bemoans in the statement quoted in the Journal article; the second part entirely changes the claimed meaning by restoring the first to its context.

The Wall Street Journal article seems to be part of a media psychological campaign to prepare Americans for a Russian victory in Ukraine despite the massive expense in American aid, American weapons, and Ukrainian lives. But it could better prepare them for the inevitable negotiations that it predicts by honestly preparing them with the truth about the causes of the war and about the demonstrated possibility of negotiations, an understanding of which will be necessary if those negotiations are to succeed.

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

French Historian Predicts Imminent NATO Defeat in Ukraine, Russia-Europe Reconciliation

By Chimauchem Nwosu – Sputnik – 07.01.2024

A renowned French historian and sociologist better known for predicting the Soviet Union’s dissolution well in advance now foretells the West’s overthrow in his newest book.

French historian Emmanuel Todd believes that NATO is already losing the Ukrainian conflict. He likewise concluded that the defeat would eventually culminate in Russia’s reconciliation with Europe and its rapprochement with Germany, contrary to the wishes of the United States.

This view was expressed to Le Point Magazine during an interview ahead the release of his new book La Defaite de L’Occident (The Defeat of the West).

In the book, he denounces the Western attitude toward Russia, stating that “Avoiding the rapprochement between Germany and Russia was one of the US goals. This rapprochement would have signed the ejection of the United States from the European system of power. Americans have preferred to destroy Europe rather than save the West.”

Todd’s La Defaite de L’Occident excerpt highlights America’s waning status as a global superpower and its weak military-industrial complex.

The French historian also underlined the diminished influence of Europe, once represented by a strong partnership between France and Germany, highlighting that Germany has taken a dominant role since the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

Furthermore, he pointed out that in the wake of the Ukrainian conflict, the European Union has distanced itself from Russia, therefore hurting its own trade and energy interests.

“We also saw Emmanuel Macron’s France vaporize on the international stage, while Poland became Washington’s main agent in the European Union, succeeding in the role of the United Kingdom that became outside the Union by the grace of Brexit… On the mainland, overall, the Paris-Berlin axis replaced a London-Warsaw-Kiev axis piloted from Washington,” Todd opined.

Todd decried the dominant narrative in the West about the conflict in Ukraine: “We are in a completely Putinophobic and Russophobic world.” He went on to argue for a pluralistic view that recognizes different perspectives. “I am fighting to keep the West pluralistic. If we look for my values, they are values of truth and pluralism,” he remarked.

Addressing the question of how this year’s US election might alter the trajectory of the Ukrainian conflict, the expert highlighted Russia’s steadfast commitment to its existing course. “For the Russians, it makes no difference. For Russia is at war with America, and they ignore changes in rulers,” according to Todd.

January 7, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

DPR Head Explains Why Russia Only Hits Military Targets in Ukraine

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 07.01.2024

The Ukrainian military has been launching daily attacks on Donetsk throughout the winter holidays. Three hospital patients were wounded during shelling of the city on Orthodox Christmas Eve. Before that, a Ukrainian attack on New Year’s Eve left four dead and 13 more injured.

Russia’s Armed Forces hit only military targets in Ukraine as part of the ongoing special operation, Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) told Sputnik.

This is what sets Russia apart from the regime in Kiev that targets civilians in Belgorod and Donetsk during its recent attacks, Pushilin said.

“We, like no one else since 2014, have a certain moral right to act emotionally and deal straight from the shoulder, but that is not who we are. And this is what sets us apart. If we were to employ the methods used by our enemy, how would we then be any better than our enemy, what are we fighting against then?” Pushilin asked rhetorically.

The so-called Euromaidan protests in Ukraine’s capital culminated in the February 2014 coup d’etat that brought radical pro-EU and pro-NATO politicians to power and plunged Ukraine into crisis, leading to the current conflagration.

The DPR head emphasized that Moscow would never stoop to attacks targeting the civilian population – an approach that has become a trademark of the regime led by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“We would never be able to forgive ourselves if at some point we were able to speed up victory by resorting to carpet bombing and shelling the civilian population,” Pushilin said.

Dwelling on Moscow’s response to the constant shelling of Russian frontline towns by Ukraine’s Armed Forces, the DPR head emphasized: “Gritting our teeth and losing loved ones, we have been dealing with this since 2014, but it has not eroded our humanity. Losing humanity here could have much more serious consequences for our country. This is exactly what our president is talking about – the need to remain human.”

January 7, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s Neocolonial Actions Must End – Russian Foreign Ministry

Sputnik – 06.01.2024

MOSCOW – London, which accuses Moscow of violating UN Security Council resolutions, should remember its neocolonial actions, including aggression against the population of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and military aid to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stressed.

The official made a statement commenting on British Defense Minister Grant Shapps’ assertions that “the world has turned its back on Russia.”

The British minister made the remarks in connection to unsubstantiated allegations regarding the use of “DPRK missiles.” Shapps also accused Russia of violating multiple UN Security Council resolutions, despite Moscow’s stern denial of such innuendos.

“Here is just a short list of London’s neocolonial actions of recent times: the participation of British land and air forces together with the Americans in the aggression against Yugoslavia, in the destruction of Iraq and its population, Libya, Afghanistan, the bombing of Syria, and now – supporting the Kiev regime, which in violation of all resolutions on non-delivery of weapons to conflict zones the Anglo-Saxons are supplying with lethal weapons. But Shapps is right about one thing: ‘This must end,'” Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

Earlier, Pyotr Ilyichev, the director of the Department of International Organizations of the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik that UN experts monitoring possible violations of Security Council sanctions refute the allegation that Moscow is violating these restrictions.

According to Ilyichev, Russia treats its international obligations responsibly, while accusations are being made by those who are fixated on the task of discrediting Russia.

Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, with Russian President Vladimir Putin noting the goal is to ensure “the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.”

According to the Russian president, the “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine” is of utmost importance in order to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for “bloody crimes against civilians” in the Donbass.

January 6, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine De Facto Became NATO’s Testing Ground for Digital Warfare Against Russia – Moscow

Sputnik – 05.01.2024

MOSCOW – Artur Lyukmanov, the director of the Department of International Information Security of the Russian Foreign Ministry shared with Sputnik key insights into the US-backed cyber war against Russia being waged from Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine has de facto become a NATO ground for testing methods of fighting Russia in the digital space, Artur Lyukmanov, the director of the Department of International Information Security of the Russian Foreign Ministry, has told Sputnik.

“Indeed, in the past two years, the domestic information infrastructure has become the target of regular computer attacks. Most of them are carried out from the territory [of Ukraine] or in the interests of [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime,” Lyukmanov said.

He added that “the Kiev authorities, who in the West pose themselves as victims of ‘Russian cyber aggression,’ boast of sabotage against Russia using information and communication technologies.”

In November 2023 alone, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry claimed responsibility for several cyberattacks on Russian information resources, Lyukmanov said.

“This country has de facto become a NATO testing ground for the methods of warfare in the digital space,” Lyukmanov said, adding that “the entire information security sector of Ukraine has been handed over to the external management of Western curators.”

Ukrainian “Army” of IT-Scammers Threatens Europe

Russia has repeatedly warned Western countries that Ukraine’s US-backed “IT army” would become a problem for Europeans, and this is what exactly has happened as there are more than 1,000 “call centers” in Ukraine that are engaged in the extortion of money, Artur Lyukmanov, the director of the Department of International Information Security of the Russian Foreign Ministry, has told Sputnik.

“As for the ‘IT army,’ we are talking, in fact, about a bunch of hackers and telephone fraud, who are mainly engaged in trivial theft. According to our data, there are more than 1,000 ‘call centers’ on the territory of Ukraine engaged in the extortion of money. We have repeatedly warned Western countries that the “IT army” created in spite of Russia and supported by the United States would sooner or later become a problem for ordinary Europeans. After all, this is what exactly has happened,” Lyukmanov said.

The Russian official recalled that Hungarian authorities said in November 2023 that most of the funds stolen in Hungary “as a result of crimes using information and communication technologies and telephone fraud end up in Ukraine,” adding that “the geography and scale of criminal activity of these ‘fighters for independence’ is much wider and is not limited to Europe.”

Western Information Security Funds Embezzled

Anglo-Saxon countries send their special services’ cyber units to Ukraine to train their hackers engaged in activities against Russia, and the majority of Western funds provided to Ukraine for information security are being embezzled, Artur Lyukmanov, the director of the Department of International Information Security of the Russian Foreign Ministry, has told Sputnik.

Lyukmanov said Ukraine’s entire information security sector has been handed over to the external management of Western curators.

“Cyber units of special services and armed forces of Anglo-Saxon countries are sent there [to Ukraine] to train and coordinate hackers engaged in activities against Russia. Substantial technical and financial assistance is provided for this, which, of course, is mostly embezzled. We have no doubts that a significant portion of the budget of the US Cyber Command, which has bloated to a record $13.5 billion, will be spent at the Ukraine direction,” Lyukmanov said.

January 5, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia thwarts Ukrainian attack on border area

RT | January 3, 2024

Russia’s Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, has come under fresh attack after Kiev’s forces launched a barrage of a dozen missiles, the Russian Defense Ministry has announced, adding that its air defenses had shot down all incoming projectiles.

The ministry wrote on its Telegram channel on Wednesday that “another attempt to carry out a terrorist attack by the Kiev regime on facilities on the territory of the Russian Federation, using multiple launch rocket system ‘Olkha’ missiles and ‘Tochka-U’ tactical ballistic missiles, was thwarted this morning.”

According to the statement, the shelling involved six rockets of each type.

Local residents reported seeing explosions in the skies early on Wednesday morning.

The Ukrainian military also shelled the region on Tuesday evening, using the same type of rockets, the defense ministry said, adding that all incoming missiles had been intercepted.

Earlier in the day, Kiev’s forces launched 17 ‘Olkha’ missiles toward Belgorod Region in three separate attacks. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his Telegram channel that one civilian had died and two were injured as a result of falling debris as the missiles were shot down.

The Russian Defense Ministry estimated that its air defenses brought down a total of 32 Ukrainian drones over Bryansk, Oryol, Kursk and Moscow regions on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

On Saturday, the city of Belgorod came under attack, with a massive Ukrainian barrage killing 25 people and wounding more than 100 others.

Kiev described the strike as retaliation for a previous Russian attack on major Ukrainian cities, including Kiev.

According to an anonymous Russian security source, Saturday’s shelling was personally ordered by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Moscow has also claimed that the UK and the US also bear responsibility for the death of Russian civilians in Belgorod.

Ukraine and Russia have since engaged in daily tit-for-tat bombardments.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday that its missile strikes had obliterated a number of military industry facilities, repair shops, and ammunition warehouses in the neighboring country. Ukrainian authorities claimed that most of the projectiles ended up hitting civilian infrastructure and apartment blocks, killing multiple civilians.

January 3, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The enabler of our two concurrent world wars: Washington

By Gilbert Doctorow | January 2, 2024

It is only the second day of the New Year, but you turn on the morning news with a feeling of trepidation. Here in Western Europe, the lead stories are death and destruction reported from the front lines of the two conflagrations that some commentators have identified as ‘world wars,’ given the way countries across the globe have aligned themselves with or against the protagonists in each conflict. The outstanding commonality between these two world wars is the position of the United States as their enabler in terms of delivery of essential military and financial support to one side, as well as real-time military intelligence, tactical and strategic counseling by high level officers positioned on the ground and in nearby seas.  From the perspective of Washington, these are proxy wars which put at risk very few of its own men at arms, though some do come home in body bags without word to the press, while preparations proceed apace for the launch of a third proxy war in the South China Sea. The Philippines are the latest recruits to the prospective encirclement and assault on China.

On their talk shows, the Russians speculate on when a mutual defense pact with Iran, China and North Korea will be announced. This will not be a bloc, like NATO, but will enshrine the key principle of ‘one for all and all for one’ in case of attack by outside forces. To its backers in Moscow, this formulation would ensure that NATO generals understand they are up against an enemy of over two billion if we include a few other fellow travelers, not just the 145 million Russians whom they see across the border.

But that is what they say on talk shows. It is not the official voice of the Kremlin, which we find on Vesti television. Vesti maintains a near blackout of news on the Israel-Hamas war in broadcasts to its home audience. Why? Because Russia does not want to get embroiled in that war when it needs all its human and materiel resources to defeat the Ukrainians and their NATO backers. Moreover, Russia can be satisfied that the Iranians and their Houthi proxies have the situation in the Middle East under control, restraining the United States from region-wide escalation by engaging directly on Israeli’s side.

For that matter, Iran is doing just fine in shoring up Russia’s southern borders in the Caucasus. For more than a year, Armenia’s prime minister Nikol Pashinyan has been sitting on two stools: holding consultations with the French and intermittently attending gatherings of the Former Soviet Union republics called by Moscow. A week ago, Iranian leaders issued a direct warning to Armenia not to even think about pursuing the military and political rapprochement that France’s president Macron has been proposing. Said President Raisi: ‘No powers from outside the region are welcome in the Caucasus.’ This warning serves Russian security very well, though it is surely motivated by self-interest in Teheran, because any future French military presence in Armenia could also threaten them.

In Russian news, all attention is on the one conflict in which the Russians are themselves deeply engaged, and there news from the line of contact, news from the home front which a day ago experienced a murderous attack on the border town of Belgorod that killed 25 civilians and gravely injured another fifty or so, news from the United Nations Security Council deliberations of the same, more than fill the time allotted to 14.00 o’clock and 20.00 o’clock wrap-ups.

Anyone following developments of the Ukrainian war these past few days will note the tit for tat nature of the strikes dealt out by the warring parties day after day. The chain of events began early on the morning of Wednesday, 26 December, when the Ukrainians deployed air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles to destroy the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet parked in the harbor of Feodosia, on the eastern shores of the Crimea. The ship was said to be loaded with drones and the missile strike set off a fire and explosions that may have killed as many as 74, both on the ship and in the port.

However, the outstanding feature of the attack was not the numbers of the dead or the loss of the ship itself: it was the demonstration that Kiev had now been given a Storm Shadow variant with much greater flight range than the initial shipments from the U.K. and France.

From the perspective of the Russian high command, this new ability of the Ukrainians to strike far deeper into Russian territory represented a serious escalation of the conflict which required mirror-image escalation from Russia. The Russian response was not long in coming: on the 27th, Russia launched the largest missile attack on Ukraine since the start of the Special Military Operation, more than 150 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and armed drones, directed at cities across the Ukraine, including Kiev. Some of these were shot down by Ukrainian air defense, but the Zelensky regime admitted that all 20 Russian ballistic missiles evaded their fire and hit their targets.

From the partial information released by the Russian military, it would appear that their main interest was to destroy caches of the Storm Shadow and also the most advanced Western ground to air missiles. They claim to have destroyed a Patriot complex in the Lvov region, killing a substantial number of French military who were in charge of the installation. This is the sort of information which flits by in a second and is not repeated, so I can say no more.

The Ukrainian response the next day was a concentrated attack on the Russian border city of Belgorod, capital of an oblast of the same name. Belgorod is not more than 20 km from Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, and it first made international news about six months ago when a Ukrainian team of saboteurs claiming to be anti-Putin Russians crossed into the oblast and attacked residential neighborhoods.  This time missiles were sent into apartment blocks and other civilian structures, killing some 25 Russians and gravely wounding perhaps 50 more, some of whom were evacuated to Moscow by plane on life support.

Yesterday and today the Russians avenged this serious loss by renewed missile attacks, now concentrated on Kharkiv, whence the attack on Belgorod had come. They demolished the headquarters of military intelligence in the city, claiming to have killed many foreign advisers, probably British and Americans, who were guiding the attacks. They also struck air fields across Ukraine which could be used to service planes carrying the Storm Shadow.

I end this overview with the remark that American-British escalation of the weaponry deployed against Russia was at the start of what we have witnessed these past six days. And that can be no accident. It follows from the news of the war in the immediately preceding period, which unequivocally demonstrated that on the ground, along the line of contact, the Russian forces were moving steadily to overrun Ukrainian positions and force a retreat. The storming of Mariinka was emblematic in this sense. The overall impression was depressing for the Ukrainian cause at the very time that Congress was in recess after rejecting efforts by the Administration to pass legislation ensuring continued financial and military aid to Kiev. Now these Ukrainian missile attacks on the Black Sea fleet in the Feodosia harbor and the attack on civilians in what is properly speaking Russian Federation territory of Belgorod oblast would give luster to the Ukrainian cause while prodding the Russians to escalate and perform what Washington would showcase as war crimes.

Escalation is the game Washington is playing. In Ukraine. In the Red Sea. In the Eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Lebanon. Washington seems oblivious to the possibility that the proxy wars it is fanning may yet invite a Russian, or Iranian, or North Korean strike directly on U.S. assets, whether overseas or on the Continental United States.

January 2, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine to decide how to use US missiles – ambassador

RT | January 2, 2024

The decision on how to use the American-supplied missiles for HIMARS launchers will be up to the Ukrainian military command, US Ambassador to Kiev Bridget Brink said on Tuesday, according to the Ukrainian outlet Strana.

The US has sent Ukraine around 30 high-mobility artillery rocket systems since mid-2022. The projectiles Washington officially supplied to Kiev have a range of up to 160 kilometers (100 miles). Ukraine has repeatedly demanded longer-range missiles.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces command will “independently decide on the range of strikes delivered” using the HIMARS projectiles the US plans to deliver “in the near future,” Strana reported Brink as saying on Tuesday afternoon.

Brink made the identical announcement in June 2022. It was reiterated by the Pentagon in February 2023, when the US announced it would send Ukraine Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB) munitions.

According to a Washington Post article at the time, Ukraine carries out HIMARS launches using “specific coordinates provided by US military personnel,” but chooses the targets itself. The US provides coordinates and targeting information “solely in an advisory role,” an anonymous American official insisted.

Russia has said that this is a distinction without a difference, and repeatedly warned that US and British officials involved in Ukrainian attacks on civilians will be brought to justice.

In October, Kiev boasted about using longer-ranged ATACMS missiles “secretly” supplied by the US. As it turned out, the White House sent over a small number of the rockets armed with the controversial cluster munitions.

On Saturday, Ukrainian long-range rocket artillery struck the main town square of Belgorod city with cluster bombs, killing 25 civilians – including children – and injuring 100 more. Czech-supplied weapons were reportedly used in the attack. Russia has retaliated by targeting Ukrainian command posts, weapons warehouses and military factories in a wave of missile and drone strikes.

January 2, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Putin names Russia’s real enemies

Ukraine itself is not an enemy, the Western elites backing it are, the Russian president has said

RT | January 1, 2024

Ukraine is a mere tool in the hands of the collective West, which has been using it to fight Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He made the remarks at a military hospital in Moscow where he was meeting Russian servicemen wounded during the Ukraine military operation.

Asked about the enduring Western support for Kiev, the president said the elites of the collective West were actually the true enemy of Russia, rather than Ukraine itself.

“The point is not that they are helping our enemy, but that they are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with [Ukraine’s] hands, that’s what it’s all about,” Putin stated.

The conflict between Moscow and Kiev was orchestrated by Western elites, who seek to defeat Russia, he suggested. However, the collective West has been unable to achieve its goals, with the failure already showing in the change of its rhetoric on the conflict, the president explained.

“Those who only yesterday were talking about the need to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia are now looking for words on how to quickly end the conflict.”

“We want to end the conflict too, and as quickly as possible, but only on our terms. We have no desire to fight forever, but we are not going to give up our positions either,” Putin said.

The battlefield situation is now changing despite all the aid Kiev has been receiving from the West, the president observed. Russia has been effectively outproducing the whole West militarily, he suggested, with the country’s output destined to grow even further.

“Despite the fact that from time immemorial [the West] has had such a goal – to deal with Russia, it looks like we will deal with them first,” Putin stated.

“You probably see it on the battlefield that they are gradually ‘deflating’. When a shell flies, it is probably difficult to tell whether they are ‘deflated’ or not, but in general you probably know: the situation on the battlefield is changing. And this is happening despite the fact that the entire so-called civilized West is fighting against us,” he told the servicemen.

According to Russia’s latest estimates, over 380,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded during the conflict. Ukraine has also sustained heavy materiel losses, with an estimated 14,000 tanks and other armored vehicles destroyed. Nearly 160,000 of the troop losses were during Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, launched in early June last year, Moscow says.

January 1, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

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