Tycoon urges Russia to meet US energy threats head-on
RT | December 3, 2023
Moscow should take the US threat to halve Russia’s energy revenues seriously, billionaire Oleg Deripaska said on Saturday. To make his point the businessman cited last year’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines and a recent train derailment in Siberia.
The Russian aluminum magnate urged the government to focus on transport networks and port infrastructure in the country’s Far East, and the development of the North-South Transport Corridor in the Caspian region.
“Threats of blocking the Danish straits and the Bosporus have already been voiced,” Deripaska wrote on his Telegram channel.
“Russia is wholly up to the task of creating alternative routes via the Baltic and Turkish directions over four years,” he said, adding that the plan’s implementation should be monitored on a daily basis.
Earlier this week, a senior US official told the Financial Times that Washington would pursue its sanctions on Russian energy “for years to come” with the goal of halving Moscow’s oil and gas revenues by 2030.
On Wednesday, a freight train caught fire as it passed through the Bessolov Severomuysky tunnel, the longest in Russia, located in Buryatia. The incident was caused by an unidentified explosive device, Russian business daily RBK reported on Friday citing a local police source.
Russia’s Investigative Committee earlier opened an investigation into a similar incident, in which 19 freight cars carrying mineral fertilizers derailed on November 11 in Ryazan Region, around 200km southeast of Moscow. Later, the case was reclassified as a “terrorist act.” Earlier this week, law enforcement agencies reported the arrest of a man in relation to the attack, saying it had been carried out on behalf of Ukraine.
Several Western media outlets previously reported, citing an unnamed Ukrainian source, that operatives working for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had detonated explosives in the rail tunnel in Siberia, targeting the route due to its alleged use for transporting military supplies.
In September 2022, the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, connecting Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, were sabotaged by explosions. Berlin has yet to identify the perpetrators of the attack, which Moscow claimed was orchestrated by US intelligence agencies. Meanwhile, several Western media outlets have suggested that the pipelines were blown up by Ukraine-linked saboteurs.
Kiev’s counteroffensive casualties top 125,000 – Moscow
RT | December 1, 2023
In the six months since Kiev launched its push against Russian defensive lines, it has lost over 125,000 troops and 16,000 heavy weapons, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated during a ministerial meeting on Friday.
The Ukrainian government and its Western backers had high expectations for the operation, for which the former’s army was provided with main battle tanks and other advanced arms. Ukrainian officials predicted that the push would help their country reclaim territory lost since major hostilities started in February 2022, and potentially launch an incursion into Crimea, which had broken away from Kiev in the wake of the 2014 armed coup.
“Total mobilization in Ukraine, delivery of Western arms and deployment of strategic reserves by the Ukrainian command have not changed the situation on the battlefield,” the Russian minister reported. “Those desperate actions simply increased the losses of the Ukrainian armed forces.”
As such, Kiev’s military has been “significantly degraded” while Russian forces are “taking a more advantageous position and widening the zone under their control on all fronts,” Shoigu added.
Last week, Shoigu put Ukrainian casualties in November at 13,700, which pushed the Russian estimate of total Ukrainien losses in the counteroffensive over the 100,000 benchmark.
The most senior Ukrainian general, Valery Zaluzhny, reported in early November that the frontline situation had devolved into a “stalemate” and that Kiev’s side was unlikely to achieve a breakthrough unless some surprise technological development gave it a decisive edge over Moscow. His assessment has been rejected by officials, with President Vladimir Zelensky maintaining that Ukrainians are still making progress.
On Friday, the Associated Press published an interview with the Ukrainian leader, in which he said, “Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied.” He blamed a shortage of Western weapons for the underwhelming results of the Ukrainian operation and declared that a “new phase” in the hostilities was beginning this winter.
Open Defiance
By William Schryver | imetatronink | November 30, 2023
In my view, the single most meaningful consequence of the NATO/Ukraine proxy war against Russia is that most of the major geopolitical players outside the imperial realm are suddenly in open defiance of the capricious “rules-based international order” and its rapacious monetary system.
The catalyst for this rebellion was that Vladimir Putin’s Russia stood alone amongst the kings, princes, presidents, and prime ministers of a trembling world, turned to the masters of empire, and said, “Not an inch further. In fact, you must withdraw to your 1997 status, and take all your armaments with you, beginning with your missiles in Poland and Romania.”
The masters of empire laughed him to scorn, and then encouraged their #MotherOfAllProxyArmies in Ukraine to concentrate to the Donbass and the Azov pursuant to conquering Novorossiya and Crimea once and for all … then on to Moscow.
This war was anything but “unprovoked Russian aggression”. This war was spawned and nurtured for decades in the secret chambers of the imperial dark lords in London and Washington. It was a war the empire knew Russia would fight. The imperial suzerains simply deceived themselves into believing it was a war Russia could not win.
As was imperative, Russia did choose to fight — notwithstanding there were many reasons to suppose they were insufficiently prepared to win in the event the full weight of the NATO countries were thrown against them.
As it has turned out (and contrary to the fantastical western narratives of Russian humiliation and massive losses), the Russians have prosecuted a remarkably economical destruction of not one, but three successive iterations of increasingly NATO-armed and NATO-trained armies.
And they have done so while assembling, equipping, and thoroughly training a reserve army twice the size of the one they have used to methodically wreck the armies arrayed against them in Ukraine.
They have achieved the greatest industrial mobilization since the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Their massive increases in production of the implements of industrial-scale warfare dwarfs the combined capabilities of their adversaries.
They have also quickly adapted to changing battlefield realities, and are innovating and mass-producing new war tools previously seen only as novelties, but now acknowledged as essential.
In short, the Russians are not only winning this war in an impressively decisive fashion, but they will emerge from it as the single most formidable and battle-hardened military force on the planet.
Most significantly, Russia has exposed for all to see that the empire not only has limitations, but that it is vastly weaker and more vulnerable than hardly anyone had previously been willing to believe.
THAT is why so much of the rest of the world is now emboldened to defy imperial edicts.
THAT is the reason new alliances are solidifying between heretofore reluctant friends.
Nothing unites the human playground quite like one intrepid soul willing to stand, fight, and humble the bully.
The tripartite alliance of Russia, China, and Iran is an adversary more than adequate to roll back imperial rule by leaps and bounds, and in a relatively short span of time.
Many of the “middle powers” can also see which way the wind is blowing, and are positioning themselves accordingly. Spheres of influence are being aggressively pursued and secured in every quarter of the earth.
And perhaps most meaningful of all, they are cooperating to progressively repudiate the empire’s debt notes as the coin of the realm. They have come to understand that a prerequisite to “fixing the world” is to return its money system to a much more equitable and sustainable basis.
Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.
The empire of debt and lies has been weighed in the balances and found wanting. All that remains is to see if it will go gently into that good night, or in a fit of humiliated rage, set the world on fire.
NATO Chief Puts Hypocrisy on Full Display
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | November 29, 2023
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg put NATO’s hypocrisy on display while talking to reporters ahead of the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on November 28.
Asked by a reporter about American and European struggles to continue providing Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, Stoltenberg replied, “It’s our obligation to ensure that we provide Ukraine with the weapons they need. Because it will be a tragedy for Ukrainians if President Putin wins.”
The tragedy for Ukrainians has already happened. Their infrastructure and economy are destroyed, their population is dispersed, their relatives are dead or injured and their land is lost. The greater tragedy to come is not the war ending, but the war continuing. In the first weeks of the war, Ukrainians could have kept almost all of their land and lost almost none of their lives for a promise not to join NATO. The political West ordered them to walk away from the negotiating table and onto the battlefield. They promised them—directly or indirectly—as much military and financial support as it takes for as long as it takes. Nearly two years later, Ukraine will likely have to make the same promise, but they have lost that land and they have lost those lives.
Russia brought tragedy to Ukraine; the United States, United Kingdom, and their NATO allies bloated and magnified that tragedy. The tragedy now would not be ending the war even if it means “Putin wins.” The tragedy now is that NATO is willing to continue feeding a war that they know Ukraine can’t win. “When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring,” The Wall Street Journal reported, “Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons—from shells to warplanes—that it needed to dislodge Russian forces.” Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny has said that the war has reached a “stalemate” that over time can only favor Russia.
The tragedy for Ukrainians would not be negotiating an end to the war, it would be NATO exercising the “obligation” to continue the war.
Stoltenberg gave a second reason for continuing to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need; so that Ukrainians can go on dying for NATO goals and NATO security. If the war ends now, “it will be dangerous for us,” Stoltenberg said. The United States “will continue to provide support” to Ukraine “because it is in the security interest of the United States to do so.” NATO must “stay the course” because “[t]his is about also about our security interests.”
Stoltenberg knows this war is not being fought because Russia wanted to conquer other territory; Stoltenberg knows this war is being fought because Russia wanted to defend its territory. This war did not happen because Russia was a threat to NATO territory, it happened because NATO was a threat to Russian territory. How do we know that Stoltenberg knows this? Because he said so.
Putin “sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement,” Stoltenberg said on September 7, 2023. “That… was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine.” He then said that when “we didn’t sign that… he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”
“President Putin,” Stoltenberg concluded, “invaded a European country to prevent more NATO.”
Stoltenberg has publicly stated his awareness that this war was fought, not over American or NATO security concerns, but over Russian security concerns.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also recently said that the United States must go on supporting Ukraine or Russia would win and steamroll on over the Baltic countries, Poland, and beyond. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mocked Austin, saying, “This comes from a man who holds a high-ranking position and cannot but receive expert views… and who cannot but understand what is going on in Ukraine and that Russia has never had and can never have any aggressive or expansionist plans.”
Ukraine’s chief negotiator in the Belarus and Istanbul talks with Russia has also recently said that stopping NATO from expanding to Ukraine and Russia’s borders was the “key point” for Russia and that “[e]verything else was simply rhetoric and political ‘seasoning.’”
Stoltenberg says that if Russia is allowed to win “the message to all authoritarian leaders—not only in Moscow, but also in Beijing—is that when they violate international law, when they invade another country when they use force, they get what they want. So this is about the whole idea of a rules-based international order, where territorial borders are respected.”
Stoltenberg transitions from “international law” to “rules-based order” because his case cannot be made without hypocrisy on the former. International law applies equally to everybody. But the United States or NATO have frequently invaded other countries by force and disrespected their territorial borders: Panama, Grenada, Libya, Kosovo, Iraq and Syria. Before Ukraine, modern Russia had not. But the rules-based order, unlike international law, allows Stoltenberg to make the case that Russia has violated the rules but the U.S. and NATO have not because the rules are made up as you go along so that the United States is always within them and Russia is always without. Under the unwritten rules-based order, rules are applied when they benefit the U.S. while the U.S. is exempt when they don’t.
American and NATO support for Ukraine may be about U.S. insistence on enforcing the rules-based system, but the United States is not an enforcer of international law.
Stoltenberg’s third reason for continuing to press the war in Ukraine is read right off the U.S. script; “… we need to continue to support them also knowing that the stronger Ukraine is on the battlefield, the stronger the handle will be on the negotiating table.” That point has passed. Ukraine is in a weaker position on the battlefield than they were before the counteroffensive. Russia is winning the war of land, the war of attrition on weapons, the war of attrition on lives, and the technological war. Ukraine had a better seat at the negotiating table in the first weeks after the invasion when the political West ordered them to stop negotiating. They were in a better position a year ago when they recaptured areas of Kherson before the counteroffensive. Far from strengthening Ukraine’s position on the battlefield or at the negotiating table, supporting the continuation of the war seems to be putting Ukraine in a weaker and weaker position. The terms that will be offered Ukraine today are likely much worse than the terms they were offered at the start of the war. And they will likely be worse tomorrow.
Stoltenberg says that “if you want a negotiated, peaceful solution, which ensures that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation, then the best way to get there is to continue to provide military support to Ukraine.” But it is not war that will guarantee Ukraine sovereignty. As Lavrov recently pointed out, Russia recognized the sovereignty of Ukraine based on a declaration of independence and a constitution that declared Ukraine’s neutrality and non-membership in NATO, and Russia will continue to when those conditions are reinstated. The best way to ensure Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty is not to help it fight for the right to be in NATO but to encourage it to promise not to join NATO.
Finally, Stoltenberg put NATO’s hypocrisy on display not only by what he said, but by what he did not say. If the words that Stoltenberg said were meant to rally Western ears, the words he did not say will be the loudest in Ukrainian ears. Though Ukraine is fighting, in part, for the right to be in NATO, that is the one thing that Stoltenberg, hypocritically, did not offer Ukraine. The “Allies have stated again and again the last time at the NATO Summit with all the leaders present in Vilnius” that they will “provide support to Ukraine,” that they “will step up” their support for Ukraine, that they will “help them… to modernize their army” and that they will “ensure full interoperability between the Ukrainian forces and the NATO forces.” The one thing Stoltenberg did not say that NATO has offered Ukraine is membership in NATO.
Ukraine should fight to defend NATO’s insistence on the right of a country to choose its own alliances and to join NATO without being offered membership in NATO. That is the final hypocrisy put on full display in Stoltenberg’s comments to reporters.
Russia: US played ‘destructive role’ in escalating Israeli war in Gaza
Press TV – November 29, 2023
Russia says the United States has escalated the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas by playing a “destructive role.”
Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Chumakov made the comment during a speech he delivered to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. He denounced Washington’s policies in West Asia.
“The policies of the US which meant that it kept turning a blind eye to the ongoing Israeli settlement construction in the occupied [Palestinian] territories and recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, have played a destructive role in the current escalation,” he said.
According to Gaza government health officials, over 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children, were killed by Israeli aggression during the 49 days of war. Many more are feared to be buried under the rubble.
“As a result, we are now witnessing a conflict of unprecedented scope, which may spread to the entire Middle East,” Chumakov warned.
Washington has supported Tel Aviv’s relentless attacks on the Palestinian territory as an instance of “self-defense,” and has provided the regime with thousands of arms consignments since the onset of the war.
A four-day Qatari-brokered ceasefire between Tel Aviv and Hamas went into effect on Friday and was extended for two more days on Monday following mediation from Egypt and Qatar.
So far, under the truce deal, Hamas freed 69 hostages in return for 150 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
US fully responsible for situation in Gaza: Moscow
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the US is fully responsible for the current situation in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave, stressing that Washington’s policies have served as the primary sources of tension in the conflict zone.
“The entire current collapse on the territory [of the Gaza Strip], where a colossal tragedy related to the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation has unfolded, is completely and fully the responsibility of the United States, or, rather, I should say, [due to] the irresponsibility [of the US]. It is only they [who are responsible],” she said during an interview with the Sputnik radio station.
The Gaza health ministry says the Israeli regime keeps denying hospitals fuel for their generators in violation of the truce. The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has brought almost all vital infrastructure in the besieged strip to a standstill.
Hamas Military Wing Says Released 2 Russian Citizens in Response to Request of Moscow
Sputnik – 29.11.2023
MOSCOW – The military wing of the Palestinian movement Hamas, Al Qassam Brigades said on Wednesday that it released two Russian citizens in response to Moscow’s request.
Earlier in the day, the i24 broadcaster reported, citing Hamas, that the movement will release two Israeli women with Russian citizenship, in addition to 10 Israeli hostages whose release was agreed upon, as a sign of gratitude to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Al-Qassam Brigades [will] release two Russian detainees in response to a request from the Russian leadership,” the statement said.
Last week, Qatar mediated a deal between Israel and Hamas on a four-day truce and an exchange of some of the prisoners and hostages, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. On Monday, Qatar announced that an agreement had been reached between Israel and Hamas on a two-day extension of the truce.
Over the five days of the truce Israel was able to secure the release of 61 Israelis and 25 foreign citizens held hostage by Hamas.
On October 7, Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip and breached the border, killing and abducting people. Israel launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of Gaza, cutting off supplies of water, food, and fuel. On October 27, Israel launched a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip. The conflict has so far resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,200 people in Israel and over 16,000 in the Gaza Strip.
Russian aircraft for Iran and multipolarity
By Drago Bosnic | November 29, 2023
After months of speculation whether Iran would acquire Russian weapons, particularly advanced fighter jets, on November 28, Deputy Defense Minister of Iran Mehdi Farahi dispelled previous rumors about the deal supposedly falling through and confirmed that Tehran had finally inked the contract to procure Su-35 air superiority/multirole fighters, Yak-130 light fighter/advanced trainer jets and Mi-28 attack helicopters from Russia. The announcement comes amid an enormous increase in the already massive American military presence in the Middle East, which includes everything from carrier strike groups (CSGs) to fighter jets and even strategic bombers. The tensions have escalated significantly in the context of the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict, prompting Iran to urgently modernize its aging fighter jet fleet.
Speculation about the acquisition has been ongoing since last year, specifically after Egypt withdrew from the deal to buy Russian jets. Cairo’s fear of getting on America’s bad side pushed it to stifle its sovereignty (and security), an opportunity that Tehran took to make a deal that would otherwise take years to finalize. Western sources have been speculating about the Su-35 deal with Iran even before the special military operation (SMO). Rumors about the acquisition continued throughout 2022, followed by speculation about the deal allegedly not going through. However, by September, it became clear that the military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran would include even more than Su-35 fighter jets, particularly after the Yak-130 light fighters/advanced trainers were spotted in Iran.
The Yak-130 can double as both attack jets and advanced trainer aircraft, but their primary role is the latter, meaning they were especially indicative of the deal going through. Namely, the Yak-130 is used as the stepping stone in flight training for pilots preparing to fly the Su-35. Getting advanced fighter jets for the Iranian Air Force (IRIAF) has been a point of contention for decades as the country was under a strict Western arms embargo that prevented any advanced weapons acquisitions. This had its perks, as it forced Tehran to develop a plethora of indigenous industries, including a very robust and highly cost-effective drone production, and now it’s clear that Tehran’s advanced military industry is perfectly capable of going toe to toe with the world’s most powerful countries in terms of developing and deploying unmanned systems.
However, despite these advances that also include a plethora of other weapons, such as surface combatants, transport aircraft and long-range SAM systems (mostly based on Russian designs), Iran is sorely lacking in the manned combat aviation compartment. This is hardly surprising, given that only a handful of countries in the world have fully indigenous aerospace industries. Even Asian giants such as China and India still rely heavily on Russia to acquire top-of-the-line aircraft, although their respective advances in this regard are certainly commendable. By getting the Su-35, Tehran is pushing the capabilities of the IRIAF well into the 21st century. Various reports indicate that at least 24 fighter jets have been ordered to replace the aging F-14 “Tomcats”, while there’s speculation that it would acquire over 60 in follow-up orders.
Almost the same could be said for the Mi-28 attack helicopter. The advanced Russian rotorcraft has very few equivalents abroad and would certainly revolutionize Iranian capabilities. Namely, Tehran currently relies on its ancient Vietnam War-era AH-1 “Super Cobra” attack helicopters which are decades behind technologically, even with the incremental upgrades and overhauls that the Iranian military has been applying. Reports indicate that Iranian forces operating in Syria were impressed by the performance of Iraqi and Russian Mi-28s in both Iraq and Syria, which was a major contributing factor to the decision to acquire them. The superb flight characteristics and armament of this Russian helicopter are rivaled only by the less conventional coaxial rotors-equipped Ka-52 “Alligator”.
It’s important to note that the ongoing procurement is of the utmost importance to the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and BRICS+ frameworks. Namely, Iran is already a member of the former, while it’s poised to join the latter in just over a month. With the US escalating tensions in the region, the primary target of which is precisely Tehran, the belligerent thalassocracy is looking to disrupt multiple peace processes in the region. Attacking Iran seems to be a very tempting prospect for Washington DC, as it would effectively “kill two birds with one stone” by making both SCO and BRICS+ look “weak” and unable (or even unwilling) to defend their new members. The US very likely believes this could be a deadly blow to the rapidly emerging multipolar world that will inevitably dismantle the existing “rules-based world order.” By arming Iran, Russia is making sure that any such attack would not only be a costly endeavor, but also a failed one.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Iran finalizes purchase of Russian military aircraft
The Cradle | November 28, 2023
Iran has finalized arrangements to purchase Russian-made fighter jets and attack helicopters, Deputy Defense Minister Brigadier General Mahdi Farahi revealed to Tasnim News Agency on 28 November.
Farahi says the plans for the purchase and process of arrival of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets, Mil Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Yak-130 jet trainers to join the combat units of the Iranian Armed Forces have been signed and finalized.
“In some areas, we are among the top countries; in others, we are on the path to maturity. In this way, in addition to the development of endogenous capabilities, we must also use shortcuts to complete the defense capability, and one of these areas is the field of air technology,” Farahi said in the interview with Tasnim.
“We have good capabilities in the field of helicopters; that’s why we are the best in quantity in the region, but the qualitative improvement of helicopters is on the agenda,” Farahi added.
Talks for acquiring Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets have been ongoing since late last year as part of joint military cooperation efforts between Tehran and the Kremlin.
Despite decades-long sanctions against Iran, the nation is still a major military power in West Asia and has over half a million active personnel.
Defense, trade, and banking ties between Iran and Russia have been growing over recent years despite western sanctions imposed on the two nations.
The central banks of both nations signed an interbank transfer deal earlier this year, allowing 52 Iranian banks to connect and transfer with 106 Russian banks.
Iran is also expected to join BRICS at the start of 2024, a group in which Russia is a key organizer.
Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi said at the 15th annual BRICS summit that the bloc expansion is “a new step towards establishing justice, ethics, and sustainable peace in the world.”
Iran has not made any significant purchases to its fighter aircraft arsenal in recent years besides purchasing a few Russian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters in the 1990s.
West ‘screwed over’ Ukraine – ex-Zelensky aide
RT | November 27, 2023
The West has essentially thrown Ukraine under the bus in its conflict with Russia by failing to provide Kiev with the necessary amount of military aid, Aleksey Arestovich, a former aide to President Vladimir Zelensky, has claimed.
Writing on Telegram on Sunday, Arestovich weighed in on the differing views of Ukrainian officials as to why Kiev’s conflict with Moscow is still in full swing despite several major attempts at peace.
According to the former presidential aide, the West bears most of the blame for the situation.
“The real responsibility lies with those who promised Ukraine real support for waging a real, big war and did not provide it. In other words, they screwed us over.”
Arestovich claimed that Ukraine “had won its war” by managing to survive in the first few months of the conflict. “This war of ours could have well ended with the Istanbul Agreements,” he suggested, referring to the talks in the Turkish city in the spring of 2022, which initially made some progress but stalled after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit to Kiev. The negotiations collapsed but Russia maintains it is open to diplomatic engagement with Kiev.
After the Istanbul talks, the conflict entered another phase in which Ukraine had no chance of winning without securing massive Western arms supplies, including warplanes and long-range missiles, the former official continued. “But nothing came. We paid a huge price for that.”
Arestovich suggested that the West would now try to force Ukraine to accept the loss of several regions, which overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in a series of public referenda last autumn.
He also suggested that, while Kiev found itself in a tough spot mostly due to the West’s inaction, the Ukrainian leadership’s “stupidity and corruption has given them many formal and informal reasons to screw us over.”
Arestovich’s remarks came amid Ukraine’s faltering counteroffensive, which has been underway since early summer but has failed to gain any significant ground. Last month, Moscow said Kiev had lost more than 90,000 troops since the start of the push, with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claiming that Ukrainian casualties had reached more than 13,000 soldiers in November alone.
Earlier this month, Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, admitted that hostilities had reached a stalemate, an assessment rejected by Zelensky. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Mariana Bezuglaya, a senior Ukrainian MP, blasted Zaluzhny over the lack of a strategic plan for 2024 and called on the military leadership to step down.
Three hundred thousand Israelis have fled abroad since 7 October
By Gilbert Doctorow | November 27, 2023
The opening discussion on yesterday’s edition of Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov centered on the number of Israelis who have fled abroad since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The host quoted the figure 300,000 and put it into a context that is very closely watched in Russia: how many of their own compatriots fled abroad in the first year of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, most of them in the days immediately following the announcement of a partial mobilization in September of that year.
The flight of several hundred thousand Russians abroad was trumpeted by mainstream Western media, which even sent journalists to remote places in Kazakhstan and Georgia to interview the draft-dodgers. We were told that the young Russians who fled were highly concentrated in IT and that their loss would do irreparable harm to Russian industry and to the war effort. These young men at the start of their professional careers tended to move to the Near Abroad, where they hoped to find employment easily given the universal demand for their technical skills and where they could receive remittances from their parents and friends via the existing banking system, whereas in the West they would be cut off from such sources of funds.
Both at the very start of the Ukraine war and in smaller numbers straight up to this past summer, there were also high visibility Russians in the business world, in the creative arts and especially in the entertainment industry who moved out of Russia to express their disapproval of the Putin ‘regime’ and its armed aggression. Some were quiet about their motives, but others spoke out openly, saying they could no longer live in a country that invaded its neighbors and violated international law. This group was older, wealthier than the IT nerds and chose to move out into the greater world where they might continue to enjoy the creature comforts to which their money made them accustomed. Since London and Paris were longer welcoming to Russians of any and all stripes, a good many chose to settle in Israel, both Jews and non-Jews alike. Russia has a visa free regime with Israel and many direct daily flights to Tel Aviv. Other well-to-do Russians moved to Dubai.
As for the first group of Russian ‘war exiles,’ most were disappointed by the professional opportunities they found in the former Soviet republics. Pay was low, the cost of housing was high and rising with each additional refugee arrival looking to rent. Meanwhile, back in Russia it became clear that there were exemptions available for really talented programmers and the likelihood of any further conscription was minimal now that more than 400,000 Russian men were volunteering for military service out of both rising patriotism and very attractive monetary rewards for service in the combat zone. As a result, a great many of the draft dodging young men slowly and quietly packed up and moved back to Russia.
For the second group of Russians, the stars and wealthy, the onset of the Israel-Hamas war put them in a most awkward situation. The Financial Times was quick to alert us that on 8 October Alfa Bank founder Mikhail Fridman, who had left his London mansion and a good part of his frozen-assets fortune behind to resettle in Israel earlier this year, had taken the first available flight out of Israel and flew back to Moscow, for a ‘temporary’ respite. Abrupt departure from Israel was also the path taken by the aging star Alla Pugacheva, another rather recent ‘settler’ in Israel, ostensibly there for medical treatment at the spas. Pugacheva flew out to Cyprus. We may assume that high-living Russians constituted a significant minority share of the 300,000 folks who fled Israel for safer climes at the start of the war. Hence the particular interest in the subject among Moscow’s chattering classes.
This entire issue of what Russia media today amusingly call the релоканты, ‘relocators’ in English, touches a deep chord among the opinion leaders who appear on the Russian talk shows. We may assume that the topic also figures large when ordinary Russians in Moscow and elsewhere break bread together.
Should these people upon their return be shipped out to Magadan, where the Russian Far East meets the Pacific ocean, best known as a transit hub in the Stalinist gulags? None other than Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin publicly proposed this fate for them. But Volodin had in mind only those who used their time outside Russia to defame the country, not those who quietly sipped their champagne in restaurants by the sea in Tel Aviv.
No doubt kitchen talk in Russia runs close to what Solovyov says on air: that Russian cultural leaders who moved abroad in protest at the bestial nature of their homeland, like the celebrated authors Lyudmila Ulitskaya or Vladimir Sorokin, must be eating their words as they witness the utter brutality of the Israeli Defense Forces pursuing their atrocities in Gaza.
Coming back to the figure of 300,000 Israelis who have fled the country since the start of the war, Solovyov noted, with justice, that if you project the ratio of these turncoats to the general Israeli population of 9 million onto Russia, with its 145 million plus inhabitants, then the number of Russians who fled after 22 February 2022 would have been 4.5 million, while the actual numbers of Russians were between 10 and 15 times less. His inescapable conclusion is that Russians are far more patriotic than Israelis are.
The rest of the Sunday night program was largely devoted to fleshing out the argument that Russians have been far too self-deprecating, far too unappreciative of their own strength and their own achievements since the start of the war in Ukraine. The ability of the country within the scope of two years to institute a war economy that has increased many fold the output and delivery to the front lines of latest technology tanks, artillery, kamikaze and surveillance drones, fighter jets is very impressive, especially when set out in detail by a military expert, a retired Lieutenant General who was a panelist on the show. The ability of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and his cabinet to manage the domestic civilian economy was also hailed. Russia is now feeding itself from a vastly strengthened agribusiness sector and is steadily expanding the array of consumer products produced at home, while importing from China and elsewhere in the East other products, including more than half of all new cars sold in Russia, that are often of higher quality and carry price tags way below what had been imported from Europe before the war.
For reasons that will not surprise attentive readers, none of these achievements gets much attention in Western media. However, the Chinese are watching closely. A delegation of Russian parliamentarians who went to Beijing this past week in an annual visit was exceptionally received by Chinese President Xi, who according to protocol, does not meet with foreign legislators. Russian output in Q3 of this year reached 5% growth. That matches the relatively low pace of the Chinese economy this year. But for Russia it is a new high in this millennium. The open question on the Solovyov show was how to emulate the Chinese model of relations between the central bank and the government in order to sustain financing of the economy needed to continue at this pace and not have a relapse to 1.5% annual growth, which is the scenario being prepared by the bank director Nabiullina. This is an issue in Russian political discourse that will not go away.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
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8 Top Leaders in Field of Medicine Say Don’t Trust Science
By Fred Burks | WantToKnow
Throughout the pandemic, we were told by the powers that be to trust the science. But science is a process, not a person in whom we can place our faith. This process always produces meaningful data about how the world works, yet correctly interpreting that data isn’t always easy or possible. And for a variety of reasons, official interpretations of scientific data appear broadly untrustworthy. When science is used by powerful interests to support questionable policies, it ceases to be a tool for the betterment of all mankind.
Why do these eight top leaders in the field of medicine say that the science is not to be trusted? … continue
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