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Putin-Kim Summit: Western Hysteria Can’t Conceal Historic Failing Of Western Imperialism and Criminality

Strategic Culture Foundation | September 15, 2023

Western news media have become a parody of misreporting, misinformation and outright imperialist propaganda. Nobody of sound mind can take their claims seriously anymore. This week such media “excelled” in their deceptions and distortions with hysterical coverage of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

It is, however, instructive to analyze what motivates the Western hysteria and false narratives.

The tone of Western reporting and commentary was akin to reading reviews of a new James Bond movie. In their telling, the summit was portrayed as a tete-a-tete between the world’s most dastardly villains. The Washington Post perhaps took the laurels for hyperbole, describing the summit as having “nefarious glamor” and went on to mention Kim arriving in a bulletproof train (as if that is somehow weird) and how the two leaders met at a “remote space port” (cue the James Bond music) and dined on “duck salad and crab dumplings” (oh, how very evil!). All that was missing, it seemed, was a shark tank.

The contrived menacing tone projected by the gamut of Western media speculated on Russia cutting a deal with North Korea to supply artillery munitions for the 18-month-old conflict in Ukraine. There were also heavy inferences that Russia would help bolster its East Asian neighbor’s nuclear arsenal thereby allegedly posing a greater threat to the United States.

It was widely claimed that the summit demonstrated that Russia was isolated internationally over the Ukraine war and that President Putin was “desperate” by reaching out to “pariah state” North Korea.

As we noted above, Western media have long ago forfeited any credibility. Their narratives have become embarrassingly discredited. Anything that American or European news media pronounce on should be taken with a risible pinch of salt, if not with utter contempt.

One topical example suffices. This week saw an appalling human disaster in Libya from storm floods. Up to 20,000 people are feared dead from torrential flooding. Not one Western media outlet even remotely made the connection that this horror was made wholly possible because the North African country was destroyed and turned into a failed state by the criminal military attack on the nation in 2011 by the U.S.-led NATO alliance.

Given this total denial by Western media of the underlying cause of Libya’s ruination, one can reasonably dismiss their credibility and moral presumption to discuss any other world events. Their function is to mislead, not inform.

The summit this week between the Russian and North Korean leaders was indeed a significant marker. Their meeting occurred while the 8th Eastern Economic Forum was proceeding in Russia’s Far East city of Vladivostok. The forum brought together political and business leaders from scores of nations with a focus on investment and partnership in the Asia-Pacific. President Putin delivered a keynote address to delegates before hosting Kim Jung Un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Arum region, about 1,500 kilometers from Vladivostok.

The meeting between the Russian and North Korean leaders was a cordial event involving lengthy discussions (up to six hours, according to some reports) and a lavish state dinner attended by senior dignitaries. The details of the one-on-one talks were not elaborated on in public but the general topic areas included partnership in developing space technology and military matters.

Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have a long and honorable history, as both leaders warmly acknowledged. Putin noted how Soviet soldiers fought alongside Korean revolutionaries to defeat Japanese imperialism to help establish the DPRK in 1948. The partition of the Korean Peninsula into North and South was largely instrumented by the United States as a Cold War measure to contain the Soviet Union and China.

There is nothing sinister about the Far East Asian neighbors reaching out to each other to further develop fraternal relations for the benefit of both nations. The spirit by which Putin and Kim embraced is fully consistent with the historic emergence of a new multipolar world order.

In this new global reality, the notion of hegemonic dominance by the United States and its Western partners is rapidly becoming redundant and indeed repugnant. The arrogant and brutal imposition of unilateral sanctions by Western powers are increasingly seen for what they are – criminal vestiges of a by-gone era of Western neocolonialist self-ordained privileges.

The truly sinister aspect about the Putin-Kim summit is the glaring absence of any Western media acknowledgement that the DPRK has for decades been subjected to Western economic warfare as well as unrelenting military aggression by the United States from annual “war games” that rehearse “decapitation strikes” and an invasion of North Korea. The U.S. continues to refuse to make a formal peace settlement with the DPRK even after 70 years from the end of the Korean War in 1953. During that war, the U.S. inflicted genocidal mass aerial bombing killing up to three million civilians.

Instead of admitting historical truth and realities about the nefarious nature of American-led Western imperialism, the pathetic Western media would rather focus on “nefarious duck salad” supposedly eaten by Putin and Kim.

While the Western media go into hysterics about North Korea allegedly supplying weapons to Russia for the conflict in Ukraine, the same media are vacant in any questioning about the supply of $100 billion in weaponry by Washington and its NATO accomplices to prop up a Nazi regime in Kiev. That’s because they promote the absurd propaganda lie that the Western powers are “defending democracy” in Ukraine, in spite of the well-documented facts about the Kiev regime’s rampant corruption, repression, forced conscriptions and Nazi associations.

On the particular scare-and-smear story by Western media that Russia is desperately seeking arms supply from North Korea, it seemed to go un-noticed that the New York Times completely undermined this speculation with a separate report this week claiming that Russia is more than self-sufficient in artillery and arms production.

Anyway, even if the DPRK and Russia enter into a military supply deal, so what?

Russia has every legal right to confront the years-long aggression that NATO has embarked on in Ukraine. The United States is this week considering supplying long-range (300 km) ATACMS missiles to the Nazi regime and, according to its criminally insane Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has given the go-ahead for attacks on Russian territory.

This is the shocking and deplorable reality of Western-induced escalation of war between nuclear superpowers. And yet, according to the Western media, the sinister thing the Western public should be concerned about is a neighborly summit between Putin and Kim.

As Russia’s President Putin noted in his plenary address and in public dialogue during the Eastern Economic Forum, the Western arrogant powers have destroyed their own privileged financial system from decades of abusing the rest of the world and using their neocolonialist prerogatives to parasite off others. The West is desperately trying to conceal the reality of the historic global shift towards a multipolar world and away from self-ordained Western hegemony. Part of this denial and cover-up entails the West resorting to the old and weary game of trying to create bogeymen stories to corral the Western public behind otherwise bankrupt leaders.

The bogeymen narratives don’t work anymore. That’s because Western media are seen to be bankrupt in credibility, having been exposed over and over again as liars and con artists as seen from their apologetics for endless criminal wars – Libya is a stark case in point this week. Another reason for narrative impotency is due to the visible moral bankruptcy of Western political leaders. How can anyone take these elite charlatans seriously? Biden, Sunak, Scholz, Rutte, Macron, Trudeau, Von Der Leyen, Borrell, to name a few.

Another reason why Western bogeymen tales don’t cut it is because the harsh economic and social reality hitting most citizens in Western states is actually much scarier than any fictitious claims about foreign villains. The latter begins to seem even more absurd and disdainfully divorced from reality.

What should be – and no doubt is already – deeply troubling to Western elites and their media is that the public is realizing that their real and only enemy is within, in the form of elite rulers and their elite-serving economic system. That was always the case historically, but in former times, that reality could be diverted from with bogeymen stories about foreign enemies, “Commies and Reds”, and so on. Now, however, no amount of Western media spinning and fantasizing can conceal the dawning and dreadful reality of Western inherent corruption and failure, and the long overdue need for justice and accountability for the multiple capital crimes of Western imperialism.

September 16, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Russian-North Korea cooperation and the talks outcome

By Uriel Araujo | September 16, 2023

North Korean leader Kim Jung Un unexpectedly extended his visit to Russia. Russian President Vladmir Putin and his North Korean counterpart met on September 13 to reportedly discuss bilateral cooperation and after the five-hour meeting at the Vostochny Cosmodrome,  it has become clear the ongoing discussions include military and technical cooperation. For one thing, Putin  has vowed to help the East Asian nation develop satellites, and accepted Kim’s invitation to visit the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is also to visit the country in October, according to spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Kim in turn vowed to bring about “a new era of 100-year friendship” between the two states.

The DPRK has been struggling with heavy sanctions for a long time and suffered the impact of pandemic related border closures – which have been relaxed recently.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller threatened by saying the US would “not hesitate to take action” if Pyongyang provided weapons to Moscow. In response, the Kremlin said that Russian and North Korean interests mattered, “not warnings from Washington.” There are however “certain limitations” to Russian-North Korean military cooperation (to which Russia complies), as Putin himself acknowledged, probably referring to UN Security Council resolutions which Moscow voted for in the past. Even so, there are many points of cooperation to be explored – the challenge will be to navigate the aforementioned limitations.

On September 14, the national security advisers of Japan, South Korea, and the US jointly issued a warning pertaining to Russian-North Korean cooperation, thereating that there will be “clear consequences” if United Nations Security Council resolutions are breached. The White House said US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had talked with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts to discuss the Putin-Kim meeting.

Last year, amid the US-Japan-South Korea summit, I wrote on how frictions were escalating in the Korean peninsula, but also involved Russian-Japanese tensions. At the same time, Washington’s new stance on Taiwan added fuel to the fire. There is in fact another angle to Russian-North Korea discussions about strengthening military ties: they are about diversifying partners as much as they are also a response to US-Japanese-South Korean Pacific developments and Aukus.

Much is talked about the Quad (the “Asian NATO”) described by Lavrov as a US-led policy aimed against China. From a Russian perspective, however, this initiative – together with the overall American “Indo-Pacific” policy, also affects balance in a web of state relationships in Asia. Thus, for Russia, engaging with North Korea is arguably also about balancing US-Japanese-South Korean influence in Asia.

For example, over two years ago, I wrote on how Biden’s approach to the DPRK had been a setback – this was so largely due to the fact that Washington saw any interaction with the country as “unacceptable” nuclear negotiations – and such an approach was hardly an incentive to bring Pyongyang back to the table.

Nothing much has changed in that regard. As I wrote, in 2021, talks with the US were (and still are) very unlikely to deliver much, the nuclear issue being a true impasse – this being so, a natural path for North Korea would be to enhance its bilateral relations with Moscow, who, after all, has always been critical of the sanctions against Pyongyang: even though Russia did join the 2013 sanctions against the Asian country (in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2087), talks about setting up an advanced “development zone” in the Russian Far East and North Korea started in 2015 – this being a sphere of cooperation free of the scope of sanctions back then. Li Haidong, a International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University professor wrote, also in 2021, that the Russia-China-North Korea trilateral relationship had the potential to advance regional stability in the region.

Although there has been a common will towards stability and peace in the Korean peninsula, Biden’s administration has largely been a hindrance. In any case,  engaging with North Korea and “controlling” its existing nuclear arsenal is a much more realistic goal than full denuclearization. The hard reality is that Pyongyang has achieved nuclear power and will not let it go; thus, engaging with the DPRK is the only reasonable approach. In a way, this is also what Moscow is doing right now. To sum it up, the Russian strategy for the Korean peninsula should not be seen merely in the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and arms deals but should also be seen from a larger geopolitical perspective.

September 16, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

China announces massive cross-border project with Russia

RT | September 15, 2023

China’s Xuanyuan Group Industrial Development plans to build a massive logistics hub in the Amur Region in Russia’s Far East, as freight turnover between the two countries has more than doubled over the past year, the group’s CEO, Hailong Xue, has told RT.

The project is one of several deals the Chinese industrial group has clinched with Russian investors on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, and will offer equal opportunities for Russian and Chinese companies to participate in it.

The hub will be located between the city of Tongjiang in China’s Heilongjiang province and the town of Nizhneleninskoye and is designed to facilitate Russia-China cargo transfers.

“The location of this hub is very important as it will be right between our borders. There is a narrow stretch between our frontiers which makes cargo transfer rather problematic. But, with our project, we estimate that freight transportation will reach 10 million tons annually,” Hailong said. He expects cargo traffic between Russia and China to increase fourfold in the next few years.

According to the Xuanyuan Group CEO, the project envisages the construction of a terminal for storage and transportation of hazardous and nonhazardous goods, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), aviation fuel, helium, and other technological goods.

Hailong revealed that the estimated cost of the project will be between $600 and $700 million, with the launch of the cargo terminal scheduled for 2027.

September 15, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Blinken openly endorses Kiev regime’s attacks on Russia with US-made missiles

By Drago Bosnic | September 15, 2023

As we all know, American involvement in Ukraine is crucial. The United States initiated the war back in 2014 after decades of setting it up by financing the most radical elements of the Ukrainian society, resulting in their takeover of the unfortunate country after the Maidan coup. Since then, the US has been modernizing and training the Kiev regime forces. The culmination of this process was prevented by Russia’s counteroffensive, which forced the political West to invest enormous resources just to keep the Neo-Nazi junta afloat. Since the start of the special military operation (SMO), the political West has been doing everything in its power to keep escalating the conflict.

What started out as deliveries of various types of ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) and MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems) soon turned into full-blown support for the Kiev regime through massive shipments of modernized Warsaw Pact-era weapons (tanks, artillery, rockets, helicopters, fighter jets, etc). These were then complemented by NATO and US-made weapons and munitions, the deliveries of which keep escalating to ever more dangerous and longer-range missiles and other systems. All the while, Western officials are parroting meaningless “assurances” that they supposedly “don’t want escalation with Moscow”. Obviously, the exact opposite has been happening.

These schizophrenic tendencies are not subsiding in the slightest, as evidenced by recent comments made by Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State in the troubled Biden administration. During an interview with ABC News on September 10, Blinken stated that it was supposedly “up to Ukraine” whether or not it should target Russia proper with US-made long-range weapons. The idea that the Kiev regime could ever make such a decision on its own is beyond laughable, which means that it’s the belligerent thalassocracy itself that ordered the Neo-Nazi junta to target civilian and military targets within Russia. Blinken’s statement came only a day after ABC News reported that the US would provide the ATACMS to the Kiev regime.

The MGM-140 ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) is a US-made supersonic tactical/theater ballistic missile system with a maximum range of approximately 300 km. While its range and maximum speed of Mach 3 don’t exactly make it a revolutionary weapon (for instance, Russia’s “Iskander” has twice the range and speed), this is still enough to jeopardize Russian supply lines, as well as civilian settlements deeper within Moscow’s territory. The ATACMS can also be fired from the tracked M270 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System), as well as the wheeled M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), both of which have been delivered to the Neo-Nazi junta forces well over a year ago.

The system comes in five variants of missiles developed since the 1990s. The basic M39 (ATACMS Block I) uses INS (inertial navigation system) and carries 950 M74 APAM (anti-personnel and anti‑materiel) bomblets. Its range is up to 165 km. Production ceased in 1997.

It was replaced by the M39A1 (ATACMS Block IA) with improved GPS guidance. In part due to its smaller warhead carrying 300 M74 APAM bomblets, the range was extended to 300 km. Production ended in 2003.

The M48 (ATACMS Quick Reaction Unitary or simply QRU) GPS-guided missile carries the WDU-18/B penetrating high explosive blast fragmentation warhead found on the “Harpoon” anti-ship missile, only repackaged into the newly designed WAU-23/B warhead section. Its range is also estimated at up to 300 km. Production ceased in 2004.

The updated M57 (ATACMS TACMS 2000) GPS-guided missile of the same range also uses the WAU-23/B, but its production ended in 2013. It sports an increased accuracy of 9 m CEP (circular error probability), but was soon complemented by the enhanced M57E1.

The M57E1 (ATACMS Modification or just MOD) is also GPS-guided and is essentially an upgraded M39/M39A1 with better propulsion, updated guidance and WAU-23/B instead of the M74 APAM bomblets. It also includes a proximity sensor for airburst detonation, which is particularly deadly against infantry and civilians. Production started in 2017.

As previously mentioned, such weapons are not exactly groundbreaking for the Russian military that possesses far more potent missiles, both ground-based and air-launched, but the real issue comes from the fact that the political West is providing the necessary ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) data. This is a significant force multiplier that can make even a relatively mediocre weapon such as the ATACMS more dangerous. Moscow is doing its best to keep the scope of the SMO localized, but NATO continues to escalate, as evidenced by the resurgent presence of its ISR platforms around Russia’s borders, particularly in the Black Sea, which puts the Eurasian giant’s naval forces deployed there in jeopardy.

The Russian military already shot down some of NATO’s ISR platforms, resulting in several months of pause in flights close to the SMO zone. However, the belligerent alliance recently restarted this highly destabilizing practice. Moscow is perfectly aware that the political West controls the Kiev regime’s targeting, even issuing orders which Russian assets are to be attacked. The sole reason why Russia hasn’t responded by shooting down all NATO ISR platforms in relative vicinity of its forces is that it wants to avoid escalating the conflict into a world-ending thermonuclear confrontation. However, the US-led political West sees this as a weakness and an opportunity to test Russian patience, which is slowly running out.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

September 15, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

EU has ‘globalized’ Ukraine crisis – Hungary

RT | September 14, 2023

The European Union’s response to the Ukraine crisis is causing the world to fragment, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has claimed. He added that Budapest wants to see initiatives that can unify states, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The EU “has given a very bad answer to the war in Ukraine that unfortunately seems to be ending up in a world being divided into blocs again,” the Hungarian diplomat told CNBC on the sidelines of the Belt and Road summit in Hong Kong.

Brussels “should have isolated this war, but instead of that the EU has globalized” it, he said in the interview broadcast on Wednesday.

Szijjarto argued that a lack of communication between opposing countries has led to them giving up on achieving peace, while states that benefit from good East-West relations – such as Hungary – have been hurt economically.

The minister contrasted this to how the BRI aims to bring the world together for mutual prosperity and security, which is why Hungary welcomes China’s presence.

He criticized rich Western European nations who are now talking about decoupling from the Chinese economy or “derisking” due to political concerns. Quietly, they seek Chinese investment just like small nations, Szijjarto said.

“They can be hypocritical, they can afford [it],” he argued.

Unlike those countries, Budapest states its foreign policy openly, the diplomat said, warning that if ‘decoupling’ with China were to succeed, it would “kill the European economy.”

The Hungarian government has been a vocal critic of the Western response to the Ukrainian conflict since its outset. It has called for peace talks, while speaking out against sanctioning Russia and arming Ukraine. Most EU nations, following in the US lead, have pledged to support Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Moscow.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine joining NATO ‘would not promote peace’ – ex-French president

RT | September 13, 2023

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned that Ukrainian membership of NATO and the EU “would not promote peace” and would be perceived as a “provocation” by Russia.

Speaking to French news station BFMTV on Wednesday, Sarkozy argued it is in Kiev’s best interests to remain “neutral” regarding Western blocs. The former leader also insisted that diplomacy with Moscow remains the most prudent option for Ukraine to end the current conflict.

“Bringing Ukraine into NATO would not promote peace,” said Sarkozy, who served as French president between 2007 and 2012.

NATO leaders declared at a summit in Lithuania in July that the bloc would only invite Ukraine to become a member “when allies agree and conditions are met.” NATO had already denied Kiev’s calls for a “fast-track” to full membership in September of 2022.

Moscow has frequently expressed its opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion. President Vladimir Putin cited the bloc’s involvement in Ukraine as among the key reasons when Moscow began its military operation against Kiev last year.

Ukraine has also pursued EU membership and was granted formal candidate status in 2022. In June, sources within the bloc told Reuters that Kiev currently meets two of the seven conditions required to be considered for full membership.

Rather than chasing closer ties with the West, Sarkozy told BFMTV there are “two solutions” available to Ukraine and its allies to bring an end to the hostilities. The first, he claimed, is the “annihilation” of Russia – before explaining that this is unrealistic because “we are not going to wipe out the second nuclear power in the world, or the world risks falling into total war.”

According to Sarkozy, a more achievable scenario is “diplomatic discussion.” The former president stated that his experience had given him a clear view of what can be achieved over the negotiating table. “They tell me Putin has changed and [that] we cannot have discussions with him,” Sarkozy said. “Those who say that are generally those who have never met him.”

Sarkozy reiterated to BFMTV his stance that Ukraine should pursue firm neutrality in its relationships with Russia and the West, arguing: “When you wave the muleta under the bull’s nose, you shouldn’t be surprised if he attacks.”

Sarkozy’s comments follow the backlash he received for an interview with French publication Le Figaro last month, in which he said Kiev should disregard joining NATO or the EU in favor of “an international agreement providing it with extremely strong security assurances to protect it against any risk.”

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Medical chief of Ukrainian Far-Right unit admits “huge losses” on the frontline

By Ahmed Adel | September 14, 2023

The head of the medical service of the Far-Right unit Da Vinci’s Wolves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alina Mykhailova, spoke about the difficult situation and, even more surprisingly, admitted to huge losses on the front.

“We are suffering great losses. There is no romance in this. What is happening at the front now is something you will not read in the news,” she said in an interview with Ukrainian media on September 12.

Mykhailova added that for the first time in her life, she was ready to give up absolutely everything and talk to anyone so that her battalion would survive. She also admitted that there is no prospect of a Ukrainian victory in the near future.

“The population is very calm with statements that today or tomorrow there will be victory. It will not happen today, nor tomorrow, nor, unfortunately, in a year,” Mykhailova, who is also a deputy in the Kiev City Council, concluded.

Since the beginning of June, the Ukrainian military has been conducting a counteroffensive in Donetsk, Artyomovsk and Zaporozhye with NATO-trained brigades and Western military equipment. However, they have achieved no success.

Although Mykhailova did not give a casualty figure, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently revealed that the counteroffensive has stalled and led to over 75,500 Ukrainian casualties – shocking for only four months of active combat. Many American and European journalists and military experts also argue that Kiev’s counteroffensive failed and noted the effectiveness of Russian defences.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley pointed out on September 10 that Ukraine may only have about 30-45 days of fighting left. However, despite this small timeframe left in the regular fighting season and the huge losses suffered by Kiev, the US and NATO are not fazed and continue to send more military shipments and money into the financial blackhole that Ukraine has become.

The Ukrainian military will be unable to advance any further from their already paltry gains once the season changes. Ukraine and the West have exhausted their ammunition stockpile, and they cannot get supplies quickly enough. Effectively, the Ukrainians cannot do much at this point, even if they want to.

Despite the Ukrainians not being able to do much at this point, as affirmed by Mykhailova, it did not prevent Milley from falsely claiming, “There’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren’t done. There’s battles not done… they haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish.”

The West wants to see the offensive continue even though it has very evidently failed. For this reason, the US continues to increase aid even further, and the indications are that the West will continue this or at least try to sustain it.

US President Joe Biden has provided Kiev with $43.7 billion in military aid since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Recently, the US announced a new security package worth $600 million for Ukraine, which will include ammunition and anti-aircraft equipment.

By providing such equipment, Washington hopes to coerce Kiev to continue the offensive for another 30 days, perhaps even through the winter. For this reason, there has been a huge uptick in rhetoric about Ukraine supposedly breaking Russia’s first line of defence and making slow but steady gains. None of this corresponds with reality.

In the US, most people do not support the current policy of sending more money down the drain in Ukraine. Considering the 2024 presidential election, the Biden administration is under domestic pressure from a chorus of voices calling for a focus on domestic issues. This could be part of the West’s attempt to transfer responsibility for the failure of the counteroffensive to Ukraine itself.

The US has brazenly admitted it worked with the Ukrainians to plan the offensive for months, arming and training the military. Now, the West is criticising Ukraine for its failures.

As US elections are looming and Ukraine cannot win the war, the Biden administration needs to shift the blame and is pinning it directly on the Eastern European country. This demonstrates the confused nature of US policy as, on one hand, it is encouraging Ukraine to continue fighting by sending more weapons and money, but at the same time, narratives are being concocted to explain to US voters why billions of dollars have been wasted on a lost cause. Meanwhile, as Mykhailova highlighted, “there is no romance,” nor any victory for Ukraine through this war.

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

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The New York Times Confirmed That Russia Is Far Ahead Of NATO In The Race Of Logistics

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg belatedly admitted in mid-February that his bloc is in a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia, and over half a year later, the New York Times (NYT) just confirmed that Moscow is far ahead in this competition. Here are the relevant highlights from their latest article about how “Russia Overcomes Sanctions to Expand Missile Production, Officials Say”, which will then be analyzed to update readers about the latest dynamics of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.

———-

* Russia’s military-industrial complex is performing better than ever

– “Russia has managed to overcome sanctions and export controls imposed by the West to expand its missile production beyond prewar levels, according to U.S., European and Ukrainian officials, leaving Ukraine especially vulnerable to intensified attacks in the coming months.”

* Its military-intelligence services are responsible for this astounding success

– “Russia subverted American export controls using its intelligence services and ministry of defense to run illicit networks of people who smuggle key components by exporting them to other countries from which they can be shipped to Russia more easily. “

*  Ukraine should brace itself for a nationwide missile onslaught

– “Officials fear that increased missile stocks could mean an especially dark and cold winter for Ukrainian citizens…Ukraine does not have enough air defense systems to cover the entire country, and must pick the sites it defends. An increased barrage of missiles could overwhelm the country’s air defenses”.

* Russia has successfully transitioned to a wartime economy

– “Today, Russian officials have remade their economy to focus on defense production…The senior Western defense official said that Russia had reallocated nearly a third of its commercial economy toward arms production.”

* Its artillery production is a whopping 7x more than NATO’s

– “As a result of the push, Russia is now producing more ammunition than the United States and Europe. Overall, Kusti Salm, a senior Estonian defense ministry official, estimated that Russia’s current ammunition production is seven times greater than that of the West.”

* And its shells cost 10x less to produce

– “It costs a Western country $5,000 to $6,000 to make a 155-millimeter artillery round, whereas it costs Russia about $600 to produce a comparable 152-millimeter artillery shell, he said.”

* Russia also now has more of some missile types than it did before the special operation

– “It does not have huge inventories of missiles, though they have more of some kinds — like the Kh-55 air-launched cruise missile — in stock now than they did at the beginning of the war, according to people briefed on intelligence reports.”

* Several backpacks’ worth of smuggled chips can make several hundred cruise missiles

– “In cases where Russia needs millions of one particular component, export controls can grind production to a halt. But the chips needed to make a couple of hundred cruise missiles would fit into a few backpacks, which makes evading sanctions relatively simple, Mr. Alperovitch said.”

* And only basic and widely available chips are needed, not high-tech and ultra-restricted ones

– “One of the challenges for the U.S. government is that Russia does not need higher-end chips that are easier to track, but commoditized chips that can be used in a wide range of things, not just guided missiles.”

* Russia is reportedly looking to North Korea to further bolster its arsenal

– “Even though Russia is on pace to produce two million rounds of ammunition a year, it fired about 10 million rounds of artillery last year. That has led Moscow to desperately search for alternative sources to increase its stocks, most recently by trying to secure a weapons deal with North Korea, U.S. and Western officials said.”

* That country or others could also theoretically help Russia procure additional materials

– “And although Moscow has been successful in smuggling processors and circuit boards, it is facing a shortage of rocket propellant and basic explosives, American officials said, material that can be harder to smuggle than circuit boards. Those shortages are likely to constrain Moscow if it tries to step up further production of ammunition, missiles or bombs.”

* North Korea can also help Russia fill potential labor shortages in its military-industrial complex

– “The country faces a labor shortage that could make further industrial gains harder to achieve too.”

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North Korea Can Make Everything Even Worse For NATO

The NYT’s latest report proves that the West’s sanctions policy failed to curtail Russia’s military-industrial production, which actually ended up surging over the past 18 months as a result of clandestine procurement and the successful transition to a wartime economy. Moreover, whatever gaps still exist in production, material, and labor can conveniently be addressed by North Korea, thus adding crucial strategic context to Kim Jong Un’s visit earlier this week.

The preceding hyperlinked analysis elaborates more on this in detail, but the pertinent takeaway to the present piece is that Russia appears willing to share high-level military technology with North Korea across a variety of domains from submarines to satellites in exchange for ammo, materials, and labor. Regarding the last-mentioned aspect of their potential deal, the NYT reported earlier this year that North Korean workers are performing various jobs in Russia’s Far East region.

The Argument For Importing (More?) North Korean Labor

They of course framed this a form of “slavery” that also violates UNSC sanctions, but in the event that there’s any truth to the gist of their report regarding the continued presence of these laborers in Russia, then it could set the basis for importing more to work in that country’s military-industrial complex. After all, some of the tasks required are rather menial, so any potential labor shortage could be filled by low-skilled foreign workers who don’t have to speak Russian to perform their jobs.

Professor Artyom Lukin from Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University hinted at this in his interview with Sputnik on Wednesday: “Lukin postulated that there is a considerable need of workers in the Russian Far East and Siberia, and that North Korea may provide a solution to this problem by supplying labor to Russia. ‘I would venture a guess that in the following months we may see North Korean workers at construction sites and in the fields in Russia.’”

UNSC International Obligations vs. Russian National Security

Even though he was talking about their involvement in other industries, the point is that this esteemed expert from one of Russia’s top universities specializing in regional affairs extended credence to the prediction that Kim Jong Un’s visit could lead to (more?) North Korean laborers in his country. As was earlier argued, they could easily be put to work in Russia’s military-industrial complex if needed, which would adequately address whatever labor shortages it might be experiencing right now.

Although President Putin and his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s cooperation with North Korea will comply with the UNSC sanctions that Moscow previously approved, the case can be made that its international obligations won’t take precedence over national security needs. If the Kremlin concludes that ignoring those obligations could protect its people, help make progress on the special operation, and thus accelerate the global systemic transition, then it’ll cut “prohibited” deals with North Korea.

The Rationale For Russian-North Korean Strategic Relations

Kim Jong Un’s proclamation that “Relations with the Russian Federation is the main priority for our country at present” strongly suggests that he shares this view, which is likely why he made his trip in the first place. The North Korean leader knows that China won’t risk the threat of Western sanctions by going against its UNSC obligations to give him the high-level military technology that he needs, but Russia has nothing to fear in this respect and is therefore open to a deal if he helps meet its needs too.

Circling back to the NYT’s piece, Russia’s commanding lead in its “race of logistics” with NATO will grow even further in the event that a “prohibited” military deal with North Korea results in addressing whatever production, material, and/or labor gaps might still exist. Should that happen, then Russia would be in the best possible position to launch another ground offensive in the coming future and/or resume last fall’s strategic strike campaign aimed at crippling Ukrainian infrastructure.

Concluding Thoughts

The purpose in doing so would be to maximally pressure the West into forcing Zelensky to agree to freeze the conflict or formally return to the peace talks that they sabotaged in spring 2022, which he already fears that they might do as evidenced by an analysis of his latest interview with The Economist. If they refuse to comply with Russia’s implied demand, then they’d risk the scenario of it achieving a breakthrough sometime next year powered by the support that Pyongyang might soon provide.

Despite this drastically raising the odds that their proxy war on Russia will end in an Afghan-like disaster, the US’ liberal–globalist policymaking faction might still refuse to settle for a ceasefire, thus either making the aforesaid breakthrough a fait accompli or prompting them to unprecedentedly escalate. It remains to be seen which of these two scenarios will unfold, but either way, Russia’s lead in its “race of logistics” with NATO will continue growing and ultimately be a game-changer one way or the other.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Kim Traveling to Russia to Meet Putin, US Threatens Response

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | September 11, 2023

North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is traveling to eastern Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin. Washington threatened to increase sanctions on Pyongyang in response.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, described the meeting as a full-state visit. “There will be talks between the two delegations. And after that, if necessary, the leaders will continue their communication in a one-on-one format,” he said. “We will continue to strengthen our friendship.” The leaders will meet in Vladivostok. South Korea says Kim is currently traveling to Russia by train.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington plans to respond “aggressively.” “I will remind both countries that any transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia would be in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions.” He continued, “We, of course, have aggressively enforced our sanctions against entities that fund Russia’s war effort, and we will continue to enforce those sanctions and will not hesitate to impose new sanctions if appropriate.”

It is unclear what new sanctions the US could place on North Korea that would further isolate Pyongyang. The Treasury Department has already placed thousands of penalties against North Korean officials, government offices, and industries on the blacklist.

The New York Times reports that Kim is expected to agree to supply Russia with weapons, including artillery shells. Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokeswoman, demanded the North Korean leader not discuss the issue with his Russian counterpart. “We urge [North Korea] to cease its arms negotiations with Russia and abide by the public commitments that Pyongyang has made to not provide or sell arms to Russia,” she said.

Pyongyang is believed to have significant stockpiles of shells and production capacity. On the Ukrainian battlefield, artillery has become crucial. Western countries have begun to run out of 155mm rounds to send to Ukraine, prompting President Joe Biden to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions to cover the shortage.

Currently, NATO states are producing less artillery than Ukraine is using. With Ukraine’s counteroffensive stalled, the war appears likely to draw on into the foreseeable future.

In July, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to North Korea to meet with Kim. South Korean intelligence claims Moscow offered to allow Pyongyang to participate in trilateral war games with Beijing.

Washington’s sanctions campaigns against several states are becoming counter-effective. The US is currently attempting to smash the governments of Russia, Afghanistan, North Korea, Syria, Nicaragua, Iran, and Venezuela through economic warfare. However, in response, those countries have increasingly engaged in non-dollar trade to bypass American sanctions. Additionally, other countries such as China, India, and Brazil have become willing to ignore the Treasury’s blacklists and trade with sanctioned nations.

September 12, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

The Reported Russian-North Korean Military Deal Is All About Geostrategic Balancing

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

Many observers believe that Russia and North Korea have decided to strengthen their military ties due to shared threats from the West. Reports claim that they’re exploring a swap whereby Russia would share hypersonic, nuclear, satellite, and submarine technology with North Korea in exchange for Soviet-era ammunition and artillery. The first part of this deal would balance the emerging US-South Korean-Japanese triangle while the second would keep Russia’s special operation going into next year.

There’s likely a lot of truth to this assessment since it makes sense for them to help each other against their shared opponents in the New Cold War, but there’s more to it than just that. For starters, the preceding report about their impending swap doesn’t account for Russia’s growing edge in its “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with NATO that’s responsible for defeating Kiev’s counteroffensive. Even without North Korea’s Soviet-era supplies, Russia is still impressively holding its own against all of NATO.

This proves that Russia’s military-industrial complex (MIC) already meets its needs in the present and beyond, thus raising the question of why Russia would countenance a military deal with North Korea in the first place, let alone such a seemingly lopsided one. A cogent explanation is that Russia’s MIC might struggle in that scenario to meet its military-technical obligations to third parties, ergo the need to purchase lower-quality supplies so that production facilities can prioritize higher-quality exports.

Even if that’s the case, then it doesn’t answer the question of why Russia would be willing to share such potentially game-changing military technology with North Korea for these supplies instead of simply paying for them with hard currency, nor why it either can’t or won’t try to get them from China. Likewise, one might also wonder why North Korea can’t receive the aforesaid military technology from China and would have to request it from Russia as part of their reported swap.

The answer to those three questions concerns China’s reluctance to burn all bridges with the West as well as Russia and North Korea’s shared interests in preemptively averting potentially disproportionate dependence on the People’s Republic. Beginning with the first balancing act, while President Xi arguably envisages China leading the creation of alternative global institutions as strongly suggested by his decision to skip last weekend’s G20 Summit in Delhi, he’d prefer for this to be a smooth process.

Any abrupt bifurcation/”decoupling” would destabilize the global economy and therefore sabotage his country’s export-driven growth, but the US might force this scenario in response to China’s large-scale arming of Russia and/or transfer of game-changing military technology to North Korea. For that reason, President Xi likely wouldn’t agree to either of those two deals except if they were urgently required to prevent their defeat by the West, but neither is facing that threat so China won’t risk the consequences.

As for the second part of this balancing act, even if President Xi offered to meet Russia’s and North Korea’s military needs, those two would still probably prefer to rely on one another for them instead of China in order to not become disproportionately dependent on the People’s Republic. Both regard that country as one of the top strategic partners anywhere in the world, but each would feel uncomfortable if they entered into relationship where Beijing plays too big of a role in ensuring their national security.

From Russia’s perspective, it’s a matter of principle to never become disproportionately dependent on any given partner since such ties could curtail the Kremlin’s foreign policy sovereignty even if its counterpart doesn’t have any nefarious intent. In the Chinese context, relations of that nature might make some policymakers less interested in maintaining their country’s balancing act between China and India, thus leading to them subconsciously favoring Beijing and pushing Delhi closer to Washington.

Should that happen, then the global systemic transition to multipolarity would revert back towards bipolarity (or rather bi-multipolarity) as Russia turbocharges China’s superpower trajectory in parallel with India helping the US retain its declining hegemony. The result would be that only those two superpowers would enjoy genuine sovereignty while everyone else’s would be greatly limited by the natural dynamics of their competition. Russia obviously wants to avoid this scenario at all costs.

Unlike Russia’s global interests, North Korea’s are purely national, but they’re still complementary to Moscow’s. Pyongyang had been disproportionately dependent on Beijing since the end of the Old Cold War after the USSR collapsed, but China later leveraged this relationship to expand ties with the West by approving UNSC sanctions against North Korea. Russia did the same for identical reasons, but North Korea wasn’t dependent on Russia so Pyongyang didn’t hold a grudge against Moscow like it did Beijing.

It was this growing distrust of China that inspired Kim Jong Un to seriously explore Trump’s ultimately unsuccessful de-nuclearization proposal in order to rebalance his country’s relations with the People’s Republic. The same motivation was why Myanmar agreed to a rapprochement with the US under Obama that also ultimately failed. Both countries felt that their disproportionate dependence on China was disadvantageous and accordingly sought to rectify it by rebalancing ties with the US.

Since the American dimension of their balancing acts didn’t bear any fruit and is no longer viable, each is now looking towards Russia to play that same role in helping them relieve their disproportionate dependence on China. Russian-Myanmarese relations were explained here while Russian-North Korean ones will now be elaborated on a bit more. From Pyongyang’s perspective, even if Beijing gave it game-changing military technology, this could always be cut off one day if China reached a deal with the US.

In fact, China probably wouldn’t consider giving North Korea such technology anyhow since that could make it more difficult for Beijing to ever leverage its influence over Pyongyang again in pursuit of such a deal with Washington, thus limiting China’s own foreign policy sovereignty. The likelihood of Russia reaching a major deal with the US anytime soon is close to nil after all that’s unfolded over the past 18 months, so North Korea believes that Russia will be a much more reliable long-term military partner.

Russia and North Korea’s complementary balancing acts at the global and national levels vis-a-vis China coupled with China’s reluctance to burn all bridges with the West as it begins building alternative global institutions are the real driving forces behind the first two’s reported military deal. This grand strategic insight enables one to better understand the true state of relations between these countries and therefore helps objective observers produce more accurate analyses about them going forward.

September 12, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

IAEA sees no problem with depleted uranium weaponry – Grossi

RT | September 11, 2023

There are “no significant radiological consequences” to the use of depleted uranium ammunition, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi has declared. Russia insists that Grossi is “not telling the whole story.”

“From a nuclear safety point of view there are no significant radiological consequences” to the use of this ammunition, Grossi told reporters during a briefing on Monday.

“Maybe in some very specific cases, people near a place that was hit with this kind of ammunition, there could be contamination,” he continued, adding that “this is more of a health issue of a normal nature than a potential radiological crisis.”

Depleted uranium is used to make the hardened cores of certain armor-piercing tank and autocannon rounds. Although it is not highly radioactive, uranium is still a toxic metal, and this metal is turned into a potentially hazardous aerosol when a depleted uranium round strikes its target.

US forces utilized depleted uranium tank shells during the 1991 Gulf War, reportedly causing a spike in birth defects, autoimmune disorders, and cancer cases in Iraq over the following decades. NATO also used depleted uranium in its 1999 air campaign against Yugoslavia. Earlier this year, Serbian Health Minister Danica Grujicic described the carcinogenic consequences of this ammunition on the Serb population a “horrible and inhumane experiment.”

The UK began supplying Ukraine with depleted uranium tank shells in March, while the US announced last week that it would send depleted uranium ammunition for its M1 Abrams tanks, which are expected to arrive in Ukraine in the coming weeks.

By focusing on the issue from a nuclear safety point of view, Grossi was being deliberately disingenuous, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram on Monday.

“Mr. Grossi is, of course, right in saying that there are no significant radiological consequences from the standpoint of ‘nuclear safety,” she wrote. “It’s likewise obvious, though, that he is not telling the whole story.”

Zakharova pointed out that depleted uranium releases “extremely toxic aerosols” when ignited and vaporized. “Perhaps this is beyond Mr. Grossi’s expertise as head of the IAEA,” she concluded. “This question should be addressed to chemists, who will tell us about the harmful effects of heavy metal accumulation on the environment and human health.”

Russian forces claim to have destroyed at least one warehouse in Ukraine containing British depleted uranium shells. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned last week that the West will ultimately be responsible when this ammunition “inevitably” contaminates Ukrainian land.

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

Did Musk really prevent ‘Crimean mini-Pearl Harbor’?

By Drago Bosnic | September 11, 2023

Elon Musk is often portrayed as a controversial figure by the mainstream propaganda machine, while the more alternative media try to present him as some sort of an “anti-establishment hero”. He was previously even targeted by the Kiev regime for allegedly refusing to provide his Starlink network assets for military purposes. It’s unclear what his exact motivation to do so was (or whether he even did it in the first place), but it can be assumed that he was afraid of stoking the anger of Russia, a military superpower armed with anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons. What’s more, China, one of the largest and most important markets (as well as the base of operations) for several of Musk’s companies, also threatened to deploy its own ASAT weapons in case the Starlink network were to be used against Beijing’s forces in a potential confrontation in the Asia-Pacific.

In recent days, several media outlets claimed that Musk allegedly ordered SpaceX engineers to covertly turn off the Starlink network near the coast of Crimea last year to disrupt what is being described as a “mini-Pearl Harbor” sneak attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The theory is based on an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography titled “Elon Musk”. According to Isaacson’s writings, sea drones launched by the Neo-Nazi junta were about to approach the ships of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, but “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly”. Musk’s reasoning was allegedly based on “an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials”. There is no solid evidence for Isaacson’s claims or that Musk ever spoke to any Russian officials.

The idea that Russia would respond with nuclear weapons is a very common trope used by the mainstream propaganda machine which is trying to present Moscow as incapable of accomplishing anything without using the “nuclear card”. However, the Eurasian giant has already demonstrated its ability to disrupt Musk’s much-touted Starlink network with electronic warfare (EW) assets. On the other hand, even Western media admitted that NATO’s ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) platforms were to provide direct support to Kiev regime forces during this “mini-Pearl Harbor”. It was due to this that Musk allegedly pulled the plug, as he believed it would’ve caused World War Three. However, had he truly disrupted such an important military operation led by the United States and NATO, the likelihood of him walking free is near zero.

In simpler terms, no sovereign country would allow a civilian to interfere with (let alone prevent) military operations, especially not those of such a scale. Thus, Musk’s claims about this “mini-Pearl Harbor” are questionable, at best. According to CNN, Musk did not respond to their request for comment, although he responded to the excerpt from Isaacson’s book on Twitter (now officially known as X). Namely, he stated that Starlink was never active over Crimea and that the Neo-Nazi junta supposedly made an “emergency request” to SpaceX, asking them to turn it on.

“There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol,” Musk stated, adding: “The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

Not wanting to cause escalation that could turn into a world-ending thermonuclear conflict is certainly commendable – if that’s what actually happened. However, Musk’s close cooperation with the Pentagon casts serious doubts on the claims that he’s trying to “save the world”. In fact, even Musk’s insistence that SpaceX was supposedly “donating” tens of thousands of Starlink terminals to the Neo-Nazi junta proved to be bogus, as several sources revealed that the US government covertly paid for them, specifically through USAID, a State Department agency that regularly serves as a regime-change tool used by Washington DC’s extensive global intelligence network.

What’s more, even Isaacson himself admitted that SpaceX made a deal with the US and EU that resulted in another 100,000 new satellite dishes being sent to the Kiev regime in early 2023. However, as the Russian military finds new ways to disrupt the network, SpaceX signed new contracts with the Pentagon, including the official militarization of the network that is supposed to turn it into Starshield. And this is far from the only military contract Musk has. SpaceX itself relies almost solely on government contracts, particularly when it comes to putting satellites in orbit. Expectedly, civilians aren’t exactly interested (or legally allowed) to launch rockets strapped with spy satellites. But governments, especially their ministries of defense, certainly are.

SpaceX is also engaged in close cooperation with other companies from the infamous US Military Industrial Complex (MIC), such as its current flagship, the notorious Lockheed Martin. Namely, back in 2018, SpaceX was contracted to launch Lockheed Martin’s GPS satellites into orbit, a project worth over half a billion dollars. The USAF claimed that the project would supposedly benefit civilians, increasing the accuracy of GPS devices, but the very fact that one of the most powerful branches of the US military was behind it tells us all we need to know. The very idea that an organization whose main purpose is killing people with its numerous airborne platforms is solely interested in providing us with better Google Maps accuracy is simply laughable.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

September 11, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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