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UKRAINE CLAIM OF ATTACK ON RUSSIAN SHIP, THE IVAN KHURS, DEBUNKED

By Larry Johnson | SONAR | May 26, 2023

Let’s give the Ukrainian Government of Volodomyr Zelensky credit for one thing — they are world class liars. Yesterday I wrote about the attempted attack on the Russian ship, the Ivan Khurs, by three maritime drones and simply acknowledged that there was a video that claimed to show one of the drones hitting a ship. It was implied that the ship was the Ivan Khurs but there was no identifying information to corroborate the claim.

Today we know the truth. Ukraine lied. The Ivan Khurs pulled into port in the Black Sea on its own power with no visible damage.

This is a consistent pattern for Ukraine. Remember the Ghost of Kiev? That intrepid Ukrainian ace that allegedly shot down six Russian combat aircraft during the first month of the Special Military Operation? Turns out that was footage lifted from a video game and most of the Western media, not to mention several gullible politicians, gobbled up the lie and exulted over Ukraine’s faux victory.

Normally a person or institution regularly exposed as a prevaricator would be denounced and ignored. But not Ukraine. Zelensky and company insisted a year ago that Russia had not taken Mariupol despite conclusive video evidence of the remnants of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi AZOV battalion surrendering to the Russian Chechens as they limped out of the Azovstal steel plant.

Rinse and repeat with Bakhmut. Russia’s Wagner Group was busy hoisting victory flags over the fallen city while Ukrainian political and military leaders continued to insist that their boys were still in the fight. Nope, they were dead, captured or retreating. It was only today that a Ukrainian official, ex-Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, finally conceded that Bakhmut was kaput.

The lies and self-delusion are not restricted to Ukraine. In the United States a bi-partisan group of legislators called on Dementia Joe to send Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Ukraine:

Yesterday, members of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Chairman Representative Joe Wilson (SC-02), Ranking Member Representative Steve Cohen (TN-09) and Commissioner Representative Victoria Spartz (IN-05) sent a letter to President Biden, requesting he grants the transfer of MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Ukraine.

In the letter, Commissioners thank the Administration for its beginning steps on getting F-16s to Ukrainian defenders and emphasize the importance of ATACMS on targeting Russian frontlines in occupied Ukraine as well as pushing back Russian supply chain systems which fuel their genocidal war. During the Commissioners’ recent trip to Ukraine and meeting with President Zelensky, ATACMS were requested for an immediate battlefield advantage. These powerful weapons could provide the advantage Ukraine needs to secure its freedom, and the only remaining hurdle to their delivery is the President’s approval.

This should put Russia and China on notice that it is not just Joe Biden and his inept National Security team that are intent on escalating the war in Ukraine. There also is a vocal, bipartisan group of legislators who are pressing to expand the war and are oblivious to the risk inherent in their proposal of Russian retaliation. The Washington Establishment is still willing to bet the lives of Ukrainians on their illusory vision that Russia is teetering towards defeat and their belief that Ukraine is just one Wunderwaffen miracle weapon from total victory.

I am sad to report to those of you who live outside of the Untied States that most Americans are clueless about the implications of the United States apparent strategy of escalation. Most assume that if Russia can bomb Ukrainian cities then fair play dictates that Ukraine should be able to do the same. The point they miss is that Ukraine is incapable of such attacks without the help of the United States and other NATO countries. Increasing Ukraine’s ability to strike further inside Russian territory will inevitably lead Russia to retaliate against those responsible for making those attacks possible. That means an inevitable clash with NATO. I believe that the United States should be doing everything in its power to avoid that. But it is doing the exact opposite and the potential for something terrible looms larger with each passing day.

May 27, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Crimea referendum result was ‘legitimate’ – Le Pen

RT | May 25, 2023

The 2014 referendum accurately reflected the will of the people living in Crimea to join Russia, Marine Le Pen said on Wednesday, addressing an inquiry before the French National Assembly.

“I fully support the referendum,” Le Pen told the lawmakers. “I think that Crimea’s residents expressed their will freely by a vote, in order to reunite with Russia. I think that it was absolutely legitimate.”

Le Pen explained that her position on the peninsula has consistently remained that it was Russian long before it was “given away” to Ukraine “at the whim of a dictator” for sixty years, in reference to the decision of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to redraw internal borders in 1954. The Russian Empire had acquired Crimea from the Ottomans in the 18th century.

She also pointed out that there were no refugees from Crimea after the referendum, that Crimean residents themselves freely told her their preference when she visited, and that the West never offered to organize another plebiscite to verify the result of the one they challenged.

Crimeans organized a referendum in March 2014, shortly after a US-backed coup installed a government of Ukrainian nationalist in Kiev. The result showed overwhelming support for rejoining Russia, which Moscow accepted. Meanwhile, the Kiev government violently crushed dissent in Odessa and Kharkov regions, and sent troops against Donetsk and Lugansk.

The National Rally leader appeared before a parliamentary commission investigating “Russian influence” in France, to address accusations that her party took two loans from a Russian bank. Le Pen explained that she turned to Russian banks because no French or EU banks wanted to work with her party, and that the purely business arrangement did not make her an agent of Moscow.

President Emmanuel Macron brought up the loans to attack Le Pen during the 2022 re-election campaign. She lost the runoff by a 17-point margin, but last month’s polls showed her 10 points ahead of Macron in a hypothetical rematch.

Le Pen’s insistence that the Crimean return to Russia was not an “illegal annexation,” expressed in January 2017 to France’s BFMTV and in February to CNN, earned her a ban on entering Ukraine by the government in Kiev.

The current government has vowed to ban the Russian language and expel anyone suspected of “collaboration” with Moscow once it seizes Crimea, which Kiev has announced as one of its war aims.

“As soon as we enter, we must eradicate everything Russian in Crimea,” Mikhail Podoliak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, told the US government-controlled RFE/RL last month.

May 24, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

The Devil’s In The Details When It Comes To Pashinyan’s Karabakh Peace Proposal

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 23, 2023

Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan proposed recognizing Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in full in exchange for it doing the same to his country, though the caveat is that he’ll only do so if the security of local Armenians there is guaranteed. This naturally raises the question of how to satisfy his requirement in a way that’s also acceptable to Azerbaijan, with one possibility being to prolong the deployment of Russia’s peacekeepers there.

It can’t be taken for granted that Azerbaijan would approve of this for the extended period of time that Pashinyan appears to be implying is required to guarantee their safety, however, since it appears to be growing frustrated with the status quo. Azerbaijan only agreed to the presence of these forces in November 2020 because it expected that they’d expedite the removal of Armenian forces in parallel with facilitating the reasserting of the state’s sovereignty over the rest of its territory.

That outcome hasn’t yet materialized, and instead, these South Caucasus rivals have even clashed several times along their internationally recognized border. Armenia also accuses Azerbaijan of violating the same Moscow-mediated ceasefire that it agreed to after self-described “activists” blocked the Lachin Corridor, while Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of doing the same by still launching attacks from Karabakh. These factors have combined to make many worry about whether another war might soon erupt.

As a self-respecting state, Azerbaijan regards it as offensive for Armenia to hint that it can’t guarantee the security of its citizens, which includes those Armenians who’ve been in Karabakh since Soviet times but not those who moved to the region as colonists after its occupation by neighboring Armenia. Its rising confidence and regional prestige as a result of its victory two and a half years ago reduces the chances that Azerbaijan would agree to prolong the deployment of Russia’s peacekeepers.

Those calculations indirectly pose a problem for Russian-Armenian relations since Moscow must prove its military-security worth to Yerevan in order to prevent its “defection” from the CSTO, with the scenario of it prolonging the deployment of its peacekeepers in Azerbaijan being the best way to do so. Armenia surprised Russia by participating in joint NATO drills last month, which was followed by its Deputy Foreign Minister revealing this month that it contemplated leaving the CSTO last September.

Pashinyan added earlier this week that Armenia’s withdrawal might indeed still happen if it concludes that the CSTO has “become a non-functional organization”, which prompted Kremlin spokesman Peskov to promise that Russia will retain relevant dialogue with its partner in an effort to prevent this. The unstated threat that was just conveyed by Yerevan is that it’ll ditch the CSTO and thus deal a major blow to Moscow if Russia can’t convince Azerbaijan to guarantee the security of Armenians there.

In the event that Armenia “defects” from this Russian-led military-security bloc, then it would immediately raise questions about Moscow’s reliability to its other partners such as those in Central Asia, thus possibly emboldening those countries to distance themselves from it too like the West wants. With Armenia out of the CSTO, it might then apply for expedited entry into NATO, which could possibly lead to it and Georgia joining together like was supposed to be the case with Finland and Sweden.

Russia must therefore do its utmost to avert this dark scenario from unfolding, to which end it’s pressed to politically resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict once and for all as soon as possible before Yerevan’s patience runs out. That said, it wouldn’t be in Armenia’s best interests to ditch the CSTO until it gets what it wants since otherwise it’ll be without Russia’s protection if Azerbaijan and/or Turkiye decide to invade its internationally recognized territory in order to resolve this conflict on their own terms.

Nevertheless, it might end up being the case that Armenia could secretly reach an agreement with the US for the latter to extend security assurances to it prior to that country’s membership in NATO upon it formally announcing its withdrawal from the CSTO and intention to join that enemy bloc. The precedent for doing so was already established last May after the US gave exactly these sort of assurances to Finland and Sweden until they joined NATO, which is still relevant to the latter since it hasn’t yet done so.

Russia’s challenge is therefore threefold since it must: 1) broker a sustainable peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan as soon as possible to preempt Yerevan’s “defection” from the CSTO on the pretext that this group is “non-functional”; 2) to which end Moscow must likely get Baku to agree to at least prolong the presence of Russian peacekeepers for the next few years; and 3) then ensure that Armenia still doesn’t “defect” from that bloc after it already gets what it wants from Russia.

Each of these tasks presents a formidable challenge in and of themselves, let alone having to be tackled all at once due to Armenia hinting that it’ll dump the CSTO if it doesn’t get what it wants sometime soon, and not to mention that this is happening amidst Russia’s ongoing special operation. Even so, if there’s any country whose diplomats are capable of rising to the occasion, it’s Russia’s. This doesn’t mean that they’ll succeed, but just that nobody should doubt that they’ll give this their best shot.

May 24, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Russian vessel attacked by Ukrainian sea drones off Bosporus – MOD

RT | May 24, 2023

The Russian Navy’s reconnaissance ship, ‘Ivan Churs’, has been attacked by three unmanned speed boats launched by the Ukrainian military, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

The vessel was targeted early in the morning by the drones in Türkiye’s exclusive economic zone, some 140km (86 miles) to the northeast of the Bosporus Strait, the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, said during a daily briefing.

The ship was patrolling areas near the TurkStream and Blue Stream natural gas pipelines, Konashenkov noted, adding that the naval patrols were deployed after the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last September.

“All of the enemy boats were destroyed by fire with the onboard weapons of the Russian ship,” the spokesman added.

The military shared footage of the incident, showing a small, black speedboat coming under large-caliber gunfire. The vessel suffers a direct hit and explodes, leaving a plume of black smoke on the water.

May 24, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Betting on Russian Submission? Don’t Roll Those Dice

By Derek Wheeler | The Libertarian Institute | May 23, 2023

As we enjoy our lives within the neocon utopia that’s been carefully crafted for us, let us set aside, for a moment, all basic morality and the natural rights of life, liberty, and property. Surely, if we put on the same hegemonic blinders worn by the likes of John Kirby, Victoria Nuland, Lindsey Graham and the rest, their plans in Ukraine will make perfect sense.

In his February 2022 speech concerning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden said, “Today, I’m authorizing additional strong sanctions and new limitations on what can be exported to Russia. This is going to impose severe costs on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time.” In an April 2022 speech to reporters in Kiev, Defense Secretary Austin expanded on this sentiment, explaining, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine. So it has already lost a lot of military capability. And a lot of its troops, quite frankly. And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”

Essentially, the U.S. government’s goal has been to drain Russia of personnel, financial and military resources, the end result being preservation of the unipolar world. Doesn’t seem like a bad plan—as long as you ignore the human toll. However, there are multiple historical precedents that provide insight into whether or not this plan can work.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Non Aggression Pact was hashed out in summer 1939 between the USSR and Nazi Germany, wherein secret protocols allowed both sides to dominate eastern Europe without fear of reprisal from each other. Not long after, of course, Germany invaded Poland from the west, followed by the Soviet invasion from the east.

Stalin knew he couldn’t trust Hitler, and became increasingly concerned that Finland may be used as a base to launch an attack. But the Soviets were unprepared for such an assault. Due mostly to the Bolshevik collectivization of agriculture, an extensive famine began in 1930, which included the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. The result would be upwards of 5 million deaths in Ukraine and 8 million overall. Just a few years later, Stalin would begin the Great Purge, killing somewhere in the range of one million of his own people. This didn’t just include religious leaders, Trotsky supporters, and Kulaks (landowning farmers), but the majority of marshals, commanders, and admirals in the Red Army.

After failed negotiations with Finland—due to unreasonable requests which would have undermined their sovereignty—Stalin invaded, kicking off the Winter War in November 1939. Although a spring offensive may have fared better, Stalin was worried about possible threats to his defense industry, of which 30-35 percent was housed in Leningrad, the second Soviet capital near the Finnish border. He felt they couldn’t wait, stating in an April 1940 debriefing, “It would be great stupidity, political short-sightedness to miss the moment and not try as soon as possible, while there is a war going on in the West, to raise and resolve the issue of Leningrad’s security.”

The end result of Stalin’s missteps were three months of humiliation and more than 320,000 casualties compared to Finland’s 70,000. Although they gained more concessions than originally requested, the damage to the Soviet reputation was immense. This demonstrated weakness contributed to Adolf Hitler’s decision to execute Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 and invade the Russian motherland.

Following a famine most of us could never comprehend, a purge of political opponents that makes Richard Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre look like a seasonal layoff, and a three month skirmish that took more young lives than U.S. troops lost in every conflict since Korea combined, the USSR was still able to become “the main engine of Nazism’s destruction,” according to historian Max Hastings. Three quarters of German losses were at the hands of the Red Army.

The USSR spent nearly 27 million lives to retain their place in the pecking order and expel the Wehrmacht from their borders. What better time for the United States to put them out of business for good? It would, however, take 46 more years of technological one-upsmanship, nuclear brinksmanship, and back and forth proxy wars of attrition between the U.S. and USSR before an open dialogue between leaders would finally break up the Communist Bloc.

Contrarians and critics may point out that today’s Russian Federation is no Soviet Union. By population alone there is a significant difference. The 1939 Soviet population was near 170 million while current Russian estimates hover around 143 million and dropping, due in part to negative birth rates (which is the case for most of the developed world). The loss of tens of millions of Russian lives, or even a humiliating defeat to a smaller nation, would certainly pose an “existential threat.” But “existential threats” aren’t what they used to be. The key difference being that Stalin didn’t possess nuclear weapons until 1949, while Putin has nearly 6,000 at his disposal and a reluctant willingness to use them.

The economic security of Russia also comes into question, with an overreliance on natural resources where oil, natural gas, and coal account for more than 50% of their exports. However, this would only be a valid concern if we ignore the importance of these fuel supplies to the economies of the importing nations. Not only is affordable fuel a key factor for developing countries as they lift their people out of poverty, but it remains essential to emerging superpowers like China and India. Russia’s exports of crude oil to these countries have only increased since their invasion of Ukraine, becoming the leader in both markets.

Since their switch to an oligarchical, mixed-market economy, a mirror of the United States, Russia has maintained their place of geopolitical importance with an increase in the standard of living for Russian citizens. These are a resilient people. I know my fellow Americans, and I’m not convinced most of us could handle anything like what the Russians have seen in the last century. And I don’t believe our benevolent leaders, pushing and extending this provoked war, know so little about history that they actually envision a permanently weakened Russia by way of Ukrainian lives. This has always been about regime change, because a nationalist like Vladimir Putin will never kowtow to Washington’s demands, and for them, this is unacceptable.

I understand why neocons on both sides of the aisle are foaming at the mouth. Smedley Butler said it best:

“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

What’s troubling is all the sycophantic drones, all too eager to trust the same people who lie with every exhale; those who picture a day when a nation with the largest nuclear arsenal will submit; those who actually think it’s in their best interest to consolidate and centralize power. The same people who will speak out against monopolies in business but clamor for monopoly in governance.

With the coming collapse of the U.S. dollar, an absurd debt-to-GDP ratio, unbridled intelligence agencies, politically motivated investigations into opposition parties, social discord and division, depleted military stockpiles, and entangling alliances across the globe, it is the United States, not Russia, with the earmarks of an imperial collapse. When it all comes down, Joe Biden or Mitch McConnell or whichever other mediocre “elites” take their place will be standing on the rubble with a solution, in front of a welcoming crowd of uninformed and disjointed citizens. Let’s just hope there’s an “encouraged and braced up” remnant ready to pick up the torch of liberty and rebuild.

May 23, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine losing 10,000 drones per month to Russia: UK think tank

Press TV – May 23, 2023

Ukraine has suffered a massive loss of 10,000 drones per month in its war against Russia, which has effectively utilized electronic warfare to down the UAVs provided by the Western countries, a British think tank reports.

Russia’s use of technology-based defense systems has contributed to the staggering loss of Ukrainian drones amid the persisting use of navigational interference by the Russian military in the battle area as a form of electronic protection, the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) unveiled in a new report.

The report appears to entirely dismiss earlier media campaigns by Western news outlets, blaming Russian use of a large number of “Iranian drones” for major losses inflicted on Ukrainian side. Both Tehran and Moscow had totally rejected such reports.

RUSI further insisted, Russia has demonstrated that it is “highly capable” of intercepting and decrypting Ukrainian military communications.

“Russian EW is also apparently achieving real-time interception and decryption of Ukrainian [US-made] Motorola 256-bit encrypted tactical communications systems, which are widely employed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the report added.

It also pointed out that Russian troops have adjusted their sending of electronic warfare systems, setting one around each 10 kilometer along the front lines, which run through Ukraine’s eastern and southern districts.

According to the report, Ukraine’s monumental losses of drones include both military and commercial UAVs that have been heavily utilized for its war with Russia.

It then noted that Gyrocopter, a commercial drone, has been used for “reconnaissance” while other types have been used in direct assaults as well as targeting tools to coordinate artillery barrages.

Despite its incredibly high losses of UAVs, the report further underlines that Kiev is capable of making, purchasing and acquiring the required number of drones, without elaborating on the funding amid the country’s broken economy and the widely reported fact that it obtains nearly all of its weaponry through military grants from the US and the European Union.

Other changes have been identified in Russian military operations during the second year of the war, the RUSI report adds. It found that Russian forces are flexible and make changes to redress their deficiencies.

Although the Ukraine conflict has witnessed “high-tech tactics stalled or countered by rough terrain, electronic jammers and older tactics such as trench warfare, the use of drones has been a major part of both side’s doctrine,” the report emphasizes.

“In addition to reconnaissance purposes, they’ve been used in direct assaults as well as targeting tools to coordinate artillery barrages, the latter of which has been a dominant element in the conflict.”

The West has supplied Kiev with tens of billions of dollars worth of various weaponry since the onset of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine last year.

Moscow insists it launched the operation as a security measure against persisting eastern advance of the US-led NATO military alliance and the protection of the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine from abusive treatment by Kiev forces.

Western countries, led by the US, have been providing massive amounts of arms and munitions to Ukraine with a declared objective of prolonging the war against Russia and keeping Moscow engaged in a protracted conflict with neighboring Ukraine.

May 23, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

US must make security deal with Russia – Hungary

RT | May 23, 2023

An agreement between the US and Russia is the only thing that can end the conflict in Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated on Monday. Orban has repeatedly accused EU leaders of serving American, rather than European, interests by continuing to bankroll Kiev.

Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday, Orban reiterated his position that Ukraine cannot win on the battlefield, and that Kiev and its Western backers must pursue peace talks with Russia.

“First we should have a ceasefire,” he said. “Then let’s talk about the new security architecture of the European continent.”

“The only peace agreement that could close this whole conflict is if it is between Russia and the United States,” he elaborated. “What is at stake is the future security of Europe. It’s obvious that without the US there is no security architecture for Europe, and now the war can only be stopped if the Russians can make an agreement with the United States.”

“As a European I am not happy with that,” he added. “But this is the only way out.”

Throughout the conflict, Orban has repeatedly spoken out against the West’s twin policies of military aid to Kiev and sanctions on Moscow, arguing that the former risks escalating the conflict to a global war and the latter harms Europe’s economy more than Russia’s.

The Hungarian prime minister has also argued that only Washington has the power to pressure Kiev into peace talks, and that decisions made in Brussels “reflect American interests more often than European ones.”

With the US dragging Europe into a conflict it cannot win, Orban has suggested that “the solution would be a European NATO” without the US as a member.

Hungary is currently blocking a €500 million ($540 million) EU military aid package for Ukraine. Apart from his long-standing opposition to escalating the conflict, Orban cited Ukraine’s sanctioning of a Hungarian bank as a reason for the hold up.

“If a country like Ukraine would like to get our financial support, they can’t put our companies on a blacklist,” he said on Tuesday. “If you need our money, please respect us.”

May 23, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden unveils new $375 mln military aid package for Ukraine

Press TV – May 21, 2023

US President Joe Biden has announced a new $375 million package of military aid to Ukraine on Sunday despite warnings from Russia, saying that the United States was making every effort to “bolster Ukraine’s defense” in its war against Russia.

“Together with the entire G7, we have Ukraine’s back and I promise we’re not going anywhere,” Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as they met on the sidelines of the G7 summit of world leaders in Hiroshima, Japan.

The latest military aid package will include ammunition, artillery, armored vehicles, and training of forces, according to Biden.

Biden emphasized during the meeting that his nation was prepared to assist in enhancing Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself against and deter Russian forces, the White House said in a statement.

The US president also talked about his country’s support for a coordinated effort with allied and partner nations to train Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation fighters like the F-16, the White House added.

Zelenskiy thanked the US for the latest military aid package, and also for all the assistance of a whopping $37 billion to date, according to his office.

The US and its Western allies have kept feeding Ukraine with massive amounts of arms since the start of the Ukrainian conflict last year, which according to Russia is the sole reason that the conflict is not coming to an end.

Russia has repeatedly warned the Western governments such as the US and UK against arming Ukraine and fanning the flames of war.

Apart from sending lethal armaments, the Western countries have supported Ukraine by imposing a raft of sanctions against Russia.

May 21, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US hopes to snatch victory from jaws of defeat in Ukraine

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE |  MAY 21, 2023 

The G7 Leaders’ 2700-word statement on Ukraine, issued in Hiroshima after their summit meeting glossed over the burning question today — the so-called counter-offensive against the Russian forces.

It is a deafening silence, since rumours are swirling about the disappearance of the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces. Significantly, President Vladimir Zelensky himself is making himself scarce from Kiev touring world capitals — Helsinki, Hague, Rome, Vatican, Berlin, Paris, London and Jeddah and Hiroshima. It does seem that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

As the G7 summit ended, the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on Saturday that the Russian operation to capture the strategic communication hub of Bakhmut in Donbass region of eastern Ukraine lasting 224 days, has been brought to a successful completion, overcoming the resistance by more than 80,000 Ukrainian troops. 

It is a painful moment for Zelensky, who had boasted before US lawmakers in Capitol Hill last December that “just like the Battle of Saratoga (in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War), the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war for independence and for freedom.” 

Meanwhile, to distract attention, there is talk now about a subtle shift in the US policy regarding supply of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine in an indeterminate future. In reality, though, no one can tell what the Ukrainian rump state will look like when the jets arrive.  Unsurprisingly, the Biden Administration still seems to be in two minds. F-16 is a hot item for export; what happens if the Russians were to blow it out of the sky with their hi-tech weapons and rubbish its fame ? 

The Russians seem to have concluded that nothing short of a total victory will make the Americans and the British understand that Moscow means business on the three objectives behind the special military operations that are non-negotiable: security and safety of the ethnic Russian community and their right to live in peace and dignity in the new territories; demilitarisation and de-Nazification of Ukraine; and a neutral, sovereign, independent Ukraine freed from the US clutches and no longer a hostile neighbour. 

To be sure, the unprecedented levels of US hostility towards Russia only hardened Moscow’s resolve. If the Anglo-Saxon alliance keeps climbing the escalation ladder, the Russian campaign may well expand the operation to the entire region east of the Dnieper River. The Russians are in this war for the long haul and the ball is in the  American court.

What comes to mind is a speech last July by President Vladimir Putin while addressing the Duma. He had said, “Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try. We have already heard a lot about the West wanting to fight us ‘to the last Ukrainian.’ This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but that seems to be where it is going. But everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet.” 

Well, the Russian operation has finally started “in earnest.” The thinking behind the delay is unmistakeable. Putin underscored in his speech that the West should know that the longer Russia’s special military operation goes on, “the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us.”  

Therefore, the big question is about the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Russian forces enjoy overwhelming superiority in every sense militarily. Even if the hard core of the Ukrainian forces who were trained in the West, numbering some 30-35000 soldiers, manage to achieve some “breakthrough” in the 950-kilometre long frontline, what happens thereafter? 

Make no mistake, a massive Russian counterattack will follow and the Ukrainian soldiers may only end up in a fire trap and suffer huge losses in their tens of thousands. What would the Anglo-Saxon axis have achieved? 

Besides, the Ukrainian military will have so thoroughly exhausted itself that there will be nothing stopping the Russian forces from advancing toward Kharkov and Odessa. Herein lies the paradox. For, from that point, Russians will have no one to talk to. 

If past American behaviour — be it Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq and Syria — is anything to go by, Washington will do nothing. The well-known American strategic thinker Col. (Retd.) David MacGreggor couldn’t have put things better when he said earlier this week: 

“I can tell you that Washington is going to do nothing. And I’ve always warned… we (United States) are not a continental power, not a land power anywhere but in our own Hemisphere. We are primarily an aerospace and maritime power, much like Great Britain. And what does that mean? When things go badly for us, we sail away, we fly away, we go home… That’s what we always do. Eventually, we just leave. And I think, that’s on the agenda now.” 

The stony silence of the G7 statement on the Ukrainian counteroffensive is understandable. The G7 statement needs to be juxtaposed with a report appearing in Politico on the eve of the summit in Hiroshima which, quoting senior US officials elaborated on an audacious plan to transform the Ukraine war into a “frozen conflict” on the analogy of the Korean Peninsula or Kashmir. 

A Pentagon official told the daily that recent military aid packages to Ukraine reflect the Biden administration’s “shift to a longer-term strategy.” Reportedly, US officials are already talking to Kiev about the nature of their relationship in the future. 

Principally, if Ukraine’s NATO membership bid stalls, western guarantees could range from a NATO-style Article 5 mutual defence deal to Israel-style arms deals with Ukraine so that “the conflict will wind up somewhere in between an active war and a chilled standoff.”

Indeed, the G7 statement began conceptualising the “Europeanisation” of Ukraine with reforms, a market economy driven by the private sector and western financial institutions, and boosting Kiev’s deterrent capability vis-a-vis Russia militarily. 

It is quite amazing. Hardly has one flawed narrative — espousing Russia’s military defeat in Ukraine and the overthrow of Putin — unravelled, another narrative is being hoisted, predicated on the simplistic notion that Russia will simply roll over and passively watch the US integrating Ukraine into the western alliance system to create an open wound festering on Russia’s western borders that will drain resources for decades to come and complicating ties with neighbours.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s reaction to the G7 Summit confirms that Moscow will not fall into the trap of a “frozen conflict.” Lavrov said, “Could you take a look at those decisions which are being debated and adopted at the G7 summit in Hiroshima and which are aimed at dual containment of Russia and the People’s Republic of China?

“The objective was announced loudly and frankly, which is to defeat Russia on the battlefield, and without stopping at this, to eliminate it later as a geopolitical rival, so to speak, along with any other country that claims an independent place in the world, they will be suppressed as opponents.”

Lavrov also pointed out that the Western countries’ expert community is overtly discussing the order to work out scenarios aimed at Russia’s breakup, and “they do not conceal that the existence of Russia as an independent centre is incompatible with the goal of the West’s global domination.” The Minister said, “We have to give a firm and consistent response to the war declared upon us.”

Yet, it is not as if Americans are incapable of seeing the war through Russia’s eyes. Read here a letter pleading for some sanity in Washington penned by a group of distinguished former American diplomats and military officials associated with the Eisenhower Media Network. By the way, they paid to get it in the New York Times, but the rest of the establishment media chose to ignore it.

May 21, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia, China express ‘strong dissatisfaction’ with G7 communique

Press TV – May 20, 2023

Russia and China have expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with the final statement issued at the end of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, a city that was destroyed by the US atomic bombing in 1945.

In a joint statement on Friday, which was revised on Saturday, the G7 — consisting of the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Italy — targeted both Russia and China with threats and disparaging remarks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that decisions taken at the G7 summit were aimed at the “double containment” of Russia and China.

Lavrov, in a televised conference, reiterated Moscow’s viewpoint that the West is using Ukraine as a tool to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

“The task was set loudly and openly – to defeat Russia on the battlefield, but not to stop there, but to eliminate it as a geopolitical competitor,” Lavrov noted.

“Look at the decisions that are being discussed and adopted today in Hiroshima at G7 summit of the Seven, and which are aimed at the double containment of Russia and China,” Russia’s top diplomat stated.

Lavrov said Moscow enjoyed the support of its many allies and Russia will weather the hardships despite the West’s efforts to put pressure on countries to cut trade and economic ties with the Russian nation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the West was trying to break Russia up into dozens of different states.

The US-led West is driving a wedge between different ethnic and national groups in Russia and breaking the country up into dozens of different states, Putin warned.

Beijing, in a similar approach, showed its strong disapproval of the G7 for smearing and attacking the Chinese nation.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that it has lodged stern representations to the G7 summit’s host, Japan, and other relevant parties after the group criticized Chinese policies in regard to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet.

The group advocates “promoting a peaceful, stable and prosperous world,” but what it does is hinder international peace, undermine regional stability and curb other countries’ development, the statement said, adding that it simply shows how little international credibility means to the G7.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s statement pointed out that Taiwan is China’s Taiwan and resolving the question is a matter for the Chinese. It reiterated that the one-China principle is the solid anchor for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Despite emphasizing on cross-Strait peace, G7 said nothing about the need to oppose “Taiwan independence,” which in effect constitutes connivance and support for “Taiwan independence” forces, and will only result in a serious impact on cross-Straits peace and stability, according to the statement.

The Chinese statement said no one should underestimate the determination, resolve and capability of the Chinese people in safeguarding China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The issues related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet are purely China’s internal affairs and China firmly opposes interference by any external force in those affairs under the pretext of human rights, the statement noted.

It urged the G7 to stop pointing fingers at China on Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet and take a hard look at their own history and human rights record.

The statement reminded the G7 nations that the East China Sea and the South China Sea have remained overall stable, and it called for other countries to respect the regional countries’ efforts to uphold peace and stability and stop using maritime issues to drive a wedge between regional countries and incite bloc confrontation.

The statement also noted that the massive unilateral sanctions slapped by the United States and acts of decoupling and disrupting industrial and supply chains make the US the real coercer that politicizes and weaponizes economic and trade relations. It urged the G7 not to become an accomplice in the Americans’ economic coercion.

China is the only nation among the five nuclear weapon states that pledged “no first use” of nuclear weapons and always kept its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security, the statement noted, adding that China’s position on the matter should not be distorted or denigrated.

As a responsible major country, China firmly upholds the UN-centered international system, the international order underpinned by international law and the basic norms governing international relations built around the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, it said, adding that the Chinese nation will never give in to the so-called rules imposed by the few.

“The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world based on ideologies and values, still less will it succumb to the rules of exclusive small blocs designed to serve ‘America-first’ and the vested interests of the few,” the statement said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry urged the G7 to stop engaging in closed and exclusive “small circles,” stop containing and suppressing other countries, stop creating and provoking confrontation and return to the right path of dialogue and cooperation.

May 20, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

US involved in assassination of Russian public figures – security chief

RT | May 19, 2023

The most high-profile Ukrainian “terrorist acts” in Russia were carried out with the assistance of Washington, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, has claimed.

Speaking at a government meeting on Friday, Patrushev said that Russia has information that “the murders of Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky, the bombing of Zakhar Prilepin’s car, the explosion at the Crimean Bridge,” the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage, and other “terrorists acts” were “planned and carried out under the coordination of US special services”.

Those attacks were “accompanied by an information campaign prepared in advance in Washington and London, designed to destabilize the social and political situation, [and to] undermine the constitutional foundations and sovereignty of Russia,” the security chief stressed.

“The intensity of terrorist attacks has vastly increased” since Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine over a year ago, he added.

According to Patrushev, Ukrainian saboteur groups, who are trained by NATO instructors, have been actively trying to target important infrastructure inside Russia, including with drones.

In view of those events additional measures should be implemented to protect key facilities and places where people gather in large numbers, he said.

Earlier this week, the chief of Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) General Kirill Budanov was asked about attacks on prominent Russian public figures and replied that his agency has “already gotten many” of them. However, he declined to mention any names. In an earlier interview, Budanov vowed to “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”

Journalist and activist Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, died after her car exploded on a highway outside Moscow last summer. Russia’s Security Service (FSB) said the murder of the 29-year-old was carried out by Ukrainian nationals, who managed to flee the country.

In late April, Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in St Petersburg after a statue that had been handed to him during an event with his followers exploded. A dozen people were also wounded. The FSB has blamed the blast on “Ukrainian special services and their agents, including fugitive members of the Russian opposition.”

Earlier this month, prominent Russian author and political activist Zakhar Prilepin was severely injured in a car bomb near the city of Nizhny Novgorod. His driver was killed. A suspect has admitted to Russian law enforcement that he’d been hired by an unspecified Ukrainian intelligence service.

May 19, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Can Western air defense systems protect Ukraine properly?

By Uriel Araujo | May 19, 2023

On May 16, Ukraine claimed its air defenses intercepted six Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and shot them down amid an “exceptionally dense” barrage fired – supposedly thanks to the arrival of Patriots, among other Western combat systems. Kinzhals are supposed to be able to overcome all existing air defense systems, and Moscow denies its Kinzhals were intercepted.

Kiev also claims to have shot down 29 of 30 Russian rockets on May 18, an obviously inflated number. However, a Ukrainian infrastructure facility in Khmelnytskyi has been hit by a missile, with no casualties reported. The barrage came as a response to Kiev’s advancements in Bakhmut. Ukrainian forces are reportedly preparing to launch a counteroffensive. Ukraine’s defense systems, however, should not be overestimated.

While Western powers are finally coming to realize that Kiev simply does not possess the necessary means to win the ongoing conflict, much is being written about Western air defenses supposedly being key for Western victory in its proxy war in Eastern Europe against Moscow. Despite Ukrainian denials, American officials have confirmed US-made Patriot was indeed damaged by Russian strikes. According to the Russian defense ministry, on 16 May Kinzhal destroyed a Patriot missile defense system (five launchers and a multifunctional radar). This is one of the most advanced US air defense systems. Albeit trying to minimize the damage, US authorities speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity said that they would have a better understanding of the situation “in the coming days” and that “information could change”.

In the past days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been busy touring different European countries and so far he has been promised billions of dollars in military equipment by allies such as the United Kingdom (UK) and France. How much different can those make?

The hard truth is that Kiev remains unable to create a single control system or an interface for the various Western air defense systems and their different components, as these possess a large range of functional features and thus are poorly integrated into the already existing systems. This means that they would operate ineffectively if included in a single circuit. NATO’s anti-aircraft systems can fully control one defined sector of airspace at a time, but cannot intercept operational-tactical missiles that move along an aeroballistic trajectory, such as the Russian hypersonic Kinzhais. For Ukraine, it would therefore be necessary to construct a whole new system, which is no simple task during a confrontation – not to mention doing so quickly enough.

Moreover, according to defense and IR journalist S. Tiwari of the EurAsian Times, the Patriot, IRIS-T and NASAMS systems cannot protect Ukrainian troops from guided bombs, such as the ones massively used by Russian forces. Ukrainian Lieutenant Colonel Denis Smazhny, an aerial defense specialist, in turn has confirmed the low effectiveness of the US-sent NASAMS and IRIS-T complexes (supplied by Germany) to face Russian ballistic missiles such as the Iskanders and Kinzhals. The Russian weapons, unlike cruise missiles, are capable of rising to very high altitudes to fall almost vertically onto the target at great speeds. Thus, targeting them in flight is very difficult. How can one make them fall when they are in fact “already falling”?

Thus, in Colonel Smazhny’s words, “Western air defense systems will not be able to protect us.” Even with the Western systems, quickly creating an integrated and effective system for airspace defense is a challenge for Ukraine, to say the least. This is why Kiev has been eyeing an Israeli system called Iron Dome, which could suit its needs better. However, military and technical issues are often entangled with political and diplomatic matters.

During a US Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces session (about missile-defense matters), last week, American Senator Angus King asked why Iron Dome had not been deployed in the Eastern European nation. The answer is quite simple: the main producer of such systems is Israel and thus it would have to grant Washington permission to send it to any other country, such as Ukraine. Despite several requests, this has not happened.

Tel Aviv sees Russia as a regional great power with which it must engage in a number of issues in the Middle East. For one thing, Moscow and Tel Aviv currently have a working relationship in the Levant, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself has stated he has no reason to damage bilateral relations. Moreover, even if Israeli approval were to happen, which remains unlikely, this would still not necessarily make a great difference other than a symbolic one: Russian weapons are indeed more sophisticated than the Palestinian rockets the Iron Dome routinely shoots down. To have a huge impact, Ukraine would need dozens of Iron Domes, which do not currently exist.

Besides these military issues, Ukraine is struggling with a domestic political crisis amid several corruption scandals. This week, for instance, the chair of its Supreme Court, chief justice Vsevolod Knyazev was removed from his post over bribery accusations amounting to $2.7 million. In addition, former US President Donald Trump stated last week he will not commit to backing Kiev, should he win the Republican presidential nomination and the upcoming elections. Despite legal controversies, Trump remains a clear Republican favorite, while Republican senators are increasingly opposing advancing aid for Ukraine and some, like Senator JD Vance, are calling for investigating a possible Democrat money laundering scheme in Ukraine.

May 19, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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