Ukraine will have to accept Chinese mediation when spring offensive fails
By Ahmed Adel | April 28, 2023
In a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky on April 26, Chinese President Xi Jinping identified negotiations as the only way to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, something that the Ukrainian president has been resistant to.
“Dialogue and negotiation is the only possible method,” Chinese media quoted Xi as saying in his first known conversation with Zelensky since the Russian special military operation began. The Chinese president also stressed that Beijing “will persistently seek peace and synergistically promote negotiations.”
For his part, Zelensky, who for many months has expressed interest in speaking with Xi, said he had “a long and meaningful phone call” with the Chinese president that lasted for an hour. “We discussed a full range of topical issues of bilateral relations. Particular attention was paid to the ways of possible cooperation to establish a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine.”
“There can be no peace at the expense of territorial compromises,” he added, suggesting that perhaps Xi is wasting his time.
None-the-less, after the conversation with Xi, the Ukrainian president signed a decree which appointed former Minister of Strategic Industry Pavel Ryabikin as Ambassador of Ukraine to the People’s Republic of China. This insinuates that the comments from the Chinese leader did not spoil relations between the two countries.
The long absence of a Ukrainian ambassador to China does demonstrate the traditional attitude that Kiev had towards the Asian giant. Now, despite relations improving, Kiev is giving provocative ultimatums on conditions for peace talks when Beijing is searching for peace.
It is recalled that Xi made a state visit to Russia in March and met President Vladimir Putin. During the visit, Xi and Putin affirmed their alignment across many issues, such as dealing with American provocations.
In addition, the Xi-Zelensky call comes only days after the Chinese Ambassador in Paris sparked controversy by suggesting that the Baltic states had no status under international law following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, something which authorities in Kiev could have interpreted as also being aimed against them. This was ultimately rejected by Beijing though, with authorities saying that the ambassador’s comments were his own personal opinion and not official policy.
Beijing announced that China’s Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs, former Chinese Ambassador to Russia Li Hui, will lead a special delegation on crisis settlement in Ukraine. The establishment of a special Chinese delegation to resolve the crisis in Ukraine is a very important step, particularly because Li Hui is an experienced diplomat who has served as China’s ambassador to Russia for many years. On the other hand, people should not harbour any illusions as Washington will likely prevent Kiev from achieving peace with Moscow under Chinese stewardship.
For her part, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow had taken notice of Beijing’s will to enable negotiations with Ukraine following the phone call between Zelensky and his Chinese counterpart.
“We note the readiness of the Chinese side to make efforts to establish the negotiation process,” Zakharova said during a press conference on April 26. She noted that negotiations under current conditions are unlikely and highlighted that Kiev is the one rejecting initiatives by Moscow.
Despite these difficult conditions, China started positioning itself as a peacemaker in the conflict in early 2023 after releasing a proposal for a discussion-based solution to the war. However, the proposal has been completely rejected by Kiev and their Western backers as it included no provision for Russia to withdraw its troops.
Xi also received criticism from the West for attempting to position himself as a mediator whilst visiting Moscow but not having spoken with Zelensky at that point. At the same time, when considering the timing of the call between the two leaders, it suggests that Xi believes there is a possibility for progress, even if Zelensky is attaching stringent demands.
With China successfully reconciling Iran and Saudi Arabia, the country’s decisionmakers also feel confident that they can tackle an even bigger challenge considering Russia and Ukraine are in direct conflict, unlike the two Middle Eastern countries.
Because Ukraine believes it can prevail against Russia on the battlefield and in the spring offensive, there should be no expectations for peace negotiations to begin soon. Evidently though, Beijing said that they are going to take concrete steps in the direction of mediation, a major step in China demonstrating that it is a Great Power with global influence. Once Ukraine’s spring offensive fails, Kiev will have no choice but to reach out to Beijing to help mediate a peace agreement.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Russian fuel exports surge despite sanctions – Bloomberg
RT | April 27, 2023
Russia is on course to record its highest seasonal export rate of petroleum products in seven years despite Western oil sanctions that took effect in February, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing tanker tracking data from Vortexa.
According to the report, shipments of clean petroleum products, including diesel-type fuel, amounted to 1.9 million barrels a day during the first three weeks of April. If that rate continues for the remainder of the month, it will be the highest for this time of the year since at least 2016, calculations show.
The new data follows multi-year highs reached in March, when shipments were at their highest since the start of 2016.
Russian diesel-type fuel exports were targeted by an EU embargo on seaborne petroleum products that came into force in early February, along with a G7 price cap on the same products. In response, Moscow announced it will cut output by 500,000 barrels a day between March and December.
Despite the sanctions, data shows that Russia has successfully redirected fuel shipments. Most of the country’s petroleum products in April have been shipped to Türkiye as well as North African countries, including Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya.
Russia has also boosted exports to South American countries, most notably Brazil. According to a recent report by Reuters, Russia’s share of Brazilian diesel fuel imports is set to reach 53% in April, compared to just 0.2% a year ago.
Russia cannot lose its UNSC seat despite Western and Ukrainian attempts
By Ahmed Adel | April 27, 2023
The US has a strong ambition to add its allies to the United Nations Security Council to weaken Russia’s influence across the world, or if this fails, to render the organisation useless, akin to the old League of Nations. However, even more dangerous than the US seeking more allies in the UNSC are the initiatives to abolish Russia’s right of veto and take away its status as a permanent member. Kiev raises this suggestion at almost every session of the UN General Assembly.
In this sense, new challenges are being created, especially as UN Secretary General António Guterres stated that the majority of UN member states see the need for reforming the UNSC. Such suggestions must be treated with suspicion though as the US wants to take advantage and weaken not only Russian influence, but also Chinese.
Guterres and the US are clearly trying to push their closest allies, such as Germany, Australia, and Japan, where unsurprisingly American military bases are located, into the UNSC. There are also other countries, such as Turkey, which regularly raise the issue of UNSC reform and complain that the fate of humanity should not depend on five countries – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US.
However, Turkey’s suggestion is problematic as the UNSC would be inundated with permanent membership requests from dozens of middle powers who have equal or greater power than Turkey, such as Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Realistically, at this current junction, an expanded permanent UNSC could only include Brazil and India, the former because it is the most important country in Latin America and the latter because it is on a rapid path towards Great Power status.
None-the-less, Moscow, just like Washington, is in favour of reforming the UNSC, but with significantly different views. While the US and its allies are pushing reforms as a possible way to limit Russian influence, Moscow believes that the Security Council should to be expanded, but to achieve a more equitable world and to not empower Western aggression.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained that the composition of the UNSC should be strengthened by Asian, African, and Latin American countries, which are not represented in the UNSC, with the exception of China in regards to Asia. Therefore, in Moscow’s view, the UNSC should not be expanded only so that the West and its closest allies, such as Japan, can get additional seats. Moscow wants to balance the UNSC because the West has three of five permanent seats despite comprising only a minority of humanity.
It is clear that Lavrov has strategically put the West in a difficult position because if they veto the expansion initiative, it will lead to a backlash from countries like India which believe they have earned a right to a permanent seat in the UNSC. At the same time, Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart must be cautious on expansion so that the UNSC does not transform into a political branch of NATO.
The UN Charter does not provide for a reform procedure, and this especially applies to the UNSC, which is the most important body of the organisation. By recklessly expanding the body, the contradictions and conflicts of interest, which already hinder the UNSC in its current format, would elevate.
Therefore, in the current geopolitical situation, it will be very difficult to reform the UNSC in such a way as to objectively consider the interests of all participants in the process. A permanent UNSC membership is a privilege and not something to lightly contemplate expanding upon.
There is also no legal basis to exclude Russia from the UNSC, limit its status and deprive it of veto rights. The entire architecture of the UN was originally built on the fact that the five great powers, the winners of the Second World War, assumed the role of guarding the global world order. The founding states cannot exclude each other because if one or two pillars are thrown out, the UN would collapse.
If Russia was somehow excluded, it would mark the destruction of the entire system based on international law, on the UN Charter, and would call into question the existence of the UN itself. Russia, however, is a permanent member of the Security Council and has veto power. This practically means that Russia, if the Charter is applied, can only be expelled if it does not exercise its veto power. Therefore, it is impossible to deprive Russia of that right, despite constant Ukrainian attempts.
Hypothetically, there are two scenarios in which Russia could lose its seat in the UNSC – first, if it excludes itself and second, if the UN ceases to exist as an organisation. It is recalled that the Soviet Union was foolishly excluded from the League of Nations, the forerunner of the UN, but that organisation ceased to exist. The same fate would befall the UN if Russia was expelled.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
NATO Could Send Troops to Western Ukraine if Kiev’s Spring Offensive Fails – Here’s Why
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 26.04.2023
Mainstream reporting related to the so-called “Pentagon leaks” about the DoD’s sobering assessment of the real state of the NATO-Russia proxy conflict in Ukraine has brought the “do or die” pressure facing Kiev into focus. Without a decisive victory, Kiev may be pushed into ceasefire talks, says international affairs expert Mark Sleboda.
Anonymous Biden administration officials told US media this week that the White House is “quietly preparing” for the contingency of Ukrainian forces failing to gain any significant ground against Russia during Kiev’s much-hyped spring offensive, and for the reputational blow this might have for Washington via-a-vis other allies and clients. Administration officials reportedly also fear that a failed or stalled offensive could result in attacks on the White House at home both by hawks pushing for even more aid to Kiev, and doves arguing that the Ukrainian Army’s failure would prove that Russia can’t be ejected from Crimea, Donbass, and its new territories.
Officials are reportedly mulling pushing Zelensky into a “ceasefire” to enable Kiev to retool and reequip for a resumption of the conflict at a later date, with measures meant to prod the Zelensky government into accepting including “NATO-like security guarantees,” EU economic support, and more military aid.
“I think this is actually one in a series of articles that have come out in the last few weeks, including the so-called ‘Pentagon Leaks’ which I think most Russian analysts believe are just another narrative management tool,” Mark Sleboda said, speaking to Radio Sputnik’s The Final Countdown radio show on Tuesday.
The latest piece in the MSM hyping the prospects of a possible Ukrainian defeat isn’t the first, Sleboda recalled, pointing to another recent legacy media piece from last week warning that a “breakthrough” in the conflict may not come at all in 2023, and that observers should lower their expectations of Ukraine advancing more than 30 km.
“So [there’s a] lowering [of] expectations, lowering the bar for success. Now we have twin articles coming out of Politico, but also The New York Times coming out within 24 hours of each other. And the Times tells us that ‘Ukraine’s spring offensive comes with immense stakes for future of the war’ and that without a decisive victory, Western support for Ukraine could weaken and Kiev could come under increasing pressure to enter serious peace talks to end or freeze the conflict,” the observer noted.
Characterizing the expected Ukrainian offensive as “the most telegraphed offensive in history,” Sleboda said that naturally, reality “cannot possibly” live up to the hype as far as objectives are concerned.
“And again, the mainstream media, The Washington Post, The New York Times have done features about how Russia has been, for the last half year, building up extensive layered trench networks, fortified concrete fortifications, pillboxes, tank obstacles like dragon teeth, etc., and very extensive minefields laid out in advance… We have seen the Kiev regime go on the offensive before against Russian troops that weren’t even half as well dug-in in Kherson. And it’s now acknowledged that Russian forces withdrew, but without taking any significant casualties. They withdrew tactically to avoid being enveloped, but they inflicted crippling casualties because the Ukrainian forces were charging across open steppe into superior artillery, rocket systems, and air dominance,” the analyst said.
Russia could afford to give up territory in the past because they’re “fighting a different type of conflict,” according to Sleboda, prioritizing force preservation and attrition warfare meant to “grind down the Kiev regime’s military and now effectively NATO as well, because NATO is 100% supplying the regime at this point.”
‘Talking Smack About Crimea’
Among Kiev’s formal priorities is a long-promised attack on Crimea. That’s a fantasy, Sleboda believes, since even without a Kherson-Zaporozhye “land bridge” linking Crimea to the Russian mainland, the peninsula is just too tough a nut to crack.
“Of course, they talk a lot of smack about Crimea, which is ridiculous, because Crimea is a peninsula, geographically a very difficult target to attack, very heavily defended with a 95% pro-Russian population. It’s ridiculous,” the observer stressed. The reality, he added, is that even officials like Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley have recognized that Kiev has no chance of “retaking” the peninsula.
“It’s perfectly obvious from the articles being put out today that now they don’t believe they could even get to that administrative border, nowhere close to it. I don’t believe so either. They may push Russian forces back a bit. But they talked about it in The New York Times back in December even, that the Biden administration, speaking through their stenographers anonymously, said ‘we don’t think that they can take Crimea, but we need to have the Russians believe Crimea is under threat to improve the Kiev regime’s negotiating position in future negotiations.’ They think they can get Russia to withdraw from Kherson and Zaporozhye and be satisfied with just the Donbass and Crimea. That’s their thinking. That’s why they don’t consider Bakhmut strategic, unlike Zelensky, who is trying to hold on to it all, because the US has written the Donbass off. They know that it’s an overwhelmingly pro-Russian area, that Russia has invested an enormous amount of political capital with the referendums there, but they think they can still get them to give up on Kherson and Zaporozhye, which also held referendums, by the way,” Sleboda said.
Sleboda pointed to the Times’ admission that the 12 new Ukrainian combat brigades of 4,000 troops apiece formed for the spring offensive – which are expected to be ready by the end of the month, are “raw recruits with a small core of experienced veteran soldiers,” and that they are equipped with handfuls of more modern NATO tanks and armored vehicles accompanied by much older equipment, and facing a big disadvantage in artillery and control of airspace.
Even the debate over deliveries of the much-vaunted F-16 fighters to Kiev is “all political,” according to the observer, because it takes years to train to use them, and Washington may prefer to save them, along with the ATACMS missiles long demanded by Kiev, for a possible war against China in the Pacific.
‘New Domino Theory’ and Danger of WWIII
Pointing to the “new domino theory” that’s being pushed by neocons and neoliberals in Washington on the need to prop up Kiev at all costs, or face Taiwan “falling” to China, Sleboda fears that if push comes to shove and Kiev suffers a major defeat on the battlefield, NATO may be tempted to intervene directly in the crisis to prevent its global defeat.
“I believe that if the Kiev regime suffers a catastrophic defeat and NATO can’t filter more weapons useful to them through them, they might consider what I’ve talked about for maybe half a year now – sending US and Polish troops, maybe Romanians, the Baltics, the Brits – a new ‘coalition of the willing’ as ‘peacekeepers’ into western Ukraine. To tell you the truth Russia would probably yell and scream, but they don’t really want to occupy West Ukraine because unlike East Ukraine, they really do hate Russia over there. It would be very hostile guerilla territory. That’s the part of Ukraine that sided with Nazi Germany in World War II and is resurrecting all of that type of anti-Russian, Banderite fascist glorification today,” Sleboda said.
Ultimately, the main issue of concern for the analyst is Odessa – the strategic, majority Russian-speaking seaport. “If the Kiev regime loses that, then they’re a landlocked little rump state, and the US [has] got the 101st Airborne just across the border in Romania exactly to step across as a tripwire force into Odessa. And that’s the scenario that keeps me up at night. That’s the World War III scenario, as far as I’m concerned [it] is a possible direct NATO-Russia fight over Odessa because I do not believe for a second that Russia would allow Odessa to become a US naval base,” Sleboda summed up.
Russia responds to Western asset seizure
RT | April 26, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree establishing a mechanism for temporarily taking over foreign assets. In its first practical application, the Federal Property Management Agency was put in control of Russian subsidiaries of Fortum and Uniper, energy companies based in Finland and Germany, respectively.
The decree allows for temporary state takeover of assets deemed to be “of paramount importance for the stable functioning of the Russian energy sector,” the agency said in a statement. Germany’s Uniper SE held a 83% stake in Russian energy generation and distribution company Unipro, while a Finnish state-owned company Fortum Oyj controlled over 98% of its local subsidiary, with a total power generation capacity of 11,2 and 4.7 gigawatts respectively.
The move will “ensure the uninterrupted operation of companies significant for the national economy and eliminate the risks of the political position of a number of unfriendly countries influencing” the security of Russia.
Original owners are considered to have temporarily lost control of the property, but not forfeited it outright. The measure “helps preserve the investment climate in Russia and reduce the outflow of capital from the country,” the agency added.
The decree also establishes a legal framework that enables the Kremlin to take over more foreign assets should other countries seize Russian private or government property in their jurisdictions, or threaten national, energy, or economic security of Russia.
Germany and Poland have so far seized an estimated $22 billion in assets belonging just to two Russian companies, Gazprom and Rosneft, according to media estimates. In June 2022, Berlin took over Gazprom Germania GmbH. In November, Warsaw confiscated Gazprom’s 48% stake in the EuRoPol GAZ joint venture, owners of the Polish portion of the Yamal-Europe pipeline.
The Polish subsidiary of Novatek, which dealt in liquefied natural gas and other hydrocarbons, was also seized. Its assets were put up for sale earlier this month.
In September last year, Germany seized Rosneft’s stake in three major oil refineries, accounting for 12% of the country’s total refining capacity. Rosneft’s complaints against the move were dismissed by German courts. A law enacted by the Bundestag on April 20 may allow outright expropriation of Russian assets by Germany.
The US government has sought to seize Russian state and private assets frozen under the Ukraine-related sanctions and turn them over to the government in Kiev, a move that critics have said would change the very nature of sanctions from an instrument of pressure to purely punitive.
Treatment of Russia at UN shows need of its urgent reform or even replacement
By Drago Bosnic – April 25, 2023
The importance of global cooperation and international law has never been more pronounced in the post-WWII era than it is today. The world’s most important organization in this regard is certainly the United Nations, with one of its main tasks being to uphold international law and maintain its impartiality, regardless of which country or entity it is engaged with. Unfortunately, the UN has failed on both counts, but its role as an international forum of sorts that serves as the last frontier of dialogue between states is still evident. And yet, it seems that even this largely ceremonial role is too much for the political West, as it undermines its desire for total dominance through the so-called “rules-based world order“.
Perhaps the best example (although “the worst” would probably be a more suitable word) of this is the atrocious treatment of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the UN. The latest UN Security Council meeting (chaired by FM Lavrov) should serve as a textbook example of how not to conduct diplomacy, probably for decades to come. The tensions have been quite high at the UNSC due to the political West’s frustrations after Russia took over the council in April, a rule based on the regular monthly rotation. Lavrov warned against this and stated that the world has become a more dangerous place, possibly more so than at the height of the Cold War.
“As was the case in the Cold War, we have reached the dangerous, possibly even more dangerous, threshold,” Lavrov said.
The meeting, titled the “Maintenance of international peace and security”, came under fire as Western diplomats repeatedly grumbled about Russia taking over chairing of the UNSC on April 1 and that it allegedly “must be an April Fool’s joke”. Lavrov himself slammed the United States and its vassals and satellite states for abandoning diplomacy and called for the clarification of relations on the battlefield. However, Western “diplomats” went about with their hostility, including Olaf Skoog, the official representative of the European Union to the UN. Skoog openly called Russia “cynical” for allegedly “trying to portray itself as a defender of the UN charter and multilateralism”.
“We all know that while Russia is destroying, we are building. While they violate, we protect,” he said.
This statement alone shows the immeasurable level of EU/NATO’s self-delusion, as the political West’s truly unprovoked and brutal aggression against the world stands as a stark reminder of just how opposite of truth this is. However, it wasn’t just Western officials that took aim at Russia. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also stated that “Russia’s invasion is causing massive suffering and devastation to the country and its people” and then (rather inexplicably) added that “it’s fueling global economic dislocation triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic”. Neither of these statements makes much sense, as he has said virtually nothing about the suffering of the people of Donbass in the six years since taking office.
“Tensions between major powers are at an historic high. So are the risks of conflict, through misadventure or miscalculation,” Guterres also warned.
Apparently, he stated this to “even out” his previous one-sided statement, but he failed in this too, as he never mentioned which side was responsible for stoking the tensions to a boiling point. Still, perhaps the most laughable example of endless hypocrisy came from the US, when its UN representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield called Lavrov himself “hypocritical” and criticized Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression.
“Our hypocritical convener today, Russia, invaded its neighbor, Ukraine, and struck at the heart of the UN Charter. This illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary war runs directly counter to our most shared principles – that a war of aggression and territorial conquest is never, ever acceptable,” she said.
Again, such statements are beyond laughable or even enraging to dozens of countries that have been invaded or targeted by Washington DC. However, what’s truly disturbing is how the US is abusing its status as the UN’s permanent host country. There have been countless examples of Russian, Belarussian, Syrian, North Korean and many other officials, diplomats, journalists, etc. that have been denied entry into the US, preventing access to what is supposed to be an impartial organization.
These incessant Western-induced tensions serve as a testament to the notion that the UN should be reformed significantly. Liz Truss, one of the UK’s recent fast-track prime ministers, floated the idea last year, one of the very few things she was right about. Of course, her reasoning for the move was quite the opposite, but the point still stands. The actual world should start creating truly international institutions that are completely divorced from the malign influence of the US-led political West. This includes either relocating or even completely replacing the UN itself.
The very idea that increasingly irrelevant countries such as France or the UK have permanent seats at the UNSC, unlike actual giants such as Brazil or India, is geopolitically ludicrous. If the political West aims to control so-called “international institutions”, then it can do so within its own geopolitical boundaries. But the issue is that it aims to control quite literally everyone, which has been preventing the emergence of a truly independent multipolar world for decades. To say nothing of how the political West has been (ab)using the UN to promote or even impose its so-called “values” on the rest of the world, something that the vast majority of civilizations find repugnant.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
G7’s desire to further embargo Russia a sign of desperation
By Ahmed Adel | April 24, 2023
According to a Japanese government source, the Group of Seven (G7) members are considering an almost complete ban on exports to Russia. However, such a move only demonstrates the desperate position that the G7 finds itself in because its already existing sanctions regime has not only failed to deter Moscow from its military operation in Ukraine, but has boomeranged and hit the economies of the Group much more severely than Russia.
Although G7 countries have stopped exporting luxury goods and equipment related to the military sector to Russia, the source said the latest plan could expand the trade embargo to used cars, tires, cosmetic items, and clothing. Again, these are non-essential items that can very easily be sourced from other markets.
There is credence to this source when considering that Japan will host the G7 summit on May 19-21 in Hiroshima. The centre of discussions will primarily focus on expanding support to Ukraine and strengthening sanctions on Russia, something that Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US will approve.
The problem for G7 member countries is that if they decide to introduce a complete embargo on the export of products to Russia, they will end up hurting their own industries more as they cut out a major market and allow rivals from China, India and elsewhere to fill the void. For this reason, many Western politicians still fear that a move by the G7 will lead to a harsh reaction from companies that continue to trade with Russia, and more alarmingly, retaliatory sanctions by Moscow.
In addition, from a technical point of view, it is very complicated to implement a total ban on exports to Russia. Russia’s bilateral trade with the European Union in 2021 reached €257 billion, with €158 billion of those being Russian exports to the bloc. Although this has obviously dropped since the Russian military operation began, many problems will still emerge. Despite billions of dollars being slashed from bilateral trade, we are still speaking about tens of billions of dollars, something that is not abstract but is backed by jobs and livelihoods.
It is also unlikely that large economies outside of the G7, such as China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, would join the embargo. This means that it is impossible to impose a global embargo on Russia. In addition, the G7 cannot expect Russia to continue selling its oil and other export goods without receiving payment.
Finally, from a legal perspective, the decision needs to be ratified at the UN level, where Russia and China will vote down such an idea. Therefore, the G7 member countries are just making a cynical attempt to weaken and destroy the Russian economy to supplant a competitor and preserve the unipolar world order.
Importantly, if the G7 imposes a near complete embargo, it will be Europe that will suffer the most and not the US since it is the least dependent on trade relations with Russia. In general, Moscow and Washington do not have deep economic ties, unlike Europe. Western European countries are already in a bad economic situation, and since the introduction of sanctions, they have experienced more damage and inconvenience.
For example, high-tech European products intended for Russia will now lose a major client and they will not so easily find a new one. This situation will lead to European companies having to reduce production, thus leading to lower profits and workers being laid off. Even worse for the West, as already said, is that Russia will not be left without necessary products because they can be purchased from many other countries.
For his part though, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Yasutoshi Nishimura, refused to comment on the possibility of a complete ban on the export of products to Russia at a press conference in Tokyo. He noted that this issue concerns “diplomatic negotiations.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to join the G7 summit via online stream. In a communique released on April 18, the G7 foreign ministers committed their countries to intensifying sanctions imposed on Russia since the military operation began last year. The foreign ministers demanded Russian forces to immediately and unconditionally withdraw, something which obviously will not happen since it is Moscow, and not the West, in a position of strength.
They also vowed to counter sanctions by Moscow and warned of the “severe costs” that third parties could face if they do not stop providing assistance for Russia’s war effort. However, this is an empty threat as it will be impossible for the G7 to impose a “severe cost” on the likes of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and many others, particularly since their own cooperation is deepening.
Therefore, the G7’s desire to embargo Russia even further will not only humiliatingly fail as all the previous sanction packages have, but is also a demonstration on the desperation they are experiencing in face of Russia’s success in the military operation and rebounding the West’s economic war.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Beware Perfidious Albion as Britain Takes Lead Role in War Provocation
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 23, 2023
The much-vaunted Anglo-American “special relationship” is gaining a new dubious meaning as Britain emerges as an adept agent provocateur for inciting a wider NATO war against Russia.
Warmongering British lawmakers are this week demanding a more robust NATO response over an alleged “act of war” by Russia involving a Royal Air Force spy plane and a Russian fighter jet.
Recent documents leaked from the Pentagon have indicated that a British recon plane was nearly shot down by a Su-27 over the Black Sea. Following the incident last September, the British Ministry of Defense played down the encounter as a “technical malfunction”.
It appears now, however, that the British RC-135 spy plane was fired on by the Russian jet, but that the missile missed. It may have been a deliberate warning shot as the British surveillance aircraft is understood to have been near the Russian territory of Crimea. The British and the Americans are supplying the Kiev regime forces with targeting information. So Russia is arguably entitled to take defensive measures against belligerents, as it did when an American MQ Reaper drone was intercepted last month over the Black Sea. The U.S. has reportedly restricted its surveillance flights in the area since that incident.
Now that it is being reported that a Russian missile was fired, some British politicians are demanding a response to “an act of war”.
This particular incident may well blow over. But it raises concern that British forces are playing an incendiary role in the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. With that country already pumped up with NATO weapons, and the Black Sea and Baltic region packed with NATO forces conducting massive war maneuvers over the next weeks and months, the danger is heightened for an accidental or even intended escalation. Given NATO’s common defense commitments, an incident involving one member of the military alliance would inevitably trigger the other 30 members into an all-out war-footing.
Britain’s treacherous role has recently taken on a routine, calculated character in Ukraine.
As NATO has stepped up arms supplies to Ukraine over the past year, it is London that seems to have upped the ante all the way. It was the British that broke the taboo over sending battlefield tanks when they announced earlier this year the supply of Challenger 2 tanks. That move then put the onus on Germany and the United States to accede to supplying the Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks.
The Brits then went a step further by announcing they would supply Ukrainian forces with depleted uranium artillery shells. Russia condemned that move for its known environmental contamination hazards as well as breaching the line for using radiological/nuclear weapons. Moscow and others contend that depleted uranium shells are a form of “dirty nuclear bomb”.
In any case, technical quibbling aside, the move to supply depleted uranium weapons by London is seen as a particularly gratuitous provocation toward Russia.
The recent Pentagon leaks, which appear to be authentic albeit distorted by U.S. media spin, also confirmed previous separate claims that NATO special forces are operating on the ground in Ukraine fighting against Russian military.
Significantly, it is the British who have deployed the biggest number of special forces compared with other NATO members. What these commandoes are doing in Ukraine is not clear. As the BBC reported:
“According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow Nato states Latvia (17), France (15), the U.S. (14) and the Netherlands (1). The document does not say where the forces are located or what they are doing.”
Without a hint of irony, the BBC added: “UK special forces are made up of several elite military units with distinct areas of expertise, and are regarded to be among the most capable in the world.”
Distinct areas of expertise, most capable, indeed! That’s classic British euphemism for you.
It is alleged that British operatives have been helping Ukrainian artillery hit the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant – Europe’s largest civilian nuclear power plant – as a way to escalate the war.
It is also alleged by Moscow that it was members of the British Special Boat Service (SBS) that orchestrated the mass drone attack on Russian bases in Crimea last November. The air raid was thwarted by Russian defenses, but if it had succeeded the response from Russia would have been geopolitically explosive.
It should also be recalled that even before Russia launched its military intervention in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, there was a serious provocation involving a British warship in the Black Sea.
HMS Defender infringed on Russian territorial waters south of Crimea on June 23, 2021. After ignoring Russian verbal warnings, the British destroyer was fired on. A Russian Su-24 fighter jet dropped bombs in the ship’s path.
Similar to the more recent incident involving the Royal Air Force RC-135 spy plane, the British Ministry of Defense tried to play down the naval incident. But it later transpired from secret documents that London sought to deliberately provoke Russia in a show of support for Ukraine.
For the most part of the past century, the failed British empire was assigned the junior role as the butler to service the needs of the American empire. This special relationship involved London giving political and diplomatic cover for its American boss, as well as military services when required for one dirty war or another.
It is axiomatic that a dying empire is a dangerous beast, liable to lash out to salvage its waning power. The American empire has reached its death throes moment. But perhaps more dangerous than a dying imperial power is a dying imperial side-kick flunky.
Today, Britain is a broken-down impoverished de-industrialized wasteland whose shocking numbers of poor are like an army of living dead. It has long ago lost former colonies to parasite off. But there is one former colony – the United States – that might just be stupid enough to allow Perfidious Albion to manipulate a catastrophic war.
The tensions over the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with Russia are a powder-keg situation. And the British dirty-tricks brigade are the past masters that merit being closely watched.
Russia-China border region sees surge in investment
RT | April 23, 2023
Ukraine-related Western sanctions against Russia have failed to stop the flow of investment in the country’s far-eastern Khabarovsk Region, bordering on China, Governor Mikhail Degtyarev said this week.
According to the official, a total of 26 new investment projects worth 133 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) were launched in the area in 2022, including a large-scale infrastructure project to build the Pacific Railroad.
“It is comparable to the historical construction of the BAM (Baikal–Amur Mainline railway). It is the first private railroad in Russia to have a length of 500 kilometers. In a short period of time, we have already built 100 kilometers,” Degtyarev stated.
Local projects launched in 2022 include a mining and processing plant at the Kutyn gold deposit in the Tuguro-Chumikansky district, and also the Solnechnaya tin ore processing station. A copper and tin producing plant in the Solnechny district is also nearing completion. The region has also started the development of the Malmyzhsky copper deposit.
Degtyarev also noted that the region last year successfully introduced a simplified procedure for granting land to businesses without them having to bid for import substitution projects, particularly in agriculture, which also drew investors to the area. This year the opportunity was extended to individual entrepreneurs and legal entities involved in import substitution, who can buy a land plot for these purposes for the symbolic sum of 1 ruble.
In his earlier interview, Degtyarev noted that Khabarovsk has been actively boosting cooperation with neighboring China over the past several months, with trade between the region and the Asian powerhouse up 31%, and cargo turnover up by 106% year-on-year as of the end of 2022.
The region also continues working on the Russo-Chinese joint trans-border development territory on Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, where both Russian and Chinese companies can be residents. They will receive significant benefits for export-import operations, making the territory a de facto free-trade zone.
“We are seeing a turn to the East. There is growth in cargo turnover, growth in industrial production as a whole, and growth in the gross regional product. The Eastern part of the country is now pulling the economy, because the Western regions, unfortunately, faced treacherous sanctions and the collapse of logistics chains,” the official stated.
Here’s Why The US Is Trying To Pin The Blame For Sudan’s “Deep State” War On Russia
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 21, 2023
Debunking The Latest Fake News Narrative
CNN published an exclusive piece on Thursday alleging that “Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army”. They claim that satellite imagery shows increased Russian military transport activity between Libya and Syria in the run-up to Sudan’s “deep state” war. According to CNN, this confirms rumors that General Haftar is supplying Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hamedti”) with surface-to-air missiles (SAM) on behalf of Wagner.
The Wall Street Journal published their own exclusive piece the day prior on Wednesday alleging that “Libyan Militia and Egypt’s Military Back Opposite Sides in Sudan Conflict”, so these two stories complement one another. Both Hamedti and Wagner have denied these claims, however. The Sudanese Ambassador to Russia also confirmed that “Russia is a friendly country to us so we have been in direct contact with [the] Russian Foreign Ministry since the very beginning of those events last Saturday.”
That diplomat’s reaffirmation of Sudan’s close ties with Russia is especially important since he represents the government that’s internationally recognized as being led by Chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, who commands the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and is one of the two figures vying for power. At present, Khartoum therefore doesn’t extend credence to the emerging US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) narrative that Russia is arming the RSF via Haftar-Wagner, but that could soon change.
Preconditioning The Public For Another Proxy War
Unless the present three-day Eid ceasefire holds and leads to the start of peace talks that ultimately end this “deep state” war, which is unlikely since both sides made clear their intent to completely destroy the other, then this conflict is expected to resume in the near future. Should the SAF fail to defeat the RSF and possibly even be placed on the backfoot, then Burhan might gamble that it’s in his best interests to parrot the MSM’s anti-Russian accusations in an attempt to receive direct Western military support.
That scenario isn’t all that far-fetched either considering that the Associated Press and Politico both cited unnamed officials on Thursday to report that the US is assembling additional troops in nearby Djibouti to prepare for the possible evacuation of Americans from Sudan. This pretext could easily be exploited to arm the SAF and/or attack the RSF, especially if the Pentagon claims that the latter tried stopping its operation by building upon last week’s claim that its forces shot at an armored US diplomatic vehicle.
In the event that Burhan repeats the MSM’s emerging anti-Russian narrative and promises to rubbish Sudan’s naval base deal with Moscow upon defeating the RSF, then the Biden Administration can “justify” its military intervention on the basis of “defending Sudanese democracy from a Kremlin coup”. The public would then be told that the latest conflict was sparked by Russia’s support for the “insurgent” RSF, which the MSM would attribute to its interests in defending Wagner’s mining operations there.
American Meddling In Russian-Egyptian Relations
This would predictably precede an unprecedented but preplanned information warfare campaign painting Russia as a “destabilizing” force in Africa, which would be aimed at counteracting its hitherto highly successful efforts at presenting itself as a force of stability in support of legitimate governments. The purpose of this aforesaid operation would be to erode Russia’s newfound “Democratic Security” appeal across the continent with a view towards reversing the decline of Western influence there.
Furthermore, Burhan’s potentially opportunistic piggybacking on the earlier described emerging anti-Russian narrative could have serous implications for Moscow’s ties with Cairo due to the perception of them backing opposite sides in Sudan’s “deep state” war. Russian-Egyptian relations have recently been beset by scandal upon the latest Pentagon leaks alleging that Cairo abandoned its supposedly secret plan to supply rockets to Moscow under pressure from Washington and agreed to arm Kiev instead.
Considering this context, the scenario of Egyptian-backed Burhan blaming Russia for sparking the latest conflict could therefore lead to the rapid deterioration of Russian-Egyptian ties, especially if Cairo decides to indirectly retaliate against Moscow by curtailing its investment rights in Port Said. Those two signed an additional agreement on this industrial zone last month, which was first approved in 2018 and is supposed to help Russia expand its economic engagement with the broader region.
Punishing The Emirates For Its Close Relations With Russia
That goal could be jeopardized if Egypt decides to punish Russia through these means in response to Burhan opportunistically piggybacking on the MSM narrative in an attempt to obtain direct Western military support against the RSF. Furthermore, the UAE’s ties with Egypt and the US could also become much more complicated in that event too since Abu Dhabi is accused of backing reportedly RSF-allied Haftar, being favorable disposed to that armed Sudanese group, and secretly allying with Russia.
The last-mentioned accusation was brought to the public’s attentions as a result of the previously mentioned Pentagon leaks, which were denied by the UAE but coincided with the weakening of its ties with Washington that are partially over that Gulf country’s growing ones with Moscow. There are more factors at play than just the Russian-Emirati relationship, but the point is that the UAE’s problems with the US could be amplified by the MSM if Burhan accuses Russia of arming the RSF via Haftar-Wagner.
It also deserves mentioning that America’s other ulterior interest in its incipient propaganda campaign against Russia in Sudan is to complicate its geopolitical opponent’s logistical connections with the Central African Republic (CAR), which owes its continued existence as a state to Moscow’s military support. The Kremlin largely relies on transit across Sudan in order to supply its forces and its ally’s there, but this could be cut off if Burhan jumps on the anti-Russian bandwagon and revokes Moscow’s privileges.
The Chadian Connection
Lastly, another strategic factor behind this latest information warfare offensive against Russia is that it could ruin that country’s surprisingly solid relations with regional military heavyweight Chad. As explained in this recent analysis here, N’Djamena ended up expelling the German Ambassador earlier this month for meddling instead of the Russian one despite the US telling its counterparts in late February that Moscow is using Wagner in the CAR and Libya to arm anti-government rebels against it.
The Associated Press cited an African analyst from a Western risk assessment firm in their article on Thursday about 320 SAF troops fleeing to Chad to claim that this development could prompt N’Djamena into taking those forces’ side in Sudan’s “deep state” war. According to Benjamin Hunter, “N’Djamena is likely to oppose (Dagalo) due to fears that RSF dominance in Darfur could empower Chadian Arabs to unseat the (president’s) regime. Many within (Dagalo’s) Rizeigat tribe live across the border in Chad.”
If Chad becomes embroiled in Sudan’s “deep state” war on Burhan’s side, then it might be susceptible to Western suggestions that jumping on the anti-Russian bandwagon like he would have already done in this scenario could lead to them suspending their regime change campaign against N’Djamena. Should that happen, then this regional military heavyweight might also support any potentially forthcoming rebel/terrorist offensive that its historical French partner could soon plot against Russia in the CAR.
Concluding Thoughts
Putting everything together, the US plans to achieve the following strategic objectives by introducing the narrative that Russia is arming the RSF:
1. Entice Burhan to extend credence to these claims in exchange for US military support;
2. Demand that he also rescinds Russia’s naval base rights and cuts off its overflight access to the CAR;
3. Consider direct support to the SAF on the pretext of commencing an “evacuation operation” in Sudan;
4. Discredit Russia and the UAE’s African engagement policies by framing both as “destabilizing forces”;
5. Attempt to provoke a crisis in Russia’s relations with Sudan’s Chadian and Egyptian neighbors;
6. Exploit the above scenario to assemble a regional coalition for pushing back against Russia in Africa;
7. Encourage Chad to support a French-backed rebel/terrorist offensive in the Russian-allied CAR;
8. Plot a copycat proxy war in Russian-allied Mali in order to crush the Kremlin’s influence in the Sahel;
9. Perfect this new Hybrid War method prior to employing it all across the continent;
10. And thus turn Africa into the top proxy war battleground of the New Cold War.
The US therefore has many reasons to push this fake news campaign, though it’s unclear whether it’ll ultimately achieve any of its envisaged objectives or not.
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Fact File : Civilian Internment 1939 – 1945
BBC – Compiled in 2003
Internment of civilian nationals belonging to opposing sides was carried out in varying degrees by all belligerent powers in World War Two. It was also the fate of those servicemen who found themselves in a neutral country.
At the outbreak of war there were around 80,000 potential enemy aliens in Britain who, it was feared, could be spies, or willing to assist Britain’s enemies in the event of an invasion. All Germans and Austrians over the age of 16 were called before special tribunals and were divided into one of three groups… continue
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