West unwilling to cooperate on Nord Stream probe: Russian diplomat
Press TV – February 22, 2023
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations has once again accused the United States of being behind the explosions on Nord stream gas pipelines in September last year, saying the national investigations of Germany, Denmark, and Sweden into the sabotage are aimed at protecting Washington.
Vasily Nebenzia made the remarks at a UN Security Council session in New York on Tuesday, stressing that Western countries were showing no intention of cooperating with Moscow in an inquiry into the blasts.
“We have strong reasons to doubt the effectiveness, transparency, and impartiality of investigations that are being carried out under some national jurisdictions,” Nebenzia said, adding, “We do not see our partners being eager to cooperate.”
The senior diplomat also noted that “the so-called investigations by Scandinavian states and Germany into the incident not only lack transparency but are aimed at covering up the tracks and exculpating the big American brother.”
Nebenzia said Russia was not allowed to partake in the probe, and all its requests “are ignored with arrogance.”
Nebenzia further explained that Germany, Denmark, and Sweden had ignored Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s communications last October regarding the participation of Russian energy giant Gazprom and other relevant agencies in the investigations.
He said, “Since we talk about a crime that was committed by means of an explosive device, which makes it subject to the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings of 15 December 1997, we expect that all states that have to do with the incident, namely the US, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, will fulfill their obligations under this document.”
“But leadership of these states do not show any political will or rather do not have any,” the Russian diplomat said.
On September 26, 2022, a series of explosions took place on the pipelines, knocking out three of the four strings of the Nord Stream network, off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea.
Two of the pipelines, known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, known as Nord Stream 2, was not yet operational.
Following the blasts, Denmark, Germany, and Sweden conducted investigations into the incident. The preliminary results of a joint probe by Sweden and Denmark showed that the explosions had been “intentional sabotage,” but responsibility was not assigned to any party.
American journalist Seymour Hersh recently claimed that the bombing of the pipelines had been directly ordered by US President Joe Biden and carried out by the CIA with the help of the US Navy.
The White House rejected the report as “utterly false and complete fiction.”
No sympathy for tycoons losing palaces and yachts abroad – Putin
RT | February 21, 2023
Ordinary Russians feel no sympathy for their rich compatriots who had their assets frozen by Western countries, President Vladimir Putin stated on Tuesday.
Addressing the Federal Assembly in his key annual program speech he argued that in their kitchen conversations ordinary Russians remembered both the privatization of the 1990s and the conspicuous consumption of the new elites.
“None of the ordinary citizens of Russia felt sorry for those who lost their capital in foreign banks. They didn’t feel sorry for those who lost their yachts and palaces abroad,” Putin stressed.
He recalled “imbalances” faced by the post-Soviet economy when Russia began to build the country again from scratch by aligning with the West.
“We were considered as a source of raw materials,” Putin said, stressing that it took Russia years to break this trend. Meanwhile, instead of expanding production and creating jobs in Russia, the wealthy “elite” spent money on luxury goods like yachts, mansions, and the education of their children abroad, Putin pointed out.
As a result, the image of the West as a safe haven for capital turned out to be “a fake” and everything was taken away from the oligarchs – savings, houses and also their yachts.
“They were simply robbed there and even legally earned money was taken away,” the president said, adding that an attractive Western lifestyle turned out to be an illusion.
Russia issues warning about future of Ukraine conflict
RT | February 21, 2023
Western elites “intend” to transform the conflict in Ukraine from a regional to a global one, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Moscow perceives this as an existential threat and will react accordingly, he said.
The goal of those in power in the US and other Western nations is to “end us once and for all,” the Russian leader stated during a keynote speech on Tuesday. They are using Ukraine as a “battering ram” against Russia and don’t care how many people will die as a result, he said.
“They intend to turn a local conflict into a phase of global confrontation. That is how we understand things and will react accordingly. Because the issue here is the existence of our state,” Putin said.
The Ukraine conflict was unleashed by the West when it supported an armed coup in Kiev in 2014, the Russian president noted. Western powers then poured resources into the new regime, even as it used the military against its own population and became increasingly nationalist and extreme.
Western elites “don’t care who they are betting on in their fight against us, their fight against Russia. They just want them to go to war,” Putin observed. The current Ukrainian government is “alien” to the people it governs and serves Western interests, he believes.
“Nobody among them counts the loss of human lives and tragedies, because trillions of dollars are at stake, an opportunity to keep robbing everyone under the cover of rhetoric of democracy and freedoms,” the Russian leader warned.
He said that ultimately Russia’s opponents must realize that the country cannot be defeated on the battlefield. That is why they target it in different ways, trying to undermine its unity via historical revisionism and attacks on Russian traditional values, Putin explained.
The remarks were part of the president’s address to the Federal Assembly, as both chambers of the Russian parliament are called, as well to as senior Russian officials and public figures.
America the Feckless
Lies and hypocrisy are at the heart of the Biden foreign policy
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 21, 2023
One would think that the United States military staging an unprovoked “plausibly deniable” covert attack on a nation with which it is not at war would be at least considered newsworthy. That the attack did grave damage to a country with which the US is closely allied would seem to make the aggression even more unthinkable. And, perhaps worst of all, that the attack was set up by the nation’s chief executive using a political bypass that avoided congressional oversight and adherence to the war powers act which might be most reprehensible of all as it cuts to the heart of the nation’s constitutional balance of powers. It is clearly an impeachable offense. And “Yes,” for those who are still wondering, Joe Biden and his team of terrorist emulators have done all that and more, and have capped their performance with a series of flat out lies and evasions to make it appear that they had done nothing wrong.
And the mainstream America media, in its worst performance since the invasion of Iraq, has served as an echo chamber for everything the White House chooses to leak to it. Given all of that, it was perhaps completely predictable that the government-subservient press and TV news would almost completely ignore the devastating report released by top investigative journalist Seymour Hersh on February 8th. Hersh’s article was entitled “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline” with a secondary headline reading “The New York Times called it a ‘mystery,’ but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now.” The article, which Hersh self-published on the internet, describes in considerable detail the preparations and execution by the US Navy Diving and Salvage Center and Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Maritime Branch, coordinated and directed by the White House, to sabotage and destroy Russia’s four Baltic Sea Nord Stream gas pipelines, a war crime and terroristic action that moves the United States much closer to direct armed conflict with Russia.
Given its potential political blowback, the Hersh story might very well be the most important expose to appear since fighting began in Ukraine over a year ago, but it is being ignored by the White House, which is denying the report, with a spokesman only commenting that “This is false and complete fiction.” The CIA’s spokesman Tammy Thorp likewise replied to Hersh that “This claim is completely and utterly false.” The US Navy was also asked for comments but did not respond. The media, clearly evident by its inaction, has religiously adhered to that government line, possibly due to some mistaken notion that our national security forces have to be supported when they are going “toe to toe with the Russkies” over Ukraine. On the contrary, it is precisely when the government is behaving recklessly not to mention criminally to bring about an unnecessary war that the press should be in hot pursuit of the story and what it means. That is particularly so as the Ukraine conflict is now escalating and threatening to go nuclear as both sides dig in to incompatible positions.
I have known Sy Hersh for a number of years and spent time together with him and other former CIA colleagues helping to confirm details of some of his earlier exposes on US government abuses and outright lies in its somewhat not completely credible role as “guardian” of national security. Hersh is a meticulous investigator who never, in my experience, accepted uncorroborated claims in support of his narratives. I have some understanding of who his sources in the intelligence agencies and Department of Defense might be in this case and it should be accepted that what he has written is completely verifiable and derived from individuals who were actual participants in the activities described. That is not to say that there will not be failures to recall accurately certainly details including aspects of the possible Norwegian involvement, something critics are already pointing to, but the main thrust of “whodunit” and “how” is pretty definitively demonstrated.
The report is long and includes a great deal of information on both the planning and the political decision-making that went into the willingness to destroy the pipeline, which I will briefly describe. Sy claims the following: It has not exactly been a secret that many in the United States government have long regarded the Nord Stream pipelines to be a security threat as the supply of relatively cheap natural gas to Germany as a gateway into Europe by Russia would enable Moscow to create a dependency on it for energy which could be manipulated to produce political and strategic advantage.
As the crisis over Ukraine deepened in 2021, the Biden White House set up a secret task force that worked on possible scenarios that focused on using military and intelligence resources to physically destroy the pipelines with some measure of plausible denial of the US hand in the process in order to avoid political blowback from America’s European allies or escalation of the conflict. The secrecy was needed to protect Biden from charges of hypocrisy since he had repeatedly pledged that the US would not be directly involved in any armed conflict with Russia over Ukraine.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan headed the interagency task force, which convened throughout late 2021 and included key players from the Agency’s Maritime Branch and the Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center, both located in Panama City Florida, as well as the State Department, Treasury and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The operation was originally treated as a covert action that would have required congressional oversight, but that fig leaf was abandoned and it became a “highly classified intelligence operation” when Biden and others in the administration stated publicly and clearly their intentions to stop the pipeline, making what eventually took place an openly declared policy, perhaps intended to send a warning to the Russians. A number of options to destroy the pipelines were discussed. According to Hersh, the participants in the meeting, many of whom were hawks who had cut their teeth under the Obama Administration, clearly understood that they were proposing an “act of war” that was being considered in spite of potential blowback because the president had ordered it.
There was plenty of warning of what might be coming. In early February 2022, shortly before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Biden publicly pledged during a joint news conference accompanied by a silent and frowning German chancellor Olav Scholz that “If Russia invades … there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2” and, when pressed on how he would carry that out, he responded, “We will — I promise you — we will be able to do it.” Later, after the destruction of the pipeline, Secretary of State Blinken stated that) the sabotage offered a “tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy… That’s very significant and that offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come.” Not that any more confirmation was needed, but on January 22nd 2023 Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland gloated while testifying to a US Senate committee that “the administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now … a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”
The Biden Administration, in its arrogance has more-or-less been admitting that it was behind the sabotage, which it certainly had the motive and means to carry out, though it was carefully avoiding leaving any actual evidence behind that it had carried out the destruction. As observed above, it has also been deliberately avoiding any congressional involvement, presumably to avoid any discussion of war powers or even due to concerns over possible media leaks.
The mechanics of the placing explosives followed by the actual destruction of the pipelines was reportedly as follows: Under cover of a NATO Baltic Sea exercise called BALTOPS-22 in June 2022 US Navy and possibly also CIA Special Activities and Norwegian deep sea divers descended 260 feet to a spot off the Danish Island of Bornholm, which was considered to be a location where the pipelines converged in relatively shallow tide-free water and were particularly vulnerable. They attached C-4 explosives both to Nord Stream 1, which was operational, and Nord Stream 2, which was completed but was waiting for German safety and security regulators’ approval to become active. The explosives were designed to be remotely detonatable.
The explosives were on a timer that created an escape window for those initiating the detonation and were reported to be activated by a secure signal sent by a sonar buoy that was dropped onto the prepared site by a Norwegian navy helicopter. The Norwegians were essential in that role due to their own military presence close to the targeted part of the Baltic as well as their considerable experience in deep-sea cold-water operations. A Norwegian Navy helicopter in the area would presumably arouse no particular concern, even from the ever-watchful Russians.
Under orders to “Go!” from Washington, on September 26, 2022 the Norwegians dropped the sonar buoy and a few hours later the C-4 explosives were detonated, immediately knocking out three of the four pipelines. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, the US and its allies in the media made every effort to blame the Russians who were repeatedly cited as a likely culprit. Leaks from the White House and from the British government never established a clear explanation of why Moscow would be into self-sabotage of a lucrative business arrangement. A few months later, when it was revealed that Russian authorities had been quietly getting estimates for the cost to repair the Nord Streams, in the neighborhood of $10 billion, the New York Times seemingly cluelessly described the development as “complicating theories about who was behind” the sabotage.
Indeed, it was never clear why Russia would seek to destroy its own valuable pipeline which was intended to be a major income source for many years to come, a proposition that former British diplomat Craig Murray describes as “deranged.” But a more telling rationale for the President’s action came from Secretary of State Blinken. Asked at a press conference in September about the consequences of the worsening global energy crisis, most felt in Western Europe, a delusional Blinken described the development in positive terms, enthusing how the destruction would “take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs.”
The tale told by Sy Hersh is yet another great betrayal by the country’s so-called leadership, an egregious example of the United States government aided by its lap-dog media again lying to its own citizens and the world to cover-up a criminal act that in no way made Americans safer or more prosperous. In the US, the gadfly Tucker Carlson, among prominent journalists, has up to this point dared to present the investigative account developed by Hersh in a five-minute segment of his program. Newsweek has also run a piece examining the issues raised featuring Constitutional lawyer John Yoo. More interesting perhaps, a half hour interview of Hersh by Amy Goodman on PBS television’s Democracy Now! aired last week but then was partially blocked because YouTube considered it to be “inappropriate or offensive.” The full availability of the Seymour Hersh interview video has since that time been restored with the Democracy Now! channel providing the following explanatory message: “UPDATE: We have blurred some imagery about 30 seconds into the video in response to a content warning from YouTube that severely limited the reach of this interview. What you see now is an edited version. For the uncensored version of this interview that aired on our show, visit democracynow.org.”
Beyond that exposure, there remain, nevertheless, a lot of questions about the destruction of Nord Stream, which was unambiguously an act of war or even terrorism, that continue to be unanswered. Consider, for example, how NATO countries, the US and Norway, de facto attacked fellow NATO country Germany, which was both the intended recipient and an economic partner in the pipelines. Though some British involvement in the operation, also detected by Russian intelligence, was quickly revealed publicly by then-British Prime Minister Elizabeth Truss’s “It’s done” text to Secretary of State Antony Blinken sixty seconds after the detonation. Berlin apparently was not trusted enough to have a voice in the planning and execution of the bombing even though it was gravely damaged by it. Also, Article 5 of the NATO charter says an attack on one nation requires all other alliance members to aid the country that was targeted and it is intriguing to consider whether the rest of NATO ought to go to war with the United States and Norway. Alternatively, can “friends” in the defensive alliance attack each other without consequences or ought the US and Norway now be considered rogue nations? Will the alliance itself be able to stay together if several member states take steps unilaterally that can severely damage the economy of another member? And how are the Germans actually responding to their sinking economy and standards of living, with closing factories and cold houses as a consequence of the US/Norwegian action?
Americans, for their part, should also be thinking deeply about the government we have and the lack of restraint with which it behaves. The framers of the Constitution gave only to Congress the power to declare war, perhaps imagining that at some future date the president might stoop to using the military and naval forces of the United States globally to punish and coerce other nations, seize their territory, and kill their people. And it is all justified by something called “exceptionalism” empowering a massive sustained deception that waging continuous war is actually keeping the peace in a “rules based international order.”
But the final, and biggest, question remains: How will Russia retaliate to Nord Stream? Will it be one step closer to possible nuclear war initiated by Joe Biden’s reckless move or will the Kremlin persist with its request to have the United Nations Security Council investigate the incident? Moscow will certainly be careful to pick the right time and place, but the last act in this play surely remains to be written.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Putin Announces Suspension of New START Treaty, Orders New Strategic Systems Be Put on Combat Duty
Sputnik – 21.02.2023
Russia will be suspending its participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction (New START) Treaty, President Vladimir Putin has announced.
The Russian president made the announcement during the course of a major annual address to lawmakers on Tuesday that focused on the security crisis in Ukraine and the broader global tensions between the West and Russia.
“They [the West] seek to inflict a strategic defeat on us and to creep onto our nuclear sites. In connection with this, I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the New START Treaty. I repeat – not exiting from the treaty, but suspending its participation,” Putin said, speaking to gathered lawmakers in Moscow during his speech to the Federal Assembly.
Putin explained that “at the start of February, the North Atlantic Alliance made a statement factually demanding that Russia ‘return to the implementation of the strategic offensive arms treaty,’ including the admission of inspections to our nuclear and defense facilities.”
“I don’t even know what to call this – some kind of theater of the absurd. We know that the West is involved directly in attempts of the Kiev regime to strike the bases of our strategic aviation,” Putin said, pointing to recent Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s Engels Air Base, home to part of the airborne contingent of Russia’s nuclear triad.
The drones used in these attacks were “equipped and modernized with the assistance of NATO specialists,” Putin said. “And now they want to inspect our defense facilities. In the current conditions and today’s confrontation, this simply sounds like some kind of nonsense.”
“A week ago, I signed a decree putting new ground-based strategic weapons systems on combat duty. Are they going to stick their nose in there too?” Putin asked.
The Russian president suggested that NATO’s collective statement essentially amounted to an application to join the New START Treaty, and said Moscow would only welcome such a move.
“We agree, please go ahead. Furthermore, we think that such a formulation of the issue is long overdue. After all, NATO contains not just one nuclear power – the USA. Britain and France also have nuclear arsenals, which are being developed and improved, and which are also directed against us, against Russia,” Putin said.
Slamming the US and NATO over the “hypocrisy” of their demands, Putin recalled how the Western bloc has attempted to assure Moscow that “there is no connection between issues related to strategic offensive arms and, say, the conflict in Ukraine, or other hostile actions against our country,” while at the same time seeking to “defeat” Russia militarily.
“This is either the height of hypocrisy and cynicism, or the height of stupidity. You can’t call them idiots, they are not stupid people: they want to inflict a strategic defeat on us,” the president said.
What is New START and Why Is It Important?
The New START Treaty is the last major strategic arms limitation agreement between the nuclear superpowers – Russia and the United States. The agreement, drafted in 2009 and signed by then-Russian and US Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama in Prague, Czech Republic in 2010, limits the two countries’ deployed arsenals of strategic weapons and nuke stockpiles, and features a series of measures aimed at increased transparency and trust, including the broadcast of telemetry data, limits to missile testing activities, and the exchange of other information.
The Trump administration threatened to let the clock run out on New START in late 2020 after withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty – a late Cold War-era pact which eliminated Soviet and US ground-based nuclear missiles in the 500-5,500 km range, in 2019. The Biden administration agreed to renew New START for five years in early 2021. Pentagon planners have repeatedly criticized the strategic treaty for its failure to account for the nuclear arsenal of China. Beijing has said that it would be happy to sign a nuclear agreement with Washington if the US reduced the size of its nuclear arsenal to China’s level.
The post-Cold War strategic security order began to be dismantled in late 2001, when the George W. Bush administration announced that it would scrap the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – a landmark 1972 agreement designed to limit anti-missile defenses and thus reduce the danger of a global nuclear war. Washington quit the treaty despite proposals by Moscow at the time to establish a joint missile defense system in the Caucasus to eliminate any threats posed to the US or Europe.
Russia suspends last nuclear treaty with US
RT | February 21, 2023
Moscow is suspending its participation in the last remaining nuclear treaty between Russia and the US, President Vladimir Putin has announced. During his key address to the Russian parliament on Tuesday, he noted that Moscow will not exit the New START Treaty, but is temporarily withdrawing.
Explaining the decision, Putin stated that the agreement was initially drawn up under completely different circumstances, when Russia and the US did not perceive each other as adversaries. Now, however, according to the president, not only is the US issuing ultimatums to Russia, but NATO itself has essentially made an application to become part of the treaty as well.
The bloc members are now demanding an inspection of Russia’s strategic facilities, Putin said, noting that Moscow’s requests to inspect Western nuclear facilities under the treaty are systematically denied with only formal explanations for the rejection.
Putin noted that the US has continued to insist on maintaining hegemony, while its NATO partners openly admit that they want to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
“Russia cannot ignore this. We cannot allow ourselves to ignore this,” he said.
Before we return to discussing this agreement, we must understand for ourselves what the intentions of countries like France and the UK are and how we will consider their strategic arsenals as well, which is the cumulative striking potential of NATO.
The New START Treaty was originally signed in 2010 by then-Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, and aimed to cut in half the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers deployed around the world. Under the treaty, both countries were supposed to allow the other side a limited number of inspections per year to verify compliance with the agreement. Unless extended, the treaty was set to expire in 2026.
Russia UN envoy: West hell-bent on destroying Russia, inciting deep Russophobia
Press TV – February 19, 2023
Russian ambassador to the UN has accused the West of instigating “deep Russophobia” and having a determination to destroy his country, saying that, “We had no choice other than to defend our country — defend it from you, to defend our identity and our future.”
Vassily Nebenzia made the remarks at a meeting of the UN Security Council, saying that Russia had no other choice than war. “We had no choice other than to defend our country — defend it from you, to defend our identity and our future.”
Friday’s meeting in the council — the only international venue where Russia regularly faces Ukraine and its Western supporters — put a spotlight on the deep chasm between the warring parties as the conflict is moving into its second year with no end in sight.
In the meeting, US deputy ambassador, Richard Mills, accused Russia of failing to implement “a single commitment it made” in the Minsk agreements while the other signatories — France, Germany, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — “sought to implement them in good faith.”
France ambassador, De Riviere, claimed his country and Germany have worked “tirelessly” since 2015 to promote dialogue between parties, adding that the “difficulties encountered in implementing these agreements can never serve as justification or mitigating circumstances for Russia’s choice to end the dialogue with violence.”
In response, Nebenzia accused the Western nations, including France and Germany, of “holding back” on implementing the Minsk agreements brokered by the two countries to end the conflict between Ukraine and the separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk in the Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial east that flared in April 2014 after Crimea joined Russia.
“You knew very well that the Minsk process for you is just a smoke screen, so as to rearm the Kiev regime and to prepare it for war against Russia in the name of your geopolitical interest,” Nebenzia said.
He further accused the West of “deep Russophobia,” and a “determination to destroy my country, using others if possible.”
The envoy added that the West has no desire to “build a European and Euro-Atlantic security system together with Russia [because] for you such a system can only be aimed against Russia.”
“We have no trust left in you and we are not capable of believing any promises you make – not as regards a non-expansion of NATO in the east, or your desire not to interfere in our internal affairs, or your determination to live in peace,” Nebenzia said.
“You have shown that it’s impossible to negotiate with you,” he said. “You’ve shown how treacherous you are by creating on our borders a neo-Nazi, neo-nationalist beehive and then stirring it up.”
The Minsk agreements were a complex series of measures negotiated by Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine in 2014-2015 in a bid to put an end to the armed conflict between the Kiev authorities and the breakaway region of Donbas.
Moscow repeatedly stated that Kiev was not fulfilling the deal by not granting self-government to the Russian-speaking region of Donbas. In February 2022, Russia began the “military operation” to defend the territory from Ukrainian troops.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted he never intended to implement the Minsk agreements. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel also recently acknowledged that Minsk deal was simply “an attempt to give Ukraine time” so that its army could get stronger.
The revelation was confirmed by former French President Francois Hollande, and Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson who said the Minsk agreement had been nothing but a “diplomatic imitation.”
China Warns US ‘Not to Add Fuel to Fire’ of Ukraine Conflict
Sputnik – 19.02.2023
Beijing has warned Washington against fueling the conflict in Ukraine, where Russia continues its special military operation.
Meeting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the 2023 Munich Security Conference on Saturday, head of the Communist Party of China’s Central Foreign Affairs Office Wang Yi stressed that “As a great power, the US should contribute to a political solution to the crisis, not add fuel to the fire and look for opportunities to benefit from it.”
According to Wang, China has adhered to a constructive position in relation to the crisis in Ukraine and supported the negotiating process.
Wang also made it clear that Beijing “will never tolerate US instructions or even threats to put pressure on Russian-Chinese relations.”
He earlier told the Munich Security Conference that China would draft and present a document, in which its position on the Ukraine crisis will be outlined by the end of February.
“On the Ukraine issue, China’s stance boils down to supporting talks for peace. We will put forth a paper on China’s position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis and stay firm on the side of peace and dialogue,” he underscored.
For its part, the US State Department said in a press release that during talks with Wang, Blinken “warned about the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia or assistance with systemic sanctions evasion.”
This came after a US media outlet quoted unnamed sources as saying that Washington believes that Beijing may be providing non-lethal military assistance to Moscow for use in Ukraine and that the Biden administration is concerned China considers sending lethal aid.
The outlet added that the sources declined to elaborate on the non-lethal military assistance, only claiming that it could include gear for the Russian military’s purported spring offensive, including uniforms or even body armor.
The US and its allies slapped a number of sanction packages against Russia shortly after it launched its special military operation in Ukraine following requests from the Donbass republics to protect them from Kiev’s attacks. Apart from the sanctions, western countries ramped up their military assistance to the Zelensky regime in a move that Moscow warns will add to further prolonging the Ukraine conflict.
Russia explains request to shut down Jewish NGO
RT | February 18, 2023
A Moscow court has begun processing a request by the Russian Justice Ministry to close down nonprofit organization the Jewish Agency for Israel, also known as Sokhnut, it was announced on Saturday.
A hearing was initially scheduled for August of last year but was postponed at the request of the defense, which argued that Sokhnut needed time to correct violations pointed out by the Russian authorities.
The Jewish agency’s lawyers had asked for a second delay, although the judge refused the request and has now heard the positions of both parties.
Representatives of the Justice Ministry stated that Sokhnut, which helps facilitate the repatriation of Jews to Israel, had been collecting the personal data of Russian citizens and placing it on foreign websites, which is banned by Russian law.
The NGO committed 16 such violations between April 2019 and March 2022, and was issued with fines totaling 735,000 rubles ($9,900) as a result.
The Justice Ministry considers those breaches to be “systematic” and sufficient enough to seek the shutdown of the organization, representatives explained. They added that the ministry has other complaints about Sokhnut’s operations.
Lawyers for the NGO argued that a shutdown was an excessively harsh measure, considering the violations. They also said that each breach should be considered separately by the court as it would allow the ministry to indicate “mistakes.”
The presiding judge has ordered a break in the case, with the two sides returning to the courtroom on Tuesday.
Late last year, Sokhnut announced that a record 70,000 foreign Jews had immigrated to Israel in 2022. The NGO credited its work to encourage Russians and Ukrainians to repatriate amid the conflict between their nations as leading to such a high figure.
The number of Russians making the so-called ‘Aliyah’ last year was 37,364, exceeding the total figure of immigrants for 2021 by almost 9,000, according to the organization’s data.
Scott Ritter calls Hersh’s Nord Stream article “his most important work ever”
By Scott Ritter | February 17, 2023
In the Christian faith, God comes in the form of three persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Together, these three beings form the Trinity.
In a recent interview with the German writer Fabian Scheidler, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh discussed his bombshell article that appeared in his inaugural posting on Substack, “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”.
When Scheidler thanked Hersh for his courageous reporting, the veteran reporter shot back, “What’s so courageous about telling the truth? We’re supposed to tell the truth!”
I’ve known Sy Hersh for coming on a quarter century. While I was too young to experience first-hand the impact of his reporting on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, I had a front row seat to the masterful job he did in bringing to light the horrible facts about what the United States was doing in the Abu Ghraib prison, in Iraq.
Legendary status isn’t given—it is earned. And Sy Hersh has earned the absolute right to be called the GOAT when it comes to investigative journalism. He is, simply put, the best.
I’ve read nearly everything Sy Hersh has written, and am able to put his considerable journalistic output in its proper historical perspective. It is therefore that I feel very comfortable in concluding that, in terms of its potential for bringing about tectonic geopolitical change, Sy’s Nord Stream reporting is his most important work ever.
The GOAT has produced what I call the Trinity of Truth.
Truth One: The President of the United States, Joe Biden, by conspiring with members of his national security team to deliberately bypass constitutionally-mandated reporting requirements to Congress regarding acts of war undertaken by the United States, has committed an impeachable offense unmatched by any other president in the history of the United States.
Truth Two: The blow-back that will occur inside Germany to the revelations put forward by Seymour Hersh that the United States carried out an economic Pearl Harbor by destroying energy infrastructure critical to the well-being of the German nation has the potential of breaking up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU), upending more than eighty years of post-war European security and stability, and resulting in the diminishment of the United States on the world stage as it becomes isolated from long-time European allies that served as the foundation of the global acceptance of the so-called “rules based international order” that has served as the means by which the United States exerted global hegemony.
Truth Three: The decision to attack the Nord Stream pipeline puts a lie to the US contention that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an unprovoked act of aggression, instead underscoring the harsh truth that the United States had a strategic plan which hinged on provoking a conflict with Russia in Ukraine to provide the geopolitical cover for ending Europe’s reliance upon cheap Russian natural gas by demonstrating that every time Russia sought a negotiated end to the crisis, whether before the invasion through implementation of the Minsk Accords, or after in the Istanbul round of talks scheduled for April 1, the United States sabotaged the effort, keeping the conflict alive long enough to implement its major objective—the destruction of Nord Stream.
In short, Sy Hersh, through his reporting, has exposed truths which have the potential of bringing down a presidency, destroying NATO, and proving Russia right in the eyes of the world.
Name one other piece of journalism in the past half-century that packs such a punch.
You can’t.
Sy Hersh is a national—no, an international—treasure, something this Trinity of Truth underscores.
Be sure to treat him as such.
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From the Archives
Politicians lie
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
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- Settler Kidnappings: Torture, Sexual Abuse and Terrorisation of Palestinian Abductees as Israel Deepens Annexation of West Bank
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- Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
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- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
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- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
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- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
