Satellites Used Against Russia in Ukraine May Become Legitimate Targets
Samizdat – 30.11.2022
MOSCOW – Quasi-civilian satellites used by Western countries to support the Ukrainian military throughout the conflict may become legitimate targets for Russia, Vladimir Ermakov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s non-proliferation and arms control department, has told Sputnik.
“Western countries are actively using the potential of civilian space infrastructure, first of all, a group of low-orbiting satellites, to support operations of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. These are used to exclusively perform combat tasks to reveal locations, routes of movement and actions of Russian troops, to control combat aerial vehicles, as well as to target high-precision munitions from space,” Ermakov said.
He added that such a provocative use of “civilian satellites at the very least raises questions in the context of the Outer Space Treaty” and “requires the most serious condemnation by the world community.”
“We confirm that such quasi-civilian infrastructure, should it be used in military action against Russia, may quite logically become a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” Ermakov said.
Given the global coverage of the Earth by civilian spacecraft, “the Pentagon is testing the concept of a prospective command and control system for troops anywhere in the world, and the vast majority of countries have no effective means of countering it,” the director said.
“We advocate the prevention of the use of civilian commercial satellites to achieve combat tasks. We urge all countries interested in the proper use of space technologies to make joint efforts in the interests of the exploration of near-Earth space for purely peaceful purposes,” the diplomat noted.
“The development of legally binding norms of international law that would be comprehensive in nature and aimed at the prevention of an arms race in outer space” is the only way to ensure that outer space is used only for peaceful purposes, Ermakov said.
Russian Foreign Ministry: No Evidence That Tehran Wants to Develop Nuclear Weapons
Samizdat – 30.11.2022
MOSCOW – There is no evidence that Tehran intends to develop nuclear weapons, reviewing its participation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Vladimir Yermakov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department, said in an interview with Sputnik.
“Iran has been and remains a conscientious participant in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The conclusion of the JCPOA in 2015 helped to finally and irrevocably remove all the questions that the [International Atomic Energy Agency] had to Tehran at that time.”
“After that, for several years Iran remained the most verified state among agency members. No deviations from its obligations were identified,” Yermakov said. “There is no evidence that would indicate Tehran’s intention to ever reconsider its participation in the NPT and start developing a nuclear explosive device.”
Yermakov’s remarks come as the US undertakes joint military drills with Israel, complete with fighter jet simulations on strikes against Iran’s nuclear program infrastructure. Earlier announcements detailed the drills would be held in the Mediterranean Sea starting November 29, and lasting through December 1.
At the time, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz stressed that the drills were needed in order for Israel to “prepare” its service members for any “possibility.”
Days before the drills kicked off, US media reported that Tehran was inching toward achieving a weapons-grade enrichment, paving the way for Iran to acquire the technology to assemble nuclear weapons.
However, it’s worth noting that Iran has repeatedly indicated it has no intention to create nuclear arms; in fact, Iranian leadership imposed a fatwa in 2003 on the production or usage of any form of nuclear weapons.
Tension between Iran, Israel and the US has remained high for years. Under the Trump administration, however, escalations were at near-boiling after the US withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, reimposed past sanctions and continued on a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
Talks to restore the agreement under the Biden White House have remained stalled for months. Iran earlier dispatched a “constructive” response to Washington’s proposals but was ultimately shut down by administration officials who deemed the messages “not constructive.”
Vladimir Putin’s Vision of a Multipolar World An end to US hegemony?
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • NOVEMBER 29, 2022
In history books as well as in politics every story is shaped by where one chooses to begin the tale. The current fighting in Ukraine, which many observers believe to already be what might be considered the opening phase of World War 3, is just such a development. Did the seeds of conflict arise subsequent to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s consent to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 after having received a commitment from the United States and its allies not to advance the West’s military alliance NATO into Eastern Europe? That was a pledge that was quickly ignored by President Bill Clinton, who intervened militarily in the former Yugoslavia before adding new NATO members from amidst the ruins of the Warsaw Pact.
Since that time NATO has continued its expansion at the expense of Russian national security interests. Ukraine, as one of the largest of the former Soviet republics, soon became the focal point for potential conflict. The US interfered openly in Ukrainian politics, featuring frequent visits by relentlessly hawkish Senator John McCain and State Department monster Victoria Nuland as well as the investment of a reported $5 billion to destabilize the situation, bringing about regime change to remove the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovich and replace it with a regime friendly to America and its European allies. When this occurred it inevitably led to a proposed invitation to Ukraine to join NATO, a move which Moscow repeatedly warned would constitute an existential threat to Russia itself.
Finally, Moscow tried assiduously to negotiate a solution to the developing Ukraine crisis in 2020-2021 but the US and its allies were not interested, allowing the corrupt Ukrainian government of Volodymyr Zelensky to refuse any accommodation. So Russia itself has perceived that it has been misled or even lied to repeatedly by the US and its allies. It has been particularly vexed by the looting of its natural resources by mostly Western oligarchs operating under protection afforded by the feckless President Boris Yeltsin between 1991 and 1999, a puppet installed and sustained through US and European interference in the Russian elections. Just when Russia was on its knees, perhaps intentionally, there arrived on the scene in 1999 former KGB officer Vladimir Putin who, as Prime Minister and later president, proceeded to clean house. Ever since that time, Putin has very carefully explained himself and what he has been doing, making clear that he is no enemy of the West but rather a partner in a relationship that respects the interests and cultures of all players in a global economy that maximizes freedom and individuality.
Given the danger of dramatic escalation of the current situation in Ukraine, with talk coming from both sides about the conditions for the use of nuclear weapons, an October 27th speech made by President Vladimir Putin at the 19th meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, held near Moscow, should be required reading for the Joe Bidens and Jens Stoltenbergs of this world. The theme of the meeting was A Post-Hegemonic World: Justice and Security for Everyone. The four day-long session included 111 academics, politicians, diplomats and economists from Russia and 40 foreign countries, including Afghanistan, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Turkey, Uzbekistan and the United States. In his speech, Putin laid out his vision of a multipolar world in which there is no concept of a politically hegemonic “rules based world order” which substitutes “rules for international law.” And, he observed, the rules have themselves been regularly dictated by one country or group of countries. Putin instead urged a transition into a willingness to accept that all countries have interests and rights that should be respected.
Interestingly enough, Putin, since assuming leadership of his country, has been unwavering in his demand that all countries in the world be granted respect, by which he means that local interests and cultures must be considered legitimate and worthy of acceptance by all as long as they permit individual freedom and are similarly respectful of the interests and national traits of others.
A relaxed and jocular Putin spoke for over an hour in his opening remarks and then fielded questions for another two and a half hours from the audience. In response to a question, he assessed the sanity of White House advisers who would “spoil relations with China at the same time they are supplying billions-worth of weapons to Ukraine in a fight against Russia… Frankly, I do not know why they are doing this… Are they sane? It seems that this runs completely counter to common sense and logic… This is simply crazy!”
The Russian president emphasized several points which elaborated his views. First, he observed that US/Western hegemony “denies the sovereignty of countries and peoples, their identity and uniqueness, and disregards any interests of other states… [The] rules-based world order” only empowers those making the “rules.” Everyone else must obey or face the consequences.
Putin also decried the West’s tendency to make rules and then ignore them when circumstances change. He noted how economic sanctions and “cancel culture” are being used cynically to weaken local economies while also demeaning the cultures and national traits of foreign adversaries. He observed, for example, how Russian writers and composers are being banned purely to send a political message and punish Moscow for its foreign policy.
Putin explained that Russia is an “independent, original civilization” which “has never considered itself an enemy of the West.” Moscow “simply defends its right to exist and develop freely. At the same time, we ourselves are not seeking to become some kind of new hegemon.” He then provided his analysis of what it developing, saying that the world is confronting a global storm which no one can ignore. “We are standing at a historic milestone, ahead of what is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade since the end of World War II. The West is not able to single-handedly manage humanity, but is desperately trying to do it, and most of the peoples of the world no longer want to put up with it.” We can decide “either to continue to accumulate a burden of problems that will inevitably crush us all, or to try together to find solutions, albeit imperfect, but working, capable of making our world safer and more stable.”
So, Vladimir Putin is issuing a call to arms for a transition to a multipolar world, which will inevitably change the playing field both in international relations and in the global economy. No longer will the United States and its allies be able to claim “rule of law” when using coercive force to punish competitors. The drift away from using dollars as the world’s reserve currency, mostly for energy transactions, is already taking place as major trading partners like India, China and NATO member Turkey have ignored restrictions while continuing to buy up Russian energy exports, negating to a certain extent the sanctions put in place by Washington and Europe. The death of dollars as the reserve currency will make it more difficult for the US Treasury to print money without any backing as many nations will no longer be willing to accept what will be increasingly seen as a fiat currency produced by a government that is actually drowning in debt.
Putin might, of course, be proven wrong and the current global system might well be able to limp along for the foreseeable future. But if he is right, those developments transitioning into a multipolar world would mean a de facto decline and fall of the United States as the world hegemon while anything even remotely like a dollar collapse would have catastrophic effect on the US import driven economy as well as on ordinary Americans. Some kind of partial default on US Treasury debt is not unimaginable. And Putin might well be right in his prediction that the change is coming and there is nothing that the United States and its friends can do to stop it.
In any event, the political and economic adjustments that are certainly coming in one way or another will certainly play out as the Ukraine conflict continues to simmer. The tragedy is that what is developing is self-inflicted, completely avoidable and unresponsive to any actual United States interest, but that is another story. If Ukraine turns to open warfare with more direct US involvement and economic dislocation, international pressure to dismantle the post-World War 2 status quo will inevitably increase. No matter how it develops, what is occurring right now will force the perennially tone-deaf politicians in and around the White House to begin to rethink America’s place in the world and its options as a major power. No one can predict how that will go and the process will make compelling theater as America’s two major political parties take up positions to make the case that the other party is solely at fault. It is impossible to foresee how far that bloodletting will go.
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.
Who Called For the United States to Withdraw From NATO?
Samizdat – 29.11.2022
Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russia struck against NATO members’ “collective security” as he attempted to blame an incident involving a Ukrainian missile striking Poland on Moscow.
Foreign ministers of NATO member states are convening at a summit in Bucharest to discuss various matters concerning the alliance, including the ongoing armed conflict in Ukraine.
While the United States and its NATO allies have so far been fairly eager to provide a steady flow of money and weapons to Kiev, effectively fanning the flames of the conflict, quite a few people have expressed concerns that this situation may develop into a global war between Russia and NATO.
While some critics of the Biden administration do not seem fond of the role the US plays in this conflict, there are also people who wonder aloud whether remaining a part of NATO – an alliance created decades ago solely to oppose the Soviet Union – is such a good idea.
Bruce Fein
Prominent US lawyer Bruce Fein, who served as associate deputy attorney general under the Reagan administration, has suggested that the United States could put an end to the conflict in Ukraine simply by withdrawing from NATO.
By remaining in NATO, which lost its purpose since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, and by spearheading the military alliance’s expansion, the US essentially is helping to create an existential threat to Russia greater than “the existential threat the Cuban missile crisis posed to the United States,” Fein argued in an op-ed published in a US media outlet last week.
Therefore, the lawyer suggested, US withdrawal from NATO could end this threat that “occasioned” Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, as well as “extinguish the executive branch’s ambition for regime change or weakening Russia.”
He also outlined a potential mechanism for this hypothetical withdrawal, noting how US Congress annulled a defense treaty with France in 1798.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
US politician and former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene voiced similar concerns a few months earlier when she slammed the Biden administration for the military support it provides to Ukraine.
Arguing that the US leadership and NATO are basically dragging the United States into a war with Russia, Greene tweeted in June that there would be no winners in such a confrontation.
“Escalation over Ukraine, a non-member nation, risking nuclear war is a power play endangering the entire world,” she wrote. “We should pull out of NATO.”
Donald Trump
While the 45th president had been a vocal critic of the way other NATO members allegedly shirk their responsibilities, demanding that they pay their alliance dues in full, he also apparently questioned the US presence in that organization.
In June, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told media she has no doubt that the US would have left NATO if Trump were reelected in 2020.
In a book Trump penned in 2000, long before he became president, the then-real estate mogul argued that conflicts between warring factions in Europe simply aren’t worth US lives.
“Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually. The cost of stationing NATO troops in Europe is enormous. And these are clearly funds that can be put to better use,” he wrote.
Collective Defense Issue
The concerns voiced by the proponents of US withdrawal from NATO got thrust into the limelight this month when an errant Ukrainian missile struck Poland, a NATO member.
While the NATO leadership and Poland concurred that the missile came from Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was quick to blame this incident on Russia, describing it as an attack on NATO members’ “collective security”.
If Zelensky’s accusations were true, this incident could have devolved into a full-blown direct conflict between the military alliance and Russia due to NATO’s collective defense mechanism that obliges all members to treat an attack against one of them as an attack against them all.
Members Only
The situation where at least some people advocate for the US leaving NATO can perhaps be considered somewhat ironic in light of the fact that, in the years following the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia proposed joining the military alliance on several occasions.
Though relations between Russia and NATO cooled following NATO’s attack on Serbia in 1999, Vladimir Putin, who became the president of Russia the following year, brought up the prospects of Moscow becoming a part of the alliance during the early years of his presidency.
Yet even as these initiatives ended being torpedoes by the NATO leadership, that did not deter the current NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg from claiming during his opening speech at the Aspen – GMF Bucharest Forum on Tuesday that it was Russia who “walked away” from constructive dialogue with NATO.
“There is no way we can continue the meaningful dialogue we tried to establish for many years with the behavior and the aggressive actions by Russia against Ukraine as we see now,” he said.
What to expect in Russia’s winter offensive in Ukraine
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | NOVEMBER 29, 2022
Wading through the 18,000-word transcript of an hours-long meeting that President Vladimir Putin took with the “soldiers’ mothers” last Friday in Moscow, one gets the impression that the fighting in Ukraine may continue well into 2023 — and even beyond.
In a most revealing remark, Putin acknowledged that Moscow blundered in 2014 by leaving Donbass an unfinished business — unlike Crimea — by allowing itself to be lured into the ceasefire brokered by Germany and France and the Minsk agreements.
Moscow took some time to realise that Germany and France connived with then leadership in Kiev to scuttle the implementation of Minsk accord. Then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko admitted in a series of interviews with western news outlets in recent months, including on Germany’s Deutsche Welle television and Radio Free Europe’s Ukrainian unit, that the 2015 ceasefire was a distraction intended to buy time for Kiev to rebuild its military.
In his words, “We had achieved everything we wanted, our goal was to, first, stop the [Russian] threat, or at least to delay the war –- to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.”
The so-called Steinmeier Formula (proposed by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier back in 2016 when he was foreign minister) on the sequencing of the Minsk agreement, had called for elections to be held in the separatist-held Donbass territories under Ukrainian legislation and the supervision of the OSCE; and, if the OSCE judged the balloting to be free and fair, then a special self-governing status for the Donbass territories would be initiated and Ukraine’s control of its easternmost border with Russia restored.
Putin admitted that Russia accepted the Minsk agreements ignoring the wishes of the Russian population in Donbass. To quote him, “We sincerely went to this. But we didn’t fully feel the mood of the people, it was impossible to fully understand what was going on there. But now it has probably become obvious that this reunion [of Donbass] should have happened earlier. Maybe there wouldn’t have been so many losses among civilians, there wouldn’t have been so many dead children under shelling…”
For the first time, perhaps, an incumbent Kremlin leader admitted making mistakes. The above poignant passage, therefore, becomes a touchstone for Putin’s future decisions, as the Russian mobilisation approaches the final stage and by end-December, an estimated 400,000 additional Russian troops will have been deployed in forward positions.
The bottom line is that Putin slammed the door shut on another Minsk-like hodgepodge of modern furniture and antiques. How does this translate as political reality?
First and foremost, much as Moscow is open for dialogue without preconditions, Russian negotiators will be bound by the recent amendments to the country’s Constitution, which incorporated Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions as part of the Russian Federation.
Second, Friday’s meeting has been, by any reckoning, an audacious initiative by Putin — risky, politically speaking. His interlocutors included mothers drawn from far-flung regions, whose sons are either actively fighting on the warfront, or have experienced the tragedy of sons having been killed in the fighting, or seriously wounded and need prolonged rehabilitation.
They were strong-willed women, for sure, and yet, as one of them from the small town of Kirovsk in Luhansk told Putin while recalling the death of her son Konstantin Pshenichkin on the frontline, “My heart bleeds, my soul freezes, gloomy memories cloud my mind, tears, tears, and suddenly my son asks me: “Mom, don’t be sad, I’ll see you – you just have to wait. You will go through this life for me, and in that life, we will be together again.”
Putin claimed openly — highly unusual for a Kremlin leader — that he went prepared for the meeting. But he still had surprises in store. Such meetings are impossible to be choreographed as pent-up emotions are in play in front of TV cameras.
Thus, Marina Bakhilina from Sakha Republic, mother of three sons (one of whom is a highly decorated soldier from the elite Airborne Forces, 83rd Brigade and recipient of the Order of Courage) complained that there’s no hot food on the frontline. She told Putin: “Do you understand what’s going on? If our people can’t provide our soldiers with hot meals, I, as a master of sports and a shooting CMC, would love to go there, to the front line to cook.”
Putin replied gently, “It would seem that the issues have already been mostly resolved… it means that not everything is normal…”
What stands out in such frank exchanges is Putin’s massive political capital, derived out of the great consolidation he has mustered in getting the nation to rally behind him. The overall mood at the meeting was one of commitment to Russia’s cause and the confidence in ultimate victory. Of course, this strengthens Putin’s hands.
This is where the analogy of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis comes unstuck. Public opinion wasn’t a key factor 60 years ago. In a nutshell, common sense prevailed in 1962 as realisation dawned that any failure to take into account the rival power’s security interests could have an apocalyptic outcome.
The difference today is that while President Joe Biden has insulated himself and is not accountable for his dogged pursuit of a Russian defeat on the battlefield in Ukraine and an ensuing “regime change” in Moscow, Putin insists on holding himself accountable to his people. Will any western “liberal” politician in power dare emulate Putin’s extraordinary meeting with the “soldiers’ mothers”?
If economic hardships lead to social unrest and political turmoil in western Europe, the politicians in power will be at a disadvantage. Putin is fighting a “People’s War,” while western politicians cannot even admit that they are fighting Russia. But how long can it be hidden from the public view in Poland or France that their nationals are getting killed in Ukraine’s steppe? Can the western politicians pledge that their “volunteers” didn’t die in vain? What happens if a refugee flow out of Ukraine into western Europe begins as winter advances?
In military terms, Russia enjoys escalation dominance — a markedly superior position over its NATO rival, across a range of rungs as the conflict progresses. The accelerating Russian operation in Bakhmut is a case in point. The deployment of regular troops in the recent days shows that Russia is on the escalation ladder to wrap up the 4-month old “grind” in Bakhmut city in Donetsk, which military analysts often describe as a lynchpin of Kiev’s defence in the eastern Donbass region.
A New York Times report on Sunday highlighted the enormous scale of losses Ukrainian forces suffered in recent weeks. Evidently, the Wagner Group of Russian military contractors who were doing the fighting pinned down the Ukrainian forces in defensive positions, estimated in the region of 30,000 troops including crack units “that have been worn down by nonstop Russian assaults.”
The Times report admits, citing a US defence official, that the Russian intention could have been to make Bakhmut city “a resource-intensive black hole for Kyiv.” This paradigm will repeat elsewhere, too, except that the Russian forces will be much stronger, far superior in numbers and vastly better equipped and will be fighting from heavily fortified positions.
Putin made it clear at Friday’s meeting that vanquishing the neo-Nazi Banderites will remain a firm objective. Although regime change in Kiev is not a stated purpose, Putin will not settle for a repetition of the ceasefire and peace as in 2015, which left an anti-Russian, proxy regime of the US in power.
That said, Putin underscored that “despite all the issues related to the special military operation, we do not change our plans for the development of the state, for the development of the country, for the development of the economy, its social sphere, for national projects. We have huge, big plans…”
Taken together, all these elements define Russia’s so-called winter offensive. Putin’s hand-picked theatre commander in Ukraine General Sergei Surovikin is not in the mould of Patton or MacArthur. Basically, he holds the compass of the special military operations, while incorporating the experience accruing through the past 8 months of NATO involvement in the fighting. But never once did Putin use the expression “war” to characterise the conflict.
US-Turkiye brinkmanship won’t reach a point of no return
Conflict between Ankara and Washington over Syria will likely see the two drift apart, with Turkiye aligning more closely with Eurasian powers.
By MK Bhadrakumar | The Cradle | November 28, 2022
The series of airstrikes against Kurdish militants in northern Syria by Turkish jets in the past week come amid heightened concerns over Ankara’s threat to launch a ground operation. Such actions are not without precedent, yet have thus far achieved little in terms of eradicating the security challenges posed by US-backed Kurdish fighters.
Turkiye is today addressing an existential challenge to its national security and sovereignty, stemming from the United States’ quasi-alliance with Kurdish groups in Syria over the past decade – with whom Ankara has been battling for far longer.
However, this issue is playing out within a much broader regional backdrop today. Russia now has a permanent presence in Syria and is itself locked in an existential struggle with the US in Ukraine and the Black Sea. Iran-US tensions are also acute and President Joe Biden has openly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government.
Opposing the US occupation of Syria
Suffice to say, the Syrian government, which has demanded the removal of illegal US troops from one-third of its territory for years, enjoys a congruence of interests with Turkiye like never before, particularly in opposing the American military presence in Syria.
For the US, on the other hand, continued occupation of Syria is crucial in geopolitical terms, given that country’s geography on the northern tier of the West Asian region which borders Iran and the Caucasus to the north and east, Turkiye and the Black Sea to the north, Israel to the south, and the Eastern Mediterranean to the west.
All of that would have a great bearing on the outcome of the epochal struggle for the control of the Eurasian landmass – the Heartland and the Geographical Pivot of history as Sir Halford J. Mackinder once described it in evocative terms – by Washington and NATO to counter Russia’s resurgence and China’s rise.
China’s involvement in the Astana process
A curious detail at this point assumes larger-than-life significance in the period ahead: Beijing is messaging its interest in joining the Astana process on Syria. Moscow’s presidential envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, stated recently that Russia is convinced that China’s involvement as an observer in the Astana format would be valuable.
Interestingly, Lavrentiev was speaking after the 19th international meeting on Syria in the Astana format with his counterparts from Turkiye and Iran on November 15.
“We believe that China’s participation in the Astana format would be very useful. Of course, we proposed this option. The Iranians agreed with this, while the Turkish side is considering it and has taken a pause before making a decision,” he explained.
Lavrentiev noted that Beijing could provide “some assistance as part of the Syrian settlement, improve the lives of Syrian citizens, and in reconstruction.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry promptly responded to the Russian invitation, confirming that Beijing “attaches great importance to this format and is ready to work with all its participants to restore peace and stability in Syria.”
Lavrentiev didn’t miss the opportunity to taunt Washington, saying: “Of course, I believe that if the Americans returned to the Astana format, that would also be very useful. If two countries like the United States and China were present as observers in the Astana format, that would be a very good step, a good signal for the international community, and in general in the direction of the Syrian settlement.”
However, there is no question of the Biden Administration working with Russia, Turkiye, Iran, and China on a Syrian settlement at the present time. Reports keep appearing that the US has been transferring ISIS fighters from Syria to Ukraine to fight Russian forces, and to Afghanistan to stir up the pot in Central Asia.
The Astana troika are in unison, demanding the departure of US occupation forces from Syria. Moscow knows fully well too that the US hopes to work toward shuttering Russian bases in Syria.
Turkiye’s pursuit of the US’s Kurdish allies
In fact, the aerial operations in Syria that Ankara ordered last Sunday followed a terrorist strike in Istanbul a week ago by Kurdish separatists, killing at least six people and injuring more than 80 others. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the air strikes were “just the beginning” and that his Armed Forces “will topple the terrorists by land at the most convenient time.”
Turkish security agencies have nabbed the bomber – a Syrian woman named Ahlam Albashir who was allegedly trained by the US military. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre hurriedly issued a statement to calm that storm: “The United States strongly condemns the act of violence that took place today in Istanbul, Turkiye.”
But Turkiye’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu reacted caustically to the American missive, saying that Washington’s condolence message was like “a killer being the first to show up at a crime scene.”
Conceivably, with Erdogan facing a crucial election in the coming months, the Biden Administration is pulling out all the stops to prevent the ruling AKP party from winning another mandate to rule Turkiye.
The Turkish “swing state” is crucial for US plans
The US feels exasperated with Erdogan for pushing ahead with independent foreign policies that could see Turkiye joining the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and deepening his strategic ties with Russia and China – and most important, steadily mark distance from Washington and NATO’s containment strategies against Russia and China.
Turkiye has become a critically important “swing state” at this stage in the post-cold war era. Erdogan’s effort to bolster the country’s strategic autonomy lethally undermines the western strategy to impose its global hegemony.
While Erdogan keep’s Washington guessing about his next move, his airstrikes in northern Syria hit targets very close to US bases there. The Pentagon has warned that the strikes threaten the safety of American military personnel. The Pentagon statement represents the strongest condemnation by the US of its NATO ally in recent times.
Russian diplomacy forestalls Syria ground incursion
Unsurprisingly, Russia is acting as a moderating influence on Turkiye. Lavrentyev said last Wednesday that Moscow has tried to convince Ankara to “refrain from conducting full-scale ground operations” inside Syria. The Russian interest lies in encouraging Erdogan to engage with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and pool their efforts to curb the activities of Kurdish terrorists.
Indeed, the probability is low that Erdogan will order ground incursions into Syria. This also seems to be the assessment of local Kurdish groups.
US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Commander Mazloum Kobane Abdi, who is the Pentagon’s key interlocutor in northern Syria, has been quoted as saying that while he has received intelligence that Turkiye has alerted its local proxies to prepare for a ground offensive, the Biden administration could still convince Erdogan to back off.
That said, Erdogan can make things difficult for the US and eventually even force the evacuation of its estimated 900 military troops, shutting down the Pentagon’s lucrative oil smuggling operation in Syria and abandoning its training camps for ex-ISIS fighters in northern and eastern Syria.
But the US is unlikely to take matters to a point of no return. A retrenchment in Syria at the present juncture will weaken the US regional strategies, not only in West Asia, but also in the adjoining Black Sea region and the Caucasus, in the southern periphery of the Eurasian landmass.
From Erdogan’s perspective too, it is not in his interest to burn bridges with the west. A bridge in disrepair remains a bridge nonetheless, which would have its selective uses for Erdogan in the times of multipolarity that lie ahead.
Kremlin Denies Media Reports About Russia’s Alleged Plans to Leave ZNPP
Samizdat – 28.11.2022
MOSCOW – Media reports alleging that Russia plans to leave the city of Energodar and the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (NPP) are not true, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.
“There is no need to look for some signs where there are none and cannot be,” Peskov told reporters, commenting on the allegations.
Late on Sunday, Western and Ukrainian media reported about Russia’s alleged intention to withdraw from the region. Last week, Petro Kotin, the head of Ukrainian energy enterprise Energoatom, told a national television that there were signs of Russian troops preparing to leave the Zaporozhye NPP.
Located on the left bank of the Dnepr River, the Zaporozhye NPP is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe by number of units and output. During the military operation in Ukraine, launched by Russia on February 24, the nuclear plant and surrounding area went under the control of Russian forces and have since been shelled many times. Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the attacks.
Gazprom to mothball Nord Stream pipelines – Kommersant
RT | November 28, 2022
Russian energy major Gazprom is planning to shutter the Nord Stream gas pipelines and compressor stations, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Monday citing company sources. In September, both strings of Nord Stream 1 and one string of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline were damaged by explosions and are currently inoperable.
According to the report, gas-pumping equipment will not be moved from the Portovaya and Slavyanskaya compressor stations and will remain on site. This will help re-launch flows at short notice once the pipelines are restored.
Analyst Sergey Kondratyev of the Institute of Energy and Finance told the news outlet that the decision has merit, as it is now difficult to assess the timing of the repairs. Also, the transfer of equipment to other compressor stations is not viable, since Portovaya uses unique equipment. According to the expert, the work may take from three to five months and cost up to three billion rubles (around $50 million).
It is also unclear whether Gazprom will restore the pipelines at all. Machinery at the Portovaya compressor station was out of service long before the explosions due to a lack of proper maintenance amid Western sanctions on Russia.
“There is no answer to the question of how and why to restore the strings of Nord Stream if the pumps at Portovaya station are out of service,” Gazprom head Alexei Miller said last month.
Russia condemned the explosions that damaged the pipelines as an “act of international terrorism.” The Russian Defense Ministry said last month it suspects the British Navy to be involved, but London has denied the accusation. After their own probes, Sweden and Denmark both reported that the fractures in the pipelines were caused by explosions, but have not made suggestions as to who might be responsible.
Russia Has Not Received Response From US and Ukraine Regarding Biolabs Near Its Borders: Envoy
By Maxim Minaev – Samizdat – 28.11.2022
On November 26, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological defense troops of the Russian Armed Forces, said that Russia is concerned about US-controlled tests of infectious agents on military personnel and mental patients in Ukraine.
Russia has not received an exhaustive response from the United States and Ukraine regarding US biological and military activities on Ukrainian territory under the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), Russia’s permanent representative to the Geneva-based UN headquarters, Gennady Gatilov, said.
“We still have not received a proper and meaningful response to the documents and evidence presented, which shed light on the true nature of interaction between the Pentagon and its contractors and the Ukrainian side in the field of military and biological activities,” he said.
The diplomat added that Russia’s complaint was ignored and its proposal for an international investigation under the auspices of the UNSC under Article VI of the BWC was blocked by the United States.
Earlier, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological defense troops of the Russian Armed Forces, said that a network of more than 30 biological laboratories had been formed on the territory of Ukraine, which worked in the interests of the Pentagon. According to him, everything for the continuation of the US military-biological program was removed from Ukraine after the start of the Russian special military operation.
Earlier this month, Kirillov recalled that former US President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton had participated in formulating the US drive for global dominance in bioweapons research. He said that Bolton led the US delegation to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention’s Fifth Review Conference in November-December 2001. Later, the US blocked the operation of the UN body’s verification mechanism, as well as proposed measures to check bioweapons storage sites, citing threats such verification measures would pose to US “national interests.” Bolton also characterized the BWC’s verification protocol as “dead,” and promised that it’s “not going to be resurrected.”
Igor Kirillov accompanied his presentation with a fresh trove of documents, including papers related to US efforts to build up the country’s military-biological potential.
Russian Region Bordering Baltics Has Been Repeatedly Probed by NATO Drones, Governor Reveals
© Photo : HFw Christian Timmig – HQ AIRCOM – NATO
By Ilya Tsukanov – Samizdat – 27.11.2022
Tensions between Moscow and its Baltic neighbors Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania jumped dramatically after Russia began its military operation in Ukraine, but have been at a heightened state ever since the 2014 coup d’état in Kiev.
NATO drones have been trying to violate the Russian state border in the Pskov region for years, Governor Mikhail Vedernikov has revealed.
“The Pskov region borders on three states, two of them part of the NATO bloc… Today they like talking about how the alliance has sought ‘peaceful coexistence’ with us… Pskov has also been repeatedly subjected to this ‘good neighborliness’ policy of NATO’s,” Vedernikov said at a media forum on Saturday.
“We have never spoken extensively about this, but there have even been attempts to illegally cross our border with military drones and other aircraft. Such ‘peaceful engagement’ was in full bloom even before the start of the special military operation, and clearly the situation has become even more aggravated,” the governor said.
Vedernikov did not elaborate on NATO’s drone operations along the border area, or measures taken by the Russian side to neutralize the intruding UAVs.
The governor also listed off other acts of “good neighborliness” by the Baltic countries’ governments, including Latvian and Estonian authorities’ “empty statements about territorial claims” against Russia, and the “massive and targeted” issuance of EU passports to residents of areas of the Pskov region near the border.
Situated on the border with Estonia, Latvia, and Belarus, Pskov has been on the front line of the standoff between Russia and NATO since long before Russia kicked off its military operation in Ukraine in February. The Russian military has regularly reported on the tracking and intercept of dozens of NATO surveillance aircraft, bombers, and large spy drones in the region’s vicinity going back to the mid-2010s.
The area comprising the Pskov and Leningrad regions near Russia’s borders in the Baltic Sea is one of four major approaches by NATO and US air power along which the bloc has sought to ramp up its surveillance and drilling activities near Russia, with the others including Crimea and the Black Sea, Murmansk, and the Russian Far East. The Russian MoD has reported on the detection and interception of thousands of alliance aircraft along these approaches over the past eight years.
The escalation of tensions between Moscow and NATO has seen a dramatic increase in the size of the NATO deployments along Russia’s borders in recent months. Earlier this month, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported that the NATO grouping near Russia has grown by 250 percent since February, and now constitutes more than 30,000 troops.
Satellite Imagery Shows Extensive Destruction Of Ukraine Power Grid
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | November 27, 2022
It was only a matter of time. The recent Russian pull-back of troops clearly indicated a broad shift in tactics, and the one thing that the Kremlin avoided for several months seemed like the next most logical step – Full spectrum strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure.
Initially, Ukraine’s media spin suggested that the precision strikes were “ineffective”, with western news outlets showing only a handful of images of craters in streets and some scarred apartment buildings. There were limited admissions of damage to the power and water grids, but Ukraine claimed that these systems would be back and functional within days. This did not happen.
Not surprisingly, Ukraine suffered far more damage to their utilities than the government and media let on. Later estimates ranged from 60% to 80% of the nation’s grid destroyed or unusable and the latest satellite photos of active lights at night support this. Below, we can see lights across Ukraine on February 24th at the start of the war.
Next, we have an image taken from November 24th.
More than half the nation is in total darkness and the comparison to neighboring countries is stark. For the majority of the war Ukraine enjoyed near full use of their power grid, internet, water, gas, and other amenities, which is highly unusual during an invasion. The reasons for Vladimir Putin seeking to avoid damage to infrastructure are unknown, but public optics are the most likely explanation. With power resources nearly destroyed, the citizenry of Ukraine is facing a long cold winter with little to no relief in sight.
No doubt the media will portray this as a cold weather holocaust, though, elimination of infrastructure is usually the first measure of a large scale attack. It is standard operating procedure for the US military, for example. At this point, the coldest temperatures have yet to hit Ukraine, with average lows of 21°F (-6°C) in December. This kind of weather is not a problem with infrastructure intact, but with the grid down there will be chaos.
Water pipes will freeze and bust across major population centers, leaving only well water. The effects of the cold will be cumulative, and without heating and electric most other operations including economic operations will grind to a halt. Ukraine’s population will have gone from relative comfort to brutal survival in the span of a couple months.
The next most obvious outcome is a refugee crisis, with millions of people seeking shelter in neighboring countries in order to escape the cold. Though mainstream analysts are finally admitting to the grid problem, there is still very little coverage of the actual consequences we are about to witness. The assertions that Ukraine is “winning” the war are harder to sell while at the same time acknowledging the massive economic and humanitarian disaster that is escalating in the wake of supposed victory.
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Book Review
A Palantir Manifesto
By Alan Mosley | The Libertarian Institute | April 22, 2026
Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s book, The Technological Republic, is a clarion call for Silicon Valley to abandon its consumer trinkets and rush headlong into the arms of the military-industrial complex. According to Karp, America’s future depends on wielding hard power through technology—arming soldiers, AI-weaponry, and mass surveillance systems—rather than on the “soft” influence demonstrated by free markets and liberty-first principles. The book claims that “the survival of the American experiment depends on the technological revitalization of the military-industrial complex” and urges the country’s engineering talent to focus on national defense. Karp and his co-author, Nicholas Zamiska, argue that tech bros should “grow up” and start killing America’s enemies before they kill us. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The First Photographs Ever Taken of Iran [1848-1858] by Colonel Luigi Pesce + Persepolis, Old World
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- Al-Akhbar’s Amal Khalil assassinated by Israel, left to die under rubble
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- Israel chases down, kills Lebanese journalist, massacres 5 in Gaza, all during “ceasefires” – Daily Update
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- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
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