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Russian hypersonic missiles superior to anything NATO has: Le Figaro

Samizdat – 02.10.2022

Russian hypersonic missile systems are more advanced than anything being fielded by the North Atlantic Alliance today, France’s Le Figaro has reported, echoing sentiments expressed by Russia’s president in a speech last week.

The French newspaper characterized Russia’s hypersonic weaponry as its main strategic asset, capable of flying at incredible speeds and maneuvering while in flight. It pointed specifically to the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle – a weapon deployable as a part of a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) payload aboard Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“In this specific area, Russia is indeed one step ahead of its NATO adversaries,” the Gaullist newspaper conceded. The paper added that Russia and China proceeded to develop hypersonic missiles in response to NATO’s efforts to construct a missile defense shield.

“Russia undoubtedly has more modern weapons than the NATO countries. The United States has lagged behind in the field of hypersonic missiles, and Moscow’s nuclear arsenal is being replenished with more powerful and destructive projectiles,” Igor Delanoe, deputy director of the Moscow-based Franco-Russian Observatory, said.

In his speech announcing partial mobilization last month, Vladimir Putin accused Western officials of discussing “the possibility and admissibility of using weapons mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”

“I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff,” Putin said.

The Russian president unveiled five new strategic weapons in a speech to lawmakers in 2018, among them the Kinzhal and the Avangard, plus the Poseidon nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed drone submarine, and the 9M730 Burevestnik (‘Petrel’) nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile.

The Chinese military also possesses hypersonic weapons. In August, Russian-Indian defense joint venture BrahMos announced that it may create a hypersonic missile by 2027 or 2028. North and South Korea, France, Japan, Australia and India are also researching the cutting-edge class of weaponry.

The Pentagon has tasked US defense contractors with developing at least six hypersonic weapons designs for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and DARPA’s Operational Fires program, but to date none have been fielded. The US military has also pitched laser and dust-firing flak guns meant to defeat Russian and Chinese hypersonics, as well as the use of stratospheric balloons to monitor and track their launch.

Russia got a head start on its hypersonics program thanks to Soviet-era research in the field starting in the early 2000s, after the Bush administration unilaterally scrapped of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – a 1972 Soviet-US agreement which placed severe limitations on the creation of anti-ballistic missile defenses and intended to stop the arms race.

Russia’s military doctrine forbids nuclear weapons from being used unless the country is targeted by enemy nuclear attack first, or a conventional attack so severe that it is deemed to threaten the existence of the state. The United States does not place such restrictions on its nukes, and “reserves the right to use” them on a preemptive basis, even against non-nuclear armed adversaries.

October 2, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Putin’s Full Speech on New Territories

Samizdat – 30.09.2022

The Russian president, other senior officials, and the heads of the Donbass republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson gathered in the Kremlin on Friday to formalize the results of status referendums held between September 23-27, in which overwhelming majorities of voters expressed their support for their regions becoming part of Russia.

Below is the full, unredacted, official Kremlin translation of President Vladimir Putin’s historic speech before lawmakers in Moscow on Friday dedicated to the accession of four new regions into the Russian Federation:

“Citizens of Russia, citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, deputies of the State Duma, senators of the Russian Federation,

As you know, referendums have been held in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. The ballots have been counted and the results have been announced. The people have made their unequivocal choice.

Today we will sign treaties on the accession of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Lugansk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye Region and Kherson Region to the Russian Federation. I have no doubt that the Federal Assembly will support the constitutional laws on the accession to Russia and the establishment of four new regions, our new constituent entities of the Russian Federation, because this is the will of millions of people.

It is undoubtedly their right, an inherent right sealed in Article 1 of the UN Charter, which directly states the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
I repeat, it is an inherent right of the people. It is based on our historical affinity, and it is that right that led generations of our predecessors, those who built and defended Russia for centuries since the period of Ancient Rus, to victory.

Here in Novorossiya, [Pyotr] Rumyantsev, [Alexander] Suvorov and [Fyodor] Ushakov fought their battles, and Catherine the Great and [Grigory] Potyomkin founded new cities. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought here to the bitter end during the Great Patriotic War.

We will always remember the heroes of the Russian Spring, those who refused to accept the neo-Nazi coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, all those who died for the right to speak their native language, to preserve their culture, traditions and religion, and for the very right to live. We remember the soldiers of Donbass, the martyrs of the “Odessa Khatyn,” the victims of inhuman terrorist attacks carried out by the Kiev regime. We commemorate volunteers and militiamen, civilians, children, women, senior citizens, Russians, Ukrainians, people of various nationalities; popular leader of Donetsk Alexander Zakharchenko; military commanders Arsen Pavlov and Vladimir Zhoga, Olga Kochura and Alexei Mozgovoy; prosecutor of the Lugansk Republic Sergei Gorenko; paratrooper Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov and all our soldiers and officers who died a hero’s death during the special military operation. They are heroes. Heroes of great Russia. Please join me in a minute of silence to honour their memory.

(Minute of silence.)

Thank you.

Behind the choice of millions of residents in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, is our common destiny and thousand-year history. People have passed this spiritual connection on to their children and grandchildren. Despite all the trials they endured, they carried the love for Russia through the years. This is something no one can destroy. That is why both older generations and young people – those who were born after the tragic collapse of the Soviet Union – have voted for our unity, for our common future.

In 1991 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, representatives of the party elite of that time made a decision to terminate the Soviet Union, without asking ordinary citizens what they wanted, and people suddenly found themselves cut off from their homeland. This tore apart and dismembered our national community and triggered a national catastrophe. Just like the government quietly demarcated the borders of Soviet republics, acting behind the scenes after the 1917 revolution, the last leaders of the Soviet Union, contrary to the direct expression of the will of the majority of people in the referendum of 1991, destroyed our great country, and simply made the people in the former republics face this as an accomplished fact.

I can admit that they didn’t even know what they were doing and what consequences their actions would have in the end. But it doesn’t matter now. There is no Soviet Union anymore; we cannot return to the past. Actually, Russia no longer needs it today; this isn’t our ambition. But there is nothing stronger than the determination of millions of people who, by their culture, religion, traditions, and language, consider themselves part of Russia, whose ancestors lived in a single country for centuries. There is nothing stronger than their determination to return to their true historical homeland.

For eight long years, people in Donbass were subjected to genocide, shelling and blockades; in Kherson and Zaporozhye, a criminal policy was pursued to cultivate hatred for Russia, for everything Russian. Now too, during the referendums, the Kiev regime threatened schoolteachers, women who worked in election commissions with reprisals and death. Kiev threatened millions of people who came to express their will with repression. But the people of Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson weren’t broken, and they had their say.

I want the Kiev authorities and their true handlers in the West to hear me now, and I want everyone to remember this: the people living in Lugansk and Donetsk, in Kherson and Zaporozhye have become our citizens, forever.

We call on the Kiev regime to immediately cease fire and all hostilities; to end the war it unleashed back in 2014 and return to the negotiating table. We are ready for this, as we have said more than once. But the choice of the people in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson will not be discussed. The decision has been made, and Russia will not betray it. (Applause.) Kiev’s current authorities should respect this free expression of the people’s will; there is no other way. This is the only way to peace.

We will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have, and we will do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people. This is the great liberating mission of our nation.

We will definitely rebuild the destroyed cities and towns, the residential buildings, schools, hospitals, theatres and museums. We will restore and develop industrial enterprises, factories, infrastructure, as well as the social security, pension, healthcare and education systems.

We will certainly work to improve the level of security. Together we will make sure that citizens in the new regions can feel the support of all the people of Russia, of the entire nation, all the republics, territories and regions of our vast Motherland.

Friends, colleagues,

Today, I would like to address our soldiers and officers who are taking part in the special military operation, the fighters of Donbass and Novorossiya, those who went to military recruitment offices after receiving a call-up paper under the executive order on partial mobilisation, and those who did this voluntarily, answering the call of their hearts. I would like to address their parents, wives and children, to tell them what our people are fighting for, what kind of enemy we are up against, and who is pushing the world into new wars and crises and deriving blood-stained benefits from this tragedy.

Our compatriots, our brothers and sisters in Ukraine who are part of our united people have seen with their own eyes what the ruling class of the so-called West have prepared for humanity as a whole. They have dropped their masks and shown what they are really made of.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the West decided that the world and all of us would permanently accede to its dictates. In 1991, the West thought that Russia would never rise after such shocks and would fall to pieces on its own. This almost happened. We remember the horrible 1990s, hungry, cold and hopeless. But Russia remained standing, came alive, grew stronger and occupied its rightful place in the world.

Meanwhile, the West continued and continues looking for another chance to strike a blow at us, to weaken and break up Russia, which they have always dreamed about, to divide our state and set our peoples against each other, and to condemn them to poverty and extinction. They cannot rest easy knowing that there is such a great country with this huge territory in the world, with its natural wealth, resources and people who cannot and will not do someone else’s bidding.

The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neo-colonial system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual tribute from humanity, to extract its primary source of unearned prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. The preservation of this annuity is their main, real and absolutely self-serving motivation. This is why total de-sovereignisation is in their interest. This explains their aggression towards independent states, traditional values and authentic cultures, their attempts to undermine international and integration processes, new global currencies and technological development centres they cannot control. It is critically important for them to force all countries to surrender their sovereignty to the United States.

In certain countries, the ruling elites voluntarily agree to do this, voluntarily agree to become vassals; others are bribed or intimidated. And if this does not work, they destroy entire states, leaving behind humanitarian disasters, devastation, ruins, millions of wrecked and mangled human lives, terrorist enclaves, social disaster zones, protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies. They don’t care. All they care about is their own benefit.

I want to underscore again that their insatiability and determination to preserve their unfettered dominance are the real causes of the hybrid war that the collective West is waging against Russia. They do not want us to be free; they want us to be a colony. They do not want equal cooperation; they want to loot. They do not want to see us a free society, but a mass of soulless slaves.

They see our thought and our philosophy as a direct threat. That is why they target our philosophers for assassination. Our culture and art present a danger to them, so they are trying to ban them. Our development and prosperity are also a threat to them because competition is growing. They do not want or need Russia, but we do.

I would like to remind you that in the past, ambitions of world domination have repeatedly shattered against the courage and resilience of our people. Russia will always be Russia. We will continue to defend our values and our Motherland.

The West is counting on impunity, on being able to get away with anything. As a matter of fact, this was actually the case until recently. Strategic security agreements have been trashed; agreements reached at the highest political level have been declared tall tales; firm promises not to expand NATO to the east gave way to dirty deception as soon as our former leaders bought into them; missile defence, intermediate-range and shorter-range missile treaties have been unilaterally dismantled under far-fetched pretexts.

And all we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.

Russia is a great thousand-year-old power, a whole civilisation, and it is not going to live by such makeshift, false rules.

It was the so-called West that trampled on the principle of the inviolability of borders, and now it is deciding, at its own discretion, who has the right to self-determination and who does not, who is unworthy of it. It is unclear what their decisions are based on or who gave them the right to decide in the first place. They just assumed it.”

That is why the choice of the people in Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson makes them so furiously angry. The West does not have any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a word about freedom of democracy. It does not and it never did.

Western elites not only deny national sovereignty and international law. Their hegemony has pronounced features of totalitarianism, despotism and apartheid. They brazenly divide the world into their vassals – the so-called civilised countries – and all the rest, who, according to the designs of today’s Western racists, should be added to the list of barbarians and savages. False labels like “rogue country” or “authoritarian regime” are already available, and are used to stigmatise entire nations and states, which is nothing new. There is nothing new in this: deep down, the Western elites have remained the same colonisers. They discriminate and divide peoples into the top tier and the rest.

We have never agreed to and will never agree to such political nationalism and racism. What else, if not racism, is the Russophobia being spread around the world?

What, if not racism, is the West’s dogmatic conviction that its civilisation and neoliberal culture is an indisputable model for the entire world to follow? “You’re either with us or against us.” It even sounds strange.

Western elites are even shifting repentance for their own historical crimes on everyone else, demanding that the citizens of their countries and other peoples confess to things they have nothing to do with at all, for example, the period of colonial conquests.

It is worth reminding the West that it began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India and Africa, the wars of England and France against China, as a result of which it was forced to open its ports to the opium trade. What they did was get entire nations hooked on drugs and purposefully exterminated entire ethnic groups for the sake of grabbing land and resources, hunting people like animals. This is contrary to human nature, truth, freedom and justice.

While we – we are proud that in the 20th century our country led the anti-colonial movement, which opened up opportunities for many peoples around the world to make progress, reduce poverty and inequality, and defeat hunger and disease.

To emphasise, one of the reasons for the centuries-old Russophobia, the Western elites’ unconcealed animosity toward Russia is precisely the fact that we did not allow them to rob us during the period of colonial conquests and forced the Europeans to trade with us on mutually beneficial terms. This was achieved by creating a strong centralised state in Russia, which grew and got stronger based on the great moral values ​​of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as Russian culture and the Russian word that were open to all.

There were numerous plans to invade Russia. Such attempts were made during the Time of Troubles in the 17thcentury and in the period of ordeals after the 1917 revolution. All of them failed. The West managed to grab hold of Russia’s wealth only in the late 20thcentury, when the state had been destroyed. They called us friends and partners, but they treated us like a colony, using various schemes to pump trillions of dollars out of the country. We remember. We have not forgotten anything.

A few days ago, people in Donetsk and Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye declared their support for restoring our historical unity. Thank you!

Western countries have been saying for centuries that they bring freedom and democracy to other nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of bringing democracy they suppressed and exploited, and instead of giving freedom they enslaved and oppressed. The unipolar world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree; it is false and hypocritical through and through.

The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent.

Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble, without the least military necessity. It was done ostentatiously and, to repeat, without any military necessity. They had only one goal, as with the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and the rest of the world.

The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and chemical weapons.

It actually continues to occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, which they cynically refer to as equals and allies. Look now, what kind of alliance is that? The whole world knows that the top officials in these countries are being spied on and that their offices and homes are bugged. It is a disgrace, a disgrace for those who do this and for those who, like slaves, silently and meekly swallow this arrogant behaviour.

They call the orders and threats they make to their vassals Euro-Atlantic solidarity, and the creation of biological weapons and the use of human test subjects, including in Ukraine, noble medical research.

It is their destructive policies, wars and plunder that have unleashed today’s massive wave of migrants. Millions of people endure hardships and humiliation or die by the thousands trying to reach Europe.

They are exporting grain from Ukraine now. Where are they taking it under the guise of ensuring the food security of the poorest countries? Where is it going? They are taking it to the self-same European countries. Only five percent has been delivered to the poorest countries. More cheating and naked deception again.

In effect, the American elite is using the tragedy of these people to weaken its rivals, to destroy nation states. This goes for Europe and for the identities of France, Italy, Spain and other countries with centuries-long histories.

Washington demands more and more sanctions against Russia and the majority of European politicians obediently go along with it. They clearly understand that by pressuring the EU to completely give up Russian energy and other resources, the United States is practically pushing Europe toward deindustrialisation in a bid to get its hands on the entire European market. These European elites understand everything – they do, but they prefer to serve the interests of others. This is no longer servility but direct betrayal of their own peoples. God bless, it is up to them.

But the Anglo-Saxons believe sanctions are no longer enough and now they have turned to subversion. It seems incredible but it is a fact – by causing explosions on Nord Stream’s international gas pipelines passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they have actually embarked on the destruction of Europe’s entire energy infrastructure. It is clear to everyone who stands to gain. Those who benefit are responsible, of course.

The dictates of the US are backed up by crude force, on the law of the fist. Sometimes it is beautifully wrapped sometimes there is no wrapping at all but the gist is the same – the law of the fist. Hence, the deployment and maintenance of hundreds of military bases in all corners of the world, NATO expansion, and attempts to cobble together new military alliances, such as AUKUS and the like. Much is being done to create a Washington-Seoul-Tokyo military-political chain. All states that possess or aspire to genuine strategic sovereignty and are capable of challenging Western hegemony, are automatically declared enemies.

These are the principles that underlie US and NATO military doctrines that require total domination. Western elites are presenting their neocolonialist plans with the same hypocrisy, claiming peaceful intentions, talking about some kind of deterrence. This evasive word migrates from one strategy to another but really only means one thing – undermining any and all sovereign centres of power.

We have already heard about the deterrence of Russia, China and Iran. I believe next in line are other countries of Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, as well as current US partners and allies. After all, we know that when they are displeased, they introduce sanctions against their allies as well – against this or that bank or company. This is their practice and they will expand it. They have everything in their sights, including our next-door neighbours – the CIS countries.

At the same time, the West has clearly been engaged in wishful thinking for a long time. In launching the sanctions blitzkrieg against Russia, for example, they thought that they could once again line up the whole world at their command. As it turns out, however, such a bright prospect does not excite everyone – other than complete political masochists and admirers of other unconventional forms of international relations. Most states refuse to ”snap a salute“ and instead choose the sensible path of cooperation with Russia.

The West clearly did not expect such insubordination. They simply got used to acting according to a template, to grab whatever they please, by blackmail, bribery, intimidation, and convinced themselves that these methods would work forever, as if they had fossilised in the past.

Such self-confidence is a direct product not only of the notorious concept of exceptionalism – although it never ceases to amaze – but also of the real ”information hunger“ in the West. The truth has been drowned in an ocean of myths, illusions and fakes, using extremely aggressive propaganda, lying like Goebbels. The more unbelievable the lie, the quicker people will believe it – that is how they operate, according to this principle.

But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can’t feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can’t heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can’t feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can’t heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.

That is why politicians in Europe have to convince their fellow citizens to eat less, take a shower less often and dress warmer at home. And those who start asking fair questions like “Why is that, in fact?” are immediately declared enemies, extremists and radicals. They point back at Russia and say: that is the source of all your troubles. More lies.

I want to make special note of the fact that there is every reason to believe that the Western elites are not going to look for constructive ways out of the global food and energy crisis that they and they alone are to blame for, as a result of their long-term policy, dating back long before our special military operation in Ukraine, in Donbass. They have no intention of solving the problems of injustice and inequality. I am afraid they would rather use other formulas they are more comfortable with.

And here it is important to recall that the West bailed itself out of its early 20th century challenges with World War I. Profits from World War II helped the United States finally overcome the Great Depression and become the largest economy in the world, and to impose on the planet the power of the dollar as a global reserve currency. And the 1980s crisis – things came to a head in the 1980s again – the West emerged from it unscathed largely by appropriating the inheritance and resources of the collapsed and defunct Soviet Union. That’s a fact.

Now, in order to free itself from the latest web of challenges, they need to dismantle Russia as well as other states that choose a sovereign path of development, at all costs, to be able to further plunder other nations’ wealth and use it to patch their own holes. If this does not happen, I cannot rule out that they will try to trigger a collapse of the entire system, and blame everything on that, or, God forbid, decide to use the old formula of economic growth through war.

Russia is aware of its responsibility to the international community and will make every effort to ensure that cooler heads prevail.

The current neocolonial model is ultimately doomed; this much is obvious. But I repeat that its real masters will cling to it to the end. They simply have nothing to offer the world except to maintain the same system of plundering and racketeering.

They do not give a damn about the natural right of billions of people, the majority of humanity, to freedom and justice, the right to determine their own future. They have already moved on to the radical denial of moral, religious, and family values.

Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves. Now I would like to return to what I said and want to address also all citizens of the country – not just the colleagues that are in the hall – but all citizens of Russia: do we want to have here, in our country, in Russia, “parent number one, parent number two and parent number three” (they have completely lost it!) instead of mother and father? Do we want our schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school, perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum into their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Is that what we want for our country and our children? This is all unacceptable to us. We have a different future of our own.

Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a “religion in reverse” – pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” These poisonous fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but also in all countries, including many people in the West itself.

The world has entered a period of a fundamental, revolutionary transformation. New centres of power are emerging. They represent the majority – the majority! – of the international community. They are ready not only to declare their interests but also to protect them. They see in multipolarity an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty, which means gaining genuine freedom, historical prospects, and the right to their own independent, creative and distinctive forms of development, to a harmonious process.

As I have already said, we have many like-minded people in Europe and the United States, and we feel and see their support. An essentially emancipatory, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is taking shape in the most diverse countries and societies. Its power will only grow with time. It is this force that will determine our future geopolitical reality.

Friends,

Today, we are fighting for a just and free path, first of all for ourselves, for Russia, in order to leave dictate and despotism in the past. I am convinced that countries and peoples understand that a policy based on the exceptionalism of whoever it may be and the suppression of other cultures and peoples is inherently criminal, and that we must close this shameful chapter. The ongoing collapse of Western hegemony is irreversible. And I repeat: things will never be the same.

The battlefield to which destiny and history have called us is a battlefield for our people, for the great historical Russia. For the great historical Russia, for future generations, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We must protect them against enslavement and monstrous experiments that are designed to cripple their minds and souls.

Today, we are fighting so that it would never occur to anyone that Russia, our people, our language, or our culture can be erased from history. Today, we need a consolidated society, and this consolidation can only be based on sovereignty, freedom, creation, and justice. Our values ​​are humanity, mercy and compassion.

And I want to close with the words of a true patriot Ivan Ilyin: “If I consider Russia my Motherland, that means that I love as a Russian, contemplate and think, sing and speak as a Russian; that I believe in the spiritual strength of the Russian people. Its spirit is my spirit; its destiny is my destiny; its suffering is my grief; and its prosperity is my joy.”

Behind these words stands a glorious spiritual choice, which, for more than a thousand years of Russian statehood, was followed by many generations of our ancestors. Today, we are making this choice; the citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions have made this choice. They made the choice to be with their people, to be with their Motherland, to share in its destiny, and to be victorious together with it.

The truth is with us, and behind us is Russia!

September 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Putin names orchestrator of Nord Stream blasts

Samizdat | September 30, 2022

The US orchestrated the blasts on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, which delivered Russian natural gas to Germany, because they “obviously” benefit from it, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

Putin accused Washington of trying to pressure the EU into banning Russian supplies to “completely get their hands on the European market.”

“But the sanctions are no longer enough for the Anglo-Saxons,” he said, using Russian shorthand for the US-UK transatlantic alliance. “They have turned to sabotage – it’s unbelievable, but it’s a fact – by organizing the explosions on the Nord Stream international gas pipelines,” the president stated.

“They de facto began the destruction of the common European energy infrastructure. It’s obvious to everyone who benefits from it. Those who benefit are the ones who have done it.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced Putin’s statement as part of “outrageous misinformation and disinformation campaigns” coming from Moscow.

“I really have nothing to say to the absurd allegation from President Putin that we are or other partners or allies are somehow responsible for this,” Blinken said, according to AFP.

Putin was speaking at the Kremlin ahead of signing treaties on the inclusion of the two Donbass republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, which declared independence from Ukraine, into the Russian Federation.

September 30, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian shelling of refugee convoy leaves 24 people dead – local authorities

Samizdat | September 30, 2022

At least 24 people were killed and 36 wounded when Ukrainian forces struck a refugee convoy on Friday, Vladimir Rogov, a senior Russian-appointed official in Zaporozhye Region, has said.

Rogov wrote on Telegram that the attack targeted a convoy of cars that was traveling from Ukrainian-controlled territory to Zaporozhye Region, which declared independence from Kiev and was recognized as a separate state by Russia on Thursday.

“It happened at a car market on the Orekhovskoe highway where convoys are being formed to enter the region,” he wrote.

“24 people, including 11 men and 13 women were killed, 36 were wounded including a child,” the official said.

According to Rogov, the people, who were targeted, had protested and blocked roads earlier this week, demanding that Ukrainian authorities allow them to enter the Russian-held part of the region. “After that they were approached by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the police, who openly threatened them and said that they’ll be sorry for what they were doing,” he wrote.

The head of the administration accused Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky of “trying to take revenge on the residents of Zaporozhye Region after they chose to join Russia during the referendum” by ordering the strike.

Rogov insisted the Ukrainian attack on the convoy was carried out with the aim of pinning the blame on Russia.

Kiev’s governor of Zaporozhye Region claimed that Russian forces were behind the shelling. While the head of a Ukrainian bomb disposal unit, police colonel Sergey Ujryumov told Reuters that the Russians “know that columns are formed here to go to the occupied territories… It’s not a coincidental strike. It’s perfectly deliberate.” According to Ujryumov, S-300 missiles were used in the attack on the convoy.

Voting on joining Russia ended in Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as well as in the two republics in Donbass on Monday, with residents in all territories overwhelmingly supporting the move. The official ceremony, in which President Vladimir Putin is expected to sign treaties on incorporating the new areas into the Russian state, is scheduled to take place in Moscow later on Friday.

A similar attack by Ukrainian forces happened in the eastern region of Kharkov on Thursday. At least 30 people, including children, were killed after a convoy of refugees, which tried to enter the People’s Republic of Lugansk, came under intense artillery bombardment, LPR authorities said.

September 30, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

IS RUSSIA REALLY LOSING IN UKRAINE?

By Drago Bosnic | September 29, 2022

After Russia launched its counteroffensive against NATO aggression, the state and corporate-run mainstream media of the political West started spreading multiple false narratives about it. One of the most common themes was that the Russian military supposedly “failed” because the Kiev regime didn’t collapse in a matter of days.

In the following months, especially after the Russian forces withdrew from northern areas of Ukraine, this was used to further reinforce the narrative that the Russian military was somehow “defeated”. However, the truth lies in the Russian military and geopolitical nomenclature regarding the events in Ukraine. While the political West is unanimous in calling it “an unprovoked, brutal invasion”, the Russian side calls it a special military operation.

Although the wording may seem irrelevant, it does have serious implications. The whole operation has been limited from the start. As Russian President Vladimir Putin himself stated, Moscow didn’t really show more than a fraction of its capabilities. And indeed, given the number of Russian troops initially engaged in the special military operation, which was approximately 100-150 thousand, versus more than 200,000 troops of the Kiev regime, it’s clear that Moscow never expected to take control of the entire territory of Ukraine. In addition, the Kiev regime forces exponentially grew in size after the forced mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men. And although Western media are trying to downplay it, multiple estimates put the number of conscripted personnel anywhere between several hundred thousand and nearly a million soldiers.

For its part, Russia decided not to increase the number of troops engaged in the special military operation. What’s more, with troop rotation, the true number of Russian soldiers actively engaged in combat operations was much lower, most likely standing between 50 and 100 thousand, stretching for well over a thousand kilometers from the northern areas of the Kharkov, through Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions all the way to the Black Sea coast. These forces have consistently been outnumbered by the Kiev regime troops for over 7 months now and have stood their ground.

And although this could be attributed to the Russian military’s vast technological and numerical superiority, especially in terms of artillery and air dominance, it can only be considered a remarkable achievement from a purely military standpoint. This also explains the Kiev regime’s reaction to Moscow’s recent low-level mobilization announcement, which will increase the number of Russian troops engaged in the special military operation by 300,000, pushing the total to well over 400,000 soldiers.

As per usual, the mainstream media in the United States and other countries of the political West have been trying to portray this as a sign of Russia’s supposed “weakness”. However, the Pentagon’s and NATO’s reaction speaks volumes of how the political West really feels about the mobilization. With Western Military Industrial Complexes already working at maximum capacity to supply the Kiev regime forces with additional weapons, having a twofold or threefold increase in the number of Russian troops is the last thing they needed (at least in the short term). If the Russian military was able to conduct successful offensive operations for months, while being outnumbered, what could one expect when Moscow decides to exponentially increase the size of its forces engaged in the special military operation?

In the meantime, the Western press and other media are constructing the narrative that millions of Russian men are supposedly trying to flee the country in order to avoid mobilization. Naturally, they are ignoring the fact that the Russian Ministry of Defense registered nearly 900,000 requests for joining the armed forces, with many regions and federal subjects in the country providing several times more troops than they’re required to. The most prominent example of this is Chechnya, which overshot its mobilization quota by over 250%. And yet, the Western media keep insisting that there’s supposed “widespread opposition to Putin’s war”. In reality, the fact that the Russian police arrested several hundred protesters in a country of approximately 150 million shows just how truly “widespread” the opposition to mobilization is.

Expectedly, the propaganda war isn’t only limited to the supposed “failures” of the Russian military, but also its leadership. Recent speculation that Vladimir Putin is ill, on the verge of death or losing power, while ignoring the rapidly deteriorating mental and physical health of Joe Biden serves as a testament to that. To make matters worse, the attempts by the so-called “fact-checkers” to whitewash Biden’s string of dementia-induced gaffes can only be described as comical. And while the political West’s propaganda machine works round the clock to create an alternate reality that doesn’t exist past a TV or smartphone screen, the economic and social unraveling resulting from the failed economic siege of Russia has been affecting hundreds of millions around the world and is only bound to get worse.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

September 29, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Who wins from demolishing the EU’s gas lifelines?

By Rachel Marsden | Samizdat | September 29, 2022

Speculation abounds since both Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, designed to carry cheap Russian gas to Europe, were damaged this week in what officials widely describe as deliberate acts of sabotage. Who could be responsible? Incidents buried in the past may provide a clue.

Speculation abounds, and typically in a direction colored by the preexisting biases of the person speculating – which is hardly helpful.

Let’s start with the end result and work backwards. The outcome ultimately means that Europe’s economic impetus for ever seeking peace with Russia has been seriously undermined, if not literally destroyed. Someone has taken it upon themselves to demolish the remaining bridges between the two. Until now, there was always a chance of reconciliation. Russian President Vladimir Putin said himself recently that all the EU needed to do to pull itself out of its self-imposed energy crisis was to push the button on its gas supply from Russia and drop the anti-Russian sanctions that prevent it from doing so.

People in the streets of German cities protesting against Berlin’s blind following of Brussels’ anti-Russia sanctions also knew that was the answer. But now that option has been taken off the table. The EU is now adrift amid a deepening energy crisis and someone burned its last sails. It’s clear that Europe itself wouldn’t benefit from that. Nor does it benefit at all from any of its own anti-Russian sanctions. But who gave Brussels that idea, to harm its own economy in the first place?

At the onset of the Ukrainian conflict, it was Washington that egged on the EU to mirror measures that Washington itself had adopted in an effort to deprive Moscow of revenues to fuel its interests and objectives in Ukraine. The problem is that the EU’s economy was far more entwined with Russia’s than America’s. Any sense that US President Joe Biden and his administration may have given EU leaders, that they’d be there to help the bloc soften the blow of its self-sacrificial sanctions, has since been replaced by a harsh, pragmatic reality. US shale executives have explained to Western media that they simply lack the capacity to ramp up production for Europe’s winter crunch, even amid the growing rationing, deindustrialization, and risk of blackouts.

So, pressure has recently been increasing on EU member states to achieve a rapid diplomatic, peaceful resolution. But any reconnection of Nord Stream gas would have been a blow to US economic ambitions, which eventually include turning the EU into a dependent liquefied natural gas client. To that end, US officials have even tried to market their natural gas in the past as “freedom molecules,” in contrast to the “authoritarian” Russian gas.

Biden himself said of Nord Stream 2 during a press conference on February 7, before the Ukraine conflict had even popped off, that “we will bring an end to it,” despite it being out of American control. But even long before that, the US was sanctioning and bullying European companies into halting construction on Nord Stream 2 under the pretext of saving Europe from Russia. It’s worth noting that Europe didn’t really have problems with Russia this century until the US decided to make Ukraine an outpost for the State Department.

Not only did Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned operator of the pipeline, persist against all odds to finish it, but it’s really the only leverage that Moscow has in Europe. Attributing to Moscow the recent sabotage of their own economic interests in Europe seems absurd. The damage done to the pipelines now means that to prevent them from being completely filled with sea water and destroyed, Russia is forced to keep pumping gas through them and into the sea at their own expense. What exactly does Moscow gain from any of this? Conversely, what does Washington gain? Nothing less than Brussels’ full dependence, which proved elusive when Europe could split its interests between the east and west.

As for who possesses the technical ability to execute underwater pipeline sabotage, both Russia and the US do. Much has been made in the past of the potential for cutting undersea cables – defined as an act of war by UK defense chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. The US actually has a history in such operations, having tapped into undersea cables to spy on the Soviet Union in the 1970s Operation Ivy Bells, according to public records about Operation Ivy Bells. Washington also has sabotaged Soviet gas pipelines before, albeit indirectly – according to Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who served on the National Security Council in 1982, when then-US President Ronald Reagan allegedly approved a plan for the CIA to sabotage components of a pipeline operated by the Soviet Union. The objective was to prevent Western Europe from importing natural gas from the Soviets. Sound familiar?

Time and inquiry will uncover the culprit eventually – if we’re lucky. EU officials are vowing to get to the bottom of it. “All available information indicates leaks are the result of a deliberate act. Deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response,” Tweeted the bloc’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell. Perhaps investigators could pay a visit to Radoslaw Sikorski, European Parliament member and former Polish foreign minister, who tweeted a photo of the disaster aftermath along with the note, “Thank you, USA.”

But if it indeed turns out that Washington committed what some consider to be an act of war against Europe’s economy, will Brussels have the heart to really confront it? Or will Brussels continue to find justifications to remain complicit in its own demise?

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English. rachelmarsden.com

September 29, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Children among dead after Ukraine shells refugee convoy – Donbass official

Samizdat | September 29, 2022

The Ukrainian army has attacked a refugee convoy in the eastern region of Kharkov, killing over 30 people, according to the Lugansk People’s Republic’s envoy to Russia.

Rodion Miroshnik wrote on his Telegram channel that those killed in the artillery bombardment included children. He added that emergency services are unable to access the bodies, as shelling from Kiev’s forces continues. The republic’s health ministry stated that seven other people were injured, including two children who lost their parents in the shelling.

Miroshnik claimed the Ukrainian army knew exactly who they were shooting at, as they had allegedly used drones to track down the refugee vehicle convoy and were “intentionally aiming at civilians.” Kiev has yet to respond to the allegations.

Speaking to the Russia 24 TV channel, the LPR envoy noted that the number of civilians trying to get out of Kharkov Region has significantly increased in recent days, as fighting in the area has intensified in the wake of Kiev’s forces reclaiming most of the region. Miroshnik said most of the fleeing residents are trying to cross into Russia’s Belgorod region or the LPR, especially from the cities of Kupyansk and Balakleya.

September 29, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

EU threatens foreign observers over Donbass referendums

Samizdat | September 27, 2022

The EU will slap sanctions on anyone involved in referendums on joining Russia in the Donbass republics, as well as in Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, according to Peter Stano, a spokesman for the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

“There would be consequences for all people, who participate in the illegal, illegitimate referendums,” Stano warned on Tuesday, the fifth and final day of voting.

Stano did not rule out the possibility of foreign observers, including EU citizens, also facing restrictions over any support they have given to the process. He said it would be up to member states to decide who falls under the sanctions regime.

Another high-ranking EU foreign policy official, Luc Devigne, also told European lawmakers on Tuesday that individuals who are “obviously linked” to the referendums would be targeted in the next sanctions package.

Residents of France, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Brazil and other countries have reportedly arrived to monitor voting in the Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republics (LPR), and the regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson, which are mostly controlled by Russian forces.

Ukraine and its Western backers have labeled the referendums a “sham,” vowing that they won’t recognize their results regardless of the outcome. The polls in the plebiscite closed at 4pm local time (1pm GMT) on Tuesday. The head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, said preliminary results would be ready by this evening.

September 27, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Russian methanol industry shutting down – Kommersant

Samizdat | September 26, 2022

Methanol output in Russia has fallen to minimum levels necessary to keep production plants functioning, business daily Kommersant reported on Monday.

Suspension of trade with customers in Europe and a drop in domestic demand are forcing producers to dramatically reduce output and sell their produce to China at a knockdown price, the paper writes, citing its sources.

In 2020 Russia was the world’s fourth-largest methanol supplier, accounting for 10% of global exports, according to economic data portal TrendEconomy. Among top methanol importers are China, the US and India.

Methanol, the simplest alcohol, can be obtained from natural gas and has a variety of industrial uses. It’s a chemical building block for plastics, paints and building materials and also widely used in the car industry and as a fuel.

There are nine methanol producers in Russia with a combined output of 4.5 million tons a year with nearly half going for export, according to Kommersant. Last year the sector saw rapid growth against a backdrop of high global prices, and Russian companies had plans for further expansion. Russia’s main customer was the EU, and though methanol itself was not targeted by sanctions, transporting it by sea via EU ports became problematic due to shipping restrictions imposed by the bloc. Demand for methanol in China has slowed as well due to the country’s zero-Covid policy and subsequent lockdowns.

Methanol producers want to avoid closing plants completely as restarting them would be costly, however, some factories have already been partially shuttered, Kommersant writes.

September 26, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Russia Backs India’s Bid to Become Permanent Member of United Nations Security Council

Samizdat – 25.09.2022

Russia has come out in support of India’s bid to become one of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) – the all-powerful global body which is responsible for taking key decisions about maintaining peace and security in the world.

At present, it comprises the United States, France, Russia, China, and Great Britain.

During his speech at the UNGA, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov called for wider representation of Asian, African, and Latin American countries in the Security Council, making particular mention of New Delhi and Brazil.

“We see an opportunity to make the Security Council more democratic by having representation from African, Asian and Latin American countries. India and Brazil, in particular, are major international players and should be included as permanent members of the council,” Lavrov said in his address to the 77th United Nations General Assembly.

Earlier, in a joint statement, India and 31 other nations urged the UN to expand both the permanent and non-permanent membership of the UNSC.
Besides, New Delhi said that reforms in the UN were necessary to make it more effective and representative.

At another meeting in which foreign ministers from India, Japan, Germany, and Brazil took part, reforms of the Security Council were discussed at length.

The four nations together are known as the G4 and after the meeting they released a joint statement, saying that “today’s conflicts around the globe and the interconnected global challenges have brought to the fore the urgency to carry out reforms in the Security Council as well as expand the membership of other decision-making groups so that they are more representative of the interests of the developing nations.”

At present, India is a non-permanent member of the UNSC.

New Delhi’s two-year term on the Council ends on 31 December this year.

September 25, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Italian NGO Observer at Donetsk Referendum Says UN ‘Asleep’ as Ukraine Shells Civilians

Samizdat – 24.09.2022

DONETSK – The United Nations has been indifferent to Ukrainian attacks on the Donetsk People’s Republic as it voted Saturday on whether it should join Russia, an Italian observer from a UN-recognized nonprofit said.

“Unfortunately, we see that the UN is asleep. Not only when it comes to Donbass but also to other countries in a similar situation. The UN has not been reacting,” Vito Grittani told reporters in Donetsk.

Grittani heads the International Diplomatic Observatory (ODI-VG), which has consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council. He said shelling by Ukrainian troops has been going on “despite them knowing that people are voting.”

“We will report about this in our home countries,” he said, adding that Italian observers had also received threats and “recommendations” not to go to the polls.

Voting in the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics, as well as in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, began on Friday and will close on Tuesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that Russia would accept any decision people made during the referendums.

September 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The Conflict Between the West and Russia Is a Religious One

By Emmet Sweeney | The Remnant | August 24, 2022

The war currently underway in Ukraine—which pits Ukraine as a proxy for the collective West against Russia—is primarily an ideological or religious one, with Russia representing what is left of Christian Europe, and “the West” representing a totalitarian ideology that abhors religion in general and Christianity in particular. This statement may sound strange, given the fact that some Westerners – though fewer every day – still see “the West,” (basically Europe and North America) as Christian, and Russia as Communist, or crypto-Communist. But this is no longer the case, and has not been for some considerable time. In fact, the thirty years that have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, has seen a complete reversal of roles; the collective West is now a totalitarian and aggressively anti-religious power-block that seeks to export its anti-Christian and anti-human ideology onto the rest of the world. And Russia is loathed by the West’s ruling elite precisely because it has resisted this process and moreover has gone in the opposite direction: having once been an active proponent of “scientific materialism” and atheism, Russia has reverted to its Orthodox Christian roots and has rolled back the more pernicious policies and attitudes of the Soviet era.

In order to demonstrate the truth of this, we need to look at the history of Russia and its interaction with the West since the early 1990s.

By 1991, when the Soviet Union was officially abolished, it was clear that the West had won the Cold War. Russia itself, under its new president Boris Yeltsin, openly proclaimed the end of all hostilities. Russia’s satellites in Eastern Europe were permitted to go their own way, and autonomous republics within the Soviet Union were allowed to declare themselves independent countries. The old Soviet system of state ownership was officially abolished, and almost everything was privatised. The press and media in general were freed of all censorship and could now say whatever they wanted. Russia under Yeltsin reached out the hand of friendship to the West – a gesture that was not reciprocated and ultimately snubbed by the West.

The euphoria of 1991 soon gave way and the 1990s turned out to be a catastrophic decade for Russia and her people. First and foremost, the policy of privatisation turned out to be disastrous. A law was passed which forbade foreigners from buying Russian utilities and industries; only Russians could do so. Unfortunately, nobody in Russia, hitherto a Communist country, had any money. However, certain groups within the country – mainly ethnic Jews – had important and wealthy connections abroad. These arranged to have funds sent into Russia for the purpose of purchasing the country’s state-owned industries. Desperate for any dollars and euros it could lay its hands on, the Yeltsin administration sold these industries for a tiny fraction of their true value. (Russia’s natural resources alone make it potentially one of the wealthiest countries on the planet). The buyers of said industries became the notorious “oligarchs,” who systematically plundered the country for almost ten years, in what has been described as the biggest act of looting in history. Rather than plow some of the profits back into the businesses, the oligarchs exported almost all of them, impoverishing both their employees and the country in general. The result was that large segments of the population began to experience severe hardship. Many came close to starvation and many died of hypothermia during the bitter Russian winters. Some state employees were paid in cabbages, and it is estimated that Russia suffered over five million excess deaths between 1991 and 2000. The majority of these were caused by simple diseases such as influenza, which developed into pneumonia for want of funds to buy an antibiotic. But deaths from all causes, including murder, suicide, alcoholism, and drug addiction, rocketed. Russia was a country falling apart, and the population began to plummet.

During this time, a Chechen independence movement, spurred on by funds from Saudi Arabia and (allegedly) the West, launched a violent campaign against the Russian authorities. A savage war followed, which claimed tens of thousands of lives, and eventually resulted in 1997 in Yeltsin’s recognition of a semi-independent Chechnya. Independence movements began to appear in other autnomous regions and it was clear that Russia itself stood on the verge of disintegration.

During all of this, the attitude of the West, or of those who control the West, was striking. Western media, by that time in the hands of a few mega-corporations, was almost gleeful in its reporting of Russia’s trauma. In their suffering, the Russian people became the butt of the West’s shadenfreude. And it should be borne in mind that it was precisely in the 1990s that American corporations commenced massive “outsourcing” of their industries to other, and less expensive, locations. Entire factories, together with their machinery and technology, were exported en masse, primarily to China. Almost nothing went to Russia. This in spite of the fact that China continued to be a Communist and indeed totalitarian country. Not even the massacre of Tiananmen Square (1989) and the subsequent brutal repression could halt the American plutocracy’s enthusiasm for exporting work and business. So Russia, which had held out the hand of friendship to the West, and had permitted the subjugated peoples to go free, continued to be treated as an enemy, and was effectively plundered by Western interests, whereas China, which did no such thing, was now treated as a favored trading and business partner. How to explain such an astonishing disparity?

There seems to be no logical explanation other than to assume an underlying cultural/religious antipathy towards Russia and her people on the part of a very large segment of the West’s ruling plutocracy. I suggest that this is the case, and it is Russia’s religion that is at the root of it.

During the Communist era, Christianity was suppressed in Russia and throughout the Soviet block. At its worst, under Lenin and Stalin, the Communist regime massacred millions of Christians. Victims were mainly Orthodox, but Christians of every denomination suffered. Even after the death of Stalin and into the 1980s religion continued to be persecuted.  All children were required to attend lessons in atheism, during which Christianity and religious faith in general was mocked. By the end of Communism, the Orthodox Church was a small remnant of its former self under the Tsars, but that soon began to change. Hardship birthed a spiritual revival; by the mid-1990s the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as other branches of Christianity, began to experience noticeable growth. It was not however until the first decade of the twenty-first century, and the presidency of Vladimir Putin, that this movement became really significant.

Putin had occupied a senior position in the Yeltsin administration, and he was no doubt viewed by the oligarchs, at that time the real rulers of Russia, as a safe pair of hands who could be relied upon to continue the policies which had allowed them to plunder the country for almost a decade. He was appointed Prime Minister on 9th August 1999 and, just four months later, in December, acting President of Russia, following the unexpected resignation of Boris Yeltsin. A presidential election on 20th March 2000 was easily won by Putin with 53% of the votes. One reason for Putin’s popularity was that he was seen as a strong leader during the Second Chechen War, which commenced on 7th August 1999, just two days before his appointment as Prime Minister. The war ended in April 2000, with Chechnya again part of the Russian Federation, a victory which enhanced Putin’s reputation as a strongman, willing and able to restore stability and enforce the law.

Over the next five years, Putin showed that the ruling plutocrats were very much deceived had they imagined him to be under their control and part of their team. On the contrary, the new president set about breaking their power. The next decade witenessed a series of legal cases and trials which left some of the oligarchs in prison and others forced to pay substantial compensation. Others, arguably the most criminal, fled the country and their assets were confiscated. The breaking of the oligarchs’ power, together with that of the “Russian mafia” which enforced their corrupt rule, began to restore some form of normality.

In parellel with his economic reforms, Putin oversaw a revival of the Russian Orthodox faith. In an act heavy with symbolic import, he made a visit to the great Orthodox monastic settlement of Mount Athos in Greece in 2001, just one year into his presidency. Although this attempt had to be aborted owing to a storm which grounded his helicopter, and a second attempt in 2004 similarly shelved when he had to return to Russia to deal with the Beslan School siege, he finally made it to the Holy Mountain in 2005. There he established a bond with the monks that transformed their community and impacted the lives of ordinary Russians. A major program of church-construction commenced, and the numbers attending church began to grow. Putin made it clear that he regarded Orthodoxy as Russia’s national religion and the Church was accorded a favored legal position. And such symbolic gestures were backed by new legislation which began to transform Russian society: the country’s abortion laws, hitherto some of the most liberal in the world, were tightened. In October 2011, the Russian Parliament passed a law restricting abortion to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with an exception up to 22 weeks if the pregnancy was the result of rape. The new law also made mandatory a waiting period of two to seven days before an abortion could be performed, to allow the woman to “reconsider her decision.”

During this period, the portrayal of Russia in the Western media moved from one of condescension to outright hostility. As early as 2005, scholars Ira Straus and Edward Lozansky remarked upon a pronounced negative coverage of Russia in the US media, contrasting negative media sentiment with largely positive sentiment of the American public and US government. As Russia displayed increasing signs of a Christian revival, so the media reporting in the West became increasingly hostile. Only rarely however did journalists openly attack Russia for its “Christianization”; normally, columnists, conscious of the fact that large numbers of people in the West continued to describe themselves as Christian, portrayed their anti-Russian commentary as a result of Russia’s “aggression,” “corruption,” or “lack of democracy.” All that however changed with the new abortion law of 2011. Now the attacks against Russia became explicitly ideological. The Russians, we were told, were oppressing women and turning their backs on “progress.”

It was not until 2013, however, that the anti-Russian rhetoric went hyperbolic. In that year, the Russian parliament passed its so-called “Gay Propaganada” law. The bill, described as “Protecting Children from Information harmful to their Health and Development,” explicitly banned Gay Pride parades, as well as other forms of LGBT material, such as books and pamphlets, which attempted to normalize homosexuality and to influence children in their attitudes to homosexuality. In actual fact, since around 2006, many districts in Russia had been imposing their own local bans on such material, though these rules had no power outside their own jurisdiction. The bill, which was signed into law by Putin on June 30 2013, was extremely popular, and passed through the Russian Parliament unanimously, with just one abstention. But the impact upon the Western nomenklatura who form the gatekeepers of acceptable opinion, was immediate. Almost unanimously, Western media outlets now began to compare Putin with Adolf Hitler; he was a “thug,” a “fascist,” a “murderer.” Between bouts of seething rage, he became the butt of scathing satire. He was cast in the role of a caricature James Bond villain, routinely murdering and torturing those he held a grudge against. There is even evidence, admittedly somewhat circumstantial, that Western Intelligence bodies, such as the CIA and MI5, became actively involved in anti-Russian propaganda.

The effect of this deluge of demonization upon ordinary Westerners soon began to show: Whereas in 2006 only 1% of Americans listed Russia as “America’s worst enemy” by 2019 32% of Americans, including 44% of Democrat voters, shared this view. Only 28% of Republicans however agreed; a remarkable reversal of opinion. During the Cold War, Republican voters, traditionally the more religious and nationalistic element of the American political divide, viewed the Russians as the major threat; now it was the less or non-religious (and more pro-LGBT) Democrats who held this opinion.

But the Western elites did not confine its efforts to irate editorials in the London Times or the Washington Post: Economic sanctions now began to be discussed. There were immediate calls to boycott the Winter Olympics, held in February 2014 in Sochi, Russia. Whilst the call to boycott was generally resisted by athletes, many Western politicians refused to attend, and the Russophobic temperature in the Western media ratcheted up. And things were about to get much worse.

In 2010 Viktor Yanukovych, a native of Russian-speaking Donetsk, was elected President of Ukraine, defeating Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, in what was judged by international observers to be a free and fair election. In November 2013 Yanukovych delayed signing a pending European Union association agreement, on the grounds that his government wished to maintain economic ties with Russia, as well as with the European Union. Russia had in fact offered a more favorable loan bailout than the European Union was prepared to offer. This led to protests and the occupation of Kiev’s Independence Square, a series of events dubbed the “the Euromaidan” by those in favor of aligning Ukraine with the European Union. Whilst at times it looked as if the protests would fizzle out, there is no question that almost from the beginning there was a concerted effort on the part of Western politicians to keep them going. Beginning early in December, several politicians from Berlin and Brussels paid “morale-boosting” trips to the square, and these were followed, on December 15, by the arrival of American Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy. To the assembled crowds, McCain announced that “we are here to support your just cause.” The Russians, for their part, condemned America’s “crude meddling” in Ukraine’s affairs.

Victoria Nuland, at that time Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the Obama administration, arrived in Ukraine shortly afterwards, and immediately set about fanning the flames of an already volatile situation. In speech after speech she promised the protestors and rioters that America was behind them. The result was that by early February 2014 Ukraine appeared to be on the brink of civil war; violent clashes between anti-government protestors and police left many dead and injured. Fearing for his life, on February 21 Yanukovych fled the capital, initially travelling to Crimea and ultimately to Russia. A new interim government, handpicked by Nuland, and virulently anti-Russian, was immediately installed in Kiev.

When considering the actions of America and the collective West at this time we have to remember that Ukraine was and is a deeply divided society. Half the country, roughly the north and west, regards itself as Ukrainian and is historically antagonistic towards Russia. The other half, predominantly the south and east, is pro-Russian and views itself as simultaneously Ukrainian and Russian. A glance at the electoral map of the country demonstrates this division in a most graphic way, for it was the Russian part of the country, the south and east, which overwhelmingly put Yanukovych into power. In supporting a violent overthrow of the latter, the American government quite deliberately threw its weight behind the anti-Russian half of the population. And it is impossible to believe that the political elite in Washington did not understand what they were doing. They had to have known that they were making civil strife – if not outright civil war – an absolute certainty.

The civil strife was not long in coming. As the anti-government mobs in Kiev were in the process of throwing out Yanukovych, major protests against the coup began to occur in the south and east. Crimea, which was overwhelmingly Russian and had only been transferred to the jurisdiction of Kiev in 1954 by Khruschev, held a referendum, resulting in a 97% vote for reunion with Russia. Putin, infuriated by American actions in Kiev, accepted the result of the vote, and formally announced the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation. Simultaneous with this, cities and towns throughout the south and east of the country, saw massive “anti-Maidan” protests, with many people calling for secession from Ukraine and union with Russia. The new Washington-appointed regime in Kiev reacted with force. Forty-seven pro-Russian demonstrators in Odessa were besieged in the city’s Trade Union building and burned to death by a Neo-Nazi mob. Seeing the way things were going, the ethnically-Russian provinces (“Oblasts”) of Lugansk and Donetsk declared independence and prepared to defend themselves. This quickly escalated into full-scale war, and over the next two years or so around 14,000 people, mainly ethnic Russian civilians, died, as the Kiev government fought to return the two provinces to Ukraine.

The fighting in Lugansk and Donetsk (the “Donbas”) de-escalated after the signing of the so-called Minsk 2 Accord in 2015. This deal, brokered by Russia, the US and the UN, provided for a degree of autonomy for the two breakaway provinces, as well as recognition and respect for their Russian language and culture. The deal also called for the immediate halting of all military action.

Had the Minsk agreement been fully implemented, it is quite possible that all hostilities would have ended, but this was never the case. The new government in Kiev, which from May 2014 was headed by Petro Poroshenko, made no attempt whatsoever to abide by the Accord’s provisions. On the contrary, the Russian language, hitherto one of the official languages of Ukraine, was demoted, and Russian culture in general denigrated. Even worse, none of those who had committed murder in Odessa and elsewhere were brought to justice, and the Neo-Nazi militias responsible for these atrocities were actually integrated into the Ukrainian army. Worst of all, sporadic shelling of civilian targets in Lugansk and Donetsk continued – for the next six years.

To repeat; the collective “West” could not have been unaware of the dangers of its interference in the affairs of Ukraine. This was a deeply divided country; to intervene on behalf of one section of the country at the expense of the other could not fail to deepen divisions and ultimately cause the disintegration of the state. That the West took the side of the anti-Russian half of the population was entirely in harmony with the increasingly hysterical tone of anti-Russian rhetoric in the Western media in the years leading up to the Maidan Revolution. And we can take with a pinch of salt the idea that Nuland and the Obama Adminstration was concerned with “corruption” in the Yanukovych regime: America is and always has been on very friendly terms with governments far more corrupt, violent and totalitarian than that of Yanukovych.

I would suggest that the real reason, or certainly an extremely important though unspoken reason, for Nuland’s mission was that Yanukovych’s pivot towards Russia was seen by the “woke” establishment in Washington as a sign that Ukraine would follow Russia into adopting an increasingly Christian-friendly social culture; one that the “liberals” and “progressives” in Washington despised. We should note too that one of Poroshenko’s first actions as President of Ukraine was to provide openings for George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and to simultaneously support the establishment of LGBT input into the educational system. Gay “Pide” parades became a regular feature of life in Kiev where, though distinctly unpopular with the great majority of the population, they received massive support and protection from the security forces.

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September 24, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

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