Former German chancellor says Russia wants a ‘negotiatated solution’
Free West Media | August 3, 2022
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has expressed confidence that Russia would seek a negotiated solution to the Ukraine war. During his recent trip to Moscow, he also met with the Russian President. According to him, the Kremlin would like to negotiate.
“The good news is that the Kremlin wants a negotiated solution.”
In an interview with Stern magazine and RTL/ntv broadcaster, he said that the recently reached agreement on grain exports from Ukraine was an “initial success” that could perhaps “slowly be expanded into a ceasefire”.
In addition, the SPD politician again defended his contacts with Russia stating that it was not illegal.
In view of the gas crisis, the former chancellor also recommended commissioning the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia and described this as the “simplest solution” in view of possible gas bottlenecks.
“It’s over. When things get really tight, there is this pipeline, and with the two Nord Stream pipelines there would be no supply problem for German industry and German households.”
“If you don’t want to use Nord Stream 2, you have to bear the consequences. And they will also be huge in Germany,” said Schröder. Anyone who heats with gas is already feeling the effects: that is half of the country’s 40 million households. Compared to the prices of December 31, 2022, gas will quadruple after further increases for consumers have been announced.
US Should Withdraw All Nuclear Weapons From Europe: China’s UN Envoy
Samizdat – 02.08.2022
“The US should withdraw all its nuclear weapons from Europe and refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in any other region,” the director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s arms control department, Fu Cong, said during the 10th Review Conference on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations.
He went on to say China is ready to cooperate with all countries to strengthen the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
“This April President Xi Jinping proposed a global security initiative … Guided by the initiative, China is ready to join hands with all countries to continuously strengthen the universality, authority and effectiveness of the NPT to inject stability and certainty into this era of turbulence and transformation and make a new contribution to world peace, stability and prosperity,” Fu said.
Notably, Fu further stressed that Beijing does not compete with other states in the quantity of nuclear weapons and is committed to the principle of no first use.
“China will under no circumstances be the first to use nuclear weapons,” he said.
The envoy added that China keeps its nuclear stockpile at a minimum level to ensure the protection of national security and does not compete with other countries in numbers and capabilities in this area.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a greeting to the conference that Moscow always abides by the wording and spirit of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, noting that there could never be winners in a nuclear war and that it should never be started.
For his part, US President Joe Biden emphasized that Washington is now prepared to collaborate with Russia on talks to forge a new nuclear arms limitation agreement that would take the place of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (also dubbed “New START”), which is scheduled to end in 2026.
However, the proposal was met with skepticism by Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council. The former president wondered in a Telegram post whether Russia “even need it,” since the world “has changed.”
Then, he claimed that although things are far worse now than they were during the Cold War, Russia is not to blame.
Western experts urge US to start talks with Russia before “it’s too late”
By Ahmed Adel | August 2, 2022
With the war in Ukraine waging since February 24 and no immediate end in sight, Western commentators and experts have begun urging the US and its allies to start talks with Russia over the situation in Ukraine before its “too late.”
Samuel Charap, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, and Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, urged in an opinion piece published in the New York Times for the West to continue providing material support for the Ukrainian military, but in close consultation with Kiev to “begin opening channels of communication with Russia” as “an eventual cease-fire should be the goal, even as the path to it remains uncertain.”
With the US having pledged about $24 billion in military aid to Ukraine, more than four times Ukraine’s 2021 defence budget, in addition to other countries pledging another $12 billion, the authors claim that although the West are committed to helping Ukraine, they do not want to escalate the conflict into a major power war.
“For as long as both Russia and the West are determined to prevail over the other in Ukraine and prepared to devote their deep reserves of weapons to achieve that goal, further escalation seems almost preordained,” the experts wrote.
They stress that discussions are absolutely necessary, despite being politically risky, as the war in Ukraine has the potential to bring Russia and NATO into direct conflict. An argument can be made that Russia and NATO are already in direct conflict as the Atlantic bloc already provides weapons and training to the Ukrainian military and encourages former soldiers and volunteers to fight against Russian forces. This is in addition to espionage and surveillance assistance, diplomatic and political support, and medical aid.
According to the authors, Russia has red lines, which although are not exactly known in their entirety, they can be assumed. The experts give the example that if the Ukrainians are given particular systems or capabilities that could directly target Russian territory, it is likely that Moscow will consider that as a red line being crossed. It is for this reason that when US President Joe Biden recently announced that Ukraine would be supplied with multiple-launch rocket systems, the longest-range munitions that could strike Russia were withheld.
“The premise of the decision was that Moscow will escalate — i.e. launch an attack against NATO — only if certain types of weapons are provided or if they are used to target Russian territory,” they claimed. “The goal is to be careful to stop short of that line while giving the Ukrainians what they need to ‘defend their territory from Russian advances,’ as Mr. Biden said in a statement in June.”
To the experts, this creates a conundrum as for now the West is unwilling to send their military forces directly to Ukraine, but a Russian victory is unacceptable. At the same time, if Ukraine somehow succeeded in halting Russia’s advance thanks to the help of Western weapons, that would constitute an unacceptable defeat for Moscow, which could compel the Russian military to “double down” in its operation.
Charap and Shapiro stress that “The determination of both the West and Russia to do whatever it takes to prevail in Ukraine is the main driver of escalation” and that only through talks can a de-escalation begin. As they say, “The best way to prevent that dynamic from getting out of control is to start talking before it’s too late.”
Although the pair are undoubtedly correct in their analysis that talks are the best way to resolve the conflict, what they do omit is the complete unwillingness from the Ukrainian side since 2014 to discuss issues, as well as the encouragement Kiev receives from Washington and London to not engage in negotiations with Moscow. The very crisis in Ukraine today is because of Kiev’s refusal to negotiate and discuss, whilst committing towards a path of ultra-nationalism, militarisation and even nuclearization.
The two analysts in this way do not necessarily say anything profound as discussions were always the way to resolve the issues between Moscow and Kiev, even before the events of 2014. The problem is that they do not highlight that Kiev, with encouragement from Washington, is completely unwilling to engage in discussions despite Moscow’s willingness.
There may be some gaps in their analysis, but more importantly, having experts from RAND and the European Council on Foreign Relations urging in the New York Times for discussions to begin to end the war in Ukraine is a major narrative shift from the encouragement for prolonged fighting usually found in influential Western think tanks and media outlets, including by these three aforementioned institutions.
With the special military operation continuing for half a year and with no end in sight, Western analysts grossly underestimated Russia’s determination, overestimated Ukraine’s capabilities and miscalculated the effectiveness of sanctions. Now there is a growing acceptance in the academic and media sphere that Russia is in full control of the situation in Ukraine and it alone decides when its military operation will conclude. Because of this reality, it may be in the best interest of the West to open serious negotiations as it could be the only way to have any influence over the outcome of the conflict. The political classes of the West are yet to accept this reality though.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Russia Invites UN, Red Cross to Probe Shelling of Elenovka Pre-Trial Detention Center
Samizdat – 30.07.2022
MOSCOW – Russia has invited experts from the United Nations and the Red Cross to participate in the investigation into the deadly shelling of the pre-trial detention center in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) town of Elenovka, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
“In order to conduct an objective investigation of the attack on the pre-trial detention center in Elenovka, which led to the death of a large number of Ukrainian prisoners of war, the Russian Federation has officially invited experts from the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross,” the defense ministry said on Sunday.
The Elenovka detention center, hosting Ukrainian prisoners of war, was shelled by Ukrainian troops with US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) on Friday morning. According to the DPR territorial defense, the death toll from the strike has reached 53, and the number of wounded has surpassed 130.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) offered its support in the evacuation of the wounded on Friday. UN spokesman Farhan Haq said on Saturday that the United Nations was ready to conduct an investigation into the Elenovka shelling.
DPR head Denis Pushilin said on Friday that the shelling of the detention facility was premeditated and launched because the militants imprisoned there, particularly those from the nationalist Azov battalion, had started to give testimonies implicating the Kiev regime.
Shouldn’t Biden be talking directly to Putin?
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 30, 2022
No sooner than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned to Moscow after the SCO ministerial in Tashkent, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s pending request for a conversation was scheduled late Friday evening. This has been their first conversation since the war began in Ukraine in February.
The Russian readout touches on Russia’s special military operations. Lavrov emphasised the inevitability that the “goals and tasks will be fully achieved.” Second, Lavrov told Blinken that the US’ continued arming of Ukraine with weapons “is only prolonging the agony of the Kiev regime by dragging out the conflict and increasing the number of victims.”
Lavrov also said Russia will continue its “consistent efforts to restore peaceful life on the territories that it is liberating.” It implies that the integration of Kherson, Zoporozhia, Kharkiv, etc. is an inexorable process.
Fourth, Lavrov focused on global food security issues and the grain deal and regretted that US is yet to deliver on “promises to make exemptions for Russian food shipments,” and the West is “exploiting the problem to advance its geopolitical interests, which is unacceptable.”
Finally, on prisoner exchange, Lavrov “strongly advised” Blinken that this is not an amateurish issue and “dubious media leaks” should be avoided.
For a conversation after several months, it was icy. Blinken is taking his time to issue a readout. But he was evasive on the issue of prisoner exchange, adding, “I’m not going to characterise his (Lavrov’s) response, and I can’t give you an assessment of whether I think things are any more or less likely.”
Equally, on the grain deal, Blinken made no reference to the reciprocal lifting of restrictions on Russia’s export of grains and fertiliser. His interest was only on Russia making good on loosening its naval blockade and allowing grain shipments to leave Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
There is a hump appearing here, for sure. Zelensky’s trip to the Black Sea port of Chernomorsk near Odessa accompanied by G7 ambassadors suggests that Washington is switching back to the propaganda mode that Russia is impeding Ukraine’s exports.
The New York Times has noted, “Even if grain ships do get underway, danger, uncertainty and deep mistrust will hang over the effort, and major obstacles to carrying out the agreement remain.”
Such conversations as yesterday’s suffer from being totally opaque. Blinken can’t even articulate the substantive issues bothering Biden —the cracks in the western unity.
Curiously, the Biden faces two crisis situations with explosive potential at the moment — in Ukraine and over Taiwan. Indeed, it is crystal clear that both have been precipitated by Washington. Yet, the manner in which Biden is handling them couldn’t be anymore dissimilar.
In the case of Taiwan, Biden didn’t hesitate to call up Chinese President Xi Jinping to calm the tensions. But he has chosen a different path to communicate with President Vladimir Putin.
For sure, into the sixth month of the conflict in Ukraine, Biden has finally decided to bite the bullet and resume high-level contact with Moscow. But he opted to get through to Putin through his state secretary!
The problem here is, although US-China relations are tense, Biden never took it to a personal level. He never used derogatory language to spite Xi Jinping, as he did to Putin repeatedly.
But Blinken too faces a similar predicament. On July 7-8, he avoided shaking hands with Lavrov at the G20 ministerial at Bali and skipped the official banquet because Lavrov was there. But after such churlish behaviour, here he was yesterday seeking out Lavrov!
The State Department reportedly sent out a circular recently to American embassies directing diplomats to dissuade foreign leaders from being photographed with Lavrov, so that Washington’s project to “isolate” Russia gained traction! Lavrov apparently learnt about it from his hosts!
Unsurprisngly, Blinken had to first call a press conference to rationalise publicly his need to talk with someone whom he treated as a “pariah” only 3 weeks ago. Blinken is an intelligent man and senses that Biden is desperate to open a communication channel to the Kremlin. (Whether a Biden-Putin conversation figured in yesterday’s discussion we do not know.)
The point is, after five months of conflict in Ukraine, the Russian economy has not collapsed but is adjusting to a “new normal” in the geopolitical conditions. The Russian currency is doing splendidly well. And there has been no insurrection in Russia. Above all, Russia is winning the war in Ukraine and is gearing up to dictate the terms of peace.
Lavrov must be well aware of the real reasons behind Blinken’s call. First, there is a catastrophic situation that may crack western unity, as the spectre of cutoff in Russian gas supplies threatens European countries. Four European governments have fallen so far.
Everyone understands that it is much more than an energy crisis. As economies start crashing, social and political unrest will follow. There is pervasive disquiet in European capitals. The blame game has begun.
Washington may not be able to salvage the job of European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen much longer. The European leaders realise that Ursula played them with her personal crusade to punish Russia.
There is a lot of pent-up resentment about Germany, too. Europeans don’t shed tears over Germany’s plight. Berlin’s imposition of harsh austerity programme on its southern neighbours is still painful memory.
Therefore, Ursula’s latest hare-brained scheme to impose a 15% reduction in gas consumption on all EU countries (to bail out Berlin) faces resistance. Truly, there is no alternative to Russian gas and Washington has forgotten its promise to find replacement.
Biden only brought this calamity down on the Europeans. Barack Obama’s private doubt is now public wisdom for Europeans — “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f… things up.”
Lavrov also knows the second reason why Blinken wants to re-engage. The Russian special military operations are making good progress and all indications are that the Zelensky regime is crumbling. Thus, preparations have begun for holding referendums in Kherson and Zoporozhia regions to ascertain the wishes of the people.
Russia has invited applications for citizenship from the residents of Kharkov as well, and ruble currency is being introduced. Putin just approved a 3-year master plan to rebuild Mariupol. The ancient city will soon have bridges, roads and schools that put Washington to shame.
Most important, Biden must be worrying that even if he multiplies by a hundred times Washington’s carve-up of Kosovo as a nation state in 2008, it still wouldn’t match what is steadily unfolding in Ukraine. And Europeans are watching all this — speechless, in disbelief — as territorial boundaries get redrawn in their manicured continent.
There are new facts on the ground since March when Russia and Kiev reached an agreement in Istanbul (which the hawkish Biden team promptly torpedoed by promising the moon to Zelensky.) So much water has flown down the Dnieper since then. Watch the video, below, of Biden’s landmark April 28 war speech
Lavrov is on Blinken’s list of people to call
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 28, 2022
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press availability at the State Department on Wednesday made the dramatic announcement that he intends to speak to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov “in the coming days … for the first time since the war began” in Ukraine on February 24.
Interestingly, he gave an alibi that harks back to the Soviet era — prisoner exchange.
The US is offering a swap of a Russian entrepreneur Viktor Bout, who was arrested in Thailand in 2008 on a US warrant and later convicted to 25 years in prison on charges of weapons trafficking, in exchange for Brittney Griner, a basketball star who has been detained at Moscow airport on drug charges and, importantly, Paul Whelan, an ex-US Marine, who was arrested in Russia in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison two years later on charges of espionage.
Whelan surely was a prize catch for the Russians. The American ambassador in Moscow had been visiting him in prison.
Blinken also added a second topic he’d like to discuss with Lavrov — implementation of the recent “grain deal”. Washington played no role in negotiating the deal and is presumably hoping to make a lateral entry into the matrix now. Blinken claimed he is “seeing and hearing around the world a desperate need for food, a desperate need for prices to decrease. And if we can help through our direct diplomacy encourage the Russians to make good on the commitments they’ve made, that will help people around the world, and I’m determined to do it.”
Interestingly, in a veiled reference to the US, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavuсoglu stated Wednesday on broadcaster Tv100 that there were countries who “wanted to block” the grain deal between Russia and Turkey, who want the Ukraine conflict “to prolong”, as they think the longer Moscow’s special military operation continues, “the weaker Russia will be.”
Fair enough. Blinken then came to the real purpose of his forthcoming call with Lavrov — “the plans that Russia now has to pursue the annexation of Ukrainian territory.”
Blinken repeated the hyperbole that sanctions are having “a powerful and also growing effect” and has “weakened Russia profoundly” and the Biden administration will do all that it can “to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield so it has the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”
However, what comes through is the growing disquiet in Washington that to its utter disbelief, the Russian stance has only hardened lately. Blinken said it is “causing alarms.” In particular, he noted Lavrov’s remark last week that the Kremlin’s goals in Ukraine had expanded. “Now they seek to claim more Ukrainian territory, beyond the Donbas,” he commented.
Indeed, the war has spun out of US algorithm. As Hungarian PM Orban pointed out last week, anti-Russian sanctions “have not shaken Moscow,” but Europe has already lost four governments and is in an economic and political crisis.
Russia is paying back to the US and NATO in the same coin that the latter did when they dismembered Yugoslavia. The NATO’s war in Yugoslavia came at a time when Russia was weak and it helplessly watched the West carving up a fellow Slavic country.
Russia will not be deterred now, as it is already past the mid-stream. Blinken noted frantically, “I think it’s very important now that we see what Russia’s next plan is – that is, the annexation of more Ukrainian territory – that the Russians, Foreign Minister Lavrov, hear directly from me on behalf of the United States that we see what they’re doing, we know what they’re doing, and we will never accept it. It will never be legitimised. There will always be consequences if that’s what they do and that’s what they try to sustain.”
However, the paradox is, the initiative still lies with the US. The Russian army will move deeper into Ukraine in proportion to the US’ supply of advanced weapons with long reach into Russian territory. But Moscow is interested only so that Russian territory is safe from any attack from Ukraine.
It is the Biden administration’s choice to extend the duration of the war or escalate the scope of the Russian operation. Washington made a catastrophic mistake to torpedo the Russian-Ukrainian deal stuck in April in Istanbul when Kiev agreed to settle for the modest Russian demands.
But those were halcyon days when US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin quipped — with Blinken by his side — after a quick trip to Kiev that the US wanted to see Russia “weakened to the degree that it cannot do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” Austin boasted that Russia had “already lost a lot of military capability” and “a lot of its troops. We want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”
Hearing Austin’s battle cry, Blinken chimed in: “The strategy that we’ve put in place, the massive support for Ukraine, the massive pressure against Russia, in solidarity with more than 30 countries engaged in these efforts, is having real results. And we’re seeing that when it comes to Russian war aims.”
“Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding,” Blinken claimed. That triumphalism was not there in Blinken’s performance yesterday.
A great beauty about press conferences is that some journalists make it lively and revealing. So, one American journalist asked Blinken, “you have been talking about how Russia is isolated internationally, and yet we see Foreign Minister Lavrov jetting off around Africa and the Middle East and President Putin going to Tehran… They make the case that they’re not isolated, and now you’re about to have this conversation with them. So what does that say about the administration’s efforts to isolate Russia when you are actually now reaching out to them to talk about the issues?”
Blinken’s explanation: “Matt, in terms of some of the travels that the foreign minister, for example, is engaged in, what I see is a desperate game of defence to try somehow to justify to the world the actions that Russia has taken…”
Yet, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell bitterly complained yesterday, “Lavrov visits to try to convince Africans that European sanctions are to blame for everything that is happening … and the entire western press repeats this. When I’m going to Africa to say the opposite, that sanctions have nothing to do with it, no one picks it up!”
The spectre of the collapse of EU economies is rattling the Biden Administration. A CNN report yesterday was titled US officials say ‘biggest fear’ has come true as Russia cuts gas supplies to Europe. It said the Biden administration “is working furiously behind the scenes to keep European allies united” as the blowback from the sanctions against Russia hits them and the “impact on Europe could boomerang back onto the US, spiking natural gas and electricity prices.”
The report quoted an unnamed US official saying Russia’s retaliation for western sanctions has put the West in “unchartered territory.” Suffice to say, Blinken’s call underscores the desperate urgency in Washington to open a line of communication to Moscow at the political level.
How this volte-face plays out in European capitals, especially Kiev remains to be seen. Blinken led the western boycott of Lavrov at the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Bali as recently as July 7-8. President Biden extended a glamorous welcome to Zelensky’s wife Olena Zelenska to the White House who was on a high-profile visit last week, even as Blinken was preparing his stunning announcement.
US Wants to Increase RT, Sputnik Moderation Due to Their Objectivity – Russian Embassy
Samizdat – 28.07.2022
US senators are calling for increased moderation of Spanish-language RT and Sputnik, as they are dissatisfied with the interest of Latin Americans in objective coverage of events, the Russian Embassy in the United States said in a statement.
On Wednesday, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, Senators Bill Cassidy and Tim Kaine called on the CEOs of Meta (banned as an extremist organization in Russia), Twitter and Telegram to better moderate content distributed by Spanish-language versions of RT and Sputnik. The senators said they were concerned by reports that the reach of such media outlets has increased amid the situation in Ukraine.
“Parliamentarians, in the typical manner, once again turn everything upside down, seeing in the work of our news agencies attempts to “spread disinformation”, “undermine democracy” and “sow chaos” in the Western Hemisphere. The reason for such accusations is dissatisfaction with the interest of the Latin American public in objective coverage of events in Russia and the world,” the Russian Embassy said on Telegram.
“Washington’s ruling circles are clearly annoyed that, thanks to high-quality and timely news content, citizens of the countries of the region make a choice in favor of Russia Today and Sputnik, and not US-controlled media,” it said.
Israel fears a nightmare scenario as the crisis with Russia escalates
By Dr Adnan Abu Amer | MEMO | July 27, 2022
Israel is convinced that Moscow’s threat to close down the Jewish Agency in Russia is retaliation for the Zionist state’s positions on the war in Ukraine. In fact, Israel now fears that the crisis with Russia will escalate further, which has prompted officials in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice, and the National Security Council, to hold urgent discussions to assess the situation.
The feeling is that Israel is running out of time to deal with the crisis with Russia, because the Russian Jews in the occupation state maintain close links with their homeland. Israeli diplomats are working to guarantee that the “vital” activities and services provided by the Jewish Agency continue.
By closing the offices of the agency, Russia has dealt a severe blow to Jewish migration from the country to Israel, hence the occupation state’s concern. There is now even more tension between Moscow and Tel Aviv.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Israel’s interim Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has taken a hard line against the Russians. He was the first to join the West in issuing strong condemnations of President Vladimir Putin and accusing Moscow of “war crimes”. He also led Israel’s decision to support the condemnation of Russia at the UN. He has not spoken to Putin since taking over as prime minister, nor did the Russian leader call to congratulate him on his new role. This suggests that Russia’s closure of the Jewish Agency is purely political, an act of revenge, although it is alleged that the agency has broken Russian law.
Jewish immigrants to Israel from Russia are increasing in number, with 19,168 people making the move since the beginning of the year. In the whole of 2021, only 7,824 Jews made “aliyah”. The figures show that so far this year 48 per cent of all Jews migrating to Israel are from Russia.
Israel’s position on the war in Ukraine is not the only reason for the crisis with Russia. Another reason being talked about in Israel is the occupation state’s ongoing aggression in Syria, especially the recent attack that led to the closure of Damascus International Airport, and the attack on the port of Tartus, where there is a Russian naval base.
A third reason is related to the Russian demand for ownership of Alexander’s Court in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, which was blocked by an Israeli court. Putin sent a personal message to former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in this regard, but nothing happened, and things got to the point where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke about the alleged “Jewish roots” of Adolf Hitler.
It is understandable to be astonished at Israel-Russia relations right now. They once enjoyed an era of mutual interests and harmony which led to great success for Jewish capitalists in Moscow, where some occupied influential positions in the Kremlin and others owned major media outlets. It also led to the largest migration of Russian Jews, close to one million people, to Israel between 1990 and 2006. That was the largest such migration since the upheaval of the occupation of Palestine in 1948.
Israeli leaders made routine official visits to Moscow. Of all world leaders, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Kremlin more than any other between 2016 and 2020. Moreover, the strategic regional environment saw Israel boosting its desire to build bridges with Russia, as the Middle East became a very competitive arena.
Decision-making circles in Tel Aviv intensified their communication with their counterparts in Moscow, after realising the weakening of the US position in the region, especially since President Joe Biden took office and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq. It slowly dawned on Israeli officials that Washington was leaving behind a huge vacuum.
None of this prevented Israel from following the West in its position on Ukraine, in line with the international stance and the return of a Cold War atmosphere. Israel has been trying to curry favour with both sides in the war, as it usually does, but it did not succeed this time. Hence, the deteriorating relations with Moscow. The longer the war continues, the higher the price that Israel will have to pay.
Israelis tend to agree that they do not want the current tension with Moscow to become irreversible to the point that Russia would ban Israel’s air force jets from using Syrian airspace; that would be a nightmare scenario for Tel Aviv. At the time of writing, Israel does not have a clear idea of what its reaction would be if things get to that stage, but it would push it into a corner and limit the options on its northern front.
Many Israelis believe that they will need a miracle to get Russia to reverse the decision to close the Jewish Agency. Moscow seems to be heading towards the end of Jewish migration from Russia, and orders from the highest levels have been issued in this regard. This is not a whim, but a serious initiative stemming from the Kremlin’s vision for global leadership.
Hence the Israeli worry that things will not stop at the closing down of the Jewish Agency. Other Jewish institutions that disseminate information about Israel and teach the Hebrew language may also face closure. Putin appears to have decided to escalate the crisis with Israel, and the occupation state’s efforts and achievements over the past thirty years may well be negated as a result.
Russia’s Vostok 2022 has big messages
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 27, 2022
The announcement by Russian Defence Ministry on Tuesday on Vostok-22 strategic command post exercises during August 30-September 5 gives a big message to the West in political and military terms.
The announcement said, “In addition to the troops (forces) of the Eastern Military District, units of the Airborne Troops, Long Range Aviation and Military Transport Aviation, as well as military contingents from other states, will be involved in these manoeuvres.”
If there is going to be participation by China, it will be highly significant in the present context of global politics, especially in the Far East.
Vostok 2018, held exactly four years ago, was the first time such a massive military exercise was held after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. (At the height of the Cold War in 1981 under Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union held its last Vostok exercise). In the event, Vostok 2018 turned into a Russia-China gun show.
The Russian Federation put more than 300,000 troops in the field—alongside tens of thousands of tanks, helicopters, and weapons of every sort—for a huge war game in Russia’s far-eastern reaches, and invited the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to play along, which it did.
And a whole new groove in international affairs began appearing, signifying that the interests of Russia and China have once again begun to align — this time around, in response to US military power under a pugnacious president, Donald Trump.
On the sidelines of the exercise, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping had a breakfast of blinis together in Vladivostok. It was a powerful signal that Russia no longer saw China as an adversary but as a potential military ally. It was widely noted internationally as heralding a major shift in the co-relation of forces in world politics.
To be sure, any Chinese participation in Vostok 2022 will be similarly subjected to close analysis by Washington and its allies at a time of heightened tension in US-China relations, with Beijing warning last week to take “resolute and strong measures” should the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi proceed with reported plans to visit Taiwan.
China has vowed to annex Taiwan by force if necessary, and has advertised that threat by flying warplanes near Taiwanese airspace and holding military exercises based on invasion scenarios. At a meeting in Singapore early July with Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission Gen. Li Zuocheng had warned that Chinese military would “resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity. If anyone creates a wanton provocation, they will be met with the firm counterattack from the Chinese people.”
However, at the end of the day, Chinese participation in Vostok 2022 will be seen as an expression of solidarity with Russia in the best spirit of the February 4 joint statement by the two leaderships, which states that “Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
No matter the usual mantra that the Vostok 2022 is not directed against any third party, its optics will be as a counter to the US pressure on Russia and China. Both Russia and China face new security challenges in the Far East in the recent period — especially, the revival of “militarism” in Japan, NATO’s growing Asia-Pacific posturing, and the belligerence in the US’ provocations over Taiwan.
Tass news agency has reported that the Russian Defence Ministry has proposed certain amendments to Russia’s Federal Law “On territorial waters, territorial sea and the contiguous zone of the Russian Federation”, putting restrictions on the passage of foreign military ships through the Northern Sea Route connecting Europe and East Asia.
The proposed amendment will require foreign military and state ships to sail through the Northern Sea Route without entering ports or naval bases, and, furthermore, seek permission from Russian authorities at least 90 days in advance. The amendment will effectively restrict the use of the shortest sea route to Asia for the western navies operating in the Asia-Pacific region.
Significantly, this Russian move comes in the wake of the NATO’s plans to forge stronger security links between the North Atlantic area and Asia-Pacific countries (Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand) in a coordinated strategy to counter China’s rise.
Equally, the staging of Vostok 2022 comes at a juncture when Russia’s military operations in Ukraine are entering a crucial phase. In a major speech in Moscow on July 7 at a meeting with leaders of the parliament, Putin warned that everyone should understand that Russia “by and large hasn’t started anything seriously yet” in Ukraine.
To be sure, Vostok 2022 flies in the face of western propaganda that Russian military capabilities are steadily weakening due to the conflict in Ukraine. The MOD announcement on Vostok 2022 made it a point to touch on it indirectly.
The MOD statement said, “A number of foreign media are spreading inaccurate information about alleged mobilisation activities. Please note that only a part of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is involved in the special military operation, the number of which is sufficient to fulfil all the tasks set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
“Moreover, none of the planned operational and combat training and military-technical and international cooperation activities of the Russian Ministry of Defence have been cancelled and will be provided with the necessary personnel, weapons, military equipment and materials.”
This is only logical, since, following the massive haemorrhage suffered by the Ukrainian military in the past 5-month period, the military balance is now working favourably for the Russian forces. Equally, the Russian military strategy to grind the Ukrainian forces with heavy artillery and missile strikes and the slow pace of the conflict also mean that the operations are sustainable over a prolonged period.
At any rate, given the hostile posturing of the NATO forces all along Russia’s western borders, it is inconceivable that Moscow would have taken risks by heavily committing its forces to the Ukraine operations. Interestingly, Germany’s army chief Lieutenant General Alfons Mais told Handelsblatt newspaper recently in an interview that Russia has “almost inexhaustible” resources.
In the general’s estimation, “With its artillery superiority, the Russian army is apparently working its way forward kilometre by kilometre. This is a war of attrition that will raise the question of how long Ukraine can hold out… The Russian army is getting stronger, and Russia has resources that are almost inexhaustible.”
The focus of Vostok 2022 will be “on the use of groupings of troops (forces) to ensure military security.” It will be staged in 12 different locations spread across the Eastern Military District, one of Russia’s five military districts, with a vast geographical spread of 7 million sq. kilometres, headquartered in Khabarovsk on the Amur river in the Russian Far East near the Russia-China border, and comprises the regions up to Sakhalin Oblast, which includes Kuril Islands.
Black Sea and three musketeers
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 26, 2022
As the conflict in Ukraine slouches toward Odessa, the war gets elevated to the sphere of a romantic adventure. If Alexander Dumas was alive, the idea might have struck him to write a sequel to his Three Musketeers, the historical novel written in 1844, which has heroic, chivalrous swordsmen who fight for justice, highlighting the absurdities of the Ancient Régime in a setting when the debate in France between republicans and monarchists was still fierce.
The absurdity of raking up a non-existent controversy over the Russian missile strike on Odessa on Friday casts Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the second time in a lead role with three swashbuckling musketeers — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
The first time was when Zelensky acted in a Russian musical film based on Dumas’ novel, with three beautiful Soviet actresses — Anna Ardova, Ruslana Pysanka and Alyona Sviridova — as musketeers, which was released in Moscow on New Year’s Eve in 2004.
Coming back to time present, on Friday, it was a controversy waiting to happen when Russia fired four high precision Kalibr missiles and destroyed Ukrainian military infrastructure in Odessa Port just a day after the Russia-Ukraine grain deal was signed in Istanbul, which provides for the resumption of grain exports from the region.
Zelensky promptly shouted that the missile strike was a “barbaric” act. And Blinken came on the line to level charges against Russia; Guterres jumped into the fray “unequivocally” condemning the Russian strike; and, Borrell lazily wrote on Tweeter that the missile strike was “particularly reprehensible & again demonstrates Russia’s total disregard for international law & commitments.”
As for the Russians, well, they slept over it — that is, until Sunday, when late in the afternoon, the Defence Ministry in Moscow inserted two tersely-worded sentences into its customary daily bulletin on the day’s operations in Ukraine:
“Attack launched by high-precision long-range sea-based missiles has resulted in the elimination of Ukrainian military ship and a depot of Harpoon anti-ship missiles delivered by USA to the Kiev regime in the seaport of Odessa. The list of neutralised targets also includes the production facilities of an entity specialised in repairing and modernising the fleet of Ukrainian Navy.”
Zelensky soon issued a clarification that the implementation of the grain deal from Odessa Port was not in doubt. Apparently, he hadn’t coordinated with the three musketeers sitting elsewhere who reacted prematurely. Blinken probably did the logical thing by distracting attention from the corruption concerns being revived in the Beltway regarding America’s gravy train to Ukraine.
Fundamentally, the grain deal is an eyesore for the Biden administration, which in the first instance never expected an agreement could be negotiated that requires great flexibility on the Russian military’s side. Even more galling is that the deal is turning out to be a political victory for Russia.
Moscow is getting good publicity over its pragmatism to lift its naval blockade for addressing the global food crisis. But what is not obvious to most people is that the grain deal is also a back-to-back deal which commits the UN to get the restrictions being put by the EU and the US on Russia’s grain and fertiliser exports lifted.
Besides, apart from the big income out of grain and fertiliser exports, there is that unquantifiable goodwill that Moscow earns from so many countries which critically depend on Russian wheat, especially in West Asia and Africa. Evidently, the itch to spoil the party in Moscow was found irresistible by Blinken & Co.
Enter Sergey Lavrov. From Oyo, Republic of the Congo, deep in the heart of Africa, where he was travelling to follow up on the grain deal — Russia is the number 1 grain supplier to Africa — Foreign Minister Lavrov sensed immense potentials in the emergent situation. Lavrov made three points while flying out of Oyo in the direction of Kampala:
- The grain deal contains nothing “to bar us from continuing the special military operation and hit military infrastructure and other military targets. And the United Nations secretariat representatives… confirmed this interpretation of the documents yesterday.” (Guterres was apparently unaware.)
- The missile strike was aimed at “a separate part of the Odessa port, the so-called military part” and, therefore, “there are no obstacles for shipping grain to contractors under the Istanbul agreements and we have created none.” (Indeed, Zelensky himself is acknowledging it.)
- The missile strike was aimed at the depot where the Pentagon’s Harpoon anti-ship missiles were stored. “These missiles were delivered to pose threats to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Now, they pose no threats.”
What Lavrov didn’t say but would have implied is that the Odessa war theatre has now become “kinetic” and Friday’s attack sets a precedent. The missile strike underscores that Moscow likely anticipated Pentagon’s antics to use the grain deal to shield its deployment of advanced Harpoon missiles in Odessa Port.
Curiously, off Bulgaria, next door to Odessa, on July 14-25, the US took part in a multinational maritime exercise, Breeze 2022, involving 24 warships, cutters, auxiliary vessels, five planes, and four helicopters manned by 1,390 naval personnel from eleven NATO member countries!
The controversy over the missile strike highlights that Russia’s special military operations in Ukraine will remain incomplete and inconclusive until Moscow altogether cuts off the US’ and NATO’s access to Odessa Port and cripples the alliance’s capability in the Black Sea. Obviously, that’s still some way off.
Meanwhile, the great game is accelerating in the Black Sea with Blinken doubling down to woo Azerbaijan. He spoke with President Aliyev on Monday to press Washington’s pending offer “in helping facilitate the opening of regional transportation and communication linkages.” Azerbaijan is the chosen bridgehead for NATO in southern Caucasus. (See my blog Ukraine’s Great Game surfaces in Transcaucasia.)
Israel warns Moscow about ‘consequences’ amid Jewish Agency row
Samizdat | July 24, 2022
The anticipated closure of The Jewish Agency in Russia will have a serious impact on Russia-Israel relations, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid warned on Sunday. The quasi-governmental organization, which promotes the repatriation of Jews to Israel, has been targeted by Russia’s Justice ministry over alleged violations of local law.
“Prime Minister Lapid said in the meeting that ties with Russia are important to Israel. The Jewish community in Russia is large and important and comes up in every diplomatic discussion with the administration in Moscow,” the PM’s office said in a statement.
“Closing the Jewish Agency’s offices would be a grave event, which will have consequences on those ties.”
Earlier this week, a Moscow court said it had received a formal request from the Justice Ministry to liquidate the Russian branch of the agency.
While the exact nature of the allegations the agency faces has not been made public, Israeli media reported the organization had earlier this month received a warning from the ministry over a breach of laws related to data storage and protection. The pretrial hearing on the case, which may result in a ban on the agency, is scheduled for Thursday.
Responding to the situation around the organization, Israel expressed readiness to immediately dispatch a diplomatic delegation to Russia to “to ensure the continuation” of the group’s activities in the country. The readiness for talks was reiterated on Sunday, with the PM’s office confirming the delegation would be ready to set out for Moscow as soon as “it receives Russian approval for the talks.”
The Jewish Agency, founded in late 1920, first assisted in “repatriating” Jews to Palestinian lands, and to the state of Israel later on. In Russia, the organization maintains a large network, with its officers and partners operating in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities across the country.
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From the Archives
9/11 Was an Israeli Job
How America was neoconned into World War IV
By Laurent Guyénot • Unz Review • September 10, 2018
Technical impossibilities
Thanks to courageous investigators, many anomalies in the official explanation of the events of 9/11 were posted on the Internet in the following months, providing evidence that this was a false flag operation, and that Osama bin Laden was innocent, as he repeatedly declared in the Afghan and Pakistani press and on Al Jazeera.[1] The proofs of this appalling fraud have been accumulating ever since, and are now accessible to anyone willing to spend a few hours of research on the Web. (Although, while preparing this article, I noticed that Google is now making access to that research more difficult than it was five years ago, artificially prioritizing anti-conspiracy sites.)
For example, members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth have demonstrated that it was impossible for plane crashes and jet fuel fires to trigger the collapse of the Twin Towers. Even Donald Trump understood this. In fact, speaking of “collapse” is perhaps misleading: the towers literally exploded, pulverizing concrete and projecting pieces of steel beams weighing several hundred tons hundreds of meters laterally at high speeds. The pyroclastic dust that immediately flooded through the streets, not unlike the dust from a volcano, indicates a high temperature mixture of hot gasses and relatively dense solid particles, an impossible phenomenon in a simple collapse. It is also impossible that WTC7, another skyscraper (47 stories), which had not been hit by a plane, collapsed into its own footprint at near free-fall speed, unless by “controlled demolition.”
Testimonies of firefighters recorded shortly after the events describe sequences of explosions just before the “collapse”, well below the plane impact. The presence of molten metal in the wreckage up to three weeks after the attack is inexplicable except by the presence of incompletely burned explosives. Firefighter Philip Ruvolo testified before Étienne Sauret’s camera for his film Collateral Damages (2011): “You’d get down below and you’d see molten steel—molten steel running down the channelways, like you were in a foundry—like lava.”
Aviation professionals have also reported impossibilities in the behavior of the planes. The charted speeds of the two aircraft hitting the Twin Towers, 443 mph and 542 mph, exclude these aircraft being Boeing 767s, because these speeds are virtually impossible near ground level. In the unlikely event such speeds could be attained without the aircraft falling apart, flying them accurately into the towers was mission impossible, especially by the amateur pilots blamed for the hijacking. Hosni Mubarak, a former pilot, said he could never do it. (He is not the only head of state to have voiced his doubts: Chavez and Ahmadinejad are among them.) Recall that neither of the black boxes of the jetliners was ever found, an incomprehensible situation.
And of course, there are the obvious anomalies of Shanksville and Pentagon crash sites: no plane or credible plane debris can be seen on any of the numerous photos easily available. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- From Unipolar Universalism to Multipolar Civilizational Distinctiveness
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- If Americans Knew
- Deconstructing Netanyahu’s pants-on-fire UN rant – Daily Update
- Trump betrayed voters with his campaign lies and prioritized a foreign country once he took office
- Netanyahu calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘opposite of genocide’ in UN speech to near-empty hall
- Settler Kidnappings: Torture, Sexual Abuse and Terrorisation of Palestinian Abductees as Israel Deepens Annexation of West Bank
- Gaza winter nears as 162,000 tents become unusable, raising fears of humanitarian crisis
- Netanyahu says, “It’s the opposite of genocide”; UN says Gaza economy is world’s ‘most severe crisis on record’ – Daily Update
- Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
- ‘Protecting U.S. Citizens’… From Israel
- ‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza
- In UN Speech, Iran’s President Displays Pictures of Children Killed by US, Brings Attention to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
