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Accusations of Bucha massacre by Russian forces are fake news: Moscow

Samizdat | April 3, 2022

The Russian military has firmly denied accusations of mass killings of civilians in Bucha, a Ukrainian town northwest of Kiev. The claims have been raised by Ukraine itself, some Western media outlets and human rights groups, after Moscow had withdrawn its troops from the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital.

“All photographs and video materials published by the Kiev regime, allegedly showing some kind of “crimes” by Russian military personnel in the town of Bucha, Kiev region, are yet another provocation,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said Sunday.

Russian troops had been pulled out from the area on March 30, the military said, pointing out that “the so-called ‘evidence of crimes’ in Bucha appeared only on the fourth day” after the withdrawal, when Ukrainian intelligence and “representatives of Ukrainian television arrived in the town.”

“Moreover, on March 31 the mayor of Bucha, Anatoly Fedoruk, confirmed in his video address that there was no Russian military in the town, but did not even mention any local residents laying shot in the streets with their hands tied,” the Russian military also pointed out.

“It’s particularity concerning that all the bodies of people whose images were published by the Kiev regime, after at least four days, have not stiffened, do not have characteristic cadaveric spots, and have fresh blood in their wounds,” the military noted, adding that all these inconsistencies show that the whole Bucha affair “has been staged by the Kiev regime for Western media, as was the case with the [fake news from the] Mariupol maternity clinic.”

Graphic footage from Bucha shows multiple bodies in civilian clothing lying in the middle of a street. Some of the dead apparently had their hands tied, while others were white armbands, commonly used by Russian forces and civilians in areas under Russian control.

Kiev has blamed the Bucha killings on Moscow, with Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba claiming it was a “deliberate massacre” by Russian troops.

“The Bucha massacre was deliberate. Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can. We must stop them and kick them out. I demand new, devastating G7 sanctions NOW,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

Top Western politicians have backed Kiev’s assessment of Bucha, with some explicitly pinning the blame for the killings on Moscow as well. “Russian authorities will have to answer for these crimes,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.

A similar stance was voiced by the UK, with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss stating that such “indiscriminate attacks” on civilians should be probed as war crimes. “We will not allow Russia to cover up their involvement in these atrocities through cynical disinformation,” she said.

Moscow launched a large-scale offensive against its neighbor in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military alliance. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two rebel regions by force.

April 3, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

European energy crisis looms amid Russia-Ukraine tensions

Global Times | April 3, 2022

With Russia’s ruble payment for natural gas taking effect on Friday, the clock is ticking for Europe to grapple with the looming gas cutoff threat which would not only make the bloc face an unprecedented full-blown energy crisis but could also create a ripple effect throughout its manufacturing, logistics, and other services sectors, undercutting European GDP by about 1 to 2 percent and even lead to a political crisis, analysts predicted.

Moscow said gas will continue flowing with payments for supply from April 1 due to be paid by the end of the month or early May, giving respite to Europe whose leaders insist they will not comply with the ruble payment decree by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts said the choices left for the bloc are limited, as the alternative LNG shipment from the US cannot cover demand in the short term and Europe is also severely lacking in LNG-receptive infrastructures.

These dire consequences seem to be very ironic, as Washington stands to pocket huge profits from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, while the interests of its European allies are compromised or even sacrificed, observers said, pointing out that Europe could become one of the biggest victims of the US advancing its global hegemony.

Putin announced that the ruble payment for natural gas purchases for “unfriendly” countries took effect on Friday. Under the new rule, foreign buyers will need to open special ruble and foreign currency accounts with Russia’s Gazprombank JSC to handle payments.

If account payments are not made, Russia will consider it a default on the part of buyers, and halt supply, Reuters reported.

European leaders have rejected paying with the ruble, which they said violates existing contracts. While Baltic country Lithuania said on Saturday that it has fully abandoned Russian gas imports, other European countries have yet to make clear what their stance or back-up plans are.

According to a Bloomberg report, European buyers are “looking for clarity on how the new system will work.” The German government was reportedly studying details, Denmark condemned the move, and French Ecology Minister Barbara Pompili said she didn’t see the request as a breach of contract as companies would still be able to pay in euros.

While the political wrestling would linger and European leaders may align to bolster their hard political stance against Russia, analysts predicted that there may be some easement on actual practices.

For example, some European countries may apply for exemptions via the EU mechanism, or there may be “some difference” between governments’ tough stance and how EU energy firms handle the payment, Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Looming energy crisis

Russia accounts for over 40 percent of Europe’s total natural gas supply and 50 percent of the coal supply used in Europe. The European natural gas price reportedly jumped 34 percent after the ruble payment decree.

Analysts warned that a further hike in natural gas prices could drive up living costs for ordinary Europeans, further heaping up inflation pressure and even intensifying political crises.

According to Investec Bank, the UK’s cap on energy prices could spike by another 50 percent in October to more than 3,000 pounds per household, driven by fears about disruptions to the European gas supply.

EU economic heavyweight Germany, which relies heavily on Russian energy imports, has seen its March energy price rise 129.5 percent than that of February. In March, German consumers’ spending for household energy and fuels grew by 22.5 percent year-on-year, according to data released by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany.

Germany declared an early warning in its national gas emergency plan on Wednesday, urging its people to cut their energy consumption. The country’s energy-intensive sectors including steelmaking, papermaking, and logistics have reportedly felt the pinch. Some operations have had to be suspended as they cannot afford the skyrocketing energy price.

According to media reports, there are three stages in Germany’s emergency plan, and the final stage is only activated when “there is exceptionally high demand for gas or significant disruption to gas supply, with all market-based measures implemented and supply still insufficient.”

“When the final stage is triggered as energy crisis snowballs, energy consumption will prioritize civilian use, and supply for industrial use could be totally halted in that case, exerting a devastating effect not only on Germany but also the European economy – which has been battered by the pandemic,” Cui warned, while estimating that such energy crises could erase Europe’s GDP expansion by around 1 to 2 percentage points.

It is projected that the EU economy will grow by 4 percent in 2022, according to a report issued by European Commission on February 10, before signs of an energy crisis manifested.

Cui said a curb on industrial production also weighs on fiscal government income, which matters to social welfare, resulting in a vicious circle that may even threaten the European bloc’s political stability.

No way out

A possible alternative to Russia’s natural gas is to import LNG from the US. Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Sunday that US LNG shipment is not “an immediate solution” as the plan cannot be implemented within the next few months due to soaring gas price and limited facilities to accommodate shipment.

In March, the US and Europe struck a major LNG deal, under which the US will provide the EU with at least 15 billion additional cubic meters of LNG by the end of the year. “From a realistic point of view, US LNG shipments are also unable to fully cover the gap left by Russia’s natural gas imports, not to mention higher logistical costs,” Lin said.

US exporters have shipped record volumes of LNG to Europe for three consecutive months, as prices increased10 times more than a year ago, another Reuters report said.

According to a study by energy research institute Aurora Energy Research, it would cost between 60 and 100 billion euros filling up gas shortage from non-Russian sources.

April 3, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Donbass still remains key battleground

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 3, 2022

The Russian General Staff gave an in-depth briefing on March 30 on the military strategy behind the special operation in Ukraine culminating in the decision to decrease the military activities in the Kiev and northern Chernihiv regions.

Broadly, the MOD messaging is that the twin objectives have been realised — namely, pinning down Ukrainian forces and military assets to the Kiev region and, secondly, preventing the transfer of Ukrainian forces from the western and central regions to the east by “using the absolute air dominance” and also by deploying modern high-precision weapons.

The MOD spokesman said: “All major lines of communication, supply and reserve approach are taken under full control. Ukraine’s air defence systems, airfield infrastructure, major military depots, training and mercenary concentration centres have been destroyed… Thus, all the main tasks of the Russian Armed Forces in Kiev and Chernigov directions have been completed.”

Clearly, the western analysts and media largely lost the plot from Day 1 by branding the Russian special operation a “failure.” They erred basically in prejudging it to be a “Russian invasion”, whereas, Moscow was very precise in giving the rubric of “special operation” to its offensive.

An invasion demands quantifiable, visible results, whereas special operation has a dynamic of its own where the outcome becomes an amalgam of the Donbass region’s restoration to its original boundaries, the security and welfare of the Russian population, the systematic elimination of the neo-Nazi forces who were on rampage in that part of Ukraine through the past 8-year period with the support of the state and encouragement from the western intelligence and complicity of the authorities in Kiev — and all the while, not taking the eye off the the wearing down of Ukraine’s military assets and fighting capabilities as a whole.

What emerges today is that there is a better understanding of the “special operation” — and it goes all the way to the NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and the US President Joe Biden. The Russian operation’s focus (as of now at least) is almost entirely on the eastern Donbass region where in Luhansk, over 93% of the territory has been “liberated”, while in Donetsk close to 60% of the territory is under control of Russian forces and the residual resistance in Mariupol port city is expected to be mopped up within the week.

The above characterisation is of course with reference to the liberation of entire territories that originally belonged in the pre-2014 period to the Donbass republics (which had shrunk by two-thirds through the past 8-year period of security operations ordered from Kiev.)

A variety of factors made this operation an uphill task — principally, a high concentration of Ukrainian forces in Donbass with neo-Nazi elements embedded in all military units, blockaded settlements, use of “human shields” of ethnic Russians, etc.

Above all, the Ukrainian forces themselves were in a state of combat readiness with some of their best units deployed in the region already when the Russian operation began on February 24, with their own secret plan drawn up for launching offensive actions by strike groups in the Donbass region by the end of the month.

To be sure, the Ukrainian forces continue amassing forces in the area. The Russian military is also continuing its precise strikes on military targets, which are intended to prevent reinforcements reaching the Ukrainian forces as a major battle looms ahead in Donbass where tens of thousands of Ukrainian forces are facing encirclement.

Thus, during April 2, the Russian operational-tactical aviation hit 28 military assets of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including 2 depots of missile and artillery weapons and ammunition, as well as 23 areas of concentration of Ukrainian weapons and military equipment.

Notably, the Mirgorod military airfield in central Poltava Region, a strategically important hub, has been taken out of action and several Ukrainian combat helicopters and aircraft found in its camouflaged car parks, as well as fuel and aviation weapons depots have been destroyed.

Equally, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, announced yesterday that in a high-precision strike with the Iskander operational-tactical missiles on the defence headquarters in the city of Kharkiv on Thursday, “more than 100 nationalists and mercenaries from Western countries” were confirmed as killed.

In general, the Russian operation is currently concentrating on regrouping and resupplying their units in Donbass. The next stage of the Russian advance in the eastern region is linked to the full liberation of Mariupol. The liquidation of the residual resistance in Mariupol is crucial as it will free significant forces for redeployment in the upcoming offensive in Donbass.

The resistance has shrunk to three main centres in Mariupol: the central district, the Azovstal plant and the port area. The neo-Nazi forces are largely confined to the Azovstal plant, which is one of Europe’s biggest iron and steel plants, with military headquarters, warehouses and barracks. Repeated attempts to evacuate the Neo-Nazi commanders by helicopter have been thwarted — Russian forces shot down two helicopters yesterday.

Chechen forces deployed near the Azovstal are preparing for an assault. The head of Chechnya Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov has given an ultimatum to the remnants of the Azov regiment: “I suggest that they soberly assess their remaining resources and give up. You can give up today. If this does not happen, tomorrow, April 2, all the militants will be destroyed.”

Overall, the receding frontline near Kyiv and Chernihiv signals the regrouping of Russian forces. The Russian side was not planning to storm Kyiv city itself in the near future. This redeployment of forces may be seen as the run-up to the upcoming intensification of offensive operations in the east.

On Wednesday, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the Russian forces were regrouping in order to “intensify operations in priority areas and, above all, to finish the operation for the complete liberation of Donbass.” To be sure, the upcoming phase of special operation holds profound implications for the eventual conclusion of a peace agreement.

April 3, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

UK won’t get Russian gas – Moscow

Samizdat | April 2, 2022

British energy major Shell will not be able to buy Russian gas due to London’s anti-Russia sanctions, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told the media on Saturday.

“London wants to be the leader of everything anti-Russian. It even wants to be ahead of Washington! That’s the cost!” Peskov outlined.

He was referring to the fact that the UK is the only country to have imposed sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank, through which payments for Russian natural gas are made. The measure effectively denies Britain the ability to pay for the commodity.

On March 31, Putin signed a decree requiring gas buyers from “unfriendly countries” to open special ruble and foreign currency accounts with Gazprombank to pay for gas supplies. They will transfer funds in foreign currencies to Gazprombank, which will buy rubles on exchanges and transfer them to the buyers’ ruble accounts to make payments to Russia’s suppliers.

April 2, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Zhao Condemns “Insane Actions” of West, Banning Russian Art and Literature, Stealing Private Property

By Andrew Anglin | The Daily Stormer | April 2, 2022

Zhao Lijian on Friday made some rather poignant statements about the behavior of the West in response to the ongoing border skirmish in the former USSR, calling it “insane.”

Zhao said:

I heard that Russian conductors were fired by orchastras in certain Western countries for refusing to condemn their motherland, and Russian movies were excluded from certain film awards. In university, the works of Dostoyevsky were banned. The display of the letter “Z” was banned in certain countries.

Western politicians often talk about how literature and art transcend borders, and the same goes for music. They also say “private property is inviolable.” So, what have these writers and musicians done wrong? Meanwhile, the private property of so many Russians has been frozen or confiscated.

Let’s hope that Western politicians will reflect on these principles they keep talking about. Their insane actions are not going to do anything good, and they’re not going to deescalate this situation. I hope that all parties can just calm down, and start working on peace talks, instead of escalating sanctions and tensions.

Whatever you think of either side of this conflict, there cannot be any claim that the West has not consistently violated its own supposed “values,” and it’s important to point that out.

Even if someone was deranged enough to “stand with Ukraine,” they would have to admit that doing so means throwing out the entirety of established global norms, especially to do with the global economic system. Though most troubling is the unilateral move to abolish private property rights.

Stealing Russian property without any charges or any legal process at all is so insane that it is difficult to process that it is happening. But it is taking place on a mass scale, across many Western countries.

Now that they’ve established that if the government says you’re “a bad person” – even if you have no direct involvement in any specific alleged crime – they can confiscate your personal property, it is not going to be long until they start declaring non-Russians to be “bad people” and taking their property.

They are stealing every boat owned by someone with a Russian name, and they’ve confiscated houses and apartments owned by Russians all through Europe.

They stole Lavrov’s daughter’s flat in London – just based on the fact that she is related to someone in the Russian government!

It was really, really stupid to do this seizure thing against Russia, as one of the last points of leverage against China was the fact that China has so many foreign investments. But now China knows, without any doubt, that it is only a matter of time before the West decides to seize those investments.

Americans apparently don’t understand how big of a deal property rights actually are. But everyone else in the world does. It’s literally the basis of civilization. To simply throw out the entire concept – without even going through any kind of process – in the name of a moral panic is probably the single easiest microcosm to look at to understand just how unhinged these people have become.

They no longer have any ability to claim to be enforcing a “rules based order,” which was the foundation of the claim that America made to having a moral right to run the world.

April 2, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Pakistani PM commends India

Samizdat | April 2, 2022

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has complimented regional rival India for maintaining an “independent foreign policy” amid US and allied pressure to adopt a harsher stance toward Russia.

Speaking Friday after accusing Washington of “interference” in Pakistan’s internal affairs, Khan went on to praise New Delhi’s unwillingness to go along with a barrage of sanctions and economic restrictions against Moscow.

“They protect their independent foreign policy which is centered on its people,” he said, as cited by local media. “No country is respected unless it stands on its own two feet.”

Facing a no-confidence vote on Sunday after losing his parliamentary majority following multiple defections from his party, Khan’s remark was quickly denounced by political opponents, with the leader of the opposition National Assembly, Shehbaz Sharif, blasting him for talking up the policy approach of Pakistan’s top adversary.

“His recurring praise for [Indian Prime Minister] Narendra Modi’s foreign policy is an insult to the sacrifices of valiant Kashmiris braving Hindutva,” he tweeted, referring to a Muslim-majority population in northern India and a form of Hindu nationalism. “Among other things, the damage done to our foreign policy is incalculable,” Sharif added.

Khan, however, quickly shot back, saying that his rivals believe his “statements will anger America” and that “Pakistan cannot survive without its support.”

“They [the United States] order us. They say that if the no-confidence motion does not become successful, there will be consequences for Pakistan,” the PM went on, arguing that his administration will not join the “bloc politics to achieve the same objectives” against Russia.

The Pakistani leader previously said a “foreign country” was seeking to remove him from office and is driving the no-confidence vote, openly naming that nation as “America,” ostensibly by accident, during a televised address on Thursday. The government also summoned the acting US envoy in Islamabad over the alleged political meddling on Friday, which it denounced as “blatant interference.”

Khan previously praised India’s “independent” policy in late March, stating that his own country, like New Delhi, would not “bow” to Western pressure to join the sanctions spree against Moscow. Despite international pressure and criticism for staying neutral, India adopted a pragmatic approach and continued purchasing Russian oil, even at a discount, to ensure the country’s own energy security.

April 2, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia will see record gas earnings this year – expert

Samizdat | April 1, 2022

Russia will have record revenues from natural gas sales this year due to high prices in the spot markets, Janis Kluge, a Eurasia-focused researcher at the German Science and Politics Foundation, told ntv.de news outlet.

“Almost half of the Russian budget is based on transactions with oil and gas. The state earns enormously from production taxes and export duties. It receives the income in rubles, and the amount is determined by two factors: firstly, by energy prices on the world market and, secondly, by the exchange rate of the ruble,” Kluge says.

According to him, revenue from gas will soar this year, as many of Russia’s gas contracts are adjusting to the rising spot prices.

“The gas price on the spot markets has quintupled within the past year. That means Gazprom will have record revenues,” he said, while predicting that the cost will increase significantly within the next several months.

The situation is similar with oil, Kluge says, which profits from the ruble’s sanctions-induced drop.

“Russia planned the national budget with a dollar-ruble exchange rate of 72, but now the ruble is around 85, much weaker, but with a view to energy exports this is an advantage. If we multiply the oil price by the ruble exchange rate, it shows that Moscow expected revenues of around 4,500 rubles per barrel of oil, but is getting much more, around 7,000 rubles.”

According to him, the profit from energy sales will be enough to cover the impact of Ukraine-related sanctions on the Russian economy, among other things, by halting inflation.

Kluge also believes the costs of the operation in Ukraine are not very high, and economic measures, except for a complete embargo, will hardly “stop the tanks.” And seeing that the Russian Central Bank has been inventive in introducing counter-measures to keep the economy afloat, Kluge predicts that Russia will survive the sanctions and even have a budget surplus this year.

April 1, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

NATO bases in Central Asia ‘unacceptable,’ Lavrov says

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stand with officials from Afghanistan’s neighboring countries and the Afghan Taliban as China-hosted talks on Afghanistan concluded in East China’s Tunxi, Anhui Province on March 31, 2022. Photo: Chinese Foreign Ministry
Samizdat | March 31, 2022

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that any NATO military presence in Central Asia will undermine the security of the Russian-led bloc in the region.

The minister made his comment at an Afghanistan-themed summit in Tunxi, China.

“We believe it’s unacceptable to have any US and NATO military infrastructure, or their Afghan helpers, on the territory of neighboring states, especially in Central Asia,” Lavrov said, adding that “such designs go against the security interests of our countries.”

He added that the existence of Western military sites would contradict the interests of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led regional bloc.

April 1, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

OPEC+ sticks to modest oil output rises, ditches IEA data

Press TV – March 31, 2022

OPEC and allies including Russia agreed on Thursday to another modest monthly oil output boost, resisting pressure to pump more, and ditched the Paris-based International Energy Agency as a data source in a sign of a hardening standoff with the West.

The group has resisted repeated calls by the United States and the IEA to pump more crude to cool prices that climbed close to an all-time high after Washington and Brussels imposed sanctions on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine.

“Saudi Arabia will be keen to avoid falling out with Russia by adding extra barrels at a time when Russian production is struggling,” said Callum Macpherson at Investec.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which hold the bulk of spare production capacity within OPEC, have resisted calls for higher output, saying the group should stay out of politics and focus on balancing oil markets.

OPEC+, which consists of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers including Russia, will raise output by about 432,000 barrels per day in May.

Global oil supply disruptions are approaching 5 million to 6 million bpd, or 5% to 6% of world demand, according to Reuters’ calculations, as sanctions, conflicts and infrastructure failures hit supply.

OPEC+ has been unwinding record output cuts in place since 2020, as demand has been recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, but not boosting production as fast as the West and other consumers want.

US President Joe Biden’s administration is weighing the release of up to 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and the IEA, a group which includes 31 mostly industrialized nations but not Russia, is set to meet on Friday to decide on a collective oil release.

Brent crude futures were down 6% towards $107 per barrel on Thursday.

OPEC+ has warned the global economy would see a major blow from a prolonged conflict in Ukraine.

“Consumer and business sentiment is expected to decline not only in Europe, but also in the rest of the world, when only accounting for the inflationary impact the conflict has already caused,” OPEC+ said in an internal report, seen by Reuters.

Ditching the IEA

Just as the IEA was working on a new stocks release, OPEC+ decided to stop using IEA’s data, replacing it with reports from consultancies Wood Mackenzie and Rystad Energy.

OPEC+ uses the data to assess crude oil production and the conformity of participating countries with agreed output curbs.

The IEA advises Western governments on energy policy and has the United States as its top financier.

The IEA said in an emailed statement its data and analysis was “rigorous and objective” and its monthly update on OPEC+ oil production would be made available to the public to support transparency.

In February, the IEA surprised the market by revising its baseline estimate of global demand by nearly 800,000 barrels per day, just under 1% of the 100 million bpd global oil market.

Some OPEC+ members have criticized IEA data, saying it has been inaccurate on several occasions. They have also said the IEA has advised against further investment in the hydrocarbons sector. The IEA has predicted reduced future oil demand as the world seeks to shift to lower carbon fuel.

UAE energy minister Suhail al-Mazrouei told an industry conference this week that institutions such as the IEA needed to be “more realistic” and not issue misleading information.

Mazrouei said top producers were treated like outcasts at the COP26 climate conference last year but were now sought out like “superheroes” as supply has waned.

Ahead of the climate conference, the IEA issued a groundbreaking recommendation for no new fossil fuel projects beyond 2021, while Rystad Energy projected the need for hundreds of new oilfields to meet demand.

April 1, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Russia responds to claims of mines in the Black Sea

Samizdat | March 31, 2022

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky lied to Norwegian lawmakers when he accused Moscow of deploying mines in the Black Sea to block foreign civilian ships from leaving Ukrainian ports, the Russian defense ministry said on Thursday, accusing Ukraine of being the culprit.

The rebuke came in response to Zelensky’s Wednesday address to the Norwegian parliament, during which the Ukrainian leader accused the Russian military of “creating the worst threat to international security since World War II” through its “insidious” operations in the Black Sea.

“About a hundred ships cannot leave to the Mediterranean. Some ships have been simply seized in acts of piracy aimed at stealing the cargo. Some ships were attacked,” Zelensky said.

“But the blockade of the ports was done by Russia not only through use of naval forces. They have deployed mines in the sea. And now the mines set up by the Russian forces are drifting in the sea. They pose a threat to anyone, to ships and ports of every nation in the Black Sea region.”

Mining its shores and territorial waters has long been part of Ukraine’s strategy of defending against a Russian attack from the Black Sea, which it started implementing after the hostilities broke out. On March 5, its armed forces warned residents of the Odessa region to stay away from the sea because of the mines being deployed by the military.

“We call on fishermen and owners of boats not to move near the shore of the Odessa region to avoid the risk of being fired upon or contacting mine barriers,” the message said.

According to the Russian defense ministry, Ukraine deployed some 420 old YaM-1 moored naval mines along its shores, including 370 in the Black Sea. About ten of them went adrift after their cables snapped during a storm earlier this month, the Russian military believes.

At least two apparent mines were reported found and have since been destroyed: one by the Turkish military and one in Romanian territorial waters. “Nobody knows where the rest of them are drifting,” the Thursday statement said, adding that Kiev’s mining operations created a major threat to shipping in the Black Sea.

The Russian ministry said that the second charge voiced by Zelensky during his video address was likewise “a lie”. The reality is that Ukraine is preventing 68 foreign ships from sailing from its ports of Chernomorsk, Odessa, Nikolaev and Yuzhny, while the Russian Navy is offering daily opportunities of safe passage to them.

“Crews of the ships radioed us and said any attempt by a foreign vessel to depart the Ukrainian ports is banned by the authorities under a threat of immediate sinking,” General Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for the defense ministry, said.

Zelensky is currently on a virtual tour to whip up support for his nation, with addresses made to various Western nations each day. On Tuesday, he told the Danish parliament that transition to renewable energy is a moral imperative for the EU, because otherwise it would not be able to punish Russia by stopping buying its energy.

March 31, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Is Russia the REAL target of Western sanctions?

Soaring oil prices, energy and food crises on the horizon… is it possible the REAL target of this economic war is us?

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | March 30, 2022

The first tweet I saw when I checked my timeline this morning was from foreign policy analyst Clint Ehlirch, pointing out that the Russian ruble has already started recovering from the dip created by Western sanctions, and is almost at pre-war levels.

Ehrlich states, “sanctions were designed to collapse the value of the Ruble, they have failed”.

… to which I can only respond, well “were they?”

… and perhaps more importantly, “have they?”

Because it doesn’t really look like it, does it?

If anything, the sanctions seem to be at best rather impotent, and at worst amazingly counterproductive.

It’s not like the US/EU/NATO don’t know how to cripple economies. They have had years of practice starving the people of Cuba, Iraq, Venezuela and too many others to list.

Now, you could argue that Russia is a larger, more developed economy than those countries, and that’s true, but the US and its allies have previously managed to hurt the Russian economy quite drastically.

As recently as 2014, following the “annexation” of Crimea, Western sanctions were tame compared to the recent unprecedented measures, but crucially the US massively increased its own oil production, then later that year (following a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry) Saudi Arabia did the same.

Despite objections from other members of OPEC – Venezuela and Iran chiefly – the Saudis flooded the market with oil.

The result of these moves was the biggest fall in oil prices for decades – collapsing from $109 a barrel, in June 2014, to $44 by January 2015.

This kicked Russia into a full recession and saw Russia’s GDP shrink for the first time under Putin’s leadership.

Again, just two years ago, allegedly as part of competing with Russia for a share of the oil market, Saudi Arabia once more flooded the market with cheap oil.

So, the West does know how to hurt Russia if it really wants to – by increasing oil production, flooding the market and tanking the price.

But has the US increased its oil production this time round? Have they leant on their Gulf allies to do the same?

Not at all.

In fact, in a point of beautiful narrative synchronicity, the US claims it’s “unable” to increase its oil production due to “staff shortages” caused by that gift that keeps on giving – Covid.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia is not tanking the oil market, but deliberately increasing prices.

Yes, right now, with the Western allies locked in an alleged economic war with Russia the price of oil is soaring, and may continue to do so.

This is good news for the Russian economy, to the point it may even make up for the damage done by the brutal sanctions.

The high price of oil and need “not to rely on Putin’s gas” or “de-Russify” our energy supply will doubtless result in millions being poured into “green” technology.

Those Western sanctions are targeting other Russian exports too, including grains and food in general.

Russia is a net exporter of food, meaning they export more food than they import. Conversely, many countries in Western Europe rely on imported food, including the UK which imports over 48% of its food supply.

If Europe refuses to buy Russian food, the net effect is that Russia has food… and the West doesn’t.

And, just as with oil, increasing food prices will help rather than hinder the Russian economy.

Take wheat for example, of which Russia is the biggest exporter in the world. The vast majority of this wheat is not even sold to Western countries – but instead to China, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan – and so is not even subject to sanctions.

Nevertheless, the sanctions, and the war, have actually driven the price of wheat up almost 30%.

This is good for the Russian economy.

Meanwhile, according to CNN, the US is likely to enter a full-blown recession by 2023, France is considering food vouchers and countries all over the world are expected to begin rationing fuel.

So, the sweeping sanctions imposed against Russia by the West, allegedly in response to the invasion of Ukraine, are not having their stated aim – tanking the Russian economy – but they are driving up the price of oil, creating potential energy and food shortages in the West and exacerbating the “cost of living” crisis created by the “pandemic”.

You should always be wary of anybody – individual or institution – whose actions accidentally achieve the exact opposite of their stated aim. That’s a simple rule to live by.

Remember how Orwell described the evolution of the concept of war in 1984:

War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.

Recall that “the worst food shortages for fifty years” were predicted as a result of Covid. But they never materialised.

Likewise, we were due to experience Covid-related energy disruptions and power cuts. Short of the UK’s damp squib of a “petrol crisis”, they never really arrived.

But now they are heading our way after all – because war and sanctions

Increased food prices, decreased use of fossil fuels, lowering standards of living, public money poured into “renewables”. This is all part of a very familiar agenda, isn’t it?

Regardless of what you feel about Putin, Zelensky, the war in general or Ukrainian Nazis, it’s time to confront the elephant in room.

We need to be asking: What exactly is the real aim of these sanctions? And how come they align so perfectly with the great reset?

March 30, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

Russia warns about Ukrainian use of UN vehicle

Samizdat | March 30, 2022

Russia has raised concerns over the apparent use of an official UN vehicle in combat by Ukrainian forces. It’s the latest of numerous incidents of civilian transport being seized for the war effort by Kiev, Moscow’s envoy to the UN Security Council complained on Tuesday.

Vassily Nebenzia warned that it created a situation where, for example, medical vehicles could be used to deliver Western weapons into the country.

“We are expecting a response to our latest inquiry about the UN vehicle with the diplomatic number DP210015, which was also taking part in Kharkov in combat operations of the Ukrainian nationalists, according to witness accounts,” he said.

The vehicle he mentioned was apparently spotted in a video released by Ukrainian fighters to show off the shooting down of an aircraft. It was reportedly used to transport anti-aircraft missiles.

The diplomat said there were credible reports that official vehicles of the UN and the OSCE were used by Ukrainian forces. He called on both organizations to “give fair assessments of such facts.”

Nebenzia also mentioned evidence of DHL delivery vans being used for combat in Ukraine. A video showing a Ukrainian mortar team apparently using such a vehicle to move around was published on Reddit last weekend.

One of the fighters shown in the video claimed the van was one of six voluntarily donated to the war effort by the Ukrainian branch of the German company. DHL shut down all operations in the country in early March. It told Russian media that the Ukrainian authorities had confiscated corporate transport.

The Russian diplomat said cases such as these have disturbing ramifications in terms of telling apart civilian and military targets in Ukraine.

“We cannot rule out that vehicles of these organizations or vehicles marked as medical transport could be used to deliver to Ukraine from neighboring states the very same weapons that the West has generously promised to Kiev,” he said.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that it will consider any arms shipments to Ukraine as legitimate military targets.

March 30, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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