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US tries to stop S-400 deal with India

By Frank Sellers | The Duran | June 27, 2018

In much the same manner as the US attempted to kill the S-400 deal with Turkey, they are now setting out to end India’s defense relationship with Russia, especially if they can manage to undermine this SAM deal. The idea is to utilize sanctions to get the job done. If the US can manage to dissuade India from buying their SAM systems from India over fear that they might contravene some sanction issued by Washington, then that’s what they aim to do, while simultaneously offering America’s THAAD system to New Delhi as a replacement.

The Economic Times reports:

NEW DELHI: The United States may try to persuade India to consider its ballistic missile defence options in an attempt to keep it from pressing ahead with the S-400 deal with Russia.

ET has learnt that the US could make ballistic missile defence an agenda point in the upcoming Indo-US 2+2 dialogue on July 6 for which external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be in Washington.

The likely option on the table would be the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. It is a sophisticated missile defence system which is believed to be particularly effective against long-range missiles.

The S-400 missile defence system is, however, said to be effective against a larger array of aerial attacks, particularly fighter aircraft such as the F-18s and F-35s.

The latest version of the Russian made S-400 has a longer range but the jury is out on whether it’s more effective than the THAAD against intermediate range and intercontinental ballistic missile systems. ET has gathered that India’s proposed S-400 purchase from Russia has prompted a reassessment within Trump administration on whether India would have gone ahead with the nearly Rs 39,000-crore deal with Russia had the US moved faster with the THAAD offer.

Now, the S-400 deal has become a politically sensitive issue with the US. The US Congress is debating a Bill to allow for sanctions against Russian defence entities which could cover entities in recipient nations as well.

Given India’s strong defence partnership with Russia, the Trump administration, through secretary of defence James Mattis, has pitched for a waiver for countries such as India on the condition that it progressively reduce its military dependency on Russia.

The Congress has still not provided satisfactory relief despite hectic lobbying within Washington. The problem is compounded by the fact that the Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) covers the S-400 system in the category of technologically sophisticated equipment which must be specifically targeted for this purpose.

India has argued that its S-400 deal with Russia was in the works before the US started debating the subject. In any event, it will predate the CAATSA if and when it’s written into law.

Besides, people close to the negotiations told ET, it is unreasonable for US to expect India to decouple its defence relationship with Russia, which has been a proven reliable partner through several conflicts.

The US, senior government officials said, must appreciate that unlike many of the other countries which purchase defence equipment from Russia, India does not target Russian armament against American interests and will not do so in future.

India is likely to elaborate on these lines at the inaugural 2+2 dialogue between the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries, while the US might urge India to first exhaust options the American industry can offer.

With the deal to purchase Russia’s S-400 SAM system predating America’s CAATSA sanctions act, the US is short on its options for blocking the deal. But sanctions are still playing a role in complicating its consummation as sanctions against Russia are rendering it somewhat difficult to relay compensation to the Russians for equipment and services rendered, therefore forcing both parties to find a way to deal outside of the dollar and outside of financial systems with exposure to Western markets. This particular moment in time for relations between India and the US is marked by trade tensions, as India finds itself in a position to dodge not just sanctions on its trade partners Russia and Iran, but also Trump’s trade wars, which affect goods sold in the American market, where India is imposing reciprocal tariff measures against the United States.

June 27, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Here’s why the whole Russiagate scenario set out in Trump Dossier is totally absurd

By Alexander Mercouris | The Duran | March 31, 2017

It has become increasingly clear over the last two weeks that the amateur sleuths who are driving Russiagate are taking the Trump Dossier prepared by the British ex-MI6 officer Christopher Steele as their starting point.

This is despite the fact that the Trump Dossier is still “uncorroborated”, and has been trashed by seasoned intelligence professionals like former CIA Acting Assistant Director Michael Morell.

Right from the first moment the Trump Dossier was first published I speculated that it might be the original source of the ‘Russiagate’ story. Here is what I wrote about it on 11th January 2017, immediately after it was published:

The big question is not whether the facts in this dossier are true or not; it is the extent to which the paranoid claims made in the dossier have shaped and might even have been the origin for the whole Russian hacking scandal.

I say this because media reports confirm that the dossier or extracts from it have circulated amongst US politicians (including Hillary Clinton and John McCain), US intelligence agencies, and within the media for weeks if not months.  The earliest reports in the dossier are dated to July, which suggests that some of its claims – which include circumstantial details of who supposedly within the Russian government was behind the Clinton leaks – were already circulating early in the summer.  That is a very early point in the Russian hacking story, making it at least possible that the dossier at least influenced the thinking of some of the people in the US intelligence community and in the media who have been pushing the Russian hacking scandal most aggressively.

Many have remarked on the absence of evidence in the ONDI report which was published last Friday. Even Masha Gessen – one of President Putin’s most relentless critics – has pointed this out.

Publication of this dossier looks like an attempt to provide “evidence” which the ODNI report failed to do.  If so then that at least gives rise to the possibility that the dossier is the “evidence” – or more correctly a part of the evidence – that formed the background to the ONDI report but which the ODNI report omitted.

Whatever the truth of this, the fact that an obviously concocted dossier like this has circulated for weeks if not months with its source apparently still considered “unimpeachable” and “reliable” by the West’s intelligence agencies shows how wildly paranoid and ignorant about Russia the West’s intelligence agencies and its politicians and journalists have become.

Fantasy has replaced truth, and it seems that a clever fabricator out to make money has successfully cashed in on it, quite possibly doing serious harm along the way.

The US investigative reporter Robert Parry is now saying the same thing: that the Trump Dossier is the document which provides the frame narrative for the whole Russiagate story, and this was also confirmed by the BBC article I discussed yesterday, which says the following:

The roadmap for the investigation, publicly acknowledged now for the first time, comes from Christopher Steele, once of Britain’s secret intelligence service MI6.

As it happens I am far from sure that the actual investigation being carried out into the Russiagate claims by the FBI is using the Trump Dossier as its ‘roadmap’. Contrary to what the BBC says I have never seen this “publicly acknowledged” anywhere. However what is now indisputable is that the Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees are doing so, and that much of the media is following them.

This is extraordinary because even a cursory knowledge of how the Russian government operates ought to make it obvious that the scenario described in the Trump Dossier makes no sense, and is completely fantastic.

Briefly, the Trump Dossier’s story is that a furious Putin, who supposedly hates Hillary Clinton, was persuaded by his press secretary Dmitry Peskov and his Chief of Staff Sergey Ivanov to order an elaborate campaign to interfere in the US election in order to swing the election to Donald Trump over whom the Russians supposedly possess various forms of leverage, including blackmail film of his cavorting with prostitutes.

The Russian intelligence officials supposedly carrying out Putin’s orders are then supposed to have closely coordinated their actions with Trump’s campaign. They are also supposed to have discussed it with each other and with all sorts of other people who passed on information about these conversations to the Trump Dossier’s compiler, Christopher Steele.

If one is to believe the Trump Dossier, the campaign to meddle in the election was also the subject of furious argument and recrimination within the Kremlin itself, with people like Ivanov, Peskov, Medvedev and Rosneft CEO Sechin complaining about it to each other and to various intimates, so that word of their arguments also found its way to Christopher Steele.

The Trump Dossier provides a phantasmagoric description of cloak and dagger meetings between Russian intelligence officials and Trump campaign associates in Moscow, Prague and other places, and of discussions of senior Russian officials with each other and of the recriminations which supposedly passed between them as the extent of Russian meddling in the US election supposedly became public.

There is so much wrong with this whole scenario that it is difficult know where to start, but a good point might be to question the whole starting thesis that President Putin “hates” Hillary Clinton.

There is virtually no evidence of this. The origins of this claim appear to be a comment of Putin’s made at the time of the election protests in Russia in December 2011.  Putin as reported by Reuters said the following

She (Hillary Clinton – AM) set the tone for some opposition activists, gave them a signal, they heard this signal and started active work

What a politician says during an election is not usually taken too seriously, and this comment scarcely seems to confirm the thesis that Putin “hates” Hillary Clinton. By the standards of what Western leaders regularly say about Putin it comes across as rather temperate.  Compare it for example with Hillary Clinton’s comparison in March 2014 of Putin with Hitler.

The claim that Putin “hates” Hillary Clinton is anyway at odds with a far more recent and much more thought through comment Putin made about her at the SPIEF conference in St. Petersburg last June, which because it hardly supports the claim Putin “hates” Hillary Clinton has gone almost completely unreported

I worked with Bill Clinton, although for a very short time, and we had a very good relationship. I can even say that I am grateful to him for certain moments as I was entering the big stage in politics. On several occasions, he showed signs of attention, respect for me personally, as well as for Russia. I remember this and I am grateful to him.

About Ms Clinton. Perhaps she has her own view on the development of Russian-US relations. You know, there is something I would like to draw [your] attention to, which has nothing to do with Russian-US relations or with national politics. It is related, rather, to personnel policy.

In my experience, I have often seen what happens with people before they take on a certain job and afterward. Often, you cannot recognise them, because once they reach a new level of responsibility they begin to talk and think differently, they even look different. We act on the assumption that the sense of responsibility of the US head of state, the head of the country on which a great deal in the world depends today, that this sense of responsibility will encourage the newly elected president to cooperate with Russia and, I would like to repeat, build a more secure world.

These remarks do not suggest any hatred for Hillary Clinton. Spoken at a time when the universal assumption was that Hillary Clinton would win the US Presidential election, they suggest on the contrary a willingness to work with her, a readiness to disregard her harsh anti-Russian election rhetoric, and a hope that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, would exercise a restraining influence over her.

Putting aside the fact that there is no real evidence that Putin “hates” Hillary Clinton, Putin at the time of the US election had been continuously at the top of the Russian power structure for 17 years, ever since Boris Yeltsin appointed him Russia’s Prime Minister on 9th August 1999. Over that long period Putin has gained immense experience and knowledge of politics, including of US politics. No one moreover seriously doubts that Putin is also highly intelligent and well-informed, and is able to put this experience and knowledge to good use.

It beggars belief that such an experienced and knowledgeable person as Putin was in 2016 would seriously believe that Russia could influence a US Presidential election so as to effect its outcome. That by the way is something which no outside power has ever previously managed to do. Putin would surely know such a thing was impossible, and that it would be completely counter-productive and extremely dangerous to try it.

Let us assume however that Putin acted completely contrary to what we know of his background and character, and nonetheless ordered Russia’s intelligence agencies to meddle in the US election in order to act out some feud he has against Hillary Clinton.

It beggars belief that Russia’s intelligence agencies would agree. Their chiefs – Patrushev, Ivanov, Fradkov and Bortnikov, all experienced intelligence professionals and like Putin all members of Russia’s Security Council, together with General Shoigu, who is not only a member of Russia’s Security Council but who as Russia’s Defence Minister has overall charge of the Russian military’s main intelligence agency the GRU – would undoubtedly have told Putin it couldn’t be done, and that it would be extremely dangerous to try.

Let us nonetheless go on to assume – ever more farfetched though these assumptions become – that Putin acted even further against his known background and character, and decided to ignore their advice, and ordered them to conduct the operation regardless.

It beggars belief that they would not in that case have insisted on having his order formally debated by Russia’s Security Council, Russia’s most important policy making body, which significantly finds no mention in the Trump Dossier at all. They would have been bound to do this if only to safeguard their positions when the operation went wrong – as it was bound to do – by putting it on formal record during the Security Council meeting that they opposed the order.

The Security Council is in theory an advisory body, and Putin could in theory have refused to convene it and have his order debated there. However that would almost certainly have provoked a crisis at the heart of the Russian government, and there is no evidence that ever happened. In practice it is inconceivable that an order of such magnitude would not have been discussed by the Security Council.

At that point Putin would have encountered the collective opposition of the entire Security Council, which includes people like Prime Minister Medvedev and Foreign Minister Lavrov who speak English and who know the US well, and who would also have told him what he wanted couldn’t be done, and that it would be extremely dangerous to try.

Putin has been Russia’s leader for as long as he has precisely because he heeds the advice and warnings of his experts, and is careful to ensure the prior backing of the rest of Russia’s political leadership for his decisions. It is precisely because Putin acts in this way that he has a loyal and disciplined government behind him.

Conceivably Putin could have cast all this aside and in a fit of madness struck out on his own, ignoring what would almost certainly have been the collective opposition of the country’s entire political and national security leadership in order to carry out a quixotic quest to stop Hillary Clinton from being elected. However had he done such a thing he would have risked a government crisis and furious recriminations when it all went wrong, which would almost certainly have spilled over into public argument as does occasionally happen in Russia. That there is no evidence of anything like this happening is the surest sign it didn’t happen at all.

As it happens this focus on Putin is anyway completely misplaced. If the the Russians did carry out hacks of the computers of the DNC and of John Podesta then the whole Trump Dossier/Russiagate story becomes even more surreal, since there is actually no need to introduce Putin to explain the hacks.

Russian intelligence would not have needed an order from Putin to hack John Podesta or the DNC. At a time of extreme tension in US-Russian relations, with the militaries of the two countries cranking up towards a potentially disastrous face-off in Syria, the entirety of Russia’s mighty foreign policy and intelligence establishment would have been working overtime trying to find out what the policies of the US after the election would be. Ambassador Kislyak together with the diplomats and spies in his embassy would have been trying hard to build as many contacts with both the Hillary Clinton and the Donald Trump camps as they could, and Russian intelligence would have been pulling out all the stops to gather all the intelligence on Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and their associates that it could.

Quite possibly this would have included reading the DNC’s and John Podesta’s emails. Since both had obvious relevance to an information gathering effort intended to ascertain the future policies of a Hillary Clinton administration, it is easy to see why Russian intelligence might have wanted to read them, and it would not have needed an order from Putin for it to try to do so.

Conceivably the evidence of hacking by Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear discovered by CrowdStrike is evidence of this, though the crude way in which those hacks were done suggests they may actually have been the work of someone else. Russian intelligence would hardly have been the only intelligence service trying to find out as much information about Hillary Clinton (and Donald Trump) as possible, and besides there is reason to think the Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear hacks were the work of private individuals.

In saying all this I wish to make it clear that I do not know for a fact that Russian intelligence did obtain the DNC’s and John Podesta’s emails. My point is that they would not have needed an order from Putin to try to do so, since trying to obtain those emails would have been a normal part of their work, and there is no reason to introduce an angry and vengeful Putin to explain them doing it.

As for the question of whether Russian intelligence might have leaked the emails, the only possible scenario where they might have done so would have been if they had found in the emails – obtained as a result of an entirely conventional intelligence gathering operation almost certainly not ordered by Putin himself – things that were so damaging to Hillary Clinton that their effect on the election if they were published could be absolutely guaranteed.

At that point Russian intelligence might conceivably have reported this finding to Putin and Russia’s Security Council, and have asked for permission to publish the emails. However given Russia’s longstanding policy of not interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, and the extremely high political risks for Russia of publishing the emails, it would still even in those circumstances have been highly unlikely that Putin or the Security Council would have granted Russian intelligence permission to publish the emails.

Which in turn brings us to the contents of the emails themselves. The actual content of the DNC and Podesta emails hardly fits the criteria of something so damaging that it would be guaranteed to effect the outcome of the election if it were published. Putin himself made this very point in an interview he gave to Bloomberg on 5th September 2016

I could never even imagine that such information would be of interest to the American public or that the campaign headquarters of one of the candidates – in this case, Mrs. Clinton – apparently worked for her, rather than for all the Democratic Party candidates in an equal manner. I could never assume that anybody would find it interesting. Thus, in view of what I have said, we could not officially hack it. You know, it would require certain intuition and knowledge of the U.S. domestic policy peculiarities. I am not sure that even our experts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have such intuition.

Putin is absolutely right. Not only would it have required profound knowledge of US politics – knowledge which the Russians almost certainly don’t have – to see why the contents of the DNC and Podesta emails might be damaging to Hillary Clinton, but it is actually doubtful that the contents of the emails were in fact especially damaging to Hillary Clinton. Certainly no polling evidence I have seen has proved conclusively that they were.

Given this uncertainty, it is very difficult to believe that the Russians would have taken on themselves the immense risk of meddling in the election by publishing the emails, and of course the people who actually did publish the emails – Julian Assange and Wikileaks, together with ambassador Craig Murray – categorically deny that they did.

The BBC article I discussed yesterday reports former Obama administration officials complaining that the FBI is “fumbling” its inquiry because “The FBI doesn’t know about Russia” and cannot “see, let alone understand, the bigger picture”.

On the contrary it is the “bigger picture” the Trump Dossier gets hopelessly wrong, and which immediately exposes it as a fake.

The Trump Dossier’s baroque picture of the Russian decision making process bears some resemblance to the chaotic way the Russian government operated back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when sinister figures like the oligarch Boris Berezovsky and Boris Yeltsin’s bodyguard General Korzhakov wielded vast power outside Russia’s formal state structures. That of course was the period when Christopher Steele, the Trump Dossier’s compiler, was working in Moscow for MI6, and when he formed his ideas about Russia.

However the Trump Dossier bears no resemblance to the way Russia’s government operates today. Anyone who follows Russian affairs at all closely and whose opinions are not blinded by prejudice can see that immediately. Unfortunately it seems that such people in the West are in short supply.

June 24, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

UN call to withdraw ‘foreign troops’ from Moldova threatens Transnistria peace process – Moscow

RT | June 23, 2018

A UN resolution calling for withdrawal of “foreign troops” from Moldova might reignite the Transnistrian conflict, Moscow warns. Moldovan President Igor Dodon called the resolution a PR stunt of the democrats ahead of an election.

The resolution, calling for the “complete and unconditional withdrawal of foreign military forces” from Moldova was adopted by the UN General Assembly on Friday. The Moldova-sponsored document received a simple majority, with 63 countries voting for it, 15 against, and 82 abstaining.

Russia condemned the adoption of the resolution as a shortsighted move which could lead to a potential flashpoint between the unrecognized Transnistria Republic and Moldova, undermining the “fragile” reconciliation process.

The resolution targets a small contingent of Russian peacekeepers, which have been stationed in the breakaway region of Transnistria for over two decades. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, ethnic tensions in Moldova resulted in a brief but intense armed conflict in 1992.

The involvement of Russian troops in the conflict back in 1992 put a stop to the bloodshed, the foreign ministry stated, adding that Russian peacekeepers remain “the guarantor of peace in the region.”

“We perceive this initiative as a blatant propaganda move of some of the political figures in Kishinev, who seek to score political points ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections by fueling anti-Russian sentiments,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

A similar opinion was expressed by the president of Moldova, Igor Dodon, who criticized the decision of his government to push the resolution through the UN General Assembly.

“The ruling coalition exploits international platforms to reinforce its political standing ahead of the parliamentary elections, which will be held in a couple of months. Such PR stunt of the Democratic Party won’t have any effect in reality,” Dodon said in a Facebook post.

The withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from the Transnistria region will occur only when the 1992 agreement between the breakaway region and Moldova is fully implemented, and the “two banks of Dniester” reach full reconciliation, Dodon stressed. The president also said that until lasting peace is achieved, the Russian peacekeeping operation, which is “one of the most successful,” should continue.

June 23, 2018 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

‘Forget sanctions, G7 & Assad – Trump-Putin summit should focus on America’s Ukraine interference’

RT | June 22, 2018

Ukraine, not Syria, is going to be in the spotlight at the potential meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin after the US supplied Kiev with Javelin missiles and imposed sanctions on Russia, former US diplomat told RT.

The NATO summit set for July is already being upstaged by rumors of a separate meeting between Trump and Putin – and news that National Security Advisor John Bolton will be heading to Moscow this month has only increased speculation. RT America’s Natasha Sweatte discussed this latest development with former US diplomat Jim Jatras.

RT: What are your thoughts on Bolton going to Russia? Do you think this is going to be a similar matter to how Mike Pompeo set things up for the president with Kim Jong-un?

Jim Jatras: I think in some ways, yes. I understand that ambassador (Jon) Huntsman, our ambassador in Moscow, was here not too long ago to begin some of the prep, Bolton is supposed to be in Moscow next week and then three Republican senators are supposed to be in Moscow the week after that. I think there’s some of the groundwork being prepared for this meeting.

RT: What do you think is the most important thing for them to discuss, if they do indeed meet. Do you think something like Syria?

JJ: Certainly, Syria. But to tell the truth, I think the mere fact of the meeting, like the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un, is the most important thing. The fact that they meet. Let’s remember, there has been a full-blown campaign of hysteria on so-called “Russian collusion” from not only the US deep state, but their friends in the United Kingdom, in MI6 and GCHQ, trying to try to sink this thing. And I think coming off of the summit with Kim and also some of the economic news, some of his domestic successes, Trump now feels he has the ability to go ahead with something he said he wanted to do during the campaign and has been frustrated from doing so.

RT: Do you think a positive meeting between the two will have any impact on Mueller’s investigation or do you see it as an important thing for Trump to block all of that out, if he does indeed meet with Putin?

JJ: I think it is going to be in the eye of the beholder. Obviously, the Trump-haters who actually believe all the nonsense about Russian collusion, they’ll just see this: “He is reporting to Moscow, he is reporting to headquarters. This proves everything we’ve been alleging.”

Of course, that’ll be total nonsense. I think just as a lot of people aimed potshots at him over North Korea, the fact that he comes back with something that looks like we’re making progress on a peaceful settlement, I think will resonate with a lot more people than the naysayers.

RT: Now to the G7 summit: do you think there is a seat at the table for Russia? Do you think maybe these talks with the US is the first step in that direction?

JJ: It could be. But to tell the truth, G7 isn’t all that important. And certainly not for the Russians. The Russians are looking more toward Eurasian integration with the, One Belt, One Road, initiative with the Chinese, with the Eurasian Economic Union. Sure, they’d like a seat at the table. But they’re not going to sit there and beg for it. And they’re not going to look at it as some kind of a cookie to be thrown to them.

RT: And what’s the ultimate outcome? Do you think just the meeting itself speaks volumes?

JJ: I think, the meeting itself speaks volumes. But I think, the question of sanctions, for example, is way in the background. You’ll never get that through Congress anytime soon. Although, I think we could look at some positive action in Europe in the very near future. I think that actually the thorniest question isn’t really Syria so much. Look, Assad has won, he is going to stay in power. The real issue is going to be what to do about Ukraine. During the campaign, Trump said that is a European issue. But, of course, you know, we’ve provided the Javelin missiles, we’ve added new sanctions to the Russians. We’ve got to find some way to get the US out of the driver’s seat on aggravating the situation in Ukraine.

RT: And maybe, if (Robert) Mueller’s investigation does wrap up sometime soon, maybe Congress’s outlook would change on sanctions?

JJ: No, I don’t think so. I think, unfortunately, there are just so many people who have planted their feet in concrete in an extreme, I would say, hysterical anti-Russian position, that just isn’t going to change. I think Trump basically has to move beyond them somehow and not really focus on the sanctions, which to tell the truth, do not have the same devastating impact on Russia that a lot of people here would like to think they have.

June 23, 2018 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Russian Envoy: “Deal of Century” a Matter of Surrender to ‘Israel’, Not Peace

Al-Manar | June 22, 2018

Russian Envoy to Lebanon, Alexander Zasypkin, stressed that the so-called “deal of century” with the Zionist entity is a matter of surrender, not peace with the occupation regime.

In an interview with Lebanese daily, Al-Akhbar, the Russian diplomat said that Tel Aviv bets on the Arabic obedience.

“The deal of century is a matter of surrender. It’s not peace. Israel’s calculations which suit with some Arab states don’t match with the condition of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine,” Zasypkin told Al-Akhbar’s Firas Al-Shoufi.

He said stressed that the Syrian army will retake control of the war-torn country’s south, ruling out a possible confrontation between the Zionist entity from one side and Iranian and Hezbollah from the other side.

“When discussions started on de-escalation zones, there were talks with all sides on importance of confronting terrorism. Israel fears the presence of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria. We say that the Syrian army is now engaged with the Russian forces in liberating the country’s south, and there is no justification for any Israeli action that could derail confronting terrorism,” the Russian diplomat said.

But he acknowledged that the Zionist entity exploits the presence of terrorist in Syria’s south, but assured that the terrorists will be crushed at last.

“A confrontation is not of favor of any side. There exists a balance of deterrence,” Zasypkin said.

On the other hand, the Russian ambassador dismissed reports of alleged disagreements between Russia and Syria, stressing that such reports are just “out of place propaganda” aimed at sowing discord between the two states whose alliance is “deep”.

“Russia and Iran are bound by very big geopolitical and even economic interests and their alliance is deep, not only in Syria but in entire Eurasia,” Zasypkin added.

Meanwhile, the Russian envoy revealed that the US has been renewing its support to the terrorist groups in Syria, ISIL and Nusra Front.

“It’s right that ISIL and Nusra were dealt blows. However, they still exit and are being supported by US, and they pose a threat to stability and are capable of launching attacks. Now, we have information that the US has renewed its support to some terrorist groups, including to White Helmets which belongs to Nusra,” Zaspakin told the Lebanese daily.

June 22, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

South Korea wants railroad link to Russia through North Korea

RT | June 20, 2018

Seoul, Moscow and Pyongyang can implement several major trilateral infrastructure and energy projects if stability is reached on the Korean peninsula, according to South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

One such project could be a railway that will be able deliver goods from Russia to South Korea through North Korea. “Once the Trans-Korean Main Line is built, it may be connected to the Trans-Siberian Railway. In this case, it will be possible to deliver goods from South Korea to Europe, which would be economically beneficial not only to South and North Korea but to Russia as well,” Moon Jae-in said in an interview with Russian media ahead of his state visit to Moscow.

A gas pipeline coming from Russia to North Korea to be extended to the South is another possibility, he said. “We can also build a gas pipeline via North Korea, so that not only South Korea will receive Russian gas but we will also be able to deliver it to Japan,” the South Korean president said.

The project to unite the Korean Peninsula with a gas pipeline has been discussed for a long time, but official talks started in 2011. The negotiations were frozen after relations between Seoul and Pyongyang deteriorated. Last week, Russian energy major Gazprom announced it resumed talks with Seoul over the construction of a gas pipeline connecting Russia with North and South Korea.

The countries could also connect their electricity grids, Moon Jae-in said. “We can also establish a powerline that would allow us to receive electricity from Russia. It could also be delivered not only to South and North Korea but also to Japan.”

June 20, 2018 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Trump holds the clock on North Korea while Putin plans his moves

By M.K. Bhadrakumar | Asia Times | June 19, 2018

The argument that China is being “marginalized” by Washington while it works bilaterally with Pyongyang on the profound security issues on the Korean Peninsula has been completely discredited with the surprising news that the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is back in China on a two-day visit that began today.

The Singapore summit between US President Donald Trump and Kim seems set to produce untold surprises in the future. Kim is indeed acting shrewdly by anchoring his dealings with Trump on his pivotal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. No amount of wishful thinking can obfuscate this geopolitical reality.

Last Friday, Putin telephoned Xi to discuss amongst other issues “the settlement of the situation on the Korean peninsula.” A Xinhua report of their conversation stated that Xi underscored the importance of the two leaderships keeping in close contact and in real time, since the “world situation and hot issues are at the crux of complicated changes” and given the “firm support that our two nations have offered to each other [to] help safeguard the two countries’ sovereignties, securities and development interests, and defend the regional and global peace, stability and justice.”

Meanwhile, the backdrop of that conversation cannot be overlooked – growing tensions between China and Russia on the one hand and the US on the other. On June 15, in a scathing attack on Russia and China, US Defence Secretary James Mattis alleged that “Putin seeks to shatter NATO” and “attempts to undermine America’s moral authority”; and, that the Ming dynasty appears to be Xi Jinping’s model, “albeit in a more muscular manner, demanding other states become tribute states, kowtowing to Beijing.”

While China’s role on the Korean issue is an accepted reality, Russia’s growing profile has been audacious. The point is, Moscow is increasingly pressing for a relaxation and lifting of the UN sanctions against North Korea. The big question is whether and for how long the Russian demand will remain merely verbal before translating into some sort of practical action.

Putin takes a similar approach as the South Korean President Moon Jae-in on the need for constructive engagement of Pyongyang. In some ways, Moscow is even in a position to voice opinions that Seoul may not find it expedient to openly articulate just yet – such as, for example, deployment of the US’ THAAD missile system to South Korea.

All this makes the forthcoming three-day state visit to Russia by Moon on June 21 an engrossing event. While a formal announcement of the visit is yet to be made, Yonhap News Agency “leaked” the news in Seoul on Monday, citing an unnamed South Korean official in the presidential administration. The Yonhap report disclosed that Moon and Putin are expected to pay special attention to North Korea’s nuclear issue during the summit.

It added: “Russia has been making a significant contribution to efforts to denuclearize North Korea while it has also played a significant role in pressuring the North, considering its economic relationship with North Korea.” The news agency went on to quote the South Korean official as summing up: “Also, the visit is expected to help promote strategic cooperation between the two countries [Republic of Korea and Russia] to establish peace in Northeast Asia amid positive developments in security conditions and efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.” The delicate diplomatic pirouetting is obvious.

Moscow has since acknowledged the veracity of the news regarding Moon’s state visit on Thursday. The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov further disclosed that Putin plans to talk with Moon about projects between Russia and the two Koreas. Morgulov said Moscow expects the military confrontation level on the Korean Peninsula to reduce and therefore, cancellation of US-ROK military drills is “a step in the right direction.”

Without doubt, Northeast Asia has begun surging as a top priority in Russian diplomacy. On Friday, a top executive of the Russian gas giant Gazprom disclosed that at Seoul’s initiative Moscow had resumed talks on a Russia-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea-ROK gas pipeline project, saying “a series of talks has been held on this issue, and these talks are continuing.”

The pipeline project holds seamless potential to put rings of engagement around DPRK and stabilize relations between Seoul and Pyongyang, while also remaining a “win-win” project for all three countries in terms of energy security for the two Koreas, plus Russia’s ambitious agenda to develop the Far East with foreign investment, and advancing its “pivot to the East” strategy by expanding its footprint in the Asia-Pacific energy market.

Again, an added dimension that is not quite visible yet is that Tokyo is watching Putin’s moves. The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe enjoys great personal bonding with Putin. Interestingly, Abe who just visited Russia for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (May 24-25) and held talks with Putin, has confirmed his intention to participate in the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) summit that is scheduled to be held in Vladivostok on September 11-13.

The EEF has become a standing floor for Russia-Japan dialogue, but what lends enchantment to the view is the tantalizing prospect that Putin has also invited Kim Jong-un to the summit in Vladivostok. Is Putin facilitating a meeting between Abe and Kim?

Suddenly, the sky is the limit for Putin’s diplomacy in Northeast Asia. So far, Washington has pretended that Moscow is inconsequential to the Korean endgame. But that is becoming a petulant self-defeating attitude. Trump could possibly make amends when his first summit with Putin takes in early July.

June 19, 2018 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Russia inserts itself into North Korea game

By M.K. Bhadrakumar | Asian Times | June 16, 2018

When it comes to North Korea, Japan and Russia may seem like two “lost souls” in Northeast Asia, standing on the fringes anxiously looking on as China, South Korea and the United States dominate the headlines.

The tremors set in motion by the meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore last Tuesday add to the angst.

In reality, Russia is way ahead of Japan. The meeting in the Kremlin on Wednesday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the visiting Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea Kim Yong-nam, the number two man in the hierarchy in Pyongyang, underscores this.

Clearly, the two countries are keeping up the momentum in high-level exchanges.

Japan out, Russia in

Japan, on the other hand, is groping for a way to somehow make an entry. Notionally, it is aligned with the US at the leadership level. But then, Trump is a lone ranger. Japan has no diplomatic relations with North Korea and setting up high-level contacts needs protracted efforts.

Besides, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been the most forceful proponent of the “maximum pressure” policy toward North Korea. He probably overreached, overlooking Trump’s propensity to make abrupt shifts. Indeed, the shift in the tectonic plates this week caught Tokyo flat-footed. Quick backtracking is necessary.

Kim must first decide when, how urgently or even whether to meet Abe. It’s a fraught situation for Tokyo, because Japan is a stakeholder and is most vulnerable to North Korea’s missiles. But with Kim having twice met both Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Abe is the only major regional leader yet to establish eye contact with the top man in Pyongyang.

Clearly, Kim is prioritizing Beijing and Moscow before Tokyo. The plane carrying Kim from Singapore to Pyongyang on the return journey reportedly landed in Beijing airport and someone “disembarked.” And, at the Kremlin meeting, Kim Young-nam handed over to Putin a letter from his supreme leader.

Putin’s remarks suggest that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Pyongyang on May 31 has re-injected some dynamism into the longstanding ties between the two.

The Russians invited a dignitary from Pyongyang to the FIFA World Cup inaugural ceremony – although the North Korean soccer team has not qualified. Kim Young-nam represented North Korea at the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and Putin received him again just before the gala ceremony at the Luzhniki Stadium.

Putin recalled the “old and very good relations” between Russia and North Korea and took the opportunity to “welcome and praise the outcome of the meeting” in Singapore between Trump and Kim on Tuesday. He said that this has been “the first step towards a full settlement” and the goodwill of the two leaderships made it possible.

Putin assessed the meeting as creating conditions for further progress and reducing the overall level of tension in the region. Putin added that a large military conflict would have had a “very dire outcome,” and thanks to the meeting in Singapore, “a possible negative scenario has been postponed.” He noted, “now there are prospects of resolving the problems by peaceful political and diplomatic means.”

Putin reiterated Russia’s cooperation and stressed its readiness to “establish ties” in economic cooperation. Without doubt, the long-standing Russian proposals to link the Trans-Siberian and Trans-Korean railways systems, and to run a new pipeline from the Russian Far East through North Korea to energy-thirsty South Korea, are high on Putin’s agenda. Kim Young-nam responded that North Korea’s new strategy aims to “concentrate all its resources and efforts on economic construction.”

Putin also showed an interest in an early meeting with Kim Jong-un. He suggested that the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September might provide an occasion for Kim to visit Russia, but added that a “stand-alone” visit is also possible.

The positive tone of all this is self-evident.

If the US is determined to keep Russia out of the peace process looming ahead, Moscow is equally determined to be present at center stage. Ideally, Russia would have preferred a resuscitation of the long-moribund, Beijing-sponsored six-party talks format, which gave it a habitation and name at the high table.

But that is unlikely to happen, given Trump’s preference for the Art of the Deal – a “bilateral deal” with Kim, with Xi and Moon acting as facilitators. At any rate, Trump has disclosed that Washington intends to keep the negotiations on a peace treaty as a matter between North Korea, China, South Korea and the US.

However, Moscow can be expected to play an active role. Unsurprisingly, Russia emphasizes the “denuclearization” of the entire Korean Peninsula, which includes the future US military presence and a host of attendant issues.

From Kim’s perspective, Russia, by its sheer presence, creates more space for him to negotiate. In fact, Moscow is compelled to play an active role, since it shares a border with North Korea and any expansion of American influence in that country there impacts vital Russian interests.

North Korea’s integration into the region is a key template of Russia’s “pivot to the East.” The development of the Russian Far East is significantly dependent on the success of this pivot policy. North Korea’s re-construction opens up business opportunities for Russian companies and provides a transit route for Russia’s trade with the Asia-Pacific region.

Putin has a rare genius for optimizing geopolitics by combining it with geo-economics, although the two are often regarded as fundamentally different paths.

June 16, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Press TV interview with Syria’s President Bashar Assad

PressTV | June 13, 2018

June 14, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Mueller Scrambles To Limit Evidence After Indicted Russians Actually Show Up In Court

By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 06/13/2018

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, according to Bloomberg.

Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social media in order to sow discord among American voters.

The special counsel’s office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin’s active “interference operations” against the United States.

“The substance of the government’s evidence identifies uncharged individuals and entities that the government believes are continuing to engage in interference operations like those charged in the present indictment,” prosecutors wrote.

Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would “allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,” according to the filing.

The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors wrote. –Bloomberg

Mueller also accused Concord of “knowingly and intentionally” conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.

And Concord Management decided to fight it… 

As Powerline notes, Mueller probably didn’t see that coming – and the indictment itself was perhaps nothing more than a PR stunt to bolster the Russian interference narrative.

I don’t think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against the charges. Rather, the Mueller prosecutors seem to have obtained the indictment to serve a public relations purpose, laying out the case for interference as understood by the government and lending a veneer of respectability to the Mueller Switch Project.

One of the Russian corporate defendants nevertheless hired counsel to contest the charges. In April two Washington-area attorneys — Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly of the Reed Smith firm — filed appearances in court on behalf of Concord Management and Consulting. Josh Gerstein covered that turn of events for Politico here. –Powerline Blog

Politico’s Gerstein notes that by defending against the charges, “Concord could force prosecutors to turn over discovery about how the case was assembled as well as evidence that might undermine the prosecution’s theories.”

In a mad scramble to put the brakes on the case, Mueller’s team tried to delay the trial – saying that Concord never formally accepted the court summons related to the case, wrapping themselves in a “cloud of confusion” as Powerline puts it. “Until the Court has an opportunity to determine if Concord was properly served, it would be inadvisable to conduct an initial appearance and arraignment at which important rights will be communicated and a plea entertained.”

The Judge, Dabney Friedrich – a Trump appointee, didn’t buy it – denying Mueller a delay in the high-profile trial.

The Russians hit back – filing a response to let the court know that “[Concord] voluntarily appeared through counsel as provided for in [the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure], and further intends to enter a plea of not guilty. [Concord] has not sought a limited appearance nor has it moved to quash the summons. As such, the briefing sought by the Special Counsel’s motion is pettifoggery.”

And the Judge agreed…

A federal judge has rejected special counsel Robert Mueller’s request to delay the first court hearing in a criminal case charging three Russian companies and 13 Russian citizens with using social media and other means to foment strife among Americans in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In a brief order Saturday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich offered no explanation for her decision to deny a request prosecutors made Friday to put off the scheduled Wednesday arraignment for Concord Management and Consulting, one of the three firms charged in the case. –Politico

In other words, Mueller was denied the opportunity to kick the can down the road, forcing him to produce the requested evidence or withdraw the indictment, potentially jeopardizing the PR aspect of the entire “Trump collusion” probe.

And now Mueller is pointing to Russian “interference operations” in a last-ditch effort.

Of note, Facebook VP of advertising, Rob Goldman, tossed a major hand grenade in the “pro-Trump” Russian meddling narrative in February when he fired off a series of tweets the day of the Russian indictments. Most notably, Goldman pointed out that the majority of advertising purchased by Russians on Facebook occurred after the election, were hardly pro-Trump, and they was designed to “sow discord and divide Americans”, something which Americans have been quite adept at doing on their own ever since the Fed decided to unleash a record class, wealth, income divide by keeping capital markets artificially afloat at any cost.

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

US shows ‘political imprudence’ accusing Russian firm of jet fuel deliveries to Syria – Moscow

RT | June 13, 2018

The United States has again demonstrated its “political imprudence” by accusing the Russian shipping company Sovfracht of aviation fuel deliveries to Syria, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Back in 2016-2017, the US blocked in its banks this company’s money transfers worth $5.5 million and now has made this new infamous step in response to our demands to return these funds,” the ministry said, as cited by TASS.

The aviation fuel whose deliveries were ensured by Sovfracht was “intended for units of Russia’s Aerospace Force,” which are helping to fight terrorist groups in Syria, the ministry added.

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Russia is Wary of Borrowing Abroad but Has Increased Foreign Debt by 10% in 2018 Anyway

Sputnik – 12.06.2018

Worried by Russia’s small foreign debt, international creditors are advising it to borrow more, but Russia’s Central Bank believes that investments, not loans, are the way to go.

Russia’s $525-billion foreign debt is dwarfed by $7.5 trillion in Britain, $5 trillion in France, $4.8 trillion in Germany and a whopping $21 trillion in the US.

This tell-tale ratio was not lost on IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde who, when speaking at the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, described Russia’s foreign debt as “considerably small” and said that it should borrow more.

The Russian Central Bank disagrees, arguing that “investments, not debt capital” should be the main source for financing the country’s economic growth.

Big Debt – Big Problems

Foreign debt may become a major problem if market conditions suddenly change for the worse. The smaller the debt, the lesser the chances of a default. Economists say that with Russia’s foreign debt accounting for just 33 percent of GDP, this is a fairly moderate debt burden.

Russia’s entire foreign debt is commensurate with the country’s gold and currency reserves of $450 billion. This means that Russia’s financial system can simply buy it back from foreign holders at any time.

Risk Minimization

Experts also say that Russia’s small foreign debt and its ability to pay it back fast makes it less dependent on foreign financing.

“The developing markets have found themselves in a bad fix with money going out and high dollar-denominated debt negatively impacting the national economies. In Russia this risk is virtually nonexistent,” TeleTrade currency strategist Alexander Yegorov told Sputnik.

A balanced budget is another reason why Russia does not need to borrow abroad.

This year Russia will have a budget surplus – the first in seven years with the Finance Ministry expecting state revenues to exceed outlays by more than half a trillion rubles ($16 billion).

A small foreign debt is also an indicator that the economy is performing well and the country is paying less interest on borrowed money.

There is one downside here, though, as this leads to a shortage of funds needed for economic growth. Russia is ready to borrow, provided that the money goes into useful and profitable projects that allow the country to easily meet its financial obligations to its foreign partners

In the first quarter of 2018, foreign sources lent Russia an estimated $17 billion in the form of sovereign Eurobonds. Another $2.3 trillion rubles ($36 billion) came from foreign investors buying federal loan bonds.

Russia’s Central Bank governor, Elvira Nabiullina, believes that Russia could borrow more abroad and use part of the money to finance various infrastructure projects inside the country.

June 12, 2018 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

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