Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Obligations to Probe Nord Stream Blasts Not Fulfilled Despite Russia’s Calls – Moscow

Sputnik – 28.09.2024

MOSCOW – Obligations to investigate the terrorist attacks on Nord Streams in accordance with international treaties are not being fulfilled, despite Russia’s constant calls, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik.

“The bombing of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines is a flagrant act of international terrorism which falls under a number of international treaties establishing obligations to prevent such acts, suppress them, investigate them, bring those responsible to justice and cooperate with other states to achieve these goals. Unfortunately, we see that these obligations are not being fulfilled, despite constant calls from Russia,” Zakharova said.

Switzerland, where the Nord Stream operator-company is registered, has made no attempt to investigate the incidents, the diplomat said, adding that Germany, which is a final destination of the pipelines, had not presented any positive results of its probe.

“The West is not interested in conducting an effective investigation into the terrorist act, despite the colossal damage caused to the European economy and ecology by blowing up the gas pipelines,” Zakharova said.

Moscow has officially filed pre-trial claims against Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland in connection to the investigation of the Nord Steam blasts, based on a number of conventions on terrorism, Maria Zakharova said, adding that other states, which might have part in these acts, are next in line.

“Russia has officially filed pre-trial claims against Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland on the basis of the 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings and the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism … Next in line are other states that might be involved in the attacks on the Nord Streams,” Zakharova said.

If the issue with the pre-trial claims is not resolved, Moscow will appeal to the UN International Court of Justice in connection with the violation by the countries in question of their conventional obligations, the diplomat added.

“Russia is firmly determined to identify and strictly hold accountable all perpetrators, organizers and accomplices of the terrorist act,” Zakharova added.

The Nord Stream pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, were hit by explosions on September 26, 2022. Denmark, Germany and Norway have left Russia out of their investigations into the attack, prompting Moscow to launch its own probe on charges of international terrorism.

Russia has repeatedly requested data on the explosions from the European countries, but has never received it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

September 28, 2024 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , | 1 Comment

The Militarisation of Scandinavia & the Coming Wars

How a Region of Peace Became an American Frontline

By Glenn Diesen | September 6, 2024

The militarisation of Scandinavia will drastically undermine the security of the region and invite new conflicts as Russia will be compelled to respond to what could become an existential threat. Norway has decided to host at least 12 US military bases on its soil, while Finland and Sweden follow suit by transferring sovereign control over parts of their territory after they recently became NATO members. Infrastructure will be built to bring US troops faster to Russian borders, while the Baltic Sea and the Arctic will be converted into NATO seas.

Scandinavia as a Key Region for Russian Security

Ever since Kievan Rus disintegrated in the 13th century and the Russians lost their presence on the Dnieper River, a key security challenge for Russia has been its lack of reliable access to the world seas. Furthermore, economic development is also dependent on reliable access to the seas as they are the arteries of international trade. Similarly, hegemonic powers have always been required to dominate the seas, while Russia can be contained, weakened and defeated by restricting its access.

Sweden was initially such a great power. In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Sweden sought to restrict the access of Russia in the Baltic Sea, while also attempting to encroach upon its Arctic port in Arkhangelsk. During the “The Time of Trouble” that involved the Swedish occupation of Russia, approximately 1/3 of Russia’s entire population died. The conflict ended with the Treaty of Stolbova in 1617, which involved territorial concessions that cut off Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea. This lasted until the time of Peter the Great, who eventually defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War in 1721. The war ended Sweden’s era as a great power, while Russia became a great power due to its access to the Baltic Sea.

The dominant maritime powers, Britain and then the US, pursued similar attempts to limit Russia’s access to the world’s oceans for the next three centuries. During the Crimean War (1853-56), European diplomats had been explicit that the objective had been to push Russia back into Asia and exclude it from European affairs.[1] This explains Russia’s fierce response to the Western-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014 as Russia responded by seizing Crimea in fear of losing its strategic Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol to NATO. The US sabotage of the Minsk agreement (2015-2022) and the Istanbul peace agreement (2022) was similarly motivated by the goal of arming Ukraine to take back Crimea and make Sevastopol a NATO naval base.

The militarisation and vassalisation of Scandinavia are important to challenge Russia’s access to the two other seas on Russia’s Western borders – the Baltic Sea and the Arctic. Former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen optimistically announced that NATO expansion in Scandinavia would enable NATO to block Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea in a conflict: “After the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, the Baltic Sea will now be a NATO sea… if we wish, we can block all entry and exit to Russia through St. Petersburg”.[2] Poland and the Baltic States have also begun to casually refer to the Baltic Sea as a “NATO sea”. The Financial Times argues that “Denmark could block Russian oil tankers from reaching markets” as part of sanctions.[3] A NATO Colonel also argued that the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad would come under much greater pressure and become a “problem” for Russia: “The ascension of Finland and the upcoming ascension of Sweden will totally change the setup in the Baltic Sea region. Russia will experience Kaliningrad being surrounded”.[4]

Sweden’s NATO membership now threatens to reverse the outcome of the Great Northern War in 1721, which by implication would diminish the basic foundations of Russian security. The Battle of Poltova is recognised to have been the largest and most decisive battle of the Great Northern War that resulted in Sweden’s defeat. The videos emerging of Swedish casualties in the recent Russian missile strike on Poltova is very symbolic of the militarisation of Scandinavia.

America’s attack on Nord Stream demonstrated how control over the Baltic Sea is important to cut Russian-German economic connectivity. The US has attempted to blame the Ukrainians for the attack, suggesting that “the CIA warned Zelensky’s office to stop the operation”.[5] The admission of knowing about the attack before it happened is nonetheless interesting as the US and NATO blamed Russia for the attack and used it as a reason to intensify the naval control over the Baltic Sea and escalate the Ukraine War. This is an admission that the US lied to their own public and the world, and used the lie to escalate their wider war on Russia. The attack also demonstrates that the Americans will treat the Europeans as proxies just like they used the Ukrainians, while the Europeans would not stand up for their interests but silently accept an ally destroying their own vital energy infrastructure. The revelation also demonstrated that the people we generously refer to as journalists will not ask any critical questions or discuss objective reality if it challenges the war narrative.

Finland was perhaps the greatest success story of neutrality, yet it was converted into NATO’s longest frontline against Russia. There was no threat to Finland, yet expansion was framed as being a blow to Putin as an objective on its own. Foreign military deployments will predictably soon emerge in the north of Finland to threaten Russia’s Northern Fleet in Arkhangelsk. The pretext will most likely be the concern that Russia will want to seize part of Lapland in the north of Finland. It will make no sense whatsoever, but obedient media will drum up the required fear.

The militarisation of Norway has followed a gradual incrementalism. Initially, US troops were stationed in Norway on a rotating basis, which enabled the government to claim they were not permanently deployed. In 2021, Norway and the US agreed on a few military bases but called them “dedicated areas” as Norway officially does not allow foreign bases on its soil. The US has full control and jurisdiction over these territories and the US media refers to them as military bases that will enable the US to confront Russia in the Arctic, but the Norwegian political-media elites must still refer to them as “dedicated areas” and dismiss that they have any offensive purposes. The frog is slowly boiling, believing it has identical interests to its masters in Washington.

Ignoring the Security Competition when Interpreting the Ukraine War

As Scandinavia is converted from a region of peace to a US frontline, one would expect more debate about this historical shift. Yet, the political-media elites have already reached the consensus that expanding NATO enhances our security due to greater military force and deterrence. More weapons rarely result in more peace, although this is the logic of hegemonic peace that this generation of politicians has committed themselves to.

The point of departure in security politics is the security competition. If increasing the security of country A decreases the security of country B, then country B will likely be compelled to enhance its security in a manner that reduces security for country A. The security competition can be mitigated by deterring the adversary without provoking a response, which is ideally organised through an inclusive security architecture.

Scandinavia’s ability to be a region of peace relied on mastering the deterrence/reassurance balance. Finland and Sweden were neutral states and were an important part of the belt of neutral states from the north to the south of Europe during the Cold War, which contributed to reducing tensions. Norway was a NATO member but imposed restrictions on itself by not hosting foreign military bases on its soil and limiting the military activities of allies in the Arctic region. It was common sense that security derived from deterring the Soviets without provoking them, this common sense is now long gone.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is cited as the main reason why Finland and Sweden had to abandon their neutrality and join NATO. This logic makes sense when ignoring security competition as Russia’s actions then occur in a vacuum. Acceptable discussions about the Ukraine War are limited by the premise that Russia’s invasion was “unprovoked”, and any efforts to widen the debate by addressing NATO’s role can be shut down with accusations of “legitimising” Russia’s invasion.

NATO expansion caused the Ukraine War, and the response to this war was NATO expansion to Finland and Sweden. This twisted logic prevails as the narrative of an “unprovoked” invasion has become immune to facts. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, explained that she had opposed offering Ukraine the Membership Action Plan to join NATO in 2008 as it would have been interpreted by Moscow as “a declaration of war”.[6] Wikileaks also revealed that Germans believed that pushing NATO expansionism could “break up the country”.[7] William Burns, the US Ambassador to Moscow and now the current Director of the CIA, warned that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite”.[8] Burns warned of the consequences:

“Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests… Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face”.[9]

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO’s Secretary General in 2008, recognised that NATO should have respected Russia’s red lines and should therefore not have pledged membership to Ukraine and Georgia in 2008.[10] Former US Secretary of Defence and CIA Director Robert Gates also acknowledged the mistake as “Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching”.[11] Even the support for bringing Ukraine into NATO had dubious intensions. In late March 2008, one week before the NATO Summit in Bucharest where Ukraine was promised future membership, Tony Blair told American political leaders how they should manage Russia. Blair argued the strategy “should be to make Russia a ‘little desperate’ with our activities in areas bordering on what Russia considers its sphere of interest and along its actual borders. Russia had to be shown firmness and sown with seeds of confusion”.[12]

In September 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gleefully argued that Russia’s actions to prevent NATO expansion would now result in more NATO expansion.

“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And [it] was a pre-condition for not invading Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that. The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO… We rejected that. So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite. He has got more NATO presence in eastern part of the Alliance and he has also seen that Finland has already joined the Alliance and Sweden will soon be a full member”.[13]

Stoltenberg did not specify why he thought more NATO expansion would increase security if NATO expansion was the cause of the war. However, NATO also insists that Ukraine must become part of NATO as Russia would not dare to attack a NATO country, while NATO also argues that Russia must be stopped in Ukraine as Russia will thereafter attack NATO countries. Much like the recognition of security competition, the logic is also absent.

Blinded by Ideological Fundamentalism

Scandinavia’s recognition of security competition has suffered from what is referred to in the literature as “ideological fundamentalism”. Actors are seen as either good or bad based on political identities that have been assigned by ideology. Ideological fundamentalism reduces the ability to recognise that one’s own policies and actions may constitute a threat to others, because one’s own political identity is held to be indisputably positive and dissociated from any threatening behaviour. There is a lack of understanding for why Russia would feel threatened by NATO expansion even after Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and the proxy war in Ukraine. NATO is merely a “defensive alliance”, even as it bombs countries that never threatened it. Ideological fundamentalism can best be explained by President Reagan’s reaction to how Able Archer, a NATO military exercise in 1983 that almost triggered a nuclear war. Convinced that the US was a force for good that was fighting an evil empire, he was bewildered that the Soviets did not see it the same way:

“Three years had taught me something surprising about the Russians: Many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely afraid of America and Americans… I’d always felt that from our deeds it must be clear to anyone that Americans were a moral people who starting at the birth of our nation had always used our power only as a force of good in the world”.[14]

Trapped in the tribal mindset of “us” versus “them”, the Scandinavians exaggerate what “we” have in common, and dismiss any commonality with “them”. It is assumed that the US shares the interests of Scandinavia, and is primarily building a military presence there to provide security. The US has a security strategy based on hegemony, which is dependent on weakening all emerging rivals. The US Security Strategy of 2002 explicitly linked national security to global dominance as the objective to “dissuade future military competition” should be achieved by advancing “the unparalleled strength of the United States armed forces, and their forward presence”.[15] While Scandinavia has an interest in maintaining peaceful borders with Russia, the US has defined its interests in destabilising Russian borders.[16] Peacetime alliances are reliant on perpetuating conflicts rather than solving them as conflict ensures loyalty from the protectorate and the containment of the adversary. In his famous work on how to advance and perpetuate US global hegemony, Brzezinski wrote the US must “prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and keep the barbarians from coming together”.[17]

A Lack of Political Imagination to Move Beyond Bloc Politics

The Scandinavians recognise that their security has been reliant on the US since the end of the Second World War, and they simply do not have the political imagination for other security arrangements. If it worked then, why should it not work now? As security competition is no longer a consideration, the Scandinavians conveniently neglect that NATO was a status quo actor during the Cold War, while after the Cold War it became a revisionist actor by expanding and attacking other countries in what NATO refers to as “out-of-area” operations.

The lack of alternatives to NATO enables the US to simply demand “alliance solidarity” as a code word for bloc discipline. Case in point, in the 2000s Norway was criticising the US missile defence system that threatened the nuclear balance as it could enable a US first strike. Wikileaks revealed that the US Ambassador reported that the US was pressuring the Norwegian government, political figures, journalists, and think tank researchers to overcome Norway’s firm opposition to missile defence, or at least “to a minimum counter Russian misstatements and distinguish Norway’s position from Russia’s to avoid damaging alliance solidarity”.[18] It was argued that “thanks to our high-level visitors”, Norway had begun to “quietly continue work in NATO on missile defence and to publicly criticise Russia for provocative statements” (Wikileaks, 2007b).[19] In the words of US Ambassador Whitney, Norway had to “adjust to current realities” since it would have a “hard time defending its position if the issue shifts to one of alliance solidarity”.[20] Following the Norwegian U-turn on missile defence, it was declared in the Norwegian Parliament that “it is important for the political cohesion of the alliance not to let the opposition, perhaps especially from Russia, hinder progress and feasible solutions”.[21]

The world is yet again undergoing dramatic change as it changes from a unipolar to a multipolar world order. The US will increasingly shift its focus and resources to Asia, which will change the trans-Atlantic relationship. The US will be able to offer less to the Europeans, but it will demand more loyalty in terms of economics and security. The Europeans will have to sever their economic ties to American rivals which will result in less prosperity and more dependence. The US will also expect the Europeans to militarise the economic competition with China, and NATO has already become the most obvious vehicle for this purpose. Instead of adjusting to multipolarity by diversifying their ties and pursuing opportunities from the rise of Asia, the Europeans are doing the opposite by subordinating themselves further to the US in the hope that it will increase the value of NATO.

Scandinavia was a region of peace as it attempted to mitigate the security competition. As Scandinavia surrenders its sovereignty to the US for protection against an imaginary threat, the region will be converted into a frontline that will unavoidably trigger new conflicts. The only certainty is that when Russia reacts to these provocations, we will all chant “unprovoked” in unison and make some obscure reference to democracy.

[1] J.W. Kipp and W.B. Lincoln, ‘Autocracy and Reform Bureaucratic Absolutism and Political Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Russia’, Russian History, vol.6, no.1, 1979, p.4.

[2] Lrt, ‘Putin’s plan includes Baltics, says former NATO chief’, Lrt, 19 July 2022.

[3] H. Foy, R. Milne and D. Sheppard, Denmark could block Russian oil tankers from reaching markets, Financial Times, 15 November 2023.

[4] E. Zubriūtė, Kaliningrad is no longer our problem, but Russia’s’ – interview with NATO colonel, LRT, 13 November 2023.

[5] B. Pancevski, A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage, The Wall Street Jounral, 14 August 2024.

[6] A. Walsh, ‘Angela Merkel opens up on Ukraine, Putin and her legacy’, Deutsche Welle, 7 June 2022.

[7] Wikileaks, ‘Germany/Russia: Chancellery views on MAP for Ukraine and Georgia’, Wikileaks, 6 June 2008.

[8] W.J. Burns, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal, New York, Random House, 2019, p.233.

[9] W.J. Burns, ‘Nyet means nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines’, Wikileaks, 1 February 2008.

[10] G.J. Dennekamp, De Hoop Scheffer: Poetin werd radicaler door NAVO’ [De Hoop Scheffer: Putin became more radical because of NATO], NOS, 7 January 2018.

[11] R.M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, New York, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

[12] Telegraph, ‘Tony Blair and John McCain talk about Israel/Palestine and Russia handling’, The Telegraph, 27 March 2008.

[13] J. Stoltenberg, ‘Opening remarks’, NATO, 7 September 2023.

[14] Reagan, R., 1990. An American Life: The Autobiography. Simon and Schuster, New York, p.74.

[15] NSS, ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America’, The White House, June 2002.

[16] RAND, ‘Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground’, RAND Corporation, 24 April 2019.

[17] Z. Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geopolitical Imperatives, New York, Basic Books, 1997, p.40.

[18] Wikileaks, 2007. Norway: Missile defense public diplomacy and outreach, OSLO 000248, US Embassy, Oslo, 13 March

[19] Wikileaks, 2007. Positive movements in the missile defence debate in Norway but no breakthrough, OSLO 000614, US Embassy, Oslo, 8 June

[20] Wikileaks, 2008. Norway standing alone against missile defense, OSLO 000072, US Embassy, Oslo, 12 February.

[21] Stortinget, 2012. Norwegian Parliamentary meeting, Sak 2, 15 May 2012.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Ukraine is being blamed for Nord Stream

The ‘official’ investigation was always a sham

By Malcom Kyeyune | Unherd | August 21, 2024

To understand the truth about the Nord Stream pipeline, one needs to master a certain form of “Kremlinology”. Everything about it is designed to obfuscate, every strand shrouded in prevarication and deceit.

From the start, the investigation was a textbook cover-up. The Swedish government rushed to secure evidence, citing their putative rights under international law, consciously boxing out any sort of independent, UN-backed inspection. Of course, after gathering all the evidence, the Swedish authorities studiously did exactly nothing, only to then belatedly admit that it actually had no legal right to monopolise the information in the first place.

The Germans, for their part, were also supremely uninterested in figuring out who pulled off the worst act of industrial sabotage in living memory against their country. In fact, over the course of a year-long non-investigation, we’ve mostly been treated to leaks and off-the-record statements indicating that nobody really wants to know who blew up the pipeline. The rationale here is bluntly obvious: it would be awfully inconvenient if Germany, and the West, learned the true answer.

Thus, the recent revelation that the true mastermind behind the ongoing deindustrialisation of Germany was none other than a Ukrainian by the name of “Volodymyr Z.” must have come as an unwelcome surprise. For not only is the idea that the authorities have suddenly cracked open the Nord Stream case not credible in the slightest, but the sloppy way in which the entire country of Ukraine is now being fingered is likely not an accident. Indeed, at the same time as the ghost of Nord Stream has risen from the grave, the German government announced its plans to halve its budget for Ukraine aid: whatever is already in the pipeline will be sent over, but no new grants of equipment are forthcoming. The German government is hunkering down for increased austerity, and so it is cutting Ukraine loose.

“The German government is hunkering down for increased austerity, and so it is cutting Ukraine loose.”

Germany, of course, is hardly alone. Even if there were enough money to go around, Europe is increasingly not just deindustrialising but demilitarising. Its stores of ammunition and vehicles are increasingly empty, and the idea of military rearmament — that is, creating entirely new military factories and supply chains — at a time when factories are closing down across the continent due to energy shortages and lack of funding is a non-starter. Neither France, the United Kingdom nor even the United States are in a position to maintain the flow of arms to Ukraine. This is a particular concern inside Washington DC, where planners are now trying to juggle the prospect of managing three theatres of war at the same time — in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Pacific — even though US military production is arguably insufficient to comfortably handle one.

And so, in an effort to save face in this impossible situation, Ukraine is now being held solely responsible for doing something it either did not do at all, or only did with the permission, knowledge, and/or support of the broader West. This speaks to the adolescent dynamic that now governs Western foreign policy in a multipolar world: when our impotence is revealed, find someone to blame.

The war in Ukraine, after all, was already supposed to be won, and Russia was supposed to be a rickety gas station incapable of matching the West either economically or militarily. Yet here we are: our own economies are deindustrialising, our military factories have proven completely incapable of handling the strain of a real conflict, and the Americans themselves are now openly admitting that the Russian military remains in a significantly stronger position. Meanwhile, Germany’s economic model is broken, and as its economy falls, it will drag many countries such as Sweden with it, given how dependent they are on exporting to German industrial firms.

10 years ago, during the 2014 Maidan protests, the realist John Mearsheimer caused a lot of controversy when he began warning that the collective West was leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and that our actions would lead to the destruction of the country. Well, here we are. At present, our only saving grace is the continuing offensive in Kursk — a bold offensive that will surely be remembered as a symptom of Ukraine’s increasing desperation.

Indeed, a far better guide of things to come can be found in the fingering of “Volodymyr Z.” as the true culprit behind the Nord Stream sabotage. Here, rather than accept responsibility for the fact that Ukraine was goaded into a war it could not win — mainly because the West vastly overestimated its own ability to fight a real war over the long haul — European geopolitical discourse will take a sharp turn towards a peculiar sort of victim-blaming. No doubt it will be “discovered” that parts of Ukraine’s military consisted of very unsavoury characters waving around Nazi Germany-style emblems, just as it will be “discovered” that journalists have been persecuted by oligarchs and criminals in Kyiv, or that money given by the West has been stolen, and that arms sent have been sold for profit to criminal cartels around the world.

All of these developments will duly be “discovered” by a Western political class that will completely refuse to accept any responsibility for them. Far easier, it seems, to calm one’s nerves with a distorting myth: it’s the Ukrainians’ fault that their country is destroyed; our choices had nothing to do with it; and besides, they were bad people who tricked us!

August 25, 2024 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | 1 Comment

NATO Cries Wolf Over Finnish Islands to Hype ‘Russian Threat’ Narrative

Finland’s autonomous Aland Islands. © AFP 2023 / ALESSANDRO RAMPAZZO
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 25.05.2024

Western-peddled fears of an alleged potential threat posed to NATO by Moscow have become the norm amid the alliance’s relentless expansion closer to Russia’s borders and hiked up military spending benefiting the military-industrial complex.

NATO is increasingly crying wolf over an archipelago in the Baltic Sea as part of its “Russian threat” propaganda.

The Åland Islands have been dubbed the “Achilles’ heel” of the alliance’s newest member — Finland — Bloomberg reported.

The self-governing, demilitarised Swedish-speaking region of Finland sits at the crossroads of major trade routes worth an estimated $160 billion annually. Key energy and communication infrastructure, undersea electricity and internet cables are located in the area.

But what has NATO stymied is the fact that “Russia is tasked with enforcing an accord that has banned any military presence on its shores for over a century,” the news site pointed out.

Now the Nordic country is a NATO member, warmongering hawks see the archipelago as a huge blind spot, “giving Moscow an open field should it ever decide to invade.”

“If you have all the Åland Islands, you can block maritime traffic both to the Gulf of Bothnia and to the Gulf of Finland… Then we are pretty screwed,” claimed Pekka Toveri, a former major general in Finland’s armed forces.

Finland’s demilitarized Aland Islands. © Photo : Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission; Finnish Border Guard; Finnish Navy

The Agreement between the-then Soviet Union and Finland on the Åland Islands was signed in 1940 following the end of the Winter War. The Finnish side pledged “to demilitarise the Åland Islands, not to fortify them, and not to put them at the disposal of the armed forces of foreign states.” A Soviet Consulate was established in Åland’s capital, Mariehamn.

According to Toveri, the Russian consulate on the Åland Islands needs to be shut down, and Finnish forces must begin training there.

The member of parliament for the center-right National Coalition Party added that archipelago is more important to Finland than Gotland Island is to Sweden. As with Gotland, control of Åland is perceived as key to military dominance in Baltic waters.

In the summer of 2022, Sweden hosted NATO’s BALTOPS 22 exercises on Gotland Island. After Stockholm joined NATO, abandoning long-standing neutrality, Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson expressed openness to “reinforcing” Gotland’s defenses, in a nod to NATO plans for the Baltic. Sweden’s plans to create a NATO base on the island of Gotland were slammed as provocative by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

After a recdnt review of the Åland islands’ status, the Finnish government saw no need to make any changes. That stance is backed by recent polls among Åland’s residents.

Bloomberg acknowledged that shredding any international demilitarization agreements would be a time-consuming feat, and is unlikely to happen, “for now.”

Developments around both Gotland and the Åland Islands fit the ongoing “Russia threat” narrative NATO has been pushing — while continuing its eastward expansion.

At the Antalya Diplomacy Forum held in Turkey earlier this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took Finland and Sweden to task for abandoning their longstanding neutrality to join NATO.

He said that their decision marked the end of “decades of good neighborliness.” Lavrov also warned that Russia would respond by taking additional measures “appropriate to the threats that could appear on the territory of Finland and Sweden.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently scotched those claims, highlighting NATO’s hostile posture towards Moscow.

“They’re trying to intimidate their own population with an imaginary Russian threat. This is an obvious fact,” Putin noted in his interview with Tucker Carlson, adding that “smart people understand perfectly well that this is a fake.”

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Sweden rules out international Nord Stream probe

RT | May 4, 2024

There is no need for an international investigation into the explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines, Sweden’s Foreign Ministry has told RIA Novosti news agency.

Last week, China’s deputy envoy to the UN, Geng Shuang, called for a probe into the September 2022 blasts that ruptured the pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe. Countries should work together on an investigation “to bring the perpetrators to justice in order to prevent the reoccurrence of similar incidents,” Geng said.

When asked about Beijing’s proposal by RIA Novosti on Friday, the Swedish Foreign Ministry insisted that “there is no need for an international investigation. It’s going to achieve nothing.”

“An investigation into the incidents was carried out by the Swedish authorities in accordance with the fundamental principles of independence, impartiality and the rule of law. Other national investigations are still ongoing,” the ministry stated.

Sweden conducted its own probe as the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines occurred in the country’s exclusive economic zone. Germany and Denmark carried out separate inquiries. However, in February, the Swedish and Danish investigations were aborted. Stockholm said it had come to the conclusion that the case did not fall under Swedish jurisdiction, while Copenhagen concluded that “there was deliberate sabotage” of the pipelines, but found insufficient grounds to pursue criminal proceedings.

Russia is carrying out its own investigation into the Nord Stream blasts despite the refusal of Western nations to cooperate. Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov said earlier that Moscow had sent more than a dozen requests for legal assistance to Germany, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden, but only received a single formal reply from Copenhagen.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials suggested previously that the pipelines were targeted by the US or on Washington’s behalf.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

US using Nordic countries’ NATO membership to advance Arctic militarization

By Lucas Leiroz | April 6, 2024

The US plans to use the NATO access of Nordic countries to increase its military presence in the Arctic. In a recent statement, an American official announced Washington’s plan to build a large weapons warehouse in the region, with Finnish and Swedish support. The measure will significantly increase the militarization of the Arctic and aims to help the US overcome Russian military superiority in the region.

The plan was announced by US Materiel Commander Christopher Mohan during an interview with the newspaper Breaking Defense. According to him, Finland and Sweden could help the US with the project, considering their strategic geography. He did not give any details about the possible location of the depot, but stated that NATO is jointly analyzing all possibilities. He also stated that the US and allies are discussing what would be the most appropriate equipment to deploy in the region.

“The addition of the NATO partners changes the security landscape and our responsibilities as part of NATO (…) [This project will] embrace and integrate Finland and Sweden into the NATO enterprise, and that’s going to drive some changes on the ground,” he said.

The measure is just one of several policies adopted by Washington and its allies in recent years to try to reverse Russian military superiority in the Arctic. For decades, the US has not had any special focus on the Arctic in its defense strategies. The main objective of American strategic plans has always been to “encircle” and “isolate” Russia. The US has focused for many years on achieving this goal through the militarization of Europe and the destabilization of Central Asia and the Middle East, but Americans have paid little attention to the Arctic – a region where the Russians have become very strong over the decades.

Now, however, the US is concerned about this weakness in the region. With the escalation of tensions with Russia, Washington is trying to improve its positions in the Arctic in order to reverse the current scenario of Russian advantage. In recent years, several escalatory policies have been promoted by the US – some of them even openly provocative and targeted at Russia.

For example, in 2022, Lawrence Melnicoff, commander of the European Special Operations Command, stated that the US should actually “provoke” Russia in the Arctic. According to him, Washington should seek joint strategies with Norway to increase its presence in the Arctic Circle and thus deter Russia in the region. He states that Russia has expansionist plans that will be prevented only through direct deterrence, which is why NATO should maintain strategic positions that allow it to neutralize Russian forces in the Arctic in a possible conflict scenario.

“We are intentionally trying to be provocative without being escalatory (…) We’re trying to deter Russian aggression, expansionist behavior, by showing enhanced capabilities of the allies (…) It complicates Russian decision-making because we know that they’re targeting very, very large specific aggregations of allied power, [such as] Ramstein Air Base, RAF Lakenheath, things like that (…) If worse comes to worst and somebody takes out these power hubs, we can forward-project precision artillery fire across the alliance with our partners”, he said at the time.

Obviously, this is a fallacious US narrative. The Arctic is a region traditionally occupied by the countries that have access to it. Russia has the Arctic as a vital point in its strategic environment and naturally seeks to maintain a strong military presence in the region to guarantee its national security. The US and NATO countries, however, do not use access to the Arctic to develop a defensive strategy. On the contrary, they are looking for the Arctic as a possible point of attack against Russia. The Western objective in the Arctic is simply to harm Russia, not to protect itself. If the West adopted a policy of diplomacy and peaceful dialogue with Moscow, there would be no military race in the Arctic, but clearly NATO’s intention is to hurt Russia as much as possible.

To achieve these provocative objectives, the US will use the strategic location of NATO’s new members as a tool of war. The Nordic countries will be induced to actively participate in the Arctic militarization process, co-leading with Washington an escalation of tensions with Russia. And this will be extremely harmful for them, because, if the crisis escalates into an open conflict in the future, these countries will be priority targets and will be in a much greater risk zone for Russian attacks than the US.

Once again, access to NATO appears to be a trap for Finland and Sweden, which are being used as mere war tools by the US.

Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.

You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.

April 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Swedish police arrest Iranian prisoner’s son: Daughter

Press TV – March 29, 2024

Sweden’s police have reportedly arrested the son of an Iranian prisoner, who has been sentenced to life in prison by Stockholm, based on complaints filed by notorious anti-Iran figures living in exile in the Nordic country.

“After [spending] hours with no information about my brother, who had gone to visit my father…, we realized that Majid has been apparently arrested by Sweden’s police,” Atieh Nouri, daughter of Hamid Nouri, said in a post on X on Friday.

“We still do not know anything about the details of the matter,” she added.

Nouri, a former Iranian judiciary official, was arrested in Sweden back in 2019.

He was put on trial on unfounded allegations levelled against him by elements representing the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist cult that has openly boasted about carrying out deadly terrorist operations against thousands of Iranian officials and civilians.

Nouri was handed the life sentence three years later after being found guilty of murder and crimes against the international law over his alleged role in executions of criminals in Iran in 1988.

Sweden’s Appeal Court upheld the verdict in December 2023.

Earlier in March, Sweden’s Supreme Court also upheld the sentence, refusing to hear an appeal that had been submitted by the Iranian prisoner.

Iranian authorities say Nouri’s imprisonment and trial in Sweden is politically-motivated, noting that the case has been influenced by pressure and propaganda of anti-Iran groups and individuals living in the West.

Nouri, himself, has vehemently denied the charges brought against him in the case, calling them fabricated.

March 29, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Fired Harvard Professor: ‘All the Basic Principles of Public Health Were Thrown Out the Window’

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | March 21, 2024

Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration said Harvard University’s decision to fire him for non-compliance with the university’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate is just one example of the consequences faced by anyone who questioned the official COVID-19 narratives.

In an appearance on “The Defender In-Depth” podcast, Kulldorff, an epidemiologist, said his firing is part of a broader trend of censorship and intolerance toward people who express diverging views in the broader fields of science, medicine and academia.

Kulldorff is one of the five individual plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Biden administration alleging key administration officials and government agencies coerced social media platforms to remove content, in violation of the First Amendment.

Kulldorff discussed the latest developments in the suit — Murthy et al. v. Missouri et al. — whose plaintiffs also include the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on an injunction, previously granted by lower courts, barring the administration and certain federal agencies from communicating with social media platforms for the removal of content.

He also discussed the COVID-19 pandemic response of his native Sweden, which bucked the global trend by eschewing lockdowns, vaccine and mask mandates, making the country the target of global pressure and widespread media criticism. Yet, Sweden now demonstrates better public health outcomes than most other countries.

‘Never a consensus in the scientific community’ for lockdowns

Kulldorff said Harvard was “not happy” with him when he co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020. However, it was Kulldorff’s decision not to get a COVID-19 vaccine that ultimately led Harvard to fire him.

“We had a disagreement about infection-acquired immunity,” Kulldorff said. “I was fired because I didn’t want to take the vaccine because I didn’t need it. I had better immunity from having had [COVID-19] already, and so, there was no medical reason for me to do it. And there was certain risk, because with every vaccine and drug, there’s some risk.”

Yet, many of his colleagues at Harvard and other institutions “sort of kept quiet” and “went along with it,” Kulldorff said. He attributed their cooperation to the federal funding many scientists and researchers receive from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“They sit on the biggest pile of medical research money in the world,” Kulldorff said. “So, it’s pretty scary for a scientist to speak up against their wishes, because you risk losing the resource funds that you depend on to support your family, and also to support the other people that work in your laboratory.”

Still, in personal contacts with fellow epidemiologists, Kulldorff said “The majority were arguing for focused protections over better protecting the older people, by letting kids go to school and so on. So, there was never a consensus in the scientific community, at least not in the epidemiological community, for these lockdown measures.”

Kulldorff said that during the pandemic, “all the basic principles of public health were thrown out the window.” His former institution, Harvard, was no exception, “going to online teaching before there was any government incentive or push to do so.”

This, Kulldorff said, “set the stage, and a lot of other colleges and even high schools and elementary schools sort of followed Harvard’s lead” in locking down.

Similarly, Harvard later imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate — which it finally ended on March 5. “There was no public health reason to mandate vaccines for students” in particular, Kulldorff said, because most of them “had COVID, so they have superior immunity. But even those few that haven’t [caught COVID-19] face minuscule risk from COVID.”

Children ‘will never fully recover’ from school closures

Kulldorff cited his native Sweden as an example of a country that bucked the trend and kept schools — and society more broadly — open during the pandemic.

“If you look at the elementary and high school students, we know that the test results went down” in countries that closed their schools, Kulldorff said. “The kids were hurt by this, and they will never fully recover from the damage that we did to them.”

Sweden was the only major Western country that kept schools open for ages 1-15, according to Kulldorff who said test results in Sweden have shown “no comparable drop — it’s just as normal, slightly going up.”

Among 1.8 million children who went to school in Sweden throughout the virus wave during the spring of 2020, “there were exactly zero COVID deaths and only a few hospitalizations,” he said.

Public health outcomes in Sweden also were positive for other population groups. “Sweden has low COVID mortality, less than the average in Europe [and] the lowest excess mortality in the Western world.”

Kulldorff said Swedish authorities were able to resist global pressure to impose lockdowns and mandates because they “had very strong support from other epidemiologists in Sweden” and “very strong support by the public” for their approach.

He noted that Sweden’s then-prime minister, Stefan Löfven, had a working-class background, having begun his career as a welder. Noting that lockdowns favored “the upper class,” Kulldorff said Löfven’s background might have made a difference as he could “understand what the effect these lockdowns had on regular people.”

Science will ‘dwindle down’ without freedom of speech

Yet, in other countries, including the U.S., dissenting views were silenced, Kulldorff said.

“Those of us who tried to speak up were either silenced or, after they couldn’t silence us anymore, we were slandered,” he said, noting that after the Great Barrington Declaration was published, Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., then the director of the NIH, called for “a devastating published takedown” in response.

“With scientific or other logical arguments, they have two options: They can sort of silence it by ignoring it or censoring it, which was done, or they can attack it through slander and smears,” Kulldorff said. He said postings he made on Twitter and YouTube critical of mask mandates and school closures, were removed by those platforms.

“They didn’t want the science to be known, the true science, and the true principles of public health,” Kulldorff said.

That’s why Kulldorff joined the Missouri et al. v. Biden et al. (now known as Murthy et al. v. Missouri et al.) lawsuit. He said the central argument the plaintiffs are making in this case “is that the federal government should not be allowed to coerce social media to censor people like myself.”

“They actually censored accurate, correct scientific information from scientists at Harvard and other places. And to me that’s pretty astonishing,” Kulldorff said.

Kulldorff said that during Monday’s Supreme Court hearing, “There were clearly some justices who seemed to be very sympathetic” to the plaintiffs’ position, and “seemed very concerned about the First Amendment.”

But other justices argued that “the government should be allowed to coerce social media to censor” in some instances.

By June, the Supreme Court will issue a ruling on whether or not to uphold the injunctions lower courts previously granted in this case. Kulldorff said the case will then return to the lower courts and is expected to “take years” to resolve, proceeding “in tandem” with Kennedy et al. v. Biden et al. — a similar lawsuit in which Children’s Health Defense is a plaintiff. The two lawsuits were consolidated in July 2023.

“I thought we were in agreement, as a country, as a society, that freedom of speech is important, that it is the foundation for us,” Kulldorff said. “It saddens me greatly that that’s not the case.”

“If we don’t have this freedom of speech, then gradually, science is going to dwindle down … Academia would go there also and society as a whole.”

Watch ‘The Defender In-Depth’ here.

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

March 24, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hungary snubs US senators – ambassador

RT | February 19, 2024

Senior Hungarian officials have refused to meet four US senators who arrived in Budapest on Sunday, Washington’s envoy to the country has said. The American lawmakers are attempting to press Prime Minister Viktor Orban into speeding up approval of Sweden’s accession to NATO.

The delegation sought to meet a range of senior government officials and representatives from the ruling Fidesz party, US Ambassador David Pressman stated. The Hungarians declined, however, despite the group being “the most senior US bipartisan congressional delegation” to visit the country in recent years, the diplomat added.

The senators intend to submit a joint resolution to the US Congress that would condemn Hungary for alleged democratic backsliding, the Associated Press reported. Thom Tillis, one of the visiting lawmakers, urged Orban to speed up Sweden’s accession, claiming at a news conference that doing so would be “a great service to freedom-loving nations worldwide.”

Chris Murphy, another delegate, called the boycott “strange and concerning” and identified Orban as standing in the way of the ratification. Hungary is the only NATO country yet to approve Sweden’s membership of the US-led military bloc.

“We are wise enough about politics here to know that if Prime Minister Orban wants this to happen, then the parliament can move forward,” Murphy said.

Orban addressed the issue of NATO expansion during a rally on Saturday, saying Budapest and Stockholm were on a path to “rebuild trust.” A vote could happen during the parliamentary spring session, he suggested.

The prime minister previously cited Swedish criticism of his government and Hungary’s democratic credentials as the main reasons for skepticism among lawmakers in Budapest. NATO approved Sweden’s bid to join in June 2022.

The anti-Hungarian US resolution will criticize Orban for maintaining good relations with Russia and China, according to AP. Budapest has “resisted and diluted” the EU sanctions imposed on Moscow, the text reportedly states.

Orban is a vocal critic of the Western approach to the Ukraine crisis. He has argued that the arming of Kiev and the restrictions on Russia have failed to end the bloodshed and have caused major economic harm to the EU. He has also resisted Ukraine’s push to join NATO and the EU.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said it was “not worth trying to exert pressure on us, because we are a sovereign country,” as he expressed general approval of the American visit on Friday.

February 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Hersh: West’s Hesitance to Conclude Nord Stream Probe Implicates Culprits

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 07.02.2024

Sweden’s decision to abruptly quit an investigation into the Nord Stream sabotage attack raises new questions about who the real culprits behind the blast are, and turns the spotlight on the German probe.

Almost a year ago, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published his bombshell story about the US’ and Norway’s participation in the September 26, 2022, sabotage attack on Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.

To date, none of the Western countries involved in the subsequent investigation – Sweden, Denmark, and Germany – have presented explanations of what happened or named a culprit. Moreover, Sweden announced on February 7 that it would drop its investigation into explosions.

Sweden and Denmark announced they would conduct an inquiry within days of the attack, Hersh recalled in his Tuesday’s piece. Germany followed suit on October 2, 2022.

Remarkably, very soon, Sweden said it would not join any joint investigations because “it would involve the transfer of information related to Sweden’s national security,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist pointed out.

“Nothing more about the cause of the underwater bombings has been heard since from either Sweden or Denmark, although both nations knew, as I have written, that the US was practicing underwater diving in the Baltic Sea for months before the explosions,” Hersh wrote. “The failure of the two nations to complete their inquiry may have stemmed from the fact, as I was told, that some senior officials in both countries understood precisely what was going on.”

For its part, the Kremlin announced on September 28, 2022, that Russia was ready to consider applications from EU countries for a joint investigation into the Nord Stream incident. However, not only did the West reject Moscow’s request but also blamed Russia for destroying its own pipelines. On October 12, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin qualified the incident as “an act of international terrorism”.

However, it was not only Sweden and Denmark that demonstrated little if any curiosity in digging to the bottom of the incident. The US also seemed uninterested, according to Hersh.

“After the explosions, which became an international sensation, it took four days for a White House correspondent to bring up the Nord Stream issue,” Hersh wrote.

He particularly cited the White House stating at the time that it would not make a “definitive determination” until its allies in the region concluded their work.

“There is no evidence that President Biden, in the sixteen months since the pipelines were destroyed, has tasked its experts to conduct an all-source investigation into the explosions,” Hersh wrote.

Moreover, “the US has since vetoed at least one attempt by Russia to get an independent United Nations investigation into the explosions,” he added.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist pointed out that despite Germany suffering the most from the blast (which deprived its industries of the source of relatively cheap and reliable energy flow from Russia), Chancellor Olaf Scholz or any other senior German leader didn’t make any significant push to determine who did what.

“A subsequent investigation sought by some members of the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, was undertaken but its conclusion has been withheld from the public for what are said to be security reasons,” Hersh pointed out.

The investigative journalist pointed out that the US and German mainstream media were circulating the story of “a 49-foot yacht said to be the vessel for the high-risk technical diving involved” instead.

In his previous articles, Hersh debunked the Andromeda yacht plot, suggesting that the CIA invented the story and fed it to the Western press to distract the public attention from his bombshell. Remarkably, some Western media soon found numerous gaps in the Andromeda story and called them out.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist believes that “the sabotage in the Baltic Sea was the result of a long-standing US policy of driving a wedge between Russia and Western Europe.”

He quoted Emmanuel Todd, a French demographer and political scientist, who said in his recent interview that “one of the great goals of American politics, and therefore of NATO, was to stop the inevitable reconciliation of Russia and Germany.” Therefore, according to Todd, Washington “blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.”

“At the time Biden ordered the destruction of the pipelines, the American fear was that [German] Chancellor Scholz, who at the request of Washington had shut off 750 miles of Russian gas in the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was ready in the fall of 2021 to be delivered to a port in Germany, might change his mind and let the gas flow, easing German economic worries and reinstating an important energy force for German industry. That would not be allowed to happen, and Germany has been in economic and political turmoil since,” Hersh concluded.

Having dropped the probe Sweden is expected to hand evidence uncovered in the probe over to Germany.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on February 7 that Russia would watch closely how German investigators proceed with the probe.

“Of course, now we need to see how Germany itself reacts to this, as a country that has lost a lot in relation to this terrorist attack,” Peskov said. “Taxpayers in Germany suffer, German firms and companies suffer, lose their competitiveness, lose their profitability without this gas. It will be interesting to see how scrupulously the German authorities will conduct this investigation.”

February 7, 2024 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

Public panic in Sweden over war with Russia as Turkey ratifies Stockholm’s bid to join NATO

Press TV – January 24, 2024

Turkey’s parliament has passed a bill on ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership after months of blocking accession, putting the Scandinavian country a “step closer” to becoming a full member of the US-led Western military alliance.

“Today we are one step closer to becoming a full member of NATO,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday.

The Turkish parliament’s decision will come into force after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signs a corresponding decree, which will be published in the government’s official journal.

Hungary, whose prime minister Viktor Orban has friendly relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, remains the only NATO country that has not ratified Sweden’s bid to join.

Last week, the high levels of the Swedish government and defense forces issued a warning to prepare people for the possibility of a Russian attack on the country and asked citizens to be on alert for the possibility of a war, causing Swedes to panic and criticize the country’s leaders.

Taking notice of the call from officials, a multitude of people heeded this caution seriously, causing mass panic, and flocked their way to the market in order to procure fuel and bundles of indispensable and crucial provisions “crisis kit.”

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no problems with Finland and Sweden and that their accession to NATO did not pose an immediate threat, but cautioned against the expansion of the Western military infrastructure in these territories.

“As for the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance: yes, this is a problem that is being created, in my opinion, quite artificially in the foreign policy interests of the United States,” Putin was quoted as saying.

“Russia has no problems (with Sweden and Finland), but the expansion of military infrastructure on the territory of this region will certainly cause our response,” he said, stressing that the actions of the Scandinavian states could aggravate “an already difficult situation in the sphere of international security.”

January 24, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine joins NATO’s Arctic projects against Russia

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | DECEMBER 19, 2023 

In a plea earlier this month to Republicans not to block further military aid to Ukraine, US President Joe Biden warned that if Russia is victorious, then President Vladimir Putin will not stop and will attack a NATO country. Biden’s remark has drawn a sharp rebuke from Putin when he said, “This is absolutely absurd. I believe that President Biden is aware of this, this is merely a figure of speech to support his incorrect strategy against Russia.”

Putin added that Russia has no interest in fighting with NATO countries, as they “have no territorial claims against each other” and Russia does not want to “sour relations with them.” Moscow senses that a new US  narrative is struggling to be born out of the debris of the old narrative on Ukraine war. 

To jog memory, on 24 February, during a White House press conference on the first day of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, Biden said western sanctions were designed not to prevent invasion but to punish Russia after invading “so the people of Russia know what he (Putin) has brought on them. That is what this is all about.”

A month later, on 26 March Biden, speaking in Warsaw, blurted out, “For God’s sake, this man (Putin) cannot remain in power.” These and similar remarks that followed, especially from Britain, reflected a US strategy for regime change in Moscow, with Ukraine as the pivot. 

This strategy dates back to the 1990s and was actually at the core of the expansion of NATO along Russia’s borders, from the Baltics to Bulgaria. The Syrian conflict and covert activities of US NGOs to foment unrest in Russia were offshoots of the strategy. At least since 2015 after the coup in Kiev, CIA was overseeing a secret intensive training programme for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel. Succinctly put, the US set a trap for Russia to get it bogged down in a long insurgency, the presumption being the longer the Ukrainians can sustain the insurgency and keep Russian military bogged down, the more likely is the end of the Putin regime.

The crux of the matter today is that Russia defeated the US strategy and not only seized the initiative in the war but also rubbished the sanctions regime. The dilemma in the Beltway narrows down to how to keep Russia as an external enemy so that the West’s often fractious member states will continue to rally under US leadership. 

What comes to mind is a sardonic remark by Soviet Academician Georgy Arbatov who was advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, to an elite group of senior US officials even as the curtain was coming down on the Cold War in 1987: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you -– we are going to deprive you of an enemy.”

Unless black humour in this cardinal truth is properly understood, the entire US strategy since the 1990s to rebuff the efforts of Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and early Putin to establish non-adversarial relations with the West cannot be grasped. 

Put differently, if the US’ post-cold war Russia strategy has not worked, it is because of a fundamental contradiction: on the one hand, Washington needs Russia as an enemy to provide internal unity within the western alliance, while on the other hand, it also needs Russia as a cooperative, subservient junior partner in the struggle against China.

The US hopes to draw down in Ukraine and stave off defeat by leaving behind a “frozen conflict” which it’s free to revisit later at a time of its choice, but in the meanwhile, is increasingly eyeing the Arctic lately as the new theatre to entrap Russia in a quagmire. The induction of Finland into NATO (and Sweden to follow) means that the unfinished business of Ukraine’s membership, which Russia thwarted, can be fulfilled by other means.

After meeting Biden at the White House last Tuesday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky headed for Oslo on October 13 on a fateful visit to forge his country’s partnership in NATO projects to counter Russia in the Arctic. In Oslo, Zelensky participated in a summit of the 5 Nordic countries to discuss “issues of cooperation in the field of defence and security.” The summit took place against the backdrop of the US reaching agreements with Finland and Sweden on the use of their military infrastructure by the Pentagon.

The big picture is that the US is encouraging Nordic countries to get Ukraine to participate in strengthening NATO’s Arctic borders. One may  wonder what is the “additionality” that a decrepit military like Ukraine’s can bring into NATO. Herein hangs a tale. Simply put, although Ukraine has no direct access to the Arctic, it can potentially bring in an impressive capability to undertake subversive activities inside Russian territory in a hybrid war against Russia. 

In a strange coincidence, the Pentagon recently prepared the Starlink satellite system for use in the Arctic, which was used by Ukrainian military for staging attacks on the Crimean Bridge, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and strategic assets on Russian territory. The US’ agreement with Finland and Sweden would give the Pentagon access to a string of naval and air bases and airfields as well as training and testing grounds along the Russian border. 

Several hundred thousand Ukrainian citizens are presently domiciled in the Nordic countries who are open to recruitment for “an entire army of saboteurs like the one that Germany collected during the war between Finland and the USSR in 1939-1940 on the islands of Lake Ladoga,” as a Russian military expert told Nezavisimaya Gazeta recently. 

Russia’s naval chief Admiral Nikolai Evmenov also pointed out recently that “the strengthening of the military presence of the united NATO armed forces in the Arctic is already an established fact, which indicates the bloc’s transition to practical actions to form military force instruments to deter Russia in the region.” In fact, Russia’s Northern Fleet is forming a marine brigade tasked with the fight against saboteurs to ensure the safety of the new Northern Sea Route, coastal military and industrial infrastructure in the Arctic. 

Suffice to say, no matter Ukraine’s defeat in the US’ proxy war with Russia, Zelensky’s use for the US’ geo-strategy remains. From Oslo, Zelensky made an unannounced visit on December 14 to a US Army base in Germany. Analysts who see Zelensky as a spent force had better revise their opinion — that is, unless the power struggle in Kiev exacerbates and Zelensky gets overthrown in a coup or a colour revolution, which seems improbable so long as Biden is in the White House and Hunter Biden is on trial.

The bottom line is that Biden’s new narrative demonising Russia for planning an attack on NATO can be seen from multiple angles. At the most obvious level, it aims to hustle the Congress on the pending bill for $61 billion military aid to Ukraine. Of course, it also distracts attention from the defeat in the war. But, most important, the new narrative is intended to rally the US’ transatlantic allies who are increasingly disillusioned with the outcome of the war and nervous that US involvement in Europe may dwindle as it turns to Indo-Pacific.

When Putin reacts harshly that Biden’s new narrative is “absurd”, he is absolutely right insofar as Russia’s focus is on things far more important than waging a senseless continental war in Europe. After all, it was one of the founding fathers of the USA, James Monroe who said that a king without power is an absurdity. 

December 19, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »