UK Parliament’s Defense Chair Calls for Direct Confrontation With Russia
Sputnik – 30.01.2023
The United Kingdom is involved in the Ukrainian conflict and should “face Russia directly,” Tobias Ellwood, head of the UK Defence Select Committee, said on Monday.
“We are now at war in Europe, we need to move to a war footing, we are involved in that, we have mobilized our procurement processes, we are gifting equipment [to Ukraine]. We need to face Russia directly rather than leaving Ukraine to do all the work,” he said in an interview with UK broadcaster.
Ellwood said the UK government must “recognize the world is changing” and provide appropriate funding to the military.
“If we see Russia wants to do more things in the Baltics, for example, there will be an expectation, indeed, anticipation that we would participate in that. That requires land forces, air as well, and maritime too,” he said.
The senior Conservative lawmaker also urged the government to revoke an earlier decision to reduce the size of the country’s armed forces by 10,000 troops and increase defense spending, in particular, to modernize ground units, at the same time recognizing that UK ground forces are in a “dire state.”
“You have three main components to land warfare — that’s your tank, your main battle tank, your armored fighting vehicle and your recon vehicle. And in our case, you have the Challenger 2, you have the Warrior and you have the Scimitar, and they are all over 20, 30 or 50 years old without any upgrades,” he said.
Ellwood said the UK provided “huge investments” over the years to develop its maritime capabilities, build aircraft carriers, supply more fighter jets, but the number of tanks had been greatly reduced — from 900 tanks several years ago to 148 now.
In this regard, the UK government should be “very concerned,” especially against the backdrop of the Ukrainian conflict. It is necessary not only to invest in emerging industries, such as cybersecurity and space, but also to do so without compromising the military’s ground forces, he added.
The head of the Committee noted that the UK’s defense spending exceeds that of any other European country, in particular, in connection with the maintenance of nuclear potential and the active modernization of the army. However, new models of equipment will go into service only in a few years, and at the moment the size of the army is too small, given that the armed forces are often used in times of crisis in the country.
Western countries ramped up their military support for Ukraine after Russia launched a special military operation there in late February 2022, responding to calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. In April 2022, Moscow sent a note to NATO member states condemning their military assistance to Kiev. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that any arms shipments on Ukrainian territory would be “legitimate targets” for Russian forces.
Is NATO helping Ukraine to fight Russia or is it using Ukraine to fight Russia?
By Glenn Diesen | RT | January 30, 2023
The Western public, like others, are justly appalled by the human suffering and the horrors of the Ukrainian war. Empathy is one of the great virtues of humanity, which in this instance translates into the demand for helping Ukrainians. Yet, propaganda commonly weaponizes the best in human nature, such as compassion, to bring out the worst. As sympathy and the desire to assist the displaced are used to mobilize public support for confrontation and war with Russia, it is necessary to ask if the Western public and Ukrainians are being manipulated to support a proxy war.
Is NATO helping Ukraine to fight Russia or is NATO using Ukraine to fight Russia?
The organization as a passive actor?
The US-led military bloc commonly depicts itself as an innocent third party that merely responds to the overwhelming desire of the Ukrainian people to join its ranks. Yet, for years NATO has attempted to absorb a reluctant Ukraine into its orbit. A NATO publication from 2011 acknowledged that “The greatest challenge for Ukrainian-NATO relations lies in the perception of NATO among the Ukrainian people. NATO membership is not widely supported in the country, with some polls suggesting that popular support for it at is less than 20%”.
In 2014, this problem was resolved by supporting what Statfor’s George Friedman labelled “the most blatant coup in history” as there were no efforts to conceal Western meddling. Regime change was justified as helping Ukrainians with their “democratic revolution”. Yet, it involved the unconstitutional removal of the elected government as a result of an uprising that even the BBC acknowledged did not have majority support amongst the general public. The authorities elected by the Ukrainian people were replaced by individuals handpicked by Washington. An infamous leaked phone call between State Department apparatchik Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt revealed that Washington had chosen exactly who would be in the new government several weeks before they had even removed president Yanukovich from power.
Donbass predictably rejected and resisted the legitimacy of the new regime in Kiev with the support of Russia. Instead of calling for a “unity government”, a plan for which Western European states had signed as guarantors, NATO countries quietly supported an “anti-terrorist operation” against eastern Ukrainians, resulting in at least 14,000 deaths.
The Minsk-2 peace agreement of February 2015 produced a path for peace, yet the US and UK sabotaged it for the next 7 years. Furthermore, Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Francois Hollande recently admitted that both Germany and France considered the deal an opportunity to buy time for Ukraine to arm itself and prepare for war.
In the 2019 election, millions of Ukrainians were disenfranchised, including those living in Russia. Nevertheless, the result was a landslide with 73% of Ukrainians voting for Vladimir Zelensky’s peace platform based on implementing the Minsk-2 agreement, negotiating with Donbass, protecting the Russian language, and restoring peace with Moscow. However, the far-right militias that were armed and trained by the US effectively laid down a veto by threatening Zelensky and defying him on the front line when he demanded to pull back heavy weapons. Pressured also by the US, Zelensky eventually reversed the entire peace platform the Ukrainians had voted for. Instead, opposition media and political parties were purged, and the main opposition leader, Viktor Medvedchuk was arrested. Subverting the wishes of Ukrainians in order to steer the country towards confrontation with Russia was yet again referred to as “helping” Ukraine.
Towards proxy war
In 2019, the Rand Corporation published a 325-page report ordered by the US Army titled “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground”. In the language of a proxy war, the report advocated arming Ukraine to bleed Moscow stating, “Providing more U.S. military equipment and advice could lead Russia to increase its direct involvement in the conflict and the price it pays for it”. The US Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, similarly explained in 2020 the strategy of arming Ukraine claiming, “The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there and we don’t have to fight Russia here”.
In December 2021, the former head of Russia analysis at the CIA warned that the Kremlin was under growing pressure to invade to prevent Washington from further building up its military presence on its borders, which included modernising Ukrainian ports to fit US warships. “That relationship [US-Ukraine] will be far stronger and deeper, and the United States military will be more firmly entrenched inside Ukraine two to three years from now. So inaction on [the Kremlin’s] part is risky,” George Beebe explained. Yet, despite being convinced that Russia would invade, Washington refused to give any reasonable security guarantees to Moscow.
Kiev agreed to enter into negotiations merely three days into the Russian invasion, which resulted in a peace agreement outline a few weeks later. Former intelligence official Fiona Hill and Angela Stent later penned an article acknowledging that “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbass region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries”.
However, after a visit by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Kiev suddenly withdrew from the peace negotiations. Reports in the Ukrainian and American media have suggested that London and Washington had pressured Kiev to abandon negotiations and instead seek victory on the battlefield with NATO weapons.
Johnson gave multiple speeches warning against a “bad peace,” while German General Harald Kujat, a former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, confirmed that Johnson had sabotaged the peace negotiations in order to fight a proxy war with Russia: “His reasoning was that the West was not ready for an end to the war”.
The American objectives also had seemingly little to do with “helping” Ukraine. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated US goals in Ukraine as the weakening of a strategic rival: “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine”. PresidentBiden argued for regime change in Moscow as Putin “cannot remain in power”, which was repeated by Boris Johnson’s op-ed stating that “The war in Ukraine can end only with Vladimir Putin’s defeat”.
US Congressman Dan Crenshaw advocated for a proxy war by supplying weapons to Ukraine as “investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea”. Similarly, Senator Lindsey Graham argued the US should fight Russia to the last Ukrainian: “I like the structural path we’re on here. As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person”. The rhetoric is eerily similar to that of Hungarian billionaire George Soros, who argued that NATO could dominate if it could use Eastern European soldiers as they accept more deaths than their Western peers: “the combination of manpower from Eastern Europe with the technical capabilities of NATO would greatly enhance the military potential of the Partnership because it would reduce the risk of body bags for NATO countries, which is the main constraint on their willingness to act”.
Following NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s recent Orwellian statement that “weapons are the way to peace”, it is worth assessing if NATO is helping Ukraine or using Ukraine. NATO powers have stated that they are supplying Ukraine with weapons to have a stronger position at the negotiating table, yet one year into the war, no major Western leaders have called for peace talks. NATO has a powerful bargaining chip that would actually help Ukraine, which would be an agreement to end NATO expansion toward Russian borders. However, whitewashing the bloc’s direct contribution to the war prevents a negotiated settlement.
Glenn Diesen is a Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal.
The 77th Brigade Spied on Lockdown Sceptics, Including me
BY TOBY YOUNG | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | JANUARY 29, 2023
A shadowy unit of the British Army, as well as secretive ‘disinformation’ agencies within Whitehall, spied on British citizens who challenged the Government’s pandemic response, including Peter Hitchens and me. These revelations are contained in a report by Big Brother Watch due to be published tomorrow, which includes the results of subject access and freedom of information requests submitted by me and others. The Mail on Sunday has more.
A shadowy Army unit secretly spied on British citizens who criticised the Government’s Covid lockdown policies, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Military operatives in the UK’s ‘information warfare’ brigade were part of a sinister operation that targeted politicians and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the official pandemic response.
They compiled dossiers on public figures such as ex-Minister David Davis, who questioned the modelling behind alarming death toll predictions, as well as journalists such as Peter Hitchens and Toby Young. Their dissenting views were then reported back to No. 10.
Documents obtained by the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, and shared exclusively with this newspaper, exposed the work of Government cells such as the Counter Disinformation Unit, based in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Rapid Response Unit in the Cabinet Office.
But the most secretive is the MoD’s 77th Brigade, which deploys ‘non-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to adapt behaviours of adversaries’.
According to a whistleblower who worked for the brigade during the lockdowns, the unit strayed far beyond its remit of targeting foreign powers.
They said that British citizens’ social media accounts were scrutinised – a sinister activity that the Ministry of Defence, in public, repeatedly denied doing.
Papers show the outfits were tasked with countering ‘disinformation’ and ‘harmful narratives… from purported experts’, with civil servants and artificial intelligence deployed to ‘scrape’ social media for keywords such as ‘ventilators’ that would have been of interest.
The information was then used to orchestrate Government responses to criticisms of policies such as the stay-at-home order, when police were given power to issue fines and break up gatherings.
It also allowed Ministers to push social media platforms to remove posts and promote Government-approved lines.
How did the Government manage to convince these supposedly independent state agencies, with powers to monitor the activities of British citizens, that critics of its barmy lockdown policy were enemies of the state? And does this mean James Delingpole has been right all along? We will discuss tomorrow on London Calling and I’m going to write about it for this week’s Spectator.
Worth reading in full.
Why Net Zero is nonsense: a briefing document for opponents
By Robin Guenier | TCW Defending Freedom | January 26, 2023
I’m increasingly alarmed at how all the UK’s major political parties are committed to the Net Zero policy. If implemented, it will have appalling consequences for the economy and for most people, few of whom understand the quite simple issues involved. I have therefore put together a ‘briefing document’ which marshals three arguments that I hope may contribute to curtailing the policy before it’s too late.
1. It’s unachievable. Many vehicles and machines (used for example in agriculture, heavy transportation, commercial shipping and aviation, mining and construction) and products (eg concrete, steel, plastics, fertiliser, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, paints, adhesives and asphalt) essential to our lives and wellbeing require the combustion of fossil fuels or are made from oil derivatives, and there are no easily deployable, commercially viable alternatives. The complex engineering, reliability and cost challenges of establishing a Net Zero grid and the vast scale of what’s involved (immense amounts of material and space are required because the ‘energy density’ of wind and sun is so low) make it most unlikely that the UK could generate sufficient renewable electricity for current needs, let alone for the mandated electric vehicles and heat pumps. In any case, the UK doesn’t have enough technical managers, engineers, electricians, plumbers, mechanics and other tradespeople (probably over a million) to do the many tasks that would be essential to achieve Net Zero.
2. It would be socially and economically disastrous because: (a) the UK’s all-renewable energy project doesn’t include a fully costed engineering plan for the provision of comprehensive grid-scale back-up when there’s little or no wind or sun, so millions of people, especially the poor and vulnerable, would be put at serious personal risk (including death) from electricity blackouts; (b) our crippled economy would be tipped deeper into decline by enormous additional costs and energy unavailability, further blighting our poor industrial productivity; (c) China essentially controls the supply of materials (in particular so-called rare earths) needed for renewables, so the UK would increase its already dangerous dependence on it, putting our energy and overall security at serious risk, and (d) the vast mining and mineral processing operations required for renewables would have appalling environmental and human consequences affecting in particular fragile ecosystems and some of the world’s poorest people – not least as a result of Chinese human rights abuses.
3. Above all, it’s pointless. Most major non-Western countries – the source of more than 75 per cent of CO2 emissions and home to 84 per cent of humanity – don’t regard emissions reduction as a priority and, either exempt from or ignoring any obligation to reduce their emissions, are focused instead on economic and social development, poverty eradication and energy security. As a result, global emissions are increasing and will continue to increase for the foreseeable future whatever the UK (the source of less than 1 per cent of global emissions) may or may not do. It therefore makes absolutely no sense for Britain to pursue this unachievable and disastrous policy.
‘There is another Ukraine’ – exiled opposition leader
RT | January 26, 2023
The exiled former-leader of Ukraine’s largest opposition party still considers himself a Ukrainian citizen and lawmaker, and is building a team of like-minded people to represent those he claims are suppressed by the current government in Kiev. Speaking to RT, Viktor Medvedchuk claimed that President Vladimir Zelensky is a dictator sacrificing the country on behalf of Western powers.
When Zelensky claims Ukraine is united, he omits that this unity was forced at gunpoint, Medvedchuk asserted. He formerly led the, now banned, Opposition Platform – For Life party which won the second largest number of parliamentary seats in Ukraine’s 2019 elections. It advocated closer ties with Russia and rejected Kiev’s pro-NATO stance.
There are many people who disagree with the current government in Kiev, who represent “another Ukraine, not that of [WWII Nazi collaborator Stepan] Bandera, one that has nothing to do with the statements and policies of neo-Nazism pursued by Zelensky,” he added.
Today’s Ukraine violates every provision of its own constitution, Medvedchuk argued, and “ceased to be independent and sovereign” after the February 2014 coup, when it “passed completely under external control of the West.”
Zelensky first placed Medvedchuk under house arrest, then sent him to a “dungeon” run by the Ukrainian SBU security service, where the opposition politician said he was exposed to “constant psychological pressure and humiliation.” In September 2022, he was flown to Poland, and then to Türkiye, where he was handed over to Russian authorities.
Contrary to popular misperception, he said, he was not traded for the leaders of the neo-Nazi “Azov” regiment who surrendered in Mariupol. They were exchanged for captured Russian soldiers, Medvedchuk explained, while he was traded for “ten foreign mercenaries who fought in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
Kiev has accused Medvedchuk of treason and of secretly obtaining Russian citizenship. He rejects both claims as false, saying the “falsified charges” related to his legitimate mediation on behalf of the Ukrainian government with the breakaway Donbass regions and Moscow in 2014-15. About 1,500 Ukrainian POWs came home as a result of his efforts, he noted.
“I remain a citizen of Ukraine,” Medvedchuk insisted, adding that Zelensky had no right to revoke his passport, a move he dismissed as “completely reckless and I would say insane.” If he wanted to get a Russian passport or move to Russia, the politician said, he would have done so years ago. “But I did not leave. And I did not surrender.”
“Zelensky is the kind of man who thinks mainly about PR when it comes to any affairs of state,” Medvedchuk said. “This government tries to hide reality from the people and disguise its actions, which are not in the interest of Ukraine or the Ukrainian people.”
It is Britain that controls Zelensky and Kiev, much more than the US, Medvedchuk claimed, adding that London spearheads the push by the collective West to make Ukraine a springboard against Russia.
The goal of the West is to “stir up some kind of confrontation within Russia, processes that can weaken the Russian leadership,” which is what Zelensky is trying to do, Medvedchuk told RT. However, “it is clear that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia, due to well-known factual circumstances.”
Watch the full interview here.
Changing Your Mind Is A Strength Not A Weakness
A Better Way to Health with Dr Tess Lawrie | January 24, 2023
This is a story about the value of standing your ground, and never letting THEM (The Hierarchy Exploiting Medics) dupe you into believing they have power over you. Truth wins out.
On 30th September 2021, I gave an invited academic lecture at a philosophical institute in Bath called Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI). As the General Medical Council (GMC) states in its letter to me:
“The Institution is an independent charity that promotes science, literature and art to the City of Bath; tickets for its lectures can be bought by both member and non-members of the Institution.”
The title of my lecture was ‘Covid and the State of Evidence-based Medicine’ and I covered what I knew at the time about early treatments for Covid, as well as the emerging evidence on the Covid-19 vaccines suggesting serious safety issues. I have alluded to this talk and associated investigation in a previous Substack article.
There were probably not more than forty people in the room, with a number attending via Zoom too. Towards the end of the talk, a man’s voice came loudly through the microphone, facilitated by whomever was controlling the Zoom permissions, drowning out mine, and declaring that I should be ashamed of myself for what I had said.
The lovely organiser of the meeting was suitably embarrassed, but it was clear that his feelings were not shared by his masked and furious medical colleague, who had clearly facilitated the heckler’s dramatic outburst. The colleague later denied access to the lecture recording, which was never more widely published as is usually the case for these events.
A couple of months later I was notified by the GMC that I was under investigation for “misconduct” in relation to my lecture at the BRLSI, the allegations being that I “denied the safety of Covid-19 vaccines and spread misinformation about Covid-19 treatments”. The GMC investigation was opened to determine whether I had made “inaccurate and/or misleading comments about Covid-19 and Covid-19 vaccines”.
I received excellent advice from Solicitor Philip Hyland who responded to the GMC quite simply on my behalf pointing out that “taken at its highest there is a substantial body of medical opinion that supports what Doctor Lawrie is saying.”
This week I received the outcome of the GMC’s investigation, which is “closure of the case with no action”. In its letter to me, the GMC noted that:
“During the investigation the GMC obtained a video copy and transcript of the Lecture. During the initial part of the Lecture Dr Lawrie presented her views on the evidence on ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19, later in her lecture Dr Lawrie presented her views on vaccines.
“It was established during the GMC investigation that the advertisement for the Lecture stated that Dr Lawrie was an external consultant to the World Health Organisation, a clinical practice guideline expert, and that she was Director of the Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd and Ebmcsquared CIC. The Ebmcsquared CIC website states that it was established by Dr Lawrie as a ‘a non-profit company in March 2021 in response to the tremendous need for independent and objective health care research and provision, arising out of the Covid-19 health emergency.’
Dr Lawrie’s comments
On 10 February 2022, Dr Lawrie’s representatives submitted that ‘taken at its highest there is a substantial body of medical opinion that supports what Doctor Lawrie is saying.’
Reasons for our decision
As case examiners we must decide whether there is a realistic prospect of establishing that a doctor’s fitness to practise is currently impaired to a degree justifying action on his or her registration.
This test has two parts.
- We must decide if the allegations are serious enough to warrant action on the doctor’s registration.
- We must also consider whether the allegations are capable of proof to the required standard, namely that it is more likely than not that the alleged events occurred.
In making decisions, we should have regard to the GMC’s objectives. These are to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public; promote and maintain public confidence in the profession; and promote and maintain proper standards and conduct for members of the profession.
Doctors are entitled to hold and express personal views, however they also have an overriding duty to patients and to uphold the public’s confidence in the profession. In the absence of expert or other evidence capable of proving that Dr Lawrie’s conduct was such that public confidence in the medical profession would be undermined, or that it risked the health, safety and well-being of the public, or that it undermined proper standards and conduct for members of the profession, we agree that there is no realistic prospect of establishing evidentially that Dr Lawrie’s fitness to practise is impaired to a degree justifying action on her registration.
Conclusion
For the reasons given above, we have decided to close the case with no action.”
To my medical colleagues out there, I do hope that this will reassure you and encourage you to speak out now.
Please remember, as the GMC letter states, that you “have an overriding duty to patients and to uphold the public’s confidence in the profession”, which is unequivocally at an all-time low. We know how busy you are, that you had little time to do your own investigations, and that being at the frontline of what was communicated to be a deadly pandemic was probably terrifying. We know you were told that the Covid-19 vaccines were safe and effective.
However, now that you know the Covid-19 vaccines are not safe and effective, that they are not the same as traditional vaccines, that there are unprecedented numbers of adverse drug reactions (ADR) reported to the official ADR databases, and that Covid ‘boosters’ are systematically destroying people’s immunity not ‘boosting’ it, please stand up for the truth, uphold your Hippocratic Oath, and do what is right. It is a strength not a weakness to be able to change one’s mind when new information comes to light. We have been waiting for you, now please stand up together with us. There’s undoubtedly a better way forward for health and wellbeing!
A few next steps you can take as a doctor
For doctors in the UK, you will find that www.doctorsforpatientsuk.com is a good starting point for peer learning and support.
Please find further reassurance in this article about GMC complaints related to Dr Aseem Malhotra’s BBC interview in which he called for a halt to the Covid vaccination programme. This interview has been viewed over 20 million times and counting.
If you are considering leaving the NHS and starting private practice, I encourage you to register as a practitioner on World Council for Health’s new community platform, Source. This is an online platform connecting local people with doctors and other health professionals in their area. Registration is free – the only condition is that you agree to abide by the Better Way Charter. We receive requests every day from people seeking doctors they can trust: allow us to direct them to you via Source.
Lastly, everything I said at BRLSI on 21 September 2021 about ivermectin and the safety issues with Covid injections is as applicable now more than ever. I will present an updated version of this lecture, ‘Covid and the State of Evidence-based Medicine’ at the ‘Harmonising Modern Medicines with Natures Remedies’ conference in The Philippines in February. Perhaps I’ll see you there!
Supporting the vaccine injured and bereaved
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | January 25, 2023
On Saturday 21st January 2023, the vaccine injured and bereaved gathered with people who support them in marches across the UK organised by Truth be Told. The London march saw thousands of protestors who began at BBC broadcasting house before a silent memorial procession. White roses were then thrown over the railings into Downing Street. Speakers included Andrew Bridgen MP, many vaccine injured individuals and those who have been trying to help amplify their voices like Mark Sharman, former ITV and BSkyB executive, who funded and produced the film Safe and Effective a Second Opinion.
Those campaigning for better compensation without huge barriers and delays have found themselves in conflict with those who want to stop vaccination completely. It is in the interest of the former to downplay the numbers affected and the latter would benefit from a larger number. There is nothing to be gained by such conflict when both sides are trying to hold politicians to account and struggling to do so. While data is suppressed it is not possible to quantify the extent of harm but the extent can’t remain hidden forever. Whatever figure is finally put on it, it will be too high for an intervention that many of the injured did not need and which was oversold in terms of its ability to prevent infection. Whatever figure is reached, those who are injured deserve compensation and the companies who have profited do not deserve indemnity.
US renews waiver for gas field shared by Iran and UK
Press TV – January 24, 2023
The US government has renewed a sanctions waiver for the Rhum gas field in the UK North Sea in which Iran has a 50% stake.
Iran is heavily sanctioned by the United States, but Britain’s Serica Energy which owns another 50% of the field has repeatedly secured waivers to maintain production from the field.
In a statement, Serica said it had secured another waiver extension that ensures that all companies linked to the field can provide services and goods without fear of US penalties.
“We are grateful to the UK government and regulatory authorities who have supported us in this process,” Serica Chief Executive Mitch Flegg was quoted as saying.
Serica Energy is responsible for 5% of the gas produced in the UK which is currently in turmoil over runaway prices of energy in the wake of the Ukraine war.
The UK firm expects its net production to increase by between 50 and 80 percent this year and that level of production to continue into 2025.
This would mean that the company would be producing up to 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, reports said.
Rhum, a gas filed located 240 miles (390 km) northeast of Aberdeen in Scotland, is one of the largest on the UK Continental Shelf.
Iran owns half of the stakes at the gas field based on a deal signed before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The field is believed to be capable of producing more than five million cubic meters of natural gas.
Washington has imposed a series of harsh sanctions on Iran’s energy sector since 2018 when it pulled out of an international nuclear deal.
Pressure hardening
The Biden administration, however, is hardening its position. The Iraqi government is reportedly under immense pressure from Washington to stem the alleged flow of dollars into Iran.
In recent weeks, Iraq’s currency market has been wracked by turmoil after the US introduced tighter controls on international dollar transactions by commercial Iraqi banks in November.
Reports said the move was designed to curb the alleged siphoning of dollars to Iran and apply more pressure along with US sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic.
Iraqi MP Aqeel al-Fatlawi, however, said Washington was deliberately using the new regulations as a political weapon.
“Americans are using the dollar transfer rigid restrictions as warning messages to Prime Minister Sudani to stay tuned with the American interests. ‘Working against us could lead to bringing down your government’ – this is the American message,” the lawmaker said.
The price of consumer goods has increased and the Iraqi currency has taken a beating in the wake of the US restrictions.
And it has deepened anti-American sentiment among politicians in Iraq, which remains unstable nearly 20 years after a US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.
The US is also targeting Iran’s other major trade partners. On Monday, the Biden administration’s top Iran envoy said it will increase pressure on China to cease imports of Iranian oil.
China is the main destination of exports by Iran, and talks to dissuade Beijing from the purchases are “going to be intensified,” US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley told Bloomberg Television.
The US reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic and its petroleum exports in 2018 after pulling out of the nuclear agreement, with then president Donald Trump pledging that Washington was set to bring Iran’s oil exports down to zero.
That goal never realized, with Iranian sales continuing to reach the market despite the US “maximum pressure” to curb them.
“We have not lessened any of our sanctions against Iran and in particular regards to Iran’s sale of oil,” Malley said.
Iranian crude shipments have surged in recent months, including to China, the world’s biggest importer.
Malley said the US will “take steps that we need to take in order to stop the export of Iranian oil and deter countries from buying it”.
Western ‘theft’ will backfire, Russian tycoon warns
Vladimir Potanin. © Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin
RT | January 23, 2023
Western countries are sawing off the branch they are sitting on by confiscating Russian assets, billionaire businessman Vladimir Potanin believes.
Following the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine in February last year, multiple countries have frozen assets belonging both to the Russian state, and private companies and individuals to the tune of more than $300 billion.
In an interview with Russian media outlet RBK published on Monday, Potanin, the largest shareholder of mining giant Nornickel, said: “The confiscation [of assets] is a covert or overt form of theft,” and destroys “the investment climate of the jurisdiction where this is happening.”
Potanin noted that the countries comprising the ‘collective West’ had based their societies upon respect for private property.
The recent freezing of Russian assets “will backfire on them,” he said, adding that Russia should refrain from mirroring these measures.
He went on to suggest that by exercising respect for property rights, Moscow will be in a stronger moral position when it fights for its frozen assets in the West, and will send the right signals to entrepreneurs at home.
Potanin also warned against nationalizing property left behind in Russia by Western businesses – instead, the authorities need to “give the investment community the opportunity to solve this problem on its own.” He noted that the exodus of Western companies from Russia has allowed local investors to buy up assets at relatively low prices.
Potanin described the Western sanctions as “absolutely destructive and even, apparently, absolutely illegal,” and in his view, what we are seeing right now is the destruction of basic global rules.
The billionaire acknowledged that Western sanctions have put his plans for overseas business expansion on hold and have adversely affected his ability to travel the world, though he has now switched to exploring Russia instead, he added. Potanin nevertheless expressed confidence that the West “will come to their senses” sooner or later.
A top British think tank has revealed Russia’s cyberwarfare dominance over Ukraine
Why has Western media ignored its report?
By Felix Livshitz | RT | January 23, 2023
On November 30, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), an elite military think tank, and lobby group, with deep ties to the UK government, published a landmark report entitled ‘Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022’. While desperate to portray the operation as a failure, even the normally Russophobic RUSI can’t ignore Moscow’s total cyberwarfare dominance over Kiev.
Complete superiority
Buried in the document is a long section on the electronic warfare aspect of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It found that within weeks of February 24, Moscow’s forces quickly established total dominance in this sphere by deploying extensive jamming infrastructure. Once achieved, Kiev’s most sophisticated cyber systems were not only totally confused, but absolutely crippled.
Before the attack, Ukraine had for some years been receiving the best Western reconnaissance and strike drones – Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) – IMF debt could buy.
These systems, RUSI states, were envisioned to be “critical to competitiveness” in a hypothetical future battlefield, by providing “situational awareness and target acquisition” second to none. However, as it turned out, the “attrition rates” of these high-tech drones were “extremely high” from February to July due to Russian electronic warfare prowess, and thy were destroyed completely at around 90%.
“The average life expectancy of a quadcopter remained around three flights. The average life expectancy of a fixed-wing UAV was around six flights … even when UAVs survived, this did not mean that they were successful in carrying out their missions,” the report records. “UAVs could fail to achieve their missions because the requirements to get them in place … prevented timely target acquisition before the enemy displaced. Many missions failed to find targets because there was no target at the specified location.”
A “more common” means of “mission failure” was “disruption of a UAV under control through electronic warfare, the dazzling of its sensors or the denial of its navigational systems from determining the accurate location of a target.”
“In other instances, the Russians successfully struck the ground control stations of the UAV. In aggregate, only around a third of UAV missions can be said to have been successful.”
Russia’s dominance in electronic warfare had further damaging implications for the precision weapons shipped to Ukraine from London, Washington, and other Western backers too. Moscow’s cyber divisions effectively “defeated” most of the precision weapons used by Kiev.
RUSI is a prominent and highly influential firm, and its publications typically generate enormous media interest – when these reports paint Russia in an overwhelmingly negative light, and talk up the need for Moscow to be countered through highly aggressive political, diplomatic, intelligence and military postures, that is.
Unheeded prophecies
Aside from a single article in America’s Forbes magazine, this assessment has remained unacknowledged by any mainstream journalist or pundit for well over a month. It is not the first time a RUSI report has mysteriously received no recognition in recent memory. In late January, the think tank published an assessment of the value of Western arms shipments to Kiev.
It concluded there was little point in sending vehicles or weaponry of any kind to Ukraine, in the event fighting broke out with Russia, due to Moscow’s “operational art,” military doctrine, and “strategic thinking.” These long-held philosophies mean that the Kremlin and its armed forces chiefs consider battle an extension of diplomacy, and therefore leverage “superiority in long-range fires to achieve decisive effects against an opponent, which could in turn achieve strategic results.”
Among the “strategic results” sought is a battlefield where “massed ground formations in direct confrontations” are not deployed. Instead, by “inflicting enough damage to alter an opponent’s course of action, or signal that Russia’s intent is genuine, Russian strategic goals can be achieved without conflict.”
This would be secured by using long-range missiles in a “non-contact” military engagement – “the minimum level of force necessary to promote Russia’s regional goals and limit the need to deploy ground forces.” In other words, exactly what has unfolded over the course of the past year.
“Armoured vehicles, short-range anti-tank weapons and air defence systems can only be useful in one scenario, one which is likely to be preceded by a harrowing and extensive period of non-contact warfare designed to prevent the Ukrainian armed forces from operating effectively at all,” RUSI forecast. “Their use will only be possible once all initiative has been lost and the situation is unlikely to be turning in Ukraine’s favour.”
The report’s conclusion was that the weaponry the West had sent and planned to send to Ukraine “does nothing to improve Ukraine’s odds of deterring Russia, or even defending against a Russian invasion once it has begun,” and any attempt to arm Kiev was “not likely” to defend “Ukraine’s sovereignty.”
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“Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda,” is the fourth vaccine-related documentary by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It tells the story of an intentional infertility vaccine program conducted on African women, without their knowledge or consent.
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