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Zelensky admits capitulation but calls for escalation

By Ahmed Adel | October 18, 2024

The “Victory Plan” presented by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is an acknowledgment of capitulation because it is obvious that, even in his estimation, without the massive involvement of NATO countries in the conflict, the Ukrainian army will not be able to hold back Russian forces in the foreseeable future.

Zelensky presented his Victory Plan to the Ukrainian parliament on October 16 and the European Council on October 17. The plan consists of five points and three secret amendments. In addition to admitting defeat, Zelensky’s Victory Plan also reveals a desire for maximum escalation of the conflict, where, of course, the main burden should be borne by NATO countries and not Ukrainian forces.

The Ukrainian president thinks that escalating what led to the suffering of his citizens and destroyed the economy will lead to Ukraine’s victory.

At the same time, his Victory Plan could be used to pressure Biden or his successor to make decisions about striking deep into the Russian Federation without, supposedly, provoking Moscow to react excessively. Nonetheless, the Kremlin has already said Russia will respond to any attacks.

The Victory Plan truly hinges on US support and not European. Therefore, bodies such as the Council of Europe only serve to give the Biden administration legitimacy when ​​he puts pressure on some parts of the American establishment that are clearly resisting further support for Ukraine.

The first point of Zelensky’s Victory Plan is geopolitical and concerns Ukraine’s immediate invitation to NATO. The other points concern the Ukrainian military and its allies destroying Russia’s aviation, deploying a non-nuclear strategic containment package on its territory, strengthening sanctions on Russia, and allowing Ukrainian soldiers to replace part of the American contingent in Europe in the post-war period.

According to the latest available data, 84% of Ukrainians want their country to be a member of NATO. Despite the widespread support for joining the alliance and although NATO has declared Ukraine’s membership path irreversible, it cannot be completed during the war, and the alliance declined to present a timeline. In effect, NATO has categorically ruled out membership until the war is over, which already makes Zelensky’s Victory Plan detached from reality since the very first point of the plan to defeat Russia is to join the bloc.

For this reason, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova condemned Zelensky’s Victory Plan as nothing more than a collection of “incoherent slogans.”

“This is, of course, no plan at all. It is a collection of incoherent slogans. It is blood foam at the mouth of a neo-Nazi murderer,” the spokeswoman stated during a briefing on October 16.

She also criticised Zelensky’s intention to damage the Russian air force with the assistance of his allies, saying, “He is pushing NATO to a direct conflict with our country and again insists on getting permission to use long-range weapons on Russian territory, knowing perfectly well, at least those who wrote him these speeches, realised what it would lead to because the corresponding statements by the Russian leadership were made just a week ago.”

“Taken as a sum, all these points and secret sub-clauses are not Zelensky’s plan of victory but a plan to bring misfortune upon Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. This aims to keep the money flowing and present his terrorist capabilities. I think that today Zelensky definitively proved to everyone that he hates Ukrainians to the extent that can be characterised as Ukrainophobia,” Zakharova added.

Since Zelensky evidently does not have any plans to begin serious negotiations, as seen by his Victory Plan, any negotiations conducted in the short term can be used by the West and the Kiev regime to freeze the conflict in Ukraine, replenish their capabilities and launch new attacks against Russia.

According to Western media, including The Washington Post, Zelensky has shown himself more open to holding talks with Russia amid Ukraine’s weakening positions. At the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that no adequate proposals had yet been received regarding the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, apart from the hype in the Western media.

Zelensky’s masters in the West are beginning to see that they are not able to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia and are beginning to ask for negotiations. For the moment, they are resorting to negotiation chatter, as mentioned, to try to freeze the conflict and build up forces. In this context, the only way to end the conflict is the complete defeat of Ukraine, peace on Moscow’s terms, and the strategic retreat of the West from Russia’s borders.

The Victory Plan has certainly dominated headlines and occupied the attention of many world leaders, but Kiev has no way of enforcing it, especially since, from the very first point, it ensures failure, considering NATO has been very clear on Ukraine’s membership path, which cannot progress until the war is already over.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

October 18, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Germany Finally Maxed Out Its Military Support For Ukraine

By Andrew Korybko | October 15, 2024

Bild cited internal Defense Ministry documents to report that Germany finally maxed out its military support for Ukraine and won’t give any more heavy equipment, which comes around six weeks after the Polish Defense Minister effectively said the same thing about his country’s support. The Federal Cabinet detailed “The arms and military equipment Germany is sending to Ukraine” last month, which they said totals €28 billion in assistance that’s either already been provided or committed for future years.

Poland and Germany have done much more for Ukraine in this regard than most countries so the fact that they’ve already maxed out their support suggests that the West as a whole might soon seriously consider freezing the conflict. After all, Russia is already far ahead of NATO in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition”, with even Sky News candidly reporting earlier this year that Russia is producing three times as many shells as NATO at one-quarter of the price.

This was followed last month by CNN sharing a glimpse of just how bad everything has become for Ukraine, which coincides with growing interest among the Western public and even some of their elite in cutting their side’s losses by exploring a political solution to the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine. “Russia’s Capture Of Pokrovsk Could Reshape The Conflict’s Dynamics” whenever it comes to pass so it naturally follows that they’d either want to preempt that or find a way to freeze the conflict afterwards.

The challenge though is that Russia won’t consider a ceasefire so long as Ukraine continues to occupy Kursk and Donbass, neither of which Kiev is willing to withdraw from as a “goodwill gesture”, thus risking the scenario that the front lines collapse due to the combination of attrition and Russia’s new tactics. In that case, Russia might try to expel Ukraine from the remainder of Zaporozhye Region east of the Dnieper, including its namesake city of an estimated 750,000 people.

There’s also the chance that Russia moves into eastern Dnipropetrovsk (“Dnipro”) Region despite having no claims to it either to coerce Ukraine into withdrawing from eastern Zaporozhye and its namesake capital and/or to push the Line of Contact (LOC) as far as possible before freezing it. This tactic could also enable Russia to open up a southern front in Kharkov Region to complement the eastern and northern ones. The worst-case scenario for Ukraine is simultaneous attacks along these three axes.

With Poland and Germany having already practically tapped out, unless they dig into the rest of their reserves that they’ve thus far preserved to meet their minimum national security requirements, this sequence of events is certainly possible. It could only be preempted by a comparatively more generous ceasefire proposal from the West that piques the Kremlin’s interest, Russian self-restraint, or Ukraine and/or the West “escalating to de-escalate”.

The first could see the West pressure Ukraine into withdrawing from eastern Zaporozhye Region, the second could be due to Russia not wanting to risk overextending its military logistics, and the third could involve a nuclear provocation, the formal deployment of NATO to Ukraine, and/or an attack on Belarus. Relevant factors include the timing of any potential Russian breakthrough and the outcome of the US elections, both of which could influence Ukraine and/or the West, perhaps even in different ways.

All that can be said for sure is that Ukraine can’t depend on more military aid after Germany just joined Poland in dropping out of the “war of attrition”. Unless they dig into their reserves or others step up (if they even have much left to give), then something game-changing might soon happen, though whether it’s positive or negative remains to be seen. Russia will either decisively win, be offered a more generous ceasefire that it’ll accept for pragmatic reasons, or its enemies will dangerously “escalate to de-escalate”.

October 17, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Orban Says Will Call on French, German Leaders at EU Summit to Start Talks With Russia

Sputnik – 17.10.2024

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday that he will call on the leaders of France and Germany at the EU summit to start negotiations with Russia on behalf of the EU to resolve the Ukrainian conflict.

Earlier Volodymyr Zelensky unveiled the so-called “victory plan” which was slammed by Russian officials as repetition of US strategy to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.

“Today I will call on the German chancellor and the French president to start negotiations with Russia as soon as possible on behalf of the entire European Union, so that we can find a way out of this situation [the conflict in Ukraine],” Orban wrote on social media.

The prime minister also said that the “victory plan” of Volodymyr Zelensky “gives shivers” and the EU should change its strategy and start a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine.

Viktor Orban repeatedly stressed that Ukraine had no realistic chance to defeat Russian and urged for immediate peace talks that will take into account Moscow’s stance and Moscow’s security concerns.

October 17, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine claims it could have nuclear weapons within weeks – Bild

RT | October 17, 2024

Kiev has the capability to build a nuclear weapon “in a few weeks,” a high-ranking Ukrainian official told Bild on Thursday after Vladimir Zelensky alluded to such a possibility.

Ukraine needs either membership in NATO or nuclear weapons, Zelensky said on Friday in Brussels, arguing in favor of his “victory plan” to end the conflict with Russia.

This prompted Bild to reveal that a Ukrainian official involved in weapons procurement told them “a few months ago” that Kiev was willing to go nuclear.

“We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, we will only need a few weeks to have the first bomb,” the unnamed official said, according to the German tabloid, adding that the West should “think less about Russia’s red lines and more about ours.”

In his speech on Thursday, Zelensky claimed to have informed former – and possibly future – US President Donald Trump about Kiev’s possible atomic aspirations.

“Speaking to Donald Trump, I told him: What is the way out for us? Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and they will serve as protection, or we need to be in some kind of an alliance. We don’t know any effective alliances except NATO,” Zelensky said. He also claimed that Trump agreed with him.

The former president has made no mention of Zelensky’s nuclear proposal, however. In the time since their meeting, he also made the case in an interview that nuclear weapons were the greatest threat to humanity and that he had hoped to make a global deal on eventual denuclearization during his first term in the White House.

The leadership in Kiev has long argued that the US and its allies had an obligation to protect Ukraine because of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the US, UK and Russia gave security guarantees in exchange for the removal of Soviet nuclear warheads from Ukraine’s territory. Moscow has maintained that the 2014 violent coup in Kiev put the West in breach of the memorandum and that a hostile, nuclear-armed Ukraine on its doorstep is an intolerable threat to its security.

October 17, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Church raid in Ukraine linked to Zelensky ‘victory plan’ – Russian diplomat

RT | October 17, 2024

An armed raid on St. Michael’s Cathedral in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy on Thursday directly stems from the policies adopted by Kiev, which is selling out its people to the West, senior Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik has stated, condemning the raid.

The church, which was built two decades ago and is the largest temple in modern Ukraine, was in the process of being seized from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The initial raid was launched during a night service by armed men in military-style clothes. In the morning, many of the faithful who answered the diocese’s call to defend the cathedral managed to oust the raiders but, hours later, a second attack succeeded.

A military chaplain with the Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a rival of the UOC, has declared that the cathedral is now a military church. In the future it will host a center for “national patriotic education, a Sunday school and a school for chaplains,” Vladimir Pedko said on Facebook. Ukrainian officials have claimed that Thursday’s events were part of a lawful transfer of the church to the OCU.

Miroshnik, who leads a special mission in the Russian Foreign Ministry to record and expose Ukrainian crimes, denounced the seizure as “blunt and grim lawlessness covered up by the gang of [Vladimir] Zelensky.”

In a series of posts online, Miroshnik linked the raid with Zelensky’s speech in parliament the day before the raid, in which the Ukrainian leader presented to the public his ‘victory plan’ against Russia. Among other things, he offered the services of battle-hardened Ukrainian troops to Western donors, claiming that eventually they could replace American soldiers stationed in Europe.

“Zelensky almost directly said that Ukraine is essentially a nation-sized private military company (PMC),” Miroshnik argued.

“A PMC nation’s ideology has no place for a thousand-year-old Orthodox linchpin, which has its traditions, rules and principles,” he added. “For the Kiev regime, people are a resource, livestock. Livestock are not allowed to have stable canons of reverence for the faith of their ancestors.”

Earlier this year, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that established the legal grounds for a likely ban on the UOC. Kiev has accused the church of doing the bidding of Russia.

Many of the UOC clerics are being prosecuted for alleged crimes, including Metropolitan Theodosius, the bishop heading the diocese headquartered at St. Michael’s Cathedral. The church was reportedly partially looted and ransacked by unknown persons, who broke into it overnight.

There has also been a legal battle between the UOC and secular authorities for the parcel of land surrounding the cathedral.

October 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Zelensky presents ‘victory plan’

RT | October 16, 2024

Vladimir Zelensky presented his much-hyped “victory plan” to the Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday, suggesting it could help bring the conflict with Russia to a close as early as next year. However, he stressed that this outcome is possible only if Kiev rules out any compromises with Russia and receives full support from the West.

In his speech, Zelensky lamented that “victory has become an inconvenient word” for some people, adding, however, that he was certain that his “victory plan” would help end the conflict. “This plan can be implemented. It depends on the partners. I emphasize: on partners. It doesn’t exactly depend on Russia,” Zelensky said, accusing Moscow of not wanting peace.

“If you start moving with this idea, with this particular victory plan…, there may be a deal to end the war no later than next year,” he added, rejecting a freeze of the conflict and any “trade” of territories.

Zelensky said the plan consists of eight points, three of which are classified. First and foremost, the Ukrainian leader demanded that Kiev receive an invitation to immediately join NATO, a move the bloc has been reluctant to entertain, citing fears of being dragged into the conflict with Russia.

Second, he also stressed the need to strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities, including by lifting Western restrictions on the use of foreign-made long-range weapons for strikes against Russia, and also called for continued incursions into the neighboring country’s territory.

For the third point, Zelensky proposed to the West that Ukraine “deploy a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package on its own land” to keep Russia at bay.

Fourth, he suggested that Ukraine sign with its backers “a special agreement on the joint protection of available critical resources” on its territory. These resources “will strengthen… either Russia and its allies, or Ukraine and the democratic world,” he said.

Finally, Zelensky said Ukraine could share its real-life battlefield experience with the West to “strengthen NATO’s defense and ensure security in Europe.”

Prior to Zelensky’s speech, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that his plan was just another facet of the US-dictated policy of fighting Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” Peace, he added, can only be achieved if Kiev understands “the futility of the current policy and the need to sober up and realize the reasons that led to the conflict over Ukraine.”

President Vladimir Putin has said that one of the main reasons for the conflict was Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO and Kiev’s “genocide” of the people in Donbass, which is now part of Russia.

October 16, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

ICC ignores the Kiev regime’s kidnapping of at least 1000 civilians in Kursk region

By Drago Bosnic | October 16, 2024

It’s been over two months since the Kiev regime launched its incursion into the Kursk oblast (region). The area was previously limited only to cross-border skirmishes, artillery duels and occasional sabotage operations, which was why the Russian military deployed Rosgvardiya, particularly the “Akhmat” special forces mostly composed of personnel from Chechnya. These units were not equipped to handle army-sized invading forces and it took some time for the regular military to move in and prevent further advances by the Neo-Nazi junta troops. Expectedly, as PR “victories” are the most important segment of the latter’s strategy, this was heavily (ab)used to sow discord within Russia, with the Kiev regime trying to present Chechens as “TikTok soldiers”. However, war propaganda was the least of the Neo-Nazi junta’s crimes in the occupied parts of this Russian region.

Namely, the invading force committed gruesome atrocities against Russian civilians, while Nazi-style treatment of the local population is a common practice. This is yet another proof that “nomen est omen” is not just a simple saying. While militarily unjustified, the Kiev regime still went ahead with the incursion. Generals were against it, thinking it was a waste of the Neo-Nazi junta’s increasingly scarce resources. Other high-ranking officials also strongly opposed the move, seeing it as nothing more than Zelensky’s risky (geo)political gambit. This includes former top commander General Valery Zaluzhny, currently holding the largely ceremonial role of ambassador to the UK. The mainstream propaganda machine’s reaction was mixed, with some reporting it as risky, while others continued the usual “Ukraine is winning” narrative, insisting that the incursion “embarrassed” Russia.

CNN ran stories about Moscow’s supposed “inability” to push back the Neo-Nazi junta forces, quoting the latter’s field commanders who claimed that “Russian advances are mostly happening on the flanks of our foothold” and that “they’re only making incremental gains, but lose them to counterattacks”. However, even the mainstream propaganda machine was forced to admit this wasn’t the case, as the Russian military made fast and steady advances in recent weeks, leading to serious breakthroughs. There’s even a strong possibility that the Kiev regime forces in the area could soon be encircled. The Russian advance has been so fast in some areas that not even NATO personnel were able to flee, with Moscow’s forces neutralizing some Americans fighting for the Neo-Nazi junta. The Russian military also has foreign fighters (particularly Serbs), although they’re volunteers.

However, as Moscow’s forces keep advancing, they’re finding evidence of war crimes by the Kiev regime. Perhaps the most concerning is the disappearance of around 1000 locals. The Kremlin has issued a formal accusation that the Neo-Nazi junta forces kidnapped 1,000 residents of the Kursk region. Russian authorities confirmed this after the relatives of the missing locals pleaded with the government to help find them.

“I’ve received messages regarding more than 1,000 such people from relatives trying to find them. We know nothing about their fate. This is a gross violation of their rights and international norms of treatment of civilians,” presidential human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said on October 14, adding: “I think it would be useful to remind you that the forced removal of civilians from their places of permanent residence is a gross violation of the Geneva Convention. And the world community should probably give this a proper assessment.”

However, the so-called “international community” (a rather pathetic euphemism for a NATO-occupied fraction of the actual world) is busy with prosecuting (or persecuting, to be precise) President Vladimir Putin for evacuating kids from an active warzone. In fact, enemy combatants who waged war on the people of Donbass for years (including as part of Neo-Nazi units) were actually allowed to go to Russia and take their kids (although this too was used for anti-Russian propaganda).

So far, Moscow had to evacuate over 112,000 residents displaced by the Kiev regime forces. However, based on footage posted on social media, some civilians remained, mostly elderly people. The Neo-Nazi junta keeps insisting that the locals in occupied areas are treated “humanely”. Still, evidence on the ground suggests otherwise. There were instances where civilians were shot in cars by the Neo-Nazi junta forces, while first reports about kidnappings appeared just days after the Kursk oblast incursion was launched. What’s probably even more disturbing is the direct involvement of the US-led political West, which not only supported the PR attack, but also took part in its planning. Namely, leaked documents show that several high-ranking American officials and at least one Washington DC-based think tank directly contributed to drawing up plans for the Kiev regime’s attack.

This includes former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, whose email was hacked, revealing “peculiar” papers on the Kursk oblast incursion. Along with former US ambassador to Uzbekistan and Ukraine John Herbst, McFaul was invited to take part in a wargame organized by the Atlantic Council, a rabidly warmongering think tank with close ties to the Pentagon and the plutocratic oligarchy in Washington DC. This highly controversial gathering took place back in February, while the wargaming itself focused precisely on an incursion such as the one launched in Russia’s Kursk oblast. This makes the US and NATO directly responsible for the gruesome atrocities and war crimes committed by the Neo-Nazi junta. It’s only a matter of time before this fact is confirmed legally, obviously by a Russian court, as actual justice cannot be expected from glorified NGOs posing as courts, such as the infamous ICC.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

October 16, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US says can’t continue supplying Ukraine, Israel together as Tel Aviv faces munitions shortage

Press TV – October 15, 2024

Israel is scrambling to supply interceptor missiles amid a looming shortage as the regime is bracing for more retaliatory attacks from the regional resistance, more than a year after it launched the genocidal war on Gaza, a report says.

The report by the the Financial Times came as the United States on Sunday confirmed that its military is sending an anti-missile system operated by American troops to aid the Israeli forces following the Tel Aviv regime’s failure to defend itself against Iran and as Tel Aviv has threatened it will attack Iranian sites.

“Israel’s munitions issue is serious,” the Financial Times cited Dana Stroul, a former senior Pentagon official with responsibility for the West Asia, as saying on Tuesday.

“If Iran responds to an Israel attack [with a massive air strike campaign], and [Lebanon’s] Hezbollah joins in too, Israel air defenses will be stretched,” she said, noting that US stockpiles were not limitless.

“The US can’t continue supplying Ukraine and Israel at the same pace. We are reaching a tipping point.”

Boaz Levy, chief executive of Israel Aerospace Industries, which makes the Arrow interceptors used to down ballistic missiles, said he was running triple shifts to keep production lines running.

“Some of our lines are working 24 hours, seven days a week. Our goal is to meet all our obligations,” Levy said.

While Israel does not disclose the size of its stockpiles, he said “it is no secret that we need to replenish stocks.”

Since early October 2023, Israel has been waging brutal two-front aggression that has killed more than 42,000 people in the Gaza Strip and at least 2,306 others in Lebanon so far.

Over the same period, the usurping regime has also assassinated several resistance leaders, including Hamas’s political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

In support of Palestinians in Gaza, resistance groups have launched retaliatory attacks on Israeli targets and vowed to keep fighting until the Gaza onslaught ends.

In response to Israel’s barbaric acts of assassination against the resistance front’s top leaders, Iran carried out Operation True Promise 2 earlier this month.

During the operation, Iran launched some 200 high-speed ballistic missiles at the Zionist entity’s military, espionage and intelligence bases, sending almost 10 million settlers into bomb shelters. Ninety percent of the fired Iranian missiles hit their targets.

Despite Israel’s intensified strikes on Lebanon, Hezbollah managed to conduct the deadliest strikes on the occupied territories in the past year over the weekend.

“We are not seeing Hezbollah’s full capability yet. It has only been firing at around a tenth of its estimated prewar launching capacity, a few hundred rockets a day instead of as many as 2,000,” Assaf Orion, a former Israeli brigadier general and head of strategy at the Israeli military, said.

“Some of that gap is a choice by Hezbollah not to go full out, and some of it is due to degradation by the IDF [Israeli military]. . . But Hezbollah has enough left to mount a strong operation,” Orion added.

“Haifa and northern Israel are still on the receiving end of rocket and drone attacks almost every day.”

Amid the rising retaliatory operations, the report cited analysts as saying “defense planners and Israel’s AI-powered air defenses were having to choose which areas to protect over others.”

“It’s only a matter of time before Israel starts to run out of interceptors and has to prioritize how they are deployed,” said Ehud Eilam, a former researcher at Israel’s ministry of military affairs.

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran’s Missiles: Ted Postol sets the record straight

Daniel Davis | Deep Dive | October 11, 2024

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

French MEP backs Medvedev’s attack on NATO

RT | October 14, 2024

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was stating the “absolute truth” when he took aim at NATO countries and their support for Ukraine in a scathing recent social media post, French MEP Florian Philippot has said.

The European Parliament member was commenting on a post published by Medvedev on Sunday, in which he pointed to the problems that Ukraine’s Western backers are facing with their economies.

“The West has no money to clean up Florida after Hurricane Milton, no money for French farmers, no money to revive the German industry,” Medvedev, who now serves as deputy head of the Russian Security Council, wrote on Telegram.

These countries, however, still have funds to bankroll “a bunch of drunk and crazy” Ukrainians and to produce weapons “to exterminate the Slavs in the military conflict,” he added.

In a post on X, Philippot, who is leader of the Patriots party, wrote that Medvedev “just smashed the NATO countries by throwing absolute truths at them.” Philippot also took aim at French President Emmanuel Macron, saying he is “also taking a beating” for his recent pledge of a “new check for 3 billion to Zelensky.”

Philippot called on Macron to “stop these checks and these arms shipments,” arguing that Medvedev’s remarks are “factually terribly true!”

During a visit last week to a military camp in eastern France to inspect the training of Ukrainian troops, Macron pledged some €3 billion ($3.3 billion) worth of military aid for Kiev this year. Earlier in 2024, French farmers staged massive protests across the country, demanding that preferential trade rules granted to Kiev be lifted and calling for more government support.

In the US, former President Donald Trump last week accused the administration of President Joe Biden of neglecting the survivors of Hurricane Helene in the southeastern part of the country while sending billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Germany, which has emerged as one of Kiev’s top backers, is facing a new recession and its economy is set to contract for a second straight year due to shrinking industrial output, high energy prices, and weak foreign demand, according to reports.

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

No Ramstein Summit of Ukraine’s Arms Donors Set for Near Future – Reports

Sputnik – 13.10.2024

The Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) is not expected to reconvene in Germany in the near future despite US President Joe Biden’s planned visit to Berlin in the coming week, German media have reported.

Der Spiegel magazine reported Sunday that Biden would travel to Berlin and meet with the top German officials Friday, more than a week after postponing a planned visit to the country to monitor the arrival of Hurricane Milton in Florida.

However, no Ramstein format meeting will be held in the near future, the ZDF broadcaster reported. Instead, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a new standalone military aid package for Ukraine, which he initially planned to reveal at a Ramstein summit, while hosting Volodymyr Zelensky for talks last week.

Biden was originally due to come to US Air Force Base Ramstein on October 12 for a meeting of Ukraine’s donors from the United Kingdom, Germany and France, but the summit was canceled after Biden scrapped the visit.

The Ukraine Defense Contact Group, also known as the Ramstein group, is an informal bloc of 57 nations (including all 32 NATO members, plus EU, G7 members and other US allies providing military equipment and other aid to Ukraine) was formed in April 2022, after the West moved to sabotage a potential Russia-Ukraine peace deal. The group has met well over a dozen times since its creation, coordinating in the delivery of tens of billions of dollars’ worth of aid to Kiev for the ongoing NATO proxy war against Russia.

The Ramstein group is named after the massive US airbase in southwestern Germany where the group has held some of its meetings, with others held at NATO’s Brussels-based headquarters, or virtually.

The contact group’s main goal has been to facilitate lobbying for more weapons deliveries, and formulate plans for new transfers.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Sabotage of the Istanbul Peace Agreement

The Making of a Proxy War & the Unavoidable Istanbul+ Agreement

By Glenn Diesen | October 13, 2024

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine to impose a settlement after some NATO countries had undermined the Minsk-2 peace agreement for 7 years. On the first day after the invasion, Zelensky confirmed that Moscow contacted him to discuss negotiations based on restoring Ukraine’s neutrality.[1] On the third day after the invasion, Russia and Ukraine agreed to start negotiations on a peace based on Russian military withdrawal in return for Ukrainian neutrality.[2] Zelensky responded favourably to this condition, and he even called for a “collective security agreement” to include Russia to mitigate the security competition that had sparked the war.[3]

The negotiations that followed are referred to as the Istanbul negotiations, in which Russia and Ukraine were close to an agreement before the US and the UK sabotaged it.

Washington Rejects Negotiations Without Preconditions

In Washington, there were great incentives to use the large proxy army it had built in Ukraine to weaken Russia as a strategic rival, rather than accepting a neutral Ukraine. On the first day after the Russian invasion, when Zelensky responded favourably to start negotiations without preconditions, the US spokesperson rejected peace talks without preconditions as Russia would first have to withdraw all its forces from Ukraine:

“Now we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy take place at the barrel of a gun or as Moscow’s rockets, mortars, artillery target the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy… If President Putin is serious about diplomacy, he knows what he can do. He should immediately stop the bombing campaign against civilians, order the withdrawal of his forces from Ukraine, and indicate very clearly, unambiguously to the world, that Moscow is prepared to de-escalate”.[4]

This was a demand for capitulation as the Russian military presence in Ukraine was Russia’s bargaining chip to achieve the objective of restoring Ukraine’s neutrality. Less than a month later, the same US spokesperson was asked if Washington would support Zelensky’s negotiations with Moscow, in which he replied negatively as the conflict was part of a larger struggle:

“This is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine… The key point is that there are principles that are at stake here that have universal applicability everywhere, whether in Europe, whether in the Indo-Pacific, anywhere in between”.[5]

The US and UK Demand a Long War: Fighting Russia with Ukrainians

In late March 2022, Zelensky revealed in an interview with the Economist that “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.[6]

The Israeli and Turkish mediators confirmed that Ukraine and Russia were both eager to make a compromise to end the war before the US and the UK intervened to prevent peace from breaking out.

Zelensky had contacted former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to mediate the peace negotiations with Moscow. Bennett noted that Putin was willing to make “huge concessions” if Ukraine would restore its neutrality to end NATO expansion. Zelensky accepted this condition and “both sides very much wanted a ceasefire”. However, Bennett argued that the US and UK then intervened and “blocked” the peace agreement as they favoured a long war. With a powerful Ukrainian military at its disposal, the West rejected the Istanbul peace agreement and there was a “decision by the West to keep striking Putin” instead of pursuing peace.[7]

The Turkish negotiators reached the same conclusion: Russia and Ukraine agreed to resolve the conflict by restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, but NATO decided to fight Russia with Ukrainians as a proxy. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu argued some NATO states wanted to extend the war to bleed Russia:

“After the talks in Istanbul, we did not think that the war would take this long… But following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, I had the impression that there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue—let the war continue and Russia gets weaker. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine”.[8]

Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s political party, confirmed that Zelensky was ready to sign the peace agreement before the US intervened:

“This war is not between Russia and Ukraine, it is a war between Russia and the West. By supporting Ukraine, the United States and some countries in Europe are beginning a process of prolonging this war. What we want is an end to this war. Someone is trying not to end the war. The U.S. sees the prolongation of the war as its interest”.[9]

Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Chalyi, who participated in peace talks with Russia, confirms Putin “tried everything” to reach a peace agreement and they were able “to find a very real compromise”.[10] Davyd Arakhamia, a Ukrainian parliamentary representative and head of Zelensky’s political party, argued Russia’s key demand was Ukrainian neutrality: “They were ready to end the war if we, like Finland once did, would accept neutrality and pledge not to join NATO. In fact, that was the main point. All the rest are cosmetic and political ‘additions’”.[11] Oleksiy Arestovych, the former advisor of Zelensky, also confirmed that Russia was mainly preoccupied with restoring Ukraine’s neutrality.

The main obstacle to peace was thus overcome as Zelensky offered neutrality in the negotiations.[12] The tentative peace agreement was confirmed by Fiona Hill, a former official at the US National Security Council, and Angela Stent, a former National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia. Hill and Stent penned an article in Foreign Affairs in which they outlined the main terms of the agreement:

“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 Donbas 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”.[13]

Boris Johnson Goes to Kiev

What happened to the Istanbul peace agreement? On 9 April 2022, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Kiev in a rush to sabotage the agreement and cited the killings in Bucha as the excuse. Ukrainian media reported that Johnson came to Kiev with two messages:

“The first is that Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they [the UK and US] are not”.[14]

In June 2022, Johnson told the G7 and NATO that the solution to the war was “strategic endurance” and “now is not the time to settle and encourage the Ukrainians to settle for a bad peace”.[15] Johnson also published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing against any negotiations: “The war in Ukraine can end only with Vladimir Putin’s defeat”.[16] Before Boris Johnson’s trip to Kiev, Niall Ferguson had interviewed several American and British leaders, who confirmed that a decision had been made for “the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin” as “the only end game now is the end of Putin regime”.[17]

Retired German General Harald Kujat, the former head of the German Bundeswehr and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, confirmed that Johnson had sabotaged the peace negotiations. Kujat argued: “Ukraine had pledged to renounce NATO membership and not to allow any foreign troops or military installations to be stationed’, while “Russia had apparently agreed to withdraw its forces to the level of February 23”. However, “British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened in Kiev on the 9th of April and prevented a signing. His reasoning was that the West was not ready for an end to the war”.[18] According to Kujat, the West demanded a Russian capitulation: “Now the complete withdrawal is repeatedly demanded as a prerequisite for negotiations”.[19] General Kujat explained that this position was due to the US war plans against Russia:

“Perhaps one day the question will be asked who did not want to prevent this war… Their declared goal is to weaken Russia politically, economically and militarily to such a degree that they can then turn to their geopolitical rival, the only one capable of endangering their supremacy as a world power: China… No, this war is not about our freedom… Russia wants to prevent its geopolitical rival USA from gaining a strategic superiority that threatens Russia’s security”.[20]

What was Ukraine told by the US and the UK? Why did Zelensky make a deal given that he was aware some Western states wanted to use Ukraine to exhaust Russia in a long war – even if it would destroy Ukraine? Zelensky likely received an offer he could not refuse: If Zelensky would pursue peace with Russia, then he would not receive any support from the West and he would predictably face an uprising by the far-right / fascist groups that the US had armed and trained. In contrast, if Zelensky would choose war, then NATO would send all the weapons needed to defeat Russia, NATO would impose crippling sanctions on Russia, and NATO would pressure the international community to isolate Russia. Zelensky could thus achieve what both Napoleon and Hitler had failed to achieve – to defeat Russia.

The advisor to Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovych, explained in 2019 that a major war with Russia was the price for joining NATO. Arestovych predicted that the threat of Ukraine’s accession to NATO would “provoke Russia to launch a large-scale military operation against Ukraine”, and Ukraine could join NATO after defeating Russia. Victory over Russia was assumed to be a certainty as Ukraine would merely be the spearhead of a wider NATO proxy war: “In this conflict, we will be very actively supported by the West—with weapons, equipment, assistance, new sanctions against Russia and the quite possible introduction of a NATO contingent, a no-fly zone etc. We won’t lose, and that’s good”.[21]

NATO turned on the propaganda machine to convince its public that a war against Russia was the only path to peace: The Russian invasion was “unprovoked”; Moscow’s objective was to conquer all of Ukraine to restore the Soviet Union; Russia’s withdrawal from Kiev was not a sign of good-will to be reciprocated but a sign of weakness; it was impossible to negotiate with Putin; and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg subsequently asserted that “weapons are the way to peace”. The Western public, indoctrinated with anti-Russian propaganda over decades, believed that NATO was merely a passive third-party seeking to protect Ukraine from the most recent reincarnation of Hitler. Zelensky was assigned the role as new Churchill – bravely fighting to the last Ukrainian rather than accepting a bad peace.

The Inevitable Istanbul+ Agreement to End the War

The war did not go as expected. Russia built a powerful army and defeated the NATO-built Ukrainian army; sanctions were overcome by reorienting the economy to the East; and instead of being isolated – Russia took a leading role in constructing a multipolar world order.

How can the war be brought to an end? The suggestions of a land-for-NATO membership agreement ignores that Russia’s leading objective is not territory but ending NATO expansion as it is deemed to be an existential threat. NATO expansion is the source of the conflict and territorial dispute is the consequence, thus Ukrainian territorial concessions in return for NATO membership is a non-starter.

The foundation for any peace agreement must be the Istanbul+: An agreement to restore Ukraine’s neutrality, plus territorial concessions as a consequence of almost 3 years of war. Threatening to expand NATO after the end of the war will merely incentivise Russia to annex the strategic territory from Kharkov to Odessa, and to ensure that only a dysfunctional Ukrainian rump state will remain that is not capable of being used against Russia.

This is a cruel fate for the Ukrainian nation and the millions of Ukrainians who have suffered so greatly. It was also a predictable outcome, as Zelensky cautioned in March 2022: “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.[22]

[1] V. Zelensky, ‘Address by the President to Ukrainians at the end of the first day of Russia’s attacks’, President of Ukraine: Official website, 25 February 2022.

[2] S. Raskin and L. Brown, ‘Ukraine and Russia to meet for peace talks ‘without preconditions,’ Zelensky says’, New York Post, 27 February 2022.

[3] M. Hirsh, ‘Hints of a Ukraine-Russia Deal?’, Foreign Policy, 8 March 2022.

[4] US Department of State, ‘Department Press Briefing’, US Department of State, 25 February 2022.

[5] US Department of State, ‘Department Press Briefing’, US Department of State, 21 March 2022.

[6] The Economist. ‘Volodymyr Zelensky on why Ukraine must defeat Putin’ The Economist, 27 March 2022.

[7] N. Bennett, ‘Bennett speaks out’, YouTube Channel of Naftali Bennett, 4 February 2023.

[8] R. Semonsen, ‘Former Israeli PM: West Blocked Russo-Ukraine Peace Deal’, The European Conservative, 7 February 2023.

[9] CNN, ‘Son dakika… Numan Kurtulmuş CNN TÜRK’te: (Rusya-Ukrayna) Birileri savaşı bitirmemek için çabalıyor’ [Last minute… Numan Kurtulmuş on CNN TÜRK: (Russia-Ukraine) Someone is trying not to end the war], CNN Turk, 18 November 2022.

[10] Breaking the Stalemate to Find Peace: The Russia-Ukraine War – A Geneva Security Debate (youtube.com)

[11] A. Sobczak, ‘Diplomacy Watch: Did the West scuttle the Istanbul talks or not?’, Responsible Statecraft, 12 September 2024.

[12] Guardian, ‘Ukraine has offered neutrality in talks with Russia – what would that mean?’, The Guardian, 30 March 2022.

[13] F. Hill and A. Stent, ‘The World Putin Wants How Distortions About the Past Feed Delusions About the Future’, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2022.

[14] R. Romaniuk, ‘Possibility of talks between Zelenskyy and Putin came to a halt after Johnson’s visit – UP sources’, Ukraniska Pravda, 5 May 2022.

[15] E. Webber, ‘Boris Johnson warns against seeking ‘bad peace’ in Ukraine’, Politico, 23 June 2022.

[16] B. Johnson, ‘For a Quicker End to the Russia War, Step Up Aid to Ukraine’, Wall Street Journal, 9 December 2022.

[17] N. Ferguson, ‘Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S.’, Bloomberg, 22 March 2022.

[18] J. Helmer, ‘Whr. Gen. Kujat: Ukraine War is Lost, Germany Now Faces an Angry Russia… Alone’, Veterans Today, 25 January 2023.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Emma, ‘Russland will verhandeln!’ [Russia wants to negotiate!], Emma, 4 March 2023.

[21] A. Arestovich, ‘Voennoe Obozrenie’ [Military Review], Apostrof TV, 18 February 2019.

[22] The Economist. ‘Volodymyr Zelensky on why Ukraine must defeat Putin’ The Economist, 27 March 2022.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

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