Jens Stoltenberg is finally no longer the leader. This is not necessarily good news, as the new secretary general appears to be even more bellicose than the previous one and promises policies that could easily lead to strategic disaster in the current tensions between the Atlantic alliance and the Russian Federation. However, it is undeniable that one of the worst administrations in NATO’s history – and the one that came closest to an open confrontation with Moscow – has now ended.
Stoltenberg has recently made a number of statements praising his supposed “achievements” as NATO leader. He claims that under his leadership the alliance has achieved its highest numbers of troops on the eastern flank. Stoltenberg has also acclaimed himself for his success in allowing countries such as Finland and Sweden to join NATO as well as significantly expanding the number of troops on combat readiness for the event of a war.
In fact, Stoltenberg seems to be delighting over his own failure. It was under him that NATO saw the start of the continent’s biggest conflict since the World Wars in Europe, reaching a critical point in the regional security architecture. These tensions, which could at any moment escalate to the level of an open war with direct Western involvement, are precisely the consequence of the irresponsible policies implemented during Stoltenberg’s disastrous administration.
NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe, both in terms of new members and available troops, is not something to be celebrated, but rather lamented. It was precisely this expansion that led to the current conflict. If Stoltenberg were indeed a rational, prudent leader with a strong strategic sense, he would have been able to use diplomacy with the member countries and negotiate a de-escalation of the suicidal policy of “containment” against Russia. But, on the contrary, Stoltenberg endorsed all this and was active in worsening the Ukraine crisis, contributing significantly to the escalation of tensions and the beginning of the current war.
More than that, he failed to stop the warmongering of the member states, allowing NATO to begin full support for the Kiev regime. This support is now at its most critical point, as the alliance’s countries are close to authorizing the use of long-range weapons against Russian civilian targets – which could lead to a nuclear world war. Stoltenberg, even now out of office, is partly to blame for this, as it was under his administration that this anti-Russian madness was launched by NATO.
Furthermore, it must be emphasized that the alliance has never been so fragile. Contrary to what Western war propaganda claims, anti-Russian policies are not strategically beneficial for NATO. On the contrary, in addition to threatening global peace, these measures put the very stability of the alliance at risk. NATO is not “stronger and more united than ever,” as the former secretary general says, but at its most fragile and delicate phase in history.
On the battlefield, Russian forces destroy NATO equipment – and troops disguised as “mercenaries” – every day. The U.S. and Europe no longer have the capacity to continue supporting Kiev continuously, given the large number of losses on the front lines, but at the same time, the alliance is unable to end this support, falling into a vicious cycle of violence and defeats. In addition, countries dissatisfied with the situation, such as Hungary and Slovakia, are already beginning to create a dissident position within NATO itself, threatening the bloc’s long-term stability.
In the end, it was under Stoltenberg that NATO, pursuing irrational “expansion to the East,” reached its current stage of weakness, demoralization, and disunity. And, to make matters even more catastrophic, an open world war could yet emerge as a belated consequence of NATO’s actions over the past ten years.
Instead of celebrating his own failure as a leader, Stoltenberg should simply be grateful that he had the opportunity to leave office before the worst-case scenario arose.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.
October 12, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Ukraine |
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Joe Biden is expected to make some new decisions regarding Ukraine in the weeks leading up to the country’s November elections. The US president was supposed to attend an important meeting of Kiev’s backers in Rammstein, Germany, on October 12, but canceled his visit, citing the need to stay at home due to Hurricane Milton.
What decisions can we expect to be made when it eventually takes place? Most likely, nothing particularly important will happen – here’s why.
A unified stance
Amidst the fog of propaganda, it can be hard to discern true motives, and often these only become clear over time.
After the start of Russia’s military operation, in February 2022, Western media presented a unified and convincing narrative: the entire so-called “free world” came together to defend Ukraine, determined to deliver a strategic blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin and restore the US-led global order. However, these proclamations didn’t match the steps taken by the West. After all, if your goal is to defeat an opponent, shouldn’t you do everything in your power to achieve it?
If the West was counting on a Ukrainian military triumph, it should have provided as much military aid to Kiev as possible. The first step would have been to open up full access to Western weapons arsenals; the second would have been to accept the country into NATO and turn it into a key stronghold on the border with Russia. Even if Putin would have done everything to stop this, such a step would automatically signify his defeat, since even a nuclear strike wouldn’t be able to change the situation and reverse the West’s decision.
Historical examples clearly illustrate this point. For instance, after withdrawing its troops, the West provided South Vietnam with nearly 3,000 aircraft and helicopters, 200 ships, over 2,500 combat boats, more than 1,000 tanks, up to 2,500 towed and self-propelled artillery pieces, and around 100,000 heavy vehicles, along with other equipment. Compare this to the situation in Ukraine, where receiving a dozen outdated fighter jets or two dozen old tanks is a major event.
Let’s take another example. In the aftermath of WWII, and during the Cold War, Türkiye became a key strategic region. Then Soviet leader Joseph Stalin demanded the country’s neutrality and even sought to establish a Soviet naval base in the area of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. The USSR’s former allies, the US and UK, could not allow a Soviet military facility in the Mediterranean Sea, so Türkiye was accepted into NATO just three years after the alliance was formed, despite the fact that the country had nothing to do with the North Atlantic region or ‘Western democracies’. At the time, the Truman Doctrine was in effect, and the US was offering a security umbrella to anyone ‘under threat’ from communism.
The West isn’t buying Zelensky’s ‘Victory Plan’. So what happens next?
Why are things different now? The doctrinal principle that has shaped the West’s policy on Ukraine since 2014 is to prevent Putin from achieving his goals without engaging in a direct military conflict with Russia.
Biden and his administration have consistently stated that their priority is to avoid a full on confrontation with Russia, yet this message has largely been forgotten.
How does this principle align with what we have today – the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War Two, in which the West is fighting Russia by means of the Ukrainian army? Sure, it may not be on the same scale as Vietnam, but the military aid provided to Kiev is still significant.
The answer is simple: the decision-makers in the West – often referred to as the globalists – never truly believed that Ukraine could defeat Russia on the battlefield (Well, let’s say almost never; there was one notable exception, which we’ll discuss later).
Biden’s doctrine implied that the West could achieve its goals through financial and trade strategies. Recognizing that an armed conflict was looming, the globalists spent years developing an “economic nuclear bomb” that was supposed to bring Russia to its knees.
The plan was ambitious: they assumed that unprecedented “sanctions from hell” would essentially block Russia’s access to the outside world, plunging it into economic chaos and ultimately toppling the country’s current ruling elite. Maybe this wouldn’t happen overnight; perhaps it would take years, but the idea was that the Russian government would eventually yield to the demands of a people suffering from the sanctions, and would then yield to Western demands without firing a single shot. This would not only serve as a harsh lesson for Russia but would also send a strong message to the main enemy: China.
Ukraine’s military resistance wasn’t factored into this equation; many will recall that the Pentagon initially estimated that Kiev would fall within three days. Ironically, the US thought that if the 30-million-strong nation found itself under Russian control (the legitimacy of which no country in the world would officially recognize), it would become an unbearable burden for Putin and would only hasten Russia’s economic collapse.
How to lose friends and alienate sponsors: Zelensky is making enemies in America
Moscow failed to achieve its goals through a swift and relatively bloodless military operation, while the West eventually realized that its sanctions didn’t achieve the intended effect either – or perhaps even backfired. After brands like Ikea, Starbucks, and Disney left Russia, the Russian people didn’t rise up to overthrow Putin; and the seizure of rich people’s yachts and mansions didn’t spur a regime change either.
In reality, the globalists dramatically overestimated the West’s influence over economic processes, not only in the so-called Global South but even in their own backyard. Three years into the conflict, they still cannot prevent dual-use and military goods from entering Russia, let alone everyday consumer products. Moscow quickly rerouted its trade flows, bypassing the West, found new partners, prioritized import substitution, and, despite certain challenges, achieved noticeable and sustained growth in its economy and foreign trade. All of this turned out to be beyond Western control.
So, the original plan didn’t work out, and this prompted the West to urgently invent a new strategy.
At the same time, the Russian military didn’t take Kiev, and strategically withdrew from northern Ukraine. Vladimir Zelensky convinced NATO countries that this was the result of the military triumph of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). He argued that if the West provided Ukraine with enough weapons, it could hold out for a significant period of time. Back then, in the spring of 2022, the outcome of the economic war was still unclear, and with no better ideas on the table, the West settled on the following plan: the Ukrainian army would wear Russia down in combat, while Western sanctions would do the rest.
The Rammstein meetings on Ukraine became a platform for making major decisions regarding military supplies; at the same time, Western diplomats toured the Global South, urging it to join the economic war against Russia.
At that time, there was still no talk of admitting Ukraine into NATO or directly intervening in the conflict. However, at some point, the West came to believe its own propaganda: it came to think of the Russian army as a paper tiger which might be easier to crush than the Russian economy. At that point, Western leaders became convinced that they could force Putin to bend to their will through military rather than economic means.
This shift occurred in the fall of 2022, after Ukraine’s attack on the Crimean Bridge, and advances in Kherson and Kharkov regions, the chaos of partial mobilization in Russia, and the resulting emigration of some dissenters. At that time, some seemed to believe that one more push could bring Putin down.
Riding this wave of optimism, the globalists approved a major Ukrainian counteroffensive. Throughout the winter of 2022-2023, tank, artillery, and missile units were formed, and new, highly motivated Ukrainian brigades were trained in Western Europe. They were supposed to break through to the Sea of Azov and bring Putin to his knees. For this counteroffensive, the West supplied Ukraine with as many weapons as it could without compromising its own interests.
A suitcase without a handle
Everyone knows how this story ended. Kiev’s operation failed and became a turning point in the conflict. Having fallen far short of achieving its military goals, Kiev lost the trust of its backers who realized that they were initially right to think that Ukraine could never win this conflict on the battlefield.
However, it also became clear that Biden’s doctrine was ineffective. Russia couldn’t be economically crushed and it couldn’t be defeated on the battlefield. So what now?
Since the spring of 2022, we have often pointed out that the West has to make a choice: either engage in serious negotiations with Russia or enter into a direct military conflict. However, no one in NATO has been willing to take responsibility for such a decision – neither the increasingly incapacitated Biden, or Western European politicians. Who are equally unfit, but for different reasons.
For now, all the West can do is continue to send aid to Ukraine, while the latter can still try to hold out on the frontlines. At the same time, the West is trying to “test the ground” about possible negotiations with Moscow, but so far this has amounted to little more than wishful thinking. NATO has convinced itself that the Kremlin will be happy to freeze the conflict without any commitments, as long as such an option is put on the table.
What happens when this third gamble fails as well? Will the West finally shake off its lethargy and make a clear choice, or will it continue to go with the flow?
It seems that all the scheduled participants of the Rammstein meeting were probably happy enough at the news of its cancellation. Clearly, neither the outgoing US president nor NATO’s European members have any viable ideas regarding Ukraine. This means that, at least until the US elections, Ukraine will continue to endure reverses, to the accompaniment of the globalists’ hollow rhetoric.
Sergey Poletaev is an information analyst and publicist, co-founder and editor of the Vatfor project.
October 12, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism | NATO, Ukraine, United States |
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In a new interview with Hungarian newspaper Mandiner, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó reveals that he actually saw the finished peace treaty that would have ended the war between Ukraine and Russia. He said that all that was missing were the signatures of the two warring parties. He explains why peace never came, laying the blame firmly on the West.
At the end of March, beginning of April 2022, an agreement was almost reached at the peace talks, known as the Istanbul agreements.
“I saw the document that was almost signed, and which, according to the realities of the time, would have ended the war. What happened? The Westerners came and told the Ukrainians to keep fighting, no agreement should be accepted,” said Hungary’s foreign minister.
The decision to prolong the war, which was backed by the West, has had profound global implications and led to hundreds of thousands of deaths across Russia and Ukraine, along with a catastrophic effect on Ukraine’s birth rate and demographic outlook. It has also fueled inflation and economic certainty across Europe.
Szijjártó noted that although the goal of the EU leaders was to bring Russia to its knees at the beginning of 2022, this has not happened to date. He notes that people are dying on the frontlines every day, while the parties have not come any closer to peace.
According to David Arahamiya, the leader of Ukraine’s ruling party, Ukraine was ready to sign the document when Western leaders saw a draft of the negotiations. The Ukrainian politician said then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson allegedly worked hard to nix the potential peace agreement.
Szijjártó says Hungary backs the China-Brazil peace plan and noted that only three countries, Hungary, France and Switzerland, were invited to the inaugural meeting of the Friends of Peace group organized by them.
October 10, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | European Union, UK, Ukraine |
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Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said that Hungary will not be affected by the expected stoppage of the transit of Russian natural gas via Ukraine because the country today primarily gets its gas via the TurkStream pipeline.
His comments came at a press conference following the meeting of the Hungarian-Serbian joint economic committee. He further noted that an “extremely brave decision” was made with Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey to build this pipeline, with those involved in the construction and preparation facing serious threats from allies who tried to dissuade them from building it.
“If we hadn’t been brave enough, we would be in huge trouble today. If we hadn’t built the TurkStream gas pipeline, today it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to guarantee the security of Hungary’s natural gas supply,” he added.
Already this year, more than 5.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas has arrived via this route, Szijjártó said.
“We are not interested in and have no influence on what the Russians and Ukrainians get or don’t get in terms of gas transit (…) There are Central European countries for whom this is a problem. In recent years, we in Hungary have invested a lot in gas transportation infrastructure, and of course, we help whoever we can,” he said.
Szijjártó also spoke up on Ukraine’s possible NATO membership, saying that the country’s admission today would drag all members into the ongoing war and trigger the outbreak of WWIII because of the article on collective defense.
“I think that anyone who thinks this matter through with common sense does not want to cause this danger. So, the Hungarian position is clear: There is no possibility of Ukraine joining NATO,” he stated.
Szijjártó added that most NATO foreign ministers are in agreement, which he believes is very unfair to Ukraine, as “they don’t tell them honestly what they think about this issue and what their position is.”
October 9, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Bulgaria, Hungary, NATO, Serbia, Ukraine |
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Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday that he had told Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha that there was no opportunity for Ukraine to join NATO, and that the majority of NATO members speak against Ukraine’s accession to the alliance behind closed doors.
“Last week I told Ukrainian Foreign Minister [Sybiha], who was in Budapest, that I have no idea what he is being told, have no idea, what he is being convinced of, but when we [NATO members] are behind closed doors, the majority share the view I have just expressed,” the minister said at a press conference following the meeting of the Hungarian-Serbian Joint Economic Committee.
On September 30, Sybiha came to Budapest for a working visit. It was the first visit of a Ukrainian foreign minister to Hungary in four and half years.
On October 3, NATO’s new Secretary General Mark Rutte made an unannounced visit to Kiev. During his visit, Rutte said that “Ukraine is closer to NATO than ever before,” and promised to continue working on this until the country becomes a member of the alliance. Rutte added that he looked forward to the day when Ukraine joins NATO, but did not give any exact date.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that NATO’s expansion to include Ukraine would create a direct national security threat to Russia and that Moscow considers the non-aligned status of Ukraine to be extremely important to put an end to the Ukraine conflict.
October 9, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Mark Rutte, NATO, Ukraine |
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Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that his country would not allow Ukraine to join NATO as long as he stays in power. Admitting Kiev into the US-led military alliance would trigger a new world war, he warned in an interview with the broadcaster STVR on Sunday.
“As long as I am the prime minister of the Slovak Republic, I will lead the legislators, whom I have control over as a party chairman, to never agree to Ukraine’s membership in NATO,” Fico said. “Ukraine’s entry into NATO would serve as a good basis for a third world war.”
Fico, a longtime critic of Western military and financial aid to Ukraine, has insisted that the conflict must be resolved through diplomatic means. He repeatedly warned against further escalation with Moscow.
The accession of new countries must be approved by all of NATO’s 32 existing members, with national parliaments voting in favor or against new candidates.
Kiev formally applied to join NATO in September 2022, citing the ongoing conflict with Russia. While many Western states publicly backed Ukraine’s aspirations, they have refused to provide a concrete roadmap or a timetable for accession. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zenesky acknowledged in July that “we will not be in NATO until the war is over in Ukraine.”
Russia views NATO’s expansion eastward as a security threat and has cited Ukraine’s cooperation with the alliance as one of the main reasons behind the conflict.
President Vladimir Putin warned last month that using Western-supplied longer-range weapons for strikes deep inside Russia would be tantamount to “direct involvement” of NATO in the fighting.
The West is deliberately fueling the fighting in Ukraine because its ultimate goal is to weaken Russia, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said.
In an interview with Slovak broadcaster STVR on Sunday, Fico expressed concern over the EU’s increasing involvement in the ongoing hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, arguing that the conflict cannot be resolved on the battlefield.
“There is a military conflict in a neighboring country where Slavs are killing each other, and Europe is significantly supporting this killing, which I just don’t understand,” Fico said. He added that the fighting “continues only because it is being strongly supported by the West.”
“The sooner it ends, the better it will be,” he stressed, arguing that the Western efforts to use the conflict to defeat Moscow would fail.
“Everyone thinks that through Ukraine we will bring the Russians to their knees, but this Russophobia does not work. It turns out that this problem cannot be solved militarily,” Fico stated.
Fico, a longtime critic of Western military aid to Kiev, promised to block Ukraine from ever joining NATO. Such a step could lay the groundwork for a potential World War III, he argued.
After winning the parliamentary election last year, Fico’s Smer-SD party has halted the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and has repeatedly called for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. He pledged to restore trade and political ties with Moscow once the fighting ends, arguing that “the EU needs Russia, and Russia needs the EU.”
Moscow has denounced Western aid to Kiev, insisting that no amount of foreign aid would stop its troops in Ukraine.
October 7, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Slovakia, Ukraine |
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A senior security staff member of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant – the biggest facility of its kind in Europe – was killed in a car explosion on Friday morning, the Investigative Committee of Russia has said. Ukraine’s military intelligence hailed the incident on Telegram, while stopping short of openly claiming responsibility for it.
According to Russian investigators, an improvised explosive planted under the personal vehicle of Andrey Korotky, a senior security official at the plant, exploded. Korotky succumbed to his injuries at a nearby clinic.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) immediately commented on the incident on Telegram, branding Korotky a “war criminal” and a “collaborationist” for his decision to “voluntarily” cooperate with Russia. It also accused him of organizing “events in support of the Russian… army,” and of joining the United Russia party.
The agency also published a video showing the moment of the explosion and vowed “vengeance” against anyone it deems to be a “war criminal.”
The Zaporozhye station confirmed its staff member’s death and informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about the incident, the plant’s communications director, Evgenia Yashina, told TASS. Station director Yury Chernichuk condemned the incident as a “horrifying, inhumane terrorist act,” and demanded those behind it be brought to justice.
“Attacking the staff members responsible for the security of a nuclear facility is a reckless step beyond any bounds,” Chernichuk stated. The UN nuclear energy watchdog has not yet commented on the incident.
The Investigative Committee said it has opened a criminal case for murder. It did not name any suspects.
The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant has been under Russian control since March 2022. Throughout the conflict, Moscow and Kiev have repeatedly accused each other of shelling the facility, and the Russian Defense Ministry has said that several attempts by Ukrainian assault units to retake it have been repelled.
Zaporozhye Region officially joined Russia, along with three other former Ukrainian territories, in the autumn of 2022. The IAEA has a permanent monitoring mission at the nuclear facility.
In late August, senior Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik said staff members at the plant had been facing blackmail. People working at the facility had allegedly been coerced into cooperating with Kiev and passing sensitive data or even committing terrorist acts under the threat of their relatives in Ukraine being killed.
October 5, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Nuclear Power, War Crimes | Russia, Ukraine |
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Croatian President Zoran Milanovic has refused to contribute any troops to the NATO command for providing military aid to Kiev, arguing that this would draw Zagreb into direct conflict with Moscow.
The former Yugoslav republic has been a member of the US-led bloc since 2009. Its right-wing government has sent weapons and helicopters to Ukraine, over the objections of the president, who is a Social Democrat.
”While I am president and the commander in chief, Croatian soldiers, officers and NCOs will not take part in activities that would draw Croatia into a war,” Milanovic said on Thursday.
Milanovic has refused to contribute any personnel to the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) command, which the bloc established for the purpose of coordinating military aid to Kiev. Zagreb was supposed to send a handful of officers to the 700-strong NSATU staff in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has accused the president of “further isolating Croatia on the international scene and destroying its credibility as a NATO member.”
Meanwhile, NATO has reminded Milanovic that the command was agreed at the July summit in Washington and that it would not involve sending any troops to Ukraine. The US-led bloc has argued that spending hundreds of billions of dollars to arm, train and supply Kiev’s war effort doesn’t actually make it a party to the conflict with Russia.
“Whether it’s one soldier or a hundred, wherever they are, this would be a direct command support to a warring party that is not a NATO member, which is out of bounds for Croatian national interests,” Milanovic replied on Thursday that “Croatia has an obligation to help allies, which is what we’ve been doing. Everything else is getting involved in a war, which I will not allow.”
He reminded the bloc that Zagreb has demonstrated its commitment by nearly doubling the number of Croatian troops in the NATO border force, from 300 to 520.
“I answer solely to the people of Croatia, not Washington and Brussels,” Milanovic said.
Under the Croatian constitution, Milanovic has the right to bar the deployment of troops abroad. The cabinet could override the president with a two-thirds vote in the parliament, but the ruling coalition is backed by only 78 out of 151 lawmakers.
Milanovic has long criticized the NATO policy of arming Ukraine to fight against Russia. He has also slammed the EU’s treatment of member states like Poland and Hungary, and accused Brussels of treating Croatia like a “retarded” child.
October 5, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Croatia, NATO, Russia, Ukraine |
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By Drago Bosnic | October 4, 2024
In the last two and a half years, the Neo-Nazi junta frontman Volodymyr Zelensky pitched a number of “peace” plans, formulas, platforms and whatnot. Last year, the so-called Crimea Platform was all the rage, with the United States pressuring numerous countries to join this effectively void initiative. Then came the so-called “peace summits” in Switzerland, with Zelensky insisting everyone should come except the one country that actually matters – Russia. Supported by the US/EU/NATO, he kept pushing until many countries started signaling that such events are pointless and a waste of everyone’s time. By mid-July, the Kiev regime realized it would lose even the formal “support” that Washington DC and Brussels gathered through “diplomacy” (i.e. blackmail, coercion and arm-twisting). As the battlefield situation kept deteriorating, Zelensky suddenly became “open to the idea” of Russia attending the next “peace summit”.
However, the Kremlin was on the verge of laughing in the face of those who suggested this, refusing to take part in the political West’s ludicrous games. The “peace plan” that was offered to Moscow effectively boiled down to capitulation at a time when its forces were already making steady gains across the frontline, but particularly in the Donbass, by far the most heavily contested region in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. Thus, in order to shift attention away from its collapsing defenses, the Neo-Nazi junta resorted to the most daring PR stunt yet – the Kursk oblast (region) incursion. Expectedly, this also turned out to be a disaster, with the political West itself frustrated by the way the Kiev regime forces were wasting precious resources while the defenses in the Donbass failed to stop the Russian advance. Zelensky’s PR team was now essentially out of new phrases/tropes and realized there won’t be any “peace summits” with Russia.
That was when the Neo-Nazi junta finally decided to recycle the old one – “winning the war”. All of a sudden, the word “peace” was replaced and now we got a “victory plan” once again. Obviously, such “grand schemes” require more money, so Zelensky traveled to the US and spent around a week there in late September, formally pitching the latest “victory plan” to the troubled Biden administration. Many pro-Trump Americans were frustrated by this and even argued that Zelensky was engaged in election meddling, as he visited Pennsylvania, the top swing state. On September 26, the White House hosted Zelensky, where he and Biden happily announced that the Kiev regime would immediately get $400 million, while the US pledged another $8 billion in so-called “aid”. Apparently, Zelensky was frustrated as Washington DC refused to allow the use of NATO-sourced long-range weapons, so he was given all those billions to “lighten up”.
The Neo-Nazi junta frontman officially presented his “victory plan” to the troubled Biden administration, prompting the Trump campaign to call Zelensky “the greatest salesman on Earth“. Obviously, anyone familiar with the way this works knows that the so-called “Ukraine aid” is just another way to get more taxpayer’s dollars back into the US and straight into the coffers of the DNC and Biden crime family. The latest revelations about this scheme show that the warmongering oligarchy in Washington DC initiated the Ukrainian crisis over a decade ago precisely for this reason. However, at least part of these promised funds will surely end in Ukraine, where they’ll be used to bribe numerous Kiev regime officials, but also prolong the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. The unfortunate populace of the NATO-occupied country is paying the price, while the rest of us get to live in fear of uncontrollable thermonuclear escalation.
This still leaves the obvious question – what is this “victory plan” about? It wouldn’t be the first time that the Neo-Nazi junta is claiming that it can “win”, but it “just needs this one game changer”. So far, only nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers haven’t been delivered to its forces. However, nothing worked, so how would this new “plan” turn the tide? Russian offensive capabilities only keep growing, with a deadly combination of artillery dominance and air superiority aided by unrivaled long-range strike systems. Not even NATO itself can match that, let alone the battered Kiev regime forces. The latest assessments only confirmed previous findings about their atrocious casualty ratio, which is why the Russian military is advancing much faster across the frontlines. The Neo-Nazi junta simply doesn’t have the manpower and equipment to prevent this, forcing it to continuously pull back to new defensive positions.
Thus, Zelensky’s “victory plan” effectively boils down to an over the top wishlist counting on a Russia-NATO escalation. In simpler terms, the political West needs to go to war with Moscow to prevent the Kiev regime’s complete defeat. Unsurprisingly, many in Washington DC aren’t really happy about this, as going to war with nuclear-armed Russia would mean the end of America itself, particularly as Moscow has an advantage in terms of both quality and quantity. Its strategic arsenal is second to none and the Pentagon is surely aware of this.
Zelensky’s “victory plan” is yet to be publicly revealed, but senior US officials who have seen it say there’s nothing original or innovative in it. On September 25, The Wall Street Journal quoted one who said that he’s “unimpressed”, as “there’s not much new there”. It can only be concluded that the Neo-Nazi junta and its overlords simply want to keep the NATO-orchestrated war going for as long as possible.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
October 4, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism | NATO, Ukraine, United States |
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Zelensky had claimed there were ‘1 million’ volunteers waiting to fight
The formation of the Ukrainian Legion was announced jointly back in July by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, according to which Poland committed to training a Ukrainian legion on its territory. However, it has hit a major snag, namely, a lack of willing participants, according to Poland’s defense minister, reports TVP Info.
This unit was to include volunteers from among Ukrainians permanently residing in Poland and other European countries and was to be trained by the Polish Army.
“We have also agreed… to form and train a Ukrainian legion in Poland. This will be a new formation made up of volunteers, which, following the example of the Ukrainian-Polish-Lithuanian brigade, could enable Ukrainian citizens in Poland to take part in the defense of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian president had said in July.
“The Ukrainian legion would undergo training in Poland, would be equipped and armed. Every Ukrainian citizen who decides to join the legion will be able to sign a contract with the Ukrainian armed forces,” Zelensky had also noted.
When asked about the progress in creating the Legion, Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz emphasized that the number of Ukrainians willing to join its ranks is too small for the Polish Army to be able to conduct training.
“We have been on standby since the beginning of September. The Ukrainian declarations were very high, that one brigade could be formed, i.e., there would be several thousand people. There are not that many volunteers,” he emphasized. Kosiniak-Kamysz added that the Polish side is not responsible for recruiting soldiers but for conducting their training.
Back in July, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said during the NATO Public Forum, organized on the occasion of the NATO summit in Washington, that several thousand people have already registered in Poland to join the Ukrainian Legion, the new Ukrainian volunteer military unit.
“We have up to 1 million Ukrainians of both sexes (in the country), and several thousand of them have already registered to take part in this undertaking,” Sikorski had said. He added that these volunteers want to help out their compatriots on the frontline but do not want to be sent to fight without proper training and equipment.
In August, Zelensky also signed laws on providing support to servicemen participating in the operation in the Kursk region of Russia and for granting Ukrainian citizenship to the International Territorial Defense Legion.
October 4, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Poland, Ukraine |
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Just a fews days ago, on October 1, Mark Rutte was sworn in as NATO’s new General Secretary. He is the fourth Dutch office holder, after Dirk Stikker (1961-1964), Joseph Luns (1971-1984) and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (2004-2009).
So, who is Mark Rutte? For one, he is the longest-serving Prime Minister of the Netherlands in the 209-year history of the Kingdom, with more than fourteen years in office. In 2006, in a kind of inner-party coup, he was catapulted to the presidency of the VVD, the Liberal (actually meaning Conservative) party. Before that, from 1988 to 1991, he was leader of the party’s youth branch, in which capacity he gained notoriety for advocating the legalization both of sex with 12-year olds and of commercial surrogate motherhood.
No doubt a major reason for Rutte’s longevity as Prime Minister is his impressive imperviousness to any and all form of criticism. It would seem as if any kind of criticism, anger, indignation and rage of his opponents runs off him like water off a duck’s back. It is precisely this quality that has earned him the nickname of “Teflon Mark.” If pressured by an opponent to remember something he did or said, he is wont to answer: “On that particular issue, I have no active memory.” Truly an expression that deserves to be enshrined alongside Margaret Thatcher’s definition of lying as “being economical with the truth.”
Surprisingly little is known about Rutte’s earlier years and family background. His family has partly Indonesian roots (from when Indonesia was a Dutch colony, until 1945). There are also indications he is part Jewish. Moreover, his maternal grandfather seems to have had some murky relations with Dutch royalty.
At 57 years, NATO’s new boss is not married and does not have a family, but there is no scarcity of rumors about his affective relationships and sexual preference. More details are known even about the secretive Dutch royal family. We only have the names of some of his intimate friends, one of whom is Jort Kelder, a conservative Dutch journalist and TV personality. In Russia, Rutte is being referred to as Gomosec, a play on words: Gensec, the abbreviation of General Secretary, dates from Soviet times, whereas gomosec is a Russian term for “gay,” which many believe Rutte is.
Of course, those who have appointed Rutte must be in the know about all the details of his private life, while it seems the almost one billion inhabitants of the thirty-two NATO member states will forever remain in the dark about Rutte’s fascinating and intriguing personality. Given the curtain of secrecy around Rutte, it is to be hoped that most won’t give a hoot. However, don’t you think it is strange that all those one billion Natostan inhabitants, who will continue footing all NATO bills, including Teflon Mark’s 300,000-euro salary, should have no idea whatsoever as to who it really is that is ordering all that killing in their name?
Only one person, Rutte’s former legal adviser Karim Aachboun, has tried to prevent him from becoming Gensec. Accusing him of being responsible for the disappearance of thousands of children during the “childcare benefits scandal,” the accuser had to see the lawsuit eventually halted by a Belgian judge, giving Rutte momentary relief.
With only such sketchy details on Rutte, what do we know about NATO? As a matter of fact, what is NATO?
In the first place, it is an organization created in 1949 by the United States, in the words of its first Gensec Lord Ismay, “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.” Ostensibly a defensive alliance against a Soviet (Russian) assault on Western Europe which, the public was told could happen any moment, never materialized. However, NATO was not dissolved when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. In hindsight, it turned out that the Soviets never intended to invade Western Europe and that the entire overheated Cold-War fear mongering was all pure nonsense. Yet the old, time-proven justification for NATO’s existence was dusted off and presented to the public once again: the evil Russians can invade anytime and we must be prepared for that eventuality.
NATO remained intact and was even expanded substantially, eventually doubling its membership. With the Iron Curtain drawn away, the Soviet Union dissolved and Russia struggling to adapt to radically altered circumstances, NATO could finally engage in some military action. Boy, was it eager! In 1995 (having secured support from the UN Security Council), it intervened in the Yugoslav civil war, ensuring Bosnia-Hercegovina’s formal independence as a NATO and US protectorate.
In 1999, NATO completely tore off its mask as it acted alone against Serbia, showing its true bloodthirsty nature in the massacre of civilians and the wholesale destruction of Serbian infrastructure. Needless to say, all of this was done through aerial bombardments. Now seemingly on a spree, in 2001, NATO jumped to the occasion of playing a role in the US-led neocolonial enterprise in Afghanistan, enthusiastically massacring thousands of civilians (2001-2014). In the meantime, NATO destroyed Libya, killing at least 60,000 civilians. Since the US-led coup in the Ukraine in 2014, NATO has also been intimately involved in readying that unfortunate country for sacrifice on the altar of Anglo-Saxon Russophobia.
So what is NATO? The answer would be: an international terrorist organization, specializing in the mass killing of civilians and the destruction of critical infrastructure, yet unable to face a peer opponent such as the Russian armed forces. Indeed, killing and setting up others to be killed is what NATO does best. Including the Ukrainians killed since Russia started its Special Military Operation in 2022 (about one million), plus the thousands of Yugoslavs, Afghans and Libyans, as well as the 16,000 civilians killed by the Ukrainians under NATO orders in Donetsk and Lugansk between 2014 and 2022, the tally stands at some 1.25 million. Quite impressive indeed!
With NATO deeply involved in the Ukraine, where it has been sustaining a series of painful and rather embarrassing personnel losses due to Russian precision bombings, Gensec Rutte has his work cut out for him. So far he seems equal to the task, emitting proper belligerent sounds. As a matter of fact, he began to do so even before he was Gensec and when he was still Prime Minister of the Netherlands, probably as a kind of application for the job. Ukraine’s war against Russia, he said, “is also our war.” Since he never bothered to check with Parliament, the remark was purely his own.
Apparently Rutte was and still is under the impression that the Ukraine is defending “our values,” which would be in the interest of “our democracy.” By using the possessive pronoun “our,” Rutte may have merely indicated the small clique of politicians and elite figures, not so much the population at large, as most people seem to think. In this respect, Rutte may be right!
What might be the values of the Ukraine? Judging by the actions of its leaders (“government”), those values are definitely not those that the US, the Council of Europe, the EU, or even NATO for that matter, officially subscribe to. As a matter of fact the values of today’s Ukrainian leaders do not seem to differ that much from those embraced by their predecessors who collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War. Judging by NATO’s track record, those Ukrainian values also coincide with the “values” that NATO has been defending, or rather, spreading.
Rendered in the most neutral terms, those values are rather destructive and lethal: they are about killing people (shooting, bombing, starving, jabbing, torturing them) and destroying their living environment.
Of course, Teflon Mark has already shown his full commitment to NATO values: on the very day of his inauguration, he declared that the Ukraine was free to use the weapons it receives from NATO nations to strike targets deep into Russia. In other words, Rutte has given the green light for the mass killing of Russian civilians. Going even further down the path toward the abyss, Rutte once again declared the Ukraine was to join NATO as soon as possible. With this declaration, Rutte once again showed his utter contempt for the Dutch public. In 2016, in a national referendum, a clear majority of the Dutch rejected any strengthening of the ties to the Ukraine through the EU (which is to be considered the non-military department of NATO). In other words, Rutte does not respect “our” values, but only “his” or “theirs”!
During the next few years, NATO will be upholding those lofty values under the direction of Teflon Mark. Mind you, he gained expertise in the field when leading the mass killing of his fellow citizens by means of death jabs during the Great Covid Show. Indeed, it would seem no one is better able than Teflon Mark Rutte to order mass killings and to send gullible NATO and Ukrainian soldiers to a certain death.
October 4, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | NATO, Ukraine |
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A Ukrainian politician came up with another great, very European-compatible idea. Natalija Pipa, a representative of the Ukrainian legislature, believes that from now on in schools, teachers and students should only speak Ukrainian during breaks, while standing in line at the cafeteria, or even in the restroom. That’s right, they should not be allowed to speak any other language, even in their free time between classes.
Hungarians from Transcarpathia, Poles from Lviv, Romanians from the Chernivtsi area, or even Russians should not even be able to talk to each other in their mother tongue outside of school hours, because it threatens the existence of Ukraine. Mrs. Pipa also drafted a bill for teaching national minorities to speak Ukrainian.
As we know, Ukrainian lawmakers will certainly accept it without any bone of contention. They did not have any problems with previous deprivations of Ukraine’s ministry populations either, with Brussels and Washington patting their heads and encouraging them throughout the entire process.
It is truly a sight to see. Our eastern neighbor is closing in on European Union membership with full force. Their national hero, Stepan Bandera, who massacred tens of thousands of Polish civilians, would obviously be proud of them.
Let’s just go over the facts. Ukraine has been fighting a life-and-death battle with the Russians for two and a half years, but their main concern is still how to make the lives of their helpless national minorities even more hellish. Their house is on fire, but instead of putting out the fire, out of necessity, they kick those who are forced under the same roof with them. And the neighbors, they spit in our faces and then expect us to applaud them, feel sorry for them, and send even more money, and weapons that they can manage to shoot deeper into Russia, all to see if they can start WW III.
If we look at the recently retired U.S. State Department honcho Victoria Nuland, they have been doing this since the $5 billion CIA coup in 2014. These nationalists have been fomenting unrest, terrorizing their minorities, and beating the crap out of them.
They started with the Education Law of 2017, the detailed rules of which in 2020 divided people living in Ukraine into four castes. According to this, the Ukrainians are first class. (There was already such a thing in history. Only then the word “Aryan” was used.) The second class are the native peoples, for example, the Crimean Tatars, who can study in their mother tongue until they graduate. On the other hand, Hungarians, Romanians and Poles are classified as third class and treated as non-natives and can study in their mother tongue only until the fourth grade of primary school, after which they are forced to learn Ukrainian.
The goal? Complete assimilation and destruction of identity.
Then, the 2019 language law made Ukrainian mandatory everywhere except for private conversations and religious ceremonies. Since the summer of 2021, events can only be held in the state language, and the texts of speakers who do not speak Ukrainian must be translated. The Ukrainian state is operating under total paranoia.
It’s as if the Ukrainian puppet governments have been pulling the strings according to a ready-made script since 2014. Of course, we’ve seen this before. In how many South American, African, and Asian countries has a rainbow revolution “unexpectedly” broken out, have peoples living in peace been incited against each other? The story is the same. Once the “revolution” broke out, the complete looting of the colony could then begin under the command of an agent who did not necessarily speak the native language of the country, but at least was parachuted in to step on their necks from overseas.
However, in the case of Ukraine, the booty was not enough for the United States. They wanted war. Some of their more talkative politicians even blurted it out: they want to weaken Russia, they cannot let the vast mineral wealth fall into their hands. Perhaps even those with a slower understanding could understand what it was about. If they have to make Ukraine war until the last Ukrainian is dead, it’s not a big price either — for them.
When the war is over, maybe only first-class Ukrainians will be left to pick up the pieces.
October 2, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, Ukraine |
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Zeolite is old. It is in Roman concrete that has held for two thousand years. It’s in the water filters of ancient cisterns. It’s in the stomachs of Pacific livestock whose keepers knew, somehow, that this grey crumbling rock made the animals healthier. It’s in Soviet clinical protocols from the 1960s. It’s in the standard emergency response to the Chernobyl explosion.
