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Ukraine plans unprecedented attack against its own Hungarian minority

Remix News | October 1, 2024

Despite fighting and dying on the front for Ukraine, the country’s ethnic Hungarian minority is facing further persecution, with a new draft bill moving forward that will ban them from speaking in Hungarian in schools, even on breaks between classes. The bill would stipulate that all lessons must be delivered in Ukrainian and that even the language used in personal conversations in the school would have to be in Ukrainian.

Natalija Pipa, a representative of the Rada, submitted the bill, according to a report from Mandiner.

The rights of the Hungarian minority were already being curtailed long before the Russian invasion of the country, with Ukrainian nationalists often targeting the population, which numbers approximately 150,000 in the Transcarpathia region.

The adoption of the bill may have a negative impact on relations with Hungary, and Budapest will block all EU aid packages to Ukraine in response. Language rights for Hungarians have been eroded over the years despite protests from the Hungarian government.

Notably, Ukraine amended its laws to comply with EU membership requirements, which included restoring many of the language rights stripped from minorities, an action demanded by Budapest, but Hungary’s government has indicated it is not fully satisfied. This new move by Ukraine appears to be a new salvo against Orbán’s government if it passes.

“Both Hungary and Ukraine are interested in the development of neighborly relations, they share the intention to do so, the government is doing everything to achieve this, but it expects Kyiv to restore the rights of the Hungarian national community,” said Péter Szijjártó Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade when he met with the new Ukrainian minister a day earlier.

“We expect Ukraine to restore the rights of the Hungarian national community in terms of access to the mother tongue, in the fields of education, culture and public administration.”

There have been numerous reports that ethnic Hungarians are being drafted in large numbers and often sent to frontline positions as “cannon fodder.“

“If this continues, there won’t be any Hungarians left in Transcarpathia,” said Füssy Angéla during a report from the region for Hungarian news portal Pesti Srácok.

Hungarian news outlet Magyar Nemzet reports that the “Transcarpathian morgues are also full, and they are deliberately slowing down the release of victims.”

According to Hungarian news portal Pesti Srácok, which delivered its report from the Hungarian-inhabited Ukrainian town of Munkács (Mukachevo in Ukrainian), there are rumors circulating that Ukraine is looking to recruit tens of thousands of men in the region. It is likely that a new brigade is being formed because the largest brigade of trained soldiers, the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, suffered huge losses at Soledar. The Russian occupation of the eastern Ukrainian settlement was announced on Jan. 12, 2023.

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

UN Report Reveals Nobody Held Accountable for Crimes Against Russian PoWs in Ukraine

Sputnik – 01.10.2024

GENEVA – A recent periodic report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) revealed that no one has been held accountable for crimes committed against Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, established by the United Nations Human Rights Council, released a report indicating that Ukrainian soldiers committed war crimes by executing and torturing Russian prisoners of war. The UN mission documented 25 instances of reprisals against these prisoners by Ukrainian troops.

“The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine reported that as of 16 August 2024, five pre-trial investigations were carried out into possible ill-treatment, as well as wilful killings of Russian prisoners of war, under articles 434 and 438 (“violations of rules and customs of war”) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. However, no person received a notification of suspicion in relation to these investigations,” the report read.

More than half of the 205 Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine interviewed by the UN since March 2023 said they had been tortured and ill-treated, the report read, adding that 10 of them “reported being subjected to sexual violence, including inflicting violence to genitals and threats of rape.”

“The vast majority of incidents of torture or ill-treatment of Russian POWs (reported by 87 interviewees) occurred in unofficial or transit locations including garages, basements or private houses. OHCHR identified several such places. They were typically used by frontline units of the Ukrainian armed forces or by security forces and were located in Donetsk, Kharkov, Kherson, Kiev, Lugansk and Zaporozhye regions. Russian POWs were held in these places after evacuation from the battlefield and before entering official facilities,” the report read.

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Resources of Ukraine’s NATO allies will dwindle by 2025

By Ahmed Adel | October 1, 2024

NATO’s continued arms shipments to Ukraine next year are at risk due to a lack of resources among key backers of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, experts told Bloomberg on September 27. This is a far cry from the promises made in the first years of the war when the West promised to support Ukraine until victory was achieved, a victory that will not occur.

At stake is a controversial $50 billion loan deal, which came from the profits from the Russian Central Bank’s frozen assets in Western banks. Bloomberg reported that Washington fears that Hungary could block or reduce the deal. Even if the amount were released, it would only be enough to keep the Kiev regime supplied with weapons until the middle of next year.

This is without taking into account Ukraine’s economic situation, including a projected $35 billion gap in the 2025 budget, of which about $15 billion remains uncovered, even after applying subsidies from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

Bloomberg’s sources warned that the deficit could force the Kiev regime to enter peace talks with Russia “from a position of weakness.”

Kiev is also struggling to convince its backers to continue shelling out tens of billions of dollars of weapons for the conflict, as increased Russian production outpaces the combined output of the collective West.

According to the news agency, a November victory for US presidential candidate Donald Trump will likely increase pressure on Zelensky to end the war he intends to continue despite no hope of victory. It is recalled that in April, the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives approved a $48 billion security aid package for Ukraine only after a six-month standoff over the crisis on the US southern border.

In addition, Germany — Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the US — faces constitutional debt constraints that have already begun to affect its support for Kiev. With economic troubles spreading to France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, those countries may also cut back on aid. Keir Starmer’s government in London has vowed to continue vigorously supporting Kiev despite tough budget choices at home.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov admitted that his country is more than 80 percent dependent on military aid from Western partners, while the Ukrainian General Staff reports that the situation on the front line remains difficult due to the superiority of the Russian Armed Forces.

According to Umerov, the Western supply of military equipment is the basis of the assistance provided to Ukraine. The country receives resources from the US, the European Union, NATO, the Security Assistance Group Ukraine (SAG-U), the United States European Command (EUCOM) and “a dozen other countries in a bilateral format on a daily basis.”

“So far, international military assistance has been the backbone of our aid. […] We are more than 80 percent dependent on our partners,” he said in an interview with a Ukrainian publication.

On September 25, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated that due to the Russian Army’s superiority in terms of the number of troops and equipment available, the situation along the entire front line remains difficult.

“The situation on the front line remains difficult. The enemy, using its superiority in personnel and equipment, is continuously attacking our positions,” the General Staff’s official Telegram channel said.

This difficult situation is not set to be alleviated because, as already mentioned, Ukraine’s allies are facing their own economic issues and political opposition.

Last week, The New York Times reported that the US-EU plan to finance Ukraine stalled due to legal issues, as the systems in Washington and Europe are making it difficult for the initiative to come to fruition. However, even with the plan implemented, the $50 billion will be insufficient to cover Kiev’s military needs for another year of conflict, and the allies will have to look further afield for funding, according to Bloomberg.

The outlet reported that Ukraine’s military is relying on its allies for artillery ammunition, missiles, and improved air defence capabilities. This has prompted US President Joe Biden to announce another $8 billion in funding for Kiev and appear to be coordinating additional support from NATO members before his term ends.

However, all this action has done is once again demonstrate the grand failure Biden’s adventure in Ukraine was, all for the sake of the vain attempt to weaken Russia. Rather, Russia has territorially expanded, diversified its economic partners, and taken great leaps in de-dollarising global trade, all the whilst Ukraine has been economically and demographically destroyed and completely dependent on Western aid, which is clearly running out, for survival.

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

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s ‘Victory Plan’ Is Delusional

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | September 28, 2024

In the past two years the western establishment media has effectively obscured the reality on the ground in Ukraine. Only recently has it become clear to the public that the tales we’ve heard about Russia imploding due to “bad tactics” and “throwing bodies into the meat grinder” in exchange for irrelevant territory have all been a fantasy. The problem is, propagandists often end up believing their own propaganda and then they are caught completely by surprise down the road when reality slaps them in the face.

Russian offensive actions in the east have greatly accelerated and now in the south the vital city of Vuhledar is set to fall within a couple days (if it hasn’t already). Their attrition based strategy and artillery superiority have created a shield for small fast moving units to strike Ukraine’s trenches and fixed defenses, and their drone game has dramatically improved. This has led them to capture multiple towns and cities in the past three months, with their forces closing in on the key eastern operational base of Pokrovsk. If Pokrovsk falls, the entire east of Ukraine could easily fall.

Beyond the shift to attrition tactics, Russia is gaining territory quickly because Ukraine is low on manpower. No amount of NATO technology or weaponry is going to help this fundamental weakness. This is the reality in Ukraine; they are losing the war.

The western media is unable to gloss over the situation any longer, which means something dramatic will have to happen to change the course of the war in Ukraine’s favor. Their government is scrambling to initiate an October surprise in preparation for the US elections in November. The US runs NATO, and Ukraine is entirely dependent on US aid.

The notion of a Ukrainian “Victory Plan” is by itself questionable given the circumstances, but what is reportedly contained in Vladimir Zelensky’s strategy seems to be an over-optimistic wish list relying heavily on escalation between NATO and Russia. In other words, the only way Ukraine can “win” is for NATO to engage in open warfare with the East.

While the full plan hasn’t been divulged, senior U.S. officials who are familiar with its contents don’t see anything original or innovative in it. As one told The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 25, “I’m unimpressed, there’s not much new there.” From what we can grasp, the “victory plan” is less a “plan” and more a continuation of Zelensky’s lobbying campaign to keep U.S. arms flowing in perpetuity.

Zelensky is dead-set on getting permission to use US and European long range missile systems against targets deep within Russia. The problem, as Vladimir Putin rightly noted, is that these systems cannot hit such targets accurately without NATO satellite intel and acquisition. Meaning, the missiles must be guided by US and European military technicians and assets.

It is likely that the majority of Ukrainian long range drone strikes within Russia are already being aided by NATO intel, but the use of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles far from Ukraine’s front line is another matter entirely. There’s no plausible deniability for NATO involvement. The use of these weapons within Russia would be akin to a declaration of war and would trigger escalation outside of Ukraine.

What would the consequences be? Not necessarily the use of nuclear weapons (though Putin did just change his bottom line on a nuclear response to include long range attacks using NATO weapons), but the spread of more advanced Russian armaments to countries like China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and even the Houthis in Yemen is a good bet. Meaning a more significant threat to NATO interests in Asia and the Middle East. The war would spread.

So far the Biden Administration has refrained from supporting the long range option, but has offered another $8 billion in support. Under a Trump presidency, the money train is likely to stop abruptly.

Zelensky has offered no practical measures for negotiations, arguing that concessions are off the table. Furthermore, he claims that peace is only possible once Ukraine has taken back all territory seized by Russia, including Crimea which was annexed in 2014. He then demanded that Russia pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction and that Putin and a multitude of other Russian officials be handed over to be tried for war crimes. This is never going to happen.

The core of Ukraine’s victory plan relies on long range strikes using NATO guided missiles and acceptance into NATO. Both factors at this stage would cause WWIII.

Ukraine’s chest beating is the national equivalent of “short man’s syndrome.” That said, Zelensky would not be making these kinds of demands if he was not being encouraged by someone behind the scenes. Many officials within the US and Europe have given Zelensky delusions of grandeur about his chances, perhaps because they want the war to grind on forever. These same officials have hinted consistently that they will not accept a Ukrainian loss.

Regardless of what side people think should win, the fact is that Russia is the inevitable victor according to all the evidence on hand. While the extent of Putin’s goals in the region are unknown, it’s unlikely that he intends to march beyond Ukraine. He may simply stop at the edge of the Donbas and annex the region like he did Crimea.

This may actually be the best case scenario for all parties involved. The longer the war goes on the greater the chances of a powderkeg moment and a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. Ukraine should not be talking about “victory”, that time has come and gone. They should be talking about peace.

September 29, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

What’s Wrong with Boris Johnson’s Plan to “Save” Ukraine?

Johnson’s “three-fold plan for Ukrainian victory” 

By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – September 29, 2024

A September 21, 2024 article published in The Spectator written by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson titled, “It’s time to let Ukraine join NATO,” attempts to formulate a theory of victory for Ukraine as war with Russia continues to grind on.

Johnson demands that the collective West “end the delays” and that the West “get it done and get it won.” By this, he means lifting all restrictions on the use of Western long-range weapons on pre-2014 Russian territory.

Next, he demands the US and Europe provide a “package of loans on the scale of Lend-Lease: half a trillion dollars,” or “even a trillion.” Johnson claims such support will send a message to the Kremlin that, “we are going to out-gun you financially and back Ukraine on a scale you cannot hope to match.” 

Western personnel have already been operating in Ukraine since 2014 and have continued to do so throughout Russia’s Special Military Operation

Finally, he demands Ukraine be allowed membership into NATO immediately, even as the conflict rages on. In respect to NATO’s Article 5 regarding “collective defense,” Johnson proposes that:

… we could extend the Article 5 security guarantee to all the Ukrainian territory currently controlled by Ukraine (or at the end of this fighting season), while reaffirming the absolute right of the Ukrainians to the whole of their 1991 nation. We could protect most of Ukraine, while simultaneously supporting the Ukrainian right to recapture the rest.

While Johnson points out the political implications of this policy, meaning all of NATO would, “have to commit to the defence of that Ukrainian territory,” he falls far short of considering the practical implications.

NATO Intervention in Ukraine: Political vs.  Practical Considerations 

Far from a lack of political will or financial resources, the collective West has fallen short supplying Ukraine with the military equipment, vehicles, weapons, and ammunition required to match or exceed Russian military capabilities because its collective military industrial base itself is incapable of physically producing the quantities required, regardless of the money allotted to do so.

Military industrial production requires several fundamental factors in order to be expanded – financial resources being only one of many.  Expanding production also requires the physical enlargement of existing facilities, the building of new facilities, the expansion of trained workforces which includes reforming and expanding primary, secondary, and specialized education, as well as the expansion of downstream suppliers and the acquisition of additional raw materials required for production across the entire industrial base.

Any one of these measures could take years to implement. Implementing them all would take longer still.

Then there is the very structure of the collective West’s military industrial base. Consisting of corporations prioritizing the maximization of profits, not performance, the collective West’s military industrial base has for years focused on low quantities of highly-sophisticated (and very expensive) weapons systems and munitions.

For the duration of the so-called “Global War on Terror” these weapon systems were adequate, if inefficient. They enabled US-led forces to roll over the antiquated, poorly-trained, poorly-equipped Iraqi army in 1991 and again in 2003, as well as the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. Such weapon systems also proved effective in the destruction of Libya in 2011.

But as the global balance of military and economic power has shifted throughout the 21st century, limits to this military industrial approach became apparent. In 2006, Israel’s vast Western-backed military machine categorically failed in its invasion of southern Lebanon, confounded by Hezbollah leveraging modern anti-tank weapons.

The US intervention in Syria from 2011 to present day also revealed the growing limitations of expensive Western military hardware, with 100s of cruise missiles fired at targets across Syria with limited success due to vastly better air and missile defenses than previous US adversaries possessed.

The Western media now admits waning US military support for Ukraine stems from dwindling stockpiles and an inability to quickly expand production.

CNN in its September 17, 2024 article titled, “US military aid packages to Ukraine shrink amid concerns over Pentagon stockpiles,” would admit:

US military aid packages for Ukraine have been smaller in recent months, as the stockpiles of weapons and equipment that the Pentagon is willing to send Kyiv from its own inventory have dwindled. The shift comes amid concerns about US military readiness being impacted as US arms manufacturers play catchup to the huge demand created by the war against Russia.

Nothing took place between September 17, 2024 when CNN published this report and September 21, 2024 when The Spectator published Boris Johnson’s article to change this reality. Johnson simply chose to ignore it.

NATO committing to the defense of Ukrainian-held territory would require sufficient quantities of artillery, armor, air and missile defense systems, and trained manpower – all of which the collective West, not just Ukraine, has in short supply.

In many ways, the collective West is already waging war against Russian forces. Western personnel have already been operating in Ukraine since 2014 and have continued to do so throughout Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) from 2022 onward. Russia has not hesitated to target and destroy Western equipment or the Western personnel operating it, though Russia has managed escalation very carefully in the process.

Were NATO to more openly intervene in what is already a NATO proxy war against Russia, Russian forces would likely continue targeting all of Ukraine’s territory while continuing to manage escalation carefully. NATO itself could escalate, using its long-range missiles and air power against Russian forces both within Ukraine and within pre-2014 Russian borders, but this would present two major problems.

First, if the West is already out of long-range weapons to transfer to Ukraine, its stockpiles having dwindled to critical levels, and having failed to expand production to reconstitute to them should any contingency of any kind fully deplete them, a more direct role in Ukraine would consume what arms and ammunition the West has left with no means of replacing them in the near-term.

Second, whatever impact the collective West imagines using the remnants of its arms and ammunition on Russia directly will have, it will leave the West far short of any material capabilities to conduct large scale war anywhere else in the world, including in the Middle East against Iran and its allies and across the Asia-Pacific region against China – two areas of concern Johnson himself mentions in his article.

Boris Johnson claims:

If you are truly worried about ‘escalation’, then imagine what happens if Ukraine loses this war – because that is when things really would begin to escalate. Ukraine won’t lose but if it did, we would have the risk of escalation across the whole periphery of the former Soviet empire, including the border with Poland, wherever Putin thought that aggression would pay off.

We would probably see escalation in the South China seas and in the Middle East. We would see a general escalation of global tension and violence because a Ukrainian defeat, and a victory for Putin, would be not only a tragedy for a young, brave and beautiful country; it would mean the global collapse of western credibility.

What Johnson means by “western credibility,” is Western primacy. By “escalation in the South China seas and in the Middle East,” Johnson means regional players displacing unwarranted US-led occupation and interference. Johnson’s plan to commit the West’s waning military power to Ukraine means forfeiting the means to cling to primacy elsewhere around the globe.

Johnson’s plan to incorporate Ukraine into NATO would not be a master stroke up-ending Russia’s escalation dominance, it would be the forfeiture of NATO’s own escalatory leverage regarding Article 5. Success for NATO would depend entirely on Russia failing to call the West’s bluff and avoiding the targeting of Ukrainian territory once NATO intervenes directly.

A very similar strategy was used in Syria by the United States as a means to reverse the flagging fortunes of its proxies there. The US, instead, at most managed to create a stalemate. Over the past nearly 10 years the US has occupied eastern Syria, its position in Syria as well as in the rest of the region has waned.

Part of this stems from the US’ inability to field a large enough military force, armed with sufficient numbers of arms and munitions. US air and missile defense systems in particular are in short supply and have opened up US forces in Syria and Iraq to regular drone, rocket, and missile strikes, compromising US military supremacy in the region.

By stretching US and European military power out even thinner by committing large numbers of troops and equipment to a direct intervention in Ukraine only means accelerating the decline of US-led Western primacy around the globe even faster.

Johnson’s plan to “save” Ukraine is borne of desperation, predicated on either a poor understanding of the fundamental factors required for its success, or deliberately ignoring these factors.

It is also a plan born of a lack of imagination. For Boris Johnson and the Western special interests he represents, the only possible future for humanity is one dominated by the West, just as it has done for the past several centuries.

The ultimate irony, however, is Johnson’s mention of a “Soviet empire” he claims Russian President Vladimir Putin is intent on rebuilding. At one point, Johnson claims:

The message is: that’s it. It’s over. You don’t have an empire anymore. You don’t have a ‘near abroad’ or a ‘sphere of influence’. You don’t have the right to tell the Ukrainians what to do, any more than we British have the right to tell our former colonies what to do. It is time for Putin to understand that Russia can have a happy and glorious future, but that like Rome and like Britain, the Russians have decisively joined the ranks of the post-imperial powers, and a good thing, too.

Yet, the conflict in Ukraine stems directly from NATO expansion toward Russia’s borders. It was never a matter of Russia telling Ukraine what to do – it was always a matter of the US politically capturing Ukraine in 2014 and transforming it into a national security threat to Russia from 2014 onward.

Russia is responding to the expansion of a modern-day empire – not in any sort of effort to create its own empire. The empire Russia opposes in Ukraine [Zionist globalism] is the same empire Johnson fears will be challenged in the Middle East and the South China Sea should its proxy war fail in Ukraine. While Johnson accuses Russia of being out of touch with reality regarding imagined imperial ambitions in Moscow, his plan reflects very real delusions associated with a desperate desire to perpetuate the US-led “international order” the UK itself is so deeply invested in.

Boris Johnson’s attempt to build policy regarding the West’s proxy war in Ukraine without a sufficient foundation is a recipe for disaster – the same sort of disaster this proxy war in Ukraine has precipitated that Johnson’s desperate plans are meant to address in the first place.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.

September 29, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

More Truths about the War in Ukraine – Part Twenty of the Anglo-American War on Russia

Tales of the American Empire • September 26, 2024

Part Eighteen of this series explained that most Americans do not understand the current war in Ukraine because they’ve been misinformed. The great Glen Greenwald provides a summary of this propaganda effort. Retired US Army intelligence officer Tony Shaffer states that some 15,000 Americans are in Ukraine to support the war and many have been killed. There are comments by the prime ministers of Hungary and Slovakia who don’t support the Anglo-American war in Ukraine. Finally, the myth that Vladimir Putin is a dictator is addressed.

_________________________________

Here is an example of how the deaths of American servicemen in Ukraine and Israel can be hidden.: “Third airman dies at Air Force base in five weeks”; Nicholas Slayton; Task and Purpose; August 31, 2024; https://taskandpurpose.com/news/airma…

Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”;    • The Anglo-American War on Russia  

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Biden issues $8bln military aid for Kiev, including 130km-range bombs

Vladimir Zelensky and Joe Biden at an event in New York on September 25, 2024. © Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images
Al Mayadeen | September 26, 2024

US President Joe Biden unveiled over $8 billion in military aid for Ukraine on Thursday, emphasizing that the support is aimed at helping Kiev “win [the] war” with Russia.

The announcement coincided with a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the US. The Ukrainian president will meet with Democratic and Republican leaders at the Capitol prior to his meeting with Biden.

This assistance package includes the first delivery of a precision-guided glide bomb, known as the Joint Standoff Weapon, which has a range of up to 130 kilometers.

This would significantly boost Ukraine’s ability to carry out strikes further inside Russian territory, a move Moscow has warned could escalate the conflict and expand the war. It also suggests a shift in Washington’s policy, indicating unannounced approval for Kiev to utilize US-provided advanced weaponry to target areas deeper within Russia.

‘A global cryptocurrency network’

The bulk of the new aid, $5.5 billion, is to be allocated before Monday’s end of the US fiscal year, when the funding authority is set to expire. Another $2.4 billion is under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the administration to buy weapons for Ukraine from companies – primarily American ones – rather than pull them from US stocks.

“That is why, today, I am announcing a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war,” said Biden.

As part of his proposal, the President stated that the Defense Department will restore and deliver an additional Patriot air defense battery, along with extra Patriot missiles to Ukraine.

Biden also instructed the Pentagon to increase the training of Ukrainian F-16 pilots, with plans to train an additional 18 pilots in the coming year.

The United States, in collaboration with international partners, will take action to disrupt what President Biden described as “a global cryptocurrency network” used for Russian sanctions evasion and alleged money laundering.

Additionally, Biden announced that he will organize a leader-level summit of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany next month, aiming to unify the efforts of over 50 nations supporting Ukraine.

Firing Ukraine’s ambassador to the US

However, it remains uncertain how many Republicans will agree to meet with Zelensky, as criticism of Kiev grows among party leaders, including Donald Trump.

Trump has been vocal in his criticism of the Ukrainian President and has so far declined Zelenskiy’s request for a meeting.

During a campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump expressed strong disapproval of Zelensky, stating, “We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky.”

Additionally, many Republicans in Congress were outraged by Zelensky’s recent visit to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden’s hometown. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has since launched an investigation into the Ukrainian President’s trip.

Trump also held President Biden and Democrat presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris accountable for allowing Russia’s war to take place.

Rep. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is not expected to meet with Zelensky on Thursday, called on the Ukrainian President to sack his ambassador to Washington over the planning of the Scranton visit.

However, he reassured the Ukrainians that this diplomatic issue is not linked to the provision of military aid to Ukraine.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US house speaker demands Zelensky fire Ukrainian ambassador

RT | September 25, 2024

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has called for Vladimir Zelensky to fire Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador in Washington, accusing her of interference in American elections.

“I demand that you immediately fire Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova,” Johnson wrote in a letter to Zelensky on Wednesday, noting that she organized the Pennsylvania event.

“The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because — on purpose — no Republicans were invited,” Johnson wrote. “The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.”

The Louisiana Republican said that his party has lost trust in Markarova’s ability to serve in the US and that she “should be removed from her post immediately.”

While both Republicans and Democrats support Ukraine against Russia, Johnson wrote, “our relationship is unnecessarily tested and needlessly tarnished” when Zelensky and others in Kiev speak ill of Republican candidates in the media.

“These incidents cannot be repeated,” Johnson wrote, urging Zelensky to “take immediate action.”

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Corruption | , , | Leave a comment

US Republicans accuse Zelensky of campaigning for Harris

RT | September 25, 2024

Republican officials have accused Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky of interfering in US electoral politics and “campaigning” for presidential candidate Kamala Harris, after he visited an arms factory in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania.

Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro gave Zelensky a tour of the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant over the weekend, where both signed 155mm artillery shells that will presumably be shipped to Ukrainian troops.

Republican officials have taken issue with the photo op, as well as Zelensky’s recent interview with the New Yorker magazine, in which he criticized former President Donald Trump and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, the party’s nominees in the November presidential election.

“Zelensky is openly campaigning for Democrats in battleground Pennsylvania today some 50 days out from our Presidential election. Unreal,” Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt wrote on X.

Pennsylvania Representative John Joyce told a local radio station on Tuesday that the visit was “a political stunt,” judging by its “suspect” timing.

A group of nine House representatives led by Lance Gooden of Texas have called for an investigation into Zelenksy’s visit. The Ukrainian leader was flown into Pennsylvania in a US Air Force C-17 military aircraft and was provided with Secret Service protection, both of which were paid for with US taxpayer money, the GOP lawmakers said in a letter to Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch on Tuesday.

“There is concern that these resources were used for purposes unrelated to US national security or bilateral diplomacy but rather to support a politically significant visit ahead of a major US election,” said the letter, which was shared with the Washington Examiner.

Gooden questioned Zelensky’s judgment in alienating Republican voters in an interview with Fox News.

“Why is he [Zelensky] not on his knees thanking Americans, Republicans and Democrats, for the sacrifices they’ve made for his nation? And how dare he come into our nation and opine on any election, much less the presidential race?” the lawmaker asked on ‘The Ingraham Angle’ program.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, has been seen as attempting to rally the large Polish-American voter base in Pennsylvania by touting the support for Ukraine under the current administration as a way to protect Poland.

Zelensky has said he headed to the US to attend the UN General Assembly in New York and to meet President Joe Biden, in order to present him with a ‘victory plan’ to defeat Russia.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Corruption | , | Leave a comment

Fugitive Ukrainian MP fights extradition from UK

RT | September 25, 2024

A Ukrainian lawmaker who fled the country has contested a request for his extradition in a UK court. Artyom Dmitruk, who is a Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) deacon, claimed on Tuesday that he had to flee due to his public opposition to the Kiev government’s crackdown on the country’s largest Christian denomination.

Dmitruk, who left Ukraine in August, said he is being targeted with criminal charges for criticizing a law effectively banning the UOC, which was historically part of the Moscow Patriarchate, over what Kiev claims is its alleged subservience to Russia.

“Right now there is a political persecution going on against me and my family, against myself for my political views and my support for the UOC,” he told The Independent ahead of his appearance at the courthouse.

The preliminary hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court went in Dmitruk’s favor. He retained his freedom, he said in a brief statement following the proceedings, adding “thank God for everything.”

According to Ukrainian journalist Anatoly Shariy, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Prosecutor General Andrey Kostin have personally contacted UK officials to ask them to accelerate the case.

Dmitruk claims that his life was in danger in Ukraine. He previously alleged that his family was surveilled in Europe in a possible kidnapping plot.

Speaking to The Independent, he said he illegally crossed the Ukrainian border with Moldova and spent some time in Italy before reaching the UK. The British government has been providing him with security, he added.

Last week Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko published a report about threats against Dmitruk made by radical nationalists, in whch she alleged that a “bounty” on his head is linked to the Kiev government.

She claimed that former MP Andrey Lozovoy, who publicly offered $250,000 for “an ashtray with the remains” of Dmitruk, had approached one of the latter’s former assistants.

He was seeking information that could be used to publicly humiliate Dmitruk and details of his whereabouts, Panchenko claimed, sharing tapes of the purported conversations. Lozovoy later put the source in touch with a Ukrainian counterintelligence officer, she alleged.

Dmitruk has endorsed the reporting and claimed that the plot against him could be traced to the top of the Ukrainian government and as far as Vladimir Zelensky personally.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Towards a Greater Middle Eastern War & Defeat in Ukraine

Colonel Douglas Macgregor, interviewed by Professor Glenn Diesen

Video at Odyssee
Glenn Diesen | September 24, 2024

I spoke with Colonel Douglas Macgregor about the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and Ukraine. Colonel Macgregor was a senior advisor to the Secretary of Defence under President Trump, he has written several books on military strategy, and is the CEO of Our Country Our Choice which seeks among other things to challenge the bipartisan support for the militarisation of US foreign policy

The war in Gaza has now spread into Lebanon and can seemingly no longer be contained, which threatens to pull in other actors in the region such as Iran. However, leaders in the region are already facing angry populations for failing to take a more hardline position against Israel and the US. Yemen is already striking ships passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, while attacks have also increased on US occupation troops in Syria and Iraq. The US and Israel continue to play good cop / bad cop in which the US provides the weapons and intelligence for the onslaught, while simultaneously complaining they are not able to impose a ceasefire. Israel is in deep trouble as its military exhausts itself and there are no desirable paths to peace, which is why pulling the US into a wider war appears to be the sole solution.

In Ukraine, the situation is also deteriorating quickly as the army suffers from a shortage of manpower, armoured vehicles, ammunition, air defences, aircrafts, and a multitude of other areas. Furthermore, Ukraine’s electric grids are severely damaged, the economy falters, the public grows more unhappy with the aggressive “recruitment” of new soldiers, while political divisions are yet again emerging in Kiev. In the West, there are fewer and fewer weapons to be sent and the US is seemingly reluctant to become directly involved in deep strikes within Russian territory as it will trigger a NATO-Russia war with the possibility of a nuclear exchange. War fatigue is growing throughout the West, with the exception of the UK which remains gung-ho for more war. When the US sabotaged the Minsk agreement and the Istanbul peace agreement, the objective was to use Ukrainians as a proxy to bleed and exhaust Russia to knock it out from the ranks of great powers, and thereafter shift focus to breaking China and thus restoring US global primacy. Instead, we are seeing a Russian victory, a pending unmitigated disaster in the Middle East, while the global majority is constructing a post-American world with BRICS.

We have crossed the point of no return in terms of reaching a peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. The world is heading towards major wars – and the US is approaching this dangerous situation with empty slogans rather than a strategy.

September 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington’s Ukraine Obsession is Going to Get Us All Killed!

By Ron Paul | September 23, 2024

Last week the world narrowly escaped likely nuclear destruction, as the Biden Administration considered Ukraine’s request to allow US missiles to strike deeply into Russian territory. Russian president Vladimir Putin warned, as the request was being considered, that because these missiles could not be launched without the active participation of the US military and NATO, Russia would consider itself in a state of war with both NATO and the US should they be launched. It was a Cuban Missile Crisis on a massive scale.

Thankfully, permission was reportedly not granted by Washington to hit deep inside Russia, but as we have seen throughout this war, a weapons system is often first denied and then eventually granted to Washington’s proxies in Kiev. We should not rest easy even if nuclear war has been temporarily averted.

Would missile strikes deep inside Russia win the war for Ukraine? Not even the Pentagon thinks so. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin himself said earlier this month that granting Ukraine permission to launch missiles into Russia would not be a “game-changer” in the two and a half year war.

Risking nuclear destruction for no tangible purpose? Have these people gone insane?

Even the “game-changers” have changed little in this war. How many times has the pro-war mainstream media told us a weapons system would be a “game-changer” for Ukraine? Remember Javelin missiles? Leopard tanks? HIMARS? And as each one of them fails to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor, the neocons and their friends in the media only demand more.

The fact is that Russia is winning the war despite hundreds of billions of dollars and the best weapons systems from the US and NATO countries. Each new shipment of increasingly sophisticated weapons does not produce battlefield victories for Ukraine. It only produces more dead Ukrainian soldiers and more profits for the weapons manufacturers.

Even the mainstream media – which has solidly supported the Ukraine war – has begun to report on Ukraine’s huge losses and hopeless situation. Yet as more and more start to wake up about the disastrous proxy war, Washington only knows one direction when it comes to war: forward. Just over a week ago the Pentagon announced another $250 million arms package for Ukraine. Nobody believes that is going to reverse the steady gains made by Russia on the battlefield, but it will generate more profits for the US arms manufacturers who are the real force behind our hyper-interventionist foreign policy.

The unlikely duo of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Donald Trump, Jr., said it best in a recent editorial in The Hill : “We cannot get any closer to the brink than this. And for what? To ‘weaken Russia’? To control Ukraine’s minerals? No vital American interest is at stake. To risk nuclear conflict for the sake of the neoconservative fantasy of global ‘full-spectrum dominance’ is madness.”

They are right, it is madness to risk the future of our country and our children and grandchildren for wars that have nothing to do with us and serve no national interest of the United States. This is certainly true for the Ukraine war, and it is also true for the wars the US is supporting in the Middle East. When will the madness end? When the people speak up and demand a change.

September 23, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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