China to snub Zelensky ‘peace conference’
RT | May 31, 2024
Beijing will not attend the Ukraine peace conference hosted by Switzerland in mid-June, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said. The event would be “difficult” to attend because some of the “important” conditions for China to take part were not met, including the participation of both Russia and Ukraine, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a press briefing on Friday.
The conference is scheduled for June 15-16 at the Burgenstock Resort near Lucerne. More than 160 countries have been invited, including members of the G7, G20, BRICS, and the EU, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau among the leaders confirming their attendance.
Moscow has not been invited, although it has said it would not attend even if it were, arguing that the summit will revolve around Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘peace formula’. The ten-point initiative calls for Moscow to withdraw from all territory Kiev claims as its own and for a tribunal to be set up to prosecute Russian officials for alleged war crimes. Moscow has dismissed the initiative, calling it “detached from reality.”
Mao said China has always insisted that peace talks to resolve the conflict should have “three important elements: Recognition by Russia and Ukraine, equal participation by all parties, and fair discussion of all peace plans, otherwise it will be difficult to play a substantive role in restoring peace.”
These requirements are “fair, just, and not directed against any party,” Mao stated, adding that “the feedback from all parties and the published meeting arrangements” signal that the three elements proposed by China seem problematic to achieve.
“It is difficult for China to attend the meeting. We have informed the relevant parties of China’s considerations and concerns,” she said, adding that China will continue to promote peace and dialogue in its own way, maintain communication with all parties, and jointly work towards a political solution to the Ukraine conflict.
Last week, Zelensky said Russia must not be present at the summit because it could gain the support of other countries and hijack Kiev’s agenda. The participants should develop a plan without Russia, and then hand it over to Moscow via intermediaries, Zelensky insisted.
Moscow has stated that Switzerland is not fit to mediate in peace efforts, saying it switched “from neutral to openly hostile” after it took part in the sanctions on Russia in 2022.
“This conference is completely without prospects,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RT earlier this week, adding that “getting together and seriously discussing the Ukraine conflict without our [Russia’s] participation is absurd.”
Among other states, the leaders of several BRICS nations – including Brazil and South Africa – will reportedly skip the event. US President Joe Biden is not scheduled to attend, instead focusing on the upcoming presidential election in November.
France plans to send military instructors to Ukraine – Reuters
RT | May 30, 2024
France could announce that it will send military instructors to the country during a visit to Paris by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, despite widespread concerns from some allies and criticism from Russia, Reuters has reported, citing diplomatic sources.
Zelensky, whose presidency expired on May 20, visited Paris for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron two weeks ago, and will return next week to attend a ceremony marking 80 years since D-Day, the start of a large-scale operation by the Allies against Nazi Germany during World War Two.
The unnamed diplomats told Reuters that Paris hoped to forge and lead a coalition of countries that would offer training assistance to Kiev. France reportedly would initially send a limited number of personnel to assess the modalities of a mission before dispatching several hundred trainers.
Training would focus on demining, equipment and warplane maintenance, to be provided by the West. Paris would also finance, arm, and train a Ukrainian motorized brigade, Reuters added.
“The arrangements are very advanced, and we could expect something next week,” the agency cited one of its sources.
Ukraine’s top general Aleksandr Syrsky said earlier this week that he had signed papers allowing French personnel to visit training centers in Ukraine “soon,” to familiarize themselves with infrastructure and staff.
Over the past few months President Macron has repeatedly insisted he would not rule out the possibility of NATO member states sending troops to Ukraine. According to the French leader, his policy of “strategic ambiguity” is intended to keep Moscow guessing about the US-led bloc’s intentions and the lengths it is willing to go to in support of Kiev.
Some of France’s NATO partners fear that the bloc’s boots on the ground in Ukraine could make a direct conflict with Russia more likely. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that Berlin will not do anything that places it in direct conflict with Russia. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has also spoken out against German instructors training Ukrainian soldiers in the country.
The US remains publicly opposed to sending instructors to Ukraine while Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has described statements about sending troops to Ukraine as “crazy”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Western military instructors “have long been present” in Ukraine. Acting as mercenaries, they service high-precision weapons sent by NATO countries and are suffering losses, Putin stated.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier this month that the French leadership’s “belligerent rhetoric” and provocative statements around Ukraine are escalating the conflict.
Top Hungarian Diplomat Criticizes NATO Plans to Let Ukraine Strike Inside Russia
Sputnik – 30.05.2024
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto decried NATO plans to let Ukraine use Western-supplied weapons to hit targets in Russia as “insane,” warning that Russia’s response would be multifold.
“I think it is an insane idea because, as we have seen before, Russia will respond. There is no lack of munitions or equipment in Russia. Its response will be multifold,” Szijjarto told Hungarian reporters in Brussels.
The Hungarian minister called for an end to “this madness” before it spiraled out of control.
Szijjarto also criticized a proposal made by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg that NATO take over the coordination of military aid to Ukraine, giving the alliance a more active role in the conflict. Szijjarto argued that NATO was wiping out its own red lines.
Earlier in the week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed he was in favor of lifting restrictions on the use of Western weapons on “legitimate targets” on Russian territory.
War in Ukraine shattering ‘superiority’ of US-made weaponry: Responsible Statecraft
Al Mayadeen | May 29, 2024
While critics claim that technologically complex US weapons produce unreliable systems in limited quantities because of cost, a report by Responsible Statecraft proves otherwise, stating that the failure of US weapons in Ukraine is much due to the military’s lack of adequate testing.
Successive “game-changing” systems like the Switchblade drone, the M-1 Abrams tank, Patriot air defense missiles, the M777 howitzer, the Excalibur guided 155 mm artillery round, the HIMARS precision missile, GPS-guided bombs, and Skydio drones with artificial intelligence were all transferred to Ukraine. That is when the show of strength began.
For instance, the $60,000 limited-quantity Switchblade drone didn’t work against armored targets, and Ukrainian troops chose instead $700 Chinese commercial models bought online, RS reported.
The $10 million Abrams tank kept malfunctioning and was soon taken out of combat. Russia was able to capture at least one, which they added to a display of NATO weaponry in a Moscow park alongside an M777 howitzer and other items. This stands as a plain display of mockery toward the US and its so-called military superiority.
The M777 cannon, known for its accuracy, proved to be too vulnerable in rough conditions. Its barrels frequently wore out and needed replacement in Poland, while its 155 mm ammunition has been suffering from short supply.
Ukraine striking targets deep inside Russia with Western weapons – AFP
RT | May 29, 2024
Ukraine has used Western weapons against targets inside what it recognizes as Russian territory on multiple occasions, Agence France Presse (AFP) has claimed.
Some senior Western officials have urged nations that donate longer-range munitions to Ukraine not to ban their use deep inside Russia, while others have publicly objected to the idea. A restriction against such strikes has notably been imposed by the US, the main supplier of arms to Kiev. Washington has said the ban is meant to prevent an escalation of the conflict, and has made no indication that it will be lifted.
On Tuesday, the news agency cited several experts, who believe that donors should not be concerned, because several other Russian red lines have supposedly been crossed without consequence.
”Western weapons have already been used on several occasions against Russia’s territory, most recently against the southern town of Krasnodar, several Western sources said,” the report claimed.
AFP offered no details on those incidents or the weapons involved. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has publicly stated that Ukraine “has the right” to hit targets in Russia with UK-made arms.
Last week, a Ukrainian intelligence source claimed that the country had targeted an early warning radar station based in Russia’s Krasnodar Region on May 22, and later another site in Orenburg Region.
Both locations have roles in nuclear deterrence. Their primary task is to detect an incoming missile and give the military enough time to launch a retaliation before nuclear weapons hit Russian territory.
The claim was given some credence by Dmitry Rogozin, a former senior Russian military official and now a lawmaker. He said it could be false, but if true, it means that Washington “has hired a reckless bandit, who is trying to damage… a key element of our system of strategic nuclear forces combat control.”
According to public statements by the Russian leadership, the country does retaliate when its red lines are crossed in the Ukraine conflict. After Kiev damaged the Crimean Bridge with a truck loaded with explosives in 2022, Moscow added Ukraine’s power grid to its list of military targets.
This year’s campaign of Ukrainian kamikaze drone raids on Russian oil facilities resulted in retaliatory missile strikes against Ukrainian thermal power stations. As of this week, all of them were either destroyed or damaged, according to Yury Boyko, a senior Ukrainian energy official.
US may have secretly approved attack on Russian nuclear radar — Austrian military
RT | May 29, 2024
A reported Ukrainian attack on a Russian early-warning radar installation may have been approved by the US and poses the risk of a nuclear escalation, an analysis published by the Austrian armed forces has warned.
Ukrainian sources claimed last week that Kiev had delivered a strike at a Voronezh-DM site in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Region, near the city of Armavir. The alleged operation is significant, considering that the facility is part of Russian nuclear deterrence, according to the explanation penned by Colonel Markus Reisner and posted by the Austrian military on Sunday. The website regularly shares work by the historian and military expert.
It is unlikely that attacking the radar station had direct military value for Kiev, Reisner argues. One could speculate that disabling it would reduce the amount of intelligence that Russia collects on Ukrainian launches of US-donated ATACMS ballistic missiles, he said. But the station is designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles that fly at altitudes much higher than the tactical weapons used by Ukraine.
The expert suggested that the alleged attack may have been a US-sanctioned response to Moscow’s reminders that it could use non-strategic nuclear weapons under certain circumstances. Senior Ukrainian and Western officials have called those statements a form of blackmail. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin ordered tactical nuclear exercises in the Southern Military District, which borders Ukraine. Moscow said this was in response to increasingly hostile rhetoric by Western officials.
”If this is indeed the case, two further conclusions can be drawn: first, the situation in Ukraine is extremely serious and, second, the war over Ukraine has escalated again,” Reisner wrote. Such an attack could qualify for a nuclear retaliation, the colonel added.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine says that its nuclear arsenal may be used in four scenarios, one of which is “enemy action against critical Russian government and military facilities, the disabling of which would prevent a nuclear response.”
Over-the-horizon radar stations, such as the Voronezh-DM, are meant to detect ICBM launches and inform the national leadership, at which point it make a decision on whether to fire back.
The Russian Defense Ministry has so far not commented on the alleged attack.
Washington was previously accused of brinkmanship in its stand-off with Russia. Investigative journalist Seymor Hersh has claimed that the US was behind the 2022 bombings of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany. The US government has rejected the allegations, but Moscow has said it found them credible.
EU disunited over $7-billion weapons delivery to Ukraine – Borrell
RT | May 28, 2024
There is still no agreement on a $7 billion (€6.6 billion) EU military aid package for Ukraine, the bloc’s foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell has said, according to remarks made to the press that were published on Tuesday.
The remarks follow a meeting this week of EU foreign and defense ministers focusing on the Ukraine conflict.
According to Borrell, there are “seven legal acts to be approved” in order to mobilize the billions in military aid under the Ukrainian Assistance Fund.
“This has not been possible [for] quite a long time because there is not [an] agreement for the consensus needed,” he explained.
“You know that we need unanimity – unanimity [has] not [been] there for months,” he admitted.
According to Politico, diplomats had hoped to have the new package ready ahead of this week’s meetings in Brussels but this didn’t happen due to resistance from Hungary.
Budapest has been a vocal critic of unbridled Western support for Ukraine and has refused to provide any military aid to Kiev, either directly or through the EU. Hungarian officials have repeatedly called for a ceasefire, insisting that EU sanctions against Russia have failed to undermine its economy and have instead boomeranged against the bloc.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday that his government remained committed to blocking the €6.6 billion military aid package, despite the “ruckus” among fellow EU foreign ministers.
According to Borrell, an EU plan to use profits from frozen Russian sovereign assets to buy weapons for Ukraine has also stalled due to resistance from Budapest.
Western nations have seized some $300-billion-worth of Russian assets, most of which are held in the EU. Brussels’ plan, which Borrell strongly supports, would provide some $3.25 billion (€3 billion) for Ukraine this year alone. Moscow has warned that it will retaliate, should its property be “stolen” by the US and its allies.
The EU and its member states have so far mobilized nearly $35 billion in military support for Ukraine, according to data published on the European Commission’s website. This includes over $6.5 billion under the European Peace Facility to support the delivery of military equipment.
In March 2024, the European Council established a dedicated Ukrainian Assistance Fund worth almost $5.5 billion.
Putin warns West about consequences of attacking Russia
RT | May 28, 2024
The West needs to understand that long-range strikes on Russian territory with their weapons would represent an escalation with “serious consequences,” Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
Speaking to reporters at the end of his two-day visit to Uzbekistan, Putin addressed the recent Ukrainian demands for NATO to permit the use of their weapons in attacks on Russia and the comments by the US-led bloc’s head, Jens Stoltenberg, appearing to endorse this.
“To be honest, I don’t know what the NATO secretary-general is saying,” Putin told reporters, adding that Stoltenberg “did not suffer from any dementia” when he worked constructively with Russia as the prime minister of Norway (2005-2013).
“This constant escalation can lead to serious consequences. If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the US behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons? Hard to say. Do they want global conflict?”
Putin explained that long-range precision strikes require space reconnaissance assets – which Ukraine does not have, but the US does – and that their targeting is already done by “highly qualified specialists” from the West, without Ukrainian participation.
“So, these representatives of NATO countries, especially in Europe, especially in small countries, must be aware of what they are playing with,” the Russian president said, noting that a lot of these countries have “a small territory and a very dense population.”
Putin reminded reporters that their colleagues in the West never reported on the Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and other Russian regions along the border, only about the Russian advance on Kharkov.
“What caused this? They did, with their own hands. Well, then, they will reap what they have sown. The same thing can happen if long-range precision weapons are used,” the Russian president added.
Asked if Russia was refusing to negotiate with Ukraine, Putin told reporters that such claims by the West were baffling.
“We don’t refuse!” he said. “I’ve said it a thousand times, it’s like they don’t have ears!”
The Ukrainian side initialed an agreement with Russia in March 2022, then publicly reneged and refused to negotiate any further, Putin explained. He described Kiev’s current “peace conference” effort in Switzerland as an attempt to get some kind of international buy-in for their entirely unrealistic “peace platform,” which isn’t working out.
Ukraine’s Use of Chemical Weapons Became Systematic With US’ Silent Consent – Russian MoD
Sputnik – 28.05.2024
The use of poisonous substances and chemical riot control agents by Ukrainian forces has become systematic with the tacit approval of Washington, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Armed Forces’ radiation, chemical and biological defense troops, said on Tuesday.
“With Washington’s tacit approval, the use of poisonous substances and chemical riot control agents by Ukrainian militants during their special operations has become systematic,” Kirillov said at a briefing.
“Numerous cases of the Ukrainian side using the irritant substance chloropicrin, often mixed with chloroacetophenone, have been recorded in the Donetsk region, in the settlements of Bogdanovka, Gorlovka, Kremenovka, and Artyomovsk (Bakhmut),” he added.
Kirillov emphasized that while chloroacetophenone is classified as a chemical riot control agent, chloropicrin is listed in Schedule 3 of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Kirillov recalled that Ukrainian neo-Nazis first used the dangerous substance chloropicrin against Euromaidan opponents during the siege of the Trade Union House in Odessa on May 2, 2014.
“There are grounds to believe that the action carried out in Odessa was premeditated, meticulously planned to exploit the effects of the toxic substances used, aimed at inflicting maximum casualties,” Kirillov added.
He noted that Russian law enforcement agencies conducted an investigation that identified the perpetrators of the terrorist act.
According to Kirillov, the use of this toxic substance was indicated by the militants’ possession of pre-prepared filtering gas masks, the appearance of characteristic yellow-green smokefire broke out at the Trade Union House , and attempts to mask the use of toxic chemicals with the aftermath of the fire.
Recently, Kiev used gas grenades containing the irritant substance CS against Russian servicemen.
“The Russian side has recorded and confirmed cases of the Ukrainian Armed Forces using munitions not only loaded with chloropicrin but also with other chemical irritants. Gas grenades of American production containing the substance CS were employed against Russian servicemen in the Krasny Liman and Boguslav regions,” Kirillov said.
“Hand grenades with chemical irritants, labeled Teren-6, were dropped from Ukrainian UAVs onto positions of Russian troops, and a stash containing these munitions was discovered in the territory of Donetsk. According to testimony from Ukrainian prisoners of war, assault groups of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are equipped with such grenades,” the official added.
CS is an irritant chemical. It is a white, solid, slightly volatile crystalline substance with a pepper-like odor. It is sparingly soluble in water, moderately soluble in alcohol, and freely soluble in acetone and chloroform. Under combat conditions, it is dispersed as an aerosol. CS at low concentrations is irritating to the eyes and upper respiratory tract, while at high concentrations it causes burns to exposed skin areas and in some cases paralysis of the respiratory and circulatory systems leading to death.
The Ukrainian armed forces also used the chemical agent BZ against Russian servicemen.
“Ukrainian armed formations also use other listed chemicals. We refer to cases of use of the combat chemical agent BZ against Russian servicemen in August 2022 and silyl acid in February 2023,” he said at the briefing.”
Kirillov noted that Ukrainian Armed Forces also use other other listed chemicals.
“We are referring to instances of using the combat chemical agent BZ against Russian servicemen in August 2022 and silyl acid in February 2023,” he explained.
“The statements from Ukrainian military representatives about their possession of phosphorus organic compounds, including analogs of the combat chemical agent Tabun (GA), raise particular concern,” Kirillov added.
He added that Ukraine is requesting antidotes and gas masks in excessive quantities, indicating plans for the use of toxic substances.
“The requests from Ukraine for the supply of antidotes, gas masks, and other personal protective equipment in volumes that are clearly excessive testify to plans for large-scale use of toxic substances,” Kirillov said.
In addition, Ukrainian nationalists continue in their attempts to destroy chemically hazardous facilities in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
“The attempts by Ukrainian nationalists to destroy chemically hazardous facilities in the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics persist, thereby creating a threat of chemical contamination to the civilian population of the regions,” Kirillov said.
He recalled that industrial facilities such as Zarya in the city of Rubezhnoye, Azot in Severodonetsk, and the Koksokhim plant in Avdeyevka have repeatedly been subjected to massive rocket attacks.
US Continue to Develop New Chemical Weapons
The Pentagon continues to develop new and upgrade existing non-lethal chemical munitions and other chemical weapons delivery systems.
“According to available information, the Pentagon continues to develop new and upgrade existing non-lethal chemical munitions and other chemical weapons delivery systems, such as 120mm mortar rounds, 155mm artillery shells, and 120mm tank rounds,” Kirillov said at the briefing.
“No less than $10 million is allocated annually for their procurement for use in combat zones,” he added.
OPCW turns a blind eye to the fact that the US is still storing highly toxic reactive masses in chemical weapons destruction facilities. “I would like to draw your attention once again to the fact that according to the deadlines set by the OPCW, the United States should have completed the destruction of its declared chemical weapons stockpiles by 2007. However, despite the economic potential, they did not achieve this until 2023, twice postponing the deadline, citing financial, organizational, and technical difficulties. The United States still retains highly toxic reactive masses at chemical weapons destruction facilities. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons does not seem to notice this fact,” he said.
The US has also developed a legal framework that regulates a wide range of scenarios for the use of chemical agents by the US armed forces, Kirillov added.
“Washington has not only not renounced the use of chemical agents, but has also enshrined the possibility of their use at the legislative level. Thus, the United States has adopted a combined arms manual on the use of non-lethal weapons,” Kirillov told reporters, adding that it defines the procedure for the use of non-lethal chemical weapons by military units during special, humanitarian, anti-terrorist and peacekeeping operations.
If previously the US talked about using such weapons only in response to the enemy chemical aggression, an important aspect of the new rules is the ability to use toxic chemicals unilaterally,” the official said.
“Thus, the United States has created a legal framework that regulates a wide range of scenarios for the use of chemical weapons by the armed forces,” Kirillov said.
The United States allocates at least $10 million annually to purchase non-lethal chemical munitions for use in combat areas, the official said, adding that the Pentagon continues to develop new and modernize existing non-lethal chemical munitions.
Arrest these insane NATO warmongers!
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | May 28, 2024
Incredibly, the world is being pushed to the abyss of nuclear war by nonentity Western numbskulls who are not even elected.
Jens Stoltenberg, the civilian head of the NATO military bloc, is the latest blockhead to advocate for the United States to permit the targeting of Russia with long-range weapons.
The Norwegian figurehead, we are led to believe, made the conceptual breakthrough (how much was he paid and by whom or what was the blackmail used?) by telling the Economist magazine that the Ukrainian regime should henceforth be officially allowed to use NATO missiles to hit Russia.
However, with the logical skills of a hacked-up chopping block, Stoltenberg claimed that such a move would not lead to an escalation in war between Russia and NATO because the weapons were not being fired from NATO countries.
So Stoltenberg thinks it’s somehow feasible to turn Ukraine into a silo for launching ballistic missiles at Moscow and yet for Russia not to perceive NATO nations as a legitimate target?
As if to further reassure, he added: “We don’t have any intention to send NATO ground troops into Ukraine because our purpose… has been two-fold, to support Ukraine as we do, but also to ensure that we don’t escalate this into a full-scale conflict.”
The barefaced cheek of Stoltenberg and other Western figures is that, in their arrogant mindsets, what’s going on is not escalation because they say it is not escalation. It’s like hitting someone with a punch in the face and then having the brass neck to tell the person you didn’t hit them because you said so.
The former Norwegian prime minister, who is soon to leave his NATO job to take up a plum post as a central banker, is the latest Western voice to up the ante in the U.S.-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken – a wannabe rock guitarist who hasn’t a clue what he is singing about – has also joined the list of gung-ho politicians urging for Ukraine to be given a license to strike Russian territory with long-range NATO-supplied weapons.
Britain’s Foreign Minister Lord David Cameron, the Eton-educated dimwit, has decided that Ukraine has “every right” to use British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles to hit targets inside pre-war Russian borders.
Other political figures de facto egging on nuclear war are U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a religious fanatic who believes God is an anticommunist, as well as Victoria Nuland, the former American diplomat who midwifed the 2014 coup in Kiev that ushered in the current NeoNazi regime.
All of them are urging the Biden administration to abandon official restrictions on the Ukrainian proxy regime using Western missiles to hit Russia.
Ukraine’s puppet president Vladimir Zelensky, who cancelled elections but continues to hold office, has remonstrated with his Western handlers to be given a free hand to strike deep into Russia.
The distinction of “official permission” is a cynical sleight of hand. The Ukrainian side with NATO logistics and weapons has already been targeting inside Russia.
Oil infrastructure and military bases inside Russia’s pre-war borders have been frequently hit with missiles and drones. It is inconceivable that such targeting could be achieved without NATO’s involvement, including boots-on-the-ground advisors.
Nevertheless, the rhetorical difference is significant. For the Biden administration to officially give the green light for such attacks would mark a grave and explicit escalation – and one that Russia could not afford to ignore.
Russia has already warned that NATO weapons hitting its territory would result in retaliation beyond Ukraine. That could mean a Russian air strike on NATO members.
This week Moscow began exercises for deploying tactical nuclear weapons. Russia’s publicly avowed nuclear doctrine defines the permissibility of using such weapons with the criterion of the Russian nation facing a strategic threat, even if that threat is posed by enemies using conventional arms.
The West and its Ukrainian proxy are pushing at that catastrophic threshold. In the past week, one of Russia’s early warning ballistic radar systems in southwest Krasnodar region was reportedly hit by a drone attack. One purpose of the raid was to disable Russia’s ability to intercept the long-range ATACMS conventional warheads that the U.S. is ready to supply Ukraine. Another much more sinister interpretation is the West is probing the capability of Russia’s nuclear defenses.
When this proxy war erupted more than two years ago with Russia’s intervention in Ukraine after eight years of relentless NATO arming and provocation of the NeoNazi regime, there were anxious elite discussions among NATO members about whether to send “lethal weapons” and not just helmets, night-vision goggles, and radios.
Two years on, the NATO deliberation has shifted beyond sending tanks, F-16s fighter jets, and cruise missiles, and is now taking an official position endorsing the deep-striking of Russia with ballistic warheads.
Incredibly, the people continually pushing the envelope are a minuscule minority in Western societies who are not even elected – Stoltenberg, Blinken, Cameron, Nuland, among others. These ventriloquist dolls are doing the bidding of the masters of war, the military-industrial complex, and the banking elite.
The elite warmongers argue that Ukraine has its hands tied behind its back because it can’t bombard Russia at will. In reality, the country with its hands tied is Russia. It has to listen to the likes of Stoltenberg and his ilk advocating for strikes on Russia from NATO’s firing positions in Ukraine – and yet Russia is somehow supposedly not permitted to retaliate against NATO.
Surely, a fatal red line is imminent. Insanity rules among the Western elites as the world is pushed towards the abyss.
The world’s majority needs to issue arrest warrants for these privileged criminals… before it’s too late.
The US Is Playing A Dangerous Game Of Nuclear Chicken With Russia
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 26, 2024
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski revealed in his latest interview with The Guardian that “The Americans have told the Russians that if you explode a nuke, even if it doesn’t kill anybody, we will hit all your targets [positions] in Ukraine with conventional weapons, we’ll destroy all of them. I think that’s a credible threat.” If true, and there’s no reason to suspect that he simply made that up, then this amounts to the US playing a dangerous game of nuclear chicken with Russia.
As was explained in this analysis here about why Russia is presently undertaking tactical nuclear weapons exercises, it hopes to deter NATO from a conventional military intervention in Ukraine, barring which it wants to signal that it could resort to these arms if those forces cross the Dnieper. From Russia’s perspective, the reportedly 100,000-strong force that NATO is preparing to invade Ukraine if its “red lines” are crossed could pose a threat to its territorial integrity if they attack its newly unified regions.
So long as they stay on the western side of the Dnieper, then there’d be no reason for Russia to countenance using tactical nuclear weapons, but they could realistically be employed in the event that they cross the river and credibly appear to be approaching that country’s new borders. In that scenario, Russia would have reason to drop them on the invading forces as a last resort out of self-defense to preemptively neutralize this threat in accordance with its nuclear doctrine.
Having brought the reader up to speed about the context within which Sikorski shared the US’ planned response to Russia potentially exploding nukes in Ukraine, it should now be easier to understand why this amounts to a dangerous game of nuclear chicken. Essentially, the US wants Russia to stand down from its signaled intent of possibly using tactical nuclear weapons if NATO’s reportedly 100,000-strong invasion force crosses the Dnieper, which could occur if Russia achieves a military breakthrough.
If this sequence of events unfolds – the front lines collapse, NATO conventionally intervenes in Ukraine, its reportedly 100,000-strong invasion force crosses the Dnieper, Russia drops tactical nukes on them, and then the US hits all of its forces in the newly unified regions – then World War III would break out. There’s no way that Russia would sit back and let the US directly attack any target within its borders since it’ll either respond in a tit-for-tat fashion or jump to the chase by launching a nuclear first strike.
The only way to avoid this worst-case scenario is for NATO to eschew its invasion plans under any circumstances, including a potential Russian military breakthrough. If they still go through with them, however, then they should keep their forces on the western side of the Dnieper and ideally rely on a neutral mediator like India to convey to Russia that they don’t intend to cross even if they approach it. Anything less is a dangerous game of nuclear chicken that could literally provoke the apocalypse.
‘Certain friends and foes’ want Georgia to send troops to Ukraine – official
RT | May 27, 2024
Georgia has been repeatedly pushed into a conflict with Russia, with “certain friends and foes” urging Tbilisi to impose sanctions on the country and even to deploy troops to Ukraine, the President of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, has said.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, the house speaker said the country has been repeatedly bombarded with such demands, both in public and in private.
“Certain friends and foes have been pushing us into this, so that we would send fighters to Ukraine, which would have directly meant war with Russia,” he explained.
Top Ukrainian officials, including the former head of the National Security Council Alexey Danilov, have repeatedly urged Georgia to open a “second front” against Russia, with the calls consistently shot down by Tbilisi.
While Papuashvili did not mention any actors in particular, he implied that members of the US-led NATO bloc were among them. With “such actions” demanded for some unknown reason from Georgia, NATO states themselves were abstaining from sending in their own militaries, he said. Apart from demands to enter the conflict directly, Georgia has for long been facing pressure to join Western sanctions against Moscow, he also noted.
Non-state actors have been pushing Georgia into war with Russia as well, Papuashvili claimed, stating that “non-governmental organizations that held rallies in Tbilisi with similar calls have also demanded our troops be sent to Ukraine.”
The speaker’s jab at the NGOs comes as the country continues to experience domestic unrest and foreign pressure over its draft “foreign agents” legislation, requiring those organizations and individuals receiving over 20% of their funding from abroad to register and disclose their sources of income. The controversial bill ended up being shelved amid mass protests and foreign pressure last year, with the new attempt to pass its slightly modified version running into the same troubles. However, the Georgian government has stood its ground and vowed to adopt the bill no matter what.
While Tbilisi has maintained an explicitly neutral stance on the Ukrainian conflict, a sizeable number of mercenaries originating from the country have been fighting on Kiev’s behalf. According to the Russian military’s estimates, the country has provided some 1,042 mercenaries, with the figure beaten only by Kiev’s top backers, namely the US and Poland, with at least 1,113 and 2,960 fighters coming from those two countries, respectively. At least 561 Georgian nationals in the Ukrainian military’s ranks ended up killed during the hostilities, according to Moscow’s estimates.
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“Democratic Institutions?” – 10 Lessons from history that will destroy your trust in the CIA
By Kit | OffGuardian | July 20, 2018
… At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about “novichok”, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about “collusion”, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed “bots” at best or “traitors” at worst.
Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA – or any intelligence agency – has ever told you. … Read full article
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