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“Mobilisation has turned into a real nightmare for Ukrainians” – former PM Mykola Azarov

By Ahmed Adel | April 16, 2024

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov (2010-2014) has described the Kiev regime’s forcible conscription of civilians into the military as “a real nightmare for Ukrainians.” His comments come as the New York Times said that Ukrainian soldiers are being battered and exhausted by Russian forces.

“Territorial recruitment centres in Ukraine (…) began to use weapons against those who try to resist the anarchy and permissiveness they are perpetrating,” Azarov wrote on his Telegram channel.

As Azarov revealed, Anton Kudrich, an ordinary Ukrainian citizen, was driving to his village in the Transcarpathian region when recruitment officers stopped his car at a checkpoint and tried to conscript him. Even though Kudrich stated that he had the right to be exempt from military service according to the law “since his brother died in the war,” the officers ignored this and attempted to put him in their vehicle forcibly.

“Kudrich managed to escape, ran into the forest, but they opened fire on him. He was wounded in the arm and leg,” said the former Prime Minister of Ukraine, adding that the young man’s father is sure that the case will be hushed up since the Ukrainian authorities are covering for each other.

On April 11, the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine adopted a law toughening the conditions for the mobilisation of military personnel. According to Ukrainian media, the clause stipulating the demobilisation of military personnel after 36 months of service was removed from the bill. The regulations give reservists a period of 60 days after mobilisation is decreed to appear before a military registration and enlistment office and update their personal data.

Likewise, the new law allows summons to be sent to electronic accounts and obliges male citizens aged 18 to 60 to carry military registration papers and present them at the request of military registration and enlistment officials, police officers, and border guards.

In another Telegram post, Azarov said that the Kiev regime is using former prisoners “to catch as much of the population as possible” since mobilisation has been “virtually exhausted,” in addition to civilians “fleeing the country in all possible ways.”

In Ukraine, the reserves are depleted, and at the front, the military is asking for rotation, which cannot be done due to a shortage in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Thus, “while the Ukrainian authorities use force against their own people, fewer and fewer supporters remain in the country, and fewer and fewer volunteers appear in the ranks of the Ukrainian forces. This means that with such sentiments in society, Ukraine has a catastrophically small chance of holding out,” the former prime minister stressed.

It is recalled that Azarov has previously accused the Kiev regime of embezzling billions of dollars from the state budget through the procurement of overpriced and subpar equipment, such as ammunition and air defence weapons. In September 2023, Azarov revealed how the Kiev regime signed a contract for four air defence missiles, but only three were procured. Deepening the embezzling in this particular case, Azarov said that all four missiles were written off following a Russian attack, benefiting someone who allegedly used the funds to purchase a new apartment in Paris.

Azarov has been a consistent critic of the Kiev regime and continues to highlight the deeply ingrained corruption and authoritarianism, such as the forced and illegal conscription of civilians. However, he is no longer a rare voice, with more criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the conscription process emerging in the Verkhovna Rada.

“After voting in favour of the mobilisation bill, the Ukrainian people will become not an opponent, but a verdict for [Zelensky] and the Government’s deputies,” independent deputy Dmytro Razumkov wrote on his Telegram channel. “You cannot play with the life of Ukrainians.”

He asked deputies from the ruling Servant of the People party if they would be able to look into the eyes of the soldiers they visited at the front after they removed the clause on demobilisation and rotation of soldiers from the bill.

Alarmingly, much of the bill remains confidential, including the number of Ukrainians who will be mobilised. In recent months, Ukrainian generals and Zelensky have said that between 450,000 and 500,000 people are needed for conscription. This will be difficult to achieve, especially since an article published by The New York Times highlighted that Ukraine has faced a drastic reduction in its population. The military now has very few young men to conscript, while those fighting on the front lines are battered and exhausted.

According to the outlet, it is not clear how quickly Ukraine will recruit and train the additional troops it requires or whether they will be ready before the Russian offensive, which is expected between spring and summer. Despite this reality, the Kiev regime is still preparing for an offensive in 2025 instead of seeking to preserve the lives of thousands of Ukrainians by achieving a peace deal with Moscow.

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

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Scott Ritter: Ukraine ‘Owned’ by US, While With Israel It’s the Other Way Around

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – April 15, 2024

Senior Ukrainian officials couldn’t help but feel sidelined by the outpouring of US attention and support for Israel as Tel Aviv sought to fend off an unprecedented Iranian missile and drone attack over the weekend. There’s a good reason for that, says former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter.

President Zelensky took to X on Sunday to plead with US lawmakers not to forget about Ukraine, saying “it is critical that the United States Congress make the necessary decisions to strengthen America’s allies in this critical time” by delivering on the aid package promised by President Biden six months ago.

Zelensky’s comments were echoed by Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who told reporters on Monday that Ukraine also needs help from its Western partners, even if it’s not in the form of direct military help – like Israel got. “All we ask our partners is, even if you cannot act the way you act in Israel, give us what is needed, and we will do the rest ourselves,” Kuleba urged.

“Let me make this very clear to the Ukrainian crowd. You see, the difference between Israel and Ukraine is that, whether you like it or not, Israel has bought and paid for the United States’ support,” while Ukraine hasn’t, Scott Ritter told Sputnik.

“Israel, through its political action committee, AIPAC, in the United States, has pretty much bought the United States Congress. They’ve bought the United States presidency. They control American media. And as a result, America comes to the defense of Israel because we’ve been paid to do so,” Ritter said.

With Ukraine, it’s the other way around, the observer said.

“America, on the other hand, has bought and paid for Ukraine. You’re not a friend. You’re not an ally. You’re a tool being used by the United States for its larger foreign policy and national security objectives vis-à-vis Russia. We provide you weapons only so far as it facilitates our objective of creating a problem for Russia. We don’t want you to win. We don’t care about you. We give you just enough to keep you going. And then we stand by and watch you bury your dead. Because we don’t care,” Ritter said, channeling the sentiments of the American establishment.

“You’ve done your ‘duty’. You created a problem for the Russians. But now you’ve become inconvenient. And we’re going to stand by and let the Russians finish the job without spending any more money or providing you with much more assistance. You don’t matter to us. You’re not Israel. You don’t own us. We’re not going to fight and die for you. I hope I made that clear,” Ritter summed up.

Israel received unprecedented military support from the US, the UK, France and Jordan on Saturday night, with the countries scrambling fighter jets and deploying ground and sea-based air and missile defense systems to shoot down a barrage of Iranian drones and missiles fired in response to Israel’s April 1 attack on the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus, Syria. Despite foreign assistance and its own sophisticated air and missile defense network, some of the Iranian projectiles nevertheless managed to make it through, striking two vital Israeli airbases.

“You got a win. Take the win,” President Biden reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that the US wouldn’t support any Israeli aggression against Iran.

April 15, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

End of Escalatory Ladder in Ukraine & MidEast – John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

The Duran | April 12, 2024

April 14, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Order From Ukraine’s Top General Reveals Scale of Sabotage and Desertion in Army

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 13.04.2024

After the failure of last year’s much-heralded Ukrainian counteroffensive and mounting lack of ammunition and manpower, more and more Ukrainian troops are refusing to carry out combat missions. Others are even risking being shot in the back by units stationed behind them in an effort to prevent them from retreating.

The Kiev regime’s soldiers sabotage army orders, threaten their commanders, refuse to fire their weapons, leave the battlefield, and desert. This was revealed in a new order on strengthening discipline signed by Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrsky and seen by Sputnik.

The document notes that army commanders, law enforcement, and other government agencies have faced new challenges that require an immediate response.

Among the military criminal offenses, the commander-in-chief listed “insubordination,” “failure to comply with an order,” “threat or violence against a superior,” “unauthorized abandonment of a military unit or place of service,” “desertion,” “evasion of military service by inflicting self-harm or in any other way,” and “unauthorized abandonment of the battlefield or refusal to use weapons.”

Syrsky’s order outlines the urgent need for the Armed Forces and representatives of law enforcement agencies to identify and put a stop to these offenses. The document presupposes that Ukrainian soldiers could be offered a chance to return to combat duty even after the abovementioned offenses.

The new order comes as the Ukrainian Armed Forces are struggling to replenish their ranks, with men increasingly unwilling to die for the Kiev regime and actively avoiding mobilization or deserting.

Following last year’s botched summer counteroffensive, which resulted in huge manpower losses, cases of desertion have soared. The Kiev regime’s army units are rife with cases of insubordination and desertion. Sputnik earlier obtained footage appearing to show Ukrainian troops being shot at and having grenades thrown at them by their own comrades during a Russian advance.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky recently deplored that such a case of desertion by a whole unit had resulted in Ukrainian forces being surrounded, and many soldiers being killed. He also spoke out against declaring a general amnesty for deserters in a video posted on his office’s YouTube channel.

On Wednesday, Verkhovna Rada lawmaker Irina Gerashchenko reported that the Ukrainian parliament had backed in the first reading a bill to tighten liability for military offenses, including desertion. The following day, the country’s parliament adopted a bill on mobilization aimed at replenishing Ukrainian forces depleted by two years of NATO’s proxy war against Russia. Zelensky also signed new mobilization measures into law on April 2, lowering the conscription age and authorizing the creation of an electronic database of military-age men as the issue of draft dodgers continues to persist.

April 13, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

US has ‘no viable plan’ for Ukraine – senator

RT | April 12, 2024

Kiev cannot win against Moscow because it has run out of men and needs more weapons and ammunition than Washington could possibly provide, US Senator J.D. Vance said on Friday.

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer argued that “the biggest reason Ukraine is losing the war is because the hard-right in the Congress has paralyzed the US from acting.” The New York Democrat claimed that a small group of Republicans have been holding up a vital $60 billion aid package for Kiev.

In an op-ed published by the New York Times, Vance addressed Schumer’s claim and accused President Joe Biden of having “failed to articulate even basic facts” about what Ukraine needs and the reality on the ground.

“The Biden administration has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war,” Vance argued.

“Ukraine’s challenge is not the GOP; it’s math,” the Ohio Republican wrote. “Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide.”

Not only is $60 billion a fraction of what Ukraine would need to turn the tide, Americans “lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war,” Vance argued.

He pointed to the fact that the US can make 360,000 shells for 155mm artillery per year, “less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs,” and that’s after doubling prewar production capacity.

Vance also took aim at the White House’s messaging that funding Kiev is good for US military industry.

“The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque. We can and should rebuild our industrial base without shipping its products to a foreign conflict,” he wrote.

The US insistence on not negotiating with Russia is “absurd” and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of restoring Ukraine’s 1991 borders is “fantastical,” Vance added. He urged Kiev to dig in and hold until some kind of peace can be brokered by Washington.

Earlier this week, however, Zelensky said Ukraine was planning yet another counteroffensive – after the costly failure of last summer’s operation – but needed even more weapons and ammunition from the West.

April 12, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Defector’s Car Explodes in Moscow, Owner Sustains Minor Injuries – Assistant

Sputnik – 12.04.2024

MOSCOW – A car belonging to Vasily Prozorov, former lieutenant colonel of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), has exploded in Moscow while he was inside the vehicle, Prozorov’s assistant told Sputnik on Friday.

Earlier in the day, a source in the city’s emergency services told Sputnik that an unidentified explosive device had gone off on Friday under a Toyota Land Cruiser in northern Moscow, injuring the owner. A criminal case has been opened in connection with the incident, the source added.

“Don’t worry. He is alive and fine. He will continue his work. No matter how hard they tried [to kill him], they failed,” the assistant said, when asked about the circumstances of the incident.

The assistant confirmed that Prozorov was admitted to a medical facility and was receiving treatment.

“He has been injured, but fortunately not severely, so he is now conscious and able to communicate,” the assistant said, adding that Prozorov was waiting for investigators to be questioned in connection with the incident.

Prior to fleeing to Russia, Prozorov worked in the SBU department for the Zaporozhye Region. After the 2014 coup in Ukraine, he moved to Kiev to serve in the so-called Anti-Terrorism Center of the SBU and has been commandeered to the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone in Donbass several times.

In 2018, Prozorov moved to Russia and has since participated in investigating crimes believed to have been committed by the Ukrainian government. He has recently been working on a documentary about the events of May 2, 2014, in Odessa.

April 12, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

US funds Ukraine outlets that censor and smear pro-peace Americans – report

Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov, Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Photo by Vladimir Shtanko/Anadolu Agency)
RT | April 11, 2024

A “sprawling constellation” of supposedly independent organizations and fact-checkers bankrolled by Washington has been behind labeling Americans who disagree with Kiev Russian propagandists, according to an investigation published on Thursday.

Journalist Lee Fang and RealClearInvestigations have looked into outfits such as New Voice of Ukraine, VoxUkraine, Detector Media and others, finding that in many cases they “promoted aggressive messages that stray from traditional journalistic practices” to support the Ukrainian government and “delegitimize its critics,” both at home and abroad.

Americans they have gone after range from economist Jeffrey Sachs and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer to journalists Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald. Some of these outfits have also denounced a factually correct New York Times article about the battle of Avdeevka as a “Russian psyop” and “disinformation.”

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) have funded scores of Ukrainian organizations. Some of them act as fact-checking partners for Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms, helping Ukraine censor critics under the guise of fighting “Russian disinformation.”

The London-based Zinc Network has been paid by USAID to “undermine Kremlin information operations” and help Ukraine with its own “strategic communications.”

According to another investigative journalist, Jack Poulson, Zinc’s Open Information Partnership in Ukraine has defined disinformation as “verifiable information which is unbalanced or skewed, amplifies, or exaggerates certain elements for effect, or uses emotive or inflammatory language to achieve effects which fit within existing Kremlin narratives, aims, or activities.”

Asked about the “anti-disinformation” groups in Ukraine targeting Americans, the State Department told Fang and RealClear that it “provides funding to credible independent media organizations to strengthen democracies in the countries we work in around the world.”

“We do not control the editorial content of these organizations,” the State Department insisted. According to documents Fang has reviewed, however, the US government and its contractors have “directly set the agenda” for Ukrainian outlets.

The US is “an active participant” in the information war between Russia and Ukraine, George Beebe, a director with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Fang. “The US government has been trying to shape perceptions, and it’s very difficult to separate what’s intended for foreign audiences from what seeps into the Anglosphere media,” he added.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has accused Russia of influencing US lawmakers and society at large. While he has offered little evidence for his claims, Fang’s investigation has revealed that much of the content generated by US-funded Ukrainian outlets “explicitly targets American foreign policy discourse.”

April 11, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant: The Samson Solution

Sputnik – 11.04.2024

Ukraine continues its attacks on Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi warned that it came “quite close” to a nuclear accident on Sunday after it was attacked by drones.

Dr. Chris Busby, a physical chemist and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, shares his opinion about what the non-stop Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant could result in with Sputnik.

We all know the Biblical story of the end of Samson. Having been betrayed and captured by the Philistines, Samson ends his life, and all the others around him, by exerting his great strength and pulling down the pillar he was chained to. The building falls down, killing him and all his captors. This has always been my worry about what I will call the Ukrainian conflict.

As the developments go against Ukraine, there is an increasing tendency to abandon direct engagement with the Russian forces (lack of weapons, poor air cover, army losses) and rather to move to a kind of Terminator 2 warfare. Action at a distance, using robot drones and cruise missiles. A move towards a spiteful kind of warfare that is relatively cheap but results in politically spectacular results.

Well, so what – you may say. For me, as someone who has studied the effects of radiation and radioactive contamination, the possibilities relating to the six reactors and associated waste cooling ponds of the Zaporozhye nuclear site represent something which would have more effect on Europe and Ukraine and indeed the world than anything that has occurred so far.

For individuals in Ukraine, motivated by hatred and spite, the site is a tempting target. Do these people know what it is they are doing, or may do? I think they don’t. Or maybe, like Samson, they don’t care. They want to pull the house down. In this case, Europe, Russia, the world.

Of course, they have no idea what could happen if one of the reactors went up. Or a spent fuel pond. And let’s be clear, if one goes up, like the domino effect at Fukushima, probably they all go up. That is because nuclear fuel is hot. Even spent nuclear fuel is hot. The fuel in the reactor in shutdown, or in the spent fuel ponds, has to be cooled. If it is not cooled (by pumping water round it, or cooling the water in the ponds by spraying) then it gets hotter and hotter. Then it melts.

When nuclear fuel melts together it forms a critical mass. The neutron flux increases and increases. It turns into a kind of nuclear bomb. That explodes and sends radioactive material up in the air, as with Chernobyl, as with Fukushima.

The winds carry this Pandoras box contents for hundreds, even thousands of kilometres. The Chernobyl radiation went west, after contamination of an enormous tract of land and water courses, sending the contamination through Kiev, down the Dnepr to Zaporozhye and beyond. Studies of cancer and infant mortality, congenital malformations along the water route found significant effects, children died, from cancer, from heart attacks, the population of Belarus, the entire country showed a sharp increase in adult deaths, at the same time a sharp reduction in births.

As far away as Wales and Scotland children died from leukemia; I know this, I studied the numbers which were released to me when I was part of the UK Committee examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters, CERRIE. Babies developed leukemia in Germany and Greece. And the explosion of one reactor at Zaporozhye is a much bigger deal than Chernobyl.

How could this happen? There are a number of possibilities. First, a cruise missile attack on one of the reactor buildings could theoretically result in the penetration of one of the reactors. There are penetration warheads in existence now that can cut through concrete; using depleted uranium (DU) penetration.

Do we know what Ukraine has in the way of cruise missiles? I don’t. I read that France and UK have given Ukraine cruise missiles. Also depleted uranium weapons. Some of these went up at Khmelnitsky, as I wrote about. The material went north west to Poland, Belarus and Germany, round Scandinavia, and ended up (and was measured) in England. Ukraine has (it seems) promised not to use these cruise missiles to attack distant targets in Russia, or the Crimea bridge. But Zaporozhye is not a distant target. It is just across the river (indeed there was an attack by boats).

Then there could be a fatal destruction of the control room and control facilities, so that the reactor goes mad and can’t be controlled. Then the cooling system could be knocked out. The electricity supply, the stand-by generators. Nuclear power stations are a very big target. They were never built to survive a war. It is no wonder that Rafael Grossi, the IAEA supremo, is worried.

The substances released by such an explosion include Caesium-137 with a half life of about 30 years. That means it’s around for 100 years or more. This causes cancer but also affects muscles, as in children’s heart muscles. They get arrythmias and die of heart attacks. The rate of arrythmias in children in Belarus is 15 %. In the rest of the world the background rate is 2%.

The contamination includes Strontium-90, which binds to DNA, causes cancer and kills children in the womb, or causes malformations. There are (of course) enormous amounts of Uranium particles. Uranium has a half life of billions of years. There is Plutonium. I can go on and on. And on. The radiation, focused inside the body, or the people, the animals, the plants, will destroy everything slowly.

But what about Chernobyl, you say, that hasn’t destroyed Europe. Well, just look at the cancer rates in Europe from 1986 onwards. In England, in the 1990s, about one in 6 developed cancer. In 2022 it was closer to one in 3. It is predicted (by WHO) to be soon 1 in 2. And this is adjusted for age. No one is asking why this epidemic has developed (except me).

The Samson option, will destroy the health of the population of Ukraine, Europe, Russia, and further afield. It would poison the productive land, crops would fail or else be poisonous.

The Samson option, it seems to me, is a possibility which I put in the same box in my head as Global Nuclear War. Ukraine has no nuclear weapons. But this can be done.

April 11, 2024 Posted by | Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Zelensky’s New Counteroffensive Will Spell Disaster for Ukraine – Senior Russian MoD Source

Sputnik -11.04.2024

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky told German newspaper Bild on Tuesday that his country already has a new plan for a counteroffensive against Russian forces but needs more advanced Western weapons.

A high-ranking source in the Russian Ministry of Defense has stated that the new counteroffensive will end in complete disaster for Ukraine with the ultimate defeat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“Due to such non-trivial approaches in military planning, there is no doubt that the implementation of Zelensky’s new plan for a counteroffensive will end in a complete disaster for Ukraine with the final defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the beginning of the path to peace on Russian terms,” a senior Ministry of Defense source told reporters.

According to the source, “In the absence of volunteers in Ukraine willing to further Zelensky’s madness with their lives and health, the Kiev regime is filling the huge personnel shortage in the Ukrainian Armed Forces with fresh cannon fodder, advancing a law on mass compulsory mobilization of citizens.”

Moreover, Zelensky fully relies on the West to provide the necessary weapons for hundreds of thousands of conscripts. There’s nothing left of their own in Ukraine for a long time. Besides, in the West, they’re already down to stripping their troops naked.

The outcome of President Zelensky’s previous counteroffensive plan in 2023, euphemistically referred to by him as “not so successful,” resulted in the deaths and serious injuries of over 166,000 Ukrainian soldiers, as well as the loss of 789 tanks, 2,400 other armored vehicles, and 132 aircraft.

April 11, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

EU state to give Ukraine fixed share of GDP annually

RT | April 11, 2024

Riga has resolved to supply Ukraine with military aid amounting to $120 million (€112 million) this year and will continue giving the equivalent of 0.25% of Latvia’s GDP in aid annually for the next three years, under a new agreement between the two nations.

The document was signed on Thursday by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics on the sidelines of a summit of 13 EU nations in Lithuania, and by Ukraine and Moldova.

Under the agreement on “long-term support and security obligations,” Riga will allocate the same portion of its GDP for military assistance to Kiev in 2024, 2025 and 2026. The aid could come in the form of equipment, weapons or military training, according to the text of the document published by Kiev.

The Baltic nation also pledged to back Ukraine’s NATO and EU aspirations. Zelensky praised the development as a “concrete result” of his trip to Vilnius, host of the 15-nation summit. He also thanked Latvia for its “readiness to help” for as long as necessary. Riga has not commented on the agreement so far.

Earlier, another Baltic State, Estonia, vowed to spend the same share of its GDP on annual aid to Kiev. In January, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told local media outlet ERR that her nation would spend 0.25% of its GDP on assistance for Ukraine for the next four years. She also called on other Western nations to follow suit.

However, Tallinn and Kiev have not yet signed any deals relating to the initiative. In early March, the Baltic nation said that the two states had begun developing a corresponding agreement. Later that same month, Ukrainian media reported that work on the treaty was “in its final stages.”

Estonia has been one of the most hawkish of Kiev’s backers amid its ongoing conflict with Russia. In March, Tallinn backed French President Emmanuel Macron after he raised the prospect of potentially sending NATO troops to Ukraine, with Kallas saying her country would not rule out deploying forces to Ukrainian territory.

Later in March, a poll showed that public trust in the Kallas-led government of Estonia stood at just 17%, down from 21% in February.

Latvia has taken a more moderate stance. In March, Prime Minister Evika Silina said that NATO was not ready for talks about sending troops to Ukraine and called for the focus to remain on military and financial assistance to Kiev instead.

April 11, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

China tells US it won’t be bullied on Russia

RT | April 10, 2024

Relations between Beijing and Moscow are their business alone, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has said, responding to veiled threats by a senior American diplomat.

US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on Tuesday that any further Russian advances in Ukraine will “have an impact” on the US-China relationship.

“China and Russia have the right to carry out normal cooperation. Such cooperation should not come under external interference or constraint,” Mao said, when asked about Campbell’s comments at Wednesday’s press briefing. “China will not accept the accusations and pressuring.”

Speaking to the nonprofit National Committee on US-China Relations, Campbell – who recently took over from Victoria Nuland – said that recent Russian gains could “alter the balance of power in Europe in ways that are, frankly, unacceptable” to Washington, and that the State Department has told Beijing as much.

“On Ukraine, China has always taken an objective and just position and played a constructive role in actively promoting peace talks,” Mao told reporters. “If certain countries truly care about peace and want an early end to the crisis, they should reflect on the root cause of the crisis and do something that will actually help bring about peace, rather than deflect the blame to China.”

Beijing has repeatedly resisted US pressure to side with Kiev and join the Washington-led embargo against Moscow.

Campbell’s remarks echoed the statements made by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during her visit to China earlier this week. Mao responded by saying that China would “take resolute measures to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests.”

On Wednesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman also condemned US travel warnings as “totally unwarranted,” “wrongful” and “groundless,” noting that they have “deterred many Americans” who wanted to visit the country.

China and other members of BRICS have helped Russia mitigate the “illegal policy of unilateral sanctions” by the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday, after meeting his counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing.

Moscow’s trade with the rest of the world has surged over the past two years, more than offsetting the embargo by the US and its allies, imposed over the Ukraine conflict.

April 11, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

German democracy index claims Hungarian democracy worse than Ukraine’s despite Kyiv canceling elections and operating under martial law

By Denes Albert | Remix News | April 10, 2024

Ukraine, which no longer holds elections, is ahead of Hungary in terms of democracy, according to a major German media group index that references 10 experts, nine of whom are directly funded by billionaire oligarch George Soros and his Open Society Foundations.

The results were produced by the German Bertelsmann Foundation’s democracy index, which was published in the print edition of the media group’s Frankfurter Allurement Zeitung.

Despite Hungary having a functioning and vibrant democracy that includes actual elections, the index claims that the country is less democratic than Ukraine, which is under martial law, has banned opposition parties, and has no elections.

According to the paper’s analyst, the new EU member states have made huge political and economic progress since 2004, with only Poland and Hungary representing or still representing a “politically authoritarian tendency.”

“Despite the country’s EU membership, Fidesz, led by Viktor Orbán and in power since 2010, has seriously undermined Hungary’s initially well-functioning democracy,” claims Ralph M. Wrobel, who argues that without pressure from Brussels, Poland and Hungary would have become fully authoritarian states.

It is worth noting, however, that the Bertelsmann Foundation’s biannual ranking is based on the opinions of country experts, not on facts.

“Nine of the ten ‘independent experts on Hungary’ are from Political Capital. Political Capital, founded by a former SZDSZ member, which received contracts worth hundreds of millions of forints from the previous Socialist governments of Ferenc Gyurcsány and Gordon Bajnai for communications consultancy, and of course among its supporters we find the Open Society Foundations led by George Soros,” government spokesman Zoltán Kovács pointed out earlier.

Kovács added that the Bertelsmann Group is the owner of RTL Television, among others. In a previous analysis, Hungarian news portal Mandiner pointed out that the group had woven its way into the EU institutions by hiding behind pro-Europeanism.

See also:

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

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