Orban reveals Zelensky’s reaction to ceasefire proposal
RT | July 3, 2024
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky was not receptive to Budapest’s proposal to establish a temporary ceasefire with Russia, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who recently traveled to Kiev.
During his surprise visit on Tuesday, which was his first trip to Ukraine in over a decade, Orban proposed that Zelensky think about “whether it would be possible to take a break. To reach a ceasefire and start negotiations [with Russia] since a quick ceasefire could speed up these negotiations.”
Ahead of the trip, Orban stated that he hoped to explain to Zelensky that “time is running out and it is important to establish peace, as hundreds of soldiers are dying on the front every day and we do not see how a solution can be found on the battlefield.”
However, following his conversations with Zelensky, Orban told the Swiss Die Weltwoche news outlet, that the Ukrainian leader “had some doubts” about the ceasefire proposal and “didn’t like it very much.” He explained that Zelensky “had a bad experience in the past with ceasefires, which, in his opinion, did not benefit Ukraine” and because of this believed there were “limits” to what could be achieved.
While Zelensky himself has not yet commented on Hungary’s proposal, his deputy chief of staff, Igor Zhovka has stated that Ukraine is not interested in Orban’s proposal and claimed that a ceasefire “cannot be considered in isolation.”
Instead, Zhovka said that Kiev will continue to seek a resolution to the conflict based on Zelensky’s own ‘peace formula’. The ten-point program, initially floated in late 2022, calls for a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from territories Kiev claims as its own, reparation payments and an international war crime tribunal for Russia’s leadership.
Moscow has vehemently rejected Zelensky’s plan as a non-starter and has stressed that any peace talks with Kiev must be based on “realities on the ground.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has presented his own set of terms for starting ceasefire talks, which include a full Ukrainian withdrawal from the regions that voted to be part of Russia, as well as legally binding guarantees that ensure Ukraine will never become a member of NATO.
NATO chief’s push for Ukraine funding fails – report
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Paris, France on June 24, 2024. © AFP / Bertrand GUAY/AFP
RT | July 3, 2024
NATO member states have rejected a proposal by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to spend €40 billion ($43 billion) a year on aid for Ukraine, several media outlets have reported. The constituent countries, however, have agreed to earmark this sum for Kiev’s needs next year, Reuters claimed.
Since late May, the outgoing secretary general has on multiple occasions urged member states to make a long-term funding commitment at the upcoming NATO summit in Washington, DC on July 9-11.
During a press conference last month, Stoltenberg claimed that “allies have provided around €40 billion worth of military support to Ukraine each year” since 2022. The NATO chief said he wanted to “maintain this level of support for as long as necessary,” securing “fresh funding every year.”
On Wednesday, Germany’s Deutsche Presse-Agentur, citing unnamed sources from several delegations present at NATO consultations, claimed that Stoltenberg’s proposal had fallen through due to opposition from member states.
Reuters also reported that Stoltenberg’s original request had been turned down, with member states merely stating their intention to re-evaluate allied contributions at future NATO summits.
They also vowed to prepare two reports over the course of the next year to clearly establish each nation’s area of responsibility in terms of aid for Ukraine. The mechanism would supposedly be based on the GDP of member states, with more affluent nations expected to foot most of the bill.
Speaking during a press conference in mid-June, Stoltenberg recounted how the “United States spent six months agreeing to a supplemental for Ukraine.” He also lamented that “some of the promises that the European allies have made have not been delivered.”
“And if we turn this into not voluntary contributions, but NATO commitments, of course it will become more robust, it will become more reliable,” he argued at the time.
Stoltenberg also touted the creation of a Security Assistance Group for Ukraine, which would be based in Wiesbaden, Germany. The structure is expected to coordinate NATO military assistance for Ukraine, with the chief of the US European Command, General Christopher Cavoli, at the helm.
Some observers have speculated that the new, less-US-centered infrastructure is meant as a substitute, should the existing Ramstein group begin to falter. These concerns are understood to have been growing within NATO as a second Trump term stateside appears more likely.
The Republican hopeful has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s generous handouts to Kiev, and vowed to end the Ukraine conflict in short order if elected.
Ukrainian insistence on war might seriously irritate Hungary
By Lucas Leiroz | July 3, 2024
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made a surprise visit to Kiev on July 2 and spoke with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky about the possibility of a ceasefire. The Kiev authorities rejected Orban’s proposal almost immediately, making it clear that there will be no peace and that the country plans to follow the Western directive of fighting “to the last Ukrainian.”
Orban proposed to Zelensky that he take the initiative to establish a ceasefire and then resume peace talks with Russia. In the Hungarian leader’s opinion, a ceasefire would be a fruitful gesture of goodwill for dialogue with Moscow, showing that Kiev is willing to resolve the conflict diplomatically. He believes that, with hostilities stopped, negotiations could advance more appropriately, having more chances for the sides to finally reach a deal.
This was Orban’s first visit to Kiev in more than a decade, which shows how the Hungarian politician was genuinely willing to propose a peace dialogue. However, Ukrainian authorities did not even consider Orban’s proposal, with Zelensky’s aide Igor Zhovkva almost immediately speaking out to reject the initiative.
“[Orban] voiced his opinion (…) This is not the first country that talks about such possible developments (…) [However] Ukraine’s position is quite clear, understandable and well-known (…) [For Kiev, a ceasefire] cannot be considered in isolation,” he said during an official statement.
Zhovkva is wrong when he says that Orban proposed an “isolated” ceasefire. The initiative he proposed is aimed at resuming peace negotiations. Obviously, ceasing hostilities before the talks would be seen by Moscow as a gesture of goodwill, regardless of the final outcome of the discussions. However, this Ukrainian diplomatic impoliteness was really expected.
The neo-Nazi regime has repeatedly made it clear that it is not willing to negotiate peace except on its own terms – which include precisely the regaining of territorial control over the areas liberated by Russian forces. Moscow is obviously not willing to hand over to the enemy territories that have already been reintegrated into the Russian Federation, so dialogue with the Kiev junta is impossible.
In fact, from a realistic point of view, only the Russians can really propose a peace agreement. As the victorious side in the conflict, it is Moscow that decides when to end military action. Kiev can only accept Russia’s conditions or continue fighting even without any chance of victory. For its part, Russia has already proposed a peace agreement, the main points of which are the recognition of the New Regions and Kiev’s promise not to join NATO. Ukraine continues to refuse these conditions, unnecessarily prolonging the conflict.
It is possible to say that Orban did what he could, but his plans were frustrated by the Ukrainian thirst for war. The Kiev junta is obstinate in carrying out all Western orders, with any peace initiatives being fruitless. However, it is important to emphasize how Ukraine’s harsh attitude towards Orban could have serious consequences, since tensions between Kiev and Budapest have been rising steadily in recent times.
Orban has a sovereigntist stance, being a dissident leader in the EU and NATO. He is against arms supplies to Kiev and in favor of peace between Russia and Europe. Recently, Orban accused “EU bureaucrats” of wanting war with Russia and made it clear that he does not want Hungary to be involved in such a situation.
Orban is also deeply concerned about his ethnic Hungarian compatriots under Ukrainian jurisdiction. Just as it does with Russians in Donbass, Kiev is promoting ethnic cleansing in the Hungarian-majority region of Transcarpathia. The Hungarian language has been banned from Transcarpathian schools, and local citizens have been massively sent to certain death on the front lines, being a priority in the forced conscription policy.
Hungary has repeatedly denounced the situation in Transcarpathia, but international organizations remain inactive. Zelensky did not give Orban any explanation on this issue at the recent meeting. This is highly expected to anger the Hungarian leader and encourage him to take increasingly tough measures against Kiev, perhaps by sanctioning it or encouraging the mass emigration of ethnic Hungarians from Ukraine.
In addition, Orban could pursue an even more sovereigntist policy from now on. The Hungarian prime minister has already understood that there is no future in cooperating with the EU and NATO, which is why Hungary may seek strategic partnerships with emerging powers, including Russia.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.
The Debate Should Be a Wake-Up Call For Americans
By Ron Paul | July 1, 2024
There were plenty of surprises in last week’s presidential debate. For one, Americans who rely on the mainstream media for their news learned that they had been lied to for the past three years about President Biden’s capability to do the job he was elected to do.
The realization that the media has been lying for years about Biden is a positive development, as, hopefully, thoughtful Americans might begin wondering what else the media has been lying about. For example, they will find out that the media has been lying to them for years about Russia and Ukraine and about the Middle East and elsewhere. They will find out that our hyper-interventionist foreign policy does not make us safer and more free, but the opposite.
Unfortunately for most Americans, foreign policy is something that happens “over there,” with few direct effects back home. Dumping nearly $200 billion into the lost cause called “Ukraine” may at most seem like an annoyance to many Americans, but it’s not like they are being snatched up by gangs of military recruiters and sent to the front line as is happening to Ukrainian men.
However, $200 billion is real money and the effect on our economy is also real. The bill will be paid by each American family indirectly through the inflation “tax.” Each dollar created out of thin air and spent on the Ukraine debacle devalues the rest of the dollars in circulation.
The danger posed by our foreign policy seemed to escape both candidates, who each tried to convince us they were “tougher” than the other. Despite Donald Trump’s sober and accurate warning that Joe Biden has taken us to the brink of World War III, his solution to the problem is doing more of the same. His stated foreign policy seems to be that were he in office the rest of the world would not dare do anything against his will.
He would have been so tough that Russian president Vladimir Putin would never have dared to invade Ukraine, he claimed. He would have been so tough that Hamas would never have dared attack Israel on October 7th. It’s only Joe Biden’s “weakness” that leads to these disastrous foreign policy outcomes.
But the world does not work that way. Decades of US sanctions placed on any country that fails to do what Washington demands have backfired and led to the emergence of a block of countries united in their resistance to American dictates. Being “tough” on less-powerful countries may work… until it doesn’t. That’s where we are today.
Neither candidate seems to realize that the world has changed.
I have always said that real strength in foreign policy comes from restraint. To prevent these bad outcomes everywhere, stop intervening everywhere. It is not “toughness” that would have prevented Russia from taking action against Ukraine. It is restraint. Not launching a coup in Ukraine in 2014 would have prevented the disastrous war in Ukraine. Just like not stirring up trouble in the South China Sea would prevent a war with China. Not continuing to occupy and intervene in the Middle East would prevent a major regional war which might include Iran and other big players in the region.
Restraint is the real toughness. Non-intervention is the only foreign policy that will keep us safe and free. We’ve tried it the other way and it does not work. Let’s try something different.
Destroying Ukraine with Idealism
Why Ukraine should not have the “right” to join NATO
BY GLENN DIESEN | JULY 2, 2024
Political realism is commonly and mistakenly portrayed as immoral because the principal focus is on the inescapable security competition and it thus rejects idealist efforts to transcend power politics. However, because states cannot break with security competition, morality for the realist entails acting in accordance with the balance of power logic as the foundation for stability and peace. Idealist efforts to break with power politics can then be defined as immoral by undermining the management of security competition as the foundation of peace. As Raymond Aron expressed in 1966: “The idealist, believing he has broken with power politics exaggerates its crimes”.[1]
Ukraine’s Sovereign Right to join NATO
The most appealing and dangerous idealist argument that destroyed Ukraine is that it has the right to join any military alliance it desires. It is a very attractive statement that can easily win support from the public as it affirms the freedom and sovereignty of Ukraine, and the alternative is seemingly that Russia should be allowed to dictate Ukraine’s policies.
However, arguing that Ukraine should be allowed to join any military alliance is an idealist argument as it appeals to how we would like the world to be, not how the world actually works. The principle that peace derives from expanding military alliances without taking into account the security interests of other great powers has never existed. States such as Ukraine that border a great power have every reason to express legitimate security concerns, but inviting a rival great power such as the US into its territory intensifies the security competition.
Is it moral to insist on how the world ought to be when war is the consequence of ignoring how the world actually works?
The alternative to expanding NATO is not to accept a Russian sphere of influence, which denotes a zone of exclusive influence. Peace derives from recognising a Russian sphere of interests, which is an area where Russian security interests must be recognised and incorporated rather than excluded. It did not use to be controversial to argue that Russian security interests must be taken into account when operating on its borders.
Mexico has plenty of freedoms in the international system, but it does not have the freedom to join a Chinese-led military alliance or host Chinese military bases. The idealist argument that Mexico can do as it pleases implies ignoring US security concerns, and the result would likely be the US destruction of Mexico. If Scotland secedes from the UK and then joins a Russian-led military alliance and hosts Russian missiles, would the English still champion the principle that it has no say? Idealists who sought to transcend power politics and create a more benign world would instead intensify the security competition and instigate wars.
The Morality of Opposing NATO Expansionism
To argue that NATO expansionism provoked Russia’s invasion is regularly condemned by idealists as immoral because it allegedly legitimises both power politics and the invasion. Is objective reality immoral if it contradicts the ideal world we would like to exist?
The former British ambassador to Russia, Roderic Lyne, warned in 2020 that it was a “massive mistake” to push for NATO membership for Ukraine: “If you want to start a war with Russia, that’s the best way of doing it”.[2] Angela Merkel acknowledged that Russia would interpret the possibility of Ukrainian NATO membership as a “declaration of war”.[3] CIA Director William Burns also warned against drawing Ukraine into NATO as Russia fears encirclement and will therefore be under enormous pressure to use military force: “Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face”.[4] The advisor to former French President Sarkozy argued that the US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership in November 2021 “convinced Russia that they must attack or be attacked”.[5] None of the aforementioned people sought to legitimise an invasion, rather they sought to avoid a war.
When great powers do not have a soft institutional veto, they use a hard military veto. The idealists insisting that Russia should not have a veto on NATO expansion pushed for the policies that predictably resulted in the destruction of a nation, the loss of territory, and hundreds of thousands of deaths. Why do the idealists get to present themselves as moral and “pro-Ukrainian”? Why are the realists who for more than a decade warned against NATO expansion immoral and “anti-Ukrainian”? Are these labels premised on the theoretical assumption of the idealists?
NATO as a Third Party?
Suggesting that Ukraine has the sovereign right to join NATO presents the military bloc as a passive third party that merely supports the democratic aspiration of Ukrainians. This narrative neglects that NATO did not have an obligation to offer future membership to Ukraine. Indeed, the Western countries signed several agreements with Moscow after the Cold War, such as the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, to collectively construct a Europe without dividing lines and based on indivisible security. NATO broke these agreements by pushing for expansion and refusing to offer Russia security guarantees to mitigate the security competition. By offering future membership to Ukraine, the NATO-Russia conflict became a Russia-Ukraine conflict as Russia had to prevent Ukraine from joining the military bloc and hosting the US military on its territory.
NATO’s support for Ukraine’s right to choose its own foreign policy is also dishonest as Ukraine had to be pulled into the orbit of the military bloc against its will. The Western public is rarely informed that every opinion poll between 1991 and 2014 demonstrates that only a very small minority of Ukrainians ever wanted to join the alliance. NATO recognised the lack of interest by the Ukrainian government and people as a problem to be overcome in a report from 2011: “The greatest challenge for Ukrainian-NATO relations lies in the perception of NATO among the Ukrainian people. NATO membership is not widely supported in the country, with some polls suggesting that popular support of it is less than 20%”.[6]
The solution was to push for a “democratic revolution” in 2014 that toppled the democratically elected government of Ukraine in violation of its constitution and without majority support from Ukrainians. The leaked Nuland-Pyatt phone call revealed that the US was planning a regime change, including who should be in the post-coup government, who had to stay out, and how to legitimise the coup.[7] After the coup, the US openly asserted its intrusive influence over the new government it had installed in Kiev. The general prosecutor of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, complained that since 2014, “the most shocking thing is that all the [government] appointments were made in agreement with the United States” and Washington “believed that Ukraine was their fiefdom”.[8] A conflict with Russia could be manufactured that would create a demand for NATO.
What were the first decisions of the new government hand-picked by Washington? The first decree by the new Parliament was a call for repealing Russian as a regional language. The New York Times reports that on the first day following the coup, Ukraine’s new spy chief called the CIA and MI6 to establish a partnership for covert operations against Russia that eventually resulted in 12 secret CIA bases along the Russian border.[9] The conflict intensified as Russia responded by seizing Crimea and supporting a rebellion in Donbas, and NATO sabotaged the Minsk peace agreement that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians voted to have implemented. Preserving and intensifying the conflict gave Washington a dependent Ukrainian proxy that could be used against Russia. The same New York Times article mentioned above, also revealed that the covert war against Russia after the coup was a leading reason for Russia’s invasion:
“Toward the end of 2021, according to a senior European official, Mr. Putin was weighing whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia’s main spy services, who told him that the C.I.A., together with Britain’s MI6, were controlling Ukraine and turning it into a beachhead for operations against Moscow”.[10]
The Immorality of Peace vs Morality of War?
After Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine, the idealists insist that Ukraine must become a member of NATO as soon as the war is over. It is intended as an appealing and moral statement to ensure that Ukraine will be protected and such a tragedy will not be repeated.
Yet, what does it communicate to Russia? Whatever territory Russia does not conquer will fall into the hands of NATO, which can then be used as a frontline against Russia. The threat of NATO expansion incentivises Russia to seize as much territory as possible and ensure what remains is a deeply dysfunctional rump state. The only thing that can bring peace to Ukraine and end the carnage is to restore its neutrality, yet the idealists denounce this as deeply immoral and thus unacceptable. To repeat Raymond Aron: “The idealist, believing he has broken with power politics exaggerates its crimes”.[11]
[1] Aron, R., 1966. Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations. Doubleday, Garden City, p.584.
[2] R. Lyne, ‘The UC Interview Series: Sir Roderic Lyne by Nikita Gryazin’, Oxford University Consortium, 18 December 2020.
[3] A. Walsh, ‘Angela Merkel opens up on Ukraine, Putin and her legacy’, Deutsche Welle, 7 June 2022.
[4] W.J. Burns, ‘Nyet means nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines’, Wikileaks, 1 February 2008.
[5] C. Caldwell, ‘The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the U.S. Deserves Much of the Blame’, The New York Times, 31 May 2022.
[6] NATO, ‘‘Post-Orange Ukraine’: Internal dynamics and foreign policy priorities’, NATO Parliamentary Assembly, October 2011, p.11.
[7] BBC, ‘Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call’, BBC, 7 February 2014.
[8] M.M. Abrahms, ‘Does Ukraine Have Kompromat on Joe Biden?’, Newsweek, 8 August 2023.
[9] A. Entous and M. Schwirtz, 2024. ‘The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin’, The New York Times, 25 February 2024.
[10] A. Entous and M. Schwirtz, 2024. ‘The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin’, The New York Times, 25 February 2024.
[11] Aron, R., 1966. Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations. Doubleday, Garden City, p.584.
Orban pitches ‘quick ceasefire’ to Zelensky
RT | July 2, 2024
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has urged Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to halt military operations against Russia in order to reach a peace deal with Moscow. Orban has long maintained that the Ukraine conflict could spiral into a continent-wide war, and that restoring peace is his government’s foreign policy priority.
Orban arrived in Kiev on Tuesday for a surprise meeting with Zelensky, in his first visit to Ukraine in more than a decade. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Orban said he had asked Zelensky “to think about whether it would be possible to take a break… to reach a ceasefire and start negotiations [with Russia], since a quick ceasefire could speed up these negotiations.”
Orban said that he was “very grateful to Zelensky for his honest answer in this regard.”
The Hungarian prime minister did not reveal Zelensky’s answer, although it is unlikely that the Ukrainian leader shared his enthusiasm for a truce. Despite mounting battlefield losses and protestations from some of his own aides, Zelensky has insisted since 2022 that he will return Ukraine’s former territories – including Crimea – by military force.
However, while Zelensky has not abandoned these goals, he stated last month that Ukraine “does not want to prolong the war,” and will “put a settlement plan on the table within a few months.” In follow-up comments last week, he said intermediaries such as Türkiye or the UN could help broker talks with Moscow.
Orban has pushed for such a plan since the outset of the conflict. Under his leadership, Hungary has refused to supply Kiev with weapons or allow Western arms into Ukraine via its soil. Budapest has also threatened to veto several of the EU’s 14 packages of sanctions on Moscow, agreeing to these measures only after securing concessions from Brussels, including a partial exemption from the EU’s bloc-wide oil embargo and a guarantee that its nuclear sector won’t be affected by future packages.
These positions have placed Orban at loggerheads with Zelensky and the EU leadership in Brussels. “The Brussels bureaucrats want this war, they see it as their own, and they want to defeat Russia,” he wrote in the Magyar Nemzet newspaper on Saturday.
Orban traveled to Kiev a day after Hungary assumed the European Council’s rotating presidency. “The goal of the Hungarian presidency is to contribute to solving the challenges facing the European Union. My first trip therefore led to Kiev,” Orban said in a statement on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
Aside from pushing Zelensky toward a ceasefire, Orban said he used the face-to-face meeting to lobby for the rights of Ukraine’s Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, whom Budapest argues are treated as second-class citizens by Kiev. The pair also discussed trade, energy, and infrastructure cooperation.
“We are trying to close all previous disputes and focus on the future. We want to improve relations between our countries,” Orban told reporters.
Zelensky Calls on World to ‘Force Putin to Make Peace’
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | July 1, 2024
In a series of posts on social media, President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded more weapons from his Western backers so Russia can be “forced” into a peace agreement. Advanced warplanes, long-range missiles, and air defenses were named on the Ukrainian leader’s wishlist.
In an X post, Zelensky acknowledged that Ukraine was struggling to combat Russian glide bombs, and Kiev needed a significant influx of arms. “Russian bombs remain Putin’s key capability to wage war. The sooner the world helps us neutralize Russia’s combat aviation launching these bombs and the sooner we can strike back with justified strikes,” he implored on Sunday. “The world possesses enough strength to force Russia to make peace.”
Zelensky has sought to impose peace on Russia that requires President Vladimir Putin to stand trial for war crimes and Moscow to withdraw to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders. Putin has offered Ukraine a deal that will require Kiev to recognize Russia’s claims to territory it has captured since 2022. Under Moscow’s proposal, Kiev would also have to agree to neutrality.
Washington and Kiev’s Western backers have firmly rejected any of Moscow’s offers for diplomacy and have pushed Ukraine to expel the invading Russian soldiers. However, as the conflict turned into a war of attrition, Russia gained the upper hand with a larger population and military-industrial base that outproduces Ukraine’s collective supporters.
In a separate post, Zelensky discussed his requests to a bipartisan group of American lawmakers. “We discussed key areas of further American assistance, including additional air defense systems. This is critically important, as the Patriot systems save lives and protect infrastructure,” he wrote.
Washington has struggled to provide Kiev with all the air defenses it has requested. Zelensky has only received a fraction of the Patriot systems he has demanded. Interceptors are in short supply with the White House recently announcing that it would give Ukraine priority for newly produced missiles.
On Monday, Zelensky made a third appeal for arms on X. “Life must prevail over the Russian war and all of Putin’s hostile ambitions. This is absolutely possible. But only if we sustain not just our courage but also the courage of our partners.” He continued, “Long-range weapons, fighter jets for Ukraine—of sufficient quality and quantity, and more air defense systems—are crucial factors affecting the entire course of this war.”
Zelensky said Ukraine needed to be able to “neutralize Russia’s combat aviation launching these bombs and… Russian military infrastructure and airfields.” While Washington and a number of other NATO countries have signed off on Kiev using their weapons to hit targets in Russia, Zelensky has asked the West to remove restrictions on where inside Russia the munitions can hit.
Additionally, Ukraine has used drones to hit Russian radar sites that are critical to Moscow’s ability to detect incoming nuclear weapons.
Top Shelf
American-made M-270 Multiple Launch Rocket System
French-made SCALP-EG Cruise Missile
By William Schryver – imetatronink – July 1, 2024
I grow weary of the increasingly pervasive myth that the US/NATO has sent to Ukraine nothing but its antiquated equipment and munitions.
SOME of the equipment sent has been older generation specimens. But ALMOST EVERYTHING sent is representative of what would constitute a large proportion of any US/NATO front-line combined arms army.
– Virtually ALL the artillery tubes sent to Ukraine, whether towed or self-propelled, are the same types NATO armies could presently field.
– Virtually ALL the armored vehicles, of all types, are the same types NATO armies would field in large numbers in a war against Russia.
– ALL the precision-guided strike munitions the US/NATO have fielded in Ukraine are the best available: Javelins, NLAWS, Excalibur, GMLRS and GLSDB for HIMARS, JDAMs, Switchblade, HARMS, Storm Shadow/SCALP, ATACMS, etc.
– ALL the air-defense systems fielded in Ukraine have been top-shelf front-line stuff: IRIS-T, NASAMS, Patriot, etc.
– Most, if not all, of the electronic warfare and counter-battery radars are “best available”.
– The ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) is not only “best available”, but it has been ubiquitous and uninterrupted.
I’m sure there must be some other examples I’m neglecting to cite.
When one examines in aggregate the implements of war the US/NATO have provided to Ukraine, the overwhelming majority consists of the very stuff every military in NATO would field in a war against Russia.
A very small proportion could be reasonably characterized as “antiquated storage-depot junk”.
It must also be recognized (as is now common knowledge) that effectively ALL the precision-guided strike munitions, air-defense systems, and theater ISR assets are being operated by “NATO-affiliated volunteers” – and, not rarely, active NATO personnel.
It is a demonstrable and incontrovertible fact that, in terms of what has been delivered to Ukraine, the US and its NATO underlings have, with very few exceptions, sent their “best stuff”.
And I challenge anyone to craft a persuasive argument built around the proposition that: “If the Americans sent their best stuff, it would dominate on the battlefield against the Russians.”
Russia Threatens US Drones in Black Sea Aiding Attacks on Crimea
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 30, 2024
In response to Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean Peninsula, tensions between the US and Russia have significantly escalated, with Moscow threatening US drones operating over the Black Sea. The Kremlin says the drones are part of the Ukrainian operations in the region.
On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said there had been an uptick in American drone operations in the Black Sea “carrying out reconnaissance” of the Crimean Peninsula. The statement explained that the Russian military was instructed to prepare an “operational response” to the flights.
The remarks followed a Ukrainian attack using US cluster munitions that caused the death of four civilians and wounded hundreds of others. Moscow argues that Washington’s support for Kiev makes the US effectively a party to the conflict. “This demonstrates the increasing involvement of the United States and NATO countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kiev regime,” the Defense Ministry said.
As Ukrainian forces have continued to lose territory to Russia on the battlefield, its Western backers have significantly stepped up support for Kiev. The US has allowed Ukraine to use its munitions to strike Russia, signed off on the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine, and sent Abrams Tanks to Ukraine, all actions the White House previously warned could risk provoking World War Three.
The Defense Ministry noted the Western escalations, including the drone flights, “increase the risk of a direct confrontation between the alliance and Russia.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov explained the Kremlin is still working on its response to the attack on Crimea. “The tragedy that occurred in Sevastopol will certainly not remain and does not remain without our response.” He added, “I think that the idea of certain permissible scenarios is also on the minds of many in the West. They should feel the extreme risks associated with such actions.”
Russian Forces Use Underground Tunnel to Seize Major Ukrainian Stronghold in Donbass
Sputnik – 30.06.2024
Russian troops captured a major Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern part of Kirovo in Donbass, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
“The major Ukrainian stronghold on the eastern outskirts of the town of Kirovo was taken by assault units from the Veterans squad of the Tsentr Battlegroup using an underground tunnel,” the statement said.
The fighters secretly cleared and utilized a tunnel over three kilometers long along the Seversky Donets channel, then entered the rear of the fortified position, which featured long-term firing points and underground shelters.
“The soldiers established a supply route through the tunnel, providing the assault troops with ammunition, weapons, and food,” the ministry added.
The ministry emphasized that the surprise element allowed the unit to successfully take full control of the position. Some Ukrainian soldiers surrendered, while others abandoned their posts and retreated.
Earlier on Sunday, the ministry reported that the Tsentr Battlegroup’s units had liberated the settlement of Novoalexandrovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, improved their tactical position, and inflicted losses on the formations of the 23rd, 47th Mechanized, 95th Air Assault, 59th Motorized Infantry Brigades and the 2nd Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard in the areas of Toretsk, Kirovo, Mikhailovka, Novgorodskoye, Volch’ye, Shevchenko, Sokol, and Vishnevoye. The enemy suffered losses of up to 370 soldiers, eight vehicles, four howitzers, two anti-tank guns, and a counter-battery radar station.
Trump the Peacemaker? How his presidency might help end the war in Ukraine
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | June 29, 2024
The likely next president of the US, Donald Trump, has signaled that he has a plan for bringing the war in Ukraine to an end. Or, at least, two of his advisers have such a plan. More importantly, they have submitted it to Trump. And most importantly, they have said that he has responded positively.
As one of the plan’s authors has put it, “I’m not claiming he agreed with it or agreed with every word of it, but we were pleased to get the feedback we did.” It is true that Trump has also let it be known that he is not officially endorsing the plan. However, it is obvious that this is a trial balloon which has been launched with his approval. Otherwise, we would have either not have heard about it or it would have been disavowed.
The two Trump advisers are Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general, and Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst. Both held significant positions on national security matters during Trump’s presidency. Currently, both play important roles at the Center for American Security: Kellogg serves as co-chair and Fleitz as vice chair. Both, finally, are clear about their belief in what is perhaps Trump’s single most defining foreign policy concept: America First. Fleitz recently published an article asserting that “only America First can reverse the global chaos caused by the Biden administration.” For Kellogg, the “America First approach is key to national security.” The Center for American Security, finally, is part of the America First Policy Institute, an influential think tank founded in 2022 by key Trump administration veterans to prepare policies for his comeback.
Clearly, this is a peace plan that has not come out of nowhere. On the contrary, it has not merely been submitted to Trump to receive his – unofficial – nod, it has also emerged from within Trumpism as a resurgent political force. In addition, as Reuters has pointed out, it is also the most elaborate plan yet from the Trump camp on how to get to peace in Ukraine. In effect, this is the first time that Trump’s promise to rapidly end this war, once he is back in the White House, has been fleshed out in detail. The adoption of the plan or any similar policy would obviously mark a massive change in US policy. Hence, this is something that deserves close attention.
What does the plan foresee? In essence, it is built on a simple premise: to use Washington’s leverage over Ukraine to force the country to accept a peace that will come with concessions, territorial and otherwise. In the words of Keith Kellogg, “We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up’.” Since Kiev is vitally dependent on American assistance, it is hard to see how it could resist such pressure. Perhaps to give an appearance of “balance” for the many Republicans still hawkish on Russia, the plan also includes a threat addressed to Moscow: “And you tell Putin,” again in Kellogg’s terms, “he’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.”
Yet it is obvious that, despite the tough rhetoric about Russia, the plan will cause great anxiety in Kiev, not Moscow, for two reasons. First, the threats addressed to Russia and Ukraine are not comparable: If the US were to withdraw its support from Ukraine, Kiev’s Zelensky regime would quickly not just lose the war but collapse. If the US were to, instead, increase its support for the Zelensky regime, then Moscow would respond by mobilizing additional resources, as it has done before. It might also, in that case, receive direct military assistance from China, which would not stand by and watch a potential Russian defeat unfold, because that would leave Beijing alone with an aggressive, emboldened West. In addition, Washington would, of course, have to weigh the risk of Russia engaging in counter-escalation. In sum, the plan threatens Ukraine with certain defeat, regime, and, possibly, even state disintegration; it threatens Moscow with a harder time – a type of threat that has no record of success.
The second reason the plan is bad news for Ukraine but not for Russia is that the peace it aims at is much closer to Moscow’s war aims than to those of Kiev. While the document that has been submitted to Trump has not been made public, American commentators believe that a paper published on the site of the Center for American Security under the title “America First, Russia, & Ukraine” is similar to what he – or his staff – got to see. Also authored by Kellogg and Fleitz, this paper, too, repeatedly stresses just how “tough” Trump used to be toward Russia. Plenty of strutting there for those who like that kind of stuff.
These statements, however, are balanced by an emphasis on what used to be called diplomacy: “At the same time,” we read, “Trump was open to cooperation with Russia and dialogue with Putin. Trump expressed respect for Putin as a world leader and did not demonize him in public statements … This was a transactional approach to US-Russia relations … to find ways to coexist and lower tensions … while standing firm on American security interests.”
That already is a tone that Kiev cannot but find disconcerting. Because under Biden, US strategy – and therefore that of the collective West – has been built not merely on an extremely belligerent approach (as if that were not bad enough already) but, more importantly and more detrimentally, on the obsessive idea that there is no alternative. Everything, to its adherents, is “appeasement” except constant escalation to “win.” There is no room for genuine quid pro quos and compromise. That attitude is vital to America’s unrelenting support for Ukraine and, in particular, the fact that it has crossed one red line (meaning those previously recognized by Washington itself) after the other, with no (good) end in sight.
Hence, a Trumpist approach that is also anything but “soft” on Russia, while, however, acknowledging the possibility of de-escalation through negotiation is already a major departure from current US policy. You could even think of it as being inspired by the Reaganite foreign policy of the 1980s, which also combined pronounced “toughness” with a genuine readiness to compromise. Yet there would be one big difference: Toward the end of the Cold War, Washington was dealing with a pliable, even naïve Soviet leadership. That was a grave mistake – if made for mostly admirably idealistic reasons – that Russia’s current leaders see very clearly, are still angry about, and will not repeat.
In the case of the war in Ukraine, this means that any settlement, even with a newly “transactional” Washington “coming to the table” would involve not one but two “tough” players: Moscow will not agree to any compromise that fails to factor in that it has gained the upper hand in this war. That, in turn, means that, beyond the basic Trumpist mood of conditional conciliatoriness, details will be decisive.
Unfortunately for the Zelensky regime and fortunately for everyone else (yes, including many Ukrainians who won’t have to die in a proxy war anymore once peace comes), in that domain as well, the realm of the concrete and specific, the plan developed by Kellogg and Fleitz shows some progress. The authors, first of all, recognize important elements of reality that the current US leadership is either lying or in denial about: for instance, that this is a proxy war as well as a war of attrition, that Zelensky’s “10-point plan” (essentially a blueprint for what could only happen if Ukraine were to win the war, that is, never) “went nowhere,” and that Ukraine cannot sustain the war demographically.
They also acknowledge that Russia will refuse to take part in peace talks or agree to an initial ceasefire if the West doesn’t “put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period.” In fact, an “extended period” will not suffice; Moscow has been clear that never means never. But Kellogg and Fleitz may be formulating their ideas carefully with a view to how much their readers in America can take at this point. The plan also, again realistically, raises the option of offering a partial and, eventually, complete dropping of sanctions against Russia. Ukraine, on the other side, would not have to give up the aim of recovering all its territory, but – a crucial restriction – would have to agree to pursue it by diplomatic means only. The implication is, of course, that Kiev would have to give up de facto control over territory in the first place.
And there you have it: This is a proposal that, pared down to essentials, foresees territorial concessions and no NATO membership for Ukraine. It’s no wonder that Kellogg and Leitz conclude their paper by admitting that “the Ukrainian government,” “the Ukrainian people” (that is sure to be an over-generalization, by the way), and “their supporters” in the West will have trouble accepting this kind of negotiated peace. We could add: especially after more than two years of an avoidable (as the authors also recognize) and bloody proxy war. Yet that tragedy has already happened. We can wish it had not, but we cannot undo the past. The real question is about the future. Kellogg and Leitz, and Trump as well, if he will follow such a policy, are right that the dying must end, and that the only way to make it end – as well as avoid further escalation, perhaps to global war – is a compromise settlement built on reality.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
Five people killed in Ukrainian drone strike on Russian region – governor
RT | June 29, 2024
Five people have been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a settlement in Russia’s Kursk Region, local governor Aleksey Smirnov has said.
A quadcopter UAV dropped an explosive device on a residential building in the village of Gorodische, near the border with Ukraine overnight, Smirnov wrote on Telegram on Saturday.
“To our great sorrow, five people were killed as a result of the discharge, including two small children,” he said. Two more members of the same family were hospitalized in critical condition, he added.
On Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said at least six attempts by “the Kiev regime to carry out terrorist attacks on Russian territory with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles” were intercepted overnight.
Russian air defenses destroyed two drones in Tver Region, one in Bryansk Region, one in Belgorod Region and two in Crimea, the statement read.
READ MORE: Civilians killed on Sevastopol beach were ‘occupiers’ – top Zelensky aide
The Russian regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, all of which border Ukraine, have been the targets of Ukrainian missile, mortar and drone attacks almost on a daily basis since the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. The strikes have targeted energy infrastructure and residential areas, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries, as well as the destruction of property.
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Book Review
The Zeolite Book — First Edition, 2026, Paperback
The volcanic mineral medicine will not patent — for the toxic burden medicine will not name
Lies are Unbekoming – October 30, 2026
Zeolite is old. It is in Roman concrete that has held for two thousand years. It’s in the water filters of ancient cisterns. It’s in the stomachs of Pacific livestock whose keepers knew, somehow, that this grey crumbling rock made the animals healthier. It’s in Soviet clinical protocols from the 1960s. It’s in the standard emergency response to the Chernobyl explosion.
In 1986, after the Chernobyl reactor failure, the Soviet Union manufactured and distributed natural zeolite at industrial scale — for soil remediation, for livestock feed, for human consumption, for the cleanup itself. Karl Hecht, who had been director of the Institute for Experimental and Clinical Pathophysiology at the Charité of Humboldt University Berlin, spent the six decades after that building the clinical research base — on silicon’s role in human health, on zeolite’s clinical safety, on its applications in ageing. In 2018, Pavelić and colleagues published a comprehensive clinical safety review of natural clinoptilolite in Frontiers in Pharmacology. In 2019, Mastinu analysed its binding affinities. In the Western medical literature, these works sit largely uncited.
What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a volcanic mineral with six decades of Soviet clinical work behind it, two major peer-reviewed Western reviews, and ongoing clinical use across the former Eastern Bloc, remains almost entirely absent from Western medical practice — and what the toxic burden it’s meant to address actually is.
The Zeolite Book gathers the Soviet clinical record, the Western peer-reviewed studies, three contemporary practitioner voices, and three serious counterviews into one honest treatment. That’s why the book runs to seven appendices. 288 pages, four parts, three practitioner voices, three counterviews, seven appendices. The honest treatment is the argument.
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