NATO member explains why it will bar Ukraine from joining
RT | April 17, 2024
The risks of a global war will only increase if Ukraine becomes part of NATO, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Tuesday, promising to block Kiev’s accession.
Accepting new countries into the US-led military alliance requires unanimous consent from all of its 32 current members. If Ukraine gets invited to join NATO, Slovakia’s parliament will not ratify the accession treaty, Fico said.
“Slovakia needs a neutral Ukraine. Our interests will be threatened if it becomes a NATO member state because that is the basis of a large world conflict,” the prime minister explained, as quoted by the news website Noviny.sk.
Fico stressed that he will not bow down to any outside pressure. “Our partners abroad have been taught that whatever they ask and request from Slovakia, they will automatically get it. But we are a sovereign and self-confident country,” he said.
Slovakia, together with neighboring Hungary, has warned that the EU should not be dragged into the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and has insisted on a diplomatic resolution. After becoming prime minister in October 2023, Fico reversed the previous government’s decision to send weapons to Kiev. He also fiercely opposes sending NATO troops to Ukraine.
Ukraine formally applied to join NATO in September 2022. Although US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated this month that Ukraine “will become a member of NATO” sometime in the future, the alliance has so far refused to commit to a specific timetable or provide a clear pathway for Kiev’s accession. US President Joe Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have ruled out Ukraine’s membership until the fighting ends.
Russia has repeatedly stressed that it views NATO’s continuing expansion eastward as a national security threat. Moscow cited the alliance’s military cooperation with Ukraine as one of the root causes of the current conflict and described Ukraine’s potential accession as a “red line.”
Ukrainian Special Services Behind Attempted Murder of Opposition Blogger Shariy – Source

Sputnik – 16.04.2024
Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate attempted to assassinate Anatoly Shariy, a Ukrainian blogger and vocal Kiev regime critic, and pin the blame on Moscow, a Russian law enforcement source told Sputnik Tuesday.
“The circumstances of the organization of the attempted murder of popular Ukrainian blogger Anatoly Shariy, who lives in Spain, have been established. Once again, Ukraine’s special services are behind the terrorist action against a journalist undesirable to the Kiev regime,” the source said.
“According to the data received, the preparation of the assassination attempt on March 6, 2024, was carried out by the Main Intelligence Directorate … which, in close cooperation with the Security Service, developed a ‘false flag’ operation with the aim of physically eliminating the blogger, while placing responsibility for his murder on Russia. The operation was directly supervised by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kyrylo Budanov,” the source added.
Spanish law enforcement officials did not take the investigation into the circumstances of the assassination attempt seriously, the source said, adding that they did not go to inspect the scene of the assassination attempt and did not interview witnesses.
“On behalf of the Russian special services, Ukrainian agents recruited participants in the assassination attempt from among ethnic Ukrainians living in Spain and representatives of local criminals. As part of the operation, surveillance was carried out, traffic routes were identified, weapons were delivered and handed over to the criminals,” the source said.
“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.
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.
End of Escalatory Ladder in Ukraine & MidEast – John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
The Duran | April 12, 2024
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

