The special military operation, Avdeyevka, and Gaza
By Yuriy Zinin – New Eastern Outlook – 09.03.2024
The name Avdeyevka, which is known to few in the Arab world, has featured prominently in the Middle Eastern media in recent weeks. Media commentators have examined the battle to liberate this city, its significance, and discussed the opinions of political analysts and observers on the future course of military operations in the conflict, including its international impact.
A number of military observers quoted in the media have referred to this event as “a turning point in the course of the war,” similar in significance to the conquest of Bakhmut by Russian forces last year, with both cities being of similar strategic and symbolic value.
For example, Rizk Al-Hawalda, a retired brigadier general and military expert from Jordan, believes that the capture of Avdeyevka will allow Russian forces to further strengthen their position in Ukraine, and increase their combat capability to defend the territories under their control. For the Ukrainian forces, however, the capture means that their ability to retake what they have lost has been thwarted, leaving them to face the fact that this land has now become Russian territory, and that this loss is irreversible.
Other authors believe that the capture of this city will allow Russian forces to control the space around Donetsk and create logistical corridors to expand the scope of their operations.
The Egyptian Al Qahera News edition sees the capture of Avdeyevka as an “important victory” achieved by Russian troops just before the second anniversary of the start of the special military operation. They outnumber the enemy on the battlefield, both in terms of troop numbers and equipment, giving them an advantage when attacking Ukrainian formations, which are short on weapons and soldiers amid cracks in the West’s military support for Kiev.
These changes are also evident in the range of media responses from the Middle East. In general, they adopt a balanced tone when discussing the results of fighting after two years of the special military operation, and the political and economic consequences of the combat.
For example, the influential Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat opines that Washington and its allies have miscalculated. It is referring to the West’s imposition of anti-Russian sanctions, its attempts to undermine Russia’s economy, deprive it of revenues from hydrocarbon exports, and isolate it in the international arena, etc.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculations, it suggests, are based on common sense and are absolutely correct. He has carefully avoided the traps laid out for him and been able, with skill and step by step, to dismantle the economic blockade declared against his country, and the authors also admire the undeniable victories of Russian troops on the military frontlines.
A number of other Arab publications take a similar line. A review of the events in Ukraine, as they see it, teaches a number of lessons. One is that a state’s policy should not be based on promises of support from outside, and should be founded first and foremost on its own interests. Now, the West’s promises of support have failed. The former media rhetoric that Ukraine is bulwark for Europe is on the wane.
Europeans are suffering from interruptions to the supply of Russian gas, supply chain disruption, inflation and interest rate hikes, etc. The European countries see resolving their own economic crises as their priority, and do not wish to suffer because of Ukraine. In short, the credibility of the Western coalition supporting Ukraine has fallen, and, as the present author notes, it looks as if Ukraine will have to go into the third year of the war alone.
Significantly, such assessments are increasingly being reflected in public opinion in the Middle East. Recently, Akhbar Al Aan, a leading news platform in Dubai (UAE) conducted a poll among its readers about Western military aid for Ukraine. To the question: would this help rescue Kiev, 85% of respondents answered “no” and just 15% answered “yes”.
Today, a number of political observers in the Middle East are drawing parallels between the conflict in Ukraine and the war in Gaza and reaching their own conclusions. In particular, they note the similarity of behavior styles of the leaders of the two countries: Volodymyr Zelensky and Benjamin Netanyahu. They conclude that both are characterized by a pathological desire to deny reality and are stubbornly following their chosen courses, despite the obvious failures of their strategies….
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showed no sympathy for the Palestinian victims of the war in Gaza. He did not hesitate for a second, but supported the Israeli war machine, Akhbar Al Aan claims.
Other authors criticize the “blindness” of those countries that oppose Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine but are unable to see what Israel has been doing in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
In their view, one of the lessons of the Gaza conflict involves the issue of trust in the West. It promotes and continues to proclaim its values and principles as universal, applying to all people regardless of religion, race or nationality. But these trumpeted values have not been applied in Gaza.
Many political observers share this view. The disillusionment with Western values that has emerged in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip has left a deep wound in the hearts and minds of Arab elites who had placed their hopes in an engagement with Western civilization. This will push the Arab nations’ Islamic civilization, and the civilization of the Global South in general, further away from the West, Arab media commentators predict.
Yuri Zinin, senior researcher at the Center for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).
Zelensky critic claims Spain ignoring ‘assassination attempt’

RT | March 7, 2024
YouTuber Anatoly Shariy has accused the police in Catalonia of trying to ignore Wednesday’s drive-by shooting, which he alleges targeted him and his wife. Ukraine had banned his political party in mid-2022.
Shariy and his wife Olga were driving towards their home in Roda de Bera near Tarragona – southwest of Barcelona – on Wednesday morning when a masked man pointed a “machine gun” at their car.
“They tried to kill us in broad daylight, in the middle of the street,” Olga told the outlet El Diario on Wednesday evening. Since then, however, Shariy has lambasted the police for dragging their feet.
“Day concluded. The police did not question witnesses who saw the [would-be] murderer escape from the crime scene,” Shariy posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday evening, in Spanish. “They want me to be killed. There are no more doubts.”
He continued to criticize the police on Thursday, pointing out that they had failed to question the postman who witnessed the shooting. “No action was taken to search for the killer,” Shariy added in another post.
According to El Diario, the Shariys have faced “threats and harassment” ever since “neo-Nazi groups” from Ukraine discovered their location. Last October, someone threw Molotov cocktails at their home.
Earlier this week, Olga told the outlet, the Shariys received a tip – which included recordings of phone conversations – that someone had offered money for Anatoly’s death and asked organized crime groups for his exact location. They reported this to the police, she said, but nothing was done.
Shariy was detained by the Spanish authorities in May 2022 on Ukrainian charges of “treason”, but was released soon thereafter. Spain eventually rejected Ukraine’s extradition request.
A frequent critic of the Ukrainian government, Shariy runs a popular YouTube channel with almost 2.9 million subscribers. He founded a libertarian-leaning party in 2019, the same year Vladimir Zelensky became president, and while it fell short of getting into the Ukrainian parliament, it won several seats on regional councils. Zelensky’s government banned it in early 2022 and rejected all its appeals in October that year.
Ukraine does not want foreign troops and intends to fight alone, claims White House
By Ahmed Adel | March 7, 2024
According to the White House National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator John Kirby Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not ask for foreign troops and wants to fight alone, an untruthful statement as the Kiev regime has sought to drag the West into war with Russia.
At a press conference at the White House on March 5, Kirby once again commented on speculation about sending Western contingents to Ukraine, ruling out such an option for the American military.
“President Zelensky isn’t asking for that, he’s just asking for the tools and capabilities. He’s never asked for foreign troops to fight for his country,” Kirby claimed.
The spokesperson also recalled that since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, President Joe Biden said he would not send American troops.
Kirby’s comments were spurred on after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested sending troops on February 26 but admitted there was no consensus. Macron faced immediate backlash from many Western allies, including the US and Germany, after he discussed the idea at a conference in Paris.
Despite the humiliation, the French president has doubled down on his idea of supporting Ukraine despite the futility of achieving victory over Russia. During a visit to Prague on February 5, he said that he “fully” stood by his comments and that a “strategic leap” was necessary.
“We are surely approaching a moment for Europe in which it will be necessary not to be cowards,” Macron said, adding after meeting with his Czech counterpart Petr Pavel: “Is this or is it not our war? Can we look away in the belief that we can let things run their course?”
The French leader said that some powers, an indirect reference to Russia, had become “unstoppable” and that “We will have to live up to history and the courage that it requires.”
Macron’s commitment to the idea is perplexing since even Washington has attempted to distance itself from his idea, while Berlin, the European Union’s other large power, has categorically ruled out sending troops to Ukraine, with Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius even adding that the French president’s comments were not helpful.
“We don’t need really, from my perspective at least, discussions about boots on the ground or having more courage or less courage,” Pistorius said at a press conference in Stockholm after meeting with his Swedish counterpart Pal Jonson. “This is something which does not really help solve the issues we have when it comes to helping Ukraine.”
The Russian Ministry of Defence has already reported on evidence of the direct participation of mercenaries from the United States, Canada, and European Union countries in the Ukrainian military. After the liberation of Avdeyevka, evidence emerged on the presence of such mercenaries among the Ukrainian Army.
Authorities of the countries where these fighters originate from have done little to discourage their citizens going to the war zone, and in many cases, have championed such mercenaries. Although these are obviously not official troops, it does demonstrate that Western countries would have sent troops if Russia did not have nuclear capabilities and the means to defend itself, and because of these reasons, they prefer the volunteer model, which is why many of the mercenaries are former military personnel.
Zelensky has not only refused to disavow Macron’s statements but has repeatedly called for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would allow Western enforcement States’ aircraft to be present in Ukrainian airspace and employ force against Russian aircraft operating in that zone. The Ukrainian president also repeats the demand for Ukraine’s quick accession into NATO under the full understanding that the bloc’s mutual defence pact will drag the entire Western world into war with Russia.
Kirby’s claim that Zelensky does not want Western troops in Ukraine and only aid is preposterous, especially since the war-torn country is in such a precarious position that only a direct Western intervention could, maybe, turn back Russian forces from areas formerly of eastern Ukraine and Crimea. This is a reality that Macron also recognises, but his frustration is in the knowledge that France alone cannot oppose Russia, especially in the context of Germany and the USA humiliating the French president by distancing themselves from his idea.
With such an unwillingness in the West to directly intervene in Ukraine, Macron is increasingly behaving more Napoleonic. Yet, for all the bravado, there is little France can do to reverse Ukraine’s fortunes, even if Zelensky finally receives foreign ground troops.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Singapore inadvertently reveals more about direct US involvement in Ukraine
By Drago Bosnic | March 7, 2024
It’s an axiom that the United States is deeply involved in the Ukrainian conflict. In fact, the warmongering elites in Washington DC initiated it a decade ago, just as they either started or are covertly behind virtually every single conflict in modern history. War is the only industry that still functions in America, which explains its obsession with death and destruction. And yet, we have reached the point when profit doesn’t really matter, as the consequences of direct confrontation with a country like Russia will most certainly nullify the very logic of profiteering. In other words, who stands to gain from blowing up the world? What’s the point of having money and power if all of it burns in a thermonuclear apocalypse that would be over in around 15-20 minutes? And yet, the political West keeps playing precisely with such a scenario.
Although arms shipments can certainly be considered direct involvement, Moscow chose not to use it to escalate the conflict. It should be noted that it certainly could, especially because NATO personnel are often operating these weapons. And yet, the US-led political West keeps pushing the boundaries toward ever more direct involvement, including with the usage of ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets against the Russian military. The battlefield data acquired by these platforms is then relayed to the Kiev regime forces which use it to attack not only Moscow’s troops, but also civilians in Donbass and former regions of southern Ukraine. The exact number of casualties is yet to be determined, but it’s most likely in the thousands. This is yet another proof that NATO only wants death and destruction.
This time, a rather unlikely source revealed the extent of US/NATO aggression in Europe. Namely, the Defense Ministry of Singapore recently reported that USAF F-35s have been actively engaged in covert missions in Ukraine, the goal of which is to effectively conduct SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) missions. In other words, American F-35s are flying around Ukraine and using their sensors to pinpoint the location of Russian SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems. Needless to say, these are then relayed to the Kiev regime forces, which use them to attack the Russian military or find ways to circumvent its air defenses. NATO certainly has extensive SEAD capabilities, as it’s been mastering them in various illegal invasions and its general aggression against the world, particularly in the last several decades.
“In recent activities, the United States has mobilized its F-35s to identify the deployment of Russian anti-aircraft missile systems within Ukraine. The gathered intelligence is subsequently disseminated to NATO countries,” Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said at a session of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Procurement.
Hen’s statement came after the February 28 announcement that Singapore would acquire F-35A fighters in addition to the previously ordered F-35B variant. The main difference between the two is that the latter is a STOVL (short take-off, vertical landing) aircraft. The Pentagon didn’t even bother to deny the revelations, with one of its spokespeople declining to comment, insisting that “it’s not their place to speak for Singapore’s MOD [Ministry of Defence] or try to clarify [its] comments”. Rather interestingly, the spokesperson added that the US doesn’t fly F-35s in Ukraine. It should be noted that this isn’t a denial of their usage. Namely, the US fighter jet has a plethora of sensors that can be used outside of Ukrainian airspace. Hen’s revelations about this are part of the procurement process that aims to justify the F-35B’s enormous acquisition costs.
It’s still unclear if the statement by the Singaporean MoD is simply inadvertent or just a peculiar marketing strategy that the Pentagon wants to use to increase foreign sales. In addition, it’s not the first time F-35s are being used in this capacity. According to military sources, the jets were forward deployed to Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany since February 16, 2022, which was around a week before the special military operation (SMO). The USAF’s 388th Fighter Wing and its Reserve’s 419th Fighter Wing were the first units deployed to the region. Their primary mission was ELINT (electronic intelligence) gathering on Russian positions, with a particular focus on air defense systems. At the time, the Pentagon made similar statements about their supposed “non-involvement in Ukraine”, insisting they’re “merely observing”.
“We weren’t crossing the border. We’re not shooting anything or dropping anything. But the jet is always sensing, gathering information. And it was doing that very, very well… We had all hoped it was going to work like it’s supposed to, but then to see it actually perform very, very well in that role was great,” commander of the 388th Fighter Wing Colonel Craig Andrle said in an interview in early 2023, adding that they also faced issues with Russian EW (electronic warfare) systems: “We’re looking at an SA-20 [S-300PMU-1/2]. I know it’s an SA-20. Intel says there’s an SA-20 there, but now my jet doesn’t ID it as such, because that SA-20 is operating, potentially, in a war reserve mode that we haven’t seen before.”
This was also confirmed by the 388th Operations Group commander Colonel Brad Bashore, who also commented on collecting battlefield data on Russian SAM systems.
“We don’t have a ton of weapons where we can decimate the entire space. We’re sharing data and making sure that everybody has awareness — surface-to-air and air-to-air — of what’s out there in the environment,” Bashore said, adding: “They’re doing the same thing that we’re doing. We just looked at each other… No direct interaction and nothing that was unprofessional on either side.”
It should be noted that, while the F-35 is certainly an embarrassment for the US in terms of its flight performance and an absolutely atrocious track record, the jet is a potent ISR platform that can be used in various “non-kinetic” ways. ELINT is just one of them and it can certainly be beneficial to the Neo-Nazi junta forces that are having a lot of trouble with Russia’s second-to-none air defenses. However, this can lead to Moscow’s (rightful) anger and even a direct response, as pairing the F-35’s sensors with the strike capabilities of long-range weapons such as the ATACMS can be quite a challenge for the Russian military. And while it’s certainly not the end of the world for the Kremlin, the range of such missiles means that Russia needs to invest even more in SAM systems and other air defenses, as the Kiev regime has the habit of attacking civilian areas.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Ukraine’s Defeat to Unmask Dirty Secrets of ‘Conflict-Loving’ Western Elites
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 06.03.2024
A series of leaks related to NATO military and intelligence operations in Ukraine demonstrate the West’s futile attempts to intimidate Russia into imploding as they once did with the USSR, Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik.
Germany’s “Luftwaffe” leak has triggered a heated debate in the Western mainstream press, with the Guardian warning that NATO is “growing reckless” over Ukraine. Additionally, Politico has acknowledged that the chatter from the Bundeswehr was not part of a Russian “disinformation” operation, but rather a source of “uncensored information”.
“The leak adds to piles of evidence and reasonable suspicions that US and allied governments/contractors/grantees have abandoned adherence to truth-seeking, in favor of shoving a global governance model by unelected bureaucrats upon the masses inside and outside their home countries,” Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel told Sputnik.
“Ignoring inconvenient and hard truths about Russia now and concerning her history, Biden and the permanent class of conflict-lovers still seem to believe they can intimidate the Russian Federation into imploding as they once did with the Soviet Union,” he highlighted.
The release of a recording featuring German high-ranking officers discussing the possibility of sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine to destroy Russia’s Crimean Bridge occurred shortly after The New York Times published a story about a network of 12 secret bases run by the CIA in Ukraine since 2014.
Surprisingly, some CIA operatives couldn’t resist boasting about the operation right after the Russian special military operation began.
The Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe tweeted in April 2022 about a “bonanza of information” the American military had learned about Russia’s “tactics and procedures” since the beginning of its special military op in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
In response, Marc Polymeropoulos, a 26-year CIA veteran who retired from a senior rank in 2019, wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) on April 27, 2022:
“Actually, it started a long time ago… we learned this between 2014-2022. Not just now. It was an 8-year lab experiment on Russian TTPs [Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures]. On EW [electronic warfare]. On everything. This is why Ukrainians (with our advice/assist) are doing so well. Ask those in the IC [intelligence community] and UW [unconventional warfare] communities. We learned a sh*t ton.”
Nonetheless, despite learning “a sh*t ton” about Russia’s warfare strategy, the CIA has failed to prevent a string of defeats sustained by the Ukrainian military on the battlefield. Still, one should bear in mind that US IC agents could have been deployed with other missions rather than turning Ukraine into an impregnable fortress, according to Ortel.
What Dirty Secrets Are Western Leaders Hiding in Ukraine?
For instance, sensitive information about a network of US-funded biowarfare laboratories in Ukraine, uncovered by the Russian Ministry of Defense over the past two years, suggests that American politicians as well as military and intelligence operatives had been involved in potentially illegal activities and experiments in the Eastern European country which are strictly prohibited in the US.
“On Ukraine, one wonders what dirty work Ukrainian officials and contractors may have performed inside and outside Ukraine that could not readily be performed inside the United States,” the Wall Street analyst remarked.
“Because the Deep State over-classifies information and does not appear to be subject to meaningful oversight, we likely will not learn what specific factors brought the US and allied governments to prod so aggressively, painting the Russian Federation as an enemy, instead of welcoming Russia into a re-configured NATO as, apparently, Putin himself suggested. It seems to me that too many at the very top of Western governments see much more personal advantage in milking public sector expenditures for themselves fighting endless real and imagined conflicts than they see in crafting lasting peace and other solutions,” Ortel pointed out.
US Political Families Like the Bidens, Clintons and Others Cashed In On Ukraine
Furthermore, the Wall Street analyst pointed out that established US political dynasty families such as the Bidens and the Clintons pounced at the chance to profit off the situation in Ukraine. A specific example that Ortel discussed with Sputnik was the collaboration between Victor Pinchuk and his wife Olena with the Clinton Foundation to combat HIV/AIDS in Ukraine during the early 2000s. Ortel believes that the fight against AIDS served as a facade for money laundering activities.
“A laudable project conceptually, perhaps, this effort was never legitimately approved in the United States looking through the public record, but allowed the Clintons and their allies to unlock hundreds of millions in government grants and donations for which there has never been a legitimate accounting, just as Hillary Clinton needed a war chest to fund her Senate re-election campaign and her presidential ambitions,” the Wall Street analyst said.
Most recently, the Clinton Foundation announced a similarly questionable charity initiative together with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife Olena, Ortel noted, referring to corruption allegations haunting the Zelenskys.
In essence, Ortel believes that numerous Western players, including multinational companies, stand to lose a great deal in the event that Ukraine is defeated. Consequently, some Western leaders have even suggested the idea of deploying NATO military units to Ukraine.
US ‘Forever Wars’ Impoverishing Americans
No matter how hard the West tries to win its proxy war in Ukraine, the outcome of the conflict appears to be sealed, Ortel affirms. What’s more, the US has been repeatedly engaged in protracted overseas military conflicts, most of which had not ended on Washington’s terms.
“Especially in Vietnam, then afterwards in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, ‘policy-makers’ and ‘thought-leaders’ have failed to learn from their grievous mistakes,” the analyst said. “Instead of pursuing lasting peace or actually tackling vexing problems, many worship at the altar of perpetual wars, secure in the knowledge that industry patrons and egomaniacal billionaires will reward them richly along the way, and that they may never be punished for their misdeeds,” he noted.
Meanwhile, ordinary Americans have not reaped any “bonanzas” from this decades-long war economy; instead, they have witnessed their living standards decline, he pointed out.
“As the world enmeshed after 1988, profit margins across the private sector (in a true and consistent accounting) fell, as did per hour incomes, adjusted for taxes and inflation. Over the same period and accelerating now under the husk of President Biden, public sector bureaucrats at all levels learned they could appropriate humongous sums of money, and then direct vast portions to themselves through family members and other supporters, via ‘leaky’ foundations, large and small.”
Ortel believes that regardless of NATO increasingly beating the war drums over its proxy conflict in Ukraine, “support for more fighting in Ukraine and against Russia will ebb” both in the US and Europe. A potential harbinger of change is the decision by Maidan coup plotter, Victoria Nuland, to step down from her position as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, according to the analyst.
Europe is Fearful and Desperate
By Alastair Crooke | Al Mayadeen English | March 4, 2024
A leading Establishment newspaper in Europe says that “what is driving European politics at present – is fear”. The headlines ring out with apprehension: “Germany’s élites run scared, as Putin rains down death on Ukraine”. The British Prime Minister calls an emergency press conference to warns of ‘democracy at risk’ from ‘extremism’ on the eve of a by-election win by George Galloway, an articulate, if somewhat unruly, ‘thorn’ in the side of conventional politics (but hardly any ‘extremist’).
In the US too the liberal sphere is in meltdown over the publication of a just-released book: White Rural Rage: The Threat To American Democracy, in which “rural whites are [described as] the most racist; xenophobic; anti-immigrant; anti-gay; and conspiracy-minded, anti-democratic” demography in America. They “don’t believe in an independent press or free speech”, and are “most likely to accept or excuse violence”.
Of course, the fear is being — in the first instance — diverted outwards towards the claim that this is somehow Russia’s ‘doing’ — a looming ‘menace’ further stoked by claims of President Putin’s ‘imperial aspirations’, way beyond Ukraine. There is however (to invert the usual MSM meme), absolutely no evidence for these claims (from anything Putin has said over the years).
What is spooking the West more immediately is the cascading defeats inflicted on Ukrainian forces, after the Avdeevka rout. The new Ukrainian commander, General Syrski, in the wake of the flight, announced a retreat to new defence lines, but as some had predicted, it turned out that the ‘more favourable lines’ Syrski promoted did not exist.
Ukrainian photographers Konstantin and Vlada Liberov who document the war from the ground demanded from Syrski: “So what is the next “fortetsia” – Pokrovsk? Or just Konstantinovka?”
“Where is this second line of defence?” Yuri Butusov, editor-in-chief of Censor— following his trip to this area – asks: “There are no words. Gap: here in Kiev – the supreme commander-in-chief says one thing, but at the front something completely different is happening. I want to say that no field lines of fortifications have been built beyond Avdeevka so far. I saw Russian drones attacking our soldiers in their burrows – in the middle of a field”.
There are no constructed defence lines – only hurried improvisations – whilst Ukraine resorts to simply throwing its reserves at the deficiency – so to prop up the incremental retreat. Did NATO leaders not spot this defence-line lacuna? Apparently not …
And so one leg to the current panic is just this: The EU has heavily over-invested in its Ukraine project, and now sees it fast crumbling. Hence President Macron’s hasty summons of EU states (at 24 hours’ notice) to the Elysée Palace to hear him warn that the situation on the ground in Ukraine was so critical, and the stakes for Europe so high, that: “We’re at a critical point in the conflict where we need to take the initiative: We’re determined to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes”.
What Macron in fact proposed however, shocked the gathered leaders. He advocated committing detachments of European special forces to Ukraine, not so much directly to fight the Russian forces, but to act as vulnerable strategic ‘tripwire’ deterrents to Russia – which, were they attacked, would ‘trip’ a full-throated NATO retaliation down onto the head of Russia.
These tripwire forces, Macron claimed, would form strategic deterrents to Moscow’s military room for manoeuvre — oases of ‘untouchable’ NATO, scattered through Ukraine. His colleagues, horrified, demurred; they saw the emplaced tripwires as the conveyor belt leading to WWIII: ‘Madness’, and ‘no thank you’.
The ‘other leg’ to European desperation was given away by PM Sunak’s rush to the microphone in the wake of the Rochdale by-election outcome to warn that democracy is in peril from extremism.
One commentator opined: ‘Rishi Sunak was right’: “This is not politics, not even of the radical kind … It is inchoate, incoherent rage which is ready to make common cause with anyone else, who is enraged even on contradictory grounds”.
If this reaction sounds a bit over the top – just because George Galloway overwhelmingly won in Rochdale – let us ‘join up the dots’ for you:
The same commentator (Janet Daley in the Telegraph ) avers: “To bring this right up to date, we now have an entity called the Workers Party – a name that summons up traditional Left-wing dedication to the interests of working class people – winning a by-election in Rochdale by somehow conflating the Palestinian cause in Gaza with local working class needs”.
Ouch! That is what hurts. Echoes here from the Michigan primary in the US, where a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups who had set a modest target of 10,000 ‘uncommitted’ votes — Trump’s margin of victory in Michigan in 2016 — to send a message to President Biden that voter frustration over the Gaza war could cost him dearly in the November election. In the event, however, the pro-Palestinian support blew past the 10,000 target and clocked in at nearly 101,400 votes.
Message sent — and as the electoral desperation in Democratic circles, indicates, ‘message received’.
Just to be plain: Events in Gaza and in Ukraine are unravelling long-standing political power control structures in the EU, in Europe and in the US. This is why there is panic and double-down.
Nuland’s Resignation Related to Failure of US’ Anti-Russian Policy – Zakharova

RT | March 5, 2024
US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is poised to leave her post soon, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced. The senior official, widely regarded as a foreign policy hawk, played a key role in the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014.
In a statement on Tuesday, Blinken noted that his friend “Toria” has held most of the jobs at the State Department, from a consular officer to ambassador and deputy secretary, over her 35-year career. Her most recent posting was as undersecretary for political affairs. She was also Blinken’s acting deputy after the July 2023 retirement of Wendy Sherman, until Kurt Campbell was confirmed to the post last month.
“What makes Toria truly exceptional is the fierce passion she brings to fighting for what she believes in most: freedom, democracy, human rights, and America’s enduring capacity to inspire and promote those values around the world,” Blinken said.
He also noted that her “leadership on Ukraine” will be the subject of study “for years to come” by diplomats and students of foreign policy.
Nuland was directly involved in the Maidan uprising and the subsequent coup in Kiev. In December 2013, she visited Ukraine to hand out pastries to the armed protesters in Kiev’s central square. She was then recorded discussing how to “midwife this thing” with then-US ambassador to Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, just days before the February 2014 coup.
She resigned from the State Department during the Trump administration, taking the helm of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think-tank before joining the Albright Stonebridge Group and the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). She rejoined the government after President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
In that capacity, she has worked on arming Ukraine and assembling a Western coalition that would supply Kiev with weapons and ammunition for the conflict with Russia. Last month, she pleaded to Congress to approve $61 billion in funding to Ukraine, arguing that most of it would be “going right back into the US economy,” to create jobs in the weapons industry.
Her most recent trip to Kiev involved intervening with President Vladimir Zelensky on behalf of General Valery Zaluzhny, though to no avail. Zaluzhny was subsequently fired.
In a CNN interview at the end of February, Nuland admitted the defeat of US policy towards Moscow, describing today’s Russia as “not the Russia that, frankly, we wanted.”
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova attributed Nuland’s exit to “the failure of the anti-Russian course of the Biden administration.”
“Russophobia, proposed by Victoria Nuland as the main foreign policy concept of the United States, is dragging the Democrats to the bottom like a stone,” Zakharova said. Posting a photo of Nuland taken at an Orthodox church at some point, she said that if the US politician wanted to “go to a monastery to atone for your sins, we can put in a good word.”
Nuland is married to neoconservative stalwart Robert Kagan. Her sister-in-law Kimberley Kagan, married to Robert’s brother Fred, runs the Institute for the Study of War. Her temporary replacement at the State Department will be Under Secretary for Management John Bass.
Sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine is “apocalypse warning,” says Slovak prime minister
By Ahmed Adel | March 5, 2024
The Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, said on March 2 in a video posted on social media that sending soldiers from the European Union and NATO to Ukraine could precipitate a global apocalypse. The social media post was made on the same day that the Slovakian foreign minister met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Fico also highlighted Ukraine’s inability to resolve the conflict despite the West’s substantial financial and military aid. He emphasised that an EU and NATO military presence in Ukraine could potentially alter the dynamics of the conflict and trigger catastrophic consequences.
“The West sees that, despite significant financial and military aid, Ukraine is incapable of resolving this armed conflict,” said the Slovak prime minister, adding: “The situation could change with the arrival of EU and NATO military personnel in Ukraine, but then there would be nothing left but to wait for the arrival of the global apocalypse.”
Fico highlighted the pressing need for modern air defence systems for Ukraine but warned that the West could not provide these systems without a commitment to maintaining and operating this equipment. He argued that sending Western military personnel would only worsen the conflict rather than resolve it.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on February 27 during a conference of European leaders that he does not rule out sending troops from Western allies to Ukraine and announced a coalition to deliver missiles to the Ukrainian Army.
“There’s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out,” declared Macron.
However, several NATO members, including Slovakia, ruled out the possibility of on-the-ground support for Ukraine which has been in armed conflict for more than two years.
It is recalled that on February 26, Fico warned when speaking ahead of a meeting of EU and NATO national leaders in Paris that several EU and NATO members are considering military deployments to Ukraine. He cited a “restricted document” listing topics to be discussed in Paris that “sends shivers down your spine.”
“These topics,” the Slovak said, “imply that a number of NATO and EU member states are considering sending troops to Ukraine on a bilateral basis. I can’t say for what purpose or what they would do there.”
According to Fico, “This [Paris] meeting is confirmation that the Ukraine strategy of the West has completely failed.”
Macron’s statement was intended to send a strong warning to the Kremlin, but it failed miserably since his comments revealed Western divisions and disagreements instead. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz led the group of European leaders who disagreed with Macron’s claim that NATO had not ruled out sending troops, whilst Washington abandoned Paris in the idea of sending troops and let the French president receive all the flak.
A survey of 12 European Union countries, commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations and published on February 21, reveals that only 10% of respondents believe Ukraine can defeat Russia. Furthermore, only 31% of respondents favoured Europe supporting Ukraine until it regained lost territory, while 41% favoured Europe pushing Ukraine to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia.
Unlike many of his European counterparts, Fico acknowledges the reality that Ukraine cannot win the war with Russia. For this reason, Fico sent Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar to hold talks with his Russian counterpart on March 2 on the sidelines of a diplomatic forum in Turkey, a rare high-level encounter between a European Union member state and the country Brussels has attempted to isolate.
The Slovakian prime minister highlighted that the meeting “was an example of our balanced and sovereign [foreign policy],” adding that Blanar and Lavrov spoke about the possibility of a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland.
For his part, Blanar said in a statement that the war did not have a military solution and urged peace talks. The foreign minister added in the statement that he told Lavrov that Slovakia was against creating an “iron curtain” between Russia and the EU, and its position was based on respect for international law principles, such as territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Fico returned to power after winning an election in 2023 on promises to stop state military aid to Ukraine and has been critical of anti-Russia sanctions. The leftist populist leader also recently said the West’s approach to the Ukraine war is “an absolute failure,” which, as observed by the European Council on Foreign Relations survey, is what most EU citizens also believe. Fico joins Viktor Orban, prime minister of neighbouring Hungary, in resisting major pressure from Brussels and Washington to relent on their efforts to normalise with Moscow, and his actions once again demonstrate the fractures in the EU and NATO.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
German Military Leak Added Embarrassment to Berlin’s Silence on Nord Stream Sabotage
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 04.03.2024
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has blamed Moscow for the leak, completely glossing over the fact that German military officers were discussing nothing short of an open attack on Russia, Sputnik’s commentators say.
The leaked conversation of German officers discussing attacks against Russian civilian infrastructure by German-made Taurus missiles has prompted a heated debate in Berlin. “It’s a hybrid disinformation attack — it’s about division, it’s about undermining our unity,” German Defense Minister Pistorius rushed to claim: “We mustn’t fall for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.” Earlier, Berlin stated it wouldn’t send Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
“I think in war narrative, control is obviously very important,” Glenn Diesen, professor of international relations at the University of South-Eastern Norway, told Sputnik. “And on this tape it was revealed that German generals were discussing attacks on Russia or more specifically, attacking the infrastructure of the Kerch Strait Bridge [also known as the Crimean Bridge]. And it also revealed that the Taurus missiles will be supplied to Ukraine, in which the Americans would assist in handling them or firing them, attacking Russia with them. So this is, of course, very problematic because it demonstrates NATO’s direct involvement in the war, that is direct attacks on Russia. This is not just weapons and intelligence anymore, but now also picking the targets and, indeed, even pulling the triggers.”
Nord Stream Sabotage and Crimean Bridge Attack Plot
By accusing Russia of launching a “disinformation” attack Germany appears to use the same playbook it used in the aftermath of the Nord Stream sabotage attack of September 26, 2022, when Russia was groundlessly blamed for destroying its own pipeline.
According to Diesen, it’s the US who is pulling the strings of the German government in both cases.
“Obviously, the United States has an interest in this,” the expert said, commenting on the scandal surrounding the possible delivery of Taurus missiles to the Kiev regime. “They’re not able to supply weapons of their own at the moment due to the Republican opposition. So they’re obviously looking for the Europeans to take a greater role in this proxy war against Russia. By comparison, Nord Stream was, I would say, even more awkward because keep in mind that before the Nord Stream pipelines were attacked, the US on numerous occasions told what they were planning to do. They threatened it very publicly, expressing their intention to attack the Nord Stream pipeline if Russia would invade Ukraine.”
In both cases, Washington and its allies in the German government feared that the incidents could create divisions within the West; so, the first instinct was to blame Russia, the professor pointed out. Likewise, in both cases nobody in the West seems willing to dig to the bottom of what happened: an investigation in the Nord Stream sabotage has yet to bear any fruit, while the German military chatter is being downplayed by Berlin and its allies.
“It’s the same pattern of behavior,” Gunnar Beck, AfD European Parliament MEP told Sputnik. “The German government is presented with clear evidence. And they deny it and they go on the attack against Russia. Who’s benefiting from this clearly [are the] fervently anti-Russian interest groups within the German government. I’d say the Greens in particular. But, broadly and in abstract terms, everyone in Germany who defines Germany’s national interest in terms of the interests of the collective West. It’s a majority of the German establishment.”
“The German generals appeared to be part of that camp of the German political establishment, which saw Germany as firmly anchored in the West. That applies to all political parties except my own,” the German politician continued.
“And, of course, the arms industry. Naturally, arms manufacturers in Germany are trying to profit from increased military spending on Ukraine.”
The Bundeswehr chatter clearly indicated that American and British military specialists have also been deployed in Ukraine and could be involved together with the French in the attacks on Russia’s Crimean infrastructure.
According to Beck, the attack on the Crimean Bridge is a symbolic matter for NATO: “That’s an important symbol of Crimea being an integral part of Russia,” he presumed.
“I think there are two objectives,” Diesen said, commenting on the matter. “The first would be, just in terms of the war, the Crimea can be seen as an important logistics hub. And in wars especially on this scale, we see that logistics are imperative in order to be able to bring weapons and supplies and move troops around. So being able to destroy this bridge would be an important way of limiting the logistics flexibility of the Russian army. But I think there’s also now a wider, larger strategic level in which there’s this historical desire, especially by the Americans and British, as the main naval powers over the past 200 years or 200-plus years, which has been to weaken Russia’s access to the seas. So, again, this has been a very old strategy, for centuries, which is, yeah, to limit Russia’s access to these oceans.”
German Public Don’t Want War With Russia
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov drew attention to the fact that Berlin is much more concerned about the leak taking place, rather than the fact that the German military was discussing in detail a potential sabotage attack on Russia’s Crimean Bridge.
“I think it’s an embarrassment for [Germans], obviously, because it’s been quite important for Germany,” said the Norwegian professor. “They’re trying to balance two positions. They want to be loyal NATO members, which supplies weapons in this proxy war against Russia. But at the same time, they’re very cautious not to be seen as being a participant of the war – this obviously failed. They’re now being caught red-handed, planning attacks on Russia, which makes them participants. I think this is merely an issue of controlling the narrative, which is to shift the focus on what this represents.”
For his part, Beck emphasized that while the German establishment has no scruples about sending more weapons to Ukraine and planning attacks on Russia’s civilian objects, the German public is not warmongering.
“So what this conversation – which is not even the German government – clearly shows is that the German military is planning an attack against Russia, which, according to every interpretation of international law, would make Germany a party in the military conflict in the Ukraine. That’s not what the vast majority of Germans want,” Beck emphasized.
What’s the Truth About Russian ‘Meat Assaults’ Against Ukrainian Forces?
By Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 3, 2024
Lately, there has been much talk in the Western media about desperate waves of Russian troops hurling themselves recklessly at Ukrainian fortifications, while suffering huge losses. What is the truth?
human wave attack: is an offensive infantry tactic in which an attacker conducts an unprotected frontal assault with densely concentrated infantry formations against the enemy lines, intended to overrun and overwhelm the defenders by engaging in melee combat.
Here are some of the mainstream media armchair generals as they pontificate, hundreds of miles away, on Russia’s military operation in Ukraine:
On January 24, The New York Post (“Moscow’s ‘meat wave’ tactic litters Ukraine battlefield with frozen corpses of Russian troops”) reported that “Russia is using a ‘meat wave’ strategy that sends scores of poorly trained soldiers to die on the front lines against Ukraine to clear a path for the Kremlin’s more valuable elite units — then abandons their frozen corpses on the battlefield.”
The image that the Post article wishes to convey is that the Russian military is some sort of technologically inferior fighting force that must rely on brute force if it hopes to make any battlefield gains. The ultimate goal here is to portray the Russians as cold-blooded barbarians; an effort to dehumanize the Russians as, to quote one twitter user, “zombies, like meat without fear and self-preservation instincts” that leaves its dead and wounded on the battlefield unattended.
Earlier, Business Insider (“Russia is bringing back its bloody ‘human wave’ tactics, throwing poorly trained troops into a massive new assault in eastern Ukraine, White House says”) quoted John Kirby, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, as saying that “the Russian military appears to be using human wave tactics, where they throw masses of poorly trained soldiers right into the battlefield without proper equipment, and… without proper training and preparation.”
Is Kirby projecting here? After all, it has been the Ukrainians who have been sweeping military age males off the street in broad daylight, sending them off to fight on the front lines with very little combat training.
Not to be outdone, on January 24, CNN (“Russia’s relentless ‘meat assaults’ are wearing down outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian forces”) quoted a Ukrainian sniper with the callsign ‘Bess’ who said “Nobody evacuates [the Russian corpses], nobody takes them away,” he said. “It feels like people don’t have a specific task, they just go and die.”
Is there any truth to these allegations? Are the Russians really carrying out zombie-style frontal assaults that are “unprotected, exposed and concentrated” in a desperate effort to overrun Ukrainian positions? How do the facts stand up to this latest batch of mainstream media hype?
Aside from the lack of any video evidence, consider basic military tactics. Only in the case of superior numerical troop strength – for example, as during the Battle of Normandy (June 6 – August 30, 1944) in World War II when the Allied forces launched a successful attack on German positions in northern France with over 2 million troops – would one side commit itself to carrying out massive frontal assaults on enemy positions.
In a recent interview with Germany’s ARD broadcaster, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said the Ukrainian army currently has a force level numbering about 880,000 troops.
“We have 880,000 troops; that’s an army of almost a million,” he said, when asked about the army’s force strength.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia had deployed more than 600,000 military personnel in Ukraine.
“The front line is over 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) long. There are 617,000 people in the conflict zone,” the Russian leader said during his first end-of-year press conference since sending his army into Ukraine in February 2022.
Meanwhile, even the Western mainstream media admits that Russia enjoys a 10-to-1 advantage in the number of artillery supplies, aircraft, drones and armored assault vehicles. With such an overwhelming advantage, why would the Russians need to resort to the desperate tactic of exposing its infantry to “human wave” attacks? If anything, it would be the numerically superior Ukrainian forces – now being systematically crushed by the Russians across the entire field of contact – who would be expected to throw themselves against their enemy in open fields.
The fact is, however, there has never been any video evidence of huge waves of Russian forces – nor Ukrainian, for that matter – running across open fields in some kind of mad dash to storm enemy defenses. Such a spectacle simply does not exist except in the imagination of the mainstream media, which would also have its readers believe that Russian troops in Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut) were forced to fight with shovels against their opponent, while also being forced to cannibalize components from foreign appliances to facilitate its defense production.
In the words of an old sage: “hogwash.”
The Stories You’re Not Hearing About the Russo-Ukrainian War…
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | March 4, 2024
Several, seemingly small events in the Russo-Ukrainian War went largely unnoticed in western media recently. But each of them, in their own way, may be significant.
The Fall of Avdiivka
On February 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since Russia invaded his country two years ago. It was the first time he had released a number of dead. He wouldn’t provide the number of wounded.
On February 4, he said, “About 26% of the national territory is still under occupation,” before adding that “the Russian army cannot make much progress. We have stopped them.”
Both statements are absurd. As The New York Times remarks on Zelensky’s battlefield accounting, “It differs sharply from estimates by U.S. officials, who, this past summer, put the losses much higher, saying that close to 70,000 Ukrainians had been killed and 100,000 to 120,000 had been wounded.”
The 31,000 number may be closer to the number of dead and wounded in the past several disastrous weeks than in the past two years. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu recently said that over 383,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed or wounded since the war began. Yuriy Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general and ex-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, says that 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded. A number of 400,000-500,000 is consistent with internal Ukrainian communications and reports from the battlefield that 20,000 soldiers a month would be necessary to replace the dead and wounded. That number also accords with the 450,000-500,000 number Zelensky has requested in a new mobilization.
Being absurd was appropriate when Zelensky was a comedian; it may have made Ukrainians laugh. But being absurd when Zelensky is president is not appropriate; it may make more Ukrainians die.
The second statement, that Russia is incapable of further significant advances because the Ukrainian Armed Forces has stopped them is no less absurd. Less than two weeks after making the statement, on February 17, after exhausting every capability it had, the Ukrainian Armed Forces retreated in disarray from the heavily fortified town of Avdiivka as it fell to the Russians. That was a very significant advance. Taking Avdiivka is not just a symbolic victory, as reported in the West, but a strategic victory that could open the door to the Donbas for Russian forces, allowing Russia to solidify the borders of its newly annexed territories.
Following the retreat from Avdiivka, Ukrainian statements about stopping Russia retreated one more step, now claiming that Russia won’t be able to advance. General Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military-intelligence chief, acknowledged that the loss of Avdiivka was tough, but insisted that Russia has its problems too, and that “they don’t have the strength” to advance significantly and capture all of the Donbas.
American officials echoed Budanov’s assessment, saying that “Russian gains in eastern Ukraine will not necessarily lead to any collapse of Ukrainian lines and that Moscow is unlikely to be able to follow up with another major offensive.”
Kiev said that their armed forces had withdrawn from Avdiivka and established new defensive lines around Lastochkyne and other nearby villages. But on February 26, Lastochkyne fell, and Ukrainian troops retreated to villages further west.
Western officials now say that Russia is “attacking in strength along four parallel axes in the northeast” and that they are “driving forward around Lyman and Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region.” Newsweek says there are reports that Russian troops have now “advanced west of the village of Lastochkyne.” And military spokesperson Dmytro Lykhoviy now says that Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from Stepove and Severne, two villages near Avdiivka and north of Lastochkyne.
What Killed Alexei Navalny?
It is still not known what killed Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison on February 16. U.S. President Joe Biden says that “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death.” Zelensky agrees, saying Navalny “was obviously killed by Putin.”
But Ukraine’s military-intelligence chief disagrees. On February 25, General Kyrylo Budanov told reporters that he was sorry to disappoint them, “but what we know is that he really died from a blood clot. And this is more or less confirmed. This was not taken from the Internet, but, unfortunately, a natural [death].” Russia has claimed that a blood clot was the cause of death.
An unexpected claim made by aides to Navalny on February 26 created another wrinkle. Navalny, they say, was about to be released in a prisoner swap. “Navalny was supposed to be free in the coming days,” Maria Pevchikh, the chairwoman of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said. “I received confirmation that negotiations were at the final stage on the evening of Feb. 15.”
Navalny’s aides advance this claim as new evidence that Putin killed Navalny. Pevchikh says that Putin ordered Navalny’s murder to take “the possibility of his release off the table.”
But it seems inconceivable that Navalny’s release could be negotiated by Moscow without Putin’s consent. He wouldn’t have to kill him; he would just have to take his release off the table. Though there is still insufficient evidence to pass judgement on the cause of his death, if it is true that Navalny’s freedom was on the table, that seems to lean towards that Putin did not feel threatened by him or feel the need to eliminate him.
The Firing of Zaluzhny
On February 8, the headlines were dominated by Zelensky’s firing of the Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhny. But overshadowed by those headlines was that Zaluzhny was not the only general to go. Zelensky fired his entire general staff and replaced them with a new Chief of General Staff for Ukraine’s Armed Forces and new deputy chiefs.
Though the change over could just reflect a new Commander in Chief choosing his own staff, it might also point to Zelensky ensuring a military command that is loyal to him at a time when the military is angry over the firing of Zaluzhny, and, as The Guardian recently put it, Zelensky “is no longer seen as untouchable, and political competition is returning to Ukraine,” and “Ukrainian society is exhausted by the war.”
