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Possible NATO Corps Deployment to Ukraine May Become ‘Suicide Mission for Those Troops’

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 04.02.2024

The UK has urged its NATO allies to consider sending the alliance’s expeditionary force to Ukraine, an informed source told Sputnik. According to the source, the alleged move came “in connection with the unfavorable developments in the Ukrainian theater of military operations for Kiev”.

The insider added that Britain also called on NATO to consider imposing a no-fly zone over the territory controlled by the Zelensky regime and to increase military aid to Ukraine.

”The UK’s reported plans about deploying NATO’s expeditionary corps to Ukraine is “a fantastical delusion on the part of the Brits and has no foundation in reality,” retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson told Sputnik.

“But just because the Brits are insane does not mean Russia can ignore them. It is a serious proposal,” he added.

Johnson was partly echoed by Matthew Gordon-Banks, an international relations consultant, former member of Parliament and retired senior research fellow at the UK Defence Academy, who said he didn’t think the rumors of a NATO force in Ukraine should be taken seriously.

“The suggestions I have heard are quite unrealistic at present,” Gordon-Banks stated.

Asked to comment on the “unfavorable development of events” for Kiev on the battlefield, he emphasized that “things are collapsing in Kiev quite quickly”.

“[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky has not been able to fire his top general, and I think he is now very much a ‘lame duck’ president,” Gordon-Banks argued, referring to the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny.

The same tone was struck by Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel turned geopolitical and military affairs consultant, who warned that if the information about London’s plans is true, and “if this is somebody’s dream, it could quickly become a nightmare for British and NATO forces.

“But it is not a realistic solution or proposal. Russia has complete air dominance, escalatory dominance, logistical dominance, ammunition dominance. This would be catastrophic for any UK forces and definitely would show a symbol of direct NATO involvement, which could really be dangerous, as far as escalation goes,” Rasmussen emphasized, noting that “the British forces would probably be wiped out, fairly rapidly.”

The US Army veteran suggested that someone in the UK military might be having “some type of delusional experience” for even suggesting such a scenario. “It’s a suicide mission for those troops. And it definitely would pull NATO into a much more dangerous situation and direct confrontation [with Russia],” Rasmussen concluded.

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Nuland leaves sense of foreboding in Kiev

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | FEBRUARY 4, 2024 

The commencement of political upheavals in world affairs sometimes lies with a seemingly obscure event. This is not to say that the shooting down of a Russian Ilyushin-76 military transport plane carrying dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war over the territory of Belgorod Region by two missiles fired from the area of Liptsy, in Kharkov Region (Ukraine) on January 24 is anything like the spark that set off World War I when a Serbian patriot shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the city of Sarajevo in 1914 and within a month, the Austrian army invaded Serbia.

That said, the downing of the Russian plane would have far-reaching consequences now that Russian investigators found irrefutable proof that the plane was shot down with a US-made Patriot surface-to-air system. President Vladimir Putin disclosed this himself. 

Russia sought an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in the matter but France as the president disallowed the request, which would have cast the West in bad light. The fact of the matter is that the US and Russia are not at war and the Americans would have no hesitation to call such an outrageous incident as an act of war if a Pentagon plane were to be shot down with a Russian missile in the US airspace. 

To be sure, Russia will draw appropriate conclusions and formulate a measured reaction. This is an escalation spiral as Russia’s election approaches.  

Indeed, all indications are that the US strategy through this year is to ‘hold, build and strike’ at Russia, as outlined in an article in the War on the Rocks co-authored by Michael Kofman, a leading American military analyst and the director of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for a New American Security.  Basically, the strategy is predicated on the premise that Russia is still far from its official goal of seizing the entire Donbas and therefore, what happens in 2024 is likely to determine the future trajectory of the war. 

Kofman identified three elements as crucial: one, a well- fortified frontline in Ukraine which stalls Russian offensives; two, pressing ahead with reconstituting the battered Ukrainian military; and, three, most important, degrading the Russian advantages and “creating challenges for Russian forces far behind the front lines”, while doubling down on rebuilding capacity to resume offensive operations. In a nutshell, the strategy is to reach a level of capability where Ukraine can absorb Russian offensives while minimising casualties and positioning itself to retake the advantage over time. [Emphasis added.] 

Russia is unlikely to remain passive without a counter-strategy. In fact, there is a perceptible acceleration of Russian operations lately. The factors of advantage largely lie with Russia which holds material,  industrial, and manpower advantages, and therefore, recreating another opportunity to deal Russia a battlefield defeat is virtually impossible. 

Washington should be aware that there is very little realistic chance of the West being able to outlast Russia and force it to accept peace on Ukrainian terms. Time is not on Ukraine’s side, either, militarily or economically. The noted American strategic thinker of the realist school and Harvard academic Prof. Stephen Walt is to the point when he wrote in FT recently, “Both [Biden and Trump] administrations will try to negotiate an end to the war after January 2025, and the resulting deal is likely to be a lot closer to Russia’s stated war aims than Kyiv’s.”

But that is the whole point. The new war strategy — which was outlined in a recent article in the Washington Post — takes into account the  possibility of Ukraine becoming a dysfunctional state. But so long as Ukraine remains a cauldron boiling with nationalism that lends itself as a base for hostile moves to destabilise Russia and lock it in permanently in a confrontation with the West, the purpose is served —from Washington’s viewpoint.  

The final act of the power struggle playing out in Kiev is, therefore, of decisive importance and is being supervised by none other than Biden’s agent in the administration ever since the Maidan coup in Ukraine in 2014 — Victoria Nuland, Undersecretary of State. Nuland’s two-fold mission has been, first, to put in place a calculus of power in Kiev that is firmly under US control and, second, to steer the transition from war to insurgency when the need arises.

The probability being talked about is that President Zelensky who has burnt his bridges with Moscow will remain in power while the army chief Valeri Zaluzhni may be replaced. That said, the outcome of high-stakes power struggles, as the one Kiev is witnessing, is also hard to predict. Gen. Zaluzhni’s nuanced op-ed in the CNN on the day after Nuland left Kiev leaves no one in doubt that the redoubtable general is in a defiant mood.

Chief of Defense Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov’s biggest qualification is that although a man of very limited military experience, his forte is intelligence and covert operations who did brilliantly well to create a network of field operatives within Russia for subversive work — just the man to navigate Ukraine’s transition from attritional war to a full-bodied insurgency against Russia. 

The US agenda to weaken Russia in a long-drawn out insurgency is very much in the cards. This agenda enjoys the support of the transatlantic alliance, is “cost-effective” and allows the US to focus on Asia-Pacific, while keeping Russia down for the foreseeable future. No doubt, Russia’s reaction to the downing of the IL-86 military plane by Patriot missiles in Russian air space was anything but an accident. 

Moscow’s best option would be to create a buffer that keeps Russian territories out of reach of game-changing western medium and long-range missiles that are capable of degrading Russian logistics and command and control nodes and make large swathes of territories in the east and south of Ukraine, including Crimea, untenable for Russian forces. 

But that necessitates a full-fledged Russian offensive to take control of the entire region to the east of Dnieper river. Russia may face the same dilemma that Americans faced in Vietnam stemming from the requirement to expand the theatre of operations into Laos and Cambodia (aside North Vietnam.) For Russia, that involves colossal drain of human and material resources and the erosion of its international standing. 

The only feasible alternative will be to end the war — through negotiations or militarily — in 2024. But Biden’s interest in negotiations is zero. That leaves the military option as the only choice. The strategy to degrade the Ukrainian military in the meat grinder was highly successful, but going forward, in reality, the US-led western alliance, especially key functionaries like Nuland (an ex-ambassador to NATO) with a long record of being Russophobic, are showing no signs of attrition.

Now that the US has broken the glass ceiling by enabling a military attack on Russian territory, Moscow should brace for more incidents like the downing of the IL-76 plane. The authorities will be keeping a beady eye. Nuland’s sudden appearance in Kiev as a psychopomp from Greek mythology at this inflection point needs to be factored in. 

While in Kiev, Nuland forecast Ukrainian military successes in 2024 and that Moscow “is going to get some nice surprises on the battlefield”. The day before Nuland’s arrival in Kiev, Budanov had said that the Ukrainian military is in “active defence” but somewhere in the spring, Russia’s ongoing offensive “will be exhausted completely… and I think ours will start.” The tone of triumphalism is unmistakable, but how far it is rooted in reality time only can tell.

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The Anglo-American War on Russia – Part Thirteen (Putin’s Special Military Operation)

Tales of the American Empire | February 1, 2024

This series has explained how senseless NATO expansion caused a war in Ukraine. Ever since American President George W. Bush announced plans to add Ukraine and Georgia to NATO in 2008, Russian leaders said this third expansion of NATO would not be allowed. Since most people of Ukraine and its President didn’t support joining NATO, the United States organized a coup in 2014 and replaced its democratic government with one supportive of becoming an American vassal state. This never occurred as several NATO members stalled efforts to add Ukraine, so the United States began making Ukraine a de facto member by providing billions of dollars to greatly expand, train, and equip its army. Despite its small army, everyone knew that Russia could expand it if necessary. It has four times the population of Ukraine, ten times its economic power, and more advanced military equipment. Yet even the ominous arrival of Russian military forces on Ukraine’s border failed to encourage implementation of signed peace agreements. Russian President Vladimir Putin reluctantly ordered Russian troops into the Donbas to help local militias expel Ukrainian troops in what he called a “Special Military Operation.”

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“Not About NATO” | “Never About NATO” | “Nothing to Do With NATO” | UKRAINE WAR; Matt Orfalea; YouTube; October 2, 2023;    • “Not About Nato” | “Never About NATO”…  

Related Tale: “Poland Lost World War II”;    • Poland Lost World War II  

Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”;    • The Anglo-American War on Russia  

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

EU Leaders Squander Another €50 Billion on Propping up Kiev Regime… and Self-Destruction

Strategic Culture Foundation | February 2, 2024

Finally, the European Union’s threats, blackmail, and arm-twisting have paid off to push through a giant €50 billion aid package to the hopelessly corrupt Kiev regime. This is while European farmers revolt against the EU leadership over higher energy costs and cheap imports from Ukraine that are putting them out of business and wiping out their livelihoods.

The EU leaders are committing the entire bloc of 500 million people to political suicide. The reckless cavalier attitude is something to behold. Bring on the pitchforks, Merci!

The 27 leaders of the European Union met in an emergency summit this week not to deal with the bloc’s mounting internal political, economic, and social problems but rather to lavish mountains of more aid on non-member Ukraine.

When the leaders held their last summit in December, it was a spectacle of back-biting and sordid wrangling. At that gathering, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban vetoed the allocation of more funds to the Ukrainian regime amid bitter recrimination and bickering. This time around, however, Hungary caved in to the intense pressure to agree on the package.

Days before the summit in Brussels this week, it was reported by the Financial Times that the European Council had drawn up plans to sabotage the Hungarian economy if Budapest persisted in not signing up for the massive aid plan. That speaks volumes about the perverse mindset at the apex of the EU bureaucracy. It demonstrates the undemocratic character of the bloc despite pretentious claims to the contrary.

Brussels had already frozen up to €10 billion in central funding for Hungary and there were reported threats to remove Budapest’s voting rights in the bloc’s decision-making which would have been a blatant violation of the EU’s declared principle of unanimity.

The allocation of €50 billion to a non-member state is astounding. Even more bewildering is that the latest largesse is only a fraction of the total aid that the EU leadership has pumped into Ukraine since the proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022. Over the past two years, the European Union has given the Kiev regime an estimated €100 billion.

The United States and other Western allies have also plied Ukraine with another €100 billion. About half of this goes on weapons, while the other half pays for state financing.

As we have noted here previously, the cumulative funding by the West to Ukraine has far exceeded the historic Marshall Fund that the U.S. allocated to all of Europe for reconstruction following World War Two (about €170 billion in today’s money).

There is simply no precedent or justifiable rationale for this mobilization of financial support for Ukraine. This has all been done as a fait accompli by an elite class with no democratic mandate. No referenda have been conducted to consult the public about the inordinate expenditure. Indeed, polls indicate that the European public – like the American public – is opposed to their governments supporting Ukraine.

The Biden administration is vying with growing resistance in Congress to send Ukraine an additional $60 billion.

To boot, the Kiev regime under the puppet president Vladimir Zelensky is a byword for rampant corruption and repression. It is admitted by Pentagon sources that something like $400 million of military spending has been siphoned off by the Kiev junta. The real figure is plausibly even greater.

The grotesque allocation of financial resources to Ukraine has nothing to do with supporting democracy or defending the country from alleged Russian aggression.

EU leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen keep repeating a mantra about defending Ukraine because, they say, if it is defeated then all of Europe is in danger of Russian invasion. This is the most preposterous scaremongering by politicians who are ideologically blinded by Russophobia and slaves to propagating Western hegemony.

The latest €50 billion injection to a war-addicted Ukrainian regime is openly said to be for sustaining its government and paying for salaries and services. In other words, Ukraine is a failed state, and yet European citizens, workers, and farmers – who themselves are subsisting in hard economic times – are expected to bankroll a corrupt cabal.

Furthermore, the hardship that tens of millions of European citizens are enduring is a direct result of their political leaders and the Brussels bureaucratic elite pandering to the United States’ agenda of hostility towards Russia.

That U.S.-led aggression, which can be traced back to the CIA-instigated coup in Kiev in 2014 to bring a NeoNazi regime to power, has sabotaged Europe’s economy. European leaders have treasonously served Washington’s geopolitical interests and not those of ordinary Europeans. The insane imposition of sanctions on Russia has led to huge hikes in energy prices which has decimated European businesses and the living standards of consumers, workers, and farmers.

The higher costs of production are a major factor in the surging protests across Europe by farmers. Another factor is the EU’s undemocratic import of cheaper agricultural produce from Ukraine as a sop to the Kiev regime. Those imports have undermined farmers all across Europe, in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and the Baltic countries.

The scandalous abuse of European funds to prop up a corrupt fascist regime that violently suppresses political opponents, media, and the Orthodox Church, and glorifies Nazi collaborators, has one fundamental purpose – to prolong a proxy war against Russia. That war’s objective is for eventual strategic subjugation.

The Western regimes are so bankrupt and impotent in the face of their broken capitalist economies that they are seeking to exploit Russia’s vast natural wealth. This is the continuation of the Lebensraum policy of Nazi Germany by Western imperialists.

Ukraine has lost the proxy war against Russia. It is a shameful, criminal debacle. Up to 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed over the past two years by superior Russian forces. The vile Kiev regime, of course, wants to keep the war racket going for its insatiable grifting. Washington and its European vassals in high office want to keep the war going out of elitist imperial ambition, an ambition that is ultimately futile in the new emerging multipolar global order.

While European leaders were ensconced in the European Council in Brussels, the parliament was blockaded by angry farmers from all over Europe. Protesters were calling out politicians by name. The contempt is palpable. Paris and other capitals across Europe are being besieged by motorway chokepoints. National economies are on the brink as a result.

One might even perceive that European farmers in France, Germany, Belgium, and elsewhere, are implementing tactics similar to the Yemenis in the Red Sea. Squeeze the chokepoints and watch the empire writhe.

You couldn’t make this farce up. European elitist regimes are waging war in Europe against nuclear-powered Russia by wasting the public’s money to lavish a Neo-Nazi mafia in Kiev and by doing so making the lives of European citizens even harder. The upshot is political and economic suicide for the European Union.

The EU is holding parliamentary elections in June amid the dramatic rise of anti-EU or Eurosceptic parties. Two years of senseless war in Ukraine is fomenting popular disgust with the elite class. The anger out there may not even be contained by voting in elections. The fury seems to be beyond making little Xs in a box. A collapse is coming and heads are going to roll.

February 3, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Canada to Hand Over 1980s-Designed CRV7 Missiles to Ukraine

Sputnik – 03.02.2024

The countries of the collective West, led by the United States, have been providing military aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s special military operation in February 2022 in the amount of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Canada may transfer CRV7 air-to-surface missiles to Ukraine that were developed in the 1980s and taken out of service in the early 2000s, according to Canadian broadcaster CBC, citing a representative of the country’s Defense Ministry.

“The federal Conservatives are demanding that the Liberal government donate to Ukraine tens of thousands of surplus air-to-ground missiles that were scheduled to be scrapped,” the material said.

At the moment, Canada has about 83,300 missiles in its arsenal, part of them already without warheads, according to CBC.

The leader of the opposition Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, also demands that these munitions be sent to Kiev. According to him, it is better to give these weapons to Ukraine than to make Canadians pay millions of dollars to decommission them.

Earlier, on January 1, Volodymyr Zelensky held talks with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, thanking him in particular for the delivery of additional NASAMS air defense systems and shells. However, later, on January 9, CTV News reported that Kiev had not received the NASAMS air defense missile system that Canada had promised to purchase from the US for the needs of the Ukrainian military.

The CRV7 air-to-surface missile, an outdated weapon from the past, is no longer in use due to advances in technology and the development of more sophisticated missiles. Designed for use during the Cold War, these missiles have been replaced by more accurate, faster, and more versatile ones with greater range, payload capacity, and precision guidance systems.

February 3, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Good Money After Bad: Where Will EU Funds for Ukraine Come From?

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 02.02.2024

European Union (EU) member states have agreed on a €50 billion ($54 billion) support package for Ukraine over four years, overcoming Hungary’s resistance. But where will the EU get that money?

The EU could commandeer interest paid on frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine during its war with Moscow.

Europe’s economy is facing stagnation, with zero economic growth for October-to-December period reported by EU statistics agency Eurostat.

The Eurozone inflation rate has yet to fall below the target two percent threshold, with consumer prices still remaining high.

Against that backdrop EU member states are cutting subsidies, reducing energy consumption and diminishing industrial production. Protests by farmers have rocked the continent since early January.

Nonetheless, Brussels has found €50 billion ($54 billion) to support the embattled Kiev regime for four more years. But where will this money come from?

According to the European Council, the bloc has set up the so-called Ukraine Facility for the period 2024-2027 to “contribute to the recovery, reconstruction and modernization of the country, foster social cohesion and progressive integration into the Union, with a view to possible future Union membership.”

To that end the EC has allocated €50 billion, of which:

€33 billion ($35.9 billion) comes “in the form of loans guaranteed by extending until 2027 the existing EU budget guarantee, over and above the ceilings, for financial assistance to Ukraine available until the end of 2027,” the document sets out.

€17 billion ($18.5 billion) comes “in the form of non-repayable support, under a new thematic instrument the Ukraine Reserve, set up over and above the ceilings of the MFF 2021-27.” The EC document specifies that revenues “could be generated under the relevant Union legal acts, concerning the use of extraordinary revenues held by private entities stemming directly from the immobilized Central Bank of Russia assets.”

On February 1, CNN claimed that the EU had taken a step towards seizing billions of dollars in interest payments generated by Russian assets frozen in European accounts. Media reported that roughly €200 billion ($218 billion) remain in the EU, mainly in Euroclear, a Belgium-based financial services company.

The media outlet highlighted that the EU approved the €50 billion Ukraine package as it “came closer to finalizing a plan” of using the profits from the Russian Central Bank’s sequestred assets — indicating that it has yet to gain access to the funds. Euroclear revealed on Thursday that the frozen Russian assets had yielded €5.2 billion ($5.6 billion) in interest on income assets since 2022.

On Monday, EU member states “agreed in principle” that profits from the Russian assets will be set aside and not be paid out as dividends to shareholders until the bloc’s members decide to set up a “financial contribution to the [EU] budget that shall be raised on these net profits to support Ukraine”, according to a draft document quoted by Euroactive.

The document claimed that the levy will be “consistent with applicable contractual obligations, and in accordance with [EU] and international law.” After that the EC would transfer the money to the EU’s accounts and then to Ukraine, the media noted, specifying that the proposal targets future profits and would not be applied retrospectively. It is believed that Russia’s frozen assets in the EU could generate an estimated €15-17 billion over four years, which would be transferred to Ukraine, according to the press.

Speaking to Sputnik last October, Jacques Sapir, director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, argued that any attempt by the EU to grab Russia’s frozen assets or revenues from them could turn into a legal nightmare for the EU leadership and particular member states where the money is being stored.

“As a matter of fact, if assets belong to the Russian state legally, you will have to prove that this state is a ‘failing state,’ something impossible,” Sapir told Sputnik on October 29, 2023. “If assets belong to private persons, you need a legal conviction against these persons. If you can’t do both and that you take away revenues to divert them to a third party (Ukraine) this is no less than a theft. Then you will be liable to legal action. But, what is even more important, you will probably discourage all foreign investors from investing in the EU.”

Brussels Wants European Farmers to Tighten Belts

While allocating tens of billions of euros for Ukraine, Brussels has yet to solve its farming crisis caused by inflation, a spike in production costs, economic slowdown, politically-motivated decoupling from Russia’s energy market, an influx of cheap agricultural goods from Ukraine and the bloc’s aggressive climate policies.

Farmers’ protests have been gaining pace since early January, engulfing France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and the Netherlands.

Commenting on the provision of €50 billion to Kiev, French member of the European Parliament Thierry Mariani warned that the package could cost France at least €8 billion ($8.7 billion) in taxpayers’ money since Paris contributes 16 percent of the EU budget.

“Another €50 billion for Ukraine (17 in donations plus 33 in loans… which will never be repaid). Do the French realize that they will have to pay €8 billion since we contribute 16 percent of the EU spending? Eight billion that our farmers would dream of,” Mariani posted on X on Thursday.

By January 31, the number of farmers protesting across France against the Macron government’s agricultural policies had reached 10,000, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin admitted. French farmers are protesting against unfair competition from cheaper imports, draconian environmental rules and the government’s push to bring down food inflation by artificially suppressing prices.

In a bid to calm the protests, the French government has proposed €150 million in tax and social support — small change compared to the multi-billion aid for Ukraine paid for by Paris.

Will EU Money be Spent Appropriately or Wasted in Ukraine?

Aid to Ukraine would be provided under certain conditions, the European Council said.

“A precondition for the support for Ukraine under the Facility shall be that Ukraine continues to uphold and respect effective democratic mechanisms, including a multi-party parliamentary system, and the rule of law, and to guarantee respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. In implementing the Facility, the Commission and Ukraine shall take all the appropriate measures to protect the financial interests of the Union, in particular regarding the prevention, detection and correction of fraud, corruption, conflicts of interests and irregularities,” the document read.

Those rules have already been broken by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has refused to hold general elections this year under the pretext of the ongoing conflict, despite top US and EU officials repeatedly urging Kiev to go ahead with the vote.

Washington and its European allies have grown concerned by Ukraine’s endemic corruption, as Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh remarked in his latest op-ed on Substack. Washington and Western Europe want Zelensky to carry out financial reforms.

“According to the knowledgeable American official, the first step of the new concept is a long-standing issue: financial reform,” Hersh wrote. “Zelensky must be told: ‘You’ve got to get rid of corruption before we do anything more.’ The second step is something that does not exist today in Ukraine: a serious audit of all government funding. The official said Zelensky should consider the billions he needs ‘as our money, as an investment with all of the rules’ for its disbursement ‘to be laid out and followed’.”

The investigative journalist recalled that last year CIA Director William Burns secretly travelled to Kiev to warn the Ukrainian president that Washington was aware of his and his entourage’s corruption. Hersh noted that Burns reportedly also told Joe Biden that Zelensky’s subordinates were outraged by their leader personally taking too large a cut of the US aid.

In order to get Ukraine’s spending under control, “the Council will play a key role in the governance of the Ukraine Facility,” according to the EC press release.

“In this sense, a Council Implementing Decision shall be adopted by a qualified majority for the adoption and amendments of the Ukraine Plan and for the approval and the suspension of payments based on the relevant assessments and proposals by the Commission. On the basis of the Commission annual report on the implementation of the Ukraine Facility, the European Council will hold a debate each year on the implementation of the Facility with a view to providing guidance. If needed, in two years the European Council will invite the Commission to make a proposal for review in the context of the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).”

Time will tell whether the EU’s funds allocated for Ukraine at a time of economic stagnation and looming crisis would be used by the Kiev regime properly — or whether it will result in yet another economic and military failure.

February 2, 2024 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Biden Makes Clear Case for NATO Complicity – and Russia’s Right to Retaliate – Over IL-76 Shoot-Down

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 1, 2024

Joe Biden is contending that the United States has the right to attack Iran as a result of the deadly strike on a U.S. base in Jordan which killed three American troops.

Biden is throwing rocks in a glass house if we then look at the case of the IL-76 shoot-down over Russia when 74 people were killed.

It is by no means clear if Iran was involved in the Jordan base raid. Tehran strongly denies it and even the Pentagon has admitted there is no evidence showing Iran had a hand in the drone attack.

Nevertheless, Biden has asserted Iran is to blame and that this gives the U.S. a right to respond militarily. If Biden can make that case, then the United States and its NATO allies should be held accountable for the shooting down of the IL-76 transport plane over Russia killing all onboard, according to the reasoning of none other than the US President.

By “accountable” that means Russia has the right to take retaliatory military action against the culprit of the crime in which 74 people were killed. Again, this is according to Biden’s own reasoning.

Biden was not speaking about the fatal IL-76 incident that occurred on January 24 when nine Russian servicemen and 65 Ukrainian prisoners were killed after their cargo plane was hit in mid-air with a warhead.

The president was responding to U.S. journalists questioning him about the deaths of three American military personnel at a base in Jordan that Iraqi militants attacked on January 28.

Biden said he held Iran responsible for the American fatalities and vowed to retaliate. Somewhat contradictorily, the president and his spokesmen have said the United States does not seek to have a wider war with Iran even though Biden said he intends to attack Iranian assets in a “tiered way at a time of his choosing”. If that’s not a wider war, what is?

Iran has vehemently denied any involvement in the drone attack on the U.S. base in Jordan near the border with Syria and Iraq. The strike was claimed by Iraqi militia known as Islamic Resistance which is allied with Iran.

Asked if he blamed Iran, Biden said he did “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”

Iran and the Iraqi militants are affiliated in a similar way to Tehran’s support for Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, and the Ansar Allah movement in Yemen. All are motivated by staunch opposition to U.S. military occupation in the Middle East and Washington’s support for Israel’s genocidal aggression in Gaza. Collectively, Iran and its allies are known as the Axis of Resistance.

There is no evidence that Iran supplied the weapons to the militants who killed the three American troops. Iran contends that each resistance member possesses its own agency and decision-making.

By contrast, however, the supply of American and other NATO weaponry to the Kiev regime is publicly recorded. It is estimated that the West has funded Ukraine with a total of $200 billion since the proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022. About half of that has been spent on weapons that include long-range missiles such as Patriot, Shadow Storm, Scalp and Iris-T systems. British and French cruise missiles have been repeatedly used to hit pre-war Russian territory such as Belgorod resulting in dozens of civilian deaths.

The strike on the IL-76 transport plane is believed to have been carried out with Western-supplied weapons.

Russian crash investigators have this week confirmed earlier claims that the cargo plane was shot down with a NATO weapon, either a U.S.-made Patriot missile system or a German Iris-T surface-to-air missile.

When the IL-76 was blown out of the sky on January 24 over Russia’s Belgorod region, Russian radars detected the launch of two anti-aircraft warheads nearly 100 kilometers away from the target. The missiles were allegedly fired from the location of Liptsy in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkov province. It is believed that only NATO-supplied weapons to the Ukrainian forces could have achieved that extensive range.

At the time of the IL-76 shoot-down, the Kremlin said that if it confirmed that Western weapons were responsible then Russia would deem the West to be complicit in the crime.

On January 26, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said: “According to preliminary investigation, Ukrainian armed forces carried out this terrorist attack using an anti-aircraft missile system. The missiles were launched from the village of Liptsy in Kharkov region.”

He added: “These could have been either American Patriot or German-made Iris-T missiles. If confirmed, this will make the Western suppliers of this ammo complicit in this crime. Just as they are complicit in shelling of peaceful neighborhoods of Russian cities that Ukrainian armed forces carry out with Western weapons.”

Russian crash investigators have now confirmed that Western weapons were the cause of the deadly crash.

The United States or one of its NATO allies supplied those weapons. That makes the U.S. or NATO complicit in an act of deadly aggression against Russia.

And by using the same logic as Joe Biden that culpability makes the U.S. or its allies accountable to Russia… “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”

Biden has made the case for Russia to directly hit American or NATO assets.

February 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

EU approves €50 billion in Ukraine aid

RT | February 1, 2024

EU leaders have signed off on a €50 billion ($54 billion) package of economic aid to Ukraine, overcoming resistance from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The Hungarian leader accused Brussels of “blackmailing” him into accepting the deal.

European Council President Charles Michel announced the news on Thursday morning, minutes after the bloc’s leaders sat down for talks in Brussels.

“All 27 leaders agreed on an additional €50 billion support package for Ukraine within the EU budget,” Michel wrote on X. “This locks in steadfast, long-term, predictable funding for Ukraine.”

The sum will be drawn from the EU’s collective budget and doled out over four years to Kiev, where it will be used to pay public sector salaries, keep government departments open, and prop up the beleaguered welfare system. The EU already agreed on a budget three years ago, which will have to be modified to include the mammoth aid package.

Any such budget modifications require the unanimous approval of all 27 member states. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned for months that he would veto the proposal, arguing that the EU has no idea how the money will be spent and no idea what will happen in Ukraine in the coming months. Orban has also argued that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia on the battlefield, and that Western leaders should be pushing Kiev toward a ceasefire and peace talks.

Orban has described Ukraine as “one of the most corrupt countries in the world.” Transparency International ranks Ukraine 104th out of 180 in its Corruption Perceptions Index report, and over the weekend, the country’s Security Service (SBU) announced that it had uncovered a major scheme by high-ranking defense officials to embezzle money intended to purchase ammunition.

Earlier this week, the Financial Times revealed that the European Council had drawn up a plan to cut funding to Budapest and tank the Hungarian economy if Orban maintained his veto. Orban accused the “imperialist” EU of trying to “blackmail” him, and said that he proposed a “compromise deal” whereby Ukraine would receive a smaller transfer of aid every year, which any member state could veto.

Brussels rejected Orban’s proposal, he told France’s Le Point news magazine on Monday. “They say that if we behave like a sovereign country, Hungary will immediately face a vast financial blockade,” he said. “Knowing Brussels, they are capable of it.”

Under the terms of the deal agreed on Thursday, EU leaders will debate the implementation of the package annually, while the budget will be reviewed in two years. Speaking anonymously, multiple European diplomats told Politico that these measures were included to placate the Hungarian PM.

However, other anonymous officials said that Orban was given no concessions, and was pressured to accept that “there was no alternative than giving in on the money to Ukraine.”

February 1, 2024 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

US to Begin Shipping Long-Range Bombs to Ukraine

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 31, 2024

Washington plans to ship its first batch of ground-launched long-range bombs to Kiev this week. The arms were designed for the Ukrainian military and will give Kiev another option for deep strikes.

The new weapon was developed by Boeing and Saab. It combines a 250-pound guided bomb intended to be launched by an aircraft and straps it to a rocket motor. Washington believes it has a range of 90 miles.

Boeing and Saab pitched combining the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket motor in November 2022. President Joe Biden approved the transfer of the long-range bomb to Ukraine in February 2023. However, the delivery of the munitions was delayed because it needed to be developed and tested.

Politico spoke with four officials who confirmed the first batch would arrive in Ukraine this week. The officials touted the weapons as giving Ukraine “a significant capability.” “It gives them a deeper strike capability they haven’t had, it complements their long-range fire arsenal,” the US official said. “It’s just an extra arrow in the quiver that’s gonna allow them to do more.”

The officials did not say how many bombs will be sent to Ukraine. At times, Washington has sent an extremely limited number of some types of arms to Kiev. Ukrainian forces recently conducted strikes deep in Russian-held territory on civilian targets. Earlier this month, at least 27 people were killed in a Ukrainian attack on a market on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk in the Russian-controlled portion of the Donetsk Oblast.

While the bombs may give Ukraine another option for deep strikes, it does not fill massive gaps in Kiev’s war needs. Ukraine is running short on manpower. Additionally, front-line troops lack artillery shells to fight back advancing Russian forces, and Kiev is short on air defense interceptors to protect its key infrastructure.

Ukraine’s Western backers are facing multiple hurdles to providing Kiev with more weapons. In Washington, the White House is gridlocked with Republicans in Congress on the supplemental defense spending bill that includes $61 billion in aid for Ukraine. However, even if the legislation is passed, Western reserves of 155 mm artillery shells and air defense interceptors are nearly depleted.

February 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Americans likely part of crew that shot down Ukrainian POWs – TASS

RT | February 1, 2024

American specialists may have been part of the crew that operated the US-made Patriot air defense system that shot down a Russian military aircraft carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war last week, TASS news agency reports.

The plane, a Russian Il-76, crashed over Belgorod Region last Wednesday while carrying 65 captured Ukrainian servicemen who were set to take part in a prisoner swap later that day. All of the POWs, as well as three Russian officers and six crew members, died in the crash.

On Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee released a report claiming that the plane was brought down using two MIM-104A surface-to-air missiles launched from a Patriot missile system deployed at a staging area in Kharkov Region, Ukraine near the village of Liptsy, around 10km from the Russian border.

Following the Investigative Committee’s report, a source within Russia’s security services told TASS that it is very likely that the crew operating the Patriot system represented a mix of Ukrainian and American specialists.

The agency’s source explained that Ukrainian officers are likely placed in lower positions while “Western specialists, including Americans, sit at the control and missile guidance stations.” They added that Ukrainian servicemen are often only allowed to be involved with these systems as drivers or operators of transport-loading vehicles.

The TASS report noted that the Russian authorities are still in the process of identifying the exact people who were involved in the attack and were operating the Patriot system.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the use of a US-made system in the killing of Ukrainian POWs means that US President Joe Biden and his administration have made regular American citizens “complicit in the bloody tragedy.”

February 1, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

West refusing to cooperate with Ukrainian POW plane crash investigation – Kremlin

RT | February 1, 2024

The US and its allies have shown little interest in launching an international probe into last week’s crash involving a Russian aircraft that was carrying Ukrainian captives, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday. President Vladimir Putin called for an investigation on Wednesday.

A Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft with 65 Ukrainian POWs on board crashed in Belgorod Region on January 24. All of the Ukrainians, as well as six crew members and three Russian military personnel, died in the crash. Moscow immediately blamed Kiev for the incident.

On Wednesday, Putin said Moscow had asked “for international experts to be deployed [here] to conduct an analysis, assess the existing material evidence” as part of an international probe.

According to Peskov, Western nations have demonstrated no interest in the Russian initiative. “The president stated it publicly and openly yesterday that we are ready for an international investigation,” he said, adding that the US and its allies were demanding official written requests and refusing to consider the issue without such documentation.

The West’s position came as no surprise for Russia, since it is a “direct participant” in the ongoing conflict, Peskov said. “It is clear that not one of them [the US and its allies] would be interested in conducting a probe and stumbling upon themselves as a result,” he added.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had disputed Moscow’s claims and called for an international probe into the incident as well.

On Thursday, the Russian Investigative Committee confirmed that the aircraft had been shot down by a US-made Patriot air-defense system. Such systems have been provided to Kiev’s troops by the Western backers.

February 1, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

ICJ Rules Against Ukraine on Terrorism, MH17

In a blow to Ukraine, the World Court ruled Russia didn’t finance terrorism in Donbass and the court refused to blame Moscow for the downing of Flight MH17.

By Joe Lauria | Consortium News | February 1, 2024

The World Court ruled on Wednesday that Russia did not finance terrorism in its defense of separatists in Ukraine and the court refused to find Russia guilty of downing Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 as Ukraine had asked.

The case was brought to the ICJ by Ukraine in 2017, three years after the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev overthrew the democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych.

When Russian speakers in Donbass rebelled against the unconstitutional change in government that they had voted for, the coup leaders in 2014 launched what it called an “anti-terrorist” military operation to put down the rebellion.

Russia responded by helping ethnic Russians with arms and other military equipment. Ukraine claimed to the court that that was in breach of a treaty barring terrorism financing.

But the ICJ ruled on Wednesday that the treaty only covered cash transfers made to alleged terrorist groups. This “does not include the means used to commit acts of terrorism, including weapons or training camps,” the Court said in its judgement.

“Consequently, the alleged supply of weapons to various armed groups operating in Ukraine… fall outside the material scope” of the anti-terrorism financing convention, the Court ruled. The Court also said it had no evidence to show that any of the armed militias in Donbass fighting against the government could be characterized as terrorist groups.

The ICJ found only that Russia was, “failing to take measures to investigate facts… regarding persons who have allegedly committed an offense.”  It added that the court “rejects all other submissions made by the Ukraine.”

The ruling is highly significant in undermining Kiev’s claim to be fighting a war against terrorists in Donbass, an essential part of the Ukraine’s and the West’s narrative in justifying its brutal operation that left more than 10,000 civilians dead.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 amid indications that Kiev was beginning a new offensive against Donbass. Ukraine and the West had failed to implement two peace agreements negotiated in Minsk and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

Western and Ukrainian officials later admitted they never had any intention of implementing the deal and pretended to to buy time to build up its forces against Russia.

Rejected MH17 Claim

In its complaint to the Court, Ukraine had also claimed that Russia was responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014, killing all 298 civilian passengers and crew on board. Kiev wanted Russia to pay compensation to the victims.

But the court refused to rule whether Russia was responsible and to order compensation. This ruling appears to contradict the results of the official investigation into the incident.

The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and a Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT) concluded in 2016 that the plane was shot down by ethnic Russian separatists using a missile supplied by Russia. Moscow has denied involvement in the incident.

The ruling on MH17 came two weeks after the European Court of Justice decided that the Dutch government was not required to release information it has about the incident. The Dutch news outlet RTL Nieuws had brought the case before the ICJ.

It wanted to know what reports the Dutch government had received about Ukrainian airspace before the plane was shot down. The government refused to release that data and the European court ruled it did not have to divulge information regarding aviation safety.

No Discrimination

Ukraine was also denied compensation for what it said was discrimination against ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014.

The court only agreed that Russia failed to adequately protect Ukrainian language education in Crimea. This complaint came as Ukraine passed laws discriminating against the Russian language in the country.

US Judge Votes Against Russia

Joan Donoghue, the American judge who is president of the Court, voted to protect Ukraine against several of the measures of the judgement.

For instance, she voted (in a 10-5 vote) against rejecting “all other submissions made by Ukraine with respect to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.” She only voted for the point criticizing Russia for not properly investigating the charge and against rejecting Ukraine’s demands for compensation.  

Donoghue also voted (in another 10-5 vote) against rejecting Ukraine’s charge regarding discrimination against Ukrainians and Tartars in Crimea. 

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe

February 1, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

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