Ukraine ‘cynically’ not interested in minority rights – Hungary
RT | November 13, 2023
Ukraine has no intention of resolving concerns about its treatment of Hungarians and other minorities living in its western province, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters in a meeting broadcast on his Facebook page on Monday.
Instead, the government in Kiev has focused on duping the rest of the world into believing the minority rights issue is “resolved or almost resolved” – even as the situation for Hungarians living in the province of Transcarpathia “deteriorates” even further.
“I think it’s very cynical on the part of Ukrainians that, as can be clearly seen, they in no way want to resolve issues that are important to us, in no way want to return the rights taken away from Transcarpathian Hungarians,” Szijjarto said.
To illustrate the minority’s worsening plight, Szijjarto described a letter sent by the Ukrainian Ministry of Education instructing schools that the Ukrainian language “should be used as the state language not only during classes, but also during breaks between teachers and students,” even in schools where the majority of students – and teachers – are Hungarian.
Last month, Szijjarto demanded Ukraine repeal several laws seen as impinging on the rights of ethnic Hungarians, warning that Budapest would block Kiev’s efforts to join the EU so long as the discrimination continued.
Hungarian President Viktor Orban took things one step further, declaring Hungary would not support its neighbor “on any issue in international life until it restores the laws that guaranteed the rights of Transcarpathian Hungarians.”
Approximately 156,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine have seen their situation worsen dramatically since 2015, according to Szijjarto. The nation’s other ethnic minorities – including 150,000 Romanians and 250,000 Moldovans – have similarly suffered under a series of laws mandating the use of the Ukrainian language in official settings.
The legislation, which has come under fire from human rights groups and the Council of Europe, has led to the closing of some 100 Hungarian schools in Ukraine, leaving just 20% of the country’s Hungarian population receiving lessons in their own language.
The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission urged Ukraine to improve the recognition of its national minorities if it hopes to enter the EU in a report published earlier this year. Its proposed reforms include publishing official state documents in minority languages, delaying the introduction of Ukrainian as a principal language in schools, providing interpreter services at Ukrainian public events, and ditching Ukrainian-language content quotas for minority media outlets. Currently, just 10% of a media outlet’s content can be broadcast in the minority language.
Israel Will Lose. Here’s Why.
Western media are getting it wrong, just like in Ukraine
BY KEVIN BARRETT | NOVEMBER 8, 2023
Ever since February 2022, Western mainstream media has been telling us that Russia cannot possibly win its war in Ukraine. Zelensky, with his hundreds of billions of dollars’ backing from the West, would surely prevail. Russia has always been taking unbearably heavy losses. Putin is always about to keel over dead. A fresh shipment of US wonder-weapons will turn the tide. A crushing Ukrainian victory is always at hand.
Because they could not imagine Ukraine losing, Western pundits could not see that it was losing. They missed the fact that from the moment the non-Western world majority refused to accept US sanctions on Russia, it was effectively over. Virtually the entire war has been fought under the shadow of an inevitable Russian victory. It has always been just a matter of time.
Might a similar situation prevail in the war for Palestine? The non-Western world majority has turned sharply against Israel—even more sharply than it turned against the US in its war on Russia through Ukraine. Yet Western media continue to manufacture and inhabit a bubble completely divorced from moral and strategic reality. They can’t even imagine Israel being in the wrong, even though it obviously is. They can’t imagine Hamas being noble and chivalrous fighters, and Israelis being cowardly child-killing terrorists, though such is obviously the case. They can’t acknowledge that the vast majority of the world disagrees with them for very good reasons, not because of “anti-Semitism.” And above all they can’t imagine that Israel, despite (or because of) its genocidal assault on civilians, is losing the war.
Just as you had to read “pro-Russian” sources (like Col. Douglas MacGregor) to get the truth about the war in Ukraine, you need to stay abreast of the pro-Resistance global majority view to get an accurate picture of the war for Palestine. To that end, check out my quick, Google-translate-assisted rendition of an enlightening article published yesterday by Al-Jazeera.
The shock that produced the predicament… Israel between an “image of victory” and defeat
Zuhair Hamdani and Talal Mushati for Al-Jazeera
Israeli leaders are preparing a tense and frustrated Israeli public for unforeseen surprises in their war on Gaza, by talking about a long, costly, and cruel war. The high expectations they have set for their war will be difficult to achieve, lacking as they do a clear military or political plan.
Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy says, “We are waging a war with a cruel enemy, and this war has a painful and heavy price,” while Defense Minister Benny Gantz sums up the difficulty of the ground war: “The images coming from the ground battle are painful, and our tears are falling when we see our soldiers falling.”
The Israeli leadership has launched its war on Gaza at a time when it has the confidence of only 27% of the Israeli public, while only about 51% trust the Israeli army. Added to this are the burdens of 250,000 people seeking refuge from the Gaza region and the northern areas near Lebanon, as well as the more than 240 Israelis held prisoner by the resistance in Gaza.
Accordingly, for Israel, this war is not like previous wars. Israel is suffering huge daily losses and erosion of resources, including soldiers, equipment, time, money, and legitimacy (internal and external support). The cost will continue to rise as the war lengthens or expands.
Maariv newspaper comments on the conditions of the ground war taking place on the outskirts of Gaza, saying, “The resistance forces are very far from being broken. Despite the liquidations and assassinations, Hamas is succeeding in most cases in maintaining an organized method of fighting, based mainly on tunnel fighting, exiting from hiding places, and launching missiles at our armoured vehicles.”
Two overriding factors drive the fierce Israeli war on Gaza: the shock of the resounding military defeat and the security and intelligence failure that resulted from the Palestinian resistance’s launch of Operation “Al-Aqsa Storm” on October 7; and the predicament of the huge number of prisoners being held by the Al-Qassam Brigades and other Palestinian factions. Therefore, military action revolves around these two goals.
Under the psychological influence of the “Black Saturday” events, the Israelis went directly to the ultimate goal of any war, which is “to destroy the enemy.” This was a high ceiling that they probably knew, by virtue of previous experience, could not be achieved. It cannot happen except at a price they could not afford to pay.
In this context, Defense Minister Yoav Galant said, “There is no place for Hamas in Gaza. At the end of our battle, there will be no Hamas.” That is an unrealistic goal based on past experience and the current realities on the ground.
Considering previous wars including 2008 and 2014, we find that “destroying Hamas” was always a basic goal that was never achievable. There is no reason to believe that it will be achievable this time, especially since the movement is now much stronger, with much deeper roots in the Gaza Strip, than before. Its military defenses and arsenal have been strengthened to the point of being difficult to penetrate, and in the end it is not a state or a regular army that can announce its surrender, but rather an extended popular resistance movement in the path of a protracted Palestinian struggle.
The war that Israel does not want
If war consists of combat operations that require mobilizing the resources and capabilities of the state to carry out a specific military campaign in order to implement military and political objectives, ranging from moving a front to achieving tactical successes and imposing certain conditions or carrying out a decisive battle that breaks the will of the “enemy,” then it requires an agreed-upon leadership that enjoys a degree of consensus. It requires a military apparatus that is trained, equipped, and at least minimally psychologically mobilized for combat; an appropriate confrontation plan; and a unified, cohesive internal political and social front directed toward that goal.
It also requires an economic mobilization that comprehends the circumstances and course of the war and its surprises, and an understanding or supportive international and regional front. Victory is difficult to achieve if any or all of these conditions are absent, especially in the case of long battles that require continuous mobilization. The results are also linked to the enemy’s reaction, the extent of its strength, and the tactics it chooses.
Was Israel ready?
In terms of military capabilities, Israel always seems prepared for war on several fronts. But technical military capabilities and weapons alone do not resolve wars, especially if they are not the kind of lighting wars that Israel favors. In practice Israel suffers from significant defects in almost all of the above-mentioned ingredients for winning a war.
At the leadership level: There is no agreed-upon leadership in Israel that enjoys consensus or the necessary charisma. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as polls show, is extremely unpopular. In a recent Israeli public opinion survey conducted by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, it was found that only 27% of Israelis support his political survival, and his political and military decisions are not accepted and are subject to widespread criticism. The course of the war has also proven that he is indecisive and does not have a clear and convincing plan for military or political action.
Netanyahu also refuses to accept responsibility for the security failure on October 7, which exposed him to severe internal criticism. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, for example, warned that Netanyahu’s attempts to evade responsibility and blame the security establishment, thereby weakening the Israeli army, amounted to “crossing red lines.”
The Home Front: The home front appears to have disintegrated. Israelis are living in a state of severe division at the partisan, popular and political levels. Especially controversial is how to deal with the issue of prisoners held by the resistance, in light of the dangers of a ground war and the major losses it would entail.
Netanyahu and the extremist members of his government stand accused of dividing Israeli society. The leader of the opposition Labor Party, Merav Michaeli, has charged the Prime Minister with “fighting the army and the people of Israel.” The issue of prisoners held by the resistance has also sparked internal divisions, especially after Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu called for bombing Gaza with a nuclear weapon, saying, “What does hostage mean? In war, the price is paid. Why are the lives of hostages more precious than the lives of soldiers?” This was considered by Israelis to be “an abandonment by the government of its commitment to returning the hostages.”
Military front: The events of “Al-Aqsa Flood”, especially the first six hours of October 7, demonstrated that the Israeli army suffers from severe deficiencies, as do its many security services. Now the daily losses it is suffering in its ongoing ground operation have made it the object of suspicion within Israeli society, which was relying upon it to maintain an aura of safety and stability.
Economic situation: The Israeli economic situation is at its worst, with major sectors such as tourism paralyzed, travel declining, and the agricultural sector suffering damage. With the mobilization of about 360,000 reserve soldiers, most of them suddenly removed from the labor force, and the evacuation of about 250,000 settlers, the economy is witnessing a severe labor shortage in various fields. Israel recently announced that the last three weeks of war have cost about 7 billion dollars, without taking into account the direct and indirect damages. While this damage may cost about 3 billion dollars per month, preliminary estimates show that the war on Gaza will cost Israel’s budget 200 billion shekels ($51 billion), or about 10% of the gross domestic product, and as the war continues for a long period, the Israeli economy may be crippled according to Israeli estimates.
Diplomatic front: After last October 7, Western countries that were historically biased towards Israel rushed to support it, but this support quickly began to erode due to the impact of Israeli crimes and doubts about the ability of the Israeli army to resolve the war. Many countries condemned Israel or cut off their diplomatic relations with it (Colombia, Bolivia), while other countries recalled their ambassadors (Chile, Jordan, Bahrain, Turkey, Honduras…) Ever-increasing global popular pressure is pushing governments to take boycott measures, exposing Israel to isolation that has begun to worsen.
US Support for Israel Eroding?
In contrast to the direct support at the beginning, the administration of President Joe Biden began to re-assess its absolute support for Netanyahu for fear that things would spiral into a wider regional war. Washington fears the crazy scenarios that Netanyahu may create in an attempt to save his future at America expense.
After about a month, the Americans realized that the only constant in the Israeli plan was the use of massive destructive force targeting civilians and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. It seemed Netanyahu was waiting for a solution to save himself from a harsh predicament in the sands of Gaza—and waiting for the illusion of the resistance’s surrender that wasn’t going to happen. They began to have doubts about Israel’s management of the war and its results.
CNN has indicated that US President Joe Biden and senior US administration officials have warned Israel that support is eroding as global anger intensifies over the extent of human suffering resulting from its crimes in Gaza.
What’s happening in the field?
Over the course of about a month of war, it does not appear that Israel has achieved any serious gains on the ground. Contradictory statements indicate confusion about how to manage the battle and set final goals in the face of severe resistance. The shock of the mismanaged October 7 battle, and the psychological scars it left on the entire Israeli military establishment, still haunt the course of the war.
This psychological atmosphere also looms over the soldiers, as they realize that their return from the sands of Gaza would require a miracle. They recall the experiences of their colleagues and their bitter memories of the 2014 war as they witness the elite of the Givati Brigade drowning in the sands of Gaza in a battle that is still in its infancy. In effect, the Israeli army advanced a few meters into open lands in the northern Gaza Strip and lost 30 soldiers—according to reports—meaning that it is possible that hundreds of soldiers would be lost if the army advanced a few kilometers, amid a complex network of tunnels and fortifications, minefields, snipers, explosive devices, and hand-to-hand combat in the streets facing the unlimited fighting will of the resistance.
Since Israel does not have a clear plan for the war, it has inclined toward slow, calculated progress inside Gaza. Thus, achieving the dubious final goal may take a long period and unbearably heavy losses. In the meantime, important military or political transformations may occur that will ravage the entire plan.
In its current operations, Israel is losing up to 5 soldiers every day on the outskirts of Gaza without a clear and effective military advance. Nahum Barnea, the Israeli journalist in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, says, “A war of attrition on the outskirts of Gaza is the last thing the Israelis want to experience.”
Israeli military officials realize that it is impossible to liberate the prisoners militarily, but they are proceeding nonetheless under political pressure, despite the fact that the families of the prisoners, as well as the countries that have nationals among the prisoners, want an exchange deal. Netanyahu believes that such a deal would be a final acknowledgment of defeat and a victory for Hamas and the Palestinian resistance.
The cohesion of the resistance and the Israeli non-plan
Israeli public opinion fears that the war will be lost on two or more fronts, by failing to liberate or release the prisoners (about 60 of them have already been killed in Israeli raids) and by failure to dismantle the capabilities of the Hamas movement and the Palestinian resistance. Worse, a large number of soldiers will be killed, perhaps in the hundreds.
In contrast to the Israeli non-plan, following the painful military blow directed at Israel on the morning of October 7, the plan of Hamas and the resistance seems clear: stop the war, carry out a comprehensive prisoner exchange, and lift the siege of Gaza. The resistance is waging a war of attrition on the Israeli army, inflicting ever-increasing daily losses, and appears prepared for a long war to erode the elements of Israeli power.
Time is not on Israel’s side, as it loses more money, men, and legitimacy, its internal crisis worsens, and the pressures and doubts surrounding it increase, with the possibility of the situation exploding regionally. Instead it is on the side of the Palestinian resistance, which believes that all of these internal and external military and political pressures will ultimately make Israel yield and accept its terms.
In that case, the war would not only end with the defeat of Netanyahu, but also with the defeat of the far-right government and its racist program. Israeli society has increasingly rejected this government’s policies at all levels, and the war has proven that it cannot impose surrender on the Palestinian people despite the tragedies caused by Israeli crimes in Gaza, whose repercussions have made the international community wary and inclined to reject Israeli narratives.
Netanyahu’s predicament
The international community has begun to realize that the campaign launched by Benjamin Netanyahu on Gaza is nothing more than a series of horrific daily massacres against civilians that has not achieved any significant military breakthrough. The prognosis: Israel will be forced to submit to defeat under internal and external pressures. Already serious movements have begun from the international community to stop the war in the wake of the horror of ongoing Israeli massacres.
Nadav Eyal asserts in his article in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the Israeli army cannot be satisfied with the “image of victory” in its war on Gaza, and that the era of the policy of “mowing the grass” (reducing threats to an acceptable level) has ended. Instead, Israel needs a “real victory.” But this leaves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a deeply distressing predicament
The main dilemma concerns Netanyahu himself, who does not want to come down from the heights of the tree into which he scrambled on the morning of October 7. He realizes that he is finished politically (due to Al-Aqsa Storm) yet dreams of a resurrection linked to the results of his campaign in Gaza.
Netanyahu and his war cabinet are acting impulsively under the influence of the shock of October 7, without a clear military plan for the war, which is mainly being fought as a mindless emotional reaction to the well-prepared resistance in Gaza. Israel lacks a clear plan to liberate or recover the prisoners, or to confront the huge and ever-escalating international protests, to the point that Netanyahu began addressing Israeli soldiers in Gaza with quotes from the Bible, telling them to “remember what Amalek did to you.” (Amalek represents the height of evil in Jewish tradition.) Netanyahu has used the Amalek reference more than once to motivate the Israeli army in its war against Gaza.
Netanyahu is accumulating losses on all fronts, trying to write off “Black Saturday,” ignoring that his leadership does not enjoy popular acceptance, and pretending not to notice Israel’s broken army, eroding economy, undermined international reputation, disintegrated home front, large daily military losses, and the United Nations’ condemnation of his crimes.
US House Speaker Johnson Proposes Funding Government Without Aid to Ukraine and Israel
Sputnik – 12.11.2023
The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson (R-LA), has introduced a bill to temporarily fund the federal government. His proposal does not to include aid to Ukraine or Israel but does include funds for the defense of the US southern border.
According to the bill, part of the government programmes also related to transport, energy and military construction will be financed by 19 January, which would be the funding deadline for those programs and agencies which are covered under regular appropriations bills pertaining to agriculture, rural development, and Food and Drug Administration.
Funds for energy and water development, military construction and Veterans Affairs together with Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development will also be ceased.
The allocation of money for the rest of the government sectors will be calculated until 2 February.
Johnson expects some Republicans to vote against his bill, but in that case he expects Democrats to support it, Politico reports. However, even if approved in the House, the bill may not pass in the Senate.
“This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories… Separating out the CR from the supplemental funding debates places our conference in the best position to fight for fiscal responsibility, oversight over Ukraine aid, and meaningful policy changes at our Southern border,” Johnson said in a statement on Saturday.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre called the proposal “a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns”, claiming that Republicans were “wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties”. The statement urged Republicans to “work in a bipartisan way to prevent a shutdown”.
“My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker … cannot be overstated. Funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days — for future ‘promises,'” House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote on X, opposing the legislation.
Earlier this year, US President Joe Biden’s request to Congress for $24bln in aid to Ukraine almost caused a government shutdown after Republican congressmen refused to approve a budget that included those funds. As a result, a temporary budget was adopted without a clause on support for Ukraine.
Biden has already said that he would not sign the bill on allocating aid to Israel without Ukraine if it is approved by Congress.
Ukraine says it is ready to meet Hungary’s demands on minority rights
MANDINER | November 10, 2023
Ukraine is ready to reach an agreement with Hungary on meeting EU requirements for the protection of the rights of national minorities, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Olga Stefanishyna told a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
She vowed to guarantee the rights of the ethnic Hungarian minority living in modern-day Ukraine, but rejected claims that Hungarians were particularly affected by the ongoing Russian aggression in the country.
“The Hungarian minority has suffered much less than, say, the Greek minority in the Azov region,” she noted.
The Ukrainian minister said that Hungary reserves the right to arbitrarily block Ukraine’s EU accession process, but stated that she did not believe the Hungarian problem should be the main obstacle in the EU enlargement process.
“I am confident that we will be able to overcome this challenge. I am confident that we will find political understanding,” she stressed.
Hungary has been at odds with Ukraine for years mainly on account of the erosion of rights for its 100,000-strong ethnic Hungarian minority there, mainly based in the Transcarpathia region. Besides nationalist threats against Hungarians, there have also been reports that Ukraine conscripts ethnic Hungarians above their ratio in the overall population.
Stefanishyna noted that a dialogue is ongoing with the EU on how Ukraine is preparing to improve the protection of the Hungarian community in Ukraine. The Ukrainian delegation presented a detailed roadmap to Hungary in September, which included both practical steps, such as the provision of textbooks for Hungarian-speaking children, and plans for legislative amendments.
Asked whether Ukraine had any “red lines” for legislative changes, the deputy prime minister said that these amendments must “in no way affect knowledge of the Ukrainian language.”
US sabotaged Ukraine peace plan – Orban
RT | November 10, 2023
US lobbying was instrumental in stopping Ukraine from signing a peace deal with Russia, shortly after the conlfict between the two countries escalated last year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed on Friday.
Speaking with the national Radio Kossuth, Orban agreed with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that it was the US that scuttled the Istanbul peace talks in March 2022.
“What the former German chancellor said is a well-known fact in the world of diplomacy,” Orban said. “And we also know this from all kinds of reports and intelligence sources, that indeed in 2022 in Istanbul, where all kinds of covert negotiations took place, there was essentially an agreement, which – so says the diplomatic rumor – the Ukrainians did not sign on American instructions.”
The Ukrainians “were not allowed to” make peace, because they “first had to ask the Americans about everything,” Schroeder had told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung in an interview last month.
Speaking with Kossuth Radio on Friday, Orban pointed out that Europe tried to contain the Ukraine conflict starting with the Crimean crisis of 2014, through things such as the Minsk agreements.
“The Americans entered this game, and since then the direction is not isolation and localization, but expansion. More and more people are getting involved, more and more weapons are being delivered, more and more money is being spent, the Europeans are taking out more and more loans and sending them over to Ukraine, so I have to say that the conflict is becoming globalized,” the Hungarian prime minister said. “The Russian-Ukrainian war is destroying Europe. What we are doing now is unsustainable.”
Since the failure of the Turkish-hosted talks, bullets and bombs have done most of the talking between Moscow and Kiev. Ukraine has ruled out any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and insists on a set of demands that the Kremlin has dismissed as absurd.
The Kiev-based Ukrayinska Pravda reported in May 2022 that Boris Johnson, who was the British prime minister at the time, acted as a messenger for the West when he visited Kiev the month prior, “almost without warning.”
Johnson allegedly told President Vladimir Zelensky that there can be no negotiations with Putin and that even if Ukraine was ready to sign some kind of agreement with Russia, the West was not. Within two months of that visit, Johnson lost the premiership and later even his seat in the House of Commons, ostensibly over a scandal related to Covid-19 lockdowns. Last month he was hired by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) – a Washington-based think tank funded by the US government, NATO, and Western military contractors – on account of his “commitment to Ukraine’s victory.”
Washington “botched up” and now Kiev must accept worse peace conditions – retired US Colonel
By Ahmed Adel | November 10, 2023
Kiev will have to accept even worse conditions in peace negotiations because Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put his faith in the United States, former Pentagon adviser and retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor said in an interview with the Judging Freedom YouTube channel. Macgregor’s voice is not alone in sharing this belief, especially now that the world’s attention has shifted from Eastern Europe to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
“When he halted the advance of his forces in response to a stated willingness on the Ukrainian side to accept neutrality, he was being very serious,” the former Pentagon adviser said of Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that then Washington intervened in the dialogue between Moscow and Kiev, and “that was all botched badly.”
Macgregor agreed with independent commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano’s view that the conditions in the Ukraine negotiations will not be the same as two years ago. In addition, Western elites continue to lie, according to the retired US colonel.
“Zelensky was promised everything, and Zelensky believed it. He’s going to end up like everybody else that’s ever cooperated with us over time, out of a job and maybe lose his life in the process,” Macgregor pointed out.
Earlier, Macgregor highlighted that sooner or later, the US will have to admit the truth about defeat in the Ukrainian conflict publicly.
Russia has repeatedly expressed its readiness for negotiations, but the Ukrainian authorities have imposed a legal ban on them. The Kremlin also noted that there were no prerequisites for the situation to become peaceful now while achieving the objectives of the special operation remained an absolute priority for Moscow.
Macgregor’s comments echo what Karen Kwiatkowski, a former US Air Force lieutenant colonel, also said in an interview with Judging Freedom.
“I don’t think he’ll be in Ukraine. I don’t wish him ill, but I don’t think he’ll be in Ukraine, and if he is in Ukraine, he might be underground,” said the expert, adding that the Kiev regime “destroyed their country, lost half their population” but will still end up with a similar peace deal that was offered to them beforehand.
Kwiatkowski drew attention to the recent death of Major Yuri Chistyakov, assistant to the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi. In her opinion, his apparent assassination signals the “collapse” of the Ukrainian political and military structure. She believes that Ukrainian politicians and generals are now worried about their survival.
The expert noted that reports about the West’s attempts to persuade Zelensky to conduct peaceful negotiations with Russia put him in a “terrible position he brought on himself in many ways. He’s done for.”
The entire world already sees Ukraine’s president as no more than a “US puppet,” she said. “The puppet master is done, the game was over, the show was over.”
Valerii Zaluzhnyi said in an article published on November 1 in The Economist magazine that Ukrainian forces have reached a stalemate and that “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
In the five months since launching its counter-offensive, Ukraine has advanced by just 17 kilometres in one section of the long front, which itself speaks of the catastrophic failure. More disturbingly, these measly gains in the much-lauded counteroffensive, with the propaganda behind it beginning in autumn 2022, have come at an immense cost.
Ukraine’s armed forces lost approximately 90,000 military troops killed and wounded during the counter-offensive it launched a few months ago without accomplishing any substantial tactical successes, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu announced on October 30.
“Only since June 4 – that is, since the start of the West’s widely publicised and generously funded Ukrainian counter-offensive – Kiev has lost over 90,000 military personnel killed or wounded, 600 tanks, and nearly 1,900 armoured vehicles of various classes. At the same time, no tactically significant successes were made on the battlefield,” Shoigu said.
With the world’s attention now nearly completely shifted to the Middle East, Kiev has an even weaker negotiating position than it already had because of the catastrophic failure of the counteroffensive and the near destruction of its military. For this reason, Zelensky, even if he continues to deny it, is under increased pressure to open negotiations with Moscow.
NBC News reported on November 4, citing one current US official and one former US official familiar with the discussions, that Washington and Brussels have begun talking with the Ukrainian government about possible peace negotiations with Russia, including what they might need to give up. Reportedly, the discussions started in October during a meeting including NATO members due to concerns that the Russia-Ukraine war had reached a stalemate.
However, this is a false belief since the war is only at a stalemate because Russia has been in a defensive position, except in Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and a few other locations, for over a year. Once Moscow launches its offensive, the stalemate will be broken in a way that will devastate Ukraine. For this reason, Macgregor and Kwiatkowski are urging Zelensky towards accepting a peace deal [to avert] the loss of more life and territory.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
US in campaign to isolate Russia within the IAEA over Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
By Uriel Araujo | November 4, 2023
As part of its overall strategy to isolate and “cancel” Russia, the US, for the last few months, has been pursuing, both publicly and behind the scenes, a policy aimed at ousting Moscow from international organizations, with a focus on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, and also the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). A large part of this campaign has to do with the issue of Zaporizhzhia’s Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Europe’s largest atomic power station, where the IAEA established, last year, a permanent presence to monitor compliance with agreed principles aiming at nuclear safety.
In April, for example, the US Department of Energy sent a letter to Rosatom (Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company), stating that the US possesses “sensitive” nuclear technology at the ZNPP and warning Moscow not to “manipulate” it. In June, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in turn, without providing further details, said that Russian authorities were planning a “terrorist act” at the plant. In July, he further claimed Russian troops had planted explosive devices on the roofs of the reactor units there. It turns out an IAE team inspected said roofs and found “no evidence of explosives”, as the organization reported in September.
Hawkish voices within the US have been urging NATO to be “prepared” for “intervention” so as to protect the ZNPP and avoid a “nuclear disaster” brought about by Russian President Vladimir Putin – any such disaster would obviously bring terrible consequences for Russia as well and it remains unclear why Moscow would seek to have a nuclear catastrophe in the very region it currently controls and which has become part of its territory after the referendums.
The IAEA last month did voice its concern about threats to Zaporizhzhia’s Nuclear Power Plant. Its experts, deployed there, have reported hearing a number of explosions (albeit with no damage to the plant), which indicate an increase in military activity. On September 8, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi stated the agency is concerned about dangers facing the plant involving “heightened military tension”.
The IAEA and the US are not the only actors concerned about this. It would seem, however, that the main threat to the ZNPP comes from Ukraine. In June, Moscow itself asked the IAEA to ensure Kiev does not shell the nuclear plant. On Thursday, however, Ukrainian drones reportedly launched an attack near the facility, and Russian air defense forces shot them down. According to Russia’s defense ministry, Kiev “continues to carry out provocations” in the sensitive area. There is no reason to doubt this, as it is in line with Ukraine’s modus operandi in the last few years.
As I wrote before, if one is to believe Western media, Russia is but a kind of pariah state with no credibility at all. Thus, its allegations about Ukraine employing “human shields”, for example, were at first ridiculed. However, in August 2022, an Amnesty International’s report exposed Kiev as doing precisely that. Last year I also wrote on how Ukraine kept gathering data about chemical facilities in Donbass. On 19 June 2022, Ukrainian troops irresponsibly shelled the Yasinovka coke and chemical plant in the Kirovsky district of Makiivka in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Moreover, the Ukrainian military strategy has famously involved employing extremist paramilitary groups as proxies for terrorist attacks and provocations. The so-called “Freedom of Russian Legion” (FRL) and the “Russian Volunteer Corps” (RVC) paramilitary organizations, for example, have been behind a number of such acts. The latter, the RVC, is one of the most violent far-right groups worldwide, according to Telegraph’s journalist James Kilner, and is led by notorious neo-Nazi Denis Kapustin. The Ukrainian military intelligence agency itself confirmed that the RVC has a unit within the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. Kiev relies heavily on such extremist groups for warfare, the infamous Azov regiment playing a key role in its security forces since 2014 (see this Guardian piece by Shaun Walker, for instance) – such organizations of course are not notorious for being safety-concerned. Ukraine’s strategy has also involved attacking chemical plants and facilities. The hard truth is that thus far Kiev rejected all IAEA proposals for ensuring the safety of the ZNPP.
Zaporizhzhia, as well as Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, are typically described, plain and simple, as Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. The reality regarding these disputed areas, like everything else in the post-Soviet world, is far more complex. In late September 2022 referendums were held in Zaporizhzhia, as well as in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson. At the time of these referendums, the Russian Federation did not in fact fully control any of the four regions. The legality of such elections has been disputed by international actors, but their results are arguably coherent with previous polls and cannot be explained away by Russian military presence. In Crimea, many years before (2014), the majority of the population favored accession treaties for the region to become once again part of the Russian people, and this without any armed conflict and without the presence of any Russian forces
Interestingly, in November 2021, according to surveys conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), which is part of the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research, 49% of the total Ukrainian population wanted to have no borders and no customs with Russia. Those are total figures, but we know that in Southern and Eastern Ukraine the percentage of people having “pro-Russian” attitudes has always been much higher, due to historical, language and ethnic reasons. More recently, over 8 years of armed far-right rise in the country and Ukrainian military campaigns against Donbass and Russian-speaking people greatly contributed to it. In early February 2022, before Moscow launched its military campaign, Kiev was massively bombing the Donbass region.
Today, any American hopes of victory in their proxy attrition war in Ukraine are now quite low, Israel being in the spotlight. House Republicans in the US have in fact just approved a $14 billion Israel aid package bill and lawmakers object to further aiding Ukraine. According to former US Army Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis (a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities), there is just “no amount of aid” that could grant Kiev a military victory. He writes: “If Ukraine was unable to break the Russian defensive lines after four full months of effort, after six full months of preparation, after receiving over $46 billion in military backing… by what logic can supporters of additional aid argue that giving another multi-billion dollar package will succeed where all previous efforts have failed? There is none.” Davis concludes that “It is time to acknowledge this obvious on-the-ground truth and seek out other pathways forward.”
From a Western perspective, such “pathways” should include reestablishing diplomatic channels to Moscow, in preparation for Kiev’s likely defeat, with commitments to ensure the rights of both ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, as a way to seek a framework for peaceful Western-Russian competition and coexistence in the emerging de-dolarized polycentric world. Trying to isolate and oust Russia from major international organizations is clearly not the way to do it.
Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
Hungary calls for new European security architecture
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban addresses the 5th Demographic Summit in the Fine Arts Museum in Budapest on September 14, 2023. © Attila KISBENEDEK / AFP
RT | November 3, 2023
Hungary wants to see the creation of a new security architecture in Europe that would take into account both Russian and Ukrainian interests, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
Speaking at the summit of the Organization of Turkic States in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Friday, the Hungarian leader stated that the West’s strategy of supporting Ukraine with money and arms had failed and, against this backdrop, Budapest was “advocating a plan B.”
The initiative, he continued, “is aimed at a ceasefire, peace negotiations and the construction of a new European security architecture that will be reassuring for Ukraine and acceptable to the Russians.” According to Orban, Türkiye, which has remained neutral in the stand-off between Moscow and Kiev while acting as a mediator between the two, will also play a prominent role in this potential arrangement.
Since the start of open fighting in the Ukraine conflict, Budapest has consistently urged Kiev and Moscow to engage in talks, while also resisting calls to support EU sanctions against Russia, particularly in the energy sector, arguing that the measures are detrimental to the bloc’s own economy. In May, Orban also predicted that “poor Ukrainians” would not be able to prevail over Russia given the circumstances, particularly NATO’s reluctance to send its troops directly to the battlefield.
Hungary, along with Slovakia, also opposed an aid package to Ukraine to the tune of €50 billion ($53.5 billion) approved by the European Parliament last month. The two nations pointed in particular to concerns about corruption in Kiev and argued that the aid was not working.
While Moscow has never closed the door on talks with Kiev, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree last autumn barring all talks with Moscow, after four former Ukrainian regions overwhelmingly voted to join Russia.
In December 2021, shortly before the years-long Ukraine conflict moved to open fighting, Russia submitted proposals To NATO and the US on security guarantees, demanding that the West ban Ukraine’s accession to the military bloc and insisting that the alliance retreat to its borders of 1997, before it expanded. The overture in late 2021, however, was rebuffed by the West.
Orban is not the only EU leader to have raised the prospect of security guarantees as hostilities continued. Last December, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that Western capitals should consider setting up a security architecture that would take into account Russian interests, once Moscow and Kiev engage in talks. These remarks, however, triggered outrage, both in Kiev and in several EU member states.
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From the Archives
Neocons confess: “We did 9/11-anthrax”
By Kevin Barrett | Press TV | September 6, 2014
As the 13th anniversary of the crimes of September, 2001 approaches, the neoconservatives are shrieking from the rooftops – and effectively confessing that they were the real perpetrators of the 9/11-Anthrax false flag operation. (The neocons, you may recall, openly called for a “new Pearl Harbor” in September, 2000 – and got one exactly one year later.)
Every year at this time, the neocons orchestrate and hype a series of public relations stunts designed to magnify fears of “radical Islam” and reinforce their crumbling 9/11-Anthrax cover story. But this year’s propaganda campaign is so extreme that it represents a tacit confession: The neocons know that the truth about the 9/11-Anthrax operation is slowly closing in on them; so they are over-reacting by desperately trying to stoke the dying embers of the so-called War on Terror, in order to maintain the myth that Muslims (rather than neoconservative Zionists) attacked America in the autumn of 2001.
When a hysterical person exhibits guilty demeanor by trying too hard to blame a crime on someone else, that person is almost certainly the real perpetrator. As the neocons try much too hard to blame Islam for 9/11 and “terrorism” in general, their hysteria inadvertently reveals their own culpability. Like Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth, the neoconservative movement has blood on its hands and “doth protest too much.” … continue
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