Kiev orders closure of Christian churches

RT | September 15, 2023
Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko on Friday ordered the closure of 74 temples belonging to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), citing its alleged “direct ties” to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Klitschko’s decree is using the same legal justification employed to seize the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, or Monastery of the Caves, which Ukrainian police stormed last month. The monastery, which is nearly 1,000 years old, was handed over to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a rival organization set up by the government in 2018.
The Lavra is technically state property but the church administered it under a 2013 agreement, which Kiev declared null and void earlier this year, claiming that the UOC violated it by having ties to “enemy nation” Russia. Ukrainian courts rejected the UOC’s appeals.
The shuttered temples may be handed over to the OCU or the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which is in communion with Rome, or could even be demolished as “illegal objects” given the government’s annulment of lease and use contracts.
Back in March, President Vladimir Zelensky called the seizure of the Lavra “a move to strengthen our spiritual independence” and accused the UOC of being a tool of Russia. A third of Ukraine’s regions have outrightly banned the UOC so far.
Moscow has accused Kiev of persecuting the canonical Orthodox church and Washington for tacitly approving Ukraine’s actions. The US State Department, which produces an annual “religious freedom” report, has not once commented on Kiev’s campaign against the UOC. The reports published so far contain references only to meetings with representatives of the government-backed OCU.
Opposition to Further Ukraine Aid Growing Among US House Republicans – Reports
Sputnik – 15.09.2023
WASHINGTON – Opposition to providing more US aid to Ukraine is growing among Republican members of the House of Representatives, an American news agency reported on Friday.
An increasing number of Republican lawmakers, including some so-called moderates, are opposing the addition of further aid to Ukraine as part of a government funding measure slated for a vote later this month, the report stated, citing several Republican lawmakers.
Not just the Freedom Caucus of conservative Republicans, but there are many lawmakers who are concerned with potential additional funding, the report cited US Congresswoman Lisa McClain as saying.
Congress is set to vote on a continuing resolution before the end of September to temporarily fund the US government and avoid a shutdown. The Senate is seeking to include additional aid for Ukraine in the legislation.
Meanwhile, more and more House Republicans come out against further transfers of taxpayer dollars and military equipment to Ukraine.
US Congressman Andy Biggs vowed not to support a new Ukraine aid package and expressed doubt that any such measure would reach the House floor soon, the report said. Biggs pointed out, however, that there still may be enough votes to advance additional aid to Ukraine given the presence of many “war hawks” in Congress, the report said.
US Congresswoman Nancy Mace emphasized that the US House has many other issues to address ahead of further Ukraine funding, the news agency stated.
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has previously vowed to stop writing “blank checks” to Ukraine and is seeking to detach aid for Ukraine from the spending bill as well as hold a separate vote on it instead, media reported earlier.
In addition to working on passing a spending measure by the end of the month, McCarthy also recently announced an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
The Biden administration has repeatedly expressed confidence in lasting bipartisan support for Ukraine in Congress and in the lawmakers’ ability to pass more aid packages.
Blinken openly endorses Kiev regime’s attacks on Russia with US-made missiles
By Drago Bosnic | September 15, 2023
As we all know, American involvement in Ukraine is crucial. The United States initiated the war back in 2014 after decades of setting it up by financing the most radical elements of the Ukrainian society, resulting in their takeover of the unfortunate country after the Maidan coup. Since then, the US has been modernizing and training the Kiev regime forces. The culmination of this process was prevented by Russia’s counteroffensive, which forced the political West to invest enormous resources just to keep the Neo-Nazi junta afloat. Since the start of the special military operation (SMO), the political West has been doing everything in its power to keep escalating the conflict.
What started out as deliveries of various types of ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) and MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems) soon turned into full-blown support for the Kiev regime through massive shipments of modernized Warsaw Pact-era weapons (tanks, artillery, rockets, helicopters, fighter jets, etc). These were then complemented by NATO and US-made weapons and munitions, the deliveries of which keep escalating to ever more dangerous and longer-range missiles and other systems. All the while, Western officials are parroting meaningless “assurances” that they supposedly “don’t want escalation with Moscow”. Obviously, the exact opposite has been happening.
These schizophrenic tendencies are not subsiding in the slightest, as evidenced by recent comments made by Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State in the troubled Biden administration. During an interview with ABC News on September 10, Blinken stated that it was supposedly “up to Ukraine” whether or not it should target Russia proper with US-made long-range weapons. The idea that the Kiev regime could ever make such a decision on its own is beyond laughable, which means that it’s the belligerent thalassocracy itself that ordered the Neo-Nazi junta to target civilian and military targets within Russia. Blinken’s statement came only a day after ABC News reported that the US would provide the ATACMS to the Kiev regime.
The MGM-140 ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) is a US-made supersonic tactical/theater ballistic missile system with a maximum range of approximately 300 km. While its range and maximum speed of Mach 3 don’t exactly make it a revolutionary weapon (for instance, Russia’s “Iskander” has twice the range and speed), this is still enough to jeopardize Russian supply lines, as well as civilian settlements deeper within Moscow’s territory. The ATACMS can also be fired from the tracked M270 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System), as well as the wheeled M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), both of which have been delivered to the Neo-Nazi junta forces well over a year ago.
The system comes in five variants of missiles developed since the 1990s. The basic M39 (ATACMS Block I) uses INS (inertial navigation system) and carries 950 M74 APAM (anti-personnel and anti‑materiel) bomblets. Its range is up to 165 km. Production ceased in 1997.
It was replaced by the M39A1 (ATACMS Block IA) with improved GPS guidance. In part due to its smaller warhead carrying 300 M74 APAM bomblets, the range was extended to 300 km. Production ended in 2003.
The M48 (ATACMS Quick Reaction Unitary or simply QRU) GPS-guided missile carries the WDU-18/B penetrating high explosive blast fragmentation warhead found on the “Harpoon” anti-ship missile, only repackaged into the newly designed WAU-23/B warhead section. Its range is also estimated at up to 300 km. Production ceased in 2004.
The updated M57 (ATACMS TACMS 2000) GPS-guided missile of the same range also uses the WAU-23/B, but its production ended in 2013. It sports an increased accuracy of 9 m CEP (circular error probability), but was soon complemented by the enhanced M57E1.
The M57E1 (ATACMS Modification or just MOD) is also GPS-guided and is essentially an upgraded M39/M39A1 with better propulsion, updated guidance and WAU-23/B instead of the M74 APAM bomblets. It also includes a proximity sensor for airburst detonation, which is particularly deadly against infantry and civilians. Production started in 2017.
As previously mentioned, such weapons are not exactly groundbreaking for the Russian military that possesses far more potent missiles, both ground-based and air-launched, but the real issue comes from the fact that the political West is providing the necessary ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) data. This is a significant force multiplier that can make even a relatively mediocre weapon such as the ATACMS more dangerous. Moscow is doing its best to keep the scope of the SMO localized, but NATO continues to escalate, as evidenced by the resurgent presence of its ISR platforms around Russia’s borders, particularly in the Black Sea, which puts the Eurasian giant’s naval forces deployed there in jeopardy.
The Russian military already shot down some of NATO’s ISR platforms, resulting in several months of pause in flights close to the SMO zone. However, the belligerent alliance recently restarted this highly destabilizing practice. Moscow is perfectly aware that the political West controls the Kiev regime’s targeting, even issuing orders which Russian assets are to be attacked. The sole reason why Russia hasn’t responded by shooting down all NATO ISR platforms in relative vicinity of its forces is that it wants to avoid escalating the conflict into a world-ending thermonuclear confrontation. However, the US-led political West sees this as a weakness and an opportunity to test Russian patience, which is slowly running out.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Kiev’s trans spokesperson vows to ‘hunt down Russian propagandists’

RT | September 14, 2023
A threat to “hunt down” Russian “propagandists” which flagged an action “next week” and was made by a Ukrainian military spokesperson, should not be dismissed just because of its over-the-top presentation, a senior Russian official has argued.
On Wednesday, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, who leads the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces’ purported outreach to English-speaking audiences, made some ominous predictions regarding Russia.
“Next week, the teeth of the Russian devils will gnash ever harder, and their rabid mouths will foam in uncontrollable frenzy as the world will see a favorite Kremlin propagandist pay for their crimes,” she said.
“Russia’s war criminal propagandists will all be hunted down, and justice will be served as we in Ukraine are led on this mission by faith in God, liberty and complete liberation,” she pledged.
Ashton-Cirillo, a trans woman who made headlines in the US in 2021 with a story of her infiltration of the American right-wing group Proud Boys, was given the spokesperson position in Ukraine in early August.
Her latest statement is part of her ‘Russia Hates the Truth’ series of minute-long videos, in which she delivers scolding condemnations of Russia.
While many Russian journalists have dismissed the unspecific threat as ridiculous, Valery Fadeev, the chairman of the Russian presidential human rights council, urged national law enforcement to take it seriously. The remark appears to be “a threat of murder or serious bodily harm” and thus a crime under Russian law, he argued on Thursday.
“Considering the lamentable record of attempts on the lives of Russian journalists and public figures … Russian security services should pay attention to it,” he added.
Moscow has accused Kiev of orchestrating the murders of journalist Darya Dugina in August 2022 and of military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in April this year. In July, the Federal Security Service reported busting a group believed to have intended to assassinate RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and journalist Ksenia Sobchak on Kiev’s behalf.
Ex-Ukrainian PM Accuses Kiev of Stealing Billions From Budget in Arms Deals
Sputnik – 14.09.2023
Ukrainian authorities siphoned off over 100 billion hryvnias ($2.7 billion) from the state budget by purchasing overpriced and poor-quality ammunition, equipment and air defense weapons, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov said on Thursday.
“According to the most modest estimates, [the Ukrainian authorities] stole more than 100 billion budget hryvnias. The representatives of ‘Servant of the People’ [ruling party] spent most of the budget money to purchase ammunition. [They] bought old poor-quality stuff at a ‘gold price’,” Azarov wrote on his Telegram channel.
The ex-prime minister said that the same corruption scheme worked in air defense procurement, citing an incident when the authorities signed a contract for four air defense missiles, while in reality there were only three of them. After Russia’s missile attacks, all of the four get written off and “someone buys a new apartment in Paris,” Azarov added.
The Ukrainian government has been rocked by a slew of dismissals linked to military procurement, the latest being Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy defended his government’s poor anti-corruption record in an interview with a US broadcaster on Sunday, saying lavish financial and military aid provided to Kiev by the West had not been affected.
Ukraine joining NATO ‘would not promote peace’ – ex-French president
RT | September 13, 2023
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned that Ukrainian membership of NATO and the EU “would not promote peace” and would be perceived as a “provocation” by Russia.
Speaking to French news station BFMTV on Wednesday, Sarkozy argued it is in Kiev’s best interests to remain “neutral” regarding Western blocs. The former leader also insisted that diplomacy with Moscow remains the most prudent option for Ukraine to end the current conflict.
“Bringing Ukraine into NATO would not promote peace,” said Sarkozy, who served as French president between 2007 and 2012.
NATO leaders declared at a summit in Lithuania in July that the bloc would only invite Ukraine to become a member “when allies agree and conditions are met.” NATO had already denied Kiev’s calls for a “fast-track” to full membership in September of 2022.
Moscow has frequently expressed its opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion. President Vladimir Putin cited the bloc’s involvement in Ukraine as among the key reasons when Moscow began its military operation against Kiev last year.
Ukraine has also pursued EU membership and was granted formal candidate status in 2022. In June, sources within the bloc told Reuters that Kiev currently meets two of the seven conditions required to be considered for full membership.
Rather than chasing closer ties with the West, Sarkozy told BFMTV there are “two solutions” available to Ukraine and its allies to bring an end to the hostilities. The first, he claimed, is the “annihilation” of Russia – before explaining that this is unrealistic because “we are not going to wipe out the second nuclear power in the world, or the world risks falling into total war.”
According to Sarkozy, a more achievable scenario is “diplomatic discussion.” The former president stated that his experience had given him a clear view of what can be achieved over the negotiating table. “They tell me Putin has changed and [that] we cannot have discussions with him,” Sarkozy said. “Those who say that are generally those who have never met him.”
Sarkozy reiterated to BFMTV his stance that Ukraine should pursue firm neutrality in its relationships with Russia and the West, arguing: “When you wave the muleta under the bull’s nose, you shouldn’t be surprised if he attacks.”
Sarkozy’s comments follow the backlash he received for an interview with French publication Le Figaro last month, in which he said Kiev should disregard joining NATO or the EU in favor of “an international agreement providing it with extremely strong security assurances to protect it against any risk.”
Medical chief of Ukrainian Far-Right unit admits “huge losses” on the frontline
By Ahmed Adel | September 14, 2023
The head of the medical service of the Far-Right unit Da Vinci’s Wolves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alina Mykhailova, spoke about the difficult situation and, even more surprisingly, admitted to huge losses on the front.
“We are suffering great losses. There is no romance in this. What is happening at the front now is something you will not read in the news,” she said in an interview with Ukrainian media on September 12.
Mykhailova added that for the first time in her life, she was ready to give up absolutely everything and talk to anyone so that her battalion would survive. She also admitted that there is no prospect of a Ukrainian victory in the near future.
“The population is very calm with statements that today or tomorrow there will be victory. It will not happen today, nor tomorrow, nor, unfortunately, in a year,” Mykhailova, who is also a deputy in the Kiev City Council, concluded.
Since the beginning of June, the Ukrainian military has been conducting a counteroffensive in Donetsk, Artyomovsk and Zaporozhye with NATO-trained brigades and Western military equipment. However, they have achieved no success.
Although Mykhailova did not give a casualty figure, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently revealed that the counteroffensive has stalled and led to over 75,500 Ukrainian casualties – shocking for only four months of active combat. Many American and European journalists and military experts also argue that Kiev’s counteroffensive failed and noted the effectiveness of Russian defences.
US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley pointed out on September 10 that Ukraine may only have about 30-45 days of fighting left. However, despite this small timeframe left in the regular fighting season and the huge losses suffered by Kiev, the US and NATO are not fazed and continue to send more military shipments and money into the financial blackhole that Ukraine has become.
The Ukrainian military will be unable to advance any further from their already paltry gains once the season changes. Ukraine and the West have exhausted their ammunition stockpile, and they cannot get supplies quickly enough. Effectively, the Ukrainians cannot do much at this point, even if they want to.
Despite the Ukrainians not being able to do much at this point, as affirmed by Mykhailova, it did not prevent Milley from falsely claiming, “There’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren’t done. There’s battles not done… they haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish.”
The West wants to see the offensive continue even though it has very evidently failed. For this reason, the US continues to increase aid even further, and the indications are that the West will continue this or at least try to sustain it.
US President Joe Biden has provided Kiev with $43.7 billion in military aid since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Recently, the US announced a new security package worth $600 million for Ukraine, which will include ammunition and anti-aircraft equipment.
By providing such equipment, Washington hopes to coerce Kiev to continue the offensive for another 30 days, perhaps even through the winter. For this reason, there has been a huge uptick in rhetoric about Ukraine supposedly breaking Russia’s first line of defence and making slow but steady gains. None of this corresponds with reality.
In the US, most people do not support the current policy of sending more money down the drain in Ukraine. Considering the 2024 presidential election, the Biden administration is under domestic pressure from a chorus of voices calling for a focus on domestic issues. This could be part of the West’s attempt to transfer responsibility for the failure of the counteroffensive to Ukraine itself.
The US has brazenly admitted it worked with the Ukrainians to plan the offensive for months, arming and training the military. Now, the West is criticising Ukraine for its failures.
As US elections are looming and Ukraine cannot win the war, the Biden administration needs to shift the blame and is pinning it directly on the Eastern European country. This demonstrates the confused nature of US policy as, on one hand, it is encouraging Ukraine to continue fighting by sending more weapons and money, but at the same time, narratives are being concocted to explain to US voters why billions of dollars have been wasted on a lost cause. Meanwhile, as Mykhailova highlighted, “there is no romance,” nor any victory for Ukraine through this war.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
EU states tell Zelensky they won’t hand over draft dodgers
RT | September 13, 2023
The Czech Republic announced on Wednesday that it would not send military-age men who arrived as refugees back to Ukraine to be conscripted. Germany, Austria and Hungary have already made similar declarations.
European conventions exclude extradition for charges such as desertion or draft evasion, Czech Justice Ministry spokesman Vladimir Repka told the outlet iDnes. However, he added that if Ukraine files individual extradition requests citing a specific criminal act they may have committed, Prague may give them more consideration.
Hungary has ruled out any extraditions outright.
“We are not investigating any Ukrainian refugees to determine if they have been called up for military service. Hungary will not extradite them to Ukraine,” Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén told the outlet ATV on Wednesday. “All refugees from Ukraine are safe in Hungary.”
German officials who spoke to state broadcaster Deutsche Welle earlier this week said that Berlin did not intend to send draft-eligible refugees back, since desertion and draft evasion are not crimes under German law. There are over 123,000 Ukrainian men of military age who are in Germany as refugees, according to official estimates.
Austria was the first to refuse extradition of military-age men. There are about 14,000 potential draftees among the 101,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country.
“That would be a massive encroachment on our statehood, we would never do that,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry told the outlet Exxpress on September 7.
On the other hand, Poland has already begun sending some Ukrainian men back, according to Hungarian media reports.
A senior lawmaker from President Vladimir Zelensky’s ruling party said in late August that Ukraine might seek extradition of draft-dodgers from the EU. The government in Kiev recently announced another round of mobilization in order to make up battlefield losses, which Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated at over 70,000 in the past three months of heavy fighting.
Zelensky fired all draft commissioners last month and ordered a review of all medical exemptions from military service, citing widespread corruption. New rules were adopted allowing for the conscription of people with mental disorders, chronic diseases, tuberculosis and HIV.
US offers to pay Polish media for Ukraine coverage
RT | September 13, 2023
The US Consulate General in Krakow is soliciting Polish outlets to write about Ukrainian refugees “returning and rebuilding,” it emerged on Wednesday. Washington is offering $50,000 for the year-long project.
The project “to promote coverage in Poland by local and regional media representatives of stories in Ukraine” was first spotted by a Telegram channel based in Belarus. It can be found at the website of the US embassy in Poland, under the designation WAW-NOFO-FY23-05.
It was unclear when the solicitation was originally posted. However, the deadline for submissions is end of the day Friday, September 15.
According to the post, the goal is to “promote in-depth reporting by local and regional Polish media of the return of Ukrainian families from Poland to Ukraine and their social and physical rebuilding efforts, particularly those built on partnerships between Poles and Ukrainians.”
The articles should fuel “public understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by Ukrainians” as well as interest in Ukrainian “efforts to return and rebuild” and the “enduring impact of support provided by Polish society to Ukrainian refugees.”
The solicitation suggests the project would actually be given to a Polish NGO, with US embassy staff having “substantial involvement in the grant implementation, including reviewing and approving selection of participants, trainers, and award decisions within the project.”
The NGO would get a grant of $50,000 (about 215,500 zloty at the current exchange rate) and then have Polish journalists compete for portions of the money. The embassy would evaluate their success by the “quality and reach of reports generated.”
The project also includes at least one workshop teaching the reporters “culturally sensitive and trauma-informed manner and how to create compelling human-interest stories in this context,” taught by “experts in the intersection between mental health and journalism in war zones” and others with the relevant experience.
The entire project is slated to run for a single year, though Washington reserves the right to extend that if it’s judged to be “in the best interest of the US Department of State.”
There are approximately one million Ukrainian refugees in Poland at the moment. Multiple surveys of those who settled in EU countries show that more than 40% do not intend to return even if the conflict with Russia ends. Warsaw has reportedly already started sending men of military age back, even as other EU members have refused to do so on human rights grounds.
China and India have ‘low intellectual potential’ – top Zelensky aide
RT | September 13, 2023
The people leading India and China lack the ability to predict the long-term consequences of their policies, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed.
Mikhail Podoliak pointed to what he called “the problem of the modern world,” singling out India and China, in an interview with Ukrainian media on Tuesday.
“The problem with these countries is that they do not analyze the consequences of their own moves. These countries, unfortunately, have low intellectual potential,” he said.
Podoliak suggested that even though India has a lunar exploration program, it “does not mean that this nation understands what the modern world precisely is.”
The dismissive remarks were in the context of Beijing and New Delhi’s refusal to support Kiev in its conflict with Moscow. Podoliak complained that India, China and Türkiye were “profiting” from the war by maintaining trade with Russia.
“Technically, it is in their national interests,” he acknowledged, before presenting his view of what would benefit China in the long-run.
“China should be interested in Russia disappearing, because it is an archaic nation that drags China into unnecessary conflicts,” he claimed.
“It would be in their interest now to distance themselves from Russia as far as possible, take all the resources it has, and take part of the Russian territory under their legal control. In fact, they will do that,” he added.
Following the interview, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman urged Podoliak to clarify his remarks, when asked about them during a media briefing on Wednesday.
Podoliak has a record of lashing out at nations, organizations and public figures seen as not sufficiently supportive of Kiev.
Among his latest targets was Pope Francis, whom he had branded an “instrument of Russian propaganda” who “continues to reduce the influence of Catholicism in the world to zero.” The pontiff had encouraged Russian Catholics to cherish their nation’s historic legacy.
The Ukrainian official also recently hit out at Elon Musk, who Podoliak claimed “enabled evil” by refusing Kiev’s request to use his Starlink communications system to launch drone attacks against the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Podoliak isn’t the first high-ranking Ukrainian official to make derogatory remarks about Asian countries. In August, Aleksey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, suggested that Asian people were less humane compared to Europeans, including Ukrainians. “I’m fine with Asians, but Russians are Asians. They have a completely different culture, vision. Our key difference from them is humanity,” Danilov said.
The Not So Occult Symbolism at Burning Man 2023
Truthstream Media | September 11, 2023
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