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Soros’ Son Complains That Another “MAGA-style” Presidential Victory Would “Imperil” Globalist Vision

Photo by Manny Carabel/WireImage
By Steve Watson | Summit News | September 4, 2023

Alex Soros, son of arch globalist Open Society founder George Soros writes in an op-ed that he is worried that another Trump victory, or “MAGA style” victory in a U.S. election will endanger the “unity” of globalists in Europe.

“I believe a MAGA-style Republican victory in next year’s U.S. presidential election could, in the end, be worse for the EU than for the U.S.” the younger Soros writes.

He continues, “Such an outcome will imperil European unity and undermine the progress achieved on many fronts in response to the war in Ukraine.”

What progress?

Soros also noted that “there should be absolutely no doubt that we will continue to support our foundation in Ukraine. We are proud that the network of civil society groups it has assisted, with over $250 million since 2014, has played such an important role in Kyiv’s resilience in the face of Russia’s horrific war of aggression.”

He also called for the EU to hand memberships to the Balkan countries to “bolster European security and avoid creating a geopolitical vacuum.”

Trump has vowed to quickly end the war in Ukraine in one day should be re-elected, by cutting off funding.

“I would tell Zelensky,” Trump said, “‘no more, you got to make a deal.’ I would tell Putin, ‘if you don’t make a deal, we’re gonna give them a lot. We’re gonna give more than they ever got if we have to,’” he said. “I will have the deal done in one day, one day.”

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

China warns neighbors against repeat of ‘Ukraine tragedy’ in Southeast Asia

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi
Press TV – September 4, 2023

China says Southeast Asian countries must be cautious about being used as geopolitical pawns by foreign players sowing discord in the region for their own gain.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a recent video address at a think-tank conference hosted by the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia in Jakarta that the Southeast Asian states must refrain from following in the footsteps of Ukraine and should not allow themselves to be used by “external forces.”

“The crisis in Ukraine has sounded the alarm for mankind, and similar tragedies must not be staged in Asia,” the top Chinese diplomat said. “We must promote regional security through dialogue and cooperation and oppose seeking absolute security at the expense of other countries.”

Wang warned of a “backstage manipulator,” apparently referring to the United States, which is fanning the flames of controversy over the South China Sea territorial dispute. “This black hand hiding behind the scenes must be exposed.”

“China is always willing to work with relevant countries to properly resolve differences through dialogue and seek effective ways to control the maritime situation.”

The Pentagon has sought to forge closer military ties with those countries in the region that have territorial disputes with China.

The Philippines, for instance, agreed earlier this year to allow US forces to use four additional bases in the country. Beijing warned that Manila was binding itself to a “chariot of geopolitical strife.”

China and its neighbors must work together to safeguard the “hard-won peace” in the region by properly managing differences, Wang said.

The Chinese diplomat predicted that foreign efforts to spur conflict in the South China Sea won’t succeed.

“We should abandon the Cold War mentality and oppose zero-sum games, keeping the region away from geopolitical calculations, and not become pawns in the great power competition,” Wang said.

Relations between China and the United States have deteriorated in recent years amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict and rising tensions over Washington’s constant meddling in Taiwan.

Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of various military provocations in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, and elsewhere across the region.

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US Depleted Uranium Shells Will Poison Ukraine, Won’t Change Conflict’s Outcome

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 04.09.2023

Britain sparked an international outcry earlier this year when officials revealed that the Challenger 2 tanks sent to Ukraine would be equipped with depleted uranium (DU) shells. The US is now expected to follow suit with DU rounds for Ukraine’s Abrams. A Russian military observer explains why the toxic arms won’t change the situation at the front.

A White House National Security Council spokesperson told Sputnik Sunday that they could not confirm reports indicating that Washington is preparing to send armor-piercing DU munitions to Ukraine as part of a new arms package to be announced this week.

The DU munitions are expected to accompany the Abrams main battle tanks the US first agreed to give Kiev back in January to coax its European allies into sending hundreds of their own tanks, with the first batch of Abrams expected to arrive by mid-September, well over three months into Ukraine’s stalled counteroffensive.

Previous reporting on the Ukrainian-bound Abrams indicated that the tanks wouldn’t be fitted with depleted uranium components in their composite armor. However, in June, it became clear that they would likely be armed with DU penetrator rounds, with anonymous officials saying at the time that they saw no ‘serious obstacles’ to deliveries, notwithstanding long-standing international concerns about DU shells’ impact on human health and the environment.

Tank, artillery and air-launched DU munitions have left a horrifying record of destruction and illness in their wake in the countries where they have been deployed, including Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 invasion, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Syria. Russia and Ukraine, the US, the UK, India, Pakistan, France, China, and a number of Western allies in the Middle East and Asia, are known to possess the controversial weapons, but the US and Britain are the only two countries to date confirmed to have ever used them.
Using depleted uranium as a weapon constitutes a crude form of the ‘recycling’ of spent nuclear fuel, and first began to be experimented with by the United States in the 1970s to pierce increasingly advanced Warsaw Pact armor. DU shells have been touted as a ‘budget’ variant of tungsten ore-based penetrator projectiles, having a similar density, but costing less to produce and even more powerful.

The shells’ radioactive properties have a direct impact on their penetrative ability. When fired at enemy armor, DU-tipped rounds generate an immense amount of heat, literally sloughing off portions of the projectile as it rams into its target to keep the shell’s tip sharp and prevent mushrooming. This helps the rounds grind into and through armor almost like a hot knife through butter, penetrating enemy vehicles and killing any unfortunate souls who happen to be inside.

But their destructive impact doesn’t end there. Because they are radioactive, the weapons have a tendency to poison their surrounding environment, affecting everyone from the troops inside the tanks firing the shells, to enemy combatants, and local civilians.

Iraq and republics of the former Yugoslavia are the countries most heavily affected by DU contamination to date, with cancer rates in Iraq jumping from 40 cases per 100,000 people in 1991 to 800 per 100,000 in 1995, to a whopping 1,600 per 100,000 by 2025 after the US and Britain deployed up to 2,300 tons of DU in the country.

In Yugoslavia, at least 15 tons of DU were used during the bombings of Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro in the mid-late 1990s, with Serbia subsequently suffering from one of the highest cancer rates in Europe – two-and-a-half times the European average, plus an alarming rise in infertility, a variety of autoimmune diseases and mental disorders.

Last month, Serbian Health Minister Danica Grujicic appealed to Ukrainian decision makers and the population at large urging them not to allow DU shells to be used on their soil, saying her country’s experience should serve as ample warning of the weapons’ devastating long-term consequences. “Believe me, what’s happening in Ukraine will affect the health of all European countries,” Grujicic told Sputnik.

Ukrainians and Europeans first got a taste of what the Serbian health minister was talking about in the spring, when a massive arms depot outside the western Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi thought to include DU munitions for Ukraine’s Challenger 2s went up in smoke, resulting in a massive spike in levels of gamma radiation levels in neighboring Poland.

Russian officials have also warned of DU weapons’ dangers. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted late last month that the use of the weapons would turn portions of Ukraine into an “uninhabitable” wasteland, with “radioactive contamination of the soil… already happening” and being recorded.

Ukrainian and most Western media have been more upbeat, however, insisting that the DU would give the nation’s armed forces the shot in the arm they need to bolster its flagging counteroffensive –which to date has seen immense losses in manpower and equipment, but very little to show in terms of gained ground.

Questionable Tactical Benefits Accompanied by Horrendous Costs

“The main advantage of DU munitions is their higher penetration level,” Boris Rozhin, a military expert with the Center for Military-Political Journalism think tank, told Sputnik.

“The proponents of DU munitions’ use, in the case of deliveries to Ukraine… came to the conclusion that the Ukrainian military will be able to fight Russian armor more effectively – that is, to increase the chances of defeating Russian tanks using British and American tanks. This is positioned as the main advantage of these kinds of shells,” he said.

The obvious disadvantage, the observer added, relates to the threat of radioactively contaminating wide swathes of the surrounding environment. DU rounds “were used in wars on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, on the territory of Iraq. In those cases, there is proven harm to health after the use of such projectiles, with the number of people suffering from the use of these shells measured in the hundreds of thousands. They have suffered radiation-related damage to their tissues and organs, leading to a range of diseases and early mortality.”
Unfortunately, Rozhin said, the United States military does not formally recognize the validity of DU-related risks, positioning it as “relatively harmless” despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

So far, the observer pointed out, the DU-equipped Challenger 2 tanks have not been spotted on the battlefield. Their successful use against the armor of Russian tanks like the T-72B3 or T-90 would require the tanks to approach quite close, to within 3,000 meters. This is something Ukrainian forces have found difficult to do amid Russia’s overwhelming air and artillery superiority, which has often enabled Russian forces to target Ukrainian armor at ranges of tens of kilometers away, long before it can approach close enough to return fire.

If they approach close enough, “then they could do a great deal of harm. But since there are very few such cases, it will not affect the current state of affairs or course of the special military operation,” Rozhin summed up.

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Environmentalism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Kiev believes the conflict should be “extended” to Russia’s undisputed territory

By Lucas Leiroz | September 4, 2023

Once again, Kiev makes clear its intention to continue carrying out terrorist attacks on the undisputed territory of the Russian Federation. In a recent interview, the head of Ukrainian intelligence stated that the conflict should be “extended” to “Russian territory”, thus showing that neo-Nazi forces plan to continue with incursions into Russia’s demilitarized zone, unnecessarily endangering the lives of innocent civilians.

The words were spoken by Kirill Budanov, head of the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR). During an interview with Ukrainian TV anchor Natalya Moseichuk, he stated that hostilities need to be extended to deep inside Russian territory, in addition to countries and regions where Russia “has influence”.

“The war must be extended to other territory – which for us is clearly Russia – and other areas where they have influence (…) The wider the operations are, the better”, he said.

For Budanov, the deepening of territorial incursions against Russia is an efficient strategy from the military point of view, since it would supposedly allow “paralyzing” Moscow’s forces, giving Kiev’s troops an advantage. In other words, in the face of heavy losses, Ukraine wants to gain time to reorganize itself and think about new combat tactics – and plans to do this by keeping the Russians busy trying to neutralize deep attacks.

It is also curious that Budanov mentions the possibility of attacks against areas where Russia “has influence”. In practice, he is admitting that Kiev plans to attack Russia’s allies, internationalizing the conflict. In this regard, it is necessary to remember that until now several sabotage operations have already been carried out by the Ukrainians against the territory of Belarus. Considering Budanov’s words, it is expected that new maneuvers of this type will happen in the near future.

A few days before Budanov’s interview, another Ukrainian intelligence officer had already made similar statements. In an interview to the New York Times on August 25, Andrey Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence service, stated that “Russian elites and ordinary Russians now understand that war is not somewhere far away on the territory of Ukraine, which they hate”, adding that the “war is also in Moscow, it’s already on their territory.”

Commenting on Yusov’s words at the time, New York Times journalists stated that Kiev’s drone attacks against Russia have been working as a “morale booster”. They also said that, despite previous American disapproval of this type of maneuver, now “US officials conceded that attempted Ukrainian strikes had so far been calibrated, and they had not provoked any drastic escalation by Moscow.”

In fact, both Budanov’s and Yusov’s words directly contradict the statement by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky himself, who on August 27th showed a lack of interest in carrying out in-depth attacks, stating that such operations risk Kiev being “left alone“. Zelensky apparently thinks the attacks create an uncomfortable situation for the West, which, despite maintaining a proxy war, tries to avoid a direct conflict with Moscow.

So, once again Ukrainian internal disagreements become clear. Officials claim different things and expose strategies for the conflict that contradict each other. In practice, there are only two possibilities in this scenario: either Zelensky is acting propagandistically, and privately he authorizes attacks in depth, while publicly denying them. Or, on the other hand, the regime’s officials are acting in a totally decentralized way, with military and intelligence agents carrying out attacks without prior authorization from Zelensky.

Both scenarios seem plausible, but to analyze the case properly it is necessary to consider what the West says on the topic, as the Ukrainian state is not sovereign and acts only as a proxy for NATO. There have been several US pronouncements so far disallowing attacks on undisputed Russian territory, but according to the New York Times, the current trend among US officials is to recognize drone incursions as “calibrated” and with low risk of escalation.

So, it is possible that US officials coordinating Ukrainian military operations on the battlefield are authorizing these drone strikes, as well as other forms of territorial invasion of Russia, without any communication to Zelensky. With so much evidence that the Ukrainian president is now isolated, without Western support and on the verge of being replaced, his exclusion from the military decision-making process seems likely.

However, these attacks will not bring any military advantage to Kiev. Escalation possibilities exist and Moscow will certainly react incisively if it perceives enemy incursions as a significant threat. This has not happened so far because the Russian forces have been efficient in neutralizing or reducing the damage of most attacks, but, having military control of the conflict, the Russians could assume a more escalatory attitude at any time. If it is necessary to increase the frequency and intensity of attacks on Ukraine to prevent the conflict zone from expanding into its undisputed territory, Moscow will certainly do so.

Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

September 4, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

HOW BAD IS IT FOR UKRAINE?

By Larry Johnson | SONAR | September 2, 2023

Let me explain why I have spent so much effort on highlighting the commentary and analysis of retired U.S. Generals and some of their foreign counterparts, like Mick Ryan — they are engaged in a massive propaganda campaign designed to mislead the Western public about the true state of the war in Ukraine. They insist that Ukraine is winning, that Russia is losing and that the only prescription for Ukraine’s continued “success” is to pour more money and weapons into the maelstrom consuming Ukraine. This is not a disagreement over what is the best flavor of ice cream. The citizens of the United States and Europe have a right to be properly informed about their resources that are being recklessly expended in Ukraine and that there is no path for victory for Ukraine because Ukraine lacks the material resources, the trained manpower and the weapons required to match up against Russia. Even if Ukraine was endowed suddenly with three fighter wings (that’s about 180 combat planes), these would not be enough to penetrate and destroy Russia’s echeloned defenses.

Take a hard look at this map. The green shows how far Ukrainian forces have advanced over the last three months of their counter offensive. This minuscule “progress” has cost Ukraine an enormous toll in casualties and equipment, such as tanks and armored personnel carriers. Skeptics in the West want to dismiss this as Russian propaganda. Okay. The please show me the reports from Western war correspondents who are on the ground reporting from Topmak or Melitopol. Those do not exist. How about a video or two of triumphant Ukrainian fighters standing atop the wreckage of the first line of the Surovikin defense? Ukraine and its NATO allies would be giddy with joy if they could show such images.

If you want to gauge the desperation of the Ukrainian situation, just read this interview with Polish volunteer who just returned to Poland from the front:

Polish volunteer Slawomir Wysocki traveled to Ukraine, returned home and in an interview for the media told what is really happening with the counter-offensive, which is so publicized by the Ukrainian authorities.

💬 “The human losses of the Ukrainian side are huge. Western equipment is burning like matches. Things are much worse than is commonly imagined. I counted the graves in Lviv. In the old part of the cemetery there are about 100 graves, in the new part there are more than 600.

In the villages this proportion is colossally different. When I drive by, I see cemeteries along the streets. Each has up to a dozen new graves. There are flags near each one, they are easy to recognize. There are more than two thousand graves in Kharkov. It is impossible to hide these losses.

Two months ago I was full of optimism about Kupyansk. Now we are still managing to hold our ground. It seems that the Russians are doing everything they can to reach Kupyansk, where they will take their positions for the spring offensive.”

When asked by a journalist how Ukrainians feel about the Russian defense system, the Pole said:

💬 “They are terrified. They know that the Russian army has already foreseen everything. The defense system was built by construction companies. This is not a peasant waving a shovel to build a trench. Companies came in, poured concrete, made fortifications in the style of the Maginot Line. And there are three or four such lines. Ukrainians say that there are five mines per square meter. You can’t put your foot on the ground without one of them exploding”.

The journalist further asks, with this situation on the front and the growing losses, are there still people willing to fight? The volunteer replies:

💬 “There are no willing ones. They are looking for them on the streets. In Lviv there are “round-ups”, people are taken from construction sites, from bars. Recently I witnessed such a situation at the bus station in Lvov. Five policemen stood and checked everyone who wanted to leave Lvov.

Eight people were detained in this way. Many reasons for the current situation with mobilization originate in Bakhmut. It was such a plum, such a meat grinder that there was no one left to fight”.

If Ukraine was vanquishing Russian forces do you think that Zelenksy would be pressuring European nations, such as Germany, to round up military-aged Ukrainian refugees to send them back to Ukraine? According to the German paper, Bild :

“Surrender us the deserters!”: More than 160,000 Ukrainians of military age fled to Germany, they can be returned back.

Western pundits need to pay attention to what Putin and his Generals have said about the purpose of this “special military operation” — demilitarize and de-nazify Ukraine. This was not some idle political talking point. While Russia’s lack of big movement of massed forces frustrates many Western arm chair generals, Russia appears quite content to continue the systematic destruction of Ukraine’s ground, air and sea forces. Time favors Russia. But not Ukraine. Each passing day brings Ukraine closer to the precipice of disaster.

September 3, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Top Canadian Media Revealed That Poor Medical Equipment Endangers One Million Ukrainian Troops

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

Top Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail just published their detailed investigation into how “Ukraine’s substandard medical supplies are endangering soldiers as the war intensifies”. It cites volunteers with inside information into how serious this crisis has become over the past 18 months. They shockingly claimed that “the lack of quality medical supplies and equipment for the Ukrainian army puts more than one million soldiers at risk” and that many have already needlessly died because of this.

What differentiates their report from the slew of other Western ones across the past month trading blame over the counteroffensive’s failure is that it relies entirely on Ukrainian volunteers and concerns a strictly domestic issue outside of America’s ambit. These sources used their own names, thus maximizing the credibility of their accusations since they’re willing to be held to account for them, which therefore makes this newspaper of record’s report the most damning thus far.

It was already scandalous enough that the New York Times and Wall Street Journal recently reported on anonymous US officials’ sharp disagreements with the conduct of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, but now everyone knows that many of the casualties it experienced were avoidable. “A well-established quality control system” for tourniquets, medicine, and other related healthcare items could have prevented an untold number of troops from dying, yet none was ever established this entire time.

Left unsaid is the innuendo that this is likely due to systemic corruption, which in turn decimated the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and directly resulted in the authorities resorting to forcible recruitment measures that proved to be very unpopular with their people. This insight draws attention to the state’s self-sustaining cycle of rot brought about by its failure to effectively fight corruption, with the consequence now being that Kiev is struggling more than ever to replenish its growing losses.

Nevertheless, Zelensky has recently made a show out of supposedly cracking down on this scourge in the armed forces, so The Globe and Mail’s report might be opportunistically exploited by his clique to take this de facto purge even further on that pretext. Seeing as how some US officials have also begun pressuring him to hold planned presidential elections next year, he might even sincerely try to fix this problem in order to boost his popularity ahead of the next polls.

In any case, regards of whatever side one supports in the NATO-Russian proxy war, it would help average Ukrainians if their government finally ensured that recruits – many of whom are drafted on pain imprisonment or worse – receive proper medical supplies. Although this top Canadian newspaper had apolitical motivations in bringing this issue to the world’s attention, it still inadvertently exposed how corrupt Ukraine is, which further discredits its cause in the West at this crucial juncture in the conflict.

September 3, 2023 Posted by | Corruption | | Leave a comment

NATO may collapse by 2025 – academic

RT | September 3, 2023

The return of Donald Trump to the White House could spell the end for US military aid to Ukraine, leaving a divided Europe to foot Kiev’s bills and ultimately ending the NATO pact, academic Phillips Payson O’Brien claimed in The Atlantic on Saturday.

Opposition to arming Ukraine is now the position of Trump’s supporter base, who O’Brien estimated account for three quarters of the Republican Party’s electorate. Trump has repeatedly vowed to use military aid as leverage to force Ukraine into peace talks with Russia “within 24 hours” of his inauguration, while his two nearest competitors for the GOP’s nomination – Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy – have also discussed restricting support for Kiev.

Of the three potential candidates, Ramaswamy has gone the furthest, suggesting that the US recognize Russia’s territorial claims in Ukraine in exchange for Moscow distancing itself from Beijing.

“If Trump or one of his imitators wins the presidency in November 2024, Europe could find itself faced with a new American administration that will halt all support for Ukraine,” O’Brien warned.

In this scenario, he continued, European nations would be unable to make up for the loss of US military aid, resulting in a military defeat for Ukraine. With the US out of the picture, Europe would be divided on the issue too, he added, with the Eastern and Baltic nations eager but unable to keep the arms flowing to Kiev, and Western nations like France and Germany more likely to seek peace with Russia.

“The result could be a legacy of bitterness and distrust at best, and a permanent fracturing of European cooperation at worst,” he stated.

A fervent supporter of Ukraine, O’Brien argued that European countries need to increase military production immediately to prepare for this possibility. However, with the Eurozone entering recession in the first three months of 2023 and industrial production down in Germany, European states are unlikely to be able to sustain the Ukrainian military on their own.

O’Brien’s predictions are based on the assumption that Ukraine will still be able to fight by 2025. According to Russian figures, Kiev lost 43,000 men in the first two months of its ongoing counteroffensive, without managing to penetrate the multiple layers of trenches and fortifications laid by Russia along the entire Kherson-Donetsk front line.

Before the operation began in early June, multiple Western media reports suggested that continued US and NATO military aid to Kiev depended on the success of the offensive. Now, almost three months in, the counteroffensive is widely regarded as a failure.

September 3, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s Use of Aliases in Emails is a ‘Problem’, High-Flying DC Lawyer Says

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 02.09.2023

The chairman of the Republican-controlled House committee investigating the Biden family over an alleged large-scale pay-to-play influence peddling scheme indicated this week that a formal impeachment probe may be “imminent.” The White House responded by mustering a lawyer-packed ‘war room’ to push back against any investigations.

Joe Biden’s use of an array of aliases during his tenure as Barack Obama’s vice president to communicate with his son Hunter “could cost him” politically, renowned Washington, DC-based attorney and legal analyst Jonathan Turley has suggested.

In an op-ed commentary on the revelations by the National Archives this week that there were over 5,000 emails potentially linked to Biden pseudonyms, which House Republicans want released ASAP, Turley indicated that the problem isn’t so much his use of aliases, as why the president may have used them.

“For many Americans, it is understandably unnerving to learn that their president has more aliases than Anthony Weiner. However, while the number seems unusual, the practice is not unprecedented,” Turley wrote, pointing to the use of fake names in communications between other Obama-era officials, including former Attorney Generals Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.

“The problem” with the aliases used by the Bidens “is that there was ‘work’ being discussed on some of these emails, including official foreign travel plans and the hiring of associates of Hunter for high-level positions,” the legal analyst added.

“Most importantly, some emails are relevant to the clients of Biden’s son. Biden has previously lied that he knew nothing of those dealings, but these emails could reveal even more about his knowledge and involvement,” Turley stressed.

If they were somehow released, the emails could severely undermine the pro-Biden talking point being peddled by some Democrats that Hunter’s pay-to-play scheme was about selling the “illusion” of access to his powerful father, rather than access itself.

But foreign clients “obviously” thought that they were “buying more than an illusion for the millions they spent,” Turley argued, pointing to the example of a Ukrainian businessman who characterized Hunter as someone who was “dumber than his dog, but… paid him anyway for access to his father.”

The congressional testimony of former Hunter business associate Devon Archer also challenges the ‘illusion’ talking point, Turley added, recalling Archer’s recollections of Burisma executives “calling DC” for assistance while being probed for corruption by a Ukrainian prosecutor, who was subsequently fired after Biden’s personal intervention.

The National Archives and Records Administration could easily continue its “review” of the alias-based communications “until after the next election,” Turley indicated. On the other hand, Biden or former President Barack Obama could “easily allow the release of these emails to Congress” if they thought they could help prove the former vice president’s innocence.

“After all, the use of aliases has been defended on the basis that these emails are trivial or personal matters. If so, transparency will put all the allegations to rest. If it is not true, it would mean that Biden was using false names to convey important information to third parties, and the question would be why,” Turley stressed.

“The added resistance to the review of the emails only adds to an already strong case for an impeachment inquiry,” i.e. that “there is enough evidence to warrant an investigation into whether the Bidens were selling the illusion or the reality of influence.” Using its impeachment inquiry powers, Congress may be better able to “force” disclosures, and thus find “answers on the alleged corrupt practices,” he added.

“There should be no reason why the president would not want to clear the record, particularly in an election year. Otherwise, the effort to withhold this evidence could itself prove damaging, if material evidence of corruption or false statements are found,” Turley argued.

Representative James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee investigating the Biden family, said this week that “there’s consensus” among Republicans on an impeachment inquiry, pending House Speaker McCarthy’s approval. “I feel like that is imminent,” Comer said.

The White House reacted by hiring a team of two-dozen lawyers, legislative assistants and communications staffers for an “aggressive response” to any potential inquiry.

September 3, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Soros Foundation Vows to Stop ‘MAGA-Style Republicans’ From Winning 2024 Election

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 03.09.2023

The Soros family has waged a years-long political war against Donald Trump and his supporters, with George Soros calling Trump a “danger to the world” and characterizing his ideas as a “threat to democracy.” Trump has alleged that “district attorneys hand-picked and personally funded by” Soros are behind the ongoing effort to put him behind bars.

Last month, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations soft power empire announced a dramatic scaling back of funding for operations in Europe, sparking an outcry from liberal activists, NGOs, and think tanks regarding the impact the end of the financial gravy train will have on their operations.

Alexander Soros, the 37-year-old son of the Hungarian-born US billionaire who took the reins at the OSF in June, responded with a manifesto-style appeal this week explaining the shift in focus under his leadership, assuring that the OSF isn’t really “leaving Europe,” and that the region “remains of huge strategic importance.”

Shift in Focus to Eastern Europe and US

Rather, Soros indicated, the shift in funding is the result of a shift in focus, from Western to Eastern Europe and the United States.

“The future of accountable, democratic government in Europe is now being determined not just in Paris and Berlin but also in Warsaw, Kiev and Prague,” he wrote. “This isn’t about funding levels – it’s about priorities as the focus of funding shifts back to the continent’s east,” Soros Jr. noted, recalling that, after all, his father’s soft power meddling in nations’ political affairs began in Eastern Europe in the 1980s.

Spending in Ukraine won’t be affected by the cuts, Soros assured, recalling with “pride” the $250 million in cash funneled into the country since the 2014 Euromaidan coup, and which played “such an important role in Kiev’s resilience” amid the ongoing NATO-backed proxy war against Russia.

The OSF will also continue to “support” operations in Moldova and the Western Balkans, per Soros, and Central European University – the Vienna-based school booted out of Budapest in 2019 amid allegations of meddling in Hungary’s politics.

The reorganization will also include a redoubling of Soros foundations’ efforts against Donald Trump and MAGA-style Republicans, Soros indicated, expressing concerns over the impact Trump’s possible return to power in 2024 would have on the OSF’s global agenda.

“As someone who spends up to half their time working on the continent and thinks former United States President Donald Trump – or at least someone with his isolationist and anti-European policies –will be the Republican nominee, I believe a MAGA-style Republican victory in next year’s US presidential election could, in the end, be worse for the EU than for the US. Such an outcome will imperil European unity and undermine the progress achieved on many fronts in response to the war in Ukraine,” Soros opined.

Accordingly, he noted, the OSF is being “adapted” to “be able to respond to whatever scenarios might emerge, on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Soros Jr. did not elaborate on concrete adjustments in OSF operations, nor the possible “scenarios” he mentioned. However, if the Soros soft power empire’s previously disclosed efforts are anything to go by, the strategy may include pouring even more of the estimated $1.5 billion per year that’s currently been shelled out from the financier’s hedge fund profits for OSF initiatives into US politics.

Trump’s “America First” approach to foreign policy, which the billionaire began discussing decades before ever running for office, sparked alarm with Soros’ liberal globalist vision of world affairs in 2016, when he began pumping millions of dollars into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and super PACs affiliated with her candidacy.

After Trump’s surprise victory, Soros and his allies began plotting an anti-Trump “resistance movement,” which soon manifested itself in a series of street protests, court challenges to his domestic policies, low key communications with members of his administration, support for hawks in Congress lobbying a neoliberal foreign policy, and cash to fuel the conspiracy theory that Trump was a Kremlin agent. Soros’ open meddling in American politics led to petitions from Trump’s supporters demanding that the financier be declared a “domestic terrorist,” stripped of his assets, and expelled from the country.

As the Trump presidency progressed, the Soros empire turned its focus to lower key soft power campaigns, like lobbying tech giants to regulate social media, and campaign funding to dozens, if not hundreds, of of liberal prosecutors, gubernatorial candidates, and various other state and local officials in the 2018 and 2020 elections.

The effort has apparently paid off, with Trump’s defeat in 2020 allowing Soros to push his domestic agenda through into the next administration. An investigation last year found that a Soros dark money-linked think tank had influenced Biden administration policy across nearly two dozen different policy areas.

Earlier this year, after Trump made clear that he would be running for president in 2024, an unprecedented four criminal indictments totaling close to 100 felony counts were leveled against him, with charges ranging from the mishandling of classified governments, to his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election, to suspected falsification of records related to hush money payments to a porn star.

Trump, his supporters, and even some of his Republican primary challengers almost immediately connected Soros’ soft power influence operations to the historically unprecedented political “witch hunt” against the GOP frontrunner.

“Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who was hand-picked and funded by George Soros, is a disgrace. Rather than stopping the unprecedented crime wave overtaking New York City, he’s doing Joe Biden’s dirty work,” Trump said in March following his first indictment.

And although Soros has denied funding Bragg’s campaign, or even “knowing” the prosecutor, media investigations have confirmed that the billionaire donated at least a million dollars to the candidate, who had established himself as a Trump opponent, in 2021.

“I expect that Trump will be found guilty at least in some cases, and will be in jail by election day in November 2024, though that is not the general expectation today,” George Soros said in an interview last month. “If I am right, he is unlikely to win the election. But if I am wrong, the US will face a constitutional crisis that is likely to bring on an economic crisis as well,” he added.

With a little more than a year between now and election day, it remains to be seen what tricks Alexander Soros and the revamped OSF may be able to pull to stop Trump from entering the White House a second time.

September 3, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine blackmailing Europe by refusing to renew gas shipment deal

By Uriel Araujo | September 2, 2023

Russia’s Gazprom has said  it would ship 42.4 million cubic meters of gas to Europe – such a volume is in line with recent days. There are concerns regarding the future of gas shipments to Europe, however. Last month, Ukrainian energy minister Herman Galushchenko ruled out the prospect of Kiev participating in new Russian gas transit talks pertaining to a five year agreement which will expire at the end of 2024. He added that by 2024 Europeans should be ready to manage without Russian gas. This is the latest chapter of a long dispute.

Writing for Politico in September 2022, energy correspondent America Hernandez highlighted that Russian energy giant Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz were in a battle regarding arbitration and payments for gas shipments through Ukraine – and this threatened gas transit to Europe. Here, some context is needed.

Despite the ongoing confrontation, Gazprom (Russia’s state-owned energy corporation) has been honoring a pre-conflict 2019 transit agreement: the 2019 deal, which runs until the end of 2024, allows Gazprom to export over 40 billion cubic meters of gas a year via Ukraine – and this earns Kiev about $7 billion.

Gazprom chief Alexei Miller, however, warned in July 2023 that the Russian energy giant could stop exporting if Kiev did not cease its campaign to seize Russian state assets. Ukraine has been in fact fighting a legal war to make Moscow pay over $5 billion as compensation for Ukraine’s state energy firm Naftogaz losses pertaining to the annexation of Crimea after the 2014 referendum. Naftogaz’s lawyers have been filing enforcement petitions in several jurisdictions internationally. According to Elena Chachko, a Harvard Law School’s Rappaport Fellow, Ukrainian endeavors to combine warfare and lawfare are an attempt to set a precedent in their own way: “The Ukrainians have been pretty active and pretty sophisticated in how they leverage various legal avenues to attack the Russians. They’ve been very creative.” She adds: “The route of arbitration is one they’ve been very sophisticated in utilizing to impose sanctions on Russia in a sort of indirect way”.

Moreover, in July 2023, mentioning a Hague court ruling favoring Ukraine’s claims for compensation, which Moscow is to appeal, Naftogaz CEO said: “We don’t expect Russia to pay voluntarily. It will take time to enforce it and monetize it, and we will be targeting Russian sovereign assets abroad.” In other words, under the justification that there is a European court decision, Ukraine is illegally seizing Russian assets.

Gazprom ceased to supply gas through Yamal-Europe and the (now gone) Nord Stream and pipelines, thus making the transit line through Ukraine the one and only route to supply Russian gas to Central and Western European countries.

By telling Europeans to be ready to go on without Russian gas, Ukraine’s energy minister Herman Galushchenko is providing music to Washington’s ears. In December 2021, there was an energy crisis in Europe already and I wrote on how the US war on the Nord Stream 2 project made perfect sense from an American perspective: Washington wanted neither to lose leverage on the European continent nor to have Moscow having more leverage there. Moreover, the US created obstacles to Russian-European energy and gas cooperation so as to promote its own resources to European markets. Washington would thus have Europeans buying more and more of American liquified natural gas (LNG) – despite the fact that it is more expensive and despite the fact that Russia lies at the “doorstep” of Europe. These American geoeconomic and private (and even shady) interests play an important role here – in addition to US-led NATO geopolitical goals pertaining to encircling Russia. One cannot make sense of the current conflict without taking those into consideration.

In any case, by refusing to transit Russian gas, which Europeans need, Kiev is basically blackmailing the European bloc, as it hopes to see an ever-larger supply of NATO-provided weaponry and aid. It remains to be seen how European powers will play along.

The hard truth is that the Western strategy to isolate Moscow from global energy markets has been a failure. Of course crude oil supplies to the West have dropped, but overall Russian hydrocarbon exports are back to pre-conflict levels, while India has occupied the share of Western nations when it comes to Russian exports. With rising de-industrialization, the US’ own subsidy war against the EU, and with sanctions having backfired, it would seem that sooner or later Europe will have no choice but to gradually ease sanctions against the Russian energy resources it badly needs. The framework for that could involve lots of good diplomacy and the de-escalation of tensions. Right now, truth be told, Ukraine’s blackmail handicaps this prospect.

September 2, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Vivek Ramaswamy’s Plan For Ending The NATO-Russian Proxy War In Ukraine Is Pragmatic

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 31, 2023

The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine has been trending towards a stalemate since the beginning of the year after Moscow’s growing edge in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” ensured that it won’t be defeated. NATO is unlikely to be defeated either, however, since it’ll probably intervene directly – whether as a whole or via a Polish–led mission that draws in the bloc via Article 5 – to freeze the Line of Contact in the event that Russia achieves a breakthrough and threatens to sweep through Ukraine.

The counteroffensive’s spectacular failure and the subsequently vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine strongly suggest that talks with Russia will resume by year’s end for freezing the conflict. Ahead of that happening, these wartime allies are frenziedly trying to convince their respective people that the other is responsible for this debacle simultaneously with formulating an attractive post-conflict vision of the future. The first is served by their vicious blame game while the second will now be discussed.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s now polling third after winning last week’s debate and had earlier attracted enormous media attention for his outspokenness on sensitive issues, just published his “Viable Realism & Revival Doctrine” in an article for The American Conservative. Of relevance to this piece is his plan for ending the NATO-Russian proxy war. Liberal–globalist policymakers and their media allies responded with fury, and it’s not difficult to see why.

Ramaswamy describes the conflict as a “no-win war” that’s needlessly depleted Western stockpiles to China’s benefit. With a view towards more effectively containing the People’s Republic in the Asia-Pacific, he therefore suggests extricating the US from its proxy war with Russia as soon as possible. To that end, he proposes recognizing the new ground realities in Eastern Europe, ending NATO expansion, refusing to admit Ukraine to the bloc, lifting sanctions, and having Europe shoulder the burden for its own security.

The explicit goal is to “get Putin to dump Xi”, and that’s why he says that the quid pro quo is “Russia exiting its military alliance with China.” Ramaswamy is convinced that his plan will “elevate Russia as a strategic check on China’s designs in East Asia” if it’s implemented into practice, but the problem is that no such “military alliance” exists between those two. Moreover, it’s unrealistic to imagine that the US will “get Putin to dump Xi” since they’re good friends and their countries are strategic partners.

Having clarified that, this plan does have its merits. From the Russian side, it ensures that country’s objective national security interests and gives it the chance to rely on the EU for preemptively averting potentially disproportionate economic dependence on China upon the lifting of sanctions. On the home front, Ramaswamy’s plan appeals to the pragmatic policymaking faction whose influence is on the rise as proven by the success over the summer of their policy towards India that was detailed here.

The timing couldn’t have been better. The US is looking for a “face-saving” way to resume peace talks as previously explained, and the rising influence of pragmatic policymakers could lead to them overruling the liberal-globalists’ objections to this, though their rivals could still try to sabotage this. The enormous media attention that Ramaswamy has already generated, not to mention what he’s now receiving as a result of his proposal, could reshape the national discourse on the proxy war’s endgame.

Americans are becoming fatigued with this conflict but no one had yet articulated an attractive post-conflict vision of the future until now. Irrespective of Ramaswamy’s political future, his plan serves to spark a wider conversation at all levels about the pragmatism of compromising with Russia in order to free the US up for more effectively containing China in the Asia-Pacific. This can in turn facilitate the resumption of talks with Russia, especially if it emboldens pragmatic US policymakers.

The vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine over the counteroffensive’s failure leads to the inevitable one over who’s responsible for losing this proxy war, with all of this preceding America’s formulation of an attractive post-conflict vision of the future for its people and policymakers alike. The first dynamic is continually intensifying and making more headlines by the day, while the second is also presently unfolding but mostly in silence, and it’s this dynamic that Ramaswamy’s plan contributes to.

Accepting the impossibility of Russia abandoning its mutually beneficial cooperation with China and acknowledging that lifting the sanctions likely won’t happen either, the rest of his proposals could form the parameters of a potential Russian-American deal for ending their proxy war in Ukraine. That former Soviet Republic wouldn’t join NATO, nor would that bloc expand any further, and the West would de facto recognize the new ground realities in Eastern Europe while the EU bears the burden for its security.

Russia would obviously have to agree to some regional compromises too in that scenario, such as Ukraine’s privileged post-conflict relationship with NATO and the hard security guarantees that the Anglo-American Axis will likely provide, but these could be acceptable if its other interests are met. If there’s any movement in this direction, then it shouldn’t be maliciously spun as Russia conspiring to facilitating the US’ containment of China, but seen for what it truly is: Russia putting its interests first.

August 31, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Kiev insists on propaganda about “retaking” Crimea

By Lucas Leiroz | August 31, 2023

Kiev’s propaganda continues to spread baseless narratives about the so-called “counteroffensive”. Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmitri Kuleba, during a recent meeting with European diplomats, stated that the Ukrainian attacks on the Rabotino region are a key point to “open the way” towards Crimea. According to him, by attacking villages in the Zaporozhye region, the Ukrainians are “expelling” the Russians and forcing them to retreat to Crimea, taking the fighting deeper into the oblast. With that, it would be possible to start a real battle for Crimea soon, with Kiev having chances to retake it.

“Having entrenched on its [Robotyne’s] flanks, we are opening the way to Tokmak and, eventually, Melitopol and the administrative border with Crimea”, he said, thus calling Rabotino a “strategically important” village.

On the same occasion, Kuleba admitted the Ukrainian difficulties in the overhyped “counteroffensive”, indicating the Russian-made minefields as one of the main reasons for the “slow progress” of the counterattack. Kuleba also admitted losses to Russian air power, saying Moscow “plans to dominate the air” with its drones, helicopters and planes. However, in the end, Kuleba lied once again by saying that despite the problems, Kiev is “gradually succeeding”.

“The number of minefields and fortifications is unprecedented. Russian drones, helicopters and planes dominate the air. But we are gradually succeeding”, he added.

Indeed, instead of “slow”, it would be more appropriate to say that there is simply no Ukrainian progress. So far, the counteroffensive has been an absolute failure and it is unlikely to be any reversal of this scenario. Western experts have already begun to admit that Ukraine’s losses in the attempted counterattack are practically irreversible and that it will not be possible for Kiev to achieve its objectives set when the operation was launched in early June.

It must be remembered that one of these objectives was precisely to invade and possibly retake Crimea, in addition to the newly reintegrated Russian territories. Since 2014, Crimea has been a permanent strategic objective for Ukrainian forces. Unable to launch attacks in the region, Kiev affected the Crimean oblast for eight years through sabotage and boycotts. After the start of the Russian special operation, Ukraine hardened its actions, adopting real terrorism against Crimea, mainly through drone attacks against civilian targets.

Obviously, these terrorist incursions were not enough to “retake” the peninsula, so several of Kiev’s officials promised that the long-awaited “reconquest” would come with the spring-summer counteroffensive. However, the failure of Ukrainian military moves prevented any relevant territorial success from being achieved, with no hope of reaching Crimea.

Failing in all its strategic objectives, Kiev has launched a series of recent attacks in the southern region of Zaporozhye,mainly  in the villages of Rabotino and Verbove. In fact, these villages are close to Tokmak, which would allow a more privileged position for the Ukrainian troops, if victorious, to eventually reach regions such as Melitopol and even Crimea itself. The problem is that Kiev has virtually no chance of achieving this since it is just overrating its territorial gains.

Ukrainian forces have recently crossed the first Russian line of defense in the Zaporozhye region. However, they are still being held back by the Moscow’s artillery. Indeed, no territorial control has yet been fully guaranteed by Ukraine. Furthermore, to cross the first Russian line, the Ukrainians suffered many heavy losses, with hundreds killed, in addition to a lot of NATO-provided equipment destroyed. As reported by the Russian authorities, Rabotino is almost completely destroyed, with great material damage to the village, but the military situation is not yet under Ukrainian control.

Even if the Ukrainians eventually take the village completely, they will still be encircled by the Russian forces that are stationed around it, which will prevent them from launching any relevant moves towards Melitopol or Crimea. In this scenario, the Ukrainians will also be extremely weakened as they will have lost many troops to control Rabotino, which will prevent them from moving forward in the face of Russian numerical superiority.

Ukraine seems to insist on violating an elementary concept of military sciences, which is to preserve soldiers’ lives over territories. If troops remain alive, territories can be captured later – but if soldiers die, no territorial gains can be secured. Ukraine ignores this, as it fights to serve interests that are not its own, but those of NATO – which has no hope of Ukrainian victory.

In practice, Kiev is just launching another one of its “suicide missions” encouraged by the Western media. In fact, there is no concrete military objective in the Ukrainian attitudes, only propagandistic actions focused on increasing the support of Western sponsors and public opinion. By mentioning Crimea as the target behind the Ukrainian attacks on Rabotino, Kuleba is simply making propaganda and trying to justify Kiev’s insistence on taking the village, despite so many losses.

Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram

August 31, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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