Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Russia, Israel, and the Law of War Regarding Civilians

By Scott Ritter – Sputnik – 03.11.2023

There has been much discussion in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israeli military bases and settlements in the vicinity of Gaza related to issues of legitimate self-defense and the legality surrounding Israel’s use of force in response to that attack.

Inevitably, this discussion leads to an effort to compare Russia’s conduct in the Special Military Operation with Israel’s behavior to date regarding Gaza. The particular example of Mariupol is often raised as a point of comparison with the ongoing Israeli operation in Gaza. While it is far too soon to be able to make such a direct comparison of those two battles, one can examine the foundation of international law relied upon by both Russia and Israel in justifying their respective military operations. Sadly, Israel is found wanting.

Russia has cited the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense, as enshrined in Article 51 of the Charter, as justification for the initiation of its military operation.

Article 51 reads as follows:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

In his address announcing the initiation of the special operation, Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out a case for pre-emption, detailing the threat that NATO’s eastward expansion posed to Russia, as well as Ukraine’s ongoing military operations against the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass.

NATO and Ukraine, Putin declared, “did not leave us [Russia] any other option for defending Russia and our people, other than the one we are forced to use today. In these circumstances, we have to take bold and immediate action. The people’s republics of Donbass have asked Russia for help. In this context, in accordance with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, I made a decision to carry out a special military operation.”

Russia’s President set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self-defense as it applies to Article 51, citing the ongoing, imminent threat to the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass from a brutal eight-year-long bombardment that had killed thousands of people.

For its part, Israel has repeatedly cited its inherent right to self-defense when justifying its ongoing military operations in Gaza. But Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, has rejected that claim, declaring that, “as an occupying power, it [Israel] does not have that power.”

Nebenzia’s argument is founded in a 2004 advisory opinion written by the International Court of Justice. “Article 51 of the Charter,” the court wrote, “thus recognizes the existence of an inherent right of self-defense in the case of armed attack by one State against another State. However, Israel does not claim that the attacks against it are imputable to a foreign State.”

The ICJ did not say that “Israel has to face numerous indiscriminate and deadly acts of violence against its civilian population,” adding that Israel “has the right, and indeed the duty, to respond in order to protect the life of its citizens.” However, the ICJ found, any measures taken by Israel must be “in conformity with applicable international law” As such, in so far as Gaza and much of the land that currently constitutes the territory of Israel can be considered “occupied territory” under international law, and noting that the threat Israel is responding to originates from within, and not outside, this occupied territory, Israel cannot invoke the right of self-defense based upon any claim of a “state of necessity” in order to preclude the wrongfulness of its occupation of Palestinian territory, under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

According to Nebenzia, Israel’s right to security “can be fully guaranteed only in the case of a just solution to the Palestinian problem on the basis of the well-known UN Security Council resolutions. We don’t deny Israel’s right to fight terror,” the Ambassador noted, “but fight terrorists and not civilians.”

Having established that Russia, in its conflict with Ukraine, has acted in conformity with international law by adhering to the requirements set forth under Article 51 of the UN Charter regarding self-defense, and that Israel is, due to its status as an occupying power operating in direct contravention of international law, not able to cite legitimate self-defense under Article 51 as a justification for its actions, the question now moves on to the question of whether or not either Russia or Israel executes their respective military missions in a manner which conforms to the standard set under international humanitarian law.

The key considerations that distinguish a legitimate act of war from a war crime is the concept of “military necessity.” Military necessity, by definition, “permits measures which are actually necessary to accomplish a legitimate military purpose and are not otherwise prohibited by international humanitarian law. In the case of an armed conflict the only legitimate military purpose is to weaken the military capacity of the other parties to the conflict.”

The issue of “distinction” becomes paramount when discussing any question of “military necessity.” The notion of “distinction” ensures that parties to an armed conflict must “at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives, and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” The distinction prohibits “indiscriminate attacks and the use of indiscriminate means and methods of warfare,” such as carpet bombing, or an artillery bombardment which lacked a specific military purpose.

“Military necessity” and “distinction” serve as the core principles around which the international community has codified specific acts that constitute war crimes in the form of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, in particular Article 8 (War Crimes). These include:

  • Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;
  • Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives;
  • Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units, or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict; and
  • Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects.

Regarding their respective battles for Mariupol and Gaza, both Russia and Israel have been accused of engaging in activity that violates all of the acts described above. The main point that distinguishes Russia from Israel in this regard is that Russian doctrine specifically prohibits the behavior described. Israeli doctrine, both written and spoken, embraces it.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, Israel Defense Force Northern Commander Gadi Eisenkot implemented a military strategy that sought to target and destroy entire civilian areas rather than engage in difficult and dangerous ground combat necessary to capture them. The goal of this strategy was more than simply trying to reduce Israeli casualties—the stated purpose of this new approach was to hold the entire civilian population accountable for the actions of Hezbollah fighters. Eisenkot did away with the requirement under international law to distinguish between military and civilian targets. This new doctrine was first used on the West Beirut Dahiya neighborhood, and the doctrine took its name from this location—the “Dahiya” Doctrine.

The “Dahiya Doctrine” specifically calls for the deliberate targeting of civilian populations and civilian infrastructure for the specific purpose of causing suffering and severe distress throughout the targeted population. The goal was to simultaneously destroy any enemy in the targeted area, to intimidate the targeted population into turning on the militants (in the case Hezbollah), and to deter other population centers from supporting Hezbollah. The “Dahiya Doctrine” was used extensively against Gaza since 2008, killing thousands of civilians. In its definition and through its execution, the “Dahiya Doctrine” amounts to nothing less than state terrorism, which means that the Israeli military, through its implementation of this policy, has become a state sponsor of terrorism.

As the facts emerge about the performance of the Russian military during the battle for Mariupol, it becomes crystal clear that the Russian soldiers behaved in an exemplary fashion, putting themselves at risk to ensure that the principles of distinction and military necessity were applied liberally and well within the spirit and letter of international law.

One cannot make a similar claim about the Israeli Defense Force and Gaza, where the “Dahiya Doctrine” is being executed with a vengeance.

November 3, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine Is Set to Make Lobby Push in US for More Weapons and Training

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | November 1, 2023

Ukraine and some European countries are ramping up a lobbying push in the US to get Americans to back more aid to Kiev. Ukrainian officials are seeking new long-range rockets and accelerated training programs. The propaganda push comes after a Time Magazine article portrayed Kiev in disarray and a hotbed for corruption.

According to Politico, “Ukrainian officials and allies in Europe are ramping up their lobbying campaign in the US for new weapons and training.” The authors cite a recent Ukrainian delegation that toured America with a wishlist that included: “US Marine Corps training on conducting ship-to-shore operations; new air defenses to take down the Russian glide bombs that are devastating Ukrainian forces; and the long-range, single-warhead version of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) the Biden administration secretly shipped to Ukraine last month.”

The representatives of the Ukrainian government are attempting to adapt their message to the current American political landscape. Roman Tychkivskyy, a former Ukrainian marine and current defense official, compared Russians to Hamas.

The White House is attempting to package support for the proxy war against Russia, Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, and the massive military buildup in the Asia Pacific into a massive $105 billion aid bill.

Tychkivskyy went on to dub Russia, North Korea, and Iran an “axis of evil.” Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson recently referred to Russia, China, and Iran as the new “axis of evil.” However, Representative Johnson is vowing to package aid for Israel in a stand-alone bill, a blow to Kiev that was hoping to get the bulk of the $105 billion aid bill.

Politico additionally reports a European delegation will visit the US to lobby Americans, they will argue that spending billions of dollars on arming Ukraine will create jobs at home. William D. Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, says the notion that weapons spending creates jobs is a myth.

“There are many ways to create more and better jobs without resorting to increased weapons spending,” he explained. “Virtually any other form of government outlay, or even a tax cut, yields greater employment than military spending.”

One item on Kiev’s wishlist is long-range ATACMS rockets with conventional warheads. The White House recently approved sending Ukraine the cluster variant of the missile. The Department of Defense is reluctant to send the unitary warhead because the US lacks surpluses in its stockpiles. However, Washington no longer uses the cluster variant of the weapon.

Additionally, Kiev is seeking to accelerate the F-16 training program for Ukrainian pilots. The soldiers began training on the advanced aircraft this week. The Pentagon said the pilots will take several months to complete the program and did not provide a clear timeline.

An article published by Time earlier this week portrayed Kiev as a dysfunctional government with the Ukrainian military in disarray. A close aide to President Zelensky said that the leader had become dogmatic in his view that Kiev could reconquer all of Ukraine by military force even as failures mounted.

Ukrainian forces reported receiving orders that they lacked the military capabilities to complete. If the West comes through on weapons deliveries, “we don’t have the men to use them,” a Ukrainian official explained.

Still, Tychkivskyy is pushing for training on maneuvers to cross the Dnieper River. Kiev believes a successful operation can be used to set up a campaign to retake Crimea. “Once we are able to cross the river successfully and move the troops to the other side, there’s not many obstacles for us to move fast, closer to Crimea,” he said.

November 1, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Maidan snipers: The founding myth of ‘new’ Ukraine has been proven to be a lie. Why is the West silent?

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | October 31, 2023

Earlier this month, a district court in Kiev announced its findings in a case that had dragged on since 2015, handing down sentences to five former officers of the long-dissolved ‘Berkut’ police unit. The ex-police grouping become internationally known during the 2013/14 protests which culminated with the violent ‘Maidan.’

Charged with involvement in the shooting of anti-government protesters by snipers in the center of the Ukrainian capital on February 20, 2014, four of the accused – three of them in absentia – were found guilty and sentenced to terms between five years and life. One was acquitted.

Politically, this was, or should have been, Ukraine’s single most important trial since independence in 1991. The judges closed – at least for now as appeals have already been announced – the country’s attempt to come to terms judicially with the darkest moment of what has been called a “revolution,” as well as a “coup”: the fall of the government of former President Viktor Yanukovich under pressure from initially peaceful – then violent – street protests and Western meddling. The events producing regime change and geopolitical re-orientation unfolded over three months, but the killing of almost 50 protesters that February was a crucial tipping point.

The case quickly became known as the “snipers’ massacre” or the “Maidan massacre.” The shootings were squarely blamed on Yanukovich and his administration and seemed to rule out domestic compromise and confirm Western and Ukrainian pro-insurgent narratives, casting the crisis as a national and democratic freedom struggle against a corrupt and oppressive regime beholden to Moscow. Neither the disproportionate role of an aggressive and manipulative Ukrainian far right nor the ruthless geopolitics of the West had a place in this framing. Within days after the killings, a last attempt to stop the spiral of escalation by an internationally mediated agreement failed, Yanukovych fled to Russia, and Moscow’s troops were on the move in Crimea.

Then things got worse. Clashes between Kiev’s new government and rebels in Donbass evolved into an initially intense, then mostly slow-burn, regional civil war, including limited Russian interventions. The best chance for peace, the 2015 Minsk 2 Agreement, was sabotaged systematically by Kiev and its Western supporters, and, after February 2022, Ukraine became the theater of a proxy war of the collective West against Russia. The West and Ukraine are now likely to lose this conflict at immense cost in lives and wealth, mostly to Ukraine. International tension is extremely high, trust has evaporated, and meaningful communication is almost impossible.

Ukraine and the world could be in a much better place if the last days of February 2014 had played out differently, allowing for the compromise already negotiated between Ukraine’s government and the insurgents to take hold. The Maidan Massacre was not the only but the single most important shove toward an ever-widening conflict, especially as the dominant Western narrative about the killings has remained the same, blaming only the old regime and rejecting any challenge to the narrative as a pro-Russian “information war.” Here was the perfect story, in short, to emotionally legitimize not only support but uncritical backing for Kiev, the rejection and sabotage of any concessions to Ukraine’s domestic rebels in the East, and vilifying any effective cooperation with Moscow.

But what if we were not told the truth about the killings? That is the key claim advanced by Canadian-Ukrainian political scientist Ivan Katchanovski. Katchanovski (who also recently exposed the scandal around the honoring of a Waffen-SS veteran by the Canadian parliament) has long argued that “the Maidan massacre was a false-flag mass killing of … protestors and … police in order to seize power in Ukraine. It was conducted with the involvement of oligarchic and far-right elements of the Maidan opposition using concealed groups of Maidan snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings.”

The rich detail of Katchanovski’s findings cannot be reproduced here, but three points should be noted: Snipers belonging to the insurgents’ side started shooting at the police on the morning of February 20; key positions, such as in the Hotel Ukraina and a conservatory, from which these policemen were attacked and later Maidan protesters as well, were and remained under the control of insurgent units (not the police); and after 9.00 am, protesters, too, were shot by insurgent snipers (again: not by the police).

In sum, two things happened, according to Katchanovski’s findings: Insurgent snipers first shot at the police to provoke an escalation, and then, in addition, even killed protesters – that is, those on their own side. At the same time, Katchanovski does not rule out the possibility that the police also shot protesters. But his careful analysis of video and other evidence shows that many victims, likely the majority, were targeted by insurgent shooters.

Katchanovski has come to these conclusions through years-long, rigorous, and exhaustive forensic research, as summarized in his peer-reviewed article “The ‘Snipers’ Massacre’ on the Maidan in Ukraine” in Cogent Social Sciences, an academic journal published by Taylor and Francis. He has not been the only one reaching such or similar results, but his work is the most thorough and important independent investigation. Clearly, that is why, due to its political implications, he has had to withstand being smeared as a “conspiracy theorist” and pro-Kremlin information warrior; his work has been censored; and he has suffered severe retaliation by attempts at professional and social marginalization and the pseudo-legal confiscation of his family’s property in Ukraine.

Ukrainian courts are not politically independent. Judges, whatever their own views or professional ethics, work under the threat of ostracism and violence from Ukraine’s far right (at least). And yet, as Katchanovski has pointed out, buried in the million-word findings of the recent verdict, the court has recognized several facts that confirm his interpretation of the Maidan Massacre, including the following: four police officers were killed and 39 wounded by insurgent snipers; snipers shot from buildings under insurgent control; and it cannot be ruled out that eight victims were killed and 20 injured by “unknown” perpetrators who were not from the police.

While Katchanovski is to be admired for his research and steadfastness, what is especially important here is that the long backlash against his research is a symptom of something larger that is badly amiss in both Ukraine and the West. Even now, the Ukrainian information war outlet Euromaidan Press, for instance, still combines a personal attack on Katchanovski with disinforming its readers, claiming that the verdict somehow contradicts his findings (which are, by the way, badly misrepresented).

The opposite is the case.

This is just the latest example of a deep culture of disinformation and self-disinformation that has taken root in the West. While Western elites may well lie deliberately much of the time, substantial parts of the Western media, it seems, have come to not only believe these lies – or those of favorites, clients, and allies – but to defend them with a vigor that betrays psychological investment.

The emotionally-charged reality denial around Hillary Clinton’s richly-deserved defeat in the US election of 2016 (“Russiagate”), the bizarre doublethink regarding Western forces (and/or Ukraine) blowing up Nord Stream (thereby committing an act of war among “allies” and of eco-terrorism), Israel’s “right to defend itself” interpreted as the permission to commit crimes against humanity with Western support – all are instances of a form of collective self-indulgence. Too many people in the West still claiming to be the world’s “value” guardian practice lying and lying to themselves as if it were their special birthright.

Yet these lies and fiercely guarded illusions corrupt individuals and politics, polarize societies, disrupt international relations and, last but not least, cost lives – thousands, tens of thousands, and, in the case of Ukraine by now, hundreds of thousands. Conflict is a normal part of human life, and, to some extent, inevitable.

Driving yourself insane with dishonesty is not. And it certainly does not help keep the peace.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany at Koç University in Istanbul working on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory. Follow Tarik on X @tarikcyrilamar

October 31, 2023 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

Ukrainian border guards using drones to catch ‘fleeing’ citizens – UNIAN

RT | October 31, 2023

Ukraine’s border-guard service (DPSU) has released several videos showing surveillance drones helping officers catch people trying to leave the country illegally. National media have described those who’ve been caught as nationals “fleeing” Ukraine, amid an armed-forces mobilization as Kiev’s conflict with Russia continues.

In the first clip published by DPSU on Saturday, a drone operator uses the aircraft’s thermal camera to guide a patrol towards a group of people hiding in bushes. The service claims the technique helped it catch 14 trespassers in four separate interceptions near the village of Okny near the border with Moldova.

The next day the border guards released footage of a short chase, as seen from a drone via a night camera. The DPSU said the four would-be violators in this instance wanted to go to Moldova but were intercepted as they made their attempt.

Another video published by the service on Monday includes drone footage of a car moving down a battered road. Guards then stop the vehicle and apprehend the driver, who the DPSU claimed to be a people-smuggler.

The suspect allegedly used his transport to sneak his clients to a part of the border with Moldova from where they would then cross illegally. Would-be violators in the first two cases reported by the DPSU had also used services of smugglers, who ask as much as $2,000 for help crossing the border, according to the service.

The footage doesn’t go into what motivates people to embark their law-breaking trips. UNIAN, a major Ukrainian news outlet, described the official action as guards “keeping catching nationals fleeing across the border.”

Kiev has banned men who are eligible to serve in the military from leaving the country unless they get a waiver. It’s now reportedly ramping up efforts to draft additional troops, after suffering heavy casualties in attempts to breach Russian defensive lines over the months of the so-called summer counteroffensive.

Ukrainian MP Sergey Rakhmanin, who sits on the parliamentary Committee for Security, Defense, and Intelligence, said in an interview last week that the country had long exhausted the reserve of persons who’d volunteered to go the front.

Moscow has accused Kiev’s Western sponsors of using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” in a proxy war against Russia. In a speech at a security forum in Beijing on Monday, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated Ukrainian casualties during the counteroffensive at over 90,000.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Video | , | Leave a comment

Kremlin weighs in on call for US to reverse course on Russia

RT | October 30, 2023

A recent article by US economist Jeffrey Sachs calling on Washington to establish a new sustainable détente with Russia is a rare sight, but evidence that debates on the issue are picking up steam, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Peskov commented on Sachs’ piece, which was published in early October but has only recently gained media traction. The economist, who serves as the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, wrote that the world is on the precipice of a “30-year US neocon debacle in Ukraine.”

He explained that Washington’s long-cherished hopes for NATO expansion eastward to Russia’s borders have been dashed by Ukraine’s devastating losses on the battlefield, the threat of Moscow launching a massive offensive, and collapsing support for this course in both Europe and the US.

As Ukraine teeters on the brink, Sachs argued, the US could avert a potential catastrophe by changing course and reaching security guarantees with Moscow. A potential deal could include a pledge that NATO would not expand closer to Russia, as well as an agreement between Moscow and Kiev that predominantly ethnic Russian areas would be recognized as part of Russia, the economist said, apparently referring to Crimea and four other former Ukrainian regions that overwhelmingly voted to become part of Russia.

Commenting on the article, Peskov said Moscow has not received any proposals on the matter. While describing the piece as “an economist’s point of view, nothing more,” he noted that “such thinking is quite rare at the moment.”

“Nevertheless, some kind of a discussion is gradually gaining momentum,” Peskov added.

In the article, Sachs suggested that Russia’s demands to NATO and the US which were made shortly before the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022 should be used as a springboard for a thaw in relations.

In the proposals presented in December 2021, Moscow asked the West to formally ban Ukraine from entering NATO, while insisting that the alliance should retreat to its 1997 borders, before it expanded. The overture, however, was rebuffed by the West.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

US seeks strategic dialogue with Russia

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 30, 2023 

Almost four weeks into Hamas’ attack on Israel, Russia is in no hurry to exploit the Biden administration’s quandary over the collapse of Middle East security. The western media was unanimous that Russia was waiting in the wings to seize the opportunity once the US took its eye off the ball in Ukraine. However, no such thing happened. 

Ukraine war is on autopilot. The compass has been set, the die is cast and the calculus is holding steady with regard to the strategic objectives set by President Vladimir Putin in February last year. Russia senses that it has gained the upper hand in the war and that is irreversible. 

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed and the fighting is presently restricted to two sectors of the frontline, as Russian forces strengthen the security of the Donetsk region and seek to regain control of territories up north in the borderlands of Donbass and Kharkov region from where they retreated for tactical reasons last September and October.

Yet, Moscow has not begun its grand offensive, as many had predicted. One plausible explanation is that Moscow is watching the maelstrom sweeping through the Middle East. Moscow is particularly sensitive about any spillover into Syria. 

With an eye on the formidable US naval build-up in Eastern Mediterranean with the deployment of two aircraft carrier groups, President Vladimir Putin has publicised that Russian jets equipped with hypersonic Kinzhal missiles are roaming the skies above the Black Sea, which can strike targets 1000 kms away at Mach 9 speed, which no existing missile defence system can intercept. Suffice to say, the war in Ukraine remains attritional. 

Curiously, Russia conducted a simulated nuclear strike in a drill on Wednesday overseen by Putin, hours after Russian parliament voted to rescind the country’s ratification of the global nuclear test ban treaty (CTBT). The drill needs to be seen in the broader context of global strategic stability. A Kremlin statement said, “The purpose of the training exercise was to check the level of preparedness of military command bodies, as well as the skill of the leadership and operational personnel in managing the troops (forces) under their command.” Everything, however, adds up in these extraordinary times. 

At its most obvious level, the Palestine-Israel conflict is a manifestation of the growing imbalance in the existing system of international relations. New wars are emerging; longstanding conflicts are mutating (eg., Nagorno-Karabakh). Last week, Pakistan bracketed Palestine and Kashmir as the UN’s unfinished business in the post-colonial era. North Korea and Iran are flash points that have no military solution. 

In the months ahead, without doubt, Washington will continue to provide Israel with military and diplomatic support but an extended Israeli operation lasting months in Gaza will mean dispersal of US resources that might be needed in other theatres. The conflict in Gaza underscores the imperative for a rethink in the US’ notions of global hegemony. The fact remains that the US, despite its self-proclaimed status as the “Indispensable Nation” (Madeline Albright) and the guarantor of “rules-based order,” failed to prevent the latest eruption of conflict in the Middle East. 

Arguably, therefore, the latest US proposal for a systematic resumption of strategic dialogue with Russia can be seen as a sign of positive thinking. Unsurprisingly, Moscow has displayed a studied indifference to the US proposal. But that needn’t be taken as the last word. Historically, Soviet-American strategic dialogue brought on board into the agenda all major issues and most minor issues affecting international security. 

The big question, therefore, is the timing of the US proposal. Against the backdrop of the gathering storms in the Middle East, the Biden Administration probably seeks to calm the nerves by proposing talks with Russia on global strategic balance, since the guardrails in arms control no longer exist. This is one thing. 

At any rate, Russia’s “neutrality” in a Middle East conflict could also be a consideration. Equally, Western leaderships understand that the war against Russia is practically lost — although they will not admit it publicly — and engagement with Russia is needed.   

Again, although the US has provided Israel with significant military and diplomatic support and keeps influencing the latter not to escalate the conflict, there are variables in the situation and any big conflagration in the Middle East will require a massive concentration of material and financial resources that are limited even for a superpower, since there are other unresolved problems in the world, too.

The breakdown of trust in the Russian-American ties hurts US interests. Fundamentally, it must also be understood that what Moscow seeks even today after nearly 20 months of battling NATO and the US in Ukraine’s killing fields is a sustained engagement with Washington and a willingness to accommodate mutual interests. 

On its part, Russia is conducting itself as a responsible power vis-a-vis the crisis in Gaza. There is no shred of evidence to show that Russia has acted as a “spoiler”. On the contrary, Moscow has been projecting its credentials as a potential peacemaker who enjoys good relations with all key players — Israel, Hamas, Iran and other regional states alike. 

In fact, President Biden’s recent remarks on the Gaza situation bring the US position rather close to Russia’s. Biden read out the following from a prepared text at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia: 

“Israel has the right and, I would add, responsibility to respond to the slaughter of their people. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That’s a guarantee… 

“But that does not lessen the need for — to operate and align with the laws of war for Israeli — it has to do everything in its power — Israel has to do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect innocent civilians. And it’s difficult. I also want take a moment to look ahead toward the future that we seek. 

“Israelis and Palestinians equally deserve to live side by side in safety, dignity, and peace. And there’s no going back to the status quo as it stood on October the 6th. That means ensuring Hamas can no longer terrorise Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields.

“It also means that when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution.” 

Putin couldn’t have put this across differently. There is a sense of expectation in Moscow that in the emergent conditions in regional security, the US and its allies will “reconsider their notions of defeating Russia in the Ukraine conflict at any cost” — as an establishment think tanker wrote in the Kremlin-funded RT last week. 

Trust is lacking, he concluded, “compromises without the full consideration of Russian interests” are difficult to reach, but “a pivotal stage in the (world) order … is taking shape before our eyes.”  

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Western Media ‘Cancel’ the Ukraine Conflict as Palestinian Genocide Exposes Their Lies and Fake News

Strategic Culture Foundation | October 27, 2023

The horrendous violence and suffering in Gaza have dominated the global news cycle. That is not untoward given the dreadful scale of disaster where over 7,000 people, mainly civilians and nearly half of them children, have been killed over the past three weeks by Israeli bombardment and siege.

Death toll numbers are obsolete within a day, such is the wanton murderous destruction by the Israeli regime. And yet Joe Biden and other Western politicians minimize this criminality by trying to cast doubt on the casualty numbers. How utterly despicable of Biden and his Western accomplices to this genocide.

But what is also notable is the abrupt cancellation of Ukraine as a story by Western media. The wholesale relegation of interest in Ukraine is truly astounding. The precipitous fall-off in Western media coverage reflects how the proxy war in Ukraine was always a contrived geopolitical agenda devoid of any purported principle of Western democracy.

For nearly 19 months the hostilities in Ukraine have been plastered all over Western news media. The conflict was described as the biggest in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Western governments and media outlets roundly condemned Russia for alleged aggression towards Ukraine and it was hysterically proclaimed that the whole of Europe was under threat from a would-be Russian invasion if Ukraine was not defended.

The violence in Ukraine was portrayed as a bloody manifestation of U.S. President Joe Biden’s “grand narrative” about a global Manichean struggle between “democracy and autocracy”. The Western public was lectured that it was vitally imperative that hundreds of billions of dollars and euros were spent to support Ukraine against alleged Russian belligerence because this conflict was a line in the sand for supposed Western democratic values and civilization.

This narrative was always a travesty of Hollywood proportions. As many informed people rightly discerned (those who do not rely on Western news media propaganda), the conflict in Ukraine was and is a proxy war against Russia ordained by the United States and its NATO military vehicle. The war is part of a wider geopolitical struggle by the U.S.-led Western imperialist bloc against Russia, China, and other nations of an emerging multipolar world that repudiates American-dominated hegemony.

Lamentably, the proof of that analysis is evinced by the obscene genocidal violence in the Middle East. For the past three weeks, the Western-backed Israeli regime has been slaughtering Palestinian civilians with impunity. The United States and the European Union have effectively endorsed this criminality under the fraud of Israel’s “right to self-defense”, and Western media have amplified and reinforced this fraud with their distorted reporting.

Of course, this shockingly criminal aggression has dominated the global news cycle. Every media outlet around the world has been transfixed by the barbarity, albeit differing in their perspective on how much blame to apportion to the Israeli regime or to the Hamas Palestinian militant group that triggered the escalation in violence with its mass killings of 1,400 Israelis on October 7. (It is now becoming clear that many of those deaths were actually caused by the Israeli military using indiscriminate excessive lethal force.)

In any case, the point here is how remarkable is the sudden cessation in Western media coverage of the war in Ukraine. For the past three weeks, there has hardly been any mention of that conflict. This peremptory absence is phenomenal. For months on end, the war in Ukraine was given non-stop, saturation coverage – albeit with an anti-Russian propaganda spin – and then just like that there is a void in any attention to what had been previously billed as an existential crisis for Europe and Western democratic civilization.

It’s not as if the hostilities in Ukraine have really diminished. Far from it, the battling between the NATO-backed Kiev regime forces and the Russian military has been as fierce as in previous months. Over the past week alone, it is estimated that more than 2,000 Ukrainian troops were killed by Russian forces on the frontlines in the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

How is that absence in Western media explained? Part of the “cancelling” of the Ukraine conflict in Western media coverage is due to the failure of the NATO-backed counteroffensive that was launched in early June. That military venture was hyped as the expected breakthrough against Russian forces after months of heavy weapons supply from NATO leading up to the counteroffensive. The gambit has been a disastrous anti-climax in NATO terms. Up to 90,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been lost in four months adding to a total of 400,000 Ukrainian military deaths over the entire conflict so far. The great NATO surge has been an abject calamity. Russian defense lines all along a swathe of former Eastern Ukrainian territory (now part of the Russian Federation) reaching down to Crimea and the Black Sea remain formidably intact and invulnerable.

The expenditure of $200 billion in military and other aid by the United States and the European Union for propping up a corrupt Nazi regime in Kiev can now be seen as the biggest farce and scandal of modern times. The Western governments and their servile media must therefore not let the Western public see this grotesque waste of money and human life. Public attention must somehow be diverted to avoid the resounding political repercussions.

The slaughter of Palestinians going on in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank territory is a global shame that certainly deserves priority attention. A ceasefire must be called immediately and the mass murder and siege must end. Palestinian rights must be defended and a proper peace settlement to the conflict must be pursued urgently in a genuinely brokered legal and diplomatic framework – not the disingenuous process that Washington and the European Union have been peddling for decades.

However, even the extensive Western media focus on the violence in Gaza is not out of a genuine concern for facts, let alone truth or justice. It is, as usual, a cover-up for the Israeli regime’s crimes and the complicity of Western states in the decades-long genocide against the Palestinians. A genocide that has going on for 75 years since the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 by British and American subterfuge as our columnist Finian Cunningham contended this week.

No, the Western media saturation coverage of terrible events in Gaza over the past three weeks is driven in large part by the onerous need to divert attention from the scandal and debacle of NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine.

The quickness and expedience of canceling Ukraine as a story by Western media and their governments is a powerful demonstration. The purported concerns about Ukraine were never about principle or the alleged narrative of defending democracy. If there was any credible substance to that narrative then how is it dispensed with so readily? It is something to behold how Western media have simply dumped Ukraine as if it were damaged goods of no longer any use, or, worse, a soiled rag.

It is a further diabolical tragedy in the long-suffering of the Palestinian people. Not only are they being annihilated, starved and denied their basic human rights by the Western-backed Israeli regime. Their suffering is also poignant proof of the callous deception and criminality of the United States and its Western partners in Ukraine.

October 28, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

CIA-backed spies shot former Ukrainian MP – BBC

Former Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleg Tsarev © Sputnik / Maksim Blinov
RT | October 27, 2023

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was behind the assassination attempt on Oleg Tsarev, the BBC and several Ukrainian outlets reported on Friday citing a source from the agency.

“Tsarev is an absolutely legitimate target. He is not just a fanatic of the ‘Russian world’, but personally came together with Russian tanks to seize Kiev,” the SBU source told the BBC’s Ukrainian service.

Ukrainian outlets Babel, Ukrinform and Ukrayinska Pravda have also reported that the SBU was behind the attack on Tsarev, likewise quoting an anonymous agency official.

Tsarev was attacked on Thursday night at the sanatorium he runs in Yalta, Crimea. He was reportedly shot two times and had lost a lot of blood before being taken to hospital, where he remains in critical condition.

Russian authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the attack on Tsarev but have yet to attribute blame.

The 53-year-old former Ukrainian lawmaker had retired from politics and settled in the Russian peninsula several years ago. He had served as a deputy from the now-banned ‘Party of Regions’ in Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada from 2002 to 2014. Following the US-backed Maidan coup in Kiev, Tsarev endorsed the rebellion in Donetsk and Lugansk and eventually became the speaker of the parliament of ‘Novorossiya’ – as the two Donbass republics dubbed their union at the time.

The BBC’s source in the SBU described Tsarev as “on the list of traitors who must answer for their crimes,” presumably referring to Ukraine’s notorious Mirotvorets (Peacekeeper) database. As a number of prominent journalists and other public figures featured on the website as “enemies of Ukraine” have been murdered over the years, it has been dubbed Kiev’s “kill list.”

The Mirotvorets page for Tsarev has been updated to blame Thursday’s attempt on his life on “Russian security services.” The site has made the same claim about the assassinations of journalist Darya Dugina and blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, which US spies later said were the work of Ukrainian intelligence.

Valentin Nalivaichenko, former head of the SBU, admitted to the existence of a secret assassination unit last month, in an interview with The Economist. The Washington Post published a lengthy feature last week about the CIA support for the SBU, admitting that the US invested “tens of millions” of dollars into the Ukrainian intelligence and its military counterpart GUR, but insisting it had nothing to do with the “dozens of assassinations” that Kiev’s spies have undertaken.

October 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian attack on Russian nuclear facility thwarted – officials

RT | October 27, 2023

A Ukrainian attack involving multiple drones has been stopped in the Russian city of Kurchatov, home to the Kursk nuclear power plant, according to civilian and military officials. Unconfirmed reports claimed that one of the aircraft damaged a nuclear waste storage building at the site.

The spree of incidents happened on Thursday evening in Kursk Region, which borders Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry reported intercepting a fixed-wing drone over Russian territory on two occasions, about two hours apart, while the power plant’s press service said it was attacked by three enemy drones. Kurchatov is located some 60 km from the Ukrainian border.

The statement by the civilian authorities reported no damage or casualties on the ground, and said all four units of the facility were operating normally. Three of them are currently online, while one is undergoing a shutdown procedure ahead of being decommissioned, it said. The oldest reactor, which first went operational in 1976, has not been generating power since late 2021.

The news outlet SHOT claimed that the incident was more serious than according to official statements, reporting that the third drone “fell next to a nuclear waste storage and blew up.” The report said the blast caused minor damage to the infrastructure but didn’t hurt anyone.

Another drone incident in Kurchatov that may have been an attempted attack on the plant was previously reported in mid-July. An unmanned aerial vehicle, which was described as home-made and fitted with a Taiwan-manufactured jet engine, exploded several kilometers away from the nuclear site, media reported at the time.

Moscow has accused Kiev of launching multiple attempts to sabotage its crucial energy infrastructure, including nuclear power plants, amid ongoing Russian-Ukrainian hostilities.

Earlier this month, the chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, confirmed three failed commando raids on Energodar, the city where the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is located.

Energodar is located in the Zaporozhye region, which joined Russia last year after people living there voted for the move in a referendum. Ukraine has dismissed the vote as a “scam,” and Kiev partially controls the contested territory.

The Zaporozhye plant hosts a monitoring mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog. It was stationed there last year, amid a string of drone and shelling attacks, which Moscow and Kiev blamed on each other.

October 27, 2023 Posted by | Nuclear Power, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Slovakia Says Europe Should Not Supply Arms to Ukraine

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 26, 2023

The new government of Slovakia has followed through with its campaign pledge to terminate arms transfers and is calling on the rest of Europe to adopt Bratislava’s policy. Slovakia’s new leader, Robert Fico, has called for the European Union to take on a peacekeeper role in the Ukraine war, and Bratislava will not support further sanctions on Moscow.

Fico told members of Slovakia’s legislature on Thursday that Bratislava was abandoning the West’s proxy war against Russia.  “I will support zero military aid to Ukraine… An immediate halt to military operations is the best solution we have for Ukraine. The EU should change from an arms supplier to a peacemaker,” he said. Adding, Slovakia will “no longer supply weapons to Ukraine.”

As well as terminating support for Kiev’s war effort, Fico explained Slovakia will no longer support Washington’s economic war on Moscow. “I will not vote for any sanctions against Russia unless we see analyses of their impact on Slovakia.” He continued, “If there are to be such sanctions that will harm us, like most sanctions have, I can see no reason to support them.”

Additionally, Fico said, “the people in Slovakia have bigger problems than (dealing with) Ukraine” and “further killing [in Ukraine] will not help anyone.”

Fico’s left-wing Smer-SD won Slovakia’s election early this month on a platform that highlighted ending arms transfers to Ukraine.

While President Joe Biden insists that Washington will support Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” several Eastern European countries have started to terminate support for Kiev. Poland announced it would end weapons transfers after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky slammed Warsaw during his UN address.

October 27, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Tracking device found on Poland’s presidential car after its recent return from Ukraine

BY GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK | TVN24 via: BUSINESSINSIDER.COM.PL | October 25, 2023

A tracking device has been found by state protection officers on a vehicle used by the Polish Presidential Office, Polish news outlet TVN 24 reported on Tuesday.

State Protection Service (SOP) officers made the discovery shortly after the vehicle had returned from a trip to Ukraine.

According to the news outlet, the device allowed for real-time tracking of the vehicle’s location based on its GPS coordinates, and preliminary investigations suggested the vehicle could have been being tracked for several months.

The discovery was made by bomb technicians of the SOP, who, in line with procedures, were checking cars set to be included in the presidential motorcade for any explosive devices.

It is understood that the vehicle had not been recently used by Polish President Andrzej Duda but by members of his entourage; however, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that he could have used the compromised car in the future.

“There was an uproar, as it wasn’t clear who installed the device,” an SOP officer told TVN24. “It turned out that this car might have been driving with this device for several months and was often included in the president’s motorcade, including during his trips to Ukraine,” they added.

The incident has sparked a mass check of all vehicles assigned to the presidential office that may be integrated into convoys with protected individuals. Previously, the frequency of such checks varied.

Typically, the presidential motorcade consists of three cars: one primary vehicle carrying the president and two protective vehicles. Additional cars can be added with SOP approval.

The press office of the Polish Presidential Office did not comment on the revelation, nor did the press spokesperson for SOP or the ABW (Agency of Internal Security) press services.

October 25, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

US Treasury Deficit Doubles as Biden Bankrolls Multiple Foreign Conflicts

By James Tweedie – Sputnik – 23.10.2023

The US is going further into the red with as it arms its client states for a series of conflicts. Sergio Rossi, professor of macroeconomics and monetary economics at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, said the strategies to avoid a default would only prove to be a “time-bomb.”

US President Joe Biden’s appeal for cash to arm Ukraine and Israel could meet resistance from Congress thanks to the runaway federal budget.

Treasury department figures released late last week showed the government deficit had hit almost £1.7 trillion, up from £1.37 trillion a year earlier, a 23 percent increase in the public debt — although lower than the $2.78 trillion left by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.

The news was worse than it sounded however. The 2022 deficit included the budget for Biden’s student loan repayment program, money that was never spent as the Supreme Court struck it down. The treasury then claimed those unspent public funds as a “saving” in 2023 — meaning the true deficit doubled from $1 trillion in 2022 to $2 trillion this year.

That news came a day before Biden asked Congress for a $106 billion emergency foreign military aid budget. The lion’s share, $61.4 billion, is earmarked for Washington’s proxy conflict with Russia in Ukraine, while another $14.3 billion is to arm Israel for its latest attempt to destroy the Hamas movement in the besieged Gaza Strip.

That request dwarfs the $77 billion in arms and cash gifted to the Kiev regime since the start of Russia’s de-Nazification operation in February 2022.

Economist Sergio Rossi told Sputnik that the mounting deficit would make it harder for Biden to persuade Congress to approve his $100 billion budget request for more arms to Ukraine and Israel “in light of the problematic economic situation and outlook for the US stakeholders, namely, households, firms, and a variety of financial institutions.”

“Usually, when the domestic economic situation worsens, these stakeholders and their political supporters reduce the volume of foreign aid, to focus on supporting their own national economy first of all,” Rossi said.

He said the funding the conflict in Ukraine — while preparing for a Pacific showdown with China over Taiwan — had already put too much strain on Washington’s finances before the Palestinian Hamas movement launched a surprise attack into southern Israel.

“The US government cannot continue financing two military conflicts, particularly if the latter will continue without any foreseeable peaceful agreement before long,” Rossi stressed. “There are already signs that the political consensus for such a financial support is diminishing across the US economy, notably where both the labour and the product markets are in a difficult situation for a number of middle-class workers and several small or medium-sized firms.”

The state of the US economy was “worrying,” he said, and the outlook for the next two years was “even worse,” thanks to “global macroeconomic issues related to different geopolitical problems.”

The “mushroom” of ensuing inflation has badly affected consumer purchasing power. “As a result, firms’ investment is discouraged, both because of this inflationary pressure and the Fed’s repeated increases in the policy rates of interest.”

“The US economy is even closer to a recession than it was one year ago,” Rossi warned, although “there is no potential risk of a default of the US federal government.”

He pointed out that Congress could simply raise the public debt ceiling and the US Federal Reserve could buy up government bonds as an effective loan.

“This, however, is a time bomb that eventually can burst, particularly once some viable and credible alternative to the US dollar will emerge across the global economy,” Rossi said. “The BRICS community could provide such an alternative in a not-too-distant future.”

October 23, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »