Press TV – May 23, 2023
Ukraine has suffered a massive loss of 10,000 drones per month in its war against Russia, which has effectively utilized electronic warfare to down the UAVs provided by the Western countries, a British think tank reports.
Russia’s use of technology-based defense systems has contributed to the staggering loss of Ukrainian drones amid the persisting use of navigational interference by the Russian military in the battle area as a form of electronic protection, the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) unveiled in a new report.
The report appears to entirely dismiss earlier media campaigns by Western news outlets, blaming Russian use of a large number of “Iranian drones” for major losses inflicted on Ukrainian side. Both Tehran and Moscow had totally rejected such reports.
RUSI further insisted, Russia has demonstrated that it is “highly capable” of intercepting and decrypting Ukrainian military communications.
“Russian EW is also apparently achieving real-time interception and decryption of Ukrainian [US-made] Motorola 256-bit encrypted tactical communications systems, which are widely employed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the report added.
It also pointed out that Russian troops have adjusted their sending of electronic warfare systems, setting one around each 10 kilometer along the front lines, which run through Ukraine’s eastern and southern districts.
According to the report, Ukraine’s monumental losses of drones include both military and commercial UAVs that have been heavily utilized for its war with Russia.
It then noted that Gyrocopter, a commercial drone, has been used for “reconnaissance” while other types have been used in direct assaults as well as targeting tools to coordinate artillery barrages.
Despite its incredibly high losses of UAVs, the report further underlines that Kiev is capable of making, purchasing and acquiring the required number of drones, without elaborating on the funding amid the country’s broken economy and the widely reported fact that it obtains nearly all of its weaponry through military grants from the US and the European Union.
Other changes have been identified in Russian military operations during the second year of the war, the RUSI report adds. It found that Russian forces are flexible and make changes to redress their deficiencies.
Although the Ukraine conflict has witnessed “high-tech tactics stalled or countered by rough terrain, electronic jammers and older tactics such as trench warfare, the use of drones has been a major part of both side’s doctrine,” the report emphasizes.
“In addition to reconnaissance purposes, they’ve been used in direct assaults as well as targeting tools to coordinate artillery barrages, the latter of which has been a dominant element in the conflict.”
The West has supplied Kiev with tens of billions of dollars worth of various weaponry since the onset of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine last year.
Moscow insists it launched the operation as a security measure against persisting eastern advance of the US-led NATO military alliance and the protection of the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine from abusive treatment by Kiev forces.
Western countries, led by the US, have been providing massive amounts of arms and munitions to Ukraine with a declared objective of prolonging the war against Russia and keeping Moscow engaged in a protracted conflict with neighboring Ukraine.
RT | May 23, 2023
An agreement between the US and Russia is the only thing that can end the conflict in Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated on Monday. Orban has repeatedly accused EU leaders of serving American, rather than European, interests by continuing to bankroll Kiev.
Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday, Orban reiterated his position that Ukraine cannot win on the battlefield, and that Kiev and its Western backers must pursue peace talks with Russia.
“First we should have a ceasefire,” he said. “Then let’s talk about the new security architecture of the European continent.”
“The only peace agreement that could close this whole conflict is if it is between Russia and the United States,” he elaborated. “What is at stake is the future security of Europe. It’s obvious that without the US there is no security architecture for Europe, and now the war can only be stopped if the Russians can make an agreement with the United States.”
“As a European I am not happy with that,” he added. “But this is the only way out.”
Throughout the conflict, Orban has repeatedly spoken out against the West’s twin policies of military aid to Kiev and sanctions on Moscow, arguing that the former risks escalating the conflict to a global war and the latter harms Europe’s economy more than Russia’s.
The Hungarian prime minister has also argued that only Washington has the power to pressure Kiev into peace talks, and that decisions made in Brussels “reflect American interests more often than European ones.”
With the US dragging Europe into a conflict it cannot win, Orban has suggested that “the solution would be a European NATO” without the US as a member.
Hungary is currently blocking a €500 million ($540 million) EU military aid package for Ukraine. Apart from his long-standing opposition to escalating the conflict, Orban cited Ukraine’s sanctioning of a Hungarian bank as a reason for the hold up.
“If a country like Ukraine would like to get our financial support, they can’t put our companies on a blacklist,” he said on Tuesday. “If you need our money, please respect us.”
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | May 23, 2023
American statists cannot understand why the Russian people continue to support their president Vladimir Putin and their government’s invasion of Ukraine. For American statists, the issue is very simple: Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia bad. Russians should oppose Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime. End of story.
Fair enough. But let’s engage in a hypothetical.
Let’s assume that Russia establishes military bases and installs nuclear weapons in Cuba. The U.S. government declares, “No way, bud! We are just not going to permit you to do that. Remove them or experience the wrath of our all-powerful military machine.”
Suppose Russia takes the same position as Ukraine and says, “We are not budging. We have the right to enter into an alliance with Cuba, just as Ukraine has the right to join NATO. Moreover, Russia has the same right to establish military bases and install nuclear missiles in Cuba that NATO has to establish military bases and install nuclear missiles in Ukraine.”
A far-fetched hypothetical?
Well, not exactly.
In January 2022, Putin stated that he was thinking of sending Russian troops to Cuba. The U.S. reaction was immediate. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan exclaimed, “If Russia were to move in that direction, we would deal with it decisively.”
What Sullivan meant by that statement was that the U.S. would issue an immediate demand that Russia cease and desist. If it refused to do so, a U.S. invasion of Cuba would follow.
In other words, the U.S. government was threatening to do to Cuba what Russia has done to Ukraine.
In fact, if we go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, that is what happened then. The Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba. The U.S. government demanded that they be removed. If they refused to remove them, the U.S. government declared that it would do exactly what the Russian government has done to Ukraine. It would bomb and invade Cuba.
So, my hypothetical clearly falls within the realm of reasonable possibility.
Given such, the question naturally arises: What would American statists who are exclaiming against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine do if that were to happen? Would they oppose the U.S. invasion of Cuba and come to the support of Cuba and Russia?
I think not. I think they would immediately come to the support of the U.S. government and its invasion of Cuba, just as most Russians have come to the support of their government and its invasion of Ukraine.
Sputnik – 21.05.2023
BUDAPEST – Hungary is waiting for explanations from Ukraine and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen concerning reports on a possible stop of oil supplies from Russia to the European Union via the Druzhba pipeline, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.
Last week, media reported that von der Leyen had offered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to suspend the Druzhba pipeline, which transits Russian oil to Hungary among other EU countries, as part of the 11th package of sanctions against Moscow. A British business newspaper later reported that the EU was considering expanding Russian oil embargo by cutting transit through Druzhba, adding that the European Commission refused to provide any comments.
“We have received no explanations concerning this from Kiev. I think this is an issue of such importance that the European Commission’s president should personally present explanations as energy security is a question of sovereignty,” Szijjarto told a Hungarian radio station.
If someone attempts to make a secure energy supply impossible for a country, it can be considered an infringement on the country’s sovereignty, he explained.
International treaties guarantee Hungary transit oil supplies from Ukraine, the minister said, going on to accuse Ukraine and Croatia of taking advantage of conflict to raise the transit fee by five to six times.
By Gilbert Doctorow | May 21, 2023
Our language is in constant evolution. Partly this is bottom up, from the inventiveness of creative personalities or writers for commercial advertising. Partly it is top down, from the powers that be as they seek to manipulate and control the thought processes of the broad public.
My brief essay today addresses the latter phenomenon and the introduction of the word “disinformation” into common parlance. There is a charming freshness to it, unlike the stale and repugnant word “propaganda.”
The word “disinformation” has a specific context in time and intent: it is used by the powers that be and by the mainstream media they control to denigrate, marginalize and suppress sources of military, political, economic and other information that might contradict the official government narrative and so dilute the control exercised by those in power over the general population. It is to remove “disinformation” from public life that the United States and EU member states ban RT and other Russian media outlets from the internet, from satellite and cable television channels. The censorship here in Europe varies from country to country and is probably most drastic in France and Germany. One would think that these European states are truly at war with Russia, not just giving a helping hand to Kiev.
In reality, it is these censorious states and the mass media that carry their messages with stenographic precision into print and electronic dissemination who are the ones that day after day feed disinformation to the public. It is cynically composed and consists of a toxic blend of ‘spin,’ by which is meant misleading interpretation of events, and outright lies.
The many months long battle for the provincial Donbas city of Bakhmut, or Artyomovsk as it is known in Russia, has been described variously from on high in Washington, London and Berlin. When the likely outcome was unclear, the defense of Bakhmut was called heroic and demonstrative of the brave fighting spirit of the Ukrainians.
Casualty figures issued by Kiev and then trumpeted from Washington suggested that the Russians were stupidly throwing away the lives of their fighting men by using WWI style human waves of attackers who were decimated by the defenders. Russian lives are cheap was the message. The fact that Russian artillery on site outnumbered and outperformed Ukrainian artillery by a factor of five or seven to one was freely admitted by the Western propagandists as they pleaded for increased supplies to Kiev. They, nonetheless, issued casualty reports for the Russians that inverted the force correlation. It was assumed, obviously with reason, that the public was too lazy or too uninterested to do the arithmetic.
At one moment, the spin doctors in Washington, London and Berlin said that Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut made sense because it was pinning down Russian forces and giving time to the Ukrainians to train and position their men for the heralded “counter offensive” during which they would overrun Russian positions at chosen points in the 600 mile line of combat and drive a wedge through to the Sea of Azov, opening the way for recapture of Crimea. Those were grand words and ambitions to justify continued and ever rising Western military assistance to Kiev.
At another point, the spin doctors said it would be better if Ukraine stopped losing men in Bakhmut and launched instead that much vaunted counter-offensive. Now we were told that Bakhmut is just a Russian fantasy, that it has no strategic value.
In the past couple of weeks, the Russian command has issued daily reports on the progressive capture by Russian forces of Bakhmut, square kilometer after square kilometer. We were told they controlled 75%, then 80% and most recently more than 90% of the city proper while artillery bombardment of the remaining blocks of high rise residential buildings that were being used by Ukrainian defenders for their sniper attacks and intelligence reports on Russian troop movements pulverized everything in their path.
At this point, the attention of Western media defending truth against Russian disinformation was directed at the Ukrainian “successes” in recapturing settlements on the flanks of Bakhmut. Just three days ago The New York Times was telling its readers that these “breakthroughs” by the Ukrainians put in jeopardy the Russian forces holding the city proper: they might be surrounded and compelled to surrender or die. The possibility that the offensives on the flanks were only intended to facilitate withdrawal of remaining Ukrainian soldiers from Bakhmut and were tolerated by the Russians to avoid bloody fights to the death – that possibility crossed no one’s mind at the NYT, it seems.
Midday yesterday, 20 May, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group which did most of the fighting for Bakhmut on the ground, claimed total victory. In the evening, President Vladimir Putin announced to the Russian public that Bakhmut was taken. Joyous messages of congratulations filled the internet message services in Russia as the broad public celebrated a victory as iconic as the Battle for Stalingrad.
Meanwhile, the defenders of the Western public against Russian “disinformation” were hard at work, straining their brains to find what to say. This morning’s New York Times still speaks of the battle for Bakhmut as undecided, pointing yet again to the Ukrainian hold on the flanks.
Given their losses in men and materiel defending Bakhmut, the surrender of the city to the Russians will be a great blow to Ukrainian fighting morale when it is finally admitted. So will the fate of their Commander in Chief General Zaluzhny who, according to Russian sources, has been hospitalized for the past two weeks and remains in critical condition after falling victim to a Russian strike on a provincial command center which killed most of the high officers around him. If nothing else, this speaks to the amazing success of Russian military intelligence directing their firepower.
Meanwhile, Western media attention to Ukraine is conveniently redirected at the nonstop travels of President Zalensky who went from his European tour on to the Middle East, where he attended the meeting of the Arab League, and thence via French military jet to the G7 gathering in Hiroshima where he held talks with fellow heads of state and joined them for the obligatory group photos. All the talk was about when the U.S. will formally give its consent to the dispatch of F16s to Kiev. For the disseminators of Western disinformation this is a wonderful distraction from a war that clearly is going badly for Kiev and in particular a distraction from the counter offensive that looks less likely with each passing day of Russian military strikes on the command centers and weapons stores of the Ukrainian side.
The plume of radioactive smoke and ash that rose from the Khmelnitsky store of British depleted uranium artillery shells in Western Ukraine after a Russian missile strike, just like the extensive damage to the Patriot air defense installation near Kiev by a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile tell us all what will be the fate of future Western arms deliveries to Ukraine. It is an interesting question how much longer the Ukrainian military or politicians will put up with their high flying, good life President while the country is well on its way to hell.
Press TV – May 21, 2023
US President Joe Biden has announced a new $375 million package of military aid to Ukraine on Sunday despite warnings from Russia, saying that the United States was making every effort to “bolster Ukraine’s defense” in its war against Russia.
“Together with the entire G7, we have Ukraine’s back and I promise we’re not going anywhere,” Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as they met on the sidelines of the G7 summit of world leaders in Hiroshima, Japan.
The latest military aid package will include ammunition, artillery, armored vehicles, and training of forces, according to Biden.
Biden emphasized during the meeting that his nation was prepared to assist in enhancing Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself against and deter Russian forces, the White House said in a statement.
The US president also talked about his country’s support for a coordinated effort with allied and partner nations to train Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation fighters like the F-16, the White House added.
Zelenskiy thanked the US for the latest military aid package, and also for all the assistance of a whopping $37 billion to date, according to his office.
The US and its Western allies have kept feeding Ukraine with massive amounts of arms since the start of the Ukrainian conflict last year, which according to Russia is the sole reason that the conflict is not coming to an end.
Russia has repeatedly warned the Western governments such as the US and UK against arming Ukraine and fanning the flames of war.
Apart from sending lethal armaments, the Western countries have supported Ukraine by imposing a raft of sanctions against Russia.
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MAY 21, 2023
The G7 Leaders’ 2700-word statement on Ukraine, issued in Hiroshima after their summit meeting glossed over the burning question today — the so-called counter-offensive against the Russian forces.
It is a deafening silence, since rumours are swirling about the disappearance of the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces. Significantly, President Vladimir Zelensky himself is making himself scarce from Kiev touring world capitals — Helsinki, Hague, Rome, Vatican, Berlin, Paris, London and Jeddah and Hiroshima. It does seem that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
As the G7 summit ended, the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on Saturday that the Russian operation to capture the strategic communication hub of Bakhmut in Donbass region of eastern Ukraine lasting 224 days, has been brought to a successful completion, overcoming the resistance by more than 80,000 Ukrainian troops.
It is a painful moment for Zelensky, who had boasted before US lawmakers in Capitol Hill last December that “just like the Battle of Saratoga (in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War), the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war for independence and for freedom.”
Meanwhile, to distract attention, there is talk now about a subtle shift in the US policy regarding supply of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine in an indeterminate future. In reality, though, no one can tell what the Ukrainian rump state will look like when the jets arrive. Unsurprisingly, the Biden Administration still seems to be in two minds. F-16 is a hot item for export; what happens if the Russians were to blow it out of the sky with their hi-tech weapons and rubbish its fame ?
The Russians seem to have concluded that nothing short of a total victory will make the Americans and the British understand that Moscow means business on the three objectives behind the special military operations that are non-negotiable: security and safety of the ethnic Russian community and their right to live in peace and dignity in the new territories; demilitarisation and de-Nazification of Ukraine; and a neutral, sovereign, independent Ukraine freed from the US clutches and no longer a hostile neighbour.
To be sure, the unprecedented levels of US hostility towards Russia only hardened Moscow’s resolve. If the Anglo-Saxon alliance keeps climbing the escalation ladder, the Russian campaign may well expand the operation to the entire region east of the Dnieper River. The Russians are in this war for the long haul and the ball is in the American court.
What comes to mind is a speech last July by President Vladimir Putin while addressing the Duma. He had said, “Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try. We have already heard a lot about the West wanting to fight us ‘to the last Ukrainian.’ This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but that seems to be where it is going. But everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet.”
Well, the Russian operation has finally started “in earnest.” The thinking behind the delay is unmistakeable. Putin underscored in his speech that the West should know that the longer Russia’s special military operation goes on, “the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us.”
Therefore, the big question is about the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Russian forces enjoy overwhelming superiority in every sense militarily. Even if the hard core of the Ukrainian forces who were trained in the West, numbering some 30-35000 soldiers, manage to achieve some “breakthrough” in the 950-kilometre long frontline, what happens thereafter?
Make no mistake, a massive Russian counterattack will follow and the Ukrainian soldiers may only end up in a fire trap and suffer huge losses in their tens of thousands. What would the Anglo-Saxon axis have achieved?
Besides, the Ukrainian military will have so thoroughly exhausted itself that there will be nothing stopping the Russian forces from advancing toward Kharkov and Odessa. Herein lies the paradox. For, from that point, Russians will have no one to talk to.
If past American behaviour — be it Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq and Syria — is anything to go by, Washington will do nothing. The well-known American strategic thinker Col. (Retd.) David MacGreggor couldn’t have put things better when he said earlier this week:
“I can tell you that Washington is going to do nothing. And I’ve always warned… we (United States) are not a continental power, not a land power anywhere but in our own Hemisphere. We are primarily an aerospace and maritime power, much like Great Britain. And what does that mean? When things go badly for us, we sail away, we fly away, we go home… That’s what we always do. Eventually, we just leave. And I think, that’s on the agenda now.”
The stony silence of the G7 statement on the Ukrainian counteroffensive is understandable. The G7 statement needs to be juxtaposed with a report appearing in Politico on the eve of the summit in Hiroshima which, quoting senior US officials elaborated on an audacious plan to transform the Ukraine war into a “frozen conflict” on the analogy of the Korean Peninsula or Kashmir.
A Pentagon official told the daily that recent military aid packages to Ukraine reflect the Biden administration’s “shift to a longer-term strategy.” Reportedly, US officials are already talking to Kiev about the nature of their relationship in the future.
Principally, if Ukraine’s NATO membership bid stalls, western guarantees could range from a NATO-style Article 5 mutual defence deal to Israel-style arms deals with Ukraine so that “the conflict will wind up somewhere in between an active war and a chilled standoff.”
Indeed, the G7 statement began conceptualising the “Europeanisation” of Ukraine with reforms, a market economy driven by the private sector and western financial institutions, and boosting Kiev’s deterrent capability vis-a-vis Russia militarily.
It is quite amazing. Hardly has one flawed narrative — espousing Russia’s military defeat in Ukraine and the overthrow of Putin — unravelled, another narrative is being hoisted, predicated on the simplistic notion that Russia will simply roll over and passively watch the US integrating Ukraine into the western alliance system to create an open wound festering on Russia’s western borders that will drain resources for decades to come and complicating ties with neighbours.
However, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s reaction to the G7 Summit confirms that Moscow will not fall into the trap of a “frozen conflict.” Lavrov said, “Could you take a look at those decisions which are being debated and adopted at the G7 summit in Hiroshima and which are aimed at dual containment of Russia and the People’s Republic of China?
“The objective was announced loudly and frankly, which is to defeat Russia on the battlefield, and without stopping at this, to eliminate it later as a geopolitical rival, so to speak, along with any other country that claims an independent place in the world, they will be suppressed as opponents.”
Lavrov also pointed out that the Western countries’ expert community is overtly discussing the order to work out scenarios aimed at Russia’s breakup, and “they do not conceal that the existence of Russia as an independent centre is incompatible with the goal of the West’s global domination.” The Minister said, “We have to give a firm and consistent response to the war declared upon us.”
Yet, it is not as if Americans are incapable of seeing the war through Russia’s eyes. Read here a letter pleading for some sanity in Washington penned by a group of distinguished former American diplomats and military officials associated with the Eisenhower Media Network. By the way, they paid to get it in the New York Times, but the rest of the establishment media chose to ignore it.
RT | May 19, 2023
The most high-profile Ukrainian “terrorist acts” in Russia were carried out with the assistance of Washington, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, has claimed.
Speaking at a government meeting on Friday, Patrushev said that Russia has information that “the murders of Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky, the bombing of Zakhar Prilepin’s car, the explosion at the Crimean Bridge,” the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage, and other “terrorists acts” were “planned and carried out under the coordination of US special services”.
Those attacks were “accompanied by an information campaign prepared in advance in Washington and London, designed to destabilize the social and political situation, [and to] undermine the constitutional foundations and sovereignty of Russia,” the security chief stressed.
“The intensity of terrorist attacks has vastly increased” since Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine over a year ago, he added.
According to Patrushev, Ukrainian saboteur groups, who are trained by NATO instructors, have been actively trying to target important infrastructure inside Russia, including with drones.
In view of those events additional measures should be implemented to protect key facilities and places where people gather in large numbers, he said.
Earlier this week, the chief of Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) General Kirill Budanov was asked about attacks on prominent Russian public figures and replied that his agency has “already gotten many” of them. However, he declined to mention any names. In an earlier interview, Budanov vowed to “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”
Journalist and activist Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, died after her car exploded on a highway outside Moscow last summer. Russia’s Security Service (FSB) said the murder of the 29-year-old was carried out by Ukrainian nationals, who managed to flee the country.
In late April, Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in St Petersburg after a statue that had been handed to him during an event with his followers exploded. A dozen people were also wounded. The FSB has blamed the blast on “Ukrainian special services and their agents, including fugitive members of the Russian opposition.”
Earlier this month, prominent Russian author and political activist Zakhar Prilepin was severely injured in a car bomb near the city of Nizhny Novgorod. His driver was killed. A suspect has admitted to Russian law enforcement that he’d been hired by an unspecified Ukrainian intelligence service.
Sputnik – 19.05.2023
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev warned on Friday that a radioactive cloud was heading towards Western Europe following the destruction of a Ukrainian warehouse storing British-supplied depleted uranium ammunition.
Sputnik News spoke with Dr. Chris Busby, physical chemist and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, about how the West’s decision to provide depleted uranium (DU) ammunition to Ukraine has potentially caused a continent-wide ecological disaster. Below is his answer in full.
Recently, several web media outlets provided videos of an enormous explosion in the town of Khmelnitski, located to the West of Kiev, and about 200 km from the border with Poland. There were two major explosions which produced a massive roiling swirling fireball which, like an atomic bomb, developed upwards and formed a mushroom cloud, which was black.
I have represented nuclear atmospheric test veterans in the Royal Courts of Justice in London and have seen many films of nuclear explosions: this was not one. A nuclear explosion is characterised by an immediate intense white light which wipes out the camera film or detector.
So, what was it? It was suggested by several commentators that an arms depot that had been hit contained the Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons sent by the UK to the Ukraine for use in the British Challenger tanks as anti-tank penetrators. That the explosion was one involving the burning of the DU in the fireball. Since I am a scientific authority on Uranium and its health effects, but have also examined its dispersion and behaviour in the environment, I will comment on what I believe happened, and why it is important. I was a member of the UK government Ministry of Defence Depleted Uranium Oversight Board (DUOB) in 2000-2005, and also the UK government Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters (CERRIE) 2000-2004. I am Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) which is an independent NGO that provides advice on risk from ionising radiation.
My main research interest in this area is Uranium and health, particularly the DU particles, which are so small they act as a gas and move over very large distances once they are created by the burning of DU. I found them in England in 2003 after they had come from Iraq. I found them in 2023 in England after they came from the Ukraine war. So that is the first thing: the material is able to travel very large distances.
Therefore, if the Khmelnitski explosion was a DU one, the material would move with the wind direction and should be detectable at monitor sites downwind.
First, we need to say that DU has a gamma signature, it releases gamma rays. The UK and USA governments lie about this. They point to the fact that the U-238, that remains after the fissile U-235 is removed in the centrifuges (and is sent off for nuclear weapons and reactors), is a weak alpha emitter.
They say that alpha radiation cannot penetrate skin and so the DU itself is harmless. That it cannot be detected by a Geiger Counter and the alpha particles don’t make it through the window. There is, of course, a health problem if the post-impact particles are inhaled and pass into the body through the lung into the lymphatic system or directly into the digestive system, but essentially DU is harmless.
What you need to know is that Uranium 238, when it decays with its alpha emission, turns into Thorium-234 and Protoactinium-234m which then turns into Uranium 234. Thorium 234 is a beta and gamma emitter delivering 6% of its decay energy as a gamma ray. Thus, large clouds of DU particulate aerosol will be detectable by gamma detectors.
When I visited Iraq with Al Jazeera in 2000 I went to the south and examined the corpses of the tanks that had been hit by DU in the first Gulf War. Some of the A-10 DU penetrators were still lying around. They gave off an intense gamma ray signal, and the holes in the tanks were highly gamma ray active. So much for only an alpha emitter.
I am a yachtsman: examination of the UK metereological weather pressure maps tell us that at the time, and for days after the explosion, there was an anticyclone to the North of the explosion site and winds were weak but from the South East blowing North Westerly around the high-pressure area. So, the plume would move towards Poland. If the winds were about 5km/h they would reach any Poland detectors 250 km away on the 15th.
After Chernobyl, the European Union set up a Europe-wide gamma radiation detector system that used to give gamma readings in real time. I went to look. But astonishingly, all the data was blocked. The web- based system, administered from Germany, (EURDEP) would not provide the detector maps that are normally available. Luckily, there were some location maps on the web and some that had been already downloaded by colleagues of mine before the system stopped working. I obtained maps from Poland. One of these I show below.
You will see that a very highly significant increase in gamma radiation occurred at this detector, north west of the explosion site almost exactly when it would be expected on the basis of a distance of 250km and a mean wind speed of 5km/h. The increase, from 60nSv/h to 90nSv/h was highly statistically significant about 50%. Other detectors all across Poland showed an increase*, as the plume passed over them, the increase being weaker the further away (due to dispersion of the plume).
Later, the Poles measured the increase at the Marie Curie Institute in Lublin, but their map was a more sophisticated one and needed some expert interpretation. The Polish map gave gamma increases split into two natural isotopes, Bismuth and Thallium, also total gamma and cosmic ray gamma.
From the map, we are to assume (and this was the implicit message) that the gamma peak was due to Bismuth. Enter Sherlock Holmes. Bismuth 214 is a Radon daughter. The natural background radioactive gas Radon (Rn-222) is always present, since it is produced from Uranium and Radium in the ground. If there is a sudden change in atmospheric pressure, or when it rains, there is a gamma peak from Radon, which shows itself as the Bi-214 peak. So, the Poles seem to be implying that the increase in gamma radiation is normal and nothing to get scared about. Many have picked up on the Bismuth spectrum. But the way in which the Polish graphs are presented is misleading.
The problem with a radon argument is first that the gamma increases go up all across Poland at a time scale that identifies a plume from Khmelnitsky and second that there was a stable anticyclone weather system and no atmospheric pressure changes that might pull radon out of the ground. I checked all that. There was only some light rain over Lublin.
There is, however, an additional possibility. Very fine particles attract Radon: you get a slight increase in gamma from Radon near factory chimneys that emit fine particles.
The European radiation detector system web map came back online yesterday. The map type had been changed and everything we saw in the downloads had disappeared or had been smudged out by data analysis averaging. Why? This, and the early blocking of access to the site suggest panic and cover-up.
So taken all together, what we see is a massive explosion which is thought to be DU, and reports of a spike in gamma radiation near the site. Uranium oxide is black, and the black plume moves north west slowly, the weather pattern is stable and the wind blows to Poland. The Polish EU detectors all show gamma radiation increases at the expected time of arrival of the plume. The EU detector system is shut down rapidly, but not before we have obtained data from several sites. The Poles provide a detector result that identified Bismuth as the cause of the increase, but do not go so far as to formally state that it is (in case of later blowback).
One final piece of evidence. We see videos on the internet of the Ukrainians clearing up the explosion site using Robot vehicles, not ordinary firemen. Why do they need Robot vehicles? The last times we saw Robot vehicles clearing up was in the ruins of Chernobyl and Fukushima.
If I am right, there has been an environmental disaster, and the DU particles will travel across Poland, Germany and Hungary, and will end up in the Baltics, probably later the whole of Europe including the UK (after all, the Chernobyl Uranium particles came to the UK).
They will deliver genetic damage and death like that seen in the Balkans and Iraq. Cancer, birth defects, miscarriage, infertility, lung damage, mental problems (Gulf War Syndrome) and so forth. The scientific and epidemiological evidence on this has been clear since the Gulf War. It is all there in the scientific literature—but the governments in the West and the military ignore it, deny it and cover it up. In the case of the UK coroners court finding for Stuart Dyson, the jury found that DU caused his fatal colon cancer. But when the coroner wrote to the health minister (as he had to by UK law, Rule 43) the reply was: we disagree. This stuff can be measured, but no one will measure it, or if they do, they will be attacked and their arguments dismissed.
Even if I am wrong, and there is some other explanation for the gamma peaks, DU must be banned. It is a weapon of indiscriminate effect and kills civilians, the enemy and your own troops (well, Ukrainian troops). It is much worse than a war gas, like Sarin, or phosgene, mustard gas or all the other chemical agents banned by civilisation. This stuff destroys the genetic basis of life itself. And no one does anything. Those who use it base their action on obsolete science supported by dishonest epidemiology carried out by dishonest scientists and obsolete and fantastical risk models.
Those who provide the weapons, the UK government in this case, are morally bankrupt. Unless it is their intention to destroy the Ukrainian people. Who knows anymore? The world has gone mad.
*Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency claims there is no increase in radiation levels.
By Uriel Araujo | May 19, 2023
On May 16, Ukraine claimed its air defenses intercepted six Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and shot them down amid an “exceptionally dense” barrage fired – supposedly thanks to the arrival of Patriots, among other Western combat systems. Kinzhals are supposed to be able to overcome all existing air defense systems, and Moscow denies its Kinzhals were intercepted.
Kiev also claims to have shot down 29 of 30 Russian rockets on May 18, an obviously inflated number. However, a Ukrainian infrastructure facility in Khmelnytskyi has been hit by a missile, with no casualties reported. The barrage came as a response to Kiev’s advancements in Bakhmut. Ukrainian forces are reportedly preparing to launch a counteroffensive. Ukraine’s defense systems, however, should not be overestimated.
While Western powers are finally coming to realize that Kiev simply does not possess the necessary means to win the ongoing conflict, much is being written about Western air defenses supposedly being key for Western victory in its proxy war in Eastern Europe against Moscow. Despite Ukrainian denials, American officials have confirmed US-made Patriot was indeed damaged by Russian strikes. According to the Russian defense ministry, on 16 May Kinzhal destroyed a Patriot missile defense system (five launchers and a multifunctional radar). This is one of the most advanced US air defense systems. Albeit trying to minimize the damage, US authorities speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity said that they would have a better understanding of the situation “in the coming days” and that “information could change”.
In the past days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been busy touring different European countries and so far he has been promised billions of dollars in military equipment by allies such as the United Kingdom (UK) and France. How much different can those make?
The hard truth is that Kiev remains unable to create a single control system or an interface for the various Western air defense systems and their different components, as these possess a large range of functional features and thus are poorly integrated into the already existing systems. This means that they would operate ineffectively if included in a single circuit. NATO’s anti-aircraft systems can fully control one defined sector of airspace at a time, but cannot intercept operational-tactical missiles that move along an aeroballistic trajectory, such as the Russian hypersonic Kinzhais. For Ukraine, it would therefore be necessary to construct a whole new system, which is no simple task during a confrontation – not to mention doing so quickly enough.
Moreover, according to defense and IR journalist S. Tiwari of the EurAsian Times, the Patriot, IRIS-T and NASAMS systems cannot protect Ukrainian troops from guided bombs, such as the ones massively used by Russian forces. Ukrainian Lieutenant Colonel Denis Smazhny, an aerial defense specialist, in turn has confirmed the low effectiveness of the US-sent NASAMS and IRIS-T complexes (supplied by Germany) to face Russian ballistic missiles such as the Iskanders and Kinzhals. The Russian weapons, unlike cruise missiles, are capable of rising to very high altitudes to fall almost vertically onto the target at great speeds. Thus, targeting them in flight is very difficult. How can one make them fall when they are in fact “already falling”?
Thus, in Colonel Smazhny’s words, “Western air defense systems will not be able to protect us.” Even with the Western systems, quickly creating an integrated and effective system for airspace defense is a challenge for Ukraine, to say the least. This is why Kiev has been eyeing an Israeli system called Iron Dome, which could suit its needs better. However, military and technical issues are often entangled with political and diplomatic matters.
During a US Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces session (about missile-defense matters), last week, American Senator Angus King asked why Iron Dome had not been deployed in the Eastern European nation. The answer is quite simple: the main producer of such systems is Israel and thus it would have to grant Washington permission to send it to any other country, such as Ukraine. Despite several requests, this has not happened.
Tel Aviv sees Russia as a regional great power with which it must engage in a number of issues in the Middle East. For one thing, Moscow and Tel Aviv currently have a working relationship in the Levant, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself has stated he has no reason to damage bilateral relations. Moreover, even if Israeli approval were to happen, which remains unlikely, this would still not necessarily make a great difference other than a symbolic one: Russian weapons are indeed more sophisticated than the Palestinian rockets the Iron Dome routinely shoots down. To have a huge impact, Ukraine would need dozens of Iron Domes, which do not currently exist.
Besides these military issues, Ukraine is struggling with a domestic political crisis amid several corruption scandals. This week, for instance, the chair of its Supreme Court, chief justice Vsevolod Knyazev was removed from his post over bribery accusations amounting to $2.7 million. In addition, former US President Donald Trump stated last week he will not commit to backing Kiev, should he win the Republican presidential nomination and the upcoming elections. Despite legal controversies, Trump remains a clear Republican favorite, while Republican senators are increasingly opposing advancing aid for Ukraine and some, like Senator JD Vance, are calling for investigating a possible Democrat money laundering scheme in Ukraine.
By Connor Freeman and Will Porter | The Libertarian Institute | May 18, 2023
One of two Israeli-manufactured Iron Dome batteries owned by the Pentagon is ready to be deployed to Ukraine, a US general told the Senate on Thursday. Tel Aviv has so far refused to supply the anti-missile system to Kiev, for fear of provoking Russia and risking its ability to freely bomb Moscow’s ally Syria.
During a Senate Strategic Forces subcommittee hearing on Thursday, Senator Angus King pressed a senior Pentagon official on why Ukraine has not yet received the Iron Dome, noting the US role in creating the air defense system.
“We sent something like $3 billion to Israel to develop it… Wouldn’t this be a very important resource for the Ukrainians since their principal problem right now is missile defense?” the lawmaker asked.
Army Space and Missile Defense Command chief General Daniel Karbler replied that there are currently two Iron Dome batteries in US inventories, one of which is now ready for transfer to Kiev.
“Once completed new equipment training, new equipment fielding. It is prepared for deployment. The other one is wrapping up its new equipment training right now. So the army does have one available for deployment if we get a request,” he said.
While the US has spent some $2.6 billion to fund the Iron Dome since 2011, it is produced in Israel, and Washington must seek Tel Aviv’s approval before any transfer to a third country. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly urged Israel to supply the system since Russia’s invasion commenced last year, but Tel Aviv has been reluctant to fulfill the requests, which could jeopardize its delicate relations with Moscow.
For years, Israel has dropped bombs on Syria – a key Russian ally in the Middle East – on a near-weekly basis. Tel Aviv claims its constant airstrikes are needed to counter Iranian proxies in the country, though they routinely kill Syrian soldiers and civilians and have damaged civil infrastructure such as airports.
Russia still maintains a significant military presence in Syria, having intervened at the request of President Bashar al-Assad in 2015 to help beat back al-Qaeda affiliated militants and Islamic State fighters waging a dirty war on Damascus. The terrorist forces that carried out the failed regime change attempt were supported often by the CIA and its allies, including Israel.
Moscow has provided air defense systems to Syria but still permits Tel Aviv’s weekly attacks. The Israelis have launched hundreds of air raids in the country since its civil war began, and would prefer to maintain its “freedom of action” in the region rather than risk provoking the Kremlin with military aid to Ukraine.
Last year, Kiev attempted to appeal to Israel’s hawkishness to obtain the Iron Dome and other military hardware. In a letter to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Ukrainian embassy officials warned that Russia’s use of Iranian drones could “significantly contribute in strengthening Iran’s potential of producing offensive weapons and, as a result, … increase the security threats for the State of Israel.”
Tel Aviv refused to bite, however, seeing little benefit in providing the Iron Dome to Ukraine while also fearing that Russia could retaliate by providing Iran with advanced weaponry. Additionally, Tehran has repeatedly denied providing its drones to Moscow since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war in Ukraine, claiming it has made no deliveries since fighting began.
The transfer proposed by General Karbler also makes little strategic sense, particularly given Ukraine’s vast territory. The Israelis typically use the Iron Dome to shoot down low-tech rockets fired by Palestinian resistance factions in the besieged Gaza Strip, an open-air concentration camp which has been blockaded by the air, land and sea for more than 15 years. A single Iron Dome battery would be of scant use in defending against Russia’s long-range missiles.
According to a Jerusalem Post analysis published this week, “If Israel needs 10 or more Iron Domes to properly defend itself, Ukraine would need dozens or more, which simply do not exist. ” The outlet added that ”One or two Iron Domes from the US would make no difference tactically, and at this point, probably would not even make much of a symbolic difference. And even then, the Iron Dome might fail to shoot down Putin’s more sophisticated missiles.”
Assistant US Defense Secretary for Space Policy John Plumb has said Washington is “not aware” of any Israeli offer to make the transfer anyway. His statements came as Kiev blasted Israel for carrying on “business as usual with the Russian war criminals.” Tel Aviv recently sent senior diplomats to Moscow for meetings with Russian officials.
Sources told Israel Hayom that Ukrainian troops have almost finished training on an Israeli early alert system used to predict missile trajectories, ”although it is unclear if this is related to a possible deployment of the interceptor.” The sources refused to respond to Karbler’s remarks on Thursday, but noted that Israel ”will not get into a fight with the US over the Iron Dome, and stressed that the general’s comments did not specifically say that the system will be delivered to Ukraine.”
RT | May 19, 2023
China has urged against Ukraine joining NATO, saying it would not improve security in the European region, after veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger claimed membership would serve the interests of both Kiev and Moscow.
Asked about Kissinger’s comments during a Thursday press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin argued that Ukrainian NATO membership would only further inflame tensions.
“Ukraine should not become the frontier in a major power confrontation,” he said, adding that “to strengthen or even expand military groups is not a viable way to ensure the security of a region. One country’s security should not be achieved at the expense of the security of other countries.”
In an interview with the Economist published on Wednesday, Kissinger said European powers were pursuing a “madly dangerous” strategy by keeping Kiev out of the US-led military bloc, insisting Ukraine must not “become a solitary state just looking out for itself.” He claimed NATO membership would not only benefit Ukraine, but Russia as well.
“If I talked to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, I would tell him that he, too, is safer with Ukraine in NATO,” the 99-year-old added, saying the move would prevent Kiev from making rash “national decisions on territorial claims.”
The Chinese spokesman went on to state that a “durable European security architecture” could only be created through dialogue. During a visit to Ukraine this week, special envoy Li Hui met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and other senior officials to discuss Beijing’s views on a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.
Beijing unveiled a 12-point roadmap for peace in February which urged both Moscow and Kiev to resume direct negotiations. President Putin later said the Chinese plan was “in tune” with Russia’s position and hoped the proposal could serve as the basis for a future political settlement.
Western powers have dismissed the 12-point plan, with the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell dubbing it “wishful thinking,” while the top advisor to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky argued that it heavily favors Russia.
Direct Turkish-brokered talks between the two sides broke down in the spring of 2022. Since then, President Zelensky has ruled out any direct talks with Russia as long as Putin remains in power, and Moscow has rejected the terms for negotiations put forward by Kiev. Among other things, Ukraine’s proposal calls for Russia to withdraw its forces from all territories within Ukraine’s 1991 borders, to pay reparations, and to submit to war crime tribunals. Moscow has rejected the plan as “unacceptable,” pointing out that it ignores the reality on the ground and merely shows Kiev’s unwillingness to resolve the crisis through talks.
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By Lisa Pease | Consortium News | September 16, 2013
More than a half century ago, just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others went down in a plane crash over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All 16 died, but the facts of the crash were provocatively mysterious. … continue
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