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China’s special envoy to visit Ukraine and related countries to promote political solution to crisis

Global Times | May 12, 2023

China’s special envoy for Eurasian affairs Li Hui will visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Russia, starting on May 15, to communicate with all parties on a political solution to the Ukraine crisis, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin announced at a press conference on Friday.

Chinese experts said Li’s upcoming visits demonstrate China’s efforts to bring about a political settlement to the Ukraine crisis, showing China’s objective and fair stance as a responsible power.

According to Wang, since the beginning of the crisis, China has held an objective and just position and actively promoted talks for peace. President Xi Jinping has put forward four principles, called for joint efforts in four areas and shared three observations on Ukraine, which outline China’s fundamental approach to the issue. On this basis, China released its Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis, which reflects the above core ideas of China’s stance and takes into account the legitimate concerns of all parties, receiving extensive understanding and recognition from the international community.

During a phone conversation on April 26, President Xi told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that China will send a special representative on Eurasian affairs to visit Ukraine and other countries to push for a political settlement to the crisis.

Li is a veteran diplomat and has been China’s special envoy for Eurasian Affairs since 2019. He was previously Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan from 1997 to 1999, and from 2009 to 2019 he served as China’s ambassador to Russia, according to publicly available information.

Wang Wenbin said Li’s upcoming visit reflects China’s commitment to promoting peace talks and staying on the side of peace.

Wang noted that as the Ukraine crisis drags on and escalates, the world continues to experience the spillover effects of the crisis, with voices calling for a ceasefire and de-escalation in the international community.

China will continue to play a constructive role and build greater international consensus on ending hostilities, starting peace talks and preventing an escalation of the situation, and help facilitate a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, said Wang.

Cui Heng, an assistant research fellow from the Center for Russian Studies of East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Friday that Li’s Europe tour is aimed at implementing China’s efforts to promote peace talks.

According to Cui, in the case of ongoing conflicts, even if there are people who want to talk with each other, under the influence of various forces, it is not convenient to have direct communication. In this case, a third party is needed.

“Under such circumstances, no matter what the outcome is, China must do it and only China can do it… This shows China’s responsibility as a major country,” Cui said.

However, there are still some Western media that doubt China’s neutrality, as Li’s background of former ambassador to Russia indicates Li has “close ties” with Moscow, a claim that experts described as nit-picking.

It’s absurd to believe that the special envoy’s background as former ambassador to Moscow will lead to a biased position, Cui said.

Almost all Chinese ambassadors to Russia have worked in the Department of Eurasian Affairs, where diplomats may be dispatched to different countries according to their job requirements, Cui explained, noting that Ukrainian affairs also fall under the Eurasian Division. If history serves as a reference, ambassador Li may be dispatched to Ukraine as well.

Chinese diplomats are objective and impartial, not biased, Cui said, adding that if there is any “bias,” then diplomats of all countries serve their own nations’ interests first.

“If we follow this inference from some US and Western media, is the US ambassador to China pro-China? The suggestion apparently does not stand up to scrutiny,” Cui added.

May 13, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine war: The short view

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MAY 12, 2023 

Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky has somewhat eased the suspense by his remark to the western media on Thursday that his army needs to wait and still needs “a bit more time” to launch the much-anticipated counter-offensive against Russian forces. 

He acknowledged that Ukraine’s combat brigades are “ready” but would reason that the army still needed “some things,” including armoured vehicles that were “arriving in batches” from NATO countries.

Zelensky proffered the explanation that “we can go forward, and, I think, be successful. But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time.” 

However, Zelensky’s claim that Ukraine’s military still needed some equipment is at variance with the assertive statement by western officials. None other than NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said a fortnight ago, one full week after returning from Kiev after talks with Zelensky and his top aides, that NATO deliveries constituted more than 98 percent of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine. 

Stoltenberg added, “In total, we have trained and equipped more than nine new Ukrainian armoured brigades. This will put Ukraine in a strong position to continue to retake occupied territory.” 

Last Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken broadly endorsed what Stoltenberg said, during a joint press conference with the visiting UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, while also taking care to add a caveat: 

“They (Ukrainian military) have in place … what they need to continue to be successful in regaining territory that was seized by force by Russia… It’s not only the weapons; it’s the training. It’s making sure that the Ukrainians can maintain the systems that we provide them, and it’s important, of course, that they have the right plans, again, to be successful.” 

Cleverly agreed with the drift of what Blinken said but gave a political perspective to it. That is perfectly acceptable, since this is a war that is more political than military. 

Cleverly said people shouldn’t expect a film-like counteroffensive from Kiev. He cautioned: “The real world doesn’t work like that. I hope and expect they will do very, very well, because whenever I’ve seen the Ukrainians, they have outperformed expectations… (but we) have to be realistic. This is the real world. This is not a Hollywood movie.” 

To be fair, Stoltenberg also had cautioned on a parallel track, saying that “we should never underestimate Russia.” He claimed that Russia was mobilising more ground forces and is “willing to send in thousands of troops with very high casualty rates.” 

Perhaps, the salience of what these three officials were harping on was that no matter the outcome of the planned Ukrainian offensive,  NATO countries “must stay the course and continue to provide Ukraine with what it needs to prevail” in the face of what appears to be a prolonged conflict. Indeed, both Blinken and Cleverly are in sync with what Stoltenberg said. 

In fact, even as the two foreign ministers spoke, on the same day, the US announced an additional $1.2 billion in aid to Ukraine intended to bolster air defences and keep up ammunition supplies. 

There is a lot of angst in recent weeks as to whether a Ukrainian counter-offensive is indeed in the pipeline. The answer is a categorical ‘yes’. As to its timing, it seems there could be a difference of opinion. 

Weather conditions are no longer an insurmountable factor and Zelensky’s western sponsors want him to get going with the offensive — the sooner the better. Their calculus is that the offensive has a reasonable chance of success, which would go a long way in placating the Western domestic opinion that such costly support for Ukraine was after all not going into a bottomless pit.

Second, the offensive is useful politically to shore up European opinion. In fact, the European Commission headed by its president (and an ardent Atlanticist), Ursula von der Leyen has just confirmed that the EU is preparing to take initial steps toward adopting methods of US sanctions and impose extraterritorial (collateral) punitive measures on enterprises of third countries including those in the United Arab Emirates and possibly in Turkey. 

It seems the EU will first focus on the resale of sanctioned EU goods to Russia. In future, enterprises will be punished even if they are not based within the EU and, therefore, are not subject to EU norms. 

Indeed, such extraterritorial implementation of one’s own system of norms will be in violation of international law — and the EU itself had officially held that position up until recently — but Von der Leyen is pushing for a revised “rules-based order” to add a new cutting edge to the western strategy to weaken Russia. 

The underlying assumption is that the sanctions will weaken the Russian economy and create social disaffection. It only goes to show that no matter the fate of Zelensky’s counter-offensive, there isn’t going to be any let-up in the proxy war against Russia. On the other hand, no one can blame President Biden for a Ukrainian defeat, either.

However, there is a catch: Zelensky also has his priorities — first and foremost, his own political survival. He knows that his narrative about an impending Russian defeat, et al, has unravelled and he may become the fall guy in any blame game in the aftermath of a crushing defeat in the crucial weeks or months ahead. 

Indeed, the Game of Thrones in Kiev is nearing a critical stage. Sensing danger, Zelensky is dithering. He is buying time. (General Valerii Fedorovych Zaluzhnyi, chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, skipped a NATO meeting!) But how long can Zelensky push back the mounting US and NATO pressure to launch the offensive? His exit strategy could have been to open a line to Moscow but that option no longer exists.

On its part, Russia is doing brilliantly well to keep its cards close to its chest. Russia has the capability to launch a “big arrow” offensive towards the Dnieper but Kremlin’s preference is to continue to grind down the Ukrainian military — a strategy that proved cost-effective in human and material terms, productive, and is sustainable. 

Depending on the trajectory of the Ukrainian offensive, therefore, Russia has the option to switch to a massive attack to pulverise the adversary. Presently, its heavy bombing campaign is intended to create shock and awe in Kiev and despondency in the European capitals, and to degrade Ukraine’s mobilisation. The West is kept guessing about the Russian intentions.   

May 13, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

UK Shipment of Long Range Cruise Missiles to Ukraine Radically Changes the Conflict

By Gilbert Doctorow | May 12, 2023

Americans have taken umbrage at the now commonplace habit of Russian media personalities to speak of “Anglo-Saxons” as the principal opponents, or enemies if you will, of their country. In Russia the term is meant to include the USA. Given the high percentage of Blacks, Hispanics and Orientals in the U.S. population, there is some substance to American objections. However, as regards the British, they have not a leg to stand on: they are Anglo-Saxons like it or not. And by their behavior towards Russia right to the present day, they have well earned the intense dislike bordering on hatred that a large swathe of influential Russians feel towards them.

First you had Boris Johnson, who ruined the nearly agreed peace accord between Russia and Ukraine back in March 2022. Boris threatened to put a stop to Western assistance to Kiev if Zalensky took the draft treaty through to signature. Zelensky then backed out of the negotiations and went all out for war.

Now we have Prime Minister Sunak sending long range cruise missiles to Ukraine supposedly to help them succeed with their counteroffensive and recapture lost territory from the Russians. The missiles are to be fitted onto existing Ukrainian Soviet era jets and have a 250 km range. This will theoretically enable Ukrainian forces based in Kharkov or Zaporozhie to deliver highly destructive warheads to anywhere in Crimea, for example.

Yes, you may say, but the Ukrainians already have been making daily drone attacks on Sevastopol. However, the new missiles will be far more deadly and less easy for air defense to bring down because of the inherent advantages of their speed, very low altitude and variable flight paths.

The new weapons are potentially a game changer in a way that the Leopard or Abrams tanks that have attracted so much public attention over recent months are not.

Why a game changer? Because with each incrementally more powerful artillery or tank delivered to Ukraine the Russians could say they only meant that Russia would have to push the Ukrainian border back that much further to keep Russian territories safe from attack. But there is no way for the Russians to push back the line of confrontation with Ukraine 250 km in the short term. That might be possible in a matter of months if not years. But in the meantime the missiles could do vast damage in purely Russian territories and create enormous numbers of casualties among both civilians and military.

I can easily imagine the popular reaction in Russia of a Ukrainian rocket attack on Sevastopol that killed, say 400 civilians. There would be a great public uproar and it is hard to see how the Kremlin could avoid responding with its own devastating counter blow. But counter blow against whom? Against the Ukrainians or against those truly responsible for the atrocity, namely the British? Here is where the current strong dislike for “Anglo-Saxons” in Russia may come into play. It comes on top of the recent Russian outrage over delivery of depleted uranium artillery shells to Ukraine by Britain.

In effect, by delivering these weapons to Ukraine Britain is wrecking the hitherto generally accepted notion that the war between Russia and Ukraine will be decided on the battlefield. That is precisely how the EU’s foreign policy and security chief Borrell put it more than half a year ago. Instead the outcome in Ukraine may now be decided by a war between Russia and Britain. This is a war that Britain is as likely to lose as the ongoing war being fought by Ukraine. And what comes after that? A full NATO-Russia war? A nuclear war?

The dangers have now been vastly raised by Mr. Sunak’s ill-conceived decision on arms shipments to Ukraine. It would be a positive step towards their own survival if EU authorities took cognizance of this British idiocy and brought their British colleagues to their senses.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

May 12, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

As Donetsk civilians live in constant fear of Ukrainian shelling, a reporter on the ground details the terror

By Eva Bartlett | RT | May 11, 2023

Heavy Ukrainian shelling of central Donetsk on April 28 killed nine civilians – including an eight-year-old girl and her grandmother – and injured at least 16 more. The victims were burned alive when the minibus they were in was hit by a shell.

The attack also targeted a major hospital, apartment buildings, houses, parks, streets, and sidewalks. All civilian areas – not military targets.

According to the Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DPR) Representative Office in the JCCC (Joint Monitoring and Co-ordination Center on Ukraine’s War Crimes), Kiev’s forces fired high-explosive fragmentation missiles “produced in Slovakia and transferred to Ukraine by NATO countries.” Regarding an earlier shelling on the same day, the JCCC noted that US-made HIMARS systems were used, targeting “exclusively in the residential, central quarter of the city.”

I was outside of Donetsk interviewing refugees from Artyomovsk (also known as Bakhmut) when both rounds of intense shelling occurred, the first starting just after 11am. I returned to see a catastrophic scene, with a burnt-out bus – still smoking – and some of its passengers’ charred bodies melted onto the frame. This tragic picture was sadly not a one-off event.

Elsewhere, city workers were already removing debris and had begun repaving damaged sections of the roads. I’ve seen this following Ukrainian shelling many times, including on January 1 this year, when Ukraine fired 25 Grads into the city centre. Similarly, in July 2022, Ukrainian shelling downtown killed four civilians, including two in a vehicle likewise gutted by flames. When I arrived at the scene about an hour later, workers were repaving the affected section of the street.

The damage to the Republican Trauma Center hospital was quickly cleaned up, but videos shared on Telegram immediately after the shelling show a gaping hole in one of the walls. The room concerned contained what was, apparently, Donetsk’s sole MRI machine.

Along Artyoma street, the central Donetsk boulevard targeted countless times by Ukrainian attacks, the destruction was evident: Two cars caught up in the bombing, residents of an apartment building boarding up shattered windows and doors, the all-too-familiar sound of glass and debris being swept away. In the residential area, the first to be targeted that day, in a massive crater behind one house, the walls and roof of another home were intermixed with rocket fragments.

Another year of Ukrainian war crimes

In April 2022, following strikes on a large market area in Kirovsky district, in western Donetsk, which killed five civilians and injured 23, I went there to document the aftermath, not expecting to see two of the five dead still lying in nearby lanes. This shelling was just before noon, a busy time of day in the area. Bombing at such periods is an insidious tactic to ensure more civilians are maimed or killed.

Double and triple striking the same areas is another method used by Ukrainian forces. In an interview last year, the director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the DPR Ministry of Emergency Situations, Sergey Neka, told me, “Our units arrive at the scene and Ukraine begins to shell it. A lot of equipment has been damaged and destroyed.”

Andrey Levchenko, chief of the emergency department for the Kievsky district of Donetsk, also hit by Ukrainian attacks, said: “They wait for 30 minutes for us to arrive. We arrive there, start assisting people, and the shelling resumes. They wait again, our guys hide in the shelters, as soon as we go out, put out the fire, help people, then shelling resumes.”

I was here in Donetsk in mid-June, during a day of particularly intense Ukrainian shelling of the very centre of the city, which killed at least five civilians. The DPR authorities reported that “within two hours, almost 300 MLRS rockets and artillery shells were fired.” One Grad rocket hit a maternity hospital, tearing through the roof.

The following month, Ukraine fired rockets containing internationally-banned ‘petal’ mines. The streets of central Donetsk, as well as the western and northern districts and other cities, were littered with the hard-to-spot mines designed to grotesquely maim, but not necessarily kill, anyone stepping on them. These mines keep claiming new victims to this day – when I last wrote about them here, 104 civilians had been maimed, including this 14-year-old boy. Three had died of their injuries. Since then, the number of victims has risen to 112.

In August, heavy Ukrainian shelling of the centre of Donetsk hit directly next to the hotel I was staying in, along with dozens of other journalists and cameramen. Six civilians were killed that day, including one woman outside the hotel, as well as a child. She been a talented ballerina due to leave to study in Russia soon, and along with her grandmother, her ballet teacher was also killed that day, herself a world-famous former ballerina.

Three bouts of Ukrainian shelling of the city centre in a span of just five days in September killed 26 civilians. Four were killed on September 17, among them two people burned alive inside a vehicle on the same central Artyoma Street. Two days later, 16 civilians were killed, the remains of their bodies strewn along the street or in unrecognizable piles of flesh. Three days later, Ukraine struck next to the central market, killing six civilians, two in a minibus, the rest on the street.

In my subsequent visits to Donetsk and surrounding cities in November and December, I filmed the aftermath of more Ukrainian shelling (using HIMARS) of civilian areas of Donetsk and the settlement of Gorlovka to the north. The November 7 shelling of central Donetsk could have killed the toddler of the young mother I interviewed. Fortunately, after hearing the first rockets hit, she ran with her son to the bathroom. When calm returned, she found shrapnel on his bed.

The November 12 shelling of Gorlovka damaged a beautiful historic cultural building, destroying parts of the roof and the theatre hall within. According to the centre’s director, it was one of the best movie theatres in Donetsk Region, one of the oldest, most beautiful, and most beloved buildings in the city. He noted that the HIMARS system is a very precise weapon, so the attack was not accidental.

The shelling goes on

Early morning during Easter Mass on April 16, the Ukrainian army fired 20 rockets near the Cathedral of the Holy Transfiguration in the centre of Donetsk, French journalist Christelle Neant reported, noting that one civilian was killed and seven injured. The shelling extended to the central market just behind the cathedral. Just over a week prior, on April 7, another shelling of that market killed one civilian and injured 13, also considerably damaging the market itself.

Ukraine continues to shell the western and northern districts of Donetsk, also pounding Gorlovka, as well as Yasinovatya just north of Donetsk (killing two civilians some days ago).

On April 23, shelling in Petrovsky, a hard-hit western Donetsk district, killed one man and injured five more. The same day, in a village northeast of Donetsk, a rocket killed two women in their 30s. Security camera footage shows the moment when the women attempted to take cover. The munition that killed them hit directly next to where they huddled.

A few days later, on my way to interview refugees from Artyomovsk sheltering in another city, I passed along the tiny village where those women were killed. It’s a road I’ve driven a dozen times or more, a quiet, calm, scenic region of rolling hills, a lovely river, a beautiful church. It’s far from any front line. The murder of these two women was another Ukrainian war crime.

The people here are constantly terrorized by Ukrainian shelling or the threat of it, and have been since Kiev started its war on the Donbass in 2014.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).

May 12, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Kiev tries to disguise the failure of its counteroffensive plan

By Lucas Leiroz | May 12, 2023

In a recent interview to a Western media outlet, the head of the Kiev regime stated that his country needs more time before starting the counteroffensive against Russian troops. According to Vladimir Zelensky, the Ukrainian forces would be “ready” to start the move, but before that they need to receive more equipment and wait for the ideal conditions for action to emerge – which is obviously a contradictory, ambiguous and unsubstantiated narrative.

Zelensky’s words were spoken during a conference with the Eurovision News Network and were then reported by the BBC. The Ukrainian president claims that he could give orders to launch the counteroffensive now, but that would mean too many casualties for Kiev, which is why it seems more prudent to wait for more favorable conditions to arise in the future. At the time, Zelensky also emphasized the importance of receiving more armored vehicles from the West, which would operationally facilitate the counteroffensive.

Another interesting point of the interview was Zelensky’s response when asked if he has been under pressure from his western partners to resume negotiations in case the counterattack plans fail. The president suggested that his army would continue fighting regardless of the outcome of the counter-offensive and said that no Western country could pressure Ukraine to surrender territories to Russian forces. Zelensky also said that Moscow intends to “freeze” the conflict, as it would be territorially favored, which supposedly will be prevented by the counteroffensive.

“We’d lose a lot of people [if we started the counteroffensive now] (…) I think that’s unacceptable. So, we need to wait. We still need a bit more time (…) [Western powers] can’t pressure Ukraine into surrendering territories”, he said.

The most curious thing about Zelensky’s narrative is how extremely contradictory it is. At one moment the president says that his country is “ready” to start the maneuver and at another he says it needs to wait. Either Kiev is ready to start an effective counterattack, or in fact it is not and needs to wait for better conditions in the future. There is no possible synthesis between both possibilities. This confused and irrational rhetoric sounds like a desperate attempt to have control over the military situation of the conflict, when in fact this control does not exist.

Also, by reaffirming that Kiev will continue to fight to recover the territories liberated by Russia, Zelensky makes it clear to the Western media that, in practice, the outcome of the counteroffensive does not matter. Even if the plans fail, Ukrainian forces will continue to be forced to fight and keep looking for virtually unattainable results. And, as Zelensky himself stated, no western power is opposed to that – which was already well known, since NATO countries are the most interested in keeping Kiev active in the conflict.

In the same sense, Zelensky lies when he says that Russia wants to freeze the conflict. Moscow’s position is clear on achieving an effective and lasting resolution to the crisis. However, Russia does not see the fight against Ukrainian forces as a war, but as a special military operation inserted in a broader context – the war with NATO, which is the organization that uses Kiev as a proxy. Russia avoids escalations and big maneuvers because it wants to avoid as much as possible the death of Ukrainian civilians, seen as part of the same people by most Russian citizens. So, Russia does not want to freeze – it really wants to win and end the problem, but it wants to do it in the least harmful way possible for Ukraine itself.

However, what is most interesting about Zelensky’s speech is to see how Ukrainian rhetoric has changed in a few days. In the most recent wave of terrorist attacks launched by the regime, several officials claimed that the moves were part of the counteroffensive, which had already begun. Zelensky even promised that he would launch more attacks on Crimea, until he “recovered” it, virtually assuming the terrorist nature of such a counteroffensive. Now, however, the rhetoric has changed and apparently the move has not yet started, with the Ukrainians waiting for a more opportune moment to avoid casualties.

In fact, what seems to be happening is the formulation of a narrative by Zelensky and the western media to disguise the failure. Many analysts, citing sources on the battlefield, believe that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has already begun. The intensity of Kiev’s attacks – both on the trenches and in terrorist operations – has already escalated. The special troops that had reportedly been sent to Poland for training during the winter have already returned to the country and there have been practical results of their work. For example, the head of Russian PMC Wagner Group recently showed on his social networks several Russian soldiers killed after Ukrainian massive attacks in Bakhmut.

The problem is that, contrary to what was promised by the regime’s propaganda, this counteroffensive has been weak, inefficient and incapable of guaranteeing territorial gains. Kiev managed to increase combat capability and generate more casualties on the Russians, but this had no military relevance. The regime’s forces are still unable to capture and occupy territories, which is why the media has run out of arguments to maintain its previous narrative and is now changing it, stating that the move has not yet started.

In a realistic analysis, it seems evident that Kiev is incapable of reversing the military scenario of the conflict with its counterattack. The promise of occupation of Donbass and Crimea is absolutely inconsistent with the reality of Ukrainian troops, which have been weakened, demoralized, and poorly equipped since 2022. So, indeed, the counteroffensive is happening, but it is not what the propagandists promised.

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

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

May 12, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine uses chemical weapons – Russian journalist

RT | May 11, 2023

Ukrainian forces have used chemical weapons, which caused loss of consciousness after inhalation, during an attack in the Orekhov sector, military correspondent Alexander Kots reported on Thursday.

The use of substances banned by international conventions appear to be part of the much-anticipated Ukrainian offensive, said the reporter for the outlet KP.

According to Kots, Western-supplied tanks have been spotted outside of Kharkov, while Ukrainian troops have launched attacks on Russian positions north and south of Artyomovsk, which they call Bakhmut.

Multiple Western officials have said over the past week that all the weapons, ammunition and supplies required for Ukraine’s grand counter-offensive had already been delivered. On Thursday, the UK confirmed it had supplied Kiev with long-range ‘Storm Shadow’ missiles.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, however, claimed he needed more time and more armored vehicles before he could launch the assault, in order to avoid casualties. In the same interview, Zelensky claimed Ukraine had nothing to do with the drones that attacked the Kremlin last week.

According to US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose son had volunteered on Kiev’s side for several months last year, Ukraine has suffered around 300,000 military casualties and is taking losses at a far higher rate than Russia.

Donetsk People’s Republic authorities had accused Ukrainian troops of dropping chemical weapons from drones back in February, pointing to frontline reports and videos shared by Ukrainians on social media.

In late February, the Russian military warned that the Ukrainian forces in Kramatorsk had received 16 containers with riot control agents CS (chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile) and CR (dibenzoxazepine), as well as the incapacitating agent BZ (3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate), accompanied by “citizens of foreign countries.” Moscow suggested the US might be planning a “false flag” attack in the Donbass.

Chemical warfare is forbidden under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), an international treaty that took effect in 1997 and to which both Ukraine and Russia are signatories.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine Seeking Advanced Weapons for ‘Next Counteroffensive’

By Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter | The Libertarian Institute |May 10, 2023

Ukraine’s foreign minister said the upcoming counteroffensive against Russian forces would not be the last. The diplomat urged NATO members to transfer more advanced weapons to Kiev for the coming operations, including F-16 fighter jets.

In an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper published on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said “Do not consider this counteroffensive as the last one, because we do not know what will come of it,” adding that should it fail, “It means we have to prepare for the next counteroffensive.”

For months, the Pentagon has been assisting Kiev in planning its operations, including combat training for Ukrainian troops. President Volodymyr Zelensky has used the forthcoming counteroffensive to lobby for more weapons from his Western backers, telling a Japanese newspaper in March that “We can’t start yet. Without tanks, artillery and HIMARS, we can’t send our brave soldiers to the front… We are waiting for the receipt of ammunition from our partner countries.”

Last week, Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK Vadim Pristayko indicated the long-anticipated operations would begin once the weather improves. Recently, American and Ukrainian officials have suggested the counteroffensive to retake territory could fail, raising concerns both in public and behind closed doors.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the results of the counteroffensive would have significant sway over whether Ukraine continues to receive US support. “If Ukraine is successful in the eyes of the American people and the world, I think it will be a game-changer for continued support,” he told Bloomberg last week. “If they are not, that will also have an impact – in a negative way, though.”

However, at a joint press conference on Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his UK counterpart James Cleverly appeared to contradict McCaul, explaining that future Western backing would not be based on Ukraine’s battlefield success. “We need to continue to support them, irrespective of whether this forthcoming offensive generates huge gains on the battlefield, because until this conflict is resolved and resolved properly, it is not over,” Cleverly said.

The Ukrainian FM went on to urge for additional foreign arms shipments for Kiev, telling the German paper “it’s all about weapons, because to win the war you need weapons, weapons, and more weapons,“ adding that “Germany has a lot, and a lot depends on Germany.”

Earlier this week, the Biden administration announced a $1.2 billion weapons package for Kiev, including air defenses and artillery ammunition. The Defense Department said the arms will help to ensure Ukraine’s ”long-term security.”

Still, Kuleba wants Berlin to pressure Washington to send F-16s to Ukraine. “The power of German diplomacy should also not be underestimated,” the Ukrainian diplomat stated, arguing that Germany must play an ”active role” in building a ”coalition of states” to supply aircraft and other advanced systems.

While the White House has resisted Kiev’s frequent calls to send American fighter jets to Ukraine, there is some indication that Washington and London are preparing to take that step, as Ukrainian pilots are currently training on Western-made planes in the US and UK. Moreover, the United States has previously backtracked after refusing to provide certain weapons, agreeing to supply Patriot missiles and M1 Abrams battle tanks despite declining earlier requests.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US confiscates assets of Russian businessman for ‘rebuilding Ukraine’

Press TV – May 11, 2023

The US Justice Department has announced the first transfer of assets illegally confiscated from a Russian businessman to a fund purportedly intended for “rebuilding Ukraine” amid its persisting efforts to punish entities on good terms with Moscow.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland declared in a statement on Wednesday the first transfer to the Ukraine fund of assets seized from the US accounts of Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev, who Washington has accused of funding pro-Russian forces in Crimea in 2014.

“While this represents the United States’ first transfer of forfeited Russian funds for the rebuilding of Ukraine, it will not be the last,” Garland boasted in what appears as more of a pro-Kiev publicity move.

Last year, the US Justice Department pressed charges against Malofeyev — a Russian banker whose business interests include the pro-Moscow Tsargrad media group, described by American officials as “one of the main sources of financing” Russian interests in eastern Ukraine and Crimea — for violating sanction against Russia.

At that time, Garland further claimed that millions of dollars had been seized “from an account at a US financial institution traceable to Malofeyev’s sanctions violations.”

Moscow has repeatedly warned that the US-led sanctions imposed against Russia as well as the massive transfer of advanced weaponry to Ukraine will further prolong the war and add to the casualties that have reached several hundred thousand since the Ukraine conflict began in February 2022.

Garland’s announcement came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out at Western governments for unleashing a “real war” against his country, vowing that the battle with the US and its allies over Ukraine will end in Russia’s victory.

“Today, civilization is again at a decisive turning point. A real war has been unleashed against our homeland,” Putin said in a Tuesday address on Moscow’s Red Square marking the anniversary of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

He also vowed to continue to defend the pro-Russian population in eastern Ukraine and protect Moscow’s interests against Western ambitions.

Putin further slammed “Western global elites”, saying they are “sowing hatred, Russophobia, and aggressive nationalism.”

The development also came after US President Joe Biden called on the nation’s divided Congress to make it easier to transfer confiscated assets of Russian businessmen to Ukraine. In December 2022, Congress passed a law that allowed certain assets seized by the Justice Department to be funneled to Ukraine via the US Department of State.

Among the Russian assets seized by Washington was a fleet of super yachts, including a 106m (348-foot) vessel owned by Suleiman Kerimov valued at over $300m, which had been docked in Fiji.

It is quite unclear, however, how the assets transferred in this case will be used by Ukraine or when they will be available to Kiev. This is one of the issues G7 finance ministers gathering in Japan for a meeting, ahead of the leaders’ summit in Hiroshima later this month, will be discussing.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Why American and Kiev regime media keep insisting Russian ‘Kinzhal’ hypersonic missile was shot down?

By Drago Bosnic | May 10, 2023

For approximately a week, the Kiev regime has been claiming it shot down one of Russia’s hypersonic missiles, specifically the 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal”. According to the unsubstantiated (to say the least) claims, on May 4, air defense units deployed in and around Kiev shot down one of the air-launched hypersonic missiles allegedly fired by Russian Aerospace Forces. Various local sources published images supposedly “proving” the incident took place. In the first two days, the news went largely unreported by non-Ukrainian sources, but on May 6, CNN, the infamous neoliberal mouthpiece and the flagship of the mainstream propaganda machine among news networks, broke the story in the political West.

According to CNN, commander of the Neo-Nazi junta’s air force, three-star General Mykola Oleshchuk, announced in a Telegram post that “a Russian ‘Kinzhal’ [commonly designated as Kh-47M2 by various media sources] was inbound until being successfully intercepted using American ‘Patriot’ missiles”. The intercept supposedly took place on Thursday night, with the Kiev regime forces claiming this is the first time the much-touted US “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) system shot down a target, and no less than a hypersonic one. The aforementioned images published by various sources show an object which indeed seems to have been hit by the “Patriot’s” kinetic kill vehicle.

“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” General Oleshchuk stated, adding: “It happened during the night time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”

Oleshchuk claims that “the missile was launched by a MiG-31K jet from the Russian territory and was then shot down” with a missile fired by a battery of “Patriot” SAM systems. In a separate statement from Neo-Nazi junta’s air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat, given to Kiev-based Channel 24, he was boasting about the US-made “Patriot’s” supposedly “proven” capabilities:

“They were saying that the ‘Patriot’ is an outdated American weapon, and Russian weapons are the best in the world. Well, there is confirmation that it effectively works against even a super hypersonic missile… … successful interception of the ‘Kinzhal’ is a slap in the face for Russia.”

However, no military analyst worth his salt has ever taken these claims even remotely seriously. The images presented by the Kiev regime show an object that doesn’t even resemble the air-launched hypersonic “Kinzhal”. While it remains uncertain what sort of weapon the Neo-Nazi junta forces shot down, images show what looks like a KAB-1500L or perhaps a BetAB-500 ShP, both of which are laser-guided bombs. It’s also unclear which of “Patriot’s” several versions were used. The Kiev regime is known to have received one of the PAC-2 variants (MiM-104C, D and F), all of which have proven unable to shoot down even the old Iraqi “Scud” ballistic missiles during the First Gulf War in 1991.

There are reports that one of the newer PAC-3 versions has been delivered as well, but these claims are yet to be supported by any actual evidence. What’s more, this variant is also nowhere near the capabilities to shoot down even older supersonic missiles the Russian Aerospace Forces have been using extensively, let alone a maneuvering hypersonic missile such as the 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal”. On the other hand, even basic knowledge of how physics works makes Western and Kiev regime claims ridiculous. The images show that the Russian weapon was struck by the aforementioned kinetic kill vehicle, which in the PAC-2 variant flies at approximately 4000 km per hour.

The 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal’s” speed ranges from over 12,000 km per hour to almost 16,000 km per hour. If we were to imagine an interceptor missile flying at 4000 km per hour hitting another missile flying three or four times faster than that, can anyone really believe there would be anything more than a bunch of sparks, let alone a wreckage of any kind? Worse yet, the alleged “Russian ‘Kinzhal’ hypersonic missile” fell to the ground in a relatively good condition and was then even photographed and presented as supposed “evidence”. So, again, if nothing more than basic physics is taken into account, the claims become extremely difficult to even consider, let alone take at face value.

Even some Kiev regime media, such as The Kyiv Independent, almost immediately refuted the claims. Only a day after the incident, this outlet published that the Kiev regime forces have denied shooting down the “Kinzhal” over the capital city, because there were neither MiG-31K/I strike fighters nor 9-A-7660 “Kinzhals” in the air that night. However, this didn’t stop mainstream propaganda outlets from parroting the story. Considering the fact that the political West and its Kiev puppets are primarily fighting an infowar, this is the only viable explanation as to why they keep insisting that a Russian hypersonic missile was shot down.

It was only in late April that the Neo-Nazi junta confirmed the delivery of its first “Patriot” batteries from the US, Germany and the Netherlands. The system has had an atrocious track record against any sort of target, be it the Iraqi “Scuds” over 30 years ago or Houthi/Iranian drones nowadays. On the other hand, the political West is decades behind Russia in hypersonic weapons development, meaning that this propaganda story accomplishes at least two objectives – promotes US-made air defenses after decades of humiliating failures and “tarnishes” the reputation of Russian hypersonic missiles. The previous is also aimed to help the sales of US systems, just like the hype about the alleged successes of the HIMARS.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

May 10, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Assassination Bid on Putin to Provoke Furious Escalation… for Whom?

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | May 7, 2023

Just as the Western public is growing increasingly skeptical of the U.S.-led proxy war against Russia and the insane military and financial aid being pumped to prop up the corrupt Kiev regime, we then see a daring assassination drone attack on the Kremlin.

Russia called it an act of terrorism to kill President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has also pointed  the finger at Washington for authoring the assassination bid as well as the Kiev regime for having a hand in it.

The White House denies any American role in the air raid as does Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Western media are reporting claims that Russia may have carried out a false-flag terror attack on itself to justify ramping up military force in Ukraine. Those claims echo those put out earlier by the West about Russia blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea last September. In both cases, the notion of Russian false-flag attacks seems absurd.

Would Russia really risk making itself look incompetent by staging an audacious aerial raid on the seat of political power in its capital?

Two small unmanned aerial vehicles were apparently brought down over the Kremlin in the early hours of Wednesday. The lightweight devices could hardly have posed a serious threat to kill Putin in his official residence. So, it can be dismissed as a realistic attempt at assassination. The Kremlin said Putin was not even in the building at the time.

Nevertheless, the mere fact of explosive drones breaching the iconic walls of the Kremlin and targeting the Senate Palace is certainly an outrageous provocation. One may aver that this provocative act per se was the main aim.

Moscow’s initial response was that it would retaliate accordingly at a time of its choosing. There are many voices calling for Russia to kill Zelensky. A furious reaction by Russia is understandable, but is it prudent?

It seems highly pertinent that there is growing skepticism and even disgust among the Western public about the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine. Polls are showing increasing numbers of Americans critical of the “blank checks” that Washington is throwing like a drunken sailor at the Kiev regime. Across Europe too people are angered by the unlimited money showering a corrupt cabal and the reckless danger of inciting an all-out war between NATO and Russia that could spiral into nuclear armageddon. This while Western workers are being drummed into poverty and social misery.

Skimming hundreds of millions of dollars by Zelensky and his cronies in Kiev is undermining Western public tolerance of this completely unnecessary conflict. The war is increasingly seen as a racket for the American military-industrial complex, a racket in which Zelensky and his ilk are indulged with their embezzlement and thievery of Western tax payers’ money.

The Ukraine conflict is blatantly being fueled indefinitely. There is brazen repudiation by Washington and its European minions of any diplomatic solution. A diplomatic solution was obviated from the very beginning when Russia’s reasonable security concerns and offer of dialogue in December 2021 about NATO and Ukraine were arrogantly brushed aside by the Joe Biden administration.

The war racket is too lucrative for the Pentagon industry and its ancillary European weapons firms.

But the Western propaganda narrative of “defending Ukraine for as long as it takes” is wearing thin for public consumption. The Kiev regime is burning down churches, ruthlessly repressing opposition political and media voices, glorifying Nazis and beating its own citizens on the streets in forced conscription for the military.

Vladimir Zelensky is seen as a wheedling character whose begging bowl for more weapons and funds is a black hole.

Without public support (or ignorance) in the West, the whole U.S.-led proxy war against Russia comes unstuck. The American presidential elections are approaching and the Ukrainian debacle could become a decisive factor for voters.

In order to salvage the shaky situation, therefore, what better than for Russia to launch an attack to kill Zelensky? Such an event would be spun to death by the pliant Western media as “evidence of Russian barbarism”, thereby giving the NATO proxy war in Ukraine a new lease on life and most importantly for the weapons racket to find a new throttle.

The American deep state, the CIA and Pentagon corporate oligarchy would be the most plausible agency to author the drone attack on the Kremlin. Just as this faction did with the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines. Technically and militarily, this faction has the capability. Just like the Nord Stream diversionary media stories about Ukrainian military agents being responsible for that sabotage, it is doubtful that the Kiev regime could have carried out the Kremlin attack – alone.

The timing of the Kremlin attack points to a big calculation to incite a wild reaction from Russia. It comes days before the annual May 9 Victory Day parade in Red Square commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. The last time the Kremlin was attacked in an air raid was reportedly in 1942 during Hitler’s invasion. Throw into that incitement that President Putin was targeted.

Arguably, Russia should push to defeat the NATO-backed Kiev regime. The longer that regime survives, the worse the danger persists for Russia from uncontrolled instability on its border. But taking out the contemptible Zelensky and his cronies in a bloody assassination? Such a reaction might be just what his American puppet masters want.

May 8, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Kremlin Responds To Ukraine Intel Chief’s Threat To “Kill Russians Anywhere”

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | May 8, 2023

Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, in an interview with Yahoo News published Friday addressed the recent string of assassinations and cross-border attacks on Russian territory.

In reference to the August car bombing death of Daria Dugina (Yahoo underscored in its lead-in that “U.S. intelligence has attributed Dugina’s killing to the Ukrainian government“), Gen. Budanov offered the following ultra-provocative statement:

“we’ve been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”

He seemed to be owning up to Ukraine being behind the assassinations. What Russia calls “terrorism, we call liberation,” he had said when asked whether Kiev was behind the attacks, which also included the April cafe bombing and death of Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blasted the threatening remarks, calling them “truly heinous” while “vigorously” condemning them. In the Monday response, Peskov said, “What Budanov said is a direct confirmation that the Kiev regime isn’t only sponsoring terrorist activity, but is a direct organizer of this activity.”

He further emphasized that Russia’s own secret services “will be doing everything that they should be doing against the background of such statements.”

“It’s very difficult to imagine that such terrorist statements from Kiev will remain without condemnation. Therefore, today we will be waiting for these condemnations,” he followed with, in reference to the international community.

But the White House has remained mum on the emerging covert ‘dirty war’ targeting Russian officials and ‘pro-Russia’ journalists and mere activists, and may even be assisting with intelligence and planning for such operations. Moscow has leveled this charge precisely. None of those killed so far have actually been Kremlin decision-makers, but are civilians…

Russia’s Security Service (FSB) has said Tatarsky’s assassination was the work of “Ukrainian special services and their agents, including fugitive members of the Russian opposition.”

On Saturday, one of Russia’s best-known novelists, Zakhar Prilepin, was targeted in a car bombing near the city of Nizhny Novgorod. He survived the attack which took place on a highway when a device under his car detonated, but his driver was killed.

May 8, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Meet the British intelligence-linked firm that warped MH17 news coverage

BY KIT KLARENBERG · THE GRAYZONE · MARCH 5, 2023

In November of 2022, a final judgment arrived in the trial of alleged perpetrators of the attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17). Russian nationals Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Donbas separatist Leonid Kharchenko, were convicted in absentia for the murder of MH17’s 283 passengers and 15 crew members. They were ruled to have arranged the transfer of the Buk surface-to-air missile system that reportedly struck the plane.

Oleg Pulatov, the only defendant to seek legal representation during the trial, was conversely acquitted on all charges, which prosecutors will not appeal.

The Malaysian airliner had been purportedly shot down by a missile on July 17th 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew aboard.

Heavily dependent on information supplied by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the Western government-funded “open source” investigations organization known as Bellingcat, the guilty verdicts appeared to vindicate an established narrative in which Russia and its Donbas allies were solely culpable.

But as this investigation will reveal, much of the news coverage of MH17 was heavily influenced by a shadowy entity called Pilgrims Group, which is closely tied to British intelligence.

Staffed and led by British Special Forces veterans, Pilgrims Group is a private security company offering elite security services to London’s embassies, diplomats, spies, and business interests abroad, particularly in high-risk environments. It also trains foreign militaries and paramilitary groups, and provides protection to reporters and their employers.

It was in the latter context that Pilgrims Group shaped media coverage – and by extension, official investigations – of MH17. The company had maintained a presence in Kiev since the early days of the US-orchestrated Maidan “revolution” in late 2013, shepherding journalists to and from the scenes of major events in Ukraine. In the process, it maintained control over what the reporters under its watch saw and how they understood the situations they encountered.

As such, Pilgrims Group played a pivotal role in the effort by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and British intelligence to convict Russia and the Donbas separatists for MH17’s downing. The operation began while the plane’s wreckage remained smoldering on the ground of rebel-controlled territory, and ultimately prevented the initiation of any genuinely independent investigations.

Suspiciously quick off the mark

Before Malaysia Airlines publicly announced it had lost contact with MH17, Ukraine’s then-Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashenko had published its flight number, destination, passenger numbers, the manner in which it crashed, the weapon used, and blamed Russia and Donbas separatists for the catastrophe.

From that point on, the SBU began flooding the information space with materials including intercepted audio of the separatists discussing a downed plane, as well as images its agents allegedly found on social media pointing to where the allegedly Russian-sourced Buk missile had been fired. Bellingcat, which serendipitously launched just days before, immediately seized on the deluge of carefully curated information.

With impressive speed, the US and British government-funded media outfit claimed to have precisely mapped out what happened and how. Bellingcat’s findings were accepted without a shred of critical scrutiny by the Western media, lawmakers, pundits, and the MH17 tribunal, which was launched on August 7th 2014.

In the process, any explanations for MH17’s downing that did not reinforce the official narrative either vanished into the ether, or were maligned as conspiracy theory or Russian “disinformation.” One compelling counter-theory for the aerial disaster was that the plane had been used as a shield by Ukrainian fighter jets to deter ground-to-air attacks by the separatists.

There are clear precedents for such provocative tactics. In 2018, for example, the Israeli air force tricked Syrian air defenses into accidentally shooting down a Russian spy plane by using it as cover for its own fighter jets. A leaked JIT document noted Donbas separatists were convinced that authorities in Kiev were keeping eastern Ukraine’s airspace open for precisely this purpose, having conversely closed Crimea’s at the time.

Furthermore, in a video published on June 18th 2014, separatists expressed concern that Kiev was attempting to provoke an in-air incident. Three days before MH17 went down, a Ukrainian military aircraft ferrying military equipment and soldiers to the frontline was shot down over Lugansk. Multiple witnesses have testified to the presence of Ukrainian jets in the sky near MH17, while contemporary local TV reports show a Ukrainian-operated Buk missile in the vicinity.

Yet, the JIT was simply unwilling to consider evidence diverging from the established Western narrative of MH17. And as the trial proceeded, Pulatov’s defense team, independent journalists and researchers attempting to challenge the long-established narrative of Russian culpability were subjected to vicious attacks from Bellingcat’s army of online trolls.

The SBU-directed propaganda blitzkrieg that immediately followed MH17’s downing ensured that the separatists accused of the attack, and the government accused of sponsoring them, were quickly convicted in the court of international opinion. This may explain why media reaction to the November 2022 verdict was so muted. Despite the enormous, enduring global outcry provoked by the MH17 disaster, the verdict hardly registered with mainstream journalists.

Yet many of the journalists that had covered the MH17 from Ukraine had been kept under the careful watch of an organization intimately involved with the same Western governments with a stake in convicting the separatists for the disaster.

British military veterans direct Maidan news coverage

Because Pilgrims Group operates largely in the shadows, references to the company by Western news outlets are extremely rare. However, the firm is well-known to all major media outlets, boasting on its website of “significant experience of helping to facilitate safe and secure news-gathering and film-making.” Pilgrims Group also claims expertise in ensuring that “journalists and production staff can operate safely and securely” in hostile circumstances, such as “underdeveloped countries, failing states and post-disaster environments.”

The British company made headlines for its work in late 2012, after armed militants abducted a six-strong NBC News team led by the network’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, whom the company was guarding. Engel and his team were freed after five days in captivity, when a vehicle in which they were being escorted was stopped at a checkpoint run by violent extremist group Ahrar al-Sham.

This resulted in a shootout, in which two fighters who kidnapped the team were killed by Ahrar al-Sham. Initially, Engel claimed his captors were affiliated with the government of Bashar Assad, while NBC implied Ahrar al-Sham’s rescue was completely serendipitous. Subsequent investigations revealed the abductors were, in fact, affiliated with the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army, and the checkpoints had been deliberately arranged by Pilgrims Group, which praised the terrorist militia’s “brilliant job.”

Decisive interventions by Pilgrims Group elsewhere have received much less attention. On June 3rd 2014, the firm issued a little-noticed press release boasting of its reputation as “the security company of choice” for media organizations operating in Ukraine at every stage of the Maidan “political unrest,” working with “journalist teams throughout the country” during key “disturbances.”

Oddly, despite their coverage of these events presumably being very publicly disseminated across the globe, Pilgrims Group’s clients in Ukraine apparently “preferred not to be named” due to “the sensitive nature of their role.” Nonetheless, the company bragged that its teams were operational in many of the country’s “major population centres,” including Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kiev, Lviv, Odessa, “and throughout Crimea.”

“Pilgrims has been able to respond rapidly to broadcasters’ demands by drawing on its extensive networks to mobilise former special services personnel, who were on duty within 12 hours of the clients’ initial requests (and frequently considerably quicker). In addition, the company continues to maintain the highest level of awareness of the unfolding political situation in the Ukraine by maintaining its local contact network [emphasis added], with regular updates of information on the ground.”

Further detail on Pilgrims Group’s activities in Ukraine appears in a leaked June 2016 Foreign Office proposal to train Syrian rebel fighters in Jordan as part of the plan to overthrow the Syrian government. The company was central to the project, running “simultaneous training programmes around the world,” and therefore maintaining a “large and flexible pool” of staff who could be assigned to the mission. MH17 was cited as an example of the speed with which Pilgrims Group could mobilize its operatives.

“As a global risk management company Pilgrims are routinely required to expand their operational footprint and support tasks at short notice,” the proposal bragged. “Pilgrims supported a large number of media organisations operating in Ukraine, which peaked at 27 active security teams on the ground. When the Malaysian Airlines aircraft was shot down over Ukraine…Pilgrims generated seven additional teams within six hours [emphasis added].”

This proposal was submitted to the Foreign Office by Adam Smith International, a British intelligence cutout with an extensive history of scandal, corruption and collaboration with jihadist groups. As The Grayzone has revealed, the company also funded Bellingcat to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars in the 2019-20 financial year. Both organizations have refused to reveal the purpose of this sum.

Pilgrims Group has also offered protection to Western journalists in other conflict zones. The LinkedIn profile of senior company staffer and British Army veteran Chris Bradley lists his work providing “security risk management to two award winning news teams in Ukraine (2014) and Syria (2015), including coverage of MH17,” as one of his biggest “achievements” at the firm.

Given the insidious role played by London and its assorted intelligence cutouts in shaping worldwide media coverage of the Syrian civil war, such professional history raises troubling questions about Pilgrims Group’s involvement in influencing news coverage of MH17.

A frontline player in Britain’s global information war

Following the MH17 disaster, Western journalists flocked to the crash site while Ukraine’s State Emergency Service rushed to collect corpses. The collection work was halted after it came under fire from the Ukrainian army, however, and emergency workers left outright after Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) representatives arrived at the crime scene. But reporters under the watchful eye of Pilgrims Group stayed and continued their reporting.

Over subsequent months, as the remaining bodies rotted in the sun, OSCE monitors and pro-Russian rebels frequently left MH17’s wreckage unguarded for extended periods. It was not until November 2014 that the ground was comprehensively cleared. During that time, little would have prevented malicious actors from manipulating, removing or planting incriminating evidence at the site.

In order to operate in Ukraine, Pilgrims Group required the approval of the country’s government, as well as local security and intelligence services. Given the intense fervor with which these same actors sought to cement Kremlin culpability for MH17, Pilgrims Group’s work in managing the protection and travel of Western reporters provided a logical tool to assist this effort, as its operatives were literally able peer over the shoulders of journalists while they worked.

British spies consider MH17 key ‘disinformation’ battleground

Another extremely curious and thus far undisclosed component of the MH17 controversy is the clandestine role played by London’s information warriors in shaping public perceptions of the event. These operations began almost at the precise moment of the crash.

Leaked files related to the activities of Integrity Initiative, a Foreign Office black propaganda unit staffed by British military and intelligence veterans, contain countless references to battling Kremlin “narratives” around MH17. For example, one of its operatives was listed in the documents as a “continuous commentator” in the studio of LBC, one of Britain’s largest radio stations which reaches millions of listeners weekly, on the night of the incident.

In Foreign Office funding submissions in 2018, Integrity Initiative proposed organizing focus groups with select Russian and Russian-speaking audiences, who would be invited to “rebut Western analyses of key media stories (e.g. MH17, Litvinenko, Skripal, doping)” and explain why they supported “counter narratives” about these issues, which pointed away from Moscow.

The results of this effort would be shared with British intelligence agencies and members of the Initiative’s overseas “clusters” – secret networks of spooks, academics, journalists, pundits and politicians – to assist in battling these “narratives” via news outlets and social media. Notably, all Integrity Initiative’s cluster members are formally trained in the art of online trolling.

Integrity Initiative was one of several propaganda enterprises launched by a shadowy Foreign Office unit known as the Counter Disinformation and Media Development (CDMD). The unit is overseen by senior intelligence officer Andy Pryce, who personally “handles” British journalist Paul Mason and likely many other media personalities. Its stated remit is to “weaken the Russian state’s influence” in countries comprising the former Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact and Yugoslavia.

The flagship component of this multi-million pound effort is Open Information Partnership (OIP). Though OIP has posed as a grassroots endeavor to battle Kremlin “disinformation,” leaked files related to the project make abundantly clear it is, in fact, a British-sponsored “troll factory.” Through a covertly funded nexus of ‘independent’ NGOs, fact-checkers, news outlets and citizen journalists across Central and Eastern Europe, the initiative deluges the media environment with a ceaseless stream of anti-Russian propaganda.

Among OIP’s founding “partners” was Bellingcat. For the first three years of its existence, Bellingcat trained participating organizations “in open source research and social media investigation,” while “developing a cadre of organizations with a digital forensic skillset.” In the process, it raked in vast sums from the Foreign Office. Its MH17 investigation was explicitly cited as a reference point for this activity in the Partnership’s founding documents.

OIP’s network was also originally intended to include the Berlin-based “non-profit independent newsroom” Correctiv, which published multiple investigations blaming Russia for MH17. While some of this work won awards, a secret Foreign Office-funded appraisal of the outfit acknowledged its reporting on the crash “[lacked] in-depth background research and due diligence.” However, the outlet’s “excellent” public reputation made it “perhaps the most impressive” of all prospective OIP members.

To advance its anti-Russian machinations, CDMD commissioned extensive target audience analyses of the populations of Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine and the West Balkans throughout 2017. British intelligence indicated that it sought insights into citizens of these countries’ “current perception and attitude towards Russia,” especially with respect to the Kremlin’s “handling” of events such as Brexit, the Syrian crisis, and MH17.

At the same time, British cutouts like the Integrity Initiative and Pilgrims’ Group helped manage the Western public’s view of MH17 as part of a wider agenda to cultivate popular resentment of Russia.

Pilgrims’ Group manages media covering Ukraine proxy war

These same entities continue to shape Western perceptions of events in Ukraine to this day. A May 2022 “capability statement” outlining Pilgrims Group’s Eastern European footprint refers to the Russian invasion “[triggering] a rapid scaling up” of its operations in Kiev.

Pilgrims Group has provided “support networks, including logistics and equipment, to media crews covering the conflict,” and embedded “dozens” of “security consultants” in the ranks of “almost all major international news organisations” active in the country.” Strikingly, the statement adds that all Pilgrims Group security teams in Kiev boast Ukrainian “special police or MoD [Ministry of Defence] backgrounds.”

Once again, Pilgrims Group has been effectively placed in charge of where journalists can travel, what they see, and who they interview in a conflict. Yet even as it helps shape public perceptions of a Western proxy war, the company has managed to remain conveniently in the shadows.

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.

May 7, 2023 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

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