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‘Don’t patronize us’ over Ukraine, India tells Netherlands

Samizdat | May 6, 2022

India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, TS Tirumurti, has accused the Netherlands of “patronizing” his country after the Dutch ambassador to the UK publicly scolded New Delhi for abstaining on UN General Assembly resolutions on the war in Ukraine.

“Kindly don’t patronise us, Ambassador. We know what to do,” Tirumurti wrote in a tweet to Dutch envoy Karel van Oosterom on Thursday.

Tirumurti’s tweet came in response to van Oosterom’s (now-deleted) warning that India “should not have abstained” from votes pertaining to Russia and the war in Ukraine and that it should “respect the UN Charter.”

Despite repeated calls and pressure to join the West in isolating Russia over the Ukraine war, New Delhi has been reluctant to cut ties with Moscow.

India has abstained on multiple votes and resolutions at the UN General Assembly this year, including a vote moved by the US in April to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council over accusations of the killing of civilians.

India also abstained from a vote brought by Ukraine and its backers in March, condemning Russia over the humanitarian situation in the country, saying then that the focus should be on the cessation of hostilities.

In a statement delivered Wednesday at the UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine, Tirumurti reiterated India’s position that “pursuing the path of dialogue and diplomacy” is the “only way out” of the crisis.

“India remains on the side of peace and therefore believes that there will be no winning side in this conflict and, while those impacted by this conflict will continue to suffer, diplomacy will be a lasting casualty,” he said.

The South Asian nation has a strong trading relationship with Russia, receiving arms from Moscow in previous agreements between the two sides. It even deemed the current situation an opportunity to broaden cooperation. The country boosted oil purchases from Russia recently, despite pressure from Washington.

May 6, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Popular Ukrainian Zelensky critic arrested in Spain

Samizdat | May 5, 2022

Prominent blogger and critic of the Ukrainian government, Anatoly Shariy, has been detained by Spanish police as part of an international operation, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) announced on Thursday.

Shariy was arrested on Wednesday in a joint operation by Spanish and Ukrainian cops, as well as international “partners”, the SBU said in a statement.

The agency, Kiev’s successor to the Soviet KGB, said that the opposition figure is wanted on charges of treason by Kiev, among other things. Shariy has been infringing Ukraine’s national security through his activities in the media realm, while allegedly acting on behalf of “foreign” forces, it insisted. The case against the YouTuber with almost 3 million subscribers was launched in February 2021.

Shariy’s arrest “is more proof that every traitor of Ukraine will sooner or later receive his well-deserved punishment. It is inevitable,” the SBU claimed.

The Ukrainian announcement was confirmed by the Spanish police, who told RIA-Novosti that Shariy was detained in the coastal city of Tarragona on May 4 on an international arrest warrant.

Shariy had been granted political asylum in the EU by Lithuania back in 2012. Back then, he said that he was fleeing persecution by the government of Viktor Yanukovich, whom the Western media branded pro-Russian.

Yanukovich was deposed after the Maidan coup in 2014, but the blogger remained a harsh critic of authorities in Ukraine, be it President Petro Poroshenko or his successor Volodymyr Zelensky.

He condemned Russia’s military operation in Ukraine after it was launched in late February but kept pointing out what he saw as flaws in Kiev’s conduct during the ongoing conflict.

The blogger’s political asylum was cancelled by Lithuania in January this year.

Shariy was absent from social media on Wednesday, but on Thursday he took to Telegram to share a photo of his wife feeding parrots in Barcelona, accompanying it with a comment reading: “This really is a comedy.”

According to media reports, the blogger was released from Spanish custody and placed under travel restrictions. He’s to remain in Barcelona where he has a home pending a decision on his extradition to Ukraine.

President Zelensky’s representative at the Constitutional Court has already expressed confidence that Shariy will “face a Ukrainian court and will be held liable in line with Ukrainian laws.”

May 5, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

US invasion threats over Solomon Islands deal expose Western hypocrisy in Ukraine

By Drago Bosnic | May 5, 2022

When Ukraine announced it will join NATO after the CIA-orchestrated Orange Revolution in 2004, it prompted Russia to respond by voicing its strong condemnation, which later culminated in Vladimir Putin’s historical 2007 Munich Security Conference speech. Still, just a year later, Ukraine was invited to join NATO. The former Soviet republic officially applied to integrate within a framework of a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008. However, plans for NATO membership were shelved following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych triumphed, coming back to power after spending over half a decade in the political opposition.

Before the 2010 election, Russia’s concerns were completely ignored and every time Russia stated Ukraine’s NATO ascension would severely undermine and weaken its security, leading members such as the US and the UK stated that it’s Ukraine’s “sovereign right” to choose which alliances it wants to join and that Ukraine’s NATO membership wasn’t aimed against Russia. These claims were put to the test after the 2010 election, because Yanukovych preferred to keep the country non-aligned. A little over 4 years into his presidency, he was ousted in yet another CIA-orchestrated coup, this time the infamous Maidan Revolution, also known as the so-called “Revolution of Dignity” in recent years. So much for Ukraine’s “sovereign right” to choose alliances or worse yet in this case, to stay neutral.

Even if there was any notion of respect for the sovereignty of nations by the US and NATO before 2014, it became glaringly obvious that wasn’t the case. Soon, anti-Russian violence erupted all across the country, which was now firmly in the grip of its NATO (primarily US) overlords and openly Neo-Nazi groups which were promptly integrated into various security institutions, including the military and intelligence services. Again, Ukraine’s “sovereign right” to choose alliances was back on the table during various Russia-US security talks, including the Geneva summit in 2021. The rest is history which we are witnessing as we speak.

However, the Ukraine crisis isn’t the only one unfolding in the context of a broader “the West vs the Rest” clash. The political West doesn’t only bring “peace, stability, freedom and democracy” to Europe and Russia’s near abroad. There are many other such places. While Russia is allegedly being “aggressive” in its own backyard, so is China in the South and East CHINA sea, Iran (previously known as Persia) in the PERSIAN Gulf, etc. Because in the mind of the “indispensable” NATO planners, only other countries can be “aggressive” mere miles away from their coasts, at their borders or even inside their own sovereign territories. NATO, on the other hand, brings only “peace, stability, freedom and democracy” no matter how many thousands or even tens of thousands of kilometers away from its borders, regardless of how negatively that affects any country. And if any of the small vassal countries is to try and get the shackles of “freedom and democracy” off, the reaction is almost immediate.

The most recent such example is the tiny island country called the Solomon Islands. It’s safe to assume most people haven’t even heard of this peaceful Pacific island state, a former UK colony situated some 2000 km northeast of Australia. In late April, the Solomon Islands had the “audacity” to sign a security agreement with China, which would allow Beijing to send military and police personnel to the island country, as well as open the door to a Chinese naval presence in the South Pacific. Or at least that’s what the United States, Australia and New Zealand claim the agreement is all about. My esteemed colleague Uriel Araujo wrote an excellent analysis with a more in-depth focus on the agreement, its causes and possible consequences.

The strategic implications of this agreement might be too soon to evaluate in a precise manner, but it does expose the sheer hypocrisy of the political West, primarily its Anglo-American portion. The Solomon Islands are around 2,000 km away from the Australian coast, over 5,500 km from the US State of Hawaii and nearly 10,000 km away from the US mainland. The Pacific island country was not on the US and Australia’s radar for decades. US embassy in Honiara, the country’s capital, was closed in 1993, nearly 30 years ago. Australia seemed equally uninterested up until just a few weeks ago. And yet, both the US and Australia are now fuming over even the slightest notion that the Solomon Islands could make such an agreement with China.

“We won’t be having Chinese military naval bases in our region on our doorstep,” Australian PM Scott Morrison said, calling it a “red line” both for his government and Washington DC. A US envoy that visited the Honiara in late April said that his government would have “significant concerns and respond accordingly” to any “permanent military presence, power-projection capabilities, or a military installation” by China. After ignoring the country and its security and economic problems for decades, the increasingly belligerent AUKUS allies have now suddenly decided to renew their geopolitical interest in the Solomon Islands by openly threatening the island country.

The question is, why do the US and Australia think they have the right to interfere or even intervene in the affairs of another country which is thousands of kilometers away? Why is the US allowed to conduct so-called “freedom of navigation” naval patrols in the immediate vicinity of Chinese waters in the South China Sea, but it’s “problematic” when China signs agreements with sovereign nations which have nothing to do with the United States and its vassals? After all, isn’t this the “sovereign right” of the Solomon Islands? Why is the legitimate government of the island country being threatened and denied the actual sovereign right to choose allies, but a puppet coup regime in Kiev isn’t?

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

May 5, 2022 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow Says Israeli Mercenaries Fighting in Ukraine

Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, giving press briefing in Moscow (February 2022).
Al-Manar | May 4, 2022

A spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry on Wednesday said Israeli mercenaries were fighting alongside the far-right Azov Regiment in Ukraine, further fueling tensions with Israel after Russia suggested Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood.”

“Israeli mercenaries are practically shoulder to shoulder with Azov militants in Ukraine,” Maria Zakharova told pro-Kremlin Sputnik radio in an interview.

They have been fighting alongside the Ukrainian army against Russian troops, which on February 24 launched a military campaign in Ukraine to protect Russia’s national security.

By suggesting that Israelis are fighting alongside Azov – viewed by Russia as fascists and Nazis, Moscow is escalating political confrontation that started after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday that Hitler had “Jewish blood.”

His remarks sparked outrage in ‘Israel’, which called the statement “unforgivable and outrageous” and a “terrible historical error.”

Russia’s foreign ministry on Tuesday accused ‘Israel’ of backing “the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is of Jewish descent.

May 4, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Lavrov’s ‘anti-Semitic’ remarks

By Gilbert Doctorow | May 4, 2022

In the past couple of days, there were two major diplomatic scandals at the international level. One concerns the Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin, who grossly insulted the Chancellor. The other concerns Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov’s offhand remarks in an interview regarding anti-Semitism, which immediately riled the political establishment in Israel. Though both incidents have been featured in news bulletins, neither has been approached from the angle of investigative journalism.

When Ambassador Andrij Melnyk accused Olaf Scholz of behaving like “an offended liver sausage” for refusing to visit Kyiv, that caught the attention of not only German media, but global media. The term “offended liver sausage” may have seemed peculiar to English speakers, but it clearly was not meant as a compliment.

The Daily Beast went further than most of the press in identifying the term as a German colloquialism “commonly employed to describe someone as a prima donna.” They connected this insult to the head of government with a tit-for-tat by the Chancellor: in the preceding month, Zelensky had refused to receive German head of state Frank-Walter Steinmeier because of his past close ties to Moscow and this motivated Scholz’s decision not to go.

However, the nominally investigative journalists of The Daily Beast looked no further. Neither this paper nor mainstream has asked and then answered persuasively why Kiev would intentionally offend the most powerful country within the EU, upon whom it greatly depends for military and economic assistance. Some put it down to the ambassador’s personal views. Others are simply confounded. No one has considered that the spat Kiev’s man on the spot has initiated with Scholz might be a calculated intervention in German domestic politics, with a view to pushing the indecisive Scholz out of power. The Chancellor is known to be under threat from other members of his own party and from coalition partners who would gladly replace him with someone more committed to helping the Ukrainian cause with action and not just words.

The case of Lavrov’s remarks about Jews and anti-Semitism has received even less penetrating analysis. He is quoted in the press as having said that Hitler also had Jewish blood and that the worst anti-Semites are found among Jews. These words were instantly denounced by the Israeli government, which called for an apology.

The Western press was equally quick to remark how Lavrov had precipitated what can only be a cooling of relations with Israel. Jerusalem would now surely abandon its claims to be an honest broker and would align itself more closely with Kiev. In Washington and London, editors were gleeful.

However, no one asked the question which begs to be addressed: how, why would Sergei Lavrov, who is surely the most experienced diplomat on the world stage, make remarks that could only do damage to Russian-Israeli relations?

I admit that there is an innocuous explanation. Lavrov intended his words as a counter to Western denial that Kiev is a Nazi-dominated regime on grounds that President Zelensky himself is Jewish. But Lavrov had to be aware how Jerusalem would react to his words, so we should look further.

Let me hazard a guess. Lavrov knew well what he was doing and probably had discussed this subject with his boss, Vladimir Vladimirovich, before he opened his mouth.

The Russians are very dissatisfied with Israel over its past military cooperation with Ukraine, and Lavrov’s statement was only the opening round. If we go back to the very first days of Russia’s ‘special military operation,’ when they took control of the Zaporozhye nuclear power station and seized there documents relating to Ukraine’s efforts to build a ‘dirty nuclear weapon,’ the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that there were foreign enablers active there. Then the next day, unexpectedly and in great haste, Israeli Prime Minister Bennett flew to Moscow for unscheduled talks with Putin.  Almost nothing was disclosed about the subject of their talks. But subsequently the foreign enablers were never identified by the Russians.

Though I have been praised by some readers for avoiding ‘speculation,’ I will permit myself just this once to speculate: it is not inconceivable that the Israelis were among the key advisers to Kiev on its program to build nuclear weapons. If that is so, we may expect Russian-Israeli relations to get a lot worse in the coming weeks and months.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

May 4, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Any NATO Vehicle Coming to Ukraine With Weapons Will Be Considered Legitimate Target

Samizdat – 04.05.2022

Russia has repeatedly denounced the continuous flow of weapons into Ukraine from the West, saying that it adds fuel to the fire and derails the negotiation process.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that any NATO vehicle coming to Ukraine with weapons or equipment for Ukrainian forces will be considered a legitimate target for destruction.

“The United States and its NATO allies continue to pump weapons into Ukraine. I can confirm that any transport from the North Atlantic alliance that arrives in the country with weapons or materiel for the Ukrainian armed forces will be considered by us as a legitimate target for destruction,” Shoigu said on Wednesday.

According to him, during the course of the special operation, the Russian servicemen have “shown courage and bravery, honourably fulfilling their military duty, and ensuring the safety of the civil population of Donbass.”

Earlier, Moscow warned that the West’s contribution of weapons to Ukraine threatens to undermine peace talks, not to mention the probability that they could fall into the wrong hands.

Since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February, the US, its NATO allies, and the European Union, have increased weapons supplies to Ukraine.
On 3 May, the UK government announced that it will provide Ukraine with a $375 million military aid package.

Recently, US President Joe Biden asked US Congress for $33 billion in emergency supplemental funding to support Ukraine, including $20 billion for military assistance. The request comes on top of about $4 billion in military aid the Biden administration has already earmarked for Ukraine, $3.4 billion of which came after Russia launched its military operation in late February.

Amid weapons and military equipment deliveries there are discussions about the need to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons, tanks, war planes, etc. Although some countries, such as the UK, call for those kinds of supplies, others oppose the idea.

Earlier, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the German military can no longer supply arms to Ukraine as the country’s weapons stockpiles are practically exhausted.

In turn, Public support of German heavy weapons deliveries to Ukraine has shrunk to 46 percent from 55 percent two weeks ago and 60 percent in early April, with the number of critics rising by 10 percentage points, a poll out Tuesday showed.

On 28 April, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the trend of delivering heavy weapons to Ukraine and other countries is threatening the security of the European continent.

May 4, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The Long, Lucrative, and Bloody Road to World War III

By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | May 3, 2022

Well, this war in Ukraine will last “months and years.” At least, that is what the leaders of the D.C. foreign policy blob, the media, President Joe Biden’s men, Pentagon and NATO leadership have decided. Their plan is to pour oil on the flames and keep the fire raging. Also, Americans are going to have to cough up the dough for another massive aid package, with $20 billion worth of weapons to keep the blood flowing. In total, this next package will cost the taxpayer $33 billion. With Biden’s proposed $813 billion “defense” budget for 2023, the U.S. is spending more on the military and war now than ever before in the country’s history.

Now that we have our very own Ministry of Truth, it would appear any national debate over these polices, indeed if such a debate is ever allowed to take place, will likely have to be moderated by cockroaches and Keith Richards.

NATO is set to expand again, bringing in Finland and Sweden. This will extend the alliance’s border with Russia by greater than 800 miles and further stoke nuclear tensions, bringing the current brinksmanship to a whole new level. Moscow plans to respond including by increasing air and naval forces in the Baltic Sea and reinforcing its Kaliningrad exclave, which lies between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, with additional nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles. Until 2004, it was unthinkable that NATO would ever expand to Russia’s borders until that actually happened. Like most of our issues with Russia, this is all Bill Clinton and George W. Bush’s fault.

Even as Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other leaders in Moscow repeatedly warn of nuclear conflict and World War III, even directly comparing the current situation to the Cuban Missile Crisis, senior Pentagon officials say they are not concerned.

Nor do our all-knowing rulers appear concerned with the fact that they have “almost zero” ability to keep track of the myriad sophisticated weapons systems they are sending to Ukraine. CNN quoted briefed sources saying intelligence shows American arms are falling into a “big black hole.” They say it’s worth it.

Nor do they seem to be concerned with the Russians’ warnings regarding how the West’s weapons flood in Ukraine threatens to expand the war into NATO territory and destabilize Europe.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss demands the West must “double down” on arms shipments, insisting particularly on “heavy weapons, tanks, airplanes—digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this.”

Our top diplomat Antony Blinken says the plan is regime change in Moscow, much like his boss did in March with his Polish “gaffe.” Ironically, the $47 billion in weapons and other U.S. aid pledged to Ukraine these last two months will soon surpass the State Department’s entire budget. Eat your heart out, Netanyahu!

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, former Raytheon board member, says the goal is to see Russia “weakened” to the point where it lacks even the capability to defend itself just outside its borders. As Pat Buchanan notes, this policy, whether its intended to or not, pressures the Kremlin to more seriously consider pulling its nuclear trigger.

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said with a clear eye toward increasing Russian casualties and the long term destruction of Moscow’s conventional power.

Perhaps, Austin wants to cripple Russia so severely that his Pentagon can fight a war with China, the “most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department,” without having to worry so much about Moscow—deemed a second tier “acute” threat, albeit one armed with roughly 6,000 nukes—getting involved.

Austin’s Raytheon pals are making a killing on this proxy war as well as the ancillary effects such as European NATO states, at long last, increasing their military spending.

As Ron Paul has written,

One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, “Everything that’s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DOD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business.”

He wasn’t lying. Raytheon, along with Lockheed Martin and countless other weapons manufacturers are enjoying a windfall they have not seen in years. The U.S. has committed more than three billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. They call it aid, but it is actually corporate welfare: Washington sending billions to arms manufacturers for weapons sent overseas.

By many accounts these shipments of weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile (jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin) are getting blown up as soon as they arrive in Ukraine. This doesn’t bother Raytheon at all. The more weapons blown up by Russia in Ukraine, the more new orders come from the Pentagon.

Former Warsaw Pact countries now members of NATO are in on the scam as well. They’ve discovered how to dispose of their 30-year-old Soviet-made weapons and receive modern replacements from the U.S. and other western NATO countries.

There is scarcely a status quo to oppose. For weeks, escalations have continued apace. London has deployed SAS troops in Kiev to train Ukrainian troops on English anti-tank weapons. The U.S. is training Kiev’s troops in Germany and two other secret locations in Europe on heavy artillery, radar systems, and armored vehicles. Washington is expanding intelligence sharing with Kiev for its war with Russia in the Donbas, providing howitzers, vehicles to carry them, and an additional 144,000 artillery rounds. Poland is sending tanks to Ukraine, Slovenia has a plan to send large numbers of T-72 battle tanks as well. The Germans will be supplying anti-aircraft tanks to Kiev and the Pentagon says an unidentified European ally is providing Ukraine with warplanes.

London’s armed forces minister declared his government’s support for Kiev’s “completely legitimate” attacks inside Russia using British arms. This comes amid an uptick in reports of Ukrainian cross border drone and helicopter assaults including on Russian oil depots, residential areas, and villages. The U.S. and its European allies are implementing a long term policy that looks to exile Russia, looking toward a new world order where they no longer seek to “coexist” with Moscow.

London wants Europe to cut off all Russian energy “once and for all,” which would make war more likely, impoverish innocent people, and cause massive recessions.

The U.S., NATO, and Russian presence in the Mediterranean Sea has reached Cold War levels, as NATO builds new Eastern European battlegroups.

In March, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that any “use of chemical weapons would totally change the nature of the conflict, it would be a blatant violation of international law and would have far-reaching consequences.” This weekend, legislation for a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) has been introduced by Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). Kinzinger’s announcement calls the would be AUMF a “clear red line,” which would authorize Biden to deploy troops to Ukraine to fight Russians if Moscow should “use chemical, biological, and/or nuclear weapons.”

With the almost complete bipartisan Congressional support for the renewal of Lend-Lease and other anti-Russia, pro-war legislation, it is not outside the realm of possibility that this bill and its cynical redline trap becomes law.

For nearly two decades, Washington has funded “biological research” and other laboratories inside Ukraine. According to the head of the DoD’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, some of these labs may contain Soviet-era bioweapons.

As Dave DeCamp, news editor at Antiwar.com, has reported,

The Pentagon funds labs in Ukraine through its Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). According to a Pentagon fact sheet released last month, since 2005, the U.S. has “invested” $200 million in “supporting 46 Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and diagnostic sites.”

Moscow has accused Ukraine of conducting an emergency clean-up of a secret Pentagon-funded biological weapons program when Russia invaded. The World Health Organization said it advised Ukraine to destroy “high-threat pathogens” around the time of the invasion.

For their part, the U.S. maintains that the program in Ukraine and other former Soviet states is meant to reduce the threat of biological weapons left over from the Soviet Union. While downplaying the threat of the labs, Pentagon officials have also warned that they could still contain Soviet-era bioweapons.

Robert Pope, the director of the DTRA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in February that the labs might contain Soviet bioweapons and warned that the fighting in Ukraine could lead to the release of a dangerous pathogen.

Much like previous Syrian redlines, this is practically the hawks’ invitation to bad actors seeking U.S. intervention to go ahead and launch an attack that could be plausibly blamed on our Hitler du jour to manufacture their desired casus belli.

It seems there may be ample sites somebody could hit that would cross Kinzinger’s cleverly drawn line in the sand. And much like the CIA, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia’s al Qaeda allies in Syria, the Azov Battalion and other Nazi groups, who have taken a humiliating beating thus far in the war, are prime candidates to launch a false flag.

If the American people do not wake up and demand an end to our government’s intervention in Ukraine, the U.S. may be directly entering this war soon.

If Russia was doing what the U.S. and its allies are doing in Ukraine, in Mexico or Canada, in addition to the unprecedented economic war being waged, these hawks in D.C. would have pulled the aforementioned nuclear trigger months ago.

May 4, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Names of Hungarian PM, Croatian President Appear on Notorious Ukrainian Kill List Site

Samizdat | May 2, 2022

Curated by the Security Service of Ukraine and officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Myrotvorets website publishes the personal info of so-called “enemies of Ukraine”. Several individuals whose names have been posted on the site have been murdered, and rights groups and governments have repeatedly called for it to be taken down.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s name has appeared on the notorious Ukrainian website Myrotvorets.center (lit. “Peacekeeper”).

The 58-year-old politician is listed as an “accomplice of Russian war criminals”, an “accomplice in the crimes of Russian authorities against Ukraine and its citizens”, for his “participation in acts of humanitarian aggression against Ukraine”, as an “anti-Ukrainian propagandist”, and for his general all-round “cooperation with the Russian aggressor”.

Orban’s specific “crimes” include his refusal to allow weapons intended for Ukraine to be sent through his country’s territory, and his refusal to reject Russian gas supplies even in the long-term. The prime minister’s willingness to pay for Russian gas in rubles is also mentioned.

The site further recalled Orban’s 4 April statement about the forces Hungary has faced to remain independent, ranging from the local opposition to “the bureaucrats in Brussels, money and institutes of the Soros empire, international media as well as the Ukrainian president”.

Finally, the website points to Orban’s demands that Kiev’s post-2014 authorities respect western Ukraine’s sizeable ethnic Hungarian community, and provide residents of Zakarpattia with greater autonomy.

Along with Orban, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic’s name has also been added to the site. Milanovic is listed as an “accomplice of Russian invaders” for his alleged “humanitarian aggression against Ukraine” for “the spreading of Kremlin propaganda” and so-called “support and justification of Russian aggression against Ukraine”.

The site recalls Milanovic’s 2 February 2022 remarks that Russia must be “a factor” in the “equation” of European-wide stability, and his opposition to Ukraine joining NATO.

Former Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, suggested that Orban and Milanovic’s appearance on the notorious website was a sign that Ukraine’s neo-Nazi elements were dissatisfied with the amount of weapons, mercenaries, and money they have received from the West.

“At this rate, soon Ukrainian Nazis will personally carry out reprises against objectionable leaders and ‘separate the sheep from the goats’ directly in European capitals”, Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel.

Hungary has refused to toe the line on the European Union’s anti-Russian policy in the wake of the escalation of the Ukraine crisis in February. On Sunday, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyas said that Budapest has “made it clear” that it will “never support” extending EU sanctions against Russian energy imports, implying that it may veto Brussels’ plans to ban Russian oil.

Journalists, human rights groups, the G7, and the Russian Foreign Ministry have repeatedly called for Myrotvorets to be shut down, citing its use against the so-called “enemies of Ukraine” to murder, threaten, and intimidate individuals whose names have been listed there. Set up in 2014, the site has since amassed tens of thousands of names, ranging from Ukrainian opposition politicians and public figures to foreign officials, journalists, and businessmen.

In 2015, former Ukrainian lawmaker Oleg Kalashnikov and journalist and writer Oles Buzina were murdered after their personal data (including addresses) were posted on the site. Before he was killed, Kalashnikov repeatedly reported on threats being made against his life after his info was placed on the site. After he and Buzina were killed, Myrotvorets’ official Twitter handle mockingly joked about “the successful completion of a combat mission by agent 404” – a reference to the well-known HTTP 404 “not found” error.

Several other journalists and public figures listed on the site have subsequently been killed. Among the deceased is Andrea Rocchelli, an Italian independent journalist working in Donbass.

In 2015, the website began to publish the personal data of Russian military personnel involved in the anti-terrorist operation in Syria. Then-adviser to the Ministry of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko publicly encouraged Daesh (ISIS) to “deal with” Russian troops under Sharia law. His comments prompted Russia’s Investigative Committee to open a criminal case against him over public calls for terrorist activities.

In 2016, Myrotvorets got its hands on leaked detailed personal data of some 5,000 Ukrainian, Russian, and Western journalists who had worked in Donbass. Among the records leaked was detailed personal information including phone numbers and addresses, and many of the journalists have reported threats against their lives.

Orban isn’t the first Hungarian to be added to the Myrotvorets list. In 2018, the website listed over 300 ethnic Hungarian residents from Zakarpattia who had “illegally” obtained Hungarian citizenship (Ukraine doesn’t allow dual citizenship, but much of the country’s political and business elite holds two or more citizenships anyway). In October 2018, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto blasted the site and the Ukrainian government, saying authorities in Kiev were using the website as part of a “hate campaign” in a desperate attempt to increase then-President Petro Poroshenko’s sagging approval ratings.

May 3, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

India, Germany cogitate on Ukraine

Germany to send fifty Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine to fight Russia
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MAY 3, 2022

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s short visit to Germany pegged on the Indian-German Intergovernmental Commission meeting in Berlin on Monday inevitably came to focus on the Ukraine crisis. The western media would have loved to grill Modi on India’s reluctance to criticise Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. But German hosts thoughtfully skipped the customary Q&A after the joint appearance of Modi and Chancellor Olaf Scholz before the press. 

India’s prudence is self-evident as much as Germany’s zealousness to flaunt its condemnation of Russia. Modi and Scholz are sailing in different boats. Modi draws flak for being a “strongman” who views the Ukraine crisis through the prism of India’s interests, while also taking a principled stance, whereas, Scholz carries the burden of vacuous moralising.

Scholz must prove constantly that he is indeed a loyal ally of President Biden and is by no means a “pacifist.” (To get a hang of Scholz’s predicament, read Spiegel’s maddening interview with him, here — alternatively annoying, infuriating, taunting, affronting and goading.)    

Modi can afford to be nonchalant because he is clearheaded about where Indian interests lie — its strategic autonomy in a highly unpredictable international environment. But Scholz is nervous as a mouse because German interests are caught up betwixt the crosscurrents of European politics and the NATO’s epochal struggle to bring Russia down on its knees. 

Modi is well ensconced in power while Scholz heads a precarious coalition of disparate partners. Modi could witness Scholz and his foreign minister Annalena Baerbock speaking in two different voices on Russia. Baerbock insisted that Russian forces should vacate Ukrainian soil before Western sanctions can be lifted, but Scholz toned down saying that the lifting of Western sanctions is linked to Russia and Ukraine reaching an agreement. 

Germany is a divided house when it comes to Russia ties. On the contrary, aside the clutch of noisy American lobbyists operating in India, the Indian public at large recognises the centrality of India’s friendly relations with Russia. 

India gets the space to manoeuvre, as Russia is excessively indulgent towards Delhi’ stance, which is, quintessentially, neither to support nor to oppose Moscow’s intervention — something  like Professor Godbole in the EM Forster novel A Passage to India, a Brahman Hindu who is very spiritual and reluctant to become involved in human affairs. 

Scholz who is new to international diplomacy could have learnt a thing or two from UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s recent visit to India. Johnson put Ukraine on the back burner and focused on the agenda of “Global Britain” to create his country’s post-Brexit pathway in India’s vast market. 

That said, Scholz has done remarkably well in getting the US off his back over sanctions against gas supplies from Russia. Germany’s dependence on Russian supplies of oil and gas (and coal) has been heavy and the Americans accept it as a reality. The point is, Germany and Russia have had a dense relationship and the Ukraine crisis comes in handy for Washington to try to redefine the parameters within which German-Russian relations will work in future. 

In India’s case, if Washington dared to bully the Modi government, it was largely because in the post-Cold War era, under successive Congress governments, India’s relations with Russia got atrophied to such an extent that Americans convinced themselves that it was a conscious Indian policy direction dictated by the compulsions of the “Washington Consensus,” which has been a beacon light for India’s past leaderships. Unsurprisingly, the Biden Administration misjudged that Modi too must be fair game.

But the core difference between the German and Indian predicament is that while German industry is a stakeholder in the relationship with Russia, India’s corporate houses, for reasons best known to them, sidestep the Russian turf in deference to the US wish. Thus, Washington has powerful Indian lobbyists and, therefore, the Modi government’s audacity to pursue an independent policy toward Russia becomes commendable. 

The chances are that Germany may pick up the threads of its relationship with Russia once the Ukraine conflict ends. In the chronicle of the “German Question” in European history, Russia had the role of a balancer, mostly. But there is a deep economic and political crisis waiting to erupt in Germany and how it pans out is crucial.

The rising inflation and the dramatic fall in living standards is souring the German mood, as the debris from Ukraine falls on it. So far, an estimated 5 million Ukrainian refugees have entered Europe. This figure is expected to double in a near future.

Meanwhile, the looming food crisis will also put tens of millions of people in Africa or the Middle East on the verge of starvation fuelling in turn large scale migration to Europe. Such migration will inevitably bring the dregs of Ukrainian society into Germany, which means that organised crime, human trafficking, illegal drug distribution and transnational crime, etc. will increase. Make no mistake that the Ukrainian mafia will introduce a new vicious culture of crime as it begins to dominate the European streets.

All in all, a fine balance has been struck during Modi’s visit. The joint statement conceded the host country’s prerogative to reiterate its “strong condemnation of the unlawful and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine by Russian Forces.” But it formed a “stand alone” statement of a solitary sentence, which helps signal India’s distancing from it. Germany joined India’s call for an “immediate cessation of hostilities,” although Berlin just announced a major transfer of offensive weaponry to Ukraine as part of the US-led “coalition of the willing” and implicitly acquiesces with the Biden administration’s aggressive agenda of “weakening Russia” militarily.

Significantly, the sombre mood in Germany got reflected in the joint statement. The Indo-German economic relations are far below potential and will remain so. CNN carried a grim report in the weekend that not only is German economy heading into a recession but it may suffer “structural damage” that will make recovery a drawn-out process. 

Clearly, behind the German rhetoric today, the fact remains that Berlin’s intelligence apparatus played a dubious role in Ukraine by navigating the ascendancy of the neo-Nazi forces to usurp power in Kiev in the coup in February 2014. This controversial past is now further complicated by Berlin fuelling the conflict by despatching tanks into Ukraine, which was after all the invasion route of Nazi Germany. 

When it comes to Ukraine, Germany doesn’t make good company for India. We have a transparent record and with great honesty and integrity, Modi could forewarn , with Scholz listening, that “there will be no winning party in this war, everyone will suffer.”    

May 3, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia doubles down on Hitler remarks, says Israel supports neo-Nazis

Press TV – May 3, 2022

Russia says Israel is supporting “the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev”, raising the stakes in its tensions with Tel Aviv over the raging war in Ukraine.

The spat began after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking to Italian outlet Mediaset’s Rete 4 channel in an interview released Sunday, said that Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins.

Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid on Monday accused Lavrov of making an “unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error” and summoned Moscow’s ambassador for “clarifications”.

“We have paid attention to Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s anti-historical remarks, which largely explain the current government’s decision to support the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev,” said the Russian foreign ministry in a statement on Tuesday.

“History unfortunately knows tragic examples of cooperation between Jews and Nazis,” it said.

In his interview, Lavrov said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “puts forward an argument of what kind of Nazism can they have if he himself is Jewish”.

Lavrov, according to a transcript posted on the Russian foreign ministry website, then added: “I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood”.

Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett characterized Lavrov’s remarks as “lies” that he said effectively “accuse the Jews themselves of the most awful crimes in history”, perpetrated against themselves.

On Tuesday, the Russian foreign ministry said “the Jewish origins of the president (Zelensky) is not a guarantee of protection against rampant neo-Nazism in the country”.

“Ukraine, may it be said in passing, is not the only one in this case,” the ministry said, citing Latvian President Egils Levits who “has also Jewish roots and he also gives cover… to the rehabilitation of the Waffen SS in his country”.

Israel has expressed solidarity with Ukraine but unlike its Western allies, it has refrained from enforcing formal sanctions on Russia over its military operation in the neighboring country.

Last month, Lapid accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Moscow hit back, accusing Israel of using Ukraine to “distract” the world from its ongoing aggression against Palestinians.

May 3, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov interview with Xinhua News Agency

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs | April 30, 2022

Question: What do you think is at the root of the Ukrainian crisis? What can the international community do to solve this problem?

Sergey Lavrov:  When we talk about the Ukrainian crisis, first of all we need to look at the destructive policy of the Western states conducted over many years and led by the United States, which set a course to knock together a unipolar world order after the end of the Cold War. NATO’s reckless expansion to the East was a key component of those actions, despite the political obligations to the Soviet leadership on the non-expansion of the Alliance. As you know, those promises were just empty words. All these years, NATO infrastructure has been moving closer and closer to the Russian borders.

The West was never concerned about the fact that their actions grossly violated their international obligations not to strengthen their own security at the expense of the security of others. In particular, Washington and Brussels arrogantly rejected the initiatives put forward by Russia in December 2021 to ensure our country’s security guarantees in the west: to stop the expansion of NATO, not to deploy armaments that pose a threat to Russia in Ukraine and to return the Alliance’s military infrastructure to the 1997 configuration, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.

It is well-known that the United States and NATO member states have always viewed Ukraine as a tool to contain Russia. Over the years, they have actively fuelled anti-Russia sentiments there, forcing Kiev to make an artificial and false choice: to be either with the West or with Moscow.

It was the collective West that first provoked and then supported the anti-constitutional coup d’etat in Kiev in February 2014. Nationalists came to power in Ukraine and immediately unleashed a bloody massacre in Donbass, and set the course on the destruction of everything Russian in the rest of the country. Let me remind you that it was precisely because of this threat that the people of Crimea voted in a referendum for the reunification with Russia in 2014.

Over these past years, the United States and its allies have done nothing to stop the intra-Ukrainian conflict. Instead of encouraging Kiev to settle it politically based on the Minsk Complex of Measures, they sent weapons, trained and armed the Ukrainian army and nationalist battalions, and generally carried out the military-political development of Ukraine’s territory. They encouraged the aggressive anti-Russia course pursued by the Kiev authorities. In fact, they pushed the Ukrainian nationalists to undermine the negotiating process and resolve the Donbass issue by force.

We were deeply concerned about the undeclared biological programmes implemented in Ukraine with Pentagon’s support in close proximity to the Russian borders. And, of course, we could not disregard the Kiev leadership’s undisguised intentions to acquire a military nuclear potential, which would create an unacceptable threat to Russia’s national security.

In these conditions, we had no other choice but to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and launch the special military operation. Its aim is to protect people from genocide by the neo-Nazis, as well as to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine. I would like to stress that Russia is acting to fulfil its obligations under bilateral agreements on cooperation and mutual assistance with the DPR and LPR, at the official request of Donetsk and Lugansk under Article 51 of the UN Charter on the right to self-defence.

The special military operation launched on February 24 is progressing strictly in accordance with the plan. All its goals will be achieved in spite of our opponents’ counteractions. At the moment we are witnessing a classic case of double standards and hypocrisy of the Western establishment. By publicly supporting the Kiev regime, NATO member states are doing everything in their power to prevent the completion of the operation by reaching political agreements. Various weapons are flowing endlessly into Ukraine through Poland and other NATO countries. All of this is being done under the pretext of “fighting the invasion”, but in fact the United States and the European Union intend to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” They do not care at all about the fate of Ukraine as an independent subject of international relations.

The West is ready to jeopardise the energy and food security of entire regions of the globe to satisfy its own geopolitical ambitions. What other explanation is there for the unrestrained flywheel of anti-Russian sanctions launched by the West with the start of the operation and which they aren’t thinking of stopping?

If the United States and NATO are truly interested in settling the Ukrainian crisis, then, first, they must come to their senses and stop supplying weapons and ammunition to Kiev. The Ukrainian people do not need Stingers and Javelins; what they need is a solution to urgent humanitarian issues. Russia has been doing this since 2014. During this time, tens of thousands of tonnes of humanitarian cargo have been delivered to Donbass, and about 15,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid have already arrived in the part of Ukraine liberated from the Kiev regime, the DPR and the LPR, since the launch of the special military operation.

Second, it is essential that the Kiev regime stops cynical provocations, including in the information space. Ukrainian armed formations are barbarically shelling cities using civilians as living shields. We saw examples of this in Donetsk and Kramatorsk. Captured Russian servicemen are being abused with animal cruelty, and these atrocities are being posted online. At the same time, they use their Western patrons and global media controlled by the West to accuse the Russian army of war crimes. As they say, laying the blame at somebody else’s door.

It is high time for the West to stop unconditionally whitewashing and covering up for Kiev. Otherwise, Washington, Brussels and other Western capitals should consider their responsibility for complicity in the bloody crimes perpetrated by the Ukrainian nationalists.

Question: What measures has Russia taken to protect the lives and property of civilians? What efforts has it made to establish humanitarian corridors?

Sergey Lavrov: As I mentioned earlier, the special military operation is proceeding according to plan. Under this plan, the Russian military personnel are doing everything in their power to avoid victims among civilians. Blows are carried out with high-precision weapons, first of all at military infrastructure facilities and places where armoured vehicles are concentrated. Unlike the Ukrainian army and nationalist armed groups that use people as living shields, the Russian army provides the locals with all kinds of assistance and support.

Humanitarian corridors open daily from Kharkov and Mariupol to evacuate people from dangerous districts, but the Kiev regime demands that the “national battalions” in control of those areas do not release the civilians. Nevertheless, many are able to leave with the assistance of Russian, DPR and LPR servicemen. During the special military operation, the hotline of the Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters of the Russian Federation for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine has received requests for assistance in evacuating 2.8 million people to Russia, including 16,000 foreign citizens and employees of UN and OSCE international missions. In total, 1.02 million people have been evacuated from Ukraine, the DPR and LPR, of which over 120,000 are citizens of third countries, including over 300 Chinese nationals. There are over 9,500 temporary accommodation facilities operating in Russian regions. They have space for rest and hot meals, and everything that may be necessary. Newly arrived refugees are provided with qualified medical and psychological assistance.

Russia is taking measures to ensure civilian navigation in the Black and Azov seas. A humanitarian corridor opens daily, a safe lane for ships. However, Ukraine continues to block foreign ships, creating a threat of shelling in its internal waters and territorial sea. Moreover, Ukrainian naval units have mined the shore, the ports and territorial waters. These explosive devices disconnect from their anchor lines and drift into the open sea, so they pose a serious danger to both the fleets and the port infrastructure of the Black Sea countries.

Question: Since the special military operation was launched in Ukraine, Western counties have adopted a large number of unprecedented sanctions against Moscow. How do you think these sanctions will affect Russia? What are the main countermeasures taken by Russia? Some say that a new Cold War has begun. How would you comment on that?

Sergey Lavrov: It is true that the special military operation was used by the collective West as a pretext to unleash numerous restrictions against Russia, as well as its legal entities and individuals. The United States, Great Britain, Canada and EU countries do not conceal that their goal is to strangle our economy by undermining its competitiveness and blocking Russia’s progressive development. At the same time, the Western ruling circles are not embarrassed by the fact that anti-Russian sanctions are already beginning to harm ordinary people in their own countries. I mean the declining economic trends in the United States and many European countries, including growing inflation and unemployment.

It is clear that there can be no excuse for this anti-Russian line and it has no future. As President Vladimir Putin said, Russia has withstood this unprecedented pressure. Now the situation is stabilising, though, of course, not all risks are behind us.

In any case, they will not succeed in weakening us. I am confident that we will restructure the economy and protect ourselves from our opponents’ possible illegitimate and hostile actions in the future. We will continue to give a fitting and adequate response to the imposed restrictions, guided by the goal of maintaining the stability of the Russian economy and its financial system, as well as the interests of domestic businesses and the entire nation. We will focus our efforts on de-dollarisation, de-offshorisation, import substitution, and promotion of technological independence. We will continue to adapt to external challenges and step up development programmes for promising and competitive industries.

During the period of turbulence, our retaliatory special economic measures needed to ensure the normal functioning of the Russian economy will be continued and expanded. As a responsible player on the international market, Russia intends to continue scrupulously fulfilling its obligations under international contracts on export deliveries of agricultural products, fertilisers, energy carriers and other critical products. We are deeply concerned about a possible food crisis provoked by the anti-Russian sanctions, and we are well aware how important the deliveries of essential goods, such as food, are for the socioeconomic development of Asian, African, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries.

I will be brief as regards the second part of your question. Today we are not talking about a new “cold war,” but, as I said earlier, about the persistent desire to impose a US-centric model of the world order coming from Washington and its satellites, who imagine themselves to be “arbiters of humankind’s fate.” It has reached the point where the Western minority is trying to replace the UN-centric architecture and international law formed after World War II with their own “rule-based order.” These rules are written by Washington and its allies and then imposed on the international community as binding.

We must realise that the United States has been carrying out this destructive policy for several decades now. It is enough to recall NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia, attacks on Iraq and Libya, attempts to destroy Syria, as well as the colour revolutions that Western capitals staged in a number of countries, including Ukraine. All of this came at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and resulted in chaos in various regions of the planet.

The West tries to crudely suppress those who carry out an independent course in their domestic and foreign policy. Not just Russia. We can see how bloc thinking is being imposed in the Asian-Pacific Region. We can recall the Indo-Pacific strategy promoted by the United States, which has a pronounced anti-China tendency. The US seeks to dictate the standards according to which Latin America should live, in the spirit of the outdated Monroe Doctrine. This explains many years of the illegal trade embargo on Cuba, sanctions against Venezuela, as well as attempts to undermine stability in Nicaragua and other countries. The pressure on Belarus continues in the same context. This list can go on.

It is clear that the collective West’s efforts to oppose the natural course of history and solve its problems at the expense of others are doomed. Today the world has several decision-making centres; it is multipolar. We can see how quickly Asian, African, and Latin American countries are developing. Everyone is getting a real freedom of choice, including where it comes to choosing their development models and participation in integration projects. Our special military operation in Ukraine also contributes to the process of freeing the world from the West’s neocolonial oppression heavily mixed with racism and a complex of exceptionalism.

The faster the West accepts the new geopolitical situation, the better it will be for the West itself and for the entire international community.

As President Xi Jinping said at the Boao Forum for Asia, “We need to uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and oppose the pursuit of one’s own security at the cost of others’ security.”

Question: Russian-Ukrainian talks have attracted close attention of the international community. What are the main obstacles to the talks today? How do you regard the prospects of a peace treaty between the two parties? What kind of bilateral relations does Russia intend to have with Ukraine in the future?

Sergey Lavrov: At present the Russian and Ukrainian delegations are holding discussions on the possible draft almost daily, via videoconference. This document should contain such elements of the post-conflict situation as permanent neutrality, the non-nuclear, non-bloc and demilitarised status of Ukraine, as well as guarantees of its security. The agenda of the talks also includes denazification, recognition of the new geopolitical reality, the lifting of sanctions and the status of the Russian language, among other things. Settling the situation in Ukraine will make a significant contribution to the de-escalation of the military and political tensions in Europe and the world in general. The establishment of an institution of guarantor states is envisaged as a possible option. First of all, they will be the permanent members of the UN Security Council, including Russia and China. We share information on the progress in the talks with Chinese diplomats. We are grateful to Beijing and other BRICS partners for their balanced position on the Ukrainian issue.

We are in favour of continuing the talks, although the process is difficult.

You are right to ask about the obstacles. For example, they include the militant rhetoric and incendiary actions of Kiev’s Western patrons. They are actually encouraging Kiev to “fight to the last Ukrainian,” pumping the country with weapons and sending mercenaries there. Let me note that the Ukrainian security services staged a crude bloody provocation in Bucha with the help of the West, to complicate the negotiation process among other things.

I am confident that agreements can only be reached when Kiev starts to be guided by the interests of the Ukrainian people, and not the advisors from far away.

Speaking about Russian-Ukrainian relations, Russia is interested in a peaceful, free, neutral, prosperous and friendly Ukraine. Despite the current administration’s anti-Russian course, we remember the many centuries of all-embracing cultural, spiritual, economic and family ties between Russians and Ukrainians. We will definitely restore these ties.

May 2, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Won’t They Say Who Funded These Ukraine Ads?

By Michael Tracey | May 2, 2022

On April 17, I was in London Bridge train station in central London, and couldn’t help but notice that the entire station was blanketed with these digital “Be Brave Like Ukraine” ads. Stylized in a nifty semi-Cyrillic font, the ads feature the classic blue and yellow color scheme that has now become so ubiquitous across “The West” — perhaps most prominently in London, where a local acquaintance told me she’s seen more Ukraine flags on display over the past two months than she ever saw of the UK’s own national flag.

I had a few natural questions upon seeing these ads. First, who crafted them? That answer came quickly: Just go to the “brave.ua” website and you’ll discover the ads were crafted by a consortium within the Ukraine government, including the office of Zelensky.

The answer to other natural questions have not come so quickly, though. Those questions include: Who paid for these ads? How much did they cost? Who organized their placement in some of the most expensive advertising real estate in the world? (They’ve also been displayed in Times Square, among other high-profile locations.)

Strangely, this information has proven difficult to acquire.

First I tried querying the TFL, the government body in charge of transport in London. They had no clue about the ads. Then I tried Network Rail, which runs most of the railways in England. They had no clue either. Finally I tried the massive global advertising agency which apparently owns the digital screens in question, JCDecaux. And… it initially seemed like they might have the answer. I know this because the “Corporate Communications Director” for JCDecaux inadvertently sent me an email where she deliberates with her colleague about how to answer my questions:

Kinda funny that the “Corporate Communications Director” still doesn’t have the hang of communications skills like sending your sensitive internal emails to the right recipient. Either way, this person did not in fact “come back to me tomorrow.” Days passed, and I heard nothing. Then, finally, here was the answer:

Curious, don’t you think? Why would a multinational advertising conglomerate based in France, with branches in the UK, US, and elsewhere, be so skittish about providing basic details about this Ukraine government advertising campaign? Shouldn’t they be proud of it, and therefore happy to provide the details? I thought the message of the ads was to “Be Brave Like Ukraine.” Apparently that “Bravery” doesn’t extend to allowing for transparency in the financial arrangements of these PR maneuvers, which have resulted in “Western” capitals being saturated with imagery that to the naked eye may seem benign — but, functionally, amounts to obvious pro-war propaganda.

Because bear in mind that these government-crafted ads have flooded London, NYC, Washington DC, etc. at the same time as Ukraine officials are furiously lobbying the UK and US governments to ramp up their military involvement in the war. Those lobbying efforts have been incredibly successful, with Respectable Mainstream outfits like The New Yorker finally now admitting that the scale of the US commitment constitutes “a full proxy war with Russia.” (Not so long ago, I was attacked as a peddler of “Putin’s talking points” for using the term “proxy war” on TV.)

It went largely unremarked upon when the head of the Pentagon, flanked by the head of the State Department, transited into Kiev for a secret mission on April 25 — and then hours later, a series of giant explosions ripped through a Russian military logistics hub approximately 90 miles inside Russia. This after US officials began leaking that they would no longer even pretend to recognize any distinction between “defensive” and “offensive” combat operations conducted by the Ukraine military — effectively acknowledging their willingness to provide both weaponry and real-time intelligence to launch attacks on Russia itself.

In the UK, the Armed Services Secretary, James Heappey, followed this up by declaring that it would be “entirely legitimate” for arms delivered by “Western countries” to be used for offensive strikes within Russian territory. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss then went further than even any US official when she declared that total “victory” in Ukraine must also include driving Russia out of Crimea, raising the stakes higher still.

With each passing week, both these countries adopt a more and more aggressive, bombastic war footing.

Meanwhile, the nice-seeming “Be Brave Like Ukraine” ads are covering major transportation centers. It doesn’t take much elaborate dot-connecting to apprehend that the ads are one facet of the larger PR campaign to draw the US, UK, and other governments further and further into the war. This campaign has been demonstrably effective. And the ad agency which facilitated the ads is choosing to conceal from the public basic details about their provenance — such as who even paid for them. Really makes you think.

May 2, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

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