Recently, western political leaders and mainstream media have begun injecting a new talking point into their anti-Russian and wartime discourse: that Russia is planning an endless series of ‘false flag attacks.’
Never mind the fact that, historically speaking, Russia has no visible track record of false flag operations.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for either the US and Britain – both have an extremely long list of military and political deceptions which they’ve used to start and prolong various wars around the world.
Currently, in the Donbass region, formerly in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are firing indiscriminately into civilian towns and villages – and then attempting to blame their own violent actions on Russia. The shelling of civilian areas has been going on continuous there since the civil war began in 2014. This is extremely worrying, because in the current anti-Russian western media ecosystem, any accusations leveled at Russia are never questioned, before being beamed across all western global news networks. And that is exactly what is happening right now with mainstream media coverage in Ukraine.
Independent journalist Patrick Lancaster is on the ground in Donbass region in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, and has recently interviewed local witnesses who have confirmed these very war crimes, carried out by NATO-backed Ukrainian Army and their Nazi-Azov Battalions.
Watch his stunning reportage here:
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Ukraine |
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RT | March 12, 2022
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has reportedly advised Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to Russia’s proposals to end the ongoing bloody conflict in his country, according to Israeli media on Friday. Top officials in Kiev and Israel have denied the reports, however.
“If I were you, I would think about the lives of my people and take the offer,” the Jerusalem Post quoted Bennett as having told Zelensky on Tuesday during a phone call, citing an unnamed senior Ukrainian official.
“Bennett told us to surrender,” the official said, according to the Post, which added that Kiev apparently had “no intention” of agreeing to President Putin’s demands.
However, a top official in Bennett’s office quickly denied that any suggestion to surrender had been made, saying the Israeli PM “doesn’t intend to give Zelensky any recommendations or advice at any stage,” Axios reported. … Full article
RT | March 12, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed his readiness for negotiations with Russia. He requested that the Israeli prime minister convene peace talks in Jerusalem.
“A group of Ukrainians and Russian representatives are discussing certain issues. They began talking about something, and not just throwing out ultimatums,” Zelensky said on Saturday, during a press conference with foreign media.
Kiev is of the view that any high-profile talks with Russia should be held on neutral territory, Zelensky said, naming Israel as a potential host for such negotiations.
“We spoke with [Israeli Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett, and I said that today it is not right [to hold] meetings in Russia, in Belarus. I’m not talking about technical meetings – I’m talking about leaders’ meetings. Do I think that Israel can be such a land, and Jerusalem? Yes, I think so. And I told him that,” Zelensky stated.
However, the president said, if the outcome was to be successful, his country would need certain “security guarantees” that the ongoing conflict was settled not only from the perspective of Russia, but also from that of the West. Israel could act as a guarantor in that respect, he suggested. … Full article
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Israel, Ukraine |
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Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago is the man who, way back in 2015, said the following:
The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked … What we’re doing is encouraging the Ukrainians to play tough with the Russians. We’re encouraging the Ukrainians to think that they ultimately will become part of the West … And of course the Ukrainians are playing along with this, and the Ukrainians are almost completely unwilling to compromise with the Russians and instead want to pursue a hardline policy. Well as I said to you before, if they do that their country is going to get wrecked.
Quite a prophetic remark, you might say. Indeed, predicting that Ukraine would “get wrecked” seven years in advance would seem to suggest that Mearsheimer has a good understanding – that he’s worth listening to. (Note: Mearsheimer did not think Russia would launch a full-scale invasion, so he wasn’t 100% right.)
With the Ukraine crisis still dominating the headlines, Mearsheimer must be the golden boy of his department, right? Actually, no. A group of students recently circulated a letter denouncing him for “propagating Putinism” and claiming his actions are “extremely detrimental for our country”.
The students take issue with several statements from Mearsheimer’s 2015 lecture (which is the source of the quotation above). For example, they characterise his use of the word “coup” to describe the toppling of Viktor Yanukovych as “ideological rather than academic”. (They prefer the more heroic-sounding “revolution”.)
The students end their missive by demanding “public disclosure” of all Russian funding received by Professor Mearsheimer, as well as a “statement from the university community at large that it does not condone anti-Ukraine ideology on campus”. They also claim that, if left unaddressed, the problem could “tarnish the reputation of our beloved University”.
I haven’t been able to find any articles suggesting that the university took action in response to the letter. So the students’ campaign appears to have failed. Good.
And it’s of course absurd to suggest that Mearsheimer holds an “anti-Ukraine ideology”. Indeed, much of his 2015 lecture (which the students probably just skimmed through while searching for ‘incriminating’ statements) is concerned with how to prevent Ukraine from “getting wrecked”.
As I noted in a previous post, Mearsheimer’s proposal comprised three elements: ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine; funding an economic rescue plan, together with Russia and the IMF; and insisting that Ukraine respect minority rights, especially minority language rights.
It seems plausible that if we’d followed this proposal, we wouldn’t be in the situation we are today, with Russian troops advancing on Kiev, and the West powerless to intervene for fear of sparking World War III. From what I see, Mearsheimer is a far better friend to Ukraine than the people who dismissed his warnings.
March 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | Ukraine, United States |
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Unless either Ukraine or the US can prove otherwise, the available evidence points to Kiev operating biological laboratories which may have violated the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention.
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on March 8, testifying on the US and international response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine. After delivering her opening remarks, the veteran US diplomat took questions from the committee members. One question, asked by Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from the state of Florida, stood out. “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?” he asked.
Nuland answered the question very deliberately. “Ukraine has biological research facilities which, in fact, we’re now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of, so we are working with the Ukrainians on how we can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach,” she said.
Of note was the fact that none of this was mentioned in the entirety of her opening speech. The purpose of Rubio’s question wasn’t to pin Nuland into a corner, but rather set up the follow-on question, designed to deflect a very discomforting issue into a propaganda opportunity for the US government.
“I’m sure you’re aware,” Rubio said, “that the Russian propaganda groups are already putting out there all kinds of information about how they have uncovered a plot by the Ukrainians to unleash biological weapons in the country, and with NATO’s coordination.” The senator paused before asking his question. “If there is a biological or chemical weapon incident or attack inside Ukraine, is there any doubt in your mind that 100% it would be the Russians behind it?”
Nuland answered this question with more authority: “There is no doubt in my mind, Senator. And, in fact, it is a classic Russian technique to blame the other guy for what they are planning to do themselves.”
Rubio was right about one thing – the Russians were having a field day about the “biological research facilities” Nuland was so reticent about discussing. Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, announced that “We [Russia] confirm that, during the special military operation in Ukraine, the Kiev regime was found to have been concealing traces of a military biological program implemented with funding from the United States Department of Defense.”
According to Zakharova, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, on February 24 – the first day of the Russian offensive – had ordered all the Ukrainian biological laboratories to “urgently” eradicate the stored reserves of “highly hazardous pathogens of plague, anthrax, rabbit fever, cholera and other lethal diseases.” She said the documentation on the “urgent eradication” of the pathogens was “received from employees of Ukrainian laboratories.”
While noting that more work was being done by the Russian Ministry of Defense to fully assess the documents in question, Zakharova said Russia was able to conclude “that components of biological weapons were being developed in Ukrainian laboratories in direct proximity to Russian territory.”
“The urgent eradication of highly hazardous pathogens on February 24 was ordered to prevent exposing a violation of Article I of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) by Ukraine and the United States,” she added.
Article I of the BTWC states that “Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never in any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain:
- microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes;
- weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict.”
Earlier, the US Embassy in Kiev published information relating to what it described as a “Biological Threat Reduction Program,” a collaboration between the US Department of Defense and the Ukrainian government. According to this data, “The [biological threat reduction] program accomplishes its bio-threat reduction mission through development of a bio-risk management culture; international research partnerships; and partner capacity for enhanced bio-security, bio-safety, and bio-surveillance measures.” According to the US Embassy, “the Biological Threat Reduction Program’s priorities in Ukraine are to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.”
This all sounds innocuous enough and, if true, seems to meet the criterion set forth in Article 1 of the BTWC regarding “prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes.”
There is suspicion, however, that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency-led biological programs may have a more nefarious purpose. The Bulgarian investigative journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, has conducted extensive research into this issue. “The US Army regularly produces deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins in direct violation of the UN Convention on the prohibition of Biological Weapons. Hundreds of thousands of unwitting people are systematically exposed to dangerous pathogens and other incurable diseases. Bio-warfare scientists using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world,” she claimed.
Gaytandzhieva’s work has been dismissed by the US as ‘pro-Russian propaganda.’ But the inescapable fact is that the US does not have a clean record when it comes to compliance with the BTWC. So-called “bio-defense” has been used by the US to circumvent, if not outright violate, the provisions of the BTWC in the past. The most flagrant example of this was the CIA-led “Project Clear Vision,” which from 1997 until 2000 sought to reverse-engineer and subsequently test a Soviet-era “bomblet” designed to disperse biological agents, including anthrax. There was a debate within the Clinton administration as to whether “Clear Vision” violated the BTWC, which led to the program being halted in 2000.
There is no need to worry about any such malfeasance at the biolabs in Ukraine, however, the director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, Robert Pope, recently told reporters. “What we have today… are small amounts of various pathogens that by and large are things that are collected out of their environment that they need for research to be able to legitimately surveil disease and develop vaccines against.”
According to Pope, the Ukrainians had “more pathogens in more places than we recommend,” adding that his organization had been helping Ukrainian researchers organize their frozen pathogen collections with an eye on preserving genetic information via sequencing before destroying the live samples. “All of that, obviously, has been derailed here with the recent events,” he said.
Pope’s biggest concern was that if these biolabs lost electrical power for any extended time, then the frozen samples would thaw out. “If the ventilation system is damaged, or the building itself is damaged, and these now ambient-temperature pathogens are able to escape the facility, then they can be potentially infectious in the region around the facility,” he said.
He expressed hope that the facilities would not be deliberately attacked. “I think the Russians know enough about the kinds of pathogens that are stored in biological research laboratories that I don’t think they would deliberately target a laboratory. But what I do have concerns about is that they would… be accidentally damaged during this Russian invasion.”
While Pope had been painting a relatively benign picture of the types of pathogens stored at the facilities he supervised, he left a clue about the potential for something far more worrisome. While noting that many of the biolabs in Ukraine were of new construction, “others date back to the Soviet-era and the country’s bioweapons program.” Some of these older laboratories, Pope said, could hold pathogen strains dating back to the Soviet biowarfare programs. “Scientists being scientists, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of these strain collections in some of these laboratories still have pathogen strains that go all the way back to the origins of that program.”
If this is the case, then the Ukrainian labs could very well be the repository of Anthrax 836, an extremely deadly strain of that disease specifically developed to be delivered in warheads mounted on SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles operating from Ukraine.
This, it would seem, would put the labs in direct violation of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, which prohibits the acquisition or retention of pathogens “that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes.”
Anthrax 836, and other similar Soviet-era biological weapons, no longer exist. As such, there is no need to conduct research designed to defend from any potential exposure to such agents. The only possible explanation for retention of Soviet-era biological warfare pathogens would be to keep them for some future biological warfare program, or as a source for covert operations seeking to falsely link a target nation, such as Russia, to illegal activity.
If Marco Rubio had been doing his job, instead of promoting anti-Russian propaganda, he could have – indeed, should have – held Victoria Nuland’s feet to the fire regarding what was really going on at the biological labs in Ukraine. There might be an innocuous answer out there. But until it is provided, it appears that Russia did in Ukraine what the US was unable to in Iraq – launched an attack on a nation which was in possession of prohibited biological weapons.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
March 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | Ukraine, United States |
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Two days after Russia attacked Ukraine and the day before Vladimir Putin put Russia on nuclear alert, I wrote a little article whose first sentence was: “Not wanting to sound hyperbolic, but I am starting to conclude that the nuclear madmen running the U.S./NATO New Cold War they started decades ago are itching to start a nuclear war with Russia.”
It was an intuition based on my knowledge of U.S./Russia history, including the U.S engineered coup in Ukraine in 2014, and a reading of current events. I refer to it as intuition, yet it is based on a lifetime’s study and teaching of political sociology and writing against war. I am not a Russian scholar, simply a writer with a sociological, historical, and artistic imagination, although my first graduate academic study in the late 1960s was a thesis on nuclear weapons and why they might be someday used again.
It no longer sounds hyperbolic to me that madmen in the declining U.S. Empire might resort, like rats in a sinking ship, to first strike use of nuclear weapons, which is official U.S. policy. My stomach is churning at the thought, despite what most experts say: that the chances of a nuclear war are slight. And despite what others say about the Ukraine war: that it is an intentional diversion from the Covid propaganda and the Great Reset (although I agree it achieves that goal).
My gut tells me no; it is very real, sui generis, and very, very dangerous now.
The eminent scholar Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research agrees that we are very close to the unthinkable. In a recent historical analysis of U.S.-Russia relations and nuclear weapons, he writes the following before quoting Vladimir Putin’s recent statement on the matter. “Vladimir Putin’s statement on February 21st, 2022 was a response to U.S. threats to use nuclear weapons on a preemptive basis against Russia, despite Joe Biden’s “reassurance” that the U.S. would not be resorting to ‘A first strike’ nuclear attack against an enemy of America”:
Let me [Putin] explain that U.S. strategic planning documents contain the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike against enemy missile systems. And who is the main enemy for the U.S. and NATO? We know that too. It’s Russia. In NATO documents, our country is officially and directly declared the main threat to North Atlantic security. And Ukraine will serve as a forward springboard for the strike.” (Putin Speech, February 21, 2022, emphasis added)
Putin is absolutely correct. It is why he put Russia’s nuclear forces on full alert. Only those ignorant of history, which sadly includes most U.S. Americans, don’t know this.
I believe that today we are in the greatest danger of a nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, something I vividly remember as a teenager. The same feelings return. Dread. Anxiety. Breathlessness. I do not think these feelings are misplaced nor they are simply an emotional response. I try to continue writing on other projects that I have started but feel stymied. The possibility of nuclear war, whether intentional or accidental, obsesses me.
In order to grasp this stomach-churning possibility within the context of Ukraine, we need to put aside all talk of morality, rights, international law, and think in terms of great power politics, as John Mearsheimer has so clearly articulated. As he says, when a great power feels its existence is threatened, might makes right. You simply can’t understand world politics without thinking at this level. Doing so does not mean justifying the use of might; it is a means of clarifying the causes of wars, which start long before the first shots are fired.
In the present crisis over Ukraine, Russia clearly feels existentially threatened by U.S./NATO military moves in Ukraine and in eastern Europe where they have positioned missiles that can be very quickly converted to nuclear and are within a few minutes range of Russia. (And of course there are U.S./NATO nuclear missiles throughout western and southern Europe.) Vladimir Putin has been talking about this for many years and is factually correct. He has reiterated that this is unacceptable to Russia and must stop. He has pushed for negotiations to end this situation.
The United States, despite its own Monroe Doctrine that prohibits another great power from putting weapons or military forces close to its borders, has blocked its ears and kept upping the ante, provoking Russian fears. This fact is not in dispute but is shrugged off by U.S./NATO as of little consequence. Such an attitude is pure provocation as anyone with a smidgeon of historical awareness knows.
The world was very lucky sixty years ago this October when JFK and Nikita Khrushchev negotiated the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis before the world was incinerated. Kennedy, of course, was intensely pressured by the military and CIA to bomb Cuba, but he resisted. He also rejected the insane military desire to nuke the Soviet Union, calling such people crazy; at a National Security Council meeting on September 12, 1963, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented a report about a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union which they wanted for that fall, he said, “Preemption is not possible for us.”
Such leadership, together with the nuclear test ban treaty he negotiated with the USSR that month, inter alia (such treaties have now been abrogated by the U.S. government), assured his assassination organized by the CIA. These days, the U.S. is led by deluded men who espouse a nuclear first strike policy, which tells one all one needs to know about the danger the world is in. The U.S. has been very sick with Russia hatred for a long time.
After the terror of the Cuban Missile Crisis, many more people took the threat of nuclear war seriously. Today very few do. It has receded into the ”unimaginable.” In 1962, however, as James W. Douglass writes in JFK and the Unspeakable:
Kennedy saw that, at least outside Washington, D.C., people were living with a deeper awareness of the ultimate choice they faced. Nuclear weapons were real. So, too, was the prospect of peace. Shocked by the Cuban Missile Crisis into recognizing a real choice, people preferred peace to annihilation.
Today the reality of nuclear annihilation has receded into unconsciousness. This despite the recent statements by U.S. generals and the U.S. Ukrainian puppet Zelensky about nuclear weapons and their use that have extremely inflamed Russia’s fears, which clearly is intentional. The game is to have some officials say it and then deny it while having a policy that contradicts your denial. Keep pushing the envelope is U.S. policy. Obama-Biden reigned over the U.S. 2014 coup in Ukraine, Trump increased weapon sales to Ukraine in 2017, and Biden has picked up the baton from his partner (not his enemy) in this most deadly game. It is a bi-partisan Cold War 2, getting very hot. And it is the reason why Russia, its back to the wall, attacked Ukraine. It is obvious that this is exactly what the U.S. wanted or it would have acted very differently in the leadup to this tragedy. All the current winging of hands is pure hypocrisy, the nihilism of a nuclear power never for one moment threatened but whose designs were calculated to threaten Russia at its borders.
The media propaganda against Russia and Putin is the most extreme and extensive propaganda in my lifetime. Patrick Lawrence has astutely examined this in a recent essay, where he writes the same is true for him:
Many people of many different ages have remarked in recent days that they cannot recall in their lifetimes a more pervasive, suffocating barrage of propaganda than what has engulfed us since the months that preceded Russia’s intervention. In my case it has come to supersede the worst of what I remember from the Cold War decades.
Engulfed is an appropriate word. Lawrence rightly points to this propaganda as cognitive warfare directed at the U.S. population (and the rest of the world) and notes its connection to the January 2021 final draft of a “diabolic” NATO study called “Cognitive Warfare.” He quotes it thus: “The brain will be the battlefield of the 21st century,” . . . “Humans are the contested domain. Cognitive warfare’s objective is to make everyone a weapon.”
This cognitive warfare, however, has a longer history in cutting edge science. For each successive decade beginning with the 1990s and a declaration from President (and ex-Director of the CIA) George H. W. Bush that the 1990s would be the Decade of Brain Research, presidents have announced additional decades long projects involving the brain, with 2000-2010 being the Decade of Behavior Project, followed by mapping of the brain, artificial intelligence, etc. all organized and funded through the Office of Science and Technology Project (OSTP) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This medical, military, and scientific research has been part of a long range plan to extend MK-Ultra’s mind control to the population at large under the cover of medical science, and it has been simultaneously connected to the development and funding of the pharmaceutical industries research and development of new brain-altering drugs. RFK, Jr. has documented the CIA’s extensive connection to germ and mind research and promotion in his book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health. It is why his book is banned from the mainstream media, who do the prime work of cognitive warfare for the government. To put it clearly: these media are the CIA. And the issue of U.S. bio-weapons research and development is central to these many matters, including in Ukraine.
In other words, the cognitive warfare we are now being subjected to has many tentacles connected to much more than today’s fanatical anti-Russian propaganda over Ukraine. All the U.S. wars of aggression have been promoted under its aegis, as have the lies about the attacks of September 11, 2001, the economic warfare by the elites, the COVID crisis, etc. It’s one piece.
Take, for example, a book written in 2010 by David Ray Griffin, a renown theologian who has written more than a dozen books about 9/11. The book is Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory. It is a critique of law professor Cass Sunstein, appointed by Obama to be the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein had written an article with a plan for the government to prevent the spread of anti-government “conspiracy theories” in which he promoted the use of anonymous government agents to use secret “cognitive infiltration” of these groups in order to break them up; to use media plants to disparage their arguments. He was particularly referring to those who questioned the official 9/11 narrative but his point obviously extended much further. He was working in the tradition of the great propagandists. Griffin took a scalpel to this call for cognitive warfare and was of course a victim of it as well. Sunstein has since worked for the World Health Organization (WHO) on COVID psychological responses and other COVID committees. It’s all one piece.
Sunstein’s wife is Samantha Power, Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations and war hawk extraordinaire. She gleefully promoted the U.S. destruction of Libya under the appellation of the “responsibility to protect,” a “humane” cover for imperialism. Now she is Biden’s Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an arm of the CIA throughout the world. It’s all one piece.
The merry-go-round goes round and round.
I have gone off on this slight tangent to emphasize how vast and interconnected are the players and groups on Team Cognitive Warfare. They have been leading the league for quite some time and are hoping their game plan against Team Russia will keep them there. So far they are winning, as Patrick Lawrence says:
Look at what has become of us. Most Americans seem to approve of these things, or at least are unstirred to object. We have lost all sense of decency, of ordinary morality, of proportion. Can anyone listen to the din of the past couple of weeks without wondering if we have made of ourselves a nation of grotesques?
It is common to observe that in war the enemy is always dehumanized. We are now face to face with another reality: Those who dehumanize others dehumanize themselves more profoundly.
Perhaps people are too ignorant to see through the propaganda. To have some group to hate is always “uplifting.” But we are all responsible for the consequences of our actions, even when those actions are just buying the propaganda and hating those one is told to hate. It is very hard to accept that the leaders of your own country commit and contemplate unspeakable evil deeds and that they wish to control your mind. To contemplate that they might once again use nuclear weapons is unspeakable but necessary if we are to prevent it.
I hope my fears are unfounded. I agree with Gilbert Doctorow that the Ukraine-Russia war separates the sheep from the goats, that there is no middle ground. This is not to celebrate war and the death of innocent people, but it does demand placing the blame squarely where it belongs and not trying to have it both ways. People like him, John Mearsheimer, the late badly missed Stephen Cohen, Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter, Pepe Escobar, Patrick Lawrence, Jack Matlock, Ted Postol, et al. are all cutting through the propaganda and delivering truth in opposition to all the lies. They go gentile with fears of nuclear war, however, as if it is somewhat possible but highly unlikely, as if their deepest thoughts are unspeakable, for to utter them would be an act of despondency.
The consensus of the experts tends to be that the U.S. wishes to draw the Russians into a long protracted guerrilla war along the lines of its secret use of mujahideen in Afghanistan in 1979 and after. There is evidence that this is already happening. But I think the U.S. strategists know that the Russians are too smart for that; that they have learned their lesson; and that they will withdraw once they feel they have accomplished their goals. Therefore, from the U.S./NATO perspective, time is reasonably short and they must act quickly, perhaps by doing a false flag operation that will justify a drastic response, or upping the tempo in some other way that would seem to justify the use of nuclear weapons, perhaps tactical at first.
I appreciate the input of the Russia experts I mentioned above. Their expertise dwarfs mine, but I disagree. Perhaps I am an excitable sort; perhaps I am one of those Patrick Lawrence refers to, quoting Carl Jung, as too emotional and therefore incapable of clear thinking. (I will leave the issue of this long held but erroneous western philosophical belief in the division of emotions and thoughts for another day.) Perhaps I can’t see the obvious that a nuclear war will profit no one and therefore it cannot happen. Yet Ted Postol, MIT professor of technology and international security, while perhaps agreeing that an intentional nuclear war is very unlikely, has been warning of an accidental one for many years. He is surely right on that score and well worth listening to.
But either way, I am sorry to say, perhaps because my perspective is that of a generalist, not an expert, and my thinking is informed by art as much as social science and history, my antennae pick up a very disturbing message. A voice tells me that the danger is very, very real today. It says:
Beware, we are on the edge of a nuclear abyss.
March 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | NATO, Ukraine, United States |
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Europe has been shaken by galloping gas prices in recent months, leading to financial and socio-political instability in the Old World.
There are several reasons for this, one of them being the politics of domestic European speculators, who wanted to get rich quick when, as a result of their blatant Russophobic policies, European officials managed to keep Gazprom and its cheap gas out of the EU internal market. As a result, these speculators sell at a markup of 300, 400 or 500 per cent the cheap gas that Gazprom pumped into their storages back in the summer. In doing so, they squeeze their super-profits out of the European consumer. And until they sell these reserves, they will not let Russian gas into Europe.
In addition to European speculators on Russian gas, the United States has become enormously rich in recent months, profiting from the extraordinarily high prices. Meanwhile, in order to distract public opinion from the true situation on the issue, Joe Biden’s administration officials are trying to falsely accuse Moscow of increasing gas prices, while doing nothing to lower those prices themselves, as their fall is absolutely unprofitable for Washington.
And this is confirmed by data from the Russian Federal Customs Service and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, which clearly show reports on gas exports to Europe by the US and prove that it is the US that has been making more money than Russia on the super-high gas prices in recent months. Thus, the value of natural gas and LNG exported by Russia in January-August 2021 was $33.197 billion, compared with $42.9 billion worth of LNG exported by the US during the same period!
Most US gas supplies to Europe come under spot contracts (at exchange prices, quick purchase and payment and delivery by a certain date) concluded in December and January, when quotations in Europe were hitting record highs. As a result, traders now supplying American gas to Europe are making super profits. In January, they not only benefited from supplying Europe with gas produced in the US, but they also diverted volumes from the Middle Eastern and even Asian routes as a result of lower gas prices in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC).
As for Gazprom, it delivers, fulfilling its contractual obligations mainly under long-term contracts, i.e. at prices significantly lower than those on the stock exchange.
If LNG supplies result in lower gas prices in Europe, that market will automatically become uninteresting to US exporters, and Europeans themselves will have to go back to buying gas from the traditional suppliers. The panic mood in Europe is therefore now being artificially maintained by allegtions that Russia could cut off gas supplies because of the escalating situation around Ukraine. It is remarkable, however, that all the LNG supplies from the US have never managed to seriously depress gas exchange quotations in Europe, while any news of successful negotiations between Russia and the US or European leaders knocks prices down by $100-150.
As we know, the European gas market is the backyard of the global LNG market, dependent on the conditions in the APAC countries, where the market is physically larger. As soon as prices begin to fall in Asia, they also fall in Europe, and vice versa. In 2021, half of US gas exports went to Asia-Pacific and only a quarter to Europe. However, the diversion of LNG flows from the US to Europe could soon result in higher gas prices in the APAC, with US gas carriers heading back to Asia and European prices again breaking records for the benefit of the same European speculators and US traders, and to the misfortune of Europeans who will pay the price for Washington’s gangster gas policy.
Europe, with its substantial gas consumption and dozens of underutilized LNG import terminals, has long been of great interest to US companies, which have spent a total of $60bn on export infrastructure. There has been a real boom in the construction of LNG terminals in Europe too, under the influence of Washington, and they have even been built in Lithuania and Poland. However, no one can deny that LNG is expensive compared to pipeline gas from Russia. This is why, until recently, Europe was very enthusiastic about buying pipeline gas cheaply from Russia and why 75-80% of Europe’s LNG terminal capacity stood empty. In any case, the main criterion for assessing the prospects of US LNG as a competitor to Gazprom in Europe is price.
However, there have been some significant deteriorations in the gas market in recent weeks. Above all, they followed Russia’s receipt in late February of written confirmation of NATO’s and the United States’ refusal to engage in a dialogue with Moscow on security guarantees. This came against a backdrop where the West had previously blatantly refused to reassure Kiev’s rampant neo-Nazi authorities, who came to power in 2014 through a Washington-inspired coup. But for 8 years, at the instigation of Washington and with the tacit support of the West, the Kiev authorities have consistently pursued a policy of genocide in Donbas, where, according to incomplete information, they have killed more than 13,000 Russian-speaking civilians and pursued a policy of Russophobia. In addition, the Kiev authorities have recently intensified their neo-Nazi activities in the country and have made increasing threats of a potential nuclear weapon capability in Ukraine, in the hope of using which Kiev has already begun to develop far-reaching plans to attack Russia.
Under these conditions and in the absence of a proper Western response to the activities of the Kiev authorities, in late February Moscow was forced to launch a special operation in Ukraine to demilitarize and denazify it for reasons of self-preservation. In response, Washington and its Western allies unleashed an information war against Russia and slapped severe sanctions. Brussels, in a bid to please the Russophobic US political establishment, has refused to certify the already built Nord Stream 2, which could have significantly eased the situation on the European gas market. However, other Russian pipelines continue to operate and pump gas to Europe. Moreover, despite the misleading anti-Russian information warfare unleashed by Washington, Russian gas continues to flow through the Ukrainian gas transmission system without interruption, as reported by the Ukrainian transmission system operator itself. Gas supplies to Europe are not just flowing through the Ukrainian pipeline, they have also increased. The Europeans have increased their requests for supply and Gazprom has begun to pump through the Ukrainian pipe all of 109 million cubic meters of gas per day instead of 50 million cubic meters per day, as it was before the Russian special operation in Ukraine began, which is a doubling of supplies.
However, due to the depletion of European underground storage facilities due to winter weather, there is almost no gas left, forcing the EU to switch to current imports, which are “obligingly” offered by the US, which itself unleashed the crisis in Ukraine to, among other things, raise the price of gas in Europe. As for the Europeans, they are so far trying to move Russia’s hydrocarbon supplies out of the sanctions bracket, although individual European politicians, such as Borel, who openly “eat from Washington’s table”, have started talking about imposing additional sanctions against Russia in the gas sector as well, to please White House policy. At the same time, such European officials know full well that Russia is not going to use its gas as a tool against Europe. The EU has no substitute for that, by the way, and many of the world’s gas exporters have already spoken out about it. And the situation in Europe will only get worse for the population if the anti-Russian policy of the current European officials continues, threatening not only the impoverishment of the population, but also the bankruptcy of many European companies and even entire sectors of the economy.
At the same time, as Europe’s anti-Russian sanctions policy continues to escalate, it cannot be ruled out that Russia may eventually, in order to ensure its own security, use hydrocarbon supplies as a retaliatory measure if it considers Western sanctions to be disastrous for the Russian economy. But such actions will only lead to a clear victory for the United States over Europe, a further increase in its dependence on Washington, including on gas, and an even greater enrichment of the United States through its previously planned increase of gas prices in Europe by exacerbating relations with Russia.
March 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Economics, Russophobia | European Union, Ukraine, United States |
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied Ukrainian claims that Russian troops had shelled an operating maternity hospital in Ukraine. The building had been used as a base by the far-right Azov Battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard, the top Russian diplomat claimed on Thursday, during a press conference in Turkey.
The hospital in question has been for days under the control of a Ukrainian paramilitary group and Moscow presented evidence of this to the UN Security Council several days ago, Lavrov said.
“The Azov Battalion and other radicals kicked out all the expectant mothers, the nurses and other staff members. It was the base of the Azov ultra-radicals,” he said, speaking after meeting his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in Turkey’s Antalya.
Lavrov added that reports coming from Ukraine that contradict this were obviously meant to “manipulate global public opinion” about what is happening in the country, and he also chastised Western media for taking part in the propaganda effort.
“I have seen reports … that were really emotional. Unfortunately, the other side of the situation, which would allow one to form an objective opinion, was not given any prominence,” Lavrov said.
The Russian diplomat was commenting on claims raised by Ukraine that Russian troops had deliberately attacked a medical facility in the city of Mariupol on Wednesday. Ukrainian officials claimed that a Russian airstrike had injured at least 17 people but killed nobody.
Footage from the scene showed a heavily damaged building with broken medical equipment scattered inside and Ukrainian troops helping women, some of them carrying infants in their arms, who were implied to be survivors of a bombing.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on Wednesday that the incident proved that Russia was conducting a genocide of the Ukrainian people and called on other nations to stop Russian atrocities.
March 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Ukraine |
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What was the need for all that happened in the period since mid-December when Russia transmitted to Washington its demands for security guarantee? This question will haunt US president Joe Biden long after he retires from public life. The foreign policy legacy of his presidency and the reputation of this much-vaunted 80-year old politician with a half-century’s record in public life, much of it supposedly in he domain of American foreign policy are in tatters — irreparable.
News has appeared that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has conceded that he is willing to concede to the Russian demand that his country will not seek to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation! The announcement came in an interview with the ABC News where he revealed that he is no longer pressing for Ukraine’s Nato membership!
In fact, Zelensky lets the cat out of the bag by casually adding, “I have cooled down regarding this question a long time ago after we understood that… Nato is not prepared to accept Ukraine.”
Zelensky explains why: “The alliance is afraid of controversial things, and confrontation with Russia.”
This comes after his earlier revelation that he is “open to compromise” on the sovereignty of the two breakaway republics of Lugansk and Donetsk in the eastern Donbass region and on the status of Crimea.
The ABC News reportedly telecast the interview on Monday night Eastern Time. Since then, the duo in the Biden team who piloted the Ukraine strategy, those apocalyptic “sanctions from hell” and the demonisation of Vladimir Putin through the recent months — Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Undersecretary of State Victoria — are nowhere to be seen.
That duo of East European descent in the driving seat — Blinken driving and Nuland by his side navigating him — ought to offer an explanation for this charade playing out, which is virtually demolishing the American prestige as a superpower.
Questions are galore. Principally, if it is so easy to work out a compromise over Russia’s legitimate security demands, especially regarding Ukraine’s Nato membership and the alliance’s further expansion, why was Biden so very stubborn in his refusal to even discuss it, given the urgency of the matter?
Can it be that Biden was acting smart to create a fait accompli for Moscow by formalising Ukraine’s membership at the forthcoming Nato summit on June 29-30 in Madrid?
What’s the need to destabilise the European economies and rock the world oil market at a juncture when most economies are entering on a path of post-pandemic economic recovery?
What explains this unnatural obsession on the part of Biden over Ukraine’s regime?
Why such visceral hatred on Biden’s part toward Russia, something unworthy of an 80-year old world statesman?
Why is it that the economic war against Russia has become such a very personal affair for Biden, as his White House speech on Tuesday shows?
But such an ignominious end to this entire episode over Ukraine’s Nato membership was entirely to be anticipated. Fundamentally, this is an existential issue for Russia. Whereas, Biden, Blinken and Nuland are dilettantes sitting 10,000 kms away indulging in old neocon pastimes of interfering in other countries’ internal affairs, threatening them, disciplining them or punishing them for defying America’s diktat.
Even after Zelensky spoke, what has been Biden’s reaction? He scheduled a speech to announce that the US shall no longer import oil from Russia. Shouldn’t he have heaved a sigh of relief that this war in Ukraine is petering out?
Instead, he resorted to this strange toothless measure to impress the American audience that he is still on a winning streak promoting democracy in faraway lands. Isn’t such gimmick an insult to the gullible American public?
Biden took this new step after Europeans told him plainly that they are not interested in such a move against Russia, given their heavy reliance on Russian oil.
Second, Biden doesn’t seem to know or has pretended otherwise that America is actually shooting at its own feet. For, Russian prices are highly competitive and American companies will now have to pay much more to source heavy grade oil suitable for their refineries.
Biden already swallowed his pride and sent a team of officials to Venezuela, a country under crippling US sanctions, to beg for oil from President Nicolas Maduro (who was on CIA hit list not too long ago for being a socialist) to replace Russian oil.
Maduro sent them back suggesting a broader mutually beneficial relationship between Venezuela and America. All this drama took place in broad daylight witnessed by the entire Western Hemisphere. Wouldn’t they be laughing that America’s president is a man of straw?
Biden claims he is making sure that Putin won’t have money for his “war machine” if America stops buying oil from Russia. This is laughable, bordering on a lie.
The US was purchasing about 12% of Russia’s total oil exports. Alright, that’s a decent figure. But, it isn’t as if Russia won’t have any other buyers in a world market where oil price has soared to $130 per barrel (thanks to Biden’s “sanctions from hell” against Russia)?
Surely, any number of potential buyers would queue up if Russia were to offer competitive prices (as it had been doing for the US companies) to divert the extra stocks due to Biden’s boycott.
At any rate, Biden can’t be unaware that Russia’s current budget is balanced on the belief that oil prices would be around $40-45 per barrel. With the current level of oil price, Russia is actually making a fortune! And the funny part is, it is a gift from Biden’s sanctions!
Fundamentally, the problem today is that the American elite are delusional. While the rest of the world knows that in a multipolar world, the US’ capacity to force its will on other countries is inexorably in decline, the American elite shut their eyes to that reality. The present ridiculous situation happened only due to this arrogance and self-deception.
The strategic defeat that Washington has suffered will dent the US prestige worldwide, weaken its transatlantic leadership, unravel its Indo-Pacific strategy and accelerate the drain of American influence in the 21st century. Biden presidency will carry this heavy cross.
March 9, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Joe Biden, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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‘Mandatory international inspections could keep US labs in check’
An international treaty banning bioweapons needs to be strengthened with a compliance verification mechanism, contrary to the US position on the issue, Moscow said on Wednesday. The call comes in the wake of the reported discovery of evidence that there were lethal pathogens at Pentagon-backed labs in Ukraine.
The Russian military reported this week that Ukrainian authorities had ordered the destruction of highly pathogenic samples that were stored at US-backed biological labs throughout the country.
The purported documents indicate that both Ukraine and the US breached the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which both nations signed and ratified, the Russian foreign ministry alleged on Wednesday. The order to destroy the samples was an attempt to cover up the violations of the treaty, it said.
“We stand for the resumption of the work on a legally binding Protocol to the Convention for an effective verification mechanism, which the US has been stonewalling since 2001,” the ministry said.
The BWC, which came into force in 1975, bans the development, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons. Unlike its counterpart for chemical weapons, the Convention for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the treaty lacks an international watchdog organization to verify compliance.
An attempt to establish such an organization took place in the 1990s. The VEREX ad hoc committee spent a decade formulating proposals for surveillance, inspections, information sharing and other confidence-building measures.
The effort ultimately failed due to objections from the George W Bush administration which, in 2001, rejected a 210-page draft protocol. Washington claimed that it would not have improved the BWC, if implemented, and would have hurt US national security and commercial interests.
John Bolton, then-Undersecretary of State, said at the time that Washington was focusing its anti-germ warfare interest on Iraq. The existence of Saddam Hussein’s bioweapons project was “beyond dispute,” he claimed at the time. Two years later the US invaded Iraq under the pretext that it needed to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which was later proven to be false.
Russia has been voicing concerns for years over US military-funded labs hosted by some nations in its proximity, most notably Georgia. Moscow believes that Washington is conducting military research there that may pose a threat to Russia. The foreign ministry statement said activities held on foreign soil should be subjected to reporting under the BWC, just like domestic programs.
The proposed measures “would allow subjecting military-biological activities of the US and its allies … to international control and ensure full verifiable compliance with the BWC by member states,” Moscow said.
Following Russia’s claims about labs in Ukraine, China called on the Pentagon to publicly comment on bio research conducted in foreign nations with its funding. Beijing claimed the US military controlled “336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world.”
The US denies that anything nefarious is being done in the labs, claiming they are used to monitor possible emerging infection threats around the world. US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland confirmed on Tuesday that her country was involved in Ukraine’s effort to destroy research materials so that Russia would not seize them.
March 9, 2022
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes | Biological Weapons Convention, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that Ukrainian biolabs near Russia’s borders engaged in the development of components for biological weapons.
“In the past several days, long-standing fears which we have expressed repeatedly for years regarding the development of military biological materials by the United States on the territory of Ukraine under the auspices of the relevant US special services have been confirmed,” Zakharova said in a briefing Wednesday.
“This has been confirmed based not only on those materials and data which were obtained operationally on the territory of Ukraine, not just based on the statements of the relevant agencies in Ukraine, but confirmed directly in Washington during a speech by US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland,” Zakharova said.
The spokeswoman said the question of whether or not the biological weapons components being researched at these facilities have been destroyed or not remains to be answered, but pointed to the receipt of documents from employees of biolabs ordering the liquidation of dangerous pathogens dated 24 February.
Zakharova emphasized that there is now no doubt about the military nature of the research at these facilities, pointing to the Russian military’s revelations on the labs’ US Department of Defense funding, and the presence of US specialists instructing the Ukrainian side in conducting the relevant research.
The Russian diplomat, meanwhile said that the special operation does not include occupation, destruction of statehood or overthrow of Ukrainian Government.
Separately, in an interview with Radio Sputnik Wednesday, Zakharova suggested that the Russian military’s revelations about US-funded biolabs “completely changes the picture of US involvement in the fate of Ukraine.”
“It is not just an instrument of influence, it’s not just an an instrument of deterrence. Its an instrument of a direct threat to our country,” Zakharova said.
In testimony before the Senate on Tuesday, Victoria Nuland admitted that Ukraine was home to biological research facilities, and told lawmakers that Washington was “quite concerned Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of” these facilities and the “research materials” contained therein.
“So we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach,” Nuland said.
March 9, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, War Crimes | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland testifies before a Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearing on Ukraine on March 8, 2022 © Getty Images/Kevin Dietsch
US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has confirmed that Washington has been involved in an effort to make sure no “materials” Ukraine keeps in its biolabs end up with the Russian military.
“Ukraine has biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned… Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of,” Nuland said on Tuesday as she testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“We’re working with Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach,” she added.
The Russian military previously claimed that the Ukrainian authorities have been hastily destroying dangerous materials, including highly pathogenic bacterial and viral agents they allegedly kept in laboratories linked to the Pentagon.
On Monday, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said the documents seen by the Russian military suggest that some of these laboratories worked with anthrax, among other things. Kirillov also claimed that the only reason Kiev reportedly moved to destroy the materials was out of concern that Russian experts “will highly likely prove Ukraine and the US have been in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention,” once they study the samples.
While Moscow has expressed concern over the alleged development of bioweapons in Ukraine, Nuland appeared to preemptively blame Russia for any potential release of hazardous materials amid the ongoing military conflict.
Nuland agreed with Senator Marco Rubio that if a chemical or biological “incident” or “attack” takes place in Ukraine, then Russia would be the culprit.
“There is no doubt in my mind, senator, and it is a classic Russian technique to blame on the other guy what they’re planning to do themselves,” she said.
Kiev has denied it was designing bioweapons. The Pentagon said speculation about its involvement in these programs in former Soviet states is ‘Russian disinformation’.
March 9, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Ukraine, United States |
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Brutal act of military conquest, or peaceful (and popular) transition of power? Here are the facts to help you decide.
In part one of our recap on the recent history of Ukraine, we looked at the chain of events that lead to the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych from power.
You can read that here.
In this second part, we will be focusing on Crimea, how the peninsula came to be a part of the nation of Ukraine, whether or not this was ever popular with the public, and how the transition back to being a part of Russia was handled.
1954
Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev signs a decree transferring Crimea from the Russian SSR to the Ukrainian SSR. His motivation for doing so is a matter of historical debate, as is the constitutionality of the decision. However, as they were all one nation at that time, the administrative decision is more of a “symbolic gesture” than anything else.
Prior to this, Crimea had been a part of Russia since 1783 when the Russian Empire took control of the Crimean Khanate following the decline in power of the Ottoman Empire.
1965
Sevastopol, Crimea’s major port city, is officially named a “Hero City” of the USSR, an honour given to 12 cities across the country to mark the 20th Victory Day. Sevastopol held against major assaults from the Axis powers in October and December of 1941, before holding out for a six month siege and finally falling to the Nazis in June of 1942.
1990
As the USSR begins to crumble, Ukraine declares itself an independent republic, beginning the process of leaving the union and taking Crimea with it.
1991
January: The Crimean government hold a referendum asking if Crimea should declare its independence from Ukraine, reform itself as the Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic (as it had been prior to 1945), and rejoin the USSR. The vote passes with 94% support, and Crimea declares independence.
February: The Ukrainian parliament recognises this independence, passing the “Law On Restoration of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialistic Republic as part of USSR”.
September: Ukrainian parliament reverses their February decision and declares Crimea a part of Ukraine once again. There is historical debate over the legality of this decision.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and official Ukrainian independence, Crimea is no longer politically unified with Russia for the first time in over 200 years.
1992
Crimean parliament again declares itself independent as “The Republic of Crimea”, they draft their own constitution and plan a referendum on secession from Ukraine. The Ukrainian parliament refuses to acknowledge the declaration and forces the cancellation of the referendum.
As a compromise, Crimea is granted special status as an “Autonomous Republic”, and given control over its own budget and other devolved powers, as long as they add a line to their constitution designating Crimea a part of Ukraine.
1994
Newly-elected President Yuriy Meshkov of Crimea holds a referendum, asking the population of Crimea three questions, most notably:
- Do you support a return to the May 1992 constitution that didn’t guarantee Crimea was part of Ukraine?
- Do you support establishing that all Crimean citizens were entitled to dual citizenship with Russia?
All three parts of the referendum pass with at least 77% of the vote, and President Meshkov restores the old constitution. The Ukrainian government declares the referendum illegal and refuses to recognise either the results or the new constitution.
1995
Ukrainian government abolishes the post of President of Crimea, and cuts the powers of their parliament. For the rest of the year the President of Ukraine governs the peninsula by decree.
2001
The 2001 Ukrainian census records that over 60% of the population of Crimea describe themselves as ethnically Russian. In total 77% of Crimeans, and over 94% of the people of Sevastopol, reported being native Russian speakers.
2004
Following the “Orange Revolution”, and over-turning of Viktor Yanukovych’s victory in the Presidential election, leaders of Eastern Ukrainian oblasts – including Crimea – raise the issue of increased autonomy and even secession from the country. A conference of politicians from the Donbas region call for a referendum on federalization, but are ignored.
2006
A US Navy ship docks at the Crimean port of Feodosiya, leading to mass protests on the peninsula and a peaceful blockade of the port. Then-leader of the opposition Viktor Yanukovych claims that allowing foreign military units onto Crimea’s soil without consulting the regional parliament is a violation of both the Ukrainian and Crimean constitutions. A contemporary Radio Free Europe article notes that 55-60% of all Ukrainians oppose joining NATO.
2008
Following the Russo-Georgian war, and on the back of increased calls for Ukraine to join NATO, the BBC sends a reporter to Crimea. Their article details the strong pro-Russian feeling on the peninsula, the key part Sevastopol has played in Russia’s history, and warnings from Crimeans that “nationalists in Kiev” are trying to “force Russians out”.
A 2008 poll by the Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies found 64% of Crimeans favored secession from from Ukraine to rejoin Russia, and 55% favored increased autonomy from Kiev.
2009-2011
Between 2009 and 2011 the United Nations Development Program conducts a series of polls in Crimea on the question of Russian reunification. Every single poll returns 65-70% positive response, with another 16-25% undecided and only 9-14% favoring staying with Ukraine.
2013
A poll done by the US-based Gallup agency finds 82% of Crimeans speak only Russsian at home, and further 6% speak Russian and one other language. Only 2% report speaking only Ukrainian.
The pro-EU/pro-NATO Maidan protests begin, violence erupts in Kiev.
2014
JANUARY
27/1 – As protests intensify in Kiev and Ukraine becomes increasingly unstable, local officials in Simferopol and Sevastopol propose Crimea become a federal state, and prepare legal groundwork:
to use its right to self-determination and to exit Ukraine’s legal space in the event of a state coup, or seizure of power by force.”
28/1 – An open letter from the Sevastopol city council calls on President Yanukovych to outlaw the “extremist group” Svoboda, and invites the people of the city to form “People’s Squads” as described under Ukrainian law, and defend the border of Crimea:
It is impossible to allow specially trained and armed militants of the “Right Sector” and other pro-fascist and extremist organizations to penetrate our city and dictate their terms. We will provide reliable defense of Sevastopol. Extremism, lawlessness, banditry will not pass in the hero city.
FEBRUARY
14/2 – Yahoo News reports “Ukraine’s autonomous Crimea region leans towards Moscow “. The article notes that the Crimean parliament amended the constitution to describe Russia as a “guarantor of Crimea’s safety”, and that elected officials have asked Russia for help if the Maidan protesters should attempt to move into Crimea.
18/2 – Radio Free Europe reports on the “rise of pro-Russian separatism in Crimea”. They interview Crimean MP Sergei Shuvainikov, who claims the Ukrainian nationalists want to ban the Russian language and kill Russian culture in Ukraine.
20/2 – Crimean MP and Speaker of Parliament tells an international meeting in Moscow that Crimea “may secede form Ukraine, if the country splits”.
22/2 – Less than 24 hours after signing a peace deal, Maidan protesters storm government buildings in Kiev and take control of the country. President Yanukovych flees to Kharkiv.
In a vote that violates the consitution of Ukraine, the Rada removes Yanukovych from office for being “unable to carry out his duties”.
The same day, The Washington Post publishes this article:
“The battle for Kiev is over, is the battle for Crimea about to begin?”
23/2 – One of the first bills passed by the new government repeals the law making Russian an official state language. Neo-Naziprit leaders Oleh Tyanobohk and Dimitri Yarosh propose going further and banning both the Party of the Regions and the Ukrainian Communist Party, both traditionally political parties representing Eastern Ukraine, including Crimea.
The same day, thousands of Crimeans attend a protest in Sevastopol, chanting about re-uniting with Russia. The Guardian headlines “Ukraine crisis fuels secession calls in pro-Russian south”, reporting that when the Crimean Prime Minister ruled out secession in his speech he was booed by the crowd.
26/2 – Crimean parliament meets in a special session to discuss the crisis and situation in Kiev. Thousands rally outside the building as the meeting is taking place, chanting “Russia! Russia! Russia!” and “Crimea Rise Up!”
The Parliamentary speaker emerges from the session to address the crowd, saying:
I share your alarm and worry over Crimea’s fate… We will fight for our autonomous republic to the end… Today Kiev doesn’t want to solve our problems, therefore we must unite and act decisively. The people of Crimea have enough strength. Neo-Nazism will not work in Crimea. We will not betray Crimea.”
The Irish Times reports “Many Russian-speakers worry that Ukraine’s new government will be pulled to the right by ultra-nationalist groups that played a major role in the protests”.
28/2 – In the early hours of Friday 28th February, men in fatigues bearing no insignia take control of every airport, seaport, train station and border crossing on the Crimean peninsula. They also secure all government buildings in Simferopol. These men are later revealed to be Russian troops from the bases at Sevastopol.
Kiev and their NATO backers call the troops’ presence an invasion, but Russia defends their deployment, claiming the troops are there at the invitation of both the local Crimean authorities and Viktor Yanukovych, whom they still recognise as the legitimate President of Ukraine.
Further, the Russians claim their lease agreement allowed up to 25,000 Russian military personnel to be stationed in Crimea, and they did not exceed that number.
With the peninsula effectively cut off from mainland Ukraine, a second special session of Parliament is held, during which they vote to terminate the current government and choose a new Prime Minister. They also established plans for an independence referendum to be held in May.
March
11/3 – Crimean parliament, along with the Sevastopol city council, issue a decree declaring Crimea independent.
The new Autonomous Republic of Crimea brings forward the planned referendum from May to March 16th, changing the question from one of independence to a choice between re-joining Russia or re-joining Ukraine.
12/3 – The Crimean government formally invite members from the OSCE to observe the referendum and make sure its fair. The OSCE describes the vote as “illegal”, and refuses to attend.
16/3 – The referendum goes ahead, with the ballot papers asking:
- Do you support the reunification of Crimea with Russia with all the rights of the federal subject of the Russian Federation?
- Do you support the restoration of the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea in 1992 and the status of the Crimea as part of Ukraine?
Though official observers from both the OSCE and UN refused to take part, the Crimean authorities claimed to have invited 190 independent observers from 23 different countries, including the majority of the nations of th EU.
Kiev, along with most western governments, claim the vote is illegitimate because it took place “at the barrel of a gun”.
The reported results are massively in favour of joining Russia, 97% vs 3% against, on an estimated turnout of 83%.
21/3 – President Vladimir Putin of Russia officially signs the law recognising Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. Street parties are held in Sevastopol and Simferopol, and all across Russia.
April
Claiming they are owed money, the Ukrainian government closes dam on North Crimea Canal, reducing flow of fresh water to the peninsula. Access to water is protected by article 29 of the Geneva convention, and its use to punish a civilian population could be a warcrime.
2015
Forbes publishes this article, headlined “One Year After Russia Annexed Crimea, Locals Prefer Moscow”, it details all the polling done by Western polling agencies since the referendum:
- A Gallup study from June 2014 found 83% Crimeans agreed with the result of the referendum, including 94% of ethnic Russians. 74% said being part of Russia would make life better for them and their families.
- In January 2015, a joint German-Canadian study done by GfK for “Free Crimea”, found 82% of Crimeans fully supported the referendum and thought Crimea had made the right choice, with another 11% partially supporting it and only 4% opposing it.
- A Pew Research study from 2014 found 91% of Crimeans thought the vote was free and fair, and 88% thought Kiev should recognise the results.
- A US government-funded study published on the Soros-backed OpenDemocracy website found 84% of Crimeans “absolutely” supported the Crimean referendum, and 88% thought Crimea was moving in the right direction.
*
So, there it is, a timeline of the key events leading to Crimea’s separation from, and evenutal reunification with, Russia. Military occupation and annexastion, or a referendum supported by the majority of the population? You decide.
We previously catalogued Ukraine’s Maidan revolution and eventual fall of Viktor Yanukovych in part 1 of this series here. In part three we will be going into Kiev’s “anti-terror” operations in Donetsk and Luhansk and the collapse into chaos and civil war.
March 8, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular | Crimea, Russia, Ukraine |
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