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The War in Ukraine Marks a Turning Point for Power in the World

By James O’Neill – New Eastern Outlook – 13.04.2022

One of the interesting features of the ongoing war in Ukraine is the extent to which the Australian mainstream media has almost entirely ceased to bother offering an objective assessment of what is actually happening in the ongoing war in that country. The latest examples refer to the alleged murder of citizens in the town of Bucha by Russian soldiers. The allegations of the Ukrainian forces are accepted without question. The facts of the case create a different picture.

The Russian troops had vacated the town four days before the discovery of the deceased victims, most of whom who had been shot in the head with their arms bound together. The gap between the departure of the Russian soldiers and the revealing of the deceased was not less than three days, or more likely four. Reports from the city in the first days after the departure of the Russians made no mention of the finding of any bodies.

This gap is something in entirely missing from Western mainstream media accounts. Similarly missing from media accounts is that the city was re-occupied by members of the Neo-Nazi battalion whose hatred for Russian speaking persons (who were the victims) is well established. Western mainstream media have reported the finding of these bodies, days after the Russians left, without pointing out the obvious problem with “the Russians did it” official narrative. The Western governments (nearly all members of NATO) that have supported the Ukrainian government, have leapt upon the incident as a reason to express horror at the alleged Russian atrocities and to propose further restrictions on the purchase of Russian goods.

It is in this context that NATO has held a meeting in Brussels on the sixth and seventh of April. The Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg said that the NATO allies are “determined to provide further support to Ukraine, including the provisions of weapons.” This is something the Australian government has also done. That it makes them a party to the ongoing war and therefore a legitimate target of attack is something that seems not to have entered the limited brain cells of Australia’s foreign minister.

Not content with mounting an attack on Russia, Stoltenberg also said that NATO would “need to take account of China’s growing influence inclusive and coercive policies on the global stage, which pose a systemic challenge to our security, and to our democracies.” The last time anyone looked, NATO was an acronym for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Stoltenberg’s comments draw attention to the fact that NATO’s ambitions are in fact worldwide. It is no less than a United States vehicle to enhance the United States’ pretentions to worldwide domination.

Stoltenberg’s speech coincided in terms of timing with the evidence given to the Defence Appropriations Subcommittee of the United States Congress by Admiral Charles Richards. His testimony related to the “systemic challenge” posed by the rise of China. He said that China “continues the breathtaking expansion of its strategic and nuclear forces with opaque intentions as to their use.”

Richards went on to say that “the strategic security environment is now a three-party nuclear peer reality, where the PRC and Russia are stressing and undermining international law, the rules-based order, and norms in every domain. Never before has this nation simultaneously faced two nuclear capable near peers who must be deterred differently. Today, both the PRC and Russia have the capability to unilaterally escalate a conflict to any level of violence, any domain, worldwide, with any instrument of national power, and at any time.”

In the case of Russia, the Admiral noted “its novel and advanced weapon delivery systems, many of which are capable of hypersonic speeds and flight path adjustments designed to avoid United States missile defence systems. They continue to develop additional strategic systems with new hypersonic warheads to expand the range of threats against the United States.”

In the case of Russia, the Admiral noted “its novel and advanced weapon delivery systems, many of which are capable of hypersonic speeds and flight path adjustments designed to avoid United States missile defence systems. They continue to develop additional strategic systems with new hypersonic warheads to expand the range of threats against the United States.”

Of the admiral’s conclusions the one that was of most significance was his claim that China and Russia both “actively seek to change the international rules-based order, while the United States and our allies and partners seek to defend it.”

These statements by both Stoltenberg and Richards highlight the critical importance of the current conflict in Ukraine. A defeat of Russia in the conflict would force a rethink of the non-western international community (currently overwhelmingly supportive of Russia,) although you won’t read that in the local newspapers as to the lack of capability of the United States led Western alliance. Conversely, Russia’s victory in that war, which looks increasingly likely to be the case, would inevitably speed the decline of the West as a major global player.

Which points to the real reason for the support for Ukraine given by the United States and its European stooges. The outcome of that conflict is of critical importance because the conflict is being closely watched around the world. There are two possible outcomes. On the one hand, if Russia is defeated by a United States led Western alliance, then the current perception around the world of the United States as a declining power would be reversed. On the other hand, for Russia to win this conflict would inevitably result in an acceleration of the world’s perceptions of the declining western power structure as a force to be reckoned with, and in the American perception, feared.

In short, the West needs to win in Ukraine to reverse the disintegration of United States and Europe in the eyes of the world. Such a victory looks increasingly unlikely. The world is undergoing massive changes in its balance of power. The emphasis has shifted from West to East and the speed of the transition has been markedly affected by the conflict in Ukraine. The West is showing a remarkable tendency to completely misjudge the resilience of Russia and the impact upon its own position of so disastrously misjudging the course of events.

What we are witnessing is of historical significance. The war in Ukraine truly marks the end of an era. The West should have noted the refusal of the developing world to condemn the Russian move. Its implications will be profound in its effects. Western hegemony has at last been given the proverbial boot. It is not before time.

James O’Neill is an Australian-based former Barrister at Law.

April 14, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Western Dissent from US/NATO Policy on Ukraine is Small, Yet the Censorship Campaign is Extreme

Preventing us from asking who benefits from a protracted proxy war, and who pays the price, is paramount. A closed propaganda system achieves that.

By Glenn Greenwald | April 13, 2022

If one wishes to be exposed to news, information or perspective that contravenes the prevailing US/NATO view on the war in Ukraine, a rigorous search is required. And there is no guarantee that search will succeed. That is because the state/corporate censorship regime that has been imposed in the West with regard to this war is stunningly aggressive, rapid and comprehensive.

On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished from the internet. In early March, barely a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the twenty-seven nation European Union — citing “disinformation” and “public order and security” — officially banned the Russian state-news outlets RT and Sputnik from being heard anywhere in Europe. In what Reuters called “an unprecedented move,” all television and online platforms were barred by force of law from airing content from those two outlets. Even prior to that censorship order from the state, Facebook and Google were already banning those outlets, and Twitter immediately announced they would as well, in compliance with the new EU law.

But what was “unprecedented” just six weeks ago has now become commonplace, even normalized. Any platform devoted to offering inconvenient-to-NATO news or alternative perspectives is guaranteed a very short lifespan. Less than two weeks after the EU’s decree, Google announced that it was voluntarily banning all Russian-affiliated media worldwide, meaning Americans and all other non-Europeans were now blocked from viewing those channels on YouTube if they wished to. As so often happens with Big Tech censorship, much of the pressure on Google to more aggressively censor content about the war in Ukraine came from its own workforce: “Workers across Google had been urging YouTube to take additional punitive measures against Russian channels.”

So prolific and fast-moving is this censorship regime that it is virtually impossible to count how many platforms, agencies and individuals have been banished for the crime of expressing views deemed “pro-Russian.” On Tuesday, Twitter, with no explanation as usual, suddenly banned one of the most informative, reliable and careful dissident accounts, named “Russians With Attitude.” Created in late 2020 by two English-speaking Russians, the account exploded in popularity since the start of the war, from roughly 20,000 followers before the invasion to more than 125,000 followers at the time Twitter banned it. An accompanying podcast with the same name also exploded in popularity and, at least as of now, can still be heard on Patreon.

What makes this outburst of Western censorship so notable — and what is at least partially driving it — is that there is a clear, demonstrable hunger in the West for news and information that is banished by Western news sources, ones which loyally and unquestioningly mimic claims from the U.S. government, NATO, and Ukrainian officials. As The Washington Post acknowledged when reporting Big Tech’s “unprecedented” banning of RT, Sputnik and other Russian sources of news: “In the first four days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, viewership of more than a dozen Russian state-backed propaganda channels on YouTube spiked to unusually high levels.”

Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Times article from early March put it very delicately in its headline: “Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.” Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: “Ukraine misinformation is spreading — and not just from Russia.” Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread fabrications that went viral to millions of people, with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations. That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.

Yet there is little to no censorship — either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies — of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies. The censorship goes only in one direction: to silence any voices deemed “pro-Russian,” regardless of whether they spread disinformation. The “Russians With Attitude” Twitter account became popular in part because they sometimes criticized Russia, in part because they were more careful with facts and viral claims that most U.S. corporate media outlets, and in part because there is such a paucity of outlets that are willing to offer any information that undercuts what the U.S. Government and NATO want you to believe about the war.

Their crime, like the crime of so many other banished accounts, was not disinformation but skepticism about the US/NATO propaganda campaign. Put another way, it is not “disinformation” but rather viewpoint-error that is targeted for silencing. One can spread as many lies and as much disinformation as one wants provided that it is designed to advance the NATO agenda in Ukraine (just as one is free to spread disinformation provided that its purpose is to strengthen the Democratic Party, which wields its majoritarian power in Washington to demand greater censorship and commands the support of most of Silicon Valley). But what one cannot do is question the NATO/Ukrainian propaganda framework without running a very substantial risk of banishment.

It is unsurprising that Silicon Valley monopolies exercise their censorship power in full alignment with the foreign policy interests of the U.S. Government. Many of the key tech monopolies — such as Google and Amazon — routinely seek and obtain highly lucrative contracts with the U.S. security state, including both the CIA and NSA. Their top executives enjoy very close relationships with top Democratic Party officials. And Congressional Democrats have repeatedly hauled tech executives before their various Committees to explicitly threaten them with legal and regulatory reprisals if they do not censor more in accordance with the policy goals and political interests of that party.

But one question lingers: why is there so much urgency about silencing the small pockets of dissenting voices about the war in Ukraine? This war has united the establishment wings of both parties and virtually the entire corporate media with a lockstep consensus not seen since the days and weeks after the 9/11 attack. One can count on both hands the number of prominent political and media figures who have been willing to dissent even minimally from that bipartisan Washington consensus — dissent that instantly provokes vilification in the form of attacks on one’s patriotism and loyalties. Why is there such fear of allowing these isolated and demonized voices to be heard at all?

The answer seems clear. The benefits from this war for multiple key Washington power centers cannot be overstated. The billions of dollars in aid and weapons being sent by the U.S. to Ukraine are flying so fast and with such seeming randomness that it is difficult to track. “Biden approves $350 million in military aid for Ukraine,” Reuters said on February 26; “Biden announces $800 million in military aid for Ukraine,” announced The New York Times on March 16; on March 30, NBC’s headline read: “Ukraine to receive additional $500 million in aid from U.S., Biden announces”; on Tuesday, Reuters announced: “U.S. to announce $750 million more in weapons for Ukraine, officials say.” By design, these gigantic numbers have long ago lost any meaning and provoke barely a peep of questioning let alone objection.

It is not a mystery who is benefiting from this orgy of military spending. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that “the Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight U.S. weapons manufacturers on Wednesday to discuss the industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia lasts years.” Among those participating in this meeting about the need to increase weapons manufacturing to feed the proxy war in Ukraine is Raytheon, which is fortunate to have retired General Lloyd Austin as Defense Secretary, a position to which he ascended from the Raytheon Board of Directors. It is virtually impossible to imagine an event more favorable to the weapons manufacturer industry than this war in Ukraine:

Demand for weapons has shot up after Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 spurred U.S. and allied weapons transfers to Ukraine. Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity. . .

Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting. . .  The White House said last week that it has provided more than $1.7 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the invasion, including over 5,000 Javelins and more than 1,400 Stingers.

This permanent power faction is far from the only one to be reaping benefits from the war in Ukraine and to have its fortunes depend upon prolonging the war as long as possible. The union of the U.S. security state, Democratic Party neocons, and their media allies has not been riding this high since the glory days of 2002. One of MSNBC’s most vocal DNC boosters, Chris Hayes, gushed that the war in Ukraine has revitalized faith and trust in the CIA and intelligence community more than any event in recent memory — deservedly so, he said: “The last few weeks have been like the Iraq War in reverse for US intelligence.” One can barely read a mainstream newspaper or watch a corporate news outlet without seeing the nation’s most bloodthirsty warmongering band of neocons — David Frum, Bill Kristol, Liz Cheney, Wesley Clark, Anne Applebaum, Adam Kinzinger — being celebrated as wise experts and heroic warriors for freedom.

This war has been very good indeed for the permanent Washington political and media class. And although it was taboo for weeks to say so, it is now beyond clear that the only goal that the U.S. and its allies have when it comes to the war in Ukraine is to keep it dragging on for as long as possible. Not only are there no serious American diplomatic efforts to end the war, but the goal is to ensure that does not happen. They are now saying that explicitly, and it is not hard to understand why.

The benefits from endless quagmire in Ukraine are as immense as they are obvious. The military budget skyrockets. Punishment is imposed on the arch-nemesis of the Democratic Party — Russia and Putin — while they are bogged down in a war from which Ukrainians suffer most. The citizenry unites behind their leaders and is distracted.

April 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia’s Ukraine operation has no deadline

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 13, 2022

In his first extended remarks in nearly a month about the conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that peace talks had reached a “dead end” and pledged that Russia’s “military operation will continue until its full completion.”

Putin defined a more limited aim for the war, focusing on control of the Donbass — and not all of Ukraine. Putin reiterated that Russia’s actions so far in several regions of Ukraine were intended only to tie down enemy forces and carry out missile strikes with the purpose of destroying the Ukrainian military’s infrastructure, so as to “create conditions for more active operations on the territory of Donbass.”

In his words, “Our goal is to provide aid to the people of Donbass, who feel an unbreakable bond with Russia and have been the subjects of genocide for eight years.”

Asked why the operation cannot be speeded up, Putin told reporters: “I often get these questions, ‘can’t we hurry it up?’ We can. But it depends on the intensity of hostilities and, any way you put it, the intensity of hostilities is directly related to casualties.”

He made it clear that “our task is to achieve the set goals while minimising these losses. We will act rhythmically, calmly, and according to the plan that was initially proposed by the General Staff.” He added, “The operation is going according to plan.”

Clearly, Mariupol port city in the south of Donbass could have been conquered with brute force. But that would have caused horrific casualties. Instead, the enemy forces — Ukrainian military, neo-Nazi Azov battalion and foreign mercenaries — have been steadily cornered and entrapped in two main locations, namely, Azovstal steel mills and the city’s main port.

The Russian forces have gained control of the port, while in Azovstal, about 3000-strong enemy forces have been surrounded, who include possibly dozens or hundreds of military officers from the NATO countries — and, surprisingly, Sweden. The experts estimate that the fall of the city into Russian hands is imminent. The Russian Ministry of Defence announced on Wednesday that over 1,000 Ukrainian troops, including 162 officers, surrendered earlier in the day in Mariupol.

In retrospect, the main purpose behind the frantic diplomatic efforts by some of the NATO countries (France and Germany, in particular) to sponsor “humanitarian corridors” out of Mariupol had a nefarious agenda to exfiltrate the Western officers trapped in the city. The heart of the matter is, NATO forces are de facto deployed in Ukraine, as foreign volunteers or as military instructors, and, equipped with heavy military equipment, they are fighting the Russian Army.

A French journalist who managed to sneak in with French “volunteers” has since come out with a video showing that American military personnel coordinate the foreign military in Ukraine and are directly handling the training and enrolment of the foreign “volunteers” in the Ukrainian forces.

In such conditions, quite obviously, peace talks between Moscow and Kiev cannot progress. The big question is: Does the Biden administration want the conflict to end and a peace agreement to be negotiated? The answer seems ‘no’. In fact, the US is fuelling this conflict.

The US Senate has approved a draft law on lend-lease, which will greatly simplify supplies to Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reported that the US will provide Ukraine with heavy equipment, including Soviet air defence systems. The Biden administration is said to be preparing to announce more than $700 million in additional military assistance to Ukraine, which is likely to include heavy ground artillery systems, helicopters and armoured vehicles. The US had provided more than $2.4 billion in military assistance to Ukraine during Biden’s presidency, including $1.7 billion since Russia began its special operation in Ukraine in late February.

Interestingly, Putin confirmed yesterday the reports that British intelligence had stage-managed the so-called Bucha killings to pillory Russian military and create an international ruckus. The Pentagon had ostentatiously distanced itself from the controversy riveted on what turned out to be fake news. Putin said:

“There is a lot of commotion, but they (EU and US) just needed to adopt a new package of sanctions, as we know very well. Today, we discussed their special operation, the psychological operation carried out by the British.

“If you want to know the addresses, the secret meeting places, the licence plate numbers, the brands of vehicles they used in Bucha, and how they did it, the FSB of Russia can provide this information. If not, we can help. We exposed that ugly, disgusting position of the West together with our Russian friends, in full and from the beginning to the end.”

The Russian and Ukrainian forces have been regrouping and strengthening their positions in Eastern Ukraine through the past fortnight in preparation for a decisive battle for the Donbass. The Russian forces are preparing to encircle a huge concentration of Ukrainian troops, estimated to be in the region of 100,000 servicemen drawn from the best units of the armed forces. Kiev is also transferring all available forces to the eastern front in order to stop the Russian offensive.

Putin’s remarks yesterday suggest that Russia is not looking for a quick victory at any cost. Putin said on Tuesday that Moscow “had no other choice” and that the operation aimed to protect people in parts of eastern Ukraine and to “ensure Russia’s own security”. He vowed it would “continue until its full completion and the fulfilment of the tasks that have been set.”

To be sure, fighting in eastern Ukraine will intensify over the next two to three weeks but the final outcome will take time. The Ukrainian forces and the foreign fighters who have flocked to the eastern region are well-equipped and will not only put up stiff resistance but may even carry the fight into Russian territory.

This grim scenario is fraught with the real danger that NATO may increasingly be finding itself at war with Russia in Ukraine. According to Western media reports, elite British and US special forces units are deployed in Ukraine, including servicemen of the British Special Air Service (SAS) and soldiers of the First Operational Unit of Special Forces “Delta” of the US Army.

There have been reports that the operations in Mariupol were under the command of an American general who attempted to escape by helicopter sent to rescue him a week ago, but was intercepted by the Donetsk militia involved in the operation alongside the Russian forces, and was taken into their custody. It is entirely conceivable that the Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Moscow mission on Monday and his “very direct, open and tough” talks with Putin at a one-to-one meeting at the latter’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow was in coordination with Washington. There has been no readout of the 75-minute meeting from the Kremlin.

April 13, 2022 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Rallying Round the False Flags

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 12, 2022

Another day, another provocation, and Western leaders are frothing at the mouth with denunciations of Russian “barbarity”. U.S. President Joe Biden signs off on more weapons to Ukraine while European counterparts slap more economic warfare sanctions on Russia.

Just when the Western media had saturated “reports” of Russian troops executing civilians and leaving their bodies to rot on the streets of Bucha, then we read of more horror from accusations that Russian forces fired a missile at a train station in Kramatorsk killing over 50 people, including women and children.

Last week the Western media were telling us about Russian forces bombing a theatre in Mariupol and killing people sheltering in the basement. The week before it was an alleged Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in the same city.

The onslaught of the reports of these alleged atrocities is itself telling. There is hardly any time for the Western public to think critically about the reports and whether they are credible. We are being bombarded with sensation and disgust and forced to rally around the flag of supposed Western values such as democracy and morality. That means sending more weapons to Ukraine to “defend” that country from Russian “barbarity”.

Let’s take the latest incident in Kramatorsk on April 8. The New York Times and other Western media reported that a Russian missile hit a train station and killed at least 50 people who were trying to evacuate the city. The impression conveyed in the reporting is that civilians are fleeing as Russian troops advance on more of the Donbass territory.

Russia denied that its forces fired on Kramatorsk. It described the incident as a provocation, or what others would call a false flag operation. The Russians said the missile was fired by the NATO-backed Ukrainian military some 45 kilometres from Kramatorsk.

So, who’s right?

One important fact that all media reported, including the New York Times, is that the explosion was caused by a Tockha-U short-range ballistic missile. Fragments of the munition were identified and photographed near the scene of carnage at the train station.

The Soviet-era weapon is no longer used by the Russian military as of 2019. It is, however, widely used by the Ukrainian military.

Indeed, the Ukrainian military has been firing Tockha-U missiles into the pro-Russian Donbass territory for years, killing civilians indiscriminately. Last month, a missile killed over 20 people when it struck Donetsk city.

Western media have not been reporting that. They have hardly reported that the NATO-backed Kiev Ukrainian forces have been waging a war on the pro-Russian people of Donbass for eight years since the CIA-sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014. The Western media don’t tell you that the NATO bloc has been weaponizing and training Ukrainian regiments like the Azov Battalion that are infested with Nazi supporters who view the killing of Russians as a noble mission. The Western media don’t tell you why Russia views Ukraine and its NATO ambitions as a national security threat and that Moscow went into Ukraine on February 24 because of mounting attacks on civilians in the Donbass.

The Kramatorsk “crime against humanity” that Biden, Johnson, Macron and Von Der Leyen have been denouncing as “cynical” and “abominable” was in all probability carried out by the Ukrainian military that the United States, NATO and the European Union are supporting and sending weapons to.

The same goes for the reported killings in Bucha. Western media and leaders have roundly condemned Russia for allegedly carrying out the atrocity. The Western media have relied totally on Ukrainian claims concerning Bucha, as they have for Kramatorsk and other alleged atrocities.

But if you can withstand the hype and hyperbole, the shock and awe of the media blitz, the claims don’t stand up to scrutiny. The alleged Bucha atrocity came to light in Western media four days after Russian troops withdrew from that city on March 30, and the freshly dead corpses on the streets were filmed by the Ukrainian military. The alleged Russian atrocity has been convincingly debunked, just as Moscow has been saying, blaming it on a provocation.

The earlier bombing of the maternity hospital and the theater in Mariupol were also false-flag attacks carried out by the NATO-backed Ukrainian military. So too was the alleged killing of dozens of Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island. Remember how Western media reported Ukrainian defenders on the island radioing the Russian forces to “go fuck themselves” before they were blasted to death. Turns out the Russians safely evacuated the surrendering Ukrainians under normal laws of war having afforded them safe passage from the island.

The Western media are playing the public like an organ-grinder. The U.S. media have even admitted to spinning false information in the cause of an “information war” against Russia.

And so we see people like Pope Francis kissing the flag and praying for Ukraine and condemning Russia, we see Biden and European leaders calling for war crimes prosecution of Russian President Vladimir Putin and ordering up more weapons to Ukraine. We see American actors like Sean Penn going into hysterics threatening to “melt down” his Academy Awards in protest over Russian barbarity. Maybe Sean’s next project will be starring in a movie about fighting to the death to defend Snake Island!

Ukrainian comedian-actor-president Vladimir Zelensky (a Jewish frontman for a Nazi regime) said of the Kramatorsk atrocity – and it was an atrocity, but one carried out by his military: “Lacking the strength and the courage to stand up to us on the battlefield, they [Russia] are cynically destroying the civilian population. This evil knows no limits. And if it is not punished it will never stop.”

Cue the anguished tears, condemnations, and billions of dollars/euros of taxpayer-funded aid and lethal weapons to the Ukrainian regime – because we are all supposed to rally around the flag of Western democratic and moral virtue. Even that latter claim is one big false flag.

April 13, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Biden mobilizes US military industry to arm Ukraine

Samizdat | April 13, 2022

US President Joe Biden is looking to mobilize the military industry and send another $750 million worth of the Pentagon’s own weapons stockpile to Ukraine, according to new reports citing anonymous officials in Washington. This is on top of the $1.7 billion worth of goods sent to Kiev courtesy of American taxpayers since the conflict escalated on February 24.

So far the US “lethal” aid has consisted mainly of Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger portable anti-air systems.

Now Biden is preparing to escalate the aid to include heavy artillery and other systems, worth three-quarters of a billion or so, Reuters reported on Tuesday citing two US officials. The official announcement could come within a day or two, the agency added.

Biden wouldn’t need congressional authorization for this, either, as it would be done under a Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which authorizes transfer from current US military stocks in response to an emergency.

This would put the amount of US military aid to Kiev at over $2.4 billion since Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, when added to the White House’s own figures made public last week.

The US has sent more than 1,400 Stingers and 5,000 Javelins to Ukraine already, Financial Times (FT) reported on Tuesday citing the Pentagon. This amounts to a third of the US stock of Javelins and a quarter of its Stingers, estimated the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think-tank. At current production rates, it will take 3-4 years to restock on Javelins and at least five for the Stingers.

Production levels will be one of the topics at the meeting between the Pentagon officials and top eight US weapons manufacturers, which both Reuters and FT said is scheduled for Wednesday. Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and L3 Harris Technologies are expected in attendance.

Kiev has reached out to US allies far and wide – from its NATO neighbors all the way to South Korea – asking for airplanes, tanks and artillery in particular. On Saturday, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said that Berlin could not afford to send any more weapons without depleting its own stocks too much. By Monday, however, the Rheinmetall conglomerate said it could refurbish some obsolete Leopard 1 tanks and send them east.

Last week, Slovakia announced it would send its only battery of S-300 air defense systems to Ukraine, and get US-made “Patriots” to replace them. On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that the battery had been obliterated in a cruise missile strike against a hangar in Dnepropetrovsk, a city Ukrainians call Dnipro, the day before.

April 12, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian opposition leader arrested, Zelensky shares photo of rival in handcuffs

Samizdat | April 12, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his delight on Tuesday after Kiev’s successor to the Soviet-era KGB arrested the country’s most prominent opposition leader.

The President shared a photo of his handcuffed rival Viktor Medvedchuk on social media, with the caption: “A special operation was carried out by the SBU. Well done! Details to follow.”

Medvedchuk heads the second largest party in the national parliament, the “Opposition Platform – For Life.” He was previously placed under house arrest, last year, as part of Zelensky’s clampdown on dissent, which was granted tacit approval by the regime’s Western supporters.

Formed in 1991, to replace the KGB, the SBU is Ukraine’s main intelligence and security agency.

Medvedchuk, who opposed the 2014 Kiev Maidan, and believes the country’s Western turn to be detrimental to Ukraine’s interests, has led his party since 2018. He previously served as Chief of Staff to former President Leonid Kuchma, in the early 2000s.

Some Western commentators have labelled him as Vladimir Putin’s “closest ally in Ukraine.” However, the Russian President has described Medvechuk as a “Ukrainian nationalist.”

In 2019, Opposition Platform – For Life won 13% of the vote in a parliamentary election, making it the country’s largest opposition faction. Last year, polls showed that it had passed Zelensky’s Servant of the People as the most popular party in the state.

That seemed to prompt a crackdown by Zelensky, who closed media outlets associated with Medvedchuk. Soon after, the politician was arrested on politically motivated “treason” charges.

Medvedchuk has rejected accusations of being “pro-Russian,” insisting his party represents millions of ordinary Ukrainians. In February 2021, he accused Zelensky of seeking to establish a dictatorship in Ukraine and suppress the legally elected opposition.

Authorities in Kiev also charged Zelensky’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko with treason, back in December 2021 – on the same charge as Medvedchuk: illegally buying coal from the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk and thus “financing terrorism.” Poroshenko made a big deal out of publicly returning to Ukraine in January, and a Kiev court refused to jail him.

Unlike Medvedchuk, Poroshenko has substantial support in the West.

The US and its allies have sought to justify their support for Ukraine by saying Zelensky is a democrat fighting for freedom, and have presented Russia’s actions towards Kiev as motivated by a fear of democracy.

Moscow sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements and end the conflict with the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk. Russia ended up recognizing the two as independent states, at which point they asked for military aid.

Russia demands that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two Donbass republics by force.

April 12, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Searching for War Criminals

They are nearer than you think

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • APRIL 12, 2022

The United States is now insisting that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be put on trial for “war crimes” committed in Ukraine. As Putin is still insisting that he will attend the upcoming G20 summit in November on the island of Bali, Indonesia, it will be a great opportunity to have US Marshalls snatch him from the stage and whisk him off to a federal courthouse in Virginia for justice to be served. Or a form of justice anyway, since the United States has no actual jurisdiction over where Putin’s alleged crimes might have taken place and it will be impossible to prove that he actually ordered anyone to carry out so-called “crimes against humanity.” We’ll see how it all works out.

Indeed, there is no other phrase that has been more misunderstood and generally abused of late than “war crimes” or “war criminals.” It belongs with several other labels, including “weapons of mass destruction” and “crimes against humanity” that are used to indicate an adversary has crossed a red line and is so deplorable that anything that is done to him either during actual fighting or in the aftermath is completely acceptable. Going back to Greek and Roman times it has always been understood that even in wartime there are certain activities that are unacceptable, but the attempted definition and codification of “war crimes” as a concept is largely a twentieth century creation used to inflict additional punishment on the losers after the fighting is over. The Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War punished Germany far beyond what most would consider reasonable, largely because the victorious powers were able to do so without any consequences until the next war began. Likewise, the linked concepts of war crimes and crimes against humanity came largely out of the post-Second World War Nuremberg Trials, which shaped the legal arguments around alleged German behavior, not that of the allies.

The Second World War certainly included atrocities of various kinds on both sides, but the Anglo-American deliberate bombing of German cities has to stand out as particularly disproportionate. Forty-two thousand mostly civilians died in Hamburg in the 1943 firebombing and the bombing of Dresden in 1945, at a point when Germany was on the verge of defeat, was remarkable in that the city was not a military target and was full of refugees from the east. At least 200,000 civilians died. Judge Andrew Napolitano has suggested that the greatest war crime in history, if one makes a case based on unnecessary human suffering, was President Harry Truman’s nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which almost certainly killed more than 200,000 mostly civilians, when Japan was preparing to surrender. As Truman was on the side that won the war and controlled the prosecution process, there were no legal consequences or punishment relating to his decision, though critics since 1945 have sometimes decried the first use of nuclear weapons.

If killing civilians unnecessarily is the standard definition of a war crime, then America’s most recent five presidents have been war criminals. In other words, historically speaking, accusations of war crimes, which have no real meaning in law and are both infinitely elastic and subject to interpretation, have often depended on which side of the fence one is standing on when the war ends. And it gets more complicated than that, given the politics of what is sometimes referred to as the rules based international order, which in theory arose from the ashes of World War Two. The new world order was US-centric from the start, with the United Nations (UN) situated in New York City, the World Bank in Washington, and the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. At the UN, American primacy was reinforced through the creation of a Security Council, which alone has the power to authorize military action against a rogue state. The Security Council had five permanent members, each of whom was armed with a veto, meaning that no effective action against them could ever take place no matter what they had done. And so it has played out, with the US plus China, Russia, Britain and France being effectively immune from censure authorizing military action by the United Nations.

It is of particular interest to observe that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague was set up to deal with “war crimes and crimes against humanity” that were otherwise ignored. Neither the US, nor the Russians nor the Israelis recognize the authority of the court and the US has stated that no ICC investigator will be allowed entry into the United States. Given that, it becomes possible to witness how the whole farce of war crimes and other violations of the new world order have played out in practice.

Currently the US and its allies are waging economic warfare on Russia without an actual declaration of war, to include an avalanche of sanctions plus completely illegal confiscations of the property of Russian citizens. It is also blocking Moscow from the use of the international monetary conventions and systems that it has had access to. The clearly stated intention is to destroy the Russian economy due to Russia having been charged by the US government with the commission of what it is calling war crimes in its invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin argues in turn that Ukraine’s apparent intention to join NATO, which is a hostile military alliance directed against Russia, is a direct threat to his country and is already manifesting itself in military action undertaken against breakaway parts of Ukraine which are largely inhabited by Russian speakers and ethnics.

There are other issues, but those are the most important. It should also be noted that the issues themselves were at least somewhat negotiable prior to the outbreak of fighting, which Putin sought to do but Joe Biden and NATO were not interested. So ultimately the war, from a third-party point of view, is pitting a Russian vital interest against what really amounts to no genuine interest at all for NATO and the US, apart from goading the Russian bear and removing its government as a way to prevent against any change in the international order.

Since objective reality has no place in United States foreign policy, it is interesting to look at how the US sees itself and how it regards other countries that are doing what Russia is doing or worse. When it comes to its own self-perception, America’s so-called leaders believe that their global leadership role is one by right and they can do no wrong by virtue of a quality referred to as “American exceptionalism.” That is of course a mythical attribute created to permit the United States to get away with mass murder and regime change without any consequences.

A principal beneficiary of American financial and political largesse is, of course, Israel, which consists not only of people “chosen” by Yahweh but also by the media, the United States Senate, House of Representatives and the White House. A comparison of what Russia is doing that is being condemned by Washington versus what both what the US and Israel have been able to get away with might be considered to be in order.

Russia has invaded Ukraine after months of warnings that the status quo was untenable in national security terms, largely due to intentionally fruitless negotiations with stonewalling United States representatives and NATO. Israel, widely acknowledged to be an apartheid state, is currently bombing Syria on an almost daily basis, unnoticed by the US media and the Biden Administration. It in the past has attacked all its neighbors, including the renowned Seven Days War in June 1967 which was a surprise attack staged against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Subsequent to that war, Israel occupied nearly all of what had been Palestine. It also seized the Golan Heights belonging to Syria and has recently received consent from Washington to illegally annex Arab East Jerusalem as a part of Israel, making the whole of the city Israel’s capital. The Golan Heights have also recently been annexed with Washington’s approval and there are 700,000 heavily armed and violent Jewish settlers now sitting in 261 settlements on stolen Palestinian land on the West Bank.

And what has the United States and its allies done to dissuade Israel? Well, nothing. One rule for Israel and the US and another quite different Washington dictated “rules based” system for everyone else, most particularly if one is Russian. In fact, the more belligerently Israel behaves, the more it gets in terms of US taxpayer money and made-in-USA weapons. Israel has also been the favored destination for traveling congress-critters of late because it is an election year and Jewish donors are being hotly pursued. Recently, a large group of Democrats was departing just before former Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Tel Aviv on Miriam Adelson’s private jet so he could kiss Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s ring and also spend some quality time with Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ironically, while Joe Biden was turning the screws on Russia, the Congress was showering gifts on Israel above and beyond the billions of dollars in “aid” that the wealthy Jewish state already receives. Alison Weir of IfAmericansKnew has examined the recently signed pork laden 2022 federal government spending bill and has identified numerous line-item instances of money going directly to Israel or in support of causes that benefit Israel in some fashion. She estimates that Israel’s economy, which is able to support both free medical care and higher education, now benefits to the tune of $22 million per day from the United States taxpayer, for a total of $8 billion per year, and the number might actually be much higher. And there are other sources of income indirectly funded by the US Treasury, most notably the ability of Israel-focused charities to contribute tax exempt money to Israeli foundations and groups. Many of the “charities” are essentially fraudulent, funding the illegal settlements, domestic terrorism and other anti-Palestinian activities. Every artifice is used by some Jewish groups and billionaire donors to keep the US dollars flowing to Israel while no one of any significance in the federal government complains about the double standard when one compares Israel to Russia. And the Zionist controlled media are completely silent.

The hypocrisy that pervades United States foreign policy is difficult to ignore, but Washington has successfully manipulated its financial instruments to keep its remaining friends and allies in line. Whether that will survive the inevitable pushback coming from Russia, China and a number of non-aligned nations remains to be seen. At a minimum, the Cold War alignment that was broken in 1991 and which seems to again be taking shape around the Ukraine issue appears to have exceeded its expiry date. Ukraine might indeed wind up doing severe damage to the Russian economy, but it seems plausible that it will also bring with it the long overdue demise of American hegemonistic fantasies and NATO.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

April 12, 2022 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

SAS and Delta Force part of “secret war”: French intelligence source

Samizdat | April 11, 2022

Elite special forces from the UK and the US have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of hostilities with Russia in late February, a source in the French intelligence community reportedly told a Le Figaro reporter, last week.

The claim was reported by the newspaper’s senior international correspondent Georges Malbrunot on Saturday, the day when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his surprise visit to Kiev. The British leader was reportedly surrounded by guards from the elite SAS force, though this claim was not officially confirmed.

SAS units “have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as did [sic] the American Deltas,” Malbrunot tweeted citing a French intelligence source. He added that according to the source Russia was well aware of the “secret war” waged against its troops by foreign commandos. Le Figaro included his report in their updates on Ukraine.

The UK and the US have been among the most active military supporters of Kiev. Johnson reportedly personally urged his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to keep on fighting against Russia and not settle for peace until better terms are offered.

Western pro-fighting consensus was apparently confirmed last week by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who said on Saturday that the “war will be won on the battlefield” as he too was visiting Kiev.

British media earlier reported that dozens of “retired” SAS soldiers had gone or planned to go to Ukraine to contribute their expertise in reconnaissance and anti-tank warfare to Kiev’s cause. Their services were allegedly paid for by “a country in Europe, still to be named, via a private military company” rather than by the British government, according to the UK tabloid the Daily Mirror.

The Russian military reported action against what it described as “mercenaries” fighting for Ukraine on several occasions. One of the recent instances was on Saturday, just as Johnson and Borell were in Kiev.

The Russian defense ministry said Kiev attempted to use a civilian ship in its latest failed attempt to evacuate high-value personnel from the port city of Mariupol, which saw some of the most intensive fighting during the conflict. The individuals intended for evacuation were identified as leaders of the ultranationalist Azov battalion and foreign mercenaries. There are unconfirmed reports that hundreds of foreign nationals could be blocked in Mariupol along with several thousand Azov troops.

The US and the UK have publicly stated they had no plans to involve their troops in the fighting in Ukraine. Both are major suppliers of arms to Kiev and were training soldiers in Ukraine before the Russian offensive. The experts were reported pulled out of the country in the run-up to the hostilities.

Britain’s Defence Ministry banned active service members from traveling to Ukraine in early March, saying that violating the rule could result in prosecution. Kiev called on volunteers abroad to join the ranks of its newly-created “foreign legion” after the Russian attack.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

The Great Russian Restoration, IX: The Military Establishment Factor

By Rolo Slavski | Occidental Observor | April 11, 2022

I have resisted the urge to write much about the actual war in Ukraine up to this point for several reasons.

First, I am not a military expert, although I have spoken to several retired military men to get their take on the situation since the start of the conflict. This is made easier by the fact that I come from a military family.

Secondly, I saw Russian military dominance and victory a foregone conclusion and still do. This was always a war for the Russian politicians to lose, not for the Ukrainian military to win.

Thirdly, I do not believe that anyone has any real inside information on Russian troop movements and strategic goals. The Ministry of Defense has kept a very tight lid on that sort of thing. Therefore, all we really have to work with is speculation based on Telegram and Twitter videos and reports from embedded journalists. Or, we rely on the reports of Western intelligence agencies, which do not have a good track record.

We should instead consider Putin’s goals going into this war. The most obvious factor to consider is the fact that Putin has no political future should he fail to achieve his objectives in Ukraine. One way or the other, he needs a victory of some sort or another to hang his hat on. This is perhaps the best metric that we have for figuring out what Putin’s intentions are in Ukraine and since this series of essays is focused on internal changes occurring in Russia as a result of the showdown with the West, we should consider what exactly Russian civil society is demanding from Putin.

First and foremost, the so-called “Atlanticist” faction, which seems to be a euphemism for Jews and their puppets as far as I can tell, did NOT want Putin to intervene in Ukraine. He did so anyway. And he did the same in Crimea, Syria and Georgia. Now, many of the most prominent Atlanticists have fled the country. In other words, there is no proof whatsoever that Putin is willing to bend to their demands when it comes to Russia’s security and so, we can safely disregard the opinions and demands of these people and their supporters in Moscow and St. Petersburg because it is quite clear that Putin has already done so.

The largest block in society is what we can broadly call the “Patriots.” They come in all ideological shades and stripes — some are red flag-waving Communist nostalgists, others prefer the black, yellow and white aesthetics of the Russian Empire. Most simply fly the red, white and blue of Russia and have no ideology to speak of other than what we can understand as generic patriotism. They all support the military operation in Ukraine, but they have various goals that they want the intervention to achieve. These people make up 80+% of Russian society and we know this because Putin’s approval rating has soared into the 80s because of the military intervention. The hardliners want an incorporation of the entire territory of Ukraine into the Russian Federation, but are willing to settle for everything east of the Dniepr. The majority of patriotic Russians just want a victory in Ukraine, and have no idea of what exactly that will entail. Liberating the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) and reincorporating them into Russia while giving the Ukrainian army, the “Nats-bats” (mercenary “nationalist” militias), and Zelensky a good thrashing is good enough for them. Russia’s official stated goals in this conflict are just that, simply phrased another way: the “de-nazification” and “de-militarization” of Ukraine and the liberation of Donetsk and Lugansk. To achieve this limited victory, all Putin has left to do is to dislodge the Ukrainian army in the East, where they were massing up to attack the DNR and where they are hunkered down in their fortified positions now.

But let’s examine the military operation in greater detail for a moment. If we’re going to speculate on Russia’s military plans and objectives, we have to focus on the facts and not on the narratives that we can spin based off these facts. For example, we know for a fact that the Russian army reached Kiev within the first three days of the conflict. Now, was this a feint or part of a psychological operation to get Kiev to surrender, or an attempt to prevent a planned Ukrainian offensive on Donbass by splitting the Ukrainian army or the first stage in a preparation to storm the capital and cut the head off the snake? Here, we can only speculate.

We can also add to our speculations that there may have been an attempt to activate Russian assets within the city and take it from within. Russian bloggers are speculating that this was the Russian plan for Kharkiv, which failed to materialize for one reason or another. In fact, there are rumors that Kharkiv’s officials feigned surrender only to lure Russian troops in and then open fire on them, leading to a similar repeat of the Grozny ambush during the Chechen wars. I hesitate to hang my hat on this claim, but it strikes me as having a ring of truth to it. After all, what was the Russian plan for taking the cities if they refuse to bomb and then storm them into submission? Clearly, negotiating with the officials and activating sleeper agents within the cities would be a far more cost-effective method of taking these cities. If that is the case, Russian spooks and diplomats failed spectacularly in Kharkiv, Kiev, and Mariuple.

More facts: the Russian military plowed through the Ukrainian in-field defenses and parked themselves outside these cities or simply went around them. No immediate storming occurred. While they surrounded these cities and continued their targeted destruction of the Ukrainian military, a bloodbath began in these cities targeted at Russia-sympathizers and officials who spoke up about entering negotiations or surrendering ending up being assassinated by the SBU and the “Nats-bats.”

So: were the Russians planning on taking all of these cities but failed because their sleeper cells were poorly prepared/neutralized? Or was the Ministry of Defense and Putin telling the truth when they said that they weren’t interested in taking territory or these cities but simply in knocking out Ukraine’s military potential and liberating the DNR and LNR?

Choose your own narrative as you see fit or wait until the dust settles. Either way, we simply don’t know the answer yet.

Back on the home front, Putin hasn’t even called up Russia’s reserves. Young men are NOT being drafted to go fight in the Ukraine. Again, this is another fact. What does it tell us? That the war is not popular? Hardly. Not only do we have the polls to prove that the war is, in fact, popular, but we have Western media lamenting the fact that this is the case. Why then not call up the reserves? Perhaps because they were deemed unnecessary for the goals of the operation. This indicates that the goals of the operation were limited, does it not?

And now a few words on the Russian Ministry of Defense.

We can start with Anatoly Serdukov, the former minister of defense. Serdukov was probably one of the least qualified ministers of defense in Russian history. He was widely reviled and hated by the officer corps in the military and his replacement with Sergei Shoigu was seen as a much-awaited step in the right direction. In the 90s, Serdukov was a furniture salesmen (fine, a general director) in St. Petersburg and it was widely believed in military circles that he was as corrupt as they came. For example, his significant other got caught with millions of dollars in her bank account. There was also regular run-of-the-mill corruption associated with his five-year reign which ended in 2012, such as the use of military resources to build roads to oligarchs’ villas and the like. I suppose one could make the argument that there was no proof of direct embezzlement, but he ended up getting sacked for involvement in corruption all the same. The silver lining was that no one in the West could take Russia seriously with him at the helm, and so NATO relaxed. It was around this time that President Obama declared Russia a regional power and declared that a pivot to China was the path forward for ensuring US hegemony in the world. Russian patriots believe that Serdukov was partially to blame for this insulting demotion from superpower status. Most notably, the army during this period was drastically cut as part of a money-saving campaign that was branded as an anti-corruption effort.

With Sergei Shoigu taking over in 2012, Russia slowly began reinvesting in the military. Shoigu, like many other Russian public figures, was considered a legacy of the Yeltsin kakistocracy that once ruled the country. That being said, he demonstrated actual competence during his time in political office and his time at the Ministry of Emergencies — a rare trait in the Russian government over the last 30 years, to be sure. All that being said, he is not, strictly speaking what the military circles would consider to be a true-blue military man. There are rumors circulating now that he is about to be sacked, which are largely the result of him having dropped out of the public eye since March 11 of this year. Shoigu is widely known as a media enthusiast who enjoys putting himself in front of the cameras, which also lends credence to the rumors. I was hesitant to bring them up or give them any credence, but these rumors aren’t being promoted solely by the Ukrainians and Russian Liberals, but by Russian military men, who would like to see him replaced with one of their people, and ideally, a man with actual combat experience from either the Afghanistan or Chechen campaigns.

Firing Shoigu would be bad PR for the Kremlin now, but in terms of improving Russia’s military capabilities and continuing Russia’s move away from the legacy of the 90s, it’s really not the worst thing that could happen — in fact, military circles would rejoice at the news. This is also partially why the military experts and veteran officers have been so critical of the war effort so far. Russian military people believe that this war is being fought with political considerations in mind, and not as a strict military operation. Clausewitz once famously said that war is a continuation of politics by other means and that has certainly been the Kremlin’s approach to this operation. But now, having exhausted the possibility of taking Ukraine without any major bloodshed through other, more political methods involving diplomacy or subterfuge, the only way forward is to fall back on old-fashioned military force. The Russian army has abandoned Kiev and several other cities and is concentrating in Donbass to surround and destroy the hunkered down Ukrainian army. This is not exactly good news for Russia’s foreign policy and her political ambitions. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are going to die now. Civilians will die as well. Relations with Ukraine will never be the same.

But, internally, this is not the worst possible outcome by any means because what the politicians bungled, the military men are being called in to fix now. This will translate into an increased share of power and prestige for the Russian military establishment within the country. A deeply conservative, militaristic and “old-school” faction is about to start flexing its muscles in Russian society now. This is not too dissimilar to the situation that existed in Tsarist Russia and the USSR, where the military was very much involved in politics and formed a hardcore conservative bulwark in society. This is simply a part of Russia’s pre-Yeltsin political tradition. In contrast, in much of the West, the military simply doesn’t have much to do with internal politics as an institution. But, in many other nations in the world, the military either significantly influences politics or simply runs the country outright. Remember: Post-Soviet Russia was run by a coalition of the office of the Presidency, the Federal Security Service, and the Oligarchs. If all goes well, the power vacuum caused by the shutdown of many oligarchs in recent months will be filled by the military.

Any genuine Russian restoration will have to involve the restoration of the prestige of the military — its reintegration into political life and it’s re-elevation within civil society. Much depends on the success of the Russian offensive in the Donbass.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Russia seeks to end US-dominated world order – Lavrov

Samizdat | April 11, 2022

Russia’s military action in Ukraine is meant to put an end to the US-dominated world order, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has explained. Washington has been seeking supremacy by imposing ad-hoc rules and violating international law, he claimed, in an interview aired by Russian television on Monday.

He was referring to America’s attempts to impose its own so-called “rules-based international order,” which have met with strong resistance from Moscow and China.

“Our special military operation is meant to put an end to the unabashed expansion [of NATO] and the unabashed drive towards full domination by the US and its Western subjects on the world stage,” Lavrov told Rossiya 24 news channel.

“This domination is built on gross violations of international law and under some rules, which they are now hyping so much and which they make up on a case-by-case basis,” he added.

Russia is among the nations who would not submit to Washington’s will, the Russian diplomat added. It will only be part of an international community of equals and will not allow Western nations to ignore its legitimate security concerns, Lavrov said.

Lavrov blasted EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell for appearing to encourage more fighting in Ukraine. The bloc’s top diplomat said the conflict “will be won on the battlefield” as he announced more military aid to Kiev last Saturday. Lavrov called the statement “outrageous.”

“When a diplomatic chief … says a certain conflict can only be resolved through military action… Well, it must be something personal. He either misspoke or spoke without thinking, making a statement that nobody asked him to make. But it’s an outrageous remark,” Lavrov added.

The EU’s role has shifted during the Ukraine security crisis, the minister believes. Previously it didn’t act as a military organization “fighting collectively against an invented threat.” Lavrov said the change was the result of pressure put on the bloc’s members by Washington, which has pushed it closer to NATO.

For its part, Russia wants to negotiate peace with Ukraine, Lavrov added.

Moscow attacked its neighbor in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Asian fault lines of Biden’s war on Russia

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 11, 2022 

The tremors of the United States’ tensions with Russia playing out in Europe are being felt in different ways already in Asia. The hypothesis of Ukraine being in Europe and the conflict being all about European security is delusional.

From Kazakhstan to Myanmar, from Solomon Islands to the Kuril Islands, from North Korea to Cambodia, from China to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the fault lines are appearing.

To be sure, extra-regional powers had a hand in the failed colour revolution recently to overthrow the established government in Kazakhstan, a hotly contested geopolitical landmass two-thirds the size of India, bordering both China and Russia, Washington’s sworn adversaries. Thanks to swift Russian intervention, supported by China, a regime change was averted. 

Equally, the Anglo-American project to embroil Myanmar, bordering China, in an armed insurgency has floundered for want of a sanctuary in India’s northeastern region and due to the perceived congruence of interests among the surrounding countries in Myanmar’s stability. 

In comparison, the North Korean fault line has aggravated. North Korea moves on its own timetable and has probably decided that the Ukraine crisis offers useful cover while it ramps up its testing program. Pyongyang explicitly supports Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, commenting that “the basic cause of the Ukraine incident lies in the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the United States, which has ignored Russia’s legitimate calls for security guarantees and only sought a global hegemony and military dominance while clinging to its sanctions campaigns.” 

North Korea’s objective is to enhance its security and leverage by increasing the quality and quantity of its deterrent capabilities and strengthening its bargaining position.  

On another plane, the Ukraine crisis injected a new urgency into the US efforts to cultivate new Asian partners. But Washington has run into headwinds and had to indefinitely postpone a special summit with the ten member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that was initially scheduled for end-March. No new date has been proposed, although the US had hyped up the summit as “a top priority.” 

Showing some ire, Washington has since sanctioned Cambodia, currently the ASEAN Chair. Clearly, the southeast Asian countries are chary of taking sides between the US and China or of voicing criticism against Russia.

Perhaps, the most direct fallout of the Ukraine crisis in Asia so far is the sharp deterioration in Japan’s ties with Russia. It is an unwarranted development insofar as Tokyo simply did a cut and paste job, copying all the US sanctions against Russia (including against President Putin). Prime Minister Kishida wantonly destroyed what his predecessor Shinzo Abe had carefully cultivated as a cordial, friendly relationship. 

Japan now openly refers to Russian “occupation” of the Kuril Islands — something it hasn’t been doing in the past. Moscow retaliated by designating Japan as an “unfriendly” country. Yet, analysts were estimating until recently that Russia and Japan had congruent interests in blocking China’s Arctic ambitions and were, therefore, moving toward solving their dispute over the Kurils.

Suffice to say, Kishida’s motivations in an abrupt turnaround to make Kurils a potential flashpoint in relations with Russia are, to say the least, to be traced to the broader US strategy to isolate Russia.

Meanwhile, a contrarian development has also appeared in China’s challenge to the US’ Island Chain strategy in the Western Pacific by negotiating a new security deal with Solomon Islands. This game-changing development may have extensive consequences and is dangerously interwoven with the Taiwan issue. Biden is reportedly dispatching a top White House official to Solomon Islands to scuttle the deal with China. 

The Biden administration is now doubling down on India to roll back its ties with Russia as well. That becomes a fault line in the US-Indian strategic partnership. What must be particularly galling for Washington is the likelihood of India pursuing its trade and economic cooperation with Russia in local currencies. Indeed, China and India have taken a somewhat similar stance on the Ukraine crisis.  

Given the size of the Chinese economy and the high potential of growth for the Indian economy, their inclination to bypass the dollar would be a trend-setter for other countries. Russia, hit by Western sanctions, has called on the BRICS group of emerging economies to extend the use of national currencies and integrate payment systems.

Suffice to say, the “weaponised dollar” and the West’s abrasive move to freeze Russia’s reserves sends a chill down the spine of most developing countries. Nepal caved in to ratify the Millennium Challenge Corporation agreement following threat by a middle ranking US official! 

There is no conceivable reason why the NATO should become the provider of security for the Asian region. That is why Afghanistan’s future is of crucial importance. Without doubt, the regime change in Pakistan is partly at least related to Afghanistan. The Russian Foreign Ministry has disclosed certain details of the US interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs and its pressure on former Prime Minister Imran Khan. 

But time will show how realistic are Washington’s  expectations of inducting Pakistan into the US orbit and making it a surrogate to leverage the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Russia and China are making sure that the door remains closed to NATO’s return to Afghanistan. They have undercut Washington’s recent efforts to co-opt the Taliban leadership in Kabul. (See my blog US pips regional states at race for Kabul.) 

The message out of the recent Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on the Afghan Issue Among the Neighbouring Countries of Afghanistan in Tunxi, China, is that in that country’s transition from chaos to order, the regional states hope to undertake a lead role. Thus, the regional states have incrementally marked their distance from the West’s exceptionalism and are instead adopting a persuasive track through constructive engagement. The joint statement issued at Tunxi reflects this new thinking. 

The developments over Afghanistan provide a signpost that any attempt at imposing Western dominance over Asia will be resisted by the regional states. Most Asian countries have had bitter experiences with colonialism in their history. (See my blog India’s dilemma over West vs. Russia) 

Although the American analysts underplay it, the fact remains that the conflict in Ukraine is bound to impact the “Asian Century” very significantly. The US is determined to transform NATO as the global security organisation that will act beyond the purview of the United Nations to enforce the West’s “rules-based order.” 

The West’s desperate push to weaken Russia and tilt the global strategic balance in the US’ favour aims to clear the pathway leading to a unipolar world order in the 21st century. In a recent interview, Hal Brands, Henry Kissinger distinguished professor of global affairs at Johns Hopkins, put across the US strategy behind the war in Ukraine as very logical: 

“Well, there’s long been a debate in the United States over whether we should prioritise competing with Russia or China or treat them as co-equals. And that debate has flared up again in the context of this war. I think what the war indicates, though, is that the best way of putting pressure on China, which is the more dangerous and the more powerful of the two rivals, is actually to ensure that Russia is defeated, that it does not achieve its objectives in this war, because that will result in a weaker Russia, one that is less capable of putting pressure on the United States and its allies in Europe and thus less useful as a strategic partner for Beijing.

“The United States simply can’t avoid the reality that it has to contain both Russia and China simultaneously.” 

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO member-supplied S-300 launchers obliterated – Russia

Samizdat | April 11, 2022

Russian forces have destroyed foreign-supplied S-300 anti-aircraft launchers in a number of precision strikes on Ukraine, the Defense Ministry, in Moscow, claimed on Monday. Days earlier, Slovakia reported the donation of a battery of old Soviet-made S-300 air defense missiles to Kiev.

In its regular briefing on the ongoing military action in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry reported hitting a hangar “on the southern outskirts of the city of Dnepropetrovsk,” where “equipment from an S-300 battery supplied to the Ukrainian regime by one of the European nations” was hidden.

The barrage of sea-launched Kalibr missiles destroyed four S-300 launchers and as many as 25 Ukrainian troops in the Sunday strike, ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov claimed. He used the old name of the city, which Ukrainian authorities renamed Dnepro in 2016 to distance it from the Soviet period of the country’s history.

The Russian official also reported destroying an S-300 targeting radar in a separate overnight precision airstrike near Uspenovka. The general didn’t specify which of the multiple villages of that name in Ukraine he was referring to, and didn’t say whether the radar was part of the battery supplied by the foreign nation.

Last Friday, Slovakia announced that it had donated its only S-300 battery to Ukraine. The weapon system was part of the NATO member’s legacy from the Warsaw Pact days, when it formed part of Czechoslovakia. It was not clear how many vehicles were sent to Ukraine. A regular S-300 battery can have as few as four and as many as 12 launchers using a single radar to identify targets, and is controlled by a single command post.

Prime Minister Eduard Heger assured citizens that the country’s national security would not be compromised since “allies” agreed to boost its air defense in return. US President Joe Biden said his country would provide an American Patriot missile battery as a replacement and thanked Bratislava for agreeing to give the S-300 to Kiev. Elements of the Patriot system started arriving in Slovakia three weeks ago, according to its defense minister.

Responding to Russian claims on Twitter, Prime Minister Heger called them a “hoax” and “Russian propaganda.” The statement was apparently based on a denial that Slovakia received from Kiev.

Washington reportedly wanted another NATO member, Turkey, to strike a similar deal with Ukraine and send it a Russian-supplied S-400, which is more advanced than the S-300. Ankara rejected the idea, saying the system would remain in its possession. In 2020, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey for buying the S-400s from Russia under a deal signed in 2017.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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