Russian-Ukrainian War: Tragedy For People, Chance For Elites
South Front – April 10, 2021
Against the backdrop of ongoing political provocations and bellicose rhetoric from all parties involved in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, military escalation is constantly growing. Local forces, as well as the OSCE observers, report about more and more ceasefire violations in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. There are daily statements on casualties on both sides of the conflict among the military and local civilians.
Now, when all the global media are closely following the situation in the eastern regions of Ukraine, the international community is wondering whether Donbass will become the point of the next military conflict, and what its scale will be. The main question is “Cui Prodest”?
The answer is unambiguous: the administration of Ukrainian President is a real stakeholder in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. In the current Ukrainian reality, there are plenty of circumstances that determine the pattern of conduct of Volodimir Zelensky.
First, the current economic situation in Ukraine is disastrous. The Ukrainian state is on the way to lose the ability to fulfill its social obligations. According to the data for 2020, its GDP in real terms suffered about 4% drop. According to the IMF, this drop will be at least 7%. If for the United States, China or Russia, a 4% drop in GDP is a big problem, for Ukraine it is almost a disaster, as GDP indicators were low even before the crisis.
Secondly, the economic situation in Ukraine was aggravated by the coronacrisis. The number of those contaminated by COVID-19 per day there is one of the biggest among the European countries, and even in the whole world. The death rate is also disproportionately high. The country’s economy is suffering, as most regions are still under lockdown, and since April 5, restrictions have been tightened again.
The fall in national budget income was caused by a complex of reasons, including pure management of national economy and the extremely high level of corruption that caused the destruction of the industrial complex, drop in already low per capita income, accompanied by a decreasing revenue gained from gas and cargo transit from East to West.
Third, the Zelensky administration is now facing a rapid decrease in people’s support. The national disappointment in his political program is caused by the rejection of his campaign promises to stop the war in Donbass.
Fourthly, it is increasingly difficult for NATO allies to fuel Kiev’s anti-Russian hysteria in the absence of any actual changes of the issue. The military conflict in the Eastern Ukraine is already 7 years old, and the only alarming statements no longer contribute to the increase in financial support from the US and its allies.
The last but not least is a political request from a part of the American elite, who are interested in various forms of pressuring Russia. They support blocking of the Nord Stream 2 project by any means; destruction of bilateral relations between Russia and leading European countries, up to war outbreak along its borders.
On the other hand, such a policy of the United States does not fully coincide with the national interests of leading European countries. However, new war in Eastern Ukraine would define Russian status as enemy for years while the US will strengthen its weight in European security.
The position of the Zelensky administration and the interests of the United States represent sufficient set of reasons to outbreak war in Eastern Ukraine.
Indeed, official Kiev does not need to care about the actual result of the conflict, but its very existence.
There are only 3 scenarios of the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine.
- The Ukrainian army wholly or partially occupies the territory of the DLPR.
- The forces of both sides remain in their current positions.
- The DLPR forces, with Russian support, advance on the Ukrainian territory for several dozens of miles.
There is almost a zero probability that Ukraine will suffer a crushing defeat and the DLPR forces will occupy the territory to the Dnieper River. Russia now has neither the strength nor the ability to gain control over such a vast territory, and the collective West, in its turn, would not let this happen.
If any of the above scenarios are implemented, Zelensky and his supporters among the US elites will benefit.
For many years, the US and European media have shaped Russia as the aggressor, the enemy of democratic values and the authoritarian tyrannical regime that must be contained. The idea of an external military threat, which being sequentially built up by the West, serves as a pretext for its increasing military funding both in defense industry and army itself amid inevitable unification under the US leadership.
In its turn, Ukraine, positioning itself as the Eastern European Shield against “Asian Barbarians”, receives significant and steadily growing support from NATO countries, gaining momentum to development and further nazi-like ideology originally rooted in Western Ukraine.
Unleashing the war, Zelensky has a chance to reclaim his status as the national leader. In case of the conquest of the self-proclaimed republics, or the preservation of the current troops’ positions, he will become a hero who saved Ukraine from “evil Russians”.
Even after having lost the war, he would claim that the entire country was saved with little blood and only a small piece of land that was temporary lost, taking on the role of a good strategist who defended the sovereignty in the furious fighting shoulder to shoulder with his NATO allies.
Zelensky’s policy can only fail if Russia captures half of Ukraine, which de facto is not possible.
Thus, almost whatever may happen during the conflict, Ukraine can be sure that it will receive stable financial flows from its Western allies for years ahead. Having become a “real” Eastern Shield of Europe, Ukraine may finally get the coveted NATO membership.
Finally yet importantly – the hot military conflict will undoubtedly divert public attention from the economic problems inside the country.
Unleashing a war in Donbass will allow Zelensky to solve his main problems, albeit at the cost of lives of thousands of Ukrainians.
Today, many analysts assure that there will not be a full-scale war, since Ukraine is weak, and Zelensky must assess the country’s military strength in front of the Russian power. Let’s hope this is the case, while remembering who the beneficiary of the conflict is.
In its turn, the United States, at the cost of Ukrainian soldiers’ lives, can resolve a good part of its problems in the European region, while Russia seems to lose strategically in any of these war scenarios.
Definitely, the war in Ukraine will lead to the closure of the Nord Stream 2 project, which is already at the final stage of construction. Key contacts between Russia and NATO countries will be frozen, no more significant bilateral cooperation in the economy will be possible.
A new war near the Russian borders that involves national armed forces will have an important impact on the internal situation in the country. It is not clear to what extent the Russian society, which has suffered the break of economic relations with Western countries and numerous sanctions, is ready to support the struggle for Donbass.
The Yankees Are Coming Home: The Taliban Won. Get Over It
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 8, 2021
It hardly made the evening news, but the New York Times reported last week that after twenty years of fighting, the Taliban are confident that they will fully control Afghanistan before too long whether or not the United States decides to leave some kind of residual force in the country after May 1st. The narrative is suggestive of The Mouse that Roared, lacking only Peter Sellers to put the finishing touches on what has to be considered a great humiliation for the U.S., which has a “defense” budget that is larger than the combined military spending of the next seven countries in order of magnitude. Those numbers include both Russia and China. The Taliban, on the other hand, have no military budget to speak of. That enormous disparity, un-reflected in who has won and lost, has to nurture concerns that it is the world’s only superpower, admittedly self-proclaimed, which is incapable of actually winning a war against anyone.
In fact, some recent wargaming has suggested that the United States would lose in a non-nuclear conflict with China alone based on the obsolescence of expensive and vulnerable weapons systems that the Pentagon relies upon, such as carrier groups. Nations like China, Iran and Russia that have invested in sophisticated and much cheaper missile systems to offset U.S. advantages have reportedly spent their money wisely. If the Biden foreign policy and military experts, largely embroiled in diversifying the country, choose to take on China, there may be no one left around to pick up the pieces.
Those who are warning of the apparent ineffectiveness of the U.S. armed forces in spite of their global presence in more than one thousand bases point most commonly to the historical record to make their case. Korea, fought under United Nations auspices, was a stalemate, with the peninsula divided to this day and a substantial American military force continuing to be a presence along the DMZ to enforce the armistice that not quite ended the war. Vietnam was a defeat, resulting in more than 58,000 Americans dead as well as an estimated 3 million Vietnamese, most of whom were civilians. The real lesson learned from Vietnam was that fighting on someone else’s turf where you have no real interests or stake in the outcome is a fool’s game, but the Pentagon instead worked to fix the mechanics in weapons and training at great cost without addressing why people fight wars in the first place. The other lesson was that the United States’ military was perfectly willing to lie to the country’s civilian leadership to expand the war and keep it going, a performance that was repeated in 2001 with the “Iraq is supporting terrorists and will have nuclear weapons” lies and also with the current crop of false analogies used to keep thousands of Americans in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
As a veteran of the Vietnam War army, I can recall sitting around with fellow enlisted men reading “Stars & Stripes,” the exclusive in-house-for-the-military newspaper that was covering the war. The paper quoted a senior officer who opined that the Soviets (as they were at that time) were really envious of the combat experience that the United States Army was obtaining in Vietnam. We all laughed. That same officer probably had a staff position away from the fighting but we draftees knew well that the war was a very bloody mistake while he may have tested his valor post-retirement working for Lockheed-Martin. The “Soviets” in any event demonstrated just how much they envied the experience of combat when they fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s, eventually withdrawing with their tails between their legs just as the U.S. had done in Vietnam after they lost 15,000 men. The “Grave of Empires,” indeed.
Since Vietnam there have been a number of small wars in places like Panama and Grenada, but the global war on terror has been a total disaster for American arms. Afghanistan, as it was for the Russians, is the ulcer that keeps on bleeding until it ends as a major defeat for the United States with the Taliban fully in control, as they are now predicting. Likewise, the destruction of a secular Iraq, regime change in Libya, and a continuing war against a non-threatening Syria have all failed to make Americans either safer or more prosperous. Iran is next, apparently, if the Joe Biden Administration has its way, and relations with major adversaries Russia and China have sunk even lower than they were during Donald Trump’s time as president. The White House has recently sent a shipload of offensive weapons to Kiev and the Ukrainian government has repeated its intention to retake Crimea from Russia, a formula for a new military disaster that could easily escalate into a major war. What is particularly regrettable is the fact that the United States has no compelling national interest in encouraging open warfare between Moscow and Kiev, a conflict that it will be unable to avoid as its is supplying Ukraine with weaponry.
There was almost no discussion of America’s wars during the recent election. One should take note, however, of a recent article by former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb that appeared on National Review which seeks to provide an explanation for “The Real Reason the U.S. Can’t Win Wars Anymore” in spite of the fact that it is “the most powerful country in the history of the world.” To be sure, Korb largely blames the policymakers for the defeat in Vietnam, aided and abetted by a culture of silence in the military where many officers knew that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which escalated the conflict, was a fraud but chose to say or do nothing. He also observes that the war itself was unwinnable for various reasons, including the observation by many working and middle class Americans that they were little more than cannon fodder while the country’s elites either dodged the draft or exploited their status to obtain national guard or reserve commissions that were known to be mechanism to avoid Vietnam. Korb notes that “… the four most recent presidents who could have served in Vietnam avoided that war and the draft by dubious means. Bill Clinton pretended to join the Army ROTC; George W. Bush used political connections to get into the Air National Guard, when President Johnson made it clear that the reserve component would not be activated to fight the war; Donald Trump, of course, had his family physician claim he had bone spurs, (Trump himself cannot remember which foot); and Joe Biden claimed that the asthma he had in high school prevented him from serving even though he brags about his athletic exploits while in high school.”
Korb also reveals how America’s presumed prowess on the battlefield has distorted its “democracy building” endeavors to such an extent that genuine national interests have been ignored. When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, success in overthrowing the Taliban was derived from critical assistance from Iran, which correctly regarded the extremist Sunni group as an enemy. But the Bush White House, far from showing gratitude, soon thereafter added Iran to its “axis of evil” list. A golden opportunity was wasted to repair a relationship which has poisoned America’s presence in the Middle East ever since.
One might add something else to Korb’s assessment of failure at war. Most American soldiers have been and are proud of their service and consider it an honor to defend their country but the key word is “defend.” There was no defending going on in Vietnam nor in Afghanistan, which did not attack the U.S. and was willing to turn over Osama Bin Laden if the White House could provide evidence that he was involved in 9/11. Nor was there anything defensive about Obama’s destruction of Libya and the decades long “secret” wars to overthrow the Syrian and Iranian governments. Soldiers are trained to fight and obey orders but that does not mean that they can no longer observe and think. Twenty years of “Reconstruction” duty in Afghanistan is not defending the United States and the morale of American soldiers in the combined Democratic and Republican Parties’ plan to reconstruct the world is not a sufficient motivator if one is being asked to put one’s life on the line. Sure, American soldiers can still win wars, but it has to be a real war where there is something genuine at stake, like protecting one’s home and family. That is what the people who run Washington, very few of whom are veterans and most of whom first ask “But what’s in it for me?” fail to understand.
Biden Regime Pushing for War on Russia?
By Stephen Lendman | April 8, 2021
What interventionist Blinken calls “reckless…adversarial actions” by Russia is how the US operates at home and abroad, not Moscow.
What his spokesman Price calls “profound (Biden regime) disagreements with the Russian Federation” were made-in-the-USA, not at the Kremlin.
No “Russian attempts to destabilize the West” exist, no military threat against any country.
Hostile Biden regime actions against Russia risks turning escalated Cold War hot.
More illegal US sanctions on Russia are coming for invented/illegitimate reasons.
According to unnamed Biden regime officials, Russian diplomats in Washington may be expelled, others close to Vladimir Putin sanctioned.
Biden regime hardliners falsely accused Moscow of US election meddling (sic), offering the Taliban bounties to kill Pentagon troops in Afghanistan (sic), cyber-attacking SolarWinds (sic), poisoning Navalny (sic), and likely more illegitimate accusations to come.
Illegal Biden regime sanctions on Russia in March were prelude for likely stiffer unlawful ones in the works.
When Biden — or his impersonator — called Putin a “killer,” warning that he’ll “pay a price,” US Cold War on Russia escalated a step closer to possibly turning hot by accident or design.
On Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Psaki said Biden regime hardliners intend “hold(ing) Russia to account for its reckless and adversarial actions (sic).”
It’s how the US operates, notably when undemocratic Dems control things in Washington like now.
Russia under Vladimir Putin operates by higher standards — notably by waging peace, not war, respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other nations, and observing international law — polar opposite US war on humanity at home and abroad.
US-orchestrated war by Kiev on Donbass along Russia’s border has its forces mobilized to respond defensively if necessary.
Earlier this week, Russia’s Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said Moscow has no intention of intervening cross-border, adding:
“(W)e are closely watching the situation. Concrete measures will be taken depending on how it develops” — to protect Russian Federation security.
Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “Russia’s armed forces are (in its own) territory in places it considers necessary and appropriate.”
“(T)hey will stay there for as long as our military leadership and supreme commander consider it appropriate.”
Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) leader (in Donbass) Denis Pushilin said the following in response to escalated Kiev aggression:
“The situation on the line of contact remains, alas, extremely unpeaceful.”
“The situation is escalating and changing for the worse. The amount of (preemptive) shelling (by Kiev forces) is increasing.”
Military spokesman for the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) in Donbass Yakov Osadchy said the following:
“Throughout the past day, militants of (Kiev’s) 59th brigade have been shelling Logvinovo from the direction of Luganskoye by order of the military criminal Gennady Shapovalov, with the use of a 120mm mortar (rounds) banned by the Minsk agreements.”
At the same time, US-controlled Ukraine abandoned Minsk peace talks — agreements its ruling regimes never observed.
According to Peskov, US-installed puppet Zelensky never advanced peace along the Contact Line between Ukraine and Donbass “one iota” — in deference to his imperial master in Washington.
The 2014 Minsk Protocol peace deal — agreed to by Kiev, Moscow, the OSCE, the DPR and LPR — is “dead,” Peskov explained — because US hardliners want endless war along Russia’s borders.
“(R)eaching new agreements (with US-controlled Kiev) is impossible, because how can one resolve a conflict if one side (won’t) communicate with the other” and rejects peace, Peskov added.
On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said his government held emergency talks with Biden regime officials in an attempt to prevent full-scale war by Kiev on Donbass, adding:
US-dominated Western rhetoric is “increasingly belligerent.”
Hardliners in “Washington should be concerned about the consequences of this coordinated policy” for escalated war along Russia’s borders.
Defying reality, the Biden regime “call(ed) on Russia to refrain from escalatory actions (sic)” — engaged in by the US and puppet regime in Kiev, not Moscow.
Days earlier, Ukrainian official Aleksey Arestovich said ongoing large-scale (US-controlled) DefenderEurope 2021 military exercises in European Baltic states are all-about preparing for possible war with Russia, adding:
Drills focus on areas “from the waters of the Baltic to the Black Sea, to put it bluntly, armed confrontation with Russia.”
Cognitively and physically impaired figurehead Biden is uninvolved and perhaps unaware of reckless actions by his regime’s hardline/interventionist geopolitical team.
In short order after replacing Trump — illegitimately by brazen election rigging — escalated US Cold War it’s waging on Russia risks turning things hot.
For What Should We Fight Russia or China?
By Patrick Buchanon | Unz Review | April 6, 2021
Last Monday, in a single six-hour period, NATO launched 10 air intercepts to shadow six separate groups of Russian bombers and fighters over the Arctic, North Atlantic, North Sea, Black Sea and Baltic Sea.
Last week also brought reports that Moscow is increasing its troop presence in Crimea and along its borders with Ukraine.
Joe Biden responded. In his first conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden assured him of our “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbass and Crimea.”
Though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and we have no treaty obligation to fight in its defense, this comes close to a war guarantee. Biden seems to be saying that if it comes to a shooting war between Moscow and Kiev, we will be there on the side of Kiev.
Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov answered that if the U.S. sends troops to Ukraine, Russia will respond.
Again, is Biden saying that in the event of a military clash between Ukrainians and Russians in Crimea, Donetsk or Luhansk, the U.S. will intervene militarily on the side of Ukraine?
Such a pledge could put us at war with a nuclear-armed Russia in a region where we have never had vital interests, and without the approval of the only institution authorized to declare war — Congress.
Meanwhile, off Whitsun Reef in the South China Sea, which Beijing occupies but Manila claims, China has amassed 220 maritime militia ships.
This huge Chinese flotilla arrived after Secretary of State Anthony Blinken put Beijing on notice that any attack on Philippine planes or ships challenging Beijing’s claim to rocks and reefs of the South China Sea that are in Manila’s exclusive economic zone will be backed by the U.S.
Our 70-year-old mutual security treaty with Manila covers these islets and reefs, said Blinken, though some are already occupied and fortified by China.
Apparently, if Manila uses force to assert its claims and expel the Chinese, then we will fight beside our Philippine allies. This amounts to a war guarantee of the kind that forced the British to declare war on Germany in 1939 over the invasion of Poland.
Two weeks ago, 20 Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone in the largest incursion yet by Beijing over the waters between Taiwan and Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands. As national security correspondent Bill Gertz writes in today’s Washington Times:
“China is stepping up provocative activities targeting regional American allies in Asia … with an escalating number of military flights around Taiwan and the massing of more than 200 fishing ships near a disputed Philippines reef.
“China also raised tensions with Japan, announcing last week that Tokyo must drop all claims to the disputed Senkaku Islands, an uninhabited island chain that Japan has administered for decades but that Beijing recently claimed as its territory.
“The most serious provocation took place March 29. An exercise by the People’s Liberation Army air force that included 10 warplanes flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone is what analysts say appeared to be a simulated attack on the island. It came just three days after an earlier mass warplane incursion.”
While China appears clear about its aims and claims to virtually all of the islands in the South China Sea and East China Sea as well as Taiwan — it is less clear about its intentions as to when to validate those claims.
As for the U.S., does the present foggy ambiguity as to what we may or may not do as China goes about asserting its claims serve our vital interests in avoiding war with the greatest power on the largest continent on earth?
If red lines are to be laid down, they ought to be laid down by the one constitutional body with the authority to authorize or declare war — Congress. And questions need to be answered to avoid the kinds of miscalculations that led to horrific world wars in the 20th century.
Are the reefs and rocks the Philippines claim in the South China Sea, claims contradicted by China, covered by the U.S. mutual security treaty of 1951? Are we honor-bound to fight China on behalf of the Philippines, if Manila attempts to reclaim islets China occupies?
What is our obligation if China moves to take the Senkakus? Would the United States join Japan in military action to hold or retrieve them?
What, exactly, is our commitment to Taiwan if China attempts to blockade, invade or seize Taiwan’s offshore islands?
John F. Kennedy in the second debate with Richard Nixon in 1960 wrote off Quemoy and Matsu in the Taiwan Strait as indefensible and not worth war with Mao’s China.
With its warnings and threats, China is forcing America to address questions we have been avoiding for about as long as we can.
China is saying that it is not bluffing: These islands are ours!
Time to show our cards.
Copyright 2021 Creators.com
Russian senator slams Europe’s silence on Donbass attack as green light to Kiev
Press TV – April 5, 2021
Deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house Federation Council has slammed European silence over a recent attack by Ukrainian forces on a Russian-speaking eastern area as a green light for a renewed military operation in the pro-independence region.
Kiev will interpret Europe’s silent position “as carte blanche for a military operation in Donbass and restoring territorial integrity by force,” said Konstantin Kosachev on Sunday, reacting to a joint statement by German and French foreign ministers on the Donbass attack, Russia’s official TASS news agency reported.
Top French diplomat Jean-Yves Le Drian and his German counterpart, Heiko Maas, have expressed concerns over the deteriorating situation on the contact line in Donbass but then voiced support for Kiev’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The joint statement issued on Sunday further said the two countries were carefully monitoring the situation, particularly Russian troop movements in the region, while urging restraint and abrupt defusing of tensions.
The Russian senator, however, reminded the two European diplomats that a child was killed by a Ukrainian drone strike on Saturday in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).
“Yesterday, for the first time since July 2020 a Ukrainian shelling of the DPR was conducted and a six-year-old child died, but there is no word about this” in the European statement, Kosachev said. Instead, he noted, the West accused Russia of troop movements.
“Russia says there must be no force, but only a direct dialogue between the conflicting states. The statement of the two ministers does not include this, and in this sense, it has no added value and only adds fuel to the flame of the conflict,” he added.
The development came as Moscow on Sunday urged the European Union to demand an explanation from Kiev following the drone attack on Donbass, amid an escalation of armed clashes between the pro-Russian forces and Ukrainian troops in the restive region.
Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin also called on the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) to demand an explanation from Kiev about the incident.
Also on Sunday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky enforced sanctions against Russian humanitarian cooperation agency, Volga Dnepr Co as well as 77 more companies.
Reacting to the news, Volodin said, “We will discuss with the Russian foreign ministry’s and the agency’s senior officials measures that are to be taken in this situation in order not to leave our compatriots and Ukrainian nationals who want to preserve relations with Russia without support.”
Ukraine’s sanctions are an “example of defiance of international law and common sense,” Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel, adding, “Ukraine is seeking to mock its patrons as much as it can. Sanctions against a state institution – Rossotrudnichestvo, with its mission of developing international humanitarian cooperation – constitute an unprecedented case.”
Meanwhile, the EU vowed its “unwavering” support for the Western-backed Ukrainian government on Sunday, with its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, voicing major worries about what he called Russian troop movements.
“Following with severe concern the Russian military activity surrounding Ukraine,” Borrell wrote online after a phone call with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “Unwavering EU support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Borrell said he would hold further talks on the issue with Kiev’s top diplomat and foreign ministers from the EU’s 27 nations at a meeting later this month.
Other Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden, have also stated that they are standing by Ukraine, which has blamed Russia for amassing thousands of troops on its northern and eastern borders.
While Moscow has not denied the troop movements amid the increasing military activities near its borders by the US-led NATO alliance, it has insisted that the move was “not threatening anyone.”
Donbass has been the scene of a conflict between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian forces since 2014. It has so far claimed more than 13,000 lives, according to the UN.
The armed confrontations began when a wave of protests in Ukraine overthrew a democratically-elected pro-Russia government and replaced it with a pro-West administration. The majority in those areas refused to endorse the new administration.
That new government then began a crackdown on the mainly ethnic Russians in the east, who in turn took up arms and turned the two regions of Donetsk and Lugansk — collectively known as the Donbass — into self-proclaimed republics.
Why is the Biden Regime Pushing Ukraine to Attack Russia?
By Ron Paul | April 5, 2021
On March 24th, Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky signed what was essentially a declaration of war on Russia. In the document, titled Presidential Decree No. 117/2021, the US-backed Ukrainian leader declared that it is the official policy of Ukraine to take back Crimea from Russia.
The declaration that Ukraine would take back Crimea from Russia also followed, and was perhaps instigated by, President Biden’s inflammatory and foolish statement that “Crimea is Ukraine.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was a chief architect of the US-backed coup against Ukraine in 2014, continued egging on the Ukrainians, promising full US support for the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine. Many Americans wonder why they are not even half as concerned about the territorial integrity of the United States!
Not to be outdone, at the beginning of this month US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin – who previously served on the board of missile-maker Raytheon – called his counterpart in Ukraine and promised “unwavering US support for Ukraine’s sovereignty.” As the US considers Crimea to be Ukrainian territory, this is clearly a clear green light for Kiev to take military action.
Washington is also sending in weapons. Some 300 tons of new weapons have arrived in the past weeks and more is on the way.
As could be expected, Moscow has responded to Zelensky’s decree and to the increasingly bellicose rhetoric in Kiev and Washington by re-positioning troops and other military assets closer to its border with Ukraine. Does anyone doubt that if the US were in the same situation – for example, if China installed a hostile and aggressive government in Mexico – the Pentagon might move troops in a similar manner?
But according to the media branch of the US military-industrial-Congressional-media complex, Russian troop movements are not a response to clear threats from a neighbor, but instead are just more “Russian aggression.”
The unhinged US “experts” behind the 2014 coup against the elected Ukrainian president are back in power and they are determined to finish the job – even if it means World War III! The explicit US backing of Ukraine’s military ambitions in the region are a blank check to Kiev.
But it is a check that Kiev would be wise to avoid cashing. Back in 1956 the US government pumped endless propaganda into Hungary promising military backing for an uprising against its Soviet occupiers. When the Hungarians, believing Washington’s lies, did rise up they found themselves all alone and facing Soviet retaliation.
Despite the cruel US propaganda, at least Eisenhower was wise enough to realize that no one would benefit from a nuclear war over Budapest.
Why is it any of our business whether Crimea is part of Ukraine or part of Russia? Why is it any of our business if the Russian-speaking population of eastern Ukraine prefer being aligned with Russia?
Why, for that matter, are unproven allegations of Russian meddling in our elections a violation of the “rules-based international order” but an actual US-backed coup against an elected Ukrainian government is not?
We are seeing foreign policy made by Raytheon and the other US military contractors, through cut-outs in government like Austin and others. Feckless US foreign policy “experts” believe their own propaganda about Russia and are on the verge of taking us to war over it.
It seems as if Americans are sleepwalking through this dangerous minefield. Let us hope they soon wake up before we’re all blown up.
Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute.
Luhansk Military Says Civilian Wounded in Ukraine’s Drone Attack
Sputnik – 04.04.2021
LUHANSK – A civilian man has been hospitalized with multiple shrapnel wounds after an explosive device dropped from a drone by Ukrainian forces detonated in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), the LPR forces said on Sunday.
The report comes amid the rise in ceasefire violations in Ukraine’s breakaway region of Donbass. On Saturday, Donetsk People’s Republic reported that a pre-school child was killed and a woman was injured in a Ukrainian drone attack in Oleksandrivske on Saturday. After the tragedy, Russian lower house speaker Viacheslav Volodin suggested that it is time to expel Ukraine from the Council of Europe.
According to the Luhansk forces, the fresh attack took place on a bank of the Siverskyi Donets River near the village of Mykolaivka. The explosive-laden unmanned aerial vehicle is said to have been launched by servicemen of the 80th brigade of Ukraine’s armed forces.
The wounded man was taken to a hospital.
The militia specified that since additional ceasefire measures took effect in Donbas in late July, it has registered six cases of Ukraine’s combat drone launches into the breakaway region. As a result, two members of the people’s militia were injured.
The militia went on to call on international observers and the global community to “pay close attention to the terrorist actions of the Ukrainian side, which amount to a violation of the Geneva convention.”
Moscow warns of ‘measures’ against any Western troop deployment in Ukraine, as Kiev cites guarantees of US support
A house on Stratonautov Street in the village of Veseloye, Donetsk region, which was damaged during the fighting in the DPR. © RIA
RT | April 2, 2021
Russia has warned that it would regard any deployment of Western troops in Ukraine as a serious provocation, after Kiev asked NATO to step up its local combat readiness and claimed the US would come to its aid in any future war.
On Friday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry issued a statement saying that it had received guarantees of American support after a telephone call with Washington’s top military official, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austen. “The US Secretary of Defense stressed that in the event of an escalation of Russian aggression, the United States will not leave Ukraine alone,” the Ministry said.
Asked about the prospects of a standoff in the region, Peskov warned that this could begin a potentially dangerous chain of events. The Kremlin official said that “undoubtedly, such a developing scenario would lead to a further increase in tensions near Russia’s borders. Of course, this will require additional measures from the Russian side to ensure its security.”
When pressed on what those measures might be, the official said only that the country would do “everything that is needed.”
The public spat comes amid rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine, after a series of reported clashes in the east of the country between Kiev’s forces and militias, who receive support from Moscow. Peskov called the escalations “quite frightening.”
His comments came as US President Joe Biden expressed Washington’s “unwavering support” for Kiev in the face of what he called “Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbass and Crimea.” In his Friday phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, he also said his administration is committed to revitalizing the “strategic partnership” between the two nations.
Zelensky responded by saying that Kiev and Washington “stand shoulder to shoulder when it comes to preservation of our democracies” and called partnership with the US “crucial for Ukrainians.”
Ukraine has appealed to the US-led military bloc to increase its presence in the region. A call transcript published on Friday showed that Roman Mashovets, Deputy Head of the Office of the President, said that it’s been requested that the bloc consider “joint activities, including military exercises of Ukraine and NATO.” These activities, the transcript said, “should include land, naval and air components. In addition, it is advisable to increase the level of combat readiness of troops in NATO countries bordering Ukraine.”
In February, the country’s Ministry of Infrastructure invited warplanes operated by the US-led bloc to fly missions near Crimea, which it claims as part of its sovereign territory. Officials proposed that the skies be “used for NATO air operations in the airspace… which includes airspace over the sovereign territory of Ukraine and over open waters, such as the Black Sea, where the responsibility for air traffic services is delegated to Ukraine by international treaties.” Russia regards the region as its own after it was reabsorbed in 2014.
Moscow has previously described Ukraine’s membership of NATO and the deployment of troops there as a red line for the country. The situation has echoes of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when Soviet weaponry was deployed on the Caribbean island off the Atlantic coast of America, sparking a crisis that led the two superpowers close to nuclear war.
Kremlin calls Donbass situation ‘frightening’ as Ukraine asks NATO & US for support in event of conflict with Russia
A window broken in recent shelling in the village of Vesyoloye in the Donetsk Region, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Eastern Ukraine. © Sputnik
RT | April 2, 2021
Moscow has warned that fighting is escalating in eastern Ukraine, insisting that the region must avoid a full-scale conflict, as Kiev asks NATO to step up its local combat readiness and says the US would come to its aid in a war.
Speaking to journalists on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a series of military clashes in the Donbass region was a cause for concern. “Unfortunately for us,” he said, “the reality on the line of contact is quite frightening, and not just one, but many, provocations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces are taking place.”
Kiev insists that Russia is building up troops near the shared border and blames separatists, who have previously received support from Moscow, for breaking a ceasefire. “Russia’s current escalation is systemic, [the] largest in recent years,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dimitry Kuleba said in a statement issued earlier this week. Kiev officials last week said that four of its soldiers had been killed by shelling during clashes with rebels in the east of the country.
Andrey Rudenko, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, denied that Moscow had anything to gain from an increase in tensions. “I am sure that all the talk about some upcoming conflict between Ukraine and Russia is an example of another fake spread primarily by the Ukrainian authorities,” he said. “Russia is not interested in any conflict with Ukraine, let alone a military one.”
In a statement released on Friday, it was confirmed that an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had proposed that NATO should increase its presence in the country. As part of a call with representatives from two of the US-led military bloc’s member states, Roman Mashovets, deputy head of the Office of the President, said that “such actions of the Russian Federation pose a challenge to the security of Ukraine and NATO, which must be balanced by joint efforts.”
The missive revealed that one option Mashovets put forward was “joint activities, including military exercises of Ukraine and NATO.” These activities, it added “should include land, naval and air components. In addition, it is advisable to increase the level of combat readiness of troops in NATO countries bordering Ukraine.”
US Cargo Ship Carrying 350 Tonnes of Military Equipment Docks in Ukraine’s Odessa: Reports
Sputnik – 25.03.2021
A US cargo ship docked in Ukraine’s Odessa port carrying 350 tonnes of military equipment and vehicles for the country’s armed forces, local media reported on Thursday.
The cargo ship under the American flag entered the port on Wednesday evening, Dumskaya news agency said. Among 350 tonnes worth of military equipment, the ship carried 35 HMMWV military trucks for Ukraine’s armed forces.
All equipment is expected to be unloaded by mid-Friday, the news agency stated.
Earlier in March, the US Department of Defence announced additional $125 million package for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative to cover training, equipment, and advisory support. The remaining $150 million appropriated by Congress will be provided to Ukraine in 2021 once Pentagon certifies the country’s progress on key defense reforms.
In total, the US has committed over $2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2014.
BBC secrets: Leaked files show UK state media engaged in anti-Moscow information warfare ops in E. Europe
By Kit Klarenberg RT | March 11, 2021
New documents raise serious questions about how well-deserved British state broadcaster BBC’s ‘unimpeachable’ reputation is, and also what impact its relationship with the UK government has on its supposedly ‘impartial’ output.
Within a tranche of secret UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) papers, recently leaked by hacktivist collective Anonymous, are files indicating that BBC Media Action (BBCMA) – the outlets ‘charitable’ arm – plays a central role in Whitehall-funded and directed psyops initiatives targeted at Russia.
American journalist Max Blumenthal has comprehensively exposed how, at the FCDO’s behest, BBCMA covertly cultivated Russian journalists, established influence networks within and outside Russia, and promoted pro-Whitehall, anti-Moscow propaganda in Russian-speaking areas.
However, the newly released files reveal BBCMA also offered to lead a dedicated FCDO program, named ‘Independent Media in Eastern Partnership Countries’ and targeted at Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. This endeavor forms part of a wider £100 million ($138.9 million) effort waged by London to demonize, destabilize and isolate Russia, at home and abroad.
A Whitehall tender indicates that under the auspices of the project, set to cost a staggering £9 million ($12.5 million) from 2018 to 2021, participating contractors are charged with crafting “innovative… media interventions” targeting individuals throughout the region, via “radio, independent social media channels, and traditional outlets.”
Further detail was offered by FCDO Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD) chief Andy Pryce at a June 2018 meeting with prospective suppliers.
He made it clear that the effort’s ultimate goal was to “weaken the Russian state’s influence,” via the co-option of journalists and media organizations in target countries via funding, training, and surreptitious production of anti-Russian, pro-Western content. “Girls on HBO… but in Ukraine” was, bizarrely, one suggested example of such activity.
In response, BBCMA submitted extensive proposals, in conjunction with Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), the global newswire’s “non-profit” wing, and since-collapsed veteran FCDO contractor Aktis Strategy.
The project was to be managed and coordinated directly by BBCMA from BBC Broadcasting House headquarters in London, with local support provided by Reuters newswire offices in Kiev and Tbilisi, and Ukraine’s Independent Association of Broadcasters.
A dedicated board, comprised of representatives of the contractors involved, the FCDO’s CDMD program, and British embassies in the target countries, would also meet privately every quarter to discuss the operation’s progress. Publicly, Whitehall’s funding and direction of the vast project was intended to be completely hidden.
The consortium boasted of having an existing “strong profile” in Eastern Partnership countries, and conducting “broad consultations” with a number of major news outlets, media organizations and journalists in the region in advance of its pitch.
For example, the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC) had been approached and offered “essential support,” aimed at “improving its existing programs” and “developing new and innovative formats for factual and non-news programs.”
BBCMA was moreover said to be “already” working on building the capacity of Kiev-based Hromadske TV, and wished to use the FCDO program to extend this assistance to “co-productions” and “building support to Hromadske Radio.”
Launched with initial funding from the American and Dutch embassies in Ukraine, Hromadske began broadcasting in November 2013 on the very day Viktor Yanukovich’s administration suspended preparations for the signing of an association agreement with the European Union, and went on to extensively cover the resultant Euromaidan protests, which eventually unseated the government the next year.
It subsequently received support from Pierre Omidyar, billionaire founder of The Intercept, who bankrolled a number of opposition groups in the country prior to the coup. In July 2014, Hromadske anchor Danylo Yanevsky abruptly terminated an interview with a Human Rights Watch representative after she consistently refused to blame Russia for civilian casualties in the Donbas conflict, despite his repeated demands.
Beyond dedicated news platforms, the consortium also pledged to enlist “local” and “hyperlocal” media outlets, as well as “freelancer journalists,” bloggers and “vloggers” for its information warfare efforts.
BBCMA argued “journalism education” locally would be a “long-term investment” – in other words, the identification, cultivation, and grooming of a network of reporters in the countries who could be relied upon to take the Whitehall line in future.
As such, the organization sought to establish a journalism training center in Gagauzia, Moldova in collaboration with NGO Media birlii – Uniunia. The autonomous region, bordered by Ukraine’s Odessa Oblast, was said to be home to “six TV companies, four radio stations, six newspapers and five web portals” potentially ripe for influence and infiltration by BBCMA – and in turn, the FCDO.
In Georgia, BBCMA visited the offices of Adjara TV “to discuss training priorities and possible co-productions.” The station was reportedly interested in developing “youth programming,” which represented “a gap in the market” in the country.
In June 2020, Georgia’s Coalition for Media Advocacy slammed Adjara for its “persecution” of “outspoken journalists expressing dissenting opinions,” after it fired newsroom chief Shorena Glonti.
Strikingly, the Coalition is funded by US regime-change agency, the National Endowment for Democracy, which supports numerous anti-Moscow initiatives worldwide. Perhaps Glonti had been too well-trained in “weakening the Russian state” for the broadcaster’s liking.
The consortium furthermore proposed to tutor and support “independent” online Georgian news outlets, including Batumelebi, iFact, Liberali, Monitor, Netgazeti, and Reginfo.
Estonia’s Digital Communications Network – financed by the US State Department – would be central to these efforts, offering lessons in “building online audiences, innovative business models and reaching out to breakaway regions susceptible to Kremlin narratives.”
The importance of “target audiences in breakaway regions” is outlined in another file, which explicitly states that the consortium would work closely with “independent outlets in proximity of non-government-controlled areas of Donbas in Ukraine, Transnistria in Moldova and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.”
This undertaking aimed to counter the output of “separatist” media, and thus manipulate “hard-to-reach audiences,” which was “critical to achieving the project’s objectives.”
Any and all support covertly provided under the program was to be thoroughly intimate indeed, with “mentors” from the consortium “embedded” in target organizations, in order to provide “bespoke support across editorial, production and wider management systems and processes as well as on the co-production of content.”
These “mentors” include current and former BBC journalists.
“Our ability to recruit talented and experienced BBC staff is a great asset which will be harnessed for this initiative,” BBCMA promised.
These individuals may have been central to program efforts, if BBCMA’s pitch to the FCDO was accepted. For instance, UA:PBC was said to be “very interested” in receiving help from BBCMA to develop a “new debate show” and “discussion programming” to “enable audiences to think critically about the process and choices,” “counter disinformation” and “dispel rumors.”
Lofty objectives indeed, although commitments to nurturing analytical skills, thinking and debunking propaganda ring rather hollow when one considers the station’s output was perceived to be so overwhelmingly biased in favor of the government, opposition candidate Volodymyr Zelensky boycotted the channel’s official election debate during the 2019 presidential election.
BBCMA also proposed to establish an “independent” news platform in Ukraine, “timed for the run up to the 2019 election,” which would publish “vetted news content” freely syndicated to local and national media.
If the approach in Kiev was “successful,” the consortium would replicate the exercise in Georgia for the country’s 2020 election. Strikingly, the proposal brags of TRF’s experience establishing such platforms elsewhere, for example “the award-winning Aswat Masriya” in Egypt.
Other leaked files indicate the endeavor, founded after the 2011 revolution in Cairo, was secretly funded by the FCDO to the tune of £2 million ($2.8 million) over six years, and run out of Reuters’ Egyptian offices.
Over its lifespan, Aswat Masriya “became Egypt’s leading independent local media organization” and one of the most-visited websites in the country, providing news in English and Arabic, which was syndicated widely the world over. Its true, clandestine purpose seems to have been granting London a degree of narrative control over news coverage as events unfolded in the country, during its difficult and ultimately ill-fated transition to democracy.
That BBCMA likewise intended to use news coverage to influence politics in Eastern Partnership countries is amply underlined in the newly leaked files, with the organization pledging to “encourage” local news outlets to meet with “local stakeholders,” including lawmakers and community leaders, in order to “cement the media as a key governance actor.”
The organization furthermore sought to “foster a debate” in target nations, by producing wide-ranging analysis of the media environment therein. Its “long track record” of comparable efforts in “diverse” countries, including those “experiencing Arab uprisings,” had allegedly “shifted government policy.”
One objective of these lobbying efforts was achieving “a more enabling operating environment” for “independent” media in the target countries – i.e. ensuring regulations in the region were suitably conducive to and protective of the FCDO’s secret army of information warfare agents, to allow them to prosper for the duration of the consortium’s three-year offensive, and “post intervention.”
It’s not yet clear if BBCMA was successful in its pitch, and if so, which BBC journalists contributed to the program and as a result are implicated directly in cloak-and-dagger attempts to shape politics and perceptions in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine for London’s benefit.
It’s also unknown whether their commitment to fulfilling the FCDO’s objective of undermining Moscow, and furthering Whitehall’s interests, truly ends when they return to their day jobs as “objective,” “neutral” purveyors of news.
As BBCMA boasts in its pitch, the BBC is “well-known and highly regarded” in the Eastern Partnership countries, and provides “millions of viewers, listeners and online users in the region with world-class news on a daily basis.” At the very least, the leaked files make clear that neither the British state broadcaster, nor its FCDO paymasters, has any qualms about exploiting that standing and perceived credibility for malign ends.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
Seven years after Maidan divided country, Ukraine intensifies shelling of Donbass to deafening media silence
By Eva Bartlett | RT | March 2, 2021
While much of the world is focused on Covid-related issues, Ukraine’s seven-year war on the people of Donbass continues. In recent weeks, Kiev’s shelling of civilians has intensified, met by the predictable Western media silence.
Ostensibly, following the Minsk agreements, there was a ceasefire. In reality, Donbass residents in villages bordering peace lines are incessantly subject to Ukrainian shelling.
Ukraine uses heavy weapons in violation of the agreement, including 82mm and 120mm mortar shells, routinely shelling at night when Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observers are not patrolling the area.
But Ukrainian forces also shell during the day, and have done so a lot more of late, including allegedly with phosphorus, and shelling further behind the front lines.
Most people could be forgiven for not being aware of events in Ukraine’s breakaway Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR/LPR) in the Donbass region, with corporate media either not touching the matter or doing so with glasses tinted heavily by the Ukrainian government.
There are in fact journalists and news sites that regularly give updates, but they aren’t as widely known as they should be.
From my own September 2019 reporting from frontline villages of the DPR, I maintain contact with reporters and residents who update on the situation there.
One of these was the mayor of Gorlovka, a city northeast of Donetsk, who on his Telegram channel on February 19 detailed the nearby villages of Zaitsevo and Mine 6/7 being under heavy weapons fire (by Ukraine). On February 20, he wrote of Mine 6/7 and another village being heavily shelled since early morning, with locals saying more than one hundred hits occurred.
The same day, Alexey Karpushev, a resident of the northern city of Gorlovka, wrote, “From about five in the morning until now, there is heavy shelling of the city from the Air Force artillery.”
According to Karpushev – who is a former first secretary of Gorlovka’s committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine – in recent weeks, the number of attacks from the Ukrainian army “increased significantly.” He mentioned that a 22 year old civilian was recently seriously injured in the attacks.
I asked why the increased shelling now.
“Ukraine’s aggression intensified just when Biden came to power in the United States.” It is quite likely that President Volodymyr Zelensky feels more confident with the return of the warmongers to the White House. Not long after Biden took power America resumed illegally bombing Syria.
We’re Not Living, We’re Surviving
In villages northwest and north of Gorlovka, passing many boarded up and destroyed homes (including one still smouldering from the shell-induced fire that gutted it), I met residents who stayed in spite of the nightly shelling and damage to their homes, because they had no other option.
One of these was a 74-year-old woman, whose home was falling apart after having been shelled on multiple occasions. “I’m afraid at night; that’s when they start shelling heavily. My husband is dead. I have nowhere to go.”
In another village I met a man who was about to walk down the lane that I had been cautioned to avoid due to the risk of being shot by Ukrainian snipers. His house was in a district largely unpopulated now because getting there meant being in the line of fire, but like others I met, he had nowhere else to go.
He consented to speak, but off camera, saying Ukraine had shelled his home directly after he did a video interview. He also said he had once been shot in the leg by a sniper and many other times had to drop to the ground when snipers started firing.
Another man in the area wasn’t worried about speaking on camera, although his house had also been damaged by Ukrainian attacks.
“Why do you support Nazis if you remember WW2? Why do you now support the Nazis? Openly Nazis… Why is Europe silent? Everyone comes here and agrees with me, but nothing changes. OSCE shouts, but when they are under fire, they are silent, they don’t say that Ukraine attacks them.”
In Zaitsevo, another frontline village, the head of administration, Irina Dikun, told me of the hell they had been living for the past six years, saying the ceasefires never reached her village.
“Here, we are not living, we’re surviving. Those who could leave, have left. Those who remain are mostly elderly.”
Ambulances couldn’t reach homes close to the front line where Ukraine was shelling, so she learned to drive and took First Aid training in order to help injured residents. In addition to detailing Ukraine’s destruction, “street by street,” of the village, she emphasized that what Western media claims about Russia invading the breakaway republics was false.
“There is no Russian invasion here. Just normal, peaceful people who wanted to live another way. In the beginning, we didn’t want to make a Republic; we just wanted to be autonomous. But we were not listened to. Ukraine moved its armed forces against the people and used their artillery against us.”
I also spoke with numerous DPR soldiers, asking them, among many things, why they had picked up weapons.
“Because of the killing of people in Odessa. That’s what made us join the military, to defend our area,” one soldier said.
Another man said he had initially joined protests against the coup in Kiev, that he “didn’t support the Nazi regime,” and eventually took up arms to defend the DPR.
In those frontline areas, 500 metres from Ukrainian forces, I wore body armour and a helmet. As I listened to various elderly people speak of the near-nightly shelling and heavy machine gun fire they were subject to, it struck me how these brave souls had nothing to protect them, no global body to prevent Ukraine from maiming and killing them, damaging or destroying their homes, year after year.
Meanwhile Ukraine has Western nations whitewashing its crimes and sending it weapons.
Western Ambassadors Get front line Disinfo Tour
On February 11, Ukraine reported that President Zelensky and a gaggle of Western ambassadors visited a front line on the Ukraine-controlled side, with Zelensky waffling on about the importance of his cohorts in disinformation seeing “with their own eyes” what is happening in Donbass.
Yeah, no. They didn’t see anything beyond the sterile visit they were allotted. They certainly would not have heard the anguished accounts I did on the other side of that front line.
They wouldn’t know of the many people, many of whom are elderly, living in shells of homes, or the basement of a school, deprived of electricity, water, cooking gas, reliant on aid for their survival. Nor that Ukraine has reportedly blocked UN and Red Cross aid from entering the DPR, including recently.
On February 24 and 25, Ukrainian forces shelled Yelenovka, south of Donetsk, a point through which humanitarian aid from the UN and Red Cross was to enter, preventing the aid delivery.
Preventing the entrance of aid, on top of continually shelling civilian areas, is the furthest from Ukraine “fulfilling its obligations to establish a ceasefire regime,” as President Zelensky claimed to Western ambassadors.
While Russian officials warn of the dire fate of 4 million people under Ukrainian shelling, Western officials either remain silent or fabricate more accusations against Russia and against Donbass’ defenders.
Western media have predictably remained silent on Ukraine’s crimes, painting defenders of Donbass as “pro-Russian separatists” with no context as to what people in Donbass actually want. From what I heard there, all they want is autonomy from the criminal government in Ukraine, and above all an end to the war.
And while Western officials and media harp on about a supposed “Russian invasion” of the republics, even the chairman of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission recently emphasized that was untrue.
An aside: one of the soldiers asked me about the reaction of people in the West to Ukraine’s brazen display of Nazi symbols. My reply was that, thanks to Western media, most people don’t know.
Recently, the head of the DPR warned, “We need to be ready for anything” from Ukraine. Indeed, with the pro-war Biden administration, we can surely expect more Western support to Ukraine in further bombing the people of Donbass.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). Follow her on Twitter @EvaKBartlett
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From the Archives
The Forgotten Terrorist Pretext of the Vietnam War
By Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute | February 16, 2023
Since 9/11, terrorism has become the ultimate entitlement program for America’s political elite. Whether it is illegally spying on Americans or blowing Somali dissidents to pieces, invoking terrorism provides all the cover needed for Washington policymakers. But the disastrous results of granting politicians a blank check to fight terrorism should have been undeniable almost 60 years ago.
Back in the 1960s, terrorism was what the communists did. Anti-terrorist moral fervor and ideological blinders propelled the U.S. into its biggest foreign policy blunder since World War II. … continue
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