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Did a Trump executive order just cripple the global US regime change network?

By Kit Klarenberg · The Grayzone · January 31, 2025

Among the flurry of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in the first days of his administration, perhaps the most consequential to date is one titled, “reevaluating and realigning US foreign aid.”

Under this order, a 90-day pause was instantly enforced on all US foreign development assistance across the globe – excepting, of course, the largest recipients of US aid in Israel and Egypt. For now, the order forbids the disbursement of federal funding for any “non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors” charged with delivering US “aid” programs overseas.

Within days, hundreds of “internal contractors” at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were placed on unpaid leave or outright fired, as a direct result of the Executive Order. Washington Post contributor John Hudson has reported organization officials brand Trump’s directives on “foreign development assistance” a “shock and awe approach,” which has left them reeling, uncertain of their futures. One nameless USAID apparatchik told him, “they even removed all the pictures in our offices of aid programs,” as accompanying photographs attested.

While the Trump administration’s purge sent shockwaves through Washington’s international development corps and the Beltway Bandits which feed at its trough, the sudden severing of USAID money has sparked panic overseas. From Latin America to Eastern Europe, the US has pumped billions into NGO’s and media outlets to fuel color revolutions and assorted regime change operations, all in the name of “democracy promotion.”

Now, as the global apparatus of soft American power trumpeted by President George H.W. Bush as “a thousand points of light” goes dark, supposedly independent media outfits from Ukraine to Nicaragua are fretting about their future and panhandling for donations on their websites.

US-backed media and opposition face extinction in Ukraine

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has pumped billions into Ukraine to create and propel a fervently anti-Russian opposition. As former State Department Assistant Secretary for Eastern European Affairs Victoria Nuland remarked to an oil industry-sponsored meeting in Kiev in 2009, “we’ve invested $5 billion to assist Ukraine” to “build democratic skills and institutions” allowing it to “achieve European independence.”

The US flooded Ukrainian civil society with grants on the eve of the 2014 Maidan coup, birthing a network of pro-Western media outlets almost overnight. Among them was Hromadske, a liberal broadcasting entity which pushed for the overthrow of President Victor Yanukovych and rallied for the subsequent war with pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east – including through the glorification of Nazis who fought the Soviet Red Army during World War II.

With Trump’s executive order cutting off USAID programs, Hromadske has suddenly been severed from its financial tube. So too have the top Ukrainian media outlets which emerged in the wake of the Maidan coup, including Ukrinform, Internews, and a signatory of the Poynter-run International Fact Checking Network called VoxUkraine.

The Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications and the Service of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, both created to propagandize for war against Russia, are also among USAID funding recipients now starving for cash.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky took to X to whine that “critically important programs” wholly dependent on “US support” were now “suspended” as a result of Trump’s executive order. He promised that “certain key initiatives” would “be financed through our internal resources,” while begging for donations from Kiev’s “European partners” to be “intensified.”

Given Ukraine’s near-total economic destruction since its proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022, and complete reliance on USAID to pay the salaries of state employees, it is uncertain how the country’s “internal resources” can possibly be used to even vaguely offset its sudden deficit. Already, major Ukrainian media outlets are pleading for financial support from their readers just to keep their lights on.

According to Kiev’s foreign-funded Institute of Mass Information, around 90% of the country’s media is “dependent on American grants.”

Contra 2.0 gravy train paused in Nicaragua

Similar bleating has emanated from US-financed organizations in Nicaragua, where since the re-election of popular leftist Sandinista Front in 2006, Washington has pumped tens of millions of dollars into right-wing media outlets and opposition groups.

In tandem, these foreign-funded fifth columnists routinely disseminate disinformation, while inciting violence against the government and its supporters, and influencing Western media reporting on the country.

As The Grayzone reported, a USAID-funded Nicaraguan opposition outlet called 100% Noticias led a campaign of violent incitement throughout 2018, when a failed US-backed coup attempt left hundreds dead in the country. While the outlet repeatedly featured calls for the murder of President Daniel Ortega, its director, Miguel Mora, told The Grayone’s Max Blumenthal he wished for a US military intervention of the country to topple the elected government. When the Nicaraguan government finally shuttered the station and prosecuted Mora, Washington responded with accusations of repression and threats of heavy sanctions.

On January 21, an anti-Sandinista “news” operations called Nicaragua Investiga warned that Trump’s order “threatens to deal a severe blow” to the country and its anti-Ortega crusade, “which depends heavily on the financial and technical support provided by agencies” such as USAID. This backing, the outlet declared, was a “fundamental pillar” in the Nicaraguan right-wing’s efforts to undermine and depose the anti-imperialist President.

“Civil society organisations that rely on this assistance would be forced to reduce or cease their activities,” Nicaragua Investiga warned. The outlet further lamented that “uncertainty reigns over how and when assistance will be restored, and whether organizations critical of Daniel Ortega’s regime that still survive outside the country will be able to maintain their operations.”

Not coincidentally, Nicaragua Investiga was among the local outlets which largely depended on US government grants for their existence.

Has the US balked at balkanizing the Balkans?

Across the West Balkans, USAID, self-avowed CIA front the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the panoply of NGOs and media outlets have infiltrated every conceivable sphere of public life. Following the 1992 – 1995 civil war, Bosnia and Herzegovina was methodically transformed into a de facto EU and US colony, with all basic functions of the state hijacked by foreign interests.

Some concern about the imperial project found its way into mainstream media at the time. The New York Times warned in 1998 that US domination of Bosnia “raised troubling questions about how the state will work without continued infusions of outside aid and direct international supervision.” A senior foreign government advisor angsted over Washington’s lack of exit strategy in the country, or any plan to end “Bosnia’s culture of dependency.” Today, at least 25,600 Western-funded NGOs are active in Sarajevo.

The pause in “foreign development assistance” has placed countless jobs and beneficiary organizations at risk of permanent erasure across the Balkans. On January 30, Balkan Insight – an outlet exposed by The Grayzone as a tentacle of British intelligence – published an illuminating investigation into how the aid pause “has immediately affected a range of organisations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.”

From 2020 until the end of 2024, Washington has funnelled a staggering $1.7 billion into the West Balkans, “supporting civil society organisations and state institutions and projects ranging from human rights and media to energy efficiency,” with next to no demonstrable social benefit. Now, “all projects have been halted… until the evaluation period is over.” Expenses up until January 27 will be covered, “while everything after that has to be stopped.” Already, layoffs and huge pay cuts have been enacted at recipient entities.

Nameless NGO workers consulted by Balkan Insight fretted that the US financing freeze would not be temporary. One source speculated the Executive Order could be “just a soft way of cutting these funds permanently.” The outlet noted Washington “has supported thousands of activities” in the region, and “the precise number of affected projects” remains “unknown”. When reporters contacted local USAID offices seeking clarity on the cuts, they were redirected in every instance to the agency’s Washington headquarters.

USAID base camp “responded by sending a link to its press release” on the funding pause. “President Trump stated clearly that the US is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people,” it bluntly declared. “Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative.” Evidently, the new administration is not remotely concerned that entire sectors of local economies in the Balkans have been effectively shuttered.

Even in Albania – a doggedly pro-US country with an influential DC lobby – 30 Washington-subsidized projects have been suspended, including bankrolling of “courts, prosecutor’s offices and the ministries of Defence, Education and Sports, and Finance.” In Macedonia – where “most” US funding is distributed via USAID and NED – $72 million allocated to 22 projects is “now on hold.” Six wider regional USAID-backed initiatives in the Balkans, which also covers Macedonia, “worth some $140 million”, are likewise mothballed. In local terms, these sums are monumental.

Georgia not on the Trump admin’s mind

The Republic of Georgia has been the site of a series of color revolution efforts since the start of 2023, all in response to the government’s successful push to compel the more than 25,000 foreign-financed organizations in the country to disclose their funding sources. Western-backed NGOs and activist groups have been at the forefront of all these attempted putsches. Unsurprisingly, this shadow army of previously US-funded foot soldiers are furious about the Trump administration’s “foreign development assistance” cutoff.

By contrast, the Georgian government appears delighted. Parliamentary leader Mamuka Mdinaradze has even suggested the highly controversial law on foreign funding transparency “might not be needed at all anymore” after Trump’s executive order. Indeed, with untold foreign-sponsored chaos agents suddenly out of money, the color revolution coast is now clear in Tbilisi.

On January 30, local English language publication Georgia Today published a leader mourning that, “as the future of their funding hangs in the balance, aid organizations are already laying off or furloughing staff,” and “some programs” in Tbilisi “may struggle to restart after this temporary shutdown, with many potentially disappearing permanently.” It went on to note USAID financing “has been a cornerstone of the country’s development since 1992, with over $1.9 billion in assistance provided to date.”

Prior to the funding pause, USAID alone was “investing in 39 programs across the country, with a total value of $373 million and an annual budget exceeding $70 million.” These efforts overwhelmingly focused “on promoting economic reforms” and “fostering private sector investment,” which is to say facilitating foreign financial rape and pillage of Georgia.

While domestic critics of Trump’s Executive Order have lambasted Washington’s resultant loss of expansive “soft power” influence in the Global South, such retreat can only be to the enormous benefit of target countries. As a LeftEast essay noted, foreign-funded NGOs have for decades “eroded Georgian citizens’ agency and the country’s sovereignty and democracy.” Its authors explained, “Activists in Georgia know all too well what is expected of them and which behaviors are punished and rewarded: being critical of the government on Facebook will net you more grants than being out in the community helping people… Donors even monitor activists’ social media profiles, and there can be consequences for posting the wrong things.”

However, the relief could be premature for populations that have suffered decades of US “foreign development assistance,” and the attendant coups and unrest it has paid for. The “pause” on US aid may indeed be a temporary measure, or, spending on soft power could be redirected to harder options with even more grave repercussions across the world.

February 1, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ex-US Colonel: Mounting US Merc Deaths Signal Impending Collapse of Ukraine’s War Machine

Sputnik – 01.02.2025

Having lost tens of thousands of its best and most experienced troops in foolhardy attacks, Ukraine has become increasingly reliant on mercenaries to make up for this shortage in troops, Ret. Lt. Col. Earl Rasmussen tells Sputnik.

Thus, an increase in casualties among these mercenaries is a “natural occurrence” that serves as “an indication of a slow and actually increasing collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

Unlike its senile predecessor and his cohorts, the Trump administration seems to be gaining a “sense of realism” regarding the way the Ukrainian conflict is going, veteran international consultant Ret. Lt. Col. Earl Rasmussen tells Sputnik.

Western media narrative has now shifted from celebrating virtually everything Kiev does to a sobering assessment of the growing casualty and desertion rates in the Ukrainian military.

This may be an attempt to shape the public opinion as the US could be mulling either abandoning the Ukraine completely or passing the burden of supporting Kiev to someone else.

“Maybe try to shut it down or perhaps just pass the Ukraine project over to Europe and say, you take care of it, it’s your problem. So I think the US is trying to to extricate themselves out of the situation potentially.”

February 1, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Kiev and Western backers trying to undermine Moscow’s ties with neighbors – FSB

Nikolay Kochmarik posing with a Ukrainian armored vehicle. FSB
RT | February 1, 2025

Ukrainian intelligence services and their Western handlers are creating fake online content in an attempt to spoil Russia’s relations with neighboring countries, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has alleged.

The agency announced in a statement on Saturday that it had identified a Ukrainian national who had offended the people of Uzbekistan while posing as a Russian blogger. The controversial clip had been uploaded to a YouTube channel “controlled by the Lithuanian special services,” it added.

A video featuring a man who claims to be a Russian citizen made headlines last month for comparing Uzbeks to dogs, sparking outrage among commentators in both Central Asia and Russia.

At the time, Rasul Kusherbaev, an advisor to the Uzbek ecology minister, urged the country’s foreign ministry to “take action” in response to the insults. “Our cooperation with Russia is based on the principles of equality and mutual respect. Discrimination is unacceptable in interstate relations,” Kusherbaev told the media outlet Daryo.

According to the FSB, the offensive blogger is a citizen and current resident of Ukraine named Nikolay Kochmarik, who has been actively supporting Kiev’s military during the conflict with Moscow.

“This incident is evidence of deliberate actions by the Ukrainian and Lithuanian special services as well as by their foreign handlers to create provocative content aimed at undermining relations between Russia and its partners in the CIS,” the FSB stressed. With such clips, Kiev and its Western backers are “attempting to form anti-Russian sentiment abroad,” it added.

The CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) is an intergovernmental organization comprised of many former Soviet Republics, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

February 1, 2025 Posted by | Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

How Ukrainians became cannon fodder in British military’s Krynky debacle

By Kit Klarenberg | Press TV | February 1, 2025

In November 2024, Ukrainska Pravda published a little-noticed investigation, documenting in frequently disquieting detail the catastrophic failure of Ukraine’s long-running effort to capture the village of Krynky in Russian-controlled Kherson, October 2023 – June 2024.

That it was to all intents and purposes a British operation, from deranged inception to miserable conclusion, was perhaps the most shocking revelation.

As the proxy war teeters on collapse, it’s high time London’s covert role in fomenting relentless escalation, and getting enormous numbers of Ukrainians pointlessly killed, is critically scrutinized.

In June 2023, the Kakhovka Dam’s destruction almost completely submerged large swaths of Kherson, a key proxy war frontline, depopulating these areas in the process. In the wake of this incident, responsibility for which remains a point of significant contention, Kiev decided to secure a beachhead on Russian territory on Dnipro’s Russian-held left bank.

As Ukrainska Pravda notes, the initiative was and remains “one of the least publicized operations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” despite lasting as long as the Battle of Bakhmut.

This omertà endures today, with many “experienced officers” involved in and aware of the operation unwilling to answer any questions put to them by Ukrainska Pravda.

One pseudonymous marine quoted “was so concerned about the privacy” of his conversations with the outlet that he contacted them “from different numbers almost every time.”

The rationale for this conspiracy of silence is obvious. The Krynky operation’s failure was so egregious that it easily ranks among the uppermost tier of the biggest and worst modern military calamities.

Moreover, though, the effort had a supremely grand ultimate purpose, in which the surviving Ukrainian marines involved in the operation believed so strongly that several of them spoke of Kiev’s failed Krynky incursion in the same terms as the June 1944 Normandy landings – D-Day.

Ukrainska Pravda reveals it was hoped securing the Krynky beachhead would be a “game-changer”, opening a second front in the conflict, allowing invading marines to march upon Crimea and all-out victory in the proxy war.

This fantastical objective has hitherto never been publicly divulged. A December 2023 BBC article nonetheless hinted at intended greatness. It discussed the horrendous experiences of Ukrainian soldiers who “spent several weeks on the Russian-occupied side” of the Dnipro, as Kiev sought to establish its Krynky “bridgehead”.

Along the way, the British state broadcaster noted parenthetically, “President Volodymyr Zelensky has been keen to talk up this offensive, framing it as the beginning of something more [emphasis added].”

‘Constant Fire’

Per Ukrainska Pravda, Krynky’s foundations were laid in February 2023, when it was announced London, “perhaps Ukraine’s most active and determined ally”, would begin a training program for Ukrainian marines and pilots. Behind closed doors, Britain – “a naval power” – concurrently began lobbying Kiev to “start using marines for waterborne operations.”

However, the proposal “did not resonate… for a long time” with Zelensky, or then-Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi. So the British took the “radical step” of dispatching an “official delegation” to Kiev, to convince the pair.

“The British team persuaded Zaluzhnyi, and he said: that’s it, we’re creating the Marine Corps,” a source informed the outlet. London then instituted five-week-long training programs.

Ukrainians were taught on British territory “how to overcome water obstacles: to cross a river, land on the shore and conduct operations on land.” Survivors of the operation told Ukrainska Pravda, “They realized they were being prepared for something big and different from their previous tasks during their stay in the UK.”

Come August, almost 1,000 Ukrainian marines had reportedly been tutored “in small-boat landing operations and amphibious assaults”, in training environments identical to where they would land in and around Krynky.

The stage was thus set for seizing the beachhead, which commenced two months later. “Almost immediately” though, “the operation’s biggest flaw – its planning – began to work against the Marines,” producing “huge losses”.

Ukrainska Pravda acknowledges the mission “wasn’t fully thought through in every aspect,” which is quite the understatement.

Ukrainian marines reaching Krynky required them to travel across the Dnipro via boat or be dropped off at numerous small islands nearby and swim to land. Resupply was also supposed to be conducted via boat deliveries.

In the aforementioned December 2023 BBC article, a marine participating in the catastrophe revealed it was expected by the operation’s British planners that once the Ukrainians landed, their adversary “would flee and then we could calmly transport everything we needed.”

Alas, “it didn’t turn out that way”:

“The entire river crossing is under constant fire. I’ve seen boats with my comrades on board just disappear into the water after being hit, lost forever to the Dnipro River… When we arrived on the [eastern] bank… they knew exactly where to find us. They threw everything at us – artillery, mortars and flamethrower systems. I thought I’d never get out.”

To make matters worse, “a lot of young guys” with zero combat experience were being fed into Krynky. “It’s a total nightmare… some of our marines can’t even swim,” the embattled marine bitterly relayed to Britain’s state broadcaster.

Fearing “things will only get worse,” he added “no one” dispatched to the “hell” there knew “the goals” of the operation in which they were engaged. “Many” believed their commanders had “simply abandoned” them, and “our presence [has] more political than military significance.”

‘Almost Impossible’

Ukrainska Pravda gravely notes, “not all [marines] made it” to Krynky, and “not all who did return.” Even those who survived the perilous journey “frequently sustained injuries or were killed” upon arrival, “because the Russians immediately targeted them with artillery.”

During landings, “every second mattered”, to the extent the Ukrainians quickly “abandoned the use of life jackets” for their river crossings, as detaching one onshore took half a minute, “and there [could] be casualties during that time.”

Fatal operational blindspots and blunders didn’t end there. Resupply boats were likewise relentlessly targeted by Russian forces, making it virtually impossible to equip marines with even the most basic essentials, including ammunition, bandages, food, medicine, and water.

The Ukrainians resorted to using hexacopter drones “to deliver all sorts of things” to the frontline, “even blood for transfusions.”

Meanwhile, one marine bitterly informed Ukrainska Pravda, “heaps” of artillery and rocket support “that would work in our favor” promised by their superiors never materialized.

“HIMARS will fire like machine guns!” they were told, “but we were deceived in the end.”

Regardless, marines were still expected to carry out extraordinarily grand missions once – if – they reached Krynky. For example, three marine brigades were tasked with capturing a 30-kilometer-long beachhead around the village, on foot and without heavy equipment, “using units already exhausted from fighting in Donbas,” within just four days.

This also necessitated thrusting up to seven kilometers inland, into Russian territory.

“The order seemed insane to everyone at the time,” a participating marine told Ukrainska Pravda, “we warned that it would be a massacre, but we were told to keep pushing.”

Their dire predictions were proven completely correct, the mission abruptly failing after “a considerable number of highly valued personnel” were blown to bits by Russian airstrikes, missiles, and tank fire. Yet, this senseless turkey shoot paled in comparison to the disaster and insanity of Britain’s plot for Kiev to march on Crimea.

A survivor of the Krynky operation said this “ultimate goal” was “almost impossible.” To accomplish it, Ukrainian marines “needed to cover a vast distance” – 80 kilometers – into territory that had been under heavy Russian occupation for 18 months.

Furthermore, it was “impossible to establish a foothold” in many of the areas where marines landed, which were “nothing but swamp”. Unable to dig shelters or trenches in the terrain, they were forced to hide from Russian bombardment in craters left by previous attacks.

Some marines intentionally “got lost” on islands near Krynky to avoid the river crossing. Others tried to reach the area and return floating “on car tyres”.

At least two “heroes” involved in the operation “refused to act” on certain orders from their commanders, “as doing so would have been suicidal.”

Some wounded soldiers literally took their own lives, “because there was no evacuation.” These were just a few of the “tragic stories” to result from Britain’s futile, covert proxy push on Crimea.

‘Remain Silent’

The onset of winter was “when the situation on the [Dnipro’s] left bank started to really deteriorate.”

The Russians transferred significant assault forces to the area, used glide bombs “to destroy a large part” of Krynky, and “figured out how best to target Ukrainian forces’ river routes, especially at the turns, where the boats had to slow down, and landing points.” Moscow’s artillery onslaught left the area “cratered like the moon.” A reconnaissance officer told Ukrainska Pravda:

“Each time our battalion entered [Krynky], the situation got worse and worse. People got there, only to die. We had no idea what was going on. Everyone I knew who was deployed to Krynky is [sic] dead.”

The situation further “took a dark turn” in early spring 2024. Not a single boat could enter or leave the area. “By May, the situation was a disaster” – but it was not until July the last of Ukraine’s marines withdrew from the area, being forced to swim back.

“Most people” Ukrainska Pravda interviewed about Krynky “are convinced the operation dragged on for at least several months longer than it should have.” One despaired:

“We had to withdraw in spring at the latest, during the foggy season. We could have got all of our soldiers out at that point. It would’ve saved people’s lives. But instead, we waited until nothing could be done any longer. Until the very last moment.”

During the operation’s entire nine months, Krynky never came under full control of Kiev’s British-trained and directed marines. They managed to capture, recapture, and hold “about half of the village” at most, per Ukrainska Pravda.

“As of late 2024, all of Dnipro’s left bank in Kherson Oblast is under Russian control,” the outlet concludes. No wonder that today, neither Ukrainian nor Western officials are “particularly vocal about Krynky, preferring to remain silent on the issue.”

Zaluzhnyi “has never issued a public statement about the operation.” In May 2024, he was appointed ambassador to Britain. Lieutenant General Yurii Sodol, Ukraine’s former Marine Corps commander who oversaw Krynky, was dismissed from the armed forces in November 2024, ostensibly after failing a military medical exam.

Total killed and wounded figures for the operation remain concealed, although Ukrainska Pravda learned just one brigade lost around 700 personnel during the nine-month-long debacle.

Had it been wave after wave of poorly prepared, ill-equipped and militarily unsupported British marines dispatched in large numbers to certain death in Krynky, one might expect their commanders and anyone responsible for planning the operation to face severe censure.

As it was Ukrainians doing the fighting and dying in an unwinnable, literal quagmire, British officials are likely to remain immune from repercussions.

In a bitter irony, Zelensky may well be joining them in London in due course.

February 1, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Desertion Epidemic? Ukrainian Soldiers Flee as Army Collapses on the Battlefield

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 31.01.2025

As Ukraine’s army suffers mounting defeats, thousands of soldiers are abandoning their units, unable or unwilling to continue the fight.

  • The 157th Brigade, formed in 2024, ceased to exist by 2025 with one-third of its soldiers deserting before becoming operational.
  • The elite 155th ‘Anna of Kiev’ Brigade saw at least 1,700 of its 2,300 soldiers desert before reaching the front lines.
  • Over 10% of the 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers sent to Poland for training fled the country.
  • Desertion is occurring in both large and small groups, with 22 soldiers from the 71st Separate Jaeger Brigade deserting in just one week in December 2024.
  • Some deserters are even charging to assist others escape, with one man arrested for smuggling soldiers out for €7,000 each.

The Scale of Desertion is Staggering:

  • For every 100 mobilized soldiers, only 10 reach the front, according to General Serhiy Kryvonos.
  • Ukrainian activist Gennadiy Druzenko estimates 150,000 deserters, with 114,000 criminal cases opened.
  • Ukrainian officials have admitted the crisis, with Deputy Anna Skorokhod estimating over 100,000 desertions by October 2024. Commissioner Olga Reshetylova stated bluntly: “The problem is big. People are exhausted.”

February 1, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine wants EU to replace lost US aid

RT | January 30, 2025

Ukrainian lawmakers have appealed to non-US donors to fund local media outlets and NGOs following the suspension of Washington’s foreign assistance programs that has reportedly drastically impacted the sector.

Last week, President Donald Trump halted cash flows from the US and ordered a 90-day review of aid schemes. Many affected programs were run by USAID, Washington’s soft power agency that distributes billions of dollars each year for projects that promote US interests around the world, under the premise of humanitarian development. It spent over $60 billion in 2023 alone.

Ukrainian recipients of American grants were hit “worse than it may seem,” a statement by the parliamentary committee on humanitarian affairs said on Wednesday. Lawmakers anticipate that it will take up to six months for US funding to fully resume, and have urged EU donors to step in.

“Given the constraints on public funding, grants remain virtually the only way for cultural and media projects to function,” the statement said.

Oksana Romanyuk, executive director of a Kiev-based media research non-profit, warned that 90% of news outlets in Ukraine rely heavily on foreign grants. With USAID operations frozen, many of them are now soliciting emergency donations.

The Ukrainian MPs described foreign assistance as “an important part of our path to democratic development and sustainability”. They empathized that USAID was funding projects for children, with thousands of minors attending schools that depend on American taxpayer dollars.

According to media reports, senior officials in the Department of State have lobbied Secretary Marco Rubio to make exemptions for their preferred aid programs, arguing that they are essential for US interests. Meanwhile, at least 60 senior USAID officials reportedly have been placed on paid administrative leave.

January 30, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine ‘an invented state’ – Romanian election frontrunner

RT | January 30, 2025

Calin Georgescu, the politician whose first-round victory in the Romanian presidential election was overturned by the Constitutional Court, has argued that the borders claimed by Ukraine were artificially drawn and are subject to inevitable change.

The staunch critic of Western policies made the remarks on Wednesday in an interview with political analyst Ion Cristoiu on YouTube. He was discussing the adjustments of European borders after World War II, which resulted in a transfer of territories to Soviet Ukraine. Georgescu said he expects Ukraine to be fragmented as part of a peace deal with Russia, along historical lines.

”This will happen 100%. The path to an outcome like that is inevitable,” he asserted. “Ukraine is an invented state.”

Parts of the historic areas of Bukovina and Bessarabia, which were ceded from Romania to Ukraine during the post-war settlement, are “of interest” to Bucharest, Georgescu said, adding that Hungary and Poland could also claim their historic lands in a hypothetical breakup of Ukraine.

Georgescu made headlines in November when he unexpectedly garnered 23% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election in Romania, a NATO member. However, the Constitutional Court annulled the results shortly before the second round, citing intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in the campaign.

Subsequent media reports revealed that Georgescu’s candidacy was boosted by a firm closely linked with the pro-Western National Liberal Party (PNL), seemingly to undermine another candidate. The Romanian government has claimed that Russia was behind the interference scheme. Georgescu leads in opinion polls and is projected to get 38% of the vote in the upcoming election re-run in May.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously warned about the threat of potential separatism in Western Ukraine, driven by ethnic minorities’ wish “to return to their historic homeland,” with potential support from foreign governments.

”In that sense, only Russia could serve as a guarantor of Ukrainian territorial integrity,” he claimed in late 2023. “If [Ukrainians] don’t want that, so be it. History will set things straight. We will not stand in the way, but neither will we relinquish what is rightfully ours.”

January 30, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

End of Neutrality in Europe

Pascal Lottaz with Glenn Diesen
By Glenn Diesen | January 28, 2025

The belt of neutral states that created a buffer region between NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War was an important part of the European security system. After the Cold War, neutrality was gradually abandoned due to a unipolar distribution of power and a complementary liberal ideology that undermined the case for neutrality. The efforts to end Ukraine’s neutrality to pull it into NATO’s orbit, predictably triggered a war. Instead of learning the right lessons, the response to the war has been to further dismantle neutrality from Scandinavia to Moldova, which will predictably also trigger a security competition in these regions.

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January 29, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian media in funding crisis after US cash cut

RT | January 29, 2025

Multiple Ukrainian media outlets have issued appeals for emergency cash donations after US President Donald Trump suspended Washington’s foreign aid programs. USAID, the organization that funnels billions of dollars to international causes deemed worthy by Washington has been put on hold, pending reviews, and up to 60 senior staff have reportedly been suspended on full pay.

Nine out of every ten media outlets in Ukraine have been impacted by Washington’s decision, Oksana Romanyuk, executive director of the Institute of Mass Information in Kiev has claimed.

”Unfortunately, almost 90% of Ukrainian media outlets were surviving on grants,” the head of the media-focused NGO told Hromadske Radio. Romanyuk described Trump’s decision as a threat to democracy in Ukraine, claiming that “oligarchs” may seize control of a media landscape “weakened” by the halt in American funding.

Hromadske is among the outlets soliciting private donations in the wake of aid freeze. Established in November 2013, just before the Maidan protests started, Hromadske received its seed funding directly from the US embassy in Kiev and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. The broadcaster played a pivotal role in criticizing the government during the violent coup that overthrew a democratically elected president and put Ukraine on course for division and conflict.

In a statement announcing the suspension of some of its projects, Hromadske praised the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as one of the most generous donors of “independent media” and NGOs in Ukraine. The investigative journalism organization Bihus.info also acknowledged that much of its work has been funded by the US.

The campaign for emergency funding also extends beyond traditional news outlets. Detector Media, a self-styled watchdog ‘combating online disinformation,’ has warned that hundreds of organizations are facing shutdown without USAID support, and urged private citizens and business owners to donate.

Irina Vereshchuk, the deputy chief of staff to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, has called the suspension of US non-military assistance “unexpected and unpleasant”. Kiev will hold “consultations with our American partners” to resume the flow of money while implementing measures to “stabilize the situation” in the interim, she promised on Tuesday.

January 29, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

John Helmer and spitting out the red, white, and blue Skripal pills

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook and John Helmer January 15, 2025 

In today’s podcast from Canada, Chris Cook and I discuss the reasons for the failure of Novichok to kill anyone, and its success at brainwashing everyone, or almost everyone.

The contrast with other media campaigns of resistance to western information warfare is a glaring one. For example, the campaign to defend Julian Assange and free him from a British prison and trial in the US has turned out to have been a popular success. However, Assange himself, his Wikileaks platform, and his London advocates have done nothing to expose the Novichok deception operation. They are good men who have done nothing — their media success has failed to deter or stop the Anglo-American march to war in the Ukraine; Assange’s lawyers are supporters of the war against Russia. Assange’s alt-media reporters have pretended they are the only truth-tellers in the present discontents; their war is against their media competitors.

For their names; for the truth of the Novichok story; and for the after-life of the Novichok poison in the coming war against Russia, click to listen.

John Helmer and spitting out the red, white, and blue Skripal pills in the second half. Begin at Minute 31:00. Source: https://gradio.substack.com/

January 27, 2025 Posted by | Audio program, Deception, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Israel Considers Sending Weapons Seized in Lebanon to Ukraine

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 26, 2025

Tel Aviv may be transferring Russian-made weapons that Israeli forces seized in southern Lebanon to Ukraine to be used in the fight against Russia. The potential arms shipments come following high-level meetings between Israeli and Ukrainian officials.

The potential arms shipments to Ukraine were first discussed by the Ukrainian Embassy in Israel, as was revealed on Facebook Tuesday. “During the meeting, the Ambassador thanked the interlocutor for a previously submitted proposal in the Knesset – to hand over weapons of Russian production to Ukraine seized by the IDF in Lebanon,” the post explained. “It is noted that this initiative would be an important step in recognizing the common threats facing both countries.”

On Wednesday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Among the main topics of our discussion were shared challenges, collaboration – particularly in the security sphere – and ways to achieve a just peace for Ukraine,” the Ukrainian leader posted on X.

Last year, Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon and have been occupying much of the territory and preventing civilians from returning to their homes. During the operations against Hezbollah, Israeli forces are reported to have captured Russian-made weapons, including the Draganov sniper rifles, SPG-9 launchers, Kornet antitank missile, as well as Metis, Konkurs, Fagot, and Sagger missiles.

The Ukrainian Embassy said the increased ties between Russia and Iran are driving the potential arms shipments from Israel to Ukraine. “The sides also discussed the current joint challenges for both countries, in particular the military cooperation between Iran and Russia, which poses a threat to the national security of both Ukraine and Israel,” the Facebook post noted.

It’s unclear how large of a weapons cache Israeli forces have seized from Hezbollah. The Telegraph reports as many as 60% of the weapons were manufactured in Russia or the former USSR. The outlet also cited multiple Russian bloggers who reported that the weapons shipments from Israel to Ukraine are already underway.

January 27, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Here’s why EU leaders really want to send troops to Ukraine

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | January 27, 2025

Nothing is certain regarding the Ukraine conflict. Except two things: Russia is winning and, under new ownership, the US leadership is searching for a novel approach. As Russian foreign policy heavyweight Sergey Ryabkov has noted, there is now a window of opportunity for a compromise to, in essence, help end this senseless conflict and restore some normalcy to US-Russian relations and thus global politics as well. But that window is small and will not be open forever.

Beyond that, things remain murky. Is the end to this madness finally in sight? Will Washington now translate its declared intention to change course into negotiating positions that Moscow can take seriously? Those would have to include – as a minimum – territorial losses and genuine neutrality for Ukraine, as well as a robust sense that any peace is made to last.

Last but not least, will the West compel Kiev to accept such a realistic settlement? ‘Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine’ may still sound terribly nice to those selfish enough to mistake international politics for a virtue-signaling beauty contest. Yet – like the daft, hypocritical cant of ‘agency’ – it was never true in the first place, has served to shield the Western abuse of Ukraine and Ukrainians, and must be abandoned if this meatgrinder of a conflict is to end.

Or could everything turn out the other way around? Could Western and especially US hardliners still prevail? Whispering into Trump’s ear that ‘winning’ will just take a bigger, Trumpier push, with even more money and arms for the Kiev regime and more economic warfare against Russia, and that making peace would actually cost more than continuing the proxy war? Yes, the first is pure wishful thinking, going against all recent experience; the second is an absurd non-argument sitting on top of a mountain of false premises; and yet, this nonsense is still all too popular in the West, which has a habit of building its foreign policy on illusions.

Washington’s recent signaling has been ambiguous enough, whether by design or clumsiness, to raise hopes among the many remaining diehards in the West. The British Telegraph, for instance, is fantasizing about “Trump’s playbook for bringing Putin to his knees”; the Washington Post interprets the new American president’s recent (online) speech at the Davos World Economic Forum as “putting the onus on Russia”; and the New York Times desperately sifts through Trump’s words for anything that is harsh about Russia or its president, Vladimir Putin.

In the end, all of the above will probably turn out to be nothing but clutching at straws. While any Washington-Moscow negotiations are bound to be complicated, a return to the demented mutism of the Biden administration is unlikely. Communication will become the default again, as it should be among sane adults. And as long as there is no foul play – an assassination of Donald Trump, for instance – the US will, in one way or the other, extricate itself from the Ukraine conflict. If only because Trump is, at heart, a businessman, and will not throw good money after bad. It’s a harsh, cold reasoning, but if it leads to the right results – an end to senseless fighting and unnecessary dying – then it will have to do.

That US extrication, it bears emphasis, need not wait for a settlement with Russia or even the start of serious negotiations. Indeed, the extrication isn’t one thing but a process, and it has already begun. First, immediately after Trump’s inauguration, support to Ukraine was reduced, but military aid was still upheld. Not for long though. Only days later, Politico reported that a second general order to suspend aid flows for 90 days also applied to military assistance for Kiev.

But there is a catch. If the US distances itself from its lost proxy war, that does not necessarily mean that its clients and vassals in the EU and NATO will follow, at least not immediately. That is counterintuitive, admittedly. If EU leaders were rational, acting in their countries’ best interest – and, in fact, that of Ukraine, too – they would not even consider going it alone. But then, if they were rational, they would have refused to join the US proxy war from the beginning and long have stopped listening sheepishly to bossy tirades by Ukraine past-best-by-date president Vladimir Zelensky. And yet they have just done it again at Davos.

So, instead of rationality, we now see unending affirmations that peace will not and must not come soon. Sorry Ukrainians, your European ‘friends’ believe you haven’t done enough dying yet.

French President Emmanuel Macron, for one, seems to be going through a manic phase, again. Clearly with reference to Trump’s very different ideas, the comically unpopular leader, whose ratings have just dived to a six-year low, has declared that the Ukraine conflict will not end soon, “neither today nor the day after today.” German Foreign Minister Annalena ‘360 degrees’ Baerbock is throwing tantrums when she can’t have as many billions for Ukraine as she wants. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer – another European incumbent on very thin ice at home and with abysmal ratings – has made his first pilgrimage to Kiev and concluded a 100-year partnership agreement with Ukraine, including a secret part and worth, again, billions and billions of pounds. Because, you see, Britain is doing so incredibly well at home – except not really. Take just one data point: British factories have just registered their worst slump in orders since Covid.

Against this Euro-Conga-on-the-Titanic backdrop, another upshot of the persistent European refusal to get real is re-emerging talk about sending large numbers of Western ground forces to Ukraine, specifically from NATO-EU countries. True, Zelensky’s demands at Davos for 200,000 troops – that’s more than landed in Normandy on D-Day 1944, but why be modest when you are riding high in Kiev? – are ludicrous. Yet smaller but still substantial numbers – 40,000 or so – are still under consideration.

What exactly these troops would be doing in Ukraine remains hazy. They would not be a peacekeeping force because they would be siding with one party of the conflict, Ukraine. And yet, proponents of these schemes promise they would not be on the front lines fighting against Russia because they would either be introduced only after an end to the fighting, or they would somehow remain in the hinterland, thereby freeing up Ukrainian forces for the front.

None of the above makes sense. As long as the fighting continues, there is no hinterland in the sense that the troops would be spared real fighting and dying, because Russian airstrikes can reach them everywhere even now, and, depending on further developments, so may Russian land forces in the future. Moreover, once these troops enter the country, Kiev would, of course, do its best to get them embroiled in great bloodshed, including by provocations and false flag operations. The aim would be to drag these ‘allies’ so deep into the quagmire that they wouldn’t be able to get out again.

Introducing boots on the grounds from NATO-EU countries after the fighting, however, won’t work either. Russia is fighting to have a genuinely neutral Ukraine and will not agree; and as long as Russia does not agree, there won’t be any end to the fighting. If these troops were to turn up anyhow, the conflict would start again. Indeed, Kiev would have an incentive to restart it once they are in Ukraine (see above).

Of course, NATO-EU states already have black ops operators and mercenaries on the ground. But while Moscow has wisely decided not to take this degree of intervention as a reason for attacking beyond Ukraine, regular forces in large numbers would obviously be a different matter. The proponents of this type of deployment argue that the US contingent in South Korea and KFOR troops in Kosovo (of all places!) show that these deployments are possible without further escalation. This, too, is nonsense. KFOR’s presence is based on several 1999 agreements and, crucially, a UN Security Council resolution (1244). Its sad but very low fatalities (213 as of 2019), some caused by accidents, cannot remotely be compared with what would happen to NATO-EU troops clashing with the Russian Army; finally, those KFOR casualties that did not come from accidents, and were not inflicted by a state’s regular forces but by protesters and irregulars. A scenario in which thousands of EU troops die in a fight with the regular army of a nuclear-armed Russia is incomparable.

Regarding the US troops in South Korea, their presence is based on a mutual defense treaty concluded in 1953. Again, exactly the type of arrangement Moscow will not accept. And also one that the NATO-Europeans would be very wise to shy away from, because, once again, it would suck them deep into the next war. Finally, obvious but worth stating: Those US forces in South Korea have the backing of the US. They are a classical tripwire. Attack them, and face the whole US military. EU forces would not have US backing; and if Europeans want to underwrite such a tripwire with their own flimsy armies, they are suicidal.

If large-scale deployment of EU boots on the ground is such an obviously bad idea, why will it not finally go away? There are really only two possible answers: Either those dreaming such dreams are really so shortsighted and irresponsible (think Kaja Kallas and similar intellectual lightweights) or they are not quite honest about their motives. In reality, we are probably dealing with both.

Regarding the genuinely confused, let’s not waste time on them. But what about those who are really after something else? What could that be? Here is a plausible guess. The talk about sending major contingents to Ukraine has two real aims, one targeting the new American leadership and the other, Ukrainian domestic politics.

With regard to Washington, the real purpose of speculating about EU ground troops is a desperate attempt to secure Brussels a say in the coming negotiations between the US and Russia. And there, the Europeans are right about one thing: They may well be excluded, which will be an ironic outcome after their self-destructive obedience toward the Biden administration. But there’s a new sheriff in town now, and he might well cut them loose no less than Ukraine.

In Ukraine, the real purpose is to exert outside influence on the sore issue of mobilization: Ukraine is running out of cannon fodder, as observers as different as the new US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the slavishly NATO-ist German magazine Spiegel now admit. Mobilization of those who are still there is a creeping catastrophe; its violence and the mass evasion practiced by its victims demonstrating every day that many Ukrainians have had enough. The Zelensky regime’s proposed answer is to lower the mobilization age even further, to 18. Importantly, this is supposed to happen even if there is peace.

And would it not be convenient for this type of policy to point to troops from the West and tell unwilling draftees and their families: Look, if even those foreigners are coming to help, how can you stay at home? Yet they are unlikely to ever turn up. Once again, Ukrainians will be fed bloated rhetoric about and by false friends from the West – to, in the end, be left alone to keep dying and lose more territory. The way out of this is not more of the same. Even if it could work – which it cannot – NATO-EU mass deployment would only make everything worse. Because the real way out of this is a compromise with Russia – and the deployment of Western troops would prevent that compromise.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

January 27, 2025 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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