The Second Trump Shooter Believed Exactly What the Establishment Media Wanted Him to Believe
By Connor O’Keeffe | Mises Institute | September 18, 2024
On Sunday, for the second time this election cycle, a man was able to get close to Donald Trump with a rifle. The former president was golfing when Secret Service agents spotted a rifle barrel poking out of some bushes just off the course, near a hole Trump would soon play. Agents fired on the suspect, causing him to flee as Trump was rushed off the course. Shortly after, the man was apprehended by police.
A scoped rifle, two backpacks, and a video camera were recovered from the woods where the suspect was hiding. The FBI said it was investigating the incident as an attempted assassination. The suspect, Ryan Routh, has so far been charged with two gun-related crimes.
While there are clearly some major differences between this incident and the first assassination attempt in July—when Trump was shot in the ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania—the fact that an armed man was able to get so close to the former president and remain undetected until the last moment for the second time in two months is a big deal.
Yet the reaction from the political establishment and the establishment media has been notably different. Back in July, there was broad agreement within the establishment that they needed to “lower the temperature.” This week, the rhetoric has changed. While most go through the motion of denouncing political violence, establishment figures and outlets have downplayed the assassination attempt, obscured the attempted shooter’s political ideology, and even blamed Trump himself for provoking people into trying to kill him.
It’s not surprising that the political establishment and their friends in the media want to dismiss or play down what happened on Sunday. Because Ryan Routh, the suspect, appears to have been motivated by the exact narrative of the war in Ukraine and the prospect of a second Trump term that the establishment is trying so hard to get the American public to accept.
In early 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the American establishment went into overdrive to whitewash all the developments that had led to the invasion. They instead defined Vladamir Putin as an expansionist tyrant bent on conquering all of Europe simply because he hates freedom and democracy.
Because of unearthed social media posts, numerous interviews with major outlets like The New York Times, and a self-published book, we can clearly see that Routh was completely convinced by the establishment’s characterization of the war. So much so that in the months after the war broke out, Routh traveled to Ukraine to try and join the fight. He was turned away, apparently due to his age, but stuck around to try and recruit other foreigners to join Ukraine’s ranks.
In one interview with Newsweek, Routh laid out how he views the war:
To me, a lot of the other conflicts are gray, but this conflict is definitely black-and-white. This is about good versus evil. This is a storybook— you know, any movie we’ve ever watched, this is definitely evil against good. … It seems asinine that we have a leader and a country that does not understand the concept of being unselfish, and being generous, and being kind, and just the basic moral values that are required by human beings these days. It blows my mind.
That is exactly how the pundits and politicians who make up the American political establishment want us thinking about this war. Not as an unnecessary geopolitical conflict that escalated for decades before erupting into the conventional war we see today, but simply as a black-and-white showdown with an evil country.
Importantly, as can be seen in the opening to Biden’s State of the Union address from earlier this year, the establishment has explicitly conflated this threat abroad with what they call the threat at home—meaning Trump and the MAGA movement. So if a disturbed person like Ryan Routh was convinced that he would be a hero if he went and fought the evil Russians in Ukraine only to be turned away because of his age, it’s not much of a jump to expect that he concluded he could still be a hero if he set his sights on, what he was told, is the same threat at home.
That’s not to say that the establishment voices pushing the simplistic narratives that captured Routh directly incited his assassination attempt—although it would under the standard they apply to Trump and January 6. Only that the establishment is using misleading and sometimes wholly fictional narratives about the war in Ukraine and the populist anger directed toward them to try to scare us into voting in ways that support their interests. It shouldn’t surprise anyone when these contrived, simplistic, overly dramatic narratives lead some people to decide voting isn’t enough.
Ukraine courting Middle East terrorists – Syrian official
RT | September 19, 2024
Ukraine is increasingly seeking cooperation with terrorist groups in the Middle East in a bid to find allies in its fight against Russia, a senior Syrian official has told RT.
In an interview on Thursday, Munther Ahmad, director general of foreign media at the Syrian Ministry of Information, commented on claims by the Al-Watan newspaper that Kiev had dispatched 250 service members to Idlib province to train militants from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group. In exchange, the group reportedly provided Kiev with a detachment of fighters.
Al-Watan also claimed that the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), Kirill Budanov, has maintained contact with Abu Mohammad Julani, the head of the terrorist group.
According to Ahmad, “it seems that the reports are accurate” and that “the level of cooperation between Ukraine and these terrorist groups is increasing.” Kiev wants to convince terrorists “to carry out certain operations” against Russian forces both in Syria and beyond, he added.
The Syrian official also remarked that a report by Turkish newspaper Aydinlik, purporting to show a picture of a recent meeting between Ukrainians and terrorists, suggests that Kiev is indeed trying to forge such ties. The results of this endeavor, Ahmad added, “depends on how much money they [Ukraine] are willing to inject into these mercenaries.”
“Currently, this dirty money that Ukraine is offering these terrorist groups will be used for the dirty deeds Ukraine wants to carry out,” the official claimed, stating that the terrorists would cease their activities once the funding dries up.
Ahmad also suggested that Ukraine has plunged into “a state of confusion.” “Sometimes they claim they want to end the conflict. Other times, they say they will continue the war to the very end, especially when it comes to requesting aid from the US and European governments.”
Commenting on reports about Kiev courting Syrian militants, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested that Ukraine itself “had turned into a terrorist organization.”
Ukraine at the Crossroads
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | September 18, 2024
The West is being increasingly confronted with the cold realization that Ukraine cannot win this war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has set as a threshold for victory, not only the recapture of territory up to his country’s prewar borders, but the reclamation of all of its territory to the 2014 border, including the Donbas and Crimea. There are few among Ukraine’s Western backers who subscribe any longer to that illusion.
But Western governments and the Western media delude their public into believing that the war is a stalemate that Russia also cannot win. This assessment is based on the unsubstantiated claim that the threshold for Russia winning is, as a start, the subjugation of Ukraine in its entirety.
But that has never been Russia’s stated goal. Just as listening to Zelensky’s stated definition of victory leads to the realization that it cannot be attained, so listening to Vladimir Putin’s leads to the conclusion that it can. Russia cannot subjugate all of Ukraine. But it has also never claimed that as its goal. Putin has consistently said that “this conflict is not about territory… [it] is about the principles underlying the new international order.” He has said that Russia never intended to conquer Kiev and that the early advance toward the capital was intended to force Ukraine into the negotiations that the United States declined.
Putin’s stated goals have always been a written assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO and protection of ethnic Russians in the Donbas. His June peace proposal contains those very points. The proposal states that Ukraine must guarantee that it will be a non-nuclear, non-aligned neutral nation that will not join NATO. It states that Ukraine must completely withdraw from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, that they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and that they must ensure the rights of the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine.
If that is Russia’s definition of victory, then it is not impossible that Russia could win the war. And the advance on Pokrovsk is bringing some of those key points closer to realization.
Ukraine’s Western partners are at a crossroad. Plans of providing Ukraine with whatever they need for as long as it takes to push Russia out of Ukraine have been replaced by reinvigorating Ukraine’s position on the battlefield to strengthen their position at the inevitable negotiating table, even if that means, as one Western columnist put it, allowing Ukraine to “bomb Putin to the negotiating table.”
That would be one side of the crossroad: escalating war to advance peace. But that road, if it crosses Russia’s red line, is fraught with hazards. The other would be to find an offroad to the war, a road that leads to diplomatic negotiations and peace. Ukraine and some of its NATO partners, perhaps most importantly Britain, are urgently pushing the former. But a growing choir of Ukraine’s partners may be beginning to consider the second road.
In a vague article that names no names, Bloomberg reports that “some of Ukraine’s allies are starting to talk about how the fight against Russia’s invasion might end.” According to the report, “officials are more seriously gaming out how a negotiated end to the conflict and an off-road could take shape.” Facing the realization that Ukraine is unlikely to improve its position on the battlefield, “some allied officials” have begun “exploring ways in which diplomacy could break the deadlock.”
One of Ukraine’s partners is Germany. In a September 7 TV interview, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “I believe that now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace from this state of war, indeed at a faster pace.” Scholz’ statement may mark the most significant brake in NATO unity since the early days of the war. There are even unconfirmed reports that Scholz, who recently announced that Germany would provide no financial aid to Ukraine for the war after 2025, is preparing a plan for a diplomatic settlement to the war that could include Ukraine making territorial concessions.
And, though out in front, Germany may not be alone. The Wall Street Journal reports that some European diplomats are telling Ukraine that the battlefield reality necessitates that “Ukraine needs to be more pragmatic in its wartime aims and strategy.” Senior European officials have told the Ukrainian leadership that “a full Ukrainian victory would require the West to provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of support, something neither Washington nor Europe can realistically do.”
The French newspaper Le Figaro reported on September 16 that the battlefield reality, the “slowly but steadily” advancing Russian forces and the realization in the West that “Donbass and Crimea are beyond the military reach of the Ukrainians,” are causing some of Ukraine’s Western partners in the United States and Europe to “discreetly” discuss a negotiated settlement. A “senior French diplomat” reportedly told the Le Figaro that France, too, is now contemplating a “lasting and negotiated solution to the war.”
All of these reports point to the slow birth of momentum to choose a different path at the crossroad. Even Zelensky has said, “I feel that not all territories should be regained by hand or with weapons. I believe this will take a long time and involve a significant number of people. And I think this is a bad thing. As a result, I believe we might retake our territories diplomatically.”
But Zelensky is still trying to push his NATO partners to take the road of escalation to future peace talks. And he seems to have the backing of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Calling daily for the U.S. to sign off on using Western long-range missiles to fire deep into Russian territory, Zelensky and Starmer are advocating the “bomb Putin to the negotiating table” route.
There appear to be delays on that route while the U.S. awaits the presentation of Zelensky’s promised plan for winning the war and what it needs from the West to do that. His “Ukrainian Victory Plan” promises to identify the steps needed on the battlefield to “give us the strongest possible position to bring about peace—a real, just peace.” Zelensky promises, “For each step, there is a clear list of what is needed and what will strengthen us.” Officials expect Zelensky to request NATO and European Union membership, security arrangements, economic commitments, and a steady flow of advanced weapons. Zelensky has also promised to include a list of targets inside Russian that Ukraine believes would help achieve victory.
Both roads lead to diplomatic talks. The one at “a faster pace,” in the words of Olaf Scholz, the other at risk of escalation that will, in Putin’s words, “change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict” and, potentially, mean that NATO countries… are at war with Russia.”
How seriously Ukraine’s partners take Putin’s warning will help determine which road they take at the crossroad. The lack of a decision being announced after the September 14 meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Starmer suggests that the United States may be taking the warning seriously. National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told a press conference that the Biden administration would never say “that we don’t take Mr. Putin’s threats seriously… He has obviously proven capable of escalation over the last, now, going on three years. So, yeah, we take these comments seriously.”
But, more concerningly, he qualified that seriousness by saying, “it is not something that we haven’t heard before. So, we take note of it. Got it. We have our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine and what not.” More concerningly still, was Biden’s dismissive response to Putin’s caution. “ I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden said.
Which attitude prevails in Washington and which view, Germany’s or Britain’s, prevails in Europe will help determine which road is chosen at the current crossroad: escalation or a faster pace to diplomacy. The first risks crossing red lines that could pull the West into direct conflict with Russia and offers little hope of improving Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table that the second road arrives at more quickly and directly. The first seems too dangerous to consider; the second seems like dangerous folly not to consider.
Zelensky cancels meeting fearing PR disaster – media
RT | September 19, 2024
The Ukrainian government has canceled a meeting intended to involve Vladimir Zelensky and Latin American leaders out of fear it would become a PR disaster, Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported on Tuesday. Very few of the invitees confirmed that they would attend the event, the paper wrote.
Kiev initially planned to hold the talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly scheduled to convene on September 24. According to Folha, the idea behind the meeting was to demonstrate symbolic support for Ukraine in its conflict with Moscow.
Ukrainian officials reportedly said it would be “an appropriate platform” for Zelensky to present what they called “relevant and reliable information” about the conflict. Kiev also wanted to rally support for the so-called Zelensky ‘peace formula’ – a set of demands put forward by Ukraine as pre-conditions for peace talks. Moscow has rejected the demands, calling them unacceptable.
Kiev had to scrap the meeting after it received only a “few confirmations of attendance,” Folha reported, adding that the government decided it was “necessary to avoid a situation that could possibly be interpreted as a lack of support.”
The paper did not provide the number of confirmations or name the leaders who said they would attend, except for Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo.
Ukraine has received steady support from the West since the conflict with Russia broke out in February 2022, but has failed to gain much backing in other parts of the world. Many Asian, African, and South American countries, including China, India, and Brazil, have remained neutral and called for a diplomatic resolution.
Mexico’s president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, recently told journalists she would pursue a policy of non-intervention on the world stage and has no plans to make a state visit to Ukraine. “Searching for the peaceful resolution of conflicts is the cornerstone of our foreign policy. This is our policy, and it won’t change,” she said on Wednesday.
Kiev has dismissed any proposals that are not in line with the ‘Zelensky formula’, claiming they play into Moscow’s hands. Last week, Zelensky rejected a six-point roadmap proposed by China and Brazil. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva responded by saying he would not allow his country to be dragged into the conflict.
Russia Slams NATO’s ‘Reckless’ Rejection of Putin’s Red Line on Ukraine Attacks
Sputnik – 18.09.2024
MOSCOW – Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Wednesday that dismissing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings about the dangers of Ukraine using Western weapons to attack Russian territory is both provocative and perilous.
“Such a ostentatious desire not to take seriously the statements of the Russian president is an absolutely short-sighted and unprofessional step,” Peskov told reporters.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denied in an interview out on Tuesday that allowing Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike deep into Russia would cross country’s “red line” despite warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There have been many red lines declared by him [Putin] before, and he has not escalated, meaning also involving Nato allies directly in the conflict,” Stoltenberg told The Times newspaper.
Stoltenberg said that he supported the United Kingdom and France in their decision to lift restrictions on Kiev’s use of long-range weapons against Russia. He argued that their use by Ukraine would not draw the alliance into conflict with Russia.
Putin said that NATO countries were essentially deciding whether to get directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict. He warned that direct participation of Western countries in the conflict would change its nature, forcing Russia to respond to emerging threats.
Meanwhile, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Wednesday that Hungary is concerned about the potential use of long-range arms to strike Russia, as this would contradict Europe’s security interests and heighten the risk of escalation. He emphasized that “Hungary is interested in peace, and every step that threatens escalation makes us concerned,” adding that the use of long-range missiles against targets deep in Russia would “increase the threat of escalation,” which runs counter to European security interests.
Canadian journalist outs himself as Canadian, Ukrainian intelligence collaborator
By Wyatt Reed · The Grayzone · September 3, 2024
Canada’s National Post is refusing to comment after one of its columnists revealed himself to be a collaborator with Western-aligned intelligence agencies. A Canadian activist is now threatening to sue the paper after the confessed spy smeared him in a front page article.
Adam Zivo, a columnist who covered the war in Ukraine for Canada’s National Post newspaper, has outed himself as an operative of Canadian and Ukrainian intelligence. The admission came as Zivo publicly leapt to the defense of Canada’s Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), in response to a wave of online mockery directed towards a post by the spy agency which asked readers, “Has a stranger ever tried to inflate your ego?,” before warning them that such flattery “could be elicitation.”
“People are dunking on this tweet but this actually happened to me in Odesa in early 2023 with a guy who seemed to be a Chinese spy,” Zivo volunteered. “I ended up organizing a small sting operation with two Ukrainian intelligence officers to figure out what his deal was,” he declared.
In a subsequent post, Zivo expanded on his repeated attempts to entrap a man he had encountered in Odessa, and whom he claimed was a Chinese intelligence agent. “I met the Chinese man and his wife at a restaurant while wearing a wire,” while “SBU officers watched us from a car parked outside, which had tinted windows,” Zivo stated.
He told Canada’s PressProgress that following his meeting with the supposed Chinese agent, “I drafted a detailed report which I quickly provided to the National Post, CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service] and the Ukrainian government. After the recorded dinner, I produced transcripts and a follow-up report which was also shared with these stakeholders.”
The National Post has so far refused to comment on the revelation. As PressProgress reported, “National Post Editor-in-Chief Rob Roberts and Managing Editor Carson Jerema did not respond to several requests for comment.”
In response to questions to that publication, Zivo insisted he kept his bosses at the National Post updated about his intelligence activities.
“I informed them of what was occurring and that I was working with local authorities to address my safety concerns,” Zivo said, though he reportedly insisted later that he “did not run this by my editors for a sign off,” because, since he was a “freelancer, not a staff writer,” he did not “need permission.”
According to Zivo, his working relationship with Canadian and Ukrainian intelligence services began in late 2022. None of his articles published in the National Post have disclosed his ties to foreign or domestic spy agencies.
Since then, Zivo has zealously advocated for rapid deliveries of heavy weapons to Ukraine. He has also used his column as a platform for denigrating those he deemed an impediment to the war effort – including both the Canadian military and the nation of Germany, which he accused of “reckless greed and a callous disregard for eastern European lives” for initially declining to send tanks to Ukraine.
Among Zivo’s targets was Dimitri Lascaris, a Canadian lawyer who narrowly lost the Canadian Green Party’s 2020 leadership election. In early 2023, Zivo made Lascaris the subject of a front-page report entitled, “Former Green party leadership candidate goes to Moscow to whitewash war.” In the column, Zivo accused Lascaris of “pro-Putin sympathies,” “seemingly endorsing pro-Kremlin propaganda,” and “uncritically and reflexively taking Russia’s side.”
Zivo also rang up the co-leader of Canada’s Green Party, Jonathan Pednault, to solicit criticism of Lascaris. In a parenthetical, Zivo stated that he had helped facilitate a solidarity tour of Kiev for Pednault, and “introduced him to some contacts for his trip, such as local Jewish and LGBTQ leaders.”
While hinting at his ties to the Ukrainian government, Zivo neglected once again to disclose his role as an intelligence collaborator.
“No corporate media outlet in Canada has taken an interest in this story”
Following Zivo’s unmasking as a Ukrainian intelligence collaborator, Lascaris took to social media to argue the reporter-turned-spook “perpetrated a fraud by concealing from me and the public his spying activities,” then proceeded to write an “article about me [which] falsely insinuated that I was working in the service of the Russian government.”
“The supreme irony here is that it was Zivo – not me – who was acting as a government agent,” Lascaris explained.
In comments to The Grayzone, Lascaris remarked that “Zivo has also violated the journalistic values of transparency and integrity because he secured an interview with me on false pretences, and when the National Post published Zivo’s many articles about the Ukraine war, neither Zivo nor the Post disclosed to the public that Zivo was a spy.”
Zivo has previously described himself as a “journalist,” “content vendor,” “filmmaker,” “activist” and – apparently ironically – as a “geopolitical analyst via an ecosystem of NATO-affiliated NGOs.”
Lascaris dismissed these labels as window dressing. “There’s now little doubt that Zivo wears only one hat: he is a shill for the Western military industrial complex,” he said.
“There are probably many more ‘journalists’ like Zivo in the Western corporate media. What is unusual about Zivo is that he bragged publicly about being a spy for Western intelligence agencies,” Lascaris added.
It is unknown whether other intelligence operatives are employed by the National Post, or its parent company, Postmedia News, which is owned by a pro-Trump hedge fund in the US known as Chatham Asset Management.
Describing Postmedia as “fanatically pro-Israel,” Lascaris accused the company’s newspapers of “attacking me for the past eight years,” noting that the hit pieces “started around the time that I became a prominent advocate for Palestinian human rights in Canada.”
But for Lascaris, deploying an actual spy to imply he was acting as a Kremlin asset was a step too far. He now says he is considering legal action against the National Post and its parent company, Postmedia News, which is Canada’s largest newspaper publisher.
“Because Zivo misled me… I sent a letter to the National Post’s editor-in-chief in which I threatened to sue the Post for fraud,” Lascaris explained, adding: “I’m awaiting the editor’s response.”
A handful of Canadian journalists have condemned Zivo on an individual basis, with the President of the Canadian Association of Journalists, Brent Jolly, describing Zivo’s intelligence activities as “problematic” and “ethically murky.” Jolly told PressProgress : “I don’t think we can go around and just have people one minute working for CSIS and the next writing a story about what an amazing job CSIS is doing.”
Sonya Fatah, the Associate Chair of Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Journalism, described Zivo’s actions as a major breach of journalistic ethics, stating: “I imagine most newsrooms would be horrified.”
But so far, Canadian mainstream media has done its best to ignore Zivo’s disturbing double game.
“As far as I know, no corporate media outlet in Canada has taken an interest in this story,” Lascaris said. “Although I am well known to the corporate media, no Canadian corporate media outlet has sought comment from me about this scandal.”
But outside the Western media bubble, Lascaris said he suspects that Zivo’s activities will have dangerous repercussions.
“It’s almost certain that Zivo’s admission will heighten Russian suspicions about Western corporate journalists. And it’s not just Russia. China and other states targeted by Western government belligerence are sure to take these revelations into account in their dealings with Western journalists,” according to Lascaris.
“Zivo said that his employer knew about his activities. As far as I know, Postmedia has not denied this, nor has it taken any action against Zivo. The logical inference to draw is that Canada’s largest newspaper publisher believes that Zivo did nothing wrong.”
Zivo’s admission that he worked with intelligence services “will only heighten the belief in Russia, China and elsewhere that Western media have been coopted by, and have become tools of, hostile Western governments” Lascaris emphasized.
“In essence, the National Post’s response to this scandal will inevitably make it harder for Western journalists to do their jobs in the non-Western world.”
NATO’s Destruction of Ukraine Under the Guise of “Helping”
Propaganda & Proxy Wars
By Glenn Diesen | September 17, 2024
In a recent public event, the heads of the CIA and the MI6 assessed developments in the Ukraine War. The head of the MI6 applauded the invasion of Kursk for having changed the “narrative” of the war, while the head of the CIA also outlined the objective to “put a dent” in the Kremlin’s narrative about the development of the war. There can be no doubt that the invasion of Kursk was an utter disaster for Ukraine and NATO. However, controlling the narrative is imperative as the Western public will support financing the war if they believe they are helping Ukraine and the war can be won.
During the 20-year-long NATO occupation of Afghanistan, public support was also maintained by constructing a narrative of progress and helping the people of Afghanistan. Every week the Western public was reassured by the media that the war effort in Afghanistan was making great progress, until NATO fled in a great hurry as people fell off planes. Much like how the Pentagon Papers exposed the deceit of the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan Papers exposed how the war was an unmitigated disaster. Yet, in both instances, a rosy picture was presented by the media.
A leaked CIA report outlined how they could increase public support for NATO’s occupation of Afghanistan by selling it to the public as helping women. The report revealed that “Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the ISAF role in combating the Taliban”, and framing NATO’s occupation as a crusade for women’s rights could “overcome pervasive scepticism among women in Western Europe towards the ISAF mission”.[1] NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg even co-authored an article with Hollywood star Angelina Jolie with the title: “Why NATO must defend women’s rights”.[2] Appealing to the best in human nature to mobilise public support for doing the worst in human nature is a good description of war propaganda.
Selling the Ukraine War
The Ukraine War is sold to the public as being merely selfless “help” from NATO for Ukraine to defend itself against an expansionist Russia, motivated solely by territorial acquisition and restoring the Soviet Union. Framing the war as a simple struggle between good and evil is why NATO cannot negotiate or even pursue basic diplomacy, and peace depends on good defeating evil. In what is close to a copyright infringement of “war is peace” in George Orwell’s 1984, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg asserts that “weapons are the way to peace”.
In political propaganda, it is common to frame a war through a concept that everyone agrees with, such as the need to “help” Ukraine. We all want to help Ukraine preserve its sovereignty, territory and the lives of its citizens. However, instead of discussing what would help Ukraine, such concepts are given a fixed meaning to shut down debates. Any argument can then be framed as either being pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian. However, what is bad for Russia is not automatically good for Ukraine. Yet, people who can be taught to speak in clichés can be taught to think in clichés. Commentary on NATO policies toward Russia is similarly framed as being pro-Western or pro-Russian, which circumvents an actual discussion about whether these policies are in the West’s interests or not.
Concepts such as “helping Ukraine” can then be filled with any content that often contradicts what “helping” entails, but corresponds with proxy war. When we unpack what NATO frames as “helping Ukraine”, we find that it rarely has the support from the majority of Ukrainians and it almost always ends up with disastrous consequences. So how does NATO “help Ukraine”?
NATO Expansion
NATO dismisses any accusations of an expansionist agenda by presenting itself as a passive actor that merely responds to Ukraine’s desire to join NATO. This narrative conceals the reality that every poll between 1991 and 2014 demonstrates that only approximately 20% of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO. When NATO promised future membership to Ukraine in 2008, 43 percent of Ukrainians considered NATO a threat to Ukraine and merely 15 percent associated NATO with protection.[3] Forty-six percent of Ukrainians answered it was more important to have close relations with Russia, while only 10 percent of Ukrainians supported close relations with the US over Russia.[4] In 2011, a NATO document acknowledged: “The greatest challenge for Ukrainian-NATO relations lies in the perception of NATO among the Ukrainian people. NATO membership is not widely supported in the country, with some polls suggesting that popular support of it is less than 20%”.[5]
Even after Russia seized Crimea in response to the Western-backed coup in 2014, only a small minority of Ukrainians wanted integration with NATO (10.3% in the South and 13.1% in the East).[6] Nonetheless, Ukraine was still pulled toward NATO even though CIA Director Burns had warned already back in 2008 that it would likely trigger a civil war in Ukraine and “Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face”.[7] In December 2020, former British ambassador to Russia Roderic Lyne similarly warned that attempting to push Ukraine into NATO “was stupid on every level at that time. If you want to start a war with Russia, that’s the best way of doing it. Moreover, any poll in Ukraine showed that two thirds of the Ukrainian public did not want NATO membership”.[8] If the Ukrainians did not want NATO membership and we knew it would trigger a war, why was it “pro-Ukrainian”?
Regime Change in Kiev
In February 2014, NATO countries toppled the government in Ukraine under the guise of supporting a “democratic revolution”. Yanukovich had been elected in what the OSCE had recognised to be a free and fair election, and there was no evidence that Yanukovich would not have stepped down if he had lost in the next election. The Maidan protests did not enjoy democratic majority support from the Ukrainians and even fewer supported a coup.[9] British Foreign Minister William Hague deceived the public by claiming that the toppling of President Yanukovich had been done in compliance with the constitution, contrary to the clear rules in the Ukrainian constitution that specified procedures for removing the head of state.[10] A phone call leaked two weeks before the coup, exposed how Washington was planning the coup and hand-picked the new government that would be installed.[11] NATO supported the toppling of the democratically elected government that attempted to bridge a divided society, and replaced it with a divisive pro-NATO/anti-Russian government. Yet criticise the Western-backed coup in Kiev and you will be branded to be “anti-Ukrainian” and “pro-Russian”. In contrast, the people who set Ukraine on a path to destruction against their will claim to “stand with Ukraine”.
Asserting Administrative Control over Ukraine
On the first day after the coup, the head of Ukraine’s intelligence services in the new government that the US had hand-picked, called the CIA and MI6 to start a partnership for a covert war against Russia.[12] This partnership was a key reason why Russia decided to intervene militarily eight years later in February 2022.[13] The Washington Post reported: “the CIA has spent tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine’s Soviet-formed services into potent allies against Moscow”.[14] The US then also strengthened the far-right fascist groups in Ukraine as they functioned as a veto power on any efforts to seek peace with Russia.
Several Westerners took key positions in the Ukrainian government. In 2014, Natalie Jaresko took the position of Finance Minister of Ukraine and received Ukrainian citizenship on the same day as she took the job. Jaresko was a former US State Department official and former Economic Section Chief of the US Embassy in Ukraine. She transitioned from representing American interests in Ukraine, to representing Ukraine. The general prosecutor of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, complained that since 2014, “the most shocking thing is that all the [government] appointments were made in agreement with the United States”. According to Shokin, Washington’s behaviour indicated that they “believed that Ukraine was their fiefdom”.[15] Biden would later take credit for having fired Ukraine’s General Prosecutor, who had opened an investigation into the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Three months after the coup in February 2014, Hunter Biden and a close family friend of US Secretary of State, John Kerry, became board members of Burisma.[16]
After Russia invaded in February 2022, the US further strengthened its grip over Ukraine. In 2023, an American transgender who argued that Russians are not human beings became the new spokesperson for Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Forces. As Ukraine’s situation became more precarious and dependence on the West increased, Kiev largely outsourced the post-war reconstruction process to BlackRock and J.P. Morgan to manage the Ukraine Development Fund. The US asserting administrative control over the Ukrainian government was depicted as helping Ukraine with democratic governance and fighting corruption.
De-Russifying Ukraine
Decoupling Ukraine from Russia was a key objective to permanently place Ukraine in NATO’s orbit. The US-orchestrated Orange Revolution in 2004 installed the Yushchenko government that distanced itself from Russia and pursued NATO membership, however, the public eventually reversed this trajectory by electing Yanukovich. At the end of Yushchenko’s presidential term, Newsweek labelled Yushchenko the world’s most unpopular leader with a 2.7 percent approval rating.[17]
US support for the de-Russification of Ukrainian society entailed purging the political opposition, arresting the main opposition leader, banning independent media, banning the Orthodox Church, and purging the Russian language and culture. The first decree by the new Ukrainian Parliament in 2014 was a call to repeal Russian as a regional language. By 2024, Ukraine even had language inspectors to counter the spread of the Russian language.[18] The BBC reported that after the coup, Kiev’s city council was covered with large neo-Nazi banners, the American confederate flag, and portraits of the fascist ally of Hitler, Stepan Bandera.[19] A new nationalist identity was supported based on the far-right in which street names with the shared Russian or Soviet history were replaced with fascists who collaborated with Hitler. To de-Russify a country that lived in the same state as Russia for centuries and shared language, culture and faith, could not possibly coexist with democracy, stability or basic human rights. Such policies caused a deep rift in the social cohesion of the country and caused misery for millions of Ukrainians who became second-rate citizens in their own country.
Yet, these developments could be supported under the guise of “helping Ukraine” to decouple from Russia as a condition for asserting its distinctive identity and sovereignty.
The War Against Donbas
After the coup in 2014, people in Donbas rejected the new government in Kiev that had seized power with the support of the West, as predicted by CIA Director Burns. The first instinct of the new authorities and their backers in Washington was to send the military to destroy the uprising. Yet, the Ukrainian army was weak and regular soldiers were not comfortable with turning their guns on their own population. This problem was overcome by recruiting fascist militias in Western Ukraine, such as Azov, who were happy to kill. Yevhan Karas, the leader of the fascist group C14, informed his audience that the West did not give weapons to help Ukrainians but did so because “we have started a war” that was fulfilling the goals of the West. The nationalists were supported by the West due to their resilience: “because we have fun, we have fun killing and we have fun fighting”.[20]
Kiev launched an “anti-terrorist operation” against Donbas, which killed more than 14.000 Ukrainians. Ignoring all evidence about the involvement of local Ukrainians in the uprising, the Western media largely denied any agency as all fighting was done by “pro-Russian” militias or Russians themselves. Thus, the war against Ukrainians in Donbas could be sold to the Western public as helping Ukraine fight Russian influence.
Sabotaging the Minsk-2 Peace Agreement
The fighting between Kiev and Donbas came to an end with the Minsk-2 peace agreement. Both Poroshenko and Zelensky attempted to implement the Minsk-2 agreement before being opposed by the US-backed far-right.
The BBC reported in August 2015 that a clear majority of 265 MPs out of 450 had supported the first reading of the decentralisation bill to grant more autonomy to Donbas. This sparked a violent veto by the far right, it then reported: ‘Protesters led by the populist Radical Party and the ultra-nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party—who oppose any concession to the Russian-backed separatists’ clashed with riots police that resulted in the death of a national guard member and over 100 injured.[21] Poroshenko subsequently began to abandon his efforts to implement the Minsk-2 agreement.
Zelensky was therefore able to win a landslide election victory with 73% of the votes in 2019. He won over the Ukrainian public by running on a platform of peace by promising to implement the Minsk agreement to ensure peace After Zelensky became president, he was threatened by the US-backed far right and a protest was arranged in Kiev in which approximately 10,000 people rallied against President Zelensky’s plan to end the war, which was denounced as “capitulation”.[22] After failing to assert control over the far-right groups in the military, Zelensky had to align himself closer with the nationalists and thus rejected peace with Donbas.[23]
The US assisted its government in Ukraine to ignore the UN-approved Minsk-2 peace agreement by building an increasingly powerful Ukrainian army and tying it closer to NATO. Germany and France had negotiated the Minsk-2 peace agreement in 2015, although they later revealed this had been a deceit. Angela Merkel argued in an interview with both Bild and Spiegel that the Minsk Agreement enabled her to buy time for Ukraine to build itself into a powerful and well-fortified country.[24] When her French counterpart, former president François Hollande, was asked about Merkel’s statement that the Minsk-2 peace agreement was merely intended to buy time, he confirmed: “Yes, Angela Merkel is right on this point” and added that the conflict with Russia would be resolved on the battlefield: “There will only be a way out of the conflict when Russia fails on the ground”.[25] Retired German General Harald Kujat, the former head of the German Bundeswehr and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, later argued that the West’s sabotage of the Minsk agreement was “a breach of international law… it turns out that we are the ones who do not comply with international agreements”.[26]
NATO countries had confirmed for 7 years that the Minsk-2 peace agreement was the only path to a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, while concurrently sabotaging the only path to peace. This path to war was done against the overwhelming will of the Ukrainian population, as evidenced by their consistent voting for a peace platform. Why should NATO efforts to overturn the result of the Ukrainian elections to sabotage the peace agreement be considered “pro-Ukrainian” or “helping Ukraine”?
Refusing Russia’s Demand for Security Guarantees in 2021
Russia demanded in 2021 security guarantees to mitigate the threats from NATO’s growing footprint in Ukraine, otherwise, the escalating threat would be resolved by military means. President Biden warned Ukraine that Russia was preparing its military for an invasion, yet he did not want to offer any security guarantees to prevent an invasion.
Kurt Volker, the former US Ambassador to NATO and former US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations from 2017 to 2019, even argued that Biden should not make any agreements with Putin as “the best possible outcome is not one of modest agreements and a commitment to ‘predictability,’ but one of a lack of agreements altogether. Success is confrontation”.[27] NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also acknowledged that halting NATO expansion was required to prevent an invasion: “President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And [it] was a pre-condition for not invad[ing] Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that”.[28] Under a fierce security competition in which Russia feared for its security, “helping Ukraine” would certainly have involved mitigating some of Russia’s security concerns.
Sabotaging the Istanbul Peace Negotiations in 2022
After the Minsk agreement had been sabotaged for 7 years and no security guarantees were forthcoming, Russia decided in February 2022 to use military force to impose a political settlement. On the first day after the Russian invasion, Zelensky confirmed “Today we heard from Moscow that they still want to talk. They want to talk about Ukraine’s neutral status… We are not afraid to talk about neutral status”.[29] On the third day after the invasion, Moscow and Kiev announced they would hold peace talks “without preconditions” in Belarus.[30] Zelensky even suggested later a “collective security agreement” to ensure that the security concerns of both Russia and Ukraine would be met.[31]
The US had other objectives. On the first day after the Russian invasion, Washington rejected peace without preconditions as Russia first had to withdraw all its forces from Ukraine.[32] Washington even suggested that it would not support Ukraine’s effort to resolve the conflict through a compromise as “this is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine”.[33] In March 2022, Zelensky argued in an interview with the Economist that “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.[34]
According to the leader of Zelensky’s political party and Zelensky’s advisor, Russia and Ukraine were close to an agreement. Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Chalyi, who participated in peace talks with Russia, confirms Putin “tried everything” to reach a peace agreement and they were able “to find a very real compromise”.[35]
Retired German General Harald Kujat, the former head of the German Bundeswehr and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, argued that NATO provoked the war and that the US and UK sabotaged the Istanbul peace negotiations as “the West was not ready for an end to the war”.[36] The Turkish mediators confirmed: “I had the impression that there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue—let the war continue and Russia gets weaker. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine”.[37] The Israeli mediators reached the same conclusion as former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett recognised “both sides very much wanted a ceasefire” but the West “blocked” the peace agreement as a “decision by the West to keep striking Putin” rather than pursuing peace.[38]
After interviews with American and British leaders, Niall Ferguson reported in Bloomberg that a decision had been made for “the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin” as “the only end game now is the end of Putin regime”.[39] Over the next two and a half years, numerous American political and military leaders expressed their support for the war as it was a great opportunity to weaken Russia as a strategic rival without using and losing American troops. The decision to fight Russia with Ukrainians was nonetheless framed consistently in the media as “helping Ukraine”.
Keeping Ukraine in the War
As Zelensky had argued in March 2022, some of its Western partners preferred “long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.[40] The Americans were pressuring Ukraine to launch the disastrous counter-offensive of 2023, as a “senior Ukrainian military official recalled, the Americans were nagging about a delayed start”.[41] The New York Times reported that “American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive”.[42]
However, despite the disastrous casualties among the Ukrainians and the failure of the counter-offensive, the Washington Post could report that “for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance”.[43] As Ukraine continues to bleed dry in the war of attrition, there are more and more videos on Ukrainian Telegram channels of more aggressive “recruitment” tactics that involve grabbing Ukrainians off the street and throwing them into vans. Yet, the discussions in NATO countries revolve around lowering the conscription age in Ukraine or deporting Ukrainian refugees that can be used to refill the trenches.
If these were our own soldiers dying in the hundreds of thousands, would we not have begun negotiations a long time ago? The incoming EU foreign policy chief has rejected any diplomacy with Russia as Putin is a “war criminal”, while also punishing EU member states such as Hungary for attempting to restore diplomacy and negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. NATO could help Ukraine by using the promise to end expansion as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Russia. Instead, NATO continues to threaten further expansion after the war, which makes any peace agreement impossible. When Ukraine begins to collapse, the US and NATO will likely call for a ceasefire to freeze the frontlines to yet again buy some time to rebuild its Ukrainian army and fight another day.
As we reflect on NATO’s policies toward Ukraine, can we conclude that they have been in the interest of Ukraine or had the support of the Ukrainians? Has it been in the interest of the West? The ability to ask critical questions is prevented by presenting all policies as being either pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian, in which dissent is effectively criminalised. It is a common phenomenon that when political leaders create propaganda, they often end up deceiving themselves.
…..
– The text includes excerpts from my book “The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order” https://www.claritypress.com/product/the-ukraine-war-the-eurasian-world-order/
[1] WIKILEAKS – – CIA Red Cell Special Memorandum; Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission-Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough, March 11, 2010
[2] Why Nato must defend women’s rights | Jens Stoltenberg and Angelina Jolie | The Guardian
[3] J. Ray and N. Esipova, ‘Ukrainians Likely Support Move Away From NATO’, Gallup, 2 April 2010.
[4] C. English, ‘Ukrainians See More Value in Ties With Russia Than U.S.’, Gallup, 15 February 2008.
[5] 2011 – 172 CDSDG 11 E REV1 – UKRAINE – MALAN REPORT | NATO PA (nato-pa.int).
[6] GALLUP® CORP Template (usagm.gov)
[7] W.J. Burns, ‘Nyet means nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines’, Wikileaks, 1 February 2008.
[8] R. Lyne, ‘The UC Interview Series: Sir Roderic Lyne by Nikita Gryazin’, Oxford University Consortium, 18 December 2020.
[9] BBC, ‘Ukraine’s revolution and the far right, BBC, 7 March 2014.
[10] D. Morrison, ‘How William Hague Deceived the House of Commons on Ukraine’, Huffington Post, 10 March 2014.
[11] BBC, ‘Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call’, BBC, 7 February 2014.
[12] The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
[13] The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
[14] G. Miller and I. Khurshudyan, ‘Ukrainian spies with deep ties to CIA wage shadow war against Russia’, The Washington Post’, 23 October 2023.
[15] M.M. Abrahms, ‘Does Ukraine Have Kompromat on Joe Biden?’, Newsweek, 8 August 2023.
[16] P. Sonne and J. Grimaldi, ‘Biden’s Son, Kerry Family Friend Join Ukrainian Gas Producer’s Board’, The Wall Street Journal, 13 May 2014.
[17] O. Matthews, ‘Viktor Yushchenko’s Star Has Fallen’, Newsweek, 13 March 2009.
[18] Language inspectors to start working in Frankivsk | УНН (unn.ua)
[19] BBC, ‘Ukraine’s Revolution and the Far Right’, BBC, 7 March 2014.
[20] A. Rubenstein and M. Blumenthal, ‘How Ukraine’s Jewish president Zelensky made peace with neo-Nazi paramilitaries on front lines of war with Russia’, The Grayzone, 4 March 2022.
[21] BBC, ‘Ukraine crisis: Deadly anti-autonomy protest outside parliament’, BBC, 31 August 2015.
[22] A. Korniienko, ‘Thousands rally in Kyiv against Zelensky’s plan to end war with Russia’, Kyiv Post, 6 October 2019.
[23] J. Melanovski, ‘Ukrainian President Zelensky deepens alliance with far right’, WSWS, 30 April 2021.
[24] A. Osang, ‘You’re Done with Power Politics’, Spiegel, 1 December 2022.
[25] T. Prouvost ‘Hollande: ‘There will only be a way out of the conflict when Russia fails on the ground’’, The Kyiv Independent, 28 December 2022.
[26] Emma, ‘Russland will verhandeln!’ [Russia wants to negotiate!], Emma, 4 March 2023.
[27] K. Volker, ‘What Does a Successful Biden-Putin Summit Look Like? Not What You Think’, CEPA, 2 June 2021.
[28] J. Stoltenberg, ‘Opening remarks’, NATO, 7 September 2023.
[29] V. Zelensky, ‘Address by the President to Ukrainians at the end of the first day of Russia’s attacks’, President of Ukraine: Official website, 25 February 2022.
[30] S. Raskin and L. Brown, ‘Ukraine and Russia to meet for peace talks ‘without preconditions,’ Zelensky says’, New York Post, 27 February 2022.
[31] M. Hirsh, ‘Hints of a Ukraine-Russia Deal?’, Foreign Policy, 8 March 2022.
[32] US Department of State, ‘Department Press Briefing’, US Department of State, 25 February 2022.
[33] US Department of State, ‘Department Press Briefing’, US Department of State, 21 March 2022.
[34] The Economist. ‘Volodymyr Zelensky on why Ukraine must defeat Putin’ The Economist, 27 March 2022.
[35] Breaking the Stalemate to Find Peace: The Russia-Ukraine War – A Geneva Security Debate (youtube.com)
[36] J. Helmer, ‘Whr. Gen. Kujat: Ukraine War is Lost, Germany Now Faces an Angry Russia… Alone’, Veterans Today, 25 January 2023.
[37] R. Semonsen, ‘Former Israeli PM: West Blocked Russo-Ukraine Peace Deal’, The European Conservative, 7 February 2023.
[38] N. Bennett, ‘Bennett speaks out’, YouTube Channel of Naftali Bennett, 4 February 2023.
[39] N. Ferguson, ‘Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S.’, Bloomberg, 22 March 2022.
[40] The Economist. ‘Volodymyr Zelensky on why Ukraine must defeat Putin’ The Economist, 27 March 2022.
[41] ‘Miscalculations, divisions marked offensive planning by U.S., Ukraine’, The Washington Post, 4 December 2023.
[42] ‘Troop Deaths and Injuries in Ukraine War Near 500,000, U.S. Officials Say’, The New York Times, 18 August 2023.
[43] D. Ignatius, ‘The West feels gloomy about Ukraine. Here’s why it shouldn’t’, The Washington Post, 18 July 2023.
Russia Hits Energy Infrastructure Supporting Ukraine’s Military-Industrial Complex
Sputnik – 17.09.2024
Russian forces carried out strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities that supply the military-industrial complex, the Ministry of Defense has reported. Weapons and ammunition depots were also hit.
“Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces, and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces have struck energy facilities that support the activities of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, as well as weapons, ammunition, and logistics storage sites, along with concentrations of enemy personnel and military equipment in 145 areas,” reads the ministry’s report.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, air defenses also shot down a US-made HIMARS rocket and 36 drones over the past day.
In June, Volodymyr Zelensky stated that nine gigawatts of energy generation capacity had been destroyed in Ukraine, which amounts to 80% of thermal power generation and a third of hydropower production.
In turn, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko specified that the country has lost half of its generating capacity, which would not be enough to survive the winter, and that electricity imports would be insufficient to cover the deficit.
In early September, the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council published a forecast by Yuriy Korolchuk, an expert from the Ukrainian Institute of Energy Strategies. According to one scenario, Ukrainians could be left without heat and light for up to 20 hours a day during the upcoming winter. This could happen if strikes on energy infrastructure continue, combined with other conditions. In the expert’s optimistic forecast, power outages could last up to 12 hours per day.
Ukraine avoids using Western tanks on the battlefield fearing to lose them
By Ahmed Adel | September 17, 2024
The Wall Street Journal newspaper writes that the Ukrainian Armed Forces avoid using tanks supplied by NATO countries because they fear their destruction or capture. At the same time, the AP reports, citing US officials, that the US will lose the possibility of providing Ukraine with $5.8 billion in military aid at the end of September if Congress does not authorise the Pentagon to use funds from the PDA program.
“Tanks were once the king of the battlefield. But the proliferation of drones in Ukraine means the large, noisy vehicles can be spotted and targeted within minutes. That has seen dozens of cutting-edge Western tanks used only sparingly in the battle they were meant to shape, while others have been damaged, destroyed or captured,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
According to the newspaper, the armoured vehicles supplied to them are in the field many kilometres away from the front line, as there is a high risk of losing them in the Russian Army’s attacks.
Meanwhile, General James Rainey, who heads the US Army Futures Command and is responsible for modernisation projects, called for urgent modernisation of US armoured units.
“In the near term, we absolutely need to urgently make some adjustments to maintain the survivability of our armored formations,” Rainey told the newspaper.
In August, Military Watch magazine reported that Ukraine had lost about 20 M1A1 Abrams tanks out of 31 delivered by the US in the past six months.
“The latest loss brings the total losses of M1A1 Abrams tanks in Ukraine close to 20, out of just 31 of the vehicles delivered, with all losses occurring within the past six months. With unconfirmed reports indicating that the Abrams was destroyed using a handheld anti-tank missile system, likely a Kornet, the destruction of the latest vehicle stands out from all other recent kills which were all achieved by drone strikes or by precision guided artillery,” the magazine revealed.
Forbes magazine reported earlier this month that Kiev lacks modern military equipment to form new brigades to replace front-line units as part of the rotation.
“In practice, these brigades are desperately short of modern weaponry. And that could become a serious problem for the Ukrainians as the new but poorly equipped brigades replace older but better equipped brigades as the latter brigades finally rotate off the line of contact—after 18 months of non-stop fighting, in some cases,” the Forbes article said.
The Kremlin, for its part, has repeatedly said that arms supplies to Ukraine prevent the achievement of a peace agreement and directly involve NATO countries in hostilities. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the US and NATO are participating in the conflict, including not only supplying weapons but also training Ukrainian military personnel on the territory of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and other countries.
However, US supplies could begin drying up since Republicans and Democrats in Congress must agree on a new budget bill before September 30. If not, the federal government could suspend work in early October, meaning there will be a shutdown.
“About $5.8 billion in presidential drawdown authority (PDA) will expire,” the report said. However, officials cited by AP expressed hope that lawmakers would extend powers to fund their programs for a year.
“Delays in passing that $61 billion for Ukraine earlier this year triggered dire battlefield conditions as Ukrainian forces ran low on munitions and Russian forces were able to make gains. Officials have blamed the monthslong deadlocked Congress for Russia’s ability to take more territory,” the report added.
Yet, even if the funding is passed and Ukraine receives a new stream of weapons, they will make little difference to the outcome of the war. The Abrams was heralded as a game-changer that would overcome the power of Russia’s T-90M tanks, but this proved to be a false dawn, just like the F-16 fighter jets and Stryker armoured vehicles, among many other weapons that have failed to stop Russian forces from capturing more territory.
Due to these weapons, including Western tanks, failing to have the expected effect against Russian forces, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on September 11 that he held talks with his Ukrainian counterparts Andrii Sybiha and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about launching long-range missiles into Russian territory. Several experts have warned that a direct clash between Russia and NATO, both of which have nuclear arsenals, would have unpredictable consequences for the world.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned NATO the very next day that Ukrainian attacks with NATO weapons on Russian territory would mean that NATO countries were at war with Russia. Direct NATO involvement, Putin stressed, changes the very essence of the conflict.
Although Ukraine launching Western long-range missiles will certainly change the nature of the war, as already stressed, it just points to the utterly desperate situation the Kiev regime finds itself in. Yet, despite this evident desperation, there are still no legitimate signs that Zelensky is prepared to begin peace negotiations with Russia.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
CIA Veteran: Ukrainian Connection in Trump’s Assassination Attempt Cannot Be Ignored
Sputnik – 16.09.2024
The fact that Ryan Routh was “an ardent supporter of the Ukraine and wants to see Russia attacked, and clearly saw Trump as a threat to Ukraine’s future receipt of US military support,” cannot be hidden, says former US State Department official and retired CIA intelligence officer Larry Johnson.
“I’m sure that the Kiev regime is going to distance itself from this. The Kiev regime, along with the apparent support of the CIA, has put together a death list of Americans. A list of Americans who ought to be killed. It’s not a list to send them nasty letters. Scott Ritter’s on it, I think Douglas McGregor’s on it. It is not out of line for them to have done this,” Johnson tells Sputnik.
He describes the fact that Routh was apparently privy to Trump’s whereabouts as “puzzling”, given the latter does not make his schedule public.
“Who leaked that to him? How did he know? Was there somebody inside the Trump team that told him? Was there somebody inside the Secret Service who told him? Was it a foreign intelligence service? Was the Ukrainian intelligence that alerted? That has to be investigated,” Johnson remarks.
According to him, the assassination attempt is going to have a detrimental effect on the support for Ukraine in the United States, at least among Trump’s supporters.
Johnson also suggests that many people in the current US government do not want Trump to become president again and would rather see him dead.
“It would not shock me at all that there would be some elements inside the government that would get involved in that kind of plot. The Secret Service, I think it’s on notice and the focus is on it in such a way that they can’t afford to allow sloppiness and poor planning and poor security to go unanswered,” he says.
Would Be Assassin is a Media Darling
Ryan Wesley Routh, former roofer from N. Carolina and implacable foe of Trump and Putin, has often been approvingly quoted by MSM
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | September 16, 2024
While we often hear that middle-aged southern white men pose a grave threat to American democracy and public safety, Ryan Wesley Routh—a former roofer from North Carolina who looks and sounds like a dumb cracker —has, in recent years, been a model of anti-Trump and anti-Putin sentiment. Also notable is the fact that in 2002, he was charged with the felony possession of a fully automatic firearm.
The following is a collection of statements he has made to various MSM outlets over the last couple of years.
“It’s a pretty big yard, but the front bank is completely full,” Ryan Routh, an American volunteer who started the memorial last year, said. “There may be 10,000 at this point. ‘Flags of the fallen’ is what I’ve been calling it.”
Routh, a former construction worker who lives in Hawaii, is one of the thousands of foreigners who, after seeing news reports about the invasion, travelled into Ukraine in early 2022 to volunteer as fighters or medics.
“Most of the Ukrainian authorities do not want these soldiers,” said Ryan Routh, head of the International Volunteer Center in Ukraine, a private organization which helps foreigners seeking to assist the war effort connect with military units and aid groups. “I have had partners meeting with [Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense] every week and still have not been able to get them to agree to issue one single visa.”
The New York Times article backs up the Russian Defense Ministry’s information regarding the countries which are actively trying to recruit mercenaries to join the fight in Ukraine. It wrote about Ryan Routh, a former construction worker from North Carolina who spent several months in Ukraine last year and is now seeking recruits among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. He plans to move them to Ukraine from Pakistan and Iran – in some cases, illegally. Nevertheless, dozens of people have apparently expressed an interest.
With Legion growth stalling, Ryan Routh, a former construction worker from Greensboro, N.C., is seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. Mr. Routh, who spent several months in Ukraine last year, said he planned to move them, in some cases illegally, from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. He said dozens had expressed interest. “We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it’s such a corrupt country,” he said in an interview from Washington.
The man behind the wall of banners, Ryan Routh, told CNA that he posted the flags to pay tribute to the nations that have citizens fighting in Ukraine’s foreign legion, the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine. Routh said there have been no protests about the presence of the Taiwan flag so far, but even if China is dissatisfied, “I can order another 1,000, they can’t touch my flags.”
Routh, 56, originally hails from Hawaii, but most recently worked in the construction industry in North Carolina and has no military background. He came to Kyiv more than two months ago to show his support for Ukraine and wanted to join the foreign legion.
However, due to his age, he was unable to do so, and he is instead currently assisting the legion in recruiting volunteers for the Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie units in Kharkiv. Thus far, Routh has assisted in recruiting 70 volunteers to join the fight against Russia.
Routh began posting flags on the wall of a sandbagged monument in Kyiv’s Independence Square. He told the news agency that he included Taiwan’s flag because he had met at least five Taiwanese volunteers serving in the legion over the past two months and learned about Taiwan’s contribution to Ukraine’s war effort.
According to Routh, he has yet to receive any protests from China about the presence of the Taiwan flag. He said that any pressure that would come from China would be “nothing” compared to the daily assault by Russian forces on every soldier who supports Ukraine.
He said that he will continue to stay in Kyiv and encourage more people to fight against Russia. European countries deliver truckloads of food, medical supplies, and military equipment, but Ukraine may need three to four times more support, estimated Routh.
The volunteer pointed out that there are only 50 national flags on the stone wall, meaning that there are over 100 countries that do not have a single soldier that has volunteered to fight for Ukraine, “This is unacceptable.” He emphasized the war between Russia and Ukraine is a battle of good versus evil.
Routh asserted that at this critical moment, all countries should give their soldiers unpaid leave and provide air tickets to fly to Ukraine to participate in the war to prevent Russia from starting another war. “We should be united and share success and failure, which is what these flags stand for,” said Routh.
Thus, Routh has become a seemingly improbable face and voice of prevailing Democrat Party sentiment and foreign policy orthodoxy.
Ukraine war turns into Russian roulette
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | September 16, 2024
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with the US President Joe Biden in the White House on Friday with the question of the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine to hit deep inside Russia on their agenda of conversation. But there were no announcements, nor was there any joint press conference.
Starmer later told the media that the talks were “productive” but concentrated on “strategy” rather than a “particular step or tactic”. He did not signal any decision on allowing Kiev to fire long-range missiles into Russia.
Starmer said no final decision had been taken on the Storm Shadow missiles and hinted that further developments may follow at the gathering of the UN General Assembly later this month. “We’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA in just a few days time with a wider group of individuals,” he said.
One reason for such extreme secrecy is that the US and UK are intensely conscious of the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s explicit warning on Thursday that any use of western long-range missiles to strike Russia “will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.”
Putin added in measured words: “This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries –- are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
Admittedly, Putin has given similar warnings before also, but did not follow through even when western weaponry was used by Ukraine with impunity to invade Russia recently. So much so that Biden was plainly dismissive about the latest Kremlin warning, saying, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”
On its part, Moscow estimates that although no official decision on the matter has been announced, it has already been made and communicated to Kiev, and that Moscow would have to respond with actions of its own.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, Moscow’s point person on the diplomatic track, was quoted as saying on Saturday, “The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given (to Kiev), so we [Russia] are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the country’s security council, went a step further saying that the West is testing Russia’s patience but it is not limitless. He said Ukraine’s invasion already gave Russia formal grounds to use its nuclear arsenal.
Medvedev warned that Moscow could either resort to nuclear weapons in the end, or use some of its non-nuclear but still deadly novel weapons for a large-scale attack. “And that would be it. A giant, grey, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities’,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, referring to Kiev.
Putin, in his remark on Thursday once again rejected the Anglo-American sophistry that it is Ukraine that will be using any western long-range missiles and not NATO. He pointed out that the Ukrainian army “is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites…
“most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this. Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.”
Interestingly, neither Washington nor London has so far refuted Putin’s above explanation and, curiously, it has been expunged altogether from British press reports — fearing, perhaps, that public opinion might militate against such direct involvement by the UK in a war against Russia in a combat role!
Moscow anticipates that the US-UK ploy may be to test the waters by first (openly) using Britain’s Storm Shadow long-range air-launched cruise missile, which has already been supplied to Ukraine. On Friday, Russia expelled six British diplomats assigned to the Moscow embassy in a clear warning that Uk-Russia ties will be affected. Russia has already warned the UK of severe consequences if the Storm Shadow were to be used to hit Russian territory.
What makes the developing situation extremely dangerous is that the cat-and-mouse game so far about NATO’s covert involvement in the Ukraine war is giving way to a game of Russian roulette that follows the laws of Probability Theory.
That is to say, although Russia cannot be defeated or evicted from the territories in eastern and southern Ukraine that it annexed, Washington and London regard that the final outcome of this random event cannot yet be determined before it occurs; it may even be any one of several possible outcomes, and the probability cannot be ruled out that the actual outcome might even be determined by chance.
Apparently, Biden believes that Russia’s current battlefield dominance is a random phenomenon and possible outcomes range from an annihilation of Russian military power to a large-scale disruption of life in Russia and a possible collapse of Russia — at a minimum, the weakening of the Russian hand in any future negotiations. Simply put, the war is now about Russia rather than Ukraine and long-range missiles can be a game changer.
Thus, Biden, with no political constraints working on him anymore, is escalating the war to create new facts on the ground before his presidency ends in January, which may create conditions for permanent NATO military presence on Ukrainian territory and present Russia with a fait accompli.
Such a strategy built on the quicksands of probability is akin to a game of Russian roulette — an act of bravado. Indeed, Biden’s options to support Ukraine are shrinking with each escalation, As the Wall Street Journal puts it, “With only four months left in the Biden administration and little hope of Congress approving additional funding for Ukraine no matter who wins the presidency, the White House is debating how best to help Kyiv given its limited toolbox.”
Equally, Europe’s interest in the war is also waning. European politics is becoming unpredictable with the ascendancy of the far-right in Germany, the crisis of leadership in French politics, the relative decline of EU’s economy vis-a-vis global rivals due to limited innovation, high energy prices and skills gaps, etc. and, of course, the overarching economic crisis in Europe with no end in sight, as brought out starkly in the recent report by Mario Draghi.
Basically, Biden is pre-setting the trajectory of the war beyond next January so that even after his retirement, his policy approach aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia remains on track. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Saturday that Washington is working on a “substantial” round of further assistance for Kiev. He confirmed a meeting this month between Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky.
Sullivan noted that Biden is working to put Ukraine in the “best possible position to prevail” during his final months in office. The bottom line is that Biden’s war strategy is attenuating as “escalation management” while NATO transitions as a direct party to hostilities.
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Book Excerpt
Biden’s Closed Circle on Russia
An excerpt from ‘The Great Betrayal’
By James W. Carden | The Realist Review | June 14, 2026
Joe Biden’s presidency may ultimately come to be seen as a cautionary tale. Here was a president who showed little interest in entertaining arguments that might have contradicted his most deeply held assumptions.[1] And there were precious few within the upper ranks of the administration who might have attempted to do so, after all, only policy hands and political operatives who had come up through the ranks of the Clinton and Obama administrations or had longstanding ties to the citadels of the foreign policy community were invited into the fold. … continue
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