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An Act of War! Putin’s Final Warning as NATO Prepares to Attack Russia

By Glenn Diesen | September 14, 2024

President Putin has warned that the long-range precision missiles considered to be used against Russian territory will make NATO directly involved in the war. These missiles supplied by the US and UK can only be operated with the involvement of American and British soldiers, and the missiles will be guided by the satellites of NATO countries. The dishonest discussion in the West about NATO’s decision to escalate in such a reckless manner is deeply troubling given that nuclear war is at stake.

Incrementalism: From Proxy War to Direct War

These long-range missiles represent the end of the proxy war and the beginning of a direct NATO-Russia war. Since the Western-backed coup in 2014, NATO and Russia have been fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. On the first day after the coup, the new government in Kiev installed by Washington created a partnership with the CIA and MI6 for covert war against Russia.[1] By definition, a proxy war is when two or more powers do not fight directly in battle but fight through a third-party country. From 2014, the proxy war was defined as NATO supporting Kiev and Russia supporting the Donbas rebels who opposed the legitimacy of the post-coup government installed by Washington.[2] In the words of Ukraine’s General Prosecutor, who was eventually fired by Joe Biden, Washington was treating Ukraine as a colony and demanding the right to approve all new government appointments.[3]

When Russia became a direct participant in the conflict by invading Ukraine in February 2022, the proxy war became even more dangerous as NATO involved itself in the war planning and supplying the weapons, ammunition, training, mercenaries, intelligence and target selection for Ukraine to fight Russia. Yet, NATO was fighting Russia indirectly through a proxy. Over the next 2,5 years, the lines between proxy war and direct war became increasing blurred. This line will now be eliminated as NATO’s war against Russia becomes a direct war as the long-range missiles supplied by the US and UK are also operated by the US and UK.

How did we end up with the US and UK attacking Russian territory without any serious debate in the West? Incrementalism or salami tactics involve cutting off thin slices gradually. With small incremental steps, no one action appears to be so outrageous that it justifies a major response, yet over time the aggressor has pushed through all red lines with minimal opposition. The US used such tactics to mitigate Russian opposition and to alleviate concerns among European allies for NATO expansion, the missile defence system, and the proxy war in Ukraine. NATO incrementally sends more powerful weapons and become increasingly involved in the war. Any negative reactions from their own public or Russia are sought to be mitigated by imposing restrictions on the use of these weapons, but these restrictions are then incrementally removed.

In the beginning of the war, the US was apprehensive about sending tanks and Biden warned that sending F16s could trigger World War 3.[4] Where has the incrementalism taken us today? American illegal cluster ammunition is used to bomb civilian targets in the Russian city of Belgorod, and NATO has provided the intelligence and weapons for the invasion of the Russian region of Kursk where civilians are kidnapped and executed. German tanks manned by soldiers with fascist insignia on their uniforms are yet again fighting in Kursk, and the main objective was most likely to seize the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. NATO does not criticize Ukraine when it attacks Russia’s early nuclear warning system or nuclear power plants, and instead praises the invasion of Kursk for having humiliated Putin.

NATO’s self-delusion: Ukraine’s “right to defend itself”

The argument that Ukraine has the right to defend itself is a very deceptive counterargument as nobody has disputed that Ukraine has this right. The question is how deeply NATO can be involved before the thin line between proxy war and direct war is crossed. The US is illegally occupying Syria, and nobody would disagree that Syria has the right to defend itself. But does Russia have the right to bomb American and British cities under the guise of helping Syria defend itself? What would the US have done if the situation was reversed, and Russia was attacking American cities through Mexico as a proxy?

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer argued: “We don’t seek any conflict with Russia. That’s not our intention in the slightest”.[5] This is probably true, Britain merely wants the right to strike Russia with missiles without Russia responding. When the US and UK sabotaged the Istanbul peace agreement in 2022, the Israeli and Turkish mediators explained that the Americans and British saw an opportunity to fight and bleed Russia as a strategic rival by fighting with Ukrainians. As American political and military leaders keep reminding us, this is a great war as NATO can weaken Russia without using its own troops. The question is how deeply involved NATO can become before we ask the very uncomfortable question: does Russia also has a right to defend itself?

Putin’s argument is reasonable and deserves to be discussed seriously, yet we no longer have reasonable discussions in the West as any empathy or understanding for the Russian position is castigated as treason. Every discussion is simplified and dumbed-down to either supporting “us” or “them”, and support for “us” entails repeating a ridiculous script that ignores reality and ends up with self-harm. If we want to avoid nuclear war, we should begin to take the security concerns of our adversary more seriously instead of shaming any effort to do so.

How will Russia Retaliate Against a NATO Attack?

Russia can pursue either horizontal or vertical escalation. Horizontal escalation is more restrained by retaliating in other areas by for example supplying air defences to Iran, making arms deals with North Korea, sending Russian warships to the Caribbean, sending advanced weaponry to NATO adversaries, or even providing intelligence for strikes on for example US occupation troops in Syria and Iraq.

However, a direct attack by NATO on Russia will likely pressure the Russians to respond directly with vertical escalation irrespective of the risk of a nuclear exchange. F16s and other weaponry that will be used against Russia have been placed in Poland and Romania as these are considered “safe spaces” as long as NATO is not directly involved in the war. NATO drones operating over the Black Sea and providing targeting data to Ukraine seem like an obvious target. NATO satellites that are used to guide missile attacks on Russia can also be destroyed. Attacks with tactical nuclear weapons in Western Ukraine would also be a powerful retaliation that send a strong message without attacking NATO directly.

It appears that NATO has deluded itself with incrementalism as it now plans to attack Russia without expecting any significant retaliation. Whenever Russia responds it is portrayed as occuring in a vacuum, thus Russia is presented as both weak for not responding to red lines and aggressive for acting unprovoked. Russia responded to the coup and covert war in 2014 by taking back Crimea; Russia responded to NATO’s sabotage of the Minsk peace agreement and the refusal to give security guarantees by invading in 2022; and Russia responded to the sabotage of the Istanbul agreement in favour of sending weapons by annexing Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhya and Kherson.

What was previously recognised as possibly triggering World War 3 is now dismissed as Russian propaganda as NATO is merely helping Ukraine defend itself. The Western political-media elites continue to argue that Russia has threatened retaliations in the past that did not materialise. Russia’s restraint is thus interpreted as weakness, and NATO continues to escalate until Russia responds sufficiently.

The problem is that Russia has been restrained because any response could result in a rapid and uncontrolled race up the escalation ladder that results in a nuclear exchange. As NATO takes the world to the brink of world war, should we not at least have a sensible discussion about what is being done instead of hiding behind meaningless slogans such as “Ukraine has the right to defend itself”?

September 14, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow to Respond if West Lifts Restrictions on Deep Strikes Inside Russia – Nebenzia

Sputnik – 13.09.2024

UNITED NATIONS – The NATO countries will be in direct war with Russia is they lift the restrictions on the use of long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russia and Moscow will take “relevant decisions”, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said on Friday.

“If the decision to lift the restrictions is really taken, that will mean that from that moment on NATO countries are conducting direct war with Russia. In this case, we will have to take, as you understand, relevant decisions with all the consequences for this that the Western aggressors would incur,” Nebenzia said during a meeting of the UN Security Council.

The Russian ambassador also said that the US is responsible for pinning all the blame elsewhere but it will not be able to succeed because “there is intelligence from US and EU satellites.”

The UN Security Council meeting was requested by Russia and focuses on the issue of Western supplies of weapons to the Kiev regime.

September 13, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Demoralization is deepening Ukraine’s armed forces as its situation in Donbass deteriorates

By Dmitri Kovalevich | Al Mayadeen | September 12, 2024

The economic situation in Ukraine has deteriorated sharply in recent months. According to Bloomberg News on September 4, the Western countries have begun to reduce their financial support to the government in Kiev, while the IMF is ‘recommending’ that the government devalue the currency at a faster rate, cut interest rates, and strengthen tax-raising efforts to fill the country’s budget gap.

This occurred just ahead of a planned visit by Kiev regime head Volodymyr Zelensky to New York to attend the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, which opened on September 10. While in New York, Zelensky will meet with U.S. government officials, and he says he wants to visit both camps in the current U.S. presidential election. Diplomatic niceties aside, a key reason for the visit is to press for more funding and more weapons for the regime’s key role as a proxy for the NATO countries’ war against Russia.

Former MP and right-wing nationalist Igor Mosiychuk is sure that the U.S. government will opt for caution over its continued military aid to Kiev because so much of that aid is being lost in battle or being destroyed by Russia’s missile defense before it arrives in the battle theatre. The degree of destruction of U.S. and other Western weaponry makes for a very big public relations problem for those arms manufacturers. It is hardly to the credit of their military technology that even their most modern and advanced weapons—tanks, armored personnel carriers, missile systems—are routinely being destroyed by Russia and otherwise not coming close to tipping the military balance.

Mosiychuk writes, “My sources in this delegation [the one traveling to Washington] say that there will be no large-scale assistance announced for the near future. That is, military supplying will continue as is. That’s because of the failure to defend Pokrovsk and because so much of the equipment that was thrown into the Kursk incursion has been destroyed,” the online Politnavigator reports on September 3.

Pokrovsk is a small city that is a key supply and transport depot for the war being prosecuted by Ukraine and its Western backers in the Donbass region. It lies some 80 km west of Donetsk city.

Of note recently is the inadvertent confirmation in early September that the British government of the day did, indeed, press Kiev to abandon the peace negotiations with Russia that took place in Istanbul in March and April 2022. Then-British prime minister Boris Johnson was caught out in an interview recently by the two, notorious Russian pranksters Vladimir ‘Vovan’ Kuznetsov and Alexei ‘Lexus’ Stolyarov, as reported on September 4 in Britain‘s Daily Mirror.

Today, Johnson is saying that Ukraine needs an even-harsher, compulsory military conscription and it needs more young men to fill the trenches and other defensive works along the front lines of the war. There are too many older soldiers and not enough young ones in Ukraine’s armed forces, Johnson says. “They haven’t called up many of their young people yet,” he said, referring to Ukraine’s age of military service being 25 (already lowered from 27 to 25 amidst huge controversy in April 2024).

The exchange by Johnson with the two pranksters was cringeworthy for many reasons, not least for the claim by Johnson that he wishes he could lead a legion of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine but lacks the military training to do so. He came much closer to reality when he cautioned against the entry of NATO-country soldiers into Ukraine. “I normally have a very high and healthy appetite for risk, but I think that would take risk to a new level and we don’t need to do that.” He added his view that while Zelensky might have accepted the loss of Donbass and Crimea at the negotiations in Istanbul in April 2022, that would be politically impossible today.

Zelensky is now actively requesting that the NATO countries supply long-range missiles capable of striking deep inside Russia. A formal request to the G7 countries to that effect was adopted by the Ukrainian legislature (Verkhovna Rada) on September 3.

Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik believes that behind the request for more advanced missile and missile-defense weaponry is a desire to drag NATO directly into the conflict with Russia, as Ukraine cannot prevail by itself. “The path to victory considered possible in Ukraine is to draw as many of our Western allies into this war as possible. By themselves, long-range missiles will not solve anything, but they can help achieve a balance of power for a couple of weeks, maybe for a month,” he said.

He added, importantly, “Given that Ukraine cannot fire these missiles on its own, that it also needs training and assistance with guidance, programming, and reconnaissance, the use of such missiles deep into Russian territory will create an excuse for Russia to strike back not only at Ukrainian territory but also at certain military bases of Western countries, for example in Poland or Romania. This raises the hope that the West will then get directly involved in the war.”

Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Dubynskyy writes that if the U.S. fails to permit the Kiev regime to strike Russia with more advanced missiles when President Biden meets with Zelenskyy in New York, this will be the sunset of Ukraine’s military campaign and the start of peace talks.

Who pays for Ukraine’s costly war? 

Lesya Zaburanna, a member of the Verkhovna Rada’s budget committee, said on Aug. 30 that potential creditors are demanding that her committee and the Ukraine legislature as a whole look for more sources of military funding from within their own country. The war is becoming more and more expensive not only for the governing regime in Kiev Ukraine regime but also for its Western masters. “Both the IMF and a number of our partners are urging us to look for more internal resources [to pay for budget deficits],” the legislator said. That ‘internal resource’ is none other than the civilian population, to be robbed even further through higher taxes and service fees.

The price of drones for the Ukrainian military, for example, has gone up since September 1. Drones (UAVs—unmanned aerial vehicles) have come to play a significant, nay crucial, role in this NATO proxy war. Significantly fewer of them are available on the open market due to export restrictions introduced last year by China for drones capable of military use. China has recently eased export restrictions for drones serving civilian purposes but further tightened restrictions for drones capable of military tasks.

As reported by Ukraine’s Strana news outlet on August 29, the commander of the tactical aerial reconnaissance group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Robert Brovdi, says military radios and electronic warfare systems are also being further restricted. According to Strana, the entirety of Ukraine’s arsenal of military drones is purchased from manufacturers in China.

Brovdi believes that restrictions on drone supply will push Kiev into negotiations. “I think that these restrictions will be one of the components of sitting us down to the negotiating table, but not at all on parity terms,” he says.

As it turns out, the West is unable to quickly establish mass production of military drones. According to a report in Al Jazeera in January 2024, “Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows China has delivered some 282 combat drones to 17 countries in the past decade, making it the world’s leading exporter of the weaponised aircraft. By comparison, the United States, which has the most advanced UAVs in the world, — has delivered just 12 combat drones in the same period, all of them to France and Britain. The U.S., however, still leads in the export of unarmed surveillance drones.”

Similar, extreme shortages apply also to artillery shells for Ukraine. Recently, South Africa blocked its supply of ammunition to Poland in order to prevent it from reaching Ukraine, as reported in the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. Warsaw had ordered 155-mm shells from German defense giant Rheinmetall, to be manufactured by Denel Munition, a subsidiary of the company in the Republic of South Africa.

The Czech Republic buys another portion of shells for Ukraine, in its case from Turkey. But it is significantly increasing its price for resale to Kiev, as was reported by the supplier company Czechoslovak Group at the end of August. According to the company, Turkish manufacturers sell the shells for 2,700 US dollars equivalent, but the company itself takes 500 dollars on top because it “provides a rather complicated service adding significant value”.

Deteriorating war front in Donbass region

It is a rare Ukrainian military officer, politician or expert of late who has not been panicking about the collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbass and the rapid advance of the Russian armed forces in the region. Ukrainian military and Telegram channels note that the Russian armed forces are steadily taking towns and villages in Donbass and there is none of the total destruction that took place in the heavily fortified cities of Bakhmut and Avdeevka, which fell in 2023 and 2024, respectively. (The towns and cities of Ukraine-controlled Donbass were heavily fortified in the years following 2015, when Ukraine was supposed to be implementing the Minsk 2 peace agreement it signed with the pro-autonomy movement in Donbass on February 15, 2015 then proceeded to sabotage. (The ‘Minsk-2’ agreement, text here in Wikipedia, was endorsed by no less than the UN Security Council on February 17, 2015.)

Oleksiy Arestovich, a former advisor to the office of the Ukraine president, calls the pace of Russian advances in and around Pokrovsk an operational crisis for the AFU; it is demoralizing the entire Ukrainian military. “Rumors are growing among the troops (and this is the worst part) that the Donetsk region is simply being surrendered by quiet agreement with the Kremlin. Such rumors are signs of very serious demoralization,” he says.

Roman Ponomarenko, a cadre of the former, neo-Nazi ‘Azov Battalion’ (today fully integrated into the Ukraine armed forces and national guard) talks about the same thing, stressing that forcibly conscripted Ukrainians do not want to fight. “For now, it looks like our front in Donbass has collapsed. The defense by the Ukrainian Armed Forces is disorganized, the troops are tired and weakened, and many units are demoralized. The replenishments do not help, due to their inexperience and limited training. In fact, they only complicate the combat work of the existing units. The Russians are not breaking through deeply because their troops are as exhausted as ours. But they retain a significant, quantitative advantage in numbers and weaponry. They have unlimited supplies of ammunition, and therefore, their offensive continues. We cannot stop it yet.”

Igor Mosiychuk has also spoken about the demoralization of the Ukrainian troops. “My friends who are fighting confirm to me that what is happening now among the troops is just a horror—personnel issues, defensive strategy, the movements and rotations of units—it’s just a horror.”

He also notes that in Pokrovsk, where the Russian army is approaching, many Ukrainian citizens, including those from Kiev, are now hastily registering to obtain Russian passports.

Demoralization in the Ukrainian army is caused not only by the fact that most of the army is made up of recruits conscripted against their will in a dubious ‘fight for democracy’. The fact is that neither officers nor soldiers understand the logic of the Ukrainian command’s actions, for example, its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. To many of them, military decisions seem irrational and have led to unnecessary deaths, and all this plays a role in the army’s decomposition.

Towns and small cities in Donbass where fortifications have been built since 2014 (the year of the far-right coup in Kiev) are suddenly being abandoned and military units are being transferred for an offensive in Kursk, only to be exposed to crushing air strikes there due to the lack of fortifications. In the summer of 2023, Ukrainian troops were sent head-on into a highly publicized ‘counter-offensive’ against carefully prepared Russian defense lines; large numbers were killed or taken prisoner.

Periodically, the Ukrainian command orders groups of commandos to go on raids for public relations purposes, from which many do not return. The purpose of such raids is beyond the comprehension of many military strategists. Soldiers are tasked with staging a ‘breakthrough’ of a small group to a deserted coastline in Crimea, planting a flag and taking a photo, and then leaving, if possible. The cost of a brief video with accompanying photos is human lives.

A captured Ukrainian commando, Oleksandr Lyubas, who survived a failed raid on Crimea, told a court in Russia in early September, “Our training was on scooters, so that disembarkation and advancing could go quickly. There were scooters everywhere. All of us were trained, but the training didn’t last long, maybe three days. We trained in Vilkovo, Odessa region, and were then tasked with entering Crimea, putting up a flag, making a speech and then moving away.”

The timing of such operations, as military leaders have noted in various interviews, is also unclear to the soldiers. The chosen dates are not based upon what can be most effective but, rather, to coincide with some visit somewhere by a Western leader, or when a major international event is to take place.

The Ukrainian telegram channel ‘Rubicon’ warns that if the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not demonstrate significant successes in the near future, skeptical assessments in the Western press of their activities will only gain momentum. It says that in today’s post-modern society, keeping a public’s attention on something for two and a half years is an extremely difficult task and not to be trivialized. This is what the Western governments and media have been trying to do through the ‘serialization’ of information, as in a television series. Loyal media presents to its readers or viewers a series of loosely connected stories, each of which they try to ‘sensationalize’ to maximize public attention. Totally absent are analytical reports, offering a strategic forecast for the future.

In 1914-1917, during World War I, discontent and unrest in the Russian army of the day often arose precisely because offensives and operations were carried out at the wrong time and lacked military logic or visible purpose. They were staged solely at the behest of the allies (Great Britain and France) and treated as a ‘working off’ of the Western loans undertaken by the Tsarist government of the day.

A retired colonel of Ukraine’s SBU (secret police) and military expert, Oleh Starikov believes that in two months’ time, there will be “some kind of capitulation”, and this will lead to big changes in Ukraine’s political landscape. “November will be the end of the war, but what the new beginning will be, I cannot say. It will be the beginning of ‘something’, but no one knows what, exactly. Ukraine will be different; the structure of society and the elites of society will be completely different. Those elites who are now in the Verkhovna Rada will no longer be there. Whether that is for the better or worse is a separate conversation, but for sure Ukraine will be different.”

Thus is Ukraine entering a period of strong political and economic turbulence. This is a direct consequence of its complete dependence—economic and military—on the United States and on the outcome of its presidential election in November.

In the meantime, Western leaders and bankers are advising Ukraine to catch ever-more people with its military conscription and ship them off to the front while raising taxes on everyone and looking for yet more financial resources to repay loans for the whole imbroglio.

There is a joke circulating in Ukraine that for a cow to give more milk while eating less, it needs to be fed less and milked more. This is a rather ironic summary of what Western imperialism is holding out for the future of Ukraine.

September 13, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian (Western-backed) drone terrorism in my southeastern Moscow district

Eva Bartlett | September 13, 2024

Starting early Tuesday, September 10, Russian air defense shot down 144 Ukrainian drones in 9 regions, including 72 drones above Bryansk Region and 20 above Moscow Region, according to the Ministry of Defence.

Three drones managed to hit three different apartment buildings in the Ramenskoe district, one impact tragically killing a 46 year old woman and injuring at least three other civilians. These were completely civilian, residential, areas. Ukraine sending drones to strike there was pure terrorism.

Just over one week prior, on September 1, Russian air defense shot down or intercepted 158 drones, some of those again in the Ramenskoe region.

From my nearby district just after 2:15am Tuesday, I heard the first air defense blasts targeting drones, followed by several more until daylight.

On Wednesday, I went to the area within Ramenskoe district where the drones impacted. Irina Medvedeva, a friend’s sister, was in an apartment next to one of the buildings struck. She witnessed the first explosion which killed Zinaida Akhmetovna.

While there, we met a man who had come from Kursk (which Ukraine started attacking last month) for a week of quiet. He said he would go back to Kursk, in spite of Ukraine’s continued (failed) attacks on the city, spoke of how the people there support their army and said Russia would defeat the Ukrainian terrorism.

Related links here: https://t.me/Reality_Theories/20594

September 13, 2024 Posted by | Video, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine is a Non-Sovereign State Ruled by ‘Political Frankenstein’ Zelensky – Opposition Politician

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 12.09.2024

Chairman of the Council of the Other Ukraine movement Viktor Medvedchuk gave an interview to EADaily on September 12 about the causes of the Ukrainian crisis, Russia’s mission and the destructive influence of the collective West.

“For a long time an independent Ukraine has not been existing politically, economically, or legally,” Ukrainian opposition politician and Chairman of the Council of the Other Ukraine movement Viktor Medvedchuk told EA Daily. “The country is ruled by an illegitimate president who has usurped power, becoming a dictator.”

  • The Western-backed Euromaidan coup d’etat of 2014 dealt a heavy blow to Ukrainian sovereignty and legitimate power. For 30 years the West has fuelled anti-Russian sentiment, distorted history and facilitated the rise of Nazism in Ukraine.
  • The Minsk agreements of 2015 corresponded to EU interests, but the UK and US, who sought to start a war, deliberately disrupted the settlement process.
  • Washington’s plan was “to destabilize the situation on Russia’s borders, and then inside Russia. The first step succeeded, the second did not. The US managed to break Ukraine and Europe, but not Russia.”
  • In 2020 Ukraine got a chance to nullify the adverse consequences of the 2014 regime change through democratic means. “Our party ‘Opposition Platform – For Life’ won local elections in 2020, after we were ranked second in the 2019 parliamentary elections, and began to lead in polls across the country,” Medvedchuk said.
  • But in February 2021 the Zelensky regime illegally blocked broadcasting of opposition channels, slapped sanctions on Medvedchuk and his wife, groundlessly accused him of treason and arrested him in May 2021. Other Ukrainian opposition politicians were also subjected to persecution.
  • The special military operation in Ukraine would not have begun if Zelensky had abandoned the idea of joining NATO.
  • The situation in Ukraine and in the world will improve after the West stops pouring billions into propping up Zelensky, who is a “political Frankenstein”.

September 12, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Putin issues new warning to NATO

RT | September 12, 2024

Ostensibly removing restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons would mean direct involvement of the US and its allies in the conflict with Russia and would be met with an appropriate response, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

The West has sent Ukraine long-range missiles such as Storm Shadows and ATACMS, which Kiev has so far used against Crimea and Donbass.

In the past several days, however, the US and UK have suggested they might allow these weapons to be deployed deep in Russian territory.

“We are not talking about allowing or prohibiting the Kiev regime from striking Russian territory,” Putin said on Thursday. “It is doing so already, with unmanned aerial vehicles and other means.”

Ukraine lacks the capability to use Western-provided long-range systems, Putin added, noting that targeting for such strikes requires intelligence from NATO satellites, while firing solutions can “only be entered by NATO military personnel.”

“This will mean that NATO countries, the US, European countries are fighting against Russia.”

“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the US and European countries, in the conflict in Ukraine,” the Russian president said. “Their direct participation, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.”

With that in mind, Putin added, Russia will “make the appropriate decisions based on the threats facing us.”

Some limitations on the use of Western-supplied weapons were originally put in place to allow the US and its allies to claim they were not directly involved in the conflict with Russia, while arming Ukraine to the tune of $200 billion. Kiev has been clamoring for the restrictions to be lifted since May.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy have hinted that the restrictions might be lifted this week, citing the alleged delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia as the pretext. Iran has denied sending any missiles to Russia, calling the accusations “psychological warfare” by countries heavily involved in arming Ukraine.

Putin has previously warned NATO members to be aware of “what they are playing with” when discussing plans to allow Kiev to strike deep inside Russian territory using weapons provided by the West. Speaking with major news agencies on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June, the Russian president said Russia would respond by shooting down the weapons in question and then retaliating against those responsible.

One of the possible responses Putin mentioned at the time was arming Western enemies with long-range precision weapons.

September 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian military keeping Russian civilians in ‘concentration camps’ – report

RT | September 12, 2024

Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk Region have rounded up local civilians and placed them in “something like concentration camps,” RIA Novosti reported on Thursday, citing a Russian Foreign Ministry report.

When Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into Kursk Region last month, thousands of civilians were evacuated or themselves fled deeper into the Russian heartland. Some however, including elderly people and those with disabilities, were unable to leave, and their settlements fell under Ukrainian control.

According to a new report seen by RIA Novosti, those left behind were subjected to detention methods synonymous with the Second World War.

“In a number of territories controlled by militants, something like ‘concentration camps’ were created, which civilians who did not want or were unable to leave the territory captured by the enemy were forcibly driven into,” the report said, according to RIA Novosti. These claims were based on eyewitness accounts collected by the Russian Red Cross in Kursk.

Of those detained, between 70 and 100 were taken to a school in Sudzha, where some of the fiercest fighting took place. Once there, they were subjected to psychological abuse and presented to foreign journalists, RIA Novosti claimed.

“These journalists not only illegally violated the border of the Russian Federation, they did so as part of the paramilitary punitive units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the report said. “Their goal is the deliberate distortion of real events – the creation of a favorable media background for the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kursk Region and the concealment of information about terrorist crimes against civilians.”

Russian authorities have already filed criminal charges against Italian and American reporters who entered Kursk with Ukrainian troops and interviewed civilians in Sudzha.

Ukrainian commanders ordered the Kursk incursion in an attempt to force Russia to pull troops from the front line near Donetsk, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Colonel General Aleksandr Syrsky, said last month. However, Syrsky said the gamble had not paid off, and that Russian forces had since doubled their efforts in Donetsk and captured multiple settlements previously held by Ukrainian forces.

The Ukrainian advance in Kursk was quickly stopped. After several weeks of attacks from Russian ground and air forces, Ukraine has lost more than 12,500 service members, 101 tanks, and hundreds of armored vehicles, according to the latest figures from the Russian Defense Ministry.

In a statement on Thursday, the ministry said Russian forces had liberated ten villages near the Ukrainian border in the previous 48 hours, and repelled several counterattacks. Despite suffering massive casualties and failing to relieve pressure on the Donetsk front, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky claimed on Thursday that “everything is going in accordance with our Ukrainian plan” to defeat Russia.

September 12, 2024 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Will ‘Insane’ Biden Provoke World War III Before November Election?

By John Miles – Sputnik – 12.09.2024

The last several years have brought the United States closer to conflict with a nuclear-armed power than any time since the 1960s, one former CIA analyst claimed.

Lasting from the end of World War II until the early 1990s, the Cold War saw the United States and the USSR locked in a global competition for power and influence. Although the two superpowers never went to war directly, the 45-year period was marked by two proxy conflicts in Vietnam and Korea and a constant fear that a third World War was not far away.

Tensions were heightened by the fact that both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons, dramatically raising the stakes of global conflict.

Both countries nearly saw their worst fears realized during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when it appeared the US and USSR were unwilling to back down over the issue of nuclear missiles being placed just miles from each country’s border in Cuba and Turkey. The incident led to the establishment of a special hotline for US and Soviet leaders to communicate directly, and caused US President John F. Kennedy to remark that tensions between nuclear powers must never again rise to such a level.

For decades, Kennedy’s maxim was dutifully observed as both countries worked to improve relations, finally culminating in the end of the Cold War.

The prospect for nuclear confrontation was avoided until recent years, claimed former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, when the United States rejected Russian overtures for a new European security architecture and stubbornly insisted Ukraine’s coup regime would be granted entry into NATO. The analyst joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday to consider whether US President Joe Biden is willing to risk global conflict to reverse Kiev’s flagging fortunes on the battlefield.

“They want to provoke Putin [into] doing something really drastic before the election, before the [presidential] election here on November 5th,” suggested McGovern, a critic of neoconservative US foreign policy.

“They’re losing in Kursk [region],” he noted, referring to Ukraine’s stalled incursion into Russian territory. “What were they trying to do? They were trying to get the Russians to react in such a way as to bring the US in with both feet militarily.”

“What’s this business about [Ukraine] begging for longer range missiles?” McGovern continued. “Same objective.”

Ukraine’s Western sponsors have repeatedly escalated the country’s conflict with Russia, gradually providing Kiev with more powerful weapons and granting it permission to strike within Russian territory. This has increasingly culminated in attacks on Russian civilians; perhaps most provocatively a strike on a beach in the city of Sevastopol that injured 124 people, including 27 children, and killed three people, including two children.

Some 500 Russian civilians have been killed by the Ukrainian regime in 2024 alone as the country continues to rely on the support of neo-Nazi formations such as the notorious Azov Battalion*. Kiev’s provocative attacks seem tailor-maid to produce a harsh response, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far sought to avoid any attack likely to draw the United States or Ukraine’s European allies directly into the conflict.

“My fear is that [the United States] will try something really drastic like a false flag attack or maybe even a mini nuke,” said McGovern, concerned that the US could fabricate an episode such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident that drew the country into the Vietnam War. “Let’s see what happens the next couple of weeks. I think Putin is right. It’s only the smart thing to see who wins on the 5th of November. Till then, I’m still holding my breath.”

But McGovern warned that the consequences of the United States’ strategy in Ukraine could fall not on the US itself, but on its European allies.

“It’s really hard to know what Biden and [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan, who are running things, really think,” he claimed. “Some of my best friends and analysts think they’re insane. And it’s really, really hard to predict what they’re going to do if they’re insane.”

“The Europeans are being told by the Russians, ‘look, if Biden, Blinken and Sullivan opt for a tactical nuclear weapon, for God’s sake, please, please remember we got them too. And where will we use them? We’ll use them in Europe,’” McGovern said, summarizing Russia’s possible response.

“So I think when this is directed at the Europeans, saying, ‘look at what happened to your fellow country in Europe, Ukraine. You want the same thing to happen to you? So, please, rein these guys in.’”

September 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO Risks Hot War With Russia as Biden Mulls Stepping on Ukraine Long-Range Missile Tripwire

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 11.09.2024

The Biden administration is mulling formally greenlighting Ukraine’s use of its NATO-gifted long-range strike systems to attack targets deep inside Russia. The scenario is fraught with risks, not least of which is turning the Russia-NATO proxy conflict into a hot war that drags the US in, says former CIA analyst Larry Johnson.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated Wednesday that there was a “high degree of probability” that a decision approving the use of US long-range strike systems by Ukraine has already been taken, and that the Biden administration is simply trying to “formalize” the measure using an information campaign through the media.

That was Moscow’s reaction to President Biden’s comments earlier in the week that Washington was in the process of ‘working out’ whether to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of its US-made long-range weapons to attack targets deep inside Russia.

Long-range US weapons already delivered to Kiev (or reportedly under deliberation) include:

  • ATACMS: The US ‘Army TACtical Missile System’, which has a range of up to 300 km, and can be fired by tracked M270 and wheeled M142 HIMARS self-propelled multiple launch rocket systems, which have been delivered to Kiev in large numbers. Russia has found the systems’ weak spots, destroying scores of launchers and incoming fired rockets. Nevertheless, the launchers and their payload (a single 214 kg warhead or cluster bomblets) remain dangerous due to their shoot-and-scoot ability. The Pentagon began the delivery of ATACMS to Kiev last October, but apparently not in numbers Volodymyr Zelensky would prefer. Last week, Zelensky complained about a “shortage of missiles and cooperation” with NATO countries.
  • JDAM-ER: The ‘Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range’ is a guidance and wing kit converting ‘dumb’ munitions weighing between 230-910 kg into guided smart munitions and delivering them to targets over 70 km away. The weapons are air-launched, meaning Ukrainian aircraft must stay far enough away to avoid dense Russian air defenses while firing them.
  • ADM-160 MALD: The ‘Miniature Air-Launched Decoy’ is a decoy missile designed to distract air defenses while real threats make their way toward their targets. Thanks to their lack of warhead, these missiles can fly up to 930 km. Deployable aboard a broad array of American aircraft and drones, Ukraine probably fires these weapons from its dwindling fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 jets.
  • AGM-88 HARM: The ‘High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile’ is an air-to-ground missile with passive, GPS and millimeter-wave active radar homing, has a range of between 25 and 300 km, depending on variant, and a 68 kg warhead. Adding to the threat is the missile’s flight speed – up to Mach 2.9. The US began deploying these weapons to Kiev in 2022, and, in addition to modifications to allow Ukraine’s jets to fire them, reportedly provided their client with intelligence to enable attacks against Russian radar systems.
  • Not yet known to have been delivered but widely discussed in recent days is the AGM-158 JASSM (‘Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile’) – a long-range cruise missile with a 450 kg penetrator warhead that can hit targets up to 925 km away (or 370 km in the case of standard range variants). These missiles can be fired from Ukraine’s recently arrived F-16 jets.

Russian officials have warned repeatedly of the consequences of providing long-range missiles to Ukraine to attack Russia. President Putin warned last year that “the more long-range Western systems arrive in Ukraine, the further we will be forced to push the threat away from our borders” via a security “buffer zone.” In June, Putin warned that Moscow might respond in kind to NATO’s actions, supplying Russian long-range weapons to regions of the world that send missiles to Ukraine to attack Russia.

Long-Range Missile Threat: Quickest Way to NATO-Russia Hot War

“Biden has shifted every single position that he said was a red line, so I don’t see why he’s not going to violate this one as well,” retired CIA analyst and counterterrorism expert-turned whistleblower Larry Johnson told Sputnik, commenting on Washington’s threats to lift its missile restrictions.

The Biden administration “can’t afford a defeat” in Ukraine before the November vote, and thinks that if it takes the “incredibly dangerous and foolish” step of just okaying the missiles’ delivery and use, that will somehow help Ukraine, Johnson believes.

“I appreciate President Putin’s desire to show restraint and keep this as a special military operation. But the West is at war with Russia, and I don’t think people are getting their brains around that. We keep dancing around the edges pretending that this is not going to happen. It’s going to happen. And it’s not going to change the military situation as far as what Ukraine is facing. Ukraine is facing defeat. They will be defeated. But it gets more to the point that the West, instead of seeking a peaceful way out and talking to Russia, is preferring confrontation,” Johnson warned.

Another question is whether Ukraine even has the relevant long-range missiles left, and whether the US is in a state to supply them, according to the observer.

“Because if the United States moves to supply a missile that’s frankly bigger than the ATACMS or if they offer up an ATACMS or a JASSM that has an extended range capability, then I think it’s going to raise the real possibility that the logistics hubs that are outside of Ukraine that are being used to provide these missiles could become targets. Which then is this is going to expand the war,” Johnson warned.

In that sense, while the Biden administration may believe the move to free Kiev’s hand on the use of NATO missiles to attack the Russian interior could stave off the Zelensky regime’s defeat, “it may actually have the opposite effect of causing this war to expand and expand in a way that will get the United States involved. And then we’re into some very new and dangerous territory,” Johnson summed up.

September 11, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Pro-War Lobby Attacks Alleged ‘Russian Influencers’

Photo Credit: http://www.kremlin.ru
By Ted Galen Carpenter | The Libertarian Institute | September 10, 2024

In recent weeks, there has been a surge of allegations that Moscow has long orchestrated an illegal campaign to influence U.S. public opinion. On September 4, 2024, the U.S. Justice Department charged two Russian media executives with an alleged scheme that authorities say illegally funneled millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based company called Tenet to create and publish propaganda videos that subsequently racked up millions of views on American social media. In a separate legal action, prosecutors seized thirty-two Russian-controlled internet domains that were used in a state-controlled effort called “Doppelganger” to undermine international support for Ukraine. As an aside to such legal maneuvers, U.S. officials contended that 1,800 Westerners, including twenty-one Americans, were guilty of acting as “influencers” on behalf of Russia.

The Justice Department filed an even more high-profile case the next day, accusing Dimitri Simes, founder of the Center for the National Interest, and his wife Anastasia, of illegally accepting more than $1 million in salary and other benefits from the state-owned Channel One Russia television station and trying to conceal the payments.

The Joe Biden administration is shamelessly hyping the prosecutions to smear anyone who criticizes or even questions U.S. policy towards Russia. Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins notes that Russian propaganda efforts in the United States have been spectacularly ineffective over the years. Nevertheless, Attorney General Merrick Garland, in announcing the latest prosecutions, asserted that “Russian disinformation is ‘a bigger threat’ than ever.” Garland’s smears were often stunningly vague, though. For example, he conceded that “the Kremlin-influenced U.S. influencers were unaware they were benefiting from Russian money.” That statement comes alarmingly close to contending that pro-Russian “influencers” were unintentional criminals. Garland stated, for example, “subject matter and content of many of the videos published by the company [Tenet] were often consistent with Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions.” Such a vague standard also gives an administration virtually a blank check to harass its ideological or political opponents.

There were several suspicious aspects about the Justice Department’s moves. One was the timing. The indictments took place just days before the scheduled debate between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The inflammatory tone in media articles from The Washington Post and other establishment publications dealing with these new prosecutions even more strongly suggests that partisanship is at play. For example, the Post’s headline read: “Trump-aligned Russian TV host charged in alleged sanctions scheme.”

However, there also seemed to be more than petty partisanship involved. Dimitri Simes, in particular, had long been an irritant to hawks in America’s national security state. His efforts to improve relations between Washington and Moscow especially were deeply resented by Russia haters in the powerful pro-war lobby. That hostility was magnified because of the prominence that The National Interest had achieved under Simes’ leadership.

The Biden administration’s ongoing campaign to squelch dissent about Russia policy is profoundly menacing and worrisome. I have published several articles in The National Interest over the years and have been a contributing editor to that publication. Given my interactions with Dimitri Simes, I have extensive doubts about whether he is guilty of the charges against him.

But even in the unlikely event that the charges are accurate, there are other, more fundamental issues that should concern all Americans. The statutes that he is accused of violating are sufficiently vague as to pose a threat to freedom of speech, in particular badly needed debates on numerous international issues like the tense relations between Russia and the United States. Could, for example, publishing an article in The National Interest or participating in a discussion sponsored by the Center inadvertently violate pertinent statutes? What about a paid interview? How could an author or participant be confident one way or the other? The mere existence of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and various sanctions laws directed against specific countries pose an intolerable mess to the First Amendment.   

The overall rationale for prosecuting alleged “influencers” should offend every American who believes in freedom of expression. Preventing American citizens from accessing pro-Russian viewpoints is inappropriate in what purports to be a free, democratic society. That is true even if the Russian government is funding and directing such propaganda.

Moreover, Washington’s hypocrisy on the issue is truly breathtaking. The U.S. government directly and through front groups spends billions of dollars each year propagandizing foreign audiences with material that, not accidentally, also frequently ends up impacting domestic opinion. There is credible evidence that both U.S. and foreign journalists have been paid by the CIA to disseminate Washington’s propaganda. Evidence has even emerged that (primarily in Middle Eastern countries) the United States government established bogus “independent” media outlets to serve the same purpose.

Beyond such mundane measures, the U.S. propaganda apparatus has developed an especially close and unhealthy relationship with its Ukrainian counterpart. Washington has even funded and promoted Ukrainian government agencies that target and harass American critics who dare seek an end to NATO’s proxy war against Russia. The latest Justice Department actions suggest that Washington’s ugly campaign remains intact.

It is especially ironic (as well as infuriating) for U.S. officials such as Attorney General Merrick Garland to grouse about Russia’s efforts to reduce U.S. and international support for Ukraine. The Biden administration has waged a massive effort to echo and amplify Kiev’s propaganda in the United States as well as around the world. Most galling of all, the administration has worked with the Ukrainian government to suppress dissent in the United States about U.S. policy on the Russia-Ukraine war. In a truly free society, citizens must not be threatened by their own government for failing to support a particular foreign policy. The latest Justice Department prosecutions violate the most fundamental features of a democratic system.

September 10, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine offers ‘drones-for-fighters’ deal to Syrian extremist group: Report

The Cradle | September 10, 2024

Ukrainian government representatives recently met with members of Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) extremist group to discuss a drones-for-fighters deal, Turkish newspaper Aydinlik reported on 9 September.

“A delegation from Ukraine went to Idlib in recent months and met with the leaders of the terrorist organization,” the newspaper said. According to the report, the meeting took place on 18 June.

The report said Kiev requested the release of a number of Chechen and Georgian militants being held in HTS prisons. In recent years, HTS began rooting out foreign fighters from its ranks, as well as those belonging to other armed opposition groups in northern Syria.

The newspaper added that in exchange for the release of the fighters – who Kiev plans to enlist in the fight against Russian forces – Ukraine offered 75 drones to HTS.

Aydinlik goes on to cite Kurdish reports as saying that “HTS accepted the conditions … and some radical figures were released from their prisons,” adding that “75 [Ukrainian] drones were handed over” to the extremist faction. It does note, however, that no further information or images have emerged to confirm this.

The report also says that Ukraine has been working with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its affiliates in Syria “to conduct covert operations against Russian soldiers in Syria.”

Over the past two years, there have been numerous reports of HTS and ISIS militants being sent to fight Russia in Ukraine.

“The Kiev regime has been in contact with terrorists for a long time, and Ukrainian authorities themselves have already become an international terrorist group,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in response to the Turkish newspaper.

In July 2022, Sputnik cited a source as saying that the CIA was recruiting ISIS fighters and training them in preparation for deployment to Ukraine. The outlet had reported months earlier that scores of HTS fighters were being released from prisons in Idlib to be sent to the Ukrainian battlefield.

Before these reports started emerging, Syria’s ambassador to Russia, Bashar al-Jaafari, said, “We, as a state, have evidence that the US military in Syria is transferring terrorists from one place to another, especially members of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra [HTS] … So, one should not be surprised, and we do not exclude, that tomorrow ISIS terrorists will be sent to Ukraine.”

September 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Hidden Face of War. NATO Sponsored War Professionals in Russian Region of Kursk.

By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | September 10, 2024

The Forward Observations Group, a private military company based in the United States, published a photo of its war professionals in the Russian region of Kursk, a presence confirmed by a video showing the destruction by the Russian armed forces of Forward Observations Group armoured vehicles and commandos in Kursk. This US military company, whose role is described by the authoritative Military Watch magazine as ‘very obscure’ (evidently, it is linked to US intelligence services), has been engaged for more than two years with Ukrainian forces against Russia with the task of carrying out special operations, including preparing attacks with toxic chemicals.

There is documented evidence that Ukraine is involved in the preparation of attacks with chemical and biological weapons. This US military company is not the only one operating covertly in the theatre of war against Russia. Based on precise documentation Military Watch writes:

‘Numerous facts have emerged about the role of military personnel from NATO member states (including Royal Marines and British SAS commandos) in supporting Ukrainian war operations against Russia. Military advisers, both logisticians and combatants, and other personnel have been operating since 2022 in the theatre of war with a range of newly delivered complex weaponry.’

This confirms that the Ukrainian armed forces are not only armed and trained by the US and NATO, but that US-NATO military companies and special forces operate directly in the theatre of war in command and management roles of sophisticated weaponry, such as long-range missiles and drones, for the use of which military satellite networks are needed, which Ukraine does not have.

At the same time, the US is deploying nuclear weapons (bombs and missiles) at intermediate range in Europe, increasingly close to Russia. Even the missile defence systems, which they deploy in Europe on the official grounds of protecting European populations from the ‘Russian nuclear threat’, are in fact prepared for nuclear attack. The two US Aegis Ashore sites in Poland and Romania and the US Navy destroyers operating in the Baltic and Black Sea are equipped with Lockheed Martin’s MK-41 vertical launch systems, which, as the manufacturer itself documents, can be used for any warfare mission, including nuclear attack on land targets.

Italy actively contributes to the preparation of nuclear war. Violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it hosts US nuclear weapons (the new B61-12 bombs), which the Italian Air Force is trained to use, and through Leonardo it manufactures nuclear weapons. Now Italy has pledged to build – together with France, Germany and Poland – ground-launched cruise missiles with a range of more than 500 km, i.e. a more advanced version of the US intermediate-range nuclear missiles deployed at Comiso in the 1980s, which were eliminated by the 1987 INF Treaty, a treaty that the US tore up in 2019.

*

This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy.

September 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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