The U.S. Proxy War Against Russia & China Is Increasingly Seen Globally As A Disaster Made By American And NATO Lies

April 28, 2023

Source

The proxy war in Ukraine is an imperialist adventure that has been financially ruinous, has destroyed Ukraine, and is driving a dangerous all-out war with Russia and China that could turn into a nuclear armageddon.

It has become patently obvious to the world that the conflict in Ukraine is a dirty and desperate geopolitical confrontation, despite massive Western media efforts to portray it as something else more noble – the usual charade of chivalry and virtue to disguise naked Western imperialism.

The death and destruction in Ukraine is nothing but a proxy war by the United States and its NATO partners to defeat Russia in a strategic gambit. But the unspoken objective does not end with Russia. The U.S. and its Western imperialist lackeys are driven to push for confrontation with China too.

As if taking on Russia is not reckless enough! The Western powers want to double down on their warmongering with China. This is all because the underlying impetus is for Washington and its Western minions to promote U.S.-led dominance of the global order. Russia and China are the main obstacles to that path of would-be dominance, and hence we see this manic drive for aggression stemming from Washington, the executive power of the Western order.

It should be obvious that while the U.S.-led NATO axis has stoked the war in Ukraine to calamitous heights, this same axis is wantonly inciting tensions with China. This observation alone should be enough to condemn the criminality of Western powers.

This week saw the NATO powers deliver depleted uranium weapons to the Kiev regime, while the United States announced that it would be docking submarine nuclear warheads in South Korea, a move that infuriated China which pointed out that Washington was violating decades-old commitments to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Of course, such perverse provocation is par for the course as far as Washington is concerned. It is done deliberately in a conscious effort to exacerbate tensions and escalate militarism. Peace and security are anathemas to the U.S. (and its minions) whose whole ideological raison d’être is to aggravate war to gratify corporate capitalist addiction – a system that is increasingly bankrupt and dysfunctional, and hence the insane desperation for craving “war-fixes”.

In a scathing speech to the United Nations Security Council this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that the conflict in Ukraine cannot be properly resolved without an understanding of the geopolitical context. In other words, the war in the former Soviet republic which erupted last February has bigger causes than what the Western powers and their compliant news media would try to pretend otherwise.

Defense of Ukraine? Defense of democracy? Defense of international law? Defense of national sovereignty? These are some of the laughable claims made by Washington and its allies. One only has to consider the decades of total trashing of the UN Charter and democratic principles by the United States and its rogue partners in their pursuit of criminal wars to realize that their virtue-signaling over Ukraine is a vile joke.

Lavrov’s address to the Security Council was a stunning rebuke of the hypocrisy and criminality of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other NATO powers, as well as the European Union. His speech was akin to the scene in the classic old movie The Wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled back on the buffoonish villain for all to see. Any objective observer would agree with the Russian foreign minister’s excoriating survey of modern history and why the war in Ukraine has tragically manifested. Lamentably, if we fail to understand history and the real causes of conflicts, then we are condemned to repeat the horrors.

Ironically, Western leaders have at times revealed the bigger geopolitical agenda with their own misspoken arrogant words. U.S. President Joe Biden had previously blurted out a call for regime change in Moscow while his senior aides, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, have succumbed to the intoxication of their narcissism and hubris by saying that the purpose of the war in Ukraine is the “defeat of Russia”.

Other NATO senior figures, such as the stupid, conceited Polish leaders and their Baltic buddies, have also come out and stated that the war’s ulterior agenda is to vanquish Russia. The fascist skeletons of their Nazi-collusion past have resurrected their deathly rattles, uncontrollably.

As Lavrov’s address to the Security Council intimates, the systematic violation of the UN Charter by the United States and its Western partners is a deplorable continuation of the Nazi fascism and imperialist barbarism that was supposed to have been defeated in World War Two. The culmination of the constant, unbridled Western imperialist criminality and its state terrorism is the current war in Ukraine and the growing aggression toward China over Taiwan as a pretext.

In all of this, woefully, the Western public has been flagrantly lied to by their governments and media as to the real nature of the war in Ukraine. American and European citizens have been bilked for hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up a Nazi regime in Kiev whose function is to act as a NATO spear-tip against Russia, and ultimately China when the NATO powers feel they are done with Ukraine. (The latter is a futile ambition, as is becoming increasingly evident.)

Journalists and antiwar activists in the West who highlight the malfeasance over Ukraine are either sacked, vilified, censored, or sanctioned into poverty, or even imprisoned.

Nevertheless, the Western public and the rest of the world are increasingly becoming aware of the odious charade. By definition, charades are inevitably untenable.

The Global South – the majority of the 193 nations at the UN – has had it with Western capitalist hegemony and its outrageous neocolonialist privileges. The incremental dumping of the U.S. dollar as an international reserve currency for trade is a testament to the historic shift towards a multipolar order in defiance of Western unipolar elitism. The nations of Africa, Latin America and Asia understand that the U.S.-led NATO war in Ukraine is a desperate last-ditch bid to preserve an imperialist global order which should have been eradicated after World War Two with the establishment of the United Nations, but which, regrettably, was not. Because the root cause of imperialism is the AngloAmerican-led Western capitalist order. The end of World War Two, as with World War One, was but a pause in the historical killing machine.

It is now increasingly evident in the light of leaked documents from the Pentagon that the war in Ukraine is a disaster. The Kiev regime is facing defeat at the hands of superior Russian forces even though that regime has been flooded with weapons by the United States and NATO. Great expectations of a Ukrainian victory that were widely predicted by Western leaders and media have been shown to be empty, contemptible lies.

The side-show of this war is a gargantuan racket. Western arms companies have raked in unprecedented profits, while the NATO-backed cabal in Kiev has skimmed off hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the same Kiev regime that is burning down Orthodox Christian churches, exterminating the Russian language, lionizing World War Two Nazi criminals, and locking up any critical opposition and media.

But the main takeaway is the lies that the United States and Western lackeys, including the entire media industry, have been telling about the proxy war in Ukraine. This war is an imperialist adventure that has been financially ruinous, has destroyed Ukraine, and is driving a dangerous all-out war with Russia and China that could turn into a nuclear armageddon.

We should not be surprised by such blatant lying and deception. President Joe Biden and his administration have been telling barefaced lies to conceal the corruption oozing out of Biden’s own family. Biden and his son Hunter have exploited Ukraine since the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 for personal enrichment. The president has even reportedly got his senior aides to do his bidding to censor intelligence agencies and media from revealing to the public the corruption at the heart of his family. (Risibly, the truth is smeared as Russian or Chinese disinformation!)

The lies that Biden and his administration tell about personal corruption are indelibly coupled with the lies told about the proxy war in Ukraine.

It is increasingly clear that the American public, the European public, and the rest of the world have been duped in multiple ways. The phony war in Ukraine is exposing the deep, stinking well of corruption in this White House. There will be hell to pay.

Ukrainian refugees are becoming a burden to the Baltic states

February 06, 2023

Souce

by Batko Milacic

Every conflict, including this one in Ukraine, always leads to refugees. Considering the size of Ukraine, it is not surprising that a large number of Ukrainian refugees are in Russia and in Europe. Ukrainian refugees were the topic of an interesting online conference, where you could hear very interesting information from experts about Ukrainian refugees in the Baltics.

The name of the online conference was “Ukrainian refugees in the Baltic States, social aspects of integration into society”.

During the meeting, experts from the Baltic countries discussed the problem of Ukrainian refugees and their impact on the lives of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The conference was held in Russian. It is curious that even 32 years after the collapse of the USSR, the inhabitants of the Baltic countries prefer Russian rather than English in interstate communication.

Among the speakers were public figures and diplomats: Allan Hantsom, editor-in-chief of the Estonian newspaper Delovye Vedomosti, Darius Norkus, chairman of the public organization Dawn of Justice (Lithuania), Rudolf Bremanis, civil activist, diplomat (Latvia), Maksim Revva, political observer, Yuliya Sokhina, head of the Community of Parents (Latvia), Erika Shvenchonene, representative of the International Neighborhood Forum (Lithuania).

Today, Europe receives a huge number of refugees from Ukraine. And if at first the streets of European cities were full of yellow-blue flags, refugees were received with pomp and open arms, today Europeans are less and less sympathetic to Ukrainian refugees.

At the same time, the indigenous population leaves for other countries in search of a better life – there is an outflow of people to Germany, England, and the Scandinavian countries.

One of the reasons for holding the conference was the question of the economic feasibility of accepting refugees. After all, the governments of the Baltic countries allocate huge funds to support them (Lithuania – 81 million euros, Latvia – 72 million euros, Estonia – 58 million euros). At the same time, the states are in a severe economic crisis (increase in unemployment, closure of enterprises, growth in housing and communal services tariffs and prices for energy sources). Below the poverty line is more than 25% of the population. What is this if not disregard for the interests of it`s own people for the sake of the political situation and under pressure from the EU.

Maksim Revva, political observer:

If in the spring of last year Ukrainian refugees aroused compassion in Europe, now, both in Latvia and in any other European country, refugees have become an society burden.

But with the deterioration of the economic situation, the refugees will become a bargaining chip in any national or regional elections in Europe, which will inevitably lead both to the deterioration of the social situation of Ukrainians in Europe, and to talk, and then to actions for the forced return of Ukrainians home.

And the only option to stay in Europe would be to completely merge with the local population: forget your language, culture, habits. In this situation, those who find themselves in a more tolerant Western Europe will be lucky, where the process of assimilation will be long and lingering, and will primarily affect refugee children. But in such nationally concerned republics as Latvia, assimilation will be tough and will affect all refugees. But, even if they try to become new Latvians, their second place in society will be in the same place as that of local Russians.

In Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, refugees were given allowances, paid for housing, job search, placement, etc. were simplified for them, while the needy indigenous people did not receive anything.

The treasury receives no more than 5 million euros of taxes from them, and 15 times more is allocated for their maintenance. This amount could significantly improve the standard of living of citizens below the poverty line, who are now forced to compete even more for jobs.

Erika Švenčionienė, representative of the International Neighborhood Forum:

Ukrainians feel like the masters of Lithuania here. No one talks about this, but in Lithuania, almost every administrative institution has a flag of Ukraine. In our parliament, the flag of Ukraine also hangs. This is very painful for us Lithuanians!

The Baltics are also annoyed by “imaginary” refugees who travel to European countries from regions where there are no hostilities. And they require special treatment and all kinds of support.

Allan Hantsom, editor-in-chief of the Estonian newspaper Delovye Vedomosti:

There are people who are fleeing the war, but the majority quietly leave those regions where there are no hostilities or rocket attacks. Very different people. Some come on buses with trunks, others – on expensive cars, and they also demand free rations and free accommodation. Especially now there is a crisis in the countries and now the Europeans are more and more concerned about their own problems: inflation, shortage of fuel and housing.

After all, Europe’s resources for accepting refugees from Ukraine are running out, which leads to the curtailment of assistance programs and the cessation of accepting new migrants.

At the same time, the Baltics should be prepared for the fact that refugees from Ukraine will remain there for many years even after the end of the conflict.

The inhabitants of the Baltics are increasingly tired of forced guests, but they can’t do anything, because the course of the authorities is the same: “Everything for the sake of Ukraine, and let their residents survive somehow on their own!

Because of that, Estonians began to object. Why does a person who came from a foreign country, who does not know the language and has nothing to do with Estonia, get everything, and local people from the provinces are forced to live in poverty, work at low-paid jobs? Why not provide them with conditions? A refugee arrives in the capital – here’s a ration for you, here’s your living allowance. A lot of people from the Estonian hinterland would also like to live in hotels and on ferries, so that the state pays for everything. Ukrainian refugees, instead of learning the language and considering the Baltic states as their “second homeland”, impose their customs and rules of behavior.

Chairman of the public organization Dawn of Justice (Lithuania) Darius Norkus:

Not everyone is happy. We are not against Ukraine and that people help refugees, here all Lithuania was in flags. There are fewer of these flags already. The bloated “meetings” are over. Refugees continue to come to us. But someday it must end. We want the conditions for everyone to be the same: for Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians and everyone else. And who comes from Asia, why no one gives them anything? This is also a question. What are they, the second quality or the third? This confuses me.

The Ukrainian crisis and Europe – the opinion of experts

January 10, 2023

Source

by Batko Milacic

Since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, we have been bombarded with mass information and opinions about the war and Europe’s attitude towards it. As someone who deals with geopolitics, I carefully followed the conferences and debates of European experts and politicians and their arguments. That is exactly why I would recommend the online conference and debate that was held on January 5th. The information presented in the debate is very interesting for anyone dealing with the Ukrainian crisis and European policy towards the crisis.

Hansjörg MÜLLER (former member of Bundestag from AfD): Training soldiers makes Germany participant of the war. A Bundestag council stated that Russia would be right if attacking Germany in the framework of international law, because Germany started participating in anti-Russian aggression. Treating Ukrainian soldiers in German hospitals is a good sign of humanity. Sending weapons and training soldiers has nothing to do with humanity. It is act of aggression of war. Regarding the peace opposition in Germany: about 40 percent of German citizens do not believe the media propaganda that Russia started the war. Every history has its prehistory. The war did not start 24.2.2022, but six days earlier, when Ukraine started to shell Donbass 10 times more than before. The prehistory for that is the illegal coup on Maidan, which was financed and operated by the Americans. In Bratislava conference NATO drew a red line where Baltic States, Ukraine and Belarus should be dragged into NATO. All this started in the beginning of the 20th century, when the Anglo-Saxons realised that if the German empire develops further, there will be a power independent of Anglo-Saxon control of seaways, which was the initial spark of the WWI. The ongoing crisis is nothing more than continuation of the ongoing Anglo-Saxon aggression against Germany and Russia for more than 120 years. Land-Lease of 1941 was renewed in 2022. Who provoked this war? It is the Anglo-American weapons industry. There will be no regime change in Russia. The main questions is: who has bigger warehouses and production of weapons. When Russia wins, it will be a change for the new financial system and a big blew for the US.

Patrick POPPEL (geopolitical expert from Austria): Austria is part of the West in this conflict and supporting the interest of NATO. NATO is supporting Ukraine. Austria is a neutral country by constitutional law but in practice not. Also during the pandemics, many politicians worked against the law and the constitution of Austria. People in our government and the media are not neutral. Neutrality is the special weapon of Austria. This neutrality was given to us by Russia, because SovietUnion liberated us. Austria was kept outside NATO and Warsaw Pact and given a constitution of neutrality. Supporting Ukraine is a big mistake because Austria is loosing the reputation of neutral country. When Russian special operation started, many people and political groups called for Austria joining NATO. This was cancelled after many people do not agree with this. There is very bad atmosphere against Russia in Austria. Even after the sanctions there was a big dialogue with Russia. We have to fight against propaganda. We have to show people the truth to have future with Russia. There are many criminals among the refugees and some of them are very rich. Refugee story from Ukraine is like all refugee stories: a big lie. Russia will win this war. But Austria is a looser in this war. Because we have joined the wrong side. Because our mission is to be neutral and a place of dialogue.

Gunnar LINDEMANN (Berlin regional parliament member from AfD): Since the Maidan Germany has not been a neutral country. German politicians were at the Maidan and talked to people at Maidan. There was a revolution from the outside, from NATO countries. This was the time when the war in Donbass started. Since than about 50 000 people were killed in Donbass. They made Minsk agreements with Germany and France, but in fact Ukraine did not keep Minsk agreements.

Because most of the population in Donbass is ethnic Russian, the Russian Federation is helping Donbass people in the conflict. The war did not start in 2022, the war started in 2014. Germany is taking part in the conflict. AfD is the only German party that does not want to send weapons to Ukraine. There are up to 1 million Ukrainians coming to Germany, and they are alowed to stay and get money from German government. Until November 2021, 85 000 people from Ukraine came to Berlin as refugees, only a thousand Ukrainians in Berlin are working. Germany has no place for more refugees. There are lots of Ukrainian men among the refugees as well. Lots of Roma people are coming as Ukrainian refugees but in reality they are from the Balkans. Also thousands of black people come from Ukraine as refugees calling themselves ”students”. EU is paying for the transportation of wounded soldiers to German hospitals. Treatment of Ukrainian soldiers is paid by the German health insurance. As long as these parties are in power, German will send more weapons, even for 20 years. If government changes in Ukraine, we will stop sending weapons. But more important is government change in the US. Maybe the USA loses the interest to fight war in Ukraine. The conflict in Ukraine is possible to solve only in diplomatic way. We have to start diplomatic initiative. We need friendship with Russia.

The entire conference can be viewed at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdxjHrkfsYU

Author: Batko Milacic – analyst and historian from Montenegro

Pentagon transferring biolab research in Ukraine elsewhere: Russia

24 Dec 2022

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English 

Some participants of closed projects, however, remain hidden even though they represent main figures in Ukraine’s biological program.

Commander of Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov (Tass)

Commander of Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov confirmed during the 9th Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention that the US Pentagon is transferring military-biological research in Ukraine to Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

“According to the available information, the Pentagon is actively transferring studies that are not completed within the framework of Ukrainian projects to the countries of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Simultaneously, the US Department of Defense is increasing its cooperation with the states of Africa and the Asia-Pacific region – Kenya, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand. States that already have laboratories with a high level of biological isolation are of particular interest to the American military department,” he said.

DoD’s report on bio-threat reduction 

Kirillov also confirmed that the Russian Defense Ministry received access to the US Department of Defense report on Biological Threat Reduction Program Activities in Ukraine, in which several Ukrainian biological research institutes and three Pentagon contractors are partaking.

“Earlier we cited the report of Defense Threat Reduction Agency on activities in Ukraine, published by an American non-governmental organization. The Pentagon subjected the document to serious censorship, completely removing about 80% of the information. An expanded version of this report has become available to the Russian Defense Ministry, which reveals the names and posts of specialists and managers of biological projects, a list of laboratories involved, as well as facts confirming the conduct of exercises and training with pathogens of particularly dangerous infections,” he relayed. 

The report harbors the personal data of thirty laboratory employees and seven managers from the US DoD.

Read more: Russia releases documents on US-funded bio-weapons, Hunter Biden exposed

In early September, Kirillov warned that the US is planning on transferring its programs of biological research from Ukraine to post-Soviet republics, as well as Eastern European and Baltic states. “The Pentagon is poised to shortly relocate the programs unfinished in Ukraine to other post-Soviet states, as well as to Eastern European states, such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states,” Kirillov said.

A week later, US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price went on to dismiss Russia’s assertions about Washington developing biological weapons in Ukraine, claiming that Russia’s accusations were part of Moscow’s “ongoing disinformation campaign” and an attempt to “malign peaceful US cooperation with Ukraine.” 

New senior participants in military bio-program 

The Russian Defense Ministry also named new high-ranking participants in the military biological program in Ukraine, including ex-heads of structures of the US Department of Health, Kirillov said on Friday.

“Earlier, we presented materials confirming the participation of Hunter Biden and his Rosemont Seneca Foundation, as well as other structures controlled by the US Democratic Party in financing Pentagon’s main contractors operating in Ukraine. It was shown how deeply the son of the current US President [Joe Biden], Hunter Biden, is involved in financing the Metabiota company controlled by the US Ministry of Defense,” Kirillov said.

Read next: US-led biolabs in Ukraine experiment on soldiers, mentally ill

Some participants of closed projects, however, remain hidden even though they represent main figures in Ukraine’s biological program.

“Among them are former director of Defense Threat Reduction Agency Kenneth Myers, executive vice president of the CIA-controlled In-Q-Tel venture fund Tara O’Toole, former head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden, former director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins, former CEO of the Battelle Memorial Institute Jeffrey Wadsworth, chief researcher and president of the Department of International Research, Development and Medicine of Pfizer, and many others,” Kirillov revealed.

He did leave a plot twist: all of the above-mentioned are associated with the US Democratic Party.

It’s noteworthy that back in March, the Defense Ministry Spokesperson Major General Igor Konashenkov revealed that Kiev was urgently covering up traces of a military biological program carried out in Ukraine and funded by the Pentagon. Konashenkov told reporters that “during the special military operation, [Russia] revealed the facts of an urgent sweep by the Kiev regime of traces of a military biological program being implemented in Ukraine, financed by the US Defense Ministry.”

Read more: US funded 46 biolabs in Ukraine: Pentagon

Related Stories

• Some nations unable to critically assess biolabs in Ukraine: Russia
• 400 US biolabs worldwide: Russian Security Council
• US provided assistance to Ukraine biolabs involved in biodefense

Die Einsatzgruppen – Death Squads – Eastern Europe: 1941-44

DECEMBER 05, 2022

Source

By Francis Lee

During the Second World War in Europe, particularly in the East, special corps of mobile German extermination units known as “Einsatzgruppen” (literally “operational groups”) were recorded has having exterminated well over one million civilians, primarily in mass shootings in the greater Soviet Union and also included the Baltics, Romania, and Poland.

Whenever Nazi Germany’s army marched East it immediately occupied and ethnically cleansed and secured the newly seized territories. Their principal tasks were to identify and neutralize potential enemies to German rule, seizing important sites, preventing sabotage, recruiting collaborators, and establishing intelligence networks. The Einsatzgruppen – see the glossary below – was principally charged with this grisly task. They also killed some ‘unreliable’ civilians who were perceived as their enemies. Together with Einsatzgruppen various other units included the Waffen SS, Order Police, and local collaborators who ‘liquidated’ thousands of Jews and tens of thousands of members of the Polish elites.

With the start of Hitler’s “war of annihilation” against the Soviet Union in June 1941, the scale of Einsatzgruppen mass murder operations vastly increased. The main targets were the Communist Party and Soviet state officials, Roma, and above all Jews of any age or gender. Under the cover of war and using the pretext of military necessity, the Einsatzgruppen viewed this term in the glossary organized and helped to carry out the shooting of more than half a million people, the vast majority of them Jews, in the first nine months of the war.

The 3,000 personnel of all four Einsatzgruppen groups viewed this term in the glossary and did not conduct these killings alone. Units of the Waffen SS, Order Police, Wehrmacht, allied Romanian forces and local collaborators willingly gave them aid and succour. The latter collaborators helped to identify victims as well as kill them. Many of the killers and victims actually knew one another as neighbours and colleagues. For example, over two days in September 1941, a small detachment of Einsatzgruppe C along with larger units of Waffen SS, Order Police and Ukrainian auxiliaries conducted a mass shooting of Jews in Babyn Yar (Babi Yar), a ravine outside Kyiv (Kiev). According to reports sent to the Einsatzgruppen headquarters in Berlin, 33,771 Jews were massacred during this two-day period. When occupied territories came under civilian control, stationary offices of the SS and Police replaced the Einsatzgruppen and continued to conduct mass shootings.

One particular case involved a family caught up in the general chaos. The daughter – a girl named, Frima – and her family were confined in a Jewish ghetto; in which the Nazis used her father as an interpreter. He later perished. By pretending not to be Jews, Frima, her mother, and sister escaped a German mobile killing unit massacre. They were later discovered and jailed. Again, her mother devised an escape. Frima’s mother and sister were smuggled to Romania, while Frima wandered in search of safekeeping until her mother could arrange to smuggle her out. In Romania, they were reunited and liberated. As cited in the United States – see below.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection. Author(s): United States Washington, DC

Often referred to as an Aktion, a massacre typically began when Jews and other victims were rounded up or ordered to report to a central destination. The victims were then marched or transported to the killing site. If a mass grave had not already been dug, the victims were forced to dig one. They were stripped of clothes and valuables and driven in groups to the pit. The Einsatzgruppen view this term in the glossary and their assistants either shot the victims at the edge so that they fell in or forced them into the grave to be shot. Friends and families often had to watch their loved ones die before them.

The mass shootings were resource-intensive, requiring many shooters and escort guards as well as guns, ammunition, and transport. Concerns about the inefficiency of the shootings and their psychological impact on the shooters led to the development of special vans outfitted with engines that pumped carbon monoxide into sealed passenger compartments. Jews were packed into the compartments, then driven to a mass grave, and asphyxiated during the journey. It took much longer to kill very large groups of victims with the gas vans, however. The Einsatzgruppen view this term in the glossary where personnel were required to remove bodies and clean the compartments. Throughout the German occupation of seized Soviet territories, mass shootings continued to be the preferred method of murdering Jews. At least 1.5 million and possibly more than 2 million Holocaust victims died in mass shootings or gas vans in Soviet territory.

Latvia?

Barbaric as the German atrocities were, they were to be aided and abetted by elements of the local indigenous populations. Particularly in the Baltics and Ukraine.

‘’They say that time is a great healer, but to the Jewish community in Latvia, the events of 1941 will never be forgotten.  As many as 70,000 were murdered, and the Museum “Jews in Latvia” commemorates this terrible time in Latvian history.  But the Museum does more than this and tells the story of the Jewish Community from its inception to the present day.’’ (Phillip Houseley – 2018).

Lithuania?

‘’Almost all Jews living in Lithuania were annihilated from 1941 until 1944, but there is a reluctance among Lithuanians to discuss the collaboration with the Nazis that enabled slaughter on such a massive scale. Participation – mainly by the Lithuanian police in Holocaust crimes – is acknowledged to have occurred but does not attract the attention it warrants. More references are made to the few locals who saved Jews and can be numbered among the righteous among the nations than to the vastly larger number of Lithuanians who collaborated with the Nazis. Collaborators are largely perceived as “victims” in the national discourse.’’

Bar-Ilana University (Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies)

­Estonia

The Jewish community was amongst the first to be rounded up in accordance with the General plan Ost (East) which required the removal of 50% of Estonian citizens. With the invasion of the Baltics, it was the intention of the Nazi government to use the Baltic countries as their main area of mass genocide.

Consequently, Jews from countries outside the Baltics were shipped there to be exterminated. Out of the approximately 4,300 Jews in Estonia before the war, between 950 and 1,000 were entrapped by the Nazis. An estimated 10,000 Jews were killed in Estonia after having been deported to camps there from elsewhere in Eastern Europe. There have been 7 known ethnic Estonians—Ralf Gerrets, Ain-Ervin Mere Jaan Viik, Juhan Jüriste, Karl Linnas, Aleksander Laak, and Ervin Viks—who have faced trials for crimes against humanity. Since the reestablishment of Estonian independence, the Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity has been established. Markers were put in place for the 60th anniversary of the mass executions that were carried out at the Lagedi, Vaivara and Klooga (Kalevi-Liva) camps in September 1944.

Ukraine

The Dynamic Duo:

Stepan Bandera (1909-1959) Statue in Ternopil

Leader of the (OUN-B) Bandera remains even today a highly controversial figure in Ukraine, with many Ukrainians principally in the West of the country – hailing him as a role model hero, martyred liberation fighter, whilst other Ukrainians, particularly in the south and east of the Dnieper condemn him as a fascist, Nazi collaborator who was, together with his followers, responsible for the large-scale massacres of up to 100,000 Polish, Jewish and Russian civilians in western Ukraine in 1943-44. Bandera was assassinated by a KGB hit-man in Munich in 1959.

Looking back the name Bandera initially became synonymous with Ukrainian nationalism during the Soviet era. Stephan Bandera was born in 1909 in the town of Trostianec, near Stryj. His father was a Greek Catholic priest. He attended elementary school in Sokal and high school in Stryj. While still in high school he became a member of UVO, the veterans’ organization of Ukrainian nationalists from the First World War. He became commander of the OUN for Western Ukraine, and Poland. There is little doubt that Stefan Bandera was an extreme rightist in his political outlook. In 1934, he and confederate Mikola Lebed planned and organized the assassination of Pieracky, the Polish Minister of the Interior, accused by the Ukrainians of anti-Ukrainian acts. He was first sentenced to death and then the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. His trial took place in 1935 after which he was committed to the Holy Cross jail where he remained until 1939. It is alleged that his sentence was commuted to avoid an uprising of Ukrainian nationalists in Eastern Poland and the Ukraine.

The circumstances surrounding Bandera’s escape or release from Polish prison in 1939 are not clearly known. Once free, Bandera resumed his leadership of OUN in the homeland. After the invasion of Poland (1939), the OUN collaborated with Germany against the Poles and, later, against the Soviet Union.

In early summer 1940 the OUN split, and Bandera became the overall chief of the greater part of the organization. For some time, the OUN was composed of two factions, both claiming the name. The dissident group, comprising about 80 percent of the organization, was called OUN-Bandera [OUN(B)] or the Bandera group. The larger faction OUN-B was headed by Stefan Bandera and the smaller faction OUN-M (headed by Andre Melnik. Both OUN factions created their own special forces units, named “Rolland” and “Nachtigall.”

Realizing that the aspiration for national independence was uppermost in the minds of a majority of Ukrainians, the Third Reich promised at the beginning of World War II that the Ukrainians would be freed from Soviet domination and could found a Ukrainian state. When the Germans attacked Russia, many members of the OUN followed the Germans’ advance eastward. Bandera remained in Cracow.

A “Ukrainian State” was founded by Bandera on 10 June 1941. The proclamation of the “state” took place in an atmosphere of great solemnity, with Hitler’s representatives participating. The German occupation forces at the time needed agents and informers who were conversant with conditions in Poland and could help the Hitlerite invaders. They could find no better men for the job than Bandera and his followers. Bandera launched the campaign which was to make him master of the OUN. To achieve this, he found it necessary, first, to compromise the old leadership headed by Melnyk. A simple denunciation to the Gestapo was sufficient to cause persons objectionable to Bandera to be arrested and liquidated at his order.

Over 25,000 Poles, Jews and Russians were destroyed in a single operation at the border of the Carpathian Ukraine. The Hungarian gendarmes drove these Jews out from the area which had been occupied by Hungary with Hitler’s consent. At the border, they were received by “special” elements of the Bandera militia, which drove them to unknown parts, destroying all of them en route. Altogether, during the 5 weeks of its existence, the Bandera’s “state” destroyed over 5,000 Ukrainians, 15,000 Jews, and several thousand Poles.

The “Ukrainian State” of Stepan Bandera ended its short but ignominious existence in August 1941, when it was announced in Lvov that Western Ukraine had been incorporated as the “District of Galicia” in the “General Governorship” (occupied Poland).

And when Bandera had done his duty, he and some of his assistants were dispatched to a concentration camp. The Gestapo had its own candidates for the posts of gauleiters and governors of the Ukraine. At any rate, Bandera was taken to Berlin and placed under house arrest there. He was shortly transferred to the Prinz Albrecht Strasse Gestapo jail reserved for important political prisoners. In 1942 Bandera and several other OUN leaders were transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Against the Soviets – 1943-1945

In 1943 the OUN(B) quit the collaboration game and turned on the Germans in an effort to establish an independent Ukraine free of Nazi or Soviet control. The Nazis did not recognize the government created by the part of OUN headed by Stepan Bandera on 10 June 1943. At the beginning of 1943 the OUN(b) started to create UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army – led by Roman Shukeyvich (see below) – that started the underground struggle when the Red Army entered the territory of the Western Ukraine. At all stages of UPA existence, the Soviet regime with all its political, military, and security structures (partisan, army, NKVD units, and internal forces), remained the number one enemy of the Ukrainian nationalists.

The population was still resentful for the recent genocidal famine in Ukraine. The war between UPA and Soviet military and security structures coincided in time with the war of the United Nations (including the Soviet Union) against the fascist bloc, although these wars are entirely different by nature and origin.

During the war years, at the time that Bandera was incarcerated in a German concentration camp, there sprang up in the Ukraine a number of fighting units. Some of these units united under the banners of Taras BULBA-BOROVETS, OUN/Melnyk and OUN/Bandera. Since it was apparent to all that there should be a unified command, all three commands tried to unite, but OUN/Bandera, being possibly strongest in number, decided that it should lead all others. It was at this time that there was considerable fratricide committed. Rumour has it that the entire general staff of Tares BULBA-BOROVETS was liquidated by OUN/Bandera, as well as a number of those who backed Colonel Andrew Melnyk – among the latter two OUN/Melnyk leaders, STSIBORSKY and SENYK-HRYBIVSKY.

Roman Shukeyvich (1907-1959)

The controversial (sic!) Ukrainian national hero (sic!). The statue below was a monument to Roman Shukhevych military Commander in Chief to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), Stepan Bandera, however, was the political wing of the movement the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) who along with Bandera was assassinated by unknown, possibly Soviet assassins.

Shukeyvich’s statue has stood at the entrance of the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex in North Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, since the mid-1970s. Shukhevych is lionized by some for his fight for Ukrainian independence against Poland, the Soviet Union and later Germany. But critics of the monument say it glorifies a Nazi henchman who sided with Germany in hopes of winning independence for Ukraine.

The Ukrianian diaspora is still in evidence and in high places in the Ukraine. Canadian Foreign Secretary, ­Christiya Freeland is a prominent critic of Russia who was banned from the country in 2014. She happens also to be a friend of Victoria Nuland, and both are passionate supporters of her coup in Ukraine. Ms Freeland is co-chair of the Lima Group which is apparently dedicated to the overthrow of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.

In the somewhat murky political background of Ms Freeland, she had long since been an advocate of militant Ukrainian nationalism; this followed very much in the family tradition. Some interesting facts dug out by some Polish and Australian journalists investigating past and present Ukrainian threats to Polish sovereignty in Galicia-Ukraine. “This Canadian statement is discreditable,  not only for its ignorance of the ‘surprises’  in the Polish and German records of World War II.  It’s also a declaration of comfortable complacency in not investigating how much Freeland aims to revive the takeover of Polish Galicia, with Canadian money and arms, which her Nazi grandfather tried with German money and arms.”

See Further: German military records have been found in a Polish government archive in Warsaw revealing that, Michael Chomiak maternal grandfather of Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, volunteered to serve in the German invasion of Poland long before the German Army attacked the Soviet Union and invaded Ukraine.’’

John Helmer

The German Army (Officers) reaches Ukraine 1941. They seem to have been welcomed by most of the local population in Vinnitsiya, Ukraine.

There is a whole gallery of gruesome pictures of native populations in Eastern Europe, the worst being carried out by local militias. See below, the ‘last Jew in Vinnytsia’ Ukraine murdered by the local Ukrianian militia.

See Rare Historical Photographs

The above picture is not untypical. There were worse, but for the sake of decency and the deceased’s family I declined to publish them.

About Saving Face: Some Advice to Volodymyr Zelensky

November 28, 2022

Source

By Batiushka

It matters not how much you, gentlemen, bend down before them,
You will never gain Europe’s recognition:
You will always be for them,
Not servants, but serfs of their enlightened disposition.
F.I. Tyutchev, Russian diplomat and poet, May 1867

To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.
Henry Kissinger

Ditching the Ukraine

It is now dawning on the US elite that they totally underestimated Russia in all respects. For instance, on 25 March 2014 the arrogant Obama contemptuously called Russia ‘a regional power, threatening others out of weakness’ (sic!). (Clearly, he was talking about the USA). As a result, blinded by hubris, some in the US are now admitting that the Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe, is a dead duck, the game is simply no longer worth the candle. Apart from being a black hole for Western money and military equipment, the Ukraine is no longer the problem. It is a sideshow, a distraction, a mere symptom of something far more important. The real problem is what is now happening worldwide under Russian leadership – the ending of the unipolar world, of US global hegemony, camouflaged beneath the more innocent-sounding term ‘globalism’.

Following Russia’s decision and ability to stand up to the world’s bully, the whole Non-Western world is now also standing up to him. For example, at the recent G20 meeting in Indonesia, the debate was not about the Ukraine, but about whether or not to continue to accept American Fascist rule (‘the rules-based international order’). All the Latin American and African and four Asian countries said no, it’s finished, the world is now multipolar. Taiwan will inevitably be Chinese and soon – and wait till Chinese troops appear in Mesopotamia to take control of Iraqi oil and gas and rebuild that tragic country. Freedom beckons. Long-deluded Western elitists must be shocked: other ‘regional powers’ are now also standing up to the bully. Perhaps also out of weakness? Zelensky must have suspected that his boss, until now the self-imagined master of the universe, is going to get rid of him. He is a loser and the Yanks cannot stand losers.

As the US realises that the free nations of the world are turning against it, it will not hesitate to blame the Kiev regime. The US must save face. Kiev has been warned: it will have to start negotiating with Russia again. Zelensky had better plan his escape now, because Ukrainians will not forgive him for stringing them along with a pack of lies. Regardless of Zelensky’s delusional assertions that there will be no negotiations with Russia and that it will re-occupy Russian territories, including the Crimea, there are three reasons for him to throw in the towel now, before it all gets much, much worse.

Three Reasons To Surrender Now

Firstly, Russia has now reluctantly moved closer to the US ‘shock and awe’ strategy of destroying infrastructure, as the US did in Germany and Japan (World War II) and then Serbia and Iraq. Power stations and power networks, bridges and ‘decision centres’, such as certain government buildings in Kiev are being targeted. Russia is one or two mass missile strikes away from the knock-out blow which will disable the Ukrainian electricity, water and rail systems. With 50% of Ukrainian electricity infrastructure knocked out by the first three strikes on the electricity grid, demonstrations are starting against the deteriorating situation, with Zelensky sending in the hated and dreaded Ukrainian Secret Police, the SBU, to break them up. He is also banning coverage of them in his heavily-censored media. The electricity system has entered a stage of ‘arbitrary and uncontrolled imbalance’. Ukrainians have been told to leave the country for the winter. Where to? Who wants them anyway? And does this include the military too?

Secondly, once the infrastructure has been incapacitated, Russia’s 380,000 regular and newly mobilised troops will be fully incorporated into the Allied forces in eastern Ukraine. Even without them, Russian forces are continuing to advance in the Donbass. A winter offensive by some half a million troops will make huge gains on the whole front, advancing hundreds of kilometres and multiplying Kiev’s – and NATO’s – staggering losses. After success here, President Putin’s generals have the option of moving a serious force into the western Ukraine from Belarus in order to cut off NATO supply routes from Poland. This could easily lead to the total collapse of the already ravaged Ukrainian forces and their mercenaries. Now Russia is going all the way to Lvov and the Polish border. It has been forced to. The Kiev regime has brought it on itself. All Russia wanted was security for the Crimea and the Donbass and a neutral, non-nuclear Ukraine. It could all have been so simple.

Thirdly, Western countries, including even the brainless Stoltenberg, is suffering from Ukraine fatigue. The Ukrainian flags have nearly all come down in Europe. Support has waned as reality has dawned. NATO countries’ arms stocks have been seriously depleted and strikes and ensuing social chaos have appeared in Europe, This the result of double-digit inflation and economic recession, brought on by suicidal Western sanctions, yes, those ‘against Russia’ (!). ‘We are cold and hungry in our own country because you gave everything to that bunch of losers in Kiev and the Ukrainian freeloaders you invaded our country with’. The foul-mouthed thug Nuland has achieved her aim in Europe. All this makes Russia the strategic winner and is forcing the US/UK/EU to call on Zelensky to talk again. The British financier PM Sunak (who cares little for and knows even less about politics) used a modest British aid package, announced during his recent visit to Kiev, to tell Zelensky that bankrupt London can no longer pay. Kiev must negotiate with Moscow. Following this, there has been a delay in the fourth round of missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. President Putin is waiting to see if Zelensky will cave in and start realistic talks before Russia unleashes the last assault on Ukrainian infrastructure and the winter offensive.

Ditching Zelensky

At least some in the Biden regime are realising (though not Biden himself, he is in no fit state to realise anything – a clear case of elder abuse) that they are going to have to drop the Jewish billionaire as the fall-guy for the Ukraine’s defeat. Just as they have done to countless Latin American, Middle Eastern and Asian tinpot dictators and gangsters in past decades, the US will also do the same to him in his Monsanto/Cargill banana republic. Can Zelensky still entertain any illusions about it? Of course, the US will deny that the war in the Ukraine was ever between the US and Russia and declare it was only ever ‘an internal conflict’ between the Ukraine and Russia. (Ukraine only supplied the cannon fodder for its transatlantic masters, who have controlled the country since their coup in 2014).

Ukraine’s former CIA asset, the actor Zelensky, has now acted up. The Ukrainian missile strike on Poland and the Ukrainian President’s insistence that it was a Russian strike, despite the clear evidence to the contrary, has hit Zelensky’s credibility. The intentional Ukrainian false flag strike on Polish/NATO territory, designed to provoke NATO or at least pathetic Poland into entering the war, is a pathetic embarrassment. Even compared to all of Zelensky’s other ridiculous staged false flags, like Bucha, which venal Western journalists were paid to report, this one has gone too far. The West is getting fed up with Zelensky’s antics. A bullet in the head is much cheaper than continuing to subsidise this clown.

Some are waking up to Zelensky, who is willing to unleash nuclear war in order to avoid negotiating. Some may now even understand that his crazy claims that President Putin always wanted to occupy all the Ukraine and restore the USSR, if not conquer all of Europe, are fairy-stories. These stories are told by Kiev to Western infants only in order to get military and financial aid and above all to draw NATO into the war. (The half-American Churchill spent all of 1941 trying to get the US into Britain’s war against Germany; unlike Zelensky, Churchill succeeded by emphasising his racial compatibility and dangling the Pacific Ocean carrot in front of the Yankees. Zelensky cannot offer either of those). President Putin has clearly stated on more than one occasion that: ‘He who does not regret the USSR has no heart, but he who wants to restore it has no brain’. A desire to restore the failed Soviet Union is a Western propaganda myth used by arms merchants and lying politicians to justify their greed and ambition.

Three Reasons To Run Now

Since NATO has categorically refused to send troops into the Ukraine and since there is no such thing as a ‘coalition of the willing’, apart from a few Polish and Baltic fanatics who are currently being wiped out as mercenaries in the Ukraine, what can Zelensky do? He could urge the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, General Zaluzhny, to open a last (yes, last) offensive in Donetsk or Zaporozhie in order to reboot support from the West. However, General Zaluzhny is fed up with sending his troops to commit suicide. He is, after all, a professional military man. Zelensky, on the other hand, is a White House court jester, who cares only about his own survival. Zaluzhny has other considerations. Here there is potential for a coup d’etat, a palace revolt in Kiev.

On the one hand, the self-deluded and murderous Neo-Nazis in the Ukraine who surround Zelensky and were all given power by the US, will not tolerate surrender. On the other hand, ordinary cold and hungry Ukrainians will ask why was not all of this avoided in the first place by agreeing to Ukrainian neutrality and fulfilling the Minsk 2 promises with their Russian brothers? (A good question, which should be asked of all the Western leaders who also rejected it). So Zelensky is stuck between the Neo-Nazis and the moderate Ukrainian people, between a rock and a hard place. It is lose-lose for him. Russians do not hate Ukrainians, they are brothers. But they do hate Nazis. They are enemies. The Nazis can expect no quarter from the Russians and they know it. The USSR cleared out its part of Germany of Nazis, liberating their German brothers. It is the same now in the Ukraine. With the Russian liberation of the whole of the Ukraine (not originally intended by Russia, but now necessary), a new wave of Ukrainian ‘refugees’ is going to hit Western Europe, maybe even before Christmas. This could be the last straw for a Europe full of refugees from other equally stupid and unnecessary wars of the US Empire: Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians, Libyans, Albanians and now Ukrainians. Europe cannot take it any more. It is collapsing in waves of social unrest and even Britannia cannot rule those waves.

The clueless Stoltenberg (him again) has declared that the defeat of the Ukraine means (yet another) defeat for NATO. Actually, the superfluous NATO was long ago defeated, but Stoltenberg is too clueless to have seen the writing on the wall and join the long queues of now unemployed ex-slaves of the US, Afghan and Iraqi interpreters among them. The US and its NATO vassals must now backtrack. Some statement like: ‘We were let down by those vodka-drinking surrender-monkey Ukrainians (what can you expect from those Slav subhumans?), but we have won the greatest victory in our history because we have triumphed in stopping the brutal Russian beast at the Polish border. Mission accomplished’. That would do the job. The US and its vassals cannot save face, but, since they only care about PR, they can at least pretend to save face – by blaming Zelensky. They could, conveniently, have him assassinated, so he does not tell the truth about what has really been happening behind the scenes over the last few years (he knows far too much), blaming it on ‘extremists’ and making him into a new Jewish martyr. If I were Zelensky, I would leave for Tel Aviv today. Does the Ukraine have any planes left?

Super-States in Core Eurasian Geopolitics – Utopian Proposition?

November 08, 2022

Source

by Straight-Bat

1. Introduction

A question that troubled me often involves different kinds of “state apparatus” witnessed in the history of core Eurasia – principalities, city-states, kingdoms, empires, nation-states etc. Every possible combination of a geographical region (within core Eurasia) and a particular epoch represents a specific historical manifestation of a particular type of geopolitical entity – hence, in the 18^th century while Caspian Sea region hosted a number of principalities like emirates/khanates, the Chinese mainland hosted an empire. The question I struggled with: is there a particular form of geopolitical entity that can be termed as better (or worse) for the society compared to the others? An extension of the same question would be whether the history of humankind follows any particular trajectory so far as development of political institutions are concerned. An offshoot of that question is what Marx famously referred to as the ultimate destination of the destiny of humankind – (class-less) ‘stateless’ society. While searching for a plausible response to my query, I also discovered an interesting phenomenon: a specific geopolitical entity can be beneficial and detrimental to the interests of a society at the same time, and with passage of time its impacts on the society transforms dynamically. Thus, an ‘empire’ could be destroyer of the society in a small principality while acting as a facilitator for trade and commerce for the rest of empire – Mongol empire in 13^th century was a classic example of this. Russian empire elicits an example of how the positive role of the ‘state apparatus’ in providing arable land in central Asia to the peasants during 18^th-19^th century transformed into state repression (guided by the large land-owning kulaks) in the second half of the 19^th century. Yet another interesting case study could be how the central Asian region around Caspian Sea-Aral Sea-Amu Dariya-Syr Dariya acted as the trade routes (a significant part of the famous Silk Route stretched from eastern China to Mediterranean Sea) that benefitted its aristocracy much more profoundly than the commoners who would actually execute the physical process of goods transportation and arrangements of other logistics. So, there is no straight answer to the basic question I mentioned in the beginning. Rather, I am happy to put the question in an altogether different format – assuming the Marxist idea of a stateless (class-less) society as inevitable, my quest would be to explore which kind geopolitical entity is suitable for bringing about such revolutionary change in the society to transform the selfish unjust and unequal society into a just and equitable society where 90% of the population, the plebs not only gained equal rights legally but, more importantly, they exercise those rights.

Another question, not completely unrelated, that has been bothering me relates to the geography, and history of the single geographic landmass that is known in academic books in two parts – Asia, Europe. To be specific, I have been deliberating on the question whether core Eurasia could really be treated as the ‘heartland’, control of which is a prerequisite to exercise total control over the world? Before one could sincerely take up the issue for a discussion, he/she must be able to grasp the definition of ‘core Eurasia’. Geologically, ‘Eurasia’ is a tectonic plate that lies under much of Europe and Asia. However, there is no well-defined geographic boundary of ‘core Eurasia’ in international politics. The European (geopolitical) strategists and Asian intellectuals converge on this subject remarkably well — the landmass that lies between Pacific Ocean in the east and river Vistula plus Carpathian mountain range in the west, and between Arctic Ocean in the north to the line joining Arabian Sea coast-Himalayan mountain range-South China Sea coast in the south can be termed as ‘core Eurasia’. This particular question has a definite answer – ‘core Eurasia’ indeed can be assumed as heartland because of two reasons. Firstly, the countries that dot the entire landscape of core Eurasia are not only home to 25% of the global population currently but has enough arable land, water, and forest resources for a healthy and continuous population growth. Secondly, the entire landmass of core Eurasia hold deposits of minerals, fossil fuels, rare earth, and gems in disproportionately high quantities compared to its share of total surface area of earth. Hence, the human civilization can grow, sustain, and flourish as a stand-alone phenomenon in core Eurasia even if civilizations in other regions of the world fail to sustain – this, in my opinion, is the single most important characteristic of core Eurasia why it may be considered as the ‘heartland’. Readers who are conversant with the works of geopolitics pundits like Brzezinski will easily conclude that I don’t subscribe to Brzezinski’s thought on this issue which was centred around ‘exercising power to control the world’ as he noted, “The control over Eurasia would almost automatically entails Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent.”

Having established the fact that there is ample justification for treating core Eurasia as the heartland and having identified the objective of my primary quest as finding out the most appropriate type of geopolitical entity that would facilitate a just exploitation-free society, let me clarify why I’m spending time and effort to author this article. There is a specific background why I’m inclined to get into such a subject. Three to four thousand years back my ancestors roamed in the vast Eurasian steppes with an objective of finding a large inhabitable space to settle down – destiny called them to move to the Indus valley from where they finally spread across the entire south Asian subcontinent. Till now, in our community, when a member passes away, the (direct) descendants have to tie a piece of kush (i.e. long grass) to our body during the grieving period – thus, during the most difficult days of life when one’s parent departs, we remember our origin, the steppe grassland! Apart from that, during the initial 1200 years of current era, my region and people were intellectually involved with the Chinese and Tibetan scholars in a two-way exchange of knowledge, spirituality, religion, trade, and martial art. Buddhist scholars from eastern region of Indian subcontinent traveling to Chinese mainland (including Tibet) were as common as scholars from Chinese mainland staying in Buddhist universities located in the eastern region of Indian subcontinent. Needless to say then, I am concerned about core Eurasia and all those people who inhabit these lands now.

This article is fundamentally based on my thoughts, and I don’t claim to anchor these thoughts on any academic mooring. However, I will present facts based on historical and current affairs and apply rational logic (with minimum role of sentiment) to present my hypothesis. I don’t intend to hurt anybody’s sentiments or sense of patriotism or sense of duty towards own community. I ONLY wish that this article should settle down in the collective memory of all core Eurasian citizens as an abstract idea – may be a ‘utopian’ one – which, in future by 2050 CE, should be discerned by the wise people of all countries and communities, across core Eurasian landmass.

1. What is Wrong with core Eurasia Currently?

Quite in disagreement with many alt-media reporters and commentators, I would like to argue that core Eurasia presently is going through a seemingly end-less turmoil – economic, political, social, cultural – majority part of which is orchestrated by the Zionist-Capitalist global oligarchy. I will only list down the current disorders in core Eurasia that has geopolitical and geo-economic implications:

1. South Korea – not only South Korea (a phantom-state that got created after WW-II) has been turned into a low-cost military-industrial complex to supply military machinery to countries that can’t afford American and European weapons, but the entire South Korean society also has been infested with immoral vulgar and decaying influence of ‘Jewish’ Christianity [link 🡪 https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/scariest-halloween-my-life-120-dead-south-korea-after-crowd-crushing-incident ]. South Korea is a malignant cancer in core Eurasia that has been growing phenomenally with the capital investment by the Zionist-Capitalist global oligarchy during past 5 decades protected by USA military bases. Unless appropriate treatment is carried out, it will remain a consistent threat to security of core Eurasia
2. Taiwan – not only Taiwan (a phantom-state that got created after WW-II) has been turned into a ‘giant weapons depot’ by the Zionist-Capitalist global oligarchy to cause major destruction of industrial belts and technology hubs along the south-east coastal regions of Chinese mainland, but the elite Taiwanese society has also been thoroughly westernized along with tie-up with USA on manufacturing of weapons [link 🡪 https://www.newdelhitimes.com/us-considering-joint-weapons-production-with-taiwan/ ]. Taiwan is another malignant cancer in core Eurasia that has been growing no less remarkably than South Korea (with the capital investment by global oligarchy). Unless appropriate treatment is carried out, it will remain a consistent threat to security of core Eurasia
3. Kazakhstan – largest of the artificial-states that came into existence in central Asia after the Soviet stooges of the global Zionist-Capitalist clique demolished the USSR in 1991. Over the decades Kazakhstan has become the anchor state for NATO expansion into core Eurasia – in order to develop the interoperability between elements of its armed forces and those of NATO countries, since 2006 Kazakhstan has hosted annual military exercises called “Steppe Eagle”. ‘Kazakhstan’s PfP Training Centre was accredited by NATO as a Partnership Training and Education Centre in December 2010’. The most dangerous activity on the soil of Kazakhstan is the research on biological warfare by USA funding [link 🡪 https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1254486.shtml ]. If Taiwan and South Korea are malignant tumors on the periphery of core Eurasia, Kazakhstan is right at the centre! It will certainly become a future threat to the stability and prosperity of core Eurasia
4. Kyrghizstan-Tajikistan-Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan – other phantom-states that came into existence in central Asia after the planned demolition of the USSR. Significant social-political-environmental issues exist in these 4 state-lets – (i) Wahhabism, the version of Sunni Islamic extremism is rampant in all these 4 phantom-states coordinated by Turkey plus Saudi Arabia based oligarchy, and the most preposterous matter being that in each of these 4 phantom-states the citizens are instigated on the basis of ‘nationalism’ (against other 3 nationalities) and ‘religion’ (against secular state policy, forcing the government to initiate policies that would force the people adopt Arab-Islamic names, wear hijab for women, abstain from music and sports, exclude women from public life, teach only religious education in Arabic language, preach religious militancy through Islamic jihad, etc.); (ii) Decades of extremely high rate of water consumption have taken their toll on these societies – rapid environmental degeneration; (iii) elites from politics, judiciary and bureaucracy have been involved in operating drug trafficking business in order to extract illicit profit from the drug trade (which primarily originated in Afghanistan coordinated by the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy mostly based out of Anglo countries and Israel). Undoubtedly these ‘four sisters’ can create more headache for core Eurasia in future
5. Mongolia – A country where the society apparently loathes to deliberate on modernization of education, industry, and communication. Along with Kazakhstan, Mongolia adds to the geopolitical uncertainties right in the centre of core Eurasia. Till date Moldova offers minimum destabilization to core Eurasia as compared to other regions listed here. However, the local oligarchy is working hand in glove with the global Zionist-Capitalist clique to control the government and force it towards joining NATO block. This country might become a future threat to the security of core Eurasia
6. Afghanistan – A country where poverty and lawlessness are the general norms, Zionist-Capitalist clique has been running world’s largest drug cartel since past three decades. During the same period, Wahhabism took a new name in Afghanistan – Taliban. These two problems got exacerbated with collapse of government services, and curtailment of foreign aid. Sudden and unilateral withdrawal of USA and NATO military forces from Afghanistan was NOT really sudden – the entire game was planned well in advance. USA based Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy hoped that the ‘Islamic Wahhabism’ will continue to flourish in Afghanistan and Talibani ideology and militants will become the largest export of Afghanistan [link 🡪 https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/05/northern-afghanistan-and-the-new-threat-to-central-asia/ ] Even if the current Taliban government appears to be taking governance seriously, there is every possibility that in the near future, Afghanistan will become the hotbed of ‘Islamic movements’ which will be utilized to overthrow or destabilize governments across core Eurasia
7. Transcaucasia region –apart from the central Asian artificial countries, Transcaucasia was another region where dissolution of Soviet Union created ‘unstable states’. Unlike other 8 regions listed here, this is a region where two rounds of war were fought resulting in much destruction. Subversion is a norm here rather than exception. A deep analysis would indicate that the intra-regional politics is compelling Georgia-Armenia-Azerbaijan to engage in bitter struggle among themselves to diminish each other thereby fettering countries like Russia and Iran with the problem of refugee and migrants. Undoubtedly Turkey (as a coordinator of Islamic militant gangs that directly/indirectly work for the Zionist-Capitalist global oligarchy) and USA governments are managing the puppet show staying behind the curtain, but it is doubtful to what extent that will cause rupture in the Eurasian fabric. Having said that, it must be noted that an unstable Transcaucasian region can create troubles for the trade-routes that crisscross this region used by core Eurasia and other countries in Asia and Europe
8. Moldova – along with Ukraine, Moldova adds to the geopolitical uncertainties in the eastern side of core Eurasia. Till date Moldova offers minimum destabilization to core Eurasia as compared to other regions listed here. However, Zionist-Capitalist clique works overtime here also to control the government and force it towards joining NATO block. The country might become a future threat to the security of core Eurasia
9. Ukraine – another large artificial-state that witnessed a territorial expansion entirely due to historical undercurrents. Ukraine has been converted into a ‘giant fortress’ by the Zionist-Capitalist global oligarchy which would have joined NATO to host missile bases (if Russia not made its geopolitical demands that Ukraine will never join NATO clear to the Ukraine government in 2021 end). But, the most dangerous situation for the entire planet is: Ukraine is rushing ahead with research and development of (i) biological, (ii) chemical, (iii) nuclear warfare with funding and technology tie-up with institutions based out of USA, and other Anglo countries. on manufacturing of weapons [link 🡪 https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/uncle-sams-bio-weapons-extravaganza/ ]. If an iota of sanity was left with Ukraine government, they would have concluded a treaty with Russian government within one month of special military operation accepting the terms set by Russia. Instead, the skeletons are coming out of the Ukrainian closet – the Ukrainian government for a long time has been 100% owned by the Jewish oligarchy who wants to mobilize the last citizen of Ukraine because the USA and Anglo countries wish to fight and destroy Russian land and society. Russia and core Eurasia must not allow continuation of such a toxic entity in core Eurasia
10. Baltic region – region of 3 phantom-states that got created due to the dissolution of the USSR. This region is special because the Zionist-Capitalist global oligarchy has been driving the government policies such that during past three decades, depopulation across the entire Baltic region became a continuous and consistent social phenomenon. There is a robust background to this – the Hegemon wanted the region absolutely free from any settlement in order to (i) convert the entire Baltic Sea coast into a giant naval and land army base, (ii) restrict Russian access to Baltic Sea as much as possible, (iii) invade Kaliningrad (old Konisberg) and destroy the Russian military base. The USA government has been pursuing policies on these (unstated but obvious) objectives for decades [link 🡪 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Falling-In_Deterrent-Value-of-HNS-in-the-Baltic.pdf ]. Unless appropriate actions are taken, it will transform into a nightmare for the security of Russian society and land impairing core Eurasian architecture considerably.

Except Mongolia and Afghanistan, all other entries in the above mentioned list have been identified as phantom-state / artificial state – Eurasian history corroborates my statement. Few common traits exhibited by the listed entities are: (i) local oligarchy has been in the drivers’ seat to control power and wealth to the detriment of the common population, (ii) an inward-looking religious / nationalist posturing is a common thread across the region, (iii) global Zionist-Capitalist forces are using the local oligarchy to foment socio-political tensions that will divert the people’s hatred towards core Eurasian powers like Russia and China, (iv) USA, Israel, Anglo countries and NATO countries use Turkey and Japan as the spearheads to control these regions, (v) through multilateral institutions like SCO, EAEU, CSTO and geo-economic programmes like BRI China and Russia try to influence the political and economic viability of these regions. Even though (iv) and (v) balance each other, the entire core Eurasia may become an extremely unstable region if the Zionist forces succeed to set a conflagration simultaneously across 3 / 4 entities (which is a wet dream of the Zionists).

Since this article deals only with core Eurasia, I won’t raise geopolitical and geo-economic problems that beset Asia and Europe. However, countries like Japan, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Balkan countries, Poland, Germany, France, Italy, and the UK present two types of problems through their hard and soft power: (a) presently all of them participate (most of them willingly) in the common global conspiracy hatched by the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy against core Eurasian countries and societies, (b) historical role played by almost all of them to foment geopolitical instability in their own region with/without involvement of the global Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy.

1. Political-Economic Integration in Core Eurasia Initiated by the Mongol Empire

Like it or dislike it, loathe it or love it, romanticize it or demonize it, one can’t simply ignore the role of Mongol empire in shaping the core Eurasian landmass – it is a well-established historical fact that, the Mongol empire shattered the medieval era geopolitics in the core Eurasian region applying ruthless force wherever they faced resistance. Though a united Mongol empire didn’t last even fifty years in the 13^th century after demise of Chinghis Khan, the remnants of Mongol khans remained rulers in many smaller regions across core Eurasia for another five centuries as ‘Khanate’ entered the lexicon of modern political studies. If the current doldrums in core Eurasia is put under scanner, a strange observation can’t be avoided – many a current geopolitical trouble has its root in the Mongol-instigated geopolitics during the late medieval-cum-early modern era. That indicates we can’t avoid to briefly explore the geopolitical contour of the Mongol empire during the 13^th century. (It will be a splendid historic inquiry if the evolution of Mongol empire is analyzed from 1227 CE when Chinghis Khan died till 1911 CE when Mongolia declared independence as a ‘modern’ state – but that is beyond the scope of this article).

While Chinghis Khan was the creator and the first emperor of Mongol empire, after his death at 1227 CE, the descendants while expanding the boundaries to cover entire core Eurasia also engaged in internecine warfare among themselves – after the death of Mongke Khan, by 1260 CE the empire was transformed into a confederacy of 4 empires, and by end of the 14^th century each of those empires again got split into multiple khanates ruled by Chinghis Khan’s successors or non-Mongol rulers with kinship to Mongol aristocracy. The following table 3.1 provides a brief tentative geopolitical summary of 13^th century core Eurasian landmass:

Table: 3.1 >

1227 CE	1300 CE
<< UNIFIED MONGOL EMPIRE >>– Regions of current Peoples Republic of China >Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Tianjin, Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi, north-east part of Shandong, north-west part of Gansu, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region except south-east part.– Currently Mongolia– Currently Kazakhstan– Currently Uzbekistan– Currently Turkmenistan– Currently Kirghizstan– Currently Tajikistan– Regions of current Afghanistan >Northern part (one-third of state)– Regions of current Pakistan >Northern part (one-fifth of state)– Regions of current Russian Federation >— Far Eastern Federal District >Primorsky Krai, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai (except one-third part in the north), Amur Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai, Republic of Buryatia, Sakha Republic (except two-third part in the north)— Siberian Federal District >Irkutsk Oblast, Tuva Republic, Altai Republic, Altai Krai, Novosibirsk Oblast, Omsk Oblast (except northern half), Kemerovo Oblast, Republic of Khakassia, one-third in south of Krasnoyarsk Krai— Ural Federal District >Southern half of Kurgan Oblast, southern half of Tyumen Oblast, one-fourth of Chelyabinsk Oblast in south	<< YUAN EMPIRE >>– Regions of current Peoples Republic of ChinaAll except three-fourth of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region– Currently Mongolia– Currently North Korea, South Korea– Currently Taiwan– Regions of current Russian Federation >— Far Eastern Federal District >Primorsky Krai, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai (except one-third part in north), Amur Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai, Republic of Buryatia, Sakha Republic (except two-third part in north)— Siberian Federal District >Irkutsk Oblast, Tuva Republic, Republic of Khakassia, southern half of Krasnoyarsk Krai– Regions of current Myanmar >North-eastern part (half of the state)– Regions of current India >A sizeable stretch of land in north-east abutting south Tibet
<< CHAGATAI KHANATE >>– Regions of current Peoples Republic of ChinaThree-fourth of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region– Regions of current KazakhstanTwo-fifth of the state in east and south– Currently Kyrghizstan– Currently Tajikistan– Regions of current UzbekistanAlmost entire state except land around Aral Sea– Regions of current AfghanistanOne-fourth of the state in the north-east
<< GOLDEN HORDE >>– Regions of current Russian Federation >— Siberian Federal District >Altai Republic, Altai Krai, Novosibirsk Oblast, Omsk Oblast, western half of Tomsk Oblast— Ural Federal District >Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (except a small strip in north-east), Kurgan Oblast, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Tyumen Oblast, Chelyabinsk Oblast— Volga Federal District— North Caucasian Federal District— Southern Federal District— Central Federal District >One-third land in south of the district— Crimea– Regions of current BelarusAll except northern one-fourth of landmass– Currently Ukraine– Currently Moldova– Regions of current Romania >One-third land in the east abutting Moldova border
<< ILL KHANATE >>– Currently Iran– Regions of current IraqHalf of the state in eastern and northern side bordering Iran, Syria– Regions of current SyriaOne-third of the state in north-eastern side– Regions of current TurkeyHalf of the state in eastern side– Currently Armenia– Currently Azerbaijan– Currently Turkmenistan– Regions of current Afghanistan >All except one-fourth of the state in the north-east– Regions of current Pakistan >Baluchistan province in the south-west side

It can be noted from Table 3.1 presented above and Figure 3.1 given below that by 1300 CE, core Eurasia (except unpopulated northern most lands of Russia near arctic) was under the sway of the Mongol aristocrats – scholars estimated that the Mongol confederacy was spread over around 24,000,000 km2 of land creating the largest land empire in history [Link 🡪 https://maps.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd_1911/shepherd-c-092.jpg ].

Fig 3.1 >

As Morris Rossabi mentioned in the article ‘Mongol Impact on China: Lasting Influences with Preliminary Notes on Other Parts of the Mongol Empire’ (refer ACTA VIA SERICA Vol. 5, No. 2, December 2020) “perhaps the Mongols’ most important contribution was to bring East Asia, the Middle East, and Europe in touch with each other and that Eurasian history began with the Mongols’ creation of the largest contiguous land empire in world history. The Mongols also built splendid cities, promoted the economies, fostered the sciences, technologies, and the artistic advances in their domains.” Discerning readers can’t deny this observation by Rossabi. During the course of past half century, other scholars from different countries also conclusively proved that the Mongol empire facilitated trade and commerce across all regions of Asia and Europe while contributing quite substantially towards propagation of the Sciences and the Arts.

1. Why Super-States and Key States in core Eurasia?

Question: What is the mission I’m talking about? Why can’t the current state of affairs in core Eurasia fulfill the mission? Why a reorganization of geopolitical framework of core Eurasia is a necessity?

Answer: ‘The ultimate objective will be to bring complete dignity, widest possible freedom, and maximum possible development for every citizen of the communities in core Eurasia. Every human being (irrespective of his/her background identity like age, sex, ethnicity, language, religion, region, state) will become free from hunger-disease-insecurity-injustice, will spend time in socially useful productive work, can indulge in literature-art-music-cinema, can do research in science-mathematics-life science’, can be at ease equally with technology as well as social studies, ‘can seek knowledge of ‘life’-‘society’-‘world’-‘universe’, can seek entertainment and pleasure at leisure time, without any of these things being morally or physically harmful to any section or people’ of the proposed super-states and key states in core Eurasia.

Most of the existing states are unable to offer such environment to its people not because the countries are poor, (on the contrary core Eurasia is the richest zone of the earth) – the oligarchy which is well-entrenched in the ruling edifice of every country, have been exploiting the population ruthlessly with the help of Zionist-Capitalist globalist clique. Zionist-Capitalists would love if core Eurasia becomes uninhabited and they become the master of the land and its natural resources so that the planet earth nourishes only the ‘golden billion’ (one billion population in Anglo countries, Jews, Europeans). Hence current geopolitical setup is not conducive to such humanitarian missions.

For fulfilling the mission, I mentioned above, core Eurasia should be free from the self-serving elites-aristocrats-oligarchs who misuse their political power to achieve their personal objectives – to gain power and to gain wealth. Most of the artificial-states should be dissolved and made part of one/two super-states. Without geopolitically balanced architecture destabilization in all conceivable and unconceivable forms will continue to ruin core Eurasia. Thus the current borders between so-called states should be reoriented so that,

1. The historical background of (mid-19^th century) landmass-and-community relationship gets due importance
2. ‘Fake states’ don’t act as Zionist-Capitalist agents for destabilization in core Eurasia
3. Core Eurasian state-actors can always remain united to become a ‘role model’ for all other regions.

In core Eurasia, during my lifetime, most of the old geopolitical issues resurfaced – some through crude bloody incidents while some others in a very subtle way. So, whether such a dispute is currently a burning issue or a dormant dispute, leaders need to look into those and try proactively to resolve it so that geopolitically balanced architecture can be achieved. Let me list down the key issues, and key actors, and suggest the resolutions considering the historical timeline from the Mongol Empire in 1227 CE to the 1848 Revolution as the ‘age of empire building’ in core Eurasia beyond which change of borders through war would not be considered as ‘valid’ (for setting our benchmark we assumed such validity). There will be certainly a question asked from every quarter – on what basis such a logic is being considered? As such, there can be no definite answer that would please everyone, rather I would like to say, that there will be no basis that is acceptable to everyone! So, I chose 1848 CE as the historical watershed because in the early modern era 1848 CE was the year when plebeians of different societies across entire Europe and some parts of Asia really did stand up against centuries old exploitation-injustice-inequality inflicted by the patricians (even if the commoners were beaten back everywhere, the patricians were forced to start counting its probable demise since then). So a reorganisation of core Eurasia into super-states and key states is suggested as below:

Table: 4.1 >

Geopolitical Restructuring Issue in Core Eurasia	Proposed Resolution
Significant Actor – Super-state in Russia
At the time of the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 CE, USSR encompassed the following geographical regions apart from Russia:1. Baltic Europe – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania2. Eastern Europe – Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova3. Transcaucasia – Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan4. Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, TurkmenistanThere were some remarkable aspects of the territorial evolution of Tsarist Russian empire and the USSR:(a) NONE of the above mentioned regions/sub-regions were annexed into the Tsarist empire with their 1991 borders. Reorganization of the administrative zones within the empire was a regular exercise for ALL heads of state at different points of time. Few of those were:(i) In 1708 CE Tsar Peter the Great divided the empire into eight administrative divisions called guberniyas (Archangelgorod, Azov, Ingermanland, Kazan, Kiev, Moscow, Siberia, Smolensk)(ii) In 1727 CE Catherine I enacted another reform – a total of 166 uyezds was established(iii) By 1910 CE 104 administrative governorate units (Oblast and Governorate) were formed(iv) After 1922 CE Bolshevik Party undertook a series of restructuring that transformed the earlier architecture of administrative organization(b) Historically, some regions have been under the Russian influence (political, cultural, economic) for a very long time before the proposed the cut-off year of 1848 CE — in 1721 CE Livonia, Estonia, Ingria, and Karelia were annexed from Sweden; through second and third partitions in 1793 CE and 1795 CE, Russia acquired southern part of current Latvia (south of Riga), most part of current Lithuania including Wilno (Vilnius), most part of current Belarus including Minsk, Pinsk, Brest, most part of Right Bank Ukraine that forms current Ukraine including Lutsk, Rovno, Zhytomyr, Bratslav, and Galicia from Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth; Bessarabia (two-thirds of which lies within modern Moldova) was taken over by Russian Empire in 1812 CE defeating Ottoman Empire; parts of Georgia, Dagestan, parts of northern Azerbaijan, and parts of northern Armenia were annexed from Persian Empire by Russian Empire in 1813 CE; in 1828 CE, Persian Empire ceded Caucasian region (present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan) to Russian Empire; Kazakh-Junior Horde and Kazakh- Middle Horde declared to be loyal Russian citizens in 1732 and 1740 respectively, but full control of Russia got established by 1798 CE; Kazakh-Great Horde khanate was annexed into the Russian empire in the 1820s, when the Great Horde khans choose Russian protection against Kokand Khanate(c) On the other hand it can be easily noted that, the Tsarist empire continued with invasions and annexations after 1848 CE in the central Asia and Pacific ocean coast regions (refer the map given in Fig:4.1 that is copied from Encyclopaedia Britannica: Link 🡪 https://www.britannica.com/place/Russian-Empire ) – Sakhalin island was seized from Japanese kingdom in 1875 CE by Alexander II; khanates of Khiva (1873 CE), Bukhara (1866 CE), Kokand (1876 CE) were annexed by Alexander II; Alexander III annexed Pamir plateau in 1893 and land of Teke Turkomans in 1881 CE; Alexander III annexed the coastal and northern part of Manchuria through a series of unequal treaties forced upon Qing China (the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and the Treaty of Peking in 1860)	1. All countries / regions of a country that were part of Russian empire in 1848 CE should move back to the Russian super-state:– Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania– Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova,– Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan,– Kazakhstan (except south-eastern part – Dzungaria)2. Russia should hand over such territories to other countries that were annexed from them after 1848 CE:– Outer Manchuria i.e. modern-day Russian areas of Primorsky Krai, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai (southern two-thirds), Amur Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai to China3. Regions which were part of Russian empire/USSR between 1849 and 1991, and became independent since 1991, should continue their current geopolitical identity as ‘state’:– Four Central Asian countries i.e. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan were formed as administrative regions within Russian empire / USSR out of the lands from five annexations by Tsars after 1848 CE – Khanate of Khiva, Khanate of Bukhara, Khanate of Kokand, Pamir plateau, and land of Teke Turkomans
Significant Actor – Super-state in China
By 1848 CE the Qing empire territories included the following regions apart from (directly) Ming-ruled mainland China including Hainan and Taiwan islands:1. East Asia – Manchuria (Nurgan RMC of Ming empire), Inner and Outer Mongolia2. South-central Asia – Qinghai (Dokham RMC of Ming empire)3. Central Asia – Xinjiang (that included some parts of eastern Kazakhstan land from Lake Balkhash up to the current international border with China in the north-east, east and south direction, this region was annexed by Russia in 1860, 1881)4. South Asia – Tibet (U-Tsang RMC and Elis military-civilian Marshal of Ming empire; it included Aksai Chin region of Ladakh and south-eastern regions of Tibet which were seized by British after 1860 CE)The key aspects of the territorial evolution of Qing Chinese empire are:(a) The policy of partitioning the empire into several administrative regions underwent substantial change when the Qing empire replaced the Ming empire. While Ming emperors governed peripheral regions like Tibet, Manchuria through setting up Regional Military Commission, Qing empire established administrative regions across the entire empire.(b) Unlike Russian Tsarist empire, the Chinese Qing empire ceased expansion by 1800s. When in 1911 CE the Qing empire was abolished (refer the map given in Fig:4.2 that is copied from Wikipedia: Link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty#/media/File:China_1911_es.svg ) the following regions were found to be parts of neighbouring states, not China:(i) a part of western Xinjiang of Qing China (some parts of currently eastern Kazakhstan land from Lake Balkhash up to the current international border with China in the north-east, east and south directions)(ii) Outer Manchuria, a part of Manchuria of Qing China (currently part of the Far Eastern District of Russia)(iii) Outer Mongolia, a part of Qing China (currently Mongolia state)(iv) western Ladakh and south-eastern Tibet, both part of Qing China (part of modern-day India)(v) Taiwan island, a part of Qing China (currently Taiwan state)	1. All countries / regions of a country that were part of Chinese empire in 1848 CE should be transferred back to the Chinese super-state:– Taiwan– The islands in South China Sea– Outer Manchuria– Western Xinjiang (Dzungaria)– Aksai Chin and South-eastern Tibet2. Regions which were part of Chinese empire between 1848 and 1911, and became independent since 1911, should continue their current geopolitical identity as ‘state’:– Mongolia which declared independence from China in 1911 occupies outer Mongolian regions of Qing China
Significant Actor – Key State in Iran
Hardly any change in borders happened in Iran after 1848 CE. Hence the country, centre of one of the oldest empire in the history of humankind doesn’t pose any geopolitical challenge.	Not Applicable
Significant Actor – Key State in Korea
One of the biggest geopolitical tragedy happened in the Korean Peninsula. Following Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905 Korea became the protectorate of Imperial Japan. After Japan’s surrender in 1945 in September People’s Republic of Korea was established by Lyuh Woon-hyung. In February 1946 Lyuh Woon-hyung was murdered by USA led oligarchy. Thereafter in the south of 38th parallel Syngman Rhee established Republic of Korea in August 1948 while in the following month Kim Il-sung established Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north. China and North Korea lost about 1 million people as KIA and MIA. A divided Korea is a continuous reminder about creation and growth of a malignant tumour that was implanted in core Eurasia by the USA and Anglo oligarchy after WW II.	USA needs to pull out military forces lock, stock, and barrel; a united Korean government to be formed with representation from ALL regions, professions, and parties. Both the military should combine into a single force. China and Russia to ensure peace during the transition period.

Looking at the above table 4.1, one would conclude that I have identified only four entities as ‘significant actor’ in core Eurasia. Yes, if one looks into this essay in 2122 i.e. hundred years from now, the reader will find the accuracy and appropriateness of this essay in both its assumptions (that, across this humongous landmass named as ‘core Eurasia’ there are only 4 communities who are not spineless flunkies of Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy and who are not mindless followers of Anglo-Jewish culture) and its suggestions (that, in order to bring out the best possible environment for a community to survive and thrive, geopolitical fabric needs to be reorganized in terms of two super-states and two key states, all of whom will maintain very close coordination among themselves on all geopolitical and geo-economic matters). Finally, the proposed geopolitical restructuring should seriously consider (this is the first time that I’m mentioning this point as an IMPORTANT task) a formal alliance among the 4 significant actors in core Eurasia.

Fig: 4.1 🡪

Fig: 4.2 🡪

Table: 4.2 >

Geo-economic Restructuring Issue in Core Eurasia

Proposed Resolution

1. Any community, any country, any state can be built ONLY with a population that is large enough to sustain the cultural, economic, political, and technological progress achieved by it. Russia, Iran, North Korea in its current form don’t show healthy population growth, it doesn’t generate hope for future – I will rate this problem as severity 1 for all 3 actors.China, with world’s largest population till 2022, has been beset with continuously reducing rate of population growth – I will rate this as severity 2 for China.2. Any country, any state can organise itself ONLY on the basis of own currency or currency of a neighbour with whom two-way trade is normal. Apart from that, the dependence on Dollar (as exchange currency) must be brought down to a minimum level to avoid the fate of Russia.for China, USA debt holding over 1 trillion is a problem of severity 1, for USA will certainly weaponize the debt at the earliest ‘opportunity’ (like, China re-establishes its control over Taiwan).3. Russia-Iran-China all 3 actors are very rich in terms of natural resources. Energy, metal and mineral, rare earth elements – all three types of deposits are present in substantial quantities in core Eurasia.Import and export of such ‘natural resources’ should be aimed at enriching the commoners in Asia-Africa-South America continents as much as possible.4. SCO-BRI-EAEU should be coordinated simultaneously for economic rejuvenation of core Eurasia as well as Asia-Africa-South America continents as much as possible.As a parallel activity, encourage non-Anglo non-Jewish communities/ countries (like Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Sweden etc.) to enhance their participation in trade and commerce with core Eurasia through multilateral global platforms like RCEP.5. Minimize use of technology, hardware, and applications owned by the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy in the areas of international finance, defence, aerospace, and social networking.As a parallel activity, encourage non-Anglo non-Jewish communities/ countries (like Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Sweden etc.) to enhance their participation in trade and commerce.

Government should move on two fronts:(i) encourage early marriage and childbearing at social and cultural platforms(ii) introduce new rules and laws to facilitate marriage and childbearing for working persons, professionals, even unemployed(i) A gold-backed currency or a basket of Eurasian currencies needs to be pushed(ii) Reduce holding of US treasury rapidly by increasing central bank holding of gold to maximum level(i) These countries should restrict export of raw material and processed minerals to Europe, North America, Australia(ii) They should also ensure that other countries in core Eurasia do the same as much as possible(i) Transform the BRI format so that organizations from the participating countries get around 40% share of the capital expenditure.(ii) Bring in German, Japanese, Italian, French companies into BRI projects for supply of some machinery etc.(i) Identify areas where all 4 actors or any 3 actors will join hands to form business entities. Invest in research and development jointly.(ii) Bring in German, Japanese, Italian, French companies selectively.

Obviously a logical question will arise – ‘how such a massive transformation will happen’ and ‘when’. Local oligarchy, nationalist intelligentsia, bureaucracy, business people, and military forces are the groups who have vested interests in perpetuating the current geopolitical framework. In normal situations (where international relations follow unipolar world order) such geopolitical transformation can hardly be talked about. But major upheavals in politics, economics, and environment will compel the 90% population (the plebs) to think and accept such transformation that will bring momentous change in their lifestyle. It will be the responsibility of ALL patriotic leaders, communist party members, community elders in ALL countries to prepare themselves and their countries/communities towards accepting positive transformation.

It can be found in history that, time and again strong leaders created new geopolitical reality (sometimes because of moral high ground and in other times using superior political economy) that created new rules and orders tearing apart the existing order – I will strongly advocate such occurrence if and only if the common people of a country / region find better standard of living in the newly created architecture. Living in the 21^st century I won’t criticize Chinghis Khan’s brutality against his adversaries – on the contrary, I would ask two simple questions – (i) was there a single king/emperor in the medieval era across the world who didn’t resort to mind-blowing violence to create a psychological defeat in the opponent camp? (ii) wasn’t it that the Mongol empire brought a new era in trade and commerce across the entire continents of Asia and Europe benefitting the living standard of the inhabitants? Hence I proposed here that the creation of super-states in core Eurasia in the near future – Eurasian Union of Russia and Asian Union of China – would go a long way to create a better society that ushers a new dawn of humanity! Unless the above mentioned territorial reorganizations are undertake, in my opinion, the construction of those super-states can’t really take-off!

Since I’m only discussing about core Eurasia, I’m not mentioning the case of a super-state in the Indian subcontinent. Actually India should be viewed as a super-state which should include half of what is currently Pakistan (Punjab and Sindh regions are truly such historically ‘Indian’ regions without which Indian map can’t be even be thought of! Since the beginning of ancient civilization Punjab and Sindh were the core of all Indian kingdoms/sultanates/empires until 1947 CE when British power connived with ALL key political parties like Congress, Muslim fundamentalists, and Hindu fundamentalists to divide India). But we are not discussing that.

1. Conclusion

By now, most of the esteemed readers have already formed an opinion about this article and my objectives. To conclude this write-up, let me handle those probable clarifications from an ideological perspective:

1) An “expansionist and empire-apologist”: To be frank, this is the most significant stigma that could be assigned to this article. For a while, this article can truly create such a sentiment among the readers. Fundamentally, I’m a Marxist, and one of the final objectives of a Marxist socialist society is borderless society! Hence, on an ideological platform, I actually condemn ‘empire-building’ as a process of geopolitics. Let me state that, ‘Empire’, as a concept, is the most reactionary, naked, and violent form of ‘state apparatus’. Hence, I can never become an apologist for empire building. If so, the question still remains: what is the objective of this article?

Well, every historic ‘empire’, in reality, has different background and different characteristics. While Spanish, Portuguese, British and French empires built after 1496 CE across the world basically attempted to ‘get rid of’ the aboriginal population as much as possible, and pillaged the foreign land and resources to enrich the elites and oligarchy of those invading powers, completely contrasting behaviour could be noticed in case of the Chinese, and Russian empires. Russian and Chinese empires not only brought order and security to the people of the region they annexed but the trade and commerce got invigorated across the Eurasian landmass benefitting the commoners. Essentially while the European powers brought colonial imperialism, the Eurasian powers acted as the agents of change towards win-win modernisation.

I foresee that before different countries could even imagine a borderless landmass and a society free from exploitation (as the ultimate objective of Marxism), a country would require:

(a) A ‘state’ that ensures education, healthcare, housing, and employment for ALL citizens

(b) A ‘state’ that brings ALL races, religions, languages living in a landmass under an umbrella with an objective of shared security

(c) A ‘state’ that creates enough of social capital as a harbinger of economic prosperity while sustaining the fragile environment

Let me confess, while looking back into the history, I find ONLY Chinese and Russian super-states as the agents who would provide framework for achieving the above results. So, I propose building of such super-states as the prelude for state-less society.

2) A “reactionary feudalist pseudo-Marxist”: There will be certainly a group of dogmatic Marxists who would suggest that this article is actually a step backward which point towards rejuvenation of medieval feudal era political environment. This article doesn’t discuss the ‘class struggle’, neither this speaks about a ‘proletarian revolution’. Actually, looking everything under the sun through the prism of Marxism doesn’t help any Marxist – neither a revolutionary communist party member nor a revolutionary communist state. Abolition of ‘state apparatus’ was never identified by Marx as an immediate objective for a socialist society! On the other hand, if a truly welfare state apparatus can arrange education, healthcare, housing, and employment to all citizens of core Eurasia, people would actually gain through better living standard. And they would further realise how a state apparatus based on Marxist socialist socio-economic political thoughts would transform the current society into a more egalitarian society ensuring truth, justice, and equality and that prevail over deception, injustice, and inequality.

These readers, mostly from Europe and North America, are NOT bothered about a real democracy where the freedom of speech goes hand-in-hand with the freedom from hunger and malnutrition, and right to vote a political party is coupled with right to education and employment. They are actually bothered about the re-emergence of core Eurasia as the centre of global trade, commerce, science, and technology – instead of expressing that point categorically which otherwise would smack of racism and racial hatred (towards Asians), they wrap it up with half-baked politically correct jargons (like democracy, human rights, blah blah).

For these type of readers, I have two simple questions:

(a) What did the Greek city-states mean by ‘democracy’? (Clue – slaves who toiled ceaselessly in ancient Greek city-states or Roman Empire were never counted as citizens). It was not certainly meant for all people of their society, so what do the pseudo-socialists and lapdog-intellectuals licensed by the Zionist-Capitalist clique wish to achieve through the so-called democracy?

(b) What did the European aristocrats and oligarchs mean by ‘human rights’? Most of the regions in North America, South America and Australia continents were subjected to genocide by those same sociopath-cum-psychopath European (aristocrat and elite) marauders who, apparently set up world’s ‘finest’ democratic state apparatus like the ‘USA’, ‘Canada’, ‘Australia’, so why shouldn’t they pay respect to the concept of human rights and leave those continents lock stock and barrel one fine morning (better late than never)?

Anyway, by promoting super-states like Russia and China, I’m looking forward to a future reinstatement of Marxist ideas and philosophies among the people of core Eurasia. And, please don’t say that Marxist ideas and organisation could flourish in liberal capitalist democratic countries in Europe and North America (where the entire leftist/socialist political spectrum has been hijacked by the opportunist corrupt labour aristocracy since early 1890s) – those entities can’t be termed as ‘country’ or ‘democracy’, they are simply a bunch of oligarchs thriving in their respective ‘estate’ using lies and deception that can be termed as ‘demon-cracy’!

3) A “utopian arm-chair strategist”: To those readers who would identify me as such, I have a simple counter question – could anybody in 1942 even dream of the boundaries of USSR and PRC that were internationally accepted in 1950? What appears as ‘utopian idea’ may become a reality just 10 years from now – history of core Eurasia time and again proved it! After all, exactly hundred years back the foundation was laid for the first super-state in the history of humankind – USSR.

By and large, there are another two categories of shaming which would be applicable to the readers who consider themselves as ‘nationalist’:

i) A “Russian stooge and Chinese agent”: many readers who hail from countries – Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Moldova etc. – that have been proposed here as phantom-states would like to curse me as a ‘Russian’ agent and/or a ‘Chinese’ agent. This is another stigma that fits in with this narrative. Particularly, many of the readers find any statement that talks in favour of China and Russia, as support to ‘authoritative and despotic foreign regimes’. Let me respond to this – on the face of it, my proposition appears as a simple ancient trick of ‘annexation of more landmasses. But, it isn’t so – I consider the people as the primary subject of ‘patriotism’ and the landmass as the secondary subject. Let me elaborate on this through a historical example. Alexander Nevsky served as the Prince of Novgorod (1236–56 and 1258–1259), Grand Prince of Kiev (1236–52) and Grand Prince of Vladimir (1252–63) during the most difficult times in medieval Rus’ history. He paid a tribute to the Mongol Golden Horde while fighting against ALL European powers approaching from north-west. In my opinion, Nevsky revealed the finest expression of ‘patriotism’ that flowers in the well-being of the people of his kingdoms while paying less importance to geographical expansion of the landmass he dominated! Nevsky was bothered about his society, culture and commerce, hence as soon as he identified that European powers would destroy exactly those aspects he stood as a rock against such invasions.

Let me again acknowledge, while looking back into the medieval and modern history, I find ONLY Chinese and Russian super-states as the institutions that can ensure exchange of ideas, knowledge, goods, and services among different regions and different societies across the world without pontificating.

ii) An enemy to Russia and China: many readers who hail from current RF and PRC, would stand exactly opposite to the readers from say, Kazakhstan or Ukraine! They would come back asking why (his/her) country should give away even an inch of land to the neighbouring country. Ultimate tragedy of human life is that they always seek ‘ownership’ of almost everything under the Sun, we forget that everything – land, water body, forests, mountains, deserts – belong to mother earth. Humankind is nothing but a small part of the nature – we don’t own anything; we need to be grateful to nature for providing ALL means for living our life! If giving away some part of one country to another country proves beneficial for both the communities, why not? True patriots ALWAYS bother about the advancement of economy and culture of the people if required with little adjustments. Every society has a memory and every community has a tradition centred on some regions which they consider as inalienable part of their history – Ukraine and Belarus are such regions for the Russian society, south Korea is such a region for the Koreans, Manchuria and Tibet are such regions for the Chinese, Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan are such regions for the Indians!

I’m certainly not an enemy of any country or any society or any people! On the contrary, (as I laid out in the introduction) I consider myself as a part of the people of core Eurasian landmass. I’m against hypocrisy, insanity, deception, vulgarity and above all, inequality and injustice – history alone proves that ALL these banes witnessed by the humanity since ‘civilization’ dawned, were caused by the 1% aristocracy-elite-oligarchy in EVERY region across the world! The proposed two super-states, in my opinion, will go a long way to provide a stable environment and opportunity for amelioration of the plebeian lives in core Eurasia. It will usher the beginning of a new era!

Short profile:

Straight-Bat is an Engineer by profession, currently pursuing higher study in Economics. A keen observer of global affairs, Straight-Bat enjoys being an analyst of history, politics, economy, and geopolitics.

One of the few decade-old members of The Saker blog-site, Straight-Bat finds this website as a capstone entity that is dedicated to focus on truth and justice in public life across the world.

A Turning-Point Once Every 500 Years

September 14, 2022

Source

By Batiushka

Introduction: The Old Queen

I recall some forty years ago meeting an elderly English lady, a farmer’s wife called Mrs Dove, who had been present as a schoolgirl at the funeral of Queen Victoria. ‘When the old Queen died all those years ago’, she reminisced nostalgically, ‘everything was draped in black and everyone was dressed in black’. Now Victoria’s great-great-granddaughter, the new ‘old Queen’, is dead, the news announced beneath a rainbow over Windsor Castle. This is the town whose name the Queen’s grandfather, George V, had adopted as the family name, instead of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The Windsor name was officially adopted on 17 July 1917, just after the British-orchestrated Russian ‘Revolution’ of 1917, one year to the day before the Tsar and his Family were murdered in Ekaterinburg, on the very frontiers of Europe and Asia. The Russian Tsar had been betrayed by his look-alike cousin, King George V.

Whatever you say about Queen Elizabeth II, she personally had modesty, she had dignity, she had presence, she actually believed in something, she had all that her descendants seem utterly to lack. Perhaps her end was hastened by the behaviour of her son Prince Andrew, her grandson Prince Harry and the imbeciles who inhabit 10 Downing Street, the latest of whom she had to appoint Prime Minister only two days before she died. Why live any longer? She must have been fed up with it all. This is the final, final end of the Protestant Empire of Great Britain (1522-2022) (1), whose collapse began exactly three generations ago in 1947 in India. Perhaps the decline will go swiftly now under the disliked King Charles III (called in Russian Karl III) (2), who finds himself without Queen Diana, the only one who could have saved him. Expect the break-up of the UK to be rapid.

The 96 year-old Queen Elizabeth II died in Scotland, in Victoria’s castle at Balmoral, a relic of the 19^th century and its British Empire. Her curious, clipped Germanic accent – no English people talk like that – betrayed the Queen’s foreign origins as the last of the rulers shaped by German Protestantism, imported by the City of London merchant and financial class just over 300 years before. However, it is not only her, it is the other leaders of the Western world, relics of the 20^th century, who are dying out too. They are gerontocrats. In the USA Biden, born in the first half of the 20^th century and soon to be 80, should really be in an old folk’s home. It is cruel to keep parading him in front of the media like that and asking him to remember things. As for Pope Francis, aged 85, he can hardly walk and says that he too might go early, like his predecessor, still alive at 95, a relic forced to serve in the Hitler Youth.

Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front

After the humiliating debacle in Afghanistan in August 2021, when the Americans were kicked out and NATO was routed, the Asian century arrived. While Queen Elizabeth II was dying, senior representatives from sixty-eight countries were gathering at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast, a centre of the new multipolar world. They were there to listen to Moscow’s economic and political vision for the Asia-Pacific after the fall of the obsolete unipolar Western Empire. President Putin declared: ‘The new world order is based on the fundamental principles of justice and equality, as well as the recognition of the right of each state and people to their own sovereign path of development. Powerful political and economic centres are being formed right here in the Asia-Pacific region, acting as a driving force in this irreversible process’.

The Russian future is marked by the development of the Russian Arctic and of the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic. On the Northern Sea Route the emphasis is on building a powerful, modern fleet of icebreakers, some nuclear-powered. There is a long-term plan up to 2035 to create infrastructure for safe shipping navigation and a transformation in Arctic navigation and shipbuilding that has been under way for the last few years. A second development for Russia is the International North-South Transportation Corridor with one of its main ports in Chabahar in Iran. Now for the first time India will be directly connected to Central Asia. An Iranian shipping line with 300 vessels which link to Mumbai is taking part in the development of this Transportation Corridor. The creation of such a transport corridor is also leading to the integration of national transit systems in several countries.

In one week’s time the Samarkand Summit of the multipolar Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) will take place. Apart from the current full members – Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and now Iran – no fewer than eleven more countries wish to join, including Afghanistan and Turkey, making potentially twenty in all. The SCO Summit is to examine economic cooperation with the aim of solving health, energy, food security and poverty reduction issues. India too wants an Asian century, for which close cooperation between India, China and Russia is necessary. For now India is not competitive and needs to diversify to obtain improved access to Eurasia, thanks to logistical help from Russia. Russia will also play a vital role in the Indian Ocean with the need for close co-operation between ‘The Big Three’, Russia, India and China.

We must recall that Asia alone has over 25% of the world’s GDP and 50% of the world’s population. Asia is no longer a series of countries subject to colonisation by Europe and the USA, but the agent for planetary change. The Asian century is here. There is also a global movement to join the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and Argentina. It all means that the Global Majority is no longer the US/CA/UK/EU/AUS/NZ and a few US colonies like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. It is Afro-Eurasia-Latin America, 87.5% of the world. Someone is going to have to find a snappy new name for this alphabet soup, EEF, SCO, BRICS, perhaps something like G2022 or simply ‘The Alliance’? All trade in it will be in bilateral currencies, not in the dollar. The centre has passed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Atlantic is becoming a backwater. This is a New Age.

Meanwhile, on the Western Front

The Eastern Economic Forum showed how most Asian nations are ‘friendly’ or ‘neutral’ towards the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) in the Ukraine. They know that the Russian Armed Forces and the Russian State had been seeking peace and protection for those of Russian speech and culture in the Ukraine for eight years. The Operation was imposed on them by the incredible belligerence and arrogance of the West. Recently the US-backed and mercenary-led Kiev Armed Forces launched a counter-offensive to the south and east of the Ukraine towards Kherson and took many casualties for minor success. Kiev has been trying to compensate for that counter-offensive, where they lost two motorised brigades and over 300 tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery, with strikes to the north-west of Kharkov. But here too Kiev has been suffering such heavy losses that they have had to send reserves. The Allied forces have trapped the Kiev Army and its mercenaries in the open. Do not believe the absurd propaganda that Russia is losing.

According to a document signed by the Commander of the Armed Forces of the Ukraine, General Zaluzhny, by the beginning of July 2022, 76,640 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed (ten weeks on, it must be nearly 100,000). With the seriously wounded generally at a ratio of 1 to 1, this means that up to 200,000 Kiev troops may have been put out of action permanently. And that does not include deserters, captured and missing in action, which could make another 50,000. This confirms earlier reports that total Kiev casualties, those permanently out of the fighting, are a horrendous 250,000. In any case Ukrainian hospitals are overflowing, as friends from the Ukraine on Telegram and Whatsapp tell me every day. Indeed, a great many wounded have had to be sent to hospitals in Poland, which are also crowded, at least in Eastern Poland.

On the other hand, in all the Allies appear to have lost about 10,000 killed, most of them from the Donbass militias. This could mean up to 25,000 out of the fight permanently on their side. That is one tenth of Kiev’s casualties. With such huge Kiev losses, many are suggesting that Zelensky and his puppeteers in Washington and London are in fact guilty of war crimes. Nobody in his right mind sends his troops to the slaughter like this. Hitler proved that. Most analysts and observers consider that the conflict could end towards the end of next year or it could be slowed down till early 2024. By then the Allied Armed Forces could have liberated the nine provinces of Eastern Ukraine and demilitarised the nine provinces of Central Ukraine. This would leave the seven provinces of Western Ukraine, the real ‘borderlands’ (the meaning of the word ‘Ukraine’), 20% of the whole, to be returned to other countries, with five provinces going to Poland, one (Chernovtsy) to Romania and one (Zakarpat’e) to Hungary.

The New Ukraine, or whatever it may be called, may well become a Russian Protectorate, as may Belarus after Lukashenko (it already is in effect just that), and also Kazakhstan, which needs Russia, if only for military and economic reasons. We believe that the three collapsing and heavily depopulated Baltic States will also end up the same way, once their American puppet elites have gone. We would expect that Serbia, Serbian Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbian Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia, though remaining fully independent, will also loosely ally themselves with the Russian Federation, if only for energy reasons. And we would say the same of Orthodox Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Cyprus, and perhaps also of Catholic Hungary. Such an alliance in a very loose Confederation is what Stalin failed to do in 1945. In such a context we foresee the collapse of EU tyranny.

Conclusion: The Eurasian Future

Time is running out for the Combined West as a United World Power. It is formed from a parasitical elite and the peoples, zombified, hoodwinked and betrayed by that elite’s lying propaganda (remember that Goebbels too was a Westerner). All its front organisations, the UN, the EU, the G7, the G20, NATO, the WEF, the IMF, the World Bank etc, have failed. Today, the USA is bitterly divided, some would say, it is on the brink of a Civil War. Australia has become China’s mine. Most of the bankrupt EU and UK look like failed states. Japan is also bankrupt. Taiwan is inevitably returning to China. Korea will be reunified.

The only future for Western Europe is in an alliance with its natural partner, Asia, or rather Eurasia, which means Europe eating humble pie and going through Russia and accepting its leadership and respecting its culture. After reintegrating with Asia, from which it had artificially cut itself off in history, and coming out of its arrogant, navel-gazing isolation, Europe will next have to integrate Afro-Eurasia. This is the sense of the three generations of immigration to Western Europe from Asia and Africa. For Europe it is all about reintegrating the world and realising that it is now on an equal footing with it.

What a time to be alive! I remember so very well the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and all that followed in Romania, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union soon after. That was a turning point, 50 years after 1939 such a one as happens every 50 years. However, that was just the first part of a much greater change, that which is happening now. For what we are living through now via the Ukraine is a turning-point that happens once every 500 years. And the death of Queen Elizabeth II is the very symbol of this huge sea-change as we move with hope away from the Western mistakes of the past towards the next 500 years.

14 September 2022

Notes:

1. It is true that if we are to give a date to the English Reformation, then 1533 would be more exact. That was when the Pope of Rome excommunicated Henry VIII, who had made himself ‘Head of the Church’. However, we use the date 1522, because that was when Anne Boleyn arrived at the English court as a maid-in-waiting to the sonless Spanish Queen Catherine of Aragon. That was the start of it all. By 1533 Henry, who had been infatuated with Anne for years, was secretly married to her and she gave birth to a daughter in that same year.

Meanwhile, the London Parliament had passed an Imperial Act, which outlawed appeals to Rome on Church matters and proclaimed that: ‘This realm of England is an Empire (our emphasis), and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one Supreme Head and King having the dignity and royal estate of the Imperial Crown of the same, unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of Spirituality and Temporality, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience’.

2. In Russian tradition, Karl, the German form of the name Charles, is used. The name Karl is taken from Charlemagne, in German, Karl der Grosse, who gave rise to the Slavic word for king (kral, kral’, kráľ, król, korol’).

Language, objectivity, and political power

August 29, 2022

Source

by Francis Lee

Contemporary politics consists of the usual timeless formula of Machiavelli – namely: rule by force and fraud – but now with the current emphasis being on fraud, writes Francis Lee.

‘’Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, their inhabitants driven out into the countryside, their cattle machine gunned, their huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.’’ (Politics and the English Language – 1946)

‘’There is a high probability that Russia will intervene in the Baltics to test NATO’s Article 5 … ‘’ (Anders Fogh Rasmussen, ex head of NATO, February 2015).

It would be true to say that the language of politics and power – machtpolitik or realpolitik – is patently neither objective, nor particularly interested in the pursuit of truth. Quite the contrary in fact. If we take the above examples, the first is simply an attempt to mask what is an international war crime into a reasonable policy of ‘humanitarian’ intervention. All rather reminiscent of the language which evolved during the Indo-China wars, e.g. ‘we destroyed the village in order to save it.’ The purpose of the second assertion was simply designed to ramp up the current war psychosis in order to justify the eastern expansion and build-up of NATO on Russia’s western frontiers. Please note that Mr Rasmussen isn’t saying that a Russian intervention is possible, or even probable, but highly probable. This seems somewhat strange as Russia couldn’t wait to get rid of the Baltic states when it declared its independence in 1991, and now we are expected to believe that Russia wants to invade those same states!

It is said that knowledge is power, in fact the reverse seems more accurate. Those who control the means of communication are now able to create a virtual reality. This is nothing new. The father of modern Public Relations, Edward Bernays, postulated that ‘invisible’ people create knowledge and propaganda and rule over the masses, with a monopoly on the power to shape thoughts, values, and citizen response. “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” (Propaganda).

One of Bernays’ great admirers was Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels who was to apply his theories with alacrity during the Nazi ascendency 1934-1945. JG was able to convince enough of Germany’s population that ‘total war’ was really quite good fun. He and they were apparently not aware that this would ultimately involve the fire-bombing of German cities like Hamburg and Dresden. This amply demonstrates that skilful techniques of mass indoctrination are able to get people to imagine and support policies which are not necessarily in their own best interests.

In our own time this mass manipulation was identified by Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky in their seminal work The Manufacture of Consent first published in 1988. The mass communication media of the U.S. “are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion.” This seems to be the most salient political phenomenon of our times.

Returning to Orwell, it was during his period in Spain during the war against Franco (1936-39) that he first became aware of the political potentialities of modern mass communications systems. Orwell was a passionate believer in truth, and that objective facts existed and could be identified. However, as a result of his experiences in Spain he discovered that mere facts were of secondary or even no importance. What counted was a propaganda narrative which was a function of political expediency. At the time he was serving in the military wing of POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unity) sister party of the British ILP (Independent Labour Party) which he later joined – 1938. This was in 1937 after the Comintern’s right turn, away from the ultra-leftism of the Third Period, towards the Popular Front phase, a move from a policy of international revolution (identified as Trotskyism) to the defence of democracy through alliances with bourgeois political groups. Unfortunately for Orwell he was in the wrong place at the wrong time – this was the time of the big Stalinist push against Trotskyism, and in Spain this meant the POUM. He wrote:

‘’I must say something about the general charge that the POUM was a secret fascist organization in the pay of Franco and Hitler. This charge was repeated over and over in the Communist press … according to the Frenti Rojo (the Valencia Communist Newspaper) ‘’Trotskyism, is not a political doctrine; it is a capitalist organization in league with the Fascists, a Fascist terrorist band, and part of Franco’s 5^th column.’’

What was noticeable from the start was that there was no evidence to support this accusation; the thing was simply asserted with an air of authority.’’ (My emphaisis – FL)

Yep, sounds familiar.

Orwell’s pessimism in this respect reached its terminal stage in his disturbing dystopian novel, 1984

This manufacture of a virtual reality is now common currency in the mass media. The press in particular – including the putatively left-wing publications, (more catholic than the Pope) the Guardian and the Independent – pretty much operate as an appendage to the ‘invisible’ people or are the ‘invisible people’ identified by Bernays. A case in point being a recent snippet in the Independent newspaper which read:

‘’60,000 tortured to death in (Syrian) government jails.’’

‘’At least 60,000 people have died in Syrian government jails during the 5-year conflict, according to a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) which said they died ‘’either as a result of direct bodily torture or denial of food and medicine.’’ The Observatory’s director, Abdulrahman said more than 20,000 had died in Sednaya prison near Damascus. The Observatory claimed it had been able to verify the deaths of 14,456.00 (sic) under the age of 18, since the start of the Syrian uprising since 2011.

The Independent 23-05-2106 By Tom Perry – Beirut.

Closer examination reveals that Mr Abdulrahman has lived in Coventry – a small provincial town in middle-England – since 2006 and owns a shop which he runs with his wife; nonetheless he asserts that his sources were serving officials seeking to expose what is going on.

So, we get one guy in Beirut publishing a report based upon another guy who has lived in Coventry since 2006 and who claims to have contacts at high levels in the Syrian government. Yeah, right!

Yet the Independent, which is said to be a ‘left leaning’ newspaper owned by the Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev who purchased it in 2010, will it seems publish extremely dubious stories without checking the sources but simply takes what they say at face value. No doubt this dishonesty serves a greater cause.

The post-modernist denial of the possibility of objective reality is now firmly entrenched in reactionary elite circles. It involves, 1. ‘Groupthink’ defined as a process where a group with similar backgrounds and largely insulated from outside opinion makes decisions without critically testing, analysing and evaluating ideas and outcomes. 2. ‘Doublethink’ where two incompatible thoughts can be carried on at the same time. It of course follows that if everyone is thinking the same then no-one is thinking at all. Finally, 3. Double standards. Describing the behaviour of your opponents as despicable, inhuman and a violation of human rights, when ‘our’ side is doing exactly the same. Of necessity this involves all of the above mechanisms. Orwell explained:

‘’Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits but according to who does them, and of course there is no kind of outrage – torture, the use of hostages, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.’’ (Notes on Nationalism – 1945).

The Goebbels propaganda template was/is disarmingly simple: tell a lie, preferably a big one and then repeat it endlessly until it seeps into the popular consciousness. Taking their cue from this policy the mainstream media messages are relentless, ubiquitous, and obedient to their political masters. This was apparent during the EU referendum campaign and the geopolitical tensions in eastern Europe and the South China Sea. This information war is now the primary political phenomenon of our times, and the mass media speaks with one voice.

As Orwell opined: ‘To begin with, the era of free speech is closing down, the freedom of the press in Britain has always been something of a fake, because in the last resort, money controls opinion.’ That’s the bad news. ‘… still as long as the legal right to say what you like exists, there are always loopholes for the unorthodox writer.’ (Why I joined the Independent Labour Party – 1938). With due deference to Orwell, however, those loopholes are disappearing fast.

Sad to say, however, Orwell actually ended up spying for the British Foreign Office. At the time, 1946, the USSR and Stalin were both very popular amongst the working people of the UK. The Soviet football (‘soccer’ for all our American friends) team, Moscow Dynamo, did a tour of the UK and played Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (London); it was a mass sell-out where upwards of 100,000 fans spilled over onto the pitch. Chelsea won by the way, 4-1. (See below).

Members of my own family were actively involved in the war both in the army, Royal navy and merchant navy. One such, Uncle Tom, took part in convoys carrying armaments to the USSR – a rather dangerous undertaking from Scotland to Murmansk all the time being bombed and torpedoed by German aircraft and U-Boats based in occupied Norway. He was lucky to survive.

But that was then, and this is now.

———————————————————————————————————

Unfortunately, however, and according to Ben Norton of The Greyzone 2016 , the popularity of the USSR was not to the liking of the British political class and intelligentsia. Indeed!

Norton noted the following:

‘’It is fascinating seeing people in the 21st century, especially self-declared leftists, still lionizing George Orwell, the worst kind of reactionary turncoat.

For years, the cat has been out of the bag: George Orwell secretly worked for the UK’s Foreign Office. At the end of his life, he was an outright counter-revolutionary snitch, spying on leftists on behalf of the imperialist British government.

The US government also found Orwell’s work quite useful. The coup-plotting, death squad-training assassins and torturers at the Central Intelligence Agency turned Orwell’s books into a propaganda weapon. The CIA even funded the Animal Farm movie, which is now mandatory viewing in many high schools.

But that happened after Orwell’s death in 1950. What is more scandalous is that he knowingly collaborated with the UK government when he was still alive.

“Orwell’s List” is a term that should be known by anyone who claims to be a person of the left. It was a blacklist Orwell compiled for the British government’s Information Research Department; an anti-communist propaganda unit set up for the Cold War.

The list includes dozens of suspected communists, “crypto-communists,” socialists, “fellow travellers,” and even LGBT people and Jews — their names scribbled alongside the sacrosanct 1984 author’s disparaging comments about the personal predilections of those blacklisted.

The document was declassified by the British government in 2003. The leading neoliberal newspaper The Guardian reported at the time that the blacklist “contains the names of 38 public figures, from the actors Charlie Chaplin and Michael Redgrave to the author JB Priestley, whom Orwell suggested should not be trusted by the IRD as anti-communist propagandists.”

Timothy Garton Ash, the historian who obtained the document, revealed that Orwell gave the blacklist to his close friend Celia Kirwan, who worked for the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department, from his sickbed in May 1949.

Orwell had told Kirwan in April that the list included journalists and writers who “in my opinion are crypto-communists, fellow-travellers or inclined that way and should not be trusted as propagandists.”

“There seems to be general agreement by Orwell’s fans, left and right, to skate gently over Orwell’s suspicions of Jews, homosexuals and blacks, also over the extreme ignorance of his assessments,” wrote legendary radical journalist Alexander Cockburn, sardonically referring to the anti-communist blacklist as “St. George’s List.”

“If any other postwar left intellectual was suddenly found to have written mini-diatribes about blacks, homosexuals and Jews, we can safely assume that subsequent commentary would not have been forgiving,” he added. “Here there’s barely a word.”

Cockburn’s The Nation article on the subject, “St. George’s List,” is difficult to find today. I have republished it in full below. The article was also expanded into “The Fable of the Weasel,” Cockburn’s foreword for John Reed’s Animal Farm parody Snowball’s Chance.

Apologists insist Orwell simply “sold out” later in life and became a cranky conservative, yet the story is more complex. Orwell had a consistent political thread throughout his life. This explains how he could go from fighting alongside a Spanish Trostkyite militia in a multi-tendency war against fascism to demonizing the Soviet Union as The Real Enemy — before returning home to imperial Britain, where he became a social democratic traitor who castigated capitalism while collaborating with the capitalist state against revolutionaries trying to create socialism.

Sure, the USSR did some objectionable things, but it was also the only large country in the entire world that supported the Spanish Republicans in their fight against fascism (excluding a bit of extra support from Mexico). The Soviet Union understood that one cannot have a revolution if one cannot even defeat the fascist counterrevolution first — a lesson many on the left still have not learned today.

Yet leftists like Orwell and his devoted followers continue to lament Kronstadt and revel in their ideological purity — while conveniently living relatively comfortable lives in Western imperialist country.’’

So, if it is the case that Orwell fell foul of some reactionary impulses in later life, then none of us is apparently immune to this type of propaganda. I think Orwell’s conversion dates back to his political period working for the British Colonial Office in India. His novels – Burmese Days, for example – as well as articles such as (Shooting and Elephant) and (A Hanging) seem to have insinuated themselves into his belief system. This was not at all unusual among intellectuals from the 1950’s onwards – with the honourable exception of C Wright Mills perhaps – who became fervent supporters of imperialism and is still the case today. The blue pill is apparently still all the rage among the decadent and fashionable elite! This much is manifest. Like the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, who in 1918 said of the political/moral degeneration of the West:

‘’The best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity…

‘’And what rough beast its hour come round at last slouches toward Bethlehem to be born.’’

(The Second Coming)

But like the carthorse, Boxer, in Animal Farm, we, the western ‘intelligentsia’ (sic! or what passes for it) must try harder.

Will the Ukraine be partitioned next and, if so, how?

August 16, 2022

Interesting info today.  First, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has, through the statement of a Colonel General, made the following statement (translated by my friend Andrei Martyanov on his blog): (emphasis added)

Translation: MOSCOW, August 16 – RIA Novosti. Western curators have practically written off the Kyiv regime and are already planning the partition of Ukraine, Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Colonel-General Volodymyr Matveev said at the Moscow Conference on International Security. “Obviously, the West is not concerned about the fate of the Kyiv regime. As can be seen from the information received by the SVR, Western curators have almost written it off and are in full swing developing plans for the division and occupation of at least part of the Ukrainian lands,” he said. However, according to the general, much more is at stake than Ukraine: for Washington and its allies, it is about the fate of the colonial system of world domination.

Just to clarify, the SVR rarely makes public statements and when they do, you can take them to the bank as the SVR is not in the business of “leaks” from “informed sources” and all the rest of the PR nonsense produced by the so-called western “intelligence” agencies (which have now been fully converted to highly politicized propaganda outlets).

The same day I see this article on the RT website: “Western countries waiting for ‘fall of Ukraine’ – Kiev” in which an interesting statement the Ukronazi Foreign Minister is mentioned:

Several countries in the West are waiting for Kiev to surrender and think their problems will immediately solve themselves, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba in an interview published on Tuesday.  “I often get asked in interviews and while speaking to other foreign ministers: how long will you last? That’s instead of asking what else could be done to help us defeat Putin in the shortest time possible,” Kuleba said, noting that such questions suggest that everyone “is waiting for us to fall and for their problems to disappear on their own.”

Finally, a while ago, Dmitri Medvedev post this “future map of the Ukraine after the war” on his Telegram account.  This maps shows a Ukraine partitioned between her neighbors and a tiny rump Ukraine left in the center.

Now, full disclosure, I have been a proponent of the breakup of the Ukraine into several successor states for a long while now: I gave my reasons for this in my article “The case for the breakup of the Ukraine” written in faraway 2016.

Now, six years later, what are the chances of this happening?

Without making predictions, which is close to impossible right now as there are way too many variables which can dramatically influence the outcome, I want to list a few arguments for and against the likelihood (as opposed to desirability) of such an outcome.

Arguments for the likelihood of this outcome:

• First, most of the neighbors of the Ukraine would benefit from such an outcome.  Poland would not get the “intermarium” it always dreams about, but it would get back lands which historically belong to Poland and are populated by many Poles.  In this map, Romania would also get a good deal, albeit Moldavia would lose Transnistria, which it had no real chance to ever truly control anyway.  Romania might, therefore, even absorb all of Moldavia.  True, on this map, Hungary gets (almost) nothing, but that is an issue which Hungary must tackle with Poland and Romania, not Russia.
• Russia might not even oppose such a development, simply because it makes the Ukronazi problem somebody else’s issue.  As long as what is the current Ukraine is fully demilitarized and denazified, Russia will be fine with such an outcome.
• The rump ex-Banderastan would be so much reduced in size, population and ressources that it would present little to no threat to anybody.  Crucially, the Russians will never allow it to have anything more than a minimal police and internal security force (for at least as long as there remains even *traces* of the Ukronazi Banderista ideology anywhere near Russia).  The actual chances of this rump Banderastan to become a threat to anybody would be close to zero.  Not to mention that even if that rump Banderastan could become some kind of threat, it would be much easier to deal with it than the threat Russia faced in early 2022.
• Objectively, the European countries would get the best possible “out” for them, as being in a constant state of total war by proxy is absolutely unsustainable for countries of Europe.
• As for “Biden”, assuming he is still alive and in power (?), it would make it possible for “him” to remove the topic of this latest war lost (again!) by the USA from the headlines and deal with other issues.
• The Ukraine has been such a waste of money, billions and billions, that it is essentially a black hole with an event horizon which lets nothing come back out and beyond which anything, money, equipment or men, simply disappear.  That is clearly an unsustainable drain on the economies of the West.
• Yet, in theory, if a deal is made and all parties agree, then the EU could remove maybe not all, but at least the worst, self-damaging, sanctions it so stupidly implemented and which are now destroying the EU’s economy.
• For the USA the biggest benefit from such an outcome could be, in theory, that it would “close” the “Russian front” and allow the US to focus its hatred and aggression against China.

There are, however, also many arguments against such an outcome.

• First, the western ruling classes, drunk on total russophobia, would have to accept that Russia won this war (again) and defeated the combined powers of the West (again).  This would mean an immense loss of face and political credibility for all those involved in the political war against Russia.
• Second, for NATO this would be a disaster.  Remember that NATO’s real goal is to “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down“.  In this case, how would an even expanded NATO accept that it could do absolutely nothing to stop the Russians from achieving all their goals?
• Next, while the people of the EU are suffering from the devastating economic policies of their rulers, the ruling elites (the EU 1%) are doing just fine, thank you, and don’t give a damn about the people they rule over.
• Such an outcome would also directly challenge the US desire for a unipolar world, run by Uncle Shmuel as the World Hegemon.  The risk here is a political domino effect in which more and more countries would struggle to achieve true sovereignty, which would be a direct threat to the US economic model.
• Such an outcome is almost certain to be unachievable while the Neocons run the USA.  And since there are NO signs of the weakening of the Neocons’ iron grip on all the levers of political powers in the USA, such an outcome could only happen if the Neocon crazies are sent back to the basement they crawled out from and where they belong.  Not likely in the foreseeable future.
• This focus on the partition of the Ukraine overlooks the fact that the Ukraine is not the real enemy of Russia.  In fact, the Ukraine lost the war to Russia in the first 7-10 days after the beginning of the SMO.  Ever since, it is not the Ukraine per se which Russia has been fighting, but the consolidated West.  If the real enemy is the consolidated West, the it could be argued that *any* outcome limited to the Ukraine would not fix or solve anything.  At best, it might be an intermediate stage of a much larger and longer war in which Russia will have to demilitarize and denazify not just Banderastan but, at the very least, all of the EU/NATO countries.
• While for some the Ukrainian war has been an economic disaster, it has been a fantastic windfall for the (terminally corrupt) US MIC.  And I won’t even go into the obvious corruption ties the Biden family has in Kiev.  If this “Medvedev solution” is ever realized, then all that easy money would disappear.
• Furthermore, while amongst the argument for such an outcome I listed the ability of the USA to “close the Russian front” and focus on China, in reality such an arguments makes a very far-fetched assumption: that it is still possible to separate Russia and China and that Russia would allow the US to strike at China.  Simply put, Russia cannot allow China to be defeated any more than China can allow for a Russian defeat.  Thus the entire notion of “closing the Russian front” is illusory, in reality things have gone way too far for that and neither Russia nor China will allow the US to take them down one by one.
• The EU is run by a comprador ruling class which is totally subservient to the interests of the US Neocons.  There are, already, many internal tensions inside the EU and such an outcome would be a disaster for those all those EU politicians who painted themselves into the corner of a total war against Russia, and even if, say, the Poles, Romanians or even Hungarians get some benefit from such an outcome, it would be unacceptable to the thugs currently running Germany, the UK or even France.

The arguments for and against such an outcome I listed above are just some examples, in reality there are many more arguments on both sides of this issue.  Besides, what made sense 6 years ago might not make sense today.

For example, this discussion focuses on the “what” but not on the “how”.  Let me explain.

I think that I was the first person in the West who noticed and translated a key Russian expression: “non agreement capable” (недоговороспособны).  This expression has been increasingly used by many Russian decision-makers, politicians, political commentators and others.  Eventually, even the folks in the West picked up on this.  So let’s revisit this issue again, keeping in mind that the Russians are now fully convinced that the West is simply “non agreement capable”.  I would argue that up until the Russian ultimatum to the USA and NATO, the Russians still left open the door to some kind of negotiations.  However, and as I predicted BEFORE the Russian ultimatum, Russia made the only possibly conclusion from the West’s stance: if our “partners” (sarcasm) are not agreement capable, then the time has come for Russian unilateralism.

True, ever since 2013, or even 2008, there were already signs that Russian decision making is gradually moving towards unilateralism.  But the Russian ultimatum and SMO are now the “pure” signs of the adoption by Russia of unilateralism, at least towards the consolidated West.

If that is correct, then I would suggest that most arguments above, on both sides of the issue, are have basically become obsolete and irrelevant.

Furthermore, I would like to add a small reminder here: most of the combat operations in the Ukraine are not even conducted by Russian forces, but by LDNR forces supported by Russian C4ISR and firepower.  But in terms of her real military potential, Russia has used less than 10% of her military and Putin was quite candid about this when he said “we have not even begun to act seriously“.

What do you think this war will look like if Russia decides to really unleash her full military power, that is the 90% of forces which are currently not participating in the SMO?

Here is a simple truth which most folks in the West cannot even imagine: Russia does not fear NATO at all.

If anything, the Russians have already understood that they have the means to impose whatever outcome they chose to unilaterally impose on their enemies.  The notion of a US/NATO attack on Russia is simply laughable.  Yes, the USA has a very powerful submarine force which can fire lots of Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles at Russian targets.  And yes, the US has a still robust nuclear triad.  But neither of these will help the USA win a land war against the Russian armed forces.

And no, sending a few thousands US soldiers to this or that NATO country to “reinforce NATO’s eastern flank” is pure PR, militarily, it is not even irrelevant, it’s laughable.  I won’t even comment on the sending of F-35s which is so utterly ridiculous and useless against the Russian Aerospace Forces and air defenses that I won’t even bother arguing with those who don’t understand how bad both the F-35s (and even the F-22s!) really are.

I won’t dignify the EU’s military capabilities with any comment other than this: countries who now seriously advocate taking less frequent showers to “show Putin!” have sunk to such a level of irrelevance and degeneracy that they cannot be taken seriously, most definitely not in Russia.

So where do we go from here?

As I said, I don’t know, there are too many variables.  But a few things seem clear to me:

• Russia has decided to full unilateralism in her policies towards the Ukraine and the West.  Oh sure, if and when needed, Russians will still agree to talk to their western “partners”, but that is due to the long standing Russian policy of always talking to everybody and anybody, even Russia’s worst enemies.  Why?  Because neither warfare not political unilateralism are an end by themselves, they are only means to achieve a specific political goal.  Thus, it is always good to sit down with your enemy, especially if you have been gently but steadily increasing the pain dial on them for a few months!  The Europeans being the “great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies” (to quite BoJo) they are might cave in quickly and suddenly or, at the very least, they will try to improve their lot by trying to bypass their own sanctions (Uncle Shmuel permitting, however reluctantly).
• The only party with any real agency left with which Russia could seriously negotiate is the USA, of course.  However, as long as the USA under the total control of the Neocons, this is a futile exercise.
• Should there ever be any kind of deal made, it would only be one which would be fully and totally verifiable.  Contrary to popular beliefs, a great many treaties and agreements can be crafted to be fully verifiable, that is not a technical problem by itself.  However, with the current ruling classes of the West, no such deal is likely to be hammered out and agreed by all parties involved.

So what is left?

There is a Russian saying which my grandmother taught me as a kid: “the borders of Russia are found at the end of a Cossack’s spear“.  This saying, born from 1000 years of existential warfare with no natural borders simply expresses a basic reality: the Russian armed forces are the ones who decide where Russia ends.  Or you can flip it this way: “the only natural border of Russia are the capabilities of the Russian armed forces”.  You can think of it has pre-1917 Russian unilateralism 🙂

Still, this begs the question of the moral and ethical foundation for such a stance.  After all, does it not suggest that Russia gives herself the right to invade any country it can just because she can?

Not at all!

While there were imperialist and expansionist wars in Russian history, compared to the West’s 1000 years of wall to wall imperialism, Russia is but a meek and gentle lamb!  Not that this excuses anything, it is simply a fact.  The rest of the Russian wars were, almost all, existential wars, for the survival and freedom of the Russian nation.  I cannot think of a more “just war” than one which 1) was imposed upon you and 2) one in which your sole goal is to survive as a free and sovereign nation, especially a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation as the Russian one has always been, in sharp contrast to the enemies of Russia which were always driven by religious, nationalist and even overtly racist fervor (which is what we can all observe again today, long after the end of WWII).

Is this just propaganda?  If you think so, then you can study Russian history or, better, study the current military doctrine of Russia and you will see that Russia’s force planning is entirely defensive, especially at the strategic level.  The best proof of that is that Russia put up with all the ugly racist and russophobic policies of the Ukraine or the three Baltic statelets for decades without taking any action.  But when the Ukraine became a de facto NATO proxy and directly threatened not only the Donbass, but Russia herself (does anybody still remember that days before the SMO, “Ze” declared that the Ukraine should get nuclear weapons?!), then Russia took action.  You have to be either blind or fantastically dishonest not to admit that self-evident fact.

[Sidebar: by the way, the three Baltic statelets, for which Russia has not use at all, are constantly trying to become a military threat to Russia, not only by hosting NATO forces, but also by truly idiotic plans to “lock” the Baltic with Finland.  Combine this was the Nazi anti-Russian Apartheid policies towards the Russian minorities and you would be forgiven for thinking that the Balts really want to be the next ones to be denazified and demilitarized.  But… but… – you will say  – “since they are members of NATO, they cannot be attacked!”.  Well, if you believe that 1) anybody in NATO will fight Russia over these statelets or 2) that NATO has the military means to protect them, then I have got plenty of great bridges to sell you.  Still, the most effective way to deal with the Balts is to let them commit economic suicide, which they basically have already done, and then promise them a few “economic carrots” for a change to a more civilized attitude.  A Russian saying says that “the refrigerator wins against the TV” (победа холодильника над телевизором) which means that when your refrigerator is empty, the propaganda on TV loses its power.  I think that the future of the 3 Baltic statelets will be defined by that aphorism]

So will the Ukraine be partitioned?

Yes, absolutely, it has already lost huge parts of its territory and it will only lose more.

Might the western neighbors decide to take a bite out off the western Ukraine?  Sure!  That is a real possibility.

But these will all be either unilateral actions or very unofficially coordinated understandings wrapped in plausible deniability (like the deployment Polish “peacekeepers” to “protect” the western Ukraine).  But mostly I predict two things will happen: 1) Russia will achieve all of her goals unilaterally without making any deals with anybody and 2) Russia will only allow the Ukraine’s western neighbors to bite off some chucks of the Ukraine if, and only if, those chunks to not represent any military threat to Russia.

Remember what Putin said about Finland and Sweden and Finland joining NATO?  He said that by itself, this is not a problem for Russia.  But he warned that should these countries host US/NATO forces and weapons systems threatening Russia, than Russia will have to take counter-measures.  I think that this is also the Kremlin’s position about the future of any rump-Banderastan and any moves by NATO countries (including Poland, Romania and Hungary) to reacquire territories which historically belonged to them or which have substantial Polish, Romanian and Hungarian minorities.

Right now, we are only in the second phase of the SMO (which centers of the Donbass) and Russia has not even initiated any operations to move deeper into the Ukraine.  As for the real war, the war between Russia and the combined West, it has been going on for no less than decade, or even more, and this war will last much longer than the SMO in the Ukraine.  Finally, the outcome of this war will see  tectonic and profound changes at least as damatic as the changes resulting from the outcomes of WWI and WWII.

The Russians understand that what they now really must do is to truly finish WWII and that the formal end of WWII in 1945 only marked the transition to a different type of warfare still imposed by a united, consolidated West, but now not by German Nazis but by (mostly) US Neocons (which, of course, are typical racist Nazis, except their racism is Anglo and Judaic/Zionist).

I will conclude with a short quote by Bertold Brecht which, I think, is deeply understood by Russia today:

“Therefore learn how to see and not to gape.
To act instead of talking all day long.
The world was almost won by such an ape!
The nations put him where his kind belong.
But don’t rejoice too soon at your escape –
The womb he crawled from is still going strong.”

― Bertolt Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Russia slaughtered a lot of western apes in her history, now is the time to finally deal with the womb from which they crawled out from.

Andrei

PS: FYI – the Russian investigation has declared that the explosions in the airfield in Crimea was an act of sabotage/diversion.  Which was the most likely explanation to begin with.

Russia Warns of Severing Ties with US If It Brands Moscow Terror Sponsor

August 14, 2022

By Staff, Agencies

Moscow has warned its diplomatic ties with Washington could be broken off should the US brand Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism.”

If the US Senate acts on announced plans to single out Russia as such, it would mean Washington has crossed the point of no return, badly damaging – and possibly severing – ties, said the head of Russian Foreign Ministry’s North American department.

Alexander Darchiyev said Friday if the Senate passes a legislation designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, it would cause “the most serious collateral damage for bilateral diplomatic relations, to the point of downgrading and even breaking them off.”

“The American side has been warned,” Russia’s official Tass news agency cited the senior Russian as saying.

Two US senators seeking to pass such legislation visited Ukraine’s capital last month to discuss the bill with the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Russia’s neighboring country of Latvia passed a bill Thursday designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism over the persisting war in Ukraine, calling on its Western sponsors to impose more comprehensive sanctions against Moscow.

Late last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also warned against the Senate’s push to declare Russia as a sponsor of terrorism over the conflict in Ukraine after the senators unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution calling on Blinken to designate Russia as such.

Blinken, however, responded noncommittally to the request, saying any decision must be based on existing legal definitions.

“The costs that have been imposed on Russia by us and by other countries are absolutely in line with the consequences that would follow from designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Blinken said. “So the practical effects of what we’re doing are the same.”

Over the course of the war in Ukraine, the US and its Western allies have imposed unprecedented sanctions against Russia and supplied billions of dollars worth of weaponry to Ukraine.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov also warned last month that designating Russia as a state sponsor of terror would have “negative consequences” for the already fractured bilateral ties.

Zelensky, meanwhile, issued a fresh call on Friday for European Union member nations to impose a visa ban on Russian nationals, accusing them of being potential “killers or accomplices of state terror.”

“There must be guarantees that Russian killers or accomplices of state terror not use Schengen visas,” he said in a nightly address, referring to visas granting the holder access to the border-free Schengen Area that spans several EU states.

“Secondly, we must not destroy the very idea of Europe – our common European values,” he added. “Europe must therefore not be transformed into a supermarket where it is not important who walks in and where the main thing is that people just pay for their goods.”

Zelensky’s appeal was strongly slammed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who emphasized that “any attempt to isolate Russians or Russia is a process that has no prospects.”

The comedian-turned-president then went on to say that his proposal did not apply to Russians who needed help for risking their freedom or their lives by resisting Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s policies.

Zelensky initially called for a visa ban earlier in the week during an interview with the US-based Washington Post daily, insisting that Russians should live in their own world until they changed their philosophy.

His unprecedented demand, however, has yet to win support from the EU’s major players, according to European media outlets, though he praised the support of three ex-Soviet Baltic States and the Czech Republic, which currently serves as EU’s rotating president. Finland has also backed the idea.

• Moscow reveals ‘point of no return’ in Russia-US relations
• Moscow names condition for ‘normalizing’ relations with US

The disintegration of Western society – visible to the naked eye

July 02, 2022

Source

by Guilherme Wilbert

While we notice the closest integration among emerging countries, we notice a certain disparity among the richest, first-world countries, because they may not seem like it, but they also have internal problems that cannot always be fought. And the most recent of these is inflation, with an unprecedented rise in prices.

The middle class, the main target of the Great Reset enthusiasts, is beginning to feel prices rising more and more, even though they don’t fully agree with the war at the moment, which is impressive if you consider that public opinion is of little concern to the leaders who are driving the economic-military and diplomatic disaster in Europe.  The most practical example of this is recent with the Nordics joining NATO without any referendum or popular poll within the countries’ society. And the argument to be used I can already imagine: “But democracy is representative, William! If the people vote for politician x, it’s because they agree with his platform.” Yes. But that is half right. Not entirely.

Democracy, especially representative democracy, has a serious flaw, precisely in terms of representation.  Politicians who are not faithfully committed to the objectives of the nation, of the homeland, but, unfortunately, are rather vain, cause a distortion in the etymological sense of the term “representative democracy”, because who would it represent? Not the people!  And one of the causes of the wrong votes that the people usually give (considering totally clean elections) is due to the fact that it is not invested in the political conscience of these societies, usually due to a lack of interest from part of society, but also due to the lack of incentives from the State in this matter. But this is a very complex subject that I can deal with in another article.

To try to continue the reasoning of the Western disintegration and distortion of the democratic sense, I can give a practical example of Brazil, because it is closer to home. The juristocracy ended up taking over the country after Operation Lava Jato, which was nothing more than an American collusion with the Brazilian opposition to depose the Dilma Rousseff government (which does not cancel out Dilma’s mistakes, who was a terrible supposed economist and basically destroyed the country, becoming easy prey as she fell into popular disgrace). But what is this juristocracy? Simply the country’s Supreme Court overruling any take on government that the Federal Executive Branch has. And that’s just about anyone anyway.

A more emblematic case was when Jair Bolsonaro, head of the Brazilian Executive Government, tried to cheapen and cut taxes, in which he was barred by the country’s Federal Supreme Court with pious claims that did not see the welfare of the Brazilian people, but the opposite.  What is this if not a distortion of the sense of democracy with a judiciary ruling without popular vote in place of the actual president of the country? And this is seen in many parts of the globe. Jacob Zuma was arrested by order of the country’s Supreme Court as a reminder.

No wonder that what is now called lawfare has become a real weapon against legitimately elected governments.

And these phenomena happening in Brazil as in the example, or in the US, which exports this kind of practice in several parts of the world (not forgetting Pakistan which ousted Imran Khan with a motion of no confidence fomented by the US) with several groups such as Black Lives Matter, where they are nothing more than spearheads of social agitators and bankers, end up eroding the civilizational core of the country, leading to barbarism, lack of control and evil. And then you extend the reasoning now to all the countries that apply democracy as a system of government and are influenced directly or indirectly by the Northern Empire.

It is simply the total disintegration of Western society because it is not yet realized by the leaders today that the current system of government is not working, and this is causing social distortions that could be easily countered in other ways. I am not making room for dictatorships if that is what you are used to thinking, but I cannot imagine a platform of nation and homeland being put together in only 4 years. Things take much longer to happen than the terms of democracies.

We could have held on, but the thirst for war always speaks louder

It is curious to think that things could have been different, such as if Russia became a member of NATO, which would have shut up some of the mouths in Brussels and London thirsting for war, or even what I have already mentioned in an article: a document linked to international law based on multilateral coordination between the UN and other entities recognizing that Ukraine would not join NATO, respecting the Russian right to the territorial security of the Federation. If we take recent Russian history, we would understand their concerns.

In the late 1990s, Chechnya for example tried to secede from Russia as soon as the Soviet disintegration happened and Putin ascended to power, which led him to his first challenge: to reintegrate Chechnya into Russian territory. But how? Well, unfortunately, it took Chechnya going back to the stone age for that. But it has also been proven that the US used spearheads and international terrorists in some wars in the Caucasus, including in Chechnya itself, thus fostering a disintegration of Russian territory.

Putin himself has already spoken several times on this subject in speeches because he himself as director of the FSB (still KGB, just changed the name, everybody knows) had access to the documents coming from double agents which would prove that the West was using terrorists to disintegrate Russia. But it failed.

This point alone would explain the Russian fear of NATOstan as a neighbor, the most emblematic case being Ukraine, which is their gateway to Europe, basically the breadbasket of the continent. But it’s not as if the Russians didn’t give in as well, the Baltics bordering Russia are already part of NATO, and could be used as agents provocateurs against Moscow in various ways. But it was not enough. It is never enough for those who thirst for war.  And they cooked up the crisis to such a point where we got where we are today.

The US as a country supposedly allied with Ukraine (which was doing nothing more than sponsoring bio-labs for developing biological weapons in the country and laundering money through the Burisma company, which hired Hunter Biden) if they really didn’t want war, the first step to be taken was to put at least 50,000 troops in and around Kiev. They could do this, and it would cost very little compared to the financial effort currently seen. Or better: let the diplomatic arguments win and the binding anti-Ukraine document in NATO come out! It would be the most beautiful diplomatic move between countries ever seen. But things are not that sweet.

With this, they got the war, they are losing territory, part of popular opinion no longer supports them, and practically in numbers, they govern for less than 1 billion people (considering the current population of the G7). They have accelerated an integration among emerging economies, that would normally take a few years to happen. Who would have thought that not everybody likes war? That the concern of some countries is against hunger and unemployment, for example?

The integration is already happening, the train has left the station, and they will try to do what we are doing because mistakes don’t last forever. One hour you learn, even if through pain, even if it costs some genocides, even if it costs some bombed cities, even if it costs some generations, we always learn. It is not difficult to understand that you do not apply the same tactics that have already been tried when they have already been proven wrong.

Using the refrain from The Wanted:

“We’ve only just begun, hypnotized by drums
Until forever comes
You’ll find us chasing the sun
They said this day wouldn’t come, we refused to run”

The emergents have just begun and will be there chasing the sun showing that those who said the day wouldn’t come. It has come.

---

Guilherme Wilbert is a Brazilian law graduate interested in geopolitics and international law.

Sitrep Operation Z: SloMo Collapse

July 01, 2022

Source

By Saker Staff

Let us deal with Snake Island first as the level of noise is unbelievable.

Snake Island in the Black sea will remain under Russian naval and air control. Russian Politician Alexei Chernyak.

End of story

Russia can take that piece of serpentine rock and missile it to non-existence but they’ve just used a rock to remove the Ukraine’s biggest impediment (lie) about the paltry amount of wheat in the ships still unable to make passage. Now the supposed ‘international order’ have no more excuses and the Ukraine must demine their naval mines. But always remember, we’re dealing with the Empire of Lies!

For this one, we will look at the bigger world first, and then we will go on to the ramparts.

A reminder: What is this all about?

A Biden advisor says that US drivers will pay a gas premium for as long as it takes, because:

“This is about the future of the liberal world order and we have to stand firm.” https://t.me/IntelRepublic/1516

Liberal world order is code for the rules-based international order which is code for a single pole of power in our world.  In other words, they understand on some level that they are fighting for their existence as the ultimate ruler.

In sharp contrast, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – Minsk, June 30, 2022

The future world order is at stake. We will go back to the origins and observe in practice the UN Charter principles, above all the principle of sovereign equality of states, or else the world will be plunged into chaos for a long time. Our choice is clear: We stand for unconditional respect for international law. We will uphold this position together with our Belarusian allies and our other numerous like-minded partners who share these approaches, which was confirmed during the recent BRICS summit and in the final documents adopted at this summit.

Russia and the multi-polar world are getting stronger day by day.  Let’s take a look at how the mighty are falling:

EU Circus

We posted a Douglas MacGregor clip recently with the heading: Its collapsed

There is little to be said here and we can only depict this with a cartoon or two.  The number of cartoons generated by this circus exceeded all expectations.  Everyone was cartooning!

NATO – Crisis of Existence and another announcement of Wunderwaffe

The Chinese friends report on the NATO split:

“On the issue of the Russia-Ukraine conflict alone, there are different demands among Western countries, as Germany, France and Italy want to stop the war as soon as possible, and the US is calling on all NATO countries to make a common cause against Russia. Wang Shuo, a professor at the School of International Relations of Beijing Foreign Studies University, believes that in this situation, many European countries are questioning whether NATO can solve the crisis in Ukraine. If it cannot work, what’s the point of NATO’s existence? At the moment when Europeans believe that NATO needs to play a role, it proved itself disunited and incompetent, another sign of NATO’s existential crisis.”

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202206/1269395.shtml

And on the NATO document:

Zhao Lijian: The NATO 2022 Strategic Concept has misrepresented facts and distorted the truth. In this document, NATO once again wrongly defined China as posing “systemic challenges”. It smeared China’s foreign policy and pointed fingers at China’s normal military posture and defense policy. The document seeks to stoke confrontation and antagonism and smacks heavily of Cold War mentality and ideological bias. China is gravely concerned over this and firmly opposes it.

Here is our message for NATO: hyping up the so-called “China threat” will lead nowhere. NATO must immediately stop its groundless accusations and provocative rhetoric against China, abandon the outdated Cold War mentality and zero-sum game mindset, renounce its blind faith in military might and misguided practice of seeking absolute security, halt the dangerous attempt to destabilize Europe and the Asia-Pacific, and act in the interest of security and stability in Europe and beyond.

The Baltic States no longer believe in NATO.

Latvia and Estonia decided to buy air defense systems for joint defense.

“The NATO Summit gave a clear signal that assistance will be provided to those who are ready to defend themselves,” Estonian Defense Minister Laanet said. The initiative to develop regional defense was also supported by his Latvian counterpart Pabriks. “We are working on developing our own capabilities,” he stressed.

Finland states it will NOT extradite its citizens to OTHER countries UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES – Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto.

So, already Turkey’s pre-condition to Finland entering the NATO bloc is falling apart. Perhaps The Sultan knows that this may not happen at all.  This is what it looks like: Finland and Sweden have not joined NATO yet, and there is a long process ahead, says Erdogan. According to him, the signatures at the Madrid summit do not mean the end of the work to eliminate Ankara’s concerns. Turkey wants to see in practice what the decisions reached will mean.

Scholz (for what he is worth) at this very same NATO meet, got scared and quickly urged not to hinder the transit of Russian goods to Kaliningrad.  He wants to reduce the tensions in the  Baltic region.  The most interesting is that Politico reports this.  But then, he wants to set the rules according to some rules-based international order concept that he seemingly thinks he is entitled to promulgate on the spot.

“Transit rules should be established taking into account the fact that we are dealing here with traffic between two parts of Russia,” he said at the NATO summit in Madrid.

And he also tumbles the sanctions:

“In the case of Kaliningrad, an exception should be made from anti-Russian sanctions”, Scholz stressed.

Politician and former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis urges (https://ria.ru/20220701/lafazanis-1799505196.html)

Greece to conclude a strategic alliance with Russia and to lift sanctions, because “Europe is hit hard by the sanctions. Europe has shot itself.”

And then, Germany Seizes Gazprom LNG Tankers which belonged to the Russian energy giants German subsidiary – Gazprom Germania.  And Russia in the form of Gazprom turns up the Pain Dial by turning off the gas faucet to the company, and key gas retailers in Germany and the UK suddenly stare as the bottom of the tank becomes visible.

So, given the extracts from the last few days through the EU Circus and NATO’s announcement of Wunderwaffen, can you see clearly that they are telling only big stories. These weapons may not materialize, and most know it. Besides, if Russia does not destroy them, she buys them.

Arms trade on the line of contact and indirect deliveries of military equipment from Europe to Russia by Ukrainians

In the context of the news (https://t.me/vzglyad_ru/57577) about the transfer of another six units of CAESAR self-propelled guns by France to Ukraine, we want to talk a little about how things are with the arms trade on the line of contact.

We already wrote that two CAESAR self-propelled guns went to the Russian side for a ridiculous 120 thousand dollars. At the same time, Ukrainian negotiators initially requested $1 million for the launcher.

How it looks technically in practice:

• Negotiations are underway through special forces on the possibility of acquiring one or another model of foreign equipment;
• Since this whole thing is taking place on the line of contact, control over specific types of weapons and military equipment received from the West is rather conditional there: the most you can count on is a relatively timid commander and rather zealous representatives of the SBU, who will not give a damn about reputational losses of Ukraine in case of loss of foreign equipment;
• The Russian side acts as a picky buyer who does not need outdated weapons and military equipment: everything that is needed was obtained by undercover intelligence and so on. Local Ukrainian businessmen are trying to cash in and somehow sell the RF Armed Forces what they have. As a result, the deals go through, but are guided by the Russian side, at the same time, only by the expediency of maintaining contacts with the enemy;
• In the line of special forces, they agree on the organization of a massive artillery raid on a certain already empty square to divert attention while the actual transfer of equipment is carried out;
• The Russian side has already expressed interest in acquiring HIMARS. They asked for more ammo.
• To the Russian side, we repeat, such deals provide an opportunity to maintain working contacts with the Ukrainian side, which in the future will allow solving much more pressing issues. On the Ukrainian side, there is a great desire not to fight and earn money.

So that is one of the deals with the wunderwaffe.  Here is another:

Some watcher of Ukrainian channels report that Ukrainian General Staff asked Zelensky in the role of the President to please please stop requesting 777 howitzers and NLAW anti-tank systems, which quickly fail or do not function at all.

(The telegram channel where I found this, notes .. hahahahah fucking Wunderwaffe)

Xi Jinping’s current visit to Hong Kong for its 25^th anniversary since its handover from the Brits, speaks volumes. As well as Mr. Putin’s planned visit to the upcoming G20. The fact that these two leaders are now traveling outside of their countries must show that something has changed. Either the risk of Covid is now such that they can take it, or the security environment has changed so that their security staff considers such visits as an acceptable risk.

Europe is slowly curtailing payments to Ukrainian refugees.  Poland no longer pays for food and accommodation for Ukrainian refugees, with exception of pregnant women, disabled people, and families with many children.

These are convincing arguments that the EU is breaking and NATO is cracking.

To the ramparts we go

Russian Defense Ministry announces successful advance into Lisichansk, Lugansk region, with Russian and allied forces taking control of the Lisichansk oil refinery as well as other key districts in the city, as Ukrainian forces said to be in disorganized retreat.

Sergei Kiriyenko visited the Kharkov region. Such a visit is considered a sign that Putin has made a decision that the region, now Kharkiv, and formerly Zaporozhye and Kherson will be annexed to Russia. The issuance of Russian passports has started and the formation of administration is in progress.  Russia takes full responsibility for such a region. The Russian flag is forever if Kiriyenko, who is responsible specifically for domestic politics, has been there.

This lovely photo was taken in the Lugansk region.

Once the passports flow, and the banks open, Russia is there: The first branch of Promsvyazbank, one of the largest Russian state banks, has opened in Kherson and already there is a bunch of people in line:  https://t.me/EurasianChoice/16207

The Kyiv regime is trying to hide the defeat of the Ukrainian troops in Severodonetsk and present the flight of the UAF militants from the Lysychansk direction as a tactical retreat.

Detail as usual comes in many forms and thank you to the commentators who regularly post different takes.  Be aware we’re coming from the fog of Lisichansk, so, don’t believe everything that every Tom, Dick, and Harry pronounce.  Always confirm with the Russian MoD report.    We still like Military Summary.  I would suggest you take in the last report of yesterday before you look at today’s first report.  The reason for that is that he mentions at the end some of those that he works with.

Payback is in progress for the total hack of all Russian sources as the SMO started.

XakNet Team (https://t.me/xaknet_team) hackers hacked the website of the Ukraine is Our Home TV channel. Now the anthem of Russia is played there.

Earlier (https://t.me/rt_russian/117872), they said that they had gained access to the systems of Ukrainian energy companies of the DTEK group.

And today (https://t.me/intelslava/32332), the Killnet (https://t.me/+a3ATRboVqh05MWNi) group brought down the website of the US Federal Tax Payment System.

Enjoy the discussion.  This sitrep will stay up until it gets too full of comments and then we will refresh.

أميركا تحزم أمرها: نحو عسكرة العالم

الجمعة 1 تموز 2022

 سعيد محمد

أهمّ القرارات الصادرة عن القمة كان زيادة تعداد القوّة الضاربة للحلف في أوروبا من 40 ألف جندي إلى 300 ألف (أ ف ب)

لندن | انتهت قمّة «حلف شمال الأطلسي» (الناتو) المنعقدة في مدريد، مع انتصاف نهار أمس، وغادر رؤساء دول وحكومات الغرب إلى بلدانهم، وفي جُعبهم خطط لمزيد من الإنفاق الحربي والتجنيد والتصعيد، فيما تُواجه اقتصاداتهم أزمات تضخّم وركود لم يشهد مثلَها العالم منذ الحرب العالمية الثانية. وبدت الولايات المتحدة، في خلال إعلان مخرجات القمّة، وكأنها ألقت على نفسها رداء العسكرة، وعزمت على أخذ العالم برمّته نحو الحرب، وذلك بعدما بثّت الروح في جسد «الناتو»، وفرضت تضخيم عديده في شرقيّ أوروبا إلى ضِعف حجم الجيش الروسي، وأعادت توجيه بوصلته نحو عدوّ مباشر آنيّ (روسيا)، وتحدّ استراتيجي (الصين)، إضافة إلى تجديد الالتزام بـ«مكافحة الإرهاب» في العالم العربي والساحل

وافق رؤساء دول وحكومات «حلف شمال الأطلسي»، في قمّتهم الطارئة التي عُقدت في العاصمة الإسبانية مدريد، على صياغة جديدة لفلسفة الحلف، تُحدّد استراتيجياته ومهامه الأساسية للعقد المقبل. وفي تحوُّل كبير عن وثيقة الاستراتيجية السابقة (قمّة لشبونة 2010) التي كانت اعتبرت روسيا شريكاً محتملاً، فإن موجز الوثيقة التي تمّ التوافق عليها في مدريد يقول إن روسيا تظلّ «التهديد الأكثر أهمية ومباشرة لأمن الدول الأعضاء وللسلام والاستقرار»، كما يضع الصين، لأوّل مرّة، في خانة «التحدّي الرئيس لأمن الحلفاء ومصالحهم وقيمهم». واعتَبر المجتمعون أن بيئة الأمن الأوروبي تغيّرت كليّاً نتيجة «العدوان» الروسي على أوكرانيا، و«انتهاك المعايير والمبادئ» التي ساهمت في ضمان استقرار تلك البيئة لعقود، ولم يستبعدوا «احتمال شنّ هجوم روسيّ في أيّ وقت ضدّ سيادة الحلفاء وسلامة أراضيهم»، مستشهدين بجهود موسكو لتحديث قوّتها النووية، ورفضها الامتثال للالتزامات الدولية للحدّ من التسلح، وما وصفوه بمحاولاتها «زعزعة استقرار الدول المجاورة على الجناحَين الشرقي والجنوبي للناتو».

كما تعهّدوا بـ«العمل معاً في التصدّي للتحدّيات المنهجية التي تفرضها الصين على الأمن الأوروبي – الأطلسي جرّاء طموحاتها المعلَنة وسياساتها القمعية التي تهدّد مصالح الغرب، ومحاولاتها الحثيثة للسيطرة على التقنيات والصناعات الرئيسة، مع تجاهل القواعد واللوائح الدولية». ومع ذلك، لم ينصّ الاتفاق على وصف الصين بالعدو، بل أكد أن الحلف لا يزال منفتحاً على إمكانية بناء علاقات بنّاءة معها، ربّما في حالة تخلّيها عن شراكتها الاستراتيجيّة مع روسيا، والتي عدّها المجتمعون «طليعة التصدّي الاستبدادي» لقواعد النظام الدولي. وفي الواقع، فإن الشراكة الصينية – الروسية تبدو أخطر تهديد لهيمنة الغرب منذ انهيار الاتحاد السوفياتي، وانتهاء الحرب الباردة، إذ نجحت روسيا في عقدَين من حُكم الرئيس فلاديمير بوتين في استعادة حيويتها، فيما تقدّمت الصين بشكل مطّرد لتُنافس الولايات المتحدة اليوم على مكانة أكبر اقتصادات العالم، وهما اليوم تتعاونان في غير مجال، في ما من شأنه التمهيد لنشوء بيئة بديلة لا تخضع لرغبات نُخبة واشنطن، وقادرة على استيعاب شعوب أخرى في الجنوب.

ستتعيّن على ستولتنبرغ متابعةُ الحلفاء للحصول على تعهّدات منهم بالمساهمة بقوات إضافية ومعدّات وتمويل

وبالعودة إلى الوثيقة الصادرة عن القمّة، فإن «الإرهاب لا يزال يشكّل تهديداً مستمرّاً غير متكافئ لأمن الدول الأعضاء» (الثلاثين)، فضلاً عن تغيّرات المناخ، والتكنولوجيات الحديثة المخلّة بالاستقرار، وانتشار الأسلحة. كما شدّد المجتمعون على حق الردّ المسلّح على الهجمات الهجينة (السايبرية وعبر الفضاء) التي قد تستهدف دول الحلف، وعلى دور الأخير في الردع والدفاع ومنع الأزمات وإدارتها، كما التعاون الأمني (الاستخباراتي)، والذي يقتضي استدامة عملياته. وتضمّنت الوثيقة عدّة إشارات إلى شمال أفريقيا والشرق الأوسط ومنطقة الساحل، بحجّة أن أيّ «صراع أو عدم استقرار» في هذه المناطق يمكن أن «يؤثّر بشكل مباشر على أمننا»، وهو ما سيثير ارتياح أعضاء «الناتو» في جنوبي أوروبا، ولا سيما إسبانيا وإيطاليا واليونان التي طالما طالبت بدعمها لمواجهة تدفّق اللاجئين من الجنوب. كذلك، أشار الموجز إلى أن المناطق المذكورة تُواجه «تحدّيات أمنية وديموغرافية واقتصادية وسياسية عميقة ومترابطة ومرشّحة للتفاقم»، مضيفاً أن «هذه الديناميكيات توفّر أرضاً خصبة لانتشار الجماعات المسلحة، بما في ذلك المنظّمات الإرهابية، وتشرّع الأبواب لتدخّلات تزعزع الاستقرار من قِبَل المنافسين الاستراتيجيين» – في إشارة إلى الصين وروسيا -.
إلى جانب ذلك، قرّرت القمّة دعوة فنلندا والسويد، رسمياً، للانضمام إلى «الناتو»، علماً أن التحاقهما به سيعزّز تواجده في بيئة بحر البلطيق، ويسهّل «الدفاع» عن لاتفيا وليتوانيا وإستونيا القابعة تحت هاجس «الغزو» الروسي. لكن أهمّ القرارات الصادرة عن المجتمعين في مدريد، كان زيادة تعداد القوّة الضاربة للحلف في أوروبا من 40 ألف جندي حالياً، إلى 300 ألف، وفق مقترح الأمين العام لـ«الناتو»، ينس ستولتنبرغ. على أن هذا القرار يظلّ مجرّد إطار عمل، فيما ستتعيّن على ستولتنبرغ متابعة الحلفاء للحصول على تعهّدات منهم بالمساهمة بقوات إضافية ومعدّات وتمويل. وقالت ألمانيا إنها ستخصّص 15 ألف جندي لهذه الغاية، وتعهّدت كندا برفع تواجدها الأوروبي من نحو 1375 جندياً حالياً إلى مستوى لواء. لكنّ الاندفاعة الأكبر أتت من الرئيس الأميركي، جو بايدن، الذي أعلن أن بلاده ستُعزّز تواجدها في كلّ أوروبا، وستُخصّص أسلحة ومعدّات متطوّرة لدعم حضور «الناتو» بحراً وبرّاً وجوّاً في مواجهة روسيا. وتشمل الخطط الأميركية المعلَنة مقرّاً دائماً في بولندا، و5000 جندي إضافي في رومانيا، وسربَين من طائرات «إف-35» في المملكة المتّحدة، ومعدّات دفاع جوي متقدّم في إيطاليا وألمانيا، ومدمّرتَين بحريتَين في إسبانيا. وتمتلك الولايات المتحدة وجوداً عسكرياً دائماً في 13 بلداً أوروبياً، ويصل تعداد جنودها في مختلف القطاعات عبر القارّة إلى 70 ألفاً الآن، فيما يمكن أن يبلغ بعد القمّة 100 ألف، وفق تقديرات الخبراء.

من جهتها، أعربت إسبانيا عن راحتها لحصولها على ضمانات من «الناتو» لحماية سبتة ومليلة، وهما مدينتان عربيتان تحتلّهما في شمال أفريقيا. ونُقل عن رئيس هيئة الأركان الإسبانية، تيودورو لوبيز كالديرون، قوله إن التزام الحلف بالدفاع عن «السلامة الإقليمية» للدول الأعضاء يشمل أيضاً ممتلكات إسبانيا في القارة الأفريقية. بريطانياً، أعلن بوريس جونسون، رئيس الوزراء، عن دعم مسلّح إضافي بقيمة مليار جنيه إسترليني لأوكرانيا، وهو ما من شأنه أن يرفع مجموع ما قدّمته لندن لكييف منذ شباط الماضي، إلى 2.3 مليار جنيه إسترليني (2.8 مليار دولار أميركي)، الأمر الذي يجعلها أكبر مموّلي النظام الأوكراني بعد الولايات المتحدة. وتعهّد جونسون، الذي يواجه ضغوطاً داخلية شديدة للاستقالة، بزيادة حجم الإنفاق العسكري لبلاده داخل «الناتو»، إلى 2.5% من مجموع الناتج القومي، أي بزيادة 20% عن الحد الأدنى. لكنّ سخاء الرئيس من جيوب البريطانيين لن يكون من دون عواقب محلّية على الأقل، حيث يشتكي وزير الدفاع من عدم توفّر الاعتمادات الكافية للجيش البريطاني، فيما تملأ الصحفَ التي سيقرأها أثناء رحلة العودة إلى لندن تصريحات محبطة من أندرو بيلي، محافظ بنك إنكلترا (المركزي)، الذي قال في مؤتمر في البرتغال إن المملكة المتحدة – من الناحية الاقتصادية – في أسوأ وضع ممكن -، وتعاني من أزمة طاقة أكثر من بقيّة أوروبا، وقد تعيش حالة تضخّم أعلى لفترة أطول.
وحضرت اليابان – مُمثَّلة برئيس وزرائها فوميو كيشيدا – القمّة، وذلك لأوّل مرّة في تاريخ الحلف الذي تأسّس قبل 73 عاماً. وشارك كيشيدا زعماء الحلف مخاوفهم من صعود الصين، وقلقهم على مستقبل تايوان، لكنّ مراقبين أعربوا عن خشيتهم من أن الأميركيين سيعيدون عسكرة اليابان، كما شرعوا بالفعل في عسكرة ألمانيا، مع كلّ ما يحمله هذا من كوابيس فاشيات القرن العشرين. وحضرت القمّةَ أيضاً مجموعة ممّن تسمّيهم واشنطن شركاء «الناتو»، ومن هؤلاء رؤساء دول وحكومات أستراليا، وأوكرانيا (عن بعد)، وجورجيا، وكوريا (الجنوبية)، فضلاً عن رئيس المجلس الأوروبي ورئيس المفوّضية الأوروبية والسويد وفنلندا. وتَمثّل الأردن وموريتانيا من خلال وزيرَي خارجيّتهما، في حين سُجّل حضور وزير الدفاع في البوسنة والهرسك.

مقالات متعلقة

• أميركا تقرّر عسكرة العالم
• كيسنجر يرسم 3 سيناريوهات للنزاع في أوكرانيا
• بلينكن ينتقد عودة هونغ كونغ إلى الحضن الصيني: «تآكل للديموقراطية والحكم الذاتي»
• واشنطن تسارع لنفي وجود بوارج أميركيّة على خط الترسيم… ونفي عربيّ لحلف عسكريّ يضمّ الكيان

Sweden and Finland joining NATO precedes an inevitable financial collapse of the current international system

June 29, 2022

Source

Sweden and Finland joining NATO besides being a provocative act towards Russia, precedes an inevitable financial collapse of the current international system

By Guilherme Wilbert

The Nordic entry into NATO, in the middle of a war, is clearly an act that does not help the peace negotiations that could be underway, but acts as the opposite, putting more wood on the fire for “military-technical” measures (to paraphrase Shoigu, Russian Defense Minister who uses the term when talking about responding to Western provocations).

With the entry of Finland and Sweden barred initially by Turkey, it shows that even a NATO member cares about enemies of its national interests. In Turkey’s case with the PKK, which is a Kurdish political organization seen as terrorist by Ankara and some countries, yet they were (until then) operating freely throughout the Nordic countries with active members of the official Kurdistan party holding protests in public squares in Helsinki and Stockholm.
Just for level of knowledge, Kurdistan is a region that would be home to the Kurdish ethnic group, taking part of Turkish territory up to the North of Iran, which explains Erdogan’s concern with a possible disintegration of Turkish territory if the Kurds were to gain prominence on the battlefields (which in real data would be very difficult since the Turkish army is the strongest in NATO for example).

But this provocation, which will surely be responded to by Moscow, proves the warmongers’ concern with continuing disputes and wars around the world, using Ukraine, which is the most recent case at the moment, as a kind of proxy to weaken Russia, serving only as a spearhead of the American objective, since Zelensky himself and his cabinet acknowledge that they will never join NATO and possibly not even the European Union, if you consider and draw a parallel with the case of Turkey itself, which has been waiting since 1999 for a resolution whether to join the bloc or not.

So, the entrance of the Nordics into NATO does not help Ukraine at all and can even make the situation worse with military-technical measures applied by the Russian Armed Forces perhaps in the decision centers in Brussels or in the Baltics, which would lead us to a nuclear catastrophe since the mentioned countries (Belgium and the Baltics for example) are NATO members and could invoke article 5 of mutual aid in case of “aggression” (See that aggression here is interpreted by Westerners (in an exercise of deduction) as only after the military-technical measure, ignoring what provoked the decision to do so).

Coupled with the desperation to provoke more wars, Western leaders get lost in the real global objective: economic integration and the fight against hunger

While great concern is seen with NATO, with diplomats having used the term “Global NATO” a few times, some primary and more basic goals of the organization’s member nations are put aside to add more gasoline to the fire.

The recent cases of inflation in Western Europe or even in the US precede a global financial collapse that has several causes, with some analysts citing the sanctions on Russia but personally I would go further and cite all of the last 10 years of at least NOTHING-backed dollar printouts that were used to give a supposed liquidity to the economy after the 2008 crash that was a scare felt around the world.

Economics, unlike some sciences, is not as if it can receive arguments and opinions, the theories are very clear and explanatory: by printing too much of your currency, you devalue it. But surely American economists know this and they also know that the coming collapse would affect the entire Globe because unfortunately after World War II, American hegemony was also monetary, with countries to this day using the dollar as an international reserve. In other words, in addition to the overprinting and national devaluation of the currency on American territory, it also devalues in the coffers of the countries that use it as a reserve and this will cause a cascading effect that will further force realpolitik into play and cause more haste in the emerging countries to get rid of the coming bomb.

Unfortunately war-hungry Western leaders are blind to what is coming and is already happening in some parts of the world, either because of irresponsible sanctions or the natural course of the very sequence of American economic mistakes. Because it is very different to sanction Russia compared to sanctioning Iran for example. And this does not mean that Iran deserves to be sanctioned in any way, because I believe that every country should have the right to its nuclear program, at least for peaceful purposes, and this cannot be used as a pretext for sanctions that crush already small economies, such as the example of Iran.

In the case of Russia the conversation is different for numerous reasons, be they military at the nuclear level or at the economic level, because Russia is part of a global production chain which acts as an active player on the macroeconomic stage. For example, the raw material called antimony, which is used in the global defense industry for military equipment of various kinds, is rightly found in excess in Russia and parts of Asia. This is to cite a simple example of an element that is not on the average citizen’s table, for example. In addition to the many important productions that Russia is responsible for.

So, given recent events and the inference for the disastrous future, the international scenario for the Global South forces them towards long term solutions of American de-dollarization and decolonization in the various ways, either by American NGOs that operate in several countries or by the very US culture exporting technologies that function as small fiefdoms of thought, the case of Facebook for example. But the latter is a little more difficult to achieve because it involves a collective societal thought that would require a national unity for the development of regional cultures.

Having said that, a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia with the Ukrainian loss of the territories that comprise New Russia needs to happen and sanctions against any country need to be lifted for the sake of multipolarity.

The world cannot be guided by one diplomatic corps and one government only because the international scenario is not a movie of one actor, but of several, with several potentials to be developed in different parts of the Globe.

---

Guilherme Wilbert is a Brazilian Bachelor of Law interested in geopolitics and international law.

Myths from the Past and the Third Incarnation of Russia since 1721

June 22, 2022

By Batiushka

The First and Second Incarnations of Russia

The Russian Lands existed for well over a thousand years before 2022 and took on many highly significant political and geographical forms. These could be described at another time; here we do not have space. However, in the last 300 years, between 1721 and 24 February 2022, they had known only two incarnations: The Russian Empire (1721-1917), and the Soviet Union with the Post-Soviet Russian Federation (1917-2022). The USSR and its totalitarian faults are fairly well known in the West, but even here the West still refuses to believe in the many ‘Soviet’ social virtues, its free medicine, education and culture, which were all inherited from the Empire. The West has blinded itself with its own anti-Russian (disguised as anti-Communist) propaganda. The continuation of a weakened USSR in the Post-Soviet Federation was initially loved by the West, as it was its own creation. Indeed, in many respects the post-Soviet Federation appeared to have adopted the worst of the West and rejected the best of the Soviet Union. By reaction, some suggested that the Federation should return to the USSR. That was never on the agenda. That was an experiment that had failed. On the other hand, the idea that the Federation would become just another Western chimpanzee like Japan was never going to happen either. The Russian Lands have their own identity, their own civilisation.

On the other hand, the Russian Empire is virtually unknown in the West, as the West still believes its own ignorance and lies about it. After all it was the West which destroyed it, with the help of internal traitors and decadent aristocrats, who cruelly exploited the poor and so guaranteed the fall of the Empire. Unsurprisingly, many of these traitors soon afterwards emigrated to the West, given the disaster that they had created in Russia with Western backing. We will therefore spend some time below disillusioning those who still believe in the racist Western/Soviet propaganda stereotypes of ‘tyrannical Asiatic autocracy’, ‘backward obscurantism’, which kept its people in a state of poverty and ignorance. The condescending West said: ‘If only they had been like us clever Western people, all would have been well’. We will look at these realities (1) firstly because they are so little known and many still actually believe in the myths, and secondly because the positive aspects of the pre-Revolutionary Empire are at the heart of the USSR and will also be at the heart of today’s Third Incarnation (see further). Below we look at the real Russian Empire.

The Economy

In the 20 years before 1917 the population of the Empire increased by 62 million, some 50%. It was a time when industrialisation and modernisation accelerated very sharply. National income and productivity increased at a rate unrivalled anywhere else in the world and the budget increased threefold. Personal taxation in the Russian Empire was half the level of that in France and Germany and a quarter of that in Great Britain.

Average earnings were higher than those in any Western European country, less only than those in the USA. Prices were among the lowest in the world and inflation and unemployment were practically non-existent. Thanks to the monetary reform that the Tsar personally insisted on carrying out in 1897, the rouble was guaranteed by gold. The Empire had the largest gold reserves in the world and the Russian gold rouble remains one of the safest investments in the world.

Between 1890 and 1913 GNP increased fourfold. There was a fourfold increase in the extraction of coal and the production of cast iron, and a fivefold increase in that of copper. Between 1911 and 1914 investment in engineering increased by 80% and electrification had begun in many cities. In 1901 the USA extracted 9.9 million tons of oil, Russia 12.1 million tons. Between 1908 and 1913 productivity surpassed that of the USA, Great Britain and Germany. The Empire was the biggest exporter of textiles and one of the biggest of metals and engineering. Russia was on course to becoming the leading world economy by 1950, surpassing both Europe and the USA.

Infrastructure and Agriculture

The Trans-Siberian Railway was completed at the insistence of the last Tsar despite opposition. In 20 years the length of railways and telegraph networks doubled, indeed, the rate of railway construction was one of the highest in the world, the later Soviet rate being a mere fraction of it. Its locomotives were among the best in the world. This was why armoured trains appeared in Russia. The largest fleet of river ships in the world doubled in tonnage during that period. The plane industry was on a par with that of the American.

The car industry was in a similar situation to the German, Russian cars winning races at rallies in Monte Carlo and San Sebastian. Indeed, Mercedes and Daimler engines were invented by the Russian engineer Boris Lutskoy. Pre-Revolutionary Russia also invented: the wireless telegraph, the helicopter, the television, cine-news, the tramway, hydroelectric power stations, the electric plough, the submarine, the parachute, the radio, the electron microscope, the powder fire extinguisher, the astronomical clock, the seismograph, the electric omnibus, the flying boat, the icebreaker, the motorcycle, the airship and double-decker railway carriages.

Thanks to the Agrarian Reform, by 1914 100% of usable land in Asian Russia and 90% in European Russia belonged to the people. The Empire was the biggest exporter of cereals, flax, eggs, milk, butter, meat and sugar in the world. The wheat harvest was one third larger than that of the USA, Canada and Argentina combined. Cereal production doubled during the reign and the number of cattle increased by 60%. The Empire was also first in the world for the numbers of horses, cows, sheep and one of the biggest for the numbers of pigs and goats.

Social Justice, Health and Education

From June 1903 all employers in the Russian Empire were obliged to pay benefit and pension to all employees and their families who had suffered an accident. This amounted to between 50% and 66% of their salary. Trade Unions were formed in 1906 and from June 1912 compulsory health insurance at work was introduced to cover illness or accident. Social insurance legislation was introduced before other European countries and the USA. The US President William Taft declared that: ‘Your Emperor has created such perfect labour legislation which no democratic state can boast of’.

In 1898 the Empire introduced a universal medical welfare system that cost the tiny sum of one rouble per year. The Swiss hygienist Friedrich Erismann praised this system as ‘the greatest achievement in the world in the field of social medicine’. Russia was third in the world for the number of its doctors. The Tsar personally insisted on introducing economic reforms and measures against alcohol abuse, often in spite of the Duma. Alcohol consumption per head was one of the lowest in the world and the lowest in Europe outside Norway. In 1913 the number of mentally ill was 187 in every 100,000, compared to 5,598 per 100,000 in the Russian Federation in 2013. The number of suicides in the Empire was 4.4 per 100,000. In the Russian Federation in 2012 it was 19.5 and 12.1 in the USA.

Compulsory primary education was introduced in 1908, over a generation later than in the West. However, by 1916 literacy in the Empire had already reached 85%. By 1914 there were 150,000 students studying at university institutions. In terms of numbers of students the Russian Empire was joint third in the world with Great Britain. Another 300 million roubles was spent in 1913 on country schools, a budget up from 70 million in 1894. In less than 20 years the education budget rose by 628%. By 1913 there were 130,000 schools in the Empire with 6 million pupils. All education, primary, secondary and tertiary, was free.

The Internal Situation

The pogroms of the late nineteenth century and very early twentieth century, basically race riots, led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, about half of them Non-Jews and about half of them Jews. Similar to the Catholic-Protestant race riots in Northern Ireland in the late 20^th century, some were started by one side, others by the other. There is no recorded instance of them being encouraged by the State, which built many large synagogues for the Jewish population. None of the pogroms occurred in Russia, but only in what are now Lithuania, Poland, the west of the Ukraine and Moldova. Many Jews lived there because they had been chased out of Western Europe by Anti-Semitism centuries earlier. Sadly, Western propaganda on this subject is still widely believed in the West. It is notable that where the race riots took place were the same places as where the Nazis received help from the local population when they invaded from 1941 onwards.

Another piece of Western/Soviet mythology is the ‘Bloody Sunday’ march in 1905. In this event it was revolutionaries who opened fire and troops defended themselves. There were 130 victims – not 5,000, as invented by Western propaganda. All victims were given immediate medical care. The Tsar was not even in the city at the time. When he learned of it, horrified, he sacked the officials who should have been in charge and at once gave each family that had suffered the enormous sum of 50,000 roubles from his personal money.

Crime was lower than in Western Europe and the USA. In 1908 56 people per 100,000 were imprisoned. In the Soviet Union in 1949 the figure was 1,537 per 100,000 and in the Russian Federation in 2011, 555, with 724 per 100,000 in the USA in the same year. There was a free press and freedom of speech, unlike in the West where strict ‘editorial policies’ (= censorship) were pursued. The Tsar never rejected a single petition for pardon. Fewer death penalties were carried out during his whole reign than in any single day in the Soviet Union until the death of Stalin.

International Relations

The Hague International Tribunal of Justice, suggested in 1898 to prevent wars, but derided by other European leaders, was the personal brainchild of Tsar Nicholas. If it had been implemented as he had wanted, there would never have been any First World War, let alone later wars. Thus, those who had derided it, notably the British and the Germans, signed their own death warrants.

When in February 1904 Japan, urged on, financed and armed to the teeth by the geopolitical imperialists of Great Britain and the USA, treacherously attacked the small and poorly-armed Russian Navy without first declaring war (as it later did at Pearl Harbour), it only took the non-militaristic Russian Empire eighteen months to recover. However, instead of continuing the war and crushing the by then bankrupt Japan militarily, Russia entered peace negotiations, but imposed such terms at the talks in the USA that Japan, forced to agree to them, went into mourning.

During the Great Patriotic War (as the First World War was then known) the Tsar constantly visited the Front. After less than a year, in 1915, given the incompetence of the former supreme commander, his arrogant and foul-mouthed uncle, he took on supreme command, against the advice of all, showing his strength of will. Russia began winning the greatest victories of the War, advancing huge distances and taking huge numbers of prisoners, for example the Tsar Nicholas Offensive, euphemistically known in the West as the ‘Brusilov Offensive’. This was undreamed of by the jealous Western Allies, who were bogged down in immobile and bloody trench warfare, where millions were dying. On the Russian Front, facing far more enemy troops, deaths amounted to fewer than 700,000.

The Armed Forces

In 1914 the Russian Empire was able to 2,000 engineers to help the USA at its request to set up a heavy armaments industry. The Russian Air Force, founded in 1910, was by 1917 the largest in the world, with 700 planes and by 1917 the Russian Navy, reformed and modernised after the dreadnought-armed Japan’s victories, was one of the strongest in the world. Had it not been for the treason of the Allies, of most of the aristocracy and many in the middle class, historians consider that Russia would have occupied Vienna and Berlin in 1917, thus ending the murderous war at least a year early and saving millions of lives. Over 95% of the 2,417,000 captured enemy soldiers returned home safely after the War.

Only 39% of males aged between 15-49 were mobilised in the Russian Empire, as against 81% in Germany, 79% in France, 74% in Austro-Hungary, 72% in Italy and 50% in Great Britain. Per 100,000 of its population, the Empire lost 11 people, as against 34 in France, 31 in Germany, 18 in Austria and 16 in Great Britain. (Reported very high Russian losses are propaganda myths of the anti-Russian West). The military reform was creating one of the strongest and best-equipped armies in the world, which would have been the best by 1917 if Germany had not started the First World War. It was the officers trained in the Imperial Army who in their forties and fifties won the Second World War.

Church Affairs and Culture

By 1913 the Russian Orthodox Church had 67,000 churches and 1,000 monasteries. It had great influence in the Holy Land, Asia and seventeen Russian churches had been built in Western Europe. The Tsar personally paid for the building of St Nicholas Cathedral in New York and ensured that the number of bishops in North America went from one to three. In 1916 there were plans to make sure that every Western capital would have a church and that the service-books of the Church would be translated into all the main Western languages.

Russian culture went through a period known as the Silver Age, with developments in science, philosophy, art, architecture, music and literature. The French writer Paul Valery stated that Russian culture at the beginning of the 20^th century was ‘one of the wonders of the world’. Two of the five founders of Hollywood came from Russia. Chanel No 5 was invented by the Russian émigré Verigin.

The Third Incarnation

So much for the little-known past. Of course, there were many iniquities in the Russian Empire. Otherwise, it would not have fallen. The corruption of the parasitic aristocratic class (oligarchs) and the neglect of the working poor were too great. The gap was too large and the Tsar’s move to social justice did not go fast enough to keep pace with the challenges of rapid industrialisation. However, the positive aspects of the Empire and its huge advances and industrialisation, were retained by the Soviet Union. Despite the huge step backward wrought by the Civil War, Bolshevik persecution and artificial famines, by 1930 the USSR was back where Russia had been in 1916. Only in the last generation since the fall of the Soviet Union have those positive aspects been threatened. However, we will talk no more of the past, but of the future, of Russia’s Third Incarnation, of post-24 February 2022 Russia, the New Russia. This Incarnation has realised that it must keep the best of all previous Incarnations in order to survive and to move forward.

We are able to speak of this now only since the campaign of liberation of the Ukraine began on 24 February. Initially, this was launched to free only the Donbass and prevent the planned NATO-sponsored attack on it, set for early March 2022. This liberation campaign has been so successful that it has had to be extended. It seems certain now that all of Novorossiya (the east and south of the Ukraine) will be liberated, enabling Transdnestria to join the Russian Federation. However, given the continued aggression of the rest of the Ukraine and NATO threats from elsewhere, Russian military success may have to be extended.

Until the whole of the Ukraine is demilitarised, and it is continually being remilitarised by the West, the liberation cannot stop. Moreover, with potential threats from NATO-armed Poland and Lithuania towards Kaliningrad and from Romania towards Moldova, from arms shipments from Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Lands and the Baltic States, especially from the US puppet-government in Lithuania, with threats from Sweden and Finland to join NATO, where will it stop? The West has to be freed from Nazism/woke liberalism (it is the same thing. As they say: there is nothing so intolerant as liberalism). True, Germany, France and Italy, their economies crippled by US-imposed, anti-Russian sanctions, are showing reason. This is unlike the laughable bluster coming from the militarily feeble Johnson-regime in the UK, which may well be toppled by popular internal discontent and a wave of strikes.

The Global Implications of the Third Incarnation of Russia

However, it is the economic aspect, with its international dedollarisation, of the Third Incarnation of Russia which is truly world-changing. In the light of the speech of Vladimir Putin at the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum of June 2022, we can say that Russia is returning to its historic path. It wants to leave aside the errors of the past, become a sovereign nation again and no longer be a Western colony. This is unlike the EU, which is clearly just a US vassal, both economically and politically. The future world order will be formed only by strong sovereign states, independent of the dollar and the massive debts of Western countries. These have been caused by their inflationary printing of money that is not based on real commodities such as cereals, oil, gas, minerals, metals, rare earth elements, fertilisers, timber, manufactured goods and gold.

The break with the West and the ‘obsolete geopolitical illusions’ of its elite’s superiority complex, essentially a form of Nazism, is irreversible. Russia will invest in internal economic development in microeconomic and macroeconomic terms, ensuring ‘technological sovereignty’ (which means for instance that Russia already has unique hypersonic missiles), encouraging free enterprise against bureaucracy, improving infrastructure, but also ensuring social justice, fighting against poverty and supporting the family, encouraging far more ‘families to have two, three or more children’. The ideal of social conservatism together with social justice is what is intended. Russia will also help nations in Africa and the Middle East to avoid Western-imposed famine. True, this is an ambitious programme for the future, but this Third Incarnation of Russia is beginning now.

Note:

1. As the definitive statistical source, compiled by my friend A. A. Borisiuk, see The History of Russia Which They Ordered to be Forgotten, Veche, 2018. This for the first time conveniently collates all Pre-Revolutionary, Soviet and Emigré Statistics (in Russian).

هل تفجّر ليتوانيا المواجهة بين روسيا والناتو؟

الخميس 23 حزيران 2022

ناصر قنديل

–

مع وصول الرهان على قدرة القوات الأوكرانية أن تعطّل الاندفاعة العسكرية الروسية بالاستناد الى حجم الدعم الغربي بالمال والسلاح إلى طريق مسدود، باتت الجغرافيا الأوكرانية عاجزة عن تحمل تبعات المواجهة رغم صراخ الرئيس الأوكراني فلاديمير زيلينسكي بصوت مرتفع عن تهديدات لروسيا، وصار تماسك الجيش الأوكراني وبقاؤه في الميدان العسكري كقوة جدية يعتمد عليها موضع سؤال كبير، ولأن حلف الناتو لا يرغب بالدخول في مواجهة مباشرة مع روسيا، جاءت خطوة ليتوانيا بمنع مرور البضائع من روسيا إلى كالينينغراد وبالعكس، تحرشاً محسوباً من الناتو، لوضع موسكو بين خياري المبادرة لعمل عسكري ضد دولة عضو في الناتو، هي ليتوانيا، أو الانكفاء والتسليم بنجاح الناتو بتوجيه صفعة للمهابة الروسية.

–

كالينينغراد هي مدينة عملياً تقع على بحر البلطيق وتتبع لروسيا رغم انفصالها عنها جغرافياً، وتربطها بها شبكة سكة حديد تمرّ عبر ليتوانيا، قامت الحكومة الليتوانية بإخضاع القطارات العابرة بينها وبين موسكو للتفتيش ومنع عبور البضائع التي تطالها العقوبات الأوروبية، مهددة الوحدة التجارية والسياسية للأراضي الروسية، وبسرعة تحول القرار الليتواني الى كرة نار تتدحرج بين روسيا والناتو، فقد أعلن عدد من المسؤولين الدبلوماسيين والعسكريين في موسكو أن الرد سيصدر قريباً على الخطوة الليتوانية، وانه لن يكون دبلوماسياً، بل بجملة إجراءات عملية، رجح كثير من الخبراء أن تتمثل بعملية عسكرية محدودة بإنشاء جيب روسي بين حدود بولندا وليتوانيا حيث يعبر خط سوالكي للسكك الحديدية، الذي يربط موسكو بكالينينغراد عبر روسيا البيضاء كخط رديف للخط الأصلي الذي يعبر وسط ليتوانيا، والأميركيون وقادة الناتو وجهوا بالمقابل تحذيرات لموسكو من أي مساس بسيادة ليتوانيا، والاستعداد لتفعيل المادة الخامسة من ميثاق حلف الناتو باعتبار أي تعرض لدولة عضو في الحلف بمثابة مواجهة مع الحلف كله.

–

قد تفاجئ روسيا حلف الناتو بالاستعاضة عن العملية العسكرية الجراحية السريعة، بتحويل الدعسة الناقصة الليتوانية، الى مدخل لحركة بحرية عبر بحر البلطيق، الذي تطل عليه روسيا من أقصى الشمال، وتتشارك ضفته الغربية مع استونيا ولاتفيا وليتوانيا كالينينغراد، فيما تقع على ضفته الشرقية فنلندا والسويد والدانمارك، فتنشر سفنها البحرية في البلطيق، وتعلن إصدار عقوبات على ليتوانيا، وربما سواها، وتكلف سفنها البحرية بتفتيش السفن الذاهبة الى ليتوانيا أو سواها والخارجة منها لتطبيق العقوبات الروسية، أسوة بما تذرعت به ليتوانيا من تطبيق العقوبات الأوروبية على روسيا، ويكون على حلف الناتو أن يختار بين تحمّل الصفعة، أو دخول حرب شاملة من بوابة لا غطاء قانونيّ لها بموجب الفصل الخامس من ميثاق الحلف، حيث لا يكون قد وقع اعتداء على أي من دول الحلف، وسيكون على الحلف اعتبار الخطوة العسكرية الروسية في البلطيق استفزازاً، وأن يرد عليها بالمثل باستفزاز مشابه، فيسرّع على سبيل المثال ضم فنلندا والسويد إلى عضويته، وهو ما ينتظر الموافقة التركية، العالقة في حسابات تجارية ترجح كفة علاقتها بروسيا، مثلتها سفن الحبوب التي أبحرت أمس من ماريوبول، علماً أن ضمّ السويد وفنلندا للناتو قد يجعلهما خاضعتين بالعقوبات البحرية الروسية في البلطيق.

–

في كل خطوة يريدها الغرب لمحاصرة روسيا او إضعافها، سيجد أن موسكو بقيادة الرئيس فلاديمير بوتين قد سبقته بخطوتين، تماماً كما حدث في العقوبات المالية التي تحولت باباً لمعادلة الغاز بالروبل على أوروبا، وبدأت تشدّ على خناقها.

–

تفادي الحرب على ضفة الناتو أعلى بمراتب منه على ضفة روسيا، لكن المواجهة تتصاعد، والسباق هو على مَن يدفع الآخر للقيام بالخطوة الأولى ويتحمل المسؤولية؟

• برلين باسم «الناتو»: نرفض تهديد موسكو ليتوانيا
• 5 ضربات محتملة على ليتوانيا.. كيف ستردّ روسيا؟
• الجيش الروسي يرد على الضربة الأوكرانية للمنصات البحرية ويصد هجوما على “جزيرة الأفعى”
• ثلاثُ مُفاجآتٍ “عسكريّة” يكشف عنها الرئيس بوتين في خطابه الأخير ما هي!

5 ضربات محتملة على ليتوانيا.. كيف ستردّ روسيا؟

الأربعاء 22 حزيران 2022

يفغيني أومرينكوف

منذ 30 عاماً، كان السياسيون الليتوانيون يحلمون ويقولون إنهم يملكون خيار حصار كالينينغراد، لكن من الواضح أن فيلنيوس لم تحسب العواقب المحتملة لقرارها.

مهما كانت الإجراءات التي تتخذها ليتوانيا لتقييد العبور إلى منطقة كالينينغراد، فإنها لن تتسبب بأضرار جسيمة لروسي

لدى ليتوانيا عبور محدود بالسكك الحديدية إلى منطقة كالينينغراد: لن يُسمح بعد الآن بمرور نصف البضائع التي تخضع لعقوبات الاتحاد الأوروبي المناهضة لروسيا عبر الأراضي الليتوانية. أوضح عالم السياسة ألكسندر نوسوفيتش، الذي يعيش في كالينينغراد، لصحيفة “كومسومولسكايا برافدا” الوضع بالضبط، إذ يبدو واضحاً أن فيلنيوس (عاصمة ليتوانيا) لم تحسب العواقب المحتملة لقرارها.

أولاً، نتحدث عن منتجات الحديد والصلب. ثانياً، عن بعض السلع التي تدر ربحاً على الميزانية الروسية، من بينها، على سبيل المثال، الكافيار والكحول والأسمدة والأخشاب والمنتجات الخشبية والصناعات الزجاجية. ثالثاً، الفحم الذي يحظر استيراده ونقله، لكن الحظر لن يدخل حيز التنفيذ إلا في 10 آب/أغسطس. رابعاً: النفط ومنتجاته.

ما الخطر الحقيقي الذي يمكن أن يشكله قرار ليتوانيا هذا في عزل روسيا؟

منذ 30 عاماً، كان السياسيون الليتوانيون يحلمون ويقولون إن لديهم مثل هذا الخيار ضد روسيا، أي منع العبور إلى كالينينغراد، وأتت اللحظة الرائعة التي تمكنت فيها ليتوانيا من استخدامه، لكن هذا لن يكون من دون عواقب، لأنهم ظلوا يتحدثون عن المنع باستمرار، فيما كنا نستعد له كل هذا الوقت. لذا، إن أي إجراءات تتخذها ليتوانيا لتقييد العبور إلى منطقة كالينينغراد لن تكون حاسمة بالنسبة إلينا، ولن تتسبب بأضرار جسيمة. 

قبل 20 عاماً، اشترت منطقة كالينينغراد الكهرباء من ليتوانيا، من محطة إغنالينا للطاقة النووية، ولكن لديها الآن محطات الطاقة الخاصة بها. بالنسبة إلى الغاز، لدينا محطة المارشال فاسيليفسكي التي اختبرناها بالفعل في حال قيام ليتوانيا بقطع الغاز عن خط الأنابيب.

في ما يتعلق بالعبور، تحدثت إلى كبار المسؤولين في منطقتنا وممثلي الإدارة المركزية، وأكدوا أن الأسطول المدني الروسي في بحر البلطيق يكفي تماماً لتسليم جميع البضائع التي يمكن لليتوانيا أن تمنعنا من نقلها عن طريق السكك الحديدية. السؤال هو: كيف يمكننا أن نفعل كل ذلك بسرعة؟ لكنني متأكد أننا لن نشهد انقطاعاً في الإمدادات، ولن تكون رفوف المتاجر فارغة.

ما الإجراءات الانتقامية التي يمكن أن تتخذها روسيا ضد ليتوانيا؟

أولاً، إلغاء الاعتراف باستقلالها. إن فكرة الاعتراف بانفصال جمهوريات البلطيق عن الاتحاد السوفياتي بوصفه غير شرعي كانت مطروحة منذ 5 أيلول/سبتمبر 1991، عندما حدث هذا الانفصال. لم يكن لدى مجلس الدولة غير الدستوري الذي ينتمي إليه غورباتشوف الحق في اتخاذ قرارات على هذا المستوى، مثل مراجعة حدود الاتحاد السوفياتي وفصل الأراضي عنه. هذه حقيقة قانونية. في المناسبة، قدم نائب مجلس الدوما يفغيني فيدوروف في الآونة مشروع قانون بهذا الصدد.

ثانياً، الانسحاب من الاتفاقيات مع الاتحاد الأوروبي بشأن ليتوانيا، كما ذكر ديمتري روغوزين، الذي قاد المفاوضات بين موسكو وبروكسل سنة 2002-2003، حين اعترفت روسيا بحدود جمهورية ليتوانيا في مقابل ضمانات بالعبور غير المنقطع للمواطنين الروس والبضائع الروسية من كالينينغراد وإليها. بفضل هذا الاعتراف، تمكنت ليتوانيا من الانضمام إلى الاتحاد الأوروبي وحلف شمال الأطلسي.

ثالثاً، إحياء مطلب روسيا بإعادة مدينة كلايبيدا. إذا انسحبت بروكسل اليوم من الاتفاقيات من جانب واحد، فإن موسكو ستنسحب من التزاماتها، فالعواقب بالنسبة إلى ليتوانيا والاتحاد الأوروبي والناتو قد تكون بعيدة المدى للغاية. دعني أذكّرك على الأقل بأن ملكية أراضي ميميل وكونيغسبرغ انتقلت من ألمانيا إلى الاتحاد السوفياتي كلل، وليس إلى جمهورية محددة من جمهورياته، بموجب قرار مؤتمر بوتسدام الذي أعقب نتائج الحرب العالمية الثانية.

وفي وقت لاحق فقط، نقل ستالين، بقراره الداخلي، كونيغسبرغ إلى جمهورية روسيا الاتحادية الاشتراكية السوفياتية، وأصبح اسمها كالينينغراد، ومُنحت ميميل لجمهورية ليتوانيا الاشتراكية السوفياتية، وأصبح اسمها كلايبيدا. روسيا الحديثة هي الخليفة القانونية لاتحاد الجمهوريات الاشتراكية السوفياتية، أي أن حدود ليتوانيا ما بعد السوفياتية تحددها. وإذا انتهك الاتحاد الأوروبي الاتفاقيات التي تضمن هذه الحدود، فكل شيء يمكن أن يحدث لليتوانيا.

رابعاً، إنشاء “ممر سوالكي”. إذا فرضت ليتوانيا حصاراً على منطقة كالينينغراد، تكون، وفق تعبير عضو مجلس الاتحاد الروسي أندريه كليموف، قد “أطاحت الكرسي” الذي كانت تجلس عليه طوال هذه السنوات كدولة عضو في الاتحاد الأوروبي. 

إنه يحذر من أن السلوك غير المقبول لليتوانيا، الذي يقيد العبور إلى منطقة كالينينغراد، يعرض الناتو للخطر. يعتقد البرلماني أن “الاتحاد الأوروبي، ما لم يصحّح تصرف فيلنيوس الوقح فوراً، سيتبرأ من شرعية جميع الوثائق المتعلقة بعضوية ليتوانيا في الاتحاد الأوروبي، ويفسح لنا المجال لحل مشكلة العبور من وإلى كالينينغراد التي أحدثتها ليتوانيا بأي وسيلة نختارها”. 

والطريقة الأكثر جذرية، كما يعتقد الخبراء منذ مدة طويلة، هي إنشاء “ممر سوالكي”، وهو ممر بري بين ليتوانيا وبولندا يصل طوله إلى 100 كيلومتر، ويمكن أن يربط أراضي بيلاروسيا بمنطقة كالينينغراد الروسية. من الواضح أن هذه الخطوة تعني نشوب حرب مع الناتو.

خامساً، فصل ليتوانيا عن نظام الطاقة. سيكون هذا رد موسكو الاقتصادي الأكثر إيلاماً على خطوة فيلنيوس العدائية. اليوم، تربط حلقة “بريلل” للطاقة بيلاروسيا وروسيا وإستونيا ولاتفيا وليتوانيا. لطالما أعلنت دول البلطيق رغبتها في تركها، والاندماج الكامل في أنظمة الطاقة في الاتحاد الأوروبي. وقد أعلنت رسمياً أنّ هذا سيحدث في عام 2025. 

ومع ذلك، فإن انتقال الطاقة إلى أوروبا يواجه صعوبات كبيرة. لذلك، لا تزال دول البلطيق تعتمد بشكل كبير على الكهرباء الروسية. إنّ فصل ليتوانيا عن “بريلل” قبل الموعد المحدد سيخلق مشاكل خطرة للغاية لاقتصادها وحياة سكانها. بالنسبة إلى كالينينغراد، لا تشكّل هذه الخطوة أي تهديد، فقد انفصلت المقاطعة بالفعل عن هذه الحلقة.

نقله إلى العربية عماد الدين رائف. 

Operation Z+: On Raising the Iron Curtain Which Hangs Over Europe

June 05, 2022

Source

By Batiushka

From Kaliningrad on the Baltic to Odessa on the Black Sea an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of Western, Central and Eastern Europe, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the American sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to American influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from the Great Satan in Washington, cutting off that dark and tiny Western world from the teeming billions of toiling humanity, in China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Iran, indeed all the Muslim World, all Africa and all Latin America. It is they who are now looking with hope to Russia, to her light to free the world, to her wheat to feed the world, and to her oil to warm the world.

The Fulton Speech II

‘And I heard a voice in the midst of the beasts saying, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine’.

The Apocalypse 6:6

Introduction: 6 June 1945

There is a type of history known as ‘What if History’. Its correct name is ‘Suppositional History’. Quite simply, it deals with logical but parallel universes of the imagination and asks, ‘What if/suppose X had not happened, and Y had happened instead, what would Z be like today? One jump of the imagination and we can arrive in a very logical, quite plausible, yet actually non-existent, world. One of these what-if questions is: What would have happened if the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ (British, Americans and Canadians) had not invaded Normandy on 6 June 1944 or else had been repelled? The answer we come to is that the Red Army would not have stopped in Berlin in May 1945. It would have gone on, leaving Berlin and the suicide of Hitler far behind them, and almost unopposed, it would have gone on to the very coasts of Western Europe.

Then the phrase ‘The Normandy Landings’ would have had a very different meaning. 6 June 1945 would have looked very different from 6 June 1944. Ironically, the fact that D-Day happened means that Western Europe was never liberated from the Nazi mentality (1). In other words it was never freed from that bizarre ideology and mentality of Western Supremacism, which declares that ‘The West is Best’. In 2022 we are still paying the price for this failure to finish World War II. This is why it is absurd to talk of World War III; World War II has not finished yet (2). Yet, perhaps some of us will one day see Russian troops liberating Europe, not only as far as Paris as in 1814, but as far as Normandy and even beyond, to the islands across the sea, to what the ancients called ‘Ultima Thule’.

Operation Z

Today’s conflict in the Ukraine would have been over by now, if the West had not constantly escalated it, continually creating new provocations and refusing to allow their puppet regime in Kiev to surrender. As a result, the Russian Federation Forces and Allies are having to destroy not only Kiev Army military equipment but also swathes of NATO equipment, brought in from Western Europe and ultimately even from the USA. Once that equipment, much of it obsolete, has been used up, destroyed by Russian missiles, NATO will be on the run. So what could happen then? Some will object, but the Russian Federation only wanted to liberate the Donbass? Was it then lying? Did it want to occupy all the Ukraine after all or even go further?

No, it was not lying, but because of the host of Western-inspired provocations, such as cutting off water and power to the Crimea, the Federation is being obliged to occupy not only the Russian-speaking East, but also the Russian-speaking South of the Ukraine. Moreover, since the North and the West of the Ukraine are being sent new and threatening weapons (a lot had already been supplied in the years and months before the Special Operation, in preparation for the Ukrainian campaign to genocide the Donbass and invade the Crimea in early March 2022), they too will have to be dealt with in some way or other. Since so many millions of anti-Russian Ukrainians have left the North and the West of the Ukraine for the West, the Russian task may no longer be so difficult. Demilitarisation means what it says – destroying everything that NATO sends, however that plays out.

The latest news is that the idiotic and ignorant British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, now wants to NATO-ise Moldova. So that too will have to be cleared. Since the total strength of the Moldovan Army, many of whom are pro-Russian anyway, is 5,000, it should not be difficult. But why stop there? If the Ukraine and Moldova can be cleared by the end of 2022, which is possible, there comes 2023. As we have mentioned previously, we have the concept of Operation Z+. What does that mean? It means the demilitarisation and denazification of the whole world, beginning with the small but densely-populated European Peninsula.

This means not only liberating the peoples of the present EU from crushing ‘defence’ (= offence) costs, which have so impoverished its peoples for so long. Above all it means internal liberation, ridding the peoples of Europe of the millennial parasite of the Nazi ideology and mentality, with which they have been so infected by their elite that it has become an unconscious but integral part of Western culture. This is so much so that they do not even realise that they are Nazis and would be shocked by the mere suggestion. Yet, it is precisely this disease of Western Supremacism that has deformed, twisted, brainwashed, manipulated and deluded the Western world for so long.

Of course, such a highly ambitious project cannot happen just like that. We are talking about slow, progressive and generational change, and by no means necessarily by military means. Here below, as an example, is a 44-year programme. This is not at all realistic in its precision (timetables never work – reality takes over), but it does set a sort of guideline or target to move towards. And all is possible, once the Ukraine has been delivered from the bonds of Satan. The bonds of Satan, after all, are the meaning of the flying of the Ukrainian flag in the Collective West and its use, for instance, on Twitter and Facebook accounts. Let us explain:

Those who have little concept of where the Ukraine is, or the fact that this artificial hotchpotch of an ‘independent’ country (in fact, a US colony) has only existed for some thirty years and that it has oppressed and exiled millions of people and murdered tens of thousands in the name of its Nazi ideology, do know one thing: Flying a Ukrainian flag means displaying their own self-interest – the Ukrainian flag represents the flag of their personal, though usually quite unconscious, Nazi ideology of Western Supremacism (3). Once the Ukraine has been cleansed by Operation Z, somewhere they know that they will be cleansed next. They fear that cleansing. The coming of reality will terrify the deluded with the frightening words: after Z comes Z+.

Operation Z+

1. 2022: The Liberation of the ‘Ukraine’ and Moldova

Nobody knows when the demilitarisation of what will remain of the old Ukraine will be complete. The old Ukraine could collapse in weeks, with a military coup against the puppet-traitor Zelensky, or it could take a year or even more. We make no forecasts. At the moment NATO is escalating the conflict even further, but from the very outset this always was a proxy war between Washington and Moscow. In any case, it seems as if a military government will be required for the future Ukraine (population 15 million?) in its new borders. Ukrainian civilian governments, led by Non-Ukrainian oligarchs and their puppets, have all been utterly corrupt, to the benefit and the intention of the West.

Nobody knows what will happen in the far west of the Ukraine. Will the three provinces of Volyn, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk return to Poland? Or perhaps more than three will leave? Will so-called ‘Transcarpathia’ (a nonsensical name – it is Kiev that is across the Carpathians), or to call it by its proper names, Carpatho-Russia/Subcarpathian Rus/Ruthenia, return to Hungary or Slovakia, or will it become part of the Russian Federation? Moldova, which has nearly half of its four million population abroad, in exile, is utterly corrupt, making it the poorest country in Europe and ensuring that mass emigration. This problem too will surely have to be dealt with.

2. 2023-2026: The Liberation of the Baltic States

Physically, the tiny and unviable Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, could be conquered and demilitarised swiftly. However, their ‘refascistisation’ under NATO/Nazi US-colonial governments, their deindustrialisation (forcing some 40% of the population to emigrate) and the sadistic oppression of their Russian minorities are all problems that will have to be dealt with. These countries will take time to denazify, even though their population is today barely four million.

3. 2027-2030: The Liberation of the Eastern Balkans

Once the utterly corrupt, US-installed elites of Romania and Bulgaria have been dealt with and NATO terrorist equipment removed, these countries can return to normality.

4. 2031-2034: The Liberation of the Western Balkans

The problems of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania were not only found to be insoluble by the West, the West made them far worse. There must be solutions for maltreated Serbia and Bosnia. Croat and Muslim parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina could be exchanged with Croatia for East Slavonia, which must be returned to Serbia. Some population exchanges would be necessary. Serbia and Montenegro will reunite, once the pro-US traitors of the elite have been removed. Slovenia presents no problem as it is homogeneous. North Macedonia is now an independent country.

However, there remains the problem of Kosovo, divided between Serbians and Albanians. Only great investment and prosperity in the huge tourist potential of Albania, at present the European capital of car-thieves, gun-runners and drug-smugglers, could draw back Albanians from Kosovo to their own country and also attract the Albanian minorities from Montenegro and North Macedonia to a newly prosperous ancestral homeland, so returning those lands to Slavs and making them homogenous again. Goodbye, Camp Bondsteel.

5. 2035-2038: The Liberation of Austro-Hungary

We believe that Hungary would be liberated very quickly, Austria would take longer, but there are some promising signs there. The EU is not popular in either.

6. 2039-2042: The Liberation of the Hellenes

Greece could be liberated relatively easily: Nazism has never dominated there, except among its US-colonial politicians. Cyprus, grabbed by Imperialist Britain in 1878 and let out to it like a piece of real estate, is more complex. The British – in fact – American base there would have to be removed. Although Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots get on well, there is the problem of the US and British-sponsored Turkish invasion of North Cyprus in 1974 and Turkish settlers from the mainland now there. Here Turkey must receive compensation elsewhere, so that Cyprus can be restored.

7. 2043-2046: The Liberation of the West Slavs

Slovakia might be liberated quite easily, but not so much the Germanised Czech Lands or Poland. Nazi operations like Akcja Visla in 1947, when the south-eastern Lemko Rusin minority were terrorised by Fascist Polish troops and forcibly removed from the Beskids show just how vicious Poland can be. Few now recall that Poland had a Fascist government before 1939 and took part in dismembering Czechoslovakia together with Hitler. Yet, it is a fact. Progress here could be slow, even in the 2040s.

8. 2047-2050: The Liberation of the German Lands

This means denazifying (and de-Americanising) the German Lands, in other words, restoring those lands at last to the German Peoples, den deutschen Volken. We do not see Germany remaining as a single nation. It would be better if it returned to being four, five or more different countries, such as Bavaria, Saxony, Hannover, Brandenburg and Westphalia.

9. 2051-2054: The Liberation of the Border German Peoples

By Border German Peoples, we mean the most latinised Germanic peoples, where French or Italian is sometimes also spoken, that is, those in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the artificial, Ukrainian-like (British-invented) country of Belgium, which is in fact part of the Southern Netherlands and, to a smaller extent, part of Northern France. Brussels, its overgrown village of a capital with a large immigrant population, may collapse very quickly once it has been cleansed of the cancerous EU and NATO headquarters.

10. 2055-2058: The Liberation of the Western Latin Peoples

The Western Latin peoples (the Eastern Latin peoples are the Romanians and the Moldovans), are those of France, Corsica, Italy, San Marino, Andorra, Spain, Catalonia, Portugal and their Non-Latin minorities, the Bretons and the Basques. With elites removed, here the ordinary people can at last come to the fore.

11. 2059-2062: The Liberation of the Nordic Peoples

Here we mean the Scandinavian and Nordic countries – Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland. All have very small populations, but all too often have the hypocritical woke mentality of the Nazis. We only have to look at their attitude during the Second World War. Finland fought with the Nazis, Denmark and Norway hardly resisted and ‘neutral’ Sweden willingly supplied essential raw materials to the Reich.

12. 2063-2066: The Liberation of the Isles

This might be the most problematic of all. However, Ireland, soon to be reunited, would surely welcome full liberation, Republican Scotland too, even Wales: only a few are affected there in these Celtic lands of low population. But there is still England, which has to be freed from alien ‘Britain’ and so restored. That which has poisoned England and English life for nearly a millennium, the British Establishment, centred in the Norman-founded City of London (the Old English Capital was Winchester) and spreading its tentacles throughout the country, must be removed.

Consisting of parasitic politicians, with its current Bully Bunter English public schoolboy leader Johnson, the Armed Forces, the Secret Police (politely called MI5), aristocrats, bankers and industrialists, their propaganda mouthpiece, the BBC, condescendingly utilised to control the plebs with the other oligarchic media, as well as other government arms, the Establishment does not represent England, only Britain. Let the oppressed provinces of England rise and reject the gangrene of the tentacular Metropolitan elite. Instead of a Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, imported in order to avoid having a Catholic on the throne, let a Non-French/Welsh/ Scottish/Dutch/German but English monarch at last come to the throne after a thousand years and a trillion tears. Only so can the British abscess be lanced and England healed from its millennial brain and soul-fever.

Conclusion

Here then is a suggestion for raising the European iron curtain, by denazifying, deNATOfying, deEUing and so liberating the European Peninsula of North-Western Eurasia. Some will say that, even spread over 44 years, this project is hopelessly optimistic, it is even impossible; others will say that it is pessimistic, that all could happen within a few years, for Western Europe is a house of cards. We do not know who is right. Is there even a Russian appetite for this? Not without popular support on the ground. Without popular support, no invader can win – even the USA must know this from its defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan. However, in any case, if the West continues to escalate the conflict in the Ukraine, inevitably it will have to pay for the consequences of its great foolishness. You should not play American roulette (4), especially when you live in a house of cards.

Yet, if multipolar Afro-Eurasia is to forge ahead at full speed, Europe must be liberated from its Western Supremacist/Nazi ideology. And the New Worlds will also have to sort themselves out, though with help. Russia can help in Latin America, China in Oceania. As for North America, the USA will yet collapse into its component parts, with the southern States returning to Mexico, New England going to Canada, other parts becoming independent Confederations, Alaska returning to the Russian Federation, thus restoring the Federation as a tricontinental nation, which is its destiny. Perhaps the denazified British Isles and Ireland could play a useful role in the States that will remain? Of course, we know nothing of how far or fast such an ambitious vision could progress. But frankly, if only 10% of any of the above were achieved, that would be huge and miraculous progress.

Notes:

1. See our article on this site: ‘What Does Nazism Mean?’ (29^th March 2022)

2. Many would say that World War II was itself merely the continuation of World War I. The French Marshal Foch considered that the Treaty of Versailles which officially ended the War would lead to a new War. As it was being signed in June 1919, he said: ‘This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years’. His forecast was exact to the very year.

3. See our article on this site ‘What Sort of People Fly a Ukrainian Flag?’ (3^rd May 2022)

4. This is the correct name for so-called ‘Russian roulette’. It never existed in Russia, but was invented by a US writer for a work of fiction in 1937. Presumably he gave it the Russian name as it sounded ‘exotic’ to him. Another crazy and racist Russophobic invention that only gun-obsessed cowboys with their cult of violence could think up.

Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, May 18, 2022 (Extensive)

May 20, 2022

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1813888/

Table of contents

1. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to attend BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting
2. Sergey Lavrov’s participation in the 100 Questions for the Leader project at the Yevgeny Primakov Gymnasium
3. Update on Ukraine
4. Involving minors in Ukrainian nationalist formations
5. Statement by Western leaders accusing Russia of cyberattacks against the Ukrainian communications infrastructure
6. EU allegations of Russia’s “responsibility” for global food insecurity
7. Biological warfare research in Ukraine
8. Closing Canada’s CBC bureau in Moscow
9. Situation at the JCPOA reactivation talks
10. The situation in the Republic of Moldova
11. Russia’s stance on Cyprus settlement
12. Growing terrorist activity in Burkina Faso and neighbouring countries
13. Desecration of Soviet military graves in Gdansk
14. Desecrating a memorial to Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov’s comrades who died when crossing the Alps in 1799, in the Shollenen Gorge (Switzerland)
15. 13th International Economic Summit Russia – Islamic World: KazanSummit 2022
16. 2nd Kostomarov Forum
17. Eurasian Economic Forum in Bishkek

Answers to media questions:

1. Russia’s withdrawal from the Council of the Baltic Sea States
2. The transportation of grain from Ukraine
3. The death of Al Jazeera journalist
4. Calls for “regime change” in Russia
5. Ukraine’s decision to nationalise Russian banks’ property
6. Russia’s reaction to Finland and Sweden’s decision to join NATO
7. Mass shooting in the United States
8. Russian diplomats working in new conditions
9. Russia’s reaction to the Western embargo on Russian energy exports
10. Finland’s economic losses
11. The future of Ukrainian militants who surrendered at Azovstal
12. Situation with individuals detained in Ukraine
13. Russia’s stand on NATO membership for Ukraine and Finland
14. Russia’s response measures to Finland’s NATO membership
15. Exchange of prisoners in Ukraine
16. The possibility of Russia-Ukraine talks
17. Trilateral working group
18. Meeting of the Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on border delimitation and border security
19. Acts of vandalism in Nagorno-Karabakh
20. CSTO response to developments in Afghanistan
21. Escalation in the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region of Tajikistan

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to attend BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting

On May 19, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will attend a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the BRICS countries via videoconference.

The ministers will review global and regional issues, as well as the problems of maintaining peace and security and settling acute international conflicts. They will focus on coordinating the approaches of the BRICS nations at key multilateral platforms and intensifying cooperation in countering new challenges and threats.

The ministers will review the BRICS strategic partnership in three key areas – political, economic and humanitarian – in the context of preparing for the upcoming 14th summit of the association.

At the initiative of the Chinese Presidency in the Council of Foreign Ministers, a separate session will take place in BRICS-plus format with the participation of the foreign ministers from a number of developing nations.

back to top

Sergey Lavrov’s participation in the 100 Questions for the Leader project at the Yevgeny Primakov Gymnasium

On May 23, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet with students at the autonomous non-profit general education organisation Yevgeny Primakov Regional Gymnasium as part of the 100 Questions for the Leader project.

The project represents a special format for trustworthy conversations held by students with famous politicians and outstanding representatives of science, art and sports. It provides a priceless experience for direct dialogue between the rising generation and today’s leaders.

back to top

Update on Ukraine

The special military operation continues in Ukraine. As Russian leaders have said more than once, it is going according to plan, and new territories are being freed from the Nazis every day.

The Ukrainian military personnel and militants in Azov nationalist units that entrenched themselves in the underground bunkers of the Azovstal Plant, began to surrender in Mariupol this week. According to the Russian Defence Ministry, 959 Ukrainian nationalists, including 51 with severe wounds, have laid down their arms over two days. They receive medical aid at the Novoazovsk hospital in the DPR, and the rest were sent to a pretrial detention centre in Yelenovka in the suburbs of Donetsk. Indicatively, on May 17, this centre was shelled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine with multiple launch rocket systems (MLRSs). The Kiev regime has always treated its citizens like this, and this case was no exception.

Russian leaders had repeatedly stated that resistance was senseless and announced the opening of humanitarian corridors for militants and Ukrainian military personnel to leave the Azovstal Plant after laying down their arms. They were urged to stop the hostilities. In the meantime, the Kiev regime was doing all it could to prevent civilians, military personnel and militants from leaving the plant. Why? They were brainwashing the public.

It was Russia that urged the UN to look into this situation and persuade the Kiev regime to let people walk out. Later, Russia organised humanitarian corridors in cooperation with the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross. I would like to emphasise that the initiative on announcing and opening these corridors was ours.

The wounded troops are provided with professional medical help. This fact is being turned upside down and misrepresented in the Ukrainian and international media. Remember the footage showing how the militants and the Armed Forces of Ukraine treat POWs in Ukraine? Everyone saw it. It horrified many, others pretended not to have seen it. Russian POWs were shot to death by militants from the nationalist units that became part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russia has adopted a different approach. You see footage showing professional help being provided to the wounded [Ukrainian troops]. It is not being provided “for show.” It is provided to real individuals regardless of their background. Humanitarian law is not just something we abide by; it is of fundamental importance for us. No one should have any doubt about this.

According to Ukrainian POWs, the military leadership of Ukraine forbids the troops to retreat or surrender. Their key goal is to destroy as much civilian infrastructure as possible in order to leave behind uninhabitable ruins and make it hard to restore peaceful life. This is not our messaging, but the testimony received from the Ukrainian side over the past weeks.

The nationalists, who have long been using the tactics of ISIS terrorists, do not hesitate to use kindergartens, schools and hospitals as ammunition depots and strongholds. They are not hiding this. They take pictures inside preschools or with preschool buildings in the background to show how they fight there. The civilians are not allowed to evacuate. They are forcing people to leave their apartments so that they can set up firing positions there. They are driving people to basements that are used by militants or as weapons depots. The other day, Ukrainian nationalists began to bring in ammunition and deployed air defence systems on the grounds of the Odessa film studio. The territorial defence force militants go door-to-door in order to identify residents who do not accept the nationalist way of thinking. They are taken away to unknown locations and there’s no information about the fate of many of them.

Earlier, the Zaporozhye administration banned the evacuation of civilians under the pretext of security. All attempts by the citizens to leave the city in private vehicles and on foot are stopped by the territorial defence militants at checkpoints. Those who resist are subjected to physical violence. Their vehicles are seized and they are sent back on foot.

On May 16, Ukrainian nationalists used the Smerch MLRS to attack Kherson’s residential areas. There are no Russian troops in Kherson, which the Ukrainian side is well aware of. This means they specifically targeted civilians in retaliation for supporting Russia’s actions. This is yet another war crime committed by the Kiev regime. Fortunately, all 10 missiles have been intercepted by Russian air defence systems.

Unfortunately, we do not see the international organisations, Western countries or their media respond to the criminal methods used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. To be sure, it’s because there is no response. Moreover, the Western countries continue massive arms supplies to the Kiev regime. We consider this as direct support for neo-Nazis and an effort to make the fighting last as long as possible. We cannot ignore the fact that Western weapons are used to kill Russian troops and shell Russian territory.

Arms deliveries are running into the billions of dollars which is comparable to military budgets of large states. The United States, Great Britain, France, Canada, Poland and the Baltic countries are doing the most to arm Kiev. Washington alone sent $3.8 billion worth of military equipment to the Kiev regime which is close to the military budgets of Austria, Portugal and Finland. The US Congress is considering a proposal to provide another $40 billion in “aid”, including about $25 billion worth of military equipment. This is half the military budget of Germany and France. I would like to draw the attention of the US public not so much to the size, which is comparable with the military budgets of other countries, as to the needs of the American people. They can put these funds to good use. If this money were sent as subsidies, aid, or sponsorship related in some way to humanitarian aid, one would understand it. But money is being sent to the Kiev regime for it to kill and to continue this phase of the crisis.

More and more weapons abandoned by the Armed Forces of Ukraine are becoming the spoils of war for the People’s Militia of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Armed Forces of Russia. These include Javelin and NLAW ATGMs, Starstreak and Stinger MANPADS, Bayraktar drones, Switchblade loitering munitions, Skynet Longbow EW systems, CAESAR and PzH 2000s self-propelled and M777 towed howitzers.

EU, US and UK officials keep saying that “victory must be achieved on the battlefield,” that “Russia must sustain a strategic defeat” and “cannot be allowed to win.” All these statements, in addition to the trade and economic blockade that has in effect been imposed on our country and the hybrid war unleashed against it, prove once again that the Western countries are waging war against Russia in Ukraine and that Ukraine itself and its citizens are an expendable resource for them. Our Chinese partners used the expression “cannon fodder.”

In their information war, the Western countries resort to outright lies. They are trying to accuse our country of creating a global food shortage. We commented on this many times. Each time we cite facts, figures and other information that cannot be refuted. But nobody is trying to refute them. Western-spread lies are not supposed to be refuted. They are too absurd to comment on. It is forgotten that crisis phenomena in the world food market are linked with the West’s accumulated mistakes and miscalculations in macroeconomic, energy and agricultural policy. The coronavirus pandemic has contributed as well. In the middle of 2020, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme David Beasley warned about the threat of “famines of biblical proportions.” Unilateral Western sanctions exacerbated this trend. So, millions of people will have to go hungry because of the geopolitical ambitions, egotism and stupidity of the collective West.

At the same time, we are seeing a striving of the Western curators to take out of Ukraine everything that may be of some value. This is also a repetition of history of 80 years ago. Hundreds of grain carriers are crossing the Ukrainian border on the way to Europe. The Kiev regime has organised massive daily exports of agricultural products to Europe in exchange for weapons by road and rail, as well as by river on the Danube to Romania via the port of Ismail.

Think of what is happening. Against the backdrop of statements by the collective West about the imminent famine (the Kiev regime is supposed to trust the West), the leaders of Ukraine are getting rid of food products. Ukrainian citizens need them now. The Armed Forces of Ukraine also need them since the Kiev regime is not going to stop hostilities. However, food products are being sent abroad instead. Where to? To NATO countries. The Ukrainians receive weapons in exchange for these products so that they can continue killing themselves. This is not Nazism. This are even more terrifying maniacal ideas that are even worse than the misanthropic concepts applied to the population of Ukraine, Russia and the rest of the former USSR in the middle of the 20th century.

These are tremendous amounts of grain, maize, oil crops and livestock animals. On May 10 of this year, US President Joseph Biden said that Washington was thinking about ways of exporting from Ukraine 20 million tonnes of grain, supposedly with a view to reducing prices in the world markets. You know how much the United States and the White House care about the needs of hungry people in Africa and Asia, how much they want all people in the world to live a better life, eat well and be wealthier. We know this bewitching American pacifism and striving to do good for everyone. But this is not the case. This is about robbing Ukraine, its citizens and military of the last things they have. Washington obviously is not concerned about what the Ukrainians will be left with after this feast. Ukrainian citizens did not believe us 10 years ago and five years ago. Maybe it’s time to wise up. To realise that they are being deprived of the last things they have. Food products, grain – the results of their labour – are being taken out of the country. When we were in school and university, we were told that the fascists and Nazis hauled away Ukrainian natural soil by railway and this was presented as the supreme manifestation of their hatred for Soviet citizens. Now the logic is even more gruesome – Ukrainian citizens are being deprived of the fruits of their labour at a time when their country is engaged in hostilities.

For our part, we are paying close attention to the humanitarian situation in the liberated areas and facilitating the restoration of peaceful life. Russian military are clearing Ukrainian mines in cities and farming lands. People in the DPR, LPR and a number of regions in Ukraine have already been supplied with 20,000 tonnes of basic necessities, food products, medications and medical devices.

We regret that the United States, Britain and several European countries are supporting and sponsoring those who are preaching in Ukraine the ideas of aggressive nationalism and neo-Nazism. They continue supplying the Kiev regime with arms and robbing the Ukrainian people. However, these efforts will not change the situation.

As the Russian leaders said more than once, Russia will achieve the goals of its military operation on denazifying and demilitarising Ukraine, defending the DPR and the LPR and removing the threats to its own security.

back to top

Involving minors in Ukrainian nationalist formations

As the nationalist formations of Ukraine continue to be driven out of Donbass, new facts have come to light which confirm the involvement of children in these hate-crazed units. We have repeatedly stated that right-wing radical organisations operating under the patronage of the Kiev regime have systematically spread extremism among minors in order to embed the ideas of militant nationalism in Ukrainian society.

Neo-Nazis from Azov began large-scale recruitment of children back in 2015 when, upon the initiative of the National Corps leader Andrey Biletsky, they set up the Youth Corps’ “children’s camps.” In 2015, they took in children aged 9 to 18 and since 2016, 7 to 18.

A military youth wing called National Squads was formed at the National Corps in 2018. Hundreds of young people over the age of 14 joined it. The instructors from Azov taught them how to fight the “enemies of Ukraine,” including with firearms.

The specialised Youth Corps’ needs are covered by the Ukrainian state budget. Does that sound familiar? In 2019, organisations associated with the National Corps received $17,000 to hold events for children and youth. We see it. And we know what kind of values people with Azov insignia on their sleeves and nationalist and neo-Nazi symbols are teaching ​​young people. There are training camps for teenagers such as Azovets, Bukovynets, and Dnepryanin in different parts of the country. Teenagers were lured through social media and messengers.

Eyewitnesses are saying that neo-Nazis from Azov do not limit themselves to “children’s camps” and have expanded their group by bringing aboard minor orphans which fact is corroborated by the situation at the Piligrim orphanage in Mariupol. Azov worked closely with the children from this orphanage training them in combat, including sharp shooting, during eight years beginning in 2014. Reportedly, in 2014, children from Piligrim helped the Ukrainian army dig trenches outside Mariupol and build checkpoints later in October. Residents of Mariupol say that during the events of February-April 2022, the Respublika Piligrim Children’s Rehabilitation Centre was the headquarters of the territorial defence, where militants from Azov and other radical groups were based. There’s video evidence showing that teenagers from Piligrim took part in the hostilities on the side of the neo-Nazis, and also set fire to civilian homes.

“The neo-Nazi Ukrainian group Azov-operated Piligrim orphanage in Mariupol is a prototype of Ukraine that the Nazis wanted to build and what it would inevitably become if it were not for the special operation by the Russian Armed Forces,” Alexey Selivanov, former (until 2014) Advisor to the Defence Minister of Ukraine and Deputy Head of the Main Directorate of the Interior Ministry for the Zaporozhye Region, said. This is what someone who served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine had to say.

According to Selivanov, Piligrim can stand in for all of Ukraine, and the orphanage, in which children were converted into militants, is a clear confirmation of the fact that something drastic had to be done with this Ukrainian project.

These facts clearly show that Ukraine violated its obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child concerning the involvement of children in armed conflicts. When ratifying this international treaty in 2005, Ukraine declared that the minimum age for voluntary (on a contract basis) enlistment into national armed forces was 19.

We call upon relevant international organisations, such as the UN and the OSCE, as well as the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict, to pay special attention to Kiev’s involvement of children in criminal neo-Nazi organisations and spreading of radical ideas among minors.

There is no need to pretend that in a surge of patriotism these children went to the barricades in February 2022. They have been trained to make war for many years. And the militants of the nationalist battalions are the ones who did it.

back to top

Statement by Western leaders accusing Russia of cyberattacks against the Ukrainian communications infrastructure

The West continues its attempts to portray Russia as a cyber-aggressor. We perceive the recent statements, made on May 10, 2022, by foreign policy agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom and their allies in precisely this context. These statements accuse Russia of launching cyberattacks against the Ukrainian communications infrastructure in February 2022. Predictably, they did not provide any evidence. As usual, they follow their favourite “highly likely” logic.

Western capitals think of themselves as supreme rulers of cyberspace. They rubberstamp accusations that have nothing to do with reality. They probably believe that they will also get away with this anti-Russia provocation. They think all states will perceive this propaganda as a sufficient reason for bringing to account culprits arbitrarily appointed by the US administration. After depleting the potential of sanctions, they are now resorting to other ploys from their rich cinematographic legacy, including promises to pay handsomely anyone who will testify in favour of Washington’s allegations.

Obviously, the policy of intimidation and deception is called on to camouflage the futile US attempts to impose its own perception of an international political order, to conceal its own flaws regarding protection of personal data, the right to privacy and inability to maintain constructive cooperation between specialised agencies to thwart illegal activities in the IT sphere.  Consequently, they want to continue their long-term digital dictate against the public at home and in other countries and to plunder their intellectual resources with the help of companies and agencies affiliated with security services.

back to top

EU allegations of Russia’s “responsibility” for global food insecurity

The EU, the United States and their supporters have unleashed a campaign accusing Russia of provoking a global food crisis. The main thesis is that Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, including the “blocking” of the Ukrainian grain exports via Black Sea ports, are leading to food shortages and hunger in the world’s poorest countries. We know how the “collective West” is “helping” these countries. They are considering ways to turn ordinary countries into poorest states (by transporting grain to their own countries), and they never or hardly ever think about the poorest countries.

As usual, Brussels is deceiving the international community by openly distorting the reasons for the current situation. The EU is openly trying to use the allegation of Russia’s “responsibility” for the deteriorating global food security to convince other countries to support the anti-Russia policies of the West. They simply tell the countries that have a neutral and balanced position that there is a dire shortage of food in their region and that this situation can be remedied if these countries assume the anti-Russia position. They ask them to sign certain documents, vote the “right way” or make a required statement, saying that this will ensure food supplies. It’s a staple of the genre, not a new invention. At the same time, Brussels is using open blackmail, offering food for loyalty.  It has not yet stooped to heavy-handed interference, but this approach cannot be ruled out in the ideological and political spheres. Countries are being forced to make a choice, and this is being done with media assistance.

Meanwhile, the EU has done nothing to prevent the “Ukrainian crisis” and continues to send weapons to Kiev, which makes it responsible for tensions on the global food market. There are numerous indications of this.

The EU has openly declared a total trade and economic war on Russia. We know that Washington actually pressured the EU into doing this, which the United States has openly admitted and trumpeted. The EU politicians who are advocating and shouting about new sanctions are comfortable with the fact that Russia is a global leader in the supply of basic agricultural products, which have no or very few alternatives, such as grain, barley, sunflower seeds and feed crops, as well as mineral fertilisers, a major share of which are exported to the low-income countries that are facing food shortages. The EU politicians do not care about this, because nobody has ever called them to account.

The disruption of trade, logistics and financial chains and, consequently, a sharp rise in food prices throughout the world are a direct result of the irresponsible adoption of even more anti-Russia restrictions and threats of increased sanctions pressure on Russia. Russia’s bank settlements and flights to and from EU countries have been blocked. Isn’t this a direct cause of the situation on the food market? Only those who live in a vacuum can think so. Brussels has adopted unprecedented restrictions on Russian fertiliser exports and individual sanctions on major Russian fertiliser producers and exporters. The declared goal of this policy is to undermine Russia’s economy, including agriculture, which moved into top gear over the past years. Blinded by their hatred for Russia, nobody stopped to think about the consequences for the countries which traditionally depend on our supplies. When they became aware of what happened, they attempted to shift the blame on Russia. It’s crossing the line beyond good and evil.

Cynically claiming to be concerned about humanitarian matters, Brussels is rushing to offer its help. They simply love to create problem and then break their brains over them. The question is who should tackle the current problem. The so-called “solidarity lanes” plan to improve EU-Ukraine connectivity for grain export, which the European Commission presented the other day, is nothing other than requisitioning. Actually, Brussels has declared a full-scale mobilisation campaign to remove the available Ukrainian grain to the EU. When Ukraine, prompted by the West, shouted about the Holodomor, when grain was taken from producers in a bad harvest year, and presented it as the genocide of Ukrainians, the West applauded and looked for other pretexts to accuse Russia of unimaginable sins. What will it do now? It has announced that “hungry times” are coming. Why are they trying to remove the last remaining grain stocks from Ukraine? This is impossible, but it’s a fact. This is requisitioning.

The EU plan provides for creating alternative lanes to export Ukrainian agricultural produce to the EU and other countries, because the sea route has been blocked through Kiev’s fault. The EU will ease the formalities, expedite the sending of additional freight rolling stock, vessels and lorries to the Ukrainian border for transporting grain, transfer mobile grain loaders, make rail slots available for these exports, and suspend customs duties on Ukrainian exports for a year. Is this a licence to take advantage of Ukraine’s situation? To grab what you can lay your hands on? That’s rich!

Brussels views the large-scale transportation of grain from Ukraine as part of its “fundamental geostrategic goal.” The EU intends to achieve it even though international experts believe that Ukraine’s grain harvest will be much smaller this year. They expect problems in Ukraine, and yet they are taking away its last grain stocks. To present this as a noble act, Brussels has announced that it is guided above all by a desire to protect the world from Russia, which allegedly wants to take advantage of the global insecurity problem it presumably created in the first place, and to “steal” Ukraine’s share on the global market, so as to gain geopolitical weight in its confrontation with the West by supplying food to the most vulnerable poor countries. This is inhuman. We would like to tell our EU neighbours that this is not our but their methods.

The soaring prices of grain, feed crops and fertilisers, not to mention energy, and the unprofitability of farming and fishing businesses were a major concern for the EU member states long before the current crisis. Take a look at your own statements, reports and television shows. In late March 2022, a regular EU summit adopted a decision on the need to ensure food affordability in the member states. Several weeks later, the European Commission presented a detailed initiative on the urgent transportation of 20 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain, which can seriously undermine the food security of Ukraine. However, Brussels, which is being guided by “the worse for Ukraine, the better for the West” principle, is not concerned about that.

We urge the international community not to rise to Western provocations, to accept reality and to rely on facts, since the West is willing to use the global food security problems, which it itself is actively creating and which did not appear yesterday, to attain its time-serving political interests. This is a historical fact. The “collective West” is accusing us because it is “highly likely” that we did it because we “always did it.” They say that we “always” did it, but they are not providing examples, let alone any proof. The West is plundering Ukraine now, just as the colonial West plundered other countries in the past, taking whatever it needed. It is doing exactly the same now.

back to top

Biological warfare research in Ukraine

The Russian Federation has obtained materials indicating that biological laboratories in Ukraine operating with support from the Pentagon’s Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and its affiliated companies – Black and Veatch and CH2M Hill – engaged in biological warfare research in violation of Articles I and IV of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (BTWC).

The laboratories conducted research into dangerous and highly dangerous pathogens in the interests of the Pentagon’s National Centre for Medical Intelligence, with the BSL-3 Central Reference Laboratory based at Ukraine’s Mechnikov Anti-Plague Research Institute in Odessa playing the key role in these programmes.

The following research centres were also actively involved in their implementation:

– State Scientific and Research Institute of Laboratory Diagnostics and Veterinary and Sanitary Expertise,  Institute of Veterinary Medicine of the Academy of Agrarian Sciences, and the Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Station of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health in Kiev;

– Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, State Laboratory of Veterinary Medicine, and Regional Centre for Disease Control and Prevention of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health in Lvov;

– State Regional Laboratory of Veterinary Medicine in Dnepr;

– Regional Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Kherson;

– Sanitary and Epidemiological Station Laboratory in Ternopol;

– Transcarpathian Regional Laboratory Centre of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health in Uzhgorod;

– Regional Laboratory Centre of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health in Vinnitsa;

– National Scientific Centre Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine in Kharkov.

Thirty Ukrainian laboratories in 14 cities were involved in full-scale biological warfare research in Ukraine. The registration card of the relevant programme was signed by Deputy State Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Viktor Polishchuk.  The legal framework was provided by the Agreement between the Department of Defenсe of the United States of America and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine Concerning Cooperation in the Area of Prevention of Proliferation of Technology, Pathogens and Expertise That Could be Used in the Development of Biological Weapons.   The RC determined the commissioner of the work – the Pentagon’s Defence Threat Reduction Agency – and a list of biological facilities.

The employees working with dangerous pathogens in Ukraine were US citizens who had diplomatic immunity. The group included biological weapons experts; they established contacts with Ukrainians, who were previously involved in Soviet biological warfare programmes. For example, Project UP-8 studying the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever and Hantaviruses is evidence that all serious high-hazard research was directly supervised by US specialists.

The documents obtained allow us to state that the Ukrainian biological laboratories (including divisions of the Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Directorate of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry) engaged in activities aimed at enhancing the pathogenic properties of agents inducing plague, anthrax, tularaemia, cholera, and other deadly diseases, using synthetic biology methods.

On February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian Health Ministry publicly issued instructions to immediately dispose of the reserves of dangerous and especially dangerous pathogens stored at biological facilities, which proves that the Kiev regime did try to sweep any traces of these operations under the carpet. The review of the disposal statements confirmed that these facilities worked with the plague, anthrax, leptospirosis, and brucellosis agents. In the Lvov laboratory alone, they destroyed 232 containers of leptospirosis agents, 30 of tularemia, 10 of brucellosis, and 5 containing plague pathogens, and in total, over 320 containers. This inventory, coupled with the excessive quantity of pathogens, demonstrates that we are dealing here with biological weapons programmes carried out in violation of Article 1 of the BWC.

We also obtained evidence that two biological laboratories in Mariupol were working with the Pentagon. The preliminary review of the remaining documents showed that Mariupol served as a regional hub for collecting and classifying cholera agents. The selected strains were then transferred to the Public Health Centre in Kiev, which then forwarded these biological samples to the United States. Carried out since 2014, this activity is evidenced by statements confirming the transfer of the strains. Why did it start in 2014? The reason lies in the anti-constitutional coup. It upended Ukraine’s independence in making decisions, and overseeing and analysing activities of this kind. People from the United States, Canada and other NATO countries flocked to Ukraine to take charge of the main domestic, foreign policy and economic activity and everything related to defence, military and strategic affairs, etc.

A statement was discovered in a sanitary and epidemiological laboratory. Dated February 25, 2022, it provides for the disposal of a collection of pathogenic microorganisms, demonstrating that the facility worked with cholera, tularemia, and anthrax agents.

In the rush to dispose of the inventory, part of it remained in this veterinary laboratory. The fact that it contained agents that are not typically found in livestock, such as typhoid, paratyphoid, and gas gangrene, is quite perplexing. This could mean that this laboratory, too, took part in the biological weapons programme.

We have every reason to assert that the DTRA focused its operations in Ukraine on collecting strains of dangerous microorganisms and exporting them to the United States, as well as studying naturally occurring agents in this region, which can be transmitted to people, with the aim of potentially using them in biological weapons. In 2020, two mobile laboratories arrived in Donbass in order to collect biological samples from the local population, primarily in the country’s eastern regions, and study them. Black and Veatch acted as DTRA’s contractor in this project.

It was with DTRA’s support that the laboratories in Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa in Ukraine took part in the UP-4 project before 2020 to study the transmission of especially dangerous infections (highly pathogenic influenza A H5N1, which has a mortality rate of over 50 percent for humans, as well as the Newcastle Disease, which affects poultry) by wild birds migrating between Ukraine, Russia and other Eastern European countries.

In addition, the documents we obtained show that the United States planned to work on bird, bat and reptile pathogens in Ukraine this year, followed by a study of whether they could transmit the African swine fever and anthrax (P-781, UP-2, UP-9, UP-10 projects). This was a system-wide research effort carried out since at least 2009 and controlled directly by US specialists as part of projects P-382, P-444 and P-568. DTRA’s office head at the US embassy in Kiev was among those overseeing this activity.

One of the goals of the UP-2 project consisted of locating places where animal carcasses had been buried and collecting soil samples from burial sites of cattle infected with anthrax. The epidemiological situation in Ukraine as far as anthrax was concerned was quite positive, which begs the question: What was the Pentagon actually looking for? I would like to remind all geography buffs out there in NATO (we saw incredible people who thought that the Baltic and the Black seas form one big lake) that the United States does not share a border with Ukraine. Even if they want to find one, it is still not there. Attempts by the Pentagon to present this as a national security concern are groundless and do not hold water. But what was the Pentagon doing in the Ukrainian biological laboratories in the first place? The fact that the US military biologists were so keen to study disease-transmitting insects near cattle burial sites was not a coincidence, since during the 2016 anthrax outbreak in Russia there were cases where flies, including horseflies, transmitted the disease.

In addition, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation discovered three drones, equipped with 30-litre containers and sprays, in the Kherson Region on March 9, 2022. In late April 2022, they discovered 10 more devices of this kind near Kakhovka, after Russia released documents demonstrating Ukraine’s attempts to obtain drones equipped with sprays from the maker of the Bayraktars.

More than 4,000 people took part in studies under project UP-8. According to the Bulgarian media, some 20 Ukrainian soldiers died and 200 were hospitalised in the Kharkov laboratory alone during the experiments. The United States cannot carry out this activity on its own territory, so its military carry it out abroad. Where? Where they can, where there are no laws, where there is nobody to implement or enforce the law. This happened to be Ukraine.

It is an established fact that potentially dangerous biological agents were tested on the most vulnerable social group – patients at Kharkov’s regional psychiatric hospital No. 3. We have evidence describing in detail the Pentagon’s inhuman experiments with Ukrainian citizens at psychiatric hospital No. 1 (Strelechye, Kharkov Region).

The research results on the spread of dangerous deadly diseases like cholera, smallpox, anthrax, and botulinum toxins, were sent to military biological centres in the United States. These include the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Naval Medical Research Centre, as well as US Army Biological Warfare Laboratories at Fort Detrick, which used to be the key facilities in the US biological weapons programme. The US virologists focused on analysing the obtained samples to identify gene mutations in the agents and assess their virulence, pathogenic power and resistance to treatment.

Incidentally, about 2,000 blood serum samples taken from Ukrainian citizens of predominantly Slavic ethnic background have been sent to the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. More than 140 containers with bat ectoparasites such as fleas and ticks have been transferred to Germany.

The programmes were financed either directly under DTRA contracts with private American companies (mainly СН2М Hill) as part of the Defence Department’s project to counter especially dangerous pathogens in Ukraine until 2024, or through the Science and Technology Centre in Ukraine. Overall, more than $1.5 billion has been allocated for the implementation of bioprojects over the past 10 years. In particular, the Rosemont Seneca investment fund with financial resources of at least $2.4 billion has been involved in financing this activity. At the same time, it has been found to be closely linked with the main Pentagon contractors, including Metabiota, which, along with Black and Veatch, is the main equipment supplier for Pentagon’s biolabs across the world.

According to reports, DTRA informed the Pentagon in early March that the facilities in Ukraine used by US biological research programmes were a growing danger for European countries due to the hostilities on Ukrainian territory.

Worse still, the experiments with dangerous and highly dangerous pathogens carried out in Ukraine in the interests of the Pentagon had long been attracting attention from Ukrainian nationalist groups. In case of a military defeat, the nationalists could use those materials to implement the so-called scorched earth tactic, which was an additional threat.

Furthermore, during the special military operation, Russia obtained materials that evidenced the deliberate use, in 2020, of a multidrug-resistant tuberculosis pathogen to infect the population, including minors, in the Slavyanoserbsky District of the LPR by distributing flyers that looked like counterfeit banknotes. According to the Lugansk Republican Sanitary and Epidemiological Station report, “… the banknotes have most likely been infected artificially because the sample contains extremely dangerous strains in a concentration that can ensure infection and the development of the tuberculosis process.” The chief physician of the Lugansk Republican TB Prevention Centre has confirmed in a letter that “there are all signs of deliberate, man-made contamination of flyers with highly pathogenic biomaterial.” Do you know what they are testing the Ukrainians’ samples for in the EU? Tuberculosis. Why? Because they know what NATO agencies have been doing there.

DTRA has proposed to the Pentagon chiefs to take additional measures to monitor the epidemiological situation in Ukraine and neighbouring European countries. In case of any infection outbreaks, the recommendation is to immediately accuse the Russian Armed Forces of “attacking research and medical institutions,” or blame “Russian sabotage groups.” They have already established the necessary communication channels with the Pentagon’s partners in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

According to available information, DTRA demanded that the Ukrainian ministries of defence and health ensure the guaranteed destruction of all remaining materials from the bio-research projects in Ukraine. The people who are now in the EU countries, many of them suffering from tuberculosis, are not victims of airstrikes on Ukrainian research centres used by the Pentagon. They weren’t subjected to any of that. They are just carriers. Because the United States has been carrying out that activity on the territory of the country where they lived. DTRA was afraid the international community would interpret the information about the results of their experiments as a violation of the BTWC by the United States. Most of the documents have been removed from the labs in Kiev, Odessa and Kharkov to the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene and American diplomatic institutions in Lvov.

The materials obtained by the Russian Federation suggest an unambiguous conclusion that private American companies affiliated with the Pentagon had been supporting the development of bioweapons in labs on the territory of Ukraine in the immediate vicinity of Russia. The urgent destruction of especially dangerous pathogens was required to prevent the discovery of violations of Articles 1 and 4 of the BTWC. This has confirmed the validity of Russia’s repeated claims, in the context of the implementation of the BTWC, about the biological warfare activities the United States and its allies have been conducting in post-Soviet countries.

We are preparing to invoke the mechanisms of Articles 5 and 6 of the BTWC, according to which the states parties must consult one another and cooperate in solving any problems that may arise in relation to the purpose of the Convention or the implementation of its provisions, as well as cooperate in any investigation of possible violations of BTWC obligations.

back to top

Closing Canada’s CBC bureau in Moscow 

With deep regret we continue to note blatant attacks on Russian media in the countries of the “collective West.” They call themselves civilised, developed democracies. Among recent examples is Canada’s ban on the Russian television channels RT and RT France. We said that we would respond. The response would be symmetrical, similar, proportional, it does not matter. But it would be adequate.

We have repeatedly warned that such unilateral restrictive measures that defy the principles of freedom of speech and hinder the work of the Russian media will not be left unanswered. Everybody must realise that our response is inevitable and will happen following any such incident.

In this regard, a decision has been made to respond to Canada’s actions, namely, to close the Moscow bureau of CBC, the Canadian state television of radio broadcasting corporation, including cancelling the accreditations and Russian visas of its journalists.

Unfortunately, it is blatantly clear that the official Ottawa is pursuing an openly Russophobic course. It is understandable. Who had been steering the country’s foreign policy for many years? A person with roots going back to mid-20th century collaborationism. It is clear why they turn a blind eye to neo-Nazism in Ukraine: they were the ones who encouraged it. In addition to direct political, military and financial support of the Kiev regime, the attacks on dissenting views and media censorship have been part of their Russophobic course. Any alternate point of view is always dubbed the Kremlin’s disinformation.

Ottawa’s anti-Russia policy is reflected in the most negative way in the actions of Canada’s state television and radio. In fact, CBC has transformed into the voice of propaganda that distributes fake news and questionable information regarding Russia, consigning journalist ethnics and even elementary rules of decorum to oblivion. We would have put up with that. We did for many years; we ignored or disavowed fake information, disclosed and refuted it. But there have been actual restrictions against Russian media. So, we respond in kind.

Once again, we emphasise that Moscow’s retaliation measures towards the hostile actions of the Trudeau’s government are not aimed against the people of Canada, who our country traditionally respects. The problem is with Canada’s ruling elite and the media that serve it. They are deliberately destroying Russia-Canada relations to the detriment of its own national interests.

back to top

Situation at the JCPOA reactivation talks

Despite a certain lull at the talks in Vienna, the countries, parties to the nuclear deal, as well as US representatives, continue to exert vigorous efforts, while searching for the most effective and mutually acceptable way of resuming the full-fledged implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under its initial parameters. All the concerned parties realise that there is no alternative to the nuclear deal.

The parties to the negotiating process continue to maintain their contacts. Enrique Mora, Deputy Secretary-General of the European External Action Service and Coordinator of the Joint Commission of the JCPOA, visited Tehran last week. European and Iranian colleagues positively assess the meetings that took place during this visit, and note incipient progress. This instils a certain hope that we have taken one more step towards our main goal, namely ensuring the full-fledged reactivation of the JCPOA.

In turn, we intend to continue doing everything possible to ensure the positive outcome of the talks in Vienna, which require wholehearted efforts from all the participants, including Iran, the United States and European countries. This is our firm and objective position. We are urging all healthy forces to use their energy to preserve the JCPOA and restore the calibrated balance of interests on which it hinges.

back to top

The situation in the Republic of Moldova

We have noted a number of events in Moldova that are a cause for concern.

On May 11, 2022, Moldova’s TV-8 television channel broadcast a Skype interview with Leonid Volkov, a member of the Russian opposition. He is a person of interest in criminal cases that have been opened in Russia, and arrest warrants have been issued for him in CIS member states under the Agreement on Interstate Search for People of December 10, 2010, of which the Republic of Moldova is a party. At the same time, the country stipulates tough broadcasting restrictions for Russian media outlets, claiming “unbalanced” information content provision. Has Moldova banned CNN or BBC broadcasts? Has it banned the websites of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Financial Times? Or do they provide completely balanced information content?

On May 13, 2022, the Moldova Post said it was temporarily suspending the delivery of all letters and parcels to the Russian Federation, citing “technical reasons.” Over 220,000 Russian citizens now live in Moldova, and Moldovan diaspora in Russia has more than 200,000 members. The Moldova Post’s decision infringes upon the right of Russian and Moldovan residents to maintain business, cultural, humanitarian and personal contacts.

The above-mentioned actions of official Chisinau, as well as some of its other actions and statements, make one doubt that the country’s leadership is really committed to the Republic’s neutral status, to honouring the rights and interests of its residents, as well as to maintaining pragmatic and mutually beneficial partnership with Russia.  I know that Chisinau reacts sensitively to our statements, but we are no less sensitive to their actions.

Although the Moldovan authorities did not announce this, various national agencies are applying Western anti-Russian sanctions in the banking sphere and during the re-export of Russian goods. With the connivance of the Moldovan authorities, protesters have been staging daily anti-Russia rallies near the Russian Embassy in Chisinau for almost 60 days, and these rallies hamper the normal work of the diplomatic mission. A recent outrageous ban on using St George ribbons in the Republic caused a public outcry in Russia and Moldova.

We are once again urging the Moldovan party to refrain from actions that are detrimental to relations with Russia and not to follow in the wake of forces striving to involve the Republic of Moldova in the anti-Russia campaign. This negatively affects the citizens of our countries, in particular.

back to top

Russia’s stance on Cyprus settlement

Once again, we are seeing certain media outlets spreading rumours that Russia is changing its principled stance on the Cyprus settlement. These provocative rumours have nothing to do with reality and pursue just one goal: to discredit our country and its foreign policy.

We have never questioned the principles of the peaceful solution to the Cyprus issue. We continue to consistently support a solution in line with international law and UN Security Council resolutions, which provide for creating a bicommunal bizonal federation with common international identity, sovereignty and citizenship.

Once again, our approach to the situation in Cyprus is widely known and remains unchanged concerning all aspects, including the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFYCIP), which plays an exceptionally important stabilising role in the current environment of uncertainty. We believe it is important to continue the operation of UNFYCIP as it was important to appoint a UN Secretary-General Special Representative in charge of the settlement that reports to the UN Security Council.

I would like to note for Cypriot media that we are always ready to comment on any leaks they may get to prevent misinformation on their pages.

back to top

Growing terrorist activity in Burkina Faso and neighbouring countries

We are concerned about significantly intensified extremist activity in Burkina Faso and increasingly frequent cases of the extremists crossing over to the neighbouring countries.

In particular, on May 14‒16, 2022, a series of attacks on gendarmerie posts and self-defence groups, as well as attacks on a column of civilians near the border with Benin took place in the northern and eastern regions of Burkina Faso. The attacks resulted in more than 40 victims, including among civilians.

Earlier, in the early hours of May 11, 2011, as a result of a large-scale attack from the northern territory of Burkina Faso targeting an advance outpost of the Togolese armed forces, eight members of the military were killed and 13 sustained injuries of different severity levels. This was the first terrorist attack with casualties in the history of the state.

We strongly condemn these crimes and extend our condolences to the loved ones of those killed and wish speedy recovery to the injured.

back to top

Desecration of Soviet military graves in Gdansk

We were outraged by an act of vandalism committed on May 11, 2022, in Gdansk, where perpetrators tore out and damaged 20 stars on the memorials to Soviet liberators on the graves of the Red Army soldiers killed while liberating the city.

The nature of this heinous act is absolutely clear: insulting the memory of the dead is now an integral part of Polish political provocateurs’ arsenal. This latest incident is not a random occasion but part of a deliberate campaign pursued by official Warsaw to disparage everything that is sacred for the people of Russia and those who fought against the brown plague.

Sadly, regular reports on criminal and immoral acts against the Soviet military legacy in Poland have long become ordinary news indicating that Polish officials have unleashed a Russophobic campaign. Recently, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki publicly confessed to his hatred of everything Russian thus revealing the nature of Warsaw’s policy against our country. Or is it just his personal opinion?

We can confidently say that Warsaw, neglecting all moral and international legal norms, has embarked on a course of state-supported vandalism against the memory of Soviet soldiers who gave their lives to save Poland from extermination by Nazis.

We want to remind any frenzied Russophobes that all their barbaric acts and dirty pillaging will not destroy the truth about the Victory. We will not allow it.

back to top

Desecrating a memorial to Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov’s comrades who died when crossing the Alps in 1799, in the Shollenen Gorge (Switzerland)

On May 15, 2022, unidentified individuals desecrated the memorial to Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov’s comrades who died while crossing the Alps in 1799, in the Shollenen Gorge in Switzerland. The memorial cross and inscription were splashed with paint. What did Suvorov do to offend them?

We are deeply outraged by this horrendous act of vandalism. The incident demonstrates the level of culture in Switzerland. It has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with you and those who stand behind this kind of campaigns, condone them and fail to search for or covers for the perpetrators.

We sent a protest note to the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Confederation demanding that it takes urgent measures to rectify the damage caused, find and prosecute the guilty and ensure proper security of the memorial.

back to top

13th International Economic Summit Russia – Islamic World: KazanSummit 2022

On May 19‒21, 2022, the 13th International Economic Summit Russia – Islamic World: KazanSummit 2022 will take place in Kazan. The event is held under the aegis of the Russia – Islamic World Strategic Vision Group, chaired by President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov.

KazanSummit is a well-established platform for presenting the Russian Federation’s economic opportunities and investment potential to its partners from Islamic countries. It serves as a modern dialogue platform for building new connections between representatives of international organisations, financial institutions and government bodies, embassies, and the senior managers of major Russian and foreign companies. Several events are scheduled on the sidelines of this year’s summit, including Russia Halal Expo 2022, the Machine Engineering Cluster Forum, World Halal Day and festivities marking the 1,100th anniversary of Volga Bulgaria’s adoption of Islam.

Deputy Foreign Minister and Special Presidential Representative for the Middle East Mikhail Bodganov and Ambassador-at-Large Konstantin Shuvalov will take part on behalf of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The 6th OIC Young Diplomats’ Forum (hereinafter the “forum”) will also take place during the summit, to be attended by representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Council of Young Diplomats, as well as invited guests and experts.

The forum will focus on issues of indivisible security, prospects for cooperation with OIC countries, countering new challenges and threats, and the role of young diplomats from the Islamic world in forming a major foreign political agenda. The International Association of Young Diplomats will hold its first induction ceremony.

The forum has been held since 2015, with more than 160 representatives of the OIC foreign ministries and agencies attending over the years. The forum is organised by the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Council of Young Diplomats, the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Academy of Youth Diplomacy public organisation.

back to top

2nd Kostomarov Forum

One of our country’s priorities on the foreign humanitarian track is supporting and promoting the Russian language abroad. The Kostomarov Forum, organised by the Alexander Pushkin State Institute of the Russian Language, significantly contributes to developing international cooperation in this area.

This year, the forum will be held on May 24‒25 and will focus on the role of the Russian language and its functioning in the new conditions created by the information revolution and technological breakthrough of recent decades.

The forum programme includes a presentation of the Pushkin Institute’s research paper, 2021 Russian Language World Index, a panel discussion on preparations for the Year of the Russian Language as a Language of Interethnic Communication Across the CIS, to be held in 2023. The Cyril and Methodius Readings research and practice conference will comprise 30 sessions on sharing experience in linguistics, literature studies, teaching Russian as a foreign language, and social sciences and humanities. A roundtable meeting on the history and modern issues concerning the Cyrillic alphabet will be held. The detailed programme is available on the forum’s website.

Russian and foreign scholars, teachers, literature researchers and journalists, as well as representatives of government bodies, professional and public associations and business organisations are expected to attend.

The forum’s working language is Russian. The event will be held in the hybrid format. Sessions will also be streamed online on its website.

back to top

Eurasian Economic Forum in Bishkek

On May 26, Bishkek will host the Eurasian Economic Forum. Its topic will be ‘Eurasian economic integration at the time of global change. New investment opportunities.’

We expect the forum to serve as a networking platform where businesses, government agencies, academia and experts can discuss the key matters on the development agenda of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), promoting entrepreneurship across its space and green energy, as well as strengthening region-to-region ties and cooperation.

The forum’s main programme includes six panel discussions covering the strategic prospects for Eurasian integration, ensuring economic stability for EAEU member states, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, and transport infrastructure, the digital agenda, as well as new areas of cooperation for the EAEU.

You can register for the forum and explore its programme on its website. You can also follow its online stream.

back to top

Answers to media questions:

Question: Russia withdrew from the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, citing the lack of dialogue. What is your assessment of the diplomatic contacts in this region?

Maria Zakharova: Let me draw your attention to the statement that we made yesterday announcing Russia’s withdrawal from the Council of the Baltic Sea States.

The situation within the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) has been deteriorating. NATO and EU countries within CBSS rejected equal dialogue and the principles that lie at the very foundation of this regional structure in the Baltic, consistently striving to turn it into a tool of their anti-Russia policy. Illegal and discriminatory decisions have been made in violation of the consensus rule. Russia has been suspended from further participation in the Council’s activities and projects, and Belarus, which has an observer status within the Council, was also suspended.

The CBSS has been riddled with contradictions for a long time now, and we pointed out many of them. You can find this in our briefings, statements and comments. Our former partners sought to politicise the Council’s activity by promoting their own ideology-driven agenda. Russia, in turn, focused on practical cooperation, prioritising stable socioeconomic development for the Baltic region. Unfortunately, the destructive logic of the other side prevailed.

The Western countries – to call them what they are – monopolised the Council for the sake of their momentary interests and they want to make it work against Russia’s interests. They project extra-regional issues onto the Baltic, pressure those who are interested in continuing full and unabridged cooperation, threatening to undermine everything that has been achieved over the past years, as well as regional stability. On May 25, 2022, Kristiansand, Norway, is expected to host the CBSS Ministerial Session without Russia. They de facto stole our contribution to the CBSS budget and refuse to return it, citing sanctions.

We don’t see any prospects for putting the Council back on track. Instead, it is sinking deeper and deeper into Russophobia and lies. We believe staying in the CBSS would be unreasonable and counterproductive for our country. Russia will not participate in turning this organisation into yet another platform for subversion and Western self-admiration.

In response to these hostile acts, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sent a message to CBSS ministers, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, as well as the Council’s Secretariat in Stockholm to notify them of Russia’s withdrawal from this organisation. At the same time, the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation took the decision to leave the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference.

Ending Russia’s CBSS membership will not affect its regional presence. Attempts to expel our country from the Baltic are doomed to failure. We will continue working with responsible partners and hold events on the key issues on the development agenda of the Baltic region that we all share, as well as to defend and promote the interests of our compatriots.

The current situation within the CBSS rests on the conscience of those who undermined the very foundations of this organisation.

back to top

Question: The United States, the EU and UN have stated they are willing to assist in the removal of grain from Ukraine. Have they discussed these initiatives with Russia?

Maria Zakharova: The EU member states were seriously concerned over the rapid rise in the prices of grain, fodder and fertilisers, let alone energy prices, even before the current crisis, as well as the unprofitability of private farming and fishing. All of this was put in black and white. The EU summit held in late March passed the decision on the need to guarantee, under the existing circumstances, the affordability of food in the EU member countries.  A few weeks later, the European Commission came up with a detailed initiative to this effect (I spoke about it earlier today).

We urge the international community not to succumb to provocations. I have no information confirming that the initiatives I have mentioned were in any manner discussed with Russia.

Question: What can you say about the murder of Al Jazeera’s Shireen Abu Akleh?

Maria Zakharova: This tragedy has stirred up the entire Arab world. Few people remain indifferent to it. The Palestinian journalist was killed in the line of duty as she was selflessly covering an Israeli raid on the refugee camp in Jenin on the West Bank.

Yesterday, while meeting in Moscow with Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), member of the Fatah Central Committee and Head of the General Authority for Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh, Sergey Lavrov expressed condolences on the death of Shireen Abu Akleh and voiced his support of the Palestinian demand to hold an unbiased investigation into her death.

We should focus separately on the outrage that occurred during her funeral, when the military assaulted the people carrying the body and accompanying the funeral procession. I can tell you honestly that I have never seen anything like that.

As for a response to what was going on at the funeral from related international institutions… Were they there?

I would like to note that the lack of progress in the settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the stalemate in the negotiating process repeatedly explode into fierce standoffs that leave in their wake numerous victims among peaceful civilians, including women and children. These tragedies could be avoided by achieving mutually acceptable compromises regarding the final status via a direct dialogue based on the generally recognised international legal framework of Middle East settlement that provides for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The Russian leaders have repeatedly spoken about this.

Question: How will the Russian Foreign Ministry respond to the Lithuanian Foreign Minister’s call for a regime change in Russia? 

Maria Zakharova: This is an attempt to interfere in Russia’s internal affairs and destroy what remains of our bilateral relations. He is trying to curry favour with his overseas masters.

Mr Landsbergis, who lives in a state that tramples underfoot the basic human rights and freedoms, has clearly forgotten that the Russian President is elected by the people. This has nothing to do with his personal views or his country’s position. But the pathological hatred that he feels for Russia is blurring his vision and depriving him of the last of his reason. Consequently, he can’t see the obvious. This is Russophobia, pure and simple.

Let us take a look at the people who make these statements. We always comment only on statements. But who makes them? They are made by people who have Russophobia in their blood. It is inherited as a specific “legacy” or, possibly, a genetic trait.

I have a lot to say about the Landsbergis regime. They are a dynasty. Let me give you just a few widely available facts. You will understand who I am talking about. All materials are from open sources. They are also available in the archives.

Suffice it to recall the great-grandfather of the current Lithuanian foreign minister, Vytautas Landsbergis-Zemkalnis, who in 1941was the utilities minister in the Ambrazevicius-Brazaitis Government that collaborated with the Nazis. Landsbergis was directly involved in the effort to create concentration camps all over Lithuania, including in Kaunas. He was the Landsbergises regime’s great-grandfather. It was there, at Fort Nine, that on October 29, 1941, the Nazis committed a heinous crime, executing 9,200 Jews, including 4,273 children.

Landsbergis-Zemkalnis also collaborated with Gestapo, the German secret police. After the war, he fled to Australia (which also does not notice neo-Nazism in today’s Ukraine, but has introduced all sorts of sanctions against Russian citizens) but was granted the right to return to the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1959 after he contributed information about other Nazi fugitives to the Soviet security bodies.

The foreign minister’s grandfather, Professor of the Vilnius Philharmonic Society Vytautas Landsbergis, continued the family tradition of conformism and change of political position. He actively collaborated with the USSR secret services: at their recommendation he was appointed the leader of the movement of the Lithuanian intellectuals in support of the perestroika (Sajudis). At his will, it later transformed into a separatist movement for the withdrawal of Lithuania from the USSR. So much for the family.

Vytautas Petkevicius, Landsbergis’s colleague at the Sajudis action group, wrote the following about this grey eminence of Lithuanian politics: “From the very first days, Landsbergis sought to turn the organisation into his pocket political party, with membership, party cards and membership fees.”  In all evidence, he was motivated by his knowledge of the best totalitarian practices. Later he started mixing up Sajudis money with his own. This was something in the liberal economy genre. Still later, contributions from compatriots became this gentleman’s personal money box, a source of payments to his allies, extras for participating in rallies, and funds for foreign travel. The same pocket ate up one million dollars collected by Canadians for Lithuanian orphans and a Norwegian donation to the Lithuanian people. But Landsbergis again managed to get himself out of the mess, declaring that he had created a fund bearing his name.

Autocracy pales in comparison with the Baltic democracies and their representatives. If you only knew how Baltic officials start cringing when you come to citing facts from their biographies or those of their relatives who have directly influenced their civil service promotion or career advancement.  Do you know how much they dislike it? But why are you so embarrassed about it? These are the facts of your biography, and you should be proud of them. We didn’t invent anything. We have just facts and quotes. And you have disproved nothing. So, take it and sign for it.

Question: Could you comment on the Ukrainian authorities’ recent decision to nationalise the property of Russia’s banks VEB and Sberbank?

Maria Zakharova: The Kiev regime stopped caring about the norms and principles of international law and the Ukrainian Constitution long ago, both with regard to its own citizens and those of other states. It is hardly surprising that, on May 12, 2022, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved the executive order of President Vladimir Zelensky on the so-called enforced confiscation of Russian property in the country. In effect, this amounts to a brazen theft of assets owned by subsidiaries of Russia’s Sberbank and the State Development Corporation of Russia VEB.RF located in Ukraine. These assets are worth $860 million. This is a continuation of the same logic. However, no one in Kiev has any misgivings about the fact that the nationalised subsidiary banks also manage the money of Ukrainian citizens and legal entities, and that the Ukrainian authorities are simply robbing them.

This unconstitutional escapade of the Kiev regime replicates the worst actions of this kind by Washington, Brussels and London. Let them call it whatever they like. In reality, this is banal theft.

Question: The President of Finland described Vladimir Putin’s response to his country joining NATO as surprisingly calm. How does this calm Russian response tally with the Deputy Foreign Minister’s statement that Russia will not simply reconcile itself to the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO?

Maria Zakharova: This was how the Finnish party perceived reality. You should ask them why they got this impression and whether it was correct. This is their perception. Let’s not confuse things. Everyone has a right to perceive things the way he or she sees fit.

The Russian party has set forth its position regarding the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO. We have published our arguments and statements.

Every state has a sovereign right to choose specific options to ensure its national security. However, no one should ensure its own security at the expense of other countries’ security.

The Russian Federation will respond, and the content of its countermeasures, including military-technical elements, will largely depend on specific NATO membership terms for Finland and Sweden, including the deployment of foreign military bases and strike weapons systems on their territory. Our response will feature less words and more actual steps.

Question: An 18-year-old neo-Nazi who shot at a crowd in the United States sported the insignia of the Azov battalion. Can you comment on this coincidence?

Maria Zakharova: This is not the first mass shooting based on such hatred. It goes without saying that a comprehensive investigation should be conducted, including confirmation of the fact that the shooter used Nazi symbols, the so-called “black sun.”  We saw the video and think that an investigation must be held. This is important because a lot of unverified information is now circulating. Let’s be guided by the facts.

However, the very atmosphere of a deep public fissure in American society, as well as neglected problems of racism and institutionalised violence, due to free access to weapons, generate new manifestations of crime that are horrendous in terms of their scale and the ways they are carried out.

Regarding the link with Nazi symbols and Azov, which you have mentioned, this amounts to the flirtation of the US administration and its security services with neo-Nazis all over the world, with obvious consequences. They forget that all this will also spill over into the United States. In fact, this has already been happening for a long time. If they see nothing unusual in the fact that neo-Nazi ideas are spreading in “client” countries, then why should they be surprised that such symbols are actively used in various US states? The problem lies elsewhere. This isn’t just about symbols, it is about a revival. Many do not grasp the gist of this. We are talking about the actions that these symbols provoke. They explain a person’s planned future actions, and they are like a warning danger sign or a semaphore.  Many perceive this as an endorsement of such symbols and the related actions in the United States. This flirtation, which we have mentioned, leads to such tragic results.

Question: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the 30th Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy that “in the current environment, we are witnessing a serious shift in the mindsets of many of our comrades in all spheres of Russia’s life.” What effect is this having on the staff of the ministry’s central office, the embassies and consulates general?

Maria Zakharova: Like the rest of the country, we have rallied even closer together. Awareness of the historical shift underway in the world, which is life-changing for Russia, has given a fresh impetus to the resolve of our personnel to do their professional duties even more professionally and diligently.

Crises can catch you unawares, when you can’t think straight, feel at a loss and lose heart, or it can give you more inspiration. The latter is our case. We have rallied together and joined forces and efforts to attain the goals set for us by the nation.

The completely unprovoked outbreak of Russophobia in the West, the illegal trade and economic restrictions and the desire to demonise everything Russian have reinforced the belief of our staff and their families that truth, justice and moral probity are on the side of Russia and its people. They have found themselves at the forefront of the political stage, that’s for sure. You can’t imagine the situation they’re living in now and the actions that are being taken against them, from provocations and threats to open violence, psychological pressure and the creating of conditions that those behind these things believe will make their work impossible. We are proud of our people!

They have shown remarkable personality traits, such as comradeship and professionalism. I am referring both to our rank-and-file employees and to the senior officials in our foreign offices, as Sergey Lavrov pointed out.

We are reshuffling our personnel. Those who are returning home will be offered new positions. The relevant departments are regularly reporting on this to the minister.

As for foreign policy guidelines, we have redoubled efforts to strengthen our diplomacy on the eastern track and in Africa, Latin America and the CIS. The results will not be long in coming.

Question: Dmitry Birichevsky, director of the Department of Economic Cooperation at the ministry, noted recently that the EU’s decision to suspend Russian oil and gas imports would have an extremely negative effect on the European and global economies. What effect will this embargo have on Russia? What countermeasures can your ministry take?

Maria Zakharova: The physical volume of Russian hydrocarbon exports has decreased amid the foreign sanctions pressure. However, we believe that our export revenues will at least not decrease, due to rapidly rising oil and gas prices. The so-called embargo, which the EU is now considering, could send oil prices soaring.

Our obvious logical response in this event would be to reorient our oil and gas exports.  This is not an easy task. It will involve changing logistics routes, as well as legal and business matters. Russia is already reorienting its coal, oil and gas export infrastructure towards the East. It is worth noting that energy needs around the world, and especially in the Asia Pacific region, will be growing. We have no doubt about demand for Russian energy resources. The Foreign Ministry is helping Russian companies find counterparties, including in Asia Pacific.

Question: Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has pointed out that joining NATO will not strengthen the security of Sweden and Finland. As for economic ties, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has made several other unfriendly moves towards Russia, notably regarding the nuclear power plant project with Rosatom. Maybe a picture of possible economic losses should be provided to Helsinki?

Maria Zakharova: Finland is aware of its economic losses because of the European sanctions and our response measures. We regard the decision taken by Finland’s Fennovoima to stop cooperating with Rosatom companies within the framework of the agreement on the construction of the Hanhikivi 1 Nuclear Power Plant as openly politicised. It is obvious that the decision to stop that commercial project was forced on the client by the Finnish authorities, who were pressured by their foreign partners. It is not a coincidence that the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, which is responsible for energy matters, hastily welcomed that decision, which it described as “principled and consistent.” We know very well where such instructions are issued.

Rosatom State Corporation put forth its position on that matter in a May 2 statement. It expressed disappointment at the decision of Fennovoima Oy, which was taken without any detailed consultation with the project’s shareholders, the largest of which is RAOS Voima, which has a 34 percent stake in the project. Rosatom concluded that it reserved the right to defend its interests in accordance with applicable contracts and laws.

Question: Can you provide any information about those who left Azovstal? We know of discussions on a possible exchange on the Ukrainian side. Is there any discussion underway in Russia? We heard that Russian lawmakers are considering reinstating the death penalty for these people. What is the real situation?

Maria Zakharova: This is the competence of the Russian Ministry of Defence. At the same time, we would like to note that all the wounded and seriously injured people and anyone who needs medical assistance has been receiving it. They are in the Novoazovsk hospital in the DPR. The rest have been placed in a pre-trial detention centre in Yelenovka, a suburb of Donetsk.

As for other issues, they will be resolved in due course. At this stage, the most important issue is the safe exit of everyone from Azovstal, and providing them with medical care, other necessary humanitarian assistance and accommodation.

As for other questions, we will certainly provide regular updates.

Question: Is an exchange being discussed?

Maria Zakharova: At this stage, the information I shared is all I have. I have nothing to add.

Our priority, the one we have been stating for three weeks, was their exit from Azovstal. We have persuaded people to come out every day, and made several announcements of humanitarian corridors for everyone including civilians, militants and military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Only now has the Kiev regime allowed them to do so. At the moment, our priorities are their safe exit and the provision of assistance to them. This problem needs to be solved, and it is being solved now.

Question: What happens to those civilians who came out through the humanitarian corridors, but were stopped by the “filtering” procedure? Where are they being held? Will they be entitled to due legal procedure? What are the conditions of where they are kept?

Maria Zakharova: You mean the people who came out – when? Today? Who are exiting now? Those who needed medical assistance are receiving it, or have received it by now. I can check where the rest went, because this matter is the competence of the Russian Ministry of Defence. I promise to find this information. I’ll check and get back to you.

Question: Why does Russia consider Ukraine’s NATO membership and its cooperation with NATO such a big threat, while, according to Sergey Lavrov, Finland’s NATO membership does not have such great importance for Russia?

Maria Zakharova: I do not remember Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying it the way you quoted. Let me find the exact quote.

We have long insisted that any expansion of NATO has a bearing on, and significance in the context of global international and, in particular, European security. This was the security guarantees we demanded, because we have seen the alliance expand and reach our borders. You certainly understand the difference between the situations in Finland and Ukraine.

I don’t know, maybe you have some additional information about growing numbers of nationalist battalions in Finland, for example? Maybe dozens of Pentagon biological laboratories are deployed in Finland and experimenting with dangerous pathogens? I am unaware of any information about Finland being pumped full of the same types of weapons that have been supplied to Ukraine under contracts or without contracts to an area of an armed intra-Finnish conflict, but perhaps you know about it? I don’t know anything about it. This is just a brief overview of the differences between Finland and Ukraine in the last decade.

The developments in Ukraine followed a dramatic scenario due to blatant interference by Washington, with the anti-constitutional coup in Kiev being one of the strongest catalysts. Perhaps you have information on a similar revolution in Finland? I don’t know anything about it. This is why the two situations are different, in broad strokes.

The choice of ways to ensure national security is (this is our underlying approach) the sovereign right of each country, but at the same time, it should not be ensured at the expense of other states.

We have no other choice left but to take retaliatory measures. The specifics – including the military-technical aspect – will depend on the terms of Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership, including the deployment of foreign military bases and strike weapon systems on their territory.

As for the differences in our reactions to Finland joining NATO and Ukraine’s ambition to become a member of this military bloc, as the Russian side emphasised earlier, in particular, they stem from Kiev’s decision to include in its doctrinal documents its intention to return Crimea, a sovereign Russian territory, possibly by military means. Finland has no territorial claims to the Russian Federation. There are no documents where it would say it could use any means to return any Russian territory. This is another argument to add to the previous ones.

Question: What kind of military-technical measures does Russia plan to apply to Finland, and what might their timeframe be?

Maria Zakharova: It will be a surprise. A question is for the Defence Ministry. The corresponding decision will factor in the full scope of details and specifics of how Finland’s membership in NATO will unfold. The decision will be made based on all these parameters, and primarily, it will be up to the military.

Question: Is there any discussion on exchanging Azovstal prisoners for the Russian, DPR or LPR soldiers being held captive? We would also like to know something about the fate of Artyom Ryabovichev and Daniil Romanov from a DPR tank brigade. Some Russian journalists wrote about them. According to their reports, they have been prisoners since May 1. Ukrainian militants were torturing them on camera and posting the videos online. Earlier, Ukraine refused to exchange them, saying it would negotiate only with Russia rather than with the DPR. Is the Foreign Ministry aware of the fate of Ryabovichev and Romanov and are there plans to put them on the exchange lists?

Maria Zakharova: Normally, we join in when there are diplomatic relations. After February 24, when Kiev broke off diplomatic relations with Russia and closed the Russian foreign missions in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry lost its channels for dealing with issues like this. Nevertheless, during the special military operation, these problems are being handled by the Defence Ministry of Russia and Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova. The Foreign Ministry constantly informs them of any case of a Russian citizens being detained in Ukraine. All this information is being consolidated.

We are able to raise these issues at international venues. We put these questions to Kiev’s Western sponsors, drawing their attention to the Ukrainian neo-Nazis’ cruel and inhuman treatment of detained Russian soldiers and of People’s Militia fighters from the DPR and LPR. We demand that the standards of international humanitarian law be rigorously observed with respect to these men. We urge related international organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to take exhaustive measures for their protection, specifically to gain access to them and honestly inform the international community about the results. We hope these efforts will help us find out more about the fate of these two DPR servicemen.

Question: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went on record as saying that Moscow has information indicating that Ukraine lacks independence at the talks and that it is “guided” by London and Washington. He also said that Russia had received no concrete proposals on Ukraine from the West. Does this mean that Moscow is losing interest in direct negotiations with Ukraine and wants the “collective West” to join the process?

Maria Zakharova: We showed an interest and displayed a lot of patience, an interest in all types of talks, for eight years. We came up with many possible scenarios on how these talks could be conducted. Currently, everything is being decided primarily on the ground.

When Ukraine showed an interest and signaled a desire to hold talks with Russia, we responded. But they started doing all they could to drag out the talks. When there was interest on the Ukrainian side, it was supported by Russia. At this point – the Russian Foreign Ministry and other agencies have commented on this – the Kiev regime is doing everything it can to prevent the talks from being held in a normal negotiating format.

The West has always been behind the Kiev regime, both the current and previous authorities. A “Western hand” has always guided the pen that was allegedly held by any representatives from Kiev. There is nothing new here, no breakthrough.

Question: How would you assess the work of the trilateral working group engaged in unblocking regional economic ties and communications, which is co-chaired by the deputy prime ministers of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan? What stage is the process at now and when can we expect obvious results?

Maria Zakharova: We have high regard for the work of the Trilateral Working Group (TWG). The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan gave similar assessments during their meeting with Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the CIS Foreign Ministers Council meeting in Dushanbe on May 12.

We believe that the unblocking of all transport and economic connections in the South Caucasus is one of the key goals in the context of the effort to normalise Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and, more broadly, to harmonise cooperation in the region.

The TWG co-chairs have regular meetings designed to work out solutions that will suit all sides. Last week, the Russian co-chair, Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk, visited Yerevan for talks with Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan. Among other things, the officials discussed how to open communications in the region. The co-chairs inform the media of the specific results of the joint work on an individual basis.

Question: Are there any clear agreements between Armenia and Azerbaijan regarding a possible meeting of the Commission on Border Delimitation and Security, where Russia is expected to provide advisory support?

Maria Zakharova: We are consistently advocating the creation of a bilateral commission for the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, with its subsequent demarcation with Russia’s advisory assistance. Simultaneously, as the trilateral statement from the November 26, 2021 Sochi summit stipulates, steps are to be taken to increase stability and security on the border between the two countries.

This matter was discussed during the trilateral meeting of foreign ministers in Dushanbe. Our partners said they were close to completing the formation of their national delegations. Russia has already built an expert team. We hope that in the near future, we could launch practical work on the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

We would like to emphasise that Russia has unique expert potential in border delimitation and settlement of border disputes between post-Soviet countries. We will be happy to share our experience and practices with our Armenian and Azerbaijani friends as part of the commission.

Question: The Azerbaijani side continues to violate the ceasefire on the border. On May 7, at around 1.50 pm, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces fired from different calibre firearms at the Sotk gold mine, injuring one of the mine employees. How would you comment on the Azerbaijani side’s actions against the civilian population?

Maria Zakharova: We are confident that the expeditious launch of the commission on the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border would effectively prevent any further border incidents. The commission could contribute to developing confidence-building mechanisms, including, for example, by creating contact groups to ensure stability in the border areas.

Question: Recent photos of the Armenian Holy Resurrection Church in Hadrut, a province controlled by the Azerbaijani side, on social media show that its cross has been dismantled and the Armenian inscriptions erased. How would you assess the acts of vandalism against Armenian cultural and religious sites in Nagorno-Karabakh?

Maria Zakharova: I have no information on this score. As Russian representatives have repeatedly emphasised, we call on both parties to preserve the region’s cultural and historical heritage, involving specialised international agencies including UNESCO, if necessary.

Question: The situation in Afghanistan and border security was one of the main issues at the CSTO summit in Moscow. What measures are planned to ensure the security of member countries within the framework of this organisation?

Maria Zakharova: The situation in the CSTO area of responsibility and in the immediate vicinity of our borders makes us be as vigilant as possible and ready, if necessary, to respond timely and appropriately to emerging threats to the security of member nations. This is a task of the organisation.

Pursuant to the instructions given by the leaders at the CSTO Extraordinary Summit on August 23, 2021, CSTO member states prepared proposals for joint response measures to challenges and threats from the territory of Afghanistan. The Russian Federation has proposed a number of specific measures through its foreign policy departments, including:

– Strengthening foreign policy coordination to ensure a unified position of CSTO member states on the political settlement in Afghanistan. Involving representatives of the CIS and SCO secretariats in the meetings of the Working Group on Afghanistan under the CSTO Foreign Ministers Council;

– Intensifying contacts between the CSTO and the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia;

– Stepping up cooperation between the competent agencies and special services of CSTO member states in detecting and neutralising extremist and terrorist cells in the countries of the Organisation;

– Taking a range of preventive measures as part of the unscheduled operations Nayomnik (Mercenary), PROXY and Nelegal (Illegal Alien);

– Focusing Kanal (Channel), a CSTO’s anti-drug operation, on suppressing drug trafficking along the “northern route”;

– Implementing joint measures to counter subversive propaganda by terrorist organisations in cyberspace on the basis of the CSTO’s 2016 List of Additional Measures to Counter International Terrorism and Extremism;

– Increasing cooperation between the CSTO and the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee.

All these measures are being consistently implemented and serve to strengthen the security of all member states of the Organisation, as well as to maintain stability in the region as a whole.

Question: How does the Russian Federation view the escalating tensions in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan?

Maria Zakharova: We are concerned by the information provided by the official authorities of Tajikistan on the escalation of tensions in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, which, according to reports, was provoked by criminal elements and extremist sympathisers, who joined them. As a result, there were victims and casualties, including among Tajik law enforcement officers.

The Russian Embassy in Dushanbe is in constant contact with the country’s competent authorities. According to preliminary information, there are no Russian citizens among the victims.

The Tajik authorities promise to take the necessary measures to stabilise the situation and ensure the safety of Russian citizens who may be present on the scene.