Filed under: NATO Alliance, Poland, Putin, Russia, UK, Ukraine, USA, USSR | Tagged: Bandera national battalions, Crimea, Donetsk, Eastern Ukraine, General Armageddon, Gorbachev, Lithuania, Lugansk, Moldova, NATO Expansion, Odessa, Proxy War, SMO, Ukraine War, Ukro-Neutrality, Western proxy Wars against Russia, Yeltsin, Zelensky | Comments Off on Dr Michael Vlahos interviews Col. Douglas Macgregor (MUST SEE!)
Are Ukrainians Russians?
Seems like a simple question, but in reality it is immensely complex. I will try to outline a few of the issues, assumptions and implications this question involves.
Well, for starters, we might want to ask “what is a Ukrainian?” After all, no such nation or country can be found in history books. But we should not stop here, and we also need to ask “what is a Russian?”. Yes, there was a Russian nation and a Russian country recorded in history books, but does that really help us?
French history books used to begin with the sentence “our ancestors the Gauls” which even kids on the French colonies had to learn. Some ridiculed the fact that sub-Saharan Africans or the children of Guadeloupe had to learn that and that was self-evidently ridiculous.
But what about metropolis French, those who lived in France proper?
Where their ancestors really Gauls and, if so, how much continuity, if any, is there between Vercingetorix and Macron or the people from ancient Gallic tribes to the modern French?
What we often overlook is that nationality is a very modern concept born out of the post 1789 ideology of nationalism. In the more distant past, people built their identity around 1) their place of birth/residence 2) their religion and 3) their ruler. Keeping all that in mind, let’s begin by asking the question “what is a Russian?”. But before we go there, I need to mention another pesky issue: the English word “Russian” can mean one of two things: a member of the Russian ethnic/cultural group, in which case the Russian term is русский (roosskii) or a citizen of the Russian Federation, in which case the Russian term would be россиянин (rossiianin).
[Sidebar: before 1917 you could be a “Russian Chechen” or “Russian German” because the distinction between rossiianin and roosskii did not exist then or, should we say, it was less common and used differently. Russia being the cultural, political and spiritial heir to the East Roman Empire, it had multi-ethnicity built into her from the moment Russia appeared]
For the time being, let’s ignore the second meaning and focus on the ethnic/cultural русский (roosskii). What is a русский (roosskii)?
To try to find a good definition, let’s being by spelling out what a Russian is not.
How about somebody born from Russian parents?
Here we run into a logical problem: if we define as Russian somebody born of Russian parents without defining what Russian means in the first place, this is a completely circular definition.
Also, is Shoigu Russian? This father is an ethnic Tuvan. So 50% Russian max?
How about Czar Nicholas II? His ancestry was mostly German and Danish.
How about Lenin? He had only 1/4 “Russian” blood (whatever that means)
Here we need to keep three crucial elements in mind:
Thus the “ethnic definition” does not work at all.
For countries like Japan or native people like the Mapuche ethnic categories might make sense, but for a country with a history and geography like Russia it is utterly meaningless (hence the reason why patriotism is a very positive force in Russia and nationalism a very toxic one).
But it only get even more complicated.
Just like, say, France or Italy, Russia went through very different moments in history and the Russia or, say, the 15th century and the Russia or the 19th century had very little in common.
Now this is highly subjective, but I would submit that at the very least, we can roughly break up the historical Russia into the following periods:
And even this is a much simplified categorization, each period should also be further subdivided, but that would take too much space here.
Next I would also argue that how Russians defined themselves over these periods also changed, and this why pre-1917 Dostoevsky thought that one cannot be Russian unless one is Orthodox first (which might have make sense before 1917, but sure makes no sense at all in 2022). My point here is not to discuss the best possible definition of “who/what is a Russian” but to show that this apparently simple question is also very complex and, at best, a moving target!
Now in the case of the Ukraine, it gets even more complex than that.
When I wrote above that there was no “Ukrainian nation” or “Ukrainian state” in history I did not mean to say that BECAUSE there were no such phenomena in history there is no such thing as a Ukrainian today.
To be clear, I do NOT believe that in order to consider yourself as belonging to an ethnic or cultural group you MUST have a historical basis for your claim. Nations can be created, in fact, I would argue that all of them are created at some point in time. Ethnogenesis is something we can observe on all continents, nations and ethnic groups: this is the emergence of a NEW and DISTINCT identity, usually followed by the creation of “founding myths” which might or might not have any real basis in history.
In the case of the Ukraine (I mean this term geographically here, the southwestern frontier/border lands of Russia), it is simply undeniable that these lands lived under Polish/Latin yoke for many centuries and that this occupation had two direct results:
Such differences in experience left deep marks on the identity of the people it affected. It would be foolish to deny this and it would be dangerous to deliberately ignore it!
So, to sum up what I have tried to show so far we could say that:
In the case of the Ukraine, it is a mix of both. Primarily, the “Ukraine” is a creation of the Latin Papacy (see here for a discussion). But, like it or not, the Latins did eventually trigger a Ukrainian ethnogenesis, albeit with varying degrees of success (roughly the further West, the longer the Polish yoke, the stronger that Ukrainian identity).
But even if none of that had happened, it would make no difference.
Even if we assume that there was absolutely NOTHING on our planet which could be called “Ukraine” or “Ukrainian”, and even if the people of the post-1991 Ukraine had ZERO historical basis for their claims, it is still a fundamental human right to choose your identity (or, more accurately, identities, plural).
If tomorrow the people of Japan decide that from now on their identity will not be Japanese but, say, Martian, we could laugh all we want, but we could not deny them that right or force them to give up their newly adopted “Martian” identity.
Furthermore, is it not silly to tell a person who absolutely hates Russia and all things Russian and who sincerely believes that he is from a totally different ethnic and cultural group, that this person has no right to his opinion that this person must accept that he is Russian?
That would create a “Russian russophobe”.
Actually, there are PLENTY of Russians russophobes out there. Even if by any imaginable definition you are Russian (or any other nationality), you still have the free will to reject that heritage and choose another one (even a fictional one).
There is even a special term for these folks: вырусь (vyroos‘). In my experience, most (but not all!) folks who voluntarily emigrated from Russia fall into this category.
This is why my first thesis here is this: those Ukrainians who chose to identify as Ukrainians and who reject any Russian heritage (whatever we may mean by that) have the moral right to do so and nobody has the moral right to deny them this choice. And while historical arguments can be used to debunk the founding myths of the Ukronazi ideology, they still cannot be used to deny anybody what is a deeply personal choice.
[Sidebar: it is my personal belief that identities can be cumulative and that they don’t have to exclude each other. While I personally consider myself culturally a “pre-1917 Russian”, I am 50% Dutch by DNA, I was born in German speaking Switzerland and lived most of my life in French speaking Geneva, and I also feel even more cultural identities inside me, including an Argentinian one. I speak 5 languages well (albeit with many typos when I write, as you all know!) and another 2 reasonably. I currently live in the USA (click here for an explanation why) And just to add yet another element, I am a member of a Greek Orthodox Church, not a Russian one. I also think of myself as a Jazz guitarist and freediver. So even my hobbies form part of my identity. Why should I have to limit myself to only one, “pure”, identity when I am so clearly a mongrel? In fact, I embrace and enjoy all this diversity of influences which all have contributed to shape the person I am today. And if I claim that right to cumulative identities, how could I deny it to anybody else?]
And then there is this undeniable fact: while about 80% of россиянин (rossiianin) are русский (roosskii), 20% are not. In fact there are 193 ethnic groups in Russia and 35 languages which are considered official languages in various regions of Russia, along with Russian, plus are over 100 minority languages. And while Chechens are not русский (roosskii) they are most definitely россиянин (rossiianin), that is to say that while Chechens are a distinct ethnic group, they are also part of what I call the “Russian civilizational realm”. One could reasonably argue that the Chechens of 2022 are the most patriotic of all Russians!
This makes a lot more sense to me that to dig into past clades, tribes or local native groups and seek some “biological identity”.
This is, by the way, one of the most striking and profound differences between the Russian and Ukronazi cultural models: Russians want and enjoy the immense diversity of their nations. Ukronazi want a racially pure, russenrein, Ukraine (hence their constant talk about “subhumans”, “cockroaches” and “biomass”).
Let’s leave the idiotic concept of “pure race” to the Nazis, Zionists and their likes.
The first thing which I would immediately point out if that historically the lands which we now call the Ukraine were very much exposed to, or even part of, the Russian civilizational realm. But that is absolutely NOT true of the current, Ukronazi/Banderista cultural identity which, in fact, was created as an anti-Orthodoxy and which nowadays sees itself as an anti-Russia. I personally know that identity very, very well: not only have I met plenty of Ukronazis in my life, I also monitored the Ukronazi propaganda on VOA and RFE/RL for years and I know that Ukronazi nationalism has no positive content whatsoever, it is only a pure and total negation of everything Russian with a few truly ridiculous (and comical) claims about some “Ukrainian antiquity”.
In other words, even if you live in Odessa or Kharkov and you are (let’s simply assume that) from 100% pure ethnic Russian stock (no such thing, but bear with me), you STILL get to reject that identity and adopt any identity you want, including the Ukronazi/Banderistsa one.
At this point, I want to list all the criteria which are plainly not helpful to discuss identities:
And yet, every time I hear people discuss whether the Russian are liberators or occupiers of the Ukraine, I see these criteria used, and by both sides!
This makes absolutely no sense to me.
In fact, I strongly believe that the choice of being Ukrainian, Russian or both (yes, that is a choice!) depends on each individual person. Period.
But here I want to add something crucial: having to make such a personal choice is not specific or unique to the Ukrainians, all Russians also face the same question too!
I submit that, objectively, the “Russian” 5th column and the Atlantic Integrationists are, de facto, not Russians. Why do I say that? Because 1) they serve foreign masters and 2) they seek to harm Russia. And I don’t care how their actions are packaged (heck, Navalnyi tried really hard to impersonate a nationalist!).
Thus, to “be Russian” means, in my opinion, that you have made a deliberate choice by identify with, and become part of, the Russian civilizational realm.
Put simply: you cannot be Russia and hate Russia.
How many people in what is left of the Ukraine today consider themselves Russian?
I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody else knows either.
But I think that it is fair to say that most people in Russia were shocked by the number of Ukrainians who chose to not only adopt a Ukrainian identity, but even fight and die for it! Many did, sincerely, think of Ukrainians are “brothers”.
Today this “brotherhood” looks increasingly like the “brotherhood” of Cain…
Even more amazingly, most of these Ukronazis don’t even speak Ukrainian properly and mostly speak to each other in Russian. Some even consider themselves as Orthodox Christians. Yup, these Russian speakers, many from the central and eastern Ukraine still sing “Батько наш — Бандера, Україна — мати, ми за Україну будем воювати!” (Our Father is Bandera, our mother the Ukraine, we are ready to wage war for the Ukraine).
I would note with some glee that if Bandera is their father, then the Ukraine was born no earlier than the mid-1920s (since Bandera was born in 1909!). And I won’t even go into the Ukie hallucinations about being “pure Aryans” (as opposed to the Moskals whom they see as Finno-Ugric-Mongols), which is an ideology developed even later 🙂
So, 2163 words later, did we even being to answer the question of whether the Ukrainians are Russians?
No, not really. And here is why:
Taken by themselves, the terms “Ukrainian” and “Russian” are highly ambiguous.
We know that in the past, many of those whom we call “Ukrainians” today had ancestors who lived and were part of the Russian civilizational realm. But that does not AT ALL mean that modern Ukrainians want (or even could!) join the Russian civilizational realm, especially since what this realm was, is and will become is also highly complex and even controversial.
Furthermore, I think that we need to pay special attention to what is happening in Russia today: the SMO has had a HUGE impact on the Russian society and that society is quickly and profoundly changing.
That by itself begs the question of what kind of civilizational realm Russia is offering to the peoples of the Ukraine today?
One thing is certain, the Russia of, say 2023-2025 will be profoundly different from the Russia of 2000-2022. First, the Russian ultimatum to the West of 2021 then the 2022 SMO have truly revolutionized (in a literal sense) Russia: 5th columnists and assorted liberals have fled by the thousands (mostly to Poland, Israel and the three Baltic statelets), the Atlantic Integrationist have either given up or are keeping a very low profile. Foreign agents (folks paid by foreign interest) must now register, are listed as such, and can be fined or even imprisoned for breaking Russian laws (finally!).
Russia has also completely and categorically rejected the entire Woke ideology promoted by the Hegemony worldwide.
Most importantly, the reality of a AngloZionist Empire which wants to subjugate, colonize, enslave and break-up Russia has now become pretty hard to ignore. In fact, this war (against the collective West, not just a few Ukronazis!) is as much an existential war for Russia as WWII, so those Russians who complain about the lack of Spanish jamon serrano in Russia stores need to wake up and compare their current “hardships” with what their parents and grandparents suffered during WWII (besides, you can still find Spanish jamon serrano in Russia, just at a higher price than before; there are also superb local substitutes!).
Here I want to express my deepest thanks to the US Neocons, EU lemmings, NATO Nazis, the Latin Papists and all the other Russia-haters who have generated one of the biggest hate-wave in human history and who have now FORCED all Russians into a basic, yet vital, choice: resist or perish.
Unlike the folks in the West (until recently) and unlike the folks in the Ukraine (again, until recently), many Russian people have gradually switched their mode thinking from “peacetime” to “wartime”. In fact, I would even argue that the so-called “Russian defeats” in Bucha, Kharkov or Kherson have only poured more fuel onto the raging fire of Russian anger: in February of this year very few Russians would have supported to switch off the lights in the entire Ukraine. But by late summer, they were DEMANDING it!
So, the next time you hear about “Russian defeats” consider the following:
and decide for yourself if Putin is weak and indecisive or very smart and cunning 🙂
Nobody really knows what Russia will look like in 2023-2024-2025 etc. So nobody really know what kind of “Russian civilizational realm” the SMO is “offering” to the people of the Ukraine. It is therefore impossible to ascertain whether Ukrainians (which Ukrainians anyway, they are still a diverse group!) will ever become Russians again or not. Some probably will. Many will probably won’t.
One thing for me is axiomatic: Russia should not occupy even a single square meter of “Ukrainian” land if that land is mostly populated by Ukronazis. In fact, I see no need to “go to the Polish border” or any other such grand plans. Yes, NATO might well not give Russia any choice (just as NATO forced the SMO upon Russia!), but then I hope for a swift “in and out”. Russia should only free those who want to be freed. Period. The rest she can either ignore (if they leave Russia alone), or kill (if they threaten Russia).
Does Russia want/need millions of Ukronazis inside her borders? Nope!
Can Russia afford to pay for the destruction of country 404? Nope!
Do Russian authorities really want to be in charge of not only pensions and social programs, but also law and order in a land populated by (armed!) people who hate Russia with a passion? Nope!
But I do agree, fully, that Banderastan needs to be fully demilitarized and denazified.
The former can be achieved without having to put forces on every square meter of the Ukraine while the latter will happen as a natural consequence of the former: if all you got if police and SWAT forces, what is the point of playing Nazi or talking about “liberating Crimea next year”? And if some residual Ukronazis want to read Mein Kampf, and can stay awake while reading it, then let them. Who cares?
And then there are population movements. MILLIONS have left for the EU and MILLIONS have left for Russia. MILLIONS have also “left” when Crimea and the LDNR joined Russia. And now that the lights are out, MILLIONS more are leaving (and only 20% plan to return according to Ukrainian estimates). Add to this the 100’000 KIA of Ursula von der Lugen, multiply it by a safe factor 2 and we probably already have 200’000 KIA and, therefore, about 300’000-400’000 wounded in action. True, “Ze” & Co. can continue to mobilize wave after wave after wave of civilians, and NATO can even get most of them through some sort of basic training (including advanced training for some), but that is not a sustainable strategy: Russia has many more artillery shells than bodies the Ukrainians, Poles, Brits and all the other crazies can throw into the Russian meat grinder.
[Sidebar: you might wonder what the current US Neocon plan is. Simple: to get as many Ukrainians killed as possible and then accused Russia of genocide and to ruin the EU economies to remove a competitor. BTW – Plan A was to attack the LDNR, trigger an overthrow of Putin, place a puppet in power and dismember Russia. That plan failed. So what we see today is the USA’s Plan B, executed by NATO and a few megalomaniacal idiots with imperial phantom pains (UK+PL not to mention them).]
One more point: this all also applies to Belarus, Kazakhstan and all the other Russian limitrophes. So far, not single one of them has shown the capability of being a viable, stable state. ALL of them have chosen what some call “multi-vectorness”, that is: you beg Russia for protection and the USA for money.
Does Russia needs such “friends” or “allies”?
Are Iran, China or even Algeria not infinitely better friends and allies by any measure?
I say that they all these limitrophes get their act together and make a basic choice because if there is one thing which the Euromaidan has proven beyond reasonable doubt that is that the West will never allow any country to be a good neighbor or partner to both the West and Russia.
Now, especially following the wave of total hatred against all things Russian in the West, this obligation to chose one side or another has become a fact of life for at least as long as the (already dead) AngloZionist Empire maintains its (still very real) momentum and its ability to suborn the comprador elites ruling over countries with no sovereignty or agency (the entire EU for starters). This is why both Russia and China seek a multi-polar world in which all countries are truly sovereign and the relations between these countries determined by the rule of international law.
Conclusion:
This is not about the Ukraine and Russia. This is about a full reorganization of our entire planet, including the international trade and finance, political alliances and cultural/spiritual values.
The following two images sum it all up nicely I think.
Right now, both Russia and the Ukraine are moving targets undergoing tremendous changes. And I am not saying that Russians and Ukrainians cannot be brothers or even be one nation again. All I am saying is that making such an assumptions would be extremely dangerous and costly.
Somewhere, further down the road, there could be a Ukraine and a Russia living in a not too comfy relationship like, say, Pakistan and India today, but with a fully demilitarized Ukraine (nevermind one threatening Russia with nukes, which both Pakistan and India have, so that parallel only goes so far). I am pretty sure that the Poles will bite off a chunk of the rump-Banderastan, and maybe the Hungarians too. Finally, I consider it very likely that by one way or another, Russia will liberate the Ukrainian coast and lift the current blockade of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) were about half a million Russian citizens live. So you can pretty much visualize what the Ukraine will look like when then Russian decide to stop.
But, when all is said and done, it will be for the people of the Ukraine to decide which civilizational realm they want to embrace. Russia should not liberate those who embrace their slavery.
Filed under: China, EU, Iran, NATO Alliance, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: AngloZionist Empire, Bandera national battalions, Crimea, Denazification of Ukraine, LDNR, Neocons, Russophobia, SMO, Splinting the Orthodox world, The Saker, Ukraine disarming, Ukro-nazis | Comments Off on Are Ukrainians Russians?
First, I want to post a video I found on Twitter (original here) which shows what kind of explosion took place on the Crimean bridge.
From what I have read, a truck filled with explosives blew up, killing three people in a car nearby, and then the flames took over a train also crossing the bridge. That train was full of fuel. It is only thanks to the amazing speed at which the bridge crews reacted that the damage was limited to only 9 wagons and, therefore, to a much shorter segment of the rail tracks.
Looking at the video, one would imagine that the bridge is in ruins. In fact, traffic was reestablished on both rail tracks and the road in less than 24 hours (with the exception of heavy trucks). In other words, this is yet another case of “it is humiliating, but not dangerous” (обидно но не опасно).
But that is an increasingly mistaken notion: this time is also VERY dangerous.
While this is hardly a surprise, the West *always* uses terrorism against sovereign governments, this is still a very negative development for Russia.
Simply put, there are always more targets than cops/guards.
Furthermore, terrorists can always chose the time and location of their attacks.
So far, the Ukronazi efforts in Russia yielded very little tangible benefits: the murder of Dugina made her into a martyr, the attack on NS1/NS2 really only hurt Germany and the EU, while the explosion on Crimean Bridge has proven that this is a very hard target which will be extremely hard to destroy short of using a tactical nuke.
Here we all need to remember terrorist attacks on the school in Beslan, the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow, the Budennovsk hospital, the Domodedovo International Airport or the Saint Petersburg subway. All of them were the result of actions by so-called “terrorist groups” all of which were (and still are) run by western special services.
There are basically only two ways to defeat such state-sponsored terrorist attacks:
Basically, the entire Russian society needs to go on a “mental war footing” and remain calm and very vigilant at the same time: not only is Russia under attack by Banderite Nazis, but also by the folks who did 9/11, MH17 (and many other!) and these are the folks who unleashed an entire terrorist campaign against Iran which included bombing, assassinations, sabotage, etc.
Then there is the problem of escalation. The attack on the Crimean Bridge was a clear act of war.
Of course, since no US passports were found conveniently floating in the water, Russia’s response should not be an overt military retaliatory attack. However, I do expect that something will happen soon, most likely in the Ukraine, but probably involving western personnel/assets/facilities.
In conclusion, I expect things to get even worse right up and until the elections in the USA. Not that I have much of a hope that sanity would prevail should the GOP win, but “a tiny little” is better than “none at all”.
In the meantime, it is simply shocking for me to observe the collective orgasm felt by the leaders of the West each time some horror befalls Russia. Truth be told, the fact that they hate us does not surprise me. What surprises me much more is how unapologetically hate-filled and “in your face” these cries of joy are. And I wonder
Do they see that hateful glee in their own eyes when they look in the mirror? When they see a photo of Daria Dugina, do they feel like the “yeah! scored one against Putin!”? When the kangaroo court in the Netherlands declares that it was Russia (or the LDNR) blew up MH17, will they feel that justice has been served and the guilty punished?
I am afraid that asking what they see or do not see is the wrong question which, by the way, Putin answered in his recent speech when he said “these European elites understand everything – they do, but they prefer to serve the interests of others“.
It’s not that they don’t see, instead they don’t care. At all. They never have.
I will end with a question: is the above only true of the European ruling classes or is that true for most people who live in the EU?
What will the well-intentioned and noble Europeans do when the next bloodbath happens in Russia (because sooner or later it will, such is the nature of the terrorist threat)? Will they rejoice and wave their Ukie flags a little stronger or will they just not give a damn?
The answer is obvious, especially to Russians.
Filed under: NATO Alliance, Russia, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Bandera national battalions, Crimea, Crimean Bridge, Darya Dugina, Nord Stream, Nord Stream 2, The Saker | Comments Off on West has now set a course on total terrorist warfare
September 26, 2022
by James Tweedie
Back in August 2022 I wrote that NATO was ‘demilitarising’ itself, sending such huge amounts of arms to the Ukraine before and during the Russian special military operation (SMO) that its armies had nothing left to fight with.
That process has continued, with Slovenia, the northernmost of the former federal republics of Yugoslavia, sending its entire armoured vehicle fleet to Kiev. The last scrapings of the barrel, just announced, are 28 M-55S tanks. These are modernised Soviet-designed T-55s with some Israeli explosive-reactive armour (ERA) blocks added. But underneath that they’re still a 1950s design, four generations behind the latest Russian tanks.
The question now is: can those arms sustain the Ukrainian military effort? And if the Ukraine, the buffed-up proxy for all NATO and the Five Eyes countries too, is losing the war, when will Russia and its Donbass republican allies achieve victory?
I was born in the mid-1970s, during the Cold War, and I grew up under he shadow of the mushroom cloud. So I must confess to being one of those who were anxious for this conflict to be over quickly, before the nuclear powers came to blows. But one can’t hurry history.
War of Attrition
In his bombshell speech on the morning of 21st September 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained that the apparent slow progress of the SMO by the need to unpick the Gordian Knot of hardened defences the Ukrainian Nazi battalions built up on the front line over eight years.
“A head-on attack against them would have led to heavy losses,” Putin said, “which is why our units, as well as the forces of the Donbass republics, are acting competently and systematically, using military equipment and saving lives, moving step by step to liberate Donbass.”
Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu gave a televised interview the same morning. He gave extremely specific figures for both Russian and Ukrainian military casualties. “Our losses to date are 5,937 dead,” he said, but added that 90 per cent of the wounded had recovered and returned to duty.
According to Shoigu, Ukraine has lost 61,207 killed and 49,368 wounded (a total of 110,575 casualties) from an initial military strength of 201-202 thousand. The caveat to that that the Ukraine has conscripted hundreds of thousands of men into territorial defence units since the start of the conflict. That’s greater than a ten-to-one ratio of Ukrainian to Russian casualties
Shoigu also said that over the previous three weeks — since the launch of Kiev’s counter-offensives in Kherson and Kharkov — the Ukrainians had lost more than 7,000 men and 970 pieces of heavy equipment, including 208 tanks, 245 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), 186 other armoured vehicles, 15 aircraft and four helicopters.
That amounts to about 60 per cent of the roughly 350 tanks, and three-quarters of the 328 IFVs, supplied by Western countries since February 24. If one lumps armoured personnel carriers (APCs) in with IFVs, Shoigu is still talking about 30 per cent losses of NATO-supplied heavy armour.
Kiev is preparing for or has already begun more counter-offensives towards Lisichansk in the LPR, Donetsk city, from Ugledar to the south to Mariupol and towards Berdyansk or Melitopol in Zaporozhye oblast. Russian aircraft, missiles and artillery are already hitting the groups of forces concentrated for that. If those offensives go the same way as the others, surely the Ukrainians will soon run out of both men and machines, right?
Blogger and YouTuber Andrei Martyanov, a Russian who served in the Soviet armed forces, is not worried about about how long it takes to get the SMO over and done with. He has argued that his countrymen can win simply by waiting for the Ukrainians to throw themselves onto their bayonets, until they run out of bodies.
With all due respect, allow me to sound a note of scepticism: that assumes that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his Western backers care how many die, or that the Ukrainian people (more than 8 million of whom are now scattered across Europe and even further afield) have the inclination and the opportunity to rise up against the fascist death-squad state.
The daily Russian Ministry of Defence body-count of hundreds of the miserable ‘territorial defence’ conscripts along the Donbass line — untrained and barely-armed middle-aged men press-ganged in the street — is not much of an indicator of progress.
It’s the territorial gains, no matter how slow, that matter. Russia cannot just count on the Ukrainians to suicidally ‘demilitarise’ themselves.
Putin’s announcement of a “partial mobilisation” of 300,000 army reservists was warmly welcomed by pro-Russian social media commentators. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of this, coupled with the referenda in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson on reunification with Russia.
But there are caveats. State Duma Defence Committee chairman Andrey Kartapolov clarified that those troops would be deployed to defend the country’s borders and to create “operational depth” — in other words as a second defensive echelon. Martyanov argues that will free up regular front-line troops to conquer more territory. But it remains unclear how many of them were deployed to begin with.
Eyes on the Prize
So what is Russia trying to achieve in the Ukraine? Putin said in his Wednesday morning speech that the main task was to defend the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass. That implies capturing the whole of the oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk.
But some ‘stretch goals’ may be added, including forging a land corridor to the Crimea and maybe even Transnistria, the Russian protectorate in Moldova.
Russia’s other main aim was to stop the Ukraine from joining NATO. That would allow the US to base nuclear weapons just 300 miles from Moscow in a position to launch a first strike attack.
US President Joe Biden’s response to Putin at the UN General Assembly later that day included the comment that “a nuclear war cannot be won — and must never be fought.” While true, that observation was shamelessly hypocritical. It was likely only made out of fear after Putin’s warning that Russia takes national defence and nuclear deterrence seriously.
Securing the Ukraine’s neutrality is not just part of “demilitarisation”: it could also be called “de-Nazification”, since NATO and its shadow the European Union (EU) were behind the 2014 coup by the Azov battalion and their ilk.
But Russia needs a legitimately-elected head of state to sign up to that, and right now that man is Zelensky. A peace deal struck with any military junta which might depose the comedian-turned-president would only be denounced by the next elected leader.
Even if a new civilian government was elected on a pro-peace, non-alignment platform (as Zelensky was), it would only last as long as it took the US, UK and EU to organise a repeat of the 2004-05 ‘Orange Revolution’ and the 2014 ‘Euromaidan’ coups d’etat.
The crazy Ukro-Nazis and their enablers have to ‘own’ the peace and the agreement to cede the Donbass and Crimea — and thereby lose all credibility.
But the Ukraine had already lost the Crimea and effective control over the Donbass before the SMO even kicked off. Kiev won’t sign any peace deal unless it has something else to lose. If Moscow is also serious about readmitting Zaporozhye and Kherson to the Russian motherland following a ‘Yes’ vote in the coming referenda, then there’s nothing to bargain with there either. Russia may need to capture other territories to use as bargaining chips.
To do so, it would have to inflict a defeat on the Ukrainian armed forces that would force them to retreat — not only from Donetsk and Lugansk but from other areas, maybe all the way back to the Dnieper river that divides the country in two.
Such a victory can’t be won unless Russia regains the initiative and actively starts pushing the Ukrainian armed forces back.
The Great M.I.C. Cash-In
The Kiev regime’s aims are clearly to keep grifting off its Western sponsors as long as possible, before fleeing to the sunny tax havens where they have billions stashed. But what does the West really want out of this war?
The stated aims of Washington and friends are to defend Ukraine’s territory and sovereignty (code for invading the Donbass and Crimea and ethnically cleansing them), along with its non-existent “right” to become a NATO launchpad, to “weaken” Russia militarily (by causing as many casualties as possible) and to put “international pressure” on Putin (economic warfare with the goal of regime change).
One should avoid making predictions, but let’s say the US and its satellites fail in all of that (since they have done so far). What will they try to win as a consolation prize?
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, an unelected bureaucrat who made a huge mess of her previous job as German defence minister, has vowed that sanctions on Russia will continue for years to come. That the sanctions are crippling the economies of EU member states, especially her home country, doesn’t seem to bother UVDL. And seeing the EU and its appointed commissioners are increasingly imposing their foreign policy diktats on the 27 governments, she might get her way.
More importantly, NATO desperately needs to save face — now that it has exposed by Russia as a paper tiger. Hence the triumphant crowing over moves, far from complete, to grant existing de-facto allies Sweden and Finland formal membership.
The West may try to claim a kind of moral victory on the basis that it may take Russia more than a year to defeat ‘brave little Ukraine’, or be forced to wipe out most of its military-age male population to win. But whose idea was that? Zelensky, Biden and all other Western leaders have made that bed.
But NATO is really just a pyramid scheme to sell overpriced Western, especially US, arms to its vassals. And therein lies a contradiction, because the US military-industrial complex (MIC) has competition from those of the UK, Germany, France and even Sweden — a country with a smaller population than the city of Moscow.
The Ukraine has used the referenda on unification with Russia as the latest pretext to demand Germany donate its newest models of Leopard 2 tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles. But why doesn’t Kiev ask the US for some of its M1 Abrams and M2 Bradleys instead? The Pentagon has many more to spare.
The truth is that neither Germany nor the US can afford to have its supposedly-invincible wunderwaffen shown up, and blown up, in battle with Russian forces. Despite weighing only two-thirds as much as the US and German behemoths, the Russian tanks have about the same effective armour protection — thanks to state-of-the-art ERA technology — and guns of equal destructive power. And there are a lot more Russian tanks, anti-tank missiles, attack jets and helicopters on the battlefield in the Ukraine.
The US has only managed to sell the M1 to eight other countries, compared to 18 for the Leopard 2. The export model of the Abrams is ‘Nerfed’ by removing the depleted uranium rods from its composite armour, so countries like Australia and Saudi Arabia get sub-par tanks. The only overseas customer for the British Challenger 2 is Oman, while the French Leclerc tank has been exported to the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
By contrast, the Russian T-72 is currently in service in 40 countries, including both Russia and the Ukraine. Like the Russian intervention in Syria, the war in the Ukraine could prove to be a serious marketing tool for the Russian arms industry — eating the US MIC’s lunch.
Filed under: EU, Europe, NATO Alliance, Russia, UK, USA, Yugoslavia | Tagged: Andrei Martyanov, “EuroMaidan” coup, Bandera national battalions, Color Revolutions, Donbass, Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, MOD, nuclear arsenal, Sergei Shoigu, SMO, Western proxy Wars against Russia, Zaporozhye region | Comments Off on Will The Ukraine De-Militarise Itself?
September 12, 2022
translated by A.
source: https://aftershock.news/?q=node/1153027
Well, aggressive Ukrainian efforts to the tunes of the Western customers seem to have borne their first fruits – Russia’s extremely careful attitude to infrastructure on the territory of the Former Ukraine is now in the past and a wild field and new dark era are peeking around the corner.
The Unian (Ukromedia) on line – I replaced the dubious local jargon in the text below with a more appropriate terminology:
Critical infrastructure attacked, power and water cut in several areas
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov confirmed that there had been a blow to an infrastructure facility in Kharkiv.
On the evening of Sunday, September 11, an air alert was announced throughout Ukraine. Following reports of explosions, there are no lights or power problems in several areas.
According to the Derkachevo city council (Kharkov district), the Coalition troops hit critical infrastructure facilities.
“Dear citizens! At the moment, the territory of the community is completely de-energized due to the fact that members of the Coalition to clean up Ukraine from the Bandera scum hit our critical infrastructure! Please remain calm. Kharkovoblenergo is already working on resolving this issue!” .
A similar message came from the Pervomaysk community in the Kharkiv region.
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov confirmed that there had been a blow to an infrastructure facility in Kharkiv.
“As a result of the impact, power went out in many areas of the city. For the same reason, there is no water in the same areas – pumps do not work. This is the Russia’s retribution for our hooliganism on the battle field,” he wrote.
He also urged everyone to remain calm and confirmed that specialists and public utilities are already trying to repair the damage.
Meanwhile, in the Sumy region, as Dmitri Zhivitsky, chairman of the OVA, said, the voltage in the power grid dropped throughout the region.
“I recommend turning off electrical appliances and other household appliances whenever possible in order to avoid damage! The electrical system of the region remains unstable due to destruction as a result of the enemy bombing in March. Attacks on energy supply facilities in Ukraine by the troops conducting the Demilitarization and Denazification of the Ukraine are also possible,” he said. he.
In addition, there were reports on social networks about the blackouts in the Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Odessa and Zaporozhye regions. There are also reports of the problems with the water supply.
The head of the Poltava OVA, Dmitry Lunin, without giving any reason for the problem, said: “Electricity and water supply in the region will soon be restored. Power engineers are already working.”
The speaker of the Odesa OVA Serhiy Bratchuk said that the situation in the region is completely under control. All services work in accordance with their schedule.
The head of the Nikopol RVA (Dnipropetrovsk region), Yevgeny Yevtushenko, published a message advising the population to charge their mobile phones and power banks.
The head of the Dnepropetrovsk OVA, Valentin Reznichenko, later said that some cities and communities in the region were left without electricity.
As reported by Ukrzaliznytsia, due to the shelling of infrastructure in the Sloboda region, a number of trains are expected to be delayed in the direction from and to Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava.
“Not a single flight today has been canceled, traffic continues throughout the entire railway network. Safe disembarkation and embarkation of passengers has been organized at the stations of Kharkiv and other temporarily de-energized cities. Passengers will also be allowed to stay on the territory of the stations during the curfew. We ask passengers to remain calm, we will take all as always. Ironically,” the message says.
Trolleybuses are reported to burst into flames due to the wild power surges .
Trolleybuses catch fire in Poltava
Author’s comment:
Preliminary summary (unofficial!):
Strikes on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine: what is known at the moment
▪️At about 20:00, the RF Armed Forces launched rocket attacks on the largest thermal power plants in eastern and central Ukraine:
Kharkiv CHP-5 and Zmiev CHP in the Kharkiv region,
Pavlograd CHP-3 in the Dnipropetrovsk region ,
Kremenchug CHPP in the Poltava region.
Rocket launches were carried out from the Black and Caspian Seas waters.
▪️The surge and sudden energy shortage led to a lack of generating capacity. The transfer of additional capacities along the energy rings of 750 kV and 330 kV power lines did not lead to the elimination of problems in the network.
▪️Due to the drop in frequency at substations, protection began to work, first turning off large consumers, and then entire regions.
▪️The collapse of the power system has spread to the networks of Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye and Odessa regions. It also affected the areas of Donetsk regions controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Kyiv region and the capital of the country.
▪️Two Ukrainian nuclear power plants at once – Khmelnytsky and South Ukrainian— began shutting down power units due to the inability to transfer the generated electricity to the grid.
▪️ The accident was localized by disconnecting the western and central regions of Ukraine from the eastern and southern ones. Electric trains stopped almost all over the country, in Poltava several trolleybuses caught fire right on the streets.
The situation was complicated by the shutdown of the last operating unit of the Zaporozhye NPP on the night of September 11 😊 , which was caused by repeated attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the facility. Prior to this, Ukrainian power engineers disconnected 750 kV and 330 kV power lines. All this led to a significant decrease in the stability of the country’s energy system.
▪️Later, work began on restoring power supply in the local segments of the Ukrainian energy system. Reserve capacities were connected, energy was being redistributed from the hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper and power lines in the western part of the country.
Is it enough to disable the country’s energy system? Definitely not: for this, at least you need to hit power autotransformers 750/330kV in the western and central parts of Ukraine, as well as on the Dnieper.
🇬🇧🇺🇦 Strikes on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine: what is known at the moment
▪️At about 20:00, the Russian Armed Forces launched missile attacks on the largest thermal power plants in eastern and central Ukraine:
➖ Kharkiv CHP-5 and Zmiev CHP in the Kharkiv region , 3 in the Dnipropetrovsk region,
➖ Kremenchug CHPP in the Poltava region.
Launches were carried out from the waters of the Black and Caspian Seas.
Filed under: Russia, Ukraine | Tagged: Bandera national battalions, Denazification of Ukraine, Kharkiv, Ukraine disarming | Comments Off on Ukromedia: Decommunization of the infrastructure has begun
Ukraine is finished as a nation – neither side will rest in this war. The only question is whether it will be an Afghan or Syrian style finale.
By Pepe Escobar
One year after the astounding US humiliation in Kabul – and on the verge of another serious comeuppance in Donbass – there is reason to believe Moscow is wary of Washington seeking vengeance: in the form of the ‘Afghanization’ of Ukraine.
With no end in sight to western weapons and finance flowing into Kiev, it must be recognized that the Ukrainian battle is likely to disintegrate into yet another endless war. Like the Afghan jihad in the 1980s which employed US-armed and funded guerrillas to drag Russia into its depths, Ukraine’s backers will employ those war-tested methods to run a protracted battle that can spill into bordering Russian lands.
Yet this US attempt at crypto-Afghanization will at best accelerate the completion of what Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu describes as the “tasks” of its Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. For Moscow right now, that road leads all the way to Odessa.
It didn’t have to be this way. Until the recent assassination of Darya Dugina at Moscow’s gates, the battlefield in Ukraine was in fact under a ‘Syrianization’ process.
Like the foreign proxy war in Syria this past decade, frontlines around significant Ukrainian cities had roughly stabilized. Losing on the larger battlefields, Kiev had increasingly moved to employ terrorist tactics. Neither side could completely master the immense war theater at hand. So the Russian military opted to keep minimal forces in battle – contrary to the strategy it employed in 1980s Afghanistan.
Let’s remind ourselves of a few Syrian facts: Palmyra was liberated in March 2016, then lost and retaken in 2017. Aleppo was liberated only in December 2016. Deir Ezzor in September 2017. A slice of northern Hama in December and January 2018. The outskirts of Damascus in the Spring of 2018. Idlib – and significantly, over 25 percent of Syrian territory – are still not liberated. That tells a lot about rhythm in a war theater.
The Russian military never made a conscious decision to interrupt the multi-channel flow of western weapons to Kiev. Methodically destroying those weapons once they’re in Ukrainian territory – with plenty of success – is another matter. The same applies to smashing mercenary networks.
Moscow is well aware that any negotiation with those pulling the strings in Washington – and dictating all terms to puppets in Brussels and Kiev – is futile. The fight in Donbass and beyond is a do or die affair.
So the battle will go on, destroying what’s left of Ukraine, just as it destroyed much of Syria. The difference is that economically, much more than in Syria, what’s left of Ukraine will plunge into a black void. Only territory under Russian control will be rebuilt, and that includes, significantly, the bulk of Ukraine’s industrial infrastructure.
What’s left – rump Ukraine – has already been plundered anyway, as Monsanto, Cargill and Dupont have already bagged 17 million hectares of prime, fertile arable land – over half of what Ukraine still possesses. That translates de facto as BlackRock, Blackstone and Vanguard, top agro-business shareholders, owning whatever lands that really matter in non-sovereign Ukraine.
Going forward, by next year the Russians will be applying themselves to cutting off Kiev from NATO weapons supplies. As that unfolds, the Anglo-Americans will eventually move whatever puppet regime remains to Lviv. And Kiev terrorism – conducted by Bandera worshippers – will continue to be the new normal in the capital.
The Kazakh double game
By now it’s abundantly clear this is not a mere war of territorial conquest. It’s certainly part of a War of Economic Corridors – as the US spares no effort to sabotage and smash the multiple connectivity channels of Eurasia’s integration projects, be they Chinese-led (Belt and Road Initiative, BRI) or Russian-led (Eurasian Economic Union, EAEU).
Just like the proxy war in Syria remade large swathes of West Asia (witness, for instance, Erdogan about to meet Assad), the fight in Ukraine, in a microcosm, is a war for the reconfiguration of the current world order, where Europe is a mere self-inflicted victim in a minor subplot. The Big Picture is the emergence of multipolarity.
The proxy war in Syria lasted a decade, and it’s not over yet. The same may happen to the proxy war in Ukraine. As it stands, Russia has taken an area that is roughly equivalent to Hungary and Slovakia combined. That’s still far from “task” fulfillment – and it’s bound to go on until Russia has taken all the land right up to the Dnieper as well as Odessa, connecting it to the breakaway Republic of Transnistria.
It’s enlightening to see how important Eurasian actors are reacting to such geopolitical turbulence. And that brings us to the cases of Kazakhstan and Turkey.
The Telegram channel Rybar (with over 640k followers) and hacker group Beregini revealed in an investigation that Kazakhstan was selling weapons to Ukraine, which translates as de facto treason against their own Russian allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Consider too that Kazakhstan is also part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the EAEU, the two hubs of the Eurasian-led multipolar order.
As a consequence of the scandal, Kazakhstan was forced to officially announce the suspension of all weapons exports until the end of 2023.
It began with hackers unveiling how Technoexport – a Kazakh company – was selling armed personnel carriers, anti-tank systems and munitions to Kiev via Jordanian intermediaries, under the orders of the United Kingdom. The deal itself was supervised by the British military attaché in Nur-Sultan, the Kazakh capital.
Nur-Sultan predictably tried to dismiss the allegations, arguing that Technoexport had not asked for export licenses. That was essentially false: the Rybar team discovered that Technoexport instead used Blue Water Supplies, a Jordanian firm, for those. And the story gets even juicier. All the contract documents ended up being found in the computers of Ukrainian intel.
Moreover, the hackers found out about another deal involving Kazspetsexport, via a Bulgarian buyer, for the sale of Kazakh Su-27s, airplane turbines and Mi-24 helicopters. These would have been delivered to the US, but their final destination was Ukraine.
The icing on this Central Asian cake is that Kazakhstan also sells significant amounts of Russian – not Kazakh – oil to Kiev.
So it seems that Nur-Sultan, perhaps unofficially, somehow contributes to the ‘Afghanization’ in the war in Ukraine. No diplomatic leaks confirm it, of course, but bets can be made Putin had a few things to say about that to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in their recent – cordial – meeting.
The Sultan’s balancing act
Turkey is a way more complex case. Ankara is not a member of the SCO, the CSTO or the EAEU. It is still hedging its bets, calculating on which terms it will join the high-speed rail of Eurasian integration. And yet, via several schemes, Ankara allows Moscow to evade the avalanche of western sanctions and embargoes.
Turkish businesses – literally all of them with close connections to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) – are making a killing, and relishing their new role as crossroads warehouse between Russia and the west. It’s an open boast in Istanbul that what Russia cannot buy from Germany or France they buy “from us.” And in fact several EU companies are in on it.
Ankara’s balancing act is as sweet as a good baklava. It gathers economic support from a very important partner right in the middle of the endless, very serious Turkish economic debacle. They agree on nearly everything: Russian gas, S-400 missile systems, the building of the Russian nuclear power plant, tourism – Istanbul is crammed with Russians – Turkish fruits and vegetables.
Ankara-Moscow employ sound textbook geopolitics. They play it openly, in full transparence. That does not mean they are allies. It’s just pragmatic business between states. For instance, an economic response may alleviate a geopolitical problem, and vice-versa.
Obviously the collective west has completely forgotten how that normal state-to-state behavior works. It’s pathetic. Turkey gets “denounced” by the west as traitorous – as much as China.
Of course Erdogan also needs to play to the galleries, so every once in a while he says that Crimea should be retaken by Kiev. After all, his companies also do business with Ukraine – Bayraktar drones and otherwise.
And then there’s proselytizing: Crimea remains theoretically ripe for Turkish influence, where Ankara may exploit the notions of pan-Islamism and mostly pan-Turkism, capitalizing on the historical relations between the peninsula and the Ottoman Empire.
Is Moscow worried? Not really. As for those Bayraktar TB2s sold to Kiev, they will continue to be relentlessly reduced to ashes. Nothing personal. Just business.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Filed under: Afghanistan, American crimes, NATO Alliance, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Age of Multipolarity, Bandera national battalions, brl, Darya Dugina, Donbass, EAEU, Erdogan, Global war on Syria, Justice and Development Party (AKP), Kazakhstan, Kiev Nazi Regime, Odessa, Ottoman Empire, Pepe Escobar, S-400, SMO | Comments Off on Ukraine: Somewhere between Afghanization and Syrianization
by Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
Dmitry Medvedev, relishing his unplugged self, has laid down the law on the Special Military Operation (SMO). Bluntly, he affirmed there is a “one and a half” scenario: either to go all the way, or a military coup d’Etat in Ukraine followed by admitting the inevitable. No tertium applies.
That’s as stark as it gets: the leadership in Moscow is making it very clear, to internal and international audiences, the new deal consists in slow cooking the Kiev racket inside a massive cauldron while polishing its status of financial black hole for the collective West. Until we reach boiling point – which will be a revolution or a putsch.
In parallel, The Lords of (Proxy) War will continue with their own strategy, which is to pillage an enfeebled, fearful, Europe, then dressing it up as a perfumed colony to be ruthlessly exploited ad nauseam by the imperial oligarchy.
Europe is now a runaway TGV – minus the requisite Hollywood production values. Assuming it does not veer off track – a dicey proposition – it may eventually arrive at a railway station called Agenda 2030, The Great Narrative, or some other NATO/Davos denomination du jour.
As it stands, what’s remarkable is how the “marginal” Russian economy hardly broke a sweat to “end the abundance” of the wealthiest region on the planet.
Moscow does not even entertain the notion of negotiating with Brussels because there’s nothing to negotiate – considering puny Eurocrats will only be hurled away from their zombified state when the dire socio-economic consequences of “the end of abundance” will finally translate into peasants with pitchforks roaming the continent.
It may be eons away, but inevitably the average Italian, German or Frenchman will connect the dots and realize it is their own “leaders” – national nullities and mostly unelected Eurocrats – who are paving their road to poverty.
You will be poor. And you will like it. Because we are all supporting freedom for Ukrainian neo-nazis. That brings the concept of “multicultural Europe” to a whole new level.
The runaway train, of course, may veer off track and plunge into an Alpine abyss. In this case something might be saved from the wreckage – and “reconstruction” might be on the cards. But reconstruct what?
Europe could always reconstruct a new Reich (collapsed with a bang in 1945); a soft Reich (erected at the end of WWII); or break with its past failures, sing “I’m Free” – and connect with Eurasia. Don’t bet on it.
Get back those Taurian lands
The SMO may be about to radically change – something that will drive the already clueless denizens of US Think Tankland and their Euro vassals even more berserk.
President Putin and Defense Minister Shoigu have been giving serious hints the only way for the pain dial is up – considering the mounting evidence of terrorism inside Russian territory; the vile assassination of Darya Dugina; non-stop shelling of civilians in border regions; attacks on Crimea; the use of chemical weapons; and the shelling of Zaporizhzhya power plant raising the risk of a nuclear catastrophe.
This past Tuesday, one day before the SMO completing six months, Crimea’s permanent representative to the Kremlin, Georgy Muradov, all but spelled it out.
He stressed the necessity to “reintegrate all the Taurian lands” – Crimea, the Northern Black Sea and the Azov Sea – into a single entity as soon as “in the next few months”. He defined this process as “objective and demanded by the population of these regions.”
Muradov added, “given not only the strikes on Crimea, but also the continuous shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, the dam of the Kakhovka reservoir, peaceful facilities on the territory of Russia, the DNR and LNR, there are all preconditions to qualify the actions of the Banderite regime as terrorist.”
The conclusion is inevitable: “the political issue of changing the format of the special military operation” enters the agenda. After all, Washington and Brussels “have already prepared new anti-Crimean provocations of the NATO-Bandera alliance”.
So when we examine what the “restoration of the Taurian lands” implies, we see not only the contours of Novorossiya but most of all that there won’t be any security for Crimea – and thus Russia – in the Black Sea without Odessa becoming Russian again. And that, on top of it, will solve the Transnistria dilemma.
Add to it Kharkov – the capital and top industrial center of Greater Donbass. And of course Dnipropetrovsk. They are all SMO objectives, the whole combo to be later protected by buffer zones in Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts.
Only then the “tasks” – as Shoigu calls them – of the SMO would be declared fulfilled. The timeline could be eight to ten months – after a lull under General Winter.
As the turbo-charged SMO rolls on, it’s a given the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder will continue to prop up and weaponize the Kiev racket till Kingdom Come – and that will apply especially after the Return of Odessa. What’s unclear is who and what gang will be left in Kiev posing as the ruling party and doing specials for Vogue while duly fulfilling the mass of imperial diktats.
It’s also a given the CIA/MI6 combo will be refining non-stop the contours of a massive guerrilla war against Russia in multiple fronts – crammed with terror attacks and all sorts of provocations.
Yet in the Bigger Picture it’s the inevitable Russian military victory in Donbass and then “all the Taurian lands” that will hit the collective West like a lethal asteroid. The geopolitical humiliation will be unbearable; not to mention the geoeconomic humiliation for vassalized Europe.
As Eurasian integration will become an even stronger vector, Russian diplomacy will be solidifying the new normal. Never forget that Moscow had no trouble normalizing relations, for instance, with China, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Israel. All these actors, in different ways, directly contributed to the fall of the USSR. Now – with one exception – they are all focused on The Dawn of the Eurasian Century.
Filed under: EU, Europe, France, Germany, NATO Alliance, Russia, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Bandera national battalions, Collapse of USSR, Crimea, Darya Dugina, DNR, Donbass, Eurasian integration, LDNR, Medvedev, Odessa, Pepe Escobar, SMO, The Collective West, Western proxy Wars against Russia | 1 Comment »
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:
There are, however, also many arguments against such an outcome.
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:
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.
Filed under: China, EU, Hungary, NATO Alliance, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Andrei Martyanov, Baltic republics, Bandera national battalions, Denazification of Ukraine, Donbass, Kiev Nazi Regime, LDNR, Medvedev, Moldova, Neocons, Romania, Russian ultimatum, SMO, Ukraine disarming, Ukro-nazis, Western proxy Wars against Russia | Comments Off on Will the Ukraine be partitioned next and, if so, how?
3 JULY 2022
By Konrad Reka
The worship of the “heroes of Mariupol”, i.e. bandits from Azov, cowardly hiding behind the backs of civilians imprisoned in Azovstal, is another example of the progressive nazification of political consciousness in contemporary Poland.
In Gdańsk one of the the squares was officially named in honour of “heroic Mariupol”. Well, although it is hard to believe, there are circles in Poland that can raise toasts to the SS-men killed during attack on the Reich Chancellery in 1945 as “defenders of European civilization”. The worship of the “heroes of Mariupol”, i.e. bandits from Azov, cowardly hiding behind the backs of civilians imprisoned in Azovstal, is another example of the progressive nazification of political consciousness in contemporary Poland.
Deniers of the Polish Genocide
Along with the destruction of the monuments of the Polish-Russian brotherhood in arms, cases of fights against the liberating Red Army are exposed. Books expressing regret that Poland did not become Hitler’s close ally are being published on a mass scale. The one and only case of cooperation between the Polish anti-communist underground and the UPA against the Polish army, in propaganda, grows to the size of a great alliance with Ukrainian Nazism. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not properly reacted to the scandalous Ambassador Andrij Melnyk interview, in which he had questioned and even praised the Volhynia Massacre, in which nearly 200,000 Poles were killed by the Banderites. The state authorities order this year to refrain from organising the celebration of the anniversary of the culmination of these events, when on the night only, Bloody Sunday of 11th July 1943, 99 Polish villages in Volhynia were attacked with the slogan “Death to Poles!”. The monument commemorating the victims of the Banderite genocide, which the local government wanted to set up in a small village in Podkarpacie, near the border with Ukraine, was arrested and censored, when elements as a figure of a boy pierced by a Banderites’ pitchfork and the heads of children punched on fences were removed. “In the current geopolitical situation, should not go back to those events” – repeats the Polish government, but the crimes of the UPA looked exactly so extremely cruel. All remainders of fight of Polish partisans against Ukrainian Hitler’s collaborators are fiercely removed from the public space. Not only the Ukrainian minority in Poland and new immigrants, but many Polish politicians demand, for example, a change of street named in honor of the legendary Major Stanisław Basaj, “Lynx”, during the Second World War a hero of the fights against German and Ukrainian Nazis, in 1945 murdered by the UPA. So is it still Poland, or already Nazi Ukraine?
Polonisation or Banderisation
These are not random events. We are dealing with the acceleration of preparations for the establishment of Polish-Western Ukrainian federation. Thus, Poles are being prepared for a compromise, which would be the acceptance of the Bandera cult. In order to return to Lviv – Poland must therefore become at least a bit Banderish, it is explained to the Poles. The problem is that in such a scenario there are not the former eastern lands that would return to Poland, but Poland would be joined to the Nazi-Banderite Reich.
It sounds scary, but we, Poles accept it. After all, there is no harm to those willing…. However, organising ourselves, we could even turn the strategy used against us towards our national benefits. And when we come back to Wołyń, to Stanisławów, Równe, Tarnopol – we can always replace the heads of Bandera’s monuments and transform them into Marechal Piłsudski’s ones. Or even Jeremy Wiśniowiecki (the conqueror of the Chmielnicki’s Kozaks Uprising in the 17th century). As long as we do not let to nazificate us.
Filed under: EU, Europe, Fascism, Hitler, Poland, Ukraine | Tagged: Bandera national battalions, Mariupol, Nazi Influence in Poland | Comments Off on Nazification Of Poland?
President of Russia – Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federation Armed Forces Vladimir Putin attended a military parade marking the 77th anniversary of Victory in the 1941–1945 Great Patriotic War.
Overall, 11,000 personnel and 131 units of military equipment were engaged in the parade.
* * *
Address by the President of Russia at the military parade
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Fellow Russian citizens,
Dear veterans,
Comrade soldiers and seamen, sergeants and sergeant majors, midshipmen and warrant officers,
Comrade officers, generals and admirals,
I congratulate you on the Day of Great Victory!
The defence of our Motherland when its destiny was at stake has always been sacred. It was the feeling of true patriotism that Minin and Pozharsky’s militia stood up for the Fatherland, soldiers went on the offensive at the Borodino Field and fought the enemy outside Moscow and Leningrad, Kiev and Minsk, Stalingrad and Kursk, Sevastopol and Kharkov.
Today, as in the past, you are fighting for our people in Donbass, for the security of our Motherland, for Russia.
May 9, 1945 has been enshrined in world history forever as a triumph of the united Soviet people, its cohesion and spiritual power, an unparalleled feat on the front lines and on the home front.
Victory Day is intimately dear to all of us. There is no family in Russia that was not burnt by the Great Patriotic War. Its memory never fades. On this day, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the heroes march in an endless flow of the Immortal Regiment. They carry photos of their family members, the fallen soldiers who remained young forever, and the veterans who are already gone.
We take pride in the unconquered courageous generation of the victors, we are proud of being their successors, and it is our duty to preserve the memory of those who defeated Nazism and entrusted us with being vigilant and doing everything to thwart the horror of another global war.
Therefore, despite all controversies in international relations, Russia has always advocated the establishment of an equal and indivisible security system which is critically needed for the entire international community.
Last December we proposed signing a treaty on security guarantees. Russia urged the West to hold an honest dialogue in search for meaningful and compromising solutions, and to take account of each other’s interests. All in vain. NATO countries did not want to heed us, which means they had totally different plans. And we saw it.
Another punitive operation in Donbass, an invasion of our historic lands, including Crimea, was openly in the making. Kiev declared that it could attain nuclear weapons. The NATO bloc launched an active military build-up on the territories adjacent to us.
Thus, an absolutely unacceptable threat to us was steadily being created right on our borders. There was every indication that a clash with neo-Nazis and Banderites backed by the United States and their minions was unavoidable.
Let me repeat, we saw the military infrastructure being built up, hundreds of foreign advisors starting work, and regular supplies of cutting-edge weaponry being delivered from NATO countries. The threat grew every day.
Russia launched a pre-emptive strike at the aggression. It was a forced, timely and the only correct decision. A decision by a sovereign, strong and independent country.
The United States began claiming their exceptionalism, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, thus denigrating not just the entire world but also their satellites, who have to pretend not to see anything, and to obediently put up with it.
But we are a different country. Russia has a different character. We will never give up our love for our Motherland, our faith and traditional values, our ancestors’ customs and respect for all peoples and cultures.
Meanwhile, the West seems to be set to cancel these millennia-old values. Such moral degradation underlies the cynical falsifications of World War II history, escalating Russophobia, praising traitors, mocking their victims’ memory and crossing out the courage of those who won the Victory through suffering.
We are aware that US veterans who wanted to come to the parade in Moscow were actually forbidden to do so. But I want them to know: We are proud of your deeds and your contribution to our common Victory.
We honour all soldiers of the allied armies – the Americans, the English, the French, Resistance fighters, brave soldiers and partisans in China – all those who defeated Nazism and militarism.
Comrades,
Donbass militia alongside with the Russian Army are fighting on their land today, where princes Svyatoslav and Vladimir Monomakh’s retainers, solders under the command of Rumyantsev and Potemkin, Suvorov and Brusilov crushed their enemies, where Great Patriotic War heroes Nikolai Vatutin, Sidor Kovpak and Lyudmila Pavlichenko stood to the end.
I am addressing our Armed Forces and Donbass militia. You are fighting for our Motherland, its future, so that nobody forgets the lessons of World War II, so that there is no place in the world for torturers, death squads and Nazis.
Today, we bow our heads to the sacred memory of all those who lost their lives in the Great Patriotic War, the memories of the sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends.
We bow our heads to the memory of the Odessa martyrs who were burned alive in the House of Trade Unions in May 2014, to the memory of the old people, women and children of Donbass who were killed in atrocious and barbaric shelling by neo-Nazis. We bow our heads to our fighting comrades who died a brave death in the righteous battle – for Russia.
I declare a minute of silence.
(A minute of silence.)
The loss of each officer and soldier is painful for all of us and an irretrievable loss for the families and friends. The government, regional authorities, enterprises and public organisations will do everything to wrap such families in care and help them. Special support will be given to the children of the killed and wounded comrades-in-arms. The Presidential Executive Order to this effect was signed today.
I wish a speedy recovery to the wounded soldiers and officers, and I thank doctors, paramedics, nurses and staff of military hospitals for their selfless work. Our deepest gratitude goes to you for saving each life, oftentimes sparing no thought for yourselves under shelling on the frontlines.
Comrades,
Soldiers and officers from many regions of our enormous Motherland, including those who arrived straight from Donbass, from the combat area, are standing now shoulder-to-shoulder here, on Red Square.
We remember how Russia’s enemies tried to use international terrorist gangs against us, how they tried to seed inter-ethnic and religious strife so as to weaken us from within and divide us. They failed completely.
Today, our warriors of different ethnicities are fighting together, shielding each other from bullets and shrapnel like brothers.
This is where the power of Russia lies, a great invincible power of our united multi-ethnic nation.
You are defending today what your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for. The wellbeing and security of their Motherland was their top priority in life. Loyalty to our Fatherland is the main value and a reliable foundation of Russia’s independence for us, their successors, too.
Those who crushed Nazism during the Great Patriotic War showed us an example of heroism for all ages. This is the generation of victors, and we will always look up to them.
Glory to our heroic Armed Forces!
For Russia! For Victory!
Hooray!
—
Filed under: NATO Alliance, Putin, Russia | Tagged: American Exceptionalism, Bandera national battalions, Donbass, Indivisibility of security, Kiev Nazi Regime, Nazism, nuclear arsenal, Russian Army, Ukro-nazis, USSR Great Patriotic War, Western proxy Wars against Russia, WWII | Comments Off on President Putin of Russia: speech on Red Square Victory Parade
March 27, 2022
By Nat South
There are some comments made on social media, to whitewash and downplay the serious issue regarding a far-right/ ultranationalist movement in Ukraine. Such simplistic takes are seen as a sound reason for denying a Russian military intervention* in Ukraine. This article provides some responses to these, by using a combination of corporate MSM and Ukrainian information to address the points made about a handful of far-right groups and individuals and their influence.
Remarkably, people use this stance over and over on social media and in the press to justify that there is no ultranationalism problem in Ukraine. To them, support & evidence and ultra-nationalism ought to translate into votes and winning seats in the Ukrainian parliament. If only it were as simple it is seems. It goes much much deeper, and the roots are deeply established.
The focus isn’t that there are just a few ultra-nationalists that were elected to politics recently, but how since 2014 ultra-nationalists were a vector for unsettling changes in socio-political structures and provided cover for wider acceptance of an overtly fascist ethno- nationalism within Ukrainian institutions, namely in education and in the military.
Roll back a few years, there were plenty that used their status as a volunteer fighter in Donbass (known as the Anti-Terrorism Operation — ATO) to get elected back in 2014. Practically all of them lost in the 2019 parliamentary elections. This is the crucial aspect to carefully note. The background to the 2019 parliamentary elections was when Zelensky had been elected as president on a platform to bring peace to the country.
Here are some examples of the Donbass ATO unit members who become deputies:
Only of one of the above was elected and represented a radical right party, the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, all of the others stood for mainstream political parties. Notably, the leader of the Radical Party (RP) Oleh Lyashko did admit that members of his party murdered anti-Maidan leaders during the ‘revolution of dignity’ and extrajudicial murders of non-combatants in Torez in 2014.
Yet, all of the above Rada Deputies served in far right / ultranationalist volunteer units. The very same nationalist units cited on multiple occasions in human right reports for “credible allegations of torture and other egregious abuses” + incommunicado detention & violence against civilians . Additionally, there are many others who fought in Donbass and also became Rada deputies.
Moreover, many of the far-right fringe groups successfully stood for election in 2014, reflecting a change in perception. However, 5 years later, the reality of what the ultra-nationalists brought with them, (regular threats, conflict, language & cultural restrictions, corruption, crime) was no longer acceptable to the majority of ordinary voters.
“The election result was the one-party majority, a novelty in Ukraine, for President Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party with 254 seats.” Wikipedia. This is the crux of the matter, people wanted a change, people just did not want to vote for the ultranationalists parties and their policies. The likes of Svoboda, led by Oleh Tyahnybok did get 2.15% and just the one seat in the Verkhovna Rada. Even Oleh Lyashko lost his seat in 2019.
During the last 8 years, a number of prominent ultra-nationalist groups have made their mark on Ukrainian society. The notorious Azov’s political wing, the National Corps headed by none other than the ex-Azov commander, Andrei Biletskiy, as well as Right Sector, and its armed Volunteer Ukrainian Corps (DUK) and UVA, along with Svoboda linked groups, (key Maidan participants), have been consistently and fiercely opposed to any sort of a peace settlement in Donbass.
Similarly, the ex-Rada deputies, who participated in the Donbass ATO, other ultra-nationalists, have to date, largely enjoyed judicial impunity in the wake of committing crimes, given their official status and connections to military and nationalist units. Some examples of this are provided later in the article.
Electorally, the ultranationalist parties may not be popular and get parliamentary seats, due to a wish for a change in politics, namely a peace settlement in Donbass, but also due to the various fractions, frictions and bickering between ultranationalists groups. Obtaining a peace settlement was one of the main electoral promises made by Zelensky in 2019. Hence, the overwhelming election of Zelensky, across the board, with 73% of the votes, apparently due to widespread disenchantment with Petro Poroshenko’s policies.
Ever since the events in Maidan back in 2014, ultra-nationalists have latched themselves in various sectors, local politics, police, the security service (SBU) and military structures. There are numerous examples of this over this 8-year period, too many to cite here, but just a couple examples provided to underscore the extent of the power and influence of ultra-nationalists in Ukraine, as well as highlight the cooperation between official bodies and far-right groups and outline some of the ties that ultra-nationalists have.
A suspect in the 2015 murder of the journalist Oles’ Buzina, an ultranationalist, ex-ATO volunteer (Kyiv-2), Andrey Medvedko, (ex-Svoboda Party, ex C-14) was voted in 2019 to the public council of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). Medvedko was never put on trial.
Avowed neo-nazi, Azov deputy commander, Vadim Troyan, was appointed in 2014 by the Interior minister (MVD), Arsen Avakov, as police chief for Kyiv Oblast & later in 2016, promoted to 1st deputy chief of the new National Police.
It is the same MVD minister, Avakov, who helped to create the ATO volunteer battalions in 2014, but also backed Azov as well, and then integrated Azov into the National Guard structure. This is the same Interior minister who said in 2014, “to promise the Russians anything, and then hang them after the victory”.
In 2018, C-14 was used as a vigilante group, signed a partnership with a local Kyiv Council and also the police to carry out patrols. This is the same group that got sponsorship from the Ministry of Youth & Sports, “under less $17,000 for a children’s camp.” The same C-14 that carried out pogroms against Roma. The C-14 leader, Yevhen Yaras openly acknowledged working with the Ukrainian security service, (SBU).
Just when things couldn’t actually deteriorate regarding deeply unsavoury shenanigans at the highest levels, Zelensky appointed Oleksandr Poklad as the SBU’s counter-intelligence chief in 2021. Poklad known as the ‘The Strangler’ is a decidedly shady character, typical of the post-Maidan scene, with links to organised crimes and involvement in extrajudicial killings.
March 2022, some everyday examples of ultra-nationalists in power, as mayors of Ivano-Frankivsk, Konotop (article) or the city council of Ternopil with their huge banner of Bandera. In fact, they don’t hide the fact that they revere Bandera and his ideology, (more on this in the 2nd part of this article).
Over just half of all the funds allocated by the Ukrainian government for children’s and youth organisations in 2020 went to various ultra-nationalist projects. All done primarily to foster and increase an already existing popularity for Bandera.
Now replicate these examples a thousand times over, across Ukraine over eight years to get a sense of the tip of the ultra-nationalist iceberg. More examples are also provided later in the article.
Back in 2019, Zelensky tried to advocate for peace, but ended up appeasing the ultra-nationalists and of late, progressively established himself more and more with individuals and groups, from those very same radical ultra nationalist / extremists entities.
Ex-president Petro Poroshenko, likewise has used the nationalist leaders and groups during the 1st December 2021 demonstrations against Zelensky. Basically, a rent-a-mob those various political entities use to their advantage. This exchange of mindsets isn’t surprising, given that Andriy Parubiy, [1] , the co-founder of Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine, was the on the party list for Poroshenko’s “European Solidarity Party”. An example of an ultra-nationalist gaining some traction by extending into the ‘conventional’ political system.
Although the ultra-nationalists as political parties are on the margins, they still have significant socio-political influence wider in society. For instance, the parades and massive torchlight rallies in Ukraine by various ultra-nationalists, approved by local authorities and local enforcement, reminiscent of the 1930’s torchlight processions. Paradoxically, the Western press expressed anguish and anger when such a torchlight march took place in in Charlottesville, USA, the one. But in Ukraine, nothing of the sort is expressed by Western corporate MSM on the numerous marches in various Ukrainian cities.
Additionally, although Zelensky initially make some tentative steps to try and get a peace settlement back in autumn 2019, this was totally scuppered by the threats made by ultra-nationalists, who forcefully asserted their “No Capitulation” campaign. Other high-profile Ukrainian politicians “drew red lines that Zelensky should not cross during the Normandy Format meeting”.
Moreover, no concerted attempts were made by Brussels, Washington or the OSCE to effectively pressurise Zelensky to cut loose from using ultra-nationalist units in the military, (first and foremost: Azov), nor were any efforts made to assist Zelensky in removing the ultra-nationalists out of official or elected positions.
2. There are just a handful of neo-Nazis / ultra-nationalists / extremists. Or, they’re only 0,005% of the military.
By solely mentioning ‘Azov’ as being teeming with Neo-Nazis, alleging that there are only about 900 to 1500 members, thus stating that is it a relatively small proportion compared to the total Ukrainian armed forces. Thus, the Neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists is correspondingly insignificant. As if that was okay to start with.
“Ah but there are neo-Nazis in most militaries…” This type of comment misses the point completely. Only Ukraine has tolerated whole units with Neo-Nazis or supporters of Bandera and allowed units to have fascist-inspired insignia and flags. Only in Ukraine, is overt Neo-Nazi ideology permitted in the ranks. For the sake of fighting the ‘Muscovites’.
Yet, just Azov accounts for more than 1500 volunteers, up to double or triple that numbers, given the other battalions, as well as 2 regiments and other units across Ukraine. Add in the Right Sector’s units, conservatively estimated at around 10,000 volunteers. Not included are also other ultra-nationalist military units, Aidar, Donbass, nor the special police battalions, including Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kyiv-1, Kyiv-2 and a dozen other units. Then there are others such as the Carpathian Sich, OUN volunteers and foreign volunteer units. Their odious ideology and zeal is matched with their outright hatred for Russians. Some ultra-nationalists love to wear the Totenkopf, a symbol by the SS stormtroopers, who considered themselves to be the elite. These ultra-nationalists are currently the spearhead in fighting Russian forces across Ukraine.
Recently, the French President, Emmanuel Macron claimed that Russia’s special operation to demilitarise and “de-Nazify” Ukraine is “not a fight against Nazism”. A prime example of the denial or attempt to ignore some deeply serious issues that are being constantly overlooked by Western politicians and MSM. Evidently, he never got to read The Atlantic Council’s 2018 article Ukraine’s far-right problems or browsed through this photo essay.
The concept of ‘de-nazifying’ is probably totally lost on most people in the West. What should have been added was a reference to reclaiming nazi-era ideology and glorifying nationally a nazi-inspired supremacist. Even Zelensky stated categorically that “this is a normal and cool thing.” Why would he need to say such things if it wasn’t to placate and please a certain part of Ukrainian society?
“There are indisputable heroes. Stepan Bandera is a hero for a certain part of Ukrainians, and this is a normal and cool thing. He was one of those who defended the freedom of Ukraine.” Zelensky
Ethno-ultra-nationalism in Ukraine has different strands, but all converge on reclaiming the ideology espoused by Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Partisan Army (UPA) and their activities in the 1940’s. Right Sector, OUN, C-14, National Corps foster and practice a cult principally centred on Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, (See the photo below — Bandera Readings 2022, for an example). The government is no exception either, along with the Rada as well in promoting, nurturing these WWII fascist leaders, in order to establish them as part of Ukrainian culture. Bandera has been officially recognised as a national hero since 2010. Maidan was the catalyst in accelerating this process, more violently, more brutally on one hand and more insidiously by officials in education, culture and the military. Violent far right units that got patronage from Washington and Brussels.
As the C-14 leader, Yevhen Yaras stated back in February, it is not a question of numbers per se, but actual influence and capability to mobilise people and resources. This was the vividly the case in Maidan, (as reported in a BBC documentary), and as he clearly said in his talk, and it is still certainly the case nowadays.
A clear example of this influence happened in December 2021, when Zelensky appointed the Right Sector founder, Dmitro Yarosh, as advisor to the chief of the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces. More recently, in March 2022, Zelensky appointed the ex-Aidar commander, Maksym Marchenko, as the new head of the Odessa Administration.
Ultra-nationalists have been unable to regain a political foothold via the political parties, yet this doesn’t stop them from asserting their presence in society in general:
Their deeply unsavoury activities did raise alarm by human right and civic groups back in 2018. The concerns were about how the far right “created an atmosphere of near total impunity that cannot but embolden these groups to commit more attacks“. This deplorable situation has never been dealt with by authorities. Fast-forward five years, the reluctance was still there to even start tackling part of the problem. Rather than being seen as a liability, their presence is seen in some quarters as a necessary obligation.
Thus, the ultra-nationalists gained a firmer foothold, by the fact that they were the ones who went to the ATO, the ones willing to continue fighting in Donbass. Add in a perpetual fear that these groups could turn against the government or officials, as recently evidenced by the 1st of December 2021 protests, no official is willing to confront them. This shows the extent of the influence and power that they can wield. For instance, Dmytro Yarosh, the founder of Right Sector publicly threatened Zelensky in an interview that he would hang from a tree.
Since 2018, a continuous effort has been made to legitimise Ukraine’s extremists, (i.e. 2018 — National Militia cooperation with the police, during the 2019 election). Even though, groups linked to Azov, and both military wings of Right Sector are in fact illegal military groups, not officially part of the military or National Guard structure, it is telling how they are seen and valued at the highest levels of government.
1st December 2021 saw Zelenskiy in the Verkhovna Rada, giving the country’s highest state award, “Hero of Ukraine”, to the Right Sector unit commander, Dmitro Kotsyubailo. The unit is part of the Right Sector’s Volunteer Ukrainian Corps (DUK), a stand-alone irregular military unit, part of Right Sector.
A reminder to the readers that Right Sector units are predominantly manned by ultra-nationalists and neo-nazis. An example is Dmitro Kotsyubailo himself as one of thousands of examples, (centre photo with statue of Bandera and Right Sector flags):
Dmitro Kotsyubailo’s unit has been given anti-tank missile systems. Likewise, an Azov unit in Kharkiv got given the same systems, as this tweet shows:
As I said earlier, here are the ultra-nationalist units that get fast tracked training & access to NATO weaponry, as part of a total of $2.5 billion given by the U.S. alone to Ukraine. This isn’t indicative of a tolerance by Kyiv, but tacit acceptance of these units as well as the ideological stance that they have. Not only Kyiv, but Washington, London, Paris, and Brussels. A modern-day revamping of Op Gladio style units to fight the Russian military now and Donbass units since 2014.
A broader perspective can be glimpse through these selected headlines:
Western politicians, corporate media, think tanks experts are blatantly ignoring these deeply unpleasant aspects in Ukraine. However, given the widely circulated MSM articles that flagged up the far-right in Ukraine, most media outlets and journalists are willingly glossing over these aspects as well as the accompanying violence and brutality against civilians for daring to oppose this Ukrainian ideology. All in the pursuit of fighting the Russian military.
It is fair to say that overtly fascist elements provide a stream of volunteers for Azov, Right Sector, C-14, OUN, National Corps, and others, whose members have been integrated into the military, National Guard, police, security services & also in mainstream political parties. Paradoxically, the Russian intervention has provided a catalyst for the growth in Ukrainian ultra-nationalist military units.
Conclusion
Blindsided by citing simplistic comments, those who do not wish to look any further, as such, for them, there are just a handful of weak ultranationalists. Case closed, conveniently so for them. Yet, the disturbing reality shows the opposite and this article only attempted to provide a brief insight. The Ukrainian ultra-nationalists certainly pack a punch above their weight.
Both the U.S and Europe only understand to some extent the considerable danger represented by violent extremism when is present in their countries. Yet, they shut their eyes to very same danger, amplified by a conflict, fostered with the connivance of authorities.
Footnotes
* to use a standard U.S. and NATO MSM/military terminology.
[1] which became the political party ‘Svoboda’. He was also the leading hand of Euromaidan “Self-Defense” fighters and activists.
Filed under: EU, Europe, NATO Alliance, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Bandera national battalions, Donbass, Maidan coup, Nazi Ukrainian "Azov battalion", OSCE, Ukie SBU, Ukrainian Nazi Nationalists, War on Donbass, Zelensky | Comments Off on Just a handful, not relevant, yet…
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
The supreme target is regime change in Russia, Ukraine is just a pawn in the game – or worse, mere cannon fodder.
All eyes are on Mariupol. As of Wednesday night, over 70% of residential areas were under control of Donetsk and Russian forces, while Russian Marines, Donetsk’s 107th batallion and Chechen Spetsnaz, led by the charismatic Adam Delimkhanov, had entered the Azov-Stal plant – the HQ of the neo-Nazi Azov batallion.
Azov was sent a last ultimatum: surrender until midnight – or else, as in a take no prisoners highway to hell.
That implies a major game-changer in the Ukrainian battlefield; Mariupol is finally about to be thoroughly denazified – as the Azov contingent long entrenched in the city and using civilians as human shields were their most hardened fighting force.
Meanwhile, echoes from the Empire of Lies all but gave the whole game away. There’s no intention whatsoever in Washington to facilitate a peace plan in Ukraine – and that explains Comedian Zelensky’s non-stop stalling tactics. The supreme target is regime change in Russia, and for that Totalen Krieg against Russia and all things Russian is warranted. Ukraine is just a pawn in the game – or worse, mere cannon fodder.
This also means that the 14,000 deaths in Donbass for the past 8 years should be directly attributed to the Exceptionalists. As for Ukrainian neo-Nazis of all stripes, they are as expendable as “moderate rebels” in Syria, be they al-Qaeda or Daesh-linked. Those that may eventually survive can always join the budding CIA-sponsored Neo-Nazi Inc. – the tawdry remix of the 1980s Jihad Inc. in Afghanistan. They will be properly “Kalibrated”.
A quick neo-Nazi recap
By now only the brain dead across NATOstan – and there are hordes – are not aware of Maidan in 2014. Yet few know that it was then Ukrainian Minister of Interior Arsen Avakov, a former governor of Kharkov, who gave the green light for a 12,000 paramilitary outfit to materialize out of Sect 82 soccer hooligans who supported Dynamo Kiev. That was the birth of the Azov batallion, in May 2014, led by Andriy Biletsky, a.k.a. the White Fuhrer, and former leader of the neo-nazi gang Patriots of Ukraine.
Together with NATO stay-behind agent Dmitro Yarosh, Biletsky founded Pravy Sektor, financed by Ukrainian mafia godfather and Jewish billionaire Ihor Kolomoysky (later the benefactor of the meta-conversion of Zelensky from mediocre comedian to mediocre President.)
Pravy Sektor happened to be rabidly anti-EU – tell that to Ursula von der Lugen – and politically obsessed with linking Central Europe and the Baltics in a new, tawdry Intermarium. Crucially, Pravy Sektor and other nazi gangs were duly trained by NATO instructors.
Biletsky and Yarosh are of course disciples of notorious WWII-era Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, for whom pure Ukrainians are proto-Germanic or Scandinavian, and Slavs are untermenschen.
Azov ended up absorbing nearly all neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine and were dispatched to fight against Donbass – with their acolytes making more money than regular soldiers. Biletsky and another neo-Nazi leader, Oleh Petrenko, were elected to the Rada. The White Führer stood on his own. Petrenko decided to support then President Poroshenko. Soon the Azov battalion was incorporated as the Azov Regiment to the Ukrainian National Guard.
They went on a foreign mercenary recruiting drive – with people coming from Western Europe, Scandinavia and even South America.
That was strictly forbidden by the Minsk Agreements guaranteed by France and Germany (and now de facto defunct). Azov set up training camps for teenagers and soon reached 10,000 members. Erik “Blackwater” Prince, in 2020, struck a deal with the Ukrainian military that would enable his renamed outfit, Academi, to supervise Azov.
It was none other than sinister Maidan cookie distributor Vicky “F**k the EU” Nuland who suggested to Zelensky – both of them, by the way, Ukrainian Jews – to appoint avowed Nazi Yarosh as an adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The target: organize a blitzkrieg on Donbass and Crimea – the same blitzkrieg that SVR, Russian foreign intel, concluded would be launched on February 22, thus propelling the launch of Operation Z.
All of the above, in fact just a quick recap, shows that in Ukraine there’s no difference whatsoever between white neo-Nazis and brown-colored al-Qaeda/ISIS/Daesh, as much as neo-Nazis are just as “Christian” as takfiri Salafi-jihadis are “Muslim”.
When Putin denounced a “bunch of neo-Nazis” in power in Kiev, the Comedian replied that it was impossible because he was Jewish. Nonsense. Zelensky and his patron Kolomoysky, for all practical purposes, are Zio-Nazis.
Even as branches of the United States government admitted to neo-Nazis entrenched in the Kiev apparatus, the Exceptionalist machine made the daily shelling of Donbass for 8 years simply disappear. These thousands of civilian victims never existed.
U.S. mainstream media even ventured the odd piece or report on Azov and Aidar neo-Nazis. But then a neo-Orwellian narrative was set in stone: there are no Nazis in Ukraine. CIA offshoot NED even started deleting records about training members of Aidar. Recently a crappy news network duly promoted a video of a NATO-trained and weaponized Azov commander – complete with Nazi iconography.
Why “denazification” makes sense
The Banderastan ideology harks back to when this part of Ukraine was in fact controlled by the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Russian empire and Poland. Stepan Bandera was born in Austro-Hungary in 1909, near Ivano-Frankovsk, in the – then autonomous – Kingdom of Galicia.
WWI dismembered European empires into frequently non-viable small entities. In western Ukraine – an imperial intersection – that inevitably led to the proliferation of extremely intolerant ideologies.
Banderastan ideologues profited from the Nazi arrival in 1941 to try to proclaim an independent territory. But Berlin not only blocked it but sent them to concentration camps. In 1944 though the Nazis changed tactics: they liberated the Banderanistas and manipulated them into anti-Russian hate, thus creating a destabilization force in the Ukrainian USSR.
So Nazism is not exactly the same as Banderastan fanatics: they are in fact competing ideologies. What happened since Maidan is that the CIA kept a laser focus on inciting Russian hatred by whatever fringe groups it could instrumentalize. So Ukraine is not a case of “white nationalism” – to put it mildly – but of anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism, for all practical purposes manifested via Nazi-style salutes and Nazi-style symbols.
So when Putin and the Russian leadership refer to Ukrainian Nazism, that may not be 100% correct, conceptually, but it strikes a chord with every Russian.
Russians viscerally reject Nazism – considering that virtually every Russian family has at least one ancestor killed during the Great Patriotic War. From the perspective of wartime psychology, it makes total sense to talk of “Ukro-nazism” or, straight to the point, a “denazification” campaign.
How the Anglos loved the Nazis
The United States government openly cheerleading neo-Nazis in Ukraine is hardly a novelty, considering how it supported Hitler alongside England in 1933 for balance of power reasons.
In 1933, Roosevelt lent Hitler one billion gold dollars while England lent him two billion gold dollars. That should be multiplied 200 times to arrive at today’s fiat dollars. The Anglo-Americans wanted to build up Germany as a bulwark against Russia. In 1941 Roosevelt wrote to Hitler that if he invaded Russia the U.S. would side with Russia, and wrote Stalin that if Stalin invaded Germany the U.S. would back Germany. Talk about a graphic illustration of Mackinderesque balance of power.
The Brits had become very concerned with the rise of Russian power under Stalin while observing that Germany was on its knees with 50% unemployment in 1933, if one counted unregistered itinerant Germans.
Even Lloyd George had misgivings about the Versailles Treaty, unbearably weakening Germany after its surrender in WWI. The purpose of WWI, in Lloyd George’s worldview, was to destroy Russia and Germany together. Germany was threatening England with the Kaiser building a fleet to take over the oceans, while the Tsar was too close to India for comfort. For a while Britannia won – and continued to rule the waves.
Then building up Germany to fight Russia became the number one priority – complete with rewriting of History. The uniting of Austrian Germans and Sudetenland Germans with Germany, for instance, was totally approved by the Brits.
But then came the Polish problem. When Germany invaded Poland, France and Britain stood on the sidelines. That placed Germany on the border of Russia, and Germany and Russia divided up Poland. That’s exactly what Britain and France wanted. Britain and France had promised Poland that they would invade Germany from the west while Poland fought Germany from the east.
In the end, the Poles were double-crossed. Churchill even praised Russia for invading Poland. Hitler was advised by MI6 that England and France would not invade Poland – as part of their plan for a German-Russian war. Hitler had been supported financially since the 1920s by MI6 for his favorable words about England in Mein Kampf. MI6 de facto encouraged Hitler to invade Russia.
Fast forward to 2022, and here we go again – as farce, with the Anglo-Americans “encouraging” Germany under feeble Scholz to put itself back together militarily, with 100 billion euros (that the Germans don’t have), and setting up in thesis a revamped European force to later go to war against Russia.
Cue to the Russophobic hysteria in Anglo-American media about the Russia-China strategic partnership. The mortal Anglo-American fear is Mackinder/Mahan/Spykman/Kissinger/Brzezinski all rolled into one: Russia-China as peer competitor twins take over the Eurasian land mass – the Belt and Road Initiative meets the Greater Eurasia Partnership – and thus rule the planet, with the U.S. relegated to inconsequential island status, as much as the previous “Rule Britannia”.
England, France and later the Americans had prevented it when Germany aspired to do the same, controlling Eurasia side by side with Japan, from the English Channel to the Pacific. Now it’s a completely different ball game.
So Ukraine, with its pathetic neo-Nazi gangs, is just an – expendable – pawn in the desperate drive to stop something that is beyond anathema, from Washington’s perspective: a totally peaceful German-Russian-Chinese New Silk Road.
Russophobia, massively imprinted in the West’s DNA, never really went away. Cultivated by the Brits since Catherine the Great – and then with The Great Game. By the French since Napoleon. By the Germans because the Red Army liberated Berlin. By the Americans because Stalin forced to them the mapping of Europe – and then it went on and on and on throughout the Cold War.
We are at just the early stages of the final push by the dying Empire to attempt arresting the flow of History. They are being outsmarted, they are already outgunned by the top military power in the world, and they will be checkmated. Existentially, they are not equipped to kill the Bear – and that hurts. Cosmically.
Pepe on Telegram: https://t.me/+Uxbn8mAJx2971eDI
Filed under: Al Qaeda, Hitler, NATO Alliance, Russia, Russophobia, UK, Ukraine | Tagged: “Empire of Lies”, Bandera national battalions, Denazification of Ukraine, Donetsk, Human shields, M16, Maidan coup, Mariupol, Moderate Terrorist, Nazi Germany, Nazi Ukrainian "Azov battalion", Operation Z., Pepe Escobar, Russian and Chinese Alliance, Russian Army, Victoria Nuland, War on Donbass, Zelensky | 1 Comment »
Note: another very interesting translation from our new team of Russian translators (thank you!)
Question: do you believe that Poland will send forces into the Ukraine?
No, I don’t think the US is giving conflicting instructions to Kiev. The fact is that when we are negotiating with Ukraine, we are, in fact, indirectly negotiating with the United States. Because, it is clear that we are fighting not with Zelensky, but with the United States, now, on the territory of Ukraine. The United States is at war with us to the last Ukrainian, but the United States is at war nonetheless. Therefore, when we offer surrender to Zelensky, we offer it to Zelensky, and in response, through the mouth of Zelensky, the United States offers us to surrender. They say: “Well, you withdraw troops from Ukraine, clear the Crimea and Donbass, return them to Ukraine, and then we’ll talk.” So, it is clear that Zelensky himself cannot put forward such demands, they are simply absurd.
Therefore, in this case, since two global forces are fighting each other, the demands are practically global. These are political demands to each other for unconditional surrender. It is clear that such requirements can only be met if one of the parties has won on the battlefield. Completely won. Not in Melitopol, Mariupol, there, or even in Kharkov, but completely won on the battlefield. That’s when something can grow out of this, out of these requirements. Therefore, now it does not matter whether you conduct these negotiations or you can not conduct them – this is already a field of Russian diplomacy.
The fact is that a long time ago, a decade, or even two decades ago, the United States entered into a systemic crisis. That is, the system built – political, military, economic, financial – has ceased to correspond to the realities of the modern world. At first, it was not entirely noticeable … many people generally denied that the United States could ever enter into a crisis, and so on .. But gradually these crisis phenomena grew, and Obama was already going to the polls with a statement that the United States was in crisis and reforms must be carried out. Then Trump went to the polls with the same thing. Then Biden came and practically announced that he would implement Trump’s program because the United States needed to carry out reforms in a crisis.
The fact is that the United States is not in a position to reform the economy now. In order to reform the economy it is necessary, as they advised us and everyone else in the early nineties, to go through shock therapy. That is, without shock, it is impossible to rebuild. This means that a huge number of Americans will sharply lose their standard of living for some period of time, and if, for example, in the 2000s, it was about the fact that changes can be made there, say, in 2, 3, 5 years, then now we are not talking about this, now we are talking about the fact that this will continue for decades, that you can go into a New Great Depression and it is not known when you will be able to get out of it. Naturally, the United States is afraid of this and does not want to, because a sharp drop in living standards leads to social instability and actually calls into question the existence of the American state, at least in the form in which we know it. That is, it can be preserved in some other form, but with other people at the head, with other families as a leading and guiding force, there with other parties, and so on. Naturally, the ruling circles of the United States do not want this at all. In order to maintain the status quo, the United States must maintain hegemony in any way, which means that even if this world is half destroyed, the United States must be the hegemon. I mean, it will be bad in the United States, but everyone else in the world should be even worse.
Therefore, the United States choses the way of confrontations. They cannot make an agreement, because they cannot yield.So if you have to yield, you are no longer the hegemon. If you are not a hegemon, you cannot divert other people’s resources to maintain the welfare of your citizens. If you can’t do this, then you start to crumble. So they follow the path of confrontation on the following principle: “Hey, guys, of course we understand that we are already not a hegemon. However, if you dare not to recognize us as such, we will start a war and it will be worse for you. So let’s think about it.”
Therefore, by the way, in recent years, several times Putin has told the Americans that we are ready to fight. We are even ready for a nuclear war, if anything. So that they do not build illusions about the fact that blackmail can be turned on. Yes, what conditions did Hillary Clinton offer when she went to the polls? Turn on the nuclear blackmail of Russia so that she concedes. So that they don’t have illusions that they don’t go too far along this path, because when you go the path of confrontation, each next step cuts off your path back. Sooner or later you come to a situation where war becomes inevitable, even a nuclear one. That is not something desirable, but necessary, because you have no other options left.
Well, you see, they are trying to lead the remnants of the West, the so-called free world there. Because it’s not always the West, there is Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, it’s still East. They are trying to keep their allies, their vassals under their control, to lead all this, to create such a closed system that will be in hostile relations with the rest of the world, while retaining the opportunity to spoil everyone. And again, try to keep the most of it, as they consider, – a high-tech world. And, relying on these capabilities, to re-conquer the planet. But I think that they are very much mistaken in this regard, because the manufacturing has long been located outside of both the United States and Europe. Now you can produce anything you want without their consent to the right to a patent. If we are talking about a global confrontation. In most areas of life and activity, we have sufficient technology and sufficient technological literacy. We just couldn’t launch many things on the market because the market was too narrow for us, – the western companies were already working on it. Take for example smartphones: the Russian market simply wasn’t big enough to outperform Apple. They’re just like a global company, like other companies, they were just in the perfect position from the start. And no company can enter other markets without winning its own, in principle.
That’s why now the United States are seriously mistaken when they think that they will just leave technology under them, which means that they will make everyone else bow down. It was before, being a hegemon, that they could arrange price scissors according to which these high-tech goods sold for more than raw materials, food, and so on. Now, we see a frenzied rise in prices for raw materials and foodstuffs that completely devalue the European industrial and technological power or the American one. Because if China can buy raw materials in Russia two or three times cheaper than Europe, or even four or five times cheaper, then it immediately becomes more competitive accordingly. While the enterprises of the same European brands in China will continue to operate exactly as they will keep working with us. The factories that we have built will not go anywhere, they will work even if European companies leave us. The factories will still work with our companies, will change brands, and still produce. Overall, by and large, it’s the same.
That is, if we succeed, we will sell a little less, but it will cost much more. If we fail, we will sell more and it will cost a little less, but still big money.
Therefore, until now, while the West is in confrontation with us, the price tags for energy carriers will not fall. In both cases, the situation is beneficial for us.
If Biden lobbies for the rejection of Russian energy, then the European economy will die, and the world will become one less competitor not only for the United States, but for us too. Because, in this case, we will be able to deliver our goods to the vacant place in Europe sooner or later.
So let him go. The most dangerous thing there is not that he is going to talk about a ban on the import of Russian oil to Europe. He is going to Poland to talk about the possibility of introducing peacekeeping forces from the west to the territory of Ukraine.
Moreover, the United States formed its position quite cunningly. They said no, it would not be NATO forces, but it could be the forces of some NATO countries. That is, it seems that the United States has nothing to do with this, it’s just that individual countries decided themselves, but these are NATO countries, and if it comes into confrontation with Russia, it’s clear that the question will immediately arise, what will be the reaction of NATO? How will NATO support its allies? Will it support it? And if not, then does NATO need such a thing? And if so, in what way? Money, goods, weapons? Or some armed forces will be sent to help them… And then who else will enter into a confrontation with Russia and how far this confrontation can lead.
Let me remind you that Macron called for preparations for a pan-European war. And he did not rely on French desires but on concrete actions of the United States. When he assessed the very situation. And his assessment, in general, is close to the truth. That is, it is clear that the All-European War may not happen, because at least we do not want this, and we are fighting hard against it, and the Europeans themselves are not particularly fond of it. But, nevertheless, there are forces in Europe, like the Poles, who are making these proposals, and outside of Europe, it is the United States, which would like to start a major war in Europe with the participation of Russia. And they are fighting for their interests, and who will win there, time will tell.
I do not think that Poles really want a part of the territory of Ukraine, because it is to get somewhere between 10-15 million Bandera for 35 million Poles. This is a lot. This is not the 2 million that Poland digested after the Great Patriotic War.
This can destabilize Poland very much, because such a minority makes up a third of the entire population, which is absolutely hostile to this population. Bandera massacred the Poles, and the Poles hate Bandera. And when these two cultures collide on the same territory in a non-abstract way, such as, everyone lives in their own country and both hate Russia; – and when they collide on the same territory it turns out that they also hate each other, – for Poland it will not be like a gift.
It is important for the Poles to maintain a Ukrainian buffer between themselves and Russia. Therefore, theoretically, by entering western Ukraine, they can try to preserve Ukrainian statehood at least in three, four, at least five regions, and this Ukrainian statehood will be due to the demarcation line, not making peace with Russia, but concluding a truce on the principle of the Minsk agreements. They will, because of the line of demarcation, all the time claim the entire territory of Ukraine, the Crimea, the Donbass and even the Kuban and Voronezh.
And Russia will always have this problem, a splinter sticking out in the boot, which will not allow much concentration against Poland.
Therefore, the Poles are making serious enough efforts to preserve Ukrainian statehood, in one form or another. Another thing is that they are also afraid, because you don’t understand that if they go out alone on their own initiative without any support, they will simply be kicked in the neck and thrown back, and this will end the liberation campaign.
But they understand that they cannot rely on the verbal, political support of the United States. That the United States will put pressure on their European allies to provide more help, and so on. And if all this works out, if the Poles know that they are not alone, but at least two or three of them, and that, for example, Germany, France, everyone else was forced to somehow help, for example, to send military equipment, transfer aviation , then they may well afford to venture into western Ukraine.
Ukraine somehow feels insecure in such a position, but the fact is that Russian forces are also unable to stretch indefinitely. You see, we are even dealing with Ukraine step by step. That is, not everything at once, although the configuration of the Ukrainian borders made it possible, given sufficient military resources, to complete the problem, to close the issue in three weeks, and after that to deal only with cleansing.
But our military resources are not unlimited. In order to create an appropriate army, it is necessary to mobilize. which no one wants to do, because we still have a special operation not a war. If Polish resources are connected to these Ukrainian resources, which are now opposing Russia, then the problem of promotion will be even stronger. If other NATO countries are looming behind Poland, then the question arises whether we can grind all these armies that are potentially opposing us with the help of available forces, or we need to either mobilize or resort to nuclear weapons. Especially since any NATO country entering into a conflict is a country of a bloc that has nuclear weapons. In accordance with the Russian military doctrine, we can strike such a bloc with a nuclear strike even first.
As you understand, the issue is very difficult to resolve, and both of these decisions will be extremely disadvantageous, including for Russia. It doesn’t matter who wins later, but this also means big losses, and not only human, but economic, and so on and so forth.
Therefore, naturally, we are trying to avoid this option, and are trying to close the issue with Ukraine without the participation of our Western friends and partners. We try not to let them interfere in this matter. In this regard, of course, we use the position of the United States, because they do not want to give guarantees to anyone, and we demonstrate that we will fight. Consequently, if the United States does not give you guarantees of military support, you understand that yes, they will fight with you longer, not 3 months, but 6 months, not 6 months, but a year. But all the same, they will grind you down, and then the question arises, why do we Poles need such pleasure? Well, we’ll fight for a year, we’ll distribute orders, and then what? Then collect Poland brick by brick?
Therefore, now the pro-American European lobby is in a state of unstable equilibrium; it wants to intervene in this conflict, but is afraid. The Americans do not yet give sufficient guarantees.
Biden is now going to Poland to talk about exactly this, and we’ll see what he tells them.
Well, I think not now, not now, but in general, given what trends have prevailed in the Baltics. Sooner or later the denazification operation will have to be carried out, because, as the history of Ukraine shows, living next to the Nazi state, even if it is small, means everything equally uncomfortable.
Just because we are two different systems, we are on different sides of good and evil, and we will always be in confrontation with each other, and confrontation with the state that is on our borders will always be used by our enemies, regardless of who is this enemy at the moment.
Therefore, naturally, if the Balts do not take it reasonably, then sooner or later they, just like Ukraine, will ask for the denazification operation. Ukraine asked for a long time, in fact, persuaded for 30 years.
Therefore, Ukraine began to prepare for a war with Russia from the first day of its Independence. It was, by the way, her idea-fix. Well, it was getting ready, getting ready, now 30 years have passed – she got ready. Finally, she asked for the war. By and large, the Balts behave in the same way. They now think that they are covered by NATO and the EU, but as the practice of recent years has shown, this is a very unreliable umbrella.
It is unlikely that anyone will be especially tense and risk a major war for the Baltic states. Moreover, there is always a casus bellum. It’s just that now, of course, Russia is too busy to go to the Baltic states. If only they won’t interfere with Russia on their own along with the Poles. They once tried to attack Belarus. They can repeat. If they themselves do not get involved in this matter, then the problem, the Baltics, is a problem of the distant future. During this time, they can change their minds, correct themselves, establish normal contacts, and choose other politicians.
But if the Baltic statehood develops in the same direction in which it has been developing for the last thirty years, then sooner or later the denazification operation is inevitable.
Filed under: American Hegemony, China, Europe, France, Germany, NATO Alliance, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Baltic republics, Bandera national battalions, Biden's Foreign Policy, Crimea, Donbass, Neo-Nazi, Nuclear War, Shock and Awe, Zelensky | Comments Off on Rostislav Ishchenko on “will Poland invade the western Ukraine?”
By Dan Cohen
WASHINGTON DC — Since the Russian offensive inside Ukraine commenced on February 24, the Ukrainian military has cultivated the image of a plucky little army standing up to the Russian Goliath. To bolster the perception of Ukrainian military mettle, Kiev has churned out a steady stream of sophisticated propaganda aimed at stirring public and official support from Western countries.
The campaign includes language guides, key messages, and hundreds of propaganda posters, some of which contain fascist imagery and even praise Neo-Nazi leaders.
Behind Ukraine’s public relations effort is an army of foreign political strategists, Washington DC lobbyists, and a network of intelligence-linked media outlets.
Ukraine’s propaganda strategy earned it praise from a NATO commander who told the Washington Post, “They are really excellent in stratcom — media, info ops, and also psy-ops.” The Post ultimately conceded that “Western officials say that while they cannot independently verify much of the information that Kyiv puts out about the evolving battlefield situation, including casualty figures for both sides, it nonetheless represents highly effective stratcom.”
Key to the propaganda effort is an international legion of public relations firms working directly with Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to wage information warfare.
According to the industry news site PRWeek, the initiative was launched by an anonymous figure who allegedly founded a Ukraine-based public relations firm.
“From the first hour of war, we decided to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help them distribute the official sources to show the truth,” the nameless figure told PR Week. “This is a hybrid war: the mix of bloodily struggling fight with a huge disinformation and fake campaign lead by Russia [sic].”
According to the anonymous figure, more than 150 public relations firms have joined the propaganda blitz.
The international effort is spearheaded by public relations firm PR Network co-founder Nicky Regazzoni and Francis Ingham, a top public relations consultant with close ties to the UK’s government. Ingraham previously worked for Britain’s Conservative Party, sits on the UK Government Communication Service Strategy and Evaluation Council, is Chief Executive of the International Communications Consultancy Organisation, and leads the membership body for UK local government communicators, LG Comms.
“We’ve been privileged to help coordinate efforts to support the Ukrainian Government in the last few days, “ Ingham told PRovoke Media. “Agencies have offered up entire teams to support Kyiv in the communications war. Our support for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is unwavering and will continue for as long as needed.”
With an anonymous Ukrainian figure joining two of the top public relations figures in the Kiev government’s propaganda blitz, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs distributed a dossier folder (archived) with materials instructing public relations agencies on “key messages,” approved language, content for debunked propaganda constructs, far-right and Neo-Nazi propaganda.
The folder is run by Yaroslav Turbil, described on his LinkedIn page as “Head of Ukraine.ua — Ukraine’s digital ecosystem for global communications. Strategic Communications & Country Brand Promotion.” Turbil has worked at multiple “civil society” organizations closely linked to the U.S. government and interned at Internews, a U.S. intelligence-linked organization that operates under the guise of promoting press freedom.
Among the propaganda constructs distributed in the dossier, is a video of the Snake Island incident, which was quickly proven false, in which Ukrainian border guards stationed on a small island were reported to have been killed after they told an approaching Russian warship that had urged them to surrender to “Go f*** yourself.” President Zelensky held a press conference announcing he would award the men the Hero of Ukraine medal as mainstream media spread the story widely. However, the supposedly-dead soldiers quickly turned up alive and well, proving their heroic stand to be a farce.
Despite the story being proven as fake, the dossier contains a propaganda video promoting it.
Another folder in the dossier is run by Ukrainian MFA graphic artist Dasha Podoltseva and contains hundreds of propaganda graphics submitted by artists in Europe and the United States.
Some feature generic “no war” messages, while dozens of other images celebrate “The Ghost of Kiev” – a heroic Ukrainian pilot who turns out to be non-existent – and the phony “Snake Island 13” incident.
Many use xenophobic and racist language, and some are explicit in their praise of prominent Ukrainian Neo-Nazis, including C14 leader Yevhen Karas, the Right Sector fascist paramilitary, and the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. Multiple images call for “Banderite smoothies” – a reference to Molotov cocktails named for the late OUN-B commander Stephan Bandera, who collaborated with Nazi Germany in the mass murder of Jews and ethnic Poles during World War II. Another image depicts a book titled the: ”Encyclopedia of Incurable Diseases,” listing Russia, Belorussia, North Korea, Syria, and Eritrea.
“I love NLAW” – Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapon, provided by western governments to the Ukrainian military
Graphic implying fertilizing the fields with bodies reads, “Grandma advice to Moskovites: Hide in the fields, When you die in hands of our army, Sunflowers will grow better”’
The dossier also contains a link to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs page called “Fight for Ukraine,” which provides instructions for foreigners who wish to join Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi-infested armed forces – termed the “International Defense Legion of Ukraine.”
Following Zelensky’s call for foreign fighters to form a brigade, fighters from all over the world, including the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and more have traveled to face Russian forces. Others with no combat training or experience have arrived for “war tourism” – what one British soldier called “bullet-catchers.”
Official Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recruitment graphics from the dossier
Official Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recruitment graphics from the dossier
While the Ukrainian government says tens of thousands have answered their call, some commentators expressed doubt at those figures, calling it a “PR exercise.”
However, the foreigners who have traveled to Ukraine have encountered a much more severe reality than they anticipated.
Russia’s air force bombed military installations adjacent to where the foreign fighters were sleeping. Having fled to neighboring Poland, a Spanish fighter described the bombing as a “message” that could have killed thousands.
Similarly, an American fighter who hid in an ambulance to escape the frontlines warned that Ukrainian authorities were killing foreigners who decided not to fight, calling it a “trap.”
One document inside the dossier delineates acceptable language on the conflict with Russia as determined by the Ukrainian government.
“Such Russian clichés like ‘referendum in Crimea’ or ‘will of the people of Crimea’ are absolutely unacceptable,” the document states, in reference to the 2014 overwhelmingly successful referendum to separate from Ukraine.
The document deems unacceptable the terms “Civil war in Donbass,” “Internal conflict,” “Conflict in Ukraine” and “Ukrainian crisis” to describe the Ukrainian military’s war with the breakaway republics of the Donbass region. This, despite the fact that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that 14,200 people, including 3,404 civilians, have been killed in internal fighting in Ukraine since 2014.
In place of these phrases, the document calls for the use of the terms “Armed aggression by the Russian Federation in Donbass, international armed conflict, Russian war against Ukraine, Russian-Ukrainian conflict armed conflict.”
Another document titled “Key Messages” contains specific propaganda claims that were widely disseminated in mainstream western media, but which have since been discredited. One section claims the “entire Europe was put on the brink of nuclear disaster, when the Russian troops began shelling the largest in Europe Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant.”
However, International Atomic Energy Agency’s director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said that the building hit by a Russian “projectile” at the Zaporizhzhia plant was “not part of the reactor” but instead a training center. Russian troops also left Ukrainian workers to continue operating the plant.
Another section thanks Turkey for the decision “to block the access of Russian warships to the Black Sea.”
However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to all military vessels, preventing both NATO and Russian vessels from accessing the Black Sea.
Among the document’s key messages is a statement of gratitude to the “Anti-war demonstrations held by citizens of many nations throughout the world demonstrate strong support to Ukraine in defending against Russia.”
This refers to large pro-Ukraine demonstrations in Europe which have featured calls for the U.S. and NATO to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine and shoot down Russian military aircraft, potentially transforming the conflict into a world war between nuclear-armed powers.
“Despite Russia’s propaganda, there is no discrimination based on the race or nationality, including when it comes to the crossing of the state border by foreign citizens,” claims the Ukrainian document.
However, numerous videos and reports have documented Ukrainian authorities preventing Africans from fleeing the fighting. Even the New York Times – hardly a bastion of Kremlin propaganda – published a report documenting these racist practices.
One message says that “On 16 March, the Russian forces dropped a bomb on a drama theatre where up to 1300 civilians were being sheltered. The number of casualties is still unknown.”
However, as Max Blumenthal reported the explosion appears to be the result of a false flag operation designed by the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and aimed at triggering a NATO intervention.
Another anonymously-penned investigation shows how Ukrainian public relations firms have used targeted advertisements to astroturf Russian internet and social media networks with messaging calling to economically isolate Moscow and “stop the war.” This effort is led by Bezlepkin Evgeny Vitalievich, who uses the alias Evgeny Korolev, along with Pavel Antonov of the Targetorium organization. From behind his Korolev pseudonym, the Ukrainian information warrior composed a post on his Facebook page (now private) boasting that his firm’s Facebook ads achieved 30 million hits in three days.
At the same time, Facebook has blocked Russian state-owned media outlets from running ads and monetizing content. Several fake accounts for media outlets like Russia 24 have sprung up, burying the authentic account under a series of impostors. Facebook has also marked statements from Russian officials, including the Ministry of Defense, as “false.”
This campaign has reportedly been carried out upon recommendation from StopFake, a self-described “fact checking” outlet that is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, Atlantic Council, Czech and UK foreign ministries, and the International Renaissance Foundation, which is funded by billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.
StopFake was hired by Facebook in March 2020 to “curb the flow of Russian propaganda” but was found to be employing multiple figures closely tied to violent Neo-Nazis. The journalist who co-authored the exposé received death threats and ultimately fled Ukraine.
Those revelations have apparently not prevented Facebook from relying on the organization for censorship guidance.
Meanwhile, Russian hackers located a public Google document (since made private, uploaded here) detailing the propaganda operation, which has been distributed in Telegram channels of “creative farms.”
“Here you can find links to Ukrainian media that need promotion, bot accounts with logins and passwords from which anti-war messages and messages with fakes about the Ministry of Defense were sent to users, theses and specific instructions on which posts and which audiences to embroider,” the investigation reads.
Another campaign is run by Nataliya Popovych, the founder of the public relations agency, One Philosophy, in Kiev. Popovych’s LinkedIn profile shows she has worked with the U.S. State Department and advised former President Petro Poroshenko. She is also co-founder and board member of Ukraine Crisis Media Center, a propaganda arm funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. Embassy, and NATO, among many others.
A Campaign Asia article profiles several public relations firms involved in the effort. Among them is Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman PR. Edelman is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s Board of Directors and the World Economic Forum.
“Geopolitics has become the new test for trust. We saw this with the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and the war between Ukraine and Russia has only reinforced it,” he said, linking the U.S. propaganda campaign surrounding China’s deradicalization campaign for Uyghur Muslims.
An article in PRWeek profiles several figures partaking in what they describe as a “PR army” that is “fighting on the informational frontline” against Russia’s “barbaric genocide of Ukrainians.”
“Propaganda is the same as real lethal weapons,” declares Marta Dzhumaha, PR manager at healthcare company BetterMe.
Julia Petryk, head of public relations at MacPaw, offers a list of approved media outlets, authored by her colleague Tetiana Bronistka, a former employee of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office. The list includes Russian and English language sources, as well as Telegram channels. However, these “verified sources that objectively cover what is happening in Ukraine” are anything but independent. Most of them are tied to the U.S. and European governments and billionaire foundations.
She also lists several Russian-language websites:
Among the Telegram channels listed are:
While the public relations firms distribute content, CIA cutouts and billionaire foundations run the media outlets they derive it from. At the core of this operation is a project called the Russian Language News Exchange that was the product of a network of opposition media outlets founded in 2016 that operate in post-Soviet countries, as revealed by an investigation by the Russian media agency, RIA FAN.
In July 2021, a group of journalists flew to Warsaw for media training after being exempted from coronavirus-related restrictions and quarantine orders by Poland’s top medical authorities.
Among the six journalists were Andrey Lipsky, deputy editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, and Yuliia Fediv, CEO of Hromadske TV media, one of the most-watched networks in Ukraine.
Hromadske’s financial reports show it is funded by numerous governments and foundations, including the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the European Endowment for Democracy, and Free Press Unlimited. Silicon Valley billionaire Pierre Omidary was also involved in creating the outlet.
Hromadske recently hosted a commentator demanding genocide of ethnic Russians in the Donbass, saying it is populated with 1.5 “superfluous” people that “must be exterminated.”
The training, held behind closed doors from July 19 to July 21, was titled “Media Network 2021+” and closely tied to Mediaset, also known as the Russian Language News Exchange, a network founded in 2015. Russian Language News Exchange’s website is sparse, with little available information on its activities – apparently made private since the publication of RIA FAN’s investigation.
While it claims to be independent, Russian Language News Exchange is a project of Free Press Unlimited, funded by the Dutch government and the European Commission.
Today, it includes 14 media outlets that act as “nodes,” cross-publishing each other’s articles in various countries.
The website’s introductory video is hosted by Maxim Eristavi, a former Radio Free Europe reporter and founder of Hromadske. Today, he heads the Millennium Leadership Program at the NATO and arms industry-backed think tank, the Atlantic Council.
Since its inception, Mediaset has coordinated between outlets in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine. In March 2021, Mediaset expanded with the Colab Medios Project, created through the Free Press Unlimited Viable Media for Empowered Societies (VIMES) program. This program created training for journalists and saw articles from the El Salvadoran outlet El Faro published in Euroradio (Belarus), Coda (Georgia), and Ziarul de Garda (Moldova).
On March 4, several days after Russia launched its military offensive, a new project called the Media Lifeline Ukraine was created.
The next day, Free Press Unlimited held an emergency conference for Ukraine featuring Hromadske co-founders Maxim Eristavi and Nataliya Gumenyuk. The meeting called to raise 2 million euros for the project. “Only with ongoing external support, will local media entities be able to continue to do their work,” its introductory page asks.
Days later, Free Press Unlimited announced a partnership to support a new joint project of Reporters Without Borders and its Ukrainian partner, the Institute for Mass Information, called The Lviv Press Freedom Center. The Institute for Mass Information is headed by USAID communications officer Oksana Romaniuk and funded by USAID and the UK government.
While public relations firms and intelligence-linked propaganda operations target the public, Washington DC lobbyists are agitating in Congress to extend the war in Ukraine
Daniel Vajdich, a registered foreign agent and lobbyist for the Ukrainian Federation of Employers of the Oil and Gas Industry, the largest in Ukraine, is working on behalf of Volodymyr Zelensky to lobby members of Congress to approve more weapons shipments to Ukraine. Now the head of Yorktown Solutions, he previously advised Ted Cruz and Scott Walker’s campaigns and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“Stingers, Javelins, and let’s figure out the fighter aircraft issue,” he told Politico, claiming Russia is attempting to carry out a “genocide” and “depopulate certain areas of Ukraine.”
Vajdich also wrote Zelenskyy’s March 16 speech to U.S. Congress, in which he quoted Martin Luther King Jr. ‘s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech to call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Ukrainian Permanent Representative at the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya’s February 23 speech to the United Nations General Assembly was written by DC lobbying firm SKDKnickerbocker Managing Director Stephen Krupin, a former senior speechwriter to President Barack Obama who worked extensively on Biden’s 2020 campaign.
Most prominent among the registered lobbyists promoting Ukrainian government and business interests is Andrew Mac, who also contributed to writing Zeleneksyy’s speech to Congress. Mac registered as a lobbyist for Zelensky in 2019 and runs the Washington DC office of Ukrainian law firm Asters Law.
The lobbying firm Your Global Strategy, founded by Shai Franklin, who has been affiliated with numerous Zionist organizations including the World Jewish Congress and Anti-Defamation League, is also using its influence with local officials in the U.S. Franklin has set up meetings between Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov and U.S. mayors, including Eric Adams in New York City, Michelle Wu in Boston and Lori Lightfoot in Chicago. He is also attempting to set up a meeting between U.S. officials and the mayors of Odessa and Kiev. A media outlet owned by the mayor of Kiev’s wife recently featured a presenter calling for genocide against Russians, beginning with children.
Franklin said he’s working with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration to help set up virtual meetings between mayors of Odessa and Kiev and U.S. counterparts.
Maryland-based lawyer Lukas Jan Kaczmarek is also working on behalf of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to increase U.S. weapons shipments, specifically seeking to arrange shipments of guns from Kel-Tec CNC Industries based in Cocoa, Florida, to the city of Odessa, Ukraine.
Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul described the network of public relations professionals and lobbyists surrounding Zelenskyy. “These are people around Mr. Zelenskyy who are like the intermediaries and interlocutors. They’ve been interacting with the American elites and American media for a long time,” he said.
McFaul and John E. Herbst, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, act as informal advisors to Zelenskyy. McFaul told Politico that he speaks to Ukrainian government officials “probably everyday,” and “has helped them make connections with NBC or MSNBC producers.”
McFaul recently told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that “Hitler did not kill German-speaking people, facing accusations of Holocaust denial.
Zelenskyy also held a “strategic video call” with McFaul before he spoke to House democrats.
With a powerful Russian military fighting alongside DPR and LPR forces, the Ukrainian military’s defeat seems to be imminent unless the United States and NATO directly confront Russian forces, a scenario President Biden has already ruled out. Lobbyists nevertheless persist in their campaign to portray the Ukrainian military as underdogs scoring blow after blow against Russian hordes. In doing so, they help extend the war and continue the carnage.
Dan Cohen is the Washington DC correspondent for Behind The Headlines. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. He tweets at @DanCohen3000.
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https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1805134/
Question: The sanctions that are currently imposed on Russia are of course unprecedented. And they are really negatively affecting the lives of ordinary Russians, even though Washington is saying that it’s not targeting Russians. What can you say about what the goals of these sanctions are and who the target really is?
Sergey Lavrov:
I believe the goal of the sanctions is much more strategic than just Ukraine. I think what we witness in Ukraine is the quintessence of the western course, strategic course to marginalise Russia, to contain Russia, to stop Russia’s development and to reduce Russia to a zero role in world politics and world economy, world trade, world sports, art, science, education
And we observe unprecedented steps our Western colleagues are taking. One of the underlying trends is the United States’ desire – which has been much more manifested by the Biden administration – to come back to a unipolar world. And, if you wish, they are trying to take the melting pot concept from the United States soil and make a melting pot from the entire world, and they would be the smelters. The European Union already, I think 99 percent, stopped trying to be independent. President Macron, of course, keeps repeating that strategic autonomy for the European Union is his goal and he would be fighting for it, but my guess is that he would not succeed. Germany is already absolutely ready to obey instructions from the United State. The situation with North Stream 2 clearly indicated what exact place in world politics Germany occupies now, when the Americans in fact have “persuaded” the Germans and others that they, the Americans, know much better what Europe needs for its energy security than Europeans themselves. And there are many examples like this. So the sanctions drive is going to continue, they are threatening the fifth wave, maybe there would be another wave, but we’re used to it. I will recall that, long before the Ukrainian crisis erupted because of the illegal anti-constitutional coup d’etat, the sanctions were already imposed on us. It was, you know, when the Jackson–Vanik amendment was repealed, the Magnitsky Act was immediately introduced and the sanctions, in one way or another, stayed. And then there was a series of sanctions, as you mentioned, to punish us, basically, for supporting the legitimate cause of Russians in Ukraine, Russians in Crimea, you know this story, I wouldn’t rehearse the events and the sequence of events.
The latest sanctions wave was really unprecedented and, as President Putin recalled, we are now champions in the number of sanctions introduced against the Russian Federation – more than 5,000 individual acts, almost twice as many as was introduced against Iran and North Korea. But sanctions, or all of this, made us stronger. After the sanctions were announced in 2014, when the West could not accept the free vote of Crimeans to rejoin the Russian Federation, when the West basically supported the illegitimate and unconstitutional coup d’etat. You know what was very interesting to me when I talked about those events to my Western colleagues? They very often use the tactic of cutting off an unwanted historical period. The situation in Ukraine they start discussing only with what they call annexation of Crimea. If you remind them that it all started with the European Union being unable to insist on the implementation of the deal, which they guaranteed, by the opposition, and then the opposition just threw away the deal signed and guaranteed by the European Union, and then the leaders of the opposition and of the so-called Maidan, the radicals, like Dmitry Yarosh were saying “We stand for a Ukraine without Russkis and katsaps” (which means Muscovites), and he publicly stated that if the Russians – well, he said the Russians in Crimea would never think Ukrainian, would never speak Ukrainian, would never glorify the heroes, meaning Bandera and Shukhevich and other collaborators of Hitler – and that’s why Russians must be swiped out of Crimea. Actually, this was said a couple of weeks before the Crimeans eventually decided to go to referendum. And these words were accompanied by deeds. They sent armed groups to take control of the Crimean parliament, and that’s how it all started. Not to mention the initiative – immediately, on the first day of this coup d’etat, the putschists introduced an initiative to do away with the status of the Russian language in Ukraine, which was in the Ukrainian Constitution. So all these instincts were immediately translated into very Russophobic policies.
The idea that Russians should get out of Ukraine is still very much on the minds of politicians in this country. Oleg Tyagnibok, the leader of the ultra-radical party, Svoboda (“Freedom”), has repeatedly said that “we must have de-Russification”, as he calls it. And de-Russification means that ethnic Russians must not have their own language, history and identity in Ukraine and so many similar things. But what is more important for us to understand in the current state of play are these statements by Zelensky himself. So I said that the ultra-radicals called for Russians to be wiped out of Crimea, and President Zelensky, in September last year, said, if you believe you’re a Russian, if you believe you want to be a Russian and if you want to be friendly with Russia, go to Russia. He said this just a few months ago.
So, coming back to sanctions: sanctions we will survive. The measures which the president and the government are developing, elaborating, are being announced. This is only the beginning of our economy getting adjusted to the new situation. After 2014, as I started to say, we did gain experience to rely upon ourselves. And the biggest lesson from this particular historical period is, unlike what we saw after 2014, that now,
… if there was any illusion that we can one day rely on our Western partners, this illusion is no longer there.
We will have to rely only on ourselves and on our allies who would stay with us. This is the main conclusion for Russia in the context of geopolitics.
Question: I think it’s safe to say that Russian culture specifically has become accustomed to being part of, you might say, a global village of countries that share deep economic ties and enjoy travelling between each other. How do you think these sanctions are going to influence the everyday life of Russians in the long term in relation to that?
Sergey Lavrov: Well, as I said, the assessment of what is going on, in my view, clearly indicates that what America wants is a unipolar world, which would be not like a global village, which would be like an American village and maybe American saloon where who is strongest is calling the shots. And they said they are succeeding to mobilize behind themselves and, on the basis of their own interests, the entire Western world, which is indicative of how independent NATO members and European Union members are and which is indicative of what place the European Union, as I said, would have in the future configuration of the world situation and the world system.
There are players who would never accept the global village under the American sheriff …
and
China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico – I am sure these countries do not want to be just in the position where Uncle Sam orders them something and they say “Yes, sir.” And of course, Russia is not in the category of countries who would be ready to do so. Actually, when people say – when the Americans and Western Europeans and others say that Russia was defeated in the General Assembly because the vast majority of countries voted against the Russian action in Ukraine, it’s misleading because, if you take the population represented by the countries who were not voting against Russia, and especially if you take the number of countries who introduce sanctions against Russia, a majority of those who voted against us did so under huge pressure, under blackmail, including – I know this for sure – including threats to individual delegates regarding their assets in the United States, bank accounts, children studying in universities and so on and so forth. It’s absolutely unprecedented blackmail and pressure without any scruples. So a majority of those countries who voted with the West, they did not and they would not introduce sanctions against Russia. They believe that it’s, you know, not a very big price to pay for their own practical cooperation with Russia, just to vote on something which is needed for the West for entirely propagandistic purposes. So we will be, as always, open to cooperation with anyone who is ready to do so on the equal basis, on the basis of mutual respect and searching for balance of interests, and the countries to the east of Russia are much more disposed to act on this basis, and we will certainly reciprocate for the benefit of both us and our partners. We are not closing the door on the West. They are doing so. But when they come back to their senses and when this door is reopened, we will be looking at proposed projects of cooperation with a very important thing in mind to which I alluded to already – that we will be going into cooperation with them knowing very well that we cannot be sure that they are reliable and that they are credible as long-term partners.
Question: Well, I’d like to take the discussion now to a sort of different topic: these US-sponsored biolabs in Ukraine. I mean, for years already, Russia has been trying to bring the world’s attention to them. And the latest piece of evidence connected to them the Russian military just put forward not too long ago, with documents signed by US officials in connection to them. Why do you think is the world not paying so much attention to these biolabs? And will Washington and its allies be held accountable for what they’re doing there?
Sergey Lavrov: Actually, it’s interesting that the special military operation launched by the president of the Russian Federation helped discover many things which are very important for understanding what is going on. Recently, the military of Russia, together with Donetsk and Lugansk forces, discovered documents of the Ukrainian general staff indicating clearly that they were preparing a massive attack against the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. So the operation, which was launched by Russia, in fact, preempted this threat and did not allow them to implement what they wanted to do, and they wanted to do exactly what they failed to do implementing the Minsk agreements. They were trying to use what they called Plan B and to take these territories by force with bloodshed on an unbelievable scale, in addition to what they have been doing to civilians for the last eight years.
But another set of documents which was discovered – as you said, documents related to military biological activity of the United States in Ukraine – documents with signatures of Ukrainian officials, US military.
Those laboratories have been created by the United States all over the world. More than 300 laboratories in various countries, many of them on the perimeter of the Russian Federation – in the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine. Ukraine is probably the biggest project for the Pentagon, who is running this show.
The special Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the Pentagon is in charge of this biological activity, and they are developing very dangerous pathogens, including plague, brucellosis, anthrax and many others, which are really very dangerous. And we know that they were experimenting on potential infections, which could be related to the ethnic groups living in the east of Ukraine and in neighboring regions of Russia.
We have been raising this issue in international organizations for a while, I would say almost more than 20 years. In 2001, we suggested that the countries participating in the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons should develop a verification mechanism which would be transparent, which would be understood by everybody and applied to everybody because the convention itself provides for consultations if any participating state has some suspicions or some information which the state would like to clarify. And if these consultations indicate that there is a good reason for some kind of investigation, then an investigation is supposed to be launched. But there is no mechanism to investigate, and there is no mechanism which would require each and every country, in response to an address, to provide information and to guarantee transparency of its biological activity anywhere, be it on your own territory or abroad.
By the way,
… the Americans some years ago decided that it is too dangerous to do these things on their own soil. So they moved all these threatening and dangerous activities to other countries,
and more and more they concentrate their research and experiments around the borders of the Russian Federation and China. So we will be insisting on this issue to be picked up by the Biological Weapons Convention, but also by the Security Council, because it’s a clear threat to international peace and security. We will be again emphasising the importance of negotiating a legally binding protocol to the Convention on Biological Weapons, which would require obligatory transparency measures by any participating state. The Americans, I have no slightest doubt, would be against it, but this position of theirs is not defendable. I am convinced that more and more countries understand how dangerous these plans are, and we will continue to fight them.
Question: What can you say on the topic of Washington’s role in all of this? President Zelensky called for weapons to come to his country from the West. He’s talked about a demand for establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, and this is something that Joe Biden just recently again said is not going to happen because that would lead, no doubt, to outright war between Russia and NATO and the United States. Why do you think is Ukraine so desperately trying to make some sort of scenario like that happen?
Sergey Lavrov: Whatever you think of some of Joe Biden’s statements, he is a very experienced politician and he understands that it is absolutely inadmissible to establish something like a no-fly zone, to provide planes to Ukraine and to do other things which will bring the risk of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia just, you know, immediately. But Zelensky also understands that there are much less responsible politicians in the United States who are being agitated by the Ukrainian lobby and just driven by Russophobic feelings, and many of them are in Congress. They adopt every now and then resolutions condemning Russia, threatening Russia. I believe Zelensky is counting on them pushing the president in the direction of a more confrontational approach.
We clearly said that any cargo moving into Ukrainian territory which we would believe is carrying weapons would be fair game. This is clear because we are implementing the operation the goal of which is to remove any threat to the Russian Federation coming from Ukrainian soil. This was part of our proposal in December last year when we suggested that we negotiate with NATO security guarantees – the way which would be codifying the old agreement reached at the highest level that no one, no country should increase its security at the expense of the security of others. So they know what it is all about.
They also speak about missile defense. Kiev authorities think of asking NATO members who possess Soviet air defense systems to share this with them.
I would like to remind the countries who might be playing with this idea that …
the Soviet and Russian-made systems of missile defense or of any other purpose are there on the basis of intergovernmental agreements and contracts, which includes an end user certificate. The end user certificate does not allow them to send these weapons to any third country without our consent. This is a legal obligation.
I understand that legality and legal obligations is not something which our Western colleagues respect these days. They’ve already thrown away the presumption of innocence, private property being sacred and many other “pillars” on which the “liberal values” have been resting for so many centuries and decades.
But this is a serious matter, and I can assure you that we would not allow these risks to be materialised. The purpose of our operation is to protect civilians, who have been bombed and shelled and murdered for eight years, and to demilitarise Ukraine so that it does not pose a serious threat to the Russian territory, and to find security guarantees, which would be based on this equal, indivisible security principle for Ukraine, for Russia, for all European countries. We have been proposing this for many years. Denazification is an absolute must. And that includes not only canceling laws encouraging Nazist ideology and practices, but it also includes withdrawing any legislation which discriminates the Russian language and other national minority languages and, in general, national minority rights in Ukraine which have been hugely discriminated and offended.
Question: Well, we’ve talked a lot about the kinetic war, but I wanted to ask another question about the information war actually. A few days ago, the White House had a briefing with several popular TikTokers in the United States, and they were basically briefed on a new anti-Russian narrative that Washington wants to put forward. What do you think about such sort of underhanded propaganda technique when it’s usually Russia that they’re accusing of misinformation and underhanded tactics?
Sergay Lavrov: Well, we are a very, very small player in the international information war. It’s the information… World information is dominated by media belonging to the Americans, the Brits, and also the Germans, the French and others. It’s another matter, what the quality of those information outlets is. If you take CNN, they prefer to avoid analytical materials and they more and more concentrate on some reports which would be made of slogans “Russia is an aggressor,” “Russia is murdering civilians,” “Russia is abusing sports” and so on and so forth.
When they concentrate on TikTok and other resources like this and other platforms and when they target kids because TikTok is about young boys and girls, I believe this is an attempt to brainwash them for the rest of their lives. And this is indecent and not fair.
If you want information and competition, if you want competition among media outlets, then there at must be some rules.
I would remind you and your viewers that in 1990, when the Soviet Union was living under this “new thinking” concept and the human values, common values for humankind, the Western colleagues in the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe were pushing very actively, and finding support on the Soviet side, a series of documents of the OSCE on freedom of speech and on access to information. Such documents were endorsed by consensus in the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. These days, when your channel and Sputnik many years ago were banned from attending, for example, press conferences and briefings in Élysée in Paris, and when we were drawing the attention of the French colleagues that this was against the commitment in the OSCE, they were saying, “No, no, no, no, no. Access to information is applicable only to mass media and RT and Sputnik are not mass media, they are propaganda tools.”
Another example of abusing the commitments and obligations – when a couple of years ago in London there was a conference on freedom of media in the modern world, no Russian media were invited.
So we know the manners and the tricks which are being used by the Western countries to manipulate media. We understood long ago that there was no such thing as an independent Western media. If you take the United States, only Fox News is trying to present some alternative points of view. But when you watch other channels and when you read social networks and internet platforms, when the acting president was blocked, as you know, and this censorship continues in a very big way and the substitution of notions. Whenever something is happening by the way of mass protest, mass demonstrations, which they don’t like, they immediately call it domestic terrorism. So it’s a war, and it’s a war which involves the methods of information terrorism. There is no doubt about this.
A very interesting example was yesterday, when the Bild newspaper in Germany published a piece saying that myself on the evening of March 16 left Moscow by plane to go to China, but in the area of Novosibirsk, the plane turned back because either Putin told me to come back or the Chinese said, “We don’t want to talk to you.” It was published by, yes, a tabloid, but with millions of copies. And it’s a shame that we have these habits being introduced into the information world by our “friends.
”It is not by incident that President Putin said about the existence of the Empire of Lies.
Question: Well, just one more question for you, Mr. Lavrov. Of course, this conflict in Ukraine is not going to go on forever. When it does come to an end, what do you foresee as the main challenges in future Russia–Ukraine relations?
Sergay Lavrov: Well, we never had any issues with the Ukrainian people. I have many Ukrainian friends, the two peoples are very close culturally. Practically all of them speak, and those who don’t, they understand the Russian language. Culture, common history, way of life, attitude to life, traditions of families and communities. So I hope that when this anomaly is over, this will gradually come back. It will have to be gradual.
It cannot come back fast because the efforts of our Western colleagues to make Ukraine a Russophobic and anti-Russian instrument – anti-Russia, as President Putin called it – they started long ago, and they are already rather deeply rooted in Ukrainian mentality, especially the young generation which was born after the demise of the Soviet Union. They have been indoctrinated in a very, very heavy way.
The efforts were taken systemically to train military officers on the basis of radical Bandera and Shukhevich-style methodology. The purpose being – to make sure that they would not become friendly to Russia again and that they would build their nationalism, nationalistic feelings as the means to strengthen the statehood of their country.
The purpose was always to make sure that Russia does not have Ukraine as a friend. It’s like Zbigniew Brzezinski in the late 1990s said, “Russia with Ukraine, a friendly Ukraine next to it, is a superpower. Russia with Ukraine which is not friendly to Russia, is just a regional player.” This concept is very deeply rooted in the minds of American policymakers, and it will take time to get rid of these negative legacies.
Even now, when the armed forces of Ukraine are fighting, trying to procrastinate the crisis. The leaders of Ukraine with the help of American and other Western advisors have reformed the army in the way which puts these radicals, Bandera-like trained officers, to lead all more or less meaningful units in the Ukrainian army. And these people radicalise and terrorise others, especially those who don’t believe that this should be the fate of their country.
Their actions in Mariupol is an example of that. The refugees coming from Mariupol to Russia in dozens of thousands tell such stories. It’s really threatening how this kind of people command armed men and women.
But I am sure, at the end of the day, the historic closeness of two fraternal nations will certainly prevail.
Filed under: American Hegemony, American Lies, EU, Europe, NATO Alliance, Russia, Russophobia, Ukraine, USSR, Western Lies, Western Propaganda | Tagged: “Empire of Lies”, “EuroMaidan” coup, Bandera national battalions, Biden's Foreign Policy, Crimea, Denazification of Ukraine, Lavrov, Minsk Agreements, OSCE, Russian ultimatum, UNGA, Unipolar World Order, US-run biolabs in Ukraine, War on Donbass, Western MSM lies, Zelensky | Comments Off on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with RT, Moscow, March 18, 2022
14.03.2022
UPDATE: On March 13, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that about 180 foreign fighters have been killed so far.
On March 13, there were several important military events on the Ukrainian front lines which marked important successes of Russian forces.
There was a pinpoint strike with precision weapons on the training centers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the village of Starichi and at the Yavorovsky military training ground in the Lviv region. Ukrainian servicemen, including foreign ‘volunteers’, were reportedly killed. The reports are yet to be confirmed. Anyway, the strike was a clear signal to the foreign mercenaries in Ukraine.
On March 13, the LPR forces have finally claimed control over the town of Popasnaya after several days of fierce clashes in the area. They achieved to secure the outskirts from the southern and northern directions. Clashes continue on the western outskirts. This is an important step towards the town of Soledar which is located on the road leading to the city of Severodonetsk.
Videos from Volnovakha:
Fighting continues in the area of the Severodonetsk agglomeration. The main battlefield now is the village of Rubezhnoye located on the north-western outskirts of the city. The UAF deployed in Severodonetsk and Lisichansk risk to be cut off in the coming days and the cities may be blockaded in less then a week.
The Ukrainian ATGM “Stugna-P” hit armored vehicles of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation:
Attempts of DPR forces to offense in the areas of Marinka, Pisky and Avdiivka were reported. However, no advance has been confirmed so far.
Advance of Russian forces and their allies was reported in the on the southern Donbass front lines. DPR forces are coming closer to Donetsk from the southern direction, expending their zone of control along the Velika Novosilka – Novotroitske road.
These advances also destroy hopes of fighters of the Ukrainian nationalist battalions blockaded in Mariupol, who asked the UAF to counter Russian grouping from the north of the city.
Meanwhile, Russian and DPR units do not stop the mop up operations in Mariupol, where they are coming closer to the city center. Ukrainian nationalists in the city are already suffering from the lack of sources, thus, according to some estimations, the city may be moped up in about a week.
Ukrainian nationalists shot a car with a civilian on the way from Mariupol:
On March 13, the joint forces of the Russian Federation, the DPR and the LPR have almost blockaded the entire Ordzhonikidze district in the city.
In the north-eastern part of the Donbass front, Russian forces are yet to pass through the town of Izyum. Clashes continue in the southern districts od the town for several days in a row. The Russian Army is forcing the Seversky Donets river west of Izyum and fighting continues in the Barvenkovo area.
Ukrainian artillery hit civilian column in Izyum
In the Donbass region, explosions were reported in Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Ugledar, Avdiivka. In response, the UAF continue shelling the residential areas in the city of Donetsk and nearby areas.
In the Zaporozhye region, Russian troops reportedly entered the town of Gulyai-Pole, and clashes continue on the outskirts. The town of Ugledar was reportedly shelled. Russian troops did not enter the town and are bypassing it from the flanks.
In the Kiev region, fighting continues in the Irpen area in the northwest. Russian forces are reportedly advanced in the town. In the eastern direction, it was previously reported that the Kiev – Kharkiv highway was under control of Russian forces. Clashes continue near Brovary. No advances by any side were reported.
In the south-western regions, the situation also remains almost unchanged. Russian forces are strengthening their positions along the Krivoy Rog—Nikopol highway. The city of Mykolaiv is partially blockaded, but no offensive was carried out in the city. Clashes continue in the Voznesensk area.
Mykolaiv region, Green Guy area, a strike hit a military stronghold at school:
More here
Filed under: Russia, Ukraine | Tagged: Bandera national battalions, Donbass, Donetsk, Dpr, LPR, Nazi international battalion, Russian Army | Comments Off on UPDATED: WAR IN UKRAINE DAY 18: RUSSIA AND ALLIES CONSOLIDATE FORCES IN DONBASS AND SUCCEED
By now what we may call a Triple Threat has been established as the catalyst anticipating the launch of Operation Z.
So after years of CIA-instigated shouts of “conspiracy theory!” and less than zero “fact checkers” activity, it turns out “it was all happening in Ukraine”, as divine messenger Maria Zakharova once again pointed out: “We have found your own products. We have found your biological material.”
The first-class investigative work of Dilyana Gaytandzhieva on Pentagon bioweapons was fully vindicated.
Based on documents received from Ukrainian biolab employees, the Russian ModD revealed that research with samples of bat coronavirus, among other experiments, were conducted in a Pentagon-funded biolab.
The purpose of all this research – which included another Pentagon project to study the transfer of pathogens by wild birds migrating between Ukraine and Russia and other neighboring countries – was “to create a mechanism for the covert spread of deadly pathogens.”
In trademark pysop mode, everything was turned upside down by the United States government: those evil Russkies could take control of biological samples, so any “accident” involving biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine would have to be blamed on Russia.
The White House, in yet another flagrant display of unredeemable stupidity, accused Russia of “false claims” and China of “endorsing this propaganda”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov came up with the adult perspective: “The whole world will be interested to know what exactly the American bio-laboratories in Ukraine were doing.”
Down on the ground
Meanwhile, defying the fog of war while being targeted by Kiev’s free distribution of weapons without any measure of control, civilians on the path of Operation Z confirmed over and over again that Azov neo-Nazis prevent them from escaping encircled towns and villages. These Banderastan fanatics are the shock troops transforming Ukraine into a large Idlib – according to His Master’s Voice’s plan.
Neo-Nazis are doing exactly what ISIS/Daesh did in Syria: hiding behind civilians taken as hostages. Azov are the white clones of ISIS/Daesh. After all they learned their tactics from the same masters.
They will be bolstered by a fresh contingent of 450 fighters just arrived from – where else – Idlib, including lots of non-Syrians from Europe and the Maghreb. Most though are al-Qaedites and members of the Syrian branch of the Turkestan Islamic Party. Their transit point: the Syria-Turkish border, a smuggling free-for-all.
As it stands, the most detailed macro-view of how strategic Operation Z is developing has been outlined here. The inestimable Andrei Martyanov describes it as a “combined arms police operation”: a delicate crossover between formation-level warfare (“combined arms”) and a police operation to arrest and/or destroy criminals (the full extent of “demilitarization” and “denazification”).
For an undiluted, down and dirty, eye to the ground perspective (translated into English), it’s hard to beat Russian military man
Alexander Dubrovsky. He stresses how the objectives of the operation are “strategy and tactics”; and proceeding with haste is out of the question in this “completely new page in the art of war.”
Cutting through the fog, no one could realistically expect any breakthrough out of the meeting between Foreign Ministers Lavrov and Kuleba on the sidelines of the Diplomatic Forum in Antalya – as much as Turkey may have played a constructive role.
The non-government in Kiev is simply not allowed by the Empire to negotiate anything. The only tactic in town is stalling. Operation Z – or “the war” – could be stopped with a simple phone call from the Comedian in Kiev.
Lavrov at least was quite explicit on some key issues. Russia does not want war; never used oil and gas as a weapon; and wants Ukraine to be neutral.
The West, Lavrov added, refuses to understand the concept of “indivisibility of security”; those who supply Ukraine with weapons and send mercenaries should understand “they’re responsible for their actions”; and referring to the hysterical sanctions swamp, he stressed, “we will do everything to no longer depend on the West in any strategic sectors of our life.”
It’s quite enlightening to juxtapose Lavrov with clueless NATOstan “analysts”, totally ignorant of Eurasia and pontificating about “a new ideological conflict between irredentist tyrannies and liberal democracies”. It’s about sovereignty, stupid – not ideology.
NATOstan of course is incapable of understanding the process of Nazification of Ukraine – the key theme of any serious political/cultural/sociological analysis. It’s not an accident that the list of nations supporting the neoNazi-infested collapsed government in Kiev happens to largely coincide with the list of nations that refused to vote in favor of the UN resolution condemning the rehabilitation of Nazism.
In historical terms, these “analysts” might learn something by reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard. Bulgakov considered Ukraine as an avowedly reductionist version of “the steppe”: culturally barren, not capable of creating anything, destined to barbaric destruction. It’s important to remember that when Ukraine attempted to constitute itself as a state in 1918-1920, cultural and industrial centers such as Odessa, Kherson, Nikolaev, Kharkov, Luhansk had never been Ukrainian. And western Ukraine for a long while was part of Poland.
All aboard the Eurasian train
On the economic front, the dogs of hybrid war bark while the Eurasia integration caravan marches on – with the Empire irretrievably being pushed outside of the Eurasian landmass.
In a phone call prior to the Lavrov-Kuleba meeting in Antalya, President Erdogan suggested to Putin setting up a trading mechanism in gold and also rubles, yuan and Turkish lira to beat the Western sanction hysteria. The source is Abdulkadir Selvi, very close to Erdogan. No Russia-China official comment yet.
The key fact is that Russia, China, and for that matter the entire Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – responsible for at least 30% of global GDP and the bulk of the Eurasian market – don’t need the West at all.
As Peter Koenig, a former senior economist at the World Bank points out, “Western GDP has a different basis, with blown out of proportion services, whereas the GDP of the SCO and the Global South is production-based. A huge difference when one looks at the backing of currencies: in the West there is literally none. Eastern currencies are mostly backed by national economies, especially in China and soon in Russia too. That leads to self-sufficiency, and no longer reliance on the West.”
In the larger geopolitical spectrum, the non-stop war of attrition by the Empire against Russia with Ukraine as a pawn is a war against the New Silk Roads; Maidan in 2014 took place only a few months after the launching of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), then OBOR (One Belt, One Road) in Kazakhstan and Indonesia. It’s also a war on the Russian concept of Greater Eurasia Partnership. In sum: it’s an all-out war on Eurasia integration.
And that bring us to the key aspect of BRI: Eurasia rail/road connectivity – between China and the EU and with one corridor traversing Russia. The coordinated NATOstan sanction hysteria is not only against Russia, but also against China.
For the Beltway, BRI is beyond anathema: it’s almost like the Beast of the Apocalypse. As a response, the West even has concocted puny schemes such as the American B3W (“Build Back Better World) and the EU’s Global Gateway. Their impact, so far, does not even qualify as negligible.
Ukraine in itself is not a problem for BRI; traffic is only 2% of eastbound China-Europe freight trains. But Russia is another story.
According to Feng Xubin, Vice Chairman of the China-Europe Railway Express Transportation Coordination Committee, the freight settlement system between China and Russia may be in trouble: “At present, freight is denominated in dollars […] If the West cuts off Russia’s intermediate settlement channel in the international financial system, it means that the settlement system for freight charges between China and Russia will not be able to proceed normally.”
From the EU’s point of view, trade interruptions are not exactly a good deal. China-EU freight traffic increased over 100% last year.
For instance, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are co-financing a 67 km high-speed rail stretch from Istanbul to the Bulgarian border.
Sanctions on Russia will definitely affect the trans-Eurasia supply chain – on transportation, ports, insurance, communications. Yet quite a few sanctions may be revised later on, as the EU itself starts to feel the pain.
China will have an abundance of Plan Bs. The key northern BRI corridor remains China-Kazakhstan-Russia-Belarus-EU, but there is a possible detour via the Caspian, in Aktau in Kazakhstan. There will be extra incentive to fully link the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway with the Turkish grid. And there will be extra movement in the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), with Baku connecting to the Iranian Caspian Sea coast and by rail to ultra-strategic Chabahar port.
So we may be heading towards extra impetus for BRI’s multimodal southern corridor – bypassing Russia: that means a boost for Turkey, the Caucasus and the Caspian. And no losses for China. As for Russia, even if this re-routing may last for a while, it’s not such a big deal. After all from now on Russia will be developing intensive trade towards the east and south of Eurasia, and not towards the sanctioning West.
(Republished from Strategic Culture Foundation by permission of author or representative)
Filed under: ISIS, NATO Alliance, Russia, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Anti-Russian Hysteria, Anti-Russian sanctions, Bandera national battalions, Chabahar port, Denazification of Ukraine, Eurasian integration, Kiev Nazi Regime, R2P, SCO, Turkestan Islamic Party, Ukraine disarming, Zakharova | Comments Off on Cutting Through the Fog Masking ‘a New Page in the Art of War’
الخميس 10 آذار 2022
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نقل عن الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين قوله تعليقاً على مسار الحرب في أوكرانيا أن «الأميركيين رأوا مصادر قوتنا في سورية وحاولوا تقليدها لخوض حرب رابحة، ونحن رأينا نقاط ضعفهم ووضعنا ما يلزم من خطط لجعل حربهم خاسرة». ويشرح أحد الخبراء الذين يتابعون الحرب الدائرة في أوكرانيا عن كثب بصفتها حرباً أميركية روسية، معنى كلام الرئيس بوتين، فيقول أن الحرب تبدو أقرب لنسخة منقحة من الحرب السوريّة، يختبر فيها الطرفان في أخطر ساحة مواجهة، وربما آخر ساحة مواجهة قبل ترسيم التوازنات الدولية الجديدة والخرائط الدولية الجديدة، كل ما أدخلاه من تعديلات على خطط الحرب من خلال خبرة كل منهما المستقاة من دوره المحوريّ في الحرب السورية، التي أتاحت لكل من الدولتين العظميين فرصة التعرف عن قرب على خطط حرب الخصم، لمدة طويلة أتيح لكل منهما خلالها الزجّ بقوى جديدة وإجراءات جديدة، وتعديل وتنقيح الخطط، حتى استنفدت سورية ما توافر فيها بصفتها ساحة المواجهة الحاسمة الأولى بعد نهاية الحرب الباردة وتفكك الاتحاد السوفياتي، وسيادة القطب الأميركي الواحد وبدء مسار الصعود الروسي.
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بالمقارنة مع الحرب السورية يبدو الأميركيون قد اختاروا للحرب البلد الذي يجعل الحرب روسية أوروبية، فأوكرانيا وحدها تملك هذه الحساسية الخاصة بالنسبة لكل من روسيا والدول الأوروبية، ويمكن لها تفجير كل ما تم بناؤه بين الطرفين من خطوات متقدّمة بلغت اقتصادياً وسياسياً مرحلة الإيحاء بأن أوروبا تحولت او تكاد الى حليف أقرب لموسكو من واشنطن، ولذلك فقد منحوا هذه الحرب كل ما يعتقدونه فرصاً للفوز من وحي ما اكتسبوه من خبرة خسارتهم للحرب في سورية، فجعلوا الرئيس الأوكراني رمزاً للعداء لموسكو أملاً باستدراجها لجعل هدف إطاحته عنواناً للحملة الروسية، والوقوع في ما وقع فيه الأميركيون لجهة جعل إسقاط الرئيس السوري هدفاً لحربهم، وقد تورط رؤساء أميركا تباعاً، باراك أوباما ودونالد ترامب، بتحديد مواعيد لرحيل الرئيس بشار الأسد فإذا بهم يرحلون ويبقى، بينما تمترس الأميركيون وراء الشرعيّة الدستوريّة للرئيس أسوة بما اعتبروه أهم مصادر القوة التي توفرت لروسيا في سورية، وعملوا لمنح الرئيس الأوكراني كل الأسباب التي تجعله مصدر إلهام لنشوء “مقاومة وطنية أوكرانية” ضد “غزو أجنبي”.
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أضاف الأميركيون لهذه الخبرة مصدرين إضافيين، الأول سحب ورقة الشرعية القانونية دولياً من يد روسيا بإجبارها على إدخال جيشها بصورة “غير شرعية” الى أراضي بلد آخر، والثاني بناء قوة شعبية وعسكرية ملتحمة في القتال وراء الرئيس الأوكراني ضد روسيا، بمثل ما بدت في سورية القوة الشعبية والعسكرية المتماسكة وراء الرئيس الأسد في مواجهة الحرب الأميركية. وهكذا حلت القومية البيضاء المتطرفة التي ترفع شعار النازية الجديدة، إلى نواة صلبة لألوية الجيش المقاتلة، ومحوراً لبناء ميليشيات متعاطفة، ونقطة انطلاق لاستقدام متطوعين متعاطفين، في محاولة لتقليد الدور الذي لعبه حزب الله ومعه قوى المقاومة في سورية.
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على الضفة الروسية كان أبرز عناصر الخبرة المكتسبة حول الخصم الأميركي، الانتباه الى خشيته المرضية من أية خطوة قد تؤدي إلى تصادم مباشر روسي أميركي، والبناء على هذا العامل الهام خطة حرب بطيئة لا مبرر للسرعة في خوضها. فالحرب البطيئة تتيح تخفيض الأضرار على المدنيين، كما تتيح ترك تداعيات وتفاعلات الحرب التي تريد لها موسكو أن تتجذّر وتنمو، أن تنال الوقت اللازم لذلك. والخبرة الثانية التي انتبهت لها موسكو كانت إدراك أن العقوبات هي السلاح المحوري بيد واشنطن، وأن تفكيك هذه العقوبات وتحويلها الى سلاح معاكس يدمر الاقتصاد الغربي كلما تم المضي باستخدامه وتصعيده، يحتاج إلى برود روسي في التعامل مع يوميات الحرب من جهة، والى مخزون احتياطي قابل للتصرف يسبق بدء الحرب، وهكذا بدأت موسكو تراكم مخزوناً من العملات والذهب خارج السيطرة الغربية، بلغ حاجتها للإنفاق لعامين، أي 350 مليار دولار، وتحت وطأة يوميات الحرب بدأت تداعيات العقوبات التي وجد الغرب نفسه منساقاً نحوها في سوق الطاقة، مصدر زيادة للعائدات الروسية مع زيادة الطلب والأسعار معاً، وسبباً لتنازلات مفرطة يقدمها الغرب لخصومه وحلفاء روسيا القادرين على سد فجوات السوق، كحال إيران وفنزويلا،، بما جعل ما بناه الأميركيون خلال ثلاثين عاما عرضة للتدمير دفعة واحدة.
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انتبه الروس لأهمية تحضير عناوين معركتهم لمنع الأميركيين من الإفادة من مصادر قوة روسيا في سورية، فوضعوا هدفاً يرتبط بالأمن الدولي وعنوانه حياد أوكرانيا، وهدفاً داخلياً يرتبط باجتثاث النازية وحق تقرير المصير للأقليات القومية، لكنهم تنبهوا أكثر لما بمكن أن يشكل العدة السريّة للأميركيين، في مجال الأسلحة الكيميائية، فبادروا مبكراً للتفتيش عن كل ما يتصل بالمختبرات والوثائق والمخزون الكيمائي والبيولوجي، وحققوا انتصارا معنوياً كبيراً بوضع اليد على كنز استخباريّ على هذا الصعيد.
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المعادلة الواقعية تقول إن ما بدا خبرة أميركية من الحرب السورية بقي تكتيكياً يزول مفعوله مع الوقت، وما يبدو خبرة روسية صار استراتيجياً تكبر مفاعيله مع الوقت.
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Filed under: Bashar Al-Assad, EU, Europe, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, USA | Tagged: Anti-Russian Hysteria, Anti-Russian sanctions, Bandera national battalions, Nasser, Nazi international battalion, Nazi Ukrainian "Azov battalion", Ukrainian Nazi Nationalists, Ukro-nazis, Venezuela (Syria Number2), Zelensky | Comments Off on موسكو وواشنطن وخبرة الحرب السوريّة في أوكرانيا
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is giving a news conference after his meeting in Antalya with his counterparts : Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu & Ukrainian Head of MFA Dmitry Kuleba.
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Filed under: NATO Alliance, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine | Tagged: Bandera national battalions, Denazification of Ukraine, Lavrov, Nazi Ukrainian "Azov battalion", Ukraine disarming, Ukrainian Nazi Nationalists | Comments Off on FM Lavrov holds press conference after meeting with his Ukrainian and Turkish counterparts
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UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 